GW Bush, mass panic gave us Patriot Act, let's curtail it now

In context of the time when it was passed, the Patriot Act was a forgivable overreaction, perhaps. But today, it's just more big government that we cannot afford. 

Sometimes, scary things happen in politics. Here's an example: far right web sites agree with the wildly leftist (and silly) MoveOn.org on something. They agree that we need to END THE PATRIOT ACT.

Thank goodness some polar political opposites can agree on something, huh? The left and right can't even manage to agree on which death-lusting terrorists are worth ridding off: The fringe left wants to provide jobs, food and education to some terrorists, while the fringe right believes everyone who is Muslim is a terrorist. But, we can agree that nosing in on Americans, not merely inconveniencing them at airports (TSA), but listening on without lawful purpose (Patriot Act, potentially), is bad.

Of course, I dislike the Patriot Act because there's clear principles being shoved out of the way, and they were given a clear voice in the U.S. Constitution. That matters. Some who I would generally disagree with on political matters seem concerned that black extremists (but they think of them as merely put-upon poor people), Occupy Wall Street dweebs, pederasts (simply gay people), or potheads (pot is no worse than alcohol, so it should be at every kitchen bench) might be among those snared by officials who are supposedly looking for terrorists. The Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the whole of the Bill of Rights, are just a convenient table to stand on while they're fighting the Progressive-Statist power-grab fight. (Yeah, I'm not a fan of Obama Democrats, if you didn't guess.)

I think it's simple: the USA Patriot Act needs to go. As least, it needs generous curtailing. Tell your US Representative and your US Senator, and tell anyone to do the same. Here's a link to save you some time in reaching your reps.

But don't bother with Senate boss Mitch McConnell (R - KY), who is all for it, it seems. Not much of a Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is proving to be in the era of Obama statism. He plays right along. (As does House Speaker John Boerner of Ohio.) Radio and nonfiction book great, Mark Levin, has bashed McConnell as never before, in recent weeks (one time and another; and then some).

If the Patriot Act is extended as it looks like it will be -- a mistake -- it's still going to require a vote another day. Make it stop. The Patriot Act is GW Bush's contribution, along with DHS, TSA, and a massive military debt, to the nanny state, to his legacy as BIG GOVERNMENT REPUBLICAN. He was not a complete modern American conservative, he was a religious and social conservative only. He isn't a bad man, but he was, fiscally, a very expensive president. He is not solely to blame, of course, but his presidency will keep that reputation into the future telling of it in history books, I believe. You cannot blame him alone, as plenty of citizens were all for the Patriot Act back in the day. They were afraid.

Frightened people are not good at making rational decision, or making up sensible rules. You've watched a horror movie or two, right? Scared people are bad at making decisions --- VERY BAD! The Patriot Act proves it, I think. In context of the time when it was passed, the Patriot Act was a forgivable overreaction, perhaps. But today, it's just more big government that we cannot afford (I mean "afford" in every sense of the word that comes to mind). It's not a Prohibition Act for security, because that would look like a totalitarian police state; but perhaps it was as bipartisan and as reactionary as Prohibition.

We must fix the damage added in GW Bush's time along with Obama's. I am very comfortable pointing out that Obama has done nothing but add to the problem of a massive and ever-growing federal debt and bureaucracy. But I refuse to be partisan in my disgust with big government.

This comes with burdens that have been added for decades by an ever-growing federal government that has weakened the states, and the citizens, and hurt liberty for every person.

WAKE UP. Stop big government.


We went from the GREATEST generation during World War Two, to the MOST SELFISH GENERATION. Well, to be nice, let's call it the most distracted generation -- that of the 1950s-1980s. Now we're ringing in the STATIST GENERATION, as a result. 

It's not too late, but it's time to change tack. Because, as so many FINALLY recognized in the economic upset of 2007-2009, things have gotten out of hand. Either government stays in control, or we get some control of it.

WAKE UP. Obama and other far left so-called liberal Democrats (they're statists, not liberals, dammit) have taken a bad thing -- the Great Recession -- and extended it. It is high time to stop it.


- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

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Independence is not a thing you can enforce

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY. Note: You cannot enforce liberty. 

