Man without God makes men into gods

"Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid." -Ronald Reagan

Recently I was speaking with a coworker about the proper role of government in relation to the Individual. I made what I thought was an unanswerable argument: Who knows better how to spend your money, you or a politician living thousands of miles away? Liberalism is merely Parasites and Tyrants Robbing Free Men.

This coworker seems like a genuinely nice man and of above-average intelligence, so -- despite past experience -- I was caught off-guard by his reply. His answer was: "I'm a humanist. I believe in the goodness of people."

I prefer that tyrants and those who serve them be honest about their lust for power and their contempt for others, but he seems sincere. He might want to believe that he's come to a well-founded position, but I know he hasn't, and here's how:

Nevermind that Thomas Jefferson warned, "Let no more be heard of confidence in Man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution" (apparently, power corrupts only Conservatives). If this man really believes that innate human goodness permits sacrificing essential Liberty for a little temporary safety, then why doesn't he give his whole paycheck to the government and trust that they'll take care of him? Or, if he really believes that politicians can be trusted because of their basic decency -- despite all evidence to the contrary -- then why doesn't he believe that every Individual is capable of making equally rational, moral, and wise decisions? Or does he think that politicians are born just a little bit better than you and me?

(Liberal elitism might be a little closer to the truth.)

Reagan understood this, noting that those who reject God worship the state. (Which applies even to Islam, since it is impossible to reject the living God any more fully than does Muhammad's hellish "religion," which fuses mosque and state.)

Man without God makes men into gods:

We've heard in our century far too much of the sounds of anguish from those who live under totalitarian rule. We've seen too many monuments made not out of marble or stone but out of barbed wire and terror. But from these terrible places have come survivors, witnesses to the triumph of the human spirit over the mystique of state power, prisoners whose spiritual values made them the rulers of their guards. With their survival, they brought us "the secret of the camps," a lesson for our time and for any age: Evil is powerless if the good are unafraid.

That's why the Marxist vision of man without God must eventually be seen as an empty and a false faith -- the second oldest in the world -- first proclaimed in the Garden of Eden with whispered words of temptation: "Ye shall be as gods." The crisis of the Western world, Whittaker Chambers reminded us, exists to the degree in which it is indifferent to God. "The Western world does not know it," he said about our struggle, "but it already possesses the answer to this problem -- but only provided that its faith in God and the freedom He enjoins is as great as communism's faith in man."

Timothy Geithner admits that his boss believes that you exist to finance him and his fellow statists

"Government programs" is a euphemism for "Vote for us, and we'll give you other people's stuff. If they complain, we'll call them 'racist,' 'corporatist,' 'greedy,' or -- gasp! -- 'conservative'!"

Liberals would be much more honest if they'd just admit: "We're oligarchists, and we deserve to rule over you, slaves."

Geithner's admission is a surprise only to those who haven't been paying attention to the president "ready to rule from Day 1." From here:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner told the House Small Business Committee on Wednesday that the Obama administration believes taxes on small business must increase so the administration does not have to “shrink the overall size of government programs.”

Another dishonest apology for Socialism

In response to an attack on the plain truth about Socialism at the ironically-named Rational Revolution:

The "rebuttal" above is intellectually dishonest. Ad hominems? Tu quoques? Class envy? Biblical commands spoken to individuals applied to political systems?

The ultimate minority is the individual; if any one's rights are violated, then no one's rights are safe. Socialism is evil because it makes the individual subservient to a select few and -- in our case -- the majority who elect them. Rather than government existing to protect each person's God-given, unalienable rights, the individual exists as a resource to be exploited by the state.

Does the individual exist to provide power and position to politicians, or do their power and position exist to protect our rights? Who knows better how to spend your wealth, you or a politician? Who deserves your property: whomever you choose -- your children, for example -- or a stranger?

There's a word for consuming the fruits of another's labor against their will: Slavery.

If Muslims are merely the victims of "good white Christian folk," then why centuries of jihad in India?

Here's Islam exercising its Constitutionally-protected religious liberties on Hindus.

Strangely enough, the Muslims below said and did what Muslims waging jihad over the last fourteen hundred years throughout the West -- including today's schoolgirl-beheading, underwear-detonating, miniskirt-raping Muslims -- say and do.

I wonder, what's the connection?  Why all the violence against non-Muslims in India?  Could it be India's colonies in the Middle East?  (They didn't have any colonies there?)  Prejudice against non-whites?  (You mean, most Indians aren't "white"?)  George W. Bush?  (He wasn't born until the twentieth-century, and the jihad in India began in the eighth?)

No, the reason that Muslims rape, maim, enslave, and slaughter all around the world is because they all draw from Islam's "sacred" texts their inspiration and justification for jihad.

