A disease is at work in America. It is and will surely destroy this nation. From where it originated I cannot say, or who it was that first introduced it to the body of this republic, but it is killing America. It is a malignancy that has crept slowly and unnoticed until its very size stabbed at the eyes of my intellect, now awake to the danger. I am certain I am not the only one to have noticed its black growth, but I am also certain that I have heard no one point it out.
Partisanship is killing America.
Partisan literally means organized into political parties. It is politics, therefore, and its varied philosophies, that is destroying America.
Who do the parties serve? America? No, they do not. THEY DO NOT. They serve their own agendas and philosophies and they campaign to attract as many sheep to their respective folds as they possibly can. The parties know that The People have the ultimate say. But the parties have, through the artifices of their political craft changed the meanings of words and concepts handed down to us by a hundreds of years old document that very few of The People genuinely understand. If they did, there would be a revolt the likes of which has not been seen since the French Revolution. But the parties are not stupid. They have created the greatest of distractions to blind the eyes and hearts of the American people. Politics... Partisan politics.
The parties have managed to stake out a private hegemony within the body of this nation. Because The People are largely ignorant of what the Constitution really says, because they are overwhelmingly ignorant of the vast bodies of legislation-- and their true ramifications --passed by the parties, because The People have been taught-- propagandized --into believing that THIS is way our nation's business is to be done... because of our party-sponsored education we see what the parties wish us to see. Media used to stand guard at the entrance to Washington, but no more. They have agendas of their own, and they can be bribed.
There is something to be said for information overload. Twenty years ago the only news anyone got was from the evening news and their local paper. There was only one cable news channel. Media wielded great power then, and though many say Media has lost much of its power because of the introduction and proliferation of New Media, don't you believe it! They are as powerful as ever. Where once the cancer was localized in small, benign and compact enclaves, it has since grown massive and spread its tentacles throughout the body that supports it; its pride, arrogance, and deception have proliferated throughout not just the body politic, but to every room graced by the presence of a PC. We stare into its eye and absorb the slow poison of philosophical indoctrination.
The presidential debate last night is a stunning example of just how doomed this country is. Who won the debate? How you answer that almost certainly depends on your political philosophy-- you cannot possibly convince me that more than three in ten people view the right or wrong of a political statement based on anything other than the political philosophy to which they have already thrown their support. This is not to say that a Democrat cannot see or admit something good about a Republican [Senator Obama beautifully illustrated this last night] but it is to say that in any one man's mind, Who won the debate? is largely decided by that one man's pre-aligned political bent.
Look at the "Bail Out" debate in Washington for example. Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, in no small measure, are culpable in the collapse of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, but they are now in the position of fixing the problem. A problem they helped create and refused to see until it was too late... until the markets began to crash around them. And the praetorian Media guards-- bought and paid for --refuse to draw back the shades and let the light shine on these and many other men who are both culpable, yet nonetheless at the heart of fixing the mess they created.
These men accepted money from Freddie and Fannie, but do they offer to give the money back? No. They want to take the money from The People to prop up their own failures. Who won the debate last night? The man who said it would be prudent to institute a spending freeze on non-essentials? Or the man who couldn't point to a single program that might have to wait because of the Bail Out? Who won the debate last night? The candidate who suggested a spending freeze, or the candidate who continued to outline billions of dollars in new spending-- and heavier taxes? Who won the debate last night? The Candidates or Media? Who won the debate last night? The campaigns or the talking heads?
Who won the debate last night?
The men with whom you had a pre-existing philosophical affinity. You have bought yet another lie. The lies the parties with whom you most closely align with have fed you. You're still playing the game they have laid, by the rules they have set.
When will you learn to think for yourself? You have a say every four years on election day, but you always seem to vote for more of the same... whatever brand of Same you're partial to.
This year will be no different, and the rancor and divide will grow harsher and deeper. The vitriol will burn brighter. Nothing will truly change but the name on the letterhead.
Updates:
One: Monday, September 29, 2008
I have an art blog here in San Diego and am looking for new friends who will comment. I would of course come back and comment on your blog. I hope to hear from you, and take care... Jesse
Then, remove every corrupt PERSON from Washington D.C., regaedless of Political Party, and replace them with HONEST STATESMEN.
Then strip away each and every peice of extra-Constitutional legislation and regulation that the corrupt, agenda-driven, bought and paid-for bunch that has been in power for the last several decades has put into place, and every single social program and piece of social engineering that they have inflicted upon the American People.
Education, honesty, integrity, Constitutionality, and self reliance and personal responsibility on the part of the American People are the only things that are going to get rid of partisanship in America.
