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As angry as I was about Moore’s crime, I believe the lesson here is – this is not a “Michael Moore” problem, it’s a principle problem. If there is no respect for your right to your own property; if, in just one example, your property in the form of money can be taken from you by Government via taxation and given to another to benefit those doing the taking ~ why are we surprised to see the exact principle and philosophy applied to other property – real, intellectual or otherwise?
Better than calling out Michael Moore is a strategy focused on excoriating anyone – Republican, Democrat, Greedy Corporate Robber Baron or Thieving Limousine Liberal – ANYONE – who advocates taking ANYTHING belonging to someone else and using it for themselves. If I do not have the right to everything that is mine then I do not have the right to anything that is mine.
If society as a whole condemned such blatant theft, we could just about return our country’s moral and political compass to true north with need for little more in the way of activism. If we only squeal when our ox is gored, then we are little better than Rand’s Moochers and Looters.
What Moore did to Jack Lail and his videographer is criminal. But so is what the Government does to Americans every day.
I know it is standard Democratic practice to take the money and liberty of others to line their own pockets. I wasn’t aware that practice extended to web design. However, if you have no problem with the first step, the second would seem to follow easily. What am I talking about? Seems Representative Davis’ campaign couldn’t find a good enough theme for his website or a design firm good enough to build one for him. So he took one from someone else. No word on whether his actions will be called a “technological crisis communication enhancement initiative” or not …
I just got this from Doug over at National Right to Life. Please do read it ASAP:
Speaker Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and the White House are engaged in peddling another phony compromise. This is all theater. The “negotiations” are scripted ad phony. The language being circulated, and loosely associated with Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-In.), does not mitigate either of the abortion-subsidy provisions contained in H.R. 3962. This language is intended only to wrap the pro-abortion provisions in additional layers of concealment. The latest version of the Democrats’ abortion compromise being circulated contains a money-laundering scheme that is truly laughable. Some of the people involved in this enterprise apparently think that their constituents are simpletons.
The bill explicitly authorizes the federal insurance plan, the public option, to pay for all elective abortions. When the public option pays for abortions, it will be spending federal funds, because that is the only kind of money that a federal agency can spend in the real world. Henry Waxman and his front men can write language in the bill calling the money anything he wants, but we care about the reality, not what they call it.
The “Ellsworth Amendment” has been independently analyzed by experts at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and at the House Pro-Life Caucus. Their conclusions regarding its substantive (non)effect are fully consistent with those reached independently by NRLC. However, my comments here represent only NRLC.
Mr. Ellsworth issued a press release in which he said, “When you’re going into battle, it’s a good idea to have a contingency plan.” I say, when you’re going into battle, it is always unpleasant to be bayoneted in the back by somebody who said that he was on your side. The Ellsworth language serves no purpose except to assist the pro-abortion House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to peel votes away from the authentic pro-life amendment, the Stupak Amendment.
The Ellsworth language about the public option is particularly revealing in demonstrating the utter phoniness of the exercise. They just want to pretend that if the federal agency hires private contractors to handle the money, it is not government funding of abortion. This is already being referred to in pro-life circles on Capitol Hill as “the Ellsworth abortion money-laundering scam.”
They can write in a money-laundering scheme under which the federal agency hires a contractor to deliver the checks to the abortionists, but only a simpleton would think it is not government funding of abortion. Any lawmaker who votes for this scheme is voting to create a nationwide federal agency program that will pay for abortion on demand, with government funds.
You can go here and call your legislator to oppose the Democrats’ health care plan.
Usually when I hear stories about a Governmental something-or-other trampling on the 1st amendment rights of Liberty loving Americans I think of national Democrats and their smarmy puling about the beat down they take on Talk Radio.
In what will no doubt be a visual aid for examples of “GOP behaving stupidly”, a group of Arizona Republicans (likely outmaneuvered by the lone Democrat involved), has decided that the 1st Amendment’s guarantees don’t extend to residents of Maricopa County if the people doing the speaking happen to also work for the Government.
At issue are relationships members of the County Attorney’s office have with the media, including a few bloggers. Not all the media, however, just those beating up on the Maricopa County Supervisors County Manager’s office. Seems the Board of Supervisors has been feuding with other state departments for some time, including messing with Maricopa County’s best known government employee, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Not only that, the same Supes squeezing the County Attorney employees have a really bad track record when it comes to things like character and integrity. The gaggle of liberal GOP Supes and the lone Dem in their midst have been accused of “wasteful spending, power grabs and criminal investigations” and there’s even a Twitter account, CorruptAZSupes.
