These days the stock market moves up and down like a john on a prostitute. You’d have to be a real yo-yo to put or leave your money in that bouncing, babbling behemoth.
A week or two ago, I used an analogy while speaking to a gentleman where I work. I likened the stock market to a skyscraper that’s swaying from side to side. I asked him, “Would you even think about entering a tall building that’s rocking back and forth and appearing for all the world to see that it’s on the verge of toppling over at any moment? Would you walk into something that unstable? I think not! Well, the stock market is just like that building; it’s ready to fall over.”
When we see the stock market making huge, nonsensical and ridiculously quick mood swings like a woman suffering from PMS, it’s time to holler, “Get out and stand back!” because that baby is just looking for a place to land. We now see the market making 400 point swings in just a matter of hours; it can be 200 points up at 9 A.M. and then be 200 points down two hours later at 11:00. Oh yeah, that’s a real safe place for your money!
Evidently my imagery made an impression on my friend at work because he told me yesterday that he’s repeated it to several friends and coworkers in recent discussions. Well, think about it: if you were a flea on a dog, would you choose to live on its wildly wagging tail? Or would you choose a safer location?
In the building where I work, there used to be a capital management company leasing one of the suites. That company went through employees like I used to go through beer. Every week there was some new young gun guy or young gun gal coming to work for them, undoubtedly with a fresh degree in Keynesian economic theory tucked under their arm from some socialistic university (where they'll teach anything but honest, free enterprise Capitalism). Each new employee would eventually approach me and inquire as to whether or not I’d like to meet with them and get some advice on retirement investments. The new employee had no way of knowing that I’d previously said to all of his or her predecessors, “Thanks, but no thanks.” Then they’d always start trying to pressure me about what sort of plans I’d made for my economic future. I told them all the same thing: “If I were you, I’d forget about stocks and bonds and invest in gold. Some silver, too.” Naturally, these bright, young college-educated guys and gals would laugh at me and scoff.
Well, that was in the very late ‘90s and very early Aughts. Gold was probably selling in the neighborhood of about $250. an ounce at that time. Today it’s in the neighborhood of $800. an ounce. And that’s despite years of behind-the-scenes manipulation and a deliberate suppression of the price of gold. Meanwhile, most of those stocks those kids were trying to sell me are probably lining bird cages.
Tweet! Tweet! Ain’t she sweet?
I sometimes think about those young dudes and dudettes and wonder if they remember me and what I told them. I can’t ask them because they’re all gone now – the company loaded up all of its furniture one weekend and skipped out on its building lease about five years ago. That’s how ethical, smart and sound your capital management advisors are. There’s something to be said for doing business with people who are not moved by greed and then forced to move in the dark of night.
Solely by the Grace of God, I was directed to read and listen to men with greater honesty, understanding and integrity than could be found at that long gone capital management company. Many years ago I knew of the financial woes that were coming to this country because “The Father” was sending me to the right places for information and I was listening to Him. I credit God and I thank Him for caring for an idiot like me!
One of the many various sources of information that I came across and took very seriously back then was a forty minute 1993 documentary produced by Jeremiah Films titled “THE CRA$H: The Coming Financial Collapse Of America.”
I bought that VHS tape about ten years ago and subsequently watched it many times. It foretold what we are seeing today, and believe me (this time!) folks, we ain’t seen nuttin’ yet! It’s going to get a whole lot worse. Oh, yes it is!
A number of knowledgeable individuals are interviewed in the documentary and here is just a very brief sampling of some of the 1993 statements found therein:
“We face the possibility of a depression that could make the depression of 1929 look like a mild recession by comparison.”
~ Mark Ritchie; Commodity Trading Advisor and Author
“If the United States Government continues to spend more than it’s taking in, we’re headed for economic collapse.”
~ Ed Meese; former U.S. Attorney General
“Washington is irrevocably out of control. Congress has to find ways to pay its bills, and the only cash it’s got available is YOURS.”
~ Chuck Missler; Executive and author
“We’re going to have an economic collapse … God is doing everything spiritually possible to awaken His people.”
~ Larry Burkett; Economist, Author
One of the most intriguing quotes is this:
“There are forces in this country that keep our entire society off balance with the huge budget deficit that is paramount in this country today. While we hear senators and congressmen talk about wanting to solve the budget problem, I don’t think they really want to in earnest. … Twenty years we’ve been fighting this battle over the budget and somehow or another, out of all the brains, out of all the legal minds in this country, out of all of the people that are running around supposedly the brightest and the best in Washington D.C., it cannot be solved? No, sir, somebody doesn’t want it solved.”
~ Emanuel McLittle; publisher, Destiny magazine
That statement probably goes a lot deeper and points to a far greater truth than most people could possibly even imagine, but I’ll leave that unsaid for now because most Americans really “can’t handle the truth.”
While the stock market hasn’t nearly reached the bottom yet, neither do I believe that gold has yet reached anywhere near it’s top value. The economists and analysts that I’ve been reading for more than a decade have predicted that it can be realistically expected that gold will eventually be selling for anywhere from two thousand to five thousand dollars an ounce. I don’t think that anyone should take the position that it’s too late to invest in REAL money. (Let’s just hope that the government doesn’t try to return to confiscating the peoples’ gold like that socialist scoundrel Franklin Roosevelt did. They’ll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands, along with my “second amendment right.”)
A few of those men interviewed for the documentary “THE CRA$H” point to our economic problems in this country as a spiritual and moral problem. I couldn’t agree more! Greed is based on a faulty spiritual understanding and moral problems are the result of a crumbling or nonexistent spiritual foundation.
Even The Holy Bible warns in Proverbs 22:7 that “The borrower is servant to the lender.” Well, with America borrowing money from China and the Federal Reserve Bank, it’s Biblically clear that America is destined to become the slave to some very nasty, un-American forces in the near future. And we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves.
But morality and spirituality aside, the single biggest problem with our economic situation today is the un-Constitutional, economic law-denying, private Federal Reserve System. And neither man running for president as the Republican and Democrat party nominee in 2008 has any intention of doing a damn thing about the Federal Reserve.
I realize that a large percentage of people who consider themselves “conservative” are going to hold their nose and vote for John “Lesser Of Two Evils” McCain. I’ll agree that Dumb-O-Crat Obama-Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong IS the greater evil, but only marginally so. Both will grant amnesty to the illegal immigrants in this country; both basically believe in Marxism, only their terminology differs: whereas Obama might prefer a slick term like Social Egalitarianism, McCain just thinks of it as a Council On Foreign Relations goal – and he’s a Council member; Obama strongly supports abortion, while McCain doesn’t much care about the fate of the unborn either way – he’ll do and say whatever’s politically expedient at any given moment; neither Obama-Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong or John “Lesser Of Two Evils” McCain will raise a serious word or raise a hand against the Federal Reserve – the un-Constitutional, private banking consortium that literally controls the destiny of this nation and the economic situation of its people.
Wonder why you’ve never heard Limboob, O’Really? or Sean “You’re a bad American” Hannity talk about this most important issue? Well, yes, you SHOULD wonder about that! And beware of what lurks in the dark recesses of the Neoconservative movement; a socialist by any other name stinks just as bad.
Only CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL, however, has made it clear that as president, one of his principal goals would be seeking the dissolution of the private Federal Reserve System, uncoupling it from our official economic life.
Well, I don’t want to see Nimrod Obama in the White House either, but why should I have to compromise MY vote and sacrifice it in an attempt to counteract the vote of some unintelligent and uninformed Liberal in my state of Airheadzona? Pure and simple: why should I be influenced to vote for John McCain, a man I don’t like and whom I KNOW would be a bad American president, just because the majority of the ignorant electorate is inclined to vote for the greater of two evils? Now that’s what I call “wasting MY vote.” As I wrote to a friend of mine recently about the sad state of this country:
“A long series of compromises has brought us to this point, and McCain is just one more phony-Conservative Compromise.”
If We The People are going to elect Barack Obama for president, then I say, the country be hanged; it’ll get what it deserves.
Well, I won’t do it! I won’t give my vote to John McCain, or, as Elmer Fudd might call him: “A wascally wibuwul in Wepubwican cwothing.” And just yesterday I heard a small bit of Sarah Palin’s speech in Ohio but was forced to turn it off before long because I just couldn’t stand any more of that grating, high-pitched, moose-killing voice of hers. The one silver lining in an Obama presidency is that we won’t have to listen to anymore of Palin’s annoying Rah!-Rah! Cheerleader Speeches. Gah!!! Can you imagine being married to her and having to listen to that voice every day and night? “Did you eat all of your moose and vegetables, Honey? Oh, GOOD! I’m SO proud of YOU!” Just serve me 30 tablets of Ambien for dessert, Sarah Darling.
In that 1993 documentary, “THE CRA$H”, then Congressman Bill Dannemeyer makes the statement, “It’s time for a second American revolution at the ballot box.”
Let me remind you that nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it say that only the nominees from the two major political parties are eligible for presidential election. In fact, a number of America’s “Founding Fathers” hated the idea of political parties and spoke out forcefully against them. In other words, theoretically speaking, Congressman Ron Paul could STILL be elected president if enough conscientious voters wrote his name on their ballot on November 4th. That’s what I’m going to do. Ron Paul may not have gotten the Republican nomination (thanks a lot, you dumb Wepubwicans!) but that doesn’t mean he’s now disqualified from being elected to the White House. Obviously, he’s not going to be, but it won’t be for a lack of effort to get him there on my part. (And when the “fhit hits the san” later, the old “RON PAUL FOR PRESIDENT 2008” bumper sticker still clinging to my old truck will proclaim to the world: “Well, it weren’t THAT dude’s fault!”)
Below is a link to numerous articles on a wide range of topics which RON PAUL has contributed to the Lew Rockwell website over many years. Why not read some of these writings and see if you don’t find that you agree with Congressman Paul’s position on these issues more often than you agree with Obama-Rama-Lama-Ding-Dong or John “Lesser Of Two Evils” McSame. And afterwards, maybe you ought to consider writing in Ron Paul’s name on your ballot. And then consider liquidating your investment portfolios and acquiring precious metals instead, in order to protect your retirement funds from financial collapse and inflation. Broke, Hungry, Regretful, and Kicking Yerself is no way to live in the future.
But in the meantime, while you’re reading these forthright and revealing RON PAUL articles, I’m going to practice over and over again writing his name so it looks nice and legible on my November 4th ballot. Remember: Just Say No to hanging “Chads” and sloppy “Pauls.”
Link To Ron Paul @ Lew Rockwell:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul-arch.html
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
[“Shhhhh… Be vewy, vewy quiet; I’m hunting scwewy Wibuwuls.”]
.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
RIDE THAT FUNKY DONKEY, MESSIAH MAN!
Hokey-Smoke! Can you believe it? One of our own – a Blogger right here at this website, Blogspot.com – has been mentioned in an article published by The New American magazine.
The article titled “OBAMA: MESSIAH?” by Gregory A. Hession mentions this particular Blog in its third paragraph:
http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/
The site is a collection of all kinds of outrageous comments uttered and articles published attempting to imply that presidential hopeful Barack Obama is not just a normal dude, but something of a spiritually enlightened savior.
I’m not quite sure if the Blogger is really buying into this concept or if he (she?) has his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, and I just don’t have enough time to really examine the site carefully enough to make a determination.
I’m just wondering what I’d have to do to get some valuable, free publicity for my own Blogs like Obamamaniac has from The New American magazine. I suppose I’d have to post a bunch of outright idiocy. You know, like, outright idiocy? (Retarded Repugnantcan Rubbish and Unadulterated Dumb-O-Crat Dipsh#tism.) The problem is that this Blog has raised the bar so high that I don’t think I could dream up such idiocy even in the F.L.C. (Full Liquidated Condition).
Well, I guess my poor Blogs will just have to stumble along in relative obscurity until I’m accidentally whacked in the head by a roofing hammer and have suffered sufficient brain damage to compete with some of the stuffs found at this Obamamessiah site.
Meanwhile, however, I read some of the brief quotes found there and really enjoyed them immensely. Following are some of the remarks that really tickled me and inspired responses from Yours Truly. Hard to believe people have actually said these things, but ya know, there’s just no overestimating the stupidity of a Liberal:
“He [Barack] communicates God-like energy…”
~ Steve Davis (Charleston, SC)
Yeah, Steve. And best of all… God energy is GREEN energy!
“A quantum leap in American consciousness.”
~ Deepak Chopra
Nah, not really, Deepak. It’s called Marxism and it’s been around for awhile. You really ought to get out more often.
Film director Spike Lee predicted Obama would be elected in November.
“When that happens, it will change everything. … You’ll have to measure time by ‘Before Obama’ and ‘After Obama.’ ”
~ Spike Lee
Yo! Lee, “Do The Right Thing” and find out who SPIKED your Kool-Aid.
“I’ll do whatever he says to do. I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.”
~ Halle Berry
Halle, will you even do "The Lewinsky" in the Oval Office?
“This is bigger than Kennedy… This is the New Testament. I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often. No, seriously. It’s a dramatic event.”
~ Chris Matthews
Maybe so, Chris, but is it BIGGER THAN THE BEATLES?!
“We just like to say his name. We are considering taking it as a mantra.”
~ The Chicago Sun-Times
Me, I prefer something more American-sounding.
What’s wrong with “OOOO-saaaama! OOOO-saaaama! OOOO-saaaama!” Oooh! I think I can feel Chris Matthews’ hand groping up my leg!
“Not just an ordinary human being but indeed an Advanced Soul.”
~ Commentator at Chicago Sun-Times.
Yeah, not just an ordinary human being but an OOOOOOrdinary Human Being.
“What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history.”
~ Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Well, get on down with yo bad self, J-Dogg!
Right on, Bro! Right on!
Who’s the Black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks?
[BARACK!]
Ya damn right!
Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brotherman?
[BARACK!]
Can ya dig it?
Who’s the cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about?
[BARACK!]
Right on!
They say this cat Barack is a bad mutha—
[SHUT YO MOUTH!]
I’m talkin’ ‘bout Barack!
[THEN WE CAN DIG IT!]
He’s a complicated man but no one understands him but Michelle.
[BARACK OBAMA!]
“We’re here to evolve to a higher plane… he is an evolved leader… [he] has an ear for eloquence and a tongue dipped in the Unvarnished Truth.”
~ Oprah Winfrey
Awww, stay off of airplanes, Michelle! I think the Queen of Daytime Doo-Doo has the idea to become OOOOOO-praaaaaah OOOOOO-baaaaaama. She’s after yo man, Girl!
“Barack Obama is our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings… He’s our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence.”
~ Eve Konstantine
Oh, I have no doubt that you’re enjoying your HIGHEST visions, Eve, but you really oughtn’t use that word “intelligence” until you’re in possession of some.
“Obama’s finest speeches do not excite…”
Tell that to Chris Matthews!
“They do not inform.”
No argument there!
“They don’t even really inspire.”
You’re hot now, Buddy!
“They elevate… He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh… Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves.”
~ Ezra Klein
Our HIGHEST selves, eh? So, you party with Eve often, Ezra?
“[Obama is] creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom… [He is] the man for this time.”
~ Toni Morrison
Sure, Toni! And that’s why he’s destined to become America’s second Black president.
“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
~ Barack Obama
Nah, Barack, that’s just you getting all hot and bothered because Chris Matthews is feeling up your leg.
“I would characterize the Senate race as being a race where Obama was, let’s say, blessed and highly favored. That’s not routine. There’s something else going on. I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered… I know that that was God’s plan.”
~ Bill Rush
You raise up your head and you ask, “Is this where it is?” And somebody points to you and says, “It’s his!” And you say, “What’s mine?” and somebody else says, “Where what is?” And you say, “Oh, my God, am I here all alone?”
And something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you... Mister Bill?
I got news for ya, Bill Rush, if God somehow developed amnesia and forgot that He authored the Sixth Commandment [“You shall not murder”] then it is possible that God ordered the ascension of Barack Obama. Otherwise, it’s not too likely. Unless of course, Barack is actually the anti— Nah, never mind; I’m not even going to go there.
My only question now is this: After he’s elected president, how is Barack Obama supposed to ride an ass to the White House when Barack IS the ass?
Well, anyway, before you punch out the chad on November 4th for your new messiah, you'd be wise to first make sure that you’ve fully read the New American magazine’s article “OBAMA: MESSIAH?” You might learn something you should know about The Marxist Messiah before sending his “ass” to the White House.
Web address to “OBAMA: MESSIAH?” ...
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/395
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
The article titled “OBAMA: MESSIAH?” by Gregory A. Hession mentions this particular Blog in its third paragraph:
http://obamamessiah.blogspot.com/
The site is a collection of all kinds of outrageous comments uttered and articles published attempting to imply that presidential hopeful Barack Obama is not just a normal dude, but something of a spiritually enlightened savior.
I’m not quite sure if the Blogger is really buying into this concept or if he (she?) has his tongue firmly planted in his cheek, and I just don’t have enough time to really examine the site carefully enough to make a determination.
I’m just wondering what I’d have to do to get some valuable, free publicity for my own Blogs like Obamamaniac has from The New American magazine. I suppose I’d have to post a bunch of outright idiocy. You know, like, outright idiocy? (Retarded Repugnantcan Rubbish and Unadulterated Dumb-O-Crat Dipsh#tism.) The problem is that this Blog has raised the bar so high that I don’t think I could dream up such idiocy even in the F.L.C. (Full Liquidated Condition).
Well, I guess my poor Blogs will just have to stumble along in relative obscurity until I’m accidentally whacked in the head by a roofing hammer and have suffered sufficient brain damage to compete with some of the stuffs found at this Obamamessiah site.
Meanwhile, however, I read some of the brief quotes found there and really enjoyed them immensely. Following are some of the remarks that really tickled me and inspired responses from Yours Truly. Hard to believe people have actually said these things, but ya know, there’s just no overestimating the stupidity of a Liberal:
“He [Barack] communicates God-like energy…”
~ Steve Davis (Charleston, SC)
Yeah, Steve. And best of all… God energy is GREEN energy!
“A quantum leap in American consciousness.”
~ Deepak Chopra
Nah, not really, Deepak. It’s called Marxism and it’s been around for awhile. You really ought to get out more often.
Film director Spike Lee predicted Obama would be elected in November.
“When that happens, it will change everything. … You’ll have to measure time by ‘Before Obama’ and ‘After Obama.’ ”
~ Spike Lee
Yo! Lee, “Do The Right Thing” and find out who SPIKED your Kool-Aid.
“I’ll do whatever he says to do. I’ll collect paper cups off the ground to make his pathway clear.”
~ Halle Berry
Halle, will you even do "The Lewinsky" in the Oval Office?
“This is bigger than Kennedy… This is the New Testament. I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often. No, seriously. It’s a dramatic event.”
~ Chris Matthews
Maybe so, Chris, but is it BIGGER THAN THE BEATLES?!
“We just like to say his name. We are considering taking it as a mantra.”
~ The Chicago Sun-Times
Me, I prefer something more American-sounding.
What’s wrong with “OOOO-saaaama! OOOO-saaaama! OOOO-saaaama!” Oooh! I think I can feel Chris Matthews’ hand groping up my leg!
“Not just an ordinary human being but indeed an Advanced Soul.”
~ Commentator at Chicago Sun-Times.
Yeah, not just an ordinary human being but an OOOOOOrdinary Human Being.
“What Barack Obama has accomplished is the single most extraordinary event that has occurred in the 232 years of the nation’s political history.”
~ Jesse Jackson, Jr.
Well, get on down with yo bad self, J-Dogg!
Right on, Bro! Right on!
Who’s the Black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks?
[BARACK!]
Ya damn right!
Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brotherman?
[BARACK!]
Can ya dig it?
Who’s the cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about?
[BARACK!]
Right on!
They say this cat Barack is a bad mutha—
[SHUT YO MOUTH!]
I’m talkin’ ‘bout Barack!
[THEN WE CAN DIG IT!]
He’s a complicated man but no one understands him but Michelle.
[BARACK OBAMA!]
“We’re here to evolve to a higher plane… he is an evolved leader… [he] has an ear for eloquence and a tongue dipped in the Unvarnished Truth.”
~ Oprah Winfrey
Awww, stay off of airplanes, Michelle! I think the Queen of Daytime Doo-Doo has the idea to become OOOOOO-praaaaaah OOOOOO-baaaaaama. She’s after yo man, Girl!
“Barack Obama is our collective representation of our purest hopes, our highest visions and our deepest knowings… He’s our product out of the all-knowing quantum field of intelligence.”
~ Eve Konstantine
Oh, I have no doubt that you’re enjoying your HIGHEST visions, Eve, but you really oughtn’t use that word “intelligence” until you’re in possession of some.
“Obama’s finest speeches do not excite…”
Tell that to Chris Matthews!
“They do not inform.”
No argument there!
“They don’t even really inspire.”
You’re hot now, Buddy!
“They elevate… He is not the Word made flesh, but the triumph of word over flesh… Obama is, at his best, able to call us back to our highest selves.”
~ Ezra Klein
Our HIGHEST selves, eh? So, you party with Eve often, Ezra?
“[Obama is] creative imagination which coupled with brilliance equals wisdom… [He is] the man for this time.”
~ Toni Morrison
Sure, Toni! And that’s why he’s destined to become America’s second Black president.
“This was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
~ Barack Obama
Nah, Barack, that’s just you getting all hot and bothered because Chris Matthews is feeling up your leg.
“I would characterize the Senate race as being a race where Obama was, let’s say, blessed and highly favored. That’s not routine. There’s something else going on. I think that Obama, his election to the Senate, was divinely ordered… I know that that was God’s plan.”
~ Bill Rush
You raise up your head and you ask, “Is this where it is?” And somebody points to you and says, “It’s his!” And you say, “What’s mine?” and somebody else says, “Where what is?” And you say, “Oh, my God, am I here all alone?”
And something is happening here
But you don’t know what it is
Do you... Mister Bill?
I got news for ya, Bill Rush, if God somehow developed amnesia and forgot that He authored the Sixth Commandment [“You shall not murder”] then it is possible that God ordered the ascension of Barack Obama. Otherwise, it’s not too likely. Unless of course, Barack is actually the anti— Nah, never mind; I’m not even going to go there.
My only question now is this: After he’s elected president, how is Barack Obama supposed to ride an ass to the White House when Barack IS the ass?
Well, anyway, before you punch out the chad on November 4th for your new messiah, you'd be wise to first make sure that you’ve fully read the New American magazine’s article “OBAMA: MESSIAH?” You might learn something you should know about The Marxist Messiah before sending his “ass” to the White House.
Web address to “OBAMA: MESSIAH?” ...
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/395
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
GET WITH THE SHOW OR GET OUT!
In my post of the other day related to the economic crash, housing bubble burst, and the Wall Street Bailout, I mentioned that Congressman RON PAUL “foretold all that we are experiencing!”
In the article titled “Government Bailout” written by Brian Farmer for The New American magazine, Congressman Paul is quoted speaking downright prophetically in a 2005 address delivered before the House of Representatives in response to the proposed “Federal Housing Finance Reform Act.” If you wish to see a perfect example of what I was referring to in regards to Congressman Paul’s foresight in these economic matters pertaining to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, be sure you read this informative piece. It will also provide you with a simple but good history lesson on how un-Constitutional government intervention in financial matters bring about these terrible Boom-Bust periods that Americans are forced to endure time and time again. Get informed – READ! (Use the link I’ve included below.)
Being a medical doctor, Congressman Paul came up with the ideal analogy for the recent “Rescue Plan” passed on behalf of Fannie and Freddie. This is excerpted from the article referenced above:
In a knee-jerk response to the crisis, Congress swung into action. On July 23 the massive American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008 was approved in the House of Representatives by a vote of 272 to 152. Three days later it sailed through the Senate by a margin of 72 to 13, and on July 30 it was signed into law by the president. A close reading of the bill does not inspire confidence. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the total cost of the bailout will be $25 billion. However, the bill raises the federal debt limit by a whopping $800 billion, indicating that the final cost is likely to be much higher.
Once again, Rep. Ron Paul has offered the best commentary on the situation:
"Some mistakenly identify the falling home prices as the disease instead of merely a symptom — which they plan to fix with more easy credit and more liquidity to push more unqualified buyers back into the market for homes they still cannot afford. This is akin to the drug addict identifying withdrawal symptoms as his problem and searching for another fix as his solution. The cycle continues and the problems compound themselves. The addiction deepens.
"Addicts are told the first step to recovery is to admit their problem. To cure this addiction to intervention we have to honestly admit the problem and once and for all, kick the habit. That will involve some pain, without a doubt. There is no easy, painless solution to the mess the disastrous economic interventions of the past have wrought. The question is — do we allow some lending institutions to collapse, or do we allow the dollar to collapse? To extend the metaphor, do we endure the temporary discomfort of withdrawal, or do we continue on until there is a fatal overdose? We can delay the agony, but only for a little while, and then we will all end up paying the price for the mistakes of a few.
"With the final passage of the Housing Bailout Bill quietly on a Saturday in the Senate, and the President's signature, our government has unfortunately chosen the latter."
To read the entire article and to gain a true appreciation for how far ahead of the curve RON PAUL was, click here:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/sectors-mainmenu-46/349-government-bailout
And to think that the Knucklehead Republicans had a chance to nominate this man, Ron Paul, as their presidential candidate but passed on it in favor of Old Man John McSame and Sarah What’s-Her-Name! The Democrats we can’t expect any displays of knowledge and intelligence from, but supposedly (so-called!) “conservative”, limited-government Republicans should have known better. But they never do!
Listen, People!
It is up to us to teach our Old Dog Government new tricks. And if the Damned Old Dog just can’t learn them, then it must be kicked out of the Show and into the Street!
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
In the article titled “Government Bailout” written by Brian Farmer for The New American magazine, Congressman Paul is quoted speaking downright prophetically in a 2005 address delivered before the House of Representatives in response to the proposed “Federal Housing Finance Reform Act.” If you wish to see a perfect example of what I was referring to in regards to Congressman Paul’s foresight in these economic matters pertaining to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, be sure you read this informative piece. It will also provide you with a simple but good history lesson on how un-Constitutional government intervention in financial matters bring about these terrible Boom-Bust periods that Americans are forced to endure time and time again. Get informed – READ! (Use the link I’ve included below.)
Being a medical doctor, Congressman Paul came up with the ideal analogy for the recent “Rescue Plan” passed on behalf of Fannie and Freddie. This is excerpted from the article referenced above:
In a knee-jerk response to the crisis, Congress swung into action. On July 23 the massive American Housing Rescue and Foreclosure Prevention Act of 2008 was approved in the House of Representatives by a vote of 272 to 152. Three days later it sailed through the Senate by a margin of 72 to 13, and on July 30 it was signed into law by the president. A close reading of the bill does not inspire confidence. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the total cost of the bailout will be $25 billion. However, the bill raises the federal debt limit by a whopping $800 billion, indicating that the final cost is likely to be much higher.
