Notable Quote – Thomas Babington Macaulay

Just for Steve on the 17th-century Scottish Highlanders: It is not strange that the haughty and warlike MacDonalds, despising peaceful industry, yet envying the fruits of that industry, should have fastened a succession of quarrels on the people of Inverness.  In the reign of Charles the Second, it had been apprehended that the town would … Read more

Occupy Wall Street – the Supporters list!

Well, Steve had the Occupy Wall Street rap sheet.  Now in accordance with my previous post, keep this in mind:     You can tell a lot about a person by the people they keep around or, those that support them. Well, here’s a list from Big Government of those that are going all in for … Read more

Let the NH Governor campaign begin (heh!)!

I have a feeling that this is gonna be a long (and fun) campaign with stuff whizzing back and forth.  It seems that Maggie Hassan is the front leader on the Democrat side (taking into account some of the undeclareds) and may well be the nominee.  Problem is, we believe her to be the antithesis of what the spirit of New Hampshire to be (and fits rather well with the Progressive mantra that Government should be as big as it has to be in order to make sure of equal outcomes vs equal opportunity (e.g., healthcare: MaggieCare, free market be damned), making sure Government gives you stuff instead of being self responsible and acting like an adult ("Diapers R NH Govt!"), and if you don’t like it, we’ll regulate your speech instead of honoring your right to free speech (HassanSpeech here and here). Live Free or Die makes no sense to the Progressive mindset.

Well, there was a spat in the Union Leader between Shrill Kathy Sullivan and Pat Hynes over that free speech (complete snippet after the jump) part:

Granite Staters will begin hearing from Hynes’ version of the Forum today when it unveils a radio ad going after the new Democratic candidate for governor, former state Sen. Maggie Hassan, just two days after she announced.The spot accuses her of supporting:

"more than 80 taxes and fee increases, including the LLC tax."

"Hassan even hatched a harebrained scheme to have state bureaucrats take control of our hospitals," the ad charges, saying "it’s no wonder" she lost a bid for reelection to the Senate last year.

Right after that, I got a "boo hoo, they’re attacking me!" email:

Dear Friend,

As you may know, I announced my campaign for governor of New Hampshire on Tuesday.  It did not take but two days for an extremist PAC to start running radio ads attacking me.

But what’s worse is that they are doing this because they want to direct attention away from an out of control legislature with an extremist agenda and the right wing gubernatorial candidates who would be a rubber stamp for their policies.

But you can help fight back against these attacks by contributing $10, $25, $100 right now.

This attack is a perfect example of what’s wrong in Concord.

Funny, during her announcement speech, you called both the Republicans and your announced opponent, Ovide Lamontagne, extremists.  So Maggie, if you are going to accuse others of inciting a food fight, it’s a done deal that you threw the first dish of chocolate ice cream.

Here’s the ad itself

This ad is extremist only if one thinks that one’s past actions (and her leadership in those actions) being read back to you. Let me give you a piece of advice – extremist is the new racist, and is entirely overused and not effective.

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Dodd-Frank: And how much innovation time does it cost?

Progressives are always all in on Government is benign and never a thought to how much Government costs the private sector (although they are always yelling about how much tax cuts, otherwise known as "allowing the money earners keeping more of what they earned, "cost" the Government. Already, Sarbanes-Oxley is costing medium sized companies in … Read more

Do You Beleive In Warrenism?

The Elizabeth Warren notion of who paid for what is no different than the public union employees who cry “but we pay taxes too?”  

Really?  If we stopped paying taxes, how would you pay yours?  How would you pay for anything?  (Hint: You’d have to work in the real world.)

Public employees can only pay their taxes after we pay them with ours.  It is like an allowance and subject to the same rules.  If we no longer feel we need or can afford to provide for it, we can choose to stop.

So nothing exists in government (including public sector paychecks, roads, bridges, or US Senatorial lifestyles for those wishing to aspire to them) unless someone else first earns something or creates something that they are willing to exchange for something done by government. 

Warrenism and left wing class warfare, however,  turns the relationship upside down.

Warrenism states that those receiving the allowance will not only define how much and how often they are paid (under threat of intimidation, public humiliation, lawsuits, and even imprisonment), they will also decide how it is to be spent and who and what will benefit. The problem with this scenario is that, as has often been said, you eventually run out of other peoples money So Warrenism is actually just another form of economic suicide that ends the way every other socialist hissy-fit has ended; in misery or violence, or more likely plenty of both.

No matter what happens Elizabeth Warren and the left wing elites will be fine.  That should tell you something about who they are and what they really care about.  Power.

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TEA Party vs Occupy Wall Street

I ran across this at The Lonely Conservative – a perfect info-graphic showing the issue that binds the TEA Party and the Occupy Wall Street movements together…

(larger version here)

…and where they rapidly diverge on both the cause and the cure.  Sure, the problem is that of crony capitalism / corporatism:

The unholy alliance where politically connected biz people exploit politicians AND bureaucrats for both profit and advantages over their competitors, as well as the converse of politicians AND bureaucrats exploit the marketplace to both extend their political power as well as to attempt to achieve their ideological ends.

I have one more video to post from two weeks ago that aptly demonstrates this point:  The TEA Party believes that Government is too big; so big that there are too many "points of entry" for lobbyists (both for profit AND non-profits) to gain advantages that normal folks cannot.  By reducing the size of government, the number of points disappear and Government is easier to keep accountable (less "dark corners" have to be patrolled). Constitution?  The TEA Party believes that with its Checks and Balances, it is the most magnificent document ever created to protect the most radical idea ever conceived: that government exists to protect Individual Liberty and Freedom.

