It’s not like this story is news. But it sure is a punctuation on an old story.
Barack Obama and Freddy Krueger really like going after kids.
We can call the movie, “A Nightmare on EVERY Street.” [Image credit to Resistnet].
“Don’t forget your homework, children. Write an essay titled, ‘How to help President Obama.’ And as you know, I will severely dock your grade if it isn’t sufficiently worshipful. After you turn in your papers, we’ll have an indoctrination – I, er, mean a discussion – of how you will help Dear Leader Obama triumph over the evilmonger Republicans so he can establish a glorious One Thousand Year Reich.”
Bush had his “No Children Left Behind.” Under Obama, it’s “No Child Left Alone.”
If Obama just wanted to do a brief public service announcement and call upon kids to stay in school and study harder, nobody would have a problem with it. But that isn’t what Obama had in mind at all.
From the Washington Times:
President Obama’s plan to inspire the nation’s schoolchildren with a video address next week erupted into controversy Wednesday, forcing the White House to pull out its eraser and rewrite a government recommendation that teachers nationwide assign students a paper on how to “help the president.”
Presidential aides acknowledged the White House helped the U.S. Education Department craft the proposal, which immediately was met by fierce criticism from Republicans and conservative organizations who accused Mr. Obama of trying to politicize the education system.
White House aides said the language was an honest misunderstanding in what was supposed to be a inspirational, pro-education message to America’s youths.
Among the activities the government initially suggested for prekindergarten to sixth-grade students: that they ” write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president.”
Another task recommended for students immediately after listening to the speech: to engage in a discussion about what “the president wants us to do.”
The event is still scheduled for September 8, at 12:00 P.M., at Wakefield High School in Arlington.
The K-6 grade curriculum is posted here.
This was about getting kids to ask “how can I help Obama?” As Obama tanks with grownups, Obama is switching to the people who literally were born yesterday to sell himself and his message. This is about getting our children to join Obama’s personality cult and push his agenda to their parents.
We’re assured that this was all just an honest mistake, and it is only the most bizarre of coincidences that it basically comes right out of Hitler’s Little Brown Book for Brownshirts.
The fact that no Republican president has ever even come close to anything even remotely resembling such a fascist “misunderstanding” isn’t worth mentioning. And the fact that Democrat parents would have RIGHTLY come completely unglued if George W. Bush had ever done anything like this is completely beside the point, as well.
It’s not that Barack Obama doesn’t realize that this is intrinsically fascist behavior; it’s frankly just that he doesn’t give a damn.
Remember your liberal mantra:
Just like it wasn’t fascism for public school teachers to so indoctrinate kids that they found themselves doodling like hate notes like this when Bush was president:
That note was found and its image posted by a liberal walking his dog outside of a middle school in Raleigh, North Carolina (the link to the liberal’s blog is available here, and was still active as of today). He thought it was great. He said, “I know – EVERYONE hates that a*****e Bush – but I haven’t seen it expressed quite so well by a kid before!”
And silly conservative parents worry that unionized government teachers might indoctrinate their kids.
For those who actually buy the “honest misunderstanding” line that Team Obama Forever offered, let’s take a trip down memory lane.
Singing hymns of praise to the messiah:
The Obama Anthem:
“We’re gonna spread happiness! We’re gonna spread freeeeedom! Obama’s gonna change it, Obama’s gonna lead ‘em…”
Ah, such beautiful memories of great leaders of the past who sought to reach out to their nation’s children:
Ah, yes; I recall the glorious days from the last time children were taught to adore and sing to their leader:
Adolf Hitler is our Saviour, our hero
He is the noblest being in the whole wide world.
For Hitler we live, for Hitler we die.
Our Hitler is our Lord who rules a brave new world.
And ah, what the heck. Chairman Mao deserves honorable mention, too:
I’ve purged and murdered millions of their parents, but what can I say? The kids still love me!
And you’ve really just got to have a video these days, you know: Go, you little Brownshirts, march and chant in cadence to your Dear Leader:
And of course, a Merry Heil, Obama! to you, too!
You remember that terrible little kid whose warmonger soldier father abused him into supporting John McCain? Thank Government (because we know who our god really is, don’t we?) that a devoted public school teacher was around to indoctrinate – I mean, to um, teach – that little monster and turn him into a productive future member of our new utopia:
So don’t worry, parents. Your public school teachers won’t take advantage of the Obamathon at your children’s school. They will teach your kids to love and fear Dear Leader Obama, just like they’re supposed to.
Our Government teachers are loyally teaching children to pledge allegiance to their Dear Leader:
From a public school in Utah (via Michelle Malkin who has more)
A school principal has apologized for showing a video at an assembly that a politically conservative group leader is calling “radical, leftist propaganda.”
Children at Eagle Bay Elementary School in Farmington were shown a short video called “I pledge” on Aug. 28. The video opens with an image of President Barack Obama and part of a speech in which he says, “Let us summon a new spirit of patriotism, of responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves but each other.” The video then features celebrities making pledges about how they will help the president and the world — and that’s where some say the problem lies…
… Gayle Ruzicka, president of conservative Utah Eagle Forum, said the video was blatantly political. She said other offensive pledges included, “I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama” [at 3:17 into the video], “I pledge allegiance to the funk, to the united funk of funkadelica,” and pledges to not use plastic grocery bags and not flush the toilet after urinating.
