AND MAYBE ONE DAY THE NEXT PRESIDENT
by J.C. Arenas from BigHollywood.Breitbart.com
In 2008, when Woody Allen last spoke of Barack Obama to a group of Spanish journalists, he declared that it would be a “disgrace” if the then-U.S. Senator failed in his quest to become the 44th President of the United States. Now, 16th months into Obama’s first term, Allen has apparently mistaken La Vanguardia, a Spanish newspaper, for the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
The famous director proclaimed in a recent interview:
"It would be good…if (Obama) could be dictator for a few years because he could do a lot of good things quickly.”
If Allen had any regard whatsoever for the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, he would never fathom such a scenario. The day that the citizenry of this nation is forced to live under a tyrannical dictatorship, the great American experiment would suffer an unimaginably horrible demise; our cherished land of the free and home of the brave would be relegated to nothing more than dirt and real estate.
For whom exactly would an Obama dictatorship be good for?
Prior to his ascension to the Oval Office, Allen and his Hollywood brethren co-signed Obama like Twitter and the South Beach Diet. Subsequently, he became just as much of a celebrity as many of them are. They immediately pledged to be of service to him; in their eyes they are the president’s teammates. Being a part of such an exclusive team requires possessing the commonalities of money, power, and fame, all which ensure that the players are virtually insulated from the ill-effects of the star player’s over-reaching, powerful rule by decree.
Apparently, as far as they are concerned, those who will be dictated to are you and me, not them.
It is us who will see our freedoms and way of life obliterated, while they take the bubbles under which they live and relocate to exotic locations.
We know exactly for whom an Obama dictatorship would be good for; Allen and the rest of the Hollywood already-haves. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that he desires it, but it speaks volumes he shared his asinine, un-American wish with a foreign newspaper.
It’s about time someone told him, “Cut.”
The New Old German Problem
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by Victor Davis Hanson from pajamsmedia.com
Reflections on Germany
Munich — I’ve been walking the last two days through Munich. Much of the city core was bombed out by the allies by spring 1945. Yet today there is little evidence of such destruction. The museums are among the best in the world, the streets and parks spotless, the infrastructure superb, and the people as hard at work as ever. To walk an urban street in Germany is a different experience from say in Athens or Istanbul — traffic follows law, pedestrians are respected, horns are used rarely, trash is absent. In other words, things work and work well.
Such observations sound stereotypical these days, but to even the casual observer the difference between life in Germany and much of the eastern and southern Mediterranean seems far greater than the divide between a Minnesota and Mississippi. For someone who has lived in Greece and occasionally visits Germany, it becomes increasingly clearer each year why the European Union won’t work. Germans work and create wealth. Yet under the present system, they do not receive commensurate psychological rewards — and they increasingly receive insufficient material compensation as well.And history shows us that an unhappy Germany is a very dangerous thing indeed.
Memory Lane
Let me explain by a brief historical detour.
After the unification of Germany in 1871 and its subsequent alliances over the next decades with Austria, Europe was not sure how to handle its powerful German-speaking center. In the twenty-first century it is politically incorrect to suggest that culture matters, though most privately grant that the German work ethic, cohesiveness, and competence all lead to economic and financial clout that eventually ends in superior political — and ultimately military — power.
In the last century and a half, there have been all sorts of ways to check that German dynamism from spilling over its borders. The idea of a two-front British/French/Russian alliance was supposed to dissuade Germany from expanding its sphere of power either westward or eastward. Nonetheless, wars usually followed, and it was no solace to the millions who perished in World Wars I and II that such anti-German containment, largely aided by the entry of the United States into two wars, eventually led to the defeat of Germany — for a time.
Try, try again
After the war, a divided Germany, shared European fear of Soviet communism, and a nuclear France and Britain all in various ways ensured there were supposed to be no more worries about Germany for a half-century.
But with the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the implosion of the Soviet Union, a newly ascendant Germany — once the costs of East German unification were absorbed — was supposed to be integrated into the new utopian European Union with it common currency, the euro.
That is, the unstated idea was that natural German economic strength could be harnessed through new tariff-free markets for its export-driven economy, whose goods and services would help bring eastern and southern Europe up to northern European standards of living. Germany would be captain, but still a team member, and all would pay homage to its star for leading the team to victory.
So cash-flush German banks loaned the European poorer nations easy money to buy all things German. The EU would both guarantee the debts, and reap the benefits at large — as Greece, Italy, Portugal, and Spain would begin to see their infrastructure and lifestyles match those of France, Germany and the Netherlands. Southern siestas, strikes, tax evasion, and low worker productivity would all be nullified by northern European largess.