In essence, pushing government back into the bottle and lessening its reach – and thus making it less attractive for influence as Society re-exerts its traditional role of determining how Society will function (instead of being ruled from DC and its phalanx of bureaucrats).  Self-reliance is not an abstract idea.

OWS, while agreeing there is a problem, totally disagrees with the

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The 1% confronts the Occupy Wall Street

Tim has been putting up videos of Peter Schieff (Wall Street entrepreneur, radio host, and columnist) going down to the Occupy Wall Street encampment and trying to engagement them (and sometimes, with mixed results) here and here. Here’s a longer version of the 3 hours Peter spent at OWS, courtesy of ReasonTV (a tad over … Read more

GrokTalk! Saturday October 29, 2011

Live Streaming local and National News with opinion you could only get from GraniteGrok. EMail: GrokTALK@GraniteGrok.com  or Call us!  603-524-7478 This week, 9-11AM…   Acting Chair Carolyn McKinney will be on to talk about the future of the RLCNH (Republican Liberty Caucus of NH) now that Andrew Hemingway has stepped down for the time being.  … Read more

God Bless Peter Schiff!

He gets right in the middle of the "Occupy Wall Street" kids (of all ages), and just Strikes Them Dumb! Just by asking a few questions! Lenin called liberals "useful idiots." These people are Obama’s "useful occupiers." After seeing Mr. Schiff on the front line of the battle, I pulled out his book published last year "How an Economy … Read more

#OccupyRapSheet (So Far)

Direct from John Nolte at Big Government, we have a list things that the left wing and Democrats support and we can only assume emulate.

First the bogeyman was global warming, then it morphed to

global climate change.  Now, according to #OWS, Occupy Wall Street, the primary worry is "income inequality" (brought on by those "bad people", the 1%ers). Sidenote: ever wonder why it is that the Left always seems to have  yet another "Other" when the current #1 World Destroyer problem starts to peter out with the general populace? … Read more

Captain Obvious Gets More Affirmation- And why Democrats MUST Be Removed From Power

I’d like to think I was out in front when declaring that Fast And Furious was a government plan to bring left wing rhetoric to life.   Smoking gun

Or was I just being captain obvious; Democrats secretly selling American guns to violent Mexican criminals so they could later find those guns at crime scenes and use that to make the case for limiting the right to buy or own firearms.  Who could doubt that scenario?  It made perfect sense to me.  It is your typical left wing Shakespearean tragedy, staged to persuade the inattentive rubes who still have some sliver of trust in the government, or believe that the Democrat party just want’s to protect them.

Well this should poke a hole in that balloon.  “Why would an anti-gun administration knowingly force licensed firearms dealers to sell guns to violent criminals?”

Why is that?  Well we know why because it is obvious.  To sell their own preferred anti-gun policy potions and prepare the soil for their legislative “response” to the expected “outrage.”  But If Democrats are willing to do this just to deny Americans their second Amendment rights, what wouldn’t they be willing to do to advance every other part of their anti-liberty agenda?   (At least a few people could be having na epiphany right now so let’s give them a moment to enjoy it…)  OK.

Shall we proceed?

…

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A Rant Worth Reading

Liberals see success as a problem – if people are able to live their own lives without the guidance of aspiring liberal fascists, the entire premise of liberalism is fatally undercut. So success is the target, …

Notable Quote – Dr. Walter E. Williams

(Emphasis mine) The Occupy Wall Street demonstrators are demanding "people before profits" — as if profit motivation were the source of mankind’s troubles — when it’s often the absence of profit motivation that’s the true villain. First, let’s get both the definition and magnitude of profits out of the way. Profits represent the residual claim … Read more

Pension?

(H/T: Big Government)

Self-reliance: much better than dependence

A little while ago, Obama took a lot of flak for this (H/T: Weekly Standard):

"I mean, there are a lot of things we can do," Obama said. "The way I think about it is, you know, this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft and, you know, we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades. We need to get back on track."

Now combine that with this from ABC (via The Corner)

At a million-dollar San Francisco fundraiser today, President Obama warned his recession-battered supporters that if he loses the 2012 election it could herald a new, painful era of self-reliance in America.

“The one thing that we absolutely know for sure is that if we don’t work even harder than we did in 2008, then we’re going to have a government that tells the American people, ‘you are on your own,’” Obama told a crowd of 200 donors over lunch at the W Hotel.

“If you get sick, you’re on your own. If you can’t afford college, you’re on your own. If you don’t like that some corporation is polluting your air or the air that your child breathes, then you’re on your own,” he said. “That’s not the America I believe in. It’s not the America you believe in.”

Do you think that one is related to another?  If being self-reliant is a bad thing, doesn’t that truthfully lead to conditions under which one would become "soft" – lazier, more indolent, and a sense that someone else will take care of things (and I’m not going to touch his unstated and wrong-headed premise that it is only Government that keep us from ‘being on our own" or being "painful")?

A simple example of why he is wrong.

The Eldest, a couple of years ago, called us up and said "I need some help!".  Turns out, the landlord of the house that he and a couple of friends had been renting had been accepting their payments but not paying the mortgage – it was eviction time through no fault of their own.  Of COURSE, we grabbed his stuff, loaded it up, and stuffed it into our house (I keep joking that his stuff is in every room of our house except my bedroom).  Parents are and should be there for their children in times of need – that’s a given.   

Well, we came to a rent agreement as it became obvious that he was not moving out soon; knowing that I’ve got a really bad back and limited physically in what I can do, we also agreed that part of the rent would be "labor in kind" for the things that I could do (but for which I would pay a high penalty later in pain).

To be truthful, it has been a hit or miss situation with…

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