Sure, it’s another year of Obama and Reid and, sad to say, the GOP establishment and their leadership stooges colluding with the left on its grand amnesty plan, one that feeds the coffers of the GOP’s corporatist clients and trickles down to the Party fundraising and electioneering apparati while providing the Democrats with the raw material for their transformation of red states into purple states and ultimately blue states by importing government dependents to vote themselves other people’s dwindling resources (see, eg., Colorado — though the backlash there is beginning to take a noticeable and mildly hostile form).
The GOP establishment, having through the Ryan/Murray bill, already walked back the “law of the land” that was the sequester and given the Democrats a simple Senate majority for spending increases, is now moving onward with an amnesty plan no one except certain ethnic front groups and phony “civil rights” champions are demanding, aiming in the process to please its cronies and maintain its fundraising mechanism, largely (and ironically) in an effort to beat back threats to its power from its own base, then run in perpetuity against what they themselves helped enable, convincing those still not terribly politically engaged that the GOP, rather than having been complicit in the logistical influx of Democrat clients, the shrinking of the middle class, and the flooding of the work force with low wage labor that will harm American citizens already looking at prolonged record unemployment, is the party fighting for jobs, lower taxes, and smaller government. They’ll win some, they’ll lose some, but that hardly matters and more — as both they and Nancy Pelosi (“we need to return to a time when Party didn’t matter”) both know. Bigger government and more “revenue enhancements” are appealing to politicians in both party establishments, and once the GOP surrendered principle for pragmatism, it was easy for them to convince themselves that every compromise, surrender, and downright deconstruction and inversion of the party’s ostensible values was somehow part of a long-term strategic plan. In other words, they’ve begun to rationalize their own greed and convince themselves of the plausibility of their own moral choices — they’re “realists” holding off the “purists” who will sink the party, they claim, even as it’s evident to all but the most doctrinaire party loyalists and cheerleaders that the differences between the GOP and the Democratic Party are largely those of speed and scale, not of ideological competition — and this is precisely because once you stand for nothing, you’ll stand for anything that you believe benefits you.
And you are no longer us, those whom you ostensibly represent, We, the People.
It’s theater, and going forward, it will continue to be theater unless and until the people awaken and recognize that there is no strategic victory in what the GOP leadership and its mouthpieces constantly sell as strategic victory. It is, as I’ve said for years, at best losing more slowly — and as I’ve now come to believe more and more, something even worse: strategic complicity in permanent statism and a more vigorous and authoritative centralized government whose administrative apparatus and civil service protections assure a kind of insulated, ruling class permanency.
Having said all that, we do have certain things to look forward too going forward into the New Year. First, the 2014 elections, in which we either get our constitutionalists elected or else we step back and precipitate the inevitable economic fall: because never again are many of us, and this is on both sides of the aisle (where the TEA Party has always existed, despite claims from the progressives who despise the Constitution and the entrenched GOP, who despises the demands of its own base), going to vote for the lesser of too evils. Is it “pragmatic” to do so, to delay a collapse? Sure. But is it still giving affirmation to evil, even to a lesser degree? You bet. And we’ve spent too long taking that tack.
Second, even as the GOP leadership tries desperately to drag its feet on ObamaCare and resist urges to pull it out root and branch, their feints toward “improving it” or “fixing it” or “keeping the good parts” are going to be met with resistance from those affected, regardless of party affiliation. There are many many Democrats out there who, whether they’ll say so publicly or not, would happily sneak a pull for a GOP candidate in an election if they truly believed that the candidate they were voting for was actually committed to doing away with the wealth redistribution schemed that ObamaCare is — one whose very design is meant to bring about a single payer system and, in the end, crush the middle class, reducing the country to a kind of “natural state” (in their minds), where you have the rulers and the ruled, the rich who oversee and run the lives of the herds, and the monetary units that keep the revenue flowing to the rulers in exchange for their genius and faux largess.
Third, we have friends and family, many of whom we’ll have to rely upon should more of us begin to suffer under the burdens of increased taxes, the weight of debt and deficit, substandard health care, and a general malaise and desperation that will appear once the country is flooded with new “future-citizens” who will suck up state resources, overburden infrastructure, and elect governmental officials that will promise them not liberty but rather compensation in exchange for their votes.
