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Yes, it makes you dependent on someone – or something, right?  Grokster Steve relates that under the Obama Administration, we are becoming a nation of part-timers.  Here is an infographic from The Corner:

Obama owns this.  The Democrats own this.  The New Left (Socialists, Communists) own this.  Everyone that voted for Obama, to be their representative in the White House via our Constitutional Republic, own this.  His policies (the expiration date on Bush’s fault has run out) via your votes.  You own this.

“Determined Weakness” seems to be Obama’s watchword phrase.  “Fundamentally Transform” was his own.  In decades past, Americans were taught, encouraged, and expected to be self-responsible – and independent.  Yet, we are now seeing a high proportion of new college grads moving home; jobless or severely underemployed.  Youth unemployment is 25%.  Real unemployment is estimated at 15% – 20%.  Blacks and Hispanics are at levels well above whites.  50 million households are on food stamps.  Those on Social Security Disability (SSI) are outpacing the new jobs.  How can one be independent when one can’t support oneself?  Family, friends – may be in the same situation.  Churches?  Under attack already and being crowded out by other “social services organizations” mainly supported by Government monies.

Look up Cloward-Piven – a scheme dreamed up by two Marxists academicians that want to totally want erase America as it now is.  Their premise was to overload “the system” and almost did it in New York City by overextending the welfare system in cahoots with other like minded groups getting people to get the City to pay out.  Their plan, once the City went under, was to replace it with a socialist / communist style of governance (and hoping that it would spread around the country). It didn’t work then, but then, they didn’t have control of the White House and like minded Socialist Progressives pushing hard in the US House and US Senate.

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…the true feelings of the Establishment towards conservative / TEA Party grassroots?  I met Erick Erickson of Redstate just after GraniteGrok opened its doors – the Sam Adams folks (as they were constituted back then) decided that it would be a great idea to bring together top State Level bloggers who had shown a propensity for free market, constitutional, and individual Liberty & Freedom tendencies for a long weekend to meet each other, yak a lot, and make what turned out to be long-term friendships (at least for a handful of us).  We drove stories out of the blogosphere, owned some search results, move the stories to where the MSM had to pay attention to them, and even got Rush Limbaugh to pick a couple of them up on his show.  Several folks have “gone National”; Erick & RedState are one.  So when he reports this interaction with the NRSC at the RedState Gathering, it seems to be a perfect example and metaphor for us vs the Establishment (reformatted, emphasis mine):

There was, however, one interesting moment with a guy from the National Republican Senatorial Committee worth sharing. Friday afternoon as I was trying to make my way to Governor Jindal’s reception, the guy from the NRSC stopped me and very derisively asked if I was going to support anyone other than challengers to incumbents. He went so far as to claim I must be making money to support challengers against incumbents and let me know RedState would be blamed if the GOP did not take back the majority.

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After all, a deflection from wrong doing by using the “well, everybody does it” sounds more like a tweener trying to get out of a bad spot with Mom & Dad rather than from a professional journalistic entity?  Or, is this simply yet another manifestation of how journalism is downgrading itself?  After all, after paying $1.4 Billion for the Boston Globe and the Worcester Telegram & Gazette back in 1993, the NYT sells them off to Red Sox owner John Henry for $70 million – a 94% discount?  Places a high value of by the public on the Fourth Estate, yes?  And given that itself was recently sold…but I digress.

Given that quick discussions on “high value”, a few thoughts on an Editorial they recently did on Voter Fraud (reformatted, emphasis mine): Party flap hardly voter fraud case

To hear New Hampshire Republican Party Chair Jennifer Horn tell it, Democrats are trying to steal elections in the state.

Horn recently wrote state Attorney General Joe Foster, asking him to investigate media reports that state Sen. Martha Fuller Clark, D-Portsmouth, allowed four Democratic campaign workers to live at her house and use her address to register to vote in the 2012 elections. The Republican Party head accused Fuller Clark of creating “a sanctuary for voter fraud.”

Well, at least the Telegraph deigned to mention Martha’s Motel – I guess the story coming out of the blogosphere (er, us) finally started to percolate (you DO read the ‘Grok, eh Kevin Landrigan?).  It will be interesting to see if the new AG, a former Democrat State Senator, will do anything more than any other former AGs (including Republican ones as well).  There have been reports, credible reports, of voter fraud from all over the state over the years.  Multiple times, people like Ed Naile (a registered Democrat, I might add), these instances have been brought to the authorities – only to see them “round filed” or lost into the black maw of a political bureaucracy that seemingly is more content with the status quo of the First In The Nation Primary than defending its underlying foundation of a fair process that has a rock solid reputation for integrity (James O’Keefe, Geoff Wetrosky any one?).