And until we have those things, partisanship is not a bad thing.
As long as some are determined to be wrong, then SOMEBODY has to be right, and the ones who are right had BETTER stick to their guns.
You're just now noticing that?
Another question, or observation.
I find it amusing that our host is suddenly anti-partisan, now that HIS party is morally bankrupt, out of ideas, and ho'ing itself out utterly to what it has for years professed to be the antithesis of its very basis of existence, the free market, which, yet again, has failed.
And, again, in rushes the cavalry, we, the people, to save the rich at the literal expense of the nonrich.
Pa. Thet. Ic.
I forgot I had done that. Done some time back when you weren't posting anything provocative. Hmm, you have been posting some interesting stuff of late. Could be time to move you back to the vending machine.
Our Host:
Is not "suddenly anti-partisan." We're all playing the same game. You believe the Republicans are to blame for the economic meltdown because everyone you listen to says the Republicans in general and Bush specifically is to blame. Never mind the fact that Frank, Dodd and a whole lot of democrats have personally benefited from Fannie and Freddie. As has Mr. Barack Obama. Never mind the fact that Republicans tried to institute some oversight and was fought by Democrats to keep their golden parachute alive.
Bush Called For Reform of Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac 17 Times in 2008 Alone... Dems Ignored Warnings
Five years ago Frank had this to say:
"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not in a crisis. The more people in my judgment exaggerate a threat of safety and soundness, the more people conjure up the possibility of serious financial losses to the Treasury, which I do not see, I think we see entities that are fundamentally sound financially and withstand some of the disaster scenarios. And even if there were a problem, the federal government DOESN'T BAIL THEM OUT. But the more pressure there is there, then the less I think we see in terms of affordable housing." [Emphasis Mine]
Yet Fannie and Freddie were already in trouble..... But Frank didn't see it.
So who won the debate? The man who tried 17 times to get congress to act? Or the men who didn't see a problem with their personal piggy banks?
The free market has not failed. Capitalism has not failed. The systems have been gamed by corrupt and greedy men. Men who've been receiving large sums of money from Fannie and Freddie... Democrats. And these same Democrats have chosen to turn a blind eye to the collapsing markets because their palms were being pleasantly and satisfactorily greased.
Republicans are morally bankrupt? When Democrats are in charge of finding the solution to a problem they did nothing to prevent? A problem they helped create?
I think you need to wash the Vaseline from your eyes.
No new ideas? Has Barack offered anything new? Something he hasn't lifted from the Communist Manifesto?
I don't claim to be anti-partisan. I'm just as partisan as you are. I'm playing the same game you are... the same game we ALL are. The problem is, however, that at this late stage in the game, it is suicide to bail out, figuratively speaking. There is too much at stake.
Speaking strictly for myself, I'd be pleased to join ANY national movement that sought the firing of EVERY congressman and senator who votes FOR the taxpayer-funded bail out, regardless of who it is. And especially anyone who chose to vote "present," or chose not to vote at all. Government should NOT be bailing out financial institutions because THEY made bad business decisions. Is the government going to bail me out of thousands of dollars of debt? Barack claims he's for the little people? Let's see him stand up to congress and say "NO" to the bail out. Let's hear him say that the U.S. Government should take that 700 billion and split it evenly among every single citizen of the United States of America so that we can pay our own debts off, buy homes, and reinvest into the markets, to strengthen and rebuild them. Giving the richest folks in America 700 billion dollars so they can bail themselves out of a hole they themselves dug is a terrible idea. Let's see Barney Frank stick to what he said in 2003:
...the federal government DOESN'T BAIL THEM OUT.
What I'm lamenting here, ER, is the black character this government has developed over the last generation or so, and the lengths to which it and media has gone to distract us from the grotesque visage of its mismanagement. We are all playing our parts and government therefore need not worry about us tossing them all out and taking back our country.
I've stated it before but here it is again, my plan to remake America:
1. Toss out EVERY senator and representative to Congress. All. Every last one.
2. Replace them with single term / temporary representatives chosen by lottery. Their responsibility is to pass legislation:
a) Term limits: No more than two.
b) All parties to be abolished.
c) The 17th amendment repealed, and new amendments passed and ratified to allow...
3. Every citizen of the united states registered to vote is to be required to run for office and serve at least one term should they win.
a) Just like jury duty, if your name is selected you must run against the incumbent; you and the eleven other names randomly pulled out of the database of registered voters. If you win, you serve a mandatory one term, and a second ONLY if you can win reelection. But no more than two terms, in any one house, or branch of government.
b) Senators are exempt from the lottery. With the repeal of the 17th amendment, states can go back to choosing their senators; by appointment rather than popular vote.
