"In a democracy (‘rule by mob’), those who refuse to learn from history will be the majority and will dictate that everyone else suffer for their ignorance."
via Don Surber, news of a West Virginia state legislator who wants to adopt a law “Iran’s ayatollahs had considered last year.”
Trackposted to Political Byline, Allie is Wired, The World According to Carl, The Pink Flamingo, Gulf Coast Hurricane Tracker, Conservative Cat, Right Voices, and Stageleft, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Found this at Woody’s Place but thought it needed a lil punching up, so… the original (punched up with color in The One’s logo) and an alternate text version:
While you’re at Woody’s Place, check out the Glenn Beck video in the post.
After perusing Bobby Jindal’s after SOU address, I went back and tried studying the Obamassiah’s peroration for genuine content. Hasn’t anyone told him he’s living in the White House now? Why’s he still giving a stump speech, trying to win the election? Oh. Right. That’s ALL he knows how to do: lie, bluster and appeal to greed in order to win elections. Actually DOING ANYTHING MEANINGFUL while in office is a concept that he’s so far not had to tackle. I suppose one could argue that bullying for something–anything!–to be done now, without thought or reflection, about the economy and then turning the idea over to his political cronies to stuff with pork and political patronage does constitute doing something, but something useful, something meaningful? I think not.
Once again, as far as actually serving in the office he’s been elected to, the Obamassiah is simply phoning in his part, rehashing his fav teleprompter-fed sound bytes.
Again, why is it that anyone thinks this guy’s an orator? Oh, yeh. Because he’s (sorta, kinda-almost) black (cafe-au-lait with a twist) and gets the affirmative action bye? I suppose one could always join with the optimistic young boy who, shoveling through a load of horse manure on Christmas Day, enthusiastically proclaimed, “With all this horse shit, there must be a pony in here somewhere!”
But with the Obamassiah’s record of non-accomplishment so far, I’m not willing to shovel too much more horse shit to find a pony buried (probably smothered, dead) at the bottom of the pile.
Red State has some useful links on the SOU bloviation. And the comments are worth reading as well. In fact, I’ll just steal one of the best:
E Pluribus Unum commented,
“For those unwilling to sacrifice an hour of their lives, I found a condensed version that I think captures the spirit entirely”
So, what’s the condensed version he posted?
*heh*
Michelle Malkin has a long post well worth your time, but the capstone, AFAIC, is her inclusion of Woodie Guthrie’s cover (and redaction) of Tom Paxton’s classic. See the YouTube video below. Needs no further comment from me.
Oh the price of gold is rising out of sight
And the dollar is in sorry shape tonight
What the dollar used to get us now won’t buy a head of lettuce
No the economic forecast isn’t right
But amidst the clouds I spot a shining ray
I can even glimpse a new and better way
And I’ve devised a plan of action worked it down to the last fraction
And I’m going into action here todayCHORUS:
I am changing my name to Fannie Mae
I am going down to Washington D.C.
I’ll be glad they got my back
‘Cause what they did for Freddie Mac
Will be perfectly acceptable to me
I am changing my name to Fannie Mae
I am headed for that great receiving line
So when they hand a trillion grand out
I’ll be standing with my hand out
I’ll get mineWhen my creditors are screaming for their dough
I’ll be proud to tell them all where they can go
They won’t have to scream and holler
They’ll be paid to the last dollar
Where the endless streams of money seem to flow
I’ll be glad to tell them all what they can do
It’s a matter of a simple form or two
It’s not just remuneration it’s a liberal education
Ain’t you kind of glad that I’m in debt to youChorus
Since the first amphibians crawled out of the slime (of the slime!)
We’ve been struggling in an unrelenting climb
We were hardly up and walking before money started talking
And it’s sad that failure is an awful crime
It’s been that way for a millennium or two
But now it seems that there’s a different point of view
If you’re a corporate titanic and your failure is gigantic
Down in Congress there’s a safety net for youChorus
UPDATE: Not to be left out of updating his classic, “I’m Changing My Name to Chrysler” *heh* Tom Paxton has his own revision out:
Good git fiddle work, and his lyric changes are, if anything, more biting. Not as singable are the melodic variations, but then, it was his song to begin with, as I recall, and he’s perfectly entitled to change whatever he likes about it.
🙂
As seen at Cathouse Chat:
Go watch the video (CNBC doesn’t allow embedding of the thing).