“It’s very inappropriate to show a radical, leftist propaganda piece that political to children,” Ruzicka said. “If parents want their children to learn about those things and do them in the home, wonderful, fine, but it’s not the place of the school to show a one-sided propaganda piece to children without parents knowing about it.”
Cieslewicz said such values should be decided in the home, not at school.
Well, of COURSE public school teachers should be indoctrinating children into a radical leftist political agenda. It’s the logical extension of using Darwinism to teach them there’s no God. The little darlings need a replacement.
The video features graphics of Obama, and a short stint from a speech. And then it shows dozens of well-known celebrities who were so profoundly inspired by Dear Leader that they vowed to change the world in wonderful and environmentally-friendly ways – and of course to serve Barack Obama. Obama wants us all to pledge – and then all the beautiful and famous people start pledging. Joseph Goebbels couldn’t have polished it better.
Never mind the poop storm that would necessarily follow had George Bush powerfully called people to action and called upon them to pledge to help him enact his agenda – and then celebrities and culture leaders lined up to pledge to fulfill the Bush vision.
Many of the celebrities – inspired by Barack Obama – “pledge” to view and use energy the way that Obama would want them to. What is not stated is how central energy is to Obama’s vision to fundamentally transform America into a different society. And global warming is central to his goal to redistribute wealth. If you don’t believe me, believe Obama’s environmental czar (and admitted communist) Van Johnson.
So say your pledge of allegiance, kids and young adults:
I will get things done for America –
to make our people safer,
smarter, and healthier.I will bring Americans together
to strengthen our communities.Faced with apathy,
I will take action.Faced with conflict,
I will seek common ground.Faced with adversity,
I will persevere.I will carry this commitment
with me this year and beyond.I am an AmeriCorps member,
and I will get things done.
And just use your “2 and 2 make 5” logic your public school teacher taught you so you won’t think about how incredibly Marxist all of this sounds.
Remember how wonderful it was for you kids at the Kids’ Inaugural.
Of COURSE Obama isn’t trying to indoctrinate kids. That is just so silly.
I keep thinking, “It can’t get any creepier” – and then it just keeps getting creepier.
Let me center myself:
“We’re gonna spread happiness! We’re gonna spread freeeeedom! Obama’s gonna change it, Obama’s gonna lead ‘em…” – so help me Marx.
Okay. I’m all better now…
The Obama speech to the children will very likely sound innocent and innocuous. But in the liberal public schools – which are and have been laboratories for leftist activism, it won’t be innocent or innocuous at all. Unionized Government Teachers will be free to spin their own agendas onto Obama’s speech.
This isn’t happening now because Obama is worried that your six-year-old is going to decide to drop out of school.
The timing of this event isn’t happening by accident. Don’t be naive. Barack Obama’s healthcare agenda is under attack, and frankly in danger of becoming a major disaster for him. The fact that Obama has already been busted for using a plant in the form of a cute 11-year old girl named Julia Hall (whose mother – Kathleen Manning – was a top state-level Obama campaign member) comes into play. His administration has used children to advance his agenda before, and they will do so again.
If your kid comes home from school after ObamaDay and starts bugging you about health care, you’ll know why: it will be because Barack Obama despicably degenerated into trying to turn your child into his propagandist.
Tags: AmeriCorps, brownshirts, children, Department of Education, Freddy Krueger, George Bush, health care, Hitler, I pledge, Julia Hall, Kids' Inaugural, Mao, Obama, pledge, school, schoolchildren, September 8, sing, singing, Stalin, Wakefield
Start Thinking Right 
September 3, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Lay off the Glenn Beck buddy. AmeriCorps, by the way, is a great program that has helped a lot of people. They aren’t like the far-right’s obsession with hating homosexuals, Muslims, and everything else they would like to purge.
September 3, 2009 at 11:02 pm
Says a guy who embraces the fairness doctrine and is perfectly happy with his party controlling speech it doesn’t like.
We don’t have a problem with homosexuals who go on with their lives; we have a problem with homosexuals who routinely engage in a radical transformation of society. If you could please tell me when we had homosexual marriage in this country, for example, I’m all ears. Unfortunately, you people ram it down people’s throats. If they vote it down, as they did in California, you people rush to your activist judges to impose it on us against our will.
We don’t have a problem with Muslims; just terrorists. You belong to the crowd that would just assume people who want to murder Americans succeed, and then treat the aftermath like a crime scene rather than a war of aggression. The terrorists think of you as a useful idiot while they mock you and grin thinking of how you’ll squeal when they finally slit your throat. Terrorists don’t hate us one scintilla less under Obama and Democrats than they hated us under Bush and Republicans – and you are a colossal fool for thinking otherwise.
I’m glad you like AmeriCorps and all of its long history of fraud. Because Obama has already demonstrated that he’s going to bring more fraud than anything we’ve ever seen.
For the record, btw, I didn’t get a single point – much less a single idea – from Glenn Beck on this subject. Just because people like you need your Dear Leaders to have a talking point doesn’t mean other people can’t think for themselves. Your “I’m an ideologue robot, therefore everyone else must be one, too” rationalization doesn’t fly.
September 4, 2009 at 1:09 pm
Thanks Michael for answering Price. You said it perfectly.