Notice the extraction of jizya -- and vile humiliation -- imposed on the conquered, "zimmi" (dhimmi) Hindus, and the binary option offered normally to polytheists: Convert or Die (emphasis mine):

The Sultán then asked, “How are Hindus designated in the law, as payers of tribute (kharáj-guzár) or givers of tribute (kharáj-dih)?” The Kází replied, “They are called payers of tribute, and when the revenue officer demands silver from them, they should, without question and with all humility and respect, tender gold. If the officer throws dirt into their mouths, they must without reluctance open their mouths wide to receive it. By doing so they show their respect for the officer. The due subordination of the zimmí (tribute-payer) is exhibited in this humble payment and by this throwing of dirt into their mouths. The glorification of Islám is a duty, and contempt of the Religion is vain. God holds them in contempt, for he says, ‘Keep them under in subjection.' To keep the Hindus in abasement is especially a religious duty, because they are the most inveterate enemies of the Prophet, and because the Prophet has commanded us to slay them, plunder them, and make them captive, saying, ‘Convert them to Islám or kill them, enslave them and spoil their wealth and property.’ No doctor but the great doctor (Hanífa), to whose school we belong, has assented to the imposition of the jizya (poll tax) on Hindus. Doctors of other schools allow no other alternative but ‘Death or Islám.'”

As I have stated in this blog repeatedly, of the 4 schools of Islamic law, only one (Hanafi) even allows Hindus the right to live. The 3 others simply say that Hindus must be killed if they refuse to convert. That is what this Kazi is telling Ala-ud-din. Note also that he says that Hindus are the worst in the eyes of Allah. This is because in the Kuran, the mushriqs (idolators) are considered the worst of the worst, fit to be killed immediately. Kuran 9:5 is very explicit about this "slay the idolators where ever ye find them..." We Hindus must never forget this - that our fate as per orthodox Islam is beheading.

Now you tell me that it is all in accordance with law that the Hindus should be reduced to the most abject obedience.” Then the Sul-tán said, “Oh, doctor, thou art a learned man, but thou hast had no experience; I am an unlettered man, but I have seen a great deal; be assured then that the Hindus will never become submissive and obedient till they are reduced to poverty. I have, therefore, given orders that just sufficient shall be left to them from year to year, of corn, milk, and curds, but that they shall not be allowed to accumulate hoards and property.”

So Ala-ud-din says that he has put into place measures (heavy taxation etc.) in order to reduce Hindus to abject poverty and keep them in a state of permanent debasement.

This was the status of Hindus under Islamic rule. Of course, our school textbooks, written by Marxist liars, will portray this period as a "great flowering of a syncretic culture." I leave it to the reader to judge for themselves what kind of "syncretic culture" our textbooks are talking about.

That last part's pretty funny.  Marxism in service to Islam.

I mean, it's not like a Muslim could ever become a Marxist, rise to power, and tax/spend/borrow a non-Muslim people into "abject poverty and . . . a state of permanent debasement," even giving a trillion dollars to a known jihadist government like Hamas, right?  Right?

You'd have to be a racist Islamophobe frightened of the bogeyman-under-the-bed to even entertain such an idea.  In fact, I'm probably a fascist imperialist who eats puppies just for posting this.

(But wait, Marxists love Islam.)

A reliable voting guide for this election

If you want a prosperous and free America, you need to cast the right votes this November.  There's one way to make sure that you get it right:

Find out whatever initiatives, propositions, candidates, etc. are supported by the unions -- especially the California Teachers Association -- and vote the opposite.

As long as the Democrats' hope is in "People are fickle," there's "a glimmer of hope" for the Republic

Now that enough of the American people have awakened, Democrats appear to be distancing themselves from their core values, running away from the real-world effects of their shameless Statism and its Agent in the White House.

Don't be deceived: These politicians are not concerned about what's best for the nation, how many people they hurt with their oppressive, immoral, and irresponsible policies, enslaving our posterity, or what is morally good. They care only about maintaining their power.

In that respect, our elected tyrants are acting in perfect accord with their beliefs. White House Panicking Over Elections:

"Not only are they running away from President Obama, they're running away from being Democrats in some cases. In some races you actually see the Democratic candidates not really mentioning that they're a Democrat in their campaign ads," Cordes said.

Smith asked his guests to try to identify the source of the discontent: "From your experience on the Hill, have you heard any Democrats in private conversations say, 'You know what? We went down the wrong road. We went after health care. We went after so many other things on the Obama agenda as opposed to, in the end of the day, it's all about creating jobs?'"

The Obama agenda is our enemy's. It is bankrupting and disarming the Republic.

"Not only have we heard that, but we've been hearing it for months," said Cordes. "We heard it during the health care debate that dragged on for a year when the economy was so bad; they focused on health care and they focused on financial regulation.

Also known as "implementing socialism."

"Americans don't feel the impact of those pieces of legislation yet," she said. "There's a lot of frustration on Capitol Hill among Democrats who feel like the President led them down this path. They didn't all necessarily want to deal with health care. This was on the president's agenda, and then they felt like he kind of hung them out to dry."