The Supposed End of History
As a result, instead of the old deadly inter-European rivalry, for a while a continental culture did indeed emerge. Prosperous Europeans from the Mediterranean to the Baltic embraced socialism, utopianism abroad, childlessness, agnosticism, and a fashionable anti-Americanism, ensuring no more 19th-century nationalism or 20th-century wars. At least all that was what we were lectured about for the last twenty years by European chauvinists and dreamy American liberals.
Yet such dreams were always predicated on some dubious propositions.
Think of an Americo
First, there has never been any sort of unified currency without commensurate political unification. Imagine a NAFTA-like Americo, a new currency that would try to absorb the American and Canadian dollars with the Mexican peso. Well, enough said.
Lifestyles and culture are not quite the same in Yucatan and Toronto. In such unworkable financial systems, the poorer leach off the wealthier and find plenty of rationalizations why they should. In an analogous example, the president of Mexico just left the United States, after making the political and media rounds, lecturing us on why his own corrupt government has some sort of divine right to export half-a-million of its own poor to the United States. Imagine Mexico’s audacity had we the same currency.
An Incredibly Shrinking U.S.
Second, the natural inclination of the United States is not international engagement but a sort of isolationism. The Cold War interrupted that tradition, but slowly we are seeing it return under Obama, especially in the unhappiness over Iraq and Afghanistan and a desire for more social spending and entitlements at home. I don’t think our first Pacific President wants to, or is competent and credible to, advise Europe about much of anything.
Yet we sometimes forget the third leg of the old NATO equation: America in, Russia out – Germany down. Without fear of a Russian Empire, and with America turning inward, it is not all that clear there is any force that cares much to worry about German restlessness. A broke Europe is not about to turn to a broke Britain or a broke United States to complain about German financial unease. And Germans are increasingly not going to listen to either if they did. NATO exists only because of American arms and I suppose German money. But it is not doing well in Afghanistan, and most of its members will soon be cutting back on what little they now spend on their militaries.
In short, what will happen with Germany when it is lectured by the French, insulted by its debtor dependencies in southern Europe, and starting to become angry that only its own work ethic and productivity — not some grandiose platitudes about the EU — keep Europe going?
The Unthinkable?
Very soon German workers are going to grasp that all the financial reserves they piled away the last two decades from not doing what a Spain or Italy did are essentially gone. Someone in Munich worked 40 hours a week until age 67 for someone in Athens not to — and for someone in Athens to demand that someone in Munich do so or else. The idea that nations like Greece, both overtly and implicitly, insult nations like Germany has no basis in historical terms.
In short…
Even European bankers now claim the euro is suspect. The European Union may well devolve into something other than its present form within a few years. NATO is an alliance mostly in name. Germany is angry. So far all the traditional restraints upon its pique — allied military rivals on its two borders, a divided country, fear of a nuclear Soviet Union, incorporation within the EU and NATO — are either nonexistent or increasingly problematic.
If it should choose, Germany could go nuclear in six months, its arsenal reflective of a country that makes Mercedes and BMWs. That is not so wild an idea in an age when unstable nations like Iran and North Korea boast of their arsenals and their aggression, while others such as Turkey and Brazil flout U.S. faculty-lounge sermons on non-proliferation.
If Iran should go nuclear — and I think it will within a year or two — we should imagine that a Brazil, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria would too. As the European Union collapses, as third-rate nations become nuclear, and as the United States abdicates its postwar role in ensuring the safety and security of the West, why would Germany continue to subsidize southern Europe while receiving mostly blame for its efforts, while its airspace would be in theory vulnerable to the likes of a theocratic Iran?
Back to the 19th century?
In a sane world, a financially solvent United States would now step up to the plate, reassure Germany of both its long-standing financial and military support, and seek through its friendship and alliance to deflect any natural German inclination to translate its economic power and present seething into something other than mere anger at the EU.
But we don’t live in a sane world. U.S. finances are following the Greek example. President Obama either does not understand the West or perhaps does not care to. To the new America, a Germany is no different from a Pakistan or Venezuela, just another member of the international community, no better or no worse than any other. Our commitment to NATO and the U.S. defense budget will soon be redefined, as even more entitlements along the lines of the recent trillion-dollar health care plan are envisioned.
In other words, in such a vacuum, very soon, if we are not careful, we are going to have a German problem — again.
by Greg Gutfield DailyGut.com
So Mexican President Felipe Calderon was at the White House, Wednesday, where he bashed Arizona's new immigration law, calling it discriminatory to Mexicans.