And this resurgence of family and community — which we’ve seen in microcosm in reaction to first the Chick-fil-A “crisis,” then the Hobby Lobby case, and most recently, with A&E’s initial surrender to the aggressive homogeneity of the self-appointed thought police that the network was then (comically) forced to rethink, given the size and scope of the audience of a show that, simply and in an entertaining fashion, promotes family, the entrepreneurial spirit, faith in something greater than current political orthodoxies — may just be catching on, and gaining traction, particularly as it juxtaposes itself against the failures and phony promises of a nanny government that has long pretended to be your guardian, even though it doesn’t know you nor care about you on any level that can conceivably be called individual.
It may not be that the country is saved by the beliefs of an outspoken family of duck hunters from West Monroe, or the family that gave us the chicken sandwich, or a company that provides the raw material for the kind of kitsch that cosmopolitan liberals so despise.
But it doesn’t hurt that the instances of pushback are adding up.
There’s a hope for 2014, in other words. Unfortunately, there’s an entire political and administrative apparatus who is working overtime to squelch that hope.
We still have the state convention solution, which shows promise. But in an ideal world, 2014 will be a year of renewed determination to join with friends, family, and community to remove from office politicians of any party who simply refuse to represent us.
If that means all-time HIGH primary turnout, and all-time LOW general turnout for elections, we’ll be heading in the right direction.
Be safe. Have a great rest of the day, a wonderful evening, and a great and prosperous New Year.
My best to you all,
Jeff
My best to you and yours, Jeff.
Happy New Year to you and your family, Jeff.
Happy New Year to you and yours, Jeff.
Here’s hoping you and your family and all the posters here have a happy and prosperous New Year, despite the foul wind blowing from Washington, DC.
VDH celebrates Good Ol’ Boys.
Woot! In-custodies finished, freeways light and I’m home!
Happy New Year, Jeff, with best wishes and continued good times with your wonderful family.
And all the same good thoughts and cheer to PWers.
– Happiest of holidays and a prosperous New Year to everyone at PW and their families.
leigh
the Latina newscaster who trills her Rs each evening on the news.
I confess this is a pet peeve of mine. A person is speaking in bland, unaccented American English and runs across a Latino name and suddenly the accent is so thick as to be almost uncomprehensible.
STOP it!
Inter’sting Roger Simon piece:
If the antagonism and antagonists were as Simon describes them, he’d have a point. Unfortunately, he gives both the RINOs and the Tea Partiers too much credit. At best it’s a fight between those who want to cut government by forty or fifty percent, and those who’d cut it by ten to fifteen. And really, it’s not even that. Because the RINOs will happily point to the Democrat plan to grow the government by 100 percent and declare a growth of 25 percent a victory because they cut the rate of growth by 75 percent.
The Stalinist thing is apt, though as Jeff could probably tell you.
Were he not an unperson, that is.
I suppose there will always be a little melancholy involved when acknowledging a year passing into history, but, frankly, my emotional focus is in the hope of a better year ahead — for us all.
Darleen,
Remember went the Iran/Contra thinger was happening? Lily white journos would be reading along and all of a sudden sound like Charro when they said “Nicarrrrrrruagua” or “Coo-bah”.
It drove me crazy, too.
Yeah. Typical Simon squishiness. Look, Hillary is the REAL enemy. Don’t go fucking things up by trying to elect conservatives, or the Marxists will eat you ALIVE!
If a conservative runs against Hillary, her failures as Sec of State will be made abundantly and painfully manifest. If we run a RINO, we’ll hear that she was superb and that any talk of her having stood by her impeached husband and blaming his blow jobs on a vast right wing conspiracy will still be considered off limits.
As will the “ancient history” of her Marxist associations.
Fuck that.
Let ’em all burn. Simon already fired me. If he doesn’t want me talking about the problems with the GOP establishment, too fucking bad. Because I don’t do it stupidly. And when I’m read, I can be pretty damn forceful about making my point.
leigh
It’s like Obama’s “pawh-KEE-stawhn” …. fingernailsonchalkboard …
Because the RINOs will happily point to the Democrat plan to grow the government by 100 percent and declare a growth of 25 percent a victory because they cut the rate of growth by 75 percent.