That's poetic: Obama blamed Bush, and now Democrats are blaming Obama. It's too bad that these politicians' constituencies elected to Congress self-serving, unscrupulous sheep, rather than citizens.

And we are starting to "feel the impact of those pieces of legislation." That's why we're paying attention, and we're not happy.

"Not a single Democrat has run an ad in support of the health care bill since April," VandeHei noted. Cordes pointed out that Democrats are very unhappy about Mr. Obama's speech last week, only the second Oval Office prime time address in his presidency.

"What does he talk about? Not the economy, but Iraq," Cordes said. "And they say, 'No, we need to own the economy. If you’re going to use the power of your office to give a speech like that, talk about the economy."

VandeHei said the Republicans feel more powerful today than they've felt at any point in the last five or six years.

When Republicans had control of the White House and Congress, they behaved like Democrats. That's why those Republicans-in-Name-Only are out of power now and cannot be allowed back in office.

"On top of that, you have this enthusiasm gap that is killing Democrats."

Most Americans -- including Independents and some Democrats -- are not enthusiastic about destroying the greatest nation in the history of Man.

"If you look at the polling data from Gallup and from others, it shows that Republicans are fired up about this election. The liberal Democrats are not. They're not enthusiastic about it. When you have races that are decided by a couple hundred votes, in a House that can be very, very close, that matters," VandeHei said.

He also suggested that Democrats are much more pessimistic than they were merely three or four weeks ago. He cited a recent Gallup poll that showed Republicans with a 10-point generic edge. "They've been polling for 60 years. We've not seen a number like that."

That's good. The Republic's been around for more than two and one-quarter centuries, and it's never seen numbers like the Liberals have brought upon us, either.

Cordes pointed out that predictions show the Republicans can win 45 to 50 seats in the House, and they only need 39 seats to take control.

But VandeHei offered a glimmer of hope for President Obama and the Democrats.

"It's never too late," he said. "Think about how fickle we are in everything in life now, whether it's the cell phone that we choose or what we think about politics or what we do in our daily life. People are fickle.

"I still think you can start to pull people back," VandeHei said. "At the end of the day, it has to be that Obama has to find that magic. How can he get liberals to be as excited about him and about Democratic change as they were two years ago?"

Obama and his Congressional co-conspirators have gotten a lot of people excited about "Democratic change" this November.

And in 2012.

Obama's desire to use the fruits of your labor to increase his political power should come as no surprise

In 2001, the future president confused protecting the rights of the individual with stealing your property.  Notice his regret over the Supreme Court's not "break[ing] free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution," restrictions put in place to protect us from government.

Notice also his use of the mob ("political and community organizing and activities on the ground [. . .] the actual coalition of powers") to "bring about redistributive change."  If one gang in black robes doesn't get us, the other gang in street clothes will. Tyrants dress up their malice and greed as "serving the people," but they're really only serving themselves.

Watch out for socialists' ideas of "political and social justice."  It's anything but "just":

If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be OK.

But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.

And that hasn't shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.

The natural alliance that exists between the National Socialist Greater Germany and the freedom-loving Muslims of the whole world

Leftists/Socialists/Marxists/Communists,

In allying yourselves with Muslims and against decent, free people everywhere, you've aligned yourselves with Nazis. Anti-Semitism makes strange cellmates, I suppose.

From a caption to a reproduction of a November 2, 1943 telegram from Heinrich Himmler to Hitler's Mufti, Mohammad Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Note the language straight from protesters on a college campus near you:

To the Grand Mufti:

The National Socialist movement of Greater Germany has, since its inception, inscribed upon its flag the fight against the world Jewry. It has therefore followed with particular sympathy the struggle of freedom-loving Arabs, especially in Palestine, against Jewish interlopers. In the recognition of this enemy and of the common struggle against it lies the firm foundation of the natural alliance that exists between the National Socialist Greater Germany and the freedom-loving Muslims of the whole world. In this spirit I am sending you on the anniversary of the infamous Balfour declaration my hearty greetings and wishes for the successful pursuit of your struggle until the final victory.

Reichsfuehrer S.S. Heinrich Himmler

Pelosi reveals elitists' arrogance

Let them do whatever they want to us and our posterity. They know better than we do what to do with our own property.



And now the left has driven one more uranium-tipped projectile into America's coffin. As Pamela Geller rightly notes, the nescient, allegedly-pro-life Democrats voted yes for this monstrosity on the word of a ghoul who's never met a baby he didn't want to slaughter. How foolish!

Unless Americans are successful repealing this death blow from the Left's murderous hand, the Republic is doomed.

Where are you, America?

A second American Revolution

Massachusetts.  What an appropriate place for it to begin!

Actually, public discontent has been building a long time, but it boiled over all around the nation last year, as evidenced by the numerous Tea Parties across the country, private citizens emasculating their elected officials in local events, and the huge political defeats for the Democrats in the gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey.

