History repeating itself....sort of

Remember the 1950s and the McCarthy hearing? Well, he was right. Too bad we didn't listen to him.

Scatiatta

Here's photo of a Sicilian dish I made yesterday. It's called Scacciatta---and it kicks Pizza's butt up and down the kitchen!

Nullification and Secession

Nullification would be a big step to liberty---but ultimately an express rather than implied right to Secession (a right all the states understood until that snake Lincoln rose to power) should also be added to the Constitution.

I say this because the growing tyranny and brazen contempt the Feds have for We the People. Clearly, nullification and interposition do not provide sufficient bonds to bind the kind of tyranny the Centralized Monstrosity is capable of bringing forth up there in Mordor on the Potomac.

Without that express guarantee, a state would exhaust all its means for justice, and, as a last resort try to secede like one of the 16 Russian republics in 1989.

When that happened, unlike that EVIL Soviet government (allowing peaceful secession without shedding a drop of blood) our BENEVOLENT Federal government would carry on yet another benign, gentle resistance (aka, invasion), under the guise of yet another false philanthropy.

Under the aegis of such compassion history would repeat itself, another half-million would die, a whole culture and region would be totally devastated and remain so for over a century, the seceding state would be reduced lower in status than a conquered province and its people would become the scapegoat upon which every national social and cultural ill would be placed.

The Take Away from this is simple:
The cognitive dissonance between rhetoric and reality is always instructive, but never so much so as when you are dealing with politics and politicians, whose main skill, after all, is that of muddying the waters by means of rhetorical obfuscation. Pay no heed to their words, for they are only there to misinform, mislead and misdirect. Rather, watch their actions like a hawk––and respond accordingly.

Pelosi's Genius Ignites US Economic Boom

NEWS FLASH! Dec. 4th, 2010, Washington D.C.: As a result of Nancy Pelosi's revelation that collecting unemployment benefits is actually good for the economy the entire U.S. work force has quit, en mass, and started collecting unemployment.

One worker leaving his job at Procter and Gamble in Cincinnati said, "We had no idea we were doing such damage to the economy by staying on the job and being productive. It just shows you how stupid we uneducated louts are and how brilliant someone with an elite education like Ms. Pelosi is. I see now what I missed by not going to college."

Another employee, Ed Riggs, danced and skipped his way to the bus stop after he punched out for the last time. Just as he boarded the 43 to Avondale he looked back as the bus idled and said, "I can't tell you how happy this makes me to think I can benefit my family and the nation by just sitting on my ass and collecting unemployment, and all I have to do is make sure my family spends it all each month. I'm thinking about getting an advance from the Feds and taking the whole family to Disney World for the month. Come to think of it, maybe they'll issue me a Government Unemployee's Credit Card or Debit Card I can use." Ed continued,"It's such a relief to know I'm on the payroll of an institution that can just print all the money it needs without having to worry about earning it. So, Hell, we might just go hog wild in Orlando! Nancy Pelosi for Queen of the World...Okay, Barney Frank for Queen of the world--Nancy can be King-in-Drag. She's wanted that all along anyway. Wu-hu!"

Just before Ed's bus arrived he made a quick detour into Cut-Rate Liquors and bought a shopping cart full of California fizzy. Upon boarding the bus he began passing bottles around to the other passengers, including the bus driver. When asked about drinking and driving the driver shouted over the popping of corks, "Like I might lose my job or something?" he chuckled. "Naaah. Not a problem. This is my last run before I do my patriotic duty and quit."

As he closed the door I could hear his muffled voice shout,"Let's roll!" So, with the sound of singing and the lingering smell of diesel in the late fall air local 43 ambled down the street and turned at the next corner. But the singing could be heard for some time after the bus was out of sight.

Pelosi's economic revelation has not only affected individual workers and local businesses. The effects have been national as well, including the Stock Market hitting an all time high. Further nationwide effects have included the congress holding an emergency session and voting unanimously to drop the Social Security retirement age to 36. It seems their vote was the first ever to be sent in by twitter, since none of them were actually physically present.

