In his continuing efforts to bring back the salad days of the Great Depression, which some would call the high water mark of his party, President Obama has announced a new proposal to provide employment to veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He plans to recreate the Civilian Conservation Corps, rebrand it as the Veteran’s Conservation Corps, and use the projected 20,000 veterans to rebuild trails, levees, and other infrastructure in national parks at an initial cost of $1 billion.

If you do the math, that comes to $50,000 per person employed in such a program.  I’m assuming that includes salary, pay, food, shelter, medical, and whatever.  Since they will be employed by the federal government, time spent in this new VCC will probably count towards a federal retirement.  $50,000 sounds like quite a bit, but don’t worry.  Once the unions for federal employees get involved, that number will climb.  Also, since Obama plans to be the one cutting the pork, expect it to be liberally spread across blue states and constituencies.  Rent seekers and party machines across the nation will take to the streets in celebration!

And of course, we can expect civilian construction companies, who should be the ones doing this work, assuming of course that it needs to be done in the first place, to object to the low-cost competition.  Their unions might have a bone to pick when the administration they’ve been carrying water for hits them in the face with the bucket.  Veterans who aren’t trained in construction will require formal training in order to use the machinery of construction.  OSHA will be making sure of that.  The EPA will probably get a cut of the action here too, as will the Sierra Club, the Earth Liberation Front, the Society to Protect the Spotted Colorado Bat Snake, and every other environmental group that wants a check.  They’ll come out of the woodwork to stop construction in ‘pristine’ wilderness, at least until someone pays them a little lip service and cuts them a check.

And what will we get for all this work?  Nice roads in the parks, a few restored dirt levees, maybe a new stadium or two where the president expects to give speeches to adoring crowds.  Oh yeah, we’ll be able to enjoy these amenities for years to come, or  at least until they’re ripped out so that someone can be paid to rebuild them, but it will all be done in the name of make-work.

Veterans need jobs, no-one disputes that, just as all people need a way to support themselves.  But adding another wasteful government program to pay them a salary while they do make-work is counterproductive.  If the president wants to spend borrowed money to improve the chances of veterans getting a job, he should invest more in training programs, or let the GI Bill do its work.  Once they have a college education or solid technical training, their ability to find a job will be much better than if they spend a few months in the back country working a shovel.

I’ve heard and read a lot of references lately to the “Democrat plantation”.  The term refers to the belief that Americans of African descent will tend to support Democrat politicians and causes so long as Democrats continue to provide them with bread and circuses.

I’m not just calling out Democrats on this.  The Republicans have their taken-for-granted class too: conservative voters.  For an example, consider the push to make Romney the nominee even though his appeal to the conservative base of the party is shaky at best.

You can call them plebs, serfs, peasants, peons, or whatever; it’s all the same:  people who are brought up in a system that assumes that they are at the bottom of the ladder, don’t see that there are better options, and have little to no motivation to find something better or different are used to ensure that some political movement or another gets and stays in power.

Every person or group that wants to exert control over everyone else requires a lower class because it provides the muscle, either at the ballot box or in the street.  The Chekists in the USSR didn’t draw from the cream of Bolshevik society.  They recruited their foot soldiers from the lower classes of Russian/Soviet culture and used them to instill fear in anyone who might oppose the regime.

The Democrats have their reliable voting block of urban African-Americans.  The Republicans have their reliable voting block of conservative middle-class voters.  Either way, they’re all just peasants working the fields of those who tell them just enough scary stories about the bogeymen on the other plantation to keep them in line and voting a straight party ticket.

Thoughts like this are one of the reasons that I’m considering myself an independent voter more and more.   Maybe I’m just cynical, but I honestly don’t believe that either party cares at all about what happens to the people on the streets of America so long as their personal gravy trains and power trips keep rolling. In this way, they’re no better in my eyes than the most staunch Stalinist or banana republic dictator.  So long as we all know our place and do as directed, they’re just fine.  If one of us pokes our head up and dares to bleat out of time with the rest of the herd, then they drop the hammer down on us or cut us off from the herd lest our disease of independent thinking infect the rest of the flock.  Only if enough of us make our voices heard do we have hope that those who think they rule our country will listen.

