PROVOCATION

12 August 2010

Where has the American Dream gone?
By Morris Clopton

Growing up the challenge to improve myself through study and hard work consistently drove me to seek to improve. Opportunities lost returned when thought, time and effort coupled with acquiring skills and knowledge provided open doors. The sixty-seven years that God is providing for me enabled a vast array of educational and school of hard knocks experiences. Like steel that is hardened and tempered by the application of intense heat and sudden cooling, life nurtures physical, mental, and spiritual maturity with experiences.

Today I am aware of an increasingly large portion of our population that rather than participate in the growth and prosperity of our nation chooses to take from those who generate income. The entitlement mentality spawns generations of individuals with no incentive to produce wealth. These individuals choose to demand that the government take care of them rather than build upon an educations, skills and knowledge acquired. The innate desire to consume rather than produce spreads like cancer through our nation crippling job production, product creation, and new inventions all with the skewed thought process of let someone else do it.

Our government seeks to foster this entitlement mentality, because such mentality provides office holders with power by creating a population, which is obligated to the office holder. The sad result the recipients of government entitlements are too ignorant to realize that the office holder providing the miniscule entitlement is raping those same individuals to increase his or her own wealth. Our politicians berate the rich while stuffing their pockets with millions seeking to elevate their personal wealth and well-being at the expense of the people that elected them. How intelligent people listen to the diatribe coming out of Washington about how the Democrats are going to tax the rich or take from the rich and re-distribute wealth and not realize that the office holder is extremely wealthy himself is mind boggling. Do what I say not what I do seems to be the order of the day for politicians. They want you and I to believe it is ok for them to be rolling in wealth as long as they pretend to care about you.

The ruling Left would have us believe that their actions no matter how macabre they may be are reasonable and just. Consider for a moment the consistent beating of political drums by the Left that prohibits any hint of offering thanks to the God who created all that is; in any form or fashion in any avenue of our society today. However, it is perfectly ok according to the left to take your tax dollars and spend them to promote Islam at the expense of Christianity. Where is the separation of State and Church here?
EDITORIAL: Tax dollars to build mosques
U.S. underwrites fundraising tour for Islamic shrine at Ground Zero

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES
The Washington Times
7:46 p.m., Tuesday, August 10, 2010
The State Department is sending Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf – the mastermind of the Ground Zero Mosque – on a trip through the Middle East to foster “greater understanding” about Islam and Muslim communities in the United States. However, important questions are being raised about whether this is simply a taxpayer-funded fundraising jaunt to underwrite his reviled project, which is moving ahead in Lower Manhattan.

Mr. Rauf is scheduled to go to Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Qatar, the usual stops for Gulf-based fundraising. The State Department defends the five-country tour saying that Mr. Rauf is “a distinguished Muslim cleric,” but surely the government could find another such figure in the United States who is not seeking millions of dollars to fund a construction project that has so strongly divided America…

Further expenditures of our tax dollars to rebuild mosque in foreign countries: Where is the separation of Church and State here?
Comments: EDITORIAL: Tax dollars to build mosques – Washington Times
Aug 10, 2010 … In NYS we had tax payer money accumulated in excess of our awful tax … Why should we spend a penny rebuilding some dilapidated mosque …

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/…/tax…mosques/comments/…

In Montana, a Fight Over Separation of Church and Fairgrounds
By Tess Civantos
Published August 11, 2010
FoxNews.com

Our government controlled judicial system continues to destroy the moral fiber of out great nation by over ruling the voice of 7 million voters:

WISDOM: Marriage over the rainbow
Ruling would make traditional believers enemies of the state

By Alan F.H. Wisdom

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The Washington Times

6:32 p.m., Wednesday, August 11, 2010

U.S. District Judge Vaughn R. Walker’s Aug. 4 ruling striking down California’s Proposition 8 asserted far more than was necessary to redefine marriage as being between any two persons. Judge Walker’s decision included controversial “findings of fact” that amounted to a massive new salvo in the culture wars over sexuality.