Yeah, the last time GOP had all three branches it was “Compassionate Conservatism” and a free-for-all-spending of drunken sailors.
f**k-that-noise
all of a sudden sound like Charro when they said “Nicarrrrrrruagua” or “Coo-bah”.
They’re flashing their tribal signs, yo. See how erudite I am? I know the native pronunciation.
Yeah, well pronounce this.
However, the mispronunciations can be worse, such as “sha-VEZ” instead of “CHA-vez.”
Which, Hugo Chávez was many things but French is not one of them.
However, the mispronunciations can be worse…
Niharrrrrrrrruagua was also fashionable.
Native pronunciation of Nicaragua: NEE-ca-RA-gwa.
The R is a single-flap, like the middle consonant of butter, not a trill.
Kerry, Genghis Khan, to go way back when. More recently would be his attempt at a language which is foreign to him, “Can I get me a hunting license here?”
Di, one of the chefs who is a judge on “Chopped” is named Aaron Sanchez. He insists on pronouncing his first name as “A-rrrOWN”. To the best of my knowledge, single r’s are not rolled in espanol.
…attempt at a language which is foreign…
Ah ain’t in no ways tahrd.
2014 will be a good year to hunker down with a tasty espresso beverage and save monies
maybe go to vegas to see britney if she’s not all sold out?
maybe
but at this point I’m noncommittal
i might get a new duvet cover
or *is* the duvet the cover?
i suppose one might google that
Federal Court Voids 7-Round Mag Limit of NY’s SAFE Act, Allows Rest
The RINO’s and other [R] establishment types take payments from the Left, use infernal tactics that the Left developed, but should never be thought of as quislings. That would be too much praise. In the end they are but disposable toys to their lefty masters.
To the best of my knowledge, single r’s are not rolled in espanol.
They are when they come at the beginning of a word, such as “río.” And the Spanish spelling of that name is Arón, not Aaron.
and when she shines she really shows you all she can
Happy New Year to all!
I also read the Simon piece, and picked up on that exact passage.
I think it is naive; a re-hash of the Rodney King school of moral philosophy, “can’t we all just get along?”
The answer is, “No.”
It reminds me most of the false moral equivalence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As if both sides wanted the same thing (peace), but were simply at odds about how to achieve it.
The reality is that the two sides want diametrically-opposed and mutually-exclusive things: peace and co-existence for the Israelis, war and genocide for the Palestinians.
In a like manner, conservatives/Tea Partiers want smaller government and more responsive representation. Establishment Republicans want larger government/more control and less restraint on their actions.
So from whence comes this kumbaya mentality? Some possibilities:
1) An honest feeling of shared principles; an elegant idea from a more civilized age. (h/t Star Wars)
2) A dishonest argument meant to make conservatives restrain themselves out of feelings of Christian charity.
3) A fear that Democrats are worse than any internal disagreement.
Unfortunately, we’ve been lied to by the establishment too many times to take their promises at face value. Polls show that the base’s priorities do not coincide with the establishment’s agenda, so I’m afraid the time for shared principles is long past. They are now openly attacking us.
Reason #2 is impossible to prove, so I’ll meet Simon halfway: out of Christian charity, I’ll refrain from calling him an evil collaborator and instead simply say that he’s misguided.
From recent history, there’s reason to believe that point #3 is wrong: squish Republicans provide cover for big government policies. They implicate our side. Better yet to have the Democrats completely own their own failures and let them take the blame solely. When the backlash comes, we will be the beneficiaries.
Ah, so Hillary is inevitable again! And so politically savvy!
the Spanish spelling of that name is Arón, not Aaron.
I can blame that one on auto-correct.
Happy new year, guys.
maybe go to vegas to see britney if she’s not all sold out?
So – yesterday Madonna was a role model, now you think Britney Spears is great, but Palin and all like her are various sorts of whores and whatnot.
I think you need to recalibrate, junior.
Britney is a show you can go see in Vegas while you’re there
it’s probably very expensive
Sarah Palin does not do a show in Vegas but if she did it would probably be more affordable than Britney’s
Madonna also does not do a show in Vegas
in Vegas you can bet it all on red
Huh. I just flipped “Chopped” on and Aaron (he spells it that way with an accent ague) is a judge. And still rolling his “r”.
