Posted on 07/09/2005 2:41:09 AM PDT by goldstategop
Of all the myths of the left, the most exasperating and pervasive (perpetuated by its media propaganda machine and trumpeted by blowhards like Ted Kennedy) is the fantasy that conservatives are rich, cruel, plutocrats who get their kicks evicting widows and orphans on Christmas Eve, whilst liberals - salt-of-the-earth-types, don't you know -- are champions of the powerless and downtrodden.
The Supreme Court decision last week in Kelo v. City of New London should lay to rest that lie for all time.
Kelo was a classic confrontation between the little guy and powerful, moneyed interests.
The high court's five doctrinaire leftists decided to let New London, Connecticut demolish a middle-class neighborhood - small businesses (some in the same family for generations) and private dwellings (one lived in by a married couple in their '80s, for over 50 years) - to make way for a riverside development, including a hotel, health club and office complex.
In keeping with its penchant for rewriting the Constitution to suit its whims, the court's Stalinist majority (Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter and Kennedy) expanded the 5th. Amendment's power of eminent domain -- which allows government to take private holdings for "public use" (schools, roads and the like) for "just compensation" - into the stratosphere.
New London argued that "public use" should be more broadly interpreted as public benefit. In other words, because the use planned by a developer will hypothetically provide more tax revenue and new jobs, it should be allowed to bulldoze a neighborhood -- and all the memories, hopes and dreams contained therein.
Say the magic words -- revenue enhancement -- and a liberal's eyes begin to gleam; saliva forms at the corners of his mouth. Whatever feeds government's insatiable appetite for revenue (while simultaneously throwing a few scraps to the left's corporate cronies), must be constitutional!
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor (who often mistakes the Constitution for her conscience) got it right this time - as did those heartless conservatives, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas. In a scathing dissent, O'Connor noted that the ruling was Robin Hood in reverse (take from mom and pop businesses and elderly homeowners, to bestow on corporate giant Pfizer, future occupant of the office space).
O'Connor: "Any property may now be taken for the benefit of a private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries will likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."
This latest judicial obscenity is courtesy of those who passionately proclaim their tender regard for what they condescendingly call working families. Stevens et. al., are the face of the monstrosity liberalism has become. If Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Taliban Dick Durban had their way, all nine justices would be intellectual clones of Souter and Ginsberg.
Although I used the term Stalinist earlier (rather loosely, I must admit) modern liberals are really much closer to fascists. They don't want to nationalize property outright (look at how well that worked in North Korea). Rather, their goal is a corporate state - a diabolical hybrid of big government and big corporations: where competition is limited, profits and tax revenues are maximized, favored businesses are patronized (others are allowed to wither) and, one day soon, we'll all be working for the company store.
It may seem counterintuitive to some, but Wall Street loves welfare-state Democrats. An article in Human Events (June 24, 2005) notes that New York Senator Chuck Schumer (American Conservative Union rating - 6%, lifetime ADA rating -- 98%) is the king of corporate campaign cash. Since he arrived in the Senate in 1999, Schumer has hauled in $27.5 million - most of it from the board rooms.
Schumer is the fair-haired boy of the securities and investment industry ($1.3 million in 2002 and 2003, exceeded only by John Kerry's take). In fact, the top five beneficiaries of Wall Street's largesse all are liberal Democrats. The 6th, Arlen Specter, is a liberal Republican.
Schumer also made out like a bandit with bankers, contractors, high-tech tycoons and the tobacco and liquor industries (famous for their solicitude for the working man).
The New York senator is no anomaly. Of the 25 largest contributors to 527 Committees (which campaign in the guise of education), all but two are Democratic donors. Between them, George Soros, Peter Lewis and Steven Bing contributed over $60 million to the destruction of America in the 2004 election cycle.
Overwhelmingly, the richest men in the Senate are liberals - John F. Kerry ($675 million), Jon Corzine ($400 million), Herb Kohl ($300 million) and Jay Rockefeller ($200 million). And still the coupon-clipping bastards have the audacity to regularly take to the floor and beat their breasts over the plight of the poor - while doing everything in their power to keep them impoverished.
Forget about Congress. When was the last time you met a liberal with dirt under his fingernails - or one who had a job that actually mattered? By and large, the humanistic horde is composed of journalists, trial lawyers, academics, educators (so-called), "entertainers," social workers, bureaucrats, union bosses (who occasionally appear on the factory floor in a tuxedo), "neighborhood activists," mental-health workers, and lesbian owners of holistic-healing centers. Their cause is financed by donations from corporations, foundations and the taxpayers' pockets.