The Founding Fathers, in the 1700s, understood the dire risks of pursuing liberty, and did not do so by enforcing some imagined (utopian) equality (see a Spearhead piece on equality), but by carefully separating themselves from an autocratic leader, by realizing and establishing not just a new government, but essentially a new form of government. That's a big deal. I think too many take it for granted, or only give it some general lip service today. The patriots of that age wanted to allow citizens who were law-abiding proceed in their lives, not be pinched at every turn of luck or at every respectable success.

The Founders' decision to leave the tyranny of Britain's King George was the promise of their ruin (Snopes.com), not knowing the outcome. They still took that chance. A calculated risk? Certainly. (What's the biggest risk of your life you've ever taken? Driving a car? Motocross? Bungie jumping? Or serving your country at a time of war? Saving someone from a burning building? Only the last two count.) Thanks to the Founding Fathers and many of their fellow patriots, the USA won its freedom, implausibly, from the most powerful sea and land force on the planet.

Look how far we've come, huh?

We can't say that today our leaders have the same thoughts that the Founders, or any patriots of the 1700s, had. We are a nation spoiled by our comforts, to the least engaged among us. The difference we can make is in recognizing those aspects of our lives that are spoiling us, and living beyond them.

The current Democratic chief in the White House (and by extension, those who surround him or share his ideas) has the notable trait of blaming others -- not a leadership trait. If you search for "Barack Obama blame" online, there are 58 million hits. That is the trait not of a true leader, but of an abuser, or a lowly wheeler-dealer, not a heroic and principled change agent. Of course, some of those are about average people seeing his lack of blame (Economist, unscientific poll), while others point out the irony of his claim and blame paradox (Economist article, June 2012). His rhetorical soundbites and longwinded speech-lectures too commonly amount to lies in the long run. See, just because you think something might be true doesn't excuse you when it is exactly wrong -- that's delusional. That's, apparently, a lot of Obama true believers in a nutshell. For instance, he pledged in 2009 that the ACA, or Obamacare, would help the needy and make costs go down for the middle class. Not happening.

Power grabs of one type or another have been too common since Sept. 11, sadly. Borne of concern for safety, they are obviously affecting freedoms, and it is far worse under Obama and the federal agencies under his umbrella than it had started out with under the equally security-over-liberty minded George Bush. The supposedly forward-thinking White House of 2013 is not an antidote to power over the people, but fully a part of that allegedly well-meaning, but nonetheless overbearing, attitude of enforcing fairness by playing favorites. This current condition is not in any way Americanism, it a whiff of totalitarianism.

In Texas, it seems that we've learned -- if one has no understanding of it for one's own -- that the support of abortion after 20 weeks is a right. Aborting a child after five months is a kind of liberty? For whom?! Unwilling mothers who are too dumb or delusional to decide to give up a child, in the worst way possible, before five months? Nationwide, we've seen the view that registering all legal guns is the only right thing to do, according to our president and those on the overbearing, nanny state, big government side of America. This is so, while letting arms slip into hands of known bands of killers to try and track the guns, and losing track of them (what the hell?!) is good for liberty. As well, while giving deadly arms to rogue activists akin to the Taliban, in this case, the Syrian rebels, is also acceptable. But. not entrusting Americans with their right to bear arms, a central tenet of the idea of liberty envisioned by our Founding Fathers. What liberty is Obama and the left in favor of? That which limits the rights of all in favor of coddling to the favored labels? How un-American have we gotten?

Slavery wasn't abolished by our founders and, out of context, that's shameful to me. In context, I realize that the civil war would have happened on the heels of the revolution, had that move been pushed. Still tragic, but to manage freedom from the King of England was a first step. The Founders were not perfect men. Obama is far from that himself, farther than they. That wrong does not translate well to the idea that the broad freedoms they envisioned in the 1700s were incorrect. Today, how is it that granting, to the government, more power over law-abiding citizens  somehow makes anyone more "free"? I think leaving aside slavery at the outset was a compromise, no matter how regrettable it was. We live in different times, but how dare people suggest that these times also call for a government that nannies us? That isn't liberty, that's comfort to the disinterested and lazy. We shouldn't be regarding independence as something administered by the government. Because it can only be taken from us by a government. We freed the slaves not by limiting their freedom, but by preventing their enslavement. There is a huge difference.