September 4, 2009 at 1:12 pm
There is still a problem with the indoctrination Sept 8th. The teachers are just waiting to pounce.
September 4, 2009 at 9:33 pm
At the Eagle Bay elementary back-to-school night it was announced that Americorp was chipping in 50% toward hiring tutors/specialists/assistants (I can’t remember exactly what they were called). I don’t know what to make of that, but I’ll be watching.
September 5, 2009 at 7:07 am
Hey, you have a great blog here! I’m definitely going to bookmark you! Thank you for your info.
September 5, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Thanks for the reinforcement, which is always nice to have.
Another thing I would point out is that Price supports a far-leftist radical while simultaneously criticizing me/us that any form of “radicalism” from the right is a terrible thing. Let him get his radicals out of the White House (Obama); out of the House (Nancy Pelosi); and out of the Senate (Harry Reid) and maybe I’ll tone down my radicalism.
Meanwhile Obama is appointing documented communists (Van Jones) and socialists (Carol Browner) and tax dodgers and corrupt pay-to-players galore. And of course there’s nothing wrong with that if you’re someone like Price.
Price is like the Democrats who repeatedly compared Bush/Republicans/conservatism to Hitler and now say, “How DARE you criticize Obama! How DARE you??!!”
We got force fed Bush derangement syndrome and hatred for conservatism for eight years, and now how dare WE act in any way like they acted. The weasels.
Sorry, Price. We’ve learned. Obama taught us. “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” It’s time they get some gunfire – in heavy caliber and high auto.
September 5, 2009 at 2:32 pm
There is no way I would let my kid go to the vast majority of public schools.
My mom was a teacher at another school when I went to school. She was very friendly with my teachers (which I thought was quite a bad thing at the time!). But they were good teachers who already saw the indoctrination coming, already felt the pressure, and were angry at it. Now I’m glad my mother kept her eye on my teachers and made sure that they were doing right by me. She would be like a hawk ready to swoop me out of public school today – and may God bless her for her example. Would that parents started thinking like her in droves.
The driving agenda is postmodernism, with its deconstructionism, existentialism, pragmatism, multiculturalism, pluralism, homosexual agenda, etc. etc. There is no objective truth; there are no objective moral values. Meaning and value are determined by society – and so let US (liberal secularists) dictate society.
I would rather leave my child in a pit filled with vipers than with these people.
One Christian philosopher put it this way: a father owes his son a Christian view of the world as much as his mother owes him her milk. Most parents – even Christian parents – have allowed themselves to be bullied into sitting passively by while their children are indoctrinated with a worldview that attacks Western civilization, the Judeo-Christian worldview, Christianity, America, the founding fathers, etc.; while simultaneously whitewashing secular humanism, Islam, communism, the LGBT agenda, etc.
Obama and his crowd know if they can shape our children’s minds AS CHILDREN, they will own them forever.
September 5, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Watch, and be ready to scream like hell if you see anything that even hints at an ideological agenda.
I DO know that they embrace the liberal environmentalist agenda.
Here’s a link I found to “Obama’s AmeriCorps.”
http://romanticpoet.wordpress.com/2009/08/10/expanded-americorps-has-an-authoritarian-feel-to-it/
September 5, 2009 at 4:15 pm
Did you happen to watch FoxNews special? It ran yesterday but it’s on today as well. “Textbooks/Children are Reading”. Quite an amazing documentary. I watched it a second time. I do think you’d enjoy the education.
If my children were of school age, I’d home school. There is no way in H*** I’d allow my kids to be indoctrinated. I used to be like your Mother. I showed up for everything and dropped in for lunches too. Almost always I was homeroom Mother. There is nothing more important we can do for our children than give them the best education. But education goes from the home into the classroom – Not the other way around.
September 5, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I missed it, but my TV Guide says it’s on tonight at 7:00pm my time, and I plan to watch AND tape it.
I used to despair over the words, “I talked with one of your teachers today.” Now I thank God for a mother who made the time to stand up for her children.
I hope for 2 things: 1) that most school districts “Just say no” to Obama Indoctrination Day. And 2) that the school districts that go ahead with the day find most of the seats empty.
Your last statement hits it: education doesn’t pump values that are antithetical to their parents’ into the skulls of kids. Yet that is what liberals/Democrats have wanted since Woodrow Wilson and John Dewey.
Woodrow Wilson – as president of Princeton – said, “Our problem is not merely to help the students to adjust themselves to world life… but to make them as unlike their fathers as we can.”
And then a collection of leading liberal thinkers of today:
The most despicable thing of all is that it is largely conservatives who are having children. The more liberal one is, the less likely he or she will have children (or at least allow their children to actually live). And then they want to impose their despicable moral values on the children of others and tell parents that they have no right to their own children’s instruction and belief-systems.
September 7, 2009 at 6:53 pm
I can’t believe some of the videos on this web site. What happened to education? It’s a good thing I teach my children to whom we pray.
May GOD bless and keep us all.
September 7, 2009 at 7:20 pm
What few Americans understand is that the Democrat Party has dramatically changed from what it was under John f. Kennedy.
Marx’s central defining doctrine exactly matches the Democrats today: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” That is precisely Obama’s vision today. Kennedy was a staunch anti-communist who dedicated the nation to fighting the genuine evil of communism; Barack Obama embraces communism. He embraces the central plank of redistributionism, and he embraces the giant megastate. People are just too dumb to know it.