Once again, Rep. Ron Paul has offered the best commentary on the situation:
"Some mistakenly identify the falling home prices as the disease instead of merely a symptom — which they plan to fix with more easy credit and more liquidity to push more unqualified buyers back into the market for homes they still cannot afford. This is akin to the drug addict identifying withdrawal symptoms as his problem and searching for another fix as his solution. The cycle continues and the problems compound themselves. The addiction deepens.
"Addicts are told the first step to recovery is to admit their problem. To cure this addiction to intervention we have to honestly admit the problem and once and for all, kick the habit. That will involve some pain, without a doubt. There is no easy, painless solution to the mess the disastrous economic interventions of the past have wrought. The question is — do we allow some lending institutions to collapse, or do we allow the dollar to collapse? To extend the metaphor, do we endure the temporary discomfort of withdrawal, or do we continue on until there is a fatal overdose? We can delay the agony, but only for a little while, and then we will all end up paying the price for the mistakes of a few.
"With the final passage of the Housing Bailout Bill quietly on a Saturday in the Senate, and the President's signature, our government has unfortunately chosen the latter."
To read the entire article and to gain a true appreciation for how far ahead of the curve RON PAUL was, click here:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/sectors-mainmenu-46/349-government-bailout
And to think that the Knucklehead Republicans had a chance to nominate this man, Ron Paul, as their presidential candidate but passed on it in favor of Old Man John McSame and Sarah What’s-Her-Name! The Democrats we can’t expect any displays of knowledge and intelligence from, but supposedly (so-called!) “conservative”, limited-government Republicans should have known better. But they never do!
Listen, People!
It is up to us to teach our Old Dog Government new tricks. And if the Damned Old Dog just can’t learn them, then it must be kicked out of the Show and into the Street!
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
Monday, September 29, 2008
SO, WHO'S A SCREWBALL NOW?
.
The e-mail below from RON PAUL and his CAMPAIGN FOR LIBERTY was sent to me on September 25th.
[http://www.campaignforliberty.com/]
As I write this, the Dow Jones is down, Jones – like by 777 points; the NASDAQ is also down like Jones – nearly 200 points.
Knowing that the lying, egg-suckin', chicken-stealing, gutter trash Socialists in Washington and the lying scum mainstream Wall Street investment media will try to spin this major downturn as being the result of Congress (for once doing something RIGHT and…) not approving the Bailout plan, I’ve decided to post this letter from Ron Paul.
Don’t be fooled AGAIN, you Americonned citizen - recognize the truth THIS TIME. Ron Paul has routinely been portrayed by the mainstream media and mainstream politicians as a screwball, and that ALONE should tell you something: they attack what they fear, and what they fear is The Truth. Here’s The Patriot Paul with The Truth:
Dear Friends:
The financial meltdown the economists of the Austrian School predicted has arrived.
We are in this crisis because of an excess of artificially created credit at the hands of the Federal Reserve System. The solution being proposed? More artificial credit by the Federal Reserve. No liquidation of bad debt and malinvestment is to be allowed. By doing more of the same, we will only continue and intensify the distortions in our economy - all the capital misallocation, all the malinvestment - and prevent the market's attempt to re-establish rational pricing of houses and other assets.
Last night the president addressed the nation about the financial crisis. There is no point in going through his remarks line by line, since I'd only be repeating what I've been saying over and over - not just for the past several days, but for years and even decades.
Still, at least a few observations are necessary.
The president assures us that his administration "is working with Congress to address the root cause behind much of the instability in our markets." Care to take a guess at whether the Federal Reserve and its money creation spree were even mentioned?
We are told that "low interest rates" led to excessive borrowing, but we are not told how these low interest rates came about. They were a deliberate policy of the Federal Reserve. As always, artificially low interest rates distort the market. Entrepreneurs engage in malinvestments - investments that do not make sense in light of current resource availability, that occur in more temporally remote stages of the capital structure than the pattern of consumer demand can support, and that would not have been made at all if the interest rate had been permitted to tell the truth instead of being toyed with by the Fed.
Not a word about any of that, of course, because Americans might then discover how the great wise men in Washington caused this great debacle. Better to keep scapegoating the mortgage industry or "wildcat capitalism" (as if we actually have a pure free market!).
Speaking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the president said: "Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable investments, and put our financial system at risk."
Doesn't that prove the foolishness of chartering Fannie and Freddie in the first place? Doesn't that suggest that maybe, just maybe, government may have contributed to this mess? And of course, by bailing out Fannie and Freddie, hasn't the federal government shown that the "many" who "believed they were guaranteed by the federal government" were in fact correct?
Then come the scare tactics. If we don't give dictatorial powers to the Treasury Secretary "the stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet." Left unsaid, naturally, is that with the bailout and all the money and credit that must be produced out of thin air to fund it, the value of your retirement account will drop anyway, because the value of the dollar will suffer a precipitous decline. As for home prices, they are obviously much too high, and supply and demand cannot equilibrate if government insists on propping them up.
It's the same destructive strategy that government tried during the Great Depression: prop up prices at all costs. The Depression went on for over a decade. On the other hand, when liquidation was allowed to occur in the equally devastating downturn of 1921, the economy recovered within less than a year.
The president also tells us that Senators McCain and Obama will join him at the White House today in order to figure out how to get the bipartisan bailout passed. The two senators would do their country much more good if they stayed on the campaign trail debating who the bigger celebrity is, or whatever it is that occupies their attention these days.
F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how central banks' manipulation of interest rates creates the boom-bust cycle with which we are sadly familiar. In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, he described the foolish policies being pursued in his day - and which are being proposed, just as destructively, in our own:
Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion.
To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about; because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection - a procedure that can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end... It is probably to this experiment, together with the attempts to prevent liquidation once the crisis had come, that we owe the exceptional severity and duration of the depression.
The only thing we learn from history, I am afraid, is that we do not learn from history.
The very people who have spent the past several years assuring us that the economy is fundamentally sound, and who themselves foolishly cheered the extension of all these novel kinds of mortgages, are the ones who now claim to be the experts who will restore prosperity! Just how spectacularly wrong, how utterly without a clue, does someone have to be before his expert status is called into question?
Oh, and did you notice that the bailout is now being called a "rescue plan"? I guess "bailout" wasn't sitting too well with the American people.
The very people who with somber faces tell us of their deep concern for the spread of democracy around the world are the ones most insistent on forcing a bill through Congress that the American people overwhelmingly oppose. The very fact that some of you seem to think you're supposed to have a voice in all this actually seems to annoy them.
I continue to urge you to contact your representatives and give them a piece of your mind. I myself am doing everything I can to promote the correct point of view on the crisis. Be sure also to educate yourselves on these subjects - the Campaign for Liberty blog is an excellent place to start. Read the posts, ask questions in the comment section, and learn.
H.G. Wells once said that civilization was in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.
In liberty,
Ron Paul
Now that you’re pointed in the right direction, make damn sure you also learn what Ron Paul had to say about The Economy and The Iraq War by reading this EXCEEDINGLY IMPORTANT article from early 2006. He foretold all that we are experiencing!
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul303.html
Afterwards, you really ought to buy, read, and come to understand THIS BOOK, so that the Elite can't take us for a ride again. This is perhaps the single most important political book I've ever read:
[Link:] "The Creature From Jekyll Island" by Griffin
How long are we going to let the lying, unethical, immoral money managers on Wall Street and their pathetic little lap dogs in Washington D.C. treat us like they OWN us?
WAKE UP!
You must KNOW The Truth
BEFORE The Truth can make you free!
[John 8:32]
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
The e-mail below from RON PAUL and his CAMPAIGN FOR LIBERTY was sent to me on September 25th.
[http://www.campaignforliberty.com/]
As I write this, the Dow Jones is down, Jones – like by 777 points; the NASDAQ is also down like Jones – nearly 200 points.
Knowing that the lying, egg-suckin', chicken-stealing, gutter trash Socialists in Washington and the lying scum mainstream Wall Street investment media will try to spin this major downturn as being the result of Congress (for once doing something RIGHT and…) not approving the Bailout plan, I’ve decided to post this letter from Ron Paul.
Don’t be fooled AGAIN, you Americonned citizen - recognize the truth THIS TIME. Ron Paul has routinely been portrayed by the mainstream media and mainstream politicians as a screwball, and that ALONE should tell you something: they attack what they fear, and what they fear is The Truth. Here’s The Patriot Paul with The Truth:
Dear Friends:
The financial meltdown the economists of the Austrian School predicted has arrived.
We are in this crisis because of an excess of artificially created credit at the hands of the Federal Reserve System. The solution being proposed? More artificial credit by the Federal Reserve. No liquidation of bad debt and malinvestment is to be allowed. By doing more of the same, we will only continue and intensify the distortions in our economy - all the capital misallocation, all the malinvestment - and prevent the market's attempt to re-establish rational pricing of houses and other assets.
Last night the president addressed the nation about the financial crisis. There is no point in going through his remarks line by line, since I'd only be repeating what I've been saying over and over - not just for the past several days, but for years and even decades.
Still, at least a few observations are necessary.
The president assures us that his administration "is working with Congress to address the root cause behind much of the instability in our markets." Care to take a guess at whether the Federal Reserve and its money creation spree were even mentioned?
We are told that "low interest rates" led to excessive borrowing, but we are not told how these low interest rates came about. They were a deliberate policy of the Federal Reserve. As always, artificially low interest rates distort the market. Entrepreneurs engage in malinvestments - investments that do not make sense in light of current resource availability, that occur in more temporally remote stages of the capital structure than the pattern of consumer demand can support, and that would not have been made at all if the interest rate had been permitted to tell the truth instead of being toyed with by the Fed.
Not a word about any of that, of course, because Americans might then discover how the great wise men in Washington caused this great debacle. Better to keep scapegoating the mortgage industry or "wildcat capitalism" (as if we actually have a pure free market!).
Speaking about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the president said: "Because these companies were chartered by Congress, many believed they were guaranteed by the federal government. This allowed them to borrow enormous sums of money, fuel the market for questionable investments, and put our financial system at risk."
Doesn't that prove the foolishness of chartering Fannie and Freddie in the first place? Doesn't that suggest that maybe, just maybe, government may have contributed to this mess? And of course, by bailing out Fannie and Freddie, hasn't the federal government shown that the "many" who "believed they were guaranteed by the federal government" were in fact correct?
Then come the scare tactics. If we don't give dictatorial powers to the Treasury Secretary "the stock market would drop even more, which would reduce the value of your retirement account. The value of your home could plummet." Left unsaid, naturally, is that with the bailout and all the money and credit that must be produced out of thin air to fund it, the value of your retirement account will drop anyway, because the value of the dollar will suffer a precipitous decline. As for home prices, they are obviously much too high, and supply and demand cannot equilibrate if government insists on propping them up.
It's the same destructive strategy that government tried during the Great Depression: prop up prices at all costs. The Depression went on for over a decade. On the other hand, when liquidation was allowed to occur in the equally devastating downturn of 1921, the economy recovered within less than a year.
The president also tells us that Senators McCain and Obama will join him at the White House today in order to figure out how to get the bipartisan bailout passed. The two senators would do their country much more good if they stayed on the campaign trail debating who the bigger celebrity is, or whatever it is that occupies their attention these days.
F.A. Hayek won the Nobel Prize for showing how central banks' manipulation of interest rates creates the boom-bust cycle with which we are sadly familiar. In 1932, in the depths of the Great Depression, he described the foolish policies being pursued in his day - and which are being proposed, just as destructively, in our own:
Instead of furthering the inevitable liquidation of the maladjustments brought about by the boom during the last three years, all conceivable means have been used to prevent that readjustment from taking place; and one of these means, which has been repeatedly tried though without success, from the earliest to the most recent stages of depression, has been this deliberate policy of credit expansion.
To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about; because we are suffering from a misdirection of production, we want to create further misdirection - a procedure that can only lead to a much more severe crisis as soon as the credit expansion comes to an end... It is probably to this experiment, together with the attempts to prevent liquidation once the crisis had come, that we owe the exceptional severity and duration of the depression.
The only thing we learn from history, I am afraid, is that we do not learn from history.
The very people who have spent the past several years assuring us that the economy is fundamentally sound, and who themselves foolishly cheered the extension of all these novel kinds of mortgages, are the ones who now claim to be the experts who will restore prosperity! Just how spectacularly wrong, how utterly without a clue, does someone have to be before his expert status is called into question?
Oh, and did you notice that the bailout is now being called a "rescue plan"? I guess "bailout" wasn't sitting too well with the American people.
The very people who with somber faces tell us of their deep concern for the spread of democracy around the world are the ones most insistent on forcing a bill through Congress that the American people overwhelmingly oppose. The very fact that some of you seem to think you're supposed to have a voice in all this actually seems to annoy them.
I continue to urge you to contact your representatives and give them a piece of your mind. I myself am doing everything I can to promote the correct point of view on the crisis. Be sure also to educate yourselves on these subjects - the Campaign for Liberty blog is an excellent place to start. Read the posts, ask questions in the comment section, and learn.
H.G. Wells once said that civilization was in a race between education and catastrophe. Let us learn the truth and spread it as far and wide as our circumstances allow. For the truth is the greatest weapon we have.
In liberty,
Ron Paul
Now that you’re pointed in the right direction, make damn sure you also learn what Ron Paul had to say about The Economy and The Iraq War by reading this EXCEEDINGLY IMPORTANT article from early 2006. He foretold all that we are experiencing!
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul303.html
Afterwards, you really ought to buy, read, and come to understand THIS BOOK, so that the Elite can't take us for a ride again. This is perhaps the single most important political book I've ever read:
[Link:] "The Creature From Jekyll Island" by Griffin
How long are we going to let the lying, unethical, immoral money managers on Wall Street and their pathetic little lap dogs in Washington D.C. treat us like they OWN us?