- jR, aka AirFarceOne (Twitter)

TIME's Halperin: Obama 'clueless' about what to do now

White House lost in a crowd of trees. Image by HarshLight via Flickr

Everyone seems to be on the bash Obama wagon these days -- the bash the administration wagon, perhaps is more accurate. Is that why so many close and high-up advisers are leaving? Maybe yes, maybe no. The outcome of November 2, 2010, will tell us more. 

From one of TIME's political guys, Mark Halperin:
Why Obama Is Losing the Political War
Monday, Oct. 11, 2010 

With the exception of core Obama Administration loyalists, most politically engaged elites have reached the same conclusions: the White House is in over its head, isolated, insular, arrogant and clueless about how to get along with or persuade members of Congress, the media, the business community or working-class voters. This view is held by Fox News pundits, executives and anchors at the major old-media outlets, reporters who cover the White House, Democratic and Republican congressional leaders and governors, many Democratic business people and lawyers who raised big money for Obama in 2008, and even some members of the Administration just beyond the inner circle. 

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2024718,00.html#ixzz124TaOshl 

- jR - aka airfarceone, on Twitter

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Sen. Bernie Sanders says: hands off my beloved Social Security, you vicious, anti-government nuts!

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) comments on what he sees as right-wing "hatred" of Soc Sec. Hatred of it is going a bit far, except maybe some far-flung kooks. 

Opinion: We can't allow deep benefit cuts, including a steep rise in the retirement age. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0810/41628.html

Some of it (note: the links within it are mine):

"The White House deficit commission is reportedly considering deep benefit cuts for Social Security, including a steep rise in the retirement age. We cannot let that happen.

"The deficit and our $13 trillion national debt are serious problems that must be addressed. But we can -- and must -- address them without punishing America's workers, senior citizens, the disabled, widows and orphans.

"First, let's be clear: Despite all the right-wing rhetoric, Social Security is not going bankrupt. That's a lie!

"The truth is that the Social Security Trust Fund has run surpluses for the last quarter century. Today's $2.5 trillion cushion is projected to grow to $4 trillion in 2023. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, experts in this area, say Social Security will be able to pay every nickel owed to every eligible beneficiary until 2039.

"Got that? In case you don't, let me repeat it. The people who have studied this issue most thoroughly and have no political bias report that Social Security will be able to pay out all benefits to every eligible beneficiary for the next 29 years.

"It is true that by 2039, if nothing is changed, Social Security will be able to pay out only about 80 percent of benefits. That is why it is important that Congress act soon to make sure Social Security is as strong in the future as it is today.

"The hatred of Social Security from the right-wing, anti-government crowd is based on the fact that the government program has been enormously successful in accomplishing its mission. For 75 years, in good times and bad, Social Security has provided financial security for tens of millions of Americans. ..."

(use link above to read the whole piece)


Disliking how Soc Sec's Trust Fund is borrowed from by a greedy government, and the balance of pay-ins versus pay-outs, is what is creating worries, as far as I'm aware. Pretty simple that is more money goes out than goes in, it's going to dry up! I don't recall hearing anyone suggest it was going to run out next year, but in 2039? The estimates have varied. Who said banish it? I think younger people just don't trust government with their retirement account.  

Sanders' crude calling of people "anti-government" leaves out a vital adjective. Anarchists and crooks are anti-government; right wingers who are neither of those are against a BIG, dominating, bossy, liberty-sucking federal government. They are not against government. 


Senator, Tea Party people, as far as I am aware and as far as I am informed, are merely against a massive, costly, too-powerful Big Brother government full of people who twist facts -- such as what they feel about Soc Sec. If that is not clear, senator, then you have a scant excuse for being a representative of any people. 

Senator, by the looks of this rant of yours, you are an agitator and extremist, not your right wing antagonists. Judging from the deviant language you used, in the opinion piece, about those who favor an affordable and liable government over a constantly growing, taxing beast, you're way off-center, to say the least. 


