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American Banana Republic (Mark Steyn)
National Review Online ^ | September 20, 2013 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 09/20/2013 9:56:47 PM PDT by neverdem

The decay of a free society doesn’t happen overnight, but we’re getting there.

‘This is the United States of America,” declared President Obama to the burghers of Liberty, Mo., on Friday. “We’re not some banana republic.”

He was talking about the Annual Raising of the Debt Ceiling, which glorious American tradition seems to come round earlier every year. “This is not a deadbeat nation,” President Obama continued. “We don’t run out on our tab.” True. But we don’t pay it off either. We just keep running it up, ever higher. And every time the bartender says, “Mebbe you’ve had enough, pal,” we protest, “Jush another couple trillion for the road. Set ’em up, Joe.” And he gives you that look that kinda says he wishes you’d run out on your tab back when it was $23.68.

--snip--

“That’s all very ominous,” wrote my colleague Jonah Goldberg the other day, perhaps a little too airily for my taste. I’d rank it somewhere north of “ominous.”

“Banana republic” is an American coinage — by O. Henry, a century ago, for a series of stories set in the fictional tropical polity of Anchuria. But a banana republic doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a sensibility, and it’s difficult to mark the precise point at which a free society decays into something less respectable. Pace Obama, ever swelling debt, contracts for cronies, a self-enriching bureaucracy, a shrinking middle class preyed on by corrupt tax collectors, and thuggish threats against anyone who disagrees with you put you pretty far down the banana-strewn path.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: steyn
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To: Gritty

The “Democratic Party” was once the KKK Party, the slave owners Party. And now, it is ever the more comfortable in resuming that role. As George Wallace would likely have said if he was still alive, “Not two bits of difference between the Democratic Party and the Communist Party USA.”

In fact, I think they have merged, having common goals.


21 posted on 09/21/2013 8:59:08 AM PDT by OldArmy52 (The question is not whether Obama ever lies, but whether he ever tells the truth.)
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To: All
AMNESTY SUCKUP SEZ "Once Congress approves an immigration increase, minorities should demand more, said Chicago Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez, a leading advocate of the pending Senate bill, “The next day after we pass it, you know we’re not going to be satisfied, we’re going to come back,” he said. “We’re going to have a civil rights act, we’re going to have a voting rights act… Nobody is leaving this fight once we conclude this first chapter,” he said. “Hopefully, in 30 years, [we] can bring immigrants… from all over the world,” Gutierrez said.

-----this about says it all towards what his real motives are and what his goals are..the taxpayers have to pay him to attack us and ruin our country........

He forgot to mention they're all gathered at the Mexican border lying in wait to soak taxpayers and cheat the US govt---wire transfers at the ready to drain US dollars into their Third World hellholes----including US foreign aid, food stamp foreign aid, wire EITC SS, SSI, UI, welfare checks, etc, etc, etc.

LYING IN WAIT FOR OUR TAX DOLLARS---THESE IMPOVERISHED COUNTRIES CURRENTLY HAVE ORGANIZED PRESSURE GROUPS INSIDE THE US (here illegally): Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominica Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico (stateside)l Salvador, Spain, Uruguay, Venezuela.

22 posted on 09/21/2013 10:58:44 AM PDT by Liz
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To: sickoflibs; Liz
According to the Census Bureau’s latest “American Community Survey,” between 2000 and 2012 the nation’s median household income dropped 6.6 percent. Yet in the District of Columbia median household income rose 23.3 percent. According to a 2010 survey, seven of the nation’s ten wealthiest counties are in the Washington commuter belt.

No wonder the IRS is paranoid about conservatives looking at their shenanigans.

23 posted on 09/21/2013 11:48:27 AM PDT by GOPJ ( Politicians who fear the people seek to disarm them. - - Bill St. Clair)
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To: wintertime
It’s a Frog in the Pot thing...

"Truer words"...the question being, how do we get the "Frog" out of the "Pot" before we're all reduced to tasting "just like chicken"??!!

I'd laugh if it wasn't so un-funny! :(

24 posted on 09/21/2013 2:46:42 PM PDT by 88keys
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To: JLS
Thanks as always for the ping...

Some good comments here, and we ALL do resist the attempts to turn America into a "global-playing banana republic"!!

25 posted on 09/21/2013 2:53:22 PM PDT by 88keys (I'm sorry, sir, I don't fit in a handbasket...)
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To: neverdem

Steyn at his best.


26 posted on 09/21/2013 5:26:59 PM PDT by Travis McGee (www.EnemiesForeignAndDomestic.com)
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To: livius
You are right, we are in a one party system. The party of queens and subservients
27 posted on 09/21/2013 10:21:13 PM PDT by Squat (Deport the illegals now! Turn Home Depot's into the prisons to hold the illegals!.)
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