This past weekend (May 11-13) I attended BlogCon 2013 in Dallas, Texas which was sponsored by Freedomworks and The Blaze.
The conference was an opportunity to network with like-minded bloggers and learn new tools of the trade. The focus this year was on the need to disrupt the media narrative and ways to do it. On Monday, the conference culminated in a trip to Glenn Beck’s studio in Dallas to watch a live filming of his show, and participate in a taping of his show which will be aired, Friday. I’ve already posted videos from the show that aired live on Monday about Benghazi and the IRS scandal. Friday’s show will be about us bloggers.
Here are some pictures from the conference – all taken with my iphone. (So if you’re expecting great pictures, you’re not going to get it.)
I’ve been saying this for years. Nobody can compare to progressives when it comes to vile racist attacks as any black conservative could tell you. White libs are projecting mightily when they accuse conservatives of being racist.
Appearing on the Mark Levin radio show, yesterday, Dr. Ben Carson, blasted his critics for heat he’s taken since his speech at the national prayer breakfast. Calling his white liberal detractors “the most racist people there are”, he said, “they want to shut us up completely, and that’s why the attacks against me have been so vicious. I represent an existential threat to them. They need to shut me up, they need to get rid of me, they can’t find anything else to delegitimize me, so they take my words, misinterpret them, and try to make it seem that I’m a bigot.”
Levin said Carson was being targeted for his race.
“You’re attacked also in many respects because of your race,” Levin said. “You’re not supposed to talk like this, and a lot of white liberals just don’t like it, do they?”
“They’re the most racist people there are because they put you in a little category, a box,” Carson responded. “How could you dare come off the plantation?”
I’d really prefer to ignore this race-baiting punk, but Toure’s toxic racialist poison is disseminated on a daily basis at MSNBC. He must be dealt with.
The following is very hard to watch, knowing that the nonsensical garbage he spews is taken seriously by most of the confused drones who watch MSNBC.
This has been in the news, so you may have already seen it: Touré: Ben Carson Is The GOP’s ‘Black Friend,’ Enjoying GOP’s ‘Affirmative Action:
Okay, let’s unpack this one racialist smear at a time.
“The demand for black friends continues because some people need them to make themselves feel not racist.” (???!!!)
For the sake of clarity, let’s rephrase this obnoxious, wholly unsupported and frankly idiotic assumption: “Racist Republicans need a few token “black friends” to prove that they are not racist, but they obviously are, because I said so.” Of course, the entire MSNBC prime time line up in 2012 operated under the assumption that anyone who opposes Barack Obama’s agenda is ipso facto racist. Race-baiting is second nature to this crowd.
Is it stupid? Yes indeed it is stupid and shallow to accuse people you don’t know of something as terrible as racism because they have strong, ideological differences with a black president and leftism as a whole. But the M/O of liberal fascists like Toure is to try to smear and marginalize those who disagree with their left-wing agenda. They know the drones lap it up because it makes them feel superior. What will it take to wake them up?
Toure confesses that he doesn’t feel like the GOP “cares” about him because they try to suppress his vote. “I’m kinda big on that,” he notes without offering any examples of the GOP trying to suppress his vote. One can only assume he means GOP support for voter integrity laws that are designed to reduce fraud, (which 2012 proved continues to be a huge problem.) Toure thinks that being asked to show an I.D. at the polls, (something 75% of Americansagree with) = raaaaacism. Could that be another stupid, obnoxious and wholly unsupported assumption? Why yes, it could. He goes on to say that Republicans should quit trying to kill the voter rights act, (which btw, Republicans voted for by greater percentages than Democrats in 1965.) His proof for this is not stated but he may be referring to a House Republican opposition to renewing the VRA in 2006 over provisions that require bilingual ballots in many places and continued federal oversight of voting practices in Southern states.
He may also be referring to a case before the Supreme Court, Alabama v. Holder, which questions “the constitutionality, applicability and relevance of Section 5 of that law” which requires state governments with a history of discrimination to get approval of the Justice Department before they alter their election laws. Whatever your position is on the constitutionality of Section 5 – to call Alabama’s opposition to it nothing short of racism, is intellectually bankrupt, but to be expected coming from intellectually bankrupt race-baiters like Toure.
