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Doug Smith: A “Better Deal” with whom?

26 Jul

doug-for-fsp

Doug Smith:  Free State Patriot history and society editor

July 26, 2017

 

 

So, the Democrats, party of the New Deal, The Great Society, All this and World War, too, have decided to solve their problem (nobody votes for them anymore) with a “Better Deal”.

Hmm. Really?

Well, I have not written a book about deals, nor have a stayed in a Holiday Inn Express recently, but I have made and observed a few deals in the past 60 years and offer some observations and lessons learned.

  1. Who you make a deal with matters. I have made business deals with people I had reason to mistrust, but a desire to trust; an alcoholic, a thief, a chronic liar. (not all the same person!) Those deals have, predictably, gone south.
  2. Examine your motivation. I made those bad deals because they promised a lot that I wanted. I wanted those things badly, for reasons of my own, but they were a little too good to be true. In perfect hindsight, I should have passed.
  3. If a deal sounds too good to be true, it most likely is. Trust your gut.
  4. Deals offered by Democrats have a poor track record. (The 7 years of broken promises by my own party, the GOP, is a subject for another time.)Wilson ran on a strong anti-war platform: “Too Proud to Fight. “, “He Kept us out of the War” (WW1, if you were wondering.)  He was inaugurated Jan, 100 years ago, for his second term. And in April, he went to Congress to launch the US into WW1.

    Reagan made a deal with the Democrats in 1983 for $ 1 of tax increases for every $ 3 in spending reductions. So, the Dems promised, and sent him a budget including the tax increases, which he signed. Reagan noted in his memoirs, and I note now, 34 years later, that we are still waiting for any Democrats, anywhere, at any time, to ever reduce spending on anything.

    Bush 41 made a deal with Ted Kennedy that he, Bush, would break his “Read my Lips, No New Taxes” pledge, in exchange for which Democrats would lower spending a commensurate amount. (Note that at that time, they still had not come through on those promised to Reagan, Bush’s predecessor.)  As noted, we are still waiting on those spending decreases.

    Since I have written at length about it, I won’t belabor the point too much, but Barack Obama s shovel ready jobs, which he laughed off, are still not done or filled, the 2500 a year savings never happened, we cannot keep our Doctors or plans, and whatever else it may have done, the “Affordable Care Act did not make Health Care either more affordable, or more available. Indeed, it had nothing whatsoever to do with “Care” but a great deal to do with “Insurance. “(Also, worth noting that the Insurance companies heartily signed on to a deal with a Dem that promised to assure them that 350 million people, under force of law, would be customers. And how did that work out for them?)

  5. Which brings us to a lesson learned by observations: if you make a deal with someone who does not keep their word with others, don’t expect them to keep their deal with you.
  6. Deals made with other people’s money are easy for the deal maker, (the Dems), enticing for the beneficiaries (their voters), brutal for the people whose money they spend (Me. You, if you pay taxes.) and once again, too good to be true. (See 3, above. See also Detroit, Illinois, black youth unemployment, minimum wage workers in Seattle.
  7. There is no real wealth, other than the fruits of labor. That is what we work and do. We assign an arbitrary value to gold and diamonds, yet if I were to lock you in a room with all the gold and diamonds you wanted, and nothing else, you would starve. You could not build a car with it, except if you used it to build a factory, buy raw materials, and hire workers. The Gross Domestic Product, the yardstick of the wealth of a nation, is not about the number of zeros at the Federal Reserve, (on the ledger, not the people. Yea, I know, cheap shot.) It is about the goods and services we produce, and the value that potential buyers assign to them, and are willing to pay, in their own valuta, time, or work to obtain them.Only in the Garden of Eden was all that a man and woman needed available to reach out and take. Only in the Garden of Eden was sex available, commanded, and totally without consequence, all the time. Only in the Garden of Eden was there no need to work, and produce.

There, and in the yearning for that which was lost, which comes to be expressed in the Utopian fantasies from Plato to Marx to Wilson to Obama.  And time and again, throughout history, there have been those who try to overturn the natural order, and operate on Eden Standard Time, the way we wish things were, instead of the way they are.  Every attempt has been met with failure, and disaster, and misery.

So, the Democrats’ promises are based on the Utopian ideal: we can replant the abundance of Eden and make it grow, we can go back to how it was, and make it happen again, just put us in charge.

And they reject the promises attached to the Eden story, because they contain unpleasant realities they wish to reject: By the sweat of your brow will you eat bread, until you return to the dust, for of dust you were made, and to dust you shall return.

To accept that means to accept that men will not be perfect, that we are subject to a higher power, and that we must obey certain rules.  Progressives, notably Democrats, do not want any rules but their own, and certainly not those rules.

