What Do You Think Is Going On?…Part 1

“… the community organizer … must first rub raw the resentments of the people; fan the latent hostilities to the point of overt expression.’
— Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals

Heather Higgins has an excellent column titled “Obama’s Schadenfreude” on Town Hall at this link.  I encourage everyone to read it.  I had to look up the word schadenfreude…it means “enjoyment derived from the misfortune of others”.

In her column, Ms. Higgins references a rather dismissive remark the president made concerning Rick Santelli, a derivatives trader on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.  (Rule #5 in Rules for Radicals… Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.) She makes the point that our new president has no business or investment experience and that his world of work has only consisted of venues where money flows in from government and other grant sources. (He still works in that environment.)  She calls it his “redistributionist world”.  It can  not create any wealth, and, since it receives money to operate from those who actually have jobs , it only has a fixed “pie” with slices taken from those who have and then are given to those who have not. So if you or I existed for years only in that type of non-earning system, what do you think our policies would be?

To thinking Americans, it is not possible to believe that a man who spent untold amounts of time in Hawaii with known Communist, Frank Marshall Davis (who may turn out to be a close relative…we’ll keep watching), came away with a vast understanding of the free market system.  President Obama’s own grandparents and mother were very socialist in their beliefs also.  It is not possible to believe that a man who chose to be friends with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dorne, both radicals and former terrorist bombers,  could be a free market capitalist.  It is not possible that a man who chose to sit  in a “church” for 20 years listening to racist Liberation Theology could walk away believing in old fashioned American values.  It is not possible that someone who was  a member of the most far left-leaning groups such as ACORN, and the New Party (socialist party in IL) and palled around with all of these far left people is not a far left socialist and Marxist.  I have said it before and I repeat…Birds of a feather flock together.  My grandmother taught me that.

So consequently, I’m not at all surprised at the policy that ‘s been coming from our new president.  He does indeed intend to turn our American system upside down.  Fox News counted how many times he used the word “crisis” in one speech last week….26 times, I believe it was.  Was he trying to tell us something?  (Rule #8. Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.) Do you think this one is going on?

Ms. Higgins also remarks that ACORN, that corrupt organization that just won’t go away and now has the gods smiling and raining $$ down on them from the love of our  new president and, utilizing lots of tax dollars from the stimul-less package, are now going to sponsor sit-ins at homes marked for foreclosure.  Yes, that’s right, ACORN, the group who helped elect Mr. Obama, using any corrupt means they could think of.  Instead of using that money to maybe help those people themselves,  they are going to hold protests and sit-ins against those bad, bad, free market capitalist banks who are trying to recover their property. Things truly are upside down!

I submit to you these questions: Are the resentments of the people being rubbed raw?  Are latent hostilities being fanned?

I do not want to overwhelm the reader with all of the information that is coming, so I will be writing this in sections, so that you may have time to digest it and read from other sources.  Stay tuned for Part 2…there is much more. Tomorrow I will be posting information about radical Saul Alinsky and his connections to the President.

Thought For Today…

Something to think about….

“The Socialist Party will no longer be running a candidate for president. The Democratic Party is leading this country to Socialism much faster than we could ever hope to.”–Norman Thomas 1956

And this one….

“The difference between Democrats and Republicans is: Democrats have accepted some ideas of Socialism cheerfully, while Republicans have accepted them reluctantly”—-Norman Thomas

Government Land Grab to Restrict Guns?

While all of us have been watching our elected officials rush the most expansive spending bill ever in our history, other things are going on, believe it or not.  The stim-u-less bill was hastily voted on on Friday, the 13th, because we are in such a “crisis”, then sat for 4 days before the President signed it amid much hoopla and, incidentally, more spending.  At an estimated $57,000 per hour to use Air Force One, the new president flew to Denver, CO to sign this “crisis” spending plan.  It would be almost funny if it wasn’t so dire….but I digress.

SB 22 has been going on.  Senate Bill 22 is a bill proposing to vastly increase the number of acres to be put under government control in the hands of the Park Service.  What’s so bad about that?  Well, for one thing, it increases federal control of public and private land.  And NPS land is under a strict gun ban.  Some see this as not only a land grab, but as further restrictions on gun use.  It also seems that this particular bill is made up of 150 separate pieces of legislation that couldn’t pass on their own merits.  But Senator Reid has lumped them all together and pushed it through the Senate in January with a vote of 73-21.  In the Democratic House, measures have been taken so that there can be no amendments or alterations made to the bill.  It would go from there directly to the President’s desk.  Read a more in-depth description of this bill here. I think I will put a link on my sidebar too.

