MTheads

I am the Alpha and the Obama

I'm all insouciant and, like, whatever over the last election.  Yes, the side that hews closest to my own philosophical beliefs has lost, again.  I expected as much.  But being unpopular is not the same thing as being wrong.  For me it's not about winning elections so much as about certain outcomes.  I want freedom of choice in education.  I want a strong military.  I want largely unfettered trade and free enterprise.  I want the least amount of bureaucracy and the least amount of governance as possible.  I want a robust private sector.  I want to keep highly talented immigrants here.  And I want the government to stay out of my choices, whether it's abortion or the size of soda I want to drink.  

Where am I going with this?  I don't know.  But I suspect these concepts aren't so easily attained by just having my guy win.  They have to be won in the hearts and minds, not wrung out of an unwilling populace in whatever four year period we manage to snag. 

 

Something that has bothered me for awhile:  Republicans who think Obama is all powerful and will destroy everything good in our lives.  This is no different than thinking he can heal with a touch.

The most important aspects of our lives are under our control.  We should never imagine that one democratically elected man is the guiding force of our lives.  Obama is no more our destroyer than he is our savior.  Yes, more people voted for Obama and his ideology of big government.  More people are idiots as far as I'm concerned. But I'm not going to join their ranks by embracing the delusion that my times are the most difficult and fraught in the history of mankind just because my guy didn't win.  Maybe people should read more history.

A Few Quick Thoughts on the OWS

OWS participants are addicted to outrage; especially to the self-serving, self-righteous kind that assumes their demands should trump everything - tradition, culture, laws, reality.  It's a surplus of self-regard powered by an unrealistic assessment of one's importance married to emotions unchecked by practiced reasoning.  How else to explain the people's mike? Wake up!  You look ridiculous!  And it's incredibly inefficient!

This week it's the bankers and Wall Street, last week it was global warming and the Palestinian right of return.  Remember when it was our illegal war in Iraq before President Obama?  No?  But now student loans are coming due and someone must pay for our current economic woes.  Let's all agree that if Bush was still in office, this would be an Occupy the White House movement instead.  But as your team is in, you chose the bankers instead. 

I understand you were promised so much by so many admirers - parents, teachers, peers, yourself - only to find out you too have to make your way in an unsure world, like the rest of us.  And now you resent the college debts and the lack of prestigious jobs.  You wanted to profit from a system built by others that had so far favored your kind, and when you learned that it wasn't going to be so easy, you blame the system.  And now you demand we change the system to suit you, or else...and there is an "or else".  You have nothing to offer the world but the sturm und drang of your recycled slogans and arrogant demands. 

It's at the end of the you-are-so-special rainbow.  Go get it!

I think we can safely assume this shining star is unfettered with college debt.  She must be protesting some other debt, like of logic or something.

I talked to your parents.  You got the sentiment mixed up.  Guess what (or who) your parents really don't want...

 

 

OWS Truth Placards

Again, two brave souls against the pitiless State machine.  Even the Syrians are with us:

More OWS Truth Placards

For a second there, I thought this was a scene from Syria...so brave.

The People's Smirk - Pass it Down

Somehow I suspect these people aren't missed by those they left at home.  Upside to everything.

OWS Protest Signs

Why, no, I don't have Photoshop, why?

If You Can Read This, Thank A Teacher Who Stayed In Class

Joanne Jacobs has several links to sites with snap shots of recent teacher protests.  Here and Here.

Why does every leftist protest devolve into demands to tax the rich and end the illegal occupation of Palestine?  Again, it's not about reforming or fixing anything.  It's about leveraging real concerns for their fascist/socialist/freakish/utopian dream world where the misfits have the power. 

Here are some placards/protest signs we ought to see at the protests.

 

Wanted: First Rank Conspiracy Theorists

Since those nutty, wonderful, sublime Truthers, nobody has a good conspiracy.  Dang, I love myself a good conspiracy. 

