Yeah, I haven’t been around much. Yeah, we had an awesome election. Yeah, I know I need to blog more.
Meh, I’m human, what can I say?

In the meantime, while I’m busily doing whatever it is I do, enjoy these awesome, fantastic, shareable videos from Bill Whittle explaining so beautifully what it is the Tea Party is all about. I still don’t know if I consider myself a tea partier, but this pretty much explains precisely what I believe. At least, so far anyway. And I bet, if you listened, you might be surprised to find, you believe this stuff too.

What We Believe, Part 1: Small Government & Free Enterprise

More videos in the series “below the fold”. So click here!

What happens when you make brash generalizations? You make yourself look like a fool. What happens when you make generalized assumptions about an entire group of people? You betray your own prejudices.

That’s what I believe has happened – among other things – with the vilification of generalized, anonymous, faceless A.I.G. “Executives”. Certain members of Congress, along with the Attorneys General of various states, would have us believe that every executive who ever worked at A.I.G. is directly responsible for all the credit default swaps that landed them and the American economy in such turmoil. Furthermore, not only is it every executive’s fault – regardless of whether they were even in the same departments that handled those credit default swaps or not – all of those executives are also totally heartless, greedy, disgusting bastards who deserve to die for so blatantly disrespecting and victimizing the tax-payers by doing something so wrong, so dastardly, so disgusting as… receiving payment for their hard work, as dictated by contracts signed by those in charge, both at A.I.G. and in the Federal government. If we believe what we’re being told by the likes of Barney Frank, *every* executive is a criminal who deserves to be “named and shamed”, who deserves no sympathy for the death threats they and their families are being subjected to, and who ultimately deserves the first ever retroactive, personally targeted, over-the-top, 90% taxation that was just enacted by Congress, despite the fact such taxation legislation so blatantly violates the Constitution (another contract that no one seems to hold must esteem for these days.)

This is another rash generalization. Not only does it make those who make such generalizations look like fools, and not only does it betray their prejudices, but good people who have done absolutely nothing wrong are being hurt in the process.
Oh, and we, the American people, are also being hopelessly distracted from much more important and pressing issues.

This point is beautifully illustrated by none other than one of those awful executives from A.I.G, Mr. Jake DeSantis. He’s taking an awful risk revealing his name, but I believe that what he has to say is important. After all, didn’t our parents teach us to walk a mile in another man’s shoes before we criticize them? And no, not just so that when we do criticize them we’re a mile away and we have their shoes. No, no, the point is, we need to look at both sides before grabbing our pitchforks and running people out of town who may be completely and utterly innocent. Mob rule isn’t the answer here; reason is.
So for the sake of reason, I beg you to take a look at the letter of resignation which Mr. Jake DeSantis sent to Edward M. Liddy, the Chief Executive of A.I.G. It explains a few things from the point of view of the executives that we’re all being riled up to hate.

Click here to check it out.

Before any of us say another word about these executives, I wish we’d all calm down for a minute and think about a few things. First, contracts should be sacred and the government has no right to interfere with them, especially with regard to contracts that they themselves agreed to.

Secondly, before we let mob rule trump our reason, perhaps we should ask ourselves, who is it that’s trying to get us to behave like a bunch of vicious, thoughtless, violent rioters in the first place? Perhaps then we might have a better idea about what really went on here, and who’s really to blame. Not some faceless, nameless, villain of an executive, but some politicians who didn’t even bother to read the biggest, most expensive bill in the history of our country before they voted for it. They’re the ones who signed a contract before reading the fine print (hell, they didn’t even let us read it!) If that happened to us, the little people, we’d be the ones to blame. We’d be the ones with our credit ruined and our possessions being taken away. Yet Congress is trying to shift the blame and attention onto others, hoping they’ll get away with something tremendously stupid – which, by the way, we’re currently paying the price for. Congress entered into this contract, a contract which simply stated that executives – like any other employee of a company – should be compensated for their work. Whether the Congressmen and Senators now feel that compensation was too high, it’s too bad, so sad. It’s their fault for not reading the fine print. So hold them responsible, not the people who simply got paid for doing their job. If that contract can’t stand, if the government can interfere in that contract, then who’s to say they can’t interfere in one of yours? Who’s to say you won’t be the next villain to distract the people of America from yet another of Congress’ sins? Walk a mile in the shoes of those executives before being so quick to judgment, then maybe you’ll understand why this entire situation is so entirely wrong.

I’m just now watching Obama’s appearance on last night’s Tonight Show – thank you, Tivo! – and I just had to pause it. I couldn’t go any further without commenting on a few things, so this won’t be a full analysis, this is just me having to sound off now before I forget my initial reaction.

First off, here’s a direct quote I just transcribed from Obama. I’ll try to get an exact video clip of this line later on.