Here are a few of the many ways the left has non-consensual relations with the objects of its affection:
Tax Cuts - Who's really hurt more by taxes, the man struggling to get by on $40,000 a year, or the corporate exec making $400,000 per annum? For one of them, the tax bite means taking his third annual vacation in the Bahamas instead of St. Moritz. For the other, it's sending his kids to a crappy community college, instead of a decent private school.
Vouchers - The filthy rich don't subject their offspring to public education. (Kennedy's kids all went to exclusive prep schools.) The urban poor - especially minorities - suffer the most from public illiteracy factories. The Democratic Party will fight to the death to keep them in these over-priced day-care/detention centers. The party of special interests is in thrall to the teachers' unions. Also, it's in the party's interest to create increasingly stupid voters.
Social Security -The system is going to collapse (it's demographically doomed by the left's population policies). The rich have their investments and corporate pensions. Congressmen have their own gold-plated pension plan that would make King Tut envious. Liberals are determined to keep the rest of us prisoners of their Ponzi scheme until the bitter end. In our old age, when we're really hungry, perhaps we can break open the Social Security lockbox and eat government IOUs.
Energy policy - Who feels more pain at the pump, the man driving a Porsche or the guy in a Buick? By blocking energy development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Kerry and the rest of the Sierra Club latte-guzzlers are sacrificing the salesman who logs a few hundred miles a week and the guy who drives 60 miles roundtrip to his job as a security guard, for their precious caribou.
Illegal immigration - The poor and middle class suffer more than most from the left's commitment to open borders. (Some conservatives are equally culpable.) Corporate America wants cheap, docile labor. Democrats pander to the Hispanic lobby. Blue-collar workers and even skilled craftsmen lose their jobs to the legions arriving daily from points south.
Homosexual marriage -- The decline of the American family hits the poor particularly hard. In the name of equality (their god), liberals are determined to turn the family into a free-form institution, thus undercutting the real safety net of under-class.
So, Joe Average comes home from a day at the factory - from a job he may soon lose to Juan from Tiajuana, who'll work for half Joe's wages. Every week, his commute costs a few dollars more, thanks to the caribou-huggers in their SUVs.
Joe's 15-year-old daughter is pregnant (sex education works wonders), while his 17-year-old son can barely read a comic book -- both products of public mis-education. A tax cut would help Joe put his 6-year-old in a parochial school, but tax cuts only benefit the rich, Ted and Hillary insist.
If Social Security is even around then, Joe can look forward to a comfortable retirement eating dog food. Soon, the sodomites down the street will be able to marry, making a mockery of his marriage - one of the few things that gives his life meaning.
To top it all off, now that it has a green light from those defenders of the common man on the Supreme Court, his town is thinking about taking his modest, middle-class dwelling for a strip-mall.
Who loves ya, baby?
At the end of George Orwell's "Animal Farm," the pigs, who've taken over by selling themselves as liberators of the other animals, are ultimately unmasked as the new oppressors. "No question, now, what has happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, man to pig, and pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which."
The pigs of politics, the pigs of the judiciary and the pigs of the board room all merge together in one snarling, ravenous beast-face.
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
As a heartless, coldblooded, and highly manipultive sociopath, well known to me, once said: "I guess I just care too much."
bookmark
I was in graduate school in the 70s, teaching Freshman Comp. Some of the students (predictably) were arguing how much purer, more noble, etc. the poor were than the middle class. I asked why, then, did they want to give the poor more money, essentially making them middle class. They practically foamed at the mouth, but had no answer.
(Note: I've known plenty of poor people -- as with any other group, they include the good, the bad and the indifferent. Economic class is a poor predicter of virtue.)
whilst liberals - salt-of-the-earth-types, don't you know -- are champions of the powerless and downtrodden.
expanded the 5th. Amendment's power of eminent domain -- which allows government to take private holdings for "public use"
In Kelo, the court huddled up and held a five man constitutional convention to rewrite the phrase public use into public benefit. Public benefit can mean anything, to anyone, at any time. Public benefit is simply the American version of the Marxist common good. Nothing more.
This decision is designed to grow big government even bigger. Its also designed to strip away individual rights in favor of government common good. Its an effort to push us and our property into collective totalitarianism where the right of the group trumps the right of the individual.
Thats how all the isms operate, whether its called Marxism, socialism, communism or fascism. In these isms, individuals are expected to offer their money, their property and their labor to the good of the imperial state.
When they say they are the party of the poor..they mean the party that will keep YOU POOR.
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