Democrats have embraced a terribly flawed worldview.
I put it this way: liberals/secular humanists have a terribly warped worldview, which serves like a fun house kaleidoscope. They cannot possibly understand the world as it really is. When one renounces God and His ways, one renounces the ability to see things through the “God’s eye view.” Everything is distorted. They are left with theories of the world that don’t match the world.
G. K. Chesterton said, “When people stop believing in God, they don’t believe in nothing— they believe in anything.” And liberals who renounce and denounce God erect the God-surrogate of big government to replace God and replace God’s ways. They have seen big government as utopia since the beginning. Government as Savior.
Our founding fathers had a diametrically opposite vision for the country that Obama has for it now.
I’m glad you teach your children to love God and pray to Him, Tammie. God will ultimately take care of His own, even as despisers of God lead the country into ruin.
September 8, 2009 at 11:51 am
I hate to break up the love fest, but since you mention Kennedy you may wish to recall his most famous quote: “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” (Never mind that he actually cribbed it from Cicero — or Junvenal, depending on which historian you believe.)
Only seeking out and crediting “information” that supports your position — without careful consideration of who originally generated that material and why, and presenting it out of context in order to “prove” your point — is sophism, plain and simple.
The core problem is the promotion of a false dilemma between democracy (as a system of political organization) and the targeted application of market socialism (as a system of economic organization) in the interests of maintaining fundamental democratic ideals.
The current debate over national health care vividly illustrates both the rich opportunity for positive change and the dirty tactics opponents to such change are willing to employ to hang on to their money and the disproportionate power (in relation to the constitutionally endowed rights of the body — no pun intended — of U.S. citizens) it now affords them. Fascism is a strong word, but is there any more apt description for, in this example, the enormous influence of multinational pharmaceutical companies on national policy?
September 8, 2009 at 12:09 pm
That would be really great if you had a point.
In what possible way does your correctly citing John F. Kennedy to say, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country” possibly undermine anything I say? You seem to think you blew up my argument, but you don’t bother to explain how.
My point was that John F. Kennedy was a conservative by modern standards – and I said how (demanding a powerful military, being staunchly anti-communist, and demanding lower taxes for economic growth).
Is it somehow your point that no conservative could possibly say, “Ask not what your country can do for you…”? I would submit to you that that is 100% ridiculous.
Let me ask you: who is turning that great statement around today? I would submit to you that it is Democrats who are now arguing, “Ask not what you can do for your country, but what your country can do for you.” Whether it be in taxation, where half of Americans don’t pay any federal income taxes at all, but are now demanding that they freeload off of others as the government “redistributes the wealth”; whether it be in the demand that “47 million” [which includes 12 million illegal immigrants] not have to bother to pay for their own healthcare, but rather they should freeload off of others for it; or over a host of other things the Democrats who want big government solutions are calling for.
I also don’t know where you get your definition of “fascism.”
Fascism is a form of socialism. Example: “Nazi” was an acronym for “National Socialist German Workers Party.” If we were to have a “National Socialist American Workers Party,” which side of the political spectrum do you think this pro-socialist, pro-worker party would embrace? The correct answer is clearly “Democrats.”
Sheldon Richman (of the Foundation for Economic Education) provides the distinction in The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics in his entry on “Fascism”:
What you proceed to do is to define capitalism (because that’s what private companies making a lot of money is) as fascism. The fact of the matter is, we will see fascism when the government takes over or dominates the pharmaceutical companies. Which appears to be exactly what you want.
Private companies and corporations remaining private is capitalism; private companies and corporations being nationalized or dominated by government is fascism. Exactly the opposite of your claim.
And when you attempt to argue that American people wanting to keep their own money that they earned is somehow either “fascist” or immoral, well, I don’t even know what to say. You talk about the fallacy of resorting to “sophism” to prove your point – and then you become the sophist in chief as you talk about “the dirty tactics opponents to such change are willing to employ to hang on to their money and the disproportionate power” – as if people opposed to the government takeover of health care have nothing whatsoever but dirty tactics etc. and no possible arguments supporting their view.
You become the very thing you start out decrying. And you manage that feat in only a few short paraphrases.
September 8, 2009 at 1:13 pm
I got attacked by the Village Voice for being unhinged in this post. Wish it were true.
In any event, here’s how I would respond to the charge:
Since my blog gets attacked, I would offer the following.
Yes, Reagan and Bush I gave a speech to students. But unless you can show that their speeches were accompanied by having children engage in a scripted campaign to create posters and write themselves letters asking,“What can I do to help the president?” it’s anything but the same thing.
Second, I document repeated instances of liberals using children for politcal purposes including this shocking video that simply don’t have any parallels with Reagan or Bush unless you can document otherwise.
Third, I document a teacher in a public school browbeating a child to support Barack Obama and renounce his support for John McCain. Please watch it before you ridicule the prospect of worrying about the Obama-dictated Dept of Education agenda.
I made the point, “If Obama just wanted to do a brief public service announcement and call upon kids to stay in school and study harder, nobody would have a problem with it.” And that’s exactly correct. The problem is that a LOT more was clearly going on. Even the Obama White House was forced to admit that there was something wrong with the appearance of the proposal they crafted for the Dept of Education to provide to teachers.