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From Hot Air rips apart a post over at The Daily Beast that says “we all can pay more for our burgers at Mickey D’s to lift the employees out of poverty – and nails the underlying philosophical stupidity on the head:

One point which seems to confuse the social justice battalion is this idea they seem to be stuck on that there is some sort of obligation or social contract which states that industry is obligated or intended to create jobs, and good paying ones at that. The fact is, job creation was never one of the driving factors in the evolution of industry. It was only a happy side effect.

Jazz has THE point – both the Liberal and Progressive wings of the Democrat Party (and with the takeover of the Party by the extremist Socialism that is the New Left, isn’t that just one in the same?) see Government as being the ultimate balm on Society’s ills – it just lacks sufficient money to give all people all the things they believe to be necessary (e.g., EBT cards in MA with $7,000 limits, and MA Gov Deval Patrick’s attempt to have cars issued to those on welfare).  They see where the money is – business – and are upset that it isn’t “all ours together”).  There is little sense of the Right of Private Property with these anti-Americans (and I say that for America was very much built on the principle of Private Property and that government could not just “take it” as the Kings of yore used to do.   These latter day Neo-Feuldalists  problem is that they hate capitalism and business just as badly as the original Royalty did – even as the Royalty of the time thought, how do we put these upstarts into their proper place?  So while they see capitalism as being evil and nasty, they know it to be necessary but wish to control it completely.  And thus, use the levers of Government to “make it so”.

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In the on going gun / anti-gun battles that have been going on since Aurora and Sandy Hook, much has been made of the “gun violence” and that the gun-grabbers think that all that is necessary is for all gun ownership to be severely curtailed if not outright stopped; no guns in civilian hands (which would put a smiley face on Diane Feinstein).  Chicago has been the focus of much of the discussion as the ongoing slaughtering of of black young males doesn’t seem to be slowing down.  Yet, New York City has it’s own problems as the NY Post lays out the violence Friday night.  And in the listing of the deaths was this:

The bloodshed continued in Queens when a 10-year-old girl in Far Rockaway got caught in a hail of bullets, one of which grazed her hip, cops said.

The girl was stepping out of her apartment at 1:30 a.m. with a group of friends when two males on bikes rode up and started firing at two other men, cops said

The gunmen missed their intended target and struck the young bystander.

She was taken to Jamaica Hospital in stable condition.

As a parent – horrified.  Not just that a little girl was hurt but at the circumstances under which this happened:

• A 10 year old girl
• 1:30 in the morning?  REALLY??
• From HER home?
• With Friends – her age?

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Here is the lament that the academicians are now having over the downside of the law they almost all willing supported Obama who said this was in the mix.  They supported it as the “Obamacare sausage” was being made by the Democrats in the House, the Senate, and the White House (with not a few of these Ivory Tower denizens snapping on the rubber gloves and shoving them into the vats).  They praised its passage.  They patted themselves on the back – “NOW we have social  justice” (as that and skin color diversity seem to be the real majors taught at our higher-level institutions for which parents pay tens of thousands of dollars).

And now they are shocked (SHOCKED, I tell you!) that the law they climbed that hill for is now rolling some of their fellow labrats back down it.  For all of their advanced learning, their often wide disconnect to the way the world outside academia actually functions is, as a famous black preacher associated to the Presidential campaign 8 years ago once said “coming home to roost”.  From Hahvad (er, Harvard for those outside of the Bawston area) economics Professor Greg Mankiw – Obamacare vs the Faculty (reformatted, emphasis mine):

I don’t know how widespread this phenomenon is, but I thought I would share an email I received this morning:

I have been teaching multiple sections of economics for four years now at several Colleges and Universities in the State of Indiana. I have also been a frequent user of your texts in the classes that I teach.  With the implementation of the ACA (Affordable Care Act) these institutions are giving notification to their part-time faulty that their individual teaching schedules will now be limited to three sections. At the college this will likely result in the cancellation of 20-25% of the class sections in economics, and I would assume other areas will have a similar result. The students are not fully aware of the situation and many will be surprised that their desire to get a college education is now being impacted by the need to avoid the full implementation of the ACA.

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Obama: “I think that when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody“

One’s wealth is a measure of one’s labor (effort, motiviation, and skill) and time – the “price” society attaches to you economically (but not to your worth as a person – different measure).  Which brings up the great Libertarian question: who owns me? We settled that, at least in large part, back during the Civil War when one man’s labor became their own and not their Master’s (the epitome of slavery) and thus, finally had the chance to make their own wealth instead of forced to create or add to the wealth of another.

It seems, however, that with the rise of Socialism (under its Political Class  nom de plume of “Progressive”) in the Democrat Party and in the people it sends to Congress (e.g., Annie Custer from NH-2 who campaigned as “I’m more Progressive than you!”), we now see a resurgence to reduce not just the Second Amendment but also the Foundational Principle of that Right to Private Property.  The difference now is not the color of one’s skin but to the Economic / Political class to which you are perceived to belong.

