Can We Please Start Letting Crises Go To Waste Again?

Will Wilkerson longs for the good old days when a crisis was just something to solve, not an excuse for another trillion dollar government enterprise.  He's really down on Former President Bush, but I agree with his larger point, which could simply be put as "Enough Already!"

The Aughts began in crisis when the second plane hit the second tower on Sept. 11, 2001.

The Bush administration, loath to let a serious crisis go to waste, managed to parlay the nation's alarm and credulity into an ill-conceived invasion of an entirely unrelated country, wasting over a trillion dollars and many tens of thousands of lives, all while losing control of the fight in Afghanistan and failing utterly to bring down Osama bin Laden.  (The Week - Will Wilkerson)

He accuses Obama of the same crime:

Bush's botched attempts to capitalize on crisis—the ugly aftermath to which Obama is heir—might have made an alert leader wary. But instead, Obama set up shop in the Oval Office and proceeded immediately to use crisis as (Emanuel's words again) "an opportunity to do things you'd think you could not do."  

Similarly, the Obama administration could have focused narrowly on getting the economy back on its feet, on getting the unemployed back to work, but it didn’t. Instead, it has followed Bush’s lead, pushing its most ardently desired policies through the window of crisis. A prolonged economic quagmire may be our reward.

A "Marriage of Incompetence and Craven Opportunism"

This marriage of incompetence and craven opportunism is so much in the familiar spirit of the age that one must conclude that the age itself remains unchanged.

Independents Turn Right

Liberals forever strive and strain towards the collective, and independents are abandoning them in droves

The very rich and the very poor vote for ever more taxes and collectivist government programs. The middle class largely rejects them. Why?

Dennis Prager observed that the poor vote liberal because it costs them nothing. It's free stuff. The rich do it perhaps out of some misplaced guilt or to "give something back," whatever that means.

The Rich Can Afford Liberalism

Anyway, the rich have investment strategies to protect their wealth from a rapacious government, and they have enough money to wall themselves off from the social dysfunction, crime and chaos their liberalism creates.

When a tea partier protests taxes or big government programs, liberals are quick to shout "hypocrite!" because we are the beneficiaries of public libraries, police and the fire department, not to mention a national grid of roadways and utilities.

I love my local library, and I enjoy the thought of my tax money paying police officers to drag the dirtbags off to jail. We're well armed at our house, but a little backup is always a good thing.

Call them collectivist if you want, but these are proper functions of government, and conservatives don't mind paying for them.

Liberal Rodents Have Infested Our Homes

Liberals used to complain about government being "in the bedroom," during those right wing Christian Reagan years. Well, now Pelosi, Barney Frank and an inept army of federal bureaucrats are in every room of the house, regulating everything from light bulbs to flush toilets. They've invaded our neighborhoods, buying off our governors and mayors, and people don't like it.

These Gallup Survey results confirm what the recent elections told us. Independents are swinging conservative, big time:

Source:  www.Gallup.com

Suckling at Big Brother's Ample Teats

Our slide to Socialism seems to have taken another lurch downward. Who would have believed that out of every six dollars Americans make, one dollar is straight from the government?

According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, government handouts increased from a low in the early '50s of 4% to over 16% today. In total, we are looking at 2 trillion dollars a year going to the "Great Society" - an average of $17,000 per family.

I remember growing up poor on a Wisconsin farm. While most of our liberal neighbors were happy to get their literal government cheese, my stepfather refused; it was a point of honor not to plant your face in Big Brother's bosom and suckle like a child.

I believe at the heart of this is a lack of honesty in the American character. It's all right to steal, apparently, when the government does the thieving for you. I thought it was a crime to receive stolen goods?

The LA Times ran an article recently about how people are using their unemployment to catch up on leisure activities - the new word is FUNemployment. What ever happened to hitting the pavement, handing out resumes, and getting an honest job? What ever happened to personal responsibility?

I have to confess, my faith in the American people is wavering. I am solidly in the Thomas Jefferson / Ronald Reagan camp where the whole of the people, moral and religious, are an anchor to our Republic. I'm tempted to think we are losing our Republic and we only need to look in the mirror to see the culprits.

A question I pose to you is this: if massive inflation or even hyperinflation arises, will these millions on the dole continue "funemployment" activities, or throw an adult temper tantrum? One liberal throwing a tantrum is bad enough, but when you have millions it becomes an historic event. Bear in mind with hyperinflation, that block of government cheese shrinks to microscopic size - and the government won't be able to increase benefits to keep up with skyrocketing inflation.

To those adults who continue to think as children, Big Brother has a chestful of teats to suckle from; to those who resist paying for this outrage, Big Bro also has sharp teeth.

The above graphic is a boobgoblin from South Park, and not to be confused with Janet Napolitano.

- Hugh Farnham