Citing no examples or evidence, he also said Republicans want to kill affirmative Action. I have no idea what Republicans have done recently to “kill Affirmative Action”, but I wish they would. Most Republicans - black and white alike – believe that discrimination is wrong, but preferential treatment for some groups is wrong, too. Toure may disagree with that position – but again – disagreeing with Toure on a political issue involving race doesn’t constitute racism..
In that same barrage of inanities, he also accused Republicans of calling him a “taker and a lazy person”, obviously in reference to Mitt Romney’s formulation that 47% of voters pay no income tax. This, Toure seems to view as an attack on blacks, even though the overwhelming majority of non-taxpayers are students and the elderly.
I will call Toure a “lazy person” because his ideas are intellectually lazy. He makes sweeping generalizations that don’t pan out under any kind of scrutiny. His entire argument seems to be, if you oppose his coveted left-wing positions, you are trying to “screw over” blacks. “Enter Dr. Ben Carson” whose message to blacks is the exact opposite. He eschews this morally bankrupt culture of victimization. But because the left can’t allow blacks to hear his message of real hope and empowerment, he must be personally discredited. He must be ridiculed and called Republicans’ “special friend” or an “Uncle Tom”.
Dr. Carson’s response to all this on Megyn Kelly’s show, yesterday:
“If you look a certain way, then you have to stay on the plantation”, Carson said. “I’ve heard some people refer to me as an Uncle Tom. Well, obviously, they don’t know what an Uncle Tom is…..he was a very very subservient, go along to get along person. Obviously, that’s not what I’m doing.”
He was even more pointed on Hannity,last night, calling Toure a “liar” and people like him “superficial thinkers” who call people names because they “don’t have anything worthwhile to talk about”.
The pediatric neurosurgeon told Sean, “Well first of all the individual who was just speaking completely has his facts incorrect. Some people refuse to say the word, but I’ll say it. He’s lying… I think when people don’t have anything worthwhile to talk about, and they can’t attack you on your character then they start calling you names. This is a trick we learned back in the third grade… Everything for them is about race. I like to say the reason I don’t talk about race that often is because I’m a neurosurgeon. And I look at the thing that actually makes the person who they are. It’s not the cover. But for them the cover is everything. because they’re very superficial thinkers.”
A man who speaks that much truth and common sense is a mortal enemy to the left.
Toure, whose area of expertise is Being Black, attacked Ben Carson as an Uncle Tom, someone who exists just to “assuage white people’s guilt” about being racist. Incidentally, this is exactly what he said about Herman Cain, too. So, in addition to saying stupid things, he also recycles all of his stupid things. He is uncreative in his stupidities.
Organizing for Action was going to bus drones to Albany, joining forces with the SEIU to clash with NRA pro 2nd Amendment folks at their rally, Thursday, but in the end, they thought better of it.
The National Rifle Association on Thursday held a massive rally in Albany, N.Y. to protest the Empire State’s restrictive gun laws signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in January. The state’s massive gun control package gave New York the strictest gun laws in the United States.
NRA President David Keene fired up thousands of supporters outside the state Capitol, saying “we’ve lose battles before, we’ll not lose this war.”
“We’ll help you defeat the politicians depriving you of your rights,” Keene said. “We’ll do whatever is necessary. We will not allow those freedoms to be taken from us.”
In a muddy park outside the state Capitol, NRA president David Keene punctuated his speech by hoisting a green Remington Arms union T-shirt—a prominent reminder that major and small employers alike in New York’s Mohawk Valley could be impacted by the new gun laws.
The laws, passed last month after the shooting of 20 first-graders at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, don’t say anything about manufacturing firearms. The laws, championed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, do ban the sale of almost all semi-automatic weapons within state lines (and take a number of other steps).
Remington employs 1,300 union workers in the village of Ilion, 80 miles west of Albany. The sprawling factory that makes more than 730,000 firearms each year. About 50 Remington employees attended the rally.
Speakers at the gun rally included Senator Mike Nozzolio, Assemblyman Brian Kolb and NRA President David Keene:
Senator Greg Ball gave a fiery speech at gun rally:
“This is a tough, disgusting, nasty business, and I don’t know how long I’ll be involved with it, but as long as I’m in politics, I’ll be standing shoulder to shoulder with you, and I will fight with you until hell freezes over….” he told the crowd:
Assemblyman Steve McLaughlin @ Albany, NY Pro Gun Rally 2/28/13:
Over Presidents’ Day weekend, the Media Research Center put up five massive billboards footsteps away from Times Square. The ad buy, worth 230,000, is the largest in their 26-year history, and will generate 1.4 million “eyes on impressions” during the several weeks the billboards will be towering over the intersection.
