The Argument Of Exception

     The Left in this country, and around the world, use what I call the argument of exception to advance their agenda. They combine the argument of exception with the argument of emotion to employ a one-two punch to common sense and liberty. This has been a tactic of the Left for some time, but has been abundantly illustrated in the last four years by the Obama administration. President Obama used the argument of exception to sell his unaffordable care act, and when a vast majority of the public did not succumb to the argument of exception, he rammed it through Congress using bribes, threats and parliamentary tricks. The argument of exception has been used more recently by the gun-grabbing Left in a renewed push for more gun control.
     The argument of exception bases laws and policies, not on what is the normal state of things, but rather on the exceptions that are the outliers. This behavior can most vividly be seen in the way in which Leftists have argued for universal health care, especially over the last 20 years. In poll after poll during that time, 85% or more of poll respondents said they were happy with their current health care plans. But President Obama, and other Democrats before him, displayed the exceptions in the form of those people that, for one reason or another, were not well served by the health care industry. They also vastly overstated the number of people who fell into the exception by counting people who chose not to have health insurance for their own reasons that had nothing to do with any limits of the industry. So in essence, President Obama and the rest of the Left used one of the basic tenets of Marxism, turning the exception into the rule, in order to advance their unpopular agenda to limit personal freedom.
     We are currently in the throws of a debate on gun control that is illustrative of the Lefts use of the argument of exception. The Newtown, Connecticut massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school, and the shameless way in which President Obama and his minions of useful idiots in the media have used it, is a classic example of the argument of exception. As tragic and sickening as the slaughter of innocent children is, the massacre visited upon that community by Adam Lanza is the exception, not the rule. In fact, the hard data shows that gun violence has actually dropped in the last 20 years while private ownership of firearms has dramatically increased. So if a causal relationship existed between guns and gun violence, as the Left would have us believe, gun violence would have increased during that period.
     The Lefts use of the argument of exception is inherently dishonest because it aims, not to solve some pressing issue of society, but to use outlying anomalies to consolidate political power in a central authority that they control. The fuel that stokes the furnace of Leftism is the ill gotten freedoms of the people they are suppose to govern, and the argument of exception is a valuable tool with which they obtain that fuel.

The Pre-911 World Of The Left

     If one were only to listen to the main stream media and the Obama administration, the conclusion would be reached that September 11, 2001 past through history with nothing out of the ordinary taking place that day. This fact has been illustrated by the way the Boston terrorist attack is being treated as a criminal act rather than a military operation executed by our enemy in an ongoing war. The Obamaites, in and out of the media, have adopted a pre-911 mindset with regards to terrorism and the devastation it has, is and will cause our country.
     If there is one thing we do know about the Boston attack from the information currently available, is that it occurred as a result of a colossal failure by the Obama administration, primarily in the form of the FBI, to stop the two brothers who committed the atrocity. In 2011, the Russian government warned the Obama administration about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brother terrorists, and that he should be carefully survaled. Not only were the Russian warnings not heeded by the administration, but after Tamerlan left the United States and spent 6-7 months in Russia, he was not even questioned by the FBI upon his return to the U.S.
     The Obama administration and the rest of the Left have put the safety and sovereignty of the United States in a subservient role to political correctness. It has been predictable but never the less pathetic to watch the Left twist themselves into pretzels trying to downplay the brothers' radical Islamic motivations and connections. One only needs to look at Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Facebook page and YouTube channel to understand what motivated him to enlist his younger brother in the slaughter of innocent Americans, it was radical Islam. And while the administration and others on the Left wish for all of us to live in the denial they exhibit about radical Islam, the bombings were a direct result of that denial.
     We now know that family and friends of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev saw their images in the media shortly after the bombings, but did not call police because of political correctness. They did not want to be accused of profiling by reporting that they might know the bombers simply because they looked like the Islamic brothers to which they were acquainted. When questioned why he didn't tell authorities where to find Dzhokhar, one acquaintance said he didn't want to turn in every "nice Islamic kid" who looked like the image on TV. And even President Obama carefully downplayed the terrorist brothers' radical Islamism and engaged in the "Lone Wolf" narrative manufactured by the media. It is hard to believe that two immigrant brothers, living in a small Boston apartment, with very scant resources, were able to purchase, construct and execute improvised explosive devices that killed 3 and injured scores more. Hard to believe, that is, unless you live in the world of the Left where 9-11 didn't occur and three thousand Americans who lost their lives on that day are still going to work daily in the World Trade Center buildings that still dominate the Manhattan skyline.