When I can document government teachers trying to brainwash public school children, I think I have a right to wonder about what teachers who will be all alone with children will do in the hour following the Obama speech.
As I say in my article, “The Obama speech to the children will very likely sound innocent and innocuous. But in the liberal public schools – which are and have been laboratories for leftist activism, it won’t be innocent or innocuous at all. Unionized Government Teachers will be free to spin their own agendas onto Obama’s speech.”
If you think that is so impossible, Please watch the video I cite above to see otherwise.
I would also point out that when George H.W. Bush gave his speech to children in 1991 – in what was not NEARLY as large of an audience (it was not nationwide) and did NOT contain the “how can we help the president?” garbage that Obama’s does – Democrats turned it into the Spanish Inquisition. They held Congressional hearings. They had the Government Accounting Office do an investigation. Basically, they went nuts. And for Democrats today to argue that Republicans – who are merely engaging in a war of words rather than in a war of investigations and criminal charges – are acting inappropriately just shows how hypocritical Democrats truly are.
September 8, 2009 at 2:58 pm
My purpose in citing President Kennedy’s quote, which I’ll grant I didn’t frame very well (or at all, really), is that — taken out of context — it sounds exactly like something his nemesis at the time, Castro, would have said. And if Obama were to express the sentiment, I strongly suspect you would jump on it as proof-positive of his “socialist agenda.”
And once again, please let’s all be clear on this: socialism is not a political theory — it is an economic theory. And just as those who describe themselves as “socialists” heatedly disagree with one another about what they consider critical tenets, so the actual practice of socialism — or, most broadly, the implementation of one or more types of socialist practice — can range widely from, say, the use of property taxes to fund compulsory K-12 education to state control of all production and distribution.
For over a century, a majority of U.S. citizens — not all, but a majority — have supported public funding of what they evidently consider be necessary social services such as fire and police departments, hospitals, public schools and universities, and prisons/penitentiaries. This is socialism. I’m sorry, but it is. The question, then, is: Has this undermined democracy or served to promote it? Stated another way: Would you rather we go back to having to rely on clan or tribe affiliations for the opportunity to pursue what I hope we all agree are basic human rights (i.e: safety, health and equal access to education)?
I myself am not terrifically thrilled with the current proposed health care plan, and I believe it would be spurious for you to assume that I don’t share at least a few of the same concerns you do about it. What I do not share is the belief that the subject is not or should not be open to discussion on the grounds that any form of national healthcare (never mind Medicare. . .) is a steeply slippery slope to totalitarianism.
Finally, because of the deservedly strong pejorative denotation, “fascism” is always a tricky term to use, but I earnestly attempted to do so in good faith. Referencing the Foundation for Economic Education is, once again, hedging your bet. This debate could go on forever, but I confidently contend that Mussolini’s Italy, for example, was not “socialist” — just as the Leninist regime in the USSR was not “Marxist” (or at least wouldn’t have been according to Marx) — in the sense that I’m using the term because his regime employed socialist economic principles with the deliberate intent of controlling and, ultimately, supressing basic individual human freedoms (speech, assembly, you know the program), not in an effort to promote them.
Finally, consider Eisenhower’s expressly anti-fascist warning about what he termed the developing “military industrial complex.” If, for argument’s sake we take Pursell’s widely accepted definition of the threat as:
“an informal and changing coalition of groups with vested psychological, moral, and material interests in the continuous development and maintenance of high levels of weaponry, in preservation of colonial markets and in military-strategic conceptions of internal affairs”
and exchange the phrases “high levels of weaponry” and “military-strategic,” with “high levels of medical innovation” and “socio-political,” what are we decribing?
I know it’s a bit of a stretch. But not, I think, much.
September 8, 2009 at 3:05 pm
Gah. . . !
With regard to Mussolini’s Italy, I should have quailified that it was not “purely” socialist, just as the U.S. is not “purely” capitalist. Again, the complex interaction between economics and politics.
September 9, 2009 at 11:05 am
September 9, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Gregory,
Well, a lot of stuff. And theoretical stuff to boot.
Having read Jonah Goldberg’s “Liberal Fascism,” (which I think is a marvelous work), I readily concede your point: Goldberg makes it often. He points out that there is no universally accepted definition of “fascism,” and that fascism – like it’s mother socialism, tends to take on many cultural/societal aspects in every nation. Communism in Russia was not the same as communism in China, which is not the same as communism in Cuba.
That said, they are all nevertheless communism. As the justice famously said:
I may not be able to provide a detailed definition of fascism, socialism, communism, or for that matter “pornography,” but that doesn’t mean that I don’t know it when I see it. When I see a picture of a nude woman with her legs spread, I frankly don’t care WHAT you call it; I immediately recognize it as pornography. Someone can write volumes about how its actually something else; they can write similar volumes to explain how the movie “Deep Throat” was really art, and not “pornography” at all. It’s pornography.
We can recognize a thing for its broad elements, and for certain key factors shared in common. We should not allow the possibility that one can identify or fabricate criteria that confuse and muddle the clarity of the obvious. We would become open to everything – by which I include open to dousing ourselves with gasoline and lighting a match.
When the government begins to take over private businesses or dictate what they do to the extent that they might as WELL be taken over; when government hands out carrots to favored players or pressures them to cooperate with their agenda, you have encroaching versions of socialism.
