Moocher Nation

"I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."
J. Wellington Wimpy


I'm stunned, to state the obvious. Numb. The gravity of this defeat will take some time to register but
initially I feel disbelief. With an economy in shambles, soaring debt, 23 million people either unemployed or underemployed, a government that hasn't passed a budget in three years and borrows $4 billion a day, dead Americans in Benghazi, dead Mexicans and a dead Border Patrol agent because of Fast and Furious, Iraq and Afghanistan unraveling, Iran only months away from enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon and the largest tax increase in American history looming on January 1, the American people deliberately choose more of the same. It's irrational.

Everything I predicted in 2008 has come true and we have no reason to doubt that our perilous situation will continue for another four years. Barack Obama is hell-bent on reshaping America into a Soviet collective in which fetuses may be killed inside and outside the womb, homosexuals are free to defile the institution of marriage, illegal immigrants enjoy benefits that American citizens are denied, college students can welch on their loans, the coal industry is killed, the prosperous are enslaved to the deadbeats and our enemies no longer fear us. Since so many millions of my fellow citizens are enraptured with this vision, my impulse is to say to Hell with them and to Hell with my country but then I think of my grandson and the country he'll have to face as he grows up and I can't do that. Not to him. So, slowly, I determine that continuing to fight for traditional conservative values -lower taxes, smaller government, free enterprise, individual freedom, a strong national defense, the right to life, traditional marriage - is the only thing to do, even if it means losing more elections. You can either go down fighting or you can surrender, and I spit on surrendering.

Mitt Romney was a good candidate. He raised tons of money, he hit Obama hard on the economy, he slapped him silly in the first debate, he tried to make the election a referendum on Obama's record and about big issues, and he lost. Paul Ryan would've made a terrific Vice President and he clearly articulated the fiscal danger we face. They had a great organization, they had the best Republicans in the country helping them, they left no stone unturned and they were rejected. Commentators who blame Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are wrong and they're missing the point: The problem isn't with the candidates we supported, it's with our country.

Eighty years of social engineering have produced a population with their hands out. Losing four of the last six Presidential elections (and nearly a fifth - Bush/Gore in 2000) proves that. Taking charity from the government isn't as noble and rewarding as working for a living but it's sure easier. Aborting an innocent fetus is ugly and repugnant but it's easier than raising the child. Allowing homosexuals to ape marriage is abhorrent but it's easier than telling them no, you're a degenerate. Legalizing marijuana will rot our society but it's easier than fighting it. Spending money we don't have will bankrupt us but it's easier than standing up to the AARP. And in 2016, when everything has crashed and the full consequences of Obama's grand vision are plainly evident, the people will wonder how it happened, they'll blame the Republicans for the disaster, the media will glorify Obama's accomplishments and nothing will change. God help us.

Give Him Four More Years and He'll Finish Us Off

With the Democratic National Convention over and Priest-King having received the expected post-convention bounce, a number of Republican cassandras have given up hope that he can be defeated.  A torrent of polls indicate he has a substantial lead nationally and in various battleground states and the legacy news media (ABC, NBC’s various platforms, CBS, CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, etc.)  broadcast a steady message that he’s simply invulnerable, and an example would be George F. Will’s comments on ABC’s This Week, that if the Republican Party cannot beat an incumbent President with economic conditions as bad as they are, they should simply give up politics.  Mr. Will and his fellows simply cannot understand how so many normally intelligent Americans could favor a second term for His Serene Loftiness, given the awful mess he has created, but instead of wringing our hands, let’s try to explain this disconnect and then come up with ways to counter it:

• Some people who voted for Priest-King in 2008 still believe his message of hope and change even though Priest-King himself no longer mentions it.  This reveals a sort of blind loyalty, a desire to believe in a person’s rhetoric regardless of objective evidence that disproves it.  It’s the same kind of blind loyalty that the French gave to Napoleon, that the Russians gave to Lenin, that the Germans gave to Hitler, that the Cubans gave to Castro and that the People’s Church gave to Jim Jones.  Usually this sort of phenomenon is called a cult of personality and people caught up in it may be beyond convincing.

