Mississippi Might Not Be As Backward As You Think

Today’s Hattiesberg American reports that Mississippi governor Haley Barbour has signed into law a measure (which passed in their legislature by overwhelming margins) banning red-light cameras in the state.  Way to go, Guv!  At last, elected officials with the courage to value personal liberty as a matter of principle and policy.

The red-light camera debate has raged ever since some government tool decided that in the interest of “public safety,” we needed to install government cameras in public places, keeping an eye on the electorate so they didn’t misbehave.  I know otherwise sensible people who are perfectly at ease with the concept, even going so far as to advocate cameras on every street corner, traffic light or not, to monitor the goings-on in every neighborhood, all, again, under the guise of maintaining a safe, lawful society.  But what happens when the guys watching the cameras have a much more restrictive idea of what constitutes public safety?  Once installed, does anyone really think those cameras will go away?  Do that many of us believe in our hearts that an authoritarian regime could never happen here?  Those people are, to put it mildly, much more trusting than I in the good intentions of The State.

The truth about the proliferation of red-light cameras is that they have almost nothing to do with public safety.  They’re profit centers, pure and simple.  Red-light cameras generate enormous amounts of revenue, and local government can never get enough revenue.  Hence the typical revenue-sharing arrangement with the companies that install and maintain the systems.  It’s a way for The State to collect money without having to do a thing.  Install the cameras, generate the citations, and split the take.  For a money-grubbing government, what’s not to like?  If public safety were really the primary concern, there’s a much simpler, well-documented solution to the problem of running traffic lights.  Problem is, it doesn’t generate traffic citations and money.

Studies have repeatedly shown that the quickest, cheapest, most effective way to reduce the incidence of motorists running red lights is to lengthen the duration of the yellow light.  And your government traffic engineers are acutely aware of  it, as evidenced by the fact that several cities have been exposed for actually shortening yellow light durations at camera-monitored intersections, willingly adopting a policy that increases red-light violations.  See, that’s a case of government seeking to pad the public coffers at the expense of public safety.

Haley Barbour and the Mississippi legislature should be commended, but the government-first crowd is sure to vilify them instead.  It’s sad that so many people in this society remain convinced that the government acts in their best interest.  Government acts in the government’s best interest, and they’re only interested in expanding and consolidating their power over us.  Power should belong to the people.  Not as a group, but each individual person.  That’s the American Way.  At least it used to be.

The Worst Is Yet To Come– And That’s Good For Democrats

If you think we’ve seen the worst of it, think again.  This economy is nowhere near its bottom, and nothing the federal government has done thus far has any chance of turning it around, or even softening the blow.  We’ve spent decades building an economy based on easy credit, and now the inevitable correction has begun.  It promises to be much more harsh than most people can bring themselves  to admit.

One who can bring himself to face the music is Gerald Celente of Trends Research Institute (www.trendsresearch.com), who correctly predicted, among other things, the market correction of 1987 and the collapse of the Soviet empire.  His latest commentary  isn’t exactly optimistic, and with good reason.  In addition to the commercial real estate crash he predicts, we have yet to feel the full effect of the residential collapse, owing to a rash of ARM defaults over the next few years.  It’s not a pretty picture, and what makes it even uglier is that the Democrats in Washington are licking their chops.

Dems want federal control of the American economy, simple as that.  The worse things get, the greater their justification for taking over, and the easier it will be to sell it to the destitute, brain-dead masses.  FDR’s New Deal will seem mild by comparison.  And it isn’t just a case of, as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel put it, not letting “a good crisis go to waste.”  It’s well within the moral boundaries (such as they are) of the Democratic Party and their “by any means necessary” philosophy of politics to not merely take advantage of a crisis, but to willingly make it worse, especially if it advances their ultimate goal, which is centralized control of our money and our lives.

Does anyone really expect the federal “stimulus” legislation to stimulate anything, except growth in government programs?  And that’s the only growth Democrats are interested in, because in their worldview, everything should be a government program.  Perhaps some of them truly believe that it’s the best, most humane, most moral way to govern, but at its core, it’s just simple lust for power.  The essence of Democratic appeal to voters is their ability to spend other people’s money.  That’s how they look out for the little guy.  Not by giving them the knowledge and the means to succeed, but by playing Robin Hood.  We’ll have a chance to slow them down at the ballot box in 2010 and 2012, but by then the country we love may be toast.

