During Hosni Mubarek’s rambling speech in which he refused to give up the presidency the day before he actually did, he referred to himself as a “father” and the people of Egypt as his “sons and daughters”. Really?
This, however, is not an unusual delusion for penny-ante dictators throughout history. Totalitarian states are notorious for being overbearing parents to their rambunctious children, and we know, or should know, the results of that relationship.
Concentrate wealth and power in Washington, D.C., and this is what you'll get.
That’s why I have such a hard time understanding Progressive ideology, which seeks to solve all of our perceived problems with big government. Some call it the “nanny state,” but it’s going beyond nanny and straight to evil stepmother. Cinderella is progressively harassed into submission whilst the sisters enjoy special favors. That’s how Evil Stepmother government works.
Hosni Mubarek emerged a billionaire from his 30 years of parenthood. He geared Egypt’s economy to enriching himself and his friends, family and political cronies. Mubarek’s version of central planning was less Keynesian and more Cinderellaian. But that’s the problem when you concentrate too much wealth and power in one central body, whether it’s a single dictator or 500 or so politicians.
Witness the spending spree over the past few years. People wonder why this supposed Keynesian approach to stimulating the economy didn’t work. Maybe it’s because, like Hosni Mubarek’s Egypt, it was Cinderellaian.
The bailouts and Obamacare were mainly pork-laden monstrosities meant to benefit the politically connected. Why else would groups who pushed for the health care bill suddenly receive waivers to shelter themselves from the ramifications of the bill? I sure as hell didn’t get a waiver, but I’m not part of the Teamsters Union or any other politically-connected group.
This is one of the primary reasons I’m conservative. I do not trust the Federal government to be my parent, which is why it’s shocking to me that those who consider themselves “liberal” do. I understand liberalism at a local and even a state level, but I don’t get it at the Federal level. Logically, Progressives should also be for a limited Federal government and enact their Utopian dreams locally.
Boulder, Colorado, for instance, is the model progressive state. There are cameras all over the place and you can barely breathe without some official breathing down your back about what you’re eating, smoking (unless it’s pot) or thinking. That’s fine, but it’s also why I don’t live there.
What happens when the values of Boulder, and the laws which follow, are force-fed to the rest of the nation? Is that really fair? I don’t think so. Let California go bankrupt after its failed experiment with Cinderella state socialism, but leave Colorado alone (except for Boulder)! Why else do immigration patterns in the U.S. show people fleeing blue states for red states? Maybe it’s because progressive parental policy is a big, fat failure.
Productive people prefer to help people directly, either through a charitable organization or one-on-one. Productive people don’t like having their money siphoned through the evil stepmother, who first hands it to the evil stepsisters and then gives the crumbs to someone who, more often than not, needs to get off their butt and get a job.
The problem is that Americans are becoming more dependent on the state than ever before. When nobody has fathers anymore, and they’re taught that fathers and parents are irrelevant, the state slips in and supplants the family. It’s been one of primary strategies of tyrants throughout the ages and is an effective means of ensuring a parent-child relationship between state and citizen.
Therefore, we should see in Hosni Mubarek and others like him a warning for us. If we limit government, we reap freedom and liberty. If, on the other hand, we decide that a large central government is the answer to all that ails us, we will reap a childish serfdom. The evil stepmother will dispense her favors through a humorless bureaucrat behind a window at some federal agency. The stepsisters will get the cash directly.
Every election cycle it always seems like a race to the bottom, and it looks like we have a winner! Power Line has a clip of California Democrat Rep. Loretta Sanchez warning Hispanics that “the Vietnamese and Republicans” are trying to take her seat. These kind of racist appeals are front-page news in an election year… if you’re a Republican.
The AP picked up this story late last night so we’ll see if the mainstream press rolls with it, but I absolutely refuse to hold my breath.
According to Sanchez, her opponent, Van Tran, is anti-immigrant. This is puzzling because Van Tran is a Vietnamese immigrant. I assume that every time I hear a liberal Democrat say “anti-immigrant” what they really mean is that they’re in favor of illegal immigration. People like Van Tran realize what an honor it is to attain United States citizenship and how dreadful the current system is.
Remember, according to our progressive betters, it’s racist if you’re not from a nation south of Texas and you go through the legal immigration process. How dare a person of color from somewhere other than Latin America attain citizenship legally! The sheer gall of it is enough to give the likes of Olbermann, Maddow, Holder, et al, the vapors. They would prefer to create a permanent underclass of voters shackled to Uncle Sam’s Plantation for generations to come rather than create a reasonable path to citizenship that emphasizes assimilation and doesn’t punish those already in line.
The right to free ice cream isn't spelled out in the constitution, but when has that ever been a problem for "progressives."
I have to admit I’m growing a little weary of politics. Perhaps it’s the Arizona controversy and the left’s ability to ignore logic and its apparent inability to read. It seems our population is fine with being ignorant. It’s easier to be angry and upset with Arizona than to actually realize that its law not only mirrors the federal law, but provides additional protection from racial profiling. So if we boycott Arizona, shouldn’t we boycott Washington?
