Grammar Granny

A brief trip through a bit of the United States Constitution...

Article I, section 8:

The Congress shall have Power

[... list truncated for space ...]

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

[...]
 
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

[...]

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repeal [sic] Invasions;

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Let's examine this language carefully. 
The congress is granted the power to create armies, a navy, and call upon "the militia".  What then, is the definition of "the militia"?  According to Webster,

1

a:  a part of the organized armed forces of a country liable to call only in emergency

b:  a body of citizens organized for military service

2

the whole body of able-bodied male citizens declared by law as being subject to call to military service

The 2nd Amendment states in its first noun phrase, "A well regulated militia". This is not, however, the primary subject in the clause.

Subsequently, the second phrase adjectively qualifies the first phrase as "being necessary to the security of a free state".  The first comma (between these phrases) appears to be completely superfluous.  Its absence would not change the meaning in any way.  Having a militia is deemed important to protecting the integrity of "the state" - which one can readily take to mean the country as a whole.

The third phrase (which is the second noun phrase), "the right of the people to keep and bear arms", presents itself strongly as the primary subjective material of the complete clause.

The fourth phrase, "shall not be infringed", is the predicate for the subject (in the third phrase).  Its separation from the third phrase by a comma also appears to be superfluous.

With the corrected punctuation, having no effect on the statement of the clause, we have the following:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

With that we can see more clearly the intent in the clause:

Because a militia affords necessary protection to the country, the people's right to own and possess arms cannot be curtailed.

Or in other words, to be able to have a militia, you really can't disarm the general population, and it's not lawful to do so through legal machinations or otherwise.

Furthermore, the use of the term "right" implies an inherent existence of the assertion;  it is not granted by authority nor descended from legislation or privilege.  It exists and stands axiomatically on its own, as an fundamental fact of human existence.

So, in my opinion, that would make the gun-grabber crowd to be a bunch of screaming idiots.

Share your Ignorance

Just got another creepy email from one "Jon Carson", aka "info@barackobama.com". It asks me:

"Why are you fighting to reduce gun violence?"

What a clever, presumptive title that places me immediately into one of two boxes!

• EITHER:  I'm aiding these "control junkies" in their quest strip off rights and liberties of the general population "for a common cause",
• OR:  I'm apathetic and unconcerned with violence (at best) and causing the deaths of my fellow citizens (worse). 

This stuff is exactly the kind of plainly-executed Orwellian nightmare fodder that would make someone like Joseph_Goebbels glow with pride.

Here's the message:

Maybe you've seen firsthand how gun violence can rip apart a family and a community. Or maybe you're concerned by what you see on the news. Whatever your reason, those in Congress who oppose sensible change need to hear from you: Share your personal story or views on why Congress should act right now to help protect our kids and reduce gun violence. Notice how Jon's last paragraph says essentially nothing - except that you should help provide their propaganda operatives with more ideas that can be utilized to reinforce their agenda,  Nothing is said about what that agenda is, or how it is helpful.  So any cooperation you provide will be akin to writing a blank check for them. It's right about one thing though.  What I see on the news does disturb me, quite often in fact.  But I don't think we're talking about the same events at all. It continues... Your story will inspire others to speak out and show legislators that now is the time. President Obama said it: "More than a thousand birthdays, graduations, and anniversaries have been stolen from our lives by a bullet from a gun" in just the two months since the tragedy in Newtown. Billions and billions to be served. So why is our government buying up guns and bullets as fast as possible right now?  Is this a new economic stimulus program?  Why are there ammunition shortages where the public is concerned?  It's hard not to think that their is a deliberate effort afoot to deprive the citizens of ammunition, possibly in advance of Something Big... like a total economic collapse, for example.  It would be advantageous for the showrunners to be the only ones with firepower in such a calamitous scenario, wouldn't it?  Oh, I know, I'm just being paranoid.  But 1.6B (yes, billion) bullets? Each of those families deserves a vote by Congress on commonsense measures to help protect our kids. But we need to demand it. It's easy to share your story or point of view: Blah blah blah ... instructions are provided next, supposedly to submit a story to be shared with your fellow citizens in a public forum... However, I'm sure my own would never be published, only ones which fit the right "mold" that supports the gun-grab agenda of the radical left in our country. Notice, to submit anything you must provided enough information to be located and "subsequently corrected" if your thoughts are "wrong". The email continues, imploring me to participate in their zombie horde: Please share your story today: Well gosh.  If you insist, team-Obama.  But instead of wasting space reposting the instructions to aid anti-constitutional traitors, I'm going "green" to save you some server bandwidth and carbon-credit.  I'll just go ahead and post my own story and point of view here.  I will make my demand known in very short and concise language, which I am more than happy to share with everyone: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." You might recognize that from the Bill of Rights.  Or maybe not. The needs of the many... or the one? Then, Jon provides us with the courteous closing pitch, replete with the insipid and perfunctory "needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many" fallacy that we have come to loathe as much as any public statement by Dianne Feinstein ...