Smith sent a letter to the County Attorney’s office demanding to know who had relationships with bloggers – or else! They even specifically demand to know about activity that might have taken place on an employee’s personal time and their personal computers! Specifically named in the letter is Michael Scerbo, the County Attorney PIO, who is SUPPOSED to be in touch with the media! While there are some traditional media outlets mentioned, blogs are specifically targeted. The Sonoran Alliance, The Cactus Alliance and Intellectual Conservative Arizona are all named in the letter as being eeeeeeevil bloggers that bad County Attorney employees shouldn’t have anything to do with.
Given the dust-up going on inside the GOP in places like NY-23 and Doug Hoffman v Dede Scozzafava and Florida’s Senate race with Marco Rubio v Charlie Crist where GOP stalwarts cling to Liberal policies and personalities, I shouldn’t be surprised to find Republicans squelching free speech and trying to use the power of their office – not to serve the people but to intimidate them.
One hopes that Arizonans have the ability to recall County Managers who seem ignorant of 1st amendment provisions or at least that the Supes are elected and must face the voters of Maricopa County for this.
As one might imagine, the revelation that the State of Tennessee is considering forcing insurance companies to provide them with the private medical and health information of Tennessee policyholders is generating some buzz. There’s a link-fest at the end of this post. But not all folks have landed on the same side of the fence as me. At least one friend wrote in response to yesterday’s post that she welcomed the database and the good she believed it would do in the area of consumer education and advocacy for availability of service and fair pricing.
Kay Brooks begins the discussion of those issues specifically at her blog. She was not responding to my friend, just taking up the idea that bills like HB2289 may not be the best way for Government to address those concerns. In yesterday’s post, I had mentioned there were other reasons to oppose HB2289 beyond those I listed. One, which I did not address there, I shared with my friend in ‘Comments’. It regards my belief HB2289 is bad legislation because, in addition to my earlier points, I cannot see it being upheld as Constitutional. I wrote
This is not about being for or against information gathering or being from a certain political party. It is not about Right and Left. It is about Right and Wrong. As I mentioned, the brief list of objections I raised in a blog post is not the extent of the problems with this bill.
I did not mention that it violates the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution. There we find
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. “
The point behind the 4th is that my medical records are mine and cannot be taken from me unless there is some reason to believe they are being used for a criminal purpose.
[Constitutional scholars feel free to correct me here]
Under no other circumstance would any agency of the Government be justified in pursuing access to my medical “papers”. And only then after showing probable cause. My papers are my papers. The Government can ask me for them and I may give them up. But if I choose not to, they have absolutely no right to take them from me.
I understand the 4th is an amendment to the US Constitution and I am a huge supporter of state’s rights, but the 10th amendment does not grant states a license to ignore the rest of the amendments in their exercise of authority. Thus if you choose to participate in the database for any reason of your own and participation is voluntary, then I fully support your doing so (although I may object to the expense to the taxpayers of establishing the database – another question entirely).
This bill is not voluntary and my personal information is at risk of being taken from me by force. That is decidedly not something I support nor do I see it as partisan posturing. Unless you are willing to agree that the parties are ideologically divided along the lines of “desiring unconstitutional intrusions into the lives of citizens” and “opposing unconstitutional intrusions into the lives of citizens”. Then I’ll happily admit to being partisan in this matter.
Concerning the bulk of your response that there is a good purpose and good intent in the Government’s desire for this information, let me just say that I never said their interest in it – right now – is bad. What I said was that the potential for abuse of access to such information was great and was a threat.
I stand by that assessment. I do not trust the Government to make my decisions or analysis for me. I trust that Government will do exactly what it has done since Government was invented – try to expand its control and influence in the day to day life of the populace until it is the ultimate and supreme power. By the ballot if possible and by bullets if not.
All of Government, even the necessary parts (and we can disagree as to what those are), is an exercise in control. The question is not “Should there be control?”, it is rather “Who should be in control?” The less Government, the more the individual must control his actions and do what is best for himself and in so doing do right by all those around him. The more Government the less the individual controls his own life.
