Progressives Simply Do Not Like The United States

Ever heard of Dahlia Lithwick? No? Don’t feel bad. I hadn’t either until I read her piece of … something or other … on Slate about the Supreme Court hearing this week on Obamacare.

A quick Google search turned up her Wikipedia entry, which tells me she’s a Canadian and contributing editor at Newsweek and senior editor at Slate. In other words, a committed leftist. Lithwick writes:

This morning in America’s highest court, freedom seems to be less about the absence of constraint than about the absence of shared responsibility, community, or real concern for those who don’t want anything so much as healthy children, or to be cared for when they are old.

It’s difficult to tell whether Ms. Lithwick is simply making this up or just dumb. The end result is the same either way. She wants cradle-to-grave government care for everyone. It makes you wonder why she no longer lives in Canada, where they have it, or why so many ungrateful cancer and critical care patients leave the utopia north of the border to come to the United States to receive life-saving treatment.

I’ll address the “shared responsibility” insanity in minute, but first let’s think about the rest of what’s there.

Community. To progressives, “community” means whatever they need it to mean that day. The “black community,” the “Hispanic community,” the “gay community,” the “white community,” the “Italian community,” the “whatever sub-set they need to highlight for victimization or demonization community.” You’d think they were all math majors with all the division they foist on us so they can play various groups against one another to advance their agenda.

Backers of the multi-cultural agenda seek to remove the melting pot that made this country great from the heat that fueled it. Instead, they want to create a coagulated mess that they can mold how they see fit. They don’t want us thinking of ourselves as Americans. All kinds of craziness, such as patriotism and true community spirit, could break out. Instead, they need to foster division to keep people in various Lego-shaped blocks they can stick together and snap apart when it suits them. Look how they’ve pitted the “black community” against the “Hispanic community” in the Trayvon Martin case before any investigation is concluded.

Actually, they’ve gone further than that, they’ve created a new race, the “white Hispanic.” I would say the “white Hispanic community” but there is only one member of that group, George Zimmerman, so it’s not a community, it’s just sick.

As for people wanting healthy children and to be cared for when they’re old, we have that covered.

First and foremost is family. Progressives never admit this, but children raised in two-parent homes are much, much better off than children who are not. That’s simply not possible for all children, but it makes no sense – none – to celebrate single-parent homes.

For children from single-parent homes or two-parent homes who have a difficult time making ends meet, we have Medicaid. The problem with Medicaid, the major reason it is breaking state budgets, is progressives have turned this safety net program for the poor into a hammock for the middle class. There’s no reason a family of four making $80,000 should be enrolled in Medicaid, but that is the standard now in many states. What incentive does a person have to purchase something they can leech from the government?

For the elderly, we have Medicare and Social Security. They’re driving the entire country into financial ruin, which progressives strangely seem to enjoy – but no one talks about changing those programs for anyone within 10 years of retirement. Yet, even here progressives lie. They find one elderly woman who is “forced to eat cat food so she can afford her prescriptions” and present her as the norm. They tell our parents and grandparents this could be them if things go wrong. They do this, by the way, while claiming Republicans use scare tactics to sway voters.

They trot out this cat-food person out for a press conference, pretend there are millions like her, then trot her off stage and – like a prop from cancelled Broadway show – throw her back in the closet and move on. Inevitably, the good people of this country hear about this woman and step up to help her – for real, not for show.

That’s the greatness of the American people – all you have to do is point out someone truly in need, and we step up to help. We do so without a government program, without raising taxes, without progressive “solutions.” That’s why you never hear of them after they’ve been helped – the assistance actually helps them achieve independence, which means they become useless to progressives.

Lithwick continues:

Until today, I couldn’t really understand why this case was framed as a discussion of “liberty.” This case isn’t so much about freedom from government-mandated broccoli or gyms. It’s about freedom from our obligations to one another, freedom from the modern world in which we live.

Shared responsibility? Freedom from our obligations to one another?

Having done my taxes recently, I can assure Ms. Lithwick I take care of my “obligations,” just as I assume she does. But I’d be willing to bet she lives comfortably and that she availed herself of every deduction her accountant could find. There’s nothing wrong with that, aside from the hypocrisy of refusing to live the life she would impose on others.

But what about the 49 percent of American who pay no income tax? According the Ms. Lithwick we have “obligations to one another.” What is their obligation?

What is the obligation of the heroin addict I routinely see outside the 7-Eleven near where I live to me? To society? If society needs junkies begging and passing out on the sidewalks, he’s holding up his end of the bargain. But I’m pretty sure we don’t. Where is Ms. Lithwick’s “shared responsibility” for him?