WAKE UP!
You must KNOW The Truth
BEFORE The Truth can make you free!
[John 8:32]
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Bullwinkle McCain: "WATCH ME PULL A RABBIT OUT OF MY HAT!"
.
Well, hot dog! Chuck Baldwin of The Constitution Party hit the nail fairly squarely on the head. His brief article, “CAN TWO WALK TOGETHER WITHOUT AGREEMENT?” – based on the Amos 3:3 Biblical verse - really goes to the heart of the Sarah Palin selection as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate.
Mr. Baldwin and I might not see entirely eye-to-eye when it comes to whether or not we believe that Palin is a true and thorough conservative of the limited government, strictly Constitutional, purely patriotic variety, but I don’t find a whole lot to argue with in his assessment. I will say, however, that I believe a “real” conservative (a la Ron Paul) would not want his or her name and reputation sullied by appearing on the same ticket with John McNeocon. (And in an oblique manner, Baldwin even illustrates this point in his article by mentioning the fact that Ron Paul stated he would have been forced to turn down any invitation to run with McNeocon.)
Had I been previously considering casting my vote for McCain (not in a million years! not if you stick a million needles in my eye!), the sheer transparency of his pandering to women generally and more specifically to disgruntled Nurse Hellary Ratched voters by selecting Palin would have turned me off big time. (Sorry, John, I’m not one to fall for the ol’ banana in the tail pipe!) This man is PURE POLITICIAN, while I’m looking for a LEADER and a STATESMAN to occupy the White House.
Mr. Baldwin speculates that:
“The best thing that can happen to Sarah Palin is for John McCain to lose the November election. This would allow her to go into the 2012 elections as perhaps the Republican Presidential frontrunner. If McCain wins in November, and Palin is forced to serve at the pleasure of this globalist insider for four years, she will be forever ruined as a genuine constitutional conservative.”
Now, I can scarcely imagine that Palin would ever be the frontrunner in a future election; she’s getting her 15 minutes of international fame now, strictly for political expediency: put male parts on Palin and you wouldn’t know any more about her today than you did two months ago. Change her gender and she’d be hunting moose in Alaska this afternoon. You know it and I know it! Her selection by McNeocon was, however, a good move from a strictly political point of view: there’s a sucker born every minute and some of ‘em vote. But has Bullwinkle McCain truly pulled a rabbit out of his… uhm… hat? He’s thrown women a bone and it certainly won’t hurt his chances, but is it enough to walk away from what looked to be a brutal beating? I have deep doubts.
And as far as 2012 elections are concerned… color me skeptical – I’m not certain that our country will survive the next four years, regardless of whether it’s McNeocon or B.O. in The Whore House. I believe we’ve reached the beginning of the end.
But hey, enough of my yakking -- I don’t want you reading what I have to say; I only sent out the memo and called this meeting so you could see what Chuck Baldwin of THE CONSTITUTION PARTY has to say. Here’s the link, boys an’ girls:
http://www.constitutionparty.com/news.php?aid=770
Yakkingly Yours . . .
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
Well, hot dog! Chuck Baldwin of The Constitution Party hit the nail fairly squarely on the head. His brief article, “CAN TWO WALK TOGETHER WITHOUT AGREEMENT?” – based on the Amos 3:3 Biblical verse - really goes to the heart of the Sarah Palin selection as John McCain’s vice presidential running mate.
Mr. Baldwin and I might not see entirely eye-to-eye when it comes to whether or not we believe that Palin is a true and thorough conservative of the limited government, strictly Constitutional, purely patriotic variety, but I don’t find a whole lot to argue with in his assessment. I will say, however, that I believe a “real” conservative (a la Ron Paul) would not want his or her name and reputation sullied by appearing on the same ticket with John McNeocon. (And in an oblique manner, Baldwin even illustrates this point in his article by mentioning the fact that Ron Paul stated he would have been forced to turn down any invitation to run with McNeocon.)
Had I been previously considering casting my vote for McCain (not in a million years! not if you stick a million needles in my eye!), the sheer transparency of his pandering to women generally and more specifically to disgruntled Nurse Hellary Ratched voters by selecting Palin would have turned me off big time. (Sorry, John, I’m not one to fall for the ol’ banana in the tail pipe!) This man is PURE POLITICIAN, while I’m looking for a LEADER and a STATESMAN to occupy the White House.
Mr. Baldwin speculates that:
“The best thing that can happen to Sarah Palin is for John McCain to lose the November election. This would allow her to go into the 2012 elections as perhaps the Republican Presidential frontrunner. If McCain wins in November, and Palin is forced to serve at the pleasure of this globalist insider for four years, she will be forever ruined as a genuine constitutional conservative.”
Now, I can scarcely imagine that Palin would ever be the frontrunner in a future election; she’s getting her 15 minutes of international fame now, strictly for political expediency: put male parts on Palin and you wouldn’t know any more about her today than you did two months ago. Change her gender and she’d be hunting moose in Alaska this afternoon. You know it and I know it! Her selection by McNeocon was, however, a good move from a strictly political point of view: there’s a sucker born every minute and some of ‘em vote. But has Bullwinkle McCain truly pulled a rabbit out of his… uhm… hat? He’s thrown women a bone and it certainly won’t hurt his chances, but is it enough to walk away from what looked to be a brutal beating? I have deep doubts.
And as far as 2012 elections are concerned… color me skeptical – I’m not certain that our country will survive the next four years, regardless of whether it’s McNeocon or B.O. in The Whore House. I believe we’ve reached the beginning of the end.
But hey, enough of my yakking -- I don’t want you reading what I have to say; I only sent out the memo and called this meeting so you could see what Chuck Baldwin of THE CONSTITUTION PARTY has to say. Here’s the link, boys an’ girls:
http://www.constitutionparty.com/news.php?aid=770
Yakkingly Yours . . .
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
THERE'S A LITTLE BALLERINA IN ALL OF US . . .
[From the STMcC Archive: 2007, January 14th]
PRODUCT: Carolina 12” Steel-Toed Engineer Boots (Made in U.S.A.)
GRADE: A -
THERE’S A LITTLE BALLERINA IN ALL OF US . . . .
but when you plop these bad boy boots onto the coffee table, crack open your tenth Budweiser, and bellow for your little woman in the next room to keep the chips and dip coming, your Sunday NFL buddies – including that Chicago Bears fan to your right – will never suspect that this applies to you as well.
You know, throughout history, all the coolest people wore boots. Pirates wore them. So did cowboys, miners, and World War I soldiers (man, them doughboys was tough!) Nowadays, motorcycle gangs wear them. John Wayne wore boots. So did Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, and Nancy Sinatra. In fact, some people have been so enamored of boots that they named themselves after them. A few examples are: the original “Nature Boy”, Gypsy Boots; saxmaster, Boots Randolph; and funkmeister, Bootsy Collins. Yeah, when you’re in boots, you’re in good company. But ballerinas NEVER wear boots, and that’s exactly why you should!
These CAROLINA 12” engineer boots come in sturdy black leather (black, it’s the ultimate antiballerina color), and they contain an internal steel-toed covering which means that you’ll never again lose a game of Kick-The-Can to those neighborhood kids; and next Earth Day, when you kick that Greenpeacenik living next door to you in the can, he’ll really get your point. Maybe the best part about these Carolina boots is that they are made in America. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find footwear made in this country? I once wore out three pairs of foreign shoes trying to find one pair of shoes made in the U.S.A.
I’ve been wearing boots for most of my adult life, but I’ll admit that when I switched to these Carolinas, the first couple of days, my dogs were really barking. But after I gave them a day off for loud behavior, they’ve been quiet ever since. Now, until the dye dies, you may find that the tops of these boots leave a black ring around your calves. You can either wear higher socks, or just imagine that the rings are tribal bands tattooed around your lower legs. (Do like I did, and pretend that you’re tattooed and therefore in with “the in crowd” for the first time since “The Summer Of Love.”)
I actually prefer the cowboy boot style to the engineer design, but until I can locate a good American-made cowboy boot with a durable, oil resistant polyurethane outsole, I’ll stick with these cool Carolinas. I was so happy to find these boots and I dig them so much that I feel like breaking out into a pirouette. . . .
“Hey, watch it, fella! Can’t ya see I’m dancin’ here?”
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
PRODUCT: Carolina 12” Steel-Toed Engineer Boots (Made in U.S.A.)
GRADE: A -
THERE’S A LITTLE BALLERINA IN ALL OF US . . . .
but when you plop these bad boy boots onto the coffee table, crack open your tenth Budweiser, and bellow for your little woman in the next room to keep the chips and dip coming, your Sunday NFL buddies – including that Chicago Bears fan to your right – will never suspect that this applies to you as well.
You know, throughout history, all the coolest people wore boots. Pirates wore them. So did cowboys, miners, and World War I soldiers (man, them doughboys was tough!) Nowadays, motorcycle gangs wear them. John Wayne wore boots. So did Gary Cooper, Marlon Brando, and Nancy Sinatra. In fact, some people have been so enamored of boots that they named themselves after them. A few examples are: the original “Nature Boy”, Gypsy Boots; saxmaster, Boots Randolph; and funkmeister, Bootsy Collins. Yeah, when you’re in boots, you’re in good company. But ballerinas NEVER wear boots, and that’s exactly why you should!
These CAROLINA 12” engineer boots come in sturdy black leather (black, it’s the ultimate antiballerina color), and they contain an internal steel-toed covering which means that you’ll never again lose a game of Kick-The-Can to those neighborhood kids; and next Earth Day, when you kick that Greenpeacenik living next door to you in the can, he’ll really get your point. Maybe the best part about these Carolina boots is that they are made in America. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find footwear made in this country? I once wore out three pairs of foreign shoes trying to find one pair of shoes made in the U.S.A.
I’ve been wearing boots for most of my adult life, but I’ll admit that when I switched to these Carolinas, the first couple of days, my dogs were really barking. But after I gave them a day off for loud behavior, they’ve been quiet ever since. Now, until the dye dies, you may find that the tops of these boots leave a black ring around your calves. You can either wear higher socks, or just imagine that the rings are tribal bands tattooed around your lower legs. (Do like I did, and pretend that you’re tattooed and therefore in with “the in crowd” for the first time since “The Summer Of Love.”)
I actually prefer the cowboy boot style to the engineer design, but until I can locate a good American-made cowboy boot with a durable, oil resistant polyurethane outsole, I’ll stick with these cool Carolinas. I was so happy to find these boots and I dig them so much that I feel like breaking out into a pirouette. . . .
“Hey, watch it, fella! Can’t ya see I’m dancin’ here?”
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
SET THE PRESIDENTIAL "WAYBAC MACHINE" TO 1885
.
Speaking of the presidency (which I was just doing below in my August 14th post entitled “IT’S SIX OF OBAMA, HALF A DOZEN OF McCAIN”), I’ve decided to retain this theme for at least one more installment here.
Just the other day, I pulled out an old back issue of The New American magazine (May 26, 1997; Vol. 13, No. 11) and read the interesting column on page 28 under the heading of “Ranking Presidents.” Here’s what TNA printed:
The New York Times Magazine for December 15, 1996 reported the results of a poll of modern historians who were asked to rank our presidents. Writing in the Free Market newsletter for March 1997, Robert Higgs, research director for the Independent Institute and editor of the Independent Review, notes that “all but one of the presidents ranked as Great or Near Great had an intimate association with war, either in office or by reputation before taking office.” In contrast, “of the eleven presidents ranked as Below Average or Failure, all but one (Nixon) managed to keep the nation at peace during their terms in office…”
Higgs believes that the best President during the past century may have been Grover Cleveland, who served from 1893-’97. Higgs comments: “He kept the country at peace. He respected the Constitution, acknowledging that the national government has only a limited mission to perform and shaping his policies accordingly. He fought to lower tariffs, preserved the gold standard in its time of crisis, and restored order forcibly when hoodlums disturbed the peace on a wide front during the great railroad strike of 1894.”
George Washington also ranks high with Higgs (as he did with the historians), in part because he “prescribed the sensible foreign policy, later slandered as ‘isolationism,’ that served our nation well for more than a century.” Of the presidents since Cleveland, Higgs ranks Calvin Coolidge highest, noting, “He sponsored sharp tax cuts and greatly reduced the national debt.”
Higgs reserves the other end of the spectrum for “Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, Truman, and Lyndon Johnson,” whom he believes belong at the bottom “for their statist economic policies as well as their supremely catastrophic war policies.” Scandal and corruption are reprehensible to be sure, and have tainted most administrations to some degree, but such factors “pale by comparison to the damage presidential policy decisions have wreaked.”
The Constitution, Higgs writes, suffered damage during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Administration “that none of his successors has repaired and most have made worse. Certainly since 1932 – and, one might argue, since 1896 – no President has been true to his oath of office.”
Higgs recalls that the “people who ratified the original Constitution never intended the Presidency to be a powerful office spawning ‘great men,’ ” since the “Presidency was intended to be a largely ceremonial position whose occupant would confine himself to enforcing federal laws.” But over time, “abruptly during Lincoln’s Presidency and progressively during the twentieth century, presidents seized more and more power.”
Higgs concludes with the observation that “American liberty will never be reestablished so long as elites and masses alike look to the President to perform supernatural feats and therefore tolerate his virtually unlimited exercise of power. Until we can restore limited, constitutional government in this country, God save us from great presidents.” (Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, AL. 36849) -- Robert W. Lee
I’m sure that Mayberry’s barber, Floyd Lawson, would have been pleased to learn that Higgs had relatively positive things to say about Floyd’s favorite President, Calvin Coolidge.
