Keepin’ it Real
I’ve noticed an alarming narrowing in the gap between realism and alarmism. Or is that a realistic narrowing? It’s hard to tell. Given our increasing psychological perversity – and our increasingly indiscriminate senses of entitlement – we’re all but destroying our capacity for semantic nuance. For example, as a matter of engaging in discussion, you used to be able to tell people the truth, even if they didn’t like it. If you tell people a truth they don’t like today, they’ll say you’re being sarcastic. If you tell people a truth they really don’t like, they’ll say you’re being mean. If you tell people a truth that has to do with taking responsibility for themselves – or engaging in something constructive – they’ll say you’re being (forgive my language) conservative. You’re better off lying through your teeth, especially if you’re promising them something for nothing. (See Obama, Barack.)
Along with abdicating responsibility for any kind of semantic maturity, we’ve developed a corollary knack for overlooking empirical evidence and ignoring our senses. We used to think that if it looks, walks, swims, flies, and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. Likewise, if we saw something that had all the hallmarks of a disaster in the making, we’d brace for the ensuing disaster – or work to prevent it. But we don’t think that way anymore. We’re too enamored of our entitlements to be preoccupied by discernment. That’s how and why, in an effort to institute his own power-mongering agenda, Barack the Betrayer is attempting to railroad through as much specious legislation as possible. And to get that specious legislation enacted before we wake up, he’s resorting to strong-arm tactics in government extortion. What? You mean that handsome guy who makes all those pretty speeches? Yes. Him. An excerpted example:
After Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., declared the Obama administration’s stimulus spending plan ineffective and urged a halt to further stimulus spending, the White House dispatched four Cabinet secretaries – Transportation’s Ray LaHood, Agriculture’s Tom Vilsack, Housing and Urban Development’s Shaun Donovan, Interior’s Ken Salazar – to write letters to Republican Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer enumerating every dime of federal monies that would no longer flow to her state if Sen. Kyl had his way. As LaHood snarkily put it to Gov. Brewer, “If you prefer to forfeit the money we are making available to your state, as Senator Kyl suggests, please let me know.” What did the White House expect the governor to do next? Make Sen. Kyl an offer he couldn’t refuse? Or, as Mark Steyn, detecting the whiff of extortion in the air, asked: “Why not just break his (Kyl’s) legs in the Senate parking lot?”
To put what follows in context, please find a copy of Stephen Fox’s book, Blood and Power: Organized Crime in Twentieth Century America, referenced here. Since it’s out of print, you’ll have to do some Internet digging – or some serious rummaging through used-book stores. While you’re looking, here are the kinds of naivete-shattering realities you’ll find teed up in the book. There are no accidents or coincidences. Politicians like Barack the Bandit are supported by unions. Politicians and unions are corrupted by organized crime. That’s why:
- Labor unions typically and historically foster violence. The Center for Union Facts compiles evidence about the political and criminal activities of the labor movement in the United States.
- The National Institute for Labor Relations Research has maintained a catalog of union violence since 1975.
- The Heritage Foundation conducted exhaustive research on the effect of unions on business, industry, and the economy.
Well, that’s all a bunch of exaggerated hooey, right? Wrong. It’s a duck. We need to call it one.
Speaking of fowl, while Barack the Banty was crowing about saving General Motors, he was handing the fox the keys to the chicken coop. As a result, GM will now be managing to UAW demands, not to market demands and certainly not to consumer demands. Because Barack the Brazen knows the effectiveness of strong-arm tactics (see Politics, Chicago), we’re now enjoying thuggish coercion on healthcare. We’re celebrating criminal misrepresentation of the stimulus. We’re a few short steps from bringing home the kind of organized violence that’s doing a world of good for this U.S. plant in France. And we’re so determined not to say this thing that looks, walks, swims, flies, and quacks like a duck is a duck that our prospective perils have to be pointed out to us by our friends north of the border.
If you don’t think you’re about to lose something valuable — and if you don’t think that loss will be all but irretrievable — ask yourself this: does the bully tell you what he’s going to do as he’s approaching — and before he swipes your ice cream cone? Here’s a hint: HELL NO!
Big Brother Barack’s keeping it real. But that’s not the same as keeping it realistic. And it’s definitely alarming.
We ignore it at our own peril.