All five billboards direct viewers to StopCensoringTheNews.org, where they can sign a petition demanding the national news media stop spiking stories that might hurt the Obama Administration or slow down Obama’s agenda.MRC President Brent Bozell:
“During the 2012 election, the liberal media moved beyond bias. They actively and repeatedly censored any story that could have jeopardized Barack Obama’s re-election. Now in 2013, they’re censoring any story that could slow his administration’s second term agenda. Their behavior is as disgraceful as it is unprecedented. These billboards – located in the hub of the liberal media’s nerve center – put them on notice. The American people are sick and tired of the establishment media’s collusion with the Obama Administration, and won’t stand for a corrupt press willing to censor the news.
Some of us are also sick of establishment Republicans allowing themselves to get rolled by treacherous libs over and over and over again.
The geniuses at the Republican Party continue to impress.
Frank Fahrenkopf, a co-chair of the Commission on Presidential Debates, and former chairman of the RNC, admitted this week that using liberal crank Candy Crowley as a debate moderator was a mistake.
Thank you Captain Obvious. Next time, how about insisting on debate moderators who aren’t the committed lefties all of them werein 2012? Is that too much to ask of the STUPID party?
U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) released the following statement responding to the President’s State of the Union address:
The President had an opportunity to reach across the aisle and propose policies to produce economic growth. Unfortunately, he chose instead to embrace unabashed liberalism.
President Obama only knows how to grow government, not the economy.
Under President Obama, the economy is entering its fifth year of substandard annual growth – 0.8% on average — compared to an average of 3.3% for the last 70 years.
If the President’s big-government policies were enacted, they would make it harder for the 23 million people out of work to find a job, harder for young people coming out of school to find their first job, and harder for Hispanics and African Americans struggling to achieve the American dream.
There is potential for real bipartisan cooperation in Congress to get the economy growing and help people get back to work, but expanding government spending, debt, taxes, and control of the economy will only make the problem worse.
During the party line vote in Committee that sent the Chuck Hagel nomination to the floor Ted Cruz did the unthinkable. He said aloud something everyone knew was absolutely true for the record:
Chuck Hagel is endorsed by Iran. Here is the clip from Cruz’s speech on the subject.
The reaction to Cruz’s words was incredible. It was called unfair, it was said we shouldn’t judge Hagel by those who endorse him, and Ted Cruz was attacked. His words were said to be inflammatory, uncalled for, extreme, improper and defamatory toward a person as honorable as Chuck Hagel.
Morning Joe particularly tore into Ted Cruz, he was portrayed as beyond the pale, as an extremist. He was mocked and derided and the entire Morning Joe table had a lot of things to say about what Ted Cruz had to say about Chuck Hagel.
In all of the words in all the critiques of Ted Cruz by the left in general and MSNBC & Morning Joe in particular there is one word that I noticed was missing from every statement hitting Senator Cruz for his statements on Senator Hagel:
Thomas Lifson of the American Thinker is noticing a growing trend within conservative ranks – the embracing of Alinsyite tactics in dealing with the Socialist left. Some of us have been doing it for awhile – it’s hard to pinpoint exactly when, but I know I personally, have had no problem using ridicule as a potent weapon against ridiculous lefties. It’s especially gratifying when used against thin skinned narcissists – (not mentioning any names.)
Following Alinsky’s rules would seem counter-intuitive for people with moral scruples – Saul Alinsky was an evil man with evil intent. Conservatives have no interest in accumulating “Power — not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have”, for instance. Yet power is the main motivator for the left. Democrats don’t care a whit about the fiscal cliff - they may pretend that they do, but tax increases on millions of Americans and the weakening of the nation’s defenses are desirable outcomes to the Alinsky left that drives today’s Democrat party.
Why would hardened leftists try to avoid an end that they have been pursuing for decades?
And it is pointless to try to convince hardcore leftists that increasing taxes on productivity not only weakens the economy, but also reduces tax revenues. We can assume that Obama and his advisers already know the well-established evidence of the last century in that regard. For the left, the real agenda is increasing the reach of government into the lives of its subjects, not growing the economy.
