Methinks he’s forgetting that the only real way to gain someone’s respect – real respect – is not to cower in front of a bully who will merely abuse you, but rather stand up to them, show real strength of conviction, and stand independent and free. No one will ever truly respect you when they know they can walk all over you. It’s the first thing any woman learns when they finally, truly understand what it means to be in a healthy relationship. You know what? It applies just as much to international relations as it does romantic relations.
The capitulation of our freedoms will never get the “international community” to “like us more” or “respect us more”. It’ll merely give our enemies the tools they need to win the ideological world war we’re currently embroiled in between Islamic extremist dictators and the free world. When someone considers you an Infidel who is absolutely deserving of death, there’s absolutely no way to gain their respect, besides just kneeling and offering them your neck. But that’s hardly a form of respect I think we should be aiming for, do you?
You want to know the real reason why the people – the people – of the Middle East don’t respect America right now? This is a perfect example: we’re partnering with EGYPT to curtail freedom of speech. When you get in bed with dictators, the world doesn’t look at you the same way in the morning. And it’s not good.
This just churns my stomach. On September 8th, for the first time in history (correction: see below), a sitting President is going to deliver a speech to all students in the nation, from pre-K straight through to 12th grade. The White House isn’t giving any details on what exactly Mr. Obama’s speech will involve (see below), but we can at least take a guess based on the teaching guide that was sent out to principals and teachers. Here are a few sample questions that the children are supposed to think about while listening to Barry:
• What is the President trying to tell me?
• What is the President asking me to do?
• What new ideas and actions is the President challenging me to think about?
After the speech, teachers are going to ask students to answer even more questions, such as:
• What do you think the President wants us to do?
• Does the speech make you want to do anything?
• Are we able to do what President Obama is asking of us?
Call me crazy, (oh, and I can think of several liberals who will) but I don’t exactly want the Dear Leader asking my children to do anything for him personally. Hey, I have an idea! How about we just keep politics outside of the classroom? Like I always say, I think it’s slightly more important that kids learn to read before they’re schooled in political agendas. But then again, that’s just me.
And of course, I’m getting awfully tired of seeing situations where this sentiment keeps cropping up in my mind, but it’s worth repeating yet again: can you imagine the uproar if President Bush had done something like this? If he’d announced it so suddenly, less than a week before it would happen, and given so few details about the contents of the speech? We all know the furious screams from the left would have dominated every single news broadcast until the White House relented. And you know what? They’d be right!
But where are they now? Yet again, their silence is deafening.
I was looking for a good synopsis of this story, since I heard about this on the news as well. I’ve really got to get some sleep, so I didn’t have much time to search. But it seems Michelle Malkin’s done a pretty good job of summing it up. Click here to check out ‘No Junior Lobbyist Left Behind’.
It looks like lots of people are planning on conveniently calling their kid in “sick” that day. If I had kids, that’s what I’d do. I’d like to encourage you to do the same. Heck, let’s make a party out of it! Keep ‘em home, talk about freedom, get the family together to read the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, maybe even some of the writings of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and other founding fathers. Sing some patriotic songs, watch ‘1776′, eat a hot dog! If it’s legal in your state, set off some fireworks! Or hey, maybe even do a little service project for our service men and women – let me tell you, they sure love to receive cards and letters of thanks from kids back home. Make it a day of American patriotism they’ll remember!
And maybe, just maybe, if we all do this together, there’ll be record number of sick kids that day. At least, we sure can hope.
09-06-09 – Update & Correction: I wanted to let you all know that I need to issue a correction to a tidbit of information included in this post, and also there’s a bit of an update on this issue.
So, first off, I want to apologize for getting a fact wrong on this issue! I have since found out that two prior presidents have delivered speeches to school children while in office; the first was Ronald Reagan, the second was George H. W. Bush. Apologies for that!! The very first news blurb I saw on this issue didn’t mention that fact, and as I said, when I first posted this I didn’t have much time to do more searching. Shame on me for posting so quickly without doing a thorough enough job vetting the info! I promise to try harder next time.
Now for the updates! The Department of Education has reworded one of the offending questions in the lesson plan having to do with how children can “help the President.” I thought I’d included that in this post, but apparently I neglected to include it. So all’s well there. Although I still think some of the other questions are bothersome as well, and as far as I’ve heard, haven’t been amended.
Lastly, President Obama has finally relented with regard to releasing the content of his speech prior to delivering it to the school kids. I believe it will be released tomorrow. Once I find a link for it, I’ll post it here.
Thanks! And once again, apologies for getting that fact wrong! What can I say? I’m human, and alas, make mistakes. I can promise you, though, that I will try harder in the future!
09-07-09 – Update: Obama released the speech today. Click here to check it out in pdf format. In my opinion, if the White House had simply released this speech in the beginning, without any of the quasi-political lesson plans, there would have been no major controversy at all. Chalk this one up to unbelievably bad planning by the administration and officials at the Department of Education who, frankly, should have known better that releasing lesson plans at all was in violation of the department’s own charter.
Lastly, the folks over at HotAir have some interesting insight into the contents of the speech. Check it out. (Also, if you’d rather not have to deal with a pdf version of the speech, HotAir provides it at that link as well.)
The White House was caught with its hand in the proverbial cookie jar when a brave artist dared to record what was thought to be a private phone conference between devoted Obama followers who had been instrumental in securing Obama’s campaign for the presidency.