• Priest-King still enjoys a certain likeability.  People know that the economy is bad but they don’t blame him for it, as if he’s trying to right the ship but just hasn’t been able to do it yet.  They can’t imagine that he would lie to them or mislead them, or that he’s hugely incompetent, so they want to give him the benefit of the doubt.

• Bill Clinton, who was protected by the best mob lawyer in American history (Janet Reno), gave a great closing argument for his client at the DNC though it was his usual stemwinder.  People who liked Bill Clinton in the Nineties despite his lying, stealing and cheating take his word for it that Priest-King just needs more time.

• The parade of luminaries appearing at the Republican National Convention to the contrary, millions of minority voters simply cannot bring themselves to vote Republican.  Ninety percent of African-Americans or more will pull the lever for Priest-King on 06 November and no amount of empirical evidence will convince them otherwise.  Like Point #1, there is a certain percentage of these voters who represent a lost cause.

• The entitlement generation, which includes college students, seniors, the unions and welfare recipients, don’t want to see their benefits cut.  These are the people the Democrats have groomed for decades just for this purpose and underscore exactly why this trend has to be stopped.

I have recounted ad nauseum in this space the recessionary conditions that Priest-King faced in January 2009 and compared them to the even worse conditions faced by Ronald Reagan 28 years before, and over which he prevailed, so I think the first point that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan can hammer home is that we can beat this, we’ve done it before.  Second, the debates give the Republican nominees an opportunity to confront Priest-King directly and make him defend himself: Go on offense and stay on offense.  Make him defend the stimulus bill, the bank bailout bill, QE1, QE2, QE3, 8% unemployment for his entire administration, 23 million people either unemployed or underemployed, the millions who have simply given up looking for a job, and $16 trillion in debt.  Make him defend a foreign policy that relinquishes American leadership for UN committees, that gives Russia and China a veto over our vital interests.  Third, drive home what we can expect if Priest-King is reelected, the agenda for a second term in which he would have perfect freedom to accomplish whatever he wanted, and watch people shudder:

The Supreme Court.  Antonin Scalia is 76 years old and is the longest-serving Justice, having been nominated in 1986.  Anthony Kennedy is also 76 years old and joined Justice Scalia on the Court in 1988.  Ruth Bader Ginsberg is 79 years old, has been serving since 1993 and is in declining health.  If Priest-King is reelected, there is the possibility that he could nominate replacements for up to three Justices, two of whom are Republicans.  This could transform the makeup of the Court from 5-4 in favor of the conservatives to 6-3 favoring the liberals, and since Chief Justice John Roberts has already demonstrated that he can be coerced into joining the liberals on the very biggest of cases (Obamacare), this could translate into an effective 7-2 liberal stranglehold over the highest court in the land, for which America would pay dearly:

Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin – This case, which the Court will hear this year, could decide the role of race-conscious admissions to the nation’s colleges and universities.  The Court could decide to continue a trend to deny well-qualified white students admission to the university of their choice in order to admit less-qualified minority students and promote ethnic diversity.

Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum – This case seeks to hold companies liable for human rights abuses committed with their products overseas.  If decided in favor of the plaintiff, this could paralyze trade.

Constitutionality of state laws refusing recognition of same-sex marriage

Constitutionality of the Federal Defense of Marriage Act

Federal recognition of same-sex marriage – The splintering of American society would accelerate like a rocket.  America turns its back on God.

Reinterpretation of the Second Amendment, denying individual citizens the right to own and carry firearms – This would overturn 225 years of American history and the Framers’ intent.  Rather than serving as a brake on authoritarian governments by giving the people the practical means of defending themselves, privately-owned firearms would be illegal because dictatorships fear their own people.

Doctor-prescribed euthanasia

Foreign policy. Priest-King’s halting, indecisive, lead-from-behind  strategy would have catastrophic consequences.  Since he agrees wholeheartedly with socialism and redistribution of wealth, Priest-King would encourage Germany to rescue its spendthrift neighbors in Europe even at the cost of its own economy.  Ultimately, the Eurozone itself will collapse since Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Ireland have deep-seated cultural differences with the Germans and they will refuse to adjust their national policies, instigating a new global recession.  Massive cuts in defense, either from sequestration or from Presidential fiat, would gut America’s ability to project power and protect its national interests, emboldening China in the Pacific and Russia in Europe.  Having announced our retreat from Afghanistan, the Taliban would undertake a powerful offensive to recapture the country in a fashion similar to North Vietnam’s conquest of South Vietnam in 1975.  Afghanistan would revert to being a terrorist safe haven and eleven years of sacrifice would be for nothing.  Minus substantive support from America, Israel would be forced to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities for its sheer national survival, triggering a war with militant Islam that would make the Global war On Terror look like a warmup.  God help us.