But that pronouncement is not all bad. You Shall eat bread, by the sweat of your brow.  Not such a terrible thing. You no longer get the Eden deal, because you broke that one. But you do get this one: You won’t go hungry, but you must work for it now. But the Democrats keep trying to establish the Eden Deal, and, failing the power to do so, find it to fail over and over.

Tragically, the lesson they learn is not that it won’t work, which is has not for millennia. No, they come away saying, if we do the same thing over and over, we will eventually get a different result.

Einstein called that insanity.  So, it is. And so, is making a deal with the Democrats, whether you are a President or a voter.

 

 

 

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Doug Smith: Pity the Liberal

14 Sep

doug smith

Doug Smith is an author, historian and regular contributor to Free State Patriot.

9.14.15

Pity the modern liberal. He, no, sorry, she, no wait we can’t use gender centric language. Well, She-it. Ok, She-It has to defend some pretty difficult positions.

To be a Liberal Democrat (henceforth LD), you must argue your Bills carefully. Clinton’s abusive treatment of women is excused, and he is an advocate of women’s rights because he “feels their pain” (and supports abortion.) Cosby’s behaviors toward women are not excused, because his positions are at odds with the Liberal dogma.

bill cosby bill clinton

But pity the poor liberal, who must defend Willy and condemn Cos for the same moral failings. While we are at it, we must accept Hillary as an advocate for women, despite paying women on her staff less than men, and acting as the attack dog on women who were objects of Bill’s predilections. All for the good of the cause. Pepto Bismol, anyone?

The LD must defend Planned Parenthood, because it is the sacrament of the religion of liberalism. Sheit must defend it as a “Women’s Health” organization helping with Breast Cancer, ignoring that is does no such thing, and attacks another organization which does so for withholding money. Extortion, anyone? Vito Corleone would be proud. LD s must defend PP for “keeping women out of back alleys, and in the hands of butchers, while ignoring and defending unsafe clinics and abortionists who do indeed, even in the 21st Century of Roe V Wade, maim and kill women with impunity. No criticism or attack can be tolerated. Hence, the LD has to somehow defend an abortionist cutting through the face of a living baby to remove his brain. He is, apparently, a blob of tissue, until he can be enrolled in a LD approved, state sponsored Head Start program. Wow. Pepto?

planned parenthood 2 planned parenthood

The LD must turn hits (in Appalachia that is proper grammar. For the gender confused LD it is an amalgam of his her its, and one more reason to reach for the Pepto) logic inside out to insist that Obamacare, which is on the approved list, is the “law of the Land” and must be obey, nay, praised, Nay Worshipped!, but yet Barack Obama can unlawfully alter it dozens of times, fail to implement troublesome parts, and that is an acceptable heresy.

The LD must revere, rightly so, the work and dream of Martin Luther King, yet at the same time eschew criticism of Barack Obama’s failings, and his reversals of the gains won by MLK based not on the content of his character, but on the color of his skin. For no criticism of Obama is accepted and debated, rather, the critic is loudly labeled a racist for his disagreements. Pity the LD, and pass hit the Pepto. MLK must come to Sheit in hits dreams and thunder “Were you not listening?”

Pity the LD, who, supporting the law, turns on law enforcement; who, supporting black lives, must be blind to hundreds killed the right way; who, ( oh my poor aching belly, ) must condemn every shot fired at a black criminal, and, by silence, condone every killing by a black criminal, whether of a white or ( most frequently,) another black. Sheit must condemn blacks who say “We have got to stop killing each other”, and put the blame on, who? Sheit must check with Josh Earnest to see who is at fault this week for the 2000 shootings and 350 murders so far this year in Chicago. Sheit must suspend common sense, and the evidence of hits eyes. Pepto?

mike brown 2 mike brown

The LD must be ok with the lawlessness of ignoring property rights, and rewarding the UAW over bondholders in GM, by Obama, not by, as 100 years of precedent dictates, by a judge, and publicly deriding investors who protest getting pennies on the dollar as greedy, while rewarding the greed of UAW contracts with a company in default. Sheit must be ok with suspending the law, and committing robbery on private individuals, to reward the friends of a corrupt politician. It’s the pink bottle, right there in the front of the fridge.

false 3 false 2

In short, Sheit must be ok with suspending common sense and the law when it serves “the greater purpose.”

Yet, there is a problem with that suspension of conscience. As Robert Bolt has Sir Thomas More state it in “A Man for All Seasons”,

“And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you—where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast—man’s laws, not God’s—and if you cut them down—and you’re just the man to do it—do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?    Yes, I give the Devil benefit of law for my own safety’s sake. “

progressives

And there is, perhaps, the crux of the problem. The LD sees the law as a hindrance to do what Sheit wishes, instead of the protection against the worst urges and greed of barbarians, bandits, and tyrants.

