SebastianJer

Kieth

Blue states do not elect Republican governors and legislatures. Living in Florida where there are more registered Democrats than Republicans and where we have a "unpopular" governor, I can assure you that Obama has very little chance of winning here.

When people vote for President especially an incumbent they are voting on him not the governor. As of January 31 of this year Obama's approval in Gallup was only above 50% in ten states including the District of Columbia. None of the states you mentioned are on that list,in Florida it was 43.8% and in Ohio it was 42.1%. If you want to believe an unpopular Republican Governor is going to offset those kind of numbers if they remain that low, go ahead, you will be disappointed.

Re 1

Oh by the way given your reasoning, last I heard Chris Christie's approval ratings in New Jersey were somewhere in the mid 50% range, does that mean tha Obama can not win New Jersey?

Re 5

I suspect Shep that it has mostly to do with information and education. It is not like most people in the nation are politically engaged. They make political decisions based on snippets of information gathered during a very busy or very uninformed life.

We always say that there was no way that Obama could have won based on what he truly was or on what he intended to do, he was that blank slate and only those who paid close attention recognized him for what he truly was and what he would do. People are beginning to wake up to who he is and what he is doing and they don't much care for it. It is not like everyone is either a progressive or a conservative, most people are not much politically inclined at all and only make decisions based upon their self interest or their ingrained but not fully developed political philosophies.

People are changing due to their sense that this is not the way it is supposed to be in America even if they can not identify either what is exactly wrong or what is the way it is supposed to be. They just know this isn't it and they are adjusting accordingly. IMHO

Re 5 & 6

Irregardless of the desires of the dependency class or whatever you wish to call it or the movement which seeks to be empowered by it, a simple fact remains, it is unsustainable.

People can wish and vote to be taken care of, politicians can promise and enact programs to meet these desires, but in the end they will always collapse. Whether they are enacted out of good intentions or whether they are means for the slothful to remain so, it makes no difference the laws of economics, the laws of nature, human and otherwise will ultimately cause such enterprises to collapse.

There is a reason that Europe is in the situation it is now, there is a reason that Cuba is a basket case as a nation, there is a reason that the Soviet empire collapsed in on itself. The reason is simple, there is no free lunch.

The takers must always be supported by makers and once you reach a certain point, the makers will rebel, usually by simply ceasing to support the system which then collapses. Greece is the outcome. Even the Norwegian nations which have handled a more socialist society better than most in history is beginning to move away from it. Britain raised taxes up to 50% in order to try to maintain their entitlement society and their tax revenues went down. Why, because people will avoid, hide or simply stop working as hard rather than have the fruits of their labors seized from them to support others, especially when those others not only don't work as hard but ridicule the very people who provide more to society.

America can face these truths and purge this "progressive" insanity out of our system now, or we can watch the nation collapse. One way or the other the "progressive" ideology is finished.

I will post something in another entry that I wrote a while back that sort of explains this. But the cold hard facts are these, you can not make something from nothing and when the makers quit making there is nothing left for the takers to take.

"One World" and the Grizzly

Rand Simberg has a nice column in Pajama Media about tax cuts. He makes the very real observation

"I view a reduction in my income tax as more of my own money, which I earned, that I am allowed to keep. Leftists start with the implicit assumption that all wealth, regardless of who actually earned it, is the property of the state, and any amount that we have after taxes is viewed as a gift from the state."

This got me thinking about how this "world view" about taxes gets so much credibility. It occurred to me that it really gets down to a basic over all world view, of life as a whole.

The idea is basically this, "Nobody owns the world, it is owned by everybody." This, at its core, is a very commendable ideal and in some ways very true.

You can, and it has been, expand on this ideal to this. "No species owns the world, it is owned by all living things." This is the basis for many environmental teachings and beliefs. Again a very commendable idealism and in many ways based in truth.

But there is a serious flaw in this thinking that can easily be tested. Find a Grizzly Bear den and go inside for protection from the weather. You will quickly find out that the Grizzly recognizes something that many on the left fail to undertand, the Grizzly believes in property rights.

In fact, to some degree or another, all living things do and man is no different. Even the most uneducated of human beings recognize this, though the more educated seem to have a harder time with it.