What I find so bizarre in all of this is #1.  Government keeps wanting to take away private property rights.  This has been going on so much in the last few years, that I find it particularly scary.  #2.  I have a hard time understanding the mindset of those who want to take away guns from the law abiding citizens. For years, I have listened to reports of young women who have gone missing in national parks…they don’t come back alive.  What if they were allowed to carry a weapon to protect themselves?  Maybe they would have a chance.  Consider Australia’s recent dis-arming of its citizens one year ago. Their crime rate has gone up.  The criminals don’t participate in turning guns in…they keep theirs.  They understand (even if the nanny state doesn’t)  that an unarmed public is ripe for the pickings with little or no consequences for themselves.  This just does not make sense.  Is it yet another symptom of the nanny state’s mindset that “we can take care of you”? Aren’t we actually ceding ground to the criminals when we disarm the law abiding citizenry?

I don’t think I will be doing any hiking in a national park anytime soon.  And that’s a shame.  It’s hard for this law-abiding citizen to really believe that our elected officials make plans to put us in more danger, but that is certainly the way it appears.

Hmmmm….maybe with all the new state sovereignty initiatives going on, the states affected by this will “just say no”.

UPDATE 3/20/09–This just happened this week.  Apparently, in federal district court in D.C., anti-gun advocates have applied for and received a temporary restraining order against implementation of the new rule allowing concealed carry in national parks and wildlife refuges.  Read about it here.

Update on Geert Wilders…

It seems that Mr. Wilders was on his way to England to attend a screening of his new film Fitna, but was barred from entering the country last week.  Fitna compares the text of the Quran with  acts of  terrorism/jihad that we have seen in the past few years.

Here’s the logic on that from the government’s point of view:

The Secretary of State is of the view that your (Mr. Wilders) presence in the UK would pose a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat to one of the fundamental interests of society. The Secretary of State is satisfied that your statements about Muslims and their beliefs, as expressed in your film Fitna and elsewhere, would threaten community harmony and therefore public security in the UK.

Huh?  Who are they kidding?  Exactly WHO is posing the threat to community harmony and public security?
Here are the views that the British deemed to “pose a genuine, present, and sufficiently serious threat”. This is from Mr. Wilders’ speech on Islam given in New York City.

The first thing you need to know about Islam is the importance of the book of the Quran. The Quran is Allah’s personal word, revealed by an angel to Mohammed, the prophet. This is where the trouble starts. Every word in the Quran is Allah’s word and therefore not open to discussion or interpretation. It is valid for every Muslim and for all times. Therefore, there is no such a thing as moderate Islam. Sure, there are a lot of moderate Muslims. But a moderate Islam is non-existent.

The Quran calls for hatred, violence, submission, murder, and terrorism. The Quran calls for Muslims to kill non-Muslims, to terrorize non-Muslims and to fulfill their duty to wage war: violent jihad. Jihad is a duty for every Muslim; Islam is to rule the world — by the sword. The Quran is clearly anti-Semitic, describing Jews as monkeys and pigs.

Mr. Wilders is a member of the parliament in the Netherlands.  He will be put on trial for “hate speech”.  You can see the video of  his documentary, Fitna, here…

…but I warn you, this is hard to watch.
Folks, I think it’s time we faced the fact that Islam is no ordinary “religion”.  It is a violent cult as dictated by its founder’s words in the Quran.  Read more here on Power Line.

What the President Thinks…

How does our new president view the Bill of Rights and the Constitution? I previously had remarked that he seems to have trouble with the wording of the Constitution.  I came across more information today.  This is from Power Line’s blog and quotes  an Op Ed by Thomas Krannawitter in a Washington Times article…

“Obama, following FDR, rejects the Declaration’s principle of equal, individual rights. This explains why in a 2001 radio interview Mr. Obama lamented that the modern Supreme Court had not yet displaced individual rights with a Constitutional defense of group rights and schemes of redistribution of wealth and property. This is exactly how Mr. Obama thinks the Constitution should be understood.”

The whole article  in the Times deserves reading but here is another quote about Lincoln from the same article.  I think this says it all.

