August 2009 Archives

So when is a Townhall meeting not a Townhall meeting?

When it is wrapped like a wolf in sheep's clothing to snare the unwary, uniformed and those chosen to be blissfully ignorant. Complicit in this pretense is the gaggle of Mainstream Media who are willing to cloak the rapacious appetitive of an ever expanding federal guv'ment for your 'blessings of liberty' and personal property. All this subterfuge in an effort to mollify some misguided idea of social justice.

As late as Friday afternoon before the event, Congressman Grayson's staff there telling inquirers that there were NO planned Townhall meetings scheduled for the congressional recess. Ironically they were right!

Monday night, I, a dozen of my friends, and more than 1500 other Central Florida residents attended a charade advertised - in a last minute effort - as a Townhall meeting. Of course, this was a contrived event, stage-crafted to control the audience, content and meeting environment.

The event, hastily arranged - with barely 24 hour notice to the public - in a local union hall, with very limited seating capacity, immediately following a political meeting by the Democrat Executive committee was meant to pass as an impartial environment for discussion of one of the hottest topics in America today - the government takeover of 1/5 of our economy (that's more than 2.5 trillion dollars in annual expenditures) and socialization of medicine in America. Moreover, in the most craven of acts the congressman brings three of his children to act as a shield from voter invective!

The real question becomes: what to do when elected representatives forsake their oath and no longer represent the will of their constituents? Instead, they eagerly represent the will of far away interests, constitutionally contrary ideologies and failed foreign philosophies?" And lastly, will our Republic stand - until this dereliction of duty can be rectified at the ballot box?

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brief video snippets from Monday night - along with poignant commentary

In case you hadn't noticed, I have a vowel at the end of my name.  Growing up, I spent a lot of time hanging out on the West Side of Buffalo.  During the 50s and 60s it was a predominantly Italian section of this distinctively blue-collar city.  Almost everybody had a vowel at the end of their name.

When I was a pre-teen (before I thought it uncool to hang around with my Dad) my father would take me to a place called Prospect Park.  It was a community hangout where all the old Italian men would sit for hours and play poker on sunny Sunday afternoons.

The stakes were not high; usually the games were played for nickels and dimes.  No one was going to get rich, but it was just a way to pass the time with old friends.  It was one of my favorite times.  I sat for hours listening to the old-timers yell at each other in a mostly-Sicilian dialect.  It's amazing how much better insults sound in Sicilian!

Occasionally, visitors in big black Cadillacs would come by.  When the cars pulled up and parked, no one took notice.  Except me.  It didn't seem to faze anyone else that these visitors all came dressed in silk suits and never talked to anyone.  They were not nasty, just aloof.  They would sit down and play a few hands and then leave.  No one made a big deal out of them being there; though they were treated with deference and respect.

My father made sure to keep me close to him when these men came.  I assumed he was afraid of them.  He wasn't.  But he knew who these men were and how they made their living.  He didn't want me to be corrupted by them.

One day I asked him who these strange, quiet men who drove big cars were.  He said they were mobsters.  I guess I looked kind of puzzled (in those days boys my age were still naïve) so he described what these men did for a living.  He said they were bad men.  They hurt people and intimidated them.  They took what didn't belong to them and destroyed those who wouldn't do their bidding.  He made it clear to me that these men called mobsters had no desire to make anyone's life better except their own.  They were brutish, self-serving individuals who made their living at the expense of others.

If this description of these mobsters sounds familiar to you, then you know where I'm going with this.  

Our leaders in Congress and The White House are accusing average Americans, who are asking questions about what our government is doing to our future, of being mobsters.  We're accused of shouting down our critics and shutting off debate, when exactly the opposite is happening.  We're not trying to rush through health care legislation; they are.  We're not twisting anyone's arm to pass a bill that will dramatically alter our way of life; they are.  All we ask is that the entire bill be read AND debated; openly and without restrictions.  Is that thuggery?  I hardly think so.  No mobster ever debated anyone about anything without having a baseball bat in one hand.

I've been around mobsters, and not the ones you see in the movies.  I've not seen one at any rally or Tea Party until the Service Employees International Union thugs showed up.  

No, the American people are not the mobsters that they are accused of being.  The only mobsters I recognize are the ones doing the accusing.

In retrospect, I can't imagine my grandfather and his "amici" would ever allow these Washington mobsters to sit in on their poker games.   It just wouldn't be "onorato" to pick the pockets of those who want to pick ours.

But then again, maybe it would.  I can see the wine glasses being raised now and shouts of "Vendetta" filling the warm summer air.  

Revenge sounds so much sweeter in Sicilian!

Am I the only one who feels like we are living in 18th Century France?  Our republic has so deteriorated over the past several decades that we now have an elite ruling class living high on the hog on our dime.  They are the new royalty and we are the new serfs begging for a bone.  

Our masters in DC have been grabbing more and more power for themselves and that pace has only accelerated in the past 6 months.  It has brought us nothing but corruption and arrogance; from both Republicans and Democrats alike.

In their arrogance and greed, our elected representatives have decided that they can have their way with us.  What they have failed to realize is that Americans, who by and large are a "live and let live" kind of people, have finally had enough of the lies, distortions and deceit that emanate from the hallowed halls of government like the putrid stench of a rotting corpse.  

We no longer trust those whom we have entrusted with our and our children's futures.  And for good reason.

Those of us who just want some straightforward answers to questions concerning our healthcare, taxes and spending, are being called "un-American" and "mobsters."  The Speaker of The House of Representatives has inferred that we who exercise our God-given right of free speech and disagree with The Great and Powerful Oz are also Nazis.  And they wonder why Americans are angry; why we shout them down.  We, the great unwashed, are simply tired of pompous career politicians looking down their noses at us in scorn.  