When you take the idealism of "Nobody owns the world, it is owned by everybody" and try to incorporate that into a political, economic and social structure, it fails. It fails simply because what is mine is not yours whether you are a grizzly bear, a nightingale or a Russian peasant.

A grizzly may allow you to share his den for a time and a Russian peasant can; by force be made to share his lands and his crops, but neither the grizzly or the peasant see it as either natural or required by the laws of nature.

This "One World" view can work successfully on small communal scales, simply because everyone knows one another and becomes dependent on each other for their common welfare, much like a family unit.

It also can even be somewhat successful on larger national level such as in some Scandinavian nations, successful being defined as it exists. This is because small countries like Sweden are pretty much a homogeneous society with shared culture, traditions and backgrounds. But the ideal begins to crumble when large segments of the population even if only a large minority is introduced into the society. We see this happening all over Europe. In England, France, The Netherlands, Belgium and even Germany the introduction of other cultures and traditions in large numbers creates a more heterogeneous society, which breaks down the common fabric that is necessary for the socialist system to work. Why?

Because people are no different than grizzlies in this respect, they are not willing to give up their beliefs and traditions for some unknowing, unseen common good. It is not just prejudices, if prejudice at all, it is survival. Why should a Muslim give up the traditions and societal structure that has been the basis for their community for centuries for the common good of a government entity that they have no connection to, the governments only real purpose is to standardize the whole.

This could be said of Jews, Christians or any secular group that is proud of their heritage and culture. That is why, in order to promote a "One World "agenda, you must either demonize the old beliefs, cultures and most important any pride in shared history or you must overly encourage all beliefs and cultures (multi-culturism) regardless of the obvious disparity in some cultures. Who for example could argue that large segments of Islam's treatment of women is preferable or more enlightened than most Western cultures? One way or the other this "One World" idealism must destroy distinctive cultural pride and tradition, or at least that is the current practice.

The problem is that people are animals, they do have survival instincts at the most basic level, the family unit. This is why it is also necessary to marginalize the family unit. This is done by empowering the child over the parent, a very obvious and increasing trend in western society today. This perhaps above all else is the most frightening, because it corrodes the very nature of our species or any species for that matter. The continuing attack on the family unit through promotion of youth and the belittling of age and experience is not only dangerous it is ultimately self defeating.

Will this "One World" view succeed? In my opinion yes and no. Ultimately man(kind) must evolve to a genuine "We are the world", Kum ba ya, Star Treck society. We must at some point reach a point in out development that we stand together as a species to preserve our planet and our species. But it will not happen based on the devaluation of the individual, this is doomed to fail.

As it currently stands the worlds' only governing body, The United Nations, is dominated by regimes that seek to control people rather than empower them. The current rush towards "One World" is being attempted by the use of power- economic, political, propaganda and plain brute force over the masses. When people feel disenfranchised from the government as they are more and more, they will revert back to the basic levels of trust, the family unit.

Ultimately to achieve this "One World" we must recognize that what is best about us must be encouraged, not discouraged or marginalized. When governments recognize that the empowerment of the individual rather than the control of the individual is the key to unity, then we will make real progress. The love a parent for a child is a far more powerful tool to the advancement of man than the suppression of birth. The burning creative desire of the entrepreneur is what allows for technological and economic advancement not the equal distribution of resources.

We have already learned these lessons, this is not something new, it is someting old and as deep as the spirit of Liberty that burns in every man. Yet here we are again, allowing ourselves to be sucked back down the drain of suppression of the human spirit by those whose true purposes are elitist governance and political power over us and our children.

It will fail, it will fail because the grizzly will be awakened and rise up to protect his/her den from those who would so naively believe that it is their job to share it, only the grizzly can make that choice and the grizzly always protects its den.

BTW that was written long before Sarah Palin came up with her Mama Grizzly theme :)

Oregon

What exactly is "the right thing to do"?

You know Lotis I am originally an Oregonian. Most of my family lives there. So I do not hold it against the state though most of my family is of the liberal persuasion as well.

I rib my mother telling her why I have not made it back in years is that if I wanted to visit a communist country, Cuba is much closer :)

Have a good evening
Jer