I saw Diana Ross once in Las Vegas about 25 years ago. She was awesome and changed costumes about 5 times in a 90 minute show.
I don’t think Brittney is the same experience.
no but it keeps her out of trouble
Aaron Sanchez has had a lucrative deal with Bud Light and more recently with Cacique
Cacique makes that salvadoran crema I’m not sure what to do with
I bet Aaron knows
Bliadhna mhath ùr, y’all.
you need subtitles
No Scot-speak until after midnight, McGehee.
Crema and queso fresco aren’t all they’re cracked up to be. A lot of my friends growing up were Mexican and their moms used sour cream and talked smack about Mexican cheeses and dairy products.
Frohes neues Jahr.
Jeff, Happy New Year to you, your family and all of the PW family here. 2013, such as it was, is over. We have a brand new year in which to accomplish much. “Damn the torpedoes; full speed ahead!”
It is after midnight in Scotland. And anyway that was Gàidhlig, not Scots. “Scots” is a dialect of English. Gàidhlig is… not.
Acht! Cor blimey.
I also read the Roger Simon bit. Cankles! is the enemy indeed, but Simon has a spotty record when it comes to identifying allies. Not least his history with Jeff. As I read the part where Simon admonishes us for attacking each other instead of Madame Benghazi, I wondered if he had time to send a message to John Boehner and Mitch McConnell about conservatives who opposed killing the sequester via the Ryan/Murray bill. Because instead of attacking the increased spending it brings, Weeping Johnny said
“It’s just that, you know, there just comes to a point when some people step over the line,” he said. “You know, when you criticize something and you have no idea what you’re criticizing, it undermines your credibility.”
Before Simon can plan to attack Bill Clinton’s Beard, he might consider whether his allies really are… allies. The Tea Party vs. DC Republicans is a case of people hoping to cut Leviathan’s diet by even 10% vs. people just fine with government growing a few percent over and above baseline spending increases. We are much farther apart than Simon thinks. And many DC ‘publicans are just fine with Chelsea’s mom as Commissar of the Motherland. At this point, what difference does it make?
Nope. Still think it’s gonna wind up being Liz Warren.
Considering how much the Professional Left (i.e. the core of the modern Democrat Party) loathes both Clintons, I can’t help but wonder at what point will Hillary get thrown under the bus for maximum effect…
I still say the dems have no bench. I am not worried about Madame Inevitable.
Word is she’s a lush and will bow out for “health reasons”. Probably after she smacks her head on the tile.
Just as with Obama all criticism will be ruled out of bounds by the media gatekeepers. You can’t say she was an incompetent Secretary of State who did nothing while brave Americans were fighting for their lives! That’s
racissssserrr sexissssst! The biggest difference, as I see it, is that, a genuine conservative, unlike the moderate squishes we ran against teh wan, will recognize that he can’t win any points with the media, that he’ll be called sexist (and racist and homophobic, and probably also accused of hating poor, sick people) anyway, so he won’t pull his punches.Of course, even that assumes he’s smart enough not to listen to the same leeches who told McCain and Romney how to win.
>even that assumes he’s smart enough not to listen to the same leeches who told McCain and Romney how to win<
benghazi betty works. start today. pick the target, freeze the target….
I’ve been milling that for a bit, and maybe the better question to ask is: is Roger Simon really our ally? Or, more likely, is Roger Simon the kind of ally whose support is worth having? Because it seems to me that his we’re arguing over whether to cut the budget by 70% or if 50-60% is good enough line not only exaggerates the RINO’s committment to reducing the size of government, it plays right into the irrational extremists who can’t be dealt with line on the Tea
baggersParty. So really, his whole tempset in a teacup attitude isn’t very, well,helpful.
fedora sux in the orangeman vein
Watch for an uptick in the “Chris Christie is a big fat bully” stories as soon as teh Wahn gets back for Hawaii.
Fine by me since I can’t stand him.
simon simple like a mcconnell. go bevin.
Why at this point in the Presidental cycle would the media do anything to hurt the next Republican
nomineepatsy?Simon is staunch, staunch I say.
Do I need a tag with that?
/hi mitch here been here 30 years want more
His name is Jeb and they figure they can beat him.
Okay, he’s staunch. But is he rock-ribbed?