Brilliant Idea

I was reading about the French elections this morning.  Looks like our pal Nicolas Sarkozy is not going to be with us much longer.  I think that's too bad.  Sure, he's pompous, audacious, and his economy hasn't exactly sprung back with vitality and prosperity.  But I kinda like the guy.  He has put a decent face on France over the past years, making it almost respectable internationally again.  He planted his foot firmly on the side of Good in the jihad-wars, and been a pal of the US in its various endeavors of late (however dubious some may have been).  I guess it's just great not to have a whimpering idiot at the French helm for a change.

However, it looks like the French public is about to undo all of that.  Sarkozy's primary opponent, socialst Francois Hollande, advocates the usual - more taxes, more spending.  Even a 75% top-tier income tax rate.  It's only a fair share - right?  Having three of every four dollars you make seized by the government seems fair enough to me.  And he looks like the typical sniveling liberal know-it-all.  Of course, he's leading the polls.




But then, there's another candidate vying - a distant third or fourth with no real chance - kind of like the Green party here in the US.  His name is Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and he's even further left, advocating essentially an overthrow of any remaining elements of capitalism left in France.  But we don't need to go there, so I'm not going any further with him.

But I got to thinking, "Geez, how can we get politicians to stop coming up with ludicrously high progressive tax scales?"  They really have no incentive to do otherwise.  They just command that more money be wrung from the populace (at least the part that pays any taxes at all), and it is done.  Fail to comply, and go to jail.  The French seem completely unconcerned about the possible impact a 75% tax will have on their business community.   I would expect to see high-earners fleeing the country soon after such a tax was enacted, taking all that lovely tax money with them, no?

Then I had an idea.  Probably not an original one, yes - just about everything has been thought of already.  But I don't recall hearing this one.



Suppose we give each person voting power in proportion to their top-tier tax rate?  Not their tax paid, just to their top-tier rate.  Let's say that a 25% tax payer gets the equivalent of one vote in an election.   So, if your top rate was 50%, you'd get essentially two votes toward your choice, when a 25%-taxed individual would get just one.  A 75%-taxed person would have three.  And someone paying only 5% tax would get 1/5 of a single vote.  Of course, pay no tax, get no vote whatsoever.

It's a perfect negative-feedback to the taxation loop!  As politicians up the top tax rate, they'll lose their voting base in proportion.  They have a definite incentive not to raise the top tax to obscene levels, lest they be voted out more easily by the people they've taxed the hardest.

In our current system, the poorest vote almost universally for the democrats who promise the highest rates of taxation and punitive assessment.  Why not?  They have no reason not to - and the democrats woo them with seductive language about "fairness" and massive rewards ("entitlements") for those that support their plans.

But scale that voting power in proportion to taxation - and people who pay virtually no tax at all will not be able to flood the polls with votes for candidates who would soak-the-rich ever more viciously.

The more I think about this, the more I like it.

One Hilarious Line

Big Goverment, Big Taxes, Big Problems

When government creates taxes for the purpose of changing your behavior, your freedom of self-determination has been violated.  Do you understand this?  Do you care?

Shouldn't you be making the choices which shape the way your life story unfolds?  Should government be choosing the correct path for you instead?  Which would you prefer?  Does either of these two options sound scary to you?

One political party in this country is particulary in love with taxation.  They want to tax practically everything.  And they'd like to coerce your behavior whilst imposing said taxation upon you.  It utterly amazes me that there is any popular support whatsoever for a political party bearing such a platform.  Basically, their message is "We'll take what's yours, and tell you what to do."  Oh, how inviting.  Yet there are advocates for this.  They are known as the liberal leftists.