Domestic policy.  With the worry of reelection lifted, Priest-King could finish the work he started in 2009 to transform America into the socialist workers’ paradise of his dreams.  With or without approval from Congress whom he considers an unnecessary bother, he could decree unconditional amnesty for all illegal immigrants, creating a legal means for 21 million people to bleed the United States indefinitely for their own purposes.  We would see the full implementation of Obamacare with all its legal, medical and financial horrors coincident with the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, and as massive unemployment and inflation accelerated, a tide of bankruptcy would wash across state and local governments.  Desperate for any sort of cash, Obama could nationalize all privately-held retirement funds just as Argentina did in 2009 and suffer the same catastrophic consequences.  The $9.8 trillion or so held in pension funds in the United States would serve his immediate purposes but growth would be destroyed, confidence in the United States would disappear, and when there was no money to be had, the United States government would default on its debt and a new depression would ensue, more terrible than anyone can imagine.

The damage that could be done during a second Obama administration would be incalculable.  The United States would be returned to the year 1832, a large but poor and inconsequential country, economically, militarily and politically feeble, unable to support itself much less help its friends, and a bystander internationally.  Give Barack Obama four more years and he’ll not only finish his work: He’ll finish us off.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1696010.stm

A Tale of Two Cities

In Romneyopolis, the people are rejoicing.  They have plenty of money, they have two bright, articulate candidates with specific plans to address the issues of the day, the opponents’ worst attacks have largely failed and they have momentum.  Romneyopolis is growing in strength and numbers and the future looks bright.

In Obamaville, the sky is gray, the people are grim and agitated, they look like someone closed a door on their fingers.  They spend much more money than they take in, their candidates are tense, angry and frustrated, and one is a complete idiot; their plans for the future are the same plans that failed in the past, their vicious, petty attacks have cost them millions but gained very little ground, and they have the nature of a giant ship slowly settling in the water, engines dead and fuel tanks empty.  Obamaville was once a bustling, vibrant city full of hope and change but the hope has faded, the change that was promised is not the change that was delivered, and the people who live there are pessimistic: Those who haven’t fled already are thinking about fleeing.

This was not how the mayor of Obamaville envisioned things.  He bitterly criticized his predecessor’s administration and promised that under his gifted leadership, prosperity would return and be more fairly distributed, the city’s reputation with its neighbors would be restored, the merchants who brought the city to the brink of ruin would be tightly restrained and the poor would be lifted up.  However, after he was sworn into office, he borrowed huge sums of money to give to his friends and charged it to the city’s account, then kept doing so until the city’s credit rating suffered.  Now, as the city faces bankruptcy, he proposes more borrowing, more spending and heavier taxes on the city’s more prosperous citizens even though they already carry 70% of the burden; he castigates the merchants large and small in every speech at the same time he pleads for their support.  He insulted the city’s oldest and closest ally, failed in his negotiations with the city’s rivals and when faced with thorny problems his lofty intellect would seem well-disposed to handle, he hesitates, twisted with indecision, preferring to let others take the lead and the risk.  As the election draws near and his support withers, he curries favor with liberal women, spendthrift college students, people living and working in the city illegally, pensioners and his favored class, the poor, inflaming passions against the prosperous class and his opponent in an attempt to distract them from his dismal record.  And most pathetic, he continues to blame the city’s problems on his predecessor when that man has been three years retired from office.

Romneyopolis or Obamaville: Where would you rather live?

