If you’re going to Ivy League universities based on the color of your skin, because you demonstrably didn’t earn your way there through hard work and grades, and other people are paying for it, you didn’t build that.  It was built by generations of hard-working people who created the scholarships you soaked up while you were getting high and ‘educated’.

If you’re a ‘community organizer’, theoretically continuing the struggle to achieve equality between black citizens and everyone else, you didn’t build that.  The hard work was done two generations ago by Medgar Evers, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X.

If you’re a twit who thinks that having failed his way through Ivy League schools makes him a constitutional scholar and you’re teaching classes on constitutional law, you didn’t build that.  The men who built this country created the document on which you claim expertise.

If you’re a placeholder in the Illinois legislature, at least for long enough to run for higher office, you didn’t build that.  It was built by the man who freed your children’s ancestors from slavery.

If you’re an empty suit that got lucky to have his opponent be a stupid jerk who destroyed his own chance of winning a seat in the United States Senate, you didn’t build that.  The Senate was built by august men and women who actually wished to serve instead of being served.

If you’re living in government housing in the center of the nation’s capital, and you’re working a contract job for four years, with a remote chance of re-upping for another four, you didn’t build that.  It was built by better men than you, and we, their descendents, can’t wait to help you pack.

In closing Mr. President, I have two things for you. Actually, one’s for you and one’s for the horse you rode in on.  I hope you enjoy it, you insignificant footnote in the history of incompetent presidents.

Looks like the U.N. got caught with their hands in the cookie jar again.

The U.S. State Department is investigating the shipment of computers and other sophisticated equipment to North Korea and Iran by way of an obscure United Nations agency, despite ongoing U.N. and U.S. sanctions against both governments aimed at blocking their development of nuclear weapons.

Yet again the U.N. is doing something that is not only against our national interests, but also in contravention of its own resolutions.  Basically, the world body has decreed that advanced technology should not go to rogue regimes such as Iran and North Korea, while at the same time providing them with advanced technology.

At the same time, the U.N., with the aid and consent of the Obama administration, is ‘negotiating’ a treaty that could be used to curtail our rights.  They place murdering despots on a ‘human rights’ commission, and then condemn us because we treat our criminals like criminals.  They stand on the sidelines and cluck their tongues at situations that are exactly why they were created in the first place, and then spend the money we give them to criticize our methods for trying to keep a lid on the problems that they refuse to dirty their hands on.  And when they finally deign to get involved, news reports bloom with accusations of sex abuse and other crimes.

Can someone please point out to me something that the U.N. has done in the last 60 years that could not have been done without them?  Isn’t it time we took back our money, time, and real estate and told the United World Dictator’s Debate and Graft Club to vacate the premises?

The Bloomberg administration in New York is at it again.  Last time, it was oversized fountain drinks.  This time it’s buckets of movie popcorn, milkshakes, and coffee/milk concoctions that are drawing their attention.  You see, we cattle can’t be trusted to decide how many calories we take in or what sources we utilize for those calories.  Mr. Bloomberg and his cronies believe that it’s the responsibility of the city to dictate what its residents eat and in what quantities.

Now, I’m not saying that huge buckets of buttery popcorn, super-sized milkshakes, and banana nut choco-swirl iced cappuccino are good for you.  They’re not.  A steady diet of sugar, fat, and whatever may be delicious, but it will eventually kill you.  But that’s not the point.  I left my mother’s home when I was 18, and I don’t care to have a new parental figure in the form of Michael Bloomberg ensconced in my life.  If I want to live on a diet of bark and nuts, I will.  If I want to live on a diet of bacon, Coca-Cola, and milkshakes, it’s no-one’s business but my own.  Don’t tell me that it’s the state’s business because I will eventually be on Medicare for my health care.  If I have to choose between giving up a ‘free’ government healthcare plan and living my life as I see fit, I’ll jettison Medicare in a heartbeat.  I’m not even convinced it will be an option by the time I will be old enough to take advantage of it, so why let them use it as a cattle prod to get me back into line?