Then, on the other side, there are those who spend time theorizing about the President’s birth certificate. The Republic has a lot of problems, but the President’s birth certificate isn’t one of them. The average American’s knowledge of our current fiscal situation is abysmal. Sure, most Americans can tell you that the economy is not doing well, but how many people cared before 2008? Most Americans are frustrated by the business cycle, not the 40-plus years of governmental mismanagement of finances.
For the United States to right this fiscal Titanic it would take a huge majority in Congress to do it. I don’t see how this is possible as long as the Democrats have the support of 40 percent of voters. The Democratic party doesn’t have a plan to balance the budget or reduce our debt, only plans to run us into the ground financially. Sadly, neither does the Republican establishment. Eventually this economic policy leads to California.
“So goes California so goes the nation,” or so the saying goes. California is our homegrown version of Greece. The citizens of California want big government, but they don’t want to pay for it. The indelible Mark Steyn has an article about the situation in Greece, but it’s just as relevant to California and the United States.
The problem facing the Western world isn’t very difficult to figure out: we’ve spent tomorrow today, and we can never earn enough tomorrow to pay for what we’ve already burned through. When you’re spending four trillion dollars but only raising two trillion in revenue (the Obama model), you’ve no intention of paying it off, and the rest of the world knows it.
Most liberals I know haven’t thought this far ahead. They’re in favor of free health care like they’re in favor of free Baskin Robbins ice cream. The ice cream tastes good, it’s available in 31 flavors, and no one really cares who’s paying for it. I too am in favor of free ice cream because providing it to Americans would be a helluva lot cheaper than free health care.
Eventually we end up like Greece, except there will be no one left to bail us out. There’s no Tea Party in Greece. It’s the Government Party there. Almost everyone is employed by the state and they all want to keep their 14-month annual pension (that’s not a typo; they get paid for 14 months of work in a 12-month period). Think that can’t happen in the United States? It’s happening already.
In Yonkers, more than 100 retired police officers and firefighters are collecting pensions greater than their pay when they were working. One of the youngest, Hugo Tassone, retired at 44 with a base pay of about $74,000 a year. His pension is now $101,333 a year.
It’s what the system promised, said Mr. Tassone, now 47, adding that he did nothing wrong by adding lots of overtime to his base pay shortly before retiring. “I don’t understand how the working guy that held up their end of the bargain became the problem,” he said.
“It’s what the system promised.” What happens if the system is broken? I apologize, but I really don’t feel sorry for able-bodied men who retired at the age of 40. What are these people contributing to society? Being a police officer is a respectable job, but it shouldn’t mean that 15 to 20 years service equals 30-plus years of pension. Obviously some of these pensions are related to disability, but not all of them. Until progressives take this problem seriously the United States is headed to bankruptcy.
Back in January I wrote about how people in blue states are fleeing the liberal bastions of the North to live in the free states of the South. I don’t get it. I thought Southerns were stupid hicks who cling to religion, guns, and racism. I guess some people from the North can put differences aside to move to the warmer climate. There’s an article in the New York Post about this very subject.
Last week I spent 90 minutes doing a couple of simple things — registering to vote, changing my driver’s license, filling out a domicile certificate and signing a homestead certificate — in Florida. Combined with spending 184 days a year outside New York, these simple procedures will save me over $5 million in New York taxes annually.
By moving to Florida, I can spend that $5 million on worthy causes, like better hospitals, improving education or the Clinton Global Initiative. Or maybe I’ll continue to invest it in fighting the status quo in Albany. One thing’s certain: That money won’t continue to fund Albany’s bloated bureaucracy, corrupt politicians and regular special-interest handouts.
Yes I jest, but how do you keep people in your state when they’ll save a bundle living somewhere else? Before I get too carried away I should mention that it’s not like the governments in the South are much better. North Carolina and Louisiana have been run by complete morons for decades. But the problem for states like New York and California is that it’s impossible to pay for all their programs. The citizens clamor for more and more handouts, but ultimately someone has to pay for them. Liberals care so much that they’re willing to make someone else pay for their mistakes.
Having one’s donkey cake and eating it too…
Yesterday’s vote in California is a prime example of our nation’s lust for social programs. The citizens don’t want to pay more in taxes, but they can’t elect leaders that will cut government spending. Instead, Governor Terminator (who has no business running California) has proposed a bunch of anemic cuts that won’t solve the problem. Until the citizens of this country are willing to elect leaders who can make the tough choices, fiscal chaos in inevitable.
Carpe Diem has done a wonderful job showing home sales trends. Home sales are up in California, Florida, and Arizona, but the median price has fallen. This is most evident in the state of California. Here is the data for Florida.
This is the market at work. The government isn’t causing this to happen. Home prices were inflated above the market price. Now that the price has fallen the market is taking care of itself. He also has an eye opening graphic that displays supply and demand in action.
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