Here are a couple of other interesting facts about President Grover Cleveland that went unmentioned in the TNA article:
Cleveland is notable for having been the only President in U.S. history to have served two terms in office nonconsecutively: he was both our 22nd and 24th President, serving from 1885 to 1889, and again from 1893 to 1897. Interestingly, Cleveland was also the only President to marry while in office – he was sworn in as a bachelor (i.e., a very smart man!) in 1885, but married his 21-year old bride a year later.
And did you know that the Baby Ruth candy bar was not named after the famous homer-hitting baseball player Babe Ruth, but was actually named after President Grover Cleveland’s daughter Ruth, who unfortunately passed away in her early teens? I learned that sweet fact last May 15th from the 2008 “Fact Or Crap Calendar.”
[*Thanks again, Aard!]
Unlike Barber Floyd’s choice, Calvin Coolidge is not my favorite President. My own favorite is Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson. Although he was certainly a flawed man in some significant ways, and his administration made some egregious errors, I love Jackson for the monumentally ferocious and extremely important stand he took against America’s central bank. For that alone, every American owed Jackson a great debt of gratitude. It’s too bad that We, the American People, weren’t intelligent enough to honor Jackson’s tremendous victory by ensuring that a central bank was never installed in this country again. In the Federal Reserve System, we have exactly the very disease that “Old Hickory” fought so hard to destroy and heal our country from.
.
To put in my six cents (what with inflation an’ all) in regards to the worst President of all-time, without hesitation, I bestow that dubious honor on Woodrow Wilson. This country has never recovered and never will recover from the disastrous long-term (i.e., “permanent”) effects of “The Wilson Wreckage.” Picking up right where Wilson left off, I reserve the number two spot on my Bad Presidents list for FDR (“Frankly, Destructive Revolution”). After that, it’s anybody’s guess where Carter, Clinton and “W” fit in, but they unquestionably occupy high positions on this low list.
OK, so maybe we really haven’t had a decent president in over one hundred years. That doesn’t mean that our NEXT “Fearless Leader” (there’s another Rocky & Bullwinkle reference for ya) won’t adhere to the principles of our Founding Fathers. There’s no reason for us to be pessimistic and automatically dismiss the idea that Barack Obama or John McCain will reinstitute Constitutional principles like smaller federal government, sound economic structure, noninterventionist foreign policy and a respect for states’ rights and personal liberty. There’s every reason to be optimistic about the possibility of turning this country around and reversing our downward social, moral and economic trajectory. We can improve things, I just know we can. I’ve got it, kids! Let’s put on a show! (Oh, wait, that’s all this 2008 election process is, isn’t it?)
Ya know, all we really need is for “B.O.” or “John McNeocon” to take their oath of office seriously (i.e., to really mean it when they swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic); all we really need is for our future president to eschew his egopolitical leanings in favor of Constitutional Republican statesman-like qualities, and all will be well. If B.O. or McNeocon have less elitist proclivities than we suspect [Cough!-Cough!] and possess more honesty and genuine interest in The American Way than we believe, then we kids are going to be alright.
Yeah, and if dogs wallowed in troughs they’d be pigs. And if pigs had wings they’d be flies. And if flies could vote they’d be U.S. citizens. And if U.S. citizens voted for Obama or McCain they’d be dirty dogs. And if dirty dogs wallowed in troughs . . . Awww, it’s a vicious cycle. Let’s just admit it: we’re screwed like Steven Spielberg in the deep waters of divorce court versus Amy “Jaws” Irving. No matter what, our next president will - at the very least - cost us an arm and a leg.
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
[Mo’ Presidential Yak below…]
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Speaking of the presidency (which I was just doing below in my August 14th post entitled “IT’S SIX OF OBAMA, HALF A DOZEN OF McCAIN”), I’ve decided to retain this theme for at least one more installment here.
Just the other day, I pulled out an old back issue of The New American magazine (May 26, 1997; Vol. 13, No. 11) and read the interesting column on page 28 under the heading of “Ranking Presidents.” Here’s what TNA printed:
The New York Times Magazine for December 15, 1996 reported the results of a poll of modern historians who were asked to rank our presidents. Writing in the Free Market newsletter for March 1997, Robert Higgs, research director for the Independent Institute and editor of the Independent Review, notes that “all but one of the presidents ranked as Great or Near Great had an intimate association with war, either in office or by reputation before taking office.” In contrast, “of the eleven presidents ranked as Below Average or Failure, all but one (Nixon) managed to keep the nation at peace during their terms in office…”
Higgs believes that the best President during the past century may have been Grover Cleveland, who served from 1893-’97. Higgs comments: “He kept the country at peace. He respected the Constitution, acknowledging that the national government has only a limited mission to perform and shaping his policies accordingly. He fought to lower tariffs, preserved the gold standard in its time of crisis, and restored order forcibly when hoodlums disturbed the peace on a wide front during the great railroad strike of 1894.”
George Washington also ranks high with Higgs (as he did with the historians), in part because he “prescribed the sensible foreign policy, later slandered as ‘isolationism,’ that served our nation well for more than a century.” Of the presidents since Cleveland, Higgs ranks Calvin Coolidge highest, noting, “He sponsored sharp tax cuts and greatly reduced the national debt.”
Higgs reserves the other end of the spectrum for “Lincoln, Wilson, FDR, Truman, and Lyndon Johnson,” whom he believes belong at the bottom “for their statist economic policies as well as their supremely catastrophic war policies.” Scandal and corruption are reprehensible to be sure, and have tainted most administrations to some degree, but such factors “pale by comparison to the damage presidential policy decisions have wreaked.”
The Constitution, Higgs writes, suffered damage during Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Administration “that none of his successors has repaired and most have made worse. Certainly since 1932 – and, one might argue, since 1896 – no President has been true to his oath of office.”
Higgs recalls that the “people who ratified the original Constitution never intended the Presidency to be a powerful office spawning ‘great men,’ ” since the “Presidency was intended to be a largely ceremonial position whose occupant would confine himself to enforcing federal laws.” But over time, “abruptly during Lincoln’s Presidency and progressively during the twentieth century, presidents seized more and more power.”
Higgs concludes with the observation that “American liberty will never be reestablished so long as elites and masses alike look to the President to perform supernatural feats and therefore tolerate his virtually unlimited exercise of power. Until we can restore limited, constitutional government in this country, God save us from great presidents.” (Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, AL. 36849) -- Robert W. Lee
I’m sure that Mayberry’s barber, Floyd Lawson, would have been pleased to learn that Higgs had relatively positive things to say about Floyd’s favorite President, Calvin Coolidge.
Here are a couple of other interesting facts about President Grover Cleveland that went unmentioned in the TNA article:
Cleveland is notable for having been the only President in U.S. history to have served two terms in office nonconsecutively: he was both our 22nd and 24th President, serving from 1885 to 1889, and again from 1893 to 1897. Interestingly, Cleveland was also the only President to marry while in office – he was sworn in as a bachelor (i.e., a very smart man!) in 1885, but married his 21-year old bride a year later.
And did you know that the Baby Ruth candy bar was not named after the famous homer-hitting baseball player Babe Ruth, but was actually named after President Grover Cleveland’s daughter Ruth, who unfortunately passed away in her early teens? I learned that sweet fact last May 15th from the 2008 “Fact Or Crap Calendar.”
[*Thanks again, Aard!]
Unlike Barber Floyd’s choice, Calvin Coolidge is not my favorite President. My own favorite is Andrew “Old Hickory” Jackson. Although he was certainly a flawed man in some significant ways, and his administration made some egregious errors, I love Jackson for the monumentally ferocious and extremely important stand he took against America’s central bank. For that alone, every American owed Jackson a great debt of gratitude. It’s too bad that We, the American People, weren’t intelligent enough to honor Jackson’s tremendous victory by ensuring that a central bank was never installed in this country again. In the Federal Reserve System, we have exactly the very disease that “Old Hickory” fought so hard to destroy and heal our country from.
.
To put in my six cents (what with inflation an’ all) in regards to the worst President of all-time, without hesitation, I bestow that dubious honor on Woodrow Wilson. This country has never recovered and never will recover from the disastrous long-term (i.e., “permanent”) effects of “The Wilson Wreckage.” Picking up right where Wilson left off, I reserve the number two spot on my Bad Presidents list for FDR (“Frankly, Destructive Revolution”). After that, it’s anybody’s guess where Carter, Clinton and “W” fit in, but they unquestionably occupy high positions on this low list.
OK, so maybe we really haven’t had a decent president in over one hundred years. That doesn’t mean that our NEXT “Fearless Leader” (there’s another Rocky & Bullwinkle reference for ya) won’t adhere to the principles of our Founding Fathers. There’s no reason for us to be pessimistic and automatically dismiss the idea that Barack Obama or John McCain will reinstitute Constitutional principles like smaller federal government, sound economic structure, noninterventionist foreign policy and a respect for states’ rights and personal liberty. There’s every reason to be optimistic about the possibility of turning this country around and reversing our downward social, moral and economic trajectory. We can improve things, I just know we can. I’ve got it, kids! Let’s put on a show! (Oh, wait, that’s all this 2008 election process is, isn’t it?)
Ya know, all we really need is for “B.O.” or “John McNeocon” to take their oath of office seriously (i.e., to really mean it when they swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic); all we really need is for our future president to eschew his egopolitical leanings in favor of Constitutional Republican statesman-like qualities, and all will be well. If B.O. or McNeocon have less elitist proclivities than we suspect [Cough!-Cough!] and possess more honesty and genuine interest in The American Way than we believe, then we kids are going to be alright.
Yeah, and if dogs wallowed in troughs they’d be pigs. And if pigs had wings they’d be flies. And if flies could vote they’d be U.S. citizens. And if U.S. citizens voted for Obama or McCain they’d be dirty dogs. And if dirty dogs wallowed in troughs . . . Awww, it’s a vicious cycle. Let’s just admit it: we’re screwed like Steven Spielberg in the deep waters of divorce court versus Amy “Jaws” Irving. No matter what, our next president will - at the very least - cost us an arm and a leg.
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
[Mo’ Presidential Yak below…]
.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
IT'S SIX OF OBAMA, HALF A DOZEN OF McCAIN
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It’s just so dispiriting when I reflect on the fact that for the first time in quite awhile, the American People actually had a genuine opportunity to elect a man to the office of president who would have represented REAL “Change” and who would have attempted to make meaningful reforms in our seriously corrupted un-Constitutional form of government, but the voters let this golden opportunity slip away like a pickpocket at Oktoberfest. The man, the patriot, the doctor was “in” – Doctor RON PAUL – the moment was there – NOW! – all we lacked was the intelligence to “seize the day.” (And… uhm… well, when I say “we”, you know I don’t really mean “me”, don’t you? You know I mean “you”, right?)
Does anyone even recall that the United States Constitution proclaims itself to be “the supreme law of the land”? I have a great T-shirt that I bought via mail order and have worn for many years. It reads:
U. S. CONSTITUTION *
*Void where prohibited by law
The American People had a chance to nominate and then elect a candidate, an actual doctor, who had clearly diagnosed America’s ills (multiple forms of un-Constitutional collectivism), and who knew how to treat the diseased body (return to small, Constitutional government and free enterprise Capitalism – concepts that we haven’t even been within shouting distance of since prior to 1913), but for the six hundred and sixty-sixth trillionth and one half time, the American People were hoodwinked by the mainstream media, and instead of voting for authentic and much needed change, the Americans will once again go with the status quo: they will elect either Barack “Change-Rn’t-Really-Us” Obama or John “Old Man, Old Ways” McCain. Unless the unexpected happens, Obama will be our next president, but either way, we can expect a further slide into Orwellian Big Brother Socialism and our Brave New World. (“Brave New Nineteen Eighty-Four” y’all. Otherwise known as “2008 And Beyond.”)
Oh, boy howdy, what choices we have: you can have your brother’s cake and eat it too, with the radical high tax Socialism of “Mr. Change”, or you can vote for Neoconservative George W. McCain and get your Big Government Socialism shoved down your throat all the while you’re being lied to and told that it actually represents “smaller government Conservatism.” But if you’re no smarter than Republicans have shown themselves to be since long before the Ronald Reagan era, you won’t know the difference anyhow, so just swallow the socialistic s##t ‘n’ smile.
Yeah, the po’ American People have grown weary of Neocon Republicanism, so they’re going to vote “Change” this year and give the United States something that more closely resembles… uh… well, William Clintonism. Contemplating the 2008 presidential election and the response of the Americonned People, it brings to mind my most frequently quoted Bible verse: "As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly." (Proverbs 26:11). Please, Sir, may I have another serving of that “Change” that we’ve become so familiar with? Sure, it tastes terrible, but it’s the only flavor I can even imagine anymore.
The non-fool who has been living here in the U.S. for the last 25 years or so, would have noticed by now that it makes no difference whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat occupying the White House because either way, American Life continues to deteriorate. George Wallace once remarked that there’s “not a dime’s worth of difference” between the candidates offered by the Republican and Democrat parties, and he was, and remains, right about that. What we have here is a classic case of Dumb And Dumber. I’ll leave it to you to determine which is which. (Actually, the Dumb-O-Crats are dumber than the Repugnantcans but the difference is so inconsequential as to hardly be worth mentioning. There’s not a dollar’s worth of difference in their intelligence – which is really about a dime when factoring in the inflation since Wallace’s 15 minutes of time in the sun.)