Everything is about power with the totalitarian left – how to accumulate it – and how to keep it.
Conservatives, on the other hand, are only playing defense. They want what’s best for everybody – which means more freedom, more economic opportunities and less government control over their lives. That’s why conservatives like John Hawkins have embraced Alinsky’s tactics and encouraged others to use them in order to beat back the Socialist tide.
Unfortunately, whether we like it or not, everyone on the Left from the President on down is playing by his rules in the political arena. Not all liberals have read his book or know his name, but his tactics have become universal. Sadly for conservatives, when two evenly matched forces go head-to-head outside of a fairy tale, the side that tries to play nice usually ends up with its head in a box. So, don’t lie or become an evil person like Alinsky, but learn from what he wrote and give the Left a taste of its own medicine.
Walsh: Because it is has lost one very fundamental animating principle — or, rather, it has allowed the Left to browbeat it to death. I speak of course of the existence of evil. Western civilization, for all its imperfections (which the Left is only to happy to point out a la Alinsky’s rule of making the enemy live up to its own highest ideals), triumphed because of its moral center. It was that moral center that gave rise to the art, music, literature, philosophy and technology that propelled Western European civilization past its rivals. For some reason, the Left feels compelled to destroy that civilization and I must say it’s doing a fine job.
Until conservatives face up to the nature of their opponent — not in the political realm but in the moral realm — they’re going to continue to have a hard time, no matter what electoral success may come next month. You can’t fight an enemy unless you can name him, which is why the very first rule of my book is Know Thy Enemy.
So Thomas Lifson noted in his American Thinker piece, today, Here comes the Alinskyite Right, many conservatives have learned this lesson :
David Gregory and PiersMorgan have both met the Alinskyite Right, and progressives in positions of power should take note. Both men are the targets of digital petition drives aimed at holding them to their own standards, and ridiculing them, invoking Rules 4 and 5 from Rules for Radicals:
4. “Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules.” If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
5. “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.” There is no defense. It’s irrational. It’s infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
This may be one of the first signs of the direction the conservative movement will take in President Obama’s second term, and I take heart from the development. Conservatives have read and assimilated the lessons in Rules, and with left thoroughly in control of the institutions of media, education and culture, a lot of petards are going to get a lot of hoisting in the next four years. Social media distribution makes it possible for funny or dramatic events to flow around the usual media cofferdams.
We saw it not only with Gregory and Morgan, but in the reaction to the publication of the home addresses and personal information of licensed, law-abiding gun owners by a NY newspaper. Rather than just complain, someone published equally personal information about the editors and reporters at the newspaper. I detest both tactics, but it’s a matter of holding them to their own rules via Alinsky.
An old post of mine about Fred Phelps gets traffic whenever the Westboro Baptist Church is in the news: Just a Reminder: Yes, Fred Phelps Is A Democrat. I assume it’s getting traffic right now because the Westboro vermin have been picketing the funerals of the Sandyhook massacre victims. I wouldn’t feel the need to remind people that Phelps is a Democrat if leftists weren’t always trying to associate the clan with the right. But they do – and believe me – if Phelps were a registered Republican, the entire Democrat media complex would be pushing that narrative hard. So it’s hilariously inconvenient for them that Phelps has a history of supporting Democrats like Al Gore, and has run for office at various times as a Democrat.
“Pretty sure he doesn’t represent the democratic party in any way shape or form.. his party affiliation means nothing. He is one man. Considering most democrats are advocates for the LGBT community.. not a disgusting hate group (genuinely) representing neither party,” whined one commenter.
To which I replied: “He represents neither party. It’s so big of you to admit that. I’m sure if he were a registered Republican, you’d say the same thing.”
Join me in hoisting them on their own petard. It’s the latest thing – and it will make the next four years more bearable.
Charles Krauthammeris absolutely correct in his assessment that Obama’s strategy in the “fiscal cliff” negotiations has nothing to do with economics or real fiscal reform. “This is entirely about politics,” he argues.
This is why he sent Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to the Republicans to convey not a negotiating offer but a demand for unconditional surrender. House Speaker John Boehner had made a peace offering of $800 billion in new revenues. Geithner pocketed Boehner’s $800 billion, doubled it to $1.6 trillion, offered risible cuts that in 2013 would actually be exceeded by new stimulus spending, and then demanded that Congress turn over to the president all power over the debt ceiling
Boehner was stunned. Mitch McConnell laughed out loud. In nobler days, they’d have offered Geithner a pistol and an early-morning appointment at Weehawken. Alas, Boehner gave again, coming back a week later with spending-cut suggestions — as demanded by Geithner — only to have them dismissed with a wave of the hand.