None of the Lawmakers could be contacted for comments after the historic vote, but Bernie Sanders did tweet a subscriber,"This early retirement should bring unprecedented prosperity. Socialism forever!" When a fellow socialist tweeted Sanders back, asking him what he planned to do in retirement he responded that he hadn't given it a lot of thought, but then twipped, "But I've always wanted to learn to play the ocarina."

When asked what sort of thinking lead Amerika's first Speakerette to such a brilliant, game-changing revelation she said, "My discovery about the great economic benefits of collecting unemployment wasn't really the result of brilliant economic reasoning––though I'm certainly capable of that. It was much simpler. I just woke up one morning and thought to myself, 'Why should I be struggling with labyrinthine logic, mountains of data and a million niggling little details. Hell, I'm the Speakerette of the House! I'm the most powerful woman in the world, uh, next to Kim Kardashian, of course––but I think everyone understands that. Anyway, I said to myself, 'All I have to do to make something true is simply say it's so!' So I did. And the rest, as we all now know, is history. I only wish I had thought of this before we got our asses kicked on Nov. 2nd."

Pelosi's ass kicking notwithstanding, there's no denying: Happy Days are here again thanks to the economic genius of the soon-to-be-former Speakerette!

Believe the ol' Armadillo when he says dear Speakerette's departure can't happen soon enough. Then we'll have even happier days.
--

The Evils of Government enforced Integration

Most people cheered to see the army roll into Alabama to enforce integration of schools in the 1960s. They saw it as a strike against an injustice rooted in racial hatred. There may have been some truth in that. But there was something else was going on that most did not see; the precedent this action set for how the Federal government deals with citizens who act in politically incorrect ways. Few asked themselves the obvious question, "If the government can do this to some states or individuals then what prevents it, once the precedent is set, from doing it to all states and individuals, as it sees fit?

Despite all the self-righteous posturing and platitudes, the actions of the Federal government invading Alabama were reprehensible. The sorry fact is, America gained a dime of liberty at the cost of a dollar, for it set the precedent of government intrusion into every aspect of our lives, both social and moral. You might applaud the invasion of Alabama, but what happens when there's a Waco? What will you do when they come for your state or you?

If one man's rights must be taken away to insure another man's rights where is the ultimate justice in that? My father was only able to go to the third grade, but he knew well what the over-educated, under-intelligent idiots in government apparently do not: two wrongs don't make a right.

What right was taken from the segregationists in Alabama? How about Freedom of Association, for starters?

When the government can come into your business and demand that you must serve a certain person or group of persons, is the business still yours? Do you really own anything? Ownership usually means you can use or dispose of the owned object as you please.

Is an injustice being corrected, or are you seeing the horror of fascism in action, exercised by the iron hand of the Nation State, and the seeds of an even greater injustice breaking ground?

If the government can dictate whom you must serve what else can it demand of you? Many wonder today, "Just how far can it go?" There's obviously no limit, because the limits of governmental power is determined by the government itself. The Federal Fox sets the limits of its own actions in the national hen house and has done so since 1861. And no Constitution or bill of rights is of the least bit of protection once the fox sets its' sights on you.

The real question is not how far it can go, but how far will it go? And the answer to that is painfully obvious: "As far as it feels it needs to go in any given instant to accomplish its purpose, whatever that might be."

Let's cut to the chase and take a look at the bottom line: The final results of government intrusion and intervention into local societies and cultures is that the government and the oligarchy of special interests that run it end up being the only ones with any rights.

You may think you have rights, but that is only because, at this point, the Federal Government has not decided or seen fit to take the ones you hold dear. But when it does, rest assured their actions will be spun in a way that shows you to be the problem; an enemy of society, and you will be as helpless as the once Sovereign State of Alabama and its people were in the face of Federal tyranny.

The point is, when we see a certain deed done to correct a perceived societal evil or forward a popular cause most of us applaud. Why not? Wasn't a good accomplished? Yes, but at what cost?

What most of us never concern ourselves with is the nature of the means used. Are there unintended evils resulting from the means employed? Is it possible these unintended evils may ultimately cause much more harm than the corrected evil ever did?

