Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up?

Now that terrorism has been downgraded to "man caused disasters" and the Global War on Terrorism to "Overseas Contingency Operations", the only one causing terror, if we mean by that "intense fear or dread" looks to be the Obama Administration.

The first instance I noticed was the verbal use of the image of pitchforks by Obama when he met with bankers regarding bonuses. He then called out ACORN to terrorize the employees of AIG with threatening messages and visitations by thugs to their homes.

Now we see this:



Obama even talks like a terrorist. Of course it is someone else's fault that this happened.

Since Air Force One is his plane and he completely commands its use, the least he could have done was own up to that fact when a reporter asked him a question. He said it was a mistake (Really? How would we know?) and that he learned of it about the same time the media did. Never did he say he had approved its use nor did he say that he had an insubordinate in his ranks which he would handle. Nor did he apologize in the interview. Juvenile.

Obama has paralyzed the economy being a six-shootin' economic "cowboy" (in the sense that the Left castigated Bush) who says one thing, reverses it the next day, and lays his gun on the table in every dealing with business leaders.

If he isn't The Terrorist, what is he?

The Subterfuge Strategy

Operating via crisis is the means of the Obama Administration and the Congress to get their programs enacted. The crises are merely the cloak for what is really happening and they are manufactured to distract you from the action in the background. So what part will a manufactured crisis in the area of health care provide justification for? And why is the Department of Homeland Security front and center on this one?

This from Instapundit.

SWINE FLU: Nothing new. “The fact of the matter is, swine flu has been hopping from pigs to humans for decades, sometimes causing disease, sometimes not. . . . But I don’t think we need to worry about this pandemic too much, because there’s one thing to keep in mind when news of a unique flu strain breaks: perspective. As of this writing, 80 people in Mexico have succumbed to swine flu. By comparison, the CDC estimates that 36,000 people in the United States die each year of influenza-related illnesses. And in spite of this, we in the medical community still have a hard time convincing people to get their flu shots.”

And what is the DHS report trying to scare people into believing that the real terrorists are veterans and right-wingers about? Remember, this is the foreground.

And what was Obama's European tour really about? We saw the surface. Have you read his pledges to destroy American sovereignty? Why all the money going to the IMF? Do you really think it is to help some impoverished third-world country? Or is he once again counting on your willingness to sacrifice for your (not mine) moral ideal to give him and the IMF a pass?

And what about blaming businessmen for the economic problems? This is the foreground. What's in the background?

Or why is there so much emphasis on Obama's speaking ability and his smooth, soothing oratory to engender trust when so many of the people he has hired or wanted to hire are crooks and don't pay their taxes?

Now what is this idea that Obama wants to grant 3% of our Gross Domestic Product to government sponsored science. Do you get what that amount is? Last year's GDP in current dollars was 14.264 trillion. That is 14,264 billions or 14,264,000 millions. 3% of that is 428 billions which is 428,000 millions. What is this money really going to?

And we still don't know what the money for the bailouts and the budget is going for? All inside a crisis, of course.

I'm sure you know of more. The list grows daily. Thus far, I'm sticking with my thesis: If Obama or his Administration says something is A, it is about non-A. I don't see any countervailing evidence.

The cardinal characteristic of a Community Organizer is subterfuge. And, that, I say, is this Administration's strategy. Crisis, Confusion, and Steal the Store!

When will the suckers stand up?

So Much Verbiage, So Little Time

I find myself trying to explain what is currently going on with our government. I resort to talking about Atlas Shrugged, economic principles and history, philosophic history and the playing out of those ideas, and just plain fretting and fuming over the course of events with my attendance at the Atlanta Tea Party as my latest expression.

This cartoon sums it up succintly. John Cox, the artist and author of the cartoon, is a genius here.

FREEDOM or FORCE?

CHOOSE!

Who in the hell are YOU? This is what I want to know.

Are YOU going to voluntarily associate and deal with people or force them to your will? And by extension, what are you asking of your government - if there is still any meaning to your answer having any effect. THIS IS the fundamental question. All the rest are the justifications with reference to knowledge or morality or just your feelings, as if the stars in the heavens give a damn.

No vaunted intelligence is required to answer this question. Children and teenagers can. And we, as a society, can.

This is the question that must become the essence of our struggle. The Tea Parties. The Republican Party, if it is to distinguish itself from the fascist (currently known as progressive) Democratic Party - and which it so far has not. The Health Industry. The Automotive Industry. The Financial Industry. The Energy Industry. The Education Industry. Maybe even the News Industry.

Who are you? Which do you choose?