So I’m going to stop being a good peasant.  I will vote for a good Democrat instead of a bad Republican if I think that the Dem would do a better job.  I refuse to vote for or against something on the ballot just because the local Republican committee thinks I ought to, and I won’t be quiet about it.  Hopefully others will get the same idea.

What do you call it when the peasants quit working the fields or toiling in the factories?  You call it revolution. 

I have to make an announcement:  I am going to vote for Ron Paul in the Kentucky Republican primary.  I’m not going to be voting for Paul because I like him.  I came to this decision in a process of elimination, and Paul was the only one I can’t discard:

• Newt Gingrich:  I’m as flawed a human being as you can get, but I can’t vote for a serial adulterer who didn’t flee Washington like his hair was on fire after he wasn’t re-elected.  Yes, I’m making a subjective and probably unfair judgement call about someones character based on what I know about his personal life.  But to be fair, I did the same thing to Bill Clinton, Gingrich’s nemesis.  He’s a great debater, or at least a combative one who would make Obama work for it, but I’ve never seen anything from him that tells me he’d be able to lead the country. 
• Rick Santorum:  Seems like a good guy, but after the things I’ve heard him say about gay people and their ability to marry, I can’t support him.  A president can’t be choosy about whose rights he holds dear.  I always say that if the rights of one of us are violated, then the rights of all of us are violated, and I believe that if I as a twice-divorced heterosexual man can choose whatever other human being I want to be with (hopefully) the rest of my life, then every other citizen, gay or straight, should be able to do that too.  Look at it this way, if he was saying “I love guns, just not those guns” instead of “I love marriage, just not those marriages” would you vote for him?
• Mitt Romney –  Do I believe that Romney will be Obama light?  Actually, I’ve come away from that.  Romney isn’t a wannabe socialist.  I see Romney as a political chameleon who will try to govern through consensus rather than fight for what he believes is right.  He will compromise base principles in order to say he’s accomplished something, even if it’s counter to the philosophy of the people who elected him, and therefore I won’t vote for him. 

So I come to Ron Paul.  Now, I like a lot of what Dr. Paul has to say about domestic policy, but I have problems with his foreign policy stance.  I’m all for reducing our foreign military involvement, but I think he wants to cut too close to the bone.  I also know that what a candidate promises on the campaign trail, what a sitting president tries to do in concert with the Congress, and what actually happens in the end are three very different things, so maybe my concerns aren’t that big a deal.

Do I think he has much of a chance of getting elected?  I have no idea.  Obama would be able to paint him as an extremist kook, but he would be able to re-energize the Tea Party movement.  If he chose a conservative running mate, he might have a shot.

However, none of the Republicans are the kind of candidate and leader who you can look at and say “He will beat Obama”.  Gingrich and Santorum will bring the nutroots out of the woodwork, and Romney is the opponent that Obama wants and he won’t get the Republicans to the polls. 

So I’ll cast my vote in the primary, try to get excited over the summer, and consider third party voting in November.  I’m seriously beginning to think that it would be better for Obama to have the White House with a Republican Congress than for any of these four to have a compliant Republican Congress.

I don’t think it surprises anyone when I say that I’m pro-gun rights.  But you can’t be for the 2nd Amendment if you’re not just as strongly for the other amendments.  I don’t agree with the anti-gun bloggers and activists, but I will do nothing to stop them from making their arguments and I will resist those who try to shut them up.  I have a visceral dislike for those who prey on our society, but I am even more opposed to those who would deny them proper legal representation, a fair trial, or have them convicted on evidence gained through illegal means.  I have a lot of respect for law enforcement, but I have nothing but contempt for those who use their power as a policeman to abuse other citizens.  I have my own religion, and I don’t agree with the tenets and practices of some other religions, but I’m not going to try to impose my faith on someone else or prevent them from exercising their own faith so long as they don’t hurt someone else.

Our country was created when a group of people took the stand that their rights as Englishmen were being violated by a distant monarch.  They believed that each of us is endowed at birth with several rights.  A condition of ratifying the Constitution was that amendments to it that restrict the ability of the government to infringe on those rights be ratified along with it.  The Constitution doesn’t grant us any rights; it just lists out those things with which the government may never interfere.

Over the past 100 years or so, those rights have been chipped at by those who believe they are doing good.  Honestly, they usually do it because we clamor for them to do something for us.  Each time we go to the government for a solution, we ratchet down our freedoms a little more.