In the cover story “Apples To Oranges?” of the July 21st issue of The New American magazine, writer Charles Scaliger accurately says in comparing the proposed policies of Obama to McCain that the presidential contenders have “been winnowed down to two polished posers who offer the American public, yet again, not a choice but an echo.” And I’ll add that even a few of the seeming differences are just a matter of “telling the necessary lies” in order to appease the targeted constituency. For example, those folks who really believe that Obama will recall the troops from Iraq are setting themselves up for a major disappointment: if he ever truly does pull them out of Iraq it will only be to establish them somewhere else in the Middle East. Whether you elect Obama or McCain, the soldiers are not coming home anytime soon, so just get used to the idea!
The most important but least understood point that Scaliger made in his article is the fact that since at least the 1930s, both major political parties and party candidates have been controlled by a semi-secret organization of (now) over 4,000 Elite Establishment Insiders known as the COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS (CFR). [If you think this is nonsense, click the link at the bottom of this Blog Bit.] The CFR was founded by a man who stated in print that he basically believed in “Socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx.” Scaliger tells us that of the 13 members of Obama’s Senior Working Group on National Security, 8 of them are CFR members, while one is a former member. “Mr. Change” also has CFR advisors on national finance and economics. As for John McCain, not only is McCain himself a CFR member, but he has at least 12 CFR members advising him. But here’s the real kicker: One of Obama’s foreign policy CFR advisors is Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski was not only Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy advisor, but he worked in a similar capacity for JOHN McCAIN during McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign!
That is such a remarkably telling fact that I am going to repeat it for the benefit of my Dumb-O-Crat readers who traditionally excel more in emotional idealism than they do in realism and logic:
One of Obama’s foreign policy CFR advisors is Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski was not only Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy advisor, but he worked in a similar capacity for JOHN McCAIN during McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign!
OK, now ask yourself, how much “Change” do you REALLY think you can expect by electing Barack Obama to the presidency? You’re being swindled again, boys and girls! It’s the same old story, the same old song and dance with all The Usual Suspects! Yeah, “Change” my a##! The candidates are employing all the usual advisors, but they are telling you to expect big Changes. Boy, do they think you’re stupid! (Are you?)
As if that wasn’t enough, it has been reported (and is almost assuredly true) that Obama was given a place at the table at the last Bilderberger meeting. In case you’re unaware, the Bilderbergers are another powerful international cabal of Elites very concerned about the well-being of you, the little guy in America….. WRONG!
If all of this is news to you, then you need to admit that you are simply an uneducated voter destined to vote for what you guess to be “the lesser of two evils.” However, maybe you should consider that given but two choices, even monkeys could pick the lesser of two evils 50% of the time, and regardless of whether or not we discount the ballots with hanging chads.
The American People like to promote the idea that they support the underdog, but this is mostly a lie; the American People, more than anything, love a “winner.” You disagree? See if you can count the number of new hats, jerseys, and bumper stickers that will suddenly manifest in celebration of the team that wins the next World Series, Super Bowl and NBA Championship. If every person who said that they’d like to have voted for Ron Paul but couldn’t because they thought he had no chance of winning, had in fact voted for him regardless, he might very well have made the Republican race quite interesting. Paul did extraordinarily well (“frighteningly well” to the Establishment Elites) in the preprimary straw polls, but when it came time to cast real votes, Americans chose to side with “pure politicians” instead, so long as they were convinced that their vote had a reasonably good chance of making a victor of their “lesser evil”, and making a winner of themselves by association in the process.
Meanwhile, I had reregistered from Independent to Repugnantcan solely in order to be allowed to vote for Ron Paul in the Arizona primary. (I have since reverted to an Independent, and will vote for Dr. Paul a second time in November’s general election by writing his name on my ballot; I refuse to vote for “evil”, lesser evil or otherwise – I value my vote much too highly to “waste” it like that. You want MY vote? You have to be worthy of MY vote.)
A friend of mine recently said in an e-mail that he figured he agreed with my theological positions 97.995% of the time. I responded: But that 97.995% is just a "rough estimate", right? Well, that's not bad. That's about the rate in which I agree with Ron Paul's positions.
About two months ago, I read Doctor Paul’s bestselling April 2008 book “THE REVOLUTION: A MANIFESTO” (don’t leave for the voting booth without it!) and I was pleasantly impressed by how well he – in just 170 small pages - was able to explain to a wide audience his positions on many important political issues. (In my opinion, it was a campaign blunder that this book wasn’t published much earlier.) Now I am going to post several excerpts from Ron Paul’s book “THE REVOLUTION” to illustrate what sort of AUTHENTIC CHANGES the American People could have hoped for if they had been smart enough to nominate and then elect The Good Doctor to the presidency:
Every election cycle we are treated to candidates who promise us “change,” and 2008 has been no different. But in the American political lexicon, “change” always means more of the same: more government, more looting of Americans, more inflation, more police-state measures, more unnecessary war, and more centralization of power.
Real change would mean something like the opposite of those things. It might even involve following our Constitution. And that’s the one option Americans are never permitted to hear.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page ix]
With national bankruptcy looming, politicians from both parties continue to make multitrillion-dollar promises of “free” goods from the government, and hardly a soul wonders if we can still afford to have troops in – this is not a misprint – 130 countries around the world. … Fundamental questions like this, and countless others besides, are off the table in our mainstream media, which focuses our attention on trivialities and phony debates as we march toward oblivion. … Truth is treason in the empire of lies.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page x]
Every election season America is presented with a series of false choices. Should we launch preemptive wars against this country or that one? Should every American neighborhood live under this social policy or that one? Should a third of our income be taken away by an income tax or a national sales tax? The shared assumptions behind these questions, on the other hand, are never cast in doubt, or even raised. And anyone who wants to ask different questions or who suggests that the questions as framed exclude attractive, humane alternatives, is ipso facto excluded from mainstream discussion.
And so every four years we are treated to the same tired, predictable routine: two candidates with few disagreements on fundamentals pretend that they represent dramatically different philosophies of government.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 1]
The war in Iraq was one of the most ill-considered, poorly planned, and just plain unnecessary military conflicts in American history, and I opposed it from the beginning. But the beginning I am speaking of was not 2002 or 2003. As early as 1997 and 1998, shortly after my return to Congress after a dozen years back in my medical practice, I spoke out against the actions of the Clinton administration, which I believed was moving us once again toward war with Iraq. I believe the genesis of our later policy was being set at that time. Many of the same voices who then demanded that the Clinton administration attack Iraq later demanded that the Bush administration attack Iraq, exploiting the tragedy of September 11 to bring about their long-standing desire to see an American invasion of that country.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 21]
I oppose all foreign aid on principle… Foreign aid is not only immoral, since it involves the forced transfer of wealth, but it is also counterproductive, as a ceaseless stream of scholarship continues to show. Foreign aid has been a disaster in Africa, delaying sound economic reforms and encouraging wastefulness and statism. … Now, while free trade should be embraced, foreign aid should be absolutely rejected. Constitutional, moral, and practical arguments compel such a view. Constitutional authorization for such programs is at best dubious. Morally, I cannot justify the violent seizure of property from Americans in order to redistribute that property to a foreign government – and usually one that is responsible for the appalling material condition of its people. Surely we can agree that Americans ought not to be doing forced labor on behalf of other regimes, and that is exactly what foreign aid is.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Pages 34 & 99]
We have had troops in Korea for over five and a half decades. We have had troops in Europe and Japan for about as long. How many years is enough? An American presence in these places was supposed to be temporary, persisting only during the military emergencies that were cited as justification for bringing them there. Milton Friedman was right: there is nothing so permanent as a “temporary” government program.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 37]
Americans have the right to defend themselves against attack; that is not at issue. But that is very different from launching a preemptive war against a country that had not attacked us and could not attack us, that lacked a navy and an air force, and whose military budget was a fraction of a percent of our own. A policy of overthrowing or destabilizing every regime our government dislikes is no strategy at all, unless our goal is international chaos and domestic impoverishment.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 39]
(NOTE: I personally would argue that very frequently, creating international chaos and domestic impoverishment is EXACTLY the goal of our government’s operations. A long story which I have briefly addressed elsewhere. ~STMcC)
According to the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, all powers not delegated to the federal government by the states (in Article 1, Section 8) and not prohibited to the states in the Constitution (in Article 1, Section 10) are reserved to the states or to the people.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 44]
One day I walked into an operating room without knowing what I was walking into, and the doctors were in the middle of performing a C-section. It was actually an abortion by hysterotomy. The woman was probably six months along in her pregnancy, and the child she was carrying weighed over two pounds. At that time doctors were not especially sophisticated, for lack of a better term, when it came to killing the baby prior to delivery, so they went ahead with delivery and put the baby in a bucket in the corner of the room. The baby tried to breathe, and tried to cry, and everyone in the room pretended the baby wasn’t there. I was deeply shaken by this experience, and it hit me at that moment just how important the life issue was. …
If we can be so callous as to refer to a growing child in a mother’s womb as a parasite, I fear for our country’s future all the more. …
To those who argue that we cannot allow the states to make decisions on abortion since some will make the wrong ones, I reply that that is an excellent argument for world government – for how can we allow individual COUNTRIES to decide on abortion or other moral issues, if some may make the wrong decisions? Yet the dangers of a world government surely speak for themselves.
Let us therefore adopt the constitutional position, one that is achievable and can yield good results but that shuns the utopian idea that all evil can be eradicated.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Pages 59-61]
(NOTE: Like Dr. Paul, I am strongly Pro-Life, yet I do not feel that his position on this issue goes far enough. However, I do suspect he is basing his view upon the word “achievable” and I respect that. ~STMcC)
If our government were scrupulously faithful to the Constitution,we would not need to be especially concerned when a person who represents a philosophy different from our own takes political office. Our Constitution delegates relatively few tasks to the federal government.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 66]
Economic freedom is based on a simple moral rule: everyone has a right to his or her life and property, and no one has the right to deprive anyone of these things. To some extent, everyone accepts this principle. For instance, anyone going to his neighbor’s home and taking his money at gunpoint, regardless of all the wonderful, selfless things he promised to do with it, would be promptly arrested as a thief. But for some reason it is is considered morally acceptatble when government does that very thing. We have allowed government to operate according to its own set of moral rules. …
What if we stopped doing things we would consider morally outrageous if done by private individuals but that we consider perfectly all right when carried out by government in the name of “public policy”?
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 69 & 70]
Some Americans appear to believe that there would be no arts in America were it not for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an institution created in 1965. They cannot imagine things being done any other way, even though they WERE done another way throughout our country’s existence, and throughout most of mankind’s history. … NEA funds go not necessarily to the best artists, but to people who happen to be good at filling out government grant applications. I have my doubts that the same people populate both categories.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 75]
But if we want more economc freedom and a healthy and robust economy, serious inroads need to be made into federal spending. Otherwise, tax cuts will simply lead to more borrowing, more inflation, and the continued decline of the dollar. As I write, we are paying about $1.4 billion every day just for the interest on the national debt. Because our government refuses to live within its means, every single day we spend $1.4 billion and receive absolutely nothing in return.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 81]
Central economic planning has been as discredited as any idea can possibly be. But even though we point to our devotion to the free market, at the same time we centrally plan our monetary system, the very heart of the economy. Americans must reject the notion that one man, whether Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, or any other chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, can know what the proper money supply and interest rates ought to be. Only the market can determine that. Americans must learn this lesson if we want to avoid continuous and deeper recessions and to get the economy growing in a healthy and sustainable fashion.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 147]
What other policy for sheltering Americans from the collapse of the dollar is being advanced? Is there any, apart from comfortable delusions that the Federal Reserve, which is itself responsible for our financial mess, can be trusted to put everything right? For one thing, how can we be expected to place so much trust in a Federal Reserve System we’re not even allowed to audit? And even if the Fed chairman really possessed the singular genius our media and politicians regularly ascribe to him (no mattter who he is), what if things have reached a point at which the Fed simply cannot stop the collapse? What if economic law, which the Fed can no more defy than it can repeal the law of gravity, is about to hit the Fed and the American people like a tidal wave, before which little rate cuts here and there are like the tiny umbrella Wile E. Coyote puts over his head to protect himself from falling boulders?
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 155]
A federal Department of Education, for example, is an insult to the American people, who are more than capable of running their own schools without being looted to support a national education bureaucracy. We would get by just fine without it, as indeed Americans did for most of the twentieth century, a period when – by just coincidence? – the population was far better educated than it is now. In fact, given the Department of Education’s sorry record, if I truly opposed learning and knowledge I would propose tripling its budget.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 162]
We also need to begin to restore monetary freedom, which means that Americans should be free, if they wish, to engage in transactions and contracts denominated in gold and silver. It is essential that Americans be able to protect themselves in this way against any coming monetary disaster that would leave them holding valueless dollar bills. No one in politics or the media even talks about this issue, so you know it must be important.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 162]
You realize, of course, any book that manages to mention Wile E. Coyote in a chapter dedicated to an examination of economics is a book YOU HAVE GOT TO READ, right? Many more succinctly stated and plainly illustrated important political/social considerations are awaiting the person who picks up a copy of Doctor Ron Paul’s “THE REVOLUTION: A MANIFESTO.”
Unfortunately, however, Ron Paul will not be president of the United States, and regardless of which of the two S.O.Bamas get elected, the Black one or the White one, our next president will swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and then not only will he turn right around and uphold all of our current un-Constitutional, liberty-usurping Federal programs, but over the next four years, he will contribute to putting even more of them on the books! Oh, Johnny B. No Goode, and Barack B. Worse. Or vice versa. Whatever.
We may not know just yet which of these two major political party candidates will win the presidential election in November, but one thing, however, is certain: The more things O’Change, the more they’ll stay the McSame.
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
Related Links:
Ron Paul on the Economy & Iraq War ("Must-Read!") :
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul303.html
Comparing Obama’s & McCain’s proposed policies:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/node/8603
Apples To Oranges?