Tea Parties - The Heart of the Matter

Here's Dr. John Lewis of Ayn Rand Institute speaking at the Charlotte, NC Tea Party.

The Republicans Are Not Big Enough for Freedom

And the Democrats are virulently anti-freedom!

As the Tea Parties have unfolded, I have been disgusted with the talk emanating from Fox News - especially Sean Hannity. Although he pretends to not be beholden to the Republican players, which may be true, he advocates "conservative" values associated most strongly with the Republicans - you know, the ones who went belly-up on November 4.

At his broadcast from Atlanta, one of the first things he featured was a little girl's sign - "Keep Your Hand out of My Piggy Bank." And practically ever other sentence had the phrase "leave our children and grandchildren's money alone" or "we don't want this debt for our families, our kids and our grand-kids." He loves to speak of "future generations" and "generational debt."

Newt echoed this in New York City, although not as much, but still unable to get to the heart of the matter.

All of this misses the point and distances me from these people working so hard to be a spokesman for liberty and the sanctity of one's property, the essence of the tea party demonstrations. The truth? They are not up to the job.

By the way, I did not get that the Tea Party was Republican or Democrat. I got that it was producers, people who work for and earn their living. My experience of them was that people were bright, friendly, courteous, funny, serious and above all, safe. For sure, they had no attributes of a mob - far different than Obama's contrived ACORN demonstrations.

Freedom mean one owns his life and his property, starting with his body and building whatever he can for his life. He chooses his purpose(s) and gets to work. He keeps what he earns and keeps on building. It's not a difficult concept.

Freedom is valuable for people without families as it is with those with families since it is, bottom line, the freedom to use your own mind for your own survival. But above all, it is not for future generations. It is for right now - for my life while I'm living - not what I hope some niece, nephew, kid or grandkid will do with his life. That is up to him. If I want to give somebody's kid or my kids a good start, I do so because that is MY value. That fact has nothing to do with my kid's values. It's my life right now that counts and is my access to my bringing forth my vision which may or may not include future generations.

The Soviets sold socialism on the future great society that they would become. So has every tyranny. Hannity is right in line with this idea. Further he is a collectivist, just as the socialists are. He touts family, country and old-time religion and wouldn't hesitate to advocate a tax or pass a law (i.e., use the gun to compel you) for these values regardless of your right to your life and property. For him it is a matter of degree, not a matter of principle.

One of the most disgusting stories to come out of the wars in the Mideast is how the Muslim warrior sends a child or a women into the line of fire counting on the enemy to withhold its fire. This gives him the opportunity to kill you while you are dealing with yourself about what to do. Sometimes the "innocents" carry the bomb.

Hannity sends out his "innocents", unwilling to powerfully stand for the value of his own life as an end in itself. He trots out his stories of kids and future generations like that is what our lives are for. Well, he's wrong. His story is the one he thinks we cannot refuse.

Of course, the Democrats are masters of this. They too are no better than Hamas. Practically every speech of Obama and Hillary during the campaign started off with a sob story. Yup, put those "innocents" out there.

Where are the real men? The real individuals who can stand for something? Haven't we had enough of snakes in the grass?

I didn't see this at the Atlanta Tea Party because I left before the Hannity program began. I decided to watch it on TV. Later, a friend told me he was planning to watch Hannity a bit before he left, but when the crowd began yelling "Hann-i-tee, Hann-i-tee,...", not unlike "O-bam-a, O-bam-a,..." and all he did was lap it up rather than redirect it into "Lib-er-tee, Lib-er-tee,..." or something the crowd was there for and, allegedly, he was there for, he had to leave. This convinced me that Hannity and others wanting to direct the Tea Party protests are off - WAY OFF!

For him, a tea party is an afternoon chat where you have eat little spread-filled, crustless white bread sandwiches and drink tea. For Liberty's sake, Hannity, go home and stay there.

The Tea Party is about Individual Liberty and its concomitant, the Right to Own Property and use it only for one's own purposes. Individual Liberty is the name for the value and of what freedom consists. It is the freedom to act in society according to the dictates of one's own mind so long as one does not violate that same right of others. The Right to Property is the structural and real means for that to happen. It's my life and what I earn is my property - all of it. That's it and that's all it is. Everything else having life worth living - and there is a miraculous abundance of stuff including world peace - follows.

Letter to Sean Hannity, Fox Cable Channel

Dear Sean,

You are incorrect that this is a Christian country in terms of its basic principles. The truth is this country was founded on individual rights - the Bill of Rights - and anyone can believe whatever he wants to believe. It's true that many of the people in America were Christian and held Christian values at the time of the founding. The fact that the Constitution uses the word Creator could mean anything - one's parents, the wonder of the creation of a new life or the metaphysical identity of a human being as a distinct entity of all that exists - it is whatever you say it is. It specifically does not reference Christianity.