What’s going on here? Having taken Boehner’s sword, and then his shirt, Obama sent Geithner to demand Boehner’s trousers. Perhaps this is what Obama means by a balanced approach.
He pretends that Boehner’s offer to raise revenues by eliminating deductions rather than by raising rates is fiscally impossible. But on July 22, 2011, Obama said that “$1.2 trillion in additional revenues . . . could be accomplished without hiking tax rates, but could simply be accomplished by eliminating loopholes, eliminating some deductions, and engaging in a tax reform process.” Which is exactly what the Republicans are offering today.
As for the alleged curative effect on debt of Obama’s tax-rate demand — the full rate hike on the “rich” would have reduced the 2012 deficit from $1.10 trillion to $1.02 trillion.
That’s a joke, a rounding error.
Such nonsense abounds because Obama’s objective in these negotiations is not economic but political: not to solve the debt crisis but to fracture the Republican majority in the House. Get Boehner to cave, pass the tax hike with Democratic votes provided by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, and let the Republican civil war begin.
It doesn’t even matter whether Boehner gets deposed as speaker. Either way, the Republican House would be neutered, giving Obama a free hand to dominate Washington and fashion the entitlement state of his liking.
This is partisan zero-sum politics. Nothing more. Obama has never shown interest in genuine debt reduction. He does nothing for two years, then spends the next two ignoring his own debt-reduction commission. In less than four years, he has increased U.S. public debt by a staggering 83 percent. As a percentage of GDP, the real marker of national solvency, it has spiked from 45 percent to 70 percent.
Obama has never once publicly suggested a structural cut in entitlements. On the contrary, he created an entirely new entitlement — Obamacare — that, according to the CBO, will increase spending by $1.7 trillion.
What’s he thinking?
He’s thinking he can do anything he wants – go over the cliff, crash the economy – blame it all on Republicans – and with the MSM in his back pocket, he’s right.
Obama’s approval rating stands at 57 percent, the highest since May 2011, when U.S. Navy SEALs killed the terror leader, and up 5 percentage points from before the election. And 42 percent say the country is on the right track, up from 35 percent in January 2009.
A majority think it’s likely that the president will be able to improve the economy in his second term.
“Compared to the alternative, I’m more optimistic about government and the economy with him in office,” said Jack Reinholt, an independent from Bristol, R.I., who backed Obama in 2008 and again in 2012. “I feel he has the better path laid out.”
“Soak the rich.” That’ll fix the economy. *Double face palm*
Boehner needs to turn the tables on Obama and go into attack mode himself. There is no other way to deal with this destructive bully. Boehner must sprint to the national microphone and tell the American people that Obama is being unreasonable, reckless and uncompromising.
Obama is the one who won’t address the only problem that matters: spending. He won’t budge from his intolerable demands that Republicans raise rates on the “wealthy” in exchange for his vague promise of implementing spending “cuts” in the future, his insistence on spending more money on new programs today, his steadfast refusal to put entitlement reform on the table, and his demand that he be given unilateral authority to raise the budget ceiling at his whim.
Boehner must point out that Republicans have gone out of their way to compromise — way too far out of their way — by agreeing to eliminate deductions for the highest income earners to the tune of $800 billion, a figure Obama himself demanded not long ago. He should say he agreed to that not because he believes they’re paying too little (they are indeed already paying more than their fair share) or that it will increase revenues, but in a good faith effort to secure an agreement from Obama to greatly reduce spending and restructure entitlement programs.
The GOP majority did not get re-elected to roll over to Obama’s disastrous policies. They have a moral, legal and constitutional duty to resist Obama’s path of destruction with every fiber of their beings. At some point, their desire not to look mean must yield to their duty to inform the American people of the gravity of our situation and how reckless Obama is being.
Face it: Unless Republicans accede to all of Obama’s unreasonable demands and thus to the accelerated destruction of the country, there will be an impasse, because Obama will not yield, and Republicans will be blamed for it.
The only conceivable way Republicans can avoid this fate is if they quit playing his sinister game of negotiation chicken, call him out in plain terms on what he’s doing, and show he has never been and is not now serious about averting a national financial meltdown.