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/166-apples-to-oranges
More about the Council On Foreign Relations:
http://xtremelyun-pcandunrepentant.blogspot.com/2008/06/stop-being-useful-idiot.html
.
It’s just so dispiriting when I reflect on the fact that for the first time in quite awhile, the American People actually had a genuine opportunity to elect a man to the office of president who would have represented REAL “Change” and who would have attempted to make meaningful reforms in our seriously corrupted un-Constitutional form of government, but the voters let this golden opportunity slip away like a pickpocket at Oktoberfest. The man, the patriot, the doctor was “in” – Doctor RON PAUL – the moment was there – NOW! – all we lacked was the intelligence to “seize the day.” (And… uhm… well, when I say “we”, you know I don’t really mean “me”, don’t you? You know I mean “you”, right?)
Does anyone even recall that the United States Constitution proclaims itself to be “the supreme law of the land”? I have a great T-shirt that I bought via mail order and have worn for many years. It reads:
U. S. CONSTITUTION *
*Void where prohibited by law
The American People had a chance to nominate and then elect a candidate, an actual doctor, who had clearly diagnosed America’s ills (multiple forms of un-Constitutional collectivism), and who knew how to treat the diseased body (return to small, Constitutional government and free enterprise Capitalism – concepts that we haven’t even been within shouting distance of since prior to 1913), but for the six hundred and sixty-sixth trillionth and one half time, the American People were hoodwinked by the mainstream media, and instead of voting for authentic and much needed change, the Americans will once again go with the status quo: they will elect either Barack “Change-Rn’t-Really-Us” Obama or John “Old Man, Old Ways” McCain. Unless the unexpected happens, Obama will be our next president, but either way, we can expect a further slide into Orwellian Big Brother Socialism and our Brave New World. (“Brave New Nineteen Eighty-Four” y’all. Otherwise known as “2008 And Beyond.”)
Oh, boy howdy, what choices we have: you can have your brother’s cake and eat it too, with the radical high tax Socialism of “Mr. Change”, or you can vote for Neoconservative George W. McCain and get your Big Government Socialism shoved down your throat all the while you’re being lied to and told that it actually represents “smaller government Conservatism.” But if you’re no smarter than Republicans have shown themselves to be since long before the Ronald Reagan era, you won’t know the difference anyhow, so just swallow the socialistic s##t ‘n’ smile.
Yeah, the po’ American People have grown weary of Neocon Republicanism, so they’re going to vote “Change” this year and give the United States something that more closely resembles… uh… well, William Clintonism. Contemplating the 2008 presidential election and the response of the Americonned People, it brings to mind my most frequently quoted Bible verse: "As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly." (Proverbs 26:11). Please, Sir, may I have another serving of that “Change” that we’ve become so familiar with? Sure, it tastes terrible, but it’s the only flavor I can even imagine anymore.
The non-fool who has been living here in the U.S. for the last 25 years or so, would have noticed by now that it makes no difference whether it’s a Republican or a Democrat occupying the White House because either way, American Life continues to deteriorate. George Wallace once remarked that there’s “not a dime’s worth of difference” between the candidates offered by the Republican and Democrat parties, and he was, and remains, right about that. What we have here is a classic case of Dumb And Dumber. I’ll leave it to you to determine which is which. (Actually, the Dumb-O-Crats are dumber than the Repugnantcans but the difference is so inconsequential as to hardly be worth mentioning. There’s not a dollar’s worth of difference in their intelligence – which is really about a dime when factoring in the inflation since Wallace’s 15 minutes of time in the sun.)
In the cover story “Apples To Oranges?” of the July 21st issue of The New American magazine, writer Charles Scaliger accurately says in comparing the proposed policies of Obama to McCain that the presidential contenders have “been winnowed down to two polished posers who offer the American public, yet again, not a choice but an echo.” And I’ll add that even a few of the seeming differences are just a matter of “telling the necessary lies” in order to appease the targeted constituency. For example, those folks who really believe that Obama will recall the troops from Iraq are setting themselves up for a major disappointment: if he ever truly does pull them out of Iraq it will only be to establish them somewhere else in the Middle East. Whether you elect Obama or McCain, the soldiers are not coming home anytime soon, so just get used to the idea!
The most important but least understood point that Scaliger made in his article is the fact that since at least the 1930s, both major political parties and party candidates have been controlled by a semi-secret organization of (now) over 4,000 Elite Establishment Insiders known as the COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS (CFR). [If you think this is nonsense, click the link at the bottom of this Blog Bit.] The CFR was founded by a man who stated in print that he basically believed in “Socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx.” Scaliger tells us that of the 13 members of Obama’s Senior Working Group on National Security, 8 of them are CFR members, while one is a former member. “Mr. Change” also has CFR advisors on national finance and economics. As for John McCain, not only is McCain himself a CFR member, but he has at least 12 CFR members advising him. But here’s the real kicker: One of Obama’s foreign policy CFR advisors is Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski was not only Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy advisor, but he worked in a similar capacity for JOHN McCAIN during McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign!
That is such a remarkably telling fact that I am going to repeat it for the benefit of my Dumb-O-Crat readers who traditionally excel more in emotional idealism than they do in realism and logic:
One of Obama’s foreign policy CFR advisors is Zbigniew Brzezinski. Brzezinski was not only Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy advisor, but he worked in a similar capacity for JOHN McCAIN during McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign!
OK, now ask yourself, how much “Change” do you REALLY think you can expect by electing Barack Obama to the presidency? You’re being swindled again, boys and girls! It’s the same old story, the same old song and dance with all The Usual Suspects! Yeah, “Change” my a##! The candidates are employing all the usual advisors, but they are telling you to expect big Changes. Boy, do they think you’re stupid! (Are you?)
As if that wasn’t enough, it has been reported (and is almost assuredly true) that Obama was given a place at the table at the last Bilderberger meeting. In case you’re unaware, the Bilderbergers are another powerful international cabal of Elites very concerned about the well-being of you, the little guy in America….. WRONG!
If all of this is news to you, then you need to admit that you are simply an uneducated voter destined to vote for what you guess to be “the lesser of two evils.” However, maybe you should consider that given but two choices, even monkeys could pick the lesser of two evils 50% of the time, and regardless of whether or not we discount the ballots with hanging chads.
The American People like to promote the idea that they support the underdog, but this is mostly a lie; the American People, more than anything, love a “winner.” You disagree? See if you can count the number of new hats, jerseys, and bumper stickers that will suddenly manifest in celebration of the team that wins the next World Series, Super Bowl and NBA Championship. If every person who said that they’d like to have voted for Ron Paul but couldn’t because they thought he had no chance of winning, had in fact voted for him regardless, he might very well have made the Republican race quite interesting. Paul did extraordinarily well (“frighteningly well” to the Establishment Elites) in the preprimary straw polls, but when it came time to cast real votes, Americans chose to side with “pure politicians” instead, so long as they were convinced that their vote had a reasonably good chance of making a victor of their “lesser evil”, and making a winner of themselves by association in the process.
Meanwhile, I had reregistered from Independent to Repugnantcan solely in order to be allowed to vote for Ron Paul in the Arizona primary. (I have since reverted to an Independent, and will vote for Dr. Paul a second time in November’s general election by writing his name on my ballot; I refuse to vote for “evil”, lesser evil or otherwise – I value my vote much too highly to “waste” it like that. You want MY vote? You have to be worthy of MY vote.)
A friend of mine recently said in an e-mail that he figured he agreed with my theological positions 97.995% of the time. I responded: But that 97.995% is just a "rough estimate", right? Well, that's not bad. That's about the rate in which I agree with Ron Paul's positions.
About two months ago, I read Doctor Paul’s bestselling April 2008 book “THE REVOLUTION: A MANIFESTO” (don’t leave for the voting booth without it!) and I was pleasantly impressed by how well he – in just 170 small pages - was able to explain to a wide audience his positions on many important political issues. (In my opinion, it was a campaign blunder that this book wasn’t published much earlier.) Now I am going to post several excerpts from Ron Paul’s book “THE REVOLUTION” to illustrate what sort of AUTHENTIC CHANGES the American People could have hoped for if they had been smart enough to nominate and then elect The Good Doctor to the presidency:
Every election cycle we are treated to candidates who promise us “change,” and 2008 has been no different. But in the American political lexicon, “change” always means more of the same: more government, more looting of Americans, more inflation, more police-state measures, more unnecessary war, and more centralization of power.
Real change would mean something like the opposite of those things. It might even involve following our Constitution. And that’s the one option Americans are never permitted to hear.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page ix]
With national bankruptcy looming, politicians from both parties continue to make multitrillion-dollar promises of “free” goods from the government, and hardly a soul wonders if we can still afford to have troops in – this is not a misprint – 130 countries around the world. … Fundamental questions like this, and countless others besides, are off the table in our mainstream media, which focuses our attention on trivialities and phony debates as we march toward oblivion. … Truth is treason in the empire of lies.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page x]
Every election season America is presented with a series of false choices. Should we launch preemptive wars against this country or that one? Should every American neighborhood live under this social policy or that one? Should a third of our income be taken away by an income tax or a national sales tax? The shared assumptions behind these questions, on the other hand, are never cast in doubt, or even raised. And anyone who wants to ask different questions or who suggests that the questions as framed exclude attractive, humane alternatives, is ipso facto excluded from mainstream discussion.
And so every four years we are treated to the same tired, predictable routine: two candidates with few disagreements on fundamentals pretend that they represent dramatically different philosophies of government.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 1]
The war in Iraq was one of the most ill-considered, poorly planned, and just plain unnecessary military conflicts in American history, and I opposed it from the beginning. But the beginning I am speaking of was not 2002 or 2003. As early as 1997 and 1998, shortly after my return to Congress after a dozen years back in my medical practice, I spoke out against the actions of the Clinton administration, which I believed was moving us once again toward war with Iraq. I believe the genesis of our later policy was being set at that time. Many of the same voices who then demanded that the Clinton administration attack Iraq later demanded that the Bush administration attack Iraq, exploiting the tragedy of September 11 to bring about their long-standing desire to see an American invasion of that country.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 21]
I oppose all foreign aid on principle… Foreign aid is not only immoral, since it involves the forced transfer of wealth, but it is also counterproductive, as a ceaseless stream of scholarship continues to show. Foreign aid has been a disaster in Africa, delaying sound economic reforms and encouraging wastefulness and statism. … Now, while free trade should be embraced, foreign aid should be absolutely rejected. Constitutional, moral, and practical arguments compel such a view. Constitutional authorization for such programs is at best dubious. Morally, I cannot justify the violent seizure of property from Americans in order to redistribute that property to a foreign government – and usually one that is responsible for the appalling material condition of its people. Surely we can agree that Americans ought not to be doing forced labor on behalf of other regimes, and that is exactly what foreign aid is.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Pages 34 & 99]
We have had troops in Korea for over five and a half decades. We have had troops in Europe and Japan for about as long. How many years is enough? An American presence in these places was supposed to be temporary, persisting only during the military emergencies that were cited as justification for bringing them there. Milton Friedman was right: there is nothing so permanent as a “temporary” government program.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 37]
Americans have the right to defend themselves against attack; that is not at issue. But that is very different from launching a preemptive war against a country that had not attacked us and could not attack us, that lacked a navy and an air force, and whose military budget was a fraction of a percent of our own. A policy of overthrowing or destabilizing every regime our government dislikes is no strategy at all, unless our goal is international chaos and domestic impoverishment.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 39]
(NOTE: I personally would argue that very frequently, creating international chaos and domestic impoverishment is EXACTLY the goal of our government’s operations. A long story which I have briefly addressed elsewhere. ~STMcC)
According to the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, all powers not delegated to the federal government by the states (in Article 1, Section 8) and not prohibited to the states in the Constitution (in Article 1, Section 10) are reserved to the states or to the people.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 44]
One day I walked into an operating room without knowing what I was walking into, and the doctors were in the middle of performing a C-section. It was actually an abortion by hysterotomy. The woman was probably six months along in her pregnancy, and the child she was carrying weighed over two pounds. At that time doctors were not especially sophisticated, for lack of a better term, when it came to killing the baby prior to delivery, so they went ahead with delivery and put the baby in a bucket in the corner of the room. The baby tried to breathe, and tried to cry, and everyone in the room pretended the baby wasn’t there. I was deeply shaken by this experience, and it hit me at that moment just how important the life issue was. …
If we can be so callous as to refer to a growing child in a mother’s womb as a parasite, I fear for our country’s future all the more. …
To those who argue that we cannot allow the states to make decisions on abortion since some will make the wrong ones, I reply that that is an excellent argument for world government – for how can we allow individual COUNTRIES to decide on abortion or other moral issues, if some may make the wrong decisions? Yet the dangers of a world government surely speak for themselves.
Let us therefore adopt the constitutional position, one that is achievable and can yield good results but that shuns the utopian idea that all evil can be eradicated.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Pages 59-61]
(NOTE: Like Dr. Paul, I am strongly Pro-Life, yet I do not feel that his position on this issue goes far enough. However, I do suspect he is basing his view upon the word “achievable” and I respect that. ~STMcC)
If our government were scrupulously faithful to the Constitution,we would not need to be especially concerned when a person who represents a philosophy different from our own takes political office. Our Constitution delegates relatively few tasks to the federal government.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 66]
Economic freedom is based on a simple moral rule: everyone has a right to his or her life and property, and no one has the right to deprive anyone of these things. To some extent, everyone accepts this principle. For instance, anyone going to his neighbor’s home and taking his money at gunpoint, regardless of all the wonderful, selfless things he promised to do with it, would be promptly arrested as a thief. But for some reason it is is considered morally acceptatble when government does that very thing. We have allowed government to operate according to its own set of moral rules. …
What if we stopped doing things we would consider morally outrageous if done by private individuals but that we consider perfectly all right when carried out by government in the name of “public policy”?
