Friday, December 24, 2010

Merry Christmas, Friends!

The Christmas Shoes

This one gets me every time. It'll bring tears to your eyes too and, hopefully, remind you of what Christmas is all about and what we have to be thankful for all year.



Merry Christmas to all! Goodwill to those of whom God approves.

(And I finished my cancer treatments on Friday, December 17th. That was the BEST Christmas present ever!)

Monday, December 13, 2010

Why Isn't This Racist?

Well, the Chosen One worked out a deal with Republicans on the Bush tax cuts. Obama agreed to extend the cuts for ALL Americans, not just the middle class and, exchange, the Republicans agreed to extend unemployment benefits for some people for another year and one month. As compromises go, this one was pretty mundane to me, but not to Obama's liberal base, and that's the interesting part here.

Remember when the Tea Party movement first started? What was the movement accused of? Racism, right? Most of the Tea Partiers were White and that was supposedly prima facie evidence that their movement was anti-Black. After all, what motive but racism could White people have for criticizing America's first Black president? White criticism equalled racism; that was the formula, until just a few days ago.

Obama's agreement with the Republicans on the tax cuts has enraged his liberal base. Even now, they are in a virtual revolt against their erstwhile messiah. For the last several days White politicians have been all over the tv lashing out at Obama. And no one's accusing them of racism. Indeed, the very people who were sanctimoniously yelling, "Raaaaacist!" at the Tea Partiers for criticizing Obama are now yelling, "F--k the president!". But the Congressional Black Caucus, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Jeanane Garofalo are all silent.

This is solid proof that, for the Left, dissent isn't a right but a strategy to advance their agenda. And playing the race card is an intergral part of that strategy. Leftists originally saw criticism of Obama as a threat to their agenda and tried to discredit the critics by smearing them as racists. Now, though, Leftists see Obama's tax compromise as a threat to their agenda and are going after Obama for his heresy. But their angry revolt against the Chosen One will never be characterized as racist. You see, criticism of Obama or Blacks generally, is racist ONLY when it threatens the Left's objectives. That's why all those White liberals can unload on Obama without being smeared as haters. It's all about advancing the Left. And you actually thought liberals cared about stopping racism. Silly you.

Saturday, December 04, 2010

The Guilt Tripped Rich

I'm sure everyone's heard about billionaire Warren Buffet saying that he and other megarich folks need to and should pay more in taxes. This has been on tv as if it were some sort of sacred pronouncement, but I'm not impressed.

If Warren Buffet wants to give more money to the government he's free to send the IRS as much of his income as he wants. Other the-rich-should-pay-more-taxes billionaries like Bill Gates can do the same. So, why don't they? Simple. THEY LIKE BEING RICH. If they didn't Buffet, Gates, and friends would give away all their money, but they won't. They love their wealth but they apparently feel tremendous guilt over it. So they anounce their support for higher taxes on the rich to try and assuage their guilt and look good to the public in the process. It's almost like their saying, "Hey middle America! We're the good rich. We know how bad we are for being successful and we want to pay for it by having the government take more of our money. So please, don't hate us!" Pathetic.

Warren Buffet and Bill Gates don't seem to understand that if they want to assuage their guilt they should do more good for the less fortunate themselves. Certainly helping the needy personally would be more satisfying and meaningful to them than empowering impersonal state bureaucracies to do so. Buffet, Gates, and other super rich people most likely do have charities that they generously support. But they seem to think such private efforts don't qualify as guilt-assuaging good works. Only governmental confiscation of their excess income can redeem them.

Wealthy Americans who turn against their own success are akin to traitors. Their prosperity, which often had humble beginnings, highlights the promise of capitalism and the American way. Instead of extolling that reality they've opted for the counter message that success is a sin for which you must do penance, preferrably in the form of having the state take your money. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I'm not impressed.

Here's my advice to Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and all other guilt racked billionaires. If you feel that bad about being rich then get a good therapist or just give all your money away. But please stop calling the government down on yourselves while you're enjoying your wealth. That just makes you look like hypocrites and frauds. And that's something for you to really feel guilty about.