Drawing up his judicial robes, Judge Walker rejected “stereotypes and misinformation” that “have resulted in social and legal disadvantages for gays and lesbians.” He denied that there is “any rational basis” for distinguishing the marriage of man and woman from same-sex relationships. For example, Judge Walker found no reason why the state should prefer that a child grow up with his or her mother and father. “The genetic relationship between a parent and a child is not related to a child’s adjustment outcomes,” he declared as “fact.”

Having dismissed the stated motives of Proposition 8 supporters, the judge claimed to have “uncloak[ed]” their true motives: “The evidence shows conclusively that moral and religious views form the only basis for a belief that same-sex couples are different from opposite-sex couples.”…

KNIGHT: Marriage ruling is only a ‘ban’ on truth
Intelligentsia morph language to disguise immorality

By Robert Knight
The Washington Times

6:32 p.m., Wednesday, August 11, 2010
The word “ban” is negative. Like “taboo,” the term offends modern sensibilities trained to be ever more accepting of any envelope-pushing behavior.

That’s why the media describe California’s Proposition 8 constitutional marriage law as a “ban,” not the codification of something positive and timeless. The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has been misreported for years as the “federal ban on gay marriage.” So when “smarter than God” federal Judge Joseph L. Tauro in Massachusetts dispatched DOMA on July 9, the media thundered as one: “Judge Strikes Down Gay Marriage Ban.”

Similarly, in California, federal Judge Vaughn R. Walker was widely reported to have struck down the state’s “ban on gay marriage” in his Aug. 4 ruling. The New York Times put it this way: “Court Rejects Same-Sex Marriage Ban in California.” Actually, Judge Walker took his activist ax to the meaning of marriage itself and the meaning of representative democracy in a free republic…

Our government seeks to deny entrepreneurship, destroying private enterprise by race and politics.

EDITORIAL: Engineered by Obama Motors
Automakers run on race-based political calculations

By THE WASHINGTON TIMES

The Washington Times

7:46 p.m., Tuesday, August 10, 2010
A report by the Troubled Asset Relief Program’s inspector general, Neil M. Barofsky, underscores the danger of handing control of private enterprise to government bureaucrats. In running General Motors and Chrysler, the Obama administration’s Auto Team made decisions based on what its members know best: race and politics.

After taking over the bankrupt carmakers, the administration ordered the immediate termination of one-quarter of existing dealerships – but not for business reasons. “Key members of the Auto Team … stated that they did not consider cost savings to be a factor in determining the need for dealership closures,” Mr. Barofsky wrote in his July 19 report. “Nevertheless, GM officials stated that they developed the cost-savings estimate … after being ‘pressed’ during meetings with congressional representatives to explain the cost savings that would result from the dealership terminations.”

These after-the-fact justifications were needed after Congress learned that closing 2,243 dealerships would cost nearly 100,000 jobs. GM invented a savings estimate of $2.6 billion, and Chrysler said its closings would save $35.9 million. Insiders reported the numbers were little more than a “math exercise” based on highly questionable assumptions, with one GM official admitting the hasty closure plan “might even cost GM money.”

GM set up a scoring system to determine the most valuable dealerships, but affirmative action was used to pick which survived. “Other dealerships were retained because they … were minority- or woman-owned dealerships,” Mr. Barofsky explained. The administration also pressured GM to cut rural dealerships. Mr. Barofsky’s office interviewed independent experts who confirmed that domestic automakers “had an advantage over their import competitors” in rural markets and that cutting dealerships in those areas would harm domestic sales. The O Force’s disdain for red states and their tendency to “cling to guns or religion” can’t be coincidental…

Our challenge today is clear, we must continue to educate ourselves, stand up for what is right, challenge our elected government, and VOTE!

Becoming involved in local, county, state and national politics is more important than ever before in our short history as a nation. Do not let a group of self-serving politicians destroy the greatest nation in the world. Each individual is responsible do not depend on someone else to do for you what you must do for yourselves.