Now, you might well say, “Not all socialism is bad.” And I wouldn’t try to disagree with you for the sake of argument. But not here.
Jefferson (1787) said, “With all the defects of our constitutions, whether general or particular, the comparison of our governments with those of Europe, are like a comparison of heaven and hell.”
Now, was there NOTHING good in Europe? There undoubtedly WAS something good. But we set out to create a very different system in the United States. And in point of fact it is diametrically opposed to European systems and to the socialism, communism, and fascism that uniquely emerged from Europe.
If you want those things, you know where to go to get them; but not here.
Right now in the health care debate, proponents of the “public option” say we need competition. Well, there are 1300 private insurance companies operating in the United States. In the state of California, due to all the regulations and requirements and mandates, there are only six companies “competing” in the market. It’s too onerous, and too expensive, and too much of a bother, for the others to try to come in. So these people are saying we need government to directly enter the health insurance market to provide more competition when in actual point of fact it is the damn GOVERNMENT which has prevented competition.
You are right; the United States is no longer anything close to a “purely” (or even impurely) capitalist system. We have embedded ourselves in a great deal of socialism – and yes, communism and fascism.
And I want less, not more, of those things. I want the system our founding fathers wanted – and enshrined in the Constitution that we too often either ignore or contaminate with activist “penumbras and emanations” which serve as nothing more than contemptuous dismissals of the clearly expressed intent of what we were supposed to be.
The military industrial complex is, of course, a bad thing. It has hurt us far more often than it has helped us. And a health care complex would similarly be far worse than it would be good.
That said, the military is different than any other kind of thing in this country. Our founders never wanted a Department of Health, or a Department of Energy, or a Department of Education, but they DID want a strong military. It is the one thing that is uniquely constitutionally mandated. The founders recognized that the free market system – which provides everything else – is not the entity to provide for a national defense.
So, in other words, on the one hand, the military is such a completely different kind of thing that it can’t be compared to something like health care. And the Constitution that mandates the formation of a military most definitely does not mandate the formation of national health care – or they would have created it. And on the other hand, to the extent that there IS anything comparable to the “military industrial complex,” it turns out to be a negative and not a positive thing.
The “fixes” that would make health care cheaper, such as tort reform, dealing with our illegal immigrant crisis, getting rid of costly and prohibitive state and federal mandates, and billing reforms, are not in the package before us. And the very people who are keeping those things from happening are now trying to take advantage of the fact that they’ve kept those needed reforms from happening as a device to introduce government into the system as the camel’s nose in the tent.
By the way, another relevant quote by Thomas Jefferson:
“I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.”
September 9, 2009 at 5:37 pm
R,
That otherwise cute little girl scares me.
It’s like she’s been turned into a doll-eyed automaton.
I was a child through Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Reagan (who was my commander-in-chief when I was in the Army).
I never sang songs to their glory, and frankly cannot even begin to imagine doing such – then OR now.
September 10, 2009 at 11:08 am
Did you watch the video? That scares me more than the little automaton girl.
Creeepy stuff!!
September 10, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I appreciate you taking the time to read and address my comments (sorry for the odd typo). It’s probably little coincidence that I referenced Justice Potter’s “definition” of pornography in a private discussion on a related subject just last week, and I will look into adding “Liberal Fascism” to my reading list.
As I suspected, I absolutely concur that the issues you cite as being key to more affordable health care — tort reform (which Obama at least had the cajones to mention last night), the rights of illegal immigrants (which certainly exist, but what are the appropriate limits?), the tangle of state and federal mandates, and billing reform — are not adequately addressed by the current plan. I would just like to see the ad hominem ad baculum, ad ignorantiam, ad populum, circular reasoning, confirmation bias, false dichotomy, etc., etc. (honestly, the body of your post & responses employs nearly every logical fallacy my crappy public school education can identify) nonesense set aside so we can all focus on these issues. As elegantly phrased by Robert A. Wilson: “You don’t need to take drugs to hallucinate; improper language can fill your world with phantoms and spooks of many kinds.”
Finally, you may well find this less amusing than I did, but it made me laugh out loud several times: http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/09/09/top-u-s-socialist-says-barack-obama-is-not-one-of-them?icid=sphere_wpcom_inline.
September 11, 2009 at 1:06 am
Actually, I didn’t. I did something that gets me in trouble every time I do it: I saw the little girl, and assumed the video was just about her.
I did watch it. And you’re right: the “fear factor” transcends that one little girl.
I sang in choirs like the ones featured as a child. I was singing about our Lord and Savior. It is utterly terrifying that so many people use children to advance their own fanatic political ideologies. I very much doubt if ANY conservative can understand having children’s choirs singing praises to Obama. But when you give up God, something must fill the void of “Savior.” And for liberals, it is big government, incarnated in the person of their Messiah Obama.
September 11, 2009 at 1:31 am
Gregory, I cheer your desire to get past the crap and get to the heart of the truth.
You’re a good man for it.
For what it’s worth, I used to think exactly like you do (expressed in your sentence beginning: “I would just like to see the ad hominem ad baculum, ad ignorantiam, ad populum, circular reasoning, confirmation bias, false dichotomy, etc., etc.”). I still do, as a matter of idealism. But I’ve given up, as a matter of rubber-meets-road reality.
