Haiti...Have To Admit, I'm Torn On This One

I want to start by saying that I promise to leave politics out of this one, as difficult as that will be. I read this morning that our Hollywood celebrities raised tens of millions of dollars for the Haiti relief effort, and while I have heard plenty of people criticize them...I would like to say good job. I have gone back and forth between being proud and ashamed of my country since the 2008 election...and this time is no different.
On one hand, we are the wealthiest and most powerful nation on earth. And before you start thumping your chest, unless you served in the military you didn't earn that power or prosperity. You inherited it just like I did, so let's keep things in perspective OK? With power comes responsibility, or at least it should. I'm 5'11" and 190lbs, and even pushing 40 I would like to think I could still hold my own if I had to. So if I'm walking down the street and see a little old lady getting mugged or a 10 year old kid getting beet up by bullies, I'm going to step in. I'm not going to say "it's not my grandmother" or it's "not my kid". I have the ability to help, therefore I have the responsibility to help. And the fact that my country is doing just that in Haiti truly makes me proud.
With that being said, I also know that there is plenty of real need right here at home. Before you accuse me of being a "bleeding heart", let me be clear. I have very little sympathy for the so called "poor" in our country. Truth is, those living in housing projects and collecting welfare in this country live better than the middle class in Europe and would be considered rich in most of Africa. And thanks to food stamps they certainly eat better. But we have real needs right here at home. Especially when it comes to under privileged children. Every day kids in America go hungry, or live in dangerous homes, or are abused, exploited, etc. How many of them could be helped if our wealthy celebrities in Hollywood put forth the same effort as they do when a third world country needs help and the TV cameras are rolling?
Like I said at the beginning, I'm torn on this one. Once again, I'm both proud of my country and ashamed.

One Down, A Few More To Go

I have to admit that I never thought I would need to thank the voters of Massachusetts for anything. After all, they gave us the Kennedys, John Kerry, and Barney Frank just to name a few. But yesterday they seemed to come to their senses - at least for now - and elected Republican Scott Brown to the Senate seat that was held for over 40 years by Ted Kennedy. I don't know much about Brown, and he could be another RINO (Republican in name only) which is the last thing the party...or the country needs. But I do know he has promised to vote against Obamacare, giving the Republicans the 41 votes they need to block it and that's good enough for now.
The news coverage has been interesting. Brown beat his Dem. rival 52% to 47%, the exact same margin that Obama beat McCain by. Of course in the case of Obama it was a "clear message that the country had abandoned the Republican party" according to the state run media. But for some reason Brown's landslide victory in true-blue Massachusetts, the land of the Kennedys, is being reported as an "isolated incident" and "not really a rejection of Obama's policies" according to the same media outlets. It's really pretty amusing. I say let them remain delusional. Let them keep doing what they're doing. It will be a bloodbath for them next November, and the Republicans could win back both houses of Congress, rendering Obama impotent for the rest of his first and hopefully only term.
And while the media may still be in love with their Messiah, it seems that some of his highest profile supporters are jumping off the bus. Jim Cramer and Warren Buffett have both attacked Obama's spending and tax policies in the last 2 days. Seems they have finally learned the lesson that bank and auto executives learned last year, which is - Beware of false Prophets seeking to tax your profits! Even a few Dem. politicians including Jim Webb of Virginia have begun to distance themselves from The One.
I can't really predict what will happen next November, ten months is a long time and things can change. But based on what I saw last night, including members of the state run media having meltdowns on the air, I'm guessing the liberals in DC and in the media will be providing quite a bit of entertainment. At least they're good for a laugh now and then, and November could be a lot of fun.

Thomas Sowell Get's It Right Again

I was thinking this, but Thomas Sowell just says it better than I could have. And I could have said it pretty well.

Jewish World Review Dec. 29, 2009 12 Teves 5770
Unhealthy arrogance
By Thomas Sowell


The only thing healthy about Congress' health insurance legislation is the healthy skepticism about it by most of the public, as revealed by polls. What is most unhealthy about this legislation is the raw arrogance in the way it was conceived and passed.
Supporters of government health insurance call its passage "historic." Past attempts to pass such legislation — going back for decades — failed repeatedly. But now both houses of Congress have passed government health care legislation and it is just a question of reconciling their respective bills and presenting President Obama with a political "victory."
In short, this is not about improving the health of the American people. It is about passing something — anything — to keep the Obama administration from ending up with egg on its face by being unable to pass a bill, after so much hype and hoopla. Politically, looking impotent is a formula for disaster at election time. Far better to pass even bad legislation that will not actually go into effect until after the 2012 presidential election, so that the public will not know whether it makes medical care better or worse until it is too late for the voters to hold the administration accountable.
The utter cynicism of this has been apparent from the outset, in the rush to pass a health care bill in a hurry, in order to meet wholly arbitrary, self-imposed deadlines. First it was supposed to be passed before the August 2009 Congressional recess. Then it was supposed to be passed before Labor Day. When that didn't happen, it was supposed to be rushed to passage before Christmas.
Why — especially since the legislation would not take effect until years from now?
The only rational explanation for such haste to pass a bill that will be slow to go into effect is to prevent the public from knowing what is in this massive legislation that even members of Congress are unlikely to have read. That is also the only reason that makes sense for postponing the time when Obamacare goes into action after the next presidential election.
What does calling this medical care legislation "historic" mean? It means that previous administrations gave up the idea when it became clear that the voting public did not want government control of medical care. What is "historic" is that this will be the first administration to show that it doesn't care one bit what the public wants or doesn't want.
In short, this is not about the public's health. It is about Obama's ego and his chance to impose his will and leave a legacy.
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This is not the only massive legislation to be rushed to passage in Congress and then left to go into effect slowly. The same political formula was used earlier, to pass the "stimulus" bill to spend hundreds of billions of dollars that the government doesn't have — and that may well amount to more than a trillion dollars when the interest on the debt it creates is added, for this and the next generation to pay off.
Legislation is not the only sign of this administration's contempt for the intelligence of the public and for the safeguards of democratic government.
The appointment of White House "czars" to make policy across a wide spectrum of issues — unknown people who get around the Constitution's requirement of Senate confirmation for Cabinet members — is yet another sign of the mindset that sees the fundamental laws and values of this country as just something to get around, in order to impose the will of an arrogant elite.
That some of these "czars" have already revealed their own contempt for the values of American society in the things they have said and done only reinforces the point.
In a sense, this administration is only the end result of a long social process that includes raising successive generations with dumbed-down education in schools and colleges that have become indoctrination centers for the visions of the left. Our education system has turned out many people who have never heard any other vision and who can only learn what is wrong with the prevailing vision from bitter experience.
That bitter experience now awaits them, at home and abroad.