Ironically (sadly? encouragingly!), Democratic reaction to their stunning humiliation last night portends even more intransigence in the push toward Socialism. President Obama explained away Brown's victory to people's being upset about not just the last couple of years, but the last eight years. In effect, Mr. Obama is crediting George W. Bush with putting Scott Brown in "Ted Kennedy's seat"! How's that for self-awareness!

(Senator-elect Brown's reply that the seat he sought to fill was not Kennedy's but "the People's seat" illustrates perfectly the chasm between our elected officials and us: Contrary to what they think, they work for us.  We are not their slaves.)

It is true that without Republican malfeasance during much of President Bush's time in office (and his endorsement of it), there is no way B. Hussein Obama would have been elected president (his personal charisma, good looks, and skills notwithstanding).

While the awakening of the American people in defense of its Liberty is encouraging, it cannot stop now.  It must continue until every self-aggrandizing, pompous, condescending tyrant who believes that We the People exist to provide him position -- rather than his position existing to protect our Rights -- is removed from office.

We the People must know and cherish those self-evident truths articulated powerfully in the Declaration of Independence, America's creed.  We must understand and defend the principles of limited government and individual rights codified in our Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  And we must keep ourselves informed of what the foxes are doing -- especially in the federal hen house -- since traditional media will not tell the truth about their co-ideologues in office.

We must elect honest men and women who will obey our Constitution and actually serve the People, not themselves.

Is it too much to hope that We the People not only can prevent a national euthanasia (Leftists like killing, except when it involves punishing criminals and terrorists; why do mass murderers have a greater right to life than babies, again?), but even roll back decades of Leftist usurpations of individual Liberty?

Socialism or shari'a?

First one:

 Then the other:

These are the faces of the enemy.

This is the decline and fall of the American republic.

More eloquence in two sentences than in all of Obama's teleprompters

More truth, too.

So am I.

Two thousand words on the decline and fall of the American republic

Speaking of arrogance . . .

And that's no joke.

A real American

A few million more like this one, and it's game over for the socialists.

And the jihadists.

Discovered at this excellent site.

California's avoidable Greek tragedy

Tom McClintock would have been a much better choice as California's governor, as will become obvious upon reading his recent comments below.

California needs him as its chief executive -- and unless the current revolt against socialist tyranny grows permanent, the nation will need him too.

In the present political climate, with the Governator and the liberal Legislature breaking the Golden State and the Disaster-in-Chief's bankrupting and disarming the nation, Tom McClintock seems prescient and a God-send.

Congressman Tom McClintock offered the following remarks in Washington, D.C. last Friday to the Competitive Enterprise Institute and Pacific Research Institute that clearly illustrate why California is facing such a large fiscal mess.

[. . .]

“I know that everybody likes to poke fun at California – but I can tell you right now that despite all of its problems, California remains one of the best places in the world to build a successful small business. All you have to do is start with a successful large business.”

[. . .]

Laugh if you will, but let me remind you that when these policies finish wrecking California, there are still 49 other states we can all move to – and yours is one of them.

I should also warn you of the strange sense of déjà-vu that I have every day on the House floor as I watch the same folly and blunders that wrecked California now being passed with reckless abandon in this Congress.

We passed a “Cash-for-Clunkers” bill the other day – we did that years ago in California.

Doubling the entire debt every five years? Been there.

Increasing spending at unsustainable rates? Done that.

Save-the-Planet-Carbon-Dioxide restrictions? Got the T-Shirt.

To understand how these policies can utterly destroy an economy and bankrupt a government, you have to remember the Golden State in its Golden Age.

A generation ago, California spent about half what it does today AFTER adjusting for both inflation and population growth.

And yet, we had the finest highway system in the world and the finest public school system in the country. California offered a FREE university education to every Californian who wanted one. We produced water and electricity so cheaply that many communities didn’t bother to measure the stuff. Our unemployment rate consistently ran well below the national rate and its diversified economy was nearly recession-proof.

One thing – and one thing only – has changed in those years: public policy. The political Left gradually gained dominance over California’s government and has imposed a disastrous agenda of radical and retrograde policies that have destroyed the quality of life that Californians once took for granted.

The Census Bureau reports that in the last two years 2/3 of a million more people have moved out of California than have moved it. Many are leaving for the garden spots of Nevada, Arizona and Texas.

Think about that. California is blessed with the most equitable climate in the entire Western Hemisphere; it has the most bountiful resources anywhere in the continental United States; it is poised on the Pacific Rim in a position to dominate world trade for the next century, and yet people are finding a better place to live and work and raise their families in the middle of the Nevada and Arizona and Texas deserts.

I submit to you that no conceivable act of God could wreak such devastation as to turn California into a less desirable place to live than the middle of the Nevada Nuclear Test Range. Only Acts of Government can do that. And they have.