#benghazibetty
every tweet #benghazibetty
#benghazibetty
Hillary Clinton on Gaddafi: We came, we saw, he died
Chris Bush, Jeb Christie.
either way, same loser
#benghazibetty
“With All Due Respect! We Have FOUR Dead Americans! What Di
Hillary: “My team beats the Republican one.”
It helps that she was on the investigation that probed the CREEPy Republican one.
Dragon Lady is every bit as inevitable for 2016 as she was for 2008.
Got kicked off of it too, as I recall.
What kind of Puritanical zealot do you have to be to get kicked off of a witch hunt?
Happy New Year Jeff,
Keep Firing Outlaws!
If Roger Simon and the RINOS want to join us; mensurated coordinates will be provided, for targets appropriate to their firepower.
That is all!
#benghazibettyweiner
aholes the lot
titanic news
A Sotomayor Injunction Against the ObamaCare Contraception Mandate.
Happy New Year, pw peoples.
Man, do the Messicans around here ever love their fireworks, and it seems, firing pistols into the air. K-blooey, boom, pop-pop-pop, whazzat? Oh, those are just bullets impacting the roof as they descend from on high. Glad it’s the dry season.
Supreme Court halts contraception mandate for religious groups
>Supreme Court halts contraception mandate for religious groups <
term limits, and constitutional limits. fed gov't don't do rubbers.
And now it’s after midnight on the East Coast.
About this time last year I tweeted something like, “Turn around! Go back! Don’t follow us into 2013!!”
It turned out kind of like joking about “the big one” on the morning of October 17, 1989, which convinced me to never again joke about “the big one.”
NR,
Insty links three more injunctions against the contraceptive mandate, a little lower on today’s page . I’d say it’s future doesn’t look good.
I like this Schlichter fellow. He reminds me of someone:
Seems like I’ve heard that somewhere before.
(by way of Ed Driscoll, who, by the way, wears his fedora better than does Roger Simon. )
The night of 10/16-17 was that epic, huh?
Amazingly,
NBC site readers don’t understand the Sotamayor decision. They think it’s about Nuns being selfish. Just cus they don’t need the contraceptives they think they can keep it from me.
HEY WHY YOU H8TING I JUST GOT A DIFFERENT HABIT THAN YOU PENGUINS!!!
We’ve been fooled before.
THE FUTURE? IMAGINE A BOOT PRESSING DOWN ON A HUMAN NECK. AND BEING CUT OFF BY A LIGHT SABER. THAT’S RIGHT, A GODDAMN FUCKING LIGHT SABER! 2013: The Year Defiance of the State Became Cool.
havel
>A dilemma facing the bureaucracy is the contradiction between its
attempt to preserve the status quo and therefore to survive as a
bureaucracy, and the need for social changes, particularly in the
fields of culture and economics. The institutions of bureaucratic
centralism are unreformable, but minor improvements within the
framework of the system are important because they encourage the
development of a critical spirit, a mood of opposition, and
embryonic structures independent of the state. Reforms in themselves
have limitations that are well-known: they always stop – or
are repressed by terror – when they touch on fundamental solutions
to social contradictions. In this sense every attempt at reform has a
revolutionary aspect to it, for it reveals the illusory nature of reform
and strengthens the growth of a revolutionary consciousness.
At a certain stage of development, the societies of eastern Europe
are going to have to face up to the necessity of eliminating the
bureaucratic dictatorship. This social change, even were it to disrupt
bureaucratic power over a period of several months, will radically
L affect all the present institutions of power, disrupt the relationships
between them and, ultimately, destroy them.<
Somebody’s been spending too much time locked away in their bedroom with their game console again.
Is it Gillespie?
For our New Year festivities, my wife and I took Mom to dinner, capping it off by watching a movie that was a trope wrapped in a cliché.
I highly recommend “White House Down” because, hands down, it is the best movie for constant derision and mockery made to date. Mystery Science Theater could do a whole season based on “White House Down.” Fortunately, the movie was given to us. The DVD will accompany me to the pistol range on Sunday.
Although, there was one honest line. The evil Secretary of State uttered the phrase: “This is ridiculous” at the end of the movie.
Kurt Schlichter is by far the most #caring guy on Twitter.
The cut of his jib is awfully nice.