The Deliberate Confusion Between Rights And Needs

     I think that the struggle between Conservative ideas and Leftist ones is as old as organized government itself. The question in any society is how much government strikes the right balance between providing the necessary functions of government, without infringing on the rights of the people. The philosophies of government have basically been comprised of those who believe in limited government with an emphasis on individual liberty, and those who believe just the opposite. Today, in this country founded on the principles of the first category, we have allowed ourselves to be ruled and controlled by believers of the second. I believe this has happened as a result of propaganda, which has confused in the minds of much of the populace, rights and needs.
     In this country we have a Bill of Rights, not a Bill of Needs. Rights and needs are different, although the Left has tried to blur the line between the two in order to grow government. Rights supersede needs, and the needs of one person does not give government, or any other entity, the authority to mitigate the rights of someone else to satisfy those needs. Our needs are not constitutionally guaranteed, something of which the Left has convinced many people. The need for housing, food, clothing and myriad other essentials of life are not rights. And rights can not be provided by any government entity, they come from God and are protected by a properly functioning government.
     James Madison's fear of the Bill of Rights being used to actually limit the rights of free people to only those things enumerated, is more present today than when he first expressed them during the drafting and revisions to the United States Constitution. A hundred years of the Progressive cancer, begun with Woodrow Wilson and metastasised with the Obama administration, has been made possible by convincing a significant segment of the population that needs are rights and that they are satisfied by government largess. An idea that is a deliberate tactic of the Left and is illustrated by the growing social safety net that now includes cell phones, air conditioners, refrigerators, child care, vehicle repair and a multitude of other items in addition to the food and housing.
     One of the most valuable lessons my mother taught me as a child is that the more dependent one becomes on someone else, the more they lose control of their own life and destiny. By convincing large groups of people that their needs are rights and that they are entitled to have them fulfilled by a confiscatory government to which they have given the authority to do so, the Left has slowly turned this constitutional republic into an entitlement oligarchy.  

The Empty Calories Of Junk Media

     Now that the second Boston bombing terrorist suspect has been captured, some perspective can be gained from the week of a main stream media whose reporting on the incident ranged from ignorance to deliberate disinformation. If the Boston bombings have reinforced in my mind one overwhelming conclusion, it is that we have lost our collective ability to think for ourselves. People have been so trained to watch the drivel that passes for news, that they will sit for hours in front of a TV or computer screen just to hear bubble-headed news anchors and reporters tell them that they do not know anything more at this time. And yet, consumers of this severely retarded rhetoric will inject it like a junkie mainlining heroine.
     The desire to be first has overwhelmed any journalistic integrity to be accurate by those in the media. This week we witnessed a news media that reported there was a suspect in custody at a time when there was not and numerous outlets near prayerful desire that the suspect or suspects would be white Americans and then trying to transform them into such when it turned out they were not. We were also willingly subjected to the same videos of the terrorist massacre hundreds if not thousands of times. What became of even a modicum of decency in the media to report what they know, return to regular programming and then break in only if they truly have some confirmed news on a particular event. And what became of Americans who did not live their lives as slaves to the twenty four hour news cycle to the point that they are voluntarily mis-informed and blatantly manipulated by those in the media with a political agenda.
     I am saddened, horrified and sickened by the terrorist attacks in Boston this week, but almost as sickening is the cavalier way in which the media uses their sacred constitutional trust to mis-inform the public, and the public's ability to lap up the journalistic pablum with great willingness and alacrity. A steady diet of which has caused intellectual obesity and malnutrition in those who choose daily to obtain their information from the fast food media that spews out the empty calories of what they call "news."   