One of the primary concerns of Jefferson was to separate the church from the state. Thus the state has no authority to establish or require anything about religion - any religion.

The thing that concerns me in Obama's statement is that he singled out Christianity. Why didn't he hold up the ideal of religious freedom which is exactly the ideal that will support a peaceful world and it would be a mark of leadership to stand for that principle.

My concern is that his making the statement the way he did is for the purpose of linking the Tea Parties with riled up conservatives screaming about Christianity. Now is the time that this issue gets clear, otherwise the conservatives are going to be unable to forge a new, more fundamental base for a reconstituted Republican Party or some other party. The Republicans have been covert socialists, bringing to law many, many socialist programs.

Bush is a prime example of this. His faith based programs are a direct threat to the freedom of religion. When the leaders of the churches realize their money comes from Washington and take care of that source rather than their members as the source of their existence, they will lose them. Further, taking the money from the government is an endorsement of theft - the theft that is involved in every socialist program. So, the churches involved in the government's faith-based programs render themselves hypocrites, jettisoning integrity.

I'm an economic conservative and I am so damned tired of linking conservative political values to religion. It is poison and always has me wary of the Republicans. On the other hand, the anti-morality, government-is-the-beginning-and-end-of-human-life position of the Democrats and the left leaves me running for cover. Any politician worth his salt would restate the principle of religious freedom and take the religion issue off the table.

The minute the Conservatives jettison the religious issue, the sooner they will start to connect with people on the valid basis of individual freedom. Politically, the big threat is fascism - the trappings of individualism but the complete control of their activities via the government. This is the real threat - more clearly now than at any time in my lifetime - and I'm sick of it as are the rest of the people I know who stand for individual freedom. If the Tea Party movement connects to Christianity in a primary way, I will not support it. Simple as that.

I'm standing for individual rights and that's it. This is my stand - no more and no less. I want the government to protect my rights, the reason it was originally instituted. The Constitution says this and it is still valid although dismissed by almost everyone with a public voice. No one is arguing principle. Rather they are wrangling in the issues of political power - my gang over your gang. Argue principle and authentic political power will follow.

Sincerely,
Principlex

Following the writing of this letter to Mr. Hannity. I came across this video which makes my point in a larger context - the context of individual rights.

Shut Up

As we get closer to the Tea Parties next week, the dynamic is getting clearer. The Left is scared of cowboys, guns and Christian fanatics, their caricature of people who want to live in freedom and have their property respected - not taken from them and given to those that don't have it, in the name of "fairness."

Rather than confront these issues intellectually and in debate, the Left smears, works to destroy people (witness Palin, who they have treated hideously and their attempts with Limbaugh and many others) and if necessary, call out the ACORNiacs, the pitchforks, for a demonstration. During the campaign no one could say anything against Obama that wasn't interpreted as racism by someone on the Left. In the universities, the sacred home of the Left, the dialogue is very restricted by rigid politcal correctness. A documentary, Indoctrinate U, demonstrates this in spades. Shut up! names the issue and is empowering from the standpoint that someone has finally named it.

The Lesson

This cartoon is by John Cox. He's a good cartoonist and has been producing them for many years. Check out Cox & Forkum. Buy some of John's art or hire him as an illustrator.
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Let's see, I'm to inflate my tires, buy cars at his gov't companies, and today, buy a house and save $1600 to $2000 a year. Oh my.

On the other hand, if I look to him as C-in-C for guidance in a pirate capture of my captain, he has nothing to say - not even that someone else is handling it. Jeez!

Why an American Does Not Bow to Kings

Obama violated a principle of being an American. He bowed to the Saudi King. Why?

As leader, he deals in symbol and meaning. Like it or not, he has that role and whatever he does is interpreted thusly - for good or bad.

An American is a free man. He conducts himself as an equal with all men, neither better nor lesser. Every man, including himself, in an American's eyes, has a right to his life. He does not exist by the permission of any other man nor does any other man exist by his permission. For this reason, he meets people head on.

What was your purpose, Mr. Obama? Why did you not approach the King as an equal?

The fact that the White House said he did not bow is unacceptable. Are we no longer to believe our eyes? Is that dictated too?



My take: I do not see Obama as an American in his sense of life. He has not once mentioned individual rights nor freedom. Never. He speaks in fog-bound terms of fairness and workers accentuating the weak over the powerful. He deals with people in one of two ways: I have more power than you or you have more power than me. ("Hey, I won!")