4. Abolish the IRS and institute the Fair Tax
5. Remove Union influence from public education and return to a classical liberal arts education curriculum. No more namby-pamby, politically correct, multiculturalistic horse-squeeze.
Begin with that and America might be worth saving. As it now stands, this nation has clearly forgotten God, and the nation that does so...
Psalm 9:17 tells the story, and I say we are already there.
As to the debate, neither won it in my opinion. Merely repeating what we already know isn't enough. One or the other needed to have convinced the public why a given position is the right one. I don't see that either accomplished that. I believe that Obama hasn't anything to offer, so it isn't possible for him to convince me that more taxation of anybody is the way to go. I believe McCain is closer to what I'm looking for (between the two of them, that is) yet he did nothing to eliminate any doubt about his superiority. I wouldn't even call it a draw. I'd call it a waste of time. I hope the future debates are better.
"As to the debate... I hope the future debates are better."
I think I should point out that I'm using the question as a rhetorical jab. And the very fact that one could 'hope the future debates are better' is still buying into the crap sandwich our government AND media are forcing us to pay for... and eat!
Speaking of which, Michelle Malkin has a must read on the ramifications of this particular crap sandwich [Fair warning. It's a lengthy but eye-opening read]
This bill "increases the statutory debt limit from $10.615 trillion to $11.315 trillion, an increase of 6.6%. If enacted, the 110th Congress will have presided over three debt limit increases—a total of $2.33 trillion or 26.2%."
Which is typical of politicians today: A morally bankrupt congress-- the 110th Democratic Congress --laying their black hearts out in broad daylight for all to see... or that would be the case were it not for the equally bankrupt Media parsing political theft into a "2nd depression-avoiding" bail out. And here we all are drinking it up like cheap hookers at an open bar.
Who won the debate? It sure wasn't the man whose pockets were stuffed with Fannie and Freddie donations.
O's Dangerous Pals
Barack's 'Organizer' Buds Pushed For Bad Mortgages
--Stanley Kurtz, New York Post
"WHAT exactly does a "community organizer" do? Barack Obama's rise has left many Americans asking themselves that question. Here's a big part of the answer: Community organizers intimidate banks into making high-risk loans to customers with poor credit.
"In the name of fairness to minorities, community organizers occupy private offices, chant inside bank lobbies, and confront executives at their homes - and thereby force financial institutions to direct hundreds of millions of dollars in mortgages to low-credit customers.
"In other words, community organizers help to undermine the US economy by pushing the banking system into a sinkhole of bad loans. And Obama has spent years training and funding the organizers who do it.
"THE seeds of today's financial meltdown lie in the Commu nity Reinvestment Act - a law passed in 1977 and made riskier by unwise amendments and regulatory rulings in later decades.
"CRA was meant to encourage banks to make loans to high-risk borrowers, often minorities living in unstable neighborhoods. That has provided an opening to radical groups like ACORN (the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) to abuse the law by forcing banks to make hundreds of millions of dollars in "subprime" loans to often uncreditworthy poor and minority customers.
"Any bank that wants to expand or merge with another has to show it has complied with CRA - and approval can be held up by complaints filed by groups like ACORN.
"In fact, intimidation tactics, public charges of racism and threats to use CRA to block business expansion have enabled ACORN to extract hundreds of millions of dollars in loans and contributions from America's financial institutions.
"Banks already overexposed by these shaky loans were pushed still further in the wrong direction when government-sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac began buying up their bad loans and offering them for sale on world markets.
"Fannie and Freddie acted in response to Clinton administration pressure to boost homeownership rates among minorities and the poor. However compassionate the motive, the result of this systematic disregard for normal credit standards has been financial disaster."
"ONE key pioneer of ACORN's subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott - an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama." [Emphasis Added}
Click the link above to read the entire article, but notice what I've bolded. Dan's vaunted praise of NVDA fails to take note of the fact that these tactics HAVE projected violence on the U.S. economy... forcing banks to lend to those who could not afford to pay back those loans.
We are where we are because of Liberal intimidation and democratic bungling of the markets and the laws that manage those markets. ER wants to criticize Republicans for the "failed" economy, but he's ignorant of the culpability of Liberals and Democrats. They created the mess we're in now, and surprise! surprise! surprise! Guess who's in charge of fixing it?
Fox? Meet Henhouse!