It's Been a Hell of a Last Ten Days

Wednesday, 15 August 2012:  Floyd Corkins walks into the headquarters of the Family Research Council in Washington.  Corkins, who had been working at the DC Center for the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community, is carrying a semiautomatic pistol, fifty rounds of ammunition and fifteen Chick-Fil-A sandwiches.  Without warning, he shoots a security guard in the arm as he tries to enter the premises and is then wrestled to the ground, shouting, “I don’t like your politics.”  While the guard, Leonardo Johnson, is hailed as a hero for preventing a massacre, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which labeled the Family Research Council a “hate group” in 2010 for its opposition to gay marriage and abortion, vigorously denies that its rhetoric encouraged Corkins to take such violent action.

Tuesday, 14 August 2012:  Speaking at a rally in Danville, Virginia, that included hundreds of African-Americans, Vice-President Joe Biden remarks that Mitt Romney wants to get rid of new Wall Street regulations Priest-King signed into law after the 2008 financial collapse. "Unchain Wall Street," Biden says mockingly, then follows up with, "They're going to put y'all back in chains," in a faux Southern accent.  The facts that Danville was the last capital of the Confederacy and that he just made a blatantly offensive reference to slavery seem lost on him.

Tuesday, 07 August 2012:  Priorities USA, a pro-Obama PAC, releases an attack ad featuring Joe Soptic, a worker laid-off at GST Steel, one of the companies that Bain Capital bought and reorganized.  In the ad, Soptic blames the death of his wife, who had been diagnosed with cancer, on the loss of his job and his health benefits and on Mitt Romney for closing the plant, essentially saying, “Mitt Romney killed my wife.”

The Obama campaign and the Left in general are coming unglued.  The closer they get to losing their grip on power, the more desperate, the more frantic their tactics become.  My wife and I went to Manassas last Saturday the 11th to see Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, whom Romney had introduced as his Vice-Presidential running mate only hours before at an event in Norfolk.  The crowd was electrified and Paul Ryan is absolutely fantastic, and I think the reality that Priest-King and his allies are being forced to confront the issues and actually have a debate is driving them insane.  Take the Joe Soptic ad.  First of all, companies fail all the time, people lose their jobs all the time, but the Left thinks that is simply unfair.  Companies should never fail and people should never lose their jobs, unless they’re Republicans, in which case, shut ‘em all down and let ‘em starve.  Mitt Romney left Bain Capital in 1999, two years before Bain bought GST Steel and reorganized it under bankruptcy, and it’s interesting to note that a) GST Steel’s bankruptcy was brought on by lavish union benefits that the company couldn’t sustain, the cost of which were passed on to the U.S. taxpayers;  b) Mr. Soptic refused a buyout from Bain Capital in 2001, then declined health coverage for his wife when he took a job as a school custodian after GST Steel closed; and c) Renae Soptic wasn’t diagnosed with cancer until 2006, when she was hospitalized for pneumonia and unfortunately passed away two weeks later.  So to tie it all together, Mr. Soptic blames Mitt Romney for his wife’s death when Romney didn’t run Bain Capital, for a cancer she didn’t have until five years later, and when he had at least two opportunities to help her.  With all due respect to the late Mrs. Soptic, her husband is a dumbass and the ad is a despicable piece of garbage.

Then we have Joe Biden.  Simply put, the man is a dolt.  What kind of knucklehead says something like, "They're going to put y'all back in chains," to a heavily black audience, in a fake Southern drawl?  What kind of jackass says something like that?  Nobody says that. If I said something like that, or Rush Limbaugh, or Sean Hannity, or any conservative you care to name, I’d be hanged and burned in effigy, peasants chasing me with pitchforks, and I’d have it coming.  Joe Biden says crude and stupid things because he’s a crude and stupid man.  He's a laughingstock, he's an embarrassment to his office and the sooner we get rid of that foolish old idiot, the better off we’ll be.

In Matthew 24:10, Jesus is sitting on the Mount of Olives with His disciples talking about the latter days and tells us, “And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and hate one another.”  The Left takes offense at everything but especially at conservatives’ opposition to homosexual marriage, so it was just a matter of time before some Left-wing, gay-loving Christian-hater grabbed a gun.  It’s only logical: The Left demonizes conservative Christians relentlessly, pouring gasoline on the fire such that people on the ragged edge of sanity choose violence.  Praise God that Leonardo Johnson stood firm and prevented a bloodbath, but this incident is one more piece of evidence for my thesis – Priest-King is clawing at the air and on 06 November, will have a sudden stop.

http://faustasblog.com/2012/08/the-anti-romney-cancer-ad-steelworker-turned-down-coverage-and-a-buyout/

They Hate You

Friday, 08 June 2012, The White House

Priest-King: “The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local governments.”

