Posted on 03/26/2009 4:27:14 AM PDT by Kaslin
The enraged mob came to the doors of Congress in the dead of night with their torches glowing, their pitchforks raised, and their voices screaming for the blood of anyone from A.I.G. In response, 85 alleged Republicans from the House of Representatives threw them the rule of law, bits of our Constitution, and the legally binding contracts of fellow Americans as a way to not only appease the unbalanced anger, but as a cowardly way to ensure their self-preservation.
These Republicans, along with the predictable Democrats, voted to slap an un-American 90% punitive tax on the bonuses paid to any employee of a bailed-out institution with a household income higher that $250,000. It is for this reason and many others, that I now refer to myself as an “Independent Conservative” rather than a Republican.
Not only should the Republicans and Democrats who voted for this socialist inspired tax be ashamed of themselves, but for the good of our nation, every Member of Congress and the Administration should consider resignation so the American people can have a chance to put some adults in place before it’s too late. Has there ever been a point in our nation’s history when our government has been so leaderless, so spineless, or so clueless?
No one wants bonuses going to people who did not earn them or put us in peril. Beyond that obvious conclusion, it’s important to note that not everyone getting bonuses at these bailed-out companies were involved in cooking the books. Just as not every Member of Congress, this Administration and the past Administration, was involved in enabling the greatest economic crisis of our lifetimes. Only certain individuals. Should the salaries of those individuals also be federally taxed at ninety percent? Why stop there? Who else can we slap a socialist tax on?
Leaving aside the selfish, embarrassing, and transparent reasons for the House of Representatives pushed for this tax, there is a much greater reason to condemn the act. That being the personal safety of some of these financial employees. When you have Members of Congress themselves fanning the flames of hate that fuel the angry and uninformed mob, is it any wonder that these targeted American citizens are starting to wonder which country they live in or who they can to turn for protection?
Make no mistake. Employees of these companies -- labeled “Guilty by association” in the court of public and Congressional opinion -- are getting death threats. To the point where a spokesperson for A.I.G. said, “However someone may feel about the appropriateness of the retention payments, there is nothing appropriate about the threats that people have made to and about employees.”
When is enough, enough for certain Members of Congress and the media? Do some of these employees -- again, the vast majority innocent of the vile acts perpetrated by a few -- have to be burned out of their homes, injured, or even killed before they feel they’ve gotten their pound of flesh?
As this surreal process played out, one banker is quoted as saying, “It’s like a McCarthy witch-hunt. This is the most profoundly anti-American thing I’ve ever seen.”
Agreed. Who can rescue us from those pretending to rescue us?
while i rail against posts like your’s and others on FR, which feed the class warfare rhetoric, don’t assume i am incapable of discerning the big picture. i just find it irritating to see such sentiments on a conservative website. it’s incongruent.
Enough said.
This is about as dumb as McCain suspending his campaign to "work on" the stimulus plan, when he ended up doing nothing and being seen as weak. He could have won the election if he had stood AGAINST Paulson's blackmail threat against the country in September.
Here, the GOP could have won credit from the voters for standing AGAINST the current regime's fascist tactics. All the above arguments (un-Constitutional ex post facto and bill of attainder laws; government threats against American citizens who did nothing wrong; confiscatory taxation exceeding 100%; and so much else) are as valid as ever.
The GOP threw away a historic opportunity to stand for the United States Constitution against a demagogue. And I truly believe we will see more and more of a slide toward tyranny from Obama and the other Democrats.
I agree that it is a distracted designed to take focus off what they are doing in Washington DC. You and I are not in disagreement over this.
Let them have their bonuses without punishing them for it. We have more important things to worry about than this stupid issue.
Our freedoms are being taken away faster than I anticipated. They want the public focused elsewhere.
I don’t think you and I are so far apart.
They are stoking the fires of hatred towards anyone who has more than the average person. I am not falling for this. I am concerned however that someone is going to be hurt or even killed. It is only a matter of time.
> i think the rest of us have a pretty good idea of what the problems are and see the wave of populism as a manifestation of the bigger problem of encroaching socialism. That, is the goal of the left.
I see Socialism as one of America’s larger threats. Paradoxically it is being driven by some very wealthy people.
Having lived in a Nation that has just gone thru nine long and tiring years of a socialist Labor government under Helen Clark, I can speak with some authority on this subject: America does not really want Socialism, even if a large number of very foolish people down there think that Socialism is a good idea.
The only aspect of Socialism that works really well in New Zealand is our socialized medical system. We can get away with this because we are a tiny Nation and it is a good practical way for us to organize our healthcare needs AND we also have the option to make private arrangements if we want.
You could never do that in America: you do not have the infrastructure we have built to support socialized medicine, and you could never afford to build it in a million years — even if you could get all 50 states to agree to implement the same model properly.
This election people voted for Socialism because they thought that was what they wanted. As the old saying goes, “be careful what you ask for, you might just get it.”
God Bless America
*DieHard*
> Enough said.
Indeed. I get three times the opportunity to be fiercely patriotic than most Americans do. And when I am not spending my time doing that, I’m a good and loyal ally to our mates in Australia, Turkey and the United States of America.
We are deep into class warfare already.
What else is it when you hear condemnation of those who have succeeded?
What else is it when you tax those “rich guys”?