The Bad Investment Of College

     President Obama and other Democrats use what they call, "the necessity of investing in our future", as a reason to spend almost a hundred billion dollars a year of taxpayer money to send as many young adults to college as possible. They pull at the heart strings of a gullible segment of the population by telling them that taxpayer funded college is the only way that lower income students can possibly attend. This myth is easily dispelled with something called, the facts. But a Leftist will never admit he is wrong, even in the face of overwhelming supporting evidence. And Ronald Reagan once said that the closest thing we have to eternal life on earth is a government program, because once began, it never ends. They also never get any smaller, but require more taxpayer dollars every year, whether they need it or not.
     Since the 1970s, when PELL grants were established (ostensibly to give poor kids a chance to attend college) the percentage of students graduating college who are from families that occupy the bottom 20% of income earners in this country has decreased. Fewer of the poor are graduating, and because of government subsidies to universities, the cost of college tuition has skyrocketed into the stratosphere. This has made it even more difficult for low-income and even middle-income students to attend college. And what have the universities done with the extra cash picked from the pockets of hard-working taxpayers that they do not need (many colleges receive enough from alumni donations and investments that they could run their schools without a dime of tuition being collected), they have given professors smaller class sizes and schedules and increased their salaries exponentially. They have also built new buildings they do not need with expensive toys like climbing walls. The universities have, in essence, used taxpayer money to give academics a gilded life-style with very little work. Many professors have a gaggle of teaching assistants that carry the load while the professor writes books that he then requires students to purchase for his class that he doesn't teach.
     Democrats and Leftists like Barack Obama love to proffer the false notion that everyone should go to college. But the overall drop out rate is 49%, and among the low income students it is as high as 60%. This accounts for tens of billions of taxpayer dollars that will never be paid back. Even among those who do graduate college, there are significant numbers who are working jobs that do not require an expensive college degree. According to the labor department, there are 115 thousand janitors with bachelor degrees and over a million retail workers similarly educated. Also, fifty percent of college graduates are unemployed or under-employed, and there will be millions of good paying jobs in the next 10 years that do not require a college education.
     The desire for equality above everything else is the driving force behind the Lefts insistence that everyone attend college, and that the taxpayers of this country finance it through higher taxes. Do not mistake what I am saying, I think for some people college is appropriate, but many do not fit the Lefts cookie cutter view of the world. There are plenty of alternatives to college that result in the ability to make a good income. Trade schools and apprenticeships are just two of the options open to those who do not fit into the college mold of the Left. With government subsidies driving the cost of college higher every year, a drop out rate close to fifty percent and an ever increasing number of graduates not benefiting from their degrees, college is one investment we should remove from our nation's portfolio.