Money quote:
“The government’s promoting bad behavior”– Rick Santelli
Well, *duh*. What do you call the 40+ year quagmire of the “War on Poverty”? (Hint: “promoting bad behavior”) What do you call the complete disinterest in enforcing immigration law? (Hint: “promoting bad behavior”) Heck, what do you call the TSA? (Hint: “promoting bad behavior”)
THAT’S WHAT OUR GOVERNMENT DOES. That seems to be its primary job for the last few decades: promote bad behavior and punish good behavior. Anarcho-tyranny at its fedgov finest…
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Rosemary’s Thoughts, , Woman Honor Thyself, Conservative Cat, Right Voices, and The World According to Carl, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
I’ve been emulating the phony meme, “Ostrich Hiding Head in Sand,” this week, mostly avoiding news (it’s all bad) and just getting on with life. It occurred to me that one of the biggest problems in our society today is that we’ve placed far, far too much power in the hands of folks who are far, far removed from our lives, power to directly affect our lives that the “feddle gimmint” (“feddle” rhymes with “meddle” you notice) ought not have and was never meant–at least by the Founders–to have.
WE, the People, have ceded our rights to liberty–freedom from governmental meddling–to people who do not have our best interests at heart. Let me repeat that: anyone who says, “I’m from the government; I’m here to help,” is lying–to you at the very least, and, if they’re stupid enough to be sincere, to themselves as well. Our political masters do NOT sincerely want to solve the problems they’ve created (with our help–we elected these bastards, didn’t we?), because any problem genuinely solved equals less power for the politicians *spit* and bureaucraps *puke* to exercise over us.
So, I’ve been hiding out this week. But that hasn’t stopped the little wheels from turning (be they ever so slowly turning). What if… what if just 10% of taxpayers said, “Enough! No more!” and simply… opted out. What if… just 100 people in every major city banded together and (after first purchasing body armor *heh*) simply drove V E R Y S L O W L Y on their city’s major arteries during rush hour. Every day for as long as they still had a car, in protest against civil governments doing everything possible to screw us blue. (Yeh, pay the tickets, but keep up the Good Work.) What if… people of good conscience (and at least half a brain–100% more than the average Mass Media Podperson) simply banded together and said, “No!” loudly, consistently, without fail, every time politicians lied to us, stole from us, lined their own pockets at our expense?
What if?
I suspect it’d look something like this.
With insincere apologies to Mark Twain, a society that doesn’t count is no better than one that can’t. Consider the wisdom of the internet:
Eh? Come again? *heh*
Or better yet, consider this:
I don’t even know where to begin… *sigh*
One cent=$0.01
$0.01X0.002=$0.00002
$0.00002X35893 (the kb use cited in the video above)=$0.71786
It’s very, very, very simple arithmetic. “Do-it-in-your-head” arithmetic. Doesn’t even qualify as “math,” IMO.
Why did the two Verizon reps just not get it? Well, not only is adult literacy on the decline in these (dis)United States, but a growing number of folks just can’t count… largely because they’ve not been compelled by education and experience to do so. Heck, even this otherwise thoughtful article at Money Instructor.com uses a model that is part of the problem, a big part.
There is nothing wrong with using a calculator, of course. Calculators are useful in that they save time on arithmetical computations. But in a modern society where most citizens have graduated from an advanced system of formal education, one would expect that educated people would have an understanding of what the calculator is doing. To be sure, the four basic operations are well understood by people who consider themselves educated, but recent studies show that a majority begin to have difficulty when faced with such concepts as square roots, simple algebraic terms, and grade school geometry.
Did you catch that? “To be sure, the four basic operations are well understood by people who consider themselves educated… ”
It doesn’t matter one bit whether people “consider themselves educated” or not. Those who cannot tell the difference between $0.002 and $0.00002 can’t perform “the four basic operations” and indeed do NOT understand them. They are innumerate. And their numbers are legion. And it is they who combine their illiteracy (“The man who doesn’t read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.”–Twain) with their innumeracy and thus allow the Mass Media Podpeople Hivemind, politicians, illiterate and innumerate Academia Nut Fruitcakes, so-called educators and all their ilk to fill their minds with illiterate, innumerate, toxic sludge.
When a people cannot measure the impacts of public policies in clear and meaningful ways, then that people can fall prey to all kinds of flim-flammery. And such is the American public becoming.