You can trace the collapse of California’s economy to several critical events: the rise of environmental Ludditism beginning in 1974; the abandonment of constitutional checks and balances that once constrained spending and borrowing; and the rise of rule by public employee unions . There are other factors as well: litigation, taxation, illegal immigration – but for the sake of time let me concentrate on the big three.

The first was the rise of environmental Ludditism with the election of a radical new-age leftist named Jerry Brown as governor of the state – an election that also produced overwhelming liberal majorities in both legislative houses.

Like Obama today, Brown lost little time in pursuing his vision of California – an incoherent combination of pastoral simplicity, European socialism and centralized planning. At the center of this world view was a backward ideology that he called his “era of limits” — the naïve notion that public works were growth inducing and polluting and that stopping the expansion of infrastructure somehow excused government from meeting the needs of an expanding population.

Conservation replaced abundance as the chief aim of California’s public works, and public policy was redirected to developing irresistible incentives for the population to concentrate in dense urban cores rather than to settle in suburban communities.

Brown infused his vision into every aspect of public policy, and it is a testament to his thoroughness and tenacity that its basic tenets have dominated the direction of California through both Republican and Democratic administrations.

He cancelled the state’s highway construction program, abandoning many routes in mid-construction. He cancelled long-planned water projects, conveyance facilities and dams. He established the California Energy Commission that blocked approval of any significant new generating capacity. He enacted volumes of environmental regulations that created severe impediments to home and commercial construction, empowering an incipient no-growth movement that began on the most extreme fringe of the environmental cause and quickly spread.

This movement reached its zenith with Arnold Schwarzenegger and the enactment of AB 32 and companion legislation in 2006. This measure gives virtually unchecked authority to the California Air Resources Board to force Draconian reductions in carbon dioxide emissions by 2020.

This has dire implications to entire segments of California’s economy: agriculture, baking, distilling, cargo and passenger transportation, cement production, manufacturing, construction and energy production, to name a few.

We, too, were promised an explosion of “green jobs,” but exactly the opposite has happened.

Up until that bill took effect, California’s unemployment numbers tracked very closely with the national unemployment rate. But since then, California’s unemployment rate began a steady upward divergence from the national jobless figures. Today, California’s unemployment rate is more than two points above the national rate, and at its highest point since 1941.

The second problem is structural: the collapse of the checks and balances and other constitutional and traditional constraints on government spending and borrowing.

Let me mention a few of them.

The State Supreme Court decision in Serrano v. Priest severed the use of local revenue for local schools and invited the state take-over of public education. AB 8 of 1979 – the legislature’s response to Proposition 13 – essentially did the same thing to local governments generally.

This means that vast bureaucracies have grown up over the service delivery level, wasting more and more resources while hamstringing teachers in their classrooms, wardens in their prisons and city councils in their towns.

Next, constitutional constraints on fiscal excesses began to fall. In 1983, Gov. George Deukmejian approved legislation to remove the governor’s ability to make mid-year budget corrections without having to return to the legislature. The loss of this provision exposed the state to chronic deficit spending by removing any ability of the governor to rapidly respond to changing economic conditions.

In 1989, Deukmejian sponsored Proposition 111 that destroyed the Gann Spending Limit that had held increases in state spending to inflation and population growth. If that limit had remained intact, California would be enjoying a budget surplus today.

The disastrous tax increases by Pete Wilson in 1991 and Arnold Schwarzenegger this year were made possible by this tragic blunder.

Finally, we’ve watched the constitutional budget process that had produced relatively punctual and relatively balanced budgets for nearly 150 years collapse in favor of an extra-constitutional abomination called the big five.

That new process, that began under Pete Wilson and has culminated under Arnold Schwarzenegger bypasses the entire legislative deliberative process in favor of an annual deal struck between the governor and legislative leaders behind closed doors and handed to the legislature as a fait accompli.

This short-circuits the separation of powers that is designed to discipline fiscal excess and it literally bargains away the line-item veto authority of the governor. It is a process that allows legislative leaders to extract concessions from the executive that would not be possible if the separation of powers were maintained.

With the checks against excessive spending broken down, borrowing became the preferred method of public finance. The Constitutional requirement that all taxpayer-supported debt be approved by voters began to erode in the 1930’s, when a depression-era Supreme Court decision allowed the state to run a temporary deficit in the event of an economic down-turn — as long as the shortfall was addressed in the following fiscal year. This practice was narrowly construed until the Wilson administration began using it to justify spreading out a single year’s budget deficit over several years.

During the 1980’s, Gov. Deukmejian began employing a legal fiction called a “lease revenue bond,” to circumvent constitutionally required voter approval.

Although Proposition 13 still protects property owners from unsustainable increases in their property taxes, most of the other fiscal constraints are now gone, and California has entered a period of unprecedented public debt to finance an unprecedented expansion of state government.

The third factor that also can be traced back to the 1970’s was the radical transformation that took place in the nature and power of the state’s public employee unions. Until that time, state law prohibited public employee strikes against the public and prohibited collective bargaining or closed shops.

