Skip

Co-founder of GraniteGrok, my concern is around Individual Liberty and Freedom and how the Government is taking that away. As an evangelical Christian and Conservative with small "L" libertarian leanings, my fight is with Progressives forcing a collectivized, secular humanistic future upon us. As a TEA Party activist, citizen journalist, and pundit!, my goal is to use the New Media to advance the radical notions of America's Founders back into our culture.

Occupy Wall Street – the 1% of the 99%?

I just love what seems to be happening to the Occupy Wall Street movement as they are trying to create a new society that they expect us all to willingly accept.  While they are out yelling about the evilness of the 1%, they drape themselves in the cloth "We are the 99%!" and expect us all to jump into their water (or is it making appear that we already are?).

They also, as it seems, wish to have us believe that it absolves them of the crimes we see happening in their own "squattings com communes" such as thefts, illegal takings, sex attacks, the lack of diversity (almost all white, rich kids) and destruction of private property.  We are also seeing, especially in NYC, how this new society is dealing with "freeloaders on their society" as the professional homeless and mental illness descend upon their "open & inclusive" community.

It’s turning out it isn’t as easy as they think.  They are also showing us the first signs of their own version of the 1% (emphasis mine):

…Ms. Holmes also stated at the teach-in that five people in the Finance WG have access to the $500,000 raised by Friends of Liberty Plaza. When Suresh Fernando, the man taking notes, asked who these people are, the leaders of the Structure WG nervously laughed and said that it was hard to keep track of the “constantly fluctuating” heads of the Finance WG. Mr. Fernando made at least four increasingly explicit requests for the names. Each request was turned down by the giggling, equivocating leaders.

For a leaderless movement, you still have to follow the money.  So tell me, how is this any different than the 1% they rail against?  Truthfulness, openness, sharing the wealth?  Not so much.

The leaders of the Structure WG eventually regained control of the teach-in. They said that they too were unhappy with the Finance WG’s monopoly over OWS’s funds, which is why they wanted to create the Spokes Council. What upset them more, however, was the inefficient and fickle General Assembly.

What, direct democracy doesn’t work (like our Founders believed)?  Was it really just inefficient (having heard the use of the "human microphone" technique, things can go on for a long time because the short phrasing / crowd repetition is inefficient.  But another question is "are we seeing the first instances in the very movement that castigates the greediness of the 1% – Greed within its own ranks?  Are we seeing the first crumbs of Liberalism – we know better how to spend your money than you do?"

A major point of the discussion was whether the Spokes Council and the NYC-GA should have access to the funds, or just the Spokes Council.

Are we seeing the first crumbs of Liberalism –

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Notable Quote – Victor Davis Hanson

I saw videos of youths burning things in Oakland, but was told that it “was a small minority” and atypical of the protest. Not long ago I saw no clips of anyone spitting at black congresspeople wading into the Tea-Party demonstration, but was told they did and that it was typical of tens of thousands … Read more

I guess this is the outgrowth of Obama blaming unemployment on ATMs

And one has to wonder when Statists say that there is never a regulation that is harmful?  Let’s see – 9% unemployment, people stuck on unemployment for an average >40 weeks, and Obama says his #1 Job is jobs? And the answer by his we have to go back to mule power? Jane Danowitz, director … Read more

Get rid of it! Star Parker on Government sponsored welfare

Star Parker: “I know firsthand about welfare and welfare dependency because of my own life, living seven years in and out,” says Star Parker, founder and president of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE). Parker, also a syndicated columnist, explains what she thinks are the actual steps out of poverty and why our … Read more

Texas Patriots PAC – Herman Cain & Newt Gingrich debate

Am watching the Texas Patriots PAC Lincoln-Douglas style debate with Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich.  This should be good to watch as it will be unlike most other style debates shown thus far and am hoping that this will be a good matchup. Opening remarks on the budget were given by Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) … Read more

Dispatch from AFP’s “Defending the American Dream” – AFPF Statement on Attack by “Occupy” Movement

After Occupy DC’s violent attack on AFP’s Defending the American Dream Summit last nite, Americans for Prosperity released the following statement AFPF Statement on Attack by “Occupy” Movement Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF) issued the following statement today: “While we support the right to free speech and to peaceably assemble, it is saddening and unacceptable … Read more

“A unified theory of left-wing causes”

I can’t remember who had the first link to this, but it doesn’t matter -B. Daniel Blatt takes on both Gays and Occupiers on their demands for equality.  He’s right – if you listen to anyone one outside of the TEA Party, their remedy to their (or any problem) seems to be "there ought to … Read more

Political Correctness – The right to see your accuser? Nope.

