Liberal: Helpful or Helpless?

A society dependent on its government for sustenance is weaker than one that is more self-reliant. As Fred Thompson once said, "A government that is big enough to do everything for us is powerful enough to do anything to us." As someone else wiser than I once said (in Proverbs 27:7): "He who is full loathes honey, but to the hungry, even what is bitter tastes sweet." I think people of the more liberal persuasion are willing to "help" the poor by giving them the bitter scraps, and the suffering love them for it. There is no question that we should help those less fortunate. But does a welfare state really help like we are led to believe, or does it simply string society along?

Good article by my main man, Thomas Sowell called Perfect Storm. I appreciate the part where he says: "Higher taxes to 'spread the wealth around,' as Obama puts it? The idea of redistributing wealth has turned into the reality of redistributing poverty, in countries where wealth has fled and the production of new wealth has been stifled by a lack of incentives."

You actually have to do stuff other than take from wealthy people and dole it out to failing institutions and programs. Supporting failing systems and protecting unions that are failing to compete doesn't raise the standard of living. Helping people is what actually helps people.

When you tax the product of a person's labor too much, you remove incentive for them to produce for others, hire new workers, and even pay more taxes via a higher income. I think people who really care about others are easily suckered into thinking that the government should go Robin Hood. But I would argue that when we cast our votes for the government to take all the people's problems away, we are merely attempting to diffuse responsibility away from ourselves and onto our neighbor. Obama would like to diffuse responsibility such that everyone is responsible for everyone else which will translate into no one being responsible for anything. Many Obama (ie liberal mindset) supporters think they won't have to pay their contractual obligations anymore and won't have to be responsible for their decisions like making babies, getting loans, failing in school. The diffusion of responsibility will carry them and catch them when they fall thus removing risk of failure and incentive to improve.

See this speech by Huey Long from 1934. It's a good summary of the mindset I'm talking about, and it almost makes logical sense except for one assumption he makes which crumbles the argument. He assumes the world is zero-sum. In other words, that it can only grow to a predetermined size and that the piece of the pie that you get decreases the availability of pie for everyone else. He says that in order for you to have something, someone else must not have it. This is simply a childish, over simplistic, and unrealistic view of the economy and of free markets. We can go on about that in more detail later if you wish.

You know...this is a bit of an aside, but people speak now as if the government is some untouchable entity that runs the world for us, and there's nothing you can do about it. That too, is imply untrue. The government is YOU. It represents YOU. It works for and exists for YOU. And it does what YOU tell it to. That's why we are not still in Great Britain taking orders from a new King George (although we may soon have a new King George known as King Husein). So remember to tell that government what you want and what you expect from it with your vote and your voice. And don't make the mistake of thinking your representative government is your mother or father or your boss. I believe that we do have a responsibility to obey the law, but it is important to remember the purpose of law. That purpose is to protect you, not impose limitations on you or infringe upon your rights with the preferred rights of someone else that the government suddenly prefers to "protect".

War! What is it Good For?

We would probably all agree that war is not a fun concept. Preventing it should be a priority. Despite that, we are still bombarded by messages that America is a war mongering imperialist country that should feel guilty for its sins. There may be something to that sometimes, but I pray this isn't the case, and that we are more or less misunderstood by those who would destroy our way of life. But there are even those among us that would seem to be on the side of our enemies.

Who doesn't love a good comedian? Here's one. Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the preacher at Obama's church, (you know the guy who thinks "go$d@mn America' is in the Bible). His biggest joke was on Obama. He was somehow able to go off on his racist, anti-American performances for years without Obama noticing. You'd think after 20 years in the church, having Wright baptize his kids and marry he and his wife, that Barrack Obama would have noticed something, but maybe all the whooping and hollering from the audience was too distracting. Wright once said, "Fighting for freedom is like raping for virginity!" Stop and think about that. It almost makes sense. It's a witty quip that kind of seems to follow a logical pattern of analogy. But that's the problem with liberal thought. It usually almost makes sense. I stress the word, "almost". When you keep thinking, you'll hopefully realize that fighting is not like rape. Fighting often involves defense or even rescue; it is sometimes a necessity of survival, even in the animal kingdom. Rape is never virtuous under any circumstance. It is never required. You can watch the reverend speaking about that here (along with some other "funny" things):

Link:

Who can argue with that logic? Well, maybe both the black and the white soldiers lying in the ground in Gettysburg would have something to say about that. I wonder what they would think about his rantings about the Evil White Man. But I especially wonder what they would think about modern day entertainers chanting anti-war speech at such a time and place.

Also, you may remember Yoko Ono being given an opportunity to speak at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Italy. You can watch that here (it's about 5 1/2 minutes into the video):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDxlEVG_huw

I wish you could simply visualize peace and that the message would simply spread through the minds of every human being. And there's probably something to that to some degree for what starts in the mind is often carried out in action. I remember when I saw her on tv, I couldn't help but think, "You know Yoko... You seem real sweet and all that. But what about the guys we've got over in Iraq? If they think 'peace' does it keep them from getting their heads cut off by violent extremists?" "We shouldn't be there," she might say, "it has only stirred up more hate."