If we recall, Sotomayor’s “wise Latina” claim was to find justice from within her own particular experience as whateverthehellitisshethinkssheis, hence, doing justice to nuns from within her particular understanding of the meaning of nuns? Or something akin to that. One needn’t worry about her failure to find these troubling aspects of ClownDisasterCare during her previous considerations of that stinkingpileofshite jacklegged-law, for this religious conscience question was not the question at hand at the time.
Ah, somebody I never heard of, which isn’t all that surprising since I only look a Reason a couple of times a year.
Too much political Vogue-ery for my taste.
Which, come to think of it, the article Glen Reynold’s links exemplifies. Nothing but a celebration of political pose striking.
I caught Saving Mr. Banks the other night. Emma Thompson’s performance is worth the entrance fee.
If it was anybody but you Di, I would so give you a hard time over that last remark.
Why? Is it because you think SMB is…
…oooOOOooo…
<litella> never mind </litella>
Would like to see Saving Mr. Banks myself. Also
The Monuments Men
47 Ronin
American Hustle (maybe)
But alas, I’ll have to settle for seeing Frozen
Happy New Year from the frozen prairies of the Great White Nord
which undoubtedly is racist of me.
But it did snow today.
And it’s right around zero degrees.
New Year’s eve …
Hubby & I are at #1 & SIL’s home … they’re off to a party, we’re watching the babies .. Zander and Rowan have already gone to bed…
Twins are with us, too, as #2 is working ER tonight
.. they’re currently playing Call of Duty on the Xbox.
Waiting to open the champagne … plus twins were visiting relatives in AZ last weekend and brought home a bag a sparklers which we are SO looking forward to lighting at midnight. I haven’t seen an honest to God sparkler in CA in years… we can’t even have a [legal] wood fire in the fireplace tonight.
Check out the latest Merriam Webster’s entries for “relentless,” “obsessive,” and “fanatical,” you get this tweet:
Still not midnight in the Mountain Time Zone.
Meet my date for NYE!
Apropos of comments made by Eingang Ausfahrt and LBascom:
Poor insurance industries. They never spotted the mark until it was too late.
One of Wretchard’s commenters does the Lando Calrissian scene so you don’t have to.
I just poked my head out the back door.
2014 looks exactly like 2013.
Even so, I resolve to eat more bacon.
The Lenin quote about the storekeeper selling the rope with which he was to be hanged fits also.
My New Year wish for everyone: May you yourself, not some 3rd party, be responsible for all your worst problems in 2014.
And especially not some bureaucrat from some government agency of some kind or other.
– Kathy Griffin did not go topless as she threatened too, instead she handcuffed herself to Anderson, which is probably standard proceedure for her for dates.
Wow. I haven’t posted any comments here since last year. Where does the time go.
Good morning, all. Another year is here. So far, it’s much like the last year.
I’ll second Mr. Schreiber.
Wait — eating more bacon qualifies as a resolution?
Well okay fine, but for me that’s a New Day’s resolution, not New Year’s.
eating more bacon qualifies as a resolution?
I prefer to set goals that I’ve already achieved.
Saves time.
Happy ‘It’s next year already?!’ to all who made it.
Recall I commented earlier in response to sdferr that our biggest problem is overcoming attacks against Conservatives using the ‘people, vote in your own self-interests!’ meme. That one’s very effective in stripping ordinary people who voted ‘R’ away, and I’ve not seen an effective counterargument mounted by ‘our’ side. Other than tenuous remarks that vaporize in the face of real hardship.
An example of this meme in action..
Unless we can counter this blossoming argument effectively, there’s no way we’re going to keep this Republic afloat. We are bleeding voters because, ‘self-interest’.
47 Ronin
This is one of the best versions of the story.
Ch?shingura, not that piece of crap with kenau .
– Lets wait another six months and check things again. I have a feeling that “vote in thier best interest” is a moving target yet to be defined, but oh so predictable.
Eat bacon.
Avoid seafood.
Happy *burble*
– Someone isn’t buying what the NYT is selling in prep for Hildebeast.
– In the meantime Afghanistan rolls on with the media largely ignoring things over there. The media’s priorities; Find some way to salvage Bumblefucks legacy and clean up the news cycle for Hillaries run.
