Intro

It's time for a reality check ...

Maybe we’ve reached the point of diminishing astonishment.

But I suspect that much of what we’re hammered with every day really doesn’t make much of an impact on most of us anymore. We’ve heard the same stories too often. We’ve been exposed to the same issues for so long without any meaningful resolution. We recognize that reality is rapidly becoming malleable, primarily in the hands of whoever has the biggest microphone. How else can we explain a society where myth asserts itself as reality, based entirely how many hits it gets online?

We know that many of the “issues” as defined are pure crapola, hyped by politicians on both sides pandering to “the will of the people,” which is still more crapola. Inevitably, it’s not the will of all the people they reflect, but the will of relatively small groups of people with disproportionate political influence.

Nobody wants to face up to the realities of the issues. Nobody wants to say what’s right or wrong – even when it’s obvious and there are numbers to back it up. Most of us are afraid to bring up the realities for fear of being accused of being insensitive or downright mean.

So we say nothing. Until now.

It’s time for a reality check on the fundamentals – much of which is common knowledge to many of us, already. But it might be comforting to know you are not alone …

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Thought for the Day -- November 4, 2014

I was voter #25 in my township this morning. 

For the record I voted a straight Republican ticket. I did that mainly because I so deeply despise the Democrat brand locally, regionally and nationally.

A perfect example is the race for governor here.  

In fairness, the much maligned incumbent Republican Governor Tom Corbett is a truly awful politician.  He’s wooden, doesn’t do a good job selling himself, his policies, or his accomplishments and doesn’t seem to like glad-handing and baby kissing. 

But he’s actually done a very good job, considering what he inherited from Fast Eddie Rendell.  He’s taken a lot of heat for cutting spending on education to give tax breaks to corporations, when, in fact, he didn’t. Rendell used a billion bucks in one-time stimulus money to artificially inflate education hiring and spending; when that money ran out Corbett faced a billion-dollar “deficit” on paper in education funding.  He had no choice but to scale back some of the temporary jobs and spending that one-time pop of money had created. 

Even then, Corbett was able to make up $500 million of that budget hole without raising income taxes. In any other world, he’d be a hero, but Democrats here tore him to pieces for “hurting” schools.  Because he cut corporate taxes, which created jobs here, and refused to support additional taxes on the Marcellus Shale drillers, which created even more jobs here and drove down utility prices for consumers, Dems claimed he sold out school kids for corporate interests. 

In an unprecedented low, even for them, they've even blamed his "budget cuts" for the lack of toilet paper in Philadelphia public schools. His opponent, Democrat Tom Wolfe, ran with that and did a TV spot interviewing teachers who made the same claim.  Of course, it wasn't true; the reason schools didn't have toilet paper in their bathrooms was because, as soon as it was replaced, students stole it or used it for vandalism, like flushing rolls down toilets.

No matter that it wasn't true, like the other Democrat attacks on Corbett, the damage was done.  

Corbett will probably lose today, which is sad because he’s a decent, honorable man.  Terrible politician and campaigner, that’s true, but a good, responsible governor who did the right things, and for which he was tarred unjustly. 

Which brings me back to my utter disdain for the Democrat brand. 

Granted, the Republican brand right now sucks, to quote Rand Paul, who is brave enough to state the obvious. I may not agree with him on everything, but on this he is dead on. I have no idea what the Republican brand stands for, and I follow these things. The only thing it has going for it is that the Democrat brand is so awful.   

I know politics is a contact sport and can be brutal. But the Democrats are hitting new lows in pandering to the worst fears of their constituencies. 

They are blaming Republicans for Ferguson, Ebola, the rise of ISIS, no progress on immigration, the threatened end of life-saving mammograms at Planned Parenthood, attacks on legal abortion, attempts to limit access to birth control, and of course the Republican plan to impeach Obama and roll back civil rights laws to “put y’all back in chains,“ if they win control of the Senate.   

When the Democrats send out mailers featuring black children holding up signs saying “don’t shoot” with the message to vote for Democrats to avoid another Ferguson, that’s way over the top. When leading Democrats say that Republican cuts to health programs fueled the spread of Ebola, and that prior Republican administrations helped create ISIS, it’s reprehensible. 

It just goes on and on – there is apparently no depth so deep they won’t plumb it, no lie so outrageous they won’t use it, and no baseless accusation they won’t promote to further their cause.

They have no shame whatsoever for milking tragedies for political gain.  They don’t hesitate to play the race card whenever possible – whether that’s about Abu Jamal, Trayvon Martin, or more recently Michael Brown – long before the facts are in, and long after the facts have come out. They are quick to use the mass murders of children in Connecticut, or of innocent movie-goers in Colorado, to push their anti-gun agenda. There are no limits. No moral or ethical boundaries.  

They recognize the truth but prefer to lie, whether that’s about IRS targeting, Secret Service lapses, the Bergdahl fiasco, ObamaCare, NSA snooping, or Benghazi.  

At the street level, they enlist the aid of union goons and paid provocateurs to shout down anyone who questions the Democrat orthodoxy, and disrupt appearances by anyone who dares run against them.  When strong arm tactics seem to fail, they resort to using the force of government to harass and intimidate opponents into submission. 

There’s literally nothing they will not do, no matter how base, how dishonest, or how disgusting.  And their Democrat supporters seem to cheer them on. 

Which begs the question: Do their supporters actually approve of the Democrats’ tactics? 

If so, that’s a very scary proposition; that means that a large percentage of the population has no moral compass whatsoever. They have decided there's no right or wrong, and they have no remorse for the pain they cause.  They might as well be sociopaths.      

That’s the Democrat brand.  And that why I despise it so. 


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