The Republicans "have attached a poison pill -- literally, colleagues -- because it will kill 8,100 more people more than would have otherwise been killed from pollution," Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Cali.) said on the Senate floor today about Republicans trying to roll back a Clean Air Act provision.
Republicans included a measure to kill an EPA regulation in their payroll tax cut proposal.
"So have that for a Christmas gift," Boxer said after she scared people with the 8,100 number.
It was fun. It made life interesting. It got people to notice them. As a girl looter told a BBC reporter, it showed ‘the rich’ and the police that ‘we can do what we like’.
Here's the video of that fact.
Hastings continues:
If you live a normal life of absolute futility, which we can assume most of this week’s rioters do, excitement of any kind is welcome. The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorised communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame. ...
They are essentially wild beasts. ... They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others. ...
A former London police chief spoke a few years ago about the ‘feral children’ on his patch — another way of describing the same reality. ...
The depressing truth is that at the bottom of our society is a layer of young people with no skills, education, values or aspirations. They do not have what most of us would call ‘lives’: they simply exist.
The government has made them literally pets of the State, trying to provide their every physical want and need, including a guaranteed income for not working. As Hastings puts it,
They are products of a culture which gives them so much unconditionally that they are let off learning how to become human beings. My dogs are better behaved and subscribe to a higher code of values than the young rioters of Tottenham, Hackney, Clapham and Birmingham.
But the State does not give these people any reason for living nor anything to aspire to. Indeed, the State is itself so deeply anti-British and indeed, against the very notion of "civilized behavior" itself, that the present ruling classes no longer know how to do otherwise. Case in point: Far-left former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, who has already said that the riots were caused by decreased government benefits to the rioters.
What the feral kids have learned well, though, is how to play the victim card:
No doubt that punches every liberal-left button there is. Those poor, offended, underpaid, victimized kids! It's bad enough that they are forced by an oppressive society into venting their frustration by burning cars and buildings, now they have to suffer the indignity of being mocked and insulted because of their choice of clothing!
It is hard to believe even our hyper-regulatory government would try to do this, but it is: feds want to require all farm tractor drivers to possess a commercial driver's license.
Concerned with the amount of farm equipment making short hops between fields and down public roadways, U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is considering whether or not to classify agricultural machines like tractors as "commercial vehicles," requiring a CDL to operate.
The requirements would subject farmers to the same rules governing truck drivers, requiring them to keep logs and limit their hours.
Farmers also fear the prospect of replacing family help with expensive professional drivers, something that could end up costing everyone -- if it doesn't break the bank.
"Concerned" gives the game away. Exactly what is there to be "concerned" about? The concern is purely bureaucratic. Remember den Bestes's Law: "The job of bureaucrats is to regulate, and left to themselves, they will regulate everything they can."
But of course, the strangling restriction is for our own good (they always are):
“It’s just a dumb idea,” says Jake Cummins, executive vice president of the Montana Farm Bureau Federation.
He says in addition, the proposal would require farmers and ranchers to get a medical card and fill out a log book as if they’re a long-haul semi driver.
Cummins says he was told by federal officials this change is being considered in the name of safety. He says that argument is a way to quiet down any criticism.
Of course! "It's for the children." Now shut up, he explained.
A: He wants a huge, and permanent, increase in the size of government. This is the “change” he campaigned on, but never really described. The goal was to make the US into a European-style “Social Democracy”.
You may recall that last month, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu explained the coming requirement that Americans use non-incandescent light bulbs this way:
“We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money,” he said.
Always remember the Denver Post's David Harsanyi's trenchant observation, "Progressivism is the belief that we have too much freedom with which to make too many stupid choices." Consider this summary of "progressive" politics: The state,
... organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone.
Who explained that? Benito Mussolini. Now you understand why we are all to be required to use CFLs next year and why an 11-year-old girl was threatened with arrest and cited with a $535 fine by the Fish and Wildlife Service for saving a baby woodpecker.
"Nothing outside the State." That's where we are, people.
In a conference call with reporters, [Energy Secretary Steven] Chu said the more-efficient bulbs required would save consumers money over the life of the product, even if the up-front price is higher.
“We are taking away a choice that continues to let people waste their own money,” he said.
And isn’t that what government is for, to take away the choices stupid people would otherwise make? $20 for a single light bulb vs. $0.37 cents, but who knows better than Washington how you should spend your money?
That's what this government is for, yes.This administration embodies a new Puritanism.
"Progressives" think that the masses are actually eager to be embrace statist control of their lives. The progressive world view is that ordinary people are basically incapable of living rightly. Therefore, they must be managed for their own good, and the more closely the better. Furthermore, they think that the masses agree. But we don't and we won't.
It is critical to realize, though, that "change for thee but not for me" is the motto of the Political Class. That's why the president and his family are not going to be the beneficiaries of Obamacare. Nor will the Congress or its staff. The Political Class is more resistant to change than the rest of the country because they are far more heavily invested in the status quo. They have the power to micromanage us, but their rules for you and me never decrease their wealth or power.