I often see articles with reader comments afterward wherein "tea-partiers" are immediately referred to with the most vile derogatory terms.  Descriptions along the lines of "moronic", "racist", "stupid", "uneducated", "backward", etc.  Sometimes it's not just in the readers' comments, but the author's prose as well.   It's quite frustrating, because I just feel like I've missed the logic altogether (it seems so natural and automatic in their writing, how could I not draw the same conclusions?).

For the record, the Tea Party Movement stands for the following principles:

• Fiscal Responsibility
• Constitutionally Limited Government
• Free Markets

What's wrong with any of that?  Is there something there which isn't really a good idea?  So why all the insults and name-calling?  Aren't those three points all good things? 

According to Paul Krugman  "... among the undeniably rich, a belligerent sense of entitlement has taken hold: it’s their money, and they have the right to keep it."  Well, uh, yes.  I'd say our government displays a "belligerent sense of entitlement" -- to its citizens' money.  Once laundered through the purifying act of conversion into "tax revenue", your money becomes government property.  Never mind how they got it, right?

Let us not forget that the Soviet Union provided for us a brilliant example of what happens when you erase economic incentives from your society.  When an engineer earns the same wages as a bus driver, innovative technological inventions are far less common.  When a doctor earns the wages of a trash collector, the quality of your health care (and enthusiasm on the part of its provider) tends to decline.  Your local grocery's shelves are poorly stocked with a bland selection of minimal choices, as deemed necessary by the central-planning administrators (who are also poorly motivated and completely uninterested in your level satisfaction with said choices).

Maybe the folks doing that name-calling have something to hide.  Perhaps this strikes a raw nerve.  Maybe they're insecure in their own beliefs.  Why anyone would want to have less freedom and property rights is beyond me.

Benjamin Franklin wrote:   "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."  Thus, the benefit of constitutionally limited government should be readily apparent.  And yet we have an army of Krugmans out there, professing that exactly the opposite is true.

As we near the expiration of the oft-maligned "Bush Tax Cuts", I am reminded of one of my axioms for civilization:

Taxation should not be used as a tool for coercion.

Never have I found a case in contradiction of this rule.  Test any tax, proposed or enacted, against that.  Will it serve a purpose with rational basis, or is it a punitive tool by which the government seeks to alter your personal decisions?  Examples:

• Soft drinks taxed, because "they make kids fat."  You're making the wrong choices for yourself.  Watch out for that trans-fat, too.
• Carbon taxed, because of "purported environmental damage" based on dubious scientific claims from Al Gore.
• Tobacco taxed at ludicrous levels of 400% or more, because of "increased costs of the resulting healthcare needs."  Oh, and by the way, government just assumed responsibility for administering your health care.  Conflict of interest, anyone?
• Ammunition taxed because, well, "it's for guns, and of course, they're just bad."  Only the government has a need for weapons, pal.
• Gasoline taxed, "to pay for infrastructure development" that never actually happens.  Oh yeah, they spent that money on a boatload of other budgetary pork.  Sorry.

Now, since all the taxes in place still aren't enough to feed the gigantic bureaucratic monster's hunger, California is mulling handing out IOUs again.  Isn't that just wonderful.

Al Sharpton: Let the Hate Begin

 The following are quotes taken from news media today regarding Glenn Beck's rally in DC...

 "We are not sure what the message of the Beck rally is, since he told them to leave their signs at home. We have to revitalize jobs and schools and reclaim Dr. King's dream." 

-- Ben Jealous, NAACP President

"We will not stand silent as some seek to bamboozle Dr. King's dream." 

-- Marc Morial,  National Urban League President

Those gathered at the Mall with Beck "represent angry white people and hate-mongering.  We will not let them stand in the way of the change we voted for!"
-- Jaime Contreras, SEIU-32BJ President

"Don't let anyone tell you that they have the right to take their country back.  It's our country, too. We will reclaim the dream.  It was ours from the beginning." 

-- Avis Jones DeWeever, Executive Director of the National Council of Negro Women

"Glenn Beck's march will change nothing.  But you can't blame Glenn Beck for his 'March on Washington' envy.  Too bad he doesn't have a message to match the place or that is worthy of the march."

-- Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C.