“”No, no, no, but, no, th-th-th-th… This is the point that I made, I think two days ago, when somebody asked, ‘Well, do you have confidence in Tim Geithner?’ I said, ‘Look, I’m the President. So ih-eh-uh, ultimately, all of this stuff is my responsibility. If I’m not, uh, giving him the tools that he needs, uh, to make sure that we’re moving this forward, then people need to look at me.”
- Barack Obama, Tonight Show with Jay Leno, 03-19-09, roughly 35-40 minutes into the broadcast.

Um, Mr. President, if it’s your responsibility to get Tim Geithner all the tools he needs to solve what you and your administration repeatedly refer to as the greatest financial and economic disaster to strike this country since the Great Depression, then why is it that you have time to go on a late night chat show, and yet you haven’t had enough time to fill the remaining 17 out of 18 presidential appointments within the Treasury Department? Tim Geithner is the only one you’ve appointed out of those 18 appointments, meaning Tim Geithner is operating without a full compliment of appointees on his staff, to assist him with this massive crisis.
Wouldn’t you say that’s a pretty big error on your part? Wouldn’t you say that’s an instance of you not giving Tim Geithner the “tools that he needs to make sure we’re moving forward”? Don’t you think filling those 17 appointments should be a higher priority than chatting it up with Jay Leno?
Hey, Mr. Obama, you asked us to look at you, you said this was your responsibility. We’re looking at you now.

Secondly, I will say that I was impressed with one question in particular that Jay Leno addressed to Obama. When he asked specifically about his concerns over Congress targeting specific individuals with 90% taxation legislation, did you notice that Obama didn’t even answer the question? He completely deflected and didn’t even come close to addressing Leno’s very legitimate concerns!
But then again, I guess you wouldn’t want to answer that question either, if you were presiding over a Congress that just passed legislation which violated the Constitution not just once, but twice.
Yet again, Mr. Obama, I’m looking at you. This is your responsibility, and you can’t even answer a drastically important question such as the one Jay Leno presented to you?
I sincerely hope I wasn’t the only one who picked up on that deflection, because that’s a very, very, very important question that we should all be demanding a satisfactory answer to.

Lastly, didn’t you just love how in every single answer, the only solution Obama presented to both the economic crisis AND the big AIG mess, was more regulation and oversight? That’s pretty funny, coming from the golden boy of the same Democratic party who repeatedly rejected Republican attempts at providing more regulation and oversight before this crisis even erupted, in an effort to put on the brakes before we hit an absolute catastrophe. Wasn’t it the Democrats who said that Fannie and Freddie were just fine, and that Republicans were doing nothing more than being evil “fear-mongers” for suggesting that a major global financial crisis was on the horizon and that we’d better act now through regulation and oversight?
Kinda funny that Obama thinks we should trust those very same Democrats to effectively implement that regulation and oversight now that the very same crisis the Republicans predicted has hit us at full force, that crisis the Democrats said didn’t exist and was nothing more than a Republican fantasy. But not only did the Democrats fail in that regard, but they also failed to put in any regulation and oversight into the massive stimulus bills they passed which led to this big AIG mess that Obama was commenting on.
Hmm, that’s at least two strikes, if not more. How many strikes will we allow the Democrats before we realize, hey, they have absolutely no track record of success and they flat out suck at implementing any kind of effective regulation and oversight, like the kind Obama was touting on Jay Leno?

Alright, now to hit play and finish the rest of it. I swear, I feel like pulling my hair out, this is so frustrating to listen to. So before my brain just fizzles out, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the whole debacle, so please, comment away and let me know what you think!

Oh, and by the way, just to add my voice to the chorus – let’s impeach Chris Dodd, shall we?

I never once took a side on Proposition 8 in California, or the other similar amendments in other states. Why? Because I’m not a citizen of those states, and because of that, I don’t feel comfortable influencing their elections. I figure if I don’t like foreigners influencing US elections all the time, I shouldn’t influence Californians, Arizonans, Floridians, or any other state on any other issue they want to bring up for their citizens to vote on.
Now that the vote’s over, I’m still not going to take sides. Honestly, I don’t really know where I stand, simply because I don’t know enough about all the legal implications of either side to really make up my mind yet on the whole gay marriage thing. But, I do want to say something.

Guys, just stop with the threats and violence already!

The whole point of democracy is that people have the right to vote on issues that are important to them. Those issues are then decided on by the majority. Even if you don’t like the way the majority decides, that’s just tough beans, because hey, that’s democracy. Just look at the presidential election – I sure as hell didn’t like the outcome, but am I about to go burn down Obama supporters’ houses or places of worship? Am I about to threaten violence to anyone who dares have an Obama sign in their front yard? Hell no! Because that’s democracy – sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t. Deal with it! That’s called being an adult. That’s called being an American!
Of course, I’m well within my right to continue to disagree with the majority. As do all of you who are angry about the way your elections on the gay marriage amendments turned out. By all means, continue the discussion, try to prove your point. But do not try to prove your point through violence. We must rely on ideas, not threats! If you continue these violent outbursts and refuse to acknowledge the democratic results of this election, you’re only further damaging your cause. You say you’re fighting hatred & bigotry, yet you’re showing hatred, bigotry – and worse – violence? What sense does that make? Who, pray tell, are you going to win over with tactics such as these? You’re only alienating those you wish to convince, further damaging your cause, AND not to mention, damaging our democratic process.

