The Sneak Attack
One of the time-honored ways for elected leaders to rob us of our freedom is for them to act on legislation when no one is paying attention because everyone is focused on something else. Another is for them to give some piece of legislation a nice-sounding name that bears no resemblance to what the legislation will actually do. And right now both of those things are happening in our nation's capital.
Two days ago -- while most of the people and media remained focused primarily on the fallout from the Boston Marathon bombings, and secondarily on the fierce debate over proposed immigration reforms -- the U.S. Senate quietly moved the "Marketplace Fairness Act" past a procedural hurdle and one step closer to passage. Needless to say, what the act would truly accomplish is not fair but unfair: 1) It would cripple innumerable businesses, especially small ones, and thus prove detrimental to their employees. 2) In the process it would take choices away from consumers; in other words, from all of us. And 3) It would do this by imposing encumbrances on Internet transactions, which have proven to be one of the greatest democratizing and empowering devices in human history.
Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe has written a fine piece about this pending legislation. You can read it by going here.
The Sequestration Scam
Meanwhile, continuing to roll in are some of the real world effects of the ways in which Obama & Co. cynically and very intentionally toy with their constituents.
To recap, back on March 1st a minor -- very minor -- cut in federal spending was activated by the fact that Congress hadn't passed a budget. The ways in which the cut would be applied were authored in advance by none other than Obama himself; and while he could have chosen to reduce the government's spending on superfluous fat like cowboy poetry festivals and the construction of robotic squirrels (to see if they attract rattlesnakes bites!), he instead chose to reduce its spending on important things like airport security and meat inspections. Obviously, his chosen cuts were intended to inflict pain and/or panic in order to prod the public into buying his snake oil claim that any cuts in government spending automatically equal danger for the public.
This very evening I was reminded of the sequestration scam when one of my local TV stations ran a story about the large number of flights through Tampa International Airport that are being delayed, supposedly because sequestration has "forced" the government to place air traffic controllers on furlough throughout the nation. Well, I turned on my computer and it turns out that yesterday's Wall Street Journal had a piece about this particular part of the scam, which you can read here. For a good piece about the scam overall, you may go here and read what Deroy Murdock had to say the day sequestration went into effect.
About that immigration reform
I am like most conservatives in that I love Marco Rubio -- love him to the point that I wish he was president -- yet I believe he is gravely mistaken when it comes to the immigration bill he is championing. My main reason for opposing the bill is that in order to be in favor of it, one must believe the government will do what it says it is going to do with regard to enforcement and border security; and unfortunately, history tells us we would be fools to believe that.
Now, on top of the very rational fear that the government will not follow through on its promises, we have this to chew on: During an interview today with Laura Ingraham, Rudy Guilliani (a supporter of the bill!) admitted that even if the govenment does keep its promises, the bill's border security measures will not succeed. When asked if they would be effective, he stated: "No, no, no, the only thing that works is putting the right number of resources on the border and being able to stop people physically from coming in for a period of two or three years to change behavior."
Well, alrighty then.
And finally...
Every time a Republican mentions the obvious fact that Muslims have a near-monopoly on the use of terror against us, liberal media types immediately trot out the bogus charge that the Republican's statement is evidence that Republicans are xenophobic and Islamophobic and are infused with a totalitarian impulse that they aim at anyone who practices Islam in any form.
Yesterday, none of those same liberal media types (including even the hypersensitive Council on American-Islamic Relations) uttered a disparaging word when longtime Democrat Bob Beckel said this: "In the Muslin communities around the world, they do not like us. I think we really have to consider, given the fact that so many people hate us, that we're going to have to cut off Muslim students coming to this country for some period of time so that we can absorb what we've got, and look at what we've got, and decide whether some of the people here should be sent back home or to prison."
Granted, they did not publicize or praise Beckel's remarks, but they also did not criticize them. I would ask why, but what's the point? The media is the media and you already know the answer. So I simply say c'est la vie.
I am like most conservatives in that I love Marco Rubio -- love him to the point that I wish he was president -- yet I believe he is gravely mistaken when it comes to the immigration bill he is championing. My main reason for opposing the bill is that in order to be in favor of it, one must believe the government will do what it says it is going to do with regard to enforcement and border security; and unfortunately, history tells us we would be fools to believe that.
Now, on top of the very rational fear that the government will not follow through on its promises, we have this to chew on: During an interview today with Laura Ingraham, Rudy Guilliani (a supporter of the bill!) admitted that even if the govenment does keep its promises, the bill's border security measures will not succeed. When asked if they would be effective, he stated: "No, no, no, the only thing that works is putting the right number of resources on the border and being able to stop people physically from coming in for a period of two or three years to change behavior."
Well, alrighty then.
And finally...
Every time a Republican mentions the obvious fact that Muslims have a near-monopoly on the use of terror against us, liberal media types immediately trot out the bogus charge that the Republican's statement is evidence that Republicans are xenophobic and Islamophobic and are infused with a totalitarian impulse that they aim at anyone who practices Islam in any form.
Yesterday, none of those same liberal media types (including even the hypersensitive Council on American-Islamic Relations) uttered a disparaging word when longtime Democrat Bob Beckel said this: "In the Muslin communities around the world, they do not like us. I think we really have to consider, given the fact that so many people hate us, that we're going to have to cut off Muslim students coming to this country for some period of time so that we can absorb what we've got, and look at what we've got, and decide whether some of the people here should be sent back home or to prison."
Granted, they did not publicize or praise Beckel's remarks, but they also did not criticize them. I would ask why, but what's the point? The media is the media and you already know the answer. So I simply say c'est la vie.
No comments:
Post a Comment