Let them debate how to fix the financial crisis. Let them debate which form of government is better for the people - capitalism or socialism. Let them debate whether abortion is morally right or wrong. Let them debate the pros and cons of allowing same sex marriage. Let them debate gun control. Let them debate on how to prevent another 9/11 from occuring.
THAT'S the kind of debate I'd like to see.
Retracted. Turns out your boys are truer believers than anyone, including me, thought. We all see where theior allegiance lies, and it's not the good of the country.
El, I do not blame the GOP for our ills because somebody told me to. I blame the GOP for our ills because it, between the two parties, is the one most beholden to the myth of the free market.
I'm for the free market only when it's on a leash. It will eat us alive left untethered. It threatens to do so now, despite Bush's death-bed conversion to market regulation and, gasp, even nationalization.
What I care about is the same thing the House Repubs care about: the economy. I believe I operates best, for all of us, when it's regulated -- and when certain parts of it are acually socialized, soem for a while, some for good. They, foolishly, in my opinion, believe the freer the market, the freer the people -- which is outrageously Darwinian, true, in other words, only for people of wealth and other means in the first place.
For the record, Bush tried to institute regulations 17 times this year alone, but many more times besides in the years leading up to todays Democratic made fiasco. Democrats fought any and all reform. Watch the eight-minute YouTube video I've added to the main body of this post, but keep in mind my rhetorical jab, "Who won the debate?" I can never convince you to believe what you don't want to believe, any more than you can convince me vice-versa.
To add insult to injury, Nancy Pelosi, after getting assurances that enough Republicans would get on-board the Mother of all Bailouts, proceeded to open her ridiculous mouth and lie about who is ultimately responsible for the mess we're in. She asks Republicans to get on-board for purely political reasons: She doesn't want Democrats being the only animals holding the bag of crap when the American people finally realize how they've been screwed. But she screwed herself with that silly speech she made this afternoon.
And the Dow dropped 777.68. The Nasdaq fell 199.61. The S&P fell 106.85. Who won the debate? It sure wasn't the Democrat party.
Finally, I take issue with your belief that the free market is a myth. Why? Because Freddie and Fannie collapsed? Where in the Constitution does it read that Government is permitted to go into ANY kind of business? The Federal Government has very limited powers described in Article 1 of the Constitution... There's the Necessary Powers Clause,
"The Congress shall have Power - To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof."
And the Commerce Clause,
"The Congress shall have power... to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;"
And that's it. No Fannie Mae, no Freddie Mac, no IRS, no Social Security, no national health care. But Congress does what it pleases, and the Constitution be damned. This current fiasco of Democrat making is yet another example of Congress out of control... of Democrats out of control. Republicans aren't much better, but this current mess is not laid at their door. This burning bag of poo is on the Democrats front porch.
Please remove the catcher's mit when typing. Your style is confusing enough, but add the many typos and it's really a pain in the ass to figure out what you're trying to say. Please, as a public service.
If any blogger can be considered an expert in the mortgage industry, ER is he. I won't go into how I know this, but he has been actively involved in the real estate market as an analyst for some years now.
I admit to knowing little about the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and I defer to ER's superior knowledge and experience in this matter.
That said, ER must surely be reading different newspapers and watching different news channels and listening to different reports about this than we are.
One only needs to follow the money to know who is behind it, and why it has spun so crazily out of control. The Democrats fingerprints are all over this!
And how can anyone blame President Bush for this? He has little if anything to do with all this.
In fact, the main thing that President Bush has done wrong throughout his Presidency is that he has not been enough of a hard-nosed Conservative, and has worried too much about "Bi-Partisanship" and the whole ridiculous "New Tone" folly, which has gotten him absolutely nowhere.
No Where.
He has let the Democrats set the Agenda, signed their stupidity into Law, let them write Legislation for him, and has not gone to the American People to explain what is actually happening and assign blame where it belongs.
This is THE major area where President Bush has dropped the ball.
And even now, the News Media is blaming the failed Bailout Attempt on the GOP, and Senator McCain, when the Democrats did not need ONE SINGLE Republican vote to pass it.
But, had it passed, President Bush would have signed it with a smile on his face.
And he will sign whatever they do pass later this week, no matter what damage it does to our Economy, or the ability of our children to build wealth.
THATS why Bush will not have a good legacy.
Oh, and Mark, you know what you know about me because I told you, while we were still, generally, amicable fellow bloggers. I suggest you drop that.
And he wishes to remain so. Keep your cards close to vest, folks. I'll edit or delete anything that reveals too much.