Sunday, 13 July 2012, Roanoke, Virginia

Priest-King: “If you’ve got a business – you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen…Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”

Wednesday, 21 September 2011, Andover, Massachusetts

Elizabeth Warren: “I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own – nobody…Now look, you built a factory and turned it into something terrific, or a great idea – God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”

Thursday, 18 September 2008, ABC’s Good Morning America

The Boob: “It’s time to be patriotic. Time to jump in, time to be part of the deal, time to help get America out of the rut.  And the way to do that is – they’re still going to be paying less taxes than they did under Reagan.”

Where do you start? With so much inane blather to choose from, how do you begin to address it? Like the unfortunate worker at a waste management plant sorting through the garbage for recyclables, we have to rummage through a pile of smelly refuse to find something we can use.

The overarching theme running through these foolish remarks – maybe we’ll start at the top and work our way down – is a seething resentment at the concept of individualism. Personal drive and commitment, motivation, sacrifice, risk-taking and keeping the rewards of those risks are bitterly despised but only for some people and not for all, since Steve Jobs, Warren Buffett, George Soros, Ted Turner, Michael Bloomberg, the Clintons and the Kennedys and the Obamas can make and keep as much of their fortunes as they like with perfect impunity because they’re liberal.  A conservative entrepreneur who wants to keep what he’s earned, who distrusts government bureaucrats and politicians to make good decisions with his tax dollars, who believes government should be restricted to its core functions and live within its means will face the brunt of liberal fury.  “How dare you think you succeeded on your own? How dare you deny that government is the engine of your prosperity? How dare you deprive your neighbors, who are just as smart and who work just as hard as you, of their just portion of your profits, you greedy, selfish right-wing bastard?” Or sentiments to that effect. There is a righteous indignation in Priest-King’s voice and Elizabeth Warren’s, though not so much in Joe Biden’s – I compare him to a North Korean propaganda poster, something too ridiculous to be taken seriously.  They fume at the notion that their model of prosperity (success is only possible as part of a group, regulated and controlled by a liberal-dominated government that manages everything, favors some people over others and that bestows some rights and withholds others) is not universally shared. They viciously attack individualism, they see it as a threat and a betrayal and try to crush it, try to stamp out the drive to excel because if some people cannot or choose not to achieve excellence, then no-one can.

A patriotic duty to pay higher taxes to a government $15 trillion in debt that is hopelessly inept at managing money is a patently stupid assertion, as is to assert that people get rich because of public roads.  Consider that according to the Small Business Administration, 565,000 new businesses are started in the United States every month and 90% of those businesses will fail within the first year.  Consider also that the top ten percent of wage earners paid 71% of all Federal income taxes in 2009, compared to the bottom fifty percent of wage earners who paid only 2%, such that if someone starts a business and succeeds against the odds, they will pay a heavy price for their success, their hard work and intelligence will be scorned and insulted by their elected leaders who will then demand even higher taxes from them, to be distributed as the politicians see fit.  Given such a hostile environment, it’s a wonder that anyone would open a business these days and clearly such hostility from the Left is hurting our economy.

“…paying less taxes than they did under Reagan.” When Ronald Reagan signed the 1986 Tax Reform Act, the top individual rate was lowered from 50% to 28%.  The rate has since risen to 35% and Priest-King wants to raise it to 39%, and double the capital gains tax rate from 15% to 30%.  Besides the punitive effects of raising taxes in a sluggish economy, Biden’s statement underscores for the umpteenth time that we have a total nincompoop for a Vice President.  Thirty-nine is more than 28 and thirty is more than fifteen and to state otherwise is to display an intellectual vacancy that insults us and his office. The people of Delaware owe the rest of us an apology.

Similarly, to deny the reality of class warfare and then wage it furiously is just dishonest.  Elizabeth Warren’s audience may have been brainwashed with Leftist dogma such that they didn’t notice or care what she said, but some of us listen carefully and can reason for ourselves.  How much is “a big hunk” and who gets to decide what we keep and what we must give up?  No, Cherokee squaw speak heap-big nonsense.