No – if you are a guy, you are often judged to be automatically guilty without the ability to defend yourself with Political Correctness being the prosecutor, judge, and jury. From Charlie Martin at PJ Tatler (emphasis mine): My Sexual Harassment Reprimand Back in the early 90′s, I was teaching at Durham Technical Community College … Read more

Hey, Elizabeth Warren! How’s that “we did that for you” and OWS Intellectual Foundation workin’ out for ya?

When some Politician wants to take credit for something simply for political gain, well, they will.  It seems to be part of human nature to want to be part of "a winner" and certainly Elizabeth Warren showed her human nature in wanting to boast "I’m a Wall Street Occupier" when she came out with:

I created much of the intellectual foundation for what they do

Now, combine that with Elizabeth Warren’s Intellectual Foundation for Warrenism:

You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did.

Yeah, tell that to the guy in Oakland who actually had to face down that marauding band of Occupy Oaklanders whose underpinnings come from her moral code. 

Oakland developer Phil Tagami is used to working behind the scenes to broker some of the biggest deals in town. Late Wednesday, he was using different persuasive skills – holding a loaded shotgun to scare away rioters trying to get into a downtown building.

"We had people who attempted to break into our building," the landmark Rotunda Building on Frank Ogawa Plaza outside City Hall, Tagami said Thursday. He grabbed a shotgun that he usually keeps at home, went down to the ground floor and "discouraged them," he said.

"I was standing there and they saw me there, and I lifted it – I didn’t point it – I just held it in my hands," Tagami said. "And I just racked it, and they ran."

Although they didn’t get inside the building – Tagami, 46, oversaw its $50 million renovation and has an office there

Once again, Individual actions and self-reliance have trumped collective-reliance on the collective.  Now, Conservatives understand from a pragmatic standpoint

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An application of “An Army of Davids”

And I think this is one of the things that drives the Left absolutely batty.  Even as they are all about the Collective, unlike the Founders,  they just are flabbergasted that the Right, made up of people purporting to be wrapped around Individualism, basically have out-collectived the Collective.  Matt Kibbe, the head of FreedomWorks (an organization that has helped the TEA Party, and I have met and talked with Matt and other representatives of FreedomWorks as a TEA Party activist) wrote this Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal (emphasis mine):

Despite all of this, in America Occupy Wall Street has been celebrated by many in the media and the Democratic party as a legitimate counter to the tea party. All of the accusations that were wrongfully hurled at the tea party—from bigotry to violent tendencies—now seem to be occurring regularly at OWS protests. Yet they are ignored in deference to the supposed morally superiority of this new movement. Van Jones, formerly an environmental advisor to President Barack Obama, says we should ignore OWS defects because "they’ve got moral clarity." Even Mr. Obama has said that "the protesters are giving voice to a more broad-based frustration about how our financial system works."

Who knows, maybe cognitive dissonance is a good political strategy for the left. Can the king of crony capitalism win reelection having codified "too big to fail" into law? Can Congressional Democrats, having spent the past two years attaching Republicans to so-called "tea party extremism," now embrace without consequence the radical demands, blatant anti-Semitism, violence and property damage of OWS?

Progressives’ burning desire to create a tea party of the left may be clouding their judgment. Even Mr. Jones has grudgingly conceded that tea partiers have out-crowd-sourced, out-organized, and out-performed the most sophisticated community organizers on the left. "Here’s the irony," he said back in July. "They talk rugged individualist, but they act collectively." He and his colleagues don’t seem to understand that communities can’t exist without respect for individual freedom. They can’t imagine how it is that millions of people located in disparate places with unique knowledge of their communities and circumstances can voluntarily cooperate and coordinate, creating something far greater and more valuable than any one individual could have done alone. 

Indeed – an "Army of Davids" which is the name of the book that Glen Reynolds wrote in describing how technology is shifting such that individuals can band together for a purpose via the ‘Net, accomplish a voluntary goal, and then disband in ways that never would have been possible before.  In fact, many Conservatives and TEA Partiers used the Internet to get their message (visual: Skip waving his hand!) out and coordinating with others in a joint movement.  I am pleased that GraniteGrok has been part of this movement and have participated in tactical events both in State as well as National ones.