During the Jerry Brown era, a series of collective bargaining acts handed to public sector unions all the rights and powers of private sector unions – but without any of the natural constraints on private sector unions. The unions soon brought these newly-won powers to bear to elect hand-picked officials to state and local office.

Today, political expenditures by public employee unions exceed all other special interest groups, while they hold compliant majorities in the state legislature and most local agencies.

The result has been radically escalating personnel costs and radically deteriorating performance.

The impact on governmental services has been devastating. Despite exploding budgets, service delivery is collapsing. Firing incompetent teachers has become a virtual impossibility, adding to the deterioration of educational quality. Essential services can no longer be performed because labor costs have made it impossible to sustain those services.

Today, California is like the shopkeeper who leased out too much space, ordered too much inventory, hired too many people and paid them too much. Every month the shopkeeper covers his shortfalls with borrowing and bookkeeping tricks. Ultimately, he will reach a tipping point where anything he does makes his situation worse. Borrowing costs are eating him alive and he’s running out of credit. Raising prices causes his sales to decline. And there’s only so much discretionary spending he can cut.

That’s the state’s predicament in a nutshell. California’s borrowing costs now exceed the budget of the entire University of California and it is increasingly likely that it will fail to find lenders when it must borrow billions to pay its bills at the end of this month.

Ignoring dire warnings, Gov. Schwarzenegger and legislators from both parties earlier this year imposed the biggest state tax increase in American history.

And I can assure you that the Laffer curve is alive and well. In the first two months after the tax increase took effect, state revenues have plunged 33 percent.

Although there are many obsolete, duplicative or low priority programs and expenditures that the state can – and should – do without, there aren’t enough of them to come anywhere close to closing California’s deficit.

Sadly, California has reached the terminal stage of a bureaucratic state, where government has become so large and so tangled that it can no longer perform even basic functions.

Fortunately, we have a model that we know works. A generation ago, it produced a high quality of public service at a much lower cost. It maximized management flexibility and it required accountability at the service delivery level. It recognized that only when commerce and enterprise flourish can we finance the basic responsibilities of government.

Restoring this efficiency will require a governor and a legislature with the political will to wrestle control from the public employee unions, dismantle the enormous bureaucracies that have grown up over the service delivery level, decentralize administration and decision making, contract out services that the private sector can provide more efficiently, rescind the recent tax increases that are costing the state money and roll back the regulatory obstacles to productive enterprise.

Alas, we don’t have such leaders and even if we did, the systemic reorganization of the state government can’t be accomplished overnight. Restructuring the public schools would take at least a year; prisons at least two; and health and welfare three to five years before serious savings could be realized.

This brings us to the fine point of the matter. What Churchill called history’s “terrible, chilling words” are about to be pronounced on California’s failed leadership: “too late.”

A federal loan guarantee or bailout may be the only way to buy time for the restructuring of California’s bureaucracies to take effect, but the discussion remains academic until and unless the state actually adopts the replacement structures, unburdens its shrinking productive sector and presents a credible plan to redeem the state’s crushing debt and looming obligations.

Without these actions, federal intervention will only make California’s problems worse by postponing reform, continuing unsustainable spending and piling up still more debt.

In short, if California won’t help itself, the federal government cannot, should not and must not.

And before anyone gets too smug at California’s agony, remember this: Congress is now enacting the same policies at the national level that have caused the collapse of California. So whistle past this cemetery if you must, but remember the medieval epitaph: “Remember man as you walk by, as you are now so once was I; as I am now so you will be.”

The good news is there is still time for the nation to avoid California’s fate. If anything, the collapse of California can at least serve as a morality play for the rest of the nation – unfortunately in the form of a Greek tragedy.

Chains of Liberty

It's time for another American Revolution.

Thomas Jefferson warned:

"In questions of power, then, let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."

Break out those chains if you want to preserve the liberties you possess still.

Socialism is slavery.  It makes dependent those who receive the fruit of their fellow citizens' labor, whose time and talent -- in the form of their treasure -- are confiscated at the point of a gun.

Humanly-speaking -- for we can merit nothing before God, Christ is our Merit -- if the State takes your wealth and uses it even accidentally for an occasional benevolent purpose, then it is no longer to your credit.

And what of when politicians hundreds and thousands of mile away use your wealth for immoral purposes?  Regarding that, Jefferson observed:

"to compel a man to furnish ... money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves is sinful and tyrannical."

Politicians are not engaged in charity when they take your money and limit your freedom "for the public good."  They're thieves using your resources to maintain their position.  They think you exist to provide them power.

They work for you.

Government is Leviathan.  If it is not restrained, it will devour us all.

It's time to start over as our Founders intended.  Remove all the filth politicians have codified into law and begin again from just the United States Constitution.

Let's also add term limits for Congress, end their benefits, and certify place of birth for presidential candidates, while we're at it.