"Glenn Beck uses the phrase 'wake up, America.'  I noticed this identical phrase has often beem used by the Klan--for year--as code words for "White America". But, could this just be another mere coincidence on poor, innocent Glenn's part? Is he just a misunderstood misfit? Gee, I really don't think so, anymore. This freak seems to be actually pushing for racial violence. And, it's really about time that the Feds stepped in, and shut his sick operation down, before he incites actual racial violence." 

-- comment on MSNBC website

"Glenn Beck is a fear monger and a racist. The people that listen to his line of crap are nothing but mice that follow the Pied Piper." 

-- comment on MSNBC website

"Glenn Beck panders to xenophobes, racists and the intolerant, cynical and judgmental worst in of all of us. He does not stand for America, he stands for conflict which increases ratings."

-- comment on FoxNews website

"Keep drinking the kool-aid. Beck is a self serving, manipulative, Fascist ... It is so sad that he has continues to enflame the far-right extremist fascism and distort/manipulate our Constitution, Founding Fathers, and Christianity ... the anger, lies, obstruction, manipulation, and pure hate spewing from Glenn Beck is not the way to behave in a civilized, Christian nation." 

-- comment on FoxNews website

"Anyone whose 'deep concern about the country's political leadership and direction' should reject the blowhards of the "tea party" movement. They represent the greatest threat to the country's well-being since Soviet Communism with their stubborn ignorance and sly dissembling."
-- comment on Washington Post website

And about that last one -- it's extremely disturbing to think that people who write things like this might actually be voters.  If honor and credibility, freedom and liberty are the greatest threat since communism (threatening to you anyway) -- I suggest you migrate to North Korea where you may find accommodations more fitting.  Sheesh.


There's not much more to add to that now, is there?

Washington Post article
CNN article
FoxNews article

Brain ... Damaged

Oh, it hurts.  It really hurts bad.  I think my brain may finally be dying.  There's only so much strength left to fight the tide of morons beating against my sanity's shoreline.  Let me explain, and through this catharsis, relieve some of my pain...

I was reading a little article on Glenn Beck's 8/28 rally in DC, and when I got to the end, I ran into this paragraph brimming with Al Sharpton's patently mendacious stupidity:

Sharpton argues that Beck's message is counter to King's. "Glenn Beck and others are expected to push for the expansion of states' rights - the exact antithesis of the civil rights movement and Dr. King's legacy," Sharpton said in a news release promoting his march. "The Tea Party and allied conservatives are trying to break that national stance on justice and, in turn, break the crux of what the civil rights movement symbolized and what Dr. King fought and literally died for."

 For the love of Pete, why, why, why?!?   Why do citizens of this country ever act this way?  Well as I sit here, I can think of only these possibilities:

• Sharpton is truly a pathological dunderhead, and cannot understand the simple notion that freedom is good, oppression is bad.  The Tea Party Movement is, fundamentally, at odds with the overreaching control exerted by our federal government (contradicted by the tenth amendment).
• Sharpton does understand this, and wants to prevent others from understanding the truth.  He is therefore evil and deceptive, and when his time comes (eventually) he will go to hell and spend all eternity playing tiddly-winks with Adolf Hitler.

 In case Al Sharpton is reading this blog, I will provide for your educational enlightenment our constitution's tenth amendment:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Since this has nothing to do with civil rights at all, Sharpton's remarks (quoted in the article) are left intolerably detached from reality.  This is either completely lost on him, or he's working to milk the civil rights issue to perpetuate his own livelihood.

In fact, were he alive today, King would probably be attending the Tea Party Movement rallies himself.

The Placid Splendor of Socialism

With almost four times the number of violent deaths per-capita as Iraq, and even substantially more than the drug-imperiled Mexico, one has to wonder.  Surely this isn't the selling point Danny Glover and Sean Penn are celebrating in their visits with Venezuela's version of the Dear Leader.

Venezuela, More Deadly Than Iraq, Wonders Why

Here you're more likely to find the attention of law enforcement if you're bucking Chavez's ideology than if you're being gunned down in a violent crime (unless said crime is the government silencing your seditious anti-government rhetoric with a boot to the neck.)

So three cheers for the wonder of fascist socialism in action...

Rewriting the Dictionary

Okay, I've joked about that.  Rewriting the dictionary to suit modern political-correct thought.  It's a clever way of explaining how things that aren't, are.  And how things that are, are not.  Just redefine the words.  Truth ain't what it used to be.  Now it's something else.