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I guess that’s why Obama is about to spend $750 million to convince is “Smile!  It’s GOOD for you!”.  From Powerline, this part of a poll on Obamacare, a commentary on “government shutdown” or Obamacare.  There’s nobody that has submitted legislation aligned with this question, it is still an interesting result from LIVs that wouldn’t know the difference between legislation and a continuing resolution (this time on the debt ceiling).

Interesting breakdown by age for shutting the Feds down to repeal Obamacare: 18-29:  57% ; 30-44:  49% ; 45-64: 41% ; 65+: 50% for shutdown

Is it possible that the Young, that HAVE to sign up for policies that are priced not for their needs but to pay for the elderly and sickly, have figured out this new Ponzi scheme (Social Security and pensions being two other prime examples – promises to the otherwise).

Thus, it seems, the tendency of the Republicans to automatically take up the mantle of French surrender monkeys, should be held in check.  In fact, I’m betting that the base, if they adopted the word “Fearless” and actually acted like that adjective, might actually win the issue.  Or is it the case when one is an Establishment Republican, there is no such word in describing a stand for principles?  Or do either of the phrases “Don’t make waves” or “Go along to get along – because the MSM won’t like us” come to the fore?  And then lose the 2014 races?

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“In order to save Bambi, we had to bodybag her“

Yeah, I know – it’s “The Bigger the Government, the deader smaller the Citizens” (hey, it fits – the deader our Freedom).  But it is true, the Bigger the Government, the Bigger it thinks it really is – and as a result, the stupider it gets.  A bureaucracy, once set in motion, sets up all kinds of rules and regulations and follows them every jot and tittle – and lose sight of the actual reason for their existence.  Check this box, check that box, make this measurement, cross-check against some other list…

…and you end up with a fustercluck of a SWAT Team targeting a recently newborn doe.  Yup, a Government that decided that it was in charge of saving deer from the rest of us had the authority to kill it instead of “us” saving it. This story’s been circulating for the last couple of days and it was such that I decided to let it percolate a bit to see if there was a “rest of the story” not part of the first.  Er, sadly, nope – a sacrificial fawn name “Giggles”.  From WISN (reformatted, emphasis mine):

WISN 12 News investigates an operation raising questions about the use of government resources and the state policy that meant a death sentence for a fawn.  “It was like a SWAT team,” shelter employee Ray Schulze said. Two weeks ago, Schulze was working in the barn at the Society of St. Francis on the Kenosha-Illinois border when a swarm of squad cars arrived and officers unloaded with a search warrant.

“(There were) nine DNR agents and four deputy sheriffs, and they were all armed to the teeth,” Schulze said.

15 armed Government agents that decided to descend upon yet another Catholic charity?  OK, it is the Obama Administration that is doing the “Chicago Stomp” on the Catholic Church (as well as others).  In any case, here is a great example when Libertarians talk about “the Force of Government” – killing a dear baby deer is not, as the collective Democrats are wont to say “[Government is] what we do together”. So, regulations and laws are put into place to SAVE wildlife.  To keep wildlife from being mistreated.  To keep  keep wildlife from being inadvertently by “untrained civilians”.  So, quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who will watch the watchers?  So Government wraps itself all up in its own self-empowered regs and actions: go forth and save the wildlife.  How’d that work out for a real life Bambi?

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A longish quote from Forbes on “Your Help Is Hurting: How Church Foreign Aid Programs Make Things Worse“:

When you try to help, you try to give things, you start to have the consequences. There’s an author Bob Lupton, who really nails it when he says that when he gave something the first time, there was gratitude; and when he gave something a second time to that same community, there was anticipation; the third time, there was expectation; the fourth time, there was entitlement; and the fifth time, there was dependency. That is what we’ve all experienced when we’ve wanted to do good. Something changes the more we just give hand-out after hand-out. Something that is designed to be a help actually causes harm. And so, microfinance turns that model on its head, and instead of going in and just saying, “We’ve got a lot of things you don’t, so we’re just going to give it to you,” it turns that model completely on its head and says, “Every single individual is created by a God who loves them, and that means there is worth and there is dignity and there is ability.” So we go in and say not, “What don’t you have,” but, “What do you have? What are you dreams for your kids? What are your aspirations? What are your hopes? What is it that is in your hand to do?” That changes everything. Microfinance then is the belief that everyone has ability, everyone has capacity, and it asks the question, “What is required to unlock that potential in that community to get them in productive employment?” And so, just real quick, just what that means is we do training, we do financial literacy, we do a place for people to save money, and then for people that are ready, we give them access to small loans so they can invest in their business ideas.”

– Peter Greer, President & CEO of Hope International

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