The great Larry Elder nails it:

Assisting the needy in health care is a "moral imperative" – not a constitutional right. The two are as different as a squirt gun and an Uzi.

If something is not permitted under our Constitution, the federal government simply cannot do it. Period. The Founding Fathers vigorously debated the role of the federal government and defined it in Article I, Section 8 – spelling out the specific duties and obligations of the federal government. Most notably, this included providing a military for national security, coining money, establishing rules for immigration and citizenship, establishing rules for bankruptcy, setting up a postal system, establishing trademark and copyright rules, and setting up a legal system to resolves disputes, in addition to a handful of other matters.

Charity is not there.

Congress began ignoring its lack of authority for charity before the ink dried on the Constitution. When Congress appropriated $15,000 to assist French refugees in 1792, James Madison – a Founding Father and principal author of the Constitution – wrote, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution, which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

But what about the Constitution's general welfare clause?

Madison said: "With respect to the words general welfare, I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers (enumerated in the Constitution) connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."

And consider government welfare's effect on people's willingness to give. During the Great Depression – before the social programs that today we accept as givens (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) – charitable giving increased dramatically. After FDR began signing social programs into law, charitable giving continued, but not at the same rate. People felt that they had given at the office and/or that government was "handling it."

Government "charity" is simply less efficient than private charity. Every dollar extracted from taxpayers, sent to Washington, and then routed to the beneficiary "loses" about 70 cents in transfer costs – salaries, rent and other expenses. The Salvation Army, by contrast, spends 2 cents in operating costs, with the remainder going to fundraising and the beneficiary. They achieve this, among other ways, by relying on volunteers to do much of the work.

Following Hurricane Katrina, private companies, including The Home Depot and Wal-Mart, provided basic needs, such as water and shelter, faster than did government. What were their motives? Generosity? Positive public relations – a form of "selfishness"? Does it matter?

What about the issue of "moral hazard"? Does government welfare distort behavior and cause people to act irresponsibly? In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson launched a "War on Poverty." "Anti-poverty" workers literally went door to door to inform women of their "right" to money and services – provided the recipients were unmarried and had no men living in their houses. Out-of-wedlock births skyrocketed. In 1960, before the "War on Poverty," out-of-wedlock births accounted for 2 percent of white births and 22 percent of black births. By 1994 – just three decades after Johnson began his "War" – the rates had soared to 25 and 70 percent, respectively.

Numerous studies conclude that children of "broken homes" with absentee or nonexistent fathers are more likely to commit crimes, drop out of school, do drugs and produce out-of-wedlock children. In 1985, the Los Angeles Times asked both the poor and non-poor the following question: Do you think those on welfare have children to get on welfare? More poor people (64 percent) said "yes" to that proposition than did non-poor (44 percent).

If not taxation, how then?

In 1871, the city of Chicago burned to the ground. Contributions, with virtually no money from government, rebuilt the city. After 9/11, so many Americans gave money that the Red Cross used some contributions for non-9/11 purposes. Christianity Today wrote in January 2002: "Suddenly awash in a sea of money, relief agencies such as the Salvation Army need help. So much money – $1.5 billion so far – has come in that charities are having a hard time spending it." And Americans donated an even greater sum to those affected by hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Three in four families donate to charity, averaging more than 3 percent of their income, with two-thirds going to secular charities. In total, Americans give more than $300 billion a year – more than the gross domestic product of Finland or Ireland. More than half of families also donate their time.

Absent (unconstitutional) government programs, individuals and charitable organizations can, will and – in many cases – already do provide services to the needy. A limited government – one that taxes only to fulfill its permissible duties – would allow even more disposable time and money.

People-to-people charity is more efficient, less costly, more humane and compassionate, and more likely to inspire change and self-sufficiency in the beneficiary. People can and would readily satisfy society's "moral imperative."

Obama was as much a socialist as he was Muslim

Which is to say, entirely.

As if his policies were not enough, Obama participated in a socialist party:

President Obama participated in a controversial 1990s political party with a socialist agenda, recalls a major member of the organization known as the New Party.

WND previously reported on newspaper evidence showing Obama was a member of the New Party, which sought to elect members to public office with the aim of moving the Democratic Party far leftward to ultimately form a new political party with a socialist agenda.

Now a former top member of the New Party recounted in a WND e-mail interview Obama's participation with his organization.

"A subcommittee met with (Obama) to interview him to see if his stand on the living wage and similar reforms was the same as ours," recalled Marxist activist Carl Davidson.

"We determined that our views on these overlapped, and we could endorse his campaign in the Democratic Party,' Davidson said.

Walter Cronkite and his fellow apologists for tyranny stained anew with the blood of innocents

The sacrifices made by Americans in Vietnam (and Korea) matter to the victims of Communism, then and now.

The atrocities noted below are what stupid, treasonous, America-hating leftists helped bring about by attacking our military in defense of Communism/Socialism.

To all who opposed America's efforts in Vietnam and helped bring them to an end: You have the fresh blood of innocents on your hands.