The Internet was developed for national security purposes and was the result of a wide-ranging effort that included not only government agencies like NASA and the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) but MIT, UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, the University of Utah and other university researchers.  It was not created by the Federal government solely and Priest-King knows that, but his instinct to take credit for the Federal government for everything blurs his judgment and drives him forward, and for us, it gives us insight into what he really thinks.  This man (and dopes like Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden) wants government to dominate our lives and that is absolutely antithetical to the Constitution and the intent of the men who wrote it.  He holds you in contempt, my friends, and frankly, I return the favor. His concern is not with the millions he’s thrown out of work but with the governments we support with his heavy taxes.  My fellow citizens, it’s time to rekindle hope and change and that means throwing this bum out in November, and all his sorry crew.

The Statesman

He was punked by Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas.

The Chinese refused to support tougher sanctions against Iran and Syria and refused to allow greater Internet access and freedom of expression for their citizens.  They also undertook aggressive action to control the oil-rich Spratly Islands while we failed to support Japan and the Philippines, two key allies in his new Pacific strategy.

The Russians also refused to support stricter sanctions against Iran and Syria and insisted on the removal of missile defense radars in Poland and the Czech Republic, to which he readily agreed, exposing our NATO allies to political criticism and the very Russian missiles the radars were intended to deter.  He followed that up by confiding to then-President Medvedev (publicly, as it turned out) that he would be “more flexible” concerning nuclear arms cuts after the November election, confirming that he assumes an attitude of submissive inferiority to the Russians.

His overture to Iran “without preconditions” was a failure.  Iran not only refused to stop its nuclear program but increased the number of gas centrifuges required to enrich uranium to weapons grade.  Now Iran threatens to close the Strait of Hormuz in the face of international sanctions and he says nothing.

He refused to support the pro-democracy demonstrators in Teheran in 2009 when strong U.S. involvement could have led to the regime change he says he wants.  He was confused by the Arab spring of 2011, paralyzed with indecision by the choice in front of him: Do I support the demonstrators who are chanting for democracy but who are led by jihadists or do I stand with the Arab strongmen who jail and torture their political opponents?  Unable to answer his own question, he did and said nothing until France took the lead in bombing Libya and he suddenly found his courage, then lost it again when faced with Bashar Assad.

His answer to the financial crisis that threatens to bankrupt Europe is to raise taxes and spending in America.

He leaked national security information to the press (the double agent in Yemen, the Flame virus that has infected and disabled much of Iran’s information systems, the extent of the Predator strike program) in an attempt to raise his foreign policy prestige in an election year.

His answer to the bloodbath in Mexico was to allow Mexican drug traffickers to buy more American guns.

After his inauguration, he cancelled a joint press conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, presented him and his family with cheap gifts and removed a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office.  He also criticized British colonial policy in Kenya (his grandfather was arrested during the Mau Mau uprising in 1953) and endorsed negotiations over the Falkland Islands which the British consider sovereign territory and over which they fought Argentina in 1982.  He then invited British Prime Minister David Cameron to a State Dinner at the White House when it was politically expedient.

He took eight months to approve a troop surge in Afghanistan, “the war we have to win” in his parlance, then sent fewer than were requested, then announced that we would retreat.

At a time when China and Russia are pursuing aggressive policies, when a war between Israel and Iran seems imminent and when we are still faced with global Islamic terror, he cuts the Defense Department by $500 billion.

He promised to close the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay and signed an Executive Order to that effect, then reneged.

His foreign policy is marked not by the bumbling naiveté of Jimmy Carter but by the tense frustration of an Ivy League professor whose meticulous theories begin to fail when put into practice, then consistently fail, then fail utterly; like an aficionado of chess who has studied the game for decades, studied and memorized the strategies of the great masters of the past and is sure he can beat any player in the world, but when playing the game for real, finds himself trapped and stares at the board unblinkingly, frozen by the certainty of defeat.  All his supposed brilliance and eloquence, all his gifts for diplomacy and nuance, his magnetic personality, have slammed into reality and fallen lifeless to the ground, and we are left to wonder, “Is this the best you got?”  America, the world’s lone superpower and the undisputed leader of the Free World for seventy years, is itself leaderless, a papier mache figure set in the White House for display, inanimate, idle, obsolete.  But can we do better than a well-dressed mannequin?  Can we regain the respect of our allies and enemies alike?  Can we demonstrate the firm resolve and powerful action that is our hallmark?  Yes, of course we can, if we simply put our minds to it.  Barack Obama has failed: It is time for him to step aside and let a steadier hand take the wheel.