What’s Wrong with a little Wealth Redistribution anyway?
By Daniel Greenfield Friday, May 29, 2009

Word that the Obama Administration may have used its power over Chrysler’s restructuring process to shut down dealerships whose owners donated to Republican candidates, while leaving open dealerships that donated to Obama is spreading across conservative blogs. But while this kind of abuse of government power is shocking, it really shouldn’t be.

Government is an engine of wealth redistribution, and when it gains control of businesses, it redistributes wealth in a way that benefits its supporters. That is what government always does, no matter how it disguises it.

That is why despite all the leftist wishful thinking in the world, centrally planned economies are corrupt, inept and inefficient.

The free market operates based on profit motive. A store owner’s goal is to sell products in order to earn a profit. If he provides discounts, he has to do it based on an economic incentive, for example selling at a lower cost per unit to a purchaser who buys large quantities. A store owner who sells products at a lower price to Democrats and at a higher price to Republicans, or who sells at a lower price to whites and at a higher price to blacks… is hurting his own profit margins and so is really hurting himself.

The profit motive “purifies” economic behavior in the free market to a degree. By contrast within government there is no “purifier”, except the legal system, which is also controlled by the government.

A government’s economic behavior is controlled by politicians who have only one goal, Patronage. Politicians gain control of resources in order to reward their supporters. This takes the form of providing government contracts or jobs to the individual supporters. It also takes the form of providing general forms of aid targeted at their base, e.G. Welfare, union jobs.

When government gains control of businesses, it naturally goes into wealth redistribution mode and begins providing patronage to the supporters of the ruling party. Communist countries are a example of the system taken to its limits, with the entire economy controlled by the ruling party and wealth distributed to supporters of the party, based on their level of support and affiliation.

The more wealth the Federal government took in and gave out, the more it got into the patronage business. And that corrupted the free market and the national economy. Where individual businesses have economic disincentives for practicing discrimination or handing out wasteful contracts, the government has none.

Where individual free market profit is economic in nature, governments spend money in order to reward supporters and expand their base of support. Everything the Obama regime has done is textbook Machiavelli, but it is also the inevitable result of letting the same government that has treated the national budget as a pork barrel take holds of banks and the auto industry.

The rape of the American auto industry by Obama and his henchmen
No doubt there is a long list of industries that Obama will be happy to “bail out”, and by bail out, we mean of course spend billions in taxpayer owned debt to take over, carve up and hand out to their supporters.

The rape of the American auto industry by Obama and his henchmen was a classic case of a gang of politicians robbing the country blind in order to provide patronage to their backers, both at the union and the dealership level. But that is par for the course.

Obama promised to fix the capitalist arrogance of the free market with some wealth redistribution, which is a lot like a mugger telling you that he can cure your credit card debt by taking all your money. Now we’re seeing just how far that mugging went and how many victims it’s leaving behind. And we’re not done yet.

If the initial phase was the mugging, the next phase is that the beating the mugger dished out transmitted a disease which is now in the veins of his victim. When government takes control of an industry, it immediately promotes rent seeking behavior in order to increase its own wealth and power. This naturally drives up the cost of everything, produces inferior products and adds layers on bureaucracy on top of everything.

CAFE and a big package of regulations will insure that Chrysler and GM produce cars that meet the standards of the left, and that no one will actually want to buy or drive. The government naturally will buy the cars, both for itself, and subsidize their purchase for the “disadvantaged.” Sallie Mae and Freddie Mac will have an auto buddy who exists to insure the “right” of everyone to own a car, with loans to people who can’t pay them, for cars they can’t afford.

If Obama gets his way, the US auto industry will wind up looking like it’s Soviet counterpart, a government subsidized white elephant that will benefit no one but politicians and their supporters. And it will once again serve as a textbook example of what’s wrong with wealth redistribution, and how absolute government power over the free market, corrupts it absolutely into patronage.