McConnell was doing that in his own special way when he offered Obama’s unserious proposal up for a vote on the Senate floor, (for a second time, yesterday). But they need to start forcefully denouncing Obama’s tactics, too. He is not operating in good faith, and Republicans need to make that clear to the American people.
Further proof that Obama has no problem going off the fiscal cliff:
Asked about Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s statement that the administration would “absolutely” prefer to bring on the combination of tax hikes and spending cuts pending at year’s end over signing legislation that extended highest-income tax breaks, Carney said Geithner was restating administration policy.
The mainstream media sees what’s going on, but they’re not going to trumpet it. That has to be the Republicans’ job. They should insist that negotiations be done in public, and they should be “sprinting to the microphone” every chance they get to explain to the American people that it’s the uncompromising Regime’s policies that are bringing this country to its knees. Where the hell is Paul Ryan? He should be front and center in this battle for hearts and minds.
And so on the Senate floor, Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proved it by offering to give Democrats a chance to vote on Obama’s joke of a proposal:
Reid called McConnell’s offer a Republican “stunt,”but how is bringing Obama’s supposedly serious proposal to the floor a “stunt”? Is not the proposal itself, with it’s tax hikes, increased spending, and elimination of the debt ceiling a stunt, and a really bad joke?(although McConnell did laugh at it.) Isn’t Reid really objecting to the exposure of the President’s bad joke and bad faith to the public, (even though the MSM will do its best to bury the news of it?)
Think about that. The President of the United States, a Democrat, crafted a fiscal cliff package that would give him everything he wants. It has tax hikes on the rich. It has huge tax hikes on investments and estates. It has more stimulus spending. It has no meaningful, specific, or guaranteed spending cuts. And it compels Congress to cede control of the debt ceiling to him. This is “fairness” on steroids. The Senate’s top Republican proposed an up-or-down vote on everything the president wants, yet Democrats, who control the upper chamber, instantly blocked it. By what definition is it a “stunt” to hold a vote on the president’s full, public plan? The White House has insisted it’s a serious document, yet Hill Democrats don’t want it to see the light of day.
Gee, is it possible these morons want to go over the fiscal cliff so they can get everything they want (higher taxes on everyone, gut the military) and blame it on the Republicans? Is it possible that virtually everything these pathetic, perennially projecting reprobates do is a politically calculated “stunt”?
Don’t worry, Reid’s discomfort was only temporary. He’ll be back tomorrow to talk about how serious the President’s plan is, and how the Republicans are just playing games and holding the middle class hostage – more dangerous than al Qaeda, they are..
I still can’t believe America voted for four more years of this crap.
The GOP is threatening — I hate even to use the word “threaten” — to demand some kind of future fiscal sanity from Obama in exchange for a present increase in the debt limit.
First, why was anyone surprised that Obama’s initial offer to the Republicans was a compendium of what he’d actually prefer? We became so accustomed to Obama’s earlier habit of making pre-emptive concessions that the very idea he’d negotiate in a perfectly normal way amazed much of Washington. Rule No. 1 is that you shouldn’t start bargaining by giving stuff away when the other side has not even made concrete demands.
Why is it that a “compendium of what Obama prefers” is being blocked by the Democrat Senate Leader?
Wherein Whittle puts his finger on the rot that caused the disaster, yesterday.
He explains that what happened is a result of a trend that has resulted in a reduction of the fundamental health of the country. The form of government that we love as conservatives and feel slipping away from us, boils down to one thing, he says, and one thing only: the entire premise of limited government must be based on a virtuous people - decent hard working people have internal restraints on their behavior.
The fact that people live their entire lives without going to work, dependent upon those entitlements means that 50% of the population is lacking fundamental virtues as we understand the word, classically. 50% are happy to raid the treasury – the pot of intellectual and financial and cultural and spiritual wealth for the past 50 years now and “we’re out of this stuff.”
Those people now outnumber us.
Like me, he doesn’t have a problem with a safety net, but not a safety hammock that a non virtuous people will take advantage of their entire lives.
Listen, as he hashes out his thoughts – most of which, I’m sure you’ll agree.
This is long – but well worth listening to. His solution is for conservatives to build a parallel construct where virtuous producers are willing to spend twice for receive goods and services that they need in life – including a national academy in lieu of the public school system..
S