Moral Clarity?

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Notable Quote – Dr. Thomas Sowell

“Hilary Clinton said you know, it takes a village to raise a child and somebody said it takes a village idiot to believe that … it is part of the whole thing of third parties wanting to make decisions for which they pay no price for when they’re wrong.” – Dr. Thomas Sowell, economist, professor, … Read more

Occupy NH – a misleading infographic

I have been following the Occupy Wall Street movement as it was seen by both the media and the Democrats like Elizabeth Warren as their version, the Left’s version, of the TEA Party.  And it landed here in NH as well by starting a meeting in Manchester and then Concord, and then back to Manchester (with a few videos done at that last one).

I had put up what I thought was the definitive infographic that pointed out the common complaint between the Occupy Wall Street folks and the TEA Partiers.  Absolutely, we agree that the problem is Greed – greedy corporations willing to pay elected officials for access and influence as well as greedy elected officials (and bureaucrats) for willingly taking (and sometimes "requesting") such monies and perks.  Greed knows no bounds, be it for money or for power.  Or in some cases, both.

Now, some might think "Skip’s turned into a broken record on this".  In some ways yes, and others, no.  You see, it is just another version of the same old political problem:

  • Some of us just want to be left alone, and want government to remain in the background, quietly umpiring the rule infractions as opposed being front and center and bossing folks into behaving in Politically Correct ways.  Do the (few) things that individuals can’t easily do and do them well.
  • Others want to, for the lack of an even more simpler explanation,  grow Government in ways that remind me of the full-of-themselves hall monitors – just on steroids (these ARE the power hungry folks that just can’t leave others alone because they don’t trust anyone else than themselves to be bright enough to run their own lives).

Now, having gotten that out of my system, notice this new infographic put up by Sherry Gould of Occupy Concord (NH, that is):

I have no doubt, having spent time at the Occupy Manchester,  that the intersection, the "Middle Ground" is a true statement.  I’m not sure that I’d agree with the right side, totally, of what this says of the beliefs of the TEA Party.  I’m quite sure that the left side does describe what the OWS believes.  The problem parts are the lower left and right corners.  

If you follow the link for Sherry, you can see the conversation.  The link to Open Secrets that Seth provides completely blows the the declared information in the lower right hand corner:

Top 10 Heavy Hitters:
ActBlue $55,745,059.00
AT&T Inc $47,571,779.00
American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees $46,167,658.00
National Assn of Realtors $40,718,176.00
Service Employees International Union $37,634,367.00
National Education Assn $37,051,378.00
Goldman Sachs $35,790,579.00
American Assn for Justice $34,715,804.00
Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $34,292,471.00
Laborers Union $31,876,950.00
View Full List
Based on data released by the FEC on September 26, 2011.

12 of the top 20 are unions; add in ActBlue (a Left / Liberal donation aggreggator with a widget that allows folks on Left leaning sites to donate to their cause or candidate), so make that 7 out of the top 10, 13 out of the top 20, which completely shreds the point that Sherry subtly tries to make in that lower right hand corner.

I also…

 

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I guess we didn’t do too badly….

We here at the ‘Grok all support the Second Amendment – and love to exercise it!  So when Glen over at Instapundit ran this link, and TMEW and I having just "upgraded the armory", I had to go take a look at the post over at The Truth About Guns on self-defense shotguns.

Read the post, but the main points were:

Pump Action – "There are hundreds of stories of home intruders being scared away simply by the sound of a pump action shotgun being racked…Pump action shotguns have a feature that makes them ideal: reliability."

Short Barrel – The shorter the better. 18 inches is the legal minimum length for a shotgun without venturing into $200 tax land, but if you have the time and the money it might not be a bad idea to get the stamp and break out the hacksaw.

Attached Shell Holder – …Due to their massive size you can’t really load all that many into the gun at one time. So if you get into a protracted gunfight you may very quickly become screwed. The solution is simple: keep extra rounds on the gun…The other reason for a shell holder is to take advantage of both buckshot and slugs.

Pistol Grip – While the standard shotgun stock will work just fine a pistol grip makes the whole thing a lot more ergonomic.

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