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 69 & 70]
Some Americans appear to believe that there would be no arts in America were it not for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), an institution created in 1965. They cannot imagine things being done any other way, even though they WERE done another way throughout our country’s existence, and throughout most of mankind’s history. … NEA funds go not necessarily to the best artists, but to people who happen to be good at filling out government grant applications. I have my doubts that the same people populate both categories.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 75]
But if we want more economc freedom and a healthy and robust economy, serious inroads need to be made into federal spending. Otherwise, tax cuts will simply lead to more borrowing, more inflation, and the continued decline of the dollar. As I write, we are paying about $1.4 billion every day just for the interest on the national debt. Because our government refuses to live within its means, every single day we spend $1.4 billion and receive absolutely nothing in return.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 81]
Central economic planning has been as discredited as any idea can possibly be. But even though we point to our devotion to the free market, at the same time we centrally plan our monetary system, the very heart of the economy. Americans must reject the notion that one man, whether Alan Greenspan, Ben Bernanke, or any other chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, can know what the proper money supply and interest rates ought to be. Only the market can determine that. Americans must learn this lesson if we want to avoid continuous and deeper recessions and to get the economy growing in a healthy and sustainable fashion.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 147]
What other policy for sheltering Americans from the collapse of the dollar is being advanced? Is there any, apart from comfortable delusions that the Federal Reserve, which is itself responsible for our financial mess, can be trusted to put everything right? For one thing, how can we be expected to place so much trust in a Federal Reserve System we’re not even allowed to audit? And even if the Fed chairman really possessed the singular genius our media and politicians regularly ascribe to him (no mattter who he is), what if things have reached a point at which the Fed simply cannot stop the collapse? What if economic law, which the Fed can no more defy than it can repeal the law of gravity, is about to hit the Fed and the American people like a tidal wave, before which little rate cuts here and there are like the tiny umbrella Wile E. Coyote puts over his head to protect himself from falling boulders?
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 155]
A federal Department of Education, for example, is an insult to the American people, who are more than capable of running their own schools without being looted to support a national education bureaucracy. We would get by just fine without it, as indeed Americans did for most of the twentieth century, a period when – by just coincidence? – the population was far better educated than it is now. In fact, given the Department of Education’s sorry record, if I truly opposed learning and knowledge I would propose tripling its budget.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 162]
We also need to begin to restore monetary freedom, which means that Americans should be free, if they wish, to engage in transactions and contracts denominated in gold and silver. It is essential that Americans be able to protect themselves in this way against any coming monetary disaster that would leave them holding valueless dollar bills. No one in politics or the media even talks about this issue, so you know it must be important.
[-Ron Paul’s “The Revolution: A Manifesto”; Page 162]
You realize, of course, any book that manages to mention Wile E. Coyote in a chapter dedicated to an examination of economics is a book YOU HAVE GOT TO READ, right? Many more succinctly stated and plainly illustrated important political/social considerations are awaiting the person who picks up a copy of Doctor Ron Paul’s “THE REVOLUTION: A MANIFESTO.”
Unfortunately, however, Ron Paul will not be president of the United States, and regardless of which of the two S.O.Bamas get elected, the Black one or the White one, our next president will swear to uphold the U.S. Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and then not only will he turn right around and uphold all of our current un-Constitutional, liberty-usurping Federal programs, but over the next four years, he will contribute to putting even more of them on the books! Oh, Johnny B. No Goode, and Barack B. Worse. Or vice versa. Whatever.
We may not know just yet which of these two major political party candidates will win the presidential election in November, but one thing, however, is certain: The more things O’Change, the more they’ll stay the McSame.
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
Related Links:
Ron Paul on the Economy & Iraq War ("Must-Read!") :
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul303.html
Comparing Obama’s & McCain’s proposed policies:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/node/8603
Apples To Oranges?
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/election/166-apples-to-oranges
More about the Council On Foreign Relations:
http://xtremelyun-pcandunrepentant.blogspot.com/2008/06/stop-being-useful-idiot.html
.
Monday, August 4, 2008
KEITH HERNANDEZ AND THE WATCHDOGS OF POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
.
[From the STMcC archive; 2006, April.]
The Heat Index is a feature frequently found on page two of The Arizona Republic’s sports section. (Yes, THAT “Arizona Republic”: Phoenix’s major daily newspaper often referred to as “The Arizona Repugnant” or – my favorite – “The Daily Disappointment.”)
Very recently, while cleaning out an old Word File, I came across a letter I had written to the editor of The Daily Disappointment’s sports section. Although I have had a few of my letters previously printed in The Los Angeles Times and in our very own Daily Disappointment, in this instance, however, those liberal, politically correct weenies posing as men at the newspaper declined to print what I had submitted. I was about to delete this old composition from my computer file when it suddenly hit me that it might make a good entry in my XTREMELY UN-P.C. AND UNREPENTANT Blog.
The Keith Hernandez in question is indeed the same former all-star first baseman from the New York Mets and the same Keith Hernandez who, in 1992, appeared in an episode of Seinfeld in which he asked Jerry to help him move out of his apartment. So, without further ado, here is my unpublished letter to the editor of The Daily Disappointment’s sports section:
Dear Editor ~
This is in response to the article titled "EARTH TO KEITH: IT’S 2006, FOOL" which appeared in The Heat Index on Wednesday, April 26th, 2006.
During a recent New York Mets/San Diego Padres game, Mets broadcaster Keith Hernandez questioned why a female was in the Padres dugout. Hernandez thought this was inappropriate, and though it was later revealed that Kelly Calabrese was employed by the team as a massage therapist, Hernandez publicly said women "don't belong in the dugout."
The Mets organization reprimanded the broadcaster for his comments, which it had a right to do since he is hired to represent the team. But The Heat Index couldn't resist printing that Hernandez is a "fool" and an "idiot" for holding that opinion. This is America after all, and no place for personal opinions - particularly opinions so politically incorrect.
I think The Arizona Republic should see to it that such horrific and injurious displays of rebellious individual thought are squelched from now on. I believe that The Heat Index should be renamed “The Speech Police” and each week they could print all of the ideas and opinions that the American people are allowed to hold and express, and if we all conform to their sage reforms, then The Speech Police should feel no need to resort to name-calling in the future.
Let me point out, however, that likely a large number of people, afraid to suffer the penalty for transgressing political correctness, silently agree with Keith Hernandez. I can state unequivocally that if my Mother - who worked for several years in the 1960s for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the California Angels organizations - was with us still, she would say, "Good for you, Keith!"
Kelly Calabrese, the deeply offended massage therapist, later lamented that Hernandez had not only discredited her as a person, but discredited women. Will someone please inform that woman in the Padres dugout that “there's no crying in baseball!”
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
[From the STMcC archive; 2006, April.]
The Heat Index is a feature frequently found on page two of The Arizona Republic’s sports section. (Yes, THAT “Arizona Republic”: Phoenix’s major daily newspaper often referred to as “The Arizona Repugnant” or – my favorite – “The Daily Disappointment.”)
Very recently, while cleaning out an old Word File, I came across a letter I had written to the editor of The Daily Disappointment’s sports section. Although I have had a few of my letters previously printed in The Los Angeles Times and in our very own Daily Disappointment, in this instance, however, those liberal, politically correct weenies posing as men at the newspaper declined to print what I had submitted. I was about to delete this old composition from my computer file when it suddenly hit me that it might make a good entry in my XTREMELY UN-P.C. AND UNREPENTANT Blog.
The Keith Hernandez in question is indeed the same former all-star first baseman from the New York Mets and the same Keith Hernandez who, in 1992, appeared in an episode of Seinfeld in which he asked Jerry to help him move out of his apartment. So, without further ado, here is my unpublished letter to the editor of The Daily Disappointment’s sports section:
Dear Editor ~
This is in response to the article titled "EARTH TO KEITH: IT’S 2006, FOOL" which appeared in The Heat Index on Wednesday, April 26th, 2006.
During a recent New York Mets/San Diego Padres game, Mets broadcaster Keith Hernandez questioned why a female was in the Padres dugout. Hernandez thought this was inappropriate, and though it was later revealed that Kelly Calabrese was employed by the team as a massage therapist, Hernandez publicly said women "don't belong in the dugout."
The Mets organization reprimanded the broadcaster for his comments, which it had a right to do since he is hired to represent the team. But The Heat Index couldn't resist printing that Hernandez is a "fool" and an "idiot" for holding that opinion. This is America after all, and no place for personal opinions - particularly opinions so politically incorrect.
I think The Arizona Republic should see to it that such horrific and injurious displays of rebellious individual thought are squelched from now on. I believe that The Heat Index should be renamed “The Speech Police” and each week they could print all of the ideas and opinions that the American people are allowed to hold and express, and if we all conform to their sage reforms, then The Speech Police should feel no need to resort to name-calling in the future.
Let me point out, however, that likely a large number of people, afraid to suffer the penalty for transgressing political correctness, silently agree with Keith Hernandez. I can state unequivocally that if my Mother - who worked for several years in the 1960s for the Los Angeles Dodgers and the California Angels organizations - was with us still, she would say, "Good for you, Keith!"
Kelly Calabrese, the deeply offended massage therapist, later lamented that Hernandez had not only discredited her as a person, but discredited women. Will someone please inform that woman in the Padres dugout that “there's no crying in baseball!”
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
Monday, July 14, 2008
ODE TO MAN'S BEST FRIEND
[From the STMcC archive: 2005, September 24]
Book: "I AM PUPPY, HEAR ME YAP: The Ages Of Dog" by Valerie Shaff and Roy Blount; 2000
Grade: A
You can keep your new, gold Lexus;
Fancy cars just ain't my cup of tea.
Don't care about computer games;
These things don't appeal at all to me.
Some folks need the latest gadgets,
And have their homes filled with high-tech toys:
iPods and digital cameras,
Whatever makes electronic noise.
Now they've even got a cell phone
They can use to take a photograph,
But "He kept up with the Joneses"
Won't be written as my epitaph.
Because I know that Palm Pilots,
And expensive name brand tennis shoes,
Silk shirts and laptop computers,
Will never save a man from The Blues.
If happiness is what you seek,
It's really a simple equation:
Jettison computerized junk;
Get a Lab, Shepherd, or Dalmatian!
While some people dabble in fish,
Others try turtles, hamsters or mice.
Trust me and go with the canine -
You'll find yourself in Pet Paradise!
The Woman weeps watching Chick Flicks,
While late at night she cuddles her cat.
Reaching for tissues and chocolate,
She winds up dehydrated and fat.
But Men have the best idea
For getting their emotions to mend:
In the yard they'll romp 'n' rassle,
And play some Fetch with a "Man's Best Friend."
But suppose your yard is too small,
And constant barking makes your head ache.
I know how you can have your dog
Without yapping that keeps you awake.
Buy 'I AM PUPPY, HEAR ME YAP'
For you are bound to smile and to laugh.
The witty verse is by Roy Blount;
The great photos by Valerie Shaff.
All types of dogs will be found here;
Some noble, some filthy, some cleaner;
"The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly"
And one even looks like a wiener!
I've been so grateful for this book;
It makes owning a dog such a breeze!
There's no feeding and no walking,
And I don't miss a house full of fleas.
Happily there are no drawbacks,
But there's one thing the book can't replace:
When I have come home after work,
This publication can't lick my face.
Still, choosing it over a dog -
The decision for me wasn't hard;
I enjoy canine company
Without stepping in poop in my yard.
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
.
Book: "I AM PUPPY, HEAR ME YAP: The Ages Of Dog" by Valerie Shaff and Roy Blount; 2000
Grade: A
You can keep your new, gold Lexus;
Fancy cars just ain't my cup of tea.
Don't care about computer games;
These things don't appeal at all to me.
Some folks need the latest gadgets,
And have their homes filled with high-tech toys:
iPods and digital cameras,
Whatever makes electronic noise.
Now they've even got a cell phone
They can use to take a photograph,
But "He kept up with the Joneses"
Won't be written as my epitaph.
Because I know that Palm Pilots,
And expensive name brand tennis shoes,
Silk shirts and laptop computers,
Will never save a man from The Blues.
If happiness is what you seek,
It's really a simple equation:
Jettison computerized junk;
Get a Lab, Shepherd, or Dalmatian!
While some people dabble in fish,
Others try turtles, hamsters or mice.
Trust me and go with the canine -
You'll find yourself in Pet Paradise!
The Woman weeps watching Chick Flicks,
While late at night she cuddles her cat.
Reaching for tissues and chocolate,
She winds up dehydrated and fat.
But Men have the best idea
For getting their emotions to mend:
In the yard they'll romp 'n' rassle,
And play some Fetch with a "Man's Best Friend."
But suppose your yard is too small,
And constant barking makes your head ache.
I know how you can have your dog
Without yapping that keeps you awake.
Buy 'I AM PUPPY, HEAR ME YAP'
For you are bound to smile and to laugh.
The witty verse is by Roy Blount;
The great photos by Valerie Shaff.
All types of dogs will be found here;
Some noble, some filthy, some cleaner;
"The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly"
And one even looks like a wiener!
I've been so grateful for this book;
It makes owning a dog such a breeze!
There's no feeding and no walking,
And I don't miss a house full of fleas.
Happily there are no drawbacks,
But there's one thing the book can't replace:
When I have come home after work,
This publication can't lick my face.
Still, choosing it over a dog -
The decision for me wasn't hard;
I enjoy canine company
Without stepping in poop in my yard.
~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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