Something happened to make me realize that such calm dispassionate reasoning could never hope to win the day in culture as it has degenerated. As Obama put it, “If they bring a knife, you bring a gun.” The “gun” in this case is the use of raw emotional anger, rhetoric, and sound-bites, and unceasing attack to undermine and chop down the opposition. The validity of policies and ideas have become remotely secondary.
I learned that an unrelenting blitzkrieg attack strategies works during the 2008 campaign. Charges of racism, demagogic blame, and class warfare carried far more water for Democrats than “reason.” Eight years of shrillness worked.
My moment of clarity occurred when the Jeremiah Wright revelations came out. That “reverend” and his church were naked evil. Obama spent 23 years in that church; 20 as a member. There is no possible way that any Republican could have ever survived having belonged to such a despicable outfit with even 1/1000th of the crap that was going on in Trinity United. One major Republican presidential hopeful (Sen. George Allen) was publicly destroyed by the single nonsense word “Mucaca.” Another, Trent Lott, was driven out of politics because he used a poorly-worded phrase honoring returning Republican Senator Strom Thurmond. Barack Obama spent 23 years in a hateful, racist, anti-American church and was wildly praised after he gave “the speech.”
There are a few people like you who truly care about the merits of an idea, candidate, or policy. And you deserve respect for it. But then there’s everybody else – and they far outnumber people like you. And all the nasty stuff you are denouncing is far more effective with that “everybody else.”
Bush was brought down by years of unrelenting “Bush derangement syndrome” attacks. Over time, every single attack became a bleeding wound. And it took its toll. “Bush lied, people died”, “No war for oil”, pictures of Abu Graihb, and an unrelenting bitterness – featuring mockery as much as anything else – on Bush over every single thing he did or didn’t do, shrank his credibility and undermined his ability to lead.
Now it’s Obama’s and the Democrats’ turn. They created this monster, they fed it, and they unleashed it. Let it now be turned upon them. [A liberal might argue, “No, Republicans started it!” I think I can present a pretty good case to the contrary, but the fact remains, the tactics are very real, very successful, and Democrats used them to great effect. It’s our turn, now].
I truly wish we could win the day with the nobility and effectiveness of our ideas. Tragically, I believe that the American people are no longer noble enough to respond to nobility. Rather, the lowest common denominator seems to win again and again.
Here’s an example from yesterday/today. During the very partisan Obama speech on health care, one single Republican lost it and yelled, “You lie!” Now the entire debate is about this, rather than about health care. Democrat strategists are framing this about Obama being “above” the partisan divide, while partisan Republicans try to demonize, etc. ONE Republican booed out of about 200 – unlike the 2005 State of the Union speech when Democrats booed Bush en mass. So it all becomes about leveraging dirt and garbage to maximum efficiency.
So, I’ve learned from LIBERALS. I intend to fight, and this is the successful way to fight. Use their own tactics against them. If we want to win, that’s pretty much our only option.
During WWI, the Germans introduced total war, poison gas, war by attrition, and many other vile military tactics. The Allies realized that if they wanted to win – or just now lose – they had to adopt those same tactics themselves. Eventually, (for example) the use of poison gas was banned as even the Germans realized it was counterproductive.
Ideally, we’d be able to get to that point in our politics. But I hold out little hope. Until that day, all conservatives can do is start fighting mad. And if Democrats firebombed our cities, we firebomb theirs.
Health care is a matter of survival. If we change the system the way the liberals want, it will destroy us. I believe we have to stop it all all costs. Later, if Democrats actually want to come to the table “fairly and squarely” and embrace the solutions that you identified, then I think Republicans should likewise come to the table. Until that happens, I see no alternative but to fire on them and keep firing until the battle is long past.
Sorry I was a bit rambly, but it’s past my bedtime and I’m in a hurry.
September 11, 2009 at 5:38 pm
this is not the video that you may think it is. Please click on the little play button and watch it. Believe me, it is not the normal “hope” video that was originally posted during Obamas campaign. This is a “remixed” version created to bring a little wonder back into our world.
Thank you
September 12, 2009 at 1:10 am
I watched it, r. It was a good “remix.” I actually already had when I replied to you the last time. I just wasn’t clear enough.
I saw the “praise satan” mix and the ‘my Muslim faith’ answer that Obama once gave, interspersed with other events – primarily the weird singing children.
It’s a funny world, and it takes all kinds to fill it. For example, I like to dwell on real facts that I am able to make some kind of case to connecting to target Obama. That’s how I work. But for other people, artistic/visual impressions grab them better. As an example of the latter, think the Obama=Joker poster that drew so much attention. Something grabbed people in that. And since both forms of association (the more rational kind and the more artistic kind) work on respective audiences, I’m glad we’ve got conservatives out there willing and able to harness both.
Whether with reason or whether with art, we’ve got to bring this clown down before he destroys the country more than he already has.
September 12, 2009 at 8:51 am
Thank you for the reply.
I think there is only so far one can go if we only base our everyday existence on “facts” considering it is impossible to know what is “fact” and what is not. This world is indeed a strange one.