Walter Cronkite and his fellow useful idiots stole from innocent people their only defense against savagery, barbarism, and brutality worthy of Hitler, Muhammad, and hell itself.

Here's the end of the Left's utopian dream, one example of what Cronkite and his fellow propagandists helped forge: 2-month-old killed to stifle 'religious' dissent.

Will Jim Webb have the integrity and the guts to condemn this? Or will he follow Dear Leader Obama's lionhearted example in the face of brutal tyranny: Bow, grovel, obfuscate, and apologize?

An international Christian group has reported a horrifying episode of Christian children being abducted and killed in an apparent effort to stifle "religious and political" dissidents in Laos during the runup to a visit by U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va.

Webb, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asia, recently visited several nations, including some that often have earned high rankings among nations that persecute Christians. His trip included visits to Burma, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia.

Now comes a report from International Christian Concern about the newest atrocities.

"International Christian Concern has just learned that Lao soldiers captured, mutilated and decapitated a two-month-old girl during recent military attacks against Hmong and Laotian civilians," the group said. "Survivors of the attack said the infant was used for target practice."

ICC cited reports from the Center for Public Policy Analysis that claimed eight children were captured and 26 Hmong and Laotian civilians were murdered during a series of four major attacks over the past month – apparently designed to stifle "religious and political dissidents" ahead of the visit from Webb.

"Christian Hmong were most certainly among those attacked as they are often targeted specifically by the regime," the report said.

The report included a statement from Vaughn Vang, the director of thet Lao Hmong Human Rights Council.

"We are told, by some of the Lao Hmong survivors of the recent military attacks in Laos, that the LPDR (Lao Peoples Democratic Republic) soldiers of the LPA (Lao Peoples Army) used the … Lao Hmong girl, while she was still alive, for target practice … once she was captured and tied up; they mutilated her little body and continued to fire their weapons, over and over … until her head just eventually came off after so many bullets severed her head."

The rest of the children, ranging up to 8 years old, remain missing and Vang's concern is that they likely would be tortured and killed by soldiers.

The ICC report said the decapitated child's body was found next to her mother, also a torture victim of the soldiers.

"Unfortunately," the ICC said, "this level of brutality against women and children is not uncommon for Lao soldiers. It is standard procedure for soldiers to surround and isolate pockets of Hmong people and starve them out to be killed when they venture out to forage.

"Philip Smith, the Executive Director of CPPA, told ICC of video footage smuggled out of Laos in 2004 that documents the aftermath of the killing and brutalization of five Hmong children, four of them girls, on May 19th of that year. That footage was used in an extremely graphic documentary, "Hunted Like Animals," by Rebecca Sommer," the report said.

The videos are available at RebeccaSommer.org, but ICC warns the clips are "highly graphic." The website warns that no children should view the clips.

[. . .]

According to the RebeccaSommers.org website, the Hmong people of southeast Asia, many of whom cooperated with American forces during the Vietnam War, still are hunted and killed for actions of four decades ago.

Open Doors USA ranks Laos No. 8 on its 2009 World Watch List of nations that persecute Christians.

[. . .]

"It is certainly not a shock that North Korea is No. 1 on the list of countries where Christians face the worst persecution," said Carl Moeller, president of Open Doors USA. "There is no other country in the world where Christians are persecuted in such a horrible and systematic manner."

The organization estimates 100 million Christians worldwide suffer interrogation, arrest and even death for their faith in Christ, with millions more facing discrimination and alienation.

Islam. Nazism. Communism. Any form of totalitarianism. "Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again."

B. Hussein Obama's new health care plan* unveiled

Finally, some of that much-hyped, often-promised, but impossible-to-find transparency!



This also happens to be his strategy for dealing with the elderly, Independents who skew downward his public opinion polls, country music fans, babies, the Founding Fathers, military veterans (American, not jihadist prisoners-of-war, they get a dream vacation in the Caribbean, relocation in the newly-expanded federal witness protection program to somewhere in the continental United States, and a position in his administration), everyone who refuses to address him as "Your Highness," and other "right-wing extremists."

When asked what he'd do if this proposal is rejected also by Americans-Who-Are-Paying-Attention, he admitted with a smirk that he did have a fallback plan, one that would strive "To Serve Man."

The President denied charges from Obviously-Racist-Republican-Operatives that he's taking his domestic policy ideas from Rod Serling.

*Our God-given, unalienable rights are never "obsolete."

Obama is god

The blaspheming tyrant has done it again.

And you thought Rush was only joking.

Being "ready to rule from Day 1," was bad enough, for with that, Obama made himself a king over free men.

Now, he's made himself equal with God:

"We are God’s partners in matters of life and death . . . ."

This is evidence of Obama's pathological, self-deifying narcissism.

It's also proof that Obama thinks that the devout are idiots to be manipulated.

Isn't this also an expression of the fact that liberals worship the State as god? Power above all else?