This isn’t really about public health.  If Bloomberg was worried about public health, he’d just outlaw the products in question, then deal with the inevitable Starbucks smuggling rings that would spring up across the city.  This is about control.  In order to enhance his delusion of being a great leader, he wants to control what his subjects eat and drink so that when he finally gives up the reins of power, he can point to whatever insignificant drop in heart disease or diabetes his health department gins up for him and say “See, it was all worth it!  Wasn’t I a great mayor?”.

In another case of government overreach, the city of Alhambra, California, has decided that a church cannot turn itself into a temporary homeless shelter a few times a year.  The Baptist congregation wanted to use its church to, you know, do something Christian for those in its community who have fallen on hard times.  The city says that doing so would violate health and fire codes, which to me means “It’s better they sleep on the sidewalk where they are exposed to the elements and whatever predator happens to stumble upon them than to sleep in a building that isn’t purpose-built to be a homeless shelter.”  This also smacks of “Not In My Back Yard” syndrome to me.  I would be interested to see just how many beds are available for families in the homeless shelters that already exist in Alhambra, and if the city is going to authorize any more to be built to handle the load it is trying to take off of the churches willing shoulders, or if they just expect the unfortunate to move on to the next community in search of a hand up.

What do the two stories have in common?  To me, they both illustrate what happens when tinpot dictators get themselves just enough power to be a pain in the tuckus.  In New York, Mayor Bloomberg is ignoring the very real problems of crime, poverty, and education in an effort to keep his citizens from eating too much popcorn at the theater.  In California, the city of Alhambra is trying to stop an independent charity effort that it can’t control from happening.  In both cases, the ham-fisted efforts of government are making things that are none of its business harder to do, and they’re wasting precious time and money to do it.

These are just two examples of busybodies in the government keeping ordinary people from living their lives as they see fit.  This is what we get from going over a century without clipping the wings of government in a meaningful manner.  Both cities ought to be thumped on the head in the courts a couple of times, and both administrations ought to be ridden out of town on a rail at the next election.

The President made an address to the nation today concerning the state of the economy.  Here are some highlights:

• The private sector is doing well.  On an ancillary note, I haven’t seen anything in the press from the President’s last urinalysis.
• The public sector outlook is caca, mostly because of those evil Republicans in the Congress.  I have to agree with the President here.  Most of the public sector is indeed caca.  As for whether or not we need to scrape as much of it from the bottom of the American people’s hiking boots as we can, I think the President and I will have to agree to disagree.
• Seriously, though, I get the impression that Mr. Obama really doesn’t care for Congress.  Maybe Congress got his sister pregnant or something.  It’s funny to me that he’d blame all of the countries economic problems on the Congress, seeing as how his party controls half of it.
• While he’s under there, maybe Harry Reid could check the shocks on the Obama re-election bus.
•  Almost as low as Congress on the Obama like-o-meter is Europe, which is surprising to me.  Didn’t the Europeans pretty much publicly fellate the President after his election?  Heck, they gave him a Nobel Peace Prize before he’d even done anything, and this is the thanks they get?
• The President specifically called for the people of Greece to tighten their belts and accept severe austerity measures for the good of the world economy.  After discussing specific parts of such an austerity program, Mr. Obama briefed the press on his next vacation to the Golden Palace of Presidential Tranquility, during which he will be joined by his family, their Secret Service details, their staffs, their staff’s families, the hookers the Secret Service picked up on their last trip to Thailand, the VD doctor that has been detailed to the presidential Secret Service detail, a tour guide for his children, the keeper and groomer for his dog, the dog, the dog’s playmates from puppy school, and the Queen of Inner Mongolia, who will entertain her hosts with funny tales of growing up poor on the Asian steppes.
• Following his speech, the President fielded questions from the White House press corps.  Questions included what his favorite color is (mauve), how he feels about the pinch hitter (against), his views on puppies and rainbows (for), and what his administration is going to do to alleviate the concerns of the American people about the Fast and Furious gun running debacle.  That last one came from an independent blogger who had snuck past security to get into the briefing room.  After representatives from the “real media” held a beat down upon the interloper, the President answered a question from one of the print journalists about who he thought would win the current season of “Who Wants to Marry the American With Talent Who Survives The Voice and Makes a Deal” by saying that he hoped the best “person of downtrodden class, race, ethnicity, or sexual orientation” wins.