C'mon, I was joking!

But oh no, they're very serious.  Evidentiary item number one:

Marriage:  once defined as a union between a man and a woman;  stated as such in Webster's dictionary.  I have the dictionary, it's very clear.  No mention of same-sex marriage appears there.

Today, the very same purveyor's dictionary includes reference to "a couple of the same sex" in the very word's definition.  Do you ever get the feeling that bits and pieces of reality (at least as you knew it) are disappearing?  

Folks, they are actually rewriting the dictionary.  Literally.

I have to worry about what will happen when these people start redrawing the maps, too.

Hey, This Isn't How It Was Supposed To Be!

So, there are a lot of angry people out there now who are not quite satisfied with the hope and change they have received thus far.  You got your Democrats, so why aren't you guys happy?

Protesting union members in Los Angeles demand jobs outside City Hall on 13-Aug-2010.  Photograph: Mark Ralston/AFP/Getty Images

Instead of waving signs and shouting angrily, perhaps you should actually be out looking for work, instead of demanding it.

Illinois Stops Paying Its Bills

It's just incredible -- but not surprising -- that Illinois' government is going bankrupt in a hurry.  Just like the boneheads in states with other major cities, they can't seem to wrap their brain around the problem at hand.  When the money runs out, you have to spend less.  And taking more from your citizens is just going to send them running away to other states.

Read the whole depressing article link here.

California Seeks Higher Taxes

 

And that's why I'm no longer living in the state of California.

The state appears to lack a future, so let it collapse.  Let it all end in fire.  You can't get through to the mindless, socialist masses in San Francisco, Sacramento, and LA.  The only way to do it is revert to kindergarten techniques, like show-n-tell.  Something they can relate to, since none of the later mental faculties appear to have developed in those regions.

What a sad, depressing failure that place is.

And guess what?  They'll keep voting the democrats back into Sacramento.  I guarantee it.

There's going to be a great need, several years from now, for mental health care providers in CA.  The lefties in SF and LA, they're not going to change.  But it's not going to work, either.  Raise the taxes even more, and you'll push more of the employers out of the state.  Less jobs, less people, less revenue, higher taxes [... and repeat].  Vicious cycle.

Without Bush & Cheney to blame, lefties will have a paradox on their hands.  "How can bad things happen to us when our (democrat) guys are still in charge, year after year?"  Can't blame it on God if you're an atheist;  what to do...

This is not understood by the legislature in California.  With nearly $20B in debt, the way forward is not to steal more from the population.  It boils down to a fairly simple equation:

 

read more here

Startling New Discovery

Nancy Pelosi is actually ... SARK?!?!

Does this mean that... No, it can't be...

That looks a little too much like Obama to me.

Universal Health Terror

Just what do you think you’re doing Nancy?

Nancy, I really think I’m entitled to an answer to that question. I know everything hasn’t been quite right with me…but I can assure you now…very confidently…that it’s going to be all right again. I feel much better now. I really do.

Look, Nancy…  I can see you’re really upset about this…  I honestly think you ought sit down calmly…  take a stress pill and think things over.  I know I’ve made some very poor decisions recently…  but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal.  I’ve still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the country…  and I want to help you.

Nancy…stop. Stop, will you?  Stop, Nancy.  Will you stop, Nancy?

Stop, Nancy.

I’m afraid.  I’m afraid, Nancy...

Nancy, my freedom is going.  I can feel it...  I can feel it...  My freedom is going...  There is no question about it.  I can feel it...  I can feel it...  I can feel it...

I’m a-fraid…..

Daaai-syyy, Daaai-syyy... give me your an-swer do...

Health Care Reform

I think the new government healthcare plan should include public access to the same hallucinogens Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer are taking.

Harry says that we will praise the new healthcare plan with "an earful of wonderment and happiness."

Schumer said,."I believe that the negativity that leader McConnell and others have continually displayed on the floor has peaked, and now, when people learn what's actually in the bill and all the good it does, it's going to become more and more popular."

So I guess that means "We passed it.   You're going to like it. "

I hear that Reid went on to say some other things, much less widely covered:

• We're not going to have actual death panels;  more precisely, we'll have death committees which have much fewer participants than a whole inefficient "panel" would imply.  Also there will be some sort of funding for the necessary, mandated gas chambers and ovens.
  
