Posted on 03/30/2012 1:20:18 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
The world came unhinged in the fall of 2008.
.....Such a flurry of state activity would have been enough to spark a reaction from Americans traditionally suspicious of central government. But the interventions did not stop there. Even before Obama was inaugurated in January 2009 the collective wisdom in Washington held that the way to restore prosperity was a massive stimulus of public spending. So Congress passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, at an eventual price tag of $840 billion, in February. The bill, which included an increased refundable tax credit for working people, showered money on state governments (and the public sector unions that staff them), on welfare and unemployment recipients, and on the Departments of Energy, Education, and Transportation. Then, on February 18, Obama proposed a $275 billion housing bailout to encourage refinancing among homeowners whose mortgages cost more than their homes were worth.
The fact that it was the mortgage plan—rather than the bank or auto bailouts or the stimulus—which provoked the first call for a new American Tea Party has been little remarked upon. But the detail is revealing. On the morning of February 19 CNBC anchor Rick Santelli delivered his famous rant against President Obama’s housing agenda, in which he called for friends of liberty to gather in Chicago in the summer to dump mortgage-backed securities into Lake Michigan. Santelli, in the space of less than five minutes, set the template for the coming populist reaction against the bipartisan, elite policies of tax, spend, bail out, and elect.
That template had two significant features. Santelli’s plea was grounded in American first principles, invoking the founding generation in its reference to the Tea Party and in appealing to the authority of “people like Benjamin Franklin and [Thomas] Jefferson—what we’re doing in this country now is making them roll over in their graves.” Second, Santelli was not arguing simply that the government was spending too much money; his critique had a moral dimension that transcended mere accounting. “The government is promoting bad behavior,” he said. Some people had made mistakes during the height of the boom. Why should the government reward those mistakes by bailing out insolvent enterprises or lavishing money on homeowners who took on more debt than they could handle?
Spending one’s way out of a recession was not only counterintuitive; it was also harmful for one’s descendants, who would foot the bill. Implicit in the critique of bailouts has always been a moral critique of the actions that result in bailouts and the behaviors that are encouraged by them. Intrusive and profligate government doesn’t just harm economies and destroy balance sheets; it erodes character. There’s a reason the term for this is “moral hazard.”
[Big BIG SNIP]
Indeed, the real achievement of the Tea Party is not that it has successfully purged social issues from the Republican agenda but that it has given Republican economic policies a moral ground on which to stand. Lower taxes, less spending, reformed entitlements, and freer trade can be tough sells on their own. But wedded to the vision of the Declaration of Independence, in which government exists to secure only those rights that we possess by virtue of being human, a market-friendly agenda makes a lot more economic, social, and political sense.
So we owe thanks to the Tea Partiers because they are responsible for recovering the Declaration’s vision. They remind us that the business of government is not to help anyone’s profit margin but to protect the natural rights of individuals from intrusive, meddlesome majorities. Harking back to the Founders gives the Tea Party an ideological consistency and political adaptability that could prove immensely powerful. The Tea Party is in a unique position to explain the economic costs of Obamacare as well as the law’s infringement of both the right to life and the right of conscience. Such a critique of liberalism on the grounds of natural justice may disappoint dyed-in-the-wool libertarians, but it has the potential to mobilize more voters than a 20 percent cut in the marginal tax rate.
The problem with most current perspectives on the Tea Party is that they look at the movement through contemporary eyes rather than the eyes of the Founders, who saw no distinction among the moral, the political, and the economic. The closest Elizabeth Price Foley comes to attempting this is when she quotes Jefferson’s 1821 letter to Charles Hammond:
"When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government or another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."
What did Jefferson think would be the check against the centralizing tendencies of government? “It is the manners and spirit of a people,” he wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia, “which preserve a republic in vigor.” The Tea Party is significant because it embodies the manners and spirit of an America that seeks to preserve a vigorous constitutional republic, and because it reminds us that one cannot have a limited and good government without an active and virtuous people. Full Text
The Lamestream Media Didn’t Warn Us: “Barack Obama is Coming!”
Video clip: Former Child Janitor to Gingrich: Your Jobs Plan Offended Me
AND though there are going to be some “winner take all” primaries, the following contests are also on the schedule:
RI (16) proportional
NY (92) proportional
WVA (28) proportional -- elect delegates (who list their presidential pick on ballot)
NC (52) proportional
OR (25) proportional
AK (33) proportional
KY (42) proportional
TX (155) proportional
CA (169) proportional (by district)
NM (20) proportional
SD (25) proportional
Thanks for that. Work, for me, is validating-not to mention satisfying. I’m afraid many young people would rather just stare at their iCrap, if you’ll pardon the expression.