Have you abdicated your conservative values?
By Morris L. Clopton, 5 May 2009

 Have you abdicated your conservative values?  Do you kneel at the foot of the throne of liberalism?

 Do really want the United States government in control of our automobile industry?  Have you considered what it means to have the President of the United States as the chief car salesperson instead of the Commander and Chief of our military forces? President Obama stated directly that he is “going to cut Wall Street in half”.  That is ridiculous when our free enterprise system used its wealth and power to elect President Obama. It is extremely important that you recall your history and demand that capitalism continue to abound in the United States.

 Your conservative values are under assault when the government passes laws describing your fundamental beliefs as hate crimes.  The law will make it unlawful for your pastor to preach truths from the bible concerning specific sins.  You must stand up for what you believe and act as one of “we the people”.  Write, telephone, fax, or email your local, state, and US congressional representative and senators tell them what you stand for and demand that each one of them represent your views with their vote.  A smarter man than me made the following statement:
“To reach a port we must sail, sometimes
with the wind, and sometimes against it.
But we must not drift or lie at anchor.”

Do not set at anchor, it is imperative that conservative individuals act on their beliefs.  The value system established upon truth, honest, integrity, individual rights, state rights, are ours only as long as we demand them.  We allow extreme liberalism to seep into our mindset seductively and covertly through absolute untruths and assaults against our constitutional rights.  The media is determined to undermine every facet of our fundamental conservative beliefs by supporting government control of each minute of our lives.

To stand up for conservative values opens you up to labels as a “terrorist, uneducated redneck, and militiaman.  The reality however is that conservative values encourage more education, taking a stand on upholding the Constitution of the United States, and the Declaration of Independence with a fierce independence of will.

Take note of what one of our greatest presidents had to say about separation of powers in government.
The End of Federalism

Addressing Congress on the State of the Union, President Ronald Reagan told the American people in 1982:

“Our citizens feel they’ve lost control of even the most basic decisions made about the essential services of government, such as schools, welfare, roads, and even garbage collection. And they’re right. A maze of interlocking jurisdictions and levels of government confronts average citizens in trying to solve even the simplest of problems. They don’t know where to turn for answers, who to hold accountable, who to praise, who to blame, who to vote for or against. The main reason for this is the overpowering growth of Federal grants-in-aid programs during the past few decades.”

The costs of the loss of federalism to the American people are real. As Reagan outlined above, federal aid to states blurs the lines of government accountability, making it easy for politicians to sneak in government-growing legislation and hard for voters to hold those politicians accountable. Moreover, as states become more dependent on federal funding, they begin to lose their ability to set priorities and make policy decisions that are best-suited to their specific needs. Finally, sending money to Washington, only so that it can later come back to the states, creates a fiscal detour of inefficiency and inequity.first inaugural address: “All of us need to be reminded that the Federal Government did not create the States; the States created the Federal Government.”

A Leviathan-sized federal government able to dictate state policies through power of the purse is not what the Founders had in mind. As Reagan said in his

Look at what our present government is doing in economic intervention:
Commenting on the White House’s Chicago-style negotiations with Chrysler’s creditors, The Atlantic’s Megan McArdle writes:

[W]hen did it become the government’s job to intervene in the bankruptcy process to move junior creditors who belong to favored political constituencies to the front of the line? … these people lent money under a given set of rules, and now the government wants to intervene in our extremely well-functioning (and generous) bankruptcy regime solely in order to save a favored Democratic interest group.

President Obama has a cabinet made up of Who’s Who in the realm of questionable honesty and integrity. Individuals who have made a mockery of conservative values and seek to disavow any rights you may have as a citizen of the United States under the Constitution.  This is just the appointed cabinet members.  President Obama’s kitchen cabinet is an elite group of individuals consisting of Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Christopher Dodd, Barney Frank, Charlie Rangel, and Franklin D. Raines.  These individuals are on record as stating their goals to destroy conservatives.
Do not abdicate your conservative values!