If you are willing to go further down the rabbit hole, I suggest you read Manly P Hall’s “The Secret Destiny of America” for starters. Having Obama in office is not simply a matter of course, there is purpose behind this mahem. There is a reason why most of the presidents our country has had in office have belonged to a certain fraternity, Obama one of them. There is a reason for why we have been divided amongst ourselves fighting and bickering about little things such as “liberal vs conservative”, “republican vs democrat” and so on. There is a reason for why George W. Bush’s election was obviously stolen.
The American people have been gradually losing faith in the idea of President, the idea of election and the idea of Justice. This has all been done for a reason and in my opinion is a form of psychological warfare. This nation is the superpower of the world and will not be conquered easily, therefore such subtle attacks have been employed.
Next, Obama will be called out on his illegitimate birth certificate, the constitution will be opened to alterations so that non-natural born citizens will be able to run for president. Once the constitution is opened for alterations, who is to say what other changes will be made.
Anyway, my point is, is that if you open your mind and get past this bipolar way of thinking so many of us have fallen prey to, you will see that what is going on in our world is much stranger than any science fiction story ever read. We need to work together instead of be divided and be open to the fact that “anything is possible”.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and for watching the video I posted.
September 14, 2009 at 7:28 am
Your welcome.
I disagree with you that the “liberal vs. conservative” or even “Republican vs. Democrat” (albeit to a lesser extent) are invalid. Just as I would disagree that the 2000 election was “stolen.”
I’ll only defend the “liberal vs. conservative” element for interest of time.
Ideas are important. They have consequences. And our founding fathers clearly and passionately believed in a Judeo-Christian worldview as the foundation of a good and moral and free society.
They just as passionately believed in a government that was strictly limited in size, scope, and power.
Their experiment in Democracy, their Constitution, was a miracle, as the book “The 5,000 Year Leap,” details.
At this point, we need to pull back from the direction of liberalism, or we will simply implode. That liberal vision is anathema to everything our founding fathers stood for.
Conservatives, whatever their imperfections, are trying to CONSERVE those values and ideas that made this country great.
September 14, 2009 at 9:13 pm
I can not prove to you that George W stole the 2000 election, but it definitely attracted some suspicion:
vodpod.com/watch/1094164-how-george-w-bush-stole-the-2000-election-part-1-of-2
Suspicion alone can dishearten a people of a once greatly respected and revered nation.
In terms of the founding fathers and the ideals that they hold, well, all I can say is please have a look at this:
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/secret_destinyamerica/secret_destinyamerica.htm
Conservatives are trying to conserve the values and ideals that were supposed to create a nation that was to become a stepping stone in the creation of a greater purpose, or, “great work”. This great work has come to fruition and has served its purpose. We are on the verge of a new age and America is going to be taken down which is why we have Obama in office. This is way out there but he and his beliefs can be connected to the ancient Egyptian pharoah, Achenaton. Have a look at the links above and you will see what I am talking about.
Honesty, open your mind and you will see. This is much greater than “liberal vs conservative” and so on. Humankind is on the brink of something wonderful or dreadful and it is up to us to decide what future we will have.
September 14, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Here is a very good article on the Butterfly ballot that was at the center of the election fight. Among other things, the ballot was 1) created by Democrats; 2) used in Democrat-controlled counties; 3) cost Bob Dole more votes in 1996 than it cost Gore in 2000.
Basically, if the election was taken away from Gore, it was taken away by Democrats.
As a Bible-believing Christian, I truly believe we are in for something — dreadful. The Bible propheseid a coming Antichrist. Revelation chapter 6 describes him coming during a time of economic collapse, war, and famine. That time is coming very soon, and is being set up even now.
Barack Obama was called “messiah” by many of his own followers. Jesus said in the last days, many false messiahs would come. I genuinely believe that Barack Obama will leave the United States in utter ruin, and that that ruin will spread to the whole globe. And in the midst of that ensuing chaos, the beast would ride in on his white horse to save the day. Times will be so desperate, and the solutions of the Antichrist will appear so amazing, that the whole world will worship this man who will become the leader of the whole world.
Everything will appear to be wonderful. But it will be a house of cards that will come crashing down in seven years. The most terrifying wars in human history will rack the globe, and when Christ returns with his army, it will be to save the planet from complete and total destruction.
So, while I’m not too big on Nostradamus, I have a vision for the future in my worldview as well. But I would argue that in the here and now, “liberal” versus “conservative” is an important battle in this country; it is literally a major battleground in the overarching war between “the lie” and “the truth.”
September 24, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Just thought that I should put this exclamation mark on the fact that the conservatives who opposed Obama’s speech were right and the liberals who supported it supported propaganda and indoctrination of children.
You people who are supporting this are just evil. Period.
July 10, 2010 at 7:53 am
Community Organizers are Communists too!
July 10, 2010 at 8:12 am
Well, let’s be fair. Only 99.9999999999999999999999999999999999% of them are communists.
I mean, you don’t want to just generalize, do you? :)
September 23, 2010 at 7:59 am
OBAMA = STALIN= BUSH
…SOVIET UNION = UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Video Number 48
Video Number 49
Video Number 53
“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country.
He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
By Gen. Patton
spree shootings in schools….gay parades….unemployment…church scandals…mass emigration..911…economy crises…our people dyeing in foreign wars….info wars…killed politicians….everything explained here
Video Number 8
Video Number 43
Video Number 44
Video Number 45
Video Number 46
Video Number 47