The greatest problem with modern liberalism is the same problem with the impatient "reformers" of history, do gooders and intrusive powerful governments, controlled as they are by social revolutionaries like our present administration: the means their self-righteous arrogance uses to correct the isolated evil results in much greater evil and injustice than the wrong they sought to correct.

A second point is that corrupt, unfitting means may change outward appearances by force, coercion and even bribery, but it does not change hearts and minds, except for the worse. In fact, it almost always increases malice and hatred, creating wounds that perpetually fester and never heal. How can healing and reconciliation take place with the Dogooders constantly picking at it?!?

And why is the Dogooder on one crusade after another? Is it because he has a loftier, more noble vision than us run of the mill Joe and Josephine Schmos? Not at all. It's because they feel inadequate within and have a gnawing need to be important and to matter. It is ego, not charity, that drives them. That is why they are never satisfied. They are compulsive doers and not thinkers, that's why they never consider the unintended consequences of the means they use to accomplish their goals. Once those evil consequences show themselves their egos and narcissism will drive them to deny the cause was their means. Thus, they will engage in their only intellectual activities: obfuscation, denial and rationalization. Liberalism, as Michael Savage so aptly says, is a mental disorder. But it is more than that; it is evil cloaked in the self-righteous garment of compassion.

So if there is some truth in what has been said above, what can justly be done about perceived social injustices? It's simple. Let people work it out among themselves over time; let birds of a feather flock together. If groups do not feel threatened they will learn to live in peace with one another.

What about the difficulties faced by minorities? How can they be corrected?

Such a question is best answered with a question. Specifically, "Who says difficulties and resistant are bad things?" Isn't that an unexamined assumption?

What is the common result of such difficulties? They often create character in the one exercised by them. Anyone who has faced and overcome difficulties knows what great personal benefits resulted from the struggle and how a sense of self-reliance, confidence and self-respect was gained that could not have been gained in any other way.

In contrast we know the sorry results that come from handing someone every thing on a silver platter: a spoiled, rotten, selfish, narcissistic shell of a human being, void of respect for others as well as himself.

So, how are resistance and difficulty bad? The answer is, "They aren't!" They are the unpleasant means resulting in a good end. In contrast, ease and entitlement are the pleasant means to a terrible end.

Any community that is set at a social disadvantage or experiences a certain oppression can rise above it and excel, if they live better, are more honorable and work harder than others. In fact, the difficulties minorities face can help galvanize their communities so that they actually become communities in more than appearance or word, but, as the Lord says, "in Spirit and Truth." Look at how Asian minorities have flourished in America. Look at how Chinese have flourished and become the wealthiest group in Indonesia, despite minority status and laws that set them at a disadvantage. How did they succeed? They did so because they lived better, studied harder, were more honorable and worked harder, not because a nanny state did everything for them as they sat passively collecting government largess.

What is so wrong about government helping? Government intrusion causes the people's will to overcome, excel and triumph against adversity to atrophy from lack of exercise. And in the next generation that moral muscle will never develop at all. People will then become like domesticated animals; still having all the physical capabilities to care for themselves but without will or mind-set to do so. The means to self-confidence, self-reliance and self-respect will have been taken by narcissistic, self-important government meddlers and dogooders.

Instead of actively seeking their own good and exercising their God given powers they will sit and wait passively for their government Masters to fill their bowls, and expect their Masters to deal with their every problem, every perceived injustice or dilemma. Such is the results of using corrupt, unjust and unfitting means to artificially correct a perceived evil. But who thought that as they watched their black and white televisions and saw the U.S. Army march down the streets of Selma in the 1960s?

It is this kind of Dogooderism that creates a passive, enslaved, dependent and decadent people and brings a society to ruin from within.

Lincoln reflection

It seems to me Lincoln was the ultimate forerunner of the modern Liberal, picking and choosing as he pleased.

He liked Jefferson's "all men are created equal" phrase so much he forged of it the crowbar used a little later by the Progressives to dismantle the Constitution, brick by brick.

He was apparently NOT fond of that other part of Jefferson's famous declaration-you know, the one about when a government doesn't serve the needs of the people it was their right and duty to abolish it and form another better suited.

Yup, I don't think the old tyrant and war criminal read the into Declaration far enough to get to that part.

Pity.

Lincoln=Fascist.