There is, however, a silver lining.  When people start rioting in the streets because they can’t feed their families, chances are they won’t worry nearly as much about melting sea ice or endangered species.  The only reason people are in a position to worry about those trivialities in our modern society is because life has been so damn easy for so long, but that’s all about to change.  Things are going to get hard.  Really hard.

For Dems, “Honesty” Seems To Be The Hardest Word (sorry, Elton)

How long will the mainstream press allow the Democrats’ false indignity over the AIG bonuses to go unchallenged?  They knew!  They knew for weeks!  There was a provision in the original stimulus package to prevent just such an abuse of taxpayer funds, and it was removed by the Democrats.  Senator Chris Dodd presented an amendment to dump that provision, at the request of the Treasury Dept. (that would be Team Obama, kids) .  At least that was Dodd’s original story.  Recognizing the potential damage that particular disclosure could cause, Dodd has since backpedalled, offering to take the blame for that little legislative mistake.  He has fallen on the grenade for his party.  What a guy.

Only after the full extent of the public’s anger and disgust became evident did the Dems decide that it would be wrong to pay those bonuses, and then they were furious about it, just couldn’t let it happen.  Voted in the House to tax that bonus money at a rate of 90%.  Take that AIG, you greedy bastards!

Except it’s all a pathetic, ass-covering joke.  Until the AIG bonuses became public knowledge, the Democrats planned to let it go.  Keep it on the down low.  Why?  Why would the party that’s supposed to look out for the little guy allow a big, money-grubbing corporation to spend public revenues in such an irresponsible way?  Because the two biggest recipients of AIG-sourced contributions in the last election cycle were Democratic Senator Chris Dodd, and Democratic President Barack Obama.  Three-quarters of the political contributions attributed to AIG in that cycle went to Democrats, who never seem to get quite as morally outraged as when they’re caught with their own hands in the cookie jar. 

But Democratic pols and voters alike never seem to care about such digressions.  They’re so certain they’re in the right that those little moral digressions have to be overlooked for the greater good.  For them, the ends always justify the means.  It’s one of the essential differences between Democrats and Republicans.  Republicans have their own laundry list of faults and problems, but at least when one of their own gets exposed as immoral or corrupt, they’re not afraid to kick them to the curb.  Dems never do, and that’s really the biggest fraud in American politics.  The party that has sold itself to the people as morally superior is anything but.  They’re morally bankrupt, and they seem to be getting worse.

Pssst, Barack… It’s Not Your Bowling, It’s Your Governing

What next?  Could this president look any more inept?  Last night on Leno, Barack Obama actually had the poor taste, and worse, the poor judgement to refer to his meager bowling skills as being ”like the Special Olympics or something.”  Smooth one, Barrie.

I’ll give him credit for apologizing this morning, and hey, I’m a guy whose tolerance level for tasteless humor is higher than most, but come on.  This wasn’t Larry The Cable Guy sitting next to Jay, or even Dennis Miller, this was The President of The United States, mocking the developmentally disabled on network television.  Unbelievable!  Tim Shriver, Special Olympics Chairman, called Obama’s apology “moving,” and appears to have gotten over it already, but what can you expect?  Shriver is a Kennedy nephew, born into the family that seems to think even drowning a young girl in a drunken stupor is forgivable, as long as you’re Democratic enough.  Besides, Obama now plans to invite some Special Olympics athletes to the White House for some basketball and bowling!  What for, Mr. President?  Just covering your ass, or are you looking for a good laugh?  Those retards, after all, are so funny…

If a Republican had committed the same faux pas, the press would have had a field day, portraying it yet another example of conservative insensitivity.  But again, Obama gets a pass from his media pals, the ones who shamelessly campaigned for him last year.  They got their wish, now let’s see if they’ll ever have the guts to admit they were wrong, that their sycophantic hero-worship and devotion to vague promises of Hope and Change display a shocking lack of intellectual depth for which they should be embarrassed.  I won’t hold my breath.

We shouldn’t really be too hard on President Obama, after all.  He didn’t have his teleprompter.

Bubblewrap For Everyone

The very sad, somewhat freakish death of actress Natasha Richardson has started a media discussion about ski slope safety, and the broader issue of just how far government should go to protect its citizenry from any and all harm.  Do skiers need a new law to protect them from themselves?