Millions of Americans engage the services of income tax accountants every year because they are unable to perform the simple calculations themselves. Many others have difficulty interpreting statistical information, percentages, or any kind of information expressed in terms of graphs and charts. When it comes to calculating areas, capacity, or weights and measures, the average North American is not sure where to begin. For a modern society, this should be an intolerable situation, yet it seems that for most people it is quite normal and acceptable.
In short, millions of Americans are enstupiated sheeple, ripe for shearing. Worse, these same people cannot really blame the failures of “public education” (AKA “prisons for kids”), because almost anyone who wants to, who puts in a little effort, can become literate and numerate. Well more than half the population of enstupiated American sheeple are self-made enstupiated American sheeple.
In a representative republic, such is a recipe for disaster. In an ever more democratic (rule by mob) representative republic, we are beginning to reap many of the ills feared by the Founders, largely because a lazy, illiterate, innumerate electorate enables the obscene autoeriticism of politicians who gain almost orgasmic pleasure from misusing tax monies as yet uncollected from future generations.
I met a woman in her 60s the other day who declaimed that “We older people will lose all our benefits if the Republicans gain power.” *huh*?!? What benefits? Social Security has long been bankrupt, stealing from younger generations to buy older folks’ votes. Medicare and other “benefits” are likewise nothing but Ponzi schemes writ large. “Benefits” that steal from my children and grandchildren (and yours) to pay me are beyond obscene; they are simply wrong. Dhimmicraps/Repugnican’ts: makes not one bit of difference. The Ponzi scheme remains. And people who can’t or won’t do the math to see behind the smokescreen are the problem–or at least a large part of it–that keeps the government’s shameful Ponzi schemes going. For now. But someday, numbers will force an accounting, and when that happens, katie bar the door.
“There are three kinds of people in the world: those who count and those who don’t.”
*heh* Which are you?
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Rosemary’s Thoughts, Political Byline, Wingless – Belgium Says Israel Uses Child Soldiers, Refuses to Sell Weapons, Democrat=Socialist, and DragonLady’s World, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
Yeh, they’re jacking off… with your money.
No, no apology for my vulgarity. Not when our political elite is behaving in such an obscene manner.
Trackposted to The Pink Flamingo, Allie is Wired, Political Byline, Democrat=Socialist, and CORSARI D’ITALIA, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.
If I could find this attitude in but one politician, I’d vote for him for emperor.
Let the righteous strike me;
It shall be a kindness.
And let him rebuke me;
It shall be as excellent oil;
Let my head not refuse it.
–Psalm 141:5
Fat chance finding a politician *spit* with that kind of genuine humility. They used to call such persons “statesmen” until the breed became extinct.
(BTW, our political leaders could all benefit from a culling of the herd by means similar to the voice “juries” I experienced as a youthful voice student. Insightful criticism by folks who know what they’re talking about and whose critique cannot be gainsayed. But who among the foxes could we select to guard against the foxes ruling the hen house? Perhaps once upon a time, in some halcyon age of yore, citizens performed such a function upon our chosen representatives, but now, since most voters are culturally, historically and even functionally illiterate, greedy, lazy bums, what we get are culturally, historically and even functionally illiterate, greedy, and stupidly crooked–are you listening, Tom Daschle? Of course not–representatives of the electorate to serve as foxes in the hen house.)
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… or not.
A few months after the election, and a couple of weeks into the reign of the Obamassiah, I can look back at my wishful October thinking and reflect. Oh, I was extremely displeased to be forced by the Dhimmicraps’ offering to vote for McWhatsisname (Dhimmicrap Lite) simply in hopes that he’d find health issues precluded him from serving more than a day or two so that Palin could have room to become our Thatcher, a sort of Reagan in skirts.
Not to be.
But at least the reign of The One has so far proven to be all one could foresee: riddled with corruption, cronyism, already failed promises (thank God for small blessings), etc. Look out Grant and Clinton: your records of corruption seem to be in danger of falling, and even Dhimmi Kahtah must look to his laurels as the stupidest smart president given the way The Obamassiah’s handling his first couple of weeks in office.
But we have to give the poor guy a break. This is his first elective office where he’s had to actually do anything besides collect a check… and run for office/re-election again. Actually doing stuff is hard.
Poor baby.