1917:

“We’re at war!  Bolsheviks are taking over Russia!  We have to keep foreigners and malcontents from endangering our American way of life!  Do something!”

Click – Espionage Act of 1917
Click – Putting Bolsheviks and anti-war activists in jail

1920:

“People are getting drunk and causing misery in our nation!  Do something!”

Click – 18th Amendment

1932:

“25 percent of us are unemployed!  People are hungry!  The nation is tottering on the edge of revolution!  Do something!”

Click – Commerce Clause abuse

1934:

“Gangsters are using guns to commit crimes!  Do something!”

Click – NFA 34

1941: 

“We’re at war!  There are a lot of immigrants in the country that come from our enemies!  Do something!”

Click – Internment of citizens of Japanese, Italian and German descent

1968:

“People are assassinating political leaders!  Anyone can get a gun wherever they want!  We don’t feel safe!  Do something!”

Click – GCA 68

1972:

“Hippies are getting high!  The fabric of society is tearing!   Do something!”

Click – Drug laws and the War on Drugs

1986: – 

“People are still buying machine guns in this day and age!  Do something!”

Click – Hughes Amerndment

1986


“Gangs are selling a new form of cocaine to poor people!  I don’t like that!  It should be illegaler than selling me that powder form that I like to use on weekends!  Do something!”

Click – Crack Cocaine Laws

1994:

“Criminals are using scary looking guns to kill people!  Innocent children are dieing in the street!  Do something!”

Click – Brady Bill

1990’s


“People are saying or writing things that offend me or piss me off!  Do something!”

Click – Hate speech codes

1996


“People are exercising the fair use part of copyright!  I’m not making money off of it!  Do something!”

Click – DMCA

2001:

“We’re at war!  We need new security organizations to make us safe!  We have to give our police new powers so that they can fight terrorism!  Do something!”

Click – PATRIOT Act

2005:


“Those people are living on land that I want so that I can make money!  They’re standing in the way of progress!  Do something!”

Click – Kelo v. City of New London

2010:

“People don’t have health insurance and the cost of getting health care is rising!  I don’t want to take the steps to make it more affordable because those would be hard!  I don’t want to pay for it myself! Do something!”

Click – Obamacare

2012:

“People are still using the Internet to exercise the fair use part of copyright!  I’m still not making as much money as I want to!  Do something!”

Click – PIPA and SOPA

Every one of those clicks is a part of our birthright being locked down so that we can’t exercise it, and I’m only hitting the ones that are at the top of my mind at the moment.  There are many more, and we are locking ourselves down so well that demanding that we be left alone to exercise our rights gets us labelled as dangerous.  Each and every one of them happened because a significant portion of our population demanded that the government do something to make their lives better.  They do it out of want or fear, but rarely think about the consequences of their demands.  Now their unintended consequences are killing our republic.  Each time the government provides or restricts something, it becomes easier for something new to be done that restricts our rights.

In a way, we’re a bunch of frogs that have been demanding that someone turn up the heat under our pot of water every so often, and now we’re almost boiled.

What we need to do is get back to basics in our nation.  We need to all sit down, look at the Constitution, including those parts we don’t care for, and start yanking the leash of government to get it out of those parts of our lives in which it has no business.  We need to stop looking at the government as the provider of solutions, and start accepting that life is hard and that we have to take care of ourselves.

Today, I’m joining other bloggers and some major Internet sites in not posting anything in order to protest SOPA.  Basically, if this becomes law, most of the content in the Internet will go away.  If I piss someone off, they will find a way to make what I link to or embed a copyright issue, and my blog goes bye-bye with little to no recourse.

Congress has tabled the bill for now, but nothing stops them from bringing it up later in one form or another. 

Please reach out to your Congresscritters and let them know how you feel about this legislation.  SOPAStrike has good tools and information if you’re so inclined.

I’ll be back tomorrow.

Ron Paul – Better the crazy you know
Barack Obama – Are you better off than you were four years ago?
Mitt Romney – I was for socialism before I was against it
Newt Gingrich – Who are you going to believe, me or your lying memory?
Rick Santorum – I have closely held moral values, and soon, so will you
Rick Perry – Johnson, Bush, Perry – There are three good reasons you should vote for me:  I have good hair, I used to fly airplanes, and …. um……