If such a database is so demonstrably valuable to the whole of society that I should freely surrender my data to it in my own best interests and in the interests of my responsibility to the community then you and Tennessee are welcome to make that case and ask me for it. The rightness of it will be readily evident to men of goodwill and intelligence. Until then, forcing me to surrender what is mine because someone else is of the opinion it might be helpful is not the way to get my willing participation.
Not the way to get my participation … and not Constitutional.
At dinner last night, another friend mentioned that there are many pieces of legislation which have become law that are blatantly unconstitutional, yet that does not stop them from being enforced by the Government with its full ability to do so at the point of a gun. His main point was merely knowing and demonstrating that something is unconstitutional in the marketplace of ideas is not enough. We may know our rights are being violated, but unless we do something about it, what good does our knowledge do? Where are the lawsuits against laws already in force like HB2289? Where are the groups willing to finance the legal challenges to these things if they make it past the first line of defense?
We make laws today in many cases because we can. We see a need and the first solution we employ is legislative. On its face, that seems a legitimate response. But there are so many areas from which Government is specifically excluded from by the Constitution that our initial response may not be the Constitutional response. John Shadegg (R-AZ) has continually proposed an Enumeration of Powers to his colleagues in the US House. It simply requests that all legislation submitted carry with it a reference to the portion of the US Constitution which authorizes the Federal Government to be dealing with the matter. Not a bad idea.
Perhaps the states should consider something similar. In the long run, it might save some time.
So say the irrational, Fruit-Loops, Left leaning pundits who opine it’s only Federal spending done by white people that I support. But let a man who is 16% black start spending wildly and it’s only then I suddenly head for the high dudgeon. I know, stupid and ignorant, but as long as we have a 1st Amendment, there will be those who use it irresponsibly.
Anyway, thanks to my friend Doug at Stixblog who got it from another friend, Steve, at No Runny Eggs, (in the interests of full disclosure, both of these guys are white) there is now a simple visual explanation of at least part of the reason people are screaming far louder now that President Obama is spending than they were when President Bush was spending. Please note, this comparison assumes rational understanding of the public record. It assumes you can recognize the objections to GWB’s spending sprees when you see them clearly pointed out. It also assumes there’s a reason the response to spending by the current Administration is so much more severe than response to Bush spending was. It also assumes you are in touch enough with reality to understand race has no bearing on the matter.
Let’s take a federal spending, national debt producing road trip …
I wanted to title this post “Nancy Pelosi is a Truther” but I thought that might be over the top. But it would be clearly applicable if one accepts the definition of “Truther” as one who seriously, passionately, publicly and vociferously believes something that normal people find incredulous. Like 9/11 was an “inside job”; like it was a bomb and not a plane that hit the Pentagon on 9/11; like Nancy Pelosi didn’t know about enhanced interrogation techniques, apparently until sometime last week.
Now that she’s aware of them, she’s shocked and appalled, and did I mention that she knew nothing about them until recently? The briefings she received shortly after 9/11 as a member of Congress were given by the CIA who lied to her or misled her or led her to think the situation was one way when it is now revealed to have been another way. This entire issue is beginning to look and feel like l’affaire Lewinsky. One can believe that Speaker Pelosi is telling the truth and everyone else connected to the matter is lying in their best inside the beltway conspiratorial fashion. Or one can believe that everyone else is telling the truth and the politician at the center of the storm is lying to protect herself. When one frames the issue like thaaat …
Incredibly, instead of ‘fessing up and moving on or at least trying to defuse and deescalate the national conversation that is starting up over this, the Speaker wants to turn up the heat. She wants “Truth Commissions” to get to the bottom of what happened and when and who is to blame. Seemingly lost on her is the possibility the Commissions, pretty well accepted by the Right as a purely political hammer, will be used to hammer the Speaker herself.
Pelosi’s assertions that she was unaware of enhanced interrogation are easily shown to be untrue at best and outright lies at worst. But that’s her story and she’s sticking to it. An author at Redstate is willing to take her at her word and give her the Commissions on the theory that any damage that could be done to the Bush Administration almost 8 years after the fact would pale in comparison to the carnage the GOP could wreak on Madame Speaker for the events of the last 8 weeks. Mark Impomeni, writing in “Bring on the Truth Commissions” notes,
Under these circumstances, and with adversaries this pathetic, Republicans should welcome Nancy Pelosi’s truth commission. Half of the commission’s time will be spent trying to untie Pelosi from her own statements about what she knew and when. That’s a bargain Republicans should be willing to take. And the American people will get a fuller picture both of the lives that were saved by enhanced interrogations, and of the Democrats’ willingness to say and do anything to gain power.
