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Posted on 10/08/2013 6:25:32 AM PDT by TomServo
One way or another, the battle of the budget and the debt ceiling will be over by All Hallows' Eve.
Yet, as one looks deeper, at the irreconcilable conflict behind the present clash, only a roaring optimist would imagine we shall ever know again the tranquility and unity of the Eisenhower-Kennedy years.
Consider the bile dumped upon Tea Party Republicans by Barack Obama, Harry Reid and their camp followers in the national press.
What did the Tea Party do to deserve this? Answer: These extremists shut down the U.S. government, they're holding America hostage, and they're inflicting terrible suffering on innocent people.
But is this true?
Three times in a fortnight, the House has voted to fund every department, agency, and program of the government -- except Obamacare. Who, then, is truly shutting down the government?
What we are witnessing here is the unfolding of the Big Lie -- the constant repetition of a transparent falsehood -- to persuade a pliable public not only to believe it, but to recite it, as in Orwell's "1984."
Obamacare, we are told, was enacted by Congress, signed by the president, upheld by the Supreme Court, confirmed by Obama's victory in 2012. To try to defund or reform it amounts to an attempted coup, an overturning of the election results of November.
But does not Congress have the power of the purse to fund or defund any program it chooses? Is that not in the Constitution?
And have not the last three years exposed glaring flaws in Obamacare? Have not severely adverse consequences turned up in widespread layoffs and a reversion to part-time help? Did not the Cleveland Clinic say it will have to let 3,000 people go?
Why then is the House's exercise of its constitutional authority to defund Obamacare, which polls show a majority of Americans favor, such a moral outrage?
This brings us to the underlying conflict.
The Obamacare battle is part of a larger struggle between a party of government and a conservative party that fears America is heading down a road traveled by Greece, Italy and Spain.
Now the party of government can surely claim credit for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. Yet, that same party is also responsible for driving New York City to the brink of bankruptcy in the 1970s and for the disaster that is Detroit today.
That party is also responsible for an unsustainable welfare state where half the U.S. population pays zero income taxes but consumes hundreds of billions yearly in social welfare benefits.
And how are the people who preside over this annual redistribution of America's wealth faring? Just fine, thank you.
According to the latest data from the Census Bureau, the four counties in the United States with the highest median family income are all in the D.C. area: Arlington, Loudoun and Fairfax County, Va., and Howard County, Md. Maryland's Montgomery County, just north of D.C., ranks 7. Five of the top ten. Not bad, eh?
Though 120,000 D.C. residents are on food stamps, the city boasts a median family income higher than all but four states. And D.C. leads the nation in the number of bedroom counties, nine, where the median family income exceeds $100,000.
Big government and the Fat City are one in Barack Obama's America.
And how does the Tea Party imperil the country?
First, they risk taking America over the cliff into default. But that raises a question: Since the Tea Party folks are newcomers to town, who brought America to the edge of this cliff?
What radical added $6 trillion to our national debt in five years? Or did the Tea Party do that?
Almost all now agree that the entitlement programs -- Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid -- threaten to consume the budget.
Is the Tea Party responsible for this gathering disaster?
Was the Tea Party beating the drums for those trillion-dollar wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Is the Tea Party responsible for our being committed to fighting other countries' wars and paying other countries' bills, in perpetuity, through foreign aid?
When the Tea Party says the Fed's QE3 amounts to printing money and inflating the currency, that it is creating stock market and real estate bubbles certain to burst, and that the dollar's future as the world's reserve currency is imperiled, do they not have a point?
These same views are today being echoed by economists and writers, few of whom are ever likely to show up wearing side arms at God and Country Rallies.
And just where did our community-organizer president learn his economics. From Saul Alinksy's "Rules for Radicals"? From his senate days in Springfield, capital of the state that is the odds-on favorite to be first in the nation to default on its debts?
The Tea Party is feared and detested in Washington because these folks threaten the ideology, the vested interests, and most critical of all, the rice bowls in this city that voted 15-1 for Obama.
Thanks for posting this article.
Pat did a good job of turning the public discussion towards a more historical view of the current news.
IMHO, the reason that the TAXED ENOUGH ALREADY Party is “-— feared by Washington - - -” is that the realists understand that the TEA Party IS the Mighty Silent Majority.
2010 was just a warm up for us.
The only thing that is “new” is THE NEW REPUBLICAN PARTY.
RINO Hunting Season begins 1-1-2014.
BTW, this 2014 RINO hunt has no bag limits, tents or caves - - -
With all the focus on the personalities involved, and the political damage or lack thereof from what we are witnessing, I can’t help but think that the big picture is shaping up as a clear win for our side.
Liberalism itself is being exposed for what it has always been-a failed ideology-by what is happening today.
From Obamacare to foreign policy, it’s all blowing up in their faces. Worse for the left, this is exactly what conservatives said would happen.
I have a liberal acquaintance who has undergone a transformation, largely because of Obamacare, but also because she cannot defend a number of other policies that have resulted in the opposite of what she thought the outcome would be. What seems to bother her most is how Obama’s petulance has been revealed over time. The bloom is off the rose, so to speak.
If this is happening to her, it could be happening to a lot of liberals.
Democrats want to control people. Conservatives want liberty and freedom.
The gap is irreconcilable.
You nailed it, it is the fight between good and evil,light and darkness.
“We are no longer a single people with common goals.”
There are ways to rid America of ‘the others’.
PS No multi-culti’ nation has ever survived for long.
PPS That means Americans must choose between America and ‘the others’.
If someone is obsessed with burning my house down, and I am obsessed with saving it, how can we reconcile? Burn half?
“Yes... it is indeed irreconcilable and will remain so until one side or the other is dead.”
I suggest that all we need do to render the Parasitic/Democrats both harmless to the Republic, AND retain them as useful citizens is remove their franchise.
“Sorry, having voted for socialism as a Democrat was effective treason and your voting card is permanently cancelled.
PS Your taxes are going to be higher, so that you can give back some of what you voted to steal from actual Americans.
PPS Moses made a mistake, up on that mountaintop. When he wrote down the Commandment:
Don’t Steal”, he forgot the “Nor enlist thy CongressCritter to steal for you.”
Sadly the answer is yes.
Yes, unless the Dems want to reach across the isle and steer to the right instead of moving always slightly left, the way it has been going since the constitution was written. Problem is, we are now out of road to the left, any further and we are in the socialist ditch. You can only lean left for so long, then there is no alternative but lean right. We are there...right or die trying. Compromise is over with.
Bfl
That 1865 conflict still hasn’t been reconciled from the lib point of view.
This conflict? No. I, for one, will NEVER trust the government again.
bkmk
CW2 Ping
A civil divorce is here. We’re just working out the details.
I don’t see a civil divorce. How would it happen?
The parasites MUST be fed....by us....OR ELSE.
I think we all know the answer to that question.
You’re thinking a “civilized” divorce. I was just thinking a terrible, fight inducing, typical “I hate you”, shot-fired, violent and nasty divorce.
Yes.
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