And it is not working for her. Him. It.

Well, Sheit! Pepto?

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Big review set by Democrats after election losses

9 Nov
dws2

By KEN THOMAS Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats are planning an extensive review of what went wrong in the 2014 and 2010 elections, hoping to find ways to translate success in presidential campaigns into future midterm contests.

A party committee will conduct a “top-to-bottom assessment” of the Democrats’ performance in recent midterm elections and try to determine why they have struggled to turn out its core voters in nonpresidential elections.

“It’s apparent that there are increasingly two separate electorates: a midterm electorate and a presidential electorate. We win one and we don’t seem to be able to win the other,” said Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who leads the Democratic National Committee, in an interview Saturday. “That is a fundamental dynamic that we have to change.”

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Democrats suffered heavy losses in last week’s elections, ceding Senate control to the Republicans and surrendering more seats in the already GOP-majority House as Republicans ran against an unpopular President Barack Obama.

Republicans picked up governor’s offices in a number of Democratic-leaning states like Massachusetts, Maryland and Illinois and strengthened their grip on state legislatures.

Democrats have been successful in turning out an Obama-led coalition of minorities, women and young voters in presidential elections, but have struggled in midterm races when turnout is lower and the electorate tends to be older and whiter, favoring Republicans.

Wasserman Schultz said the new committee, whose membership will be announced in the coming weeks, will look at the party’s tactics, messaging, get-out-the-vote operations and digital efforts in recent nonpresidential elections. The group plans to report back in February at the DNC’s winter meeting.

Republican National Committee spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said last week’s elections underscored GOP momentum.

“When Republicans came to the table and played their game, they lost and that’s a problem,” Kukowski said. “We have said from the beginning that Obama 2012 wasn’t the standard for us. The midterms showed that and we are going to keep building on our successes.”

The DNC’s postelection review has parallels to a postmortem that Republicans conducted after Mitt Romney was defeated by Obama in the 2012 presidential election.

The report urged Republicans to shift its focus to year-round, on-the-ground political organizing in the states and recommended that the GOP embrace a comprehensive immigration overhaul. That recommendation quickly hit resistance from congressional Republicans who rely on primary voters who oppose creating a path to citizenship for immigrants living illegally in the U.S.

“Our party has a problem,” Wasserman Schultz said in a video announcing the project. “We know we’re right on the issues. The American people believe in the causes we’re fighting for. But the electoral success we have when our presidential nominee is able to make a case to the country as a whole, doesn’t translate in other elections. That’s why we lost in 2010, and it’s why we lost on Tuesday.”

Wasserman Schultz said she discussed the need for a review with Obama on election night and both agreed on the need to move forward. She also spoke about her plans Saturday with Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California and Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the party’s leaders in Congress.

“We need to understand everything that went wrong so that we can address all the potential problems and prepare for future elections,” she said.

—dws3

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Trouble Looms for Obama, Democrats with Election Day 2014 Approaching

15 Oct

three amigos

By Gary Langer

Oct 15, 2014 7:01am

(Evan Vucci/AP Photo | Danny Johnston/AP Photo | Melinda Deslatte/AP Photo)

Barack Obama and his political party are heading into the midterm elections in trouble. The president’s 40 percent job approval rating in a new ABC News/Washington Post poll is the lowest of his career – and the Democratic Party’s popularity is its weakest in polling back 30 years, with more than half of Americans seeing the party unfavorably for the first time.

The Republican Party is even more unpopular. But benefitting from their supporters’ greater likelihood of voting, GOP candidates nonetheless hold a 50-43 percent lead among likely voters for U.S. House seats in the Nov. 4 election.

See PDF with full results, charts and tables here.

These and other results are informed by an array of public concerns on issues from the economy to international terrorism to the Ebola virus, crashing into a long-running crisis of confidence in the nation’s political leadership. Almost two-thirds say the country is headed seriously off on the wrong track. Even more, three-quarters, are dissatisfied with the way the political system is working.

Scorn is widely cast: Among those who are dissatisfied with the political system, two-thirds say both sides are equally to blame, with the rest dividing evenly between Obama and his party, vs. the Republicans in Congress, as the chief culprits. But as a nearly six-year incumbent president, Obama – and by extension his party – are most at risk.

pelosi, obama, reid

Beyond his overall rating, Obama is at career lows in approval for his handling of immigration, international affairs and terrorism (long his best issue) in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. Approval of his handling of the conflict with Islamic State insurgents in Iraq and Syria has plummeted by percentage 15 points in the last two weeks, amid questions about the progress of the air campaign now under way.

