Category Archives: Elections

Et tu, Boehner?

America, Elections, English, Founding Fathers, Multiculturalism, Political Philosophy, Republicans

Did I just hear John Boehner say that America was an idea more than a country? The representative from Ohio took the gavel, today, Wednesday, becoming the 61st speaker of the House of Representatives. Toward the end of his address, Boehner repeated the preposterous notion of America as a propositional nation.

The call to think about the US as an idea—rather than real flesh-and-blood communities animated by shared language, history and heroes—is the call of statism at its purist. For a rootless deracinated people are the most pliable, most miserable, and, thus, easier to control.

Faith in the propositional nation presupposes endless immigration. For, after all, this country is presumed to have had no particular requisite characteristics at its founding. And if early Americans had certain characteristics, these are taken to have played no role in the system of individual liberties America’s apparently amorphous founders established.

It’s Party Time For … Tea Partiers

Elections, Ethics, Morality, Politics, Republicans

Picture “a swanky Washington hotel,” a pulsating techno beat filling the barroom lobby, and country singer LeAnn Rimes for the main event, which is packed with lobbyists and costs $2,500 to enter. Drum roll. You’ve arrived at the fancy fundraiser for the 2011 freshman class of Republicans.

VIA THE LOS ANGELES TIMES:

“The new class of Republican lawmakers who charged into office promising to shun the ways of Washington officially arrives on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. ?But even as they publicly bash the capital’s culture, many have quietly begun to embrace it.

“Several freshmen have hired lobbyists — the ultimate Washington insiders — to lead their congressional staffs. In the weeks leading up to Wednesday’s swearing-in, dozens of the newcomers joined other lawmakers in turning to lobbyists for campaign cash. And on Wednesday, congressional offices will be packed with lawmakers’ relatives, friends, constituents and lobbyists, all invited to celebrate the new Congress.”

“This picture of business-as-usual Washington clashes with the campaign rhetoric of many newcomers, some who were propelled by support from the anti-Washington ‘tea party’ movement. It also muddles the image House Republicans hoped to project as they took the helm this week.”

Think of yourself as their servant, your nose pressed against your master’s mansion windows.

Our Overlords Who Art in D.C.

Ancient History, Debt, Elections, Glenn Beck, Government, IMMIGRATION, Inflation, Morality, Taxation, The State

“Glenn Beck and his faithful are dead wrong. Our overlords Who Art in D.C. will forever be incapable of sympathizing with us; will never respect us or our ‘God-given rights’; and will always rob us blind. Why? Because they can.

Contrary to what some of my countrymen believe, not even praying hard will send us a fatherly figure that resembles an American Founder to deliver us of the rotating kleptocracy that has taken up permanent residence in Washington and its surrounds.

Like the migrant flotsam and jetsam inflowing from Latin America, the imperial government and governing class are going nowhere.

Yes, how about that? Americans venture into Mexico at their own peril. Some have been killed on that country’s border. Still, politicians and their enabling pointy heads have looked obedient Americans in the proverbial eyes and told them that the fabric of their communities is renewed by endless immigration; that humanity has the natural right to venture here there and everywhere; and that, although they are suffering near Grecian joblessness, they should, ‘shut-up and pay up.’

A bloodbath of a midterm election has done nothing to stop the slash-and-burn Congress — ducks that should be lamed — from concocting bogus tax relief that increases the cost and burden of government, and guarantees that Americans pay for the accreting oink sector, if not through taxes, then by way of debt and dollars devalued.

How is that possible?

Across the pond, governments have begun courageously slashing their spending so deeply as to send the moochers and the looters of their societies rioting into the streets. Stateside, the government is in the midst of orgiastic outlays. Egged on by media ‘experts,’ journos, party strategists and TV tartlets (Republican and Democrat), Washington (Left and Right) behaves as if the events underway over there have no bearing back here, in debt-laden America.

At $14 trillion, America’s OPD (Outstanding Public Debt) almost equals its GDP (Gross Domestic Product). Yet the comitatus — ‘the sprawling apparatus … that encompasses not only the emperor’s household and its personnel … but also the ministries of government, the lawyers, the diplomats, the adjutants, the messengers, the interpreters, the intellectuals’ — see nothing wrong with a proposed 1,924 page Omnibus bill, worth 1.2 trillion gigabucks.

In the book Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of Rome, Cullen Murphy draws the unflattering parallels between the imperial rule of ancient Rome and that of modern America, down to the contemporary ‘musicians’ [that would be Bono and Bon Jovi, surely], ‘the courtesans, diviners, buffoons … the people who taste the emperor’s food before he himself does … the core groups of bureaucrats and toadies who function within the nimbus of great power.’ The domain name ‘USA.gov.’, if you will.” …

More in my new column, “Our Overlords Who Art in D.C.” Read it now on WND.COM.

Just in time for Christmas, my libertarian manifesto, Broad Sides: One Woman’s Clash With A Corrupt Society, is now available on Kindle.

Slash 'N Burn Congress

Constitution, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Politics, Taxation

The so-called lame ducks are far from disabled, although they ought to be. “A lame duck,” explains Wikipedia, “is an elected official who is approaching the end of his or her tenure, and especially an official whose successor has already been elected. Wikipedia: “In U.S. politics the period between (presidential and congressional) elections in November and the inauguration of officials early in the following year is commonly called the lame duck period. …”

Lame duck officials tend to have less political power, as other elected officials are less inclined to cooperate with them. However, lame ducks are also in the peculiar position of not facing the consequences of their actions in a subsequent election, giving them greater freedom to issue unpopular decisions or appointments.

“During Bush’s first lame duck session in 2002 he created the Department of Homeland Security,” which grew a malignancy like the TSA.

Besides, what kind of a practice is it to allow embittered politicians who’ve been dismissed in disgust to continue to legislate?

BBC: “This year, the biggest issue looming over the lame duck session revolves around taxes. The so-called Bush tax cuts are set to expire, which would impact the pay packets of the vast majority of Americans.”

The ducks that should be lamed may still manage to soak the “rich,” to the detriment of all—rich and poor alike.