Our elected members of Congress earn roughly 3 times what the average American earns and that doesn't include the finest health insurance in the world (paid for by us) and the safest and best retirement plan in the country (also paid for by us.) The current salary (2009) for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year.  They get an automatic cost of living allowance each and every year unless Congress votes against it (like that's ever going to happen) and only have to serve 5 years to be eligible for a pension.  They also are eligible to receive up to 80% of their congressional salary (Source:  usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/congresspay.htm).  And that doesn't even include the many perqs that go along with being "on the inside."  Free meals in the finest restaurants, free travel, free tickets to sporting and entertainment venues; inside information on investments and the chance to get rich by using their influence and position to create laws that benefit them or their campaign contributors.

Is there any doubt as to why these blackguards are so willing to sell their souls?

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Commander in Chief of The Imperial Japanese Fleet during World War II, and the architect and executor of the surprise attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, warned after the attack, "We have awakened a sleeping giant."

President Obama and his band of merry socialists should learn from history.  If the Tea Party protests and scores of townhall meeting protests are any indication, the sleeping giants have been re-awakened.  After decades of being asleep at the wheel, Americans have finally found their voice.  And it's getting louder.

What our Dear Leader and his sycophants have failed to realize is that the American people do not take intimidation real well.  It's not in our DNA.  There is no one more fierce than an American who has had his nose bloodied.  Just ask the Taliban.

History is rife with tyrants.  From Nero to Napoleon; from Hitler to Mao, the trashcans of the past contain all the failures of despotism.  

There's always room for one more.

It certainly appears as if SEIU -the  Service Employees International Union - have been granted a new higher profile roll in the political machine - that of enforcer.

 

In true newspeak fashion the real 'angry mob' is not the grassroots American Citizenry truly about to be disenfranchised by their own guv'ment take over of healthcare. The angry mob is NOT the mothers, fathers, college students, grandmothers and neighbors who you see voicing their concerns all over the country. Instead the 'angry mob' are those commanded - by the "Joker-in-chief" and his willing collaborators who will stop at nothing - to make compulsory a new collective, socialized America of 'Hope and Change'.

 

For eight years of the previous administration we heard that dissent was the highest form of patriotism. Now, we learn that dissent against the current administration is "verboten". In true Brown Shirt fashion, enforcers will be sent from the Reichstag to "push back harder" against all who demonstrate their concerns against the proposed socialized initiatives.

 

So, we open a new chapter in American History where the guv'ment is actively seeking to deny the will of the American people - through fear, intimidation or force.  Never before has our own guv'ment engaged in overt activity to exert its own aims over "the aims of the governed" in such violent fashion.  Let me rephrase that: the guv'ment is attempting to enact its own objective contrary to the consent of the government. In the United States it is constitutionally prohibited for our elected political leaders to exercise the authority outside the 'consent of the governed'. This usurpation of our rights continues for as long as the American People allow it. It is our duty - us normal American Citizens  to remind those elected officials of their oath to the constitution and that they have a constitutional mandate to represent us. In other words: they work for us, we don't work for them.  Don't Tread on Me!

Well somebody has to pay!

 

Or as you may have heard, or even once believed yourself; "free as in speech not as in beer!" Or, "You can't have your cake and let your neighbor eat it, too!" Or, "TANSTAAFL!"

 

TANSTAAFL?

 

TANSTAAFL - as Milton Friedman (and others) used to say "there ain't no such thing as a free lunch".  (Or, for my 'up east' friends, without the double negative - TINSTAAFL - There is no such thing as a free lunch! )  Even if the sign says "free lunch" - you can bet the drinks cost twice as much as other places....

 

Socialism is the Great Lie 'where everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else!' But, make no mistake someone has to pay! Just because something might be free to the recipient, it doesn't mean it was free to create. True for the bread you eat, true for the music you listen to, true for school lunches,  true for the health care you receive.

 

The fact of the matter is that you, I or society as a whole can not get something for nothing. Even if you get something at no cost to you, someone somewhere has to pay for it. Someone's has to pay, even though the costs may be hidden or distributed redistributed to others.

 

And now, we have those in Washington, our own elected leaders, of all political persuasions - even republican and democrat alike - engaging in extra-constitutional actions that are directly opposite what our founding fathers intended.

 

Our great republic hinges on the framework of an individually responsible electorate. And, absent that, we as a citizenry are like the cartoon character Wimpy; "gladly paying Tuesday for a hamburger today!"  Only, we are already paying the interest today -  you see those costs reflected in the continued destruction of our manufacturing base, mounting  job losses, the devaluation of our currency and in a staggering and sputtering economy.  

 

You also see that cost reflected in the loss of liberty - for when the government takes confiscates your money, they take from you - the one thing you have that is yours - time! When the government taxes your income they essentially seize the time you toiled to earn that income. Right now, the guv'ment is currently thieving time from us, our children and our grandchildren. And, in true 'Wimponian fashion' they have enslaved future generations for a "hamburger today".

 

As Q.E.D.'ed  over and over again the "Great Lie" is an unsustainable economical model with dire costs to everyone. If the guv'ment compels philanthropy through force there is likely to be little or no voluntary charity. Not because of hard heartedness; but, because we will be left with nothing to give of our own free will.

 

Unclear to me is why we haven't chased these thieves from the halls of congress already? I have a few extra pitchforks and torches . . .

 

"There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him." -- Professor Bernardo de la Paz from the novel The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Robert A. Heinlein