Yesterday, the people of Wisconsin went to the polls and decided to keep Governor Scott Walker and his Lieutenant-Governor Rebecca Kleefisch in office for at least a couple more years.  The recall fight has been acrimonious, and there has been a high level of wailing and gnashing of teeth from the losing side in the last 24 hours.  Hopefully the citizens of Wisconsin can finally get on with running their state instead of an election.

Mitt Romney has the Republican nomination in the bag, and it’s no surprise that President Obama has the support of his party.  As much as I have reservations about Romney, now that the preliminaries are over, it’s time for the title bout.

A lot of people are trying to read the tea leaves from Wisconsin to predict how November will go.  Depending on which side of the political line you fall, it’s either a good augury of victory for Romney or it’s a meaningless side show in Obama’s path to re-election.

Count me among the ones who think it’s a dry run for the campaign in general, but isn’t a leading indicator of how the country as a whole will go. The recall in Wisconsin was a unique set of circumstances in a unique state, and I think it’s folly to try to extrapolate the results into something that can be applied to the rest of the country.

What I think it does portend, however, is one of the nastiest elections of my generation.  I’ve read books and articles about the elections in 1960 and 1968, and I think we’re going to see repeats of a lot of their features.  Dirty tricks, massive protests, voter fraud, and a whole Pandora’s box of other ugliness may be all we have to work with for the next five months or more.  I don’t expect Obama to go quietly into that good night, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Romney doesn’t have a few hatchetmen somewhere in his organization who are doing their warm-up stretches as we speak.

As for me, I made my thoughts on how I hope elections are held in the United States here.  I still believe that a well-fought election is a way for us to continue our tradition of dissent and arguing followed by unity.  I hope that I am not disappointed this time.

A man and his family returned to their home recently and found a political rally happening across the street from their house.  Several signs for the candidate holding the rally were on their property, and the man and his wife removed them.  They claim they planned to call whoever they belonged to and complain.  Instead, several individuals from the political gathering came over and demanded that the signs be put back.  When the husband resisted their efforts, the people from the rally commenced to lay a beating on him and restrain his wife from coming to his aid.

A policeman who was at the rally is reported to have decided to not get involved, but now denies knowing about the attack.  The political candidate who held the rally, who is running for a judges seat by the way, appears to be only concerned that someone was messing with signs supporting her candidacy.

The husband was treated for injuries to his mouth, cuts and bruises, and a concussion.  No-one else is reported to have been hurt.

Those are the facts as reported in the media.  You can assume that the rest of this post is nothing but my opinion.

Deep breath

What in the wild wild world of sports is wrong with these people?  My guess is that signs were put in every yard and on every vertical surface in the vicinity of the ‘meet and greet’ so that it would look like the candidate had broad support when the news media took their footage.  When this family objected, they weren’t accommodated because of their property rights, or reasoned with and given promises to remove the signs after the rally.  Instead they were physically attacked for asserting their rights.

Politics in this country  is taking a nasty turn.  Voter intimidation is being ignored as long as it supports the right cause.  Governors who have the temerity to actually try to make things better are inundated by disruptive and violent protests and are distracted by pointless recall campaigns.  And people who have the balls to enforce their property rights get beaten while their family watches.

This kind of crap does.not.happen.in.my.country. Period. Dot.

Violence is not part of our political process.  Our political process is set up to keep the violence out.  If I wanted to live in a banana republic where dissent was put down using the muzzle of a gun or the end of a bludgeon, I would move to one of the third world shitholes I’ve been lucky enough to leave behind in the past 25 years.  Yeah, tempers flare and things happen, but usually when someone disagrees with you, you don’t beat the hell out of them, and if you do, you go to jail.  A policeman who sees someone being beaten for disagreeing doesn’t look the other way, and a candidate whose supporters beat a dissenter should be at the forefront of demands for a thorough investigation and swift justice.

People, if you’re not pissed, you’re not paying attention.  And if you’re not prepared to provide for your own personal defense, you’re a fool.   You never know when someone will decide that your front yard is a good place for a sign, whether or not you agree.