Notice, he never admires a person for his achievements. Rather he draws attention to people's miseries and failures.

He is not nor will ever be a leader of all the people. He is mentally unable to do it. He cannot conceptualize that all men are equal in the fact that they are men and have a right to their life and given that, are unique.

His moralizing (intimidation and guilt) and dictatorial pronouncements (force) - power over others - is the only way he can deal with men that frighten him. It's either that or bended knee. He is showing us his orientation to people and to life.

Adulation means everything to him. When that is present he is momentarily free of his internal battle - me vs. them. It's pathetic.

America, we have a Boy President!

Mary Poppins

The Wall Street Journal published an editorial this morning entitled "The Nuclear Illusionist." It ran this Mary Poppins style picture I show here.

"Rules must be binding. Violations must be punished. Words must mean something."

"So declared President Obama Sunday in Prague regarding North Korea's missile launch, which America's U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice added was a direct violation of U.N. resolutions. At which point, the Security Council spent hours debating its nonresponse, thus proving to nuclear proliferators everywhere that rules aren't binding, violations won't be punished, and words of warning mean nothing." (WSJ)

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What is going on? We get the eloquent straight-forward rhetoric on the one hand and the facts on the other hand. The two could not be more contradictory.

This is a clear example of the rule that I've come to follow in relation to Obama:

If Obama says A, it means non-A.

So why does he speak one way and do another? Is he just a carefree child in a Mary Poppins world who plays with words like supercalifragilisticexpialidocious to see how they, and thus he, can create an effect? Are they "just words" for which he has no purpose for them in reality to which they refer? Or does he intend to create an effect and think we will be so taken with his theater that we will never hold him to account for the actual results?

Or is their something sinister behind lil' ol' innocent Barock?

Except for gaining the Presidency, which he did masterfully if you consider it an isolated phenomenon, the only other thing he has used his political offices for is the destruction of existing legal structures, institutions or people. I don't see that he cares whether his programs work. Apparently, never has he cared about his results which are strewn as wreckage behind him.

His mind is completely anti-conceptual and I'm persuaded he doesn't even have a Self. Were it not for adulation, he would evaporate into the ether. If there is a there there, where is it?

And what does this say about those that still think he cares about them or the country? Would a man of self esteem, the head of the greatest country on earth in terms of its vision for political life that sought to free all men to live the life they could envision bow to another leader or would he stand proudly for who he is and who he represents?

My Administration is The Only Thing between You and the Pitchforks

Obama introduces brutality into our public conversation!

As this becomes more apparent, people will be compelled to choose: Dictatorship, Force and Brutality OR the Rights of Free Men!
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Capitalism and altruism are incompatible. Make no mistake about it - and tell it to your Republican friends: capitalism and altruism cannot coexist in the same man or in the same society.

Tell it to anyone who attempts to justify capitalism on the ground of the "public good" or the "general welfare" or "service to society" or the benefit it brings to the poor. All these things are true, but they are the by-products, the secondary consequences of capitalism - not its goal, purpose or moral justification. The moral justification of capitalism is man's right to exist for his own sake, neither sacrificing himself to others nor sacrificing others to himself; it is the recognition that man - every man - is an end in himself, not a means to the ends of others, not a sacrificial animal serving anyone's need.

There are only two means by which men can deal with one another: guns or logic. Force or persuasion. Those who know that they cannot win by means of logic, have always resorted to guns.

If service and self-sacrifice are a moral ideal, and if the "selfishness" of human nature prevents men from leaping into sacrificial furnaces, there is no reason - no reason that a mystic moralist could name - why a dictator should not push them in at the point of bayonets - for their own good, or the good of humanity, or the good of posterity, or the good of the latest bureaucrat's latest five-year plan. There is no reason that they can name to oppose any atrocity. The value of a man's life? His right to exist? His right to pursue his own happiness? These are concepts that belong to individualism and capitalism - to the antithesis of the altruist morality.

No man or mystical elite can hold a whole society subjugated to their arbitrary assertions, edicts and whims, without the use of force. Anyone who resorts to the formula: "It's so, because I say so," will have to reach for a gun, sooner or later.

(Ayn Rand, "Faith and Force: The Destroyers of the Modern World", Philosophy: Who Needs It, 1989)

My Letter to U.S. Congressman Lewis

I received this email letter from Congressman John Lewis who represents the Fifth District in Georgia.

Needless to say, I've had it with the irrational spending and the values that the current administration are attempting to institute. They are by a rational standard completely wrong-headed and will cause problems far greater than anything we are now experiencing. The reasons?