Equality of Results

A trend has developed in recent years to award every participant in junior sports a trophy or ribbon regardless of their actual performance, the logic being that children’s self-esteem is fragile and must be protected from the ignominy of failure.  If little Johnny reports for every practice and every game with his uniform clean and pressed yet consistently strikes out, muffs ground balls and falls asleep in the outfield, he nonetheless receives a small trophy at the end of the season (to no small delight of his parents) because it is Johnny’s intentions that matter, not his performance, and because the adults want to shield him from the stigma of losing.  This practice, however well-intentioned, nonetheless defies reality and beyond that, creates a sense of entitlement in the little tykes that they will carry forward into later life.  They will expect to be rewarded no matter what they do and to receive the benefits of success without the sacrifice required to succeed, and when they are eventually disabused of such an expectation, they will be angry, bitter and resentful.  They may even turn violent, not at the deception to which they were victim but at the person, agency or government that refuses to play along because the addict doesn’t resent the drug that is ruining his life but the police who stop him from obtaining it.

This scenario is playing out in Greece, in Wisconsin and in the Occupy movement worldwide with thousands of angry, bitter and resentful people who have been promised lavish government benefits rioting in the streets, raging against the notion that the money has run out.  The governments of France and Greece have recently been turned out by these people, punished for daring to control the entitlements they crave and replaced by old-fashioned socialists who love spending money they do not have on programs they cannot afford.  This is the sad consequence of the Left’s overarching goal, equality of results for every human being and it is of course completely avoidable.

If little Johnny only gave it some thought (and the adults who inculcate his expectations), failure and success are inescapable realities of life.  Johnny’s favorite player, however talented and famous he may be, still commits errors in the field, gets caught stealing, strikes out with men on base and will never hit safely in even half his turns at-bat.  Johnny’s favorite team does not win every championship or even every game and Johnny would scoff at the suggestion they should be rewarded for losing.  Generals who lose battles receive no medals and defeated armies are not treated to ticker-tape parades.  Human beings naturally admire and reward success in whatever enterprise interests them, yet liberalism finds such instinct snobbish and elitist, stewing indignantly at the idea that the benefits of success should be reserved for those who actually earn them, as if winning itself were abhorrent.  Plaudits and perks should be distributed equally, liberals demand, because winners aren’t better than losers.  Of course, they demonstrably are, but liberals seek to right what they see is an outrageous wrong throughout human society.  To them, everyone must have the same amount and quality of education (busing, the subsidization of poorer districts by wealthier ones, grade inflation), the same model of automobile (Chevy Volts for everyone!), cell phone, iPad, washing machine and the same type of home to put it all in, the same quality of health care and retirement fund and the same income level and if the elitist “winners” balk at sharing their wealth to make all this happen, then the liberals just take it from them.  This is the approach that Europe has taken and it has led them to the edge of economic disaster, and as Europe strains against bankruptcy on a continental scale, Priest-King watches from across the Atlantic and blithely insists that it cannot happen here, though he undertook the same approach (and achieved the same results). 

Life isn’t fair but it is also predictable.  If a person undertakes a huge risk and succeeds, then that person reaps huge rewards.  If a person abhors risk, then that person reaps much smaller rewards.  Priest-King’s constituents squatting in Wall Street and elsewhere want to invert that function and reap huge rewards while accepting no risk, for instance, demanding that banks simply forgive their student loans after their college education is complete, thereby attaining the same station as someone who paid as they went.  This is the essence of Priest-King’s philosophy, that others should be forced to pay for his dreams and should be punished for outdistancing him, as if he were cheated, an odd position for someone who enjoyed the benefits of an Ivy League education and preferential treatment, and it is ridiculous.  America is great because everyone has the opportunity to go as far as their ability will take them, and trying to replace equal opportunity with equal results is doomed to fail.