Worth repeating what last year's definition of progressivism by the Denver Post's David Harsanyi. "Progressivism is the belief that we have too much freedom with which to make too many stupid choices."
Exhibit A: Energy Secretary Chu.
And remember, kids - CFLs are so much simpler to clean up if one breaks! NOT!
Big banks like Bank of America Corp and Citigroup Inc should be reclassified as government-sponsored entities and have their activities restricted, a senior Fed official said on Tuesday.
Speaking of Citibank, how 'bout starting to restrict by doing this?
High Speed Rail is not about transportation. It's about government.
Despite VP Biden's assertion that the United States can lead the 21st century only if it imitates China, I have always suspected that something else was in play with the Left's fascination with high-speed rail (HSR). What could it be?
Joel Kotkin pretty much demolishes the notion that the HSR system that President Obama has proposed at a going-in cost of $53 billion will ever be practical or profitable. For example,
Arguably the biggest problem with high-speed rail is its extraordinary costs, which would require massive subsidies to keep operating. Unlike the Federal Highway Program, largely financed by the gas tax, high-speed rail lacks any credible source of funding besides taxpayer dollars.
Part of the pitch for high-speed rail is nationalistic. To be a 21st century super power, we must emulate current No. 2 China. But this is a poor reason to indulge in a hugely expensive program when the U.S. already has the world’s most evolved highway, freight rail and airline system. ...
Spending billions on a conveyance that will benefit a relative handful of people and places is not just illogical. It’s obscene.
Not so, that last. Well, it is obscene, but the Left's fetish with high-speed rail is entirely logical when one realizes that HSR is not about transportation. It's about government.
Obama et. al. and his long line of Democrat predecessors who have also promoted HSR surely know the financial realities, yes? One would hope so, but I am far from convinced. One of the most prominent dysfunctions of the Left is its self-conviction that we proles really do want to be controlled and managed by our betters.
Obama, like all "progressives," thinks that the masses are actually eager to be embrace statist control of their lives. The progressive world view is that ordinary people are basically incapable of living rightly. Therefore, they must be managed for their own good, and the more closely the better. Furthermore, they think that the masses agree. But we don't and we won't.
So they really may think that so many riders will flock to HSR that it will be self supporting. But that is simply fantasy, the triumph of runaway imagination over empirical data of other government-funded rails in the country.
Second, the fact that HSR is a perpetual black hole of taxpayer money is likely, to Obama and Co., a feature, not a bug. As Will Rogers said long ago, the closest thing we have in this life to immortality is a government program. If HSR guarantees a government agency in perpetuity and a suitably large budget to keep it running, so much the better!
Finally, riders on a train need not be considered as individuals. They are collectively the masses. There few things that give the Left more salivating joy than the prospect of the masses moving together as one under government control, according to government schedules, to and from government-selected terminals, at government-set speeds, with their on-board activities strictly controlled (no smoking, etc.). While aboard the train, the rider-masses are more completely, physically under the government thumb than they'll ever be the rest of the day. And that is a true dream of the Left.
So HSR is a threefer in the minds of the Left:
A. The masses want it to begin with, so we will "serve" them by controlling them,
B. It permanently enlarges the size, scope and expense of government,
C. It incrementally gives us greater control over the actual bodies and activities of the rider-masses at least for a significant part of the day.
Personally, I think that C is the main attraction. As the Denver Post's David Harsanyi put it, "Progressivism is the belief that we have too much freedom with which to make too many stupid choices."
I suppose it should be obvious that I am not a Marxist, but I would commend to you Prof. Norm Geras' test, "What does it mean to be a Marxist?" Prof. Geras, of the UK's University of Manchester, is an "oldline" Marxist, not one of the radical chic - which he roundly criticizes in this posting.
I've been reading Norm's work since I began blogging in 2002 and I was honored to be the subject of his 67th "Normblog Profile" in 2004.
Norm offers three perspectives to answer the question: the personal, the intellectual and the socio-political. This is very much a worthwhile read regardless of your affinity, or not, with Marxism conceptually.
I sent Norm an email, thus:
[H]ere is one question and one observation:
Q: Do you think that Christianity and Marxism are inimical, conceptually, to one another, or can there be a conceptual accord? I do not refer to the frankly Marxist bent of much contemporary theology and social principles, many of which barely or only passingly cite the Scriptures. The leftist trend of our leading seminaries in the UK and the US hardly needs be mentioned. Rather, I mean, do the teachings directly from, say the Gospels, and/or from the Jewish prophets, leave room for faithful declaration of, for Christians, the Apostles Creed, or for Jews the Mosaic Law? Does Marxism, as you have delineated it, leave room for (though not at all necessarily affirm) that human affairs are under the majesty of a God who can and does intervene in human affairs?
The observation: your apologia for Marxism, especially in the socio-political section, struck me as a form and content (significantly) that is easily adaptable for a Christian apologist such as I to use with equal integrity. I mean this as a compliment, by the way, since, like Marxism, Christian practice has much in history that cannot be justified by apologists such as I. Yet withal, I take that history into account and declare, I am a Christian, nonetheless.