So, I implore you, grow up! Deal with it! Move on! Keep fighting what you believe to be the good fight, but do it decently, within the law, and with respect for the democratic process and will of the people. Above all else, we must not lose respect for the will of the people, we must not lose respect for the democratic process. On more than one occasion now in California, the people have consistently voted against gay marriage, yet their votes are continually repudiated by a court wishing to legislate from the bench. Don’t you realize this is such a dangerous proposition?! This undermines our democracy! This undermines the people’s right to run their own government! This undermines everything we believe in; that whole “We the people” thing, that’s what you’re attacking right now. So stop it! Accept this vote, let the will of the people stand, even if you don’t like it. Then continue your right to exercise your freedom of speech, try to win people over to your side through words and example, not through violence and intimidation. Because that’s simply not the democratic way, and it sure as hell isn’t the American way.

Stop the violence! Stop the bigotry & hatred, or you’re never going to stop the bigotry & hatred that you claim to be fighting. Lead by example, then maybe you’ll get somewhere.

To those who are being targeted and had violence threatened against them for their votes, do not let them discourage you! Do not bend to their thuggery and intimidation. I know it must be hard, I know it must be terrible. In fact, I have several friends in California who are in the thick of it right now. One of my close friends lives near to the Mormon Temple in Los Angeles. He has witnessed the protests up close and personal, and has seen close friends attacked by the throngs of protesters. I know this can be terrifying and disheartening, but do not lose hope and do not lose heart. You had your right to vote however you chose. The minute you’re frightening out of what you believe in is the minute we lose our democracy. By all means, engage in discussions with those of differing opinions. Learn from them, learn about their point of view, think carefully about all sides of these important issues. But you cannot let such horrific tactics sway your resolve. That’s not America. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.
Stay strong and know that there are people out here in the rest of the country who are standing with you. Not necessarily because we agree with how you voted, but because we believe in your right to vote, your right to determine the direction of your government. You exercised that right and are being attacked for it. Shame on those who are attacking you, shame on their ignorance, hatred, and violent natures. Convictions must win out over intimidation; democracy must triumph over chaos. It absolutely must. If you bend to their threats, if you let fear sway your heart, we will surely be lost.

First and foremost, he is not a law professor, nor has he ever been. There is a huge difference between a senior lecturer who is on leave and a law professor. I know law professors. In fact, a law professor from an ivy league university just released a textbook in which an entire chapter is dedicated to something that I did as a teenager. I know these guys, I know the differences, yet Obama does not? That’s scary.

But that’s not as scary as what the man is actually saying. There you go, folks! What he told Joe the Plumber was not a slip of the tongue, it was the truth seeping out from behind the facade. Here he says it again, he explains it in great detail. Not only that, but he then goes on to discuss the best ways in which to implement his redistribution of wealth. Note, he was not discussing whether or not it was a good idea, he wasn’t having a theoretical discussion about the pros and cons. No, he was just flat out telling you how he would accomplish this redistribution of wealth. Period.

What I think is perhaps the worst part is that Obama is a lawyer specializing in constitutional law. Clearly the man must have read the constitution at some point. But if you listen to this, it sounds like he’s never read it at all! Or at the very least, he doesn’t understand it. “Negative liberties”? What?! The only group it’s negative toward is the federal government.
Why? Because you remember that opening bit? “We the people”? The constitution wasn’t written on behalf of the federal government, it was written by the people! It was written to keep the federal government in check, it was written to keep the federal government under the control of the people!! Yet he thinks that’s a limitation inflicted upon us by the founding fathers that he thinks should be reversed by the courts? Hell no!

As for his statement that the Constitution doesn’t lay out enough about what the federal government is going to do for you, again, has he read it? I can’t even fathom his statement about the Constitution not laying out enough about “community organizing” and “ground level” work. Does he not understand the difference between the federal level of our government versus state and local level government?! Does he not get it?!
Or, perhaps, would he prefer that all state and local governments were kicked out the door in favor of a larger federal government? I mean, hell, if we’re talking about completely getting rid of the “limitations of our founding fathers”, is it really that big of a leap to say bye-bye to all of our local government? Because sure, we sure have seen how fantastic the federal government is at addressing local issues!

Man… I’m just astonished. This is like a child’s understanding of how our government works. No, sorry, that’s an insult to children. I’ve known children who have a better grasp of it than this! This is absurd.

All I can say is, people, please wake up! Please! This is our very foundation, our very way of life, that we’re talking about here! This goes beyond possible slips of the tongue. We have a long-standing pattern of rhetoric, behavior, and ideology from which to judge. So please, take advantage of these examples and come to grips with who this man really and what his intentions really are for our government. To me, it’s scary as hell, and there’s no way I would ever support this man.