It is of no interest to you that a select group of people have their lives threatened, almost lynch mobs at their front doors all instigated by the government?
That is not class warfare?
Obummer, the Manchurian Candidate, was elected on class warfare. Obummer, the Manchurian Candidate will wreck this country...but never class warfare?
Perhaps your definition of class warfare is not the same as mine.
> I support a constitutional amendment redifining treason to include voting for unconstitutional legislation.
That would be an excellent idea — particularly if the amendment rendered any such legislation null and void de facto and de jure and automatically repealed by virtue of its unconstitutionality.
> As you can see, while the AIG rage might have been all about smoke and mirrors to distract and confuse the people, their actions were blatently unconstitutional and that is far more important then a case of acne.
Acne, being an infection, can kill you — it is uncommon but it does happen.
Yes, this AIG thing may well be in breach of the constitution, and that is bad. But you have a President sittng in the Oval Office with great big question marks over his constitutional eligibility to be POTUS, and you have no clear way to resolve that. He also has dodgy friends, a dodgy ideology and a dodgy past. And he is doing some really dodgy things with your foreign policy and your military and he’s spending like a drunken sailor.
Any one of those things, IMO, ought to trump the AIG bonus distraction.
If the govt obtains the authority to nullify and re-write contracts, then they have the authority to re-write mortgages such that percantages on some can be raised to offset “toxic” percentages on others.
Who is willing to pay another $250 per month to stop a foreclosure on a welfare-baby-factory in Detroit?
AMEN! Couldn’t have said it better. “Greedy” my arse. I’m sick to death of these people perfectly willing to run roughshod over people who have done nothing wrong and were trying to work to unravel some of this mess. I read somewhere that they had been successful in getting back something like $10 billion already. Now they’re leaving because a bunch of complete jackasses in congress and elsewhere are threatening their very lives. Can’t wait for the “revenge” to nail their butts to the wall. Then let’s hear about how it’s so “minor”.
> Perhaps your definition of class warfare is not the same as mine.
Possibly. I note that many of Obama’s most ardent supporters are filthy rich. So were Hitler’s.
I don’t see Obama’s struggle as being between the classes. If it is he is going to lose alot of his wealthiest supporters, and he can’t afford to do that.
A more likely struggle would be minorities vs “the majority” — which is where Obama has played all along. And when you sum up all the “minorities” you’ll probably find that they actually make up a Majority — as we saw in the election — and that “The Majority” is now the new Minority.
That — and not socioeconomic class — is far more likely IMO.
> Europeans are blinkered, in the true sense of the word.
I agree with you there.
A.I.G. is obama’s Reichstag Fire.The ones who received the “bomuses” were obama supporters and contributers. In fact, the “bonuses” The “bonuses” were mandated in the “stimilus”[sp?] law. The Democrats knew the name and the exact figure down to the penny of each individual who receives a “bonus”. I presonally believe that they were to be channeled back to the Democrat Party.
obama, the Democrat Party, and the main stream media has played the American public like a band on this issue, or non issue which it actually is.
The real obama is about to emerge. He has got the program for his private, personal army enacted and authorized by what passes for Congress. The Republicans who voted for the passage of these programs were orgasming with glee as they voted for it.
Sometimes in the not far off future a happening based on the Chinese Communists Cultural Revolution will ocur. In fact it has alreday happened with ACORN’s “visit” to the homes of the AIG Executives. The “Red Guards” will be members of obama’s personal army.
We will see if, by the end of the year these white pimple faced punks that were orgamising on television screaming “obama!” are still grinning like a opossum eating shit.
I have a feeling that that grin will be replaced with tears.
I have a wide attention span when it comes to unconstitutional abuses, nothing needs be forgotten to “focus” on more important things because the focus doesn’t do anything. When people are ready to take back their government then that focus might have some benefit. Right now all we can do is hope to wake up enough people so that time comes quickly.
> If the govt obtains the authority to nullify and re-write contracts, then they have the authority to re-write mortgages such that percantages on some can be raised to offset “toxic” percentages on others.
Unless the US is unlike any other country, I think you will find that your gummint already has these powers.
Legislation automatically sets aside any contract that would otherwise prevent its enactment. The Law cannot be bound by mere contract.
Read this real slowly, Hunter.
Republicans are supposed to be the grown ups. GROWN UPS. As in Adults. Grown ups do not fall for childish tripe like this. If the only grown ups we have left become just more kids, then where are we?
The legal answer to the “Question Mark” president leads through the US Supreme Court. Until they get off their duffs, nothing can happen. And if they do, the most we can hope is now we get President Biden. Personally I think Biden would be worse because he has far more experience doing stupid things in government than Obama has.
You are legitimizing lawlessness.
You are sowing the seeds of brownshirt fascism.
IF these employees broke the law...take them to court. File suit as an affected taxpayer and go to court.
Otherwise what is being done and you are falling for it, is the establishment of mob rule. It is fascism being perpetrated on these AIG employees. Get them, hate them, kill them mentality from our own government, with the federally supported ACORN leading the citizen army to the steps of a private citizen.
You sound just like others here on FR who in their emotional anger over the bonuses are missing the greater danger. Some here would claim no matter who is running or working for AIG shouldn't even be paid! FRiend, who, who then should unwind AIG? Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, Nancy Pelosi, 0bama, Rahm? Who and how should they be rewarded for minimizing the losses?
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