The Left Never Ceases To Disgust

     The bomb blasts at the Boston marathon that killed 3 people and injured 170, was a cowardly act of terror committed by an individual or individuals that are demented, sick and twisted. Almost as heinous as the blasts themselves has been the shameless way in which Leftists have tried to use them to gain political advantage over their opponents. From Congressman Barney Frank using the quick response of medical and safety personnel as a means of selling higher taxes and bigger government, to Salon.com publishing an article expressing the hope that the responsible party is a white man, the Left has been shameless in their political aspirations being fulfilled by this act of murder. The rest of the main stream media has been a little more subtle than Salon.com, but has salivated at the possibility that the bombings could be tied to the right-wing in some way.
     This response by the Left in a time of national tragedy illustrates one of the differences between Conservatives and Leftists. The Left is despicable in their use of crisis and tragedy to further their political goals. I haven't heard one Conservative or Republican speculate that the Boston marathon terrorist attacks were the result of any Left-wing group or individuals. But main stream Leftists in the media and politics have tried to make a connection between the date of the attacks being tax day and people in the Tea Party being responsible for the attacks. They have also trotted out Timothy McVeigh, who was responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 that killed upwards of 180 people, making him the poster child for right-wing violence. But Timothy McVeigh was a rabid atheist and pot smoker who would have been more comfortable in a room with Barack Obama than Ronald Reagan.
     The glaring differences between how Leftists and Conservatives exercise their right of free political speech can be seen in the behavior of Occupy Wall St. and the Tea Party. The only violence ever chronicled at a Tea Party event was when union thugs pummeled a black Tea Party member while hurling racial slurs at him. The Occupy Wall St. events were routinely defined by violence in the form of rapes, breaking the windows of businesses and defecating on police cars. The Tea Party obtained the proper permits for the venues where their events were being held and the areas were left spotless. Occupy Wall St. trespassed on property and literally left tons of trash and debris in their wake.
     The Left has a history of violence, not only with Occupy Wall St., but going back to the 1960s with the riots they orchestrated in every major city across the country, burning buildings and causing bodily injury and property damage. A god to many Leftists, including our current president who started his political career in the man's living room, Bill Ayers, is a kindred spirit with the Boston Bomber. The violence at the 1968 Democrat convention was not perpetrated by right-wingers but by disgruntled Leftists. And the ideology of radical Islam which has been responsible for 98% of all the terrorist attacks in the world over the last 30 years, is more closely associated with Leftist ideology than any Conservative ethos. The idea that Conservatives would advance their political agenda through violence is laughable, out of character and not historically supported. The same can not be said about Leftists.

The Scourge Of Bi-Partisan

     Is partisanship automatically bad and achieving bi-partisanship always good? The country was, after all, founded on partisan ideals. In recent decades, and especially in recent years, bi-partisan has been an obsession for people who a) want to convince political opponents to agree with them, or b) have no convictions or values that they believe are worth fighting to defend. I believe that modern day Leftists fall into both of the preceding categories, with a tendency towards the former.
     If there is one thing that Leftists have accomplished, it is to convince a gullible and woefully under informed public that bi-partisanship is the way to societal Nirvana and it is intransigent Republicants who are standing in the way. Using their outdated values to keep the country from moving ever closer to fairness and justice. We saw this as a nation during and after the recent sequester debate. President Obama first used the notion of bi-partisanship to convince the Republicants that if they did not agree with his idea of sequester in August, 2011, that they were being partisan and obstinate. What is more, the President convinced the public of this conclusion. A year and a half later he again used the notion of bi-partisanship to try and convince Republicants to avoid the sequester cuts, but was unsuccessful.
     On issue after issue, from tax increases to immigration reform, the Leftists in the Democrat party have been mostly successful at convincing the public and Republicants that their position is bi-partisan and that the Republicants position, whatever it is, is highly partisan. This is true even when the Democrats position was formerly a Republicant position that was characterized by the Left as partisan. Illustrative of this fact is the position that Democrats took on extending the Bush-era tax rates for 98% of taxpayers. For the better part of a decade, Democrats standard line was that the Bush tax rates were a partisan Republicant policy that only benefited the wealthy. But when they were set to expire under a Democrat president, and expose the truth that the tax rates benefited middle and lower income Americans the most, Democrats again convinced the public and the Republicants that not extending the rates to 98% of taxpayers, would now be the partisan position.
     Bi-partisanship is always portrayed by Democrats, and their lap dogs in the main stream media, as Republicants giving up their values and moving towards the Democrat position. But our entire form of government was based on partisanship. The founders knew that partisanship was a good thing and they designed a system of government that would allow for the best ideas to rise to the top after strenuous debate. Even the bible talks about being luke warm as worse than being a zealot against God. I am proud to be partisan, if I was not, I would be exemplary of the old saying, "If you do not stand for something, you will fall for anything." Too many Americans have fallen for the "anything" that is the scourge of bi-partisan.