THE ILLEGAL ALIEN SUPER-HIGHWAY IN ARIZONA
The best part: when he said he wants "a border that will unite us instead of dividing us." Uh, sounds nice - but aren't borders the physical manifestation of division? Isn't division, the point?
But he said this in Spanish - which to me is kinda divisive, since I took two years of it in school, and was too drunk at the time to remember any of it. Nonetheless, our President gamely threw Arizona under the bus - no surprise since he never read the damn law, anyway:
"We also discussed the new law in Arizona which is a misdirected effort, a misdirected expression of frustration over our broken immigration system which has raised concerns in both our countries. Today, I want every American to know that my administration has devoted unprecedented resources in personnel and technology to securing our border. Illegal immigration is down, not up, and we will continue to do what's necessary to secure our shared border."
All hail modern American diplomacy. Earlier this week, one of our jackass diplomats groveled before the Chinese - who kill dissidents for fun - over our human rights violations. And then, of course, the UN - who, on our dime, allow misogynists, thugs and dictators to sit on commissions - said Arizona violates international standards. I supposed if we started raping more, we'd fit the UN criteria.
And now Calderon, comes here, to tell us we discriminate - simply because we want what Mexico already has - a border.
It makes me wonder how he'd feel if I came to Mexico, and condemned his Gestapo-like immigration laws. Like I said before, anyone deported from Mexico who tries to return, can be jailed for up to ten years. And foreigners can be banned if they upset "the equilibrium of the national demographics," are judged harmful to "economic or national interests, or if "they are not physically or mentally healthy."
Now that's divisive!
But no one cares - because no one's trying to get into Mexico. Instead of obsessing over our laws, Felipe should ask himself why his countrymen are dying, literally, to come here.
It's definitely not for the Mexican food.
I've eaten at Chevy's.
In Honor of a President Few Remember
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by Alan Snyder from BigGovernment.com
Ronald Reagan admired him a lot. In fact, when Reagan was looking over his new house—the White House—shortly after his inaugural in 1981, he entered into the Cabinet Room.
On the wall were portraits of Truman, Jefferson, and Lincoln. The White House curator commented at the time, “If you don’t like Mr. Truman, you can move Mr. Truman out.” Even though Reagan, a former Democrat, had voted for Truman back in 1948, he made his decision: Truman’s portrait was removed and one of Calvin Coolidge was dusted off and put in its place.
Nowadays, in all the “right” circles [to be found primarily among the academic elite], the person of Coolidge is a source of amusement, if not outright derision. Why, he was a do-nothing president, someone who didn’t use the power of the office as he should have. Probably his most grievous sin, in their view, was the way he put the brakes on destiny: he was a foe of the progressive movement that was intended to reshape American government and culture.
Coolidge, whose administration spanned a good part of the 1920s, was a throwback to an earlier time. He was not a Woodrow Wilson; rather, he believed in the vision of the Founding Fathers and their concept of limited government. He remained true to the principles of self-government and the sanctity of private property. The rule of law was paramount in his political philosophy. No one was above the law, a belief that, if followed, would keep the people safe from the power of an overextended government.
During the 1920s, the continent of Europe experimented with socialism. What might larger government be able to accomplish? What vistas await us once we unleash the full power of government intervention? Coolidge stood opposed to this false vision of the future.
Historians also like to make fun of his approach to speechmaking. Coolidge preferred to say as little as possible. As he once noted, he never got in trouble for things he didn’t say. Yet when he did speak, he made some very significant pronouncements. His words conveyed key ideas for American success. Meditate on this paragraph, for instance:
In a free republic a great government is the product of a great people. They will look to themselves rather than government for success. The destiny, the greatness of America lies around the hearthstone. If thrift and industry are taught there, and the example of self-sacrifice oft appears, if honor abide there, and high ideals, if there the building of fortune be subordinate to the building of character, America will live in security, rejoicing in an abundant prosperity and good government at home and in peace, respect, and confidence abroad. If these virtues be absent there is no power that can supply these blessings. Look well then to the hearthstone, therein all hope for America lies.
Notice Coolidge’s stress on what he called the “hearthstone,” which is a designation for the family. He saw the family as the cornerstone of society, the place where character should be developed. Note also his subordination of financial fortune to the building of character. Fortune may come, but only if character comes first: thrift, industry, and honor—qualities in short supply at the moment.
America was prosperous during the Coolidge years. The Great Depression was just around the corner, but it didn’t occur as a result of Coolidge’s policies of tax cuts and economic liberty. The Depression was more a result of misdirection from the Federal Reserve [low cash reserves in banks; easy credit]; its continuation throughout the 1930s was due to government actions of the New Deal.