Serr8d,
I live right next door to Missouri. Let me attest that it has been my clinical observation that “them people ain’t right.” (Excepting our Outlaws who happen to live there.)
(I apologize for this mangled metaphor) Nationwide, people are being fucked over by this heinous abortion of a law and unless they have been living under a stone, they know that Obama is its father. The tide is turning on the progressives, as it always does when times get tough, not the other way around.
At any rate, don’t take anything TPM says as having even a handshake acquaintance with the actual truth.
Leigh, it’s not just TPM. I see that meme running everywhere.
It’s what makes ‘Community Organizing’ easy. That, and the old ‘gather with us, ye Victims we’ve created!’.
TPM’s definition of “best interest” is that perceived *need* trumps the right of others to their own earnings and property.
Hungry? Then there is no difference between buying a sandwich or stealing one.
Serr8d, it the usual progressive “let’s lay a major guilt trip on them” meme.
Sorry, it’s not working anymore.
serr8d, the meme you quote assumes insurance companies don’t go broke and that by 2016, Obamacare will be working wonderfully well.
The assumptions being made by the writer are incredible and it’s naive to think the economic landscape will not have substantially changed by 2016.
That original Twitter poster who claims he’s now going to become a dem after he racked up a $23K hospital bill? He must have already been a dem to use logic like that.
I’ve completely forgotten it, but there’s an old joke about I think economists and their predictions wherein the punch starts “assume X.
As for voting your self interest. The logical retort to that is two-fold: that’s why the Founders limited the franchise to those with skin in the game (aka “Property”); and, continuing to bite the hand that feeds you ends with you starving, so take a longer view of what’s in your interest.
I’d also recommend flattering the vanity of the low-info voters by pointing out that the Dems seek to bribe them with their own money, which they’re to smart to fall for, were I advising a Republican candidate.
Finally, there’s an add some Ag-Chem company is running on local TV for some product that’s supposedly better for the environment than the competitions. Since I’m neither a farmer nor a tree hugger, I don’t particularly care, but what does stay with me from the add is when the farmer-pitchman say “We don’t own the land, we borrow it from our children.”
There’s a generally applicable metaphor in there.
We’ve borrowed enough. Time to start paying some of it back.
For the Children! even.
What was it that Wm. Randolph Hearst used to say? “A pretty girl, a kid and a dog can sell anything”?
Smiling mommies and daddies with apple-cheeked tots and white haired grandparents all sitting out on the porch (farm in background) and dog bounds into frame making everyone laugh adoringly.
Man, this is easy.
My personal best interest is served by a government bound in law and fact by a Constitution that limits federal power.
Expanding federal power to trade my essential liberty for a few temporary goodies from Uncle Sugar, isn’t in my personal best interest.
I’m enlightened that way.
Nailed!
the Dems seek to bribe them with their own money
With the next 20 generations’ money, which comes due way, WAY after we’re mouldering in the grave, so screw ’em!
COTD?
What of the day?
Conundrum!
Someone spells it out in a tweet.
My wife worked with a guy from Louisiana that pronounced his last name as “ram-er-azz”.
She eventually found out that he spelled it “Ramirez”.
Comment of the Day
Comment?
Oh. Thanks.
The words are the wrong way around. The progressive-cronyism ideal is that federal power limits you.
I owe no allegiance to the progressive-cronyism ideal. Nor do I find it to be in my best interest.
“if you like your doctor treatment you can keep …”
ObamaCare’s latest whopper
Newrouter,
Yep, mangled – excuse me – “managed” care on steroids, a system that only benefits the bureaucrats.
And if they did so they would then find out that the Medicaid expansion under Obamacare that brings in the 55-64 age group is not free but gives the government a lien against all your assets when you die to cover all the medical costs you had. If they run this lien the same as they have for those over 65, then anything of value you gave away up to 5 years before you die will be subject to confiscation from those you gave it to if your estate doesn’t have enough to cover the lien.
New Years Day is now Happy Obamacare Day, right?
Oh Happy Day! (Full version) – Choeur Gospel Célébration de Québec & Sylvie Desgroseilliers
Etta James – Oh Happy Day
oh happy day
Obama To Americans: You Don’t Deserve To Be Free
The Edwin Hawkinssingers in concert part 1 O Happy Day
Mahalia Jackson – Oh Happy Day