Big Education has replaced personal responsibility, invigorating challenge and the thrill of success with the false, cuddly pap of self esteem (that once challenged, drives those hit between the eyes by real life, into the arms of “OWS” and progressive politics, looking for sympathy and support).
What does the Tea Party mean?
"TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS,
governments are instituted among men,
deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"
.....“The greatest frustration I’ve had since leaving the speakership is the denseness of Washington in accepting new ideas,” Gingrich told the Georgetown crowd. “We are surrounded by a news media that is cynical, and by consultants who are cynical, and by lobbyists who are cynical.” They think big ideas are “silly,” he complained.
“I haven’t done a very good job as a candidate because it is so difficult to communicate big solutions in this country,” he said wistfully near the end of his talk. “The entrenched structure of the system is so hostile to it.” The students nodded; some clapped. Gingrich didn’t pause. He didn’t smile. He wasn’t looking for a cheer. For what it’s worth, he was trying to make a point.”
http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/294868
That is its nature.
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Ba'al.
Once they’re entrenched those in power don’t want anyone overrunning their territory. Time to take back our territory.
"It's important to note that the vanguard elite are, for Lenin, not just a thoretical category to explain the development of political strategies, but a specific grouping of special individuals who must be identified and trained distinctly form the broad mass of the population"
--New perpsectives on anarchism
http://books.google.com/books?id=p5t0R0ckDMAC&pg=PA106&lpg=PA106&dq=The+vanguard+elite+lenin&source=bl&ots=Bi7Th4KdQS&sig=Wxt6aznFBXZ4zd9QJCb4ZR_Eh6w&hl=en
>>Time to take back our territory.
Achieving that goal requires a population of citizens who are educated sufficiently that they will accept no government that is not constrained to it’s specified American purpose “TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS”.
Part of that process is to empower them with an understanding of their own appetites -- and with the ability to manage and meet those appetites for themselves...
“Urban Organic Episode 1 - OAK: Aquaponic gardening with Bryant Terry, Keba Konte and Eric Maundu”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jnflDWICMA&feature=share
...so that their own physiology can not be used to enslave them via the usual Bread and Circus act wherein "COMMERCE BETWEEN MASTER AND SLAVE IS DESPOTISM".
Observe that the arrangement of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the same now as when Moses was leading his folks out of Egypt...
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...and observe that the Appetite of Tyranny is never far removed from the Tyranny of the Appetite. |
"Lysenko himself spent much time denouncing academic scientists and geneticists, claiming that their isolated laboratory work was not helping the Soviet people. By 1929 Lysenko's skeptics were politically censured, accused of offering only criticisms, and for failing to prescribe any new solutions themselves. In December 1929, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin gave a famous speech praising "practice" above "theory", elevating the political bosses above the scientists and technical specialists. Though for a period the Soviet government under Stalin continued its support of agricultural scientists, after 1935 the balance of power abruptly swung towards Lysenko and his followers. Lysenko was put in charge of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the Soviet Union and made responsible for ending the propagation of "harmful" ideas among Soviet scientists. Lysenko served this purpose by causing the expulsion, imprisonment, and death of hundreds of scientists and eliminating all study and research involving Mendelian genetics throughout the Soviet Union. This period is known as Lysenkoism. He bears particular responsibility for the persecution of his predecessor and rival, prominent Soviet biologist Nikolai Vavilov, which ended in 1943 with the imprisoned Vavilov's death by starvation. In 1941 Lysenko was awarded the Stalin Prize."
Americans are free Individuals for whom government secures inalienable rights.
Communists/progressives [except for the vanguard elite who are eating milk and apples in the Farm House, of course] are slaves to the collective; the governance of which builds walls in order to contain its subjugated human property.
[eliminating all study and research involving Mendelian genetics throughout the Soviet Union.]
Fast forward a couple of decades to the Soviet Cesium-powered "Gamma Grain" Tractor:
"Soviet era "Gamma Grain" tractors fitted with Cs-137 sources, abandoned
Ooopski!
Tea Party? What Tea Party? There used to be a tea Party. We used to be out there. Seems like a long time ago.
We have a million reasons to be out there, on the streets. Where are we?
“Ooopski!”
Bump!
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