I buy him a hotdog now and then, when he’s awake and coherent. Should I send half the bill for that to Slate?

When I was a porter at a Lincoln-Mercury dealership, a fellow porter had five children from three women and a pregnant new girlfriend – all at the ripe age of 22. I paid my taxes, so I took care of my end. He wasn’t paying child support (we were making $8 an hour), so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t taking care of his end. Where is his responsibility? I hope he’s changed but somehow doubt it.

The fact is we have no government-imposed “obligation to one another,” no “shared responsibility.” Nor should we. We’re responsible for ourselves. We care for others through charity. But that’s charity with our own money – given of our own volition. Progressives are quite good at giving away other people’s money. But as the anemic, embarrassingly low charitable giving numbers of the last few Democrat nominees for president show, they suck at helping others when it involves reaching into their own pockets.

So, Ms. Lithwick, we don’t want government reaching into our pockets to pay for what progressives deem moral. We’re quite capable of doing that on our own, thank you very much.

Our Constitution limits what government can do to or for us for a reason – because we’re supposed to do things for ourselves. A government powerful enough to make us engage in commerce so it can regulate it is a government that can make us buy broccoli or join a gym. And while broccoli and gym memberships are good things, we have the freedom to not buy them. And that is a great thing.

If Ms. Lithwick and her fellow progressives don’t like it, the Constitution was made to be amended. But that is the road progressives always refuse to take, because that is the road down which they find out just how unpopular their agenda truly is.

SOURCE

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Trayvon Martin Was Not Shot Because He Was Black

That the contrary is believed among blacks testifies to how much hatred of whites Leftists have stirred up among blacks with their constant talk of victimization and racism. Below is what the 6'3" tall Martin looked like shortly before his death



In ways I have not seen in my forty-one years on this earth, this case -- or as it should be properly put -- the out-of-context reaction to this case has been perhaps the single most racially divisive event of my lifetime. (6) More than the O.J. Simpson verdict, more than the Rodney King case, more than any other incident I can call to memory.

The larger question for me this week is not so much the question of "why," because I can easily see how reinforcing racial divides helps a political party, a sitting president, people who peddle hate -- not very cleverly trying to disguise it as civil rights leadership, and even actors such as Sinbad and Spike Lee. No, the "why" of this matter seems easy to me. The larger question to me is, "how?"

George Zimmerman has nearly the same amount of Caucasian blood in him as President Obama does. (8) This alone -- in the President's case -- is an argument against his "whiteness," yet in the majority of early reports (and now, to those who talk behind sandwich counters) the truth doesn't matter.(9)

Zimmerman also has no history of racial animus towards black people. (10) One of his longtime friends, a former anchor for CNN -- who happens to be African American -- has been confirming this across as many media outlets as is possible. (11) Zimmerman and his wife -- it is now being discovered -- have been tutoring and mentoring at-risk African American youths for years, building into the lives of these at-risk children virtues and principals to live by.(12)

Zimmerman didn't target Martin because of race. (13) As a community watch volunteer, and as a licensed concealed-carry gun owner, Zimmerman had been concerned for some time about the amount of violent crime, break-ins, burglaries, and other felonies committed in his community. (14) In recent months, skinny tall guys in hoodies had been terrorizing the homeowners in the area. (15) Since the hoodie was pulled over his head, Zimmerman had no reasonable way to target merely an African American youth, but he did see a skinny tall kid -- that he did not recognize -- and felt if he saw something, he should say something.

According to 911 dispatch, Zimmerman was told that he did not need to follow Martin any further than he had. (Not, as some have reported, that he was actually instructed not to follow.) (16) According to Zimmerman, the police report, and as many as six witnesses: Zimmerman -- after getting off the phone -- retreated from his shadowing of Martin and returned to his SUV. (17) It is unclear as to why, but it is confirmed by multiple people who observed that Martin then turned and stalked Zimmerman. (18) Just when Zimmerman had gotten back to his vehicle, it is reported by witnesses that Martin violently assaulted Zimmerman. (19) And according to Robert Zimmerman, appearing on CNN on Thursday evening, Martin attempted to pull Zimmerman's gun. (20) Quickly the tussle turned serious. Both men in a fight for control of the firearm, one of them was shot seconds later.

The police -- once on the scene -- asked neighbors what they had seen and heard. (21) As many as six witnesses confirmed portions of Zimmerman's overall account. (22) Even so, Zimmerman was handcuffed, given medical treatment to clean up his wounds, taken to the police station, questioned, and released because his account was -- according to those who did the early investigating -- consistent with the evidence. (23)

Now a grand jury is looking into the matter, four different governmental levels of our nation's law enforcement are looking into it. (24) Police reports are being leaked to the press, and when every final bit of CSI material is catalogued a report will be made.