Jared Loughner killed six people this month and the leftwing media (but I repeat myself) were all over how he must have been inspired by rightwing rhetoric. Even after his friends told police that Loughner didn't even listen to radio or pay much attention to politics, the media would not surrender their preset narrative.
WEST PHILADELPHIA - January 19, 2011 (WPVI) -- A doctor who gave abortions to minorities, immigrants and poor women in a "house of horrors" clinic was charged with eight counts of murder in the deaths of a patient and seven babies who were born alive and then killed with scissors, prosecutors said Wednesday.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, made millions of dollars over 30 years, performing as many illegal, late-term abortions as he could, prosecutors said. State regulators ignored complaints about him and failed to inspect his clinic since 1993, but no charges were warranted against them given time limits and existing law, District Attorney Seth Williams said. Nine of Gosnell's employees also were charged.
Gosnell "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord," Williams said.
I think that the media's investigative reporting should include Dr. Gosnell's party affiliation (if any), what radio shows he listens to and what his reading preferences are. After all, if those things were fair game for one killer, they must be fair game for this one.
Okay, this is sarcasm on my part, but only partly. Hypocrisy might be "the tribute that vice pays to virtue," but the hypocrisy of the Left isn't run of the mill stuff. The Left denies virtue of any position but its own. Not even open self-contradictions bother Leftists, for reasons I explained here.
How ironic that on the day charges against the accused abortionist serial killer were announced, Democrat U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee arose in the House chamber to accuse Republicans of wanting to kill countless Americans by repealing Obamacare. View all, but the key points come starting about 2:30 in:
"Frankly, I would just say to you, this is about saving lives. Jobs are very important; we created jobs. But even the title of their legislation, H.R. 2, 'job killing' — this is killing Americans if we take this away, if we repeal this bill [italics added].
Rep. Lee, D.-Texas, also claimed that repealing healthcare violates the rights of the people under Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments because repeal would deny the people due process of law and equal protection under the law. Hence, she said, to repeal Obamacare would itself be unconstitutional. No, really, she said that.
What does all this have to do with abortion? Abortion is the glass house that Sheila Jackson Lee, D.-Texas, lives in even as she throws stones at Republicans. What exactly is Rep. Lee's record on abortion? Thanks to OnTheIssues.org, we know. (My excerpt here is far from the complete record, boldface is original.)
Voted NO on restricting interstate transport of minors to get abortions.
Voted NO on making it a crime to harm a fetus during another crime.
Voted NO on banning partial-birth abortion except to save mother’s life.
Voted NO on funding for health providers who don't provide abortion info.
Voted NO on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad.
Voted NO on federal crime to harm fetus while committing other crimes.
Voted NO on banning partial-birth abortions.
Rated 100% by NARAL, indicating a pro-choice voting record.
So I would like to ask Rep. Lee, D.-Texas, these questions:
If Dr. Gosnell actually did what he is accused of, did he do anything morally wrong when he (allegedly) performed abortions later than 24 weeks, in contravention of state law?
Do you think there should be any legal impediment on abortion after 24 weeks, or for that matter, at any time during the entire term of woman's pregnancy?
Can you offer a coherent argument of how an aborted baby benefits from equal protection and due process while losing its life, while repealing Obamacare deprives people of the same?
Can you defend your explicit accusation that Republicans don't care whether Americans die while also defending your 100-percent voting record in support of ending the lives of millions of unborn children (30 million-plus since Roe v. Wade)?
And in reply, no doubt, the sound of crickets chirping.
Update: Rep. Lee should consider the racism of legalized abortion. The Rev. Dr. Edwin King, a white Methodist clergyman instrumental in the civil rights movement in Mississippi, was a chaplain at Tougaloo College near Jackson, Miss., in the early 1960s. He worked to convince white pastors in the area to issue a statement against racial segregation.
Denied membership in the Mississippi Conference of the UMC by its other white clergy, Rev. kinf joined the almost-wholly black Central Jurisdiction. In 2002, Rev. King, now a professor of Sociology and Medical Ethics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center — spoke about legalized abortion’s negative impact on black Americans.
Today in Mississippi, two thirds to seventy five percent of the abortions are done for black children in the womb. In America in 1995 we had reached the point that black abortions were about thirty eight percent of all abortions in America, almost three times the black population rate, and Hispanic abortions then had approached twelve percent which was close to the Hispanic level, and the Hispanics being predominantly Roman Catholic. In 1995 the majority of the children whose life was snuffed out in the womb were black or Hispanic. Today it is about sixty percent [of] all abortions in America. Is that freedom for somebody or is something else going on? Fannie Lou Hamer was the first person to talk to me after Roe vs. Wade came down and she said, “Rev. King, this is another racial thing, this is the answer to the civil rights movement, they are going to get rid of black babies.” I know you have a variety of opinions on that [italics added].
And, as NARAL's rating of Rep. Lee affirms, she is 100 percent in support of getting "rid of black babies."