First, Obama does not govern all men equally which causes problems in itself. He singles out people who want to make money and have been successful at it as if that in itself is a crime. At the same time he knows that the money he needs must come from their successes which includes all the people they hire and pay all the way down to the lawn keepers of their buildings.

Second, he insists on bold sweeping changes of everything and with wild abandon as to the real consequences. You can see some of this wild talk in Mr. Lewis's letter.

Third, he acts like he is guaranteeing the quality of everything. Yes, I said everything - from being involved in banking to selling cars to making sure you inflate your tires. This in itself shows me how unbearably ignorant and lacking in integrity he is. There is no way in hell that he will ever be able to deliver on any of these promises although he will have a story about how he delivered on them in one or two individual cases.

The man is bullshit from top to bottom, front to back. Even if the "stimulus" throws a wad of money into the economy which may have an immediate effect, it is not designed to do anything except inflate the money supply, saddle people with mountains of debt and strap all creative and industrious people with restrictions that will prevent them from rationally responding to the circumstances they find themselves in. Everything he is doing is anti-reason and anti-man's life. I predict he will be a huge failure even though he will attempt every form of smoke and mirrors to have you believe otherwise. He's slick, but no one can fool mother nature - including the supremely arrogant Obama.

Here's most of the letter from Congressman Lewis.

Dear Principlex:

"Thank you for taking the time to write me and express your views on the budget for Fiscal Year 2010 recently proposed by President Obama. I appreciate hearing from you and having the benefit of your views.

"Producing a federal budget is an important and lengthy process, and ultimately, a statement of our shared national priorities and ideals. This preliminary budget proposal, outlined by President Obama in February of this year, will change national spending priorities and outlays. (That's for sure.) This budget makes important investments in clean energy, education, healthcare, and new infrastructure. It sets lofty goals to double the nation's renewable energy capacity and improve energy efficiency of homes. (The truth is it seeks to cause America to buckle at the knees for two reason: Energy will be very costly and it will systematically undermine all existing systems. It is clearly anti-industrial.) It will create jobs installing both solar panels and wind turbines, manufacturing fuel efficient cars, and will move us towards the goal of a cleaner, safer planet. (There is no conclusive proof that there is a single reason that our existing energy production is harming the planet and to radically change the systems we have without conclusive proof is grandly stupid.)

"The budget makes immediate investments to computerize all health records in the United States within 5 years, and will fundamentally reform our health care system, delivering quality care at reduced costs. (It will reform how the government controls you which is what it is really designed to do. The government knows nothing about the practice medicine in reality. It knows a lot about how to control you thought.) (This is a flat lie as it will seek to control health care costs, lowering its quality and therefore quality of the lives who use it and provide it. You may as well go have brain surgery at the post office.) Money will be allocated to upgrade school equipment and buildings, and systems will be put in place to make sure that college tuition remains affordable for everyone. Vital infrastructure, including crumbling roads, bridges and schools, will be rebuilt, while broadband service lines will be extended all across America. Money will be allocated ensure that our veterans are well taken care of.

"Government must work for the American people, and I believe that President Obama has put forth a comprehensive plan to move our country forward in an ever changing world. This budget brings new levels of honesty and fairness to the Government (Well we certainly see no harbinger of that in the Obama Administration), and attempts to restore a basic sense of fairness to our tax code (Since when it is fair to take from one at the point of a gun in the name of giving to another? So have we given Obama the right to be the world's biggest thief?). I know that this budget is but one step on the path towards the reinvigoration of our economy and the job is far from done.

Congressman John Lewis
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Dear Congressman Lewis,

There is but one avenue to prosperity - productivity. Just as I cannot borrow and spend my way to prosperity, neither can the country. Thus, your position is untenable by anyone who is rational and gives the matter some thought in terms of the fundamental laws of nature.

The correct course is to cut government expenses, leaving as much of the citizens' earnings in their hands in order to support them to be productive. Further, the chains of onerous and ubiquitous regulations need to be removed. Only crimes of one man or group of men initiating force or fraud against another need to be kept. All else is anti-man, anti-freedom and anti-prosperity.

The only thing you ever did was fight for the rights of the black man and for this I commend you and revere you. But that work is now done. And, the road you are now on is actually returning the black man, the white man, the red man and, in fact, all men to slavery. You are now on the side of the plantation owners who kept the slaves, not on the side of a man's right to be a free man.

For this reason, I will work to seek your unseating from your position as U.S. Congressman. You can count on it.

Sincerely yours,
Principlex