If there’s one thing most historians can agree on with Coolidge, it’s that he easily would have won reelection in 1928 had he chosen to run again. Yet he voluntarily stood down. Why? What prompted that decision? He tells us what led him to do so in his autobiography.
It is difficult for men in high office to avoid the malady of self-delusion. They are always surrounded by worshipers. They are constantly, and for the most part sincerely, assured of their greatness. They live in an artificial atmosphere of adulation and exultation which sooner or later impairs their judgment. They are in grave danger of becoming careless and arrogant.
Coolidge saw the problems associated with elected office. He knew that men often developed what might be called the “swelled-head syndrome.” He wanted nothing to do with that. If for no other reason, Coolidge should be honored for his willingness to set aside power and maintain his good character. Where are the politicians willing to do that today?
Sky Showbiz released the first photo of Peter Sarsgaard as Hector Hammond from the upcoming Green Lantern movie to be released in 2011. Hector Hammond became disfigured and aquired psychic abilities after being exposed to a meteor.
Obama to 80% of Americans: Your Extreme, Inciting Violence and you Hate Yourselves
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by Gregg Knapp from BigGovernment.com
But what troubles me is when I hear people say that all of government is inherently bad…
Straw man alert! The One loves to do this. Set up an argument no one makes and then knock it down. No one in this debate is saying ALL government is bad. We are calling for the government to actually live up to the limits set for it by our constitution. The problem is Barry thinks the more government, the better.
When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that in our democracy, government is us. We, the people–[Applause.] We, the people, hold in our hands the power to choose our leaders and change our laws, and shape our own destiny.
See, you’re so dumb that you don’t understand your anger at government is really self hate. Oy.
Does he really not understand this? We know the government is supposed to be us, that’s why we’re so upset. We see our government as not representing us anymore. We are frustrated because we feel we’re losing the power to shape our destiny. (Funny how when Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Cindy Sheehan and Code Pink we’re screaming about our horrible government under Bush, they weren’t confused about the government being them.)
The truth is, the debate we’ve had for decades now between more government and less government, it doesn’t really fit the times in which we live. We know that too much government can stifle competition and deprive us of choice and burden us with debt. But we’ve also clearly seen the dangers of too little government–like when a lack of accountability on Wall Street nearly leads to the collapse of our entire economy.
But let’s not talk about government’s role in creating the atmosphere that helped create the crisis. It had nothing to do with the Fed’s easy money policy or the Community Reinvestment Act forcing loans to people who couldn’t afford them or Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
Then Obama went into full hypocrite mode:
But we can’t expect to solve our problems if all we do is tear each other down. [Applause.] You can disagree with a certain policy without demonizing the person who espouses it. You can question somebody’s views and their judgment without questioning their motives or their patriotism. [Applause.] Throwing around phrases like “socialists” and “Soviet-style takeover” and “fascist” and “right-wing nut”–[laughter]–that may grab headlines, but it also has the effect of comparing our government, our political opponents, to authoritarian, even murderous regimes.
This from the man who personally attacked Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during his presidential radio address, and insulted all Arizona police by stating they might racially profile American Hispanics and harass them. This from the man whose Sen. Majority Leader, Harry Reid, recently called the Republican senators “anti-American.” This from the man whose fellow senator from Illinois compared our military, and their treatment of prisoners in Gitmo to the Nazi’s, Pol Pot and Soviet style gulags. Pot, meet kettle. Whoops, I’m sure that’s a “racist” analogy now.
It coarsens our culture, and at its worst, it can send signals to the most extreme elements of our society that perhaps violence is a justifiable response…
Dissent is no longer the “highest form of patriotism” now that Obama is president. Now it leads to domestic terrorism. So, saying “Bush lied, people died,” that he “betrayed this country” and “played on our fears” is fine. Creating a movie that shows the assassination of President Bush is art, but complaining that Obama is leading us to socialism will create the next Timothy McVeigh. Got it.
The community organizer is trying to paint anyone who questions his policies as an extremist. He’s in tune with the MSNBC crowd who claim the only reason you could oppose him is if you are dumb, crazy or racist. But it won’t work this time. Americans know when it’s time to pull out the hip waders – and you need to every time this guy gives a speech. He is what he’s warning about. He is extreme. He seems obsessed with race. He personally attacks his opponents in very un-presidential ways.
The game Obama’s playing won’t work this time. Too many Americans know he’s lying, because they are the ones he’s lying about.
Don’t miss Obama’s lies about the anti-illegal alien bill in AZ and how Big Sis Napolitano is upset you don’t think the border’s secure.
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