Comments Posted By mannning
Displaying 161 To 170 Of 475 Comments
ANGRY IDEOLOGUES vs. THE STATISTS
I think it’s best to assume intentions are benign and to keep the focus on results.
So all sorts of idealogues can occupy positions of authority if their end results are in accord with freedom and liberty?
The problem with that, I think, is once the end results are reached it is too late to correct them if they are hurtful. If the sudden direction of these ideologues happens, by sheer chance of course, to be in concert, and that direction is governed by a tyrannical model, it just might be too late to redirect.
Comment Posted By mannning On 31.08.2009 @ 16:58
YES, BUT DON'T CALL THEM UNPATRIOTIC
It is one thing to have ctiticisms of our society, to voice them loudly, and to work for their resolution within the framework of our Constitution. This is the principaled liberal position, and it exudes a real love of country.
Once liberals gain control of the reins of government, however, they tend to propose and often enact laws and policies that are highly dubious at best, and anti-Constitutional at worst. I cannot but be angry at their lip service to the Constitution, and lack of patriotism and reverence for our founding principles, hence the tone of my previous post.
Comment Posted By mannning On 28.08.2009 @ 13:30
What is this "different sort of patriotism" that you tout? One that champions everything conservatives abhor? One that thinks public opinion is merely an annoying noise?
One that has the hubris to foster what seems to be a grand plan to wreck the nation's finances? One that sees massive increases in government and invasion of citizen's rights to be the good road?
One that publishes all of the state secrets they can get their hands on? One that believes in over-the-top AGW as a good way to increase international power?
One that wants us all forced to live under secular humanist rule?Sure is different from what I believe to be real patriotism, with the focus on the continued freedom and liberty of the USA and its spirited people.
Pseudo-patriotism (PP) I'd call it.
Comment Posted By mannning On 27.08.2009 @ 14:25
Selling Snake Oil to the Public
I am still mad about various Democratic sources calling town hall protesters un-American, rude, or simply numbskulls. That, after all, is what they themselves are showing themselves to be, with their leftist agenda to turn America into wasteland. Why a wasteland?
As things stand, we will have a national debt of at least 17.5 trillion dollars in 2019 because of their profligate spending and commitments to spend this year and for the next 9 or 10 years. This is over 3 trillion dollars more than our entire GNP in 2008. Just how can we pay that sum back? No rational plan to reduce the debt has been put forward, only legislation that is certain to raise it by trillions!
It is no wonder that ordinary America citizens are very upset at their representatives for trying to foster this abomination off on us and on our children’s children, and maybe even another generation. There is little need to debate the fine tuning of various propositions, all of which raise the debt level even more. Thus the protesters are simply shooting the messengers from this spendthrift Congress and President. No one believes the President’s assertion that Obama Care will be revenue neutral, either, unless it is to cut services the citizens feel necessary.
Citizens also perceive that these town hall types of sessions are merely a cover for the administration’s real plan, which is virtually hidden in 1,000 pages of gobbledygook, and impenetrable to the common reader. Thus, various possibilities, such as paying for the health care of Illegal immigrants, or the start of advisory panels on death options, have seized the public’s imagination, and no declarations to the contrary from Obama are believed anymore.
Then, too, with a Democratic majority in both houses and the presidency, people realize that their opinions have been submerged under the thrust of leftists to pass their own agenda, and to hell with public opinion. “Bi-partisan” support in Congress has withered under the take-it-or-leave-it positions of Democrats.
So, why should enraged citizens be quiet and respectful of their representatives, when they have not even been shown the respect of being presented with a sensible draft of a bill to peruse, feel that they are being sold out by snake oil salesmen, and are being asked to give Congress a blank check?
No conservative I know gives government a blank check, especially not the government of Obama's czarist crowd.
Comment Posted By mannning On 26.08.2009 @ 14:37
The people that protest know exactly what they are doing, and are being rude to their representatives very deliberately.
Why? It is a matter of context. In the context of a Dem majority in Congress and a leftist President that have simply gone hog wild with public money, the idea of signing up to yet another extravaganza that threatens to become far, far more expenseve, and far more intrusive in our lives, has indeed crossed the line with a huge segment of the population.
In their total frustration, they are killing the messenger. Any messenger is tainted now! Of course it is rude. Reasoning with the Dems on spending and power grabs, however, is futile. So, the protesters are just saying: NO!