A problem that remains unseen and therefore out of mind is a problem still. With time, termites, though unseen and unheard, will devour the house around you. Those guys are out there, and they mean business. We have a couple of large blank slots in the sky in New York to prove it. Whether or not everything regarding the current war is perfect or not, I thank the Lord there are men and women willing to do something about it when our nation is attacked.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, everyone loves peace, and everyone wants to do more than just imagine peace. They want to live it. But sometimes it comes at a very high cost. And what is really disconcerting is to see a group of code-pink people, acting like hoodlums, going on about how Condi Rice is a murderer when it's the military that has probably sustained that person's existence longer than he/she even knows. You know what's great about our country though? Those people have every right to go out and display what they think, and I support their right to do it.

To summarize: war bad, freedom good. But can you always choose just one?

The Mindset of a Thoroughly Modern America

A politician said it best when he recently told a crowd that he would teach his two daughters morals, but if they made a mistake, he didn't want them to be "punished with a baby". That politician was the same one that voted several times against a bill (known as the Born Alive Infants Protection Act) in his state which protect babies who survived abortions, stating that it would put undue stress on the mother and negate her original decision to abort the child. No statement so eloquently sums up the liberal mindset that there is no such thing as personal responsibility; consequences are simply unfair. It would seem that the only people who deserve consequences are those that make too much money (whatever that means). In the real world, when people make mistakes; when we take drugs, have sex with strangers, neglect our finances, lose money, gain money, steal, fight when we shouldn't, neglect to fight when we should, neglect to ask questions, etc., there are consequences.

One last thing on abortion, and then I'm done with that topic for now. I believe in forgiveness and grace for those that have undergone abortion. I think that if you have, you were fooled into thinking that it was okay because you were afraid. The modern woman and man is easily suckered into believing her/his immediate desires are more important than her/his responsibilities. There is the belief that a decision to "hide" or "abort" something really does make it go away. But either decision results in consequence whether you choose to believe it or not. Someone who has undergone abortion has gone through a tragic experience and probably will at some point, begin to experience a sense of loss and guilt. If a friend of mine were to have done this, I would still care for her as I always had. My friends know that they can trust me with their secrets, and they know that if they want to know what I think, they have but to ask. All I can do is try to be objective and loving, yet remain honest. I will not deny that I think abortion is an extreme act of selfishness and is wrong (admittedly no one is without selfishness or sin). But this particular thing is swept under the ambiguous rug of "privacy" and "choice".

The whole idea gets wrapped up in a cocoon of fairness and becomes taboo. It gets translated in this way: "Surely in not supporting abortion, you are a far right winged conservative crazy person that wants to take away the rights of women." Supporters of abortion always throw out extremes to support their cause. They have to because they also know in their hearts and minds that it's wrong. But it conflicts with their desire to remove the responsibility factor. So they have to come up with a solution which will fill in the logic gap. An uncommon example is just the thing. What about the 12 year old that gets pregnant from rape? What about the woman that will die if she has the baby? Out of all the abortions that happen annually (and here's a link to Census Bureau data that counts them: Census), how many of those extreme situations do you think really apply to those millions upon millions? Keep in mind that the census bureau data is given in 1,000's. Do you know how many people died in WWII including the Holocaust? Compare those figures with abortions since 1980 real quick. It's unimaginable. Have you ever read Roe v. Wade? Here it is if you want to.

Roe v. Wade

Do you know what its purpose was? No one was in danger of death or rape except the child. It is a gruesome process that has been attempted to be validated by extreme situations yet actually performed under normal ones.

Now back to my main point. Most people, by an early age, recognize the concept of cause and effect. It seems that the liberal mindset aims to ignore the cause or simply provide a patch to cure or prevent the effect. What seems to happen, especially when big government gets involved, is a new regulation is imposed that is supposedly going to protect people from any negative consequences. The reality is, however, that this typically introduces new complications and loopholes and fails to protect in the way in which it was intended. It simply adds complexity to the law while failing to meet its goal. Think Sarbanes-Oxley Act; a reactive response to Enron and others. Did it prevent the failure of future big companies or create more transparency in the financial world? Considering today's economic "crisis" It would appear that it did not. Yet it did add additional burdens and costs to businesses which must offset those costs by increasing prices or cutting back costs somehow.

What I see people falling for lately is the trap of being promised a false freedom: freedom of choice, freedom from poverty, freedom from their mortgages, freedom from consequences, and freedom from responsibility. And they seem to love it. Count the divorces, suicides, and overdoses in Hollywood. They seem far more frequent and repetitive than average. You have but to wait a few years for a young star or starlet (probably once on Disney) to grow up a little and get on the news for DUI or an overdose. For all of their great "causes" and foundations, the Hollywood culture appears to be one of the most backward, self-centered, and delusional that there is. They sermonize from films and the podiums of social events about how America is the cause of so much atrocity while, ironically, their own lives are a mess. Is it any wonder that Hollywood and the country's media overwhelmingly supports a candidate that doesn't seem to believe in individual responsibility yet preaches it so well?