Your comments about Soc Sec history of success -- obvious stuff, isn't it? -- aside, your coloring of the right is juvenile, done with crayons, not informed nore sensible, as with fine art oil paint.

Shame, Vermont, for keeping this wacky man in power. He is way off-color.

- jR

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A thought: 'Booby traps' are not limited to the Bush legacy

Upon reading the "Booby traps" piece by Rosa Brooks, one favoring left-wing ideology (read the whole thing here), I pondered thusly:

Were there any bothers by this well-educated (that is to say, learned so as not to accidentally write in a biased manner) author regarding the actual booby traps left by Clinton, the political John the Baptist to the Obama-Jesus? I don't have the time to waste, but maybe this is something worth looking at.

What was the viewpoint after 9/11 from her? That GW Bush asked for it? That GW Bush's policies in their infancy invited this inordinately bold move? Was it was his dad's fault, GHW Bush, for keeping Kuwait Saddam Hussein-free? Or was Clinton's lack of interest in the overall values to a solid military - for the country nut-job Islamic terrorists love to hate the most, the U.S. - the thing that most certainly hurt us and
practically invited 9/11? What is her view on that end of the Afghanistan-Iraq issues?

Was there a reflection on the, umm, REAL tripwires that Clinton left for Bush, and the U.S.? Like a smaller, softer and otherwise less-prepared military, and such welcome signs for the 9/11 terrorists? "According to the latest national intelligence estimate" might have fit as an introduction to some lop-sided opinion pieces back then, and immediately after we took Hussein out of control. What did you say in those instances? It was Bush's fault then, too? He intentionally got the NIE's to favor what he wanted, did he?



You will indeed deserve the candidate-in-Chief should he get what the media expects. You will deserve him, you and all Pelosi-type liberals who believe in do-nothing, blame politics above all else. You will so sorely deserve him. Of course, who knows? Obama may be an entirely different person come one year from now. Being a puppet for far-left faction of the Democratic Party might only have been the pass he used; he might run things altogether differently. Unlike Pelosi, Dodd, Biden, Frank, Reid ... he might actually DO SOMETHING aside from awaiting the explosion of poorly drawn mortgages by his buddies in Fannie Mae and elsewhere.

If I were to dream a little dream, an Obama presidency might involve not simply denying responsibility then pushing nearly socialist fixes to serious financial issues.


Sadly, one thing Ms. Brooks nailed accurately was the Bush Admin's lack of thorough, truly forward-looking proactive leadership in the wars:

We know from Iraq that countering insurgencies requires a long, hard slog -- success not guaranteed -- and that the presence of foreign troops can help fuel nationalist insurgencies. More troops in Afghanistan might have turned things around if those troops -- and a less stingy reconstruction package -- had arrived five years ago, when Afghan hopes were high. After years of Bush administration malfeasance, increasing U.S. troop levels without an accompanying dramatic shift in regional strategy risks turning Afghanistan into another Iraq.

However, since I think she uses her brains too little for solid argument or logic and too much for bias, I react as such: It is all too convenient to point these failings out, and be a Monday morning quarterback. She ought to know better. Policy, public opinion, and a need to dangle the carrot of self-reliance in front of these long-oppressed countries makes it quite hard to try to dress this up as an abject failure of leadership. It is not what I would have preferred, but are truly reliable experts saying this is indeed what is occurring, or is this simply one talking head firing yet again at an easy target?

One thing that is clear to me: Ms. Rosa Brooks is opinionated, but a thorough, and I would dare to say baseless, nay-sayer regarding U.S. chances in our current military actions and generally in the so-called war on terror. She is, without question, a liberal commentator. Why she is not billed as such by the L.A. Times, I do not understand. Perhaps, like was made evident in the finance crisis, denying your ideals and your role in anything is a common trait among liberal commentators and politicians. Hmm. I guess we'll just have to see about that, just like if those "booby traps" go off in Obama's, or McCain's face.

Booby traps, indeed. Placed by boobs, protected by boobs, and now blamed on some other boobs by the initial booby-trap-causing boobs. Excellent work, Congress. Excellent.

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