Richardson, not an experienced skier, was taking a lesson when she fell on the beginner slope, striking her head.  She got up, said she felt fine, and went about her business, but before the day was over she collapsed and was declared brain-dead.  A day later she was gone.  Autopsy results are pending, but one must assume that a subdural hematoma was the culprit.  How tragic and strange that an otherwise healthy 45-year-old woman should perish from such a seemingly insignificant injury.  Natasha Richardson’s celebrity has made this unfortunate anomaly front page news, and now the inevitable discussion has ensued (saw it on TWO local newscasts last night)– would she be alive today if she had been wearing a helmet?  Should the law require skiers to wear helmets as a condition of hitting the slopes?

Skiing is, by nature, a rigorous and hazardous activity that regularly results in death and injury each ski season.  You’re travelling at a high rate of speed with planks on your feet.  It may be exhilarating and fun, but it’s not necessarily safe.  Those who participate do so of their own free will, and are aware of the attendant risks when they get on the lift (which can also be dangerous) and the risks are many.  Natasha Richardson fell and hit her head.  Sonny Bono ran into a tree.  Some folks blow out knees or break femurs.  Some are buried in avalaches.  Ya takes yer chances, as they say.

Taking part in any physically demanding sport involves weighing the risk to one’s physical safety with the pleasure one derives from participation, and for many, the risk is part of the pleasure.  Mountain climbing, dirt biking, scuba diving, hell, even golfing or bowling involve some degree of risk.  If the state passes laws requiring the reduction of that risk, where will it end?  How safe must the government keep us from our own decisions?

Natasha Richardson might just as easily have fallen in her kitchen when she slipped on a spot of bacon grease (okay, my kitchen, maybe).  Should we just wear helmets 24/7 to be sure?  This is the hazard of believing in a nanny state that takes care of and looks out for us in every walk of life.  Every new regulation designed to protect us limits our choices, erodes our freedom and sucks the joy out of our lives.  Want to ride your hog without a helmet?  Have at it, it’s your head.  Feel like not wearing your seat belt?  Not the choice I’d make, but whatever.  In every case, the individual makes a choice that balances their relative pleasure and happiness with the inherent risks involved.

Which is where the nanny state has us under its thumb.  They justify all their “safety” laws because if you get injured too badly, you’ll become a burden to the health care system, which costs us all.  They care for us so much that they can’t allow us to suffer the consequences of our  choices, no matter how stupid those choices may be.  It’s not just helmets and seat belts, they criminalize most recreational drug use, they’re slowly but surely outlawing cigarettes, and now they want to ban reckless, unhealthy eating, for God’s sake. 

Life is nothing more than a series of choices, each and every day.  We can make good choices or bad ones, but they should be our choices to make.  If we choose poorly, if we make a mistake, then we should, as the adage goes, learn from our mistake and choose better next time.  At least we were free to choose.   It’s too bad about Natasha Richardson, and we’re probably not going to require ski helmets any time soon.  But the very fact that some of us are willing to discuss it is an indication of how much we’ve caved in to the concept of the all-caring nanny state.  Soon, there won’t be any choices left for us to make.  You might be safe, but ask yourself– will you be happy?

Major League Game, Semi-Pro Talent

It’s Amateur Hour at The White House, friends, and the applause meter is reading lower every day.  These guys are in over their heads.  Waaay over their heads. 

The Obama Administration is a train wreck so far, and it just won’t do to say, “It’s only been a couple of months!  Give the guy a chance!”  To do what?  Continue his on-the-job training?  For the cumulative effect of his Wednesday night mixers to save the nation?  Your hero president, lauded for his superior intelligence, can’t (and increasingly, won’t) open his mouth without a teleprompter in front of his face.  Press Secretary Robert Gibbs leaves every briefing looking like an ill-prepared stooge.  He can rip Rush Limbaugh like a pro, but ask him a meaningful question about economic policy and his eyes glaze over and his jaw goes slack.  Does anybody in this administration know what they’re talking about?

Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner hasn’t performed much better.  This, mind you, is the guy we just had to have, so critical to our economic success that we needed to overlook his incompetence as a taxpayer so he could run the entire monetary system.  Thus far, he appears to be clueless, and today, the Republican wolves are at his door, asking for his resignation.   For what our government is spending on the “stimulus” package, every American could have enjoyed income tax amnesty this year.  Every American.  Think about that for a moment… what would have stimulated the national economy more (if that was even their intent in the first place), leaving that money in the marketplace, in the hands of the people who earned it, or making sure L.A. gang-bangers got the teardrop tattoos lasered off their cheeks?  They’re going to borrow the money anyway, so why not use the borrowed money to fund government operations, and let taxpayers keep theirs?  Does anyone really believe that removing a trillion dollars from the market and placing it in the hands of government will benefit the economy?  How?  Where did they learn this stuff, The Shemp Howard School of Economics?

Now we find that Obama, among many others, feigning indignance at AIG for spending our bailout money on executive bonuses, knew about the bonuses for weeks.  Now that it’s become public knowledge, and the masses are appropriately skeeved, well, by God, he’s pretty angry about it, too.  Nice try, President Brainiac.  Another opportunity blown.

Add to that the Gordon Brown debacle, his inability to competently vet any number of appointees (it saved us from Daschle, but will we ever get a Commerce Secty.?), and a variety of foreign policy moves that seem, at best, a tad uninformed (that “reset button” bit in Russia played nicely), and Team Obama looks like a bunch of green rookies.  Because they are.

Sadly, there seems to be no limit to the slack his media friends are willing to cut him.  If a Republican were to bumble like this, the mainstream press would already be calling for his resignation, and Dave Letterman would be living it up five nights a week.  This is the same Letterman whose writing staff just can’t seem to find anything about the “new guy” that they can make fun of, according to Dave.  Gee, you think maybe they’re not trying very hard?

The standard response to all this from dedicated Obama supporters is to keep criticizing Bush.  “You want to talk about incompetence?!  Katrina!  Iraq!  That’s incompetence!”  But those were major crises, and George W. Bush is no longer in charge.  His competence (or lack thereof) is no longer the issue.  If the Obama Squad can’t even get these little, seemingly insignificant things right, how will they respond to something really serious?  Like seasoned pros, you reckon?

Electing this guy president was the equivalent of taking a mediocre high school baseball player and sending him into Yankee Stadium to face Mariano Rivera with the game on the line in the ninth because he was cute and personable.  He might look good in the uniform, but at the end, he’ll be standing there with his knees knocking, looking at strike three.  Barack’s playing in The Show, the Big Leagues, and right now he looks like a guy who couldn’t make it to Class A.

College Is Not a Birthright! Cull the Student Body Now!

Watching television news these days is an exercise in anger management.  Last night’s rage-inducing story was about California college “students” voicing their displeasure with the new state budget, which calls for “deep cuts” to education, especially at four-year schools.  They gathered at the Capitol, bellowed into bullhorns, marched like stormtroopers, waived their inane, amateurish signs, and huddled in small groups playing their drums and maracas, because what protest would be complete without a little one-world percussion jam, right?

The entire affair was irritating enough, but the single most infuriating aspect of the coverage (KXTL-Fox40, Sacramento) was the protest sign (and more than one was evident) which read, “TAX THE RICH– NOT THE PEOPLE.”  It was at that point that I would have welcomed the sight of fire hoses dispersing this crowd of ungrateful, spoiled little bastards, driving them out of the street and, oh, I don’t know, perhaps BACK TO CLASS!

Look, nobody wants to pay more for a college education, including me.  I currently have one in the UC system, another in nursing school, and a third that will graduate from high school in a year-and-a-half, so my family is feeling the pinch more than most.  But the reality of the situation is that the State of California is awash in red ink because of a feckless legislature that spent beyond its means even before the economy tanked, and now they find themselves so far in debt that they won’t be able to continue even the most basic of operations unless they make some very difficult and painful changes.  So they’re raising tuition in the state’s four-year schools by approximately $800 per year, and the student body is livid at the thought of having their lives affected by a difficult economy.

I guess our hearts were supposed to break when student Cheryl Bennett appeared on-camera saying the following:

I’m on all kinda grants, and getting FAFSA, so if they raise that [tuition], it’s gonna make it difficult for me.

It’s going to make it difficult for you?!  Boo-freaking-hoo, sweetheart!  Life is difficult.  Success in life even more so.  Rather than expess any gratitude that she lives in a society already willing to help her get a college education, Ms. Bennett (who appears to be in her mid-thirties) is out protesting the fact that, in this nasty recession, she and the rest of these ingrates might have to suffer like the rest of us.  Welcome to adulthood, you snot-nosed punks!  Want a better life?  Try getting off your asses and make one, it’s what people have been doing for centuries.  Sitting around with your hand out is no way to build wealth.  And pardon me, but, “I’m on all kinda grants…?”  That higher education we’re paying for doesn’t seem to be sinking in, does it, Cheryl?  Another sound investment in California’s future.  What do you want to bet she’s majoring in social work?