Further, while Obama’s negative rating on handling the economy has eased, more Americans say they’ve gotten worse off rather than better off under his presidency; the plurality is “about the same” financially, for most not a happy outcome. Even with the recovery to date, 77 percent are worried about the economy’s future, and 57 percent say the country has been experiencing a long-term decline in living standards – all grim assessments as Election Day looms.

economy chart

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These days, Democrats aren’t talking much about Obama in congressional speeches.

20 Sep

Washington Post

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File: Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) (center) and other Democrats including Rep. George Miller D-CA (at right with hands to his mouth) react as President Obama delivers his State of the Union address to a Joint Session of Congress on Capitol Hill on Jan. 27, 2010 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

When President Obama took office in 2009, congressional Democrats were euphoric. With control of the House, Senate and the White House, and high public approval for their new party standard bearer, Democrats eagerly embraced Obama and all the long-awaited policy initiatives he’d surely help them achieve.

In that first month, congressional Democrats mentioned Obama during floor speeches 200 or so more times than Republicans. In the next year and a half, the parties referred to the president at similar rates, sometimes with the Republicans having more to say, other times the Democrats.

One can reasonably assume that when the Democrats speak of the president publicly it’s in a favorable way and when Republicans do it’s, well, not quite as glowing. As positive public opinion of Obama began to dip after his first year, the spread between how often Republicans and the Democrats invoked Obama grew wider. Put simply, the Democrats weren’t mentioning Obama by name nearly as much as Republicans.

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The gap is particularly notable in the last year as seen in the chart above by the Sunlight Foundation, which measures how often any given word is spoken against all words in floor speeches and debates collected by the Congressional Record. Last fall, at the height of the government shutdown and the Obamacare rollout, Republicans were predictably discussing (bashing) Obama more.

But the trend has continued.

Much has been written this election cycle about the Democrats distancing themselves from Obama ahead of the midterm elections. Some Democratic candidates in tough races regularly emphasize their differences with the president. And Obama is persona non grata on the campaign trail (unless it’s inside private high-dollar fundraiser dinners).

If the number of times they bring him up in front of the C-SPAN cameras is a measure, the Democrats detachment from the president is even evident on Capitol Hill – where every spoken word is recorded forever, so it’s especially crucial to choose them carefully.

As my grandmother always said, “You can’t take back the spoken word.”

She also often said, “If you can’t say anything, nice don’t say anything at all.” And perhaps Democrats simply don’t have very many nice things to say.

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Mark Caserta: Have Republicans again abandoned abortion message?

24 Apr

abortionApr. 24, 2014 @ 12:00 AM

It appears that once again, abortion may be missing from the national debate in an election year. And Christian conservatives have a legitimate question for GOP candidates:

Will you continue to refuse to make the issue of life or death for the most vulnerable among us table stakes for your candidacy simply for fear of alienating voters?

Please understand that while Article VI of the Constitution clearly states there shall be “no religious test” qualifying a Congressional candidate for office, this does not exempt you from certain “qualifications in principle” that Christian conservatives will refuse to compromise in November — and abortion is one of them.

And burying your pro-life position deep in your on-line profile isn’t bringing the topic to the table for discussion. It’s unacceptable that progressives have been allowed to move the standard far beyond the provisions of Roe v. Wade.

In a 7-2 opinion, the court ruled that a right to privacy under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees a woman’s right to an abortion. The due process clause protects a broad right to privacy that is also found in the Ninth Amendment and the penumbras of the Bill of Rights. This “substantive due process” right to privacy permits a woman to terminate her pregnancy for any reason during the first trimester. However, subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester (about 3 months) the state may reasonably regulate abortions in ways related to maternal health.

Our nation has dreadfully exceeded the parameters set by the Supreme Court of the United States. In fact, according to a recent report from the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the United States has one of the most permissive abortion policies in the world (7 out of 198 countries) and is one of seven countries in which late-term abortions after 20 weeks (about 5 months) are allowed.

Sadly, many studies have shown that by this stage of development, a child is capable of feeling pain and women are at a greater health risk.

Often we hear pro-choice activists espouse rape, incest, genetic disability or health of the mother as primary consideration for supporting abortion on demand. But of 1,260 women surveyed in a 2004 study by The Guttmacher Institute, only 7 percent cited health concerns as their most important reason for choosing to abort their child. The majority of women actually stated a financial or lifestyle challenge as a top reason for their choice.

Each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requests voluntary abortion data from across the country. While 756,651 abortions were reported in 2010, many suspect the number to be closer to 1 million babies aborted every year in the United States.

How many of God’s children who were destined to become world changers were never given the chance? How many brilliant scientists, skilled physicians or prominent leaders never escaped the womb?

Human life is a frail and precious gift of God. If GOP candidates refuse to re-introduce abortion into the discussion, then who will?

It’s time to stand up for life.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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