Shall we get to the bottom of this sordid mess, then? Shall we, as a nation, delve into what was known by whom and when? Shall we empanel the Speaker’s Truth Commission? And what will come out if we do?
Last week, Matthew Hurtt, a friend of mine and an excellent blogger, posted a story about Donna Rowland’s voting record and a portion of it he found curious. 173 times in 2009 Rowland had voted PNV or “Present, Not Voting”. He rightly wondered what that was all about.
The Rutherford County Democratic Party eagerly picked up on the story claiming Rowland was only working for them 17% of the time. It doesn’t appear they even tried to contact Rowland. They just rushed to print claiming “gotcha”. I left a rather snarky comment on their post which was promptly deleted. (Can’t have anyone offering a dissenting opinion since dissent is only the highest form of Patriotism on Democratic bumper stickers … And, yes, in case you’re wondering, I have the screen-shot. It’s OK, those guys are young and they’ll learn as we all did. Until they develop the confidence to swim in the deep end with the adults, we’ll cut them a little slack.)
They correctly note Rowland voted to support a resolution honoring The Rogers Group on its 100th anniversary. The Rogers Group is a donor to Rowland’s campaign. They malign her service to her constituents based on that. But Rowland voted to honor 106 year old Mary Alice Gandy for casting her first vote ever in 2008 for Barack Obama. Why did Democrats omit that? I’m going to guess because it doesn’t paint Donna Rowland in a bad light. They also omit Rowland’s PNV vote on SJR 65 to honor Bobbie Patray for her service. That vote alone makes it unlikely Rowland is only about who supports her. Democrats are just playing political games.
Unfortunately, my friend Matthew Hurtt seems to be enabling them. An objective look at her record is helpful here. Matt evaluates her voting record from 2002 to the present and finds the same hypocrisy the Democrats do. But Rowland doesn’t deny voting for such things in the past. It’s this year’s votes that need to be analyzed.
On January 14th and 15th, 2009, the opening days of this session, Rowland voted “Aye” for HJR 2, 6, 8 and 9 and HR 2 and 3. She has not introduced such legislation as best I can tell. After that there’s a change of heart. She votes “Aye” on March 19th for HJR 49, the Rogers Group resolution and “Aye” on April 20th for the Cora Cline Memorial Highway and nothing more. As compared to this!
Democrats say this means Rowland snubs regular Tennesseans but won’t provide you with all the facts. Further, they fail to defeat, or even address, the argument Rowland makes regarding wasting the money those regular Tennesseans entrust to the Legislature. Evidently, wasting the People’s time and money is OK if it can be used to score political points. And they say Rowland that doesn’t care about Rutherford County voters. Riiight …
Matt Hurtt’s observations are hard to accept, as well. From my perspective, he got the facts right and the conclusion wrong. He seems to like what Rowland has become but not that the process took some time. Rowland wants to change but Matt won’t let her. He points prominently to HJR480, from 2007, to condemn her 2009 behavior. I cannot find where he observes that, even allowing for the votes on HJR49 and SJR65, Rowland’s behavior change is startling – and in a good way. Why are we so quick to shoot our wounded? Perhaps they’re worth saving.
I think Donna Rowland ought to be commended, not crucified. She’s made an about face for very principled reasons. Is she perfect? Nope. Is she right on this matter? Absolutely. If I cannot let her change for the better, then I cannot expect that same grace to be extended to me. But when did Real Life ever matter in politics?
Holy SMOKES, you guys are on this one! Fantastic linky-love for Tea Parties in Tennessee! Keep checking back for more as there are some bloggers out there who are writing as we speak and have not yet hit “Publish”!
From Tara Solomon comes word that while there’s a rap song about out-of-control Government, now there’s a country tune. It’s called “It’s Time to Party” and was written by Brion Butterbaugh. You can contact him at “butter1963 at hotmail dot com” about usage and performances.
Not to be outdone, there is another tune up, a bit more funny and a LOT less country, at YouTube. See “Tax and Spend” by Barack Obama.
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