“Employing a biblical metaphor, Lincoln once described the principle of individual rights, beautifully presented in the Declaration of Independence, as an “apple of gold.” The Founders’ Constitution, he said, is “the picture of silver, subsequently framed around it.” “The picture was made not to conceal or destroy the apple, but to adorn and preserve it.” Nothing better explains Lincoln’s constitutionalism and politics”

You be the judge…is our new president really like Lincoln?

Update: Read a wonderful blog post here. It was written before the election but has so much clarity about the President’s belief system that I wanted to link to it.

Benjamin Rush

“Where there is no religion, there will be no morals.“—Benjamin Rush.

Who was Benjamin Rush, the man who made this wise  statement?  He was a Founding Father of our country, born on December 24, 1745 and died on April 19, 1813.  He was from Pennsylvania.  He was a Christian, a physician, writer, educator and humanitarian.  He was a founder of Dickson College in Carlisle, PA.  He was an early opponent of slavery and capital punishment.

“The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.  They are corrupt; they have done abominable deeds; there is none that does good or right.”–Psalm 14:1.  Psalm 53:1 pretty much repeats this thought.  So where do “morals” come from?  I believe morals come from a holy God and the knowledge of morals comes from instruction in righteousness, which comes from “religion”, or the Bible.  Due to our current situation, I think we have some “fools” in our federal government (as well as elsewhere), because they refuse instruction in righteousness, OR, they go to church and hear the words, but fail to LIVE by them.

Benjamin Rush was no fool.

I will add an addendum to Mr. Rush’s statement….

…And where there are no morals, society deteriorates into chaos.

Well…Now It’s Official…

The Congressional Budget Office has weighed the stimulus plan and  found it wanting.  The non-partisan group has determined that  in the long run the plan will hurt the economy more than if nothing was done. The budget office  said “…the House and Senate bills will help in the short term but result in so much government debt that within a few years they would crowd out private investment, actually leading to a lower Gross Domestic Product over the next 10 years than if the government had done nothing.”  Wow.  Read that report here.

Mark To Market…What Is It?

I have been hearing this term for some time now.  I first heard it back in the fall as an answer to the credit crisis.  This morning I heard Steve Forbes bring it up again.  He said if the SEC would just drop this artificial accounting rule, he guaranteed that credit would start to flow.  So what is mark-to-market?  I found some links where you can go learn something about this.  Suspending this accounting rule sounds like a very easy way to start things moving again, rather than spending almost a trillion dollars.  But I suspect the new administration is not that interested in an easy, quick, Inexpensive way to get things going again.  Be informed and stay informed!

Dave Ramsey’s take

Steve Forbes on Fox

More From Steve Forbes on CNN

Special Report

Newt Gingrich On The Record

Informed Trades video

Sarbanes Oxley Act

More on Sarbanes Oxley

Wikipedia on Sarbanes Oxley

There’s a Movement Going On…

…Yes, it’s called the “states’ rights movement”…at least that’s what I’m calling it. I see something happening and I’m wondering…is this in response to what’s going on in Washington?  Are states now taking action to affirm and protect themselves from large central government?  It certainly looks that way to me.  Now I would have to spend a bunch of time doing some studying to try to explain all the details, so I will just point the reader in the  direction where he can go read and make up his own mind.  The site where I first learned about this is at http://www.thelonelyconservative.com.  Here’s the link to the specific post about the  New Hampshire resolution.  At www.therightsideoflife.com I found more states starting initiatives for this and various other bills.  It looks like some of them are introducing bills making it mandatory that a candidate produce his birth certificate…obviously this indicates they are wanting to avoid the uncertainty that seems to be in certain sectors concerning President Obama’s birthplace.  I find this all very intriguing…and comforting.  The states are standing up to a bloated federal government.  Wow.  Michigan, Arizona, Oklahoma, Washington, Missouri are others who are introducing state sovereignty resolutions.  You gotta’  read about this!

Missouri regarding FOCA

Michigan

Oklahoma

Arizona

Montana regarding firearms regulations

Georgia regarding their Constitutional Convention, School Vouchers, and proof citizenship for voting

More on Al Gore…

I’m not one to go along with making fun of people; it can be very hurtful.  And I would never write it (probably wouldn’t cross my mind), but I did find this column poking fun at the perception of  Al Gore to be fairly witty.  Anthony Watts posted it here on his blog. It’s about Mr. Gore’s appearance at a Senate committee hearing on climate change last week.  The column appeared in the Washington Post.  It seems there may be other skeptics out there besides those on the right.