TAX THE RICH, NOT THE PEOPLE says it all about the entitlement mentality that pervades a huge segment of the American population, and a great many of us are getting sick of it.  They believe that if the state doesn’t have enough money to give them what they want– what they deserve– then just go take it from the rich folks, and hand it over.  Never mind that the vast majority of rich people got that way by earning it, they don’t see it that way.  In their twisted, ignorant worldview, wealth isn’t earned, it’s taken from others, as if there were a limited amount of resources that the elites regularly pillage, leaving us the scraps.  Their stupidity is almost obscene.  What is completely obscene is that we pay for these numbskulls to attend college, and the college, often as not, keeps them just as stupid as the day they arrived on campus.

Here’s a thought: how about requiring every person who attends college to take a class in basic economics?  Instead of padding their schedules with classes in women’s studies, LGBT studies or social work, let’s insist that these “students” who are “educating” themselves thanks to our largesse, learn something worthwhile for a change.  Learn about how the world really works, how people compete for resources in a free-market economy.  Stop wasting your time and our money listening to bitter, Marxist professors who offer you nothing in terms of learning to become productive members of society.

Better yet, let’s save ourselves some serious higher-education money, and reduce the number of students in our universities.  By a substantial margin.  A sizable percentage of them don’t belong there anyway, because they’re simply not ready to do college-level work.  When a person walks on campus and needs remediation in math or English, then they don’t belong at a four-year college.  Period.  We could ease the state’s financial burden and improve the quality of the education we offer if we were simply honest enough to admit that not every kid is college material.  The world needs plumbers and mechanics far more than it needs another social worker.   The labor of plumbers and mechanics produces something of value, a claim that can’t be made about social workers, and that’s a lesson every one of yesterday’s protestors needs to learn.  The key to becoming one of those rich people is productivity.  Productivity.  Cheryl Bennett probably doesn’t even know how to spell it.  I guess we didn’t give her enough money…

Thank You, Jon Stewart!

It’s difficult to blame all of the world’s economic woes on Jim Cramer of Mad Money, but as Jon Stewart pointed out to Cramer last night, he has become the face of a much broader and more insidious problem in today’s business world:  the degree to which the market has been driven by speculators, rather than investors.

If you missed Stewart’s shredding of Cramer on The Daily Show, it was one of television’s golden moments, an opportunity for a regular schmo (no offense intended to Jon) to tell a high-profile market insider just how badly they’ve gotten it wrong, and screwed the average investor in the process.  I had reservations going in about whether Stewart was the ideal guy for the job, but he was magnificent.  He was measured, he was reasonable, and he was 100% correct.  Where Stewart got it right was when he asked Cramer to reconcile how the stock market has always been sold to the average American as a long-term winner we could depend upon to build our wealth for retirement, while the titans of the financial markets invested like guys sitting in the casino sportsbook betting on horses, hoping to hit today’s trifecta.  The two approaches simply cannot coexist.

There was a time when I was a semi-regular watcher of Mad Money, even though my strategy since 2001 has been to invest in dividend yield.  I still found Cramer entertaining, and mostly watched to see if I might glean an investment idea or two that I hadn’t previously considered.  My interest in Cramer waned the day I saw him actually admit, when the subject of dividend yield came up, that it was the surest way to build real wealth– reinvest those dividends.  This, from a guy whose daily investment advice was to buy equities with the intent of cashing in within six months or less.  Quick money.  Mad money.  Problem is, it not only makes for unstable markets, it makes for bad business practices.