The implications of Obama being born in Kenya and then smuggled into Hawaii are underwhelming.  No corporate killings, no assassination plots, no world domination.  Just a woman with incredible foresight.  Who in their right mind would bother themselves with this theory??  

Before the other side congratulates themselves on their incredible reasonableness, let's remember the equally fatuous conspiracy concerning Sarah Palin's son.  A bunch of idiots are convinced that Sarah Palin did not give birth to Trig.  At first, I thought Andrew Sullivan's McCarthyish screeds demanding to see the birth certificate before the last election was brilliant performance art.  Unfortunately, no.

More important than accepting the obvious because the other alternatives require a suspension of thinking, we take Palin's word for it because the implications that arise from a cover-up are too dull for a good movie.  Same goes for the movie about two-week-old Obama's wild flight from Kenya to preserve his chances for becoming President.  Maybe he and his mother have to run to make a connecting flight. Do they make it?

President Obama was born in Hawaii and Sarah Palin is Trig's mother.  To doubt either is wishful thinking that the people we don't like are somehow illegitimate.  Get hobbies.

The Thuggish Thwarted Collective Hive-Mind -- Ugly

What with the constant drumming, the squawking jungly animal sounds, and the occasional human cry sharp with pain and fear, one might imagine oneself deep in cannibal country.  Not too far off the mark, instead it's the sound of thousands of hysterical protesters after realizing the Wisconsin senate Republicans have thwarted their collective hive-mind will. 

I truly think these liberal protesters believe that by making their collective hive-mind will known through screaming, placards, hate, and vigorous drumming, the world must capitulate to them.  They want it.  Badly.  Listen to the hippie pound that drum.  See the mild-mannered teacher screw up her face with a fatal case of self-righteous dementia.  It drives them nuts when the world doesn't behave as they demand. 

Another list:

1) First, they encourage their representatives to hide from their responsibilities, and now they want to recall other people's representatives.  Be more successful at the voting booth.

2) Polls are no substitute for democratically elected officials passing legislation. 

3) They actually believe we owe them for the pay cut they took by choosing to become public employees rather than going for that neurosurgeon gig.  Yeah, me too.  It was homemaker or heading up that astro-physics lab.  It was close.

4) I'm only talking about public employee unions.  Public employee unions did not build the United States or create our middle class, etc.  Unrelenting self-aggrandizement is a character flaw.

 

 

Unions Under Threat From Logic

I wonder if one's political views are genetic.  Perhaps we can't help but lean left, right, or vacillate with the crowds.  Perhaps anarchists are born rather than formed through experience and deep thought.  Well, little doubt on that one.  Is being anti- or pro-union deep in our genes? 

I know I have a gut reaction against the union side of the argument in Wisconsin.  Something about government employees massing together demanding concessions from the State and the citizens who pay them rankles me.  And I have an almost physical dislike of words like "workers", "solidarity", "labor".  To have these well fed, well paid, sick leave, paid holidays, pensioned, protected workers speaking like exploited factory workers from the turn of the century is stomach turning. 

If one would be better off in the private sector, as many argue, then change jobs.  Don't try to tell us it's because you care too much, or because you are heroic in your sacrifice.  We know the truth.  It's because government work is the easiest path to a middle class life for the great mass of us who are not going to invent an artificial heart or start up an internet company.  Government employment is a haven for people wishing to avoid  the capricious and demanding nature of working for private individuals or companies.  After all, it's generally not the most driven, intelligent, innovative, or ambitious people who go into government work.  Hate me for saying that, but it is true.

Point?  One) the arguments of the pro-union side are self-serving, exaggerated, and stolen from people who really were or are exploited by the powerful.  Two) Protesting government employees are in no way similar to protesting Egyptians or Libyans despite being asked to pay more into their pension plans.  Three) Collective bargaining means State employees can hold government services hostage until the tax payers capitulate.  And what does the private sector have for leverage against that? 

Finally, I'm only talking about State employee unions.