Robert Zimmerman wished to communicate to the Martin family the grief and sorrow that they feel for them. (25)

There are no such wishes being communicated to the rest of America for the damage that continues to be done in the violence that is the refusal to admit truth. (26) Those who do so would rather manipulate media and manufacture outrage all for political opportunity, vain publicity, or financial gain. (27)

Trayvon was not shot because he was black, and not one shred of actual evidence gathered thus far changes that fact. (28)

More HERE and more at GUN WATCH.

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How Reagan won young voters

One politician who was not a phony!

‘THE OLDEST president in US history and the youngest members of the nation’s electorate have forged one of the strongest bonds in American politics.’’

So wrote the Philadelphia Inquirer in May 1986. Ronald Reagan was then in his sixth year as president, and his support among younger voters was stratospheric. Eighteen months earlier, a pre-election poll commissioned by Time magazine had found voters ages 18 to 24 expressing support for Reagan over his Democratic challenger, Walter Mondale, by an amazing 45-point margin — 63 percent to 18 percent. Now, the Inquirer noted, Reagan’s support among the young was even greater: According to a new survey, voters younger than 25 were giving Reagan a 79 percent job-approval rating. As it turned out, even that wasn’t his high-water mark. When he left office in January 1989, Reagan’s approval rating among the electorate’s youngest cohort was an incredible 85 percent.

For half a century, the Democratic Party had commanded the loyalty of most new voters. Under the Gipper, the political tides reversed and first-time voters surged to the GOP. Their devotion helped sweep his chosen successor into office; George H.W. Bush was elected with a majority of the under-30 vote. But by the time Bush ran for reelection four years later, Reagan’s magic with the young had dissipated. Bill Clinton won a plurality of the youth vote in 1992, and that age group has voted reliably Democratic ever since.

How did Reagan do it? What made him so strikingly popular with so many voters young enough to be his grandchildren? What, if anything, would it take to persuade today’s youngest voters to give the GOP a serious look? Mitt Romney wondered last week why more college-age voters aren’t “working like crazy’’ to elect Republicans like him. Similar laments might previously have been voiced by John McCain, George W. Bush, and Bob Dole.

Of course there is no single explanation for the political behavior of an age bracket that comprises millions of individuals. Certainly for some young voters it all comes down to ideology. The millennial generation tends to hold strong left-of-center views on many social and environmental issues, and millennials are less likely than older voters to describe government action as inefficient or unfair. It stands to reason that voters who embrace, say, “green’’ energy, same-sex marriage, a highly multilateral foreign policy, and an activist federal government would gravitate to the political party that shares the same views.

Does that mean Republicans must turn themselves into liberals to have any hope of winning twentysomethings back? Of course not. Pandering may be inseparable from politics, but it’s a poor strategy for long-term political growth. Candidates who tell voters only what they think those voters want to hear do themselves and their party no favors — least of all when it comes to the young, who hunger to be inspired and to be part of something consequential, something bigger than themselves.

New voters didn’t flock to Reagan in the 1980s because they were captivated by his views on supply-side economics and the Soviet Union. It would be truer to say that they were captivated by Reagan — by his optimism and authenticity and love of country, by his manifest faith in the people he sought to lead — and so they came to share his political outlook as well.

All other things being equal, are young people more naturally inclined to liberalism, with its appeal to feelings and good intentions, than to conservatism, which emphasizes standards and good results? Perhaps. But when Reagan was in the saddle, all other things weren’t equal.

Like other candidates, he had political ambitions and pursued them, but his career wasn’t strewn with innumerable flip-flops and conversions of convenience. He had controversial views, but didn’t hector the American people with preachy intolerance. He had millions of admirers, but he was no self-worshiping egotist.

And while he may have been an actor, he was never a phony. “Reagan’s lack of guile is one of the things that he has going for him,’’ wrote Meg Greenfield, the Washington Post’s unabashedly liberal editorial-page editor, in 1980. “In fact, Reagan won the nomination . . . with what seems to have been an unusually aboveboard, uncrooked, and uncompromised campaign.’’

Reagan was the first president I voted for, and the only one I ever voted for without qualms. I admired his moral clarity, his sunny outlook, his self-deprecating modesty, his love of liberty. He never had to tell young voters they should be “working like crazy’’ to elect him. So many of them already were.

SOURCE

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