The markets today are largely controlled by players who have no interest in the long view.  They want to make their money right away, an attitude that, sadly, seems to pervade the entire culture.   Forget operating a company so that it makes a profit every year in perpetuity, they’re interested in today’s stock price, rarely looking beyond the current quarter, let alone thinking twenty or fifty years out.  Too many publicly held companies aren’t controlled by businessmen, but by investor/speculators, who would rather sacrifice the long-term health of the company to achieve short-term gain.  Sales flat?  Down?  Their answer is usually to cut expenses and enhance the bottom line now.  Addressing the underlying problem might require some short-term pain, and speculators can’t abide that.  After cutting expenses, their secondary strategy typically involves… cutting expenses some more… and then again, because it’s the only way they know to keep that profit figure afloat.  In time, all the cost cutting begins to cannibalize the company’s core assets (usually its people– imagine that!) until there’s nothing left.  After cutting the fat, they start in on the muscle, and then break out the bone saw.  In short, it is an unsustainable business strategy.

Hence my devotion to dividend investing.  Companies committed to paying regular dividends have to concern themselves with being profitable, and remaining profitable.  It’s not going to make you rich overnight, but, as even Jim Cramer knows, it’s the most dependable path to building long-term wealth.  That, however, doesn’t exactly make for exciting or entertaining television, which Cramer obviously values far more than offering sound investment advice.  We should thank Jon Stewart for exposing him as the fraud that he is.

Obama’s Fear of Science

While the scientific community is doing backflips over President Obama’s reversal of the Bush administration’s stem-cell research policies (and don’t misunderstand their excitement– it’s not about access to new stem-cell lines nearly as much as it’s about access to federal money), am I the only one who sees a glaring inconsistency in Obama’s position regarding the relationship between science and morality?  Here’s what he had to say yesterday at his press event:

“Our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values… It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda — and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.”

Except when it comes to issue of cloning, to which the President is profoundly opposed.  At the same event, he called it “dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society or any society.”  Why not, Mr. President?  Could it be that you find cloning to be… immoral?  Therein lies the fallacy in his previous statement.  There is never a “false choice between sound science and moral values.”  The two are forever intertwined, as his position on cloning demonstrates.  Scientific inquiry must always be bound by morality.  The only question is, to what degree?  The essential difference between Bush and Obama when it comes to stem cell research has little to do with how much one respects or values science over the other, it’s a difference in morality.  Bush draws the line at destroying human embryos, Obama draws the line at cloning.  Both have a moral standard that limits scientific inquiry, they just happen to be different standards. 

Liberals like to think of social conservatives (i.e., Christians) as backwards thinkers who cling to their Bibles in fear of scientific discovery.  The truth is that their faith instills in them a more restrictive moral compass, and they recognize that just because science can, doesn’t mean that science always should.  And let’s face it, in some cases, there are perfectly good reasons to fear science.  Apparently, even Barack Obama understands that.

Forgetting What Made America Great

During the 2008 election cycle, both parties went to nauseating lengths to trumpet their love of country.  Republicans tried to portray Democratic criticism of the U.S. as a clear sign that they actually hated America, while the GOP represented truly patriotic citizens.  For their part, Democrats claimed they were merely exercising their right to free speech, and what could be more American than that?  I may be loathe to admit it, but on this particular point, the Dems were right.  There is nothing wrong with being critical of our nation, it’s a right guaranteed by our constitution.  That doesn’t make Democrats un-American.  It makes them dissatisfied Americans, and that’s perfectly OK, I happen to be one myself.  Both parties have become un-American to some extent, due to their myopic devotion to their Party.  In case we’ve forgotten, friends, the Constitution’s preamble begins “We, the people…”, not “We, The Party…”  All too often our elected leaders are too busy doing their Party’s business to be bothered with the people’s business.  But make no mistake, Democrats are un-American, probably the most anti-American force at work in the country today, just not for the reasons Republicans think.

What is it that made America great?  And if you’re among those that thinks  America never was great, I’d recommend you stop reading now and conserve that brain cell of yours before it bursts.  What was it that set America apart from other cultures and nations, making it unique and better than any nation or society that came before it?  It was our commitment to personal liberty.  Our recognition that the rights of the individual were paramount.  That we were, indeed, a free people, free to pursue our own interests, free to worship however we chose, free to own property, free to speak our minds, free from the tyranny of an oppressive government.  Individual liberty is what made American the greatest nation in history, but today’s Democrats can only talk about the collective.  Social justice.  Collective responsibility.  Nothing could be more anti-American.

Every time Democrats tout the importance of the collective, they urinate all over the very thing that made America America.  This country wasn’t founded on Marxist collectivism.  It was founded on free people, and free markets.  Today’s Democrats (and increasingly, today’s Republicans) stand for neither.  Free people pursue their own interests, and The Party simply can’t live with that.