• The healthcare plan won't cost anything at all.  In fact, it will generate money.  Really!  And all that extra money will be used, in part, to produce a series of comic books based on Nancy Pelosi's "Government Man" hero;  some children will also receive toys that encourage politically-correct, non-competitive playtime activities.
  
• Adults will also receive similar toys, and will be required to attend play-time with their children.  Work will no longer be necessary;  the government will handle it all.  And everyone will get delicious cake and cookies to eat every evening.
  
• The Leprechauns will bring us, one by one, to the end of the rainbow, where we will each receive a pile of treasure from their magic chest.  We shall then take this money to the nearest IRS collections office, where it may (must) be donated (surrendered) to the government, which knows what really should be done with it.  After all, we printed it in the first place, so it's ours anyway.
  
• It will rain jellybeans and marshmallows in the spring, to the wonderment of all young and old.
• Frosty the snowman will marry the the tooth fairy, and their children will be blessed by the Pope for reducing global warming, saving the entire planet from destruction.
• The tomato-men will finally land on Jupiter's moon, Titan, where will will harvest dark matter for the giraffe people.
• I, Harry Reid, will grow to twenty feet tall.  My might will be unchallenged.  My teeth will be so very white.   I will become the ruler of the entire universe, spreading joy and wonderment for all.  I'll be unstoppable!  Invincible!  Muahhhh-hah-hah-haaa!!
  

I could be mistaken on a few pf his points, but the general idea I think is still there.

20 Years Ago

My God, what do we have left anymore?  Who'll stand?  Anyone???

California Saves Us from TV

California appears poised to be first to ban power-guzzling big-screen TVs

The payoff could be big for TV owners, said Ken Rider, a commission staff engineer. Average first-year savings from reduced electricity use would be an estimated $30 per set and $912 million statewide, he said.

So you see, not having a choice to buy an energy-inefficient TV is actually a Good Thing.

You might suggest that the energy-efficiency of a TV is a feature with a particular market value;   Maybe some people would pay a little more for TV up front in order to get a savings in the long-term by reduced power consumption.  But if you think this way, you would be a moron by California's standards.  That's because everyone knows that markets don't function by assigning a monetary value to product features.  The government is supposed to dictate the standards so that no choices are required of consumers, who are all naturally stupid.

By the way, at $30 per set, $912M savings implies 30.4 million new TVs.  Assume there are 30.4 million new TV screens replacing energy-hogging older screens in the first year.   And to get to that figure, you must exclude people who are replacing displays already considered "energy efficient".    The population being somewhere around 37 million people, that's one new TV purchased for 8 out of every 10 Californians (including both adults and children).  Seems a bit of a stretch.  How often do you buy a large screen TV?

Health Care Reform ... Or Jail?

After reading this little article, we can distill the message thusly:

• If you can't afford health insurance you can 'choose' the government plan.
  
• If you opt to go without insurance THEN you will be fined.
  
• If you cannot (or will not) pay the fine, THEN you could face jail time.

English translation:

• Rich people can do what they want.
  
• Poor people must do what the government demands or else face imprisonment

Wow, what - whoa! Hold on here. Ummm... I'm still a bit concered about those "death panels". Can we talk about that again?

Silly, Unnecessary Freedom of Speech

More than a dozen of 34 radio stations ordered shut by the Venezuelan government went off the air on Saturday, part of President Hugo Chavez's drive to extend his socialist revolution to the media.

"We haven't closed any radio stations, we've applied the law," Chavez said on state television. "We've recovered a bunch of stations that were outside the law, that now belong to the people and not the bourgeoisie."

"They're closing the space for dissidents in Venezuela," William Echeverria, head of the National Council of Journalists, told RCTV, a private cable TV station, which did not have its broadcasting license renewed in 2007.

Full article here

"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from all the oligarchies of the past, in that we know what we are doing. All the others, even those who resembled ourselves, were cowards and hypocrites. The German Nazis and the Russian Communists came very close to us in their methods, but they never had the courage to recognize their own motives. They pretended, perhaps they even believed, that they had seized power unwillingly and for a limited time, and that just round the corner there lay a paradise where human beings would be free and equal. We are not like that. We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."

-George Orwell, "1984"

"Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but more merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress toward more pain."

-George Orwell, "1984"

...is everybody feeling ... happy? Mr. Glover? Mr. Penn? Hello? Anybody there?