Comment Posted By mannning On 23.08.2009 @ 21:26
THE ROLE OF RACE IN OPPOSITION TO THE PRESIDENT
Another correction: The 17.5 trillion dollars is the national debt projection for 2019, not the deficit.
Comment Posted By mannning On 25.08.2009 @ 19:46
Correction:The Congressional Budget Office announced this week that the deficit is estimated to reach 17.1 Trillion dollars by 2019. Spend, spend, spend, spend, and don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow never comes!
Comment Posted By mannning On 25.08.2009 @ 11:03
Racism
There are a few unpleasant facts we need to face:
1. Racists vote, right along with non-racists.
2. Southerners vote, right along with Eastern, Northern and Western voters.
3. Few screeds have changed racists into non-racists. Attempts to shame racists out of their attitudes have not succeeded.
4. Laws and public opinion have muted racism and driven it underground. No one wants to be tagged as a racist, even if they are one.
5. Racism still exists--heavily in social situations.
6. We often confuse racism with other forms of social acceptability or unacceptability, such as manners, presentation, language, hygiene, integrity, common sense, and good citizenship that are applied to everyone.
7. It is often the case, though not spoken of, that many blacks do not present themselves well in public, and are thus tagged with criminal intent, because that is an odds-on probability on the streets, especially late at night in black-dominated cities. Crime statistics back this up (This is not to say that whites present themselves well all the time.).
8. More and more blacks are indeed gaining social acceptance, because they try to do so, are reasonably educated, and present themselves properly.
9. Racism does play a part in attacking Obama, but from my admittedly-limited observations, it is a minor influence among the many whites that I have talked with here in Virginia. I would give it one part in ten at the most. The main complaint whites speak of is the seemingly anti-white ideas they believe that Obama and his wife espouse or hold close!
10. No one I know understands why we must run a projected deficit of 9 Trillion dollars over the next ten years; a projection that will undoubtedly grow by leaps and bounds as the Obama years go by.
Comment Posted By mannning On 24.08.2009 @ 11:19
The nation is broke right now.
BIRTHERS vs. TRUTHERS: WAR OF THE LOONS
Why, of course not, ang. Just because you said that doesn't make your complaint true either.
The statement is attributed most of the time to Voltaire. Fortunately,to my knowledge, it has not been tested by the known democracies--not yet, anyway, but we are heading there. That it hasn't been tested yet doesn't mean it isn't true.
Common sense would tell you that once the national treasury has been totally emptied, and the national debt exceeds our yearly revenue by, say,100, 200 or 300%, by representatives voting exactly as their constituents demand for the people to get a payoff of some kind, and we are further mortgaged by the President signing these excessive spending bills, the nation is broke, out of money to pay salaries, bills, service on the debt, military operations and procurements, paying for jet fuel...the whole business of the US as a nation grinds to a halt. We are then bankrupt.
There is a limit to the amount the government can realize by taxing the people, too. Once that limit is reached in every income level, there is no more revenue for the government to be had.
What might the citizens ask for?
Universal health care, universal college education, all mortgages underwritten by the government, cash for clunkers, transfusions by the billions and trillions to various industries such as autos and the financial sector (please save my job, gov!), rampant government growth and inefficiencies, ballooning welfare payments, paying for 1 to 2 million convenience abortions a year, allowing all plastic surgeries to be underwritten, guarantees by the government to the financial sector for their prior mistakes coming to light, perhaps a new war breaking out to drain us heavily, all lead to an empty treasury and a massive, unrepairable national debt.
If there are no truly massive multi-trillion dollar loans from other nations to be had, or the loans run out and are called after a year or so for lack of payment of interest, what then?
One might think that a full financial collapse would be the end of our republic. Don't you agree?
Let us hope that the current clowns in government are stopped and thrown out of office far, far short of bankrupting the nation completely.
Comment Posted By mannning On 6.08.2009 @ 16:58
@ funnyman: "Over time...etc"
The time you refer to must be centuries. We have not had all that much sanity in the political world for several decades, beginning with FDR, and landing now in the Obama administration and its profligate spending programs.
The push me/pull you of our system has been won mostly by the liberals, who apparently do not have any economic common sense whatsoever--far less than the Bush administration, anyway. Bush played with billions, while the current crazies play with trillions.
Who was it that said, paraphrasing: "When the citizens realize that they can vote themselves money that will be the end of our republic."
Comment Posted By mannning On 4.08.2009 @ 12:43
