Dismantling America
By Thomas Sowell
Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?
Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers-- that is, to create a situation where some newspapers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?
Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?
Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?
Does any of this sound like America?
How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.
How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.
We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies. What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brown shirts of dictators than like anything American.
How far the President will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.
Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America," the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.
Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "God damn America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.
Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.
Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?
Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government-- people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world.
Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration's enemies list.
Nothing so epitomizes President Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year-- each bill more than a thousand pages long-- too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question-- and the biggest question for this generation.
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Alrighty Then!
4 weeks ago
9 comments:
The MSM magician has distracted the audience with the "crisis" of the day and the audience is concentrating on the "Health trick". So they don't see the shadowy figures quietly locking the theater doors. Nor, do they even smell the gasoline being poured at the exits.
There is a must read book out about a small town in America that DOES stand up to federal tyranny & ends up starting the 2nd American Revolution.
It's insightful to current problems that are facing us right now. I am recommending it to everyone to read. It's a must read if your ready for a time to revolt. Just read it & prepare for what's coming nxt at all of us.
www.booksbyoliver.com
Sometimes you wonder, "Has he no shame?" No, he has none. He has no soul, he has no heart, and he has surrounded himself with like creatures. We have stood by complacently while being stripped of everything that makes us great and unique and respected. How many graduates of government schools really know what went on at Lexington, or why? In our "rock star" culture we have left our ethics, our integrity, and our morals in a trash heap, along with the Constitution, and turned our faces toward a new dawn of destruction.
We have two choices: a complete turnover of congress in the next few elections, if we have that long, or another shot heard round the world. Personally, at my age, I don't care. But I care about our children and grandchildren. May God help us.
Love
Granny
I couldn't agree more with Thomas. More and more, it appears our elected officials are forgetting their duty to serve their public and are instead taking steps to modify our behavior, our expenditures, and our lifestyle. While the most obvious example is what Thomas mentioned as the new legislation coming from our Commander-in-Chief, this political irresponsibility trickles down to state and local levels, where it is easier to fall under the radar. Take, for instance, the recent behavior of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
Last year, the L.A. County Department of Public Social Services procured for vendor services to operate the county's GAIN case management services (essentially a welfare to work program). Two bids came in from the incumbent company (Maximus, Inc.) and Policy Studies Inc. (PSI). The two companies were scored by a neutral third party, and PSI beat Maximus solidly in several categories, including performance and bid price. Maximus protested, but the findings were upheld on 3 levels and PSI was recommended by DPSS to receive the contract.
The Board of Supervisors disagreed. They rejected the recommendation with 3 votes. They claimed the process of consensus scoring somehow concealed bias from the DPSS, though no specific evidence of this bias was ever presented. Furthermore, this scoring process was documented as a valid process which had been used for years prior to 2008, and the same process whereby the incumbent Maximus had been recommended and awarded. The BOS then directed the DPSS to extend Maximus' contract for 6 months while they reissue the RFP and devise a new scoring method.
The BOS also expressed some superficial concern that the cost of the contract may exceed county requirements (see County Prop A). Although language could've easily been built into the contract to ensure cost neutrality/savings, the BOS rejected that argument and asked DPSS to review their contract monitoring costs for possible reductions and eliminate or reduce pay for performance provisions that could drive up the overall contract cost should the vendor outperform expectations.
The reissue of this RFP makes no fiscal sense whatsoever, particularly given the dire state of California's economy. What's more, the state faces federal penalties to the tune of approximately $185 million if they do not meet a preexisting federal threshold. Why is the BOS insisting on spending MORE of our tax dollars in an effort to maintain their business relationship with Maximus - a company whose performance was scored lower and contract priced higher than PSI? (The county has estimated the cost to reissue the RFP to be $250,000). If PSI had been chosen, their contract would save the county over one million dollars annually. What's going on here?
An LA Times article from last year exposed just how entangled Maximus is with the BOS. In the first half of 2008, Maximus spent over $124,000 on two lobbying firms, more than doubling what they spent on marketing in the past year. Perhaps even more troubling, Maximus donated $1,000 (the maximum allowed) to the campaigns to re-elect supervisors Don Knabe and Michael D. Antonovich. They even gave $1,000 to two members whose terms had 2 years left to run.
In these lean times, something else must be motivating the board's decisions, because it's certainly not the bottom line.
Remember this. The two archenemies of socialism are small business and the middle class. This is why CIT, the bank that makes the majority of loans to small businesses to meet payroll, was the first to NOT receive Tarp and Bailout money in the extravagant amounts of the other banks. CIT is now declaring chapter 11 Bankruptcy. Also note carefully, that none of the Stimulus money was directed at small business. Nope, the administration has to kill the small businessman and eliminate the middle class in order to implement socialism. The health care bill will take over 1/6th of the economy and the Cap and Trade will further rape the taxpayer's pocketbook. Finally, the Amnesty bill will provide them with another 16 million ever-grateful voters. In the meantime, the MSM will parrot the claim that the illegal aliens "deserve" a shot at citizenship.
Illegal aliens deserve the absolute best health care they can get......
in MEXICO!!!!
This is an important week, folks, to save the Republic from the chains of socialism. If you can get to DC on the 5th to protest PelosiCare, please do so. If not, call, call, call, your Congressman.
Ehm...is it just me or does this feel like another 9/11.
You know what you're seeing,
reading and hearing.
You can't believe it's real,
but it is.
Those were airplanes,
that was terrorism.
This is revolution.
Now what?
What now?
When "We the People" are no longer represented by their "representatives", they have an obligation to remove those traitors. When Democratic procedures are no longer followed in the Congress, it is safe to state that the people have been betrayed by their government.
Watch this video, cry just a little, and then think just a little.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ywgUCdefSW8
Yes, we are headed for a catastrophe of biblical proportions. How long will the people stand for this?
This is the America that we have been building for quite some time now. Capitalism was a fantastic thing for us, but it somehow switched over to something that you could more accurately refer to as Corporatism. As our economy drifts away leading our middle class to dirt it was time for Obama to step in and save us, but what many people hadn’t counted on was what his definition of change was. Many of us thought that his change would restore America’s liberties because he appears to have been one of us, but just like a certain dictator of Uganda this is proving to be nothing more than a charade. I would rather deal with the corruption of Corporatism than this new socialist agenda because Corporatism is much less difficult to fight against. After all, socialism lead to such events as the holocaust. Do we really want to risk another go at it? What you wrote makes for a great way to reach out to those still blind because truth be told most of our awareness techniques have the opposite effect, but this article does not. It is reasonable and just, so those in disbelief may have an easier time accepting these realities through it. The question is when will we revolt? The biggest question is how will this revolution begin? People just aren’t motivated. Someone pointed out to me that people will generally sit back and watch until the problems intrude into their own home. They’ll say that it doesn’t effect them, and the world has a history of the people actually watching their neighbors taken away in black body bags with little to no resistance. I’m not saying that we’re going to start seeing things this drastic, but history shows that it is certainly a possibility with socialism. Especially if there is resistance. How will a revolution erupt?
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