Patrick Courrielche, an artist, producer, and contributer to Breitbart’s Big Hollywood, received a series of emails in early August from the National Endowment for the Arts, inviting him to participating in a “brand new discussion” between the NEA, the White House, several political organizations, and several select artists, producers, writers, actors, poets, gallery owners, influential individuals, and “cool people”, to discuss how the art community can best come together in order to “push the President, his administration, and his agenda.”
Yes, you read that right. The White House has directed the National Endowment for the Arts to bring together a coalition of artists and culturally influential individuals in order to produce creative works that will help push the President’s agenda.
I believe the dictionary would define such state-initiated works as “propaganda”.
But it didn’t stop there. Indeed, during the conversation, both the officials from the NEA and the White House specifically requested that the artists focus on several of Obama’s key platform issues, including health care, energy, and the environment. And just in case there’s any question as to the ideology they hoped this artwork would reflect, they specifically mentioned Shepard Fairey’s iconic ‘Hope’ poster and will.i.am’s “Yes We Can” song as examples of what they were hoping the artists could achieve. Yeah, they weren’t exactly hoping for bipartisan messages of patriotism.
Thankfully, when Mr. Courrielche received these emails, something didn’t feel quite right about this whole prospect. So when he joined in on the phone conference, he had his iPhone ready to record the entire conversation. If it hadn’t been for his bravery, this likely would have remained buried.
But the funniest part is, despite having an absolute record of each email and a complete audio recording of the entire conversation, the lead official from the NEA in this project, Yosi Sergant, is actually daring to deny any involvement in the project. But he doesn’t stop there; indeed, he’s trying to deny the project’s very existence. That’s a bit of a stretch, considering the fact that Mr. Sergant’s voice is heard throughout the entire recording, with him going so far as to even voice caution to the participants about being careful with their language, as they’re still ironing out certain legalities. Meaning, they know full well what they’re doing is crossing not only ethical boundaries, but legal ones as well.
Good luck denying all that, Mr. Sergant. You’re gonna need it.
I don’t have much time, as I’m trying to publish three quick posts here before heading off to bed, so I don’t have the best links and resources available for you yet. So please bear with me. But I simply had to post information about this for those of you who may have missed all the hubbub about this today. When I told a friend about this, their first response was, “What? You’ve got to be kidding, this has to be some sort of YouTube hoax, right?” That convinced me I couldn’t wait to post this.
Anyway, the best place to start is probably Mr. Courrielche blog entry that started it all. It’s a bit long, and unfortunately he doesn’t have the audio posted with it, but it’s well worth a read. Click here to check it out.
As I said, unfortunately Mr. Courrielche hasn’t posted the recording on his blog yet, at least not as far as I’ve been able to find. I did manage to find a YouTube clip of an interview Mr. Courrielche gave to the Glenn Beck program. I know, I’m sorry I’m posting a link to Glenn Beck, I’m sure that will probably offend or upset some of my more moderate readers. Please, put aside your feelings about Mr. Beck, because Mr. Courrielche does a brilliant job of explaining the situation quite concisely. But most importantly, it features audio clips of the actual conversation.
I know there are more audio clips out there from the original recording, since I heard several on the news program where I first heard about this. Again, apologies for not having those ready, I’ve really got to get some sleep. I’ll do some more searching on this tomorrow and post more links as soon as I can.
I saw this on the news last night and just about popped a cork:
Disgusting isn’t it?
As a point of comparison, consider this: the folks over at TheConservatives.com have put together a brilliant post illustrating the many varied differences between the Bush & Obama administrations’ reactions to dissent. Naturally, I’m no fan of President Bush, but the differences in approach are quite illuminating, if a bit disgusting. Click here to check it out.
I have to say, I’m absolutely disgusted with the way the White House, certain members of Congress, and the DNC have been handling the rather raucous reactions certain lawmakers have been getting at town hall meetings back in their districts, especially with regard to health care reform. Rather than react like adults and acknowledge the rights of free speech that make this country great – even if those who are exercising those rights disagree with you – they’re behaving more like spoiled children. Anyone who disagrees with them is met with dirty looks, accusations, and a fair bit of pouting. Obama certainly did bring change to the White House. Unfortunately it’s change in the wrong direction, toward an absolute contempt for dissent. I dare say, I doubt that’s the sort of change most voters were expecting.
But really, shouldn’t most people have known better? After all, Obama was the one who gave this edict to his supporters regarding how they should react should they ever meet someone who dares oppose the Dear Leader: “I want you to talk to ‘em whether they’re independent or they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face!”
Yeah, that’s how an adult calmly carries out a “thoughtful discussion”, the like Robert Gibbs said the orchestrated astroturf protesters were disrupting. But then again, I guess it takes one to know one when it comes to astroturfing. I suppose if you’re a Community Organizer who’s surrounded by fake, generated populist hysteria, you just don’t know how to react when someone’s actually genuine with their concerns about government overstepping its bounds. When everything you do is carefully orchestrated, when every person who asks questions at campaign stops is carefully pre-screened, perhaps you think everyone engages in the same sort of manipulation.
Surprise, surprise. Some of us out here in America actually do care enough about our country to stand up for our beliefs, even if someone isn’t paying us to do so. Myself included. I’m not getting paid a single cent to operate this blog. I don’t even accept ad revenue. And yet here I am, continuing to dedicate my time to voicing my opinions, and spending my own money to do so. And rest assured, if my health would permit me to attend a town hall or two, I’d be there giving a polite earful to my representatives as well.
In short, Mr. Obama, I’m an actual American who doesn’t need a Community Organizer to tell me what to do, what to say, and how to say it. Disagree with me all you like, but don’t you dare dismiss me, insult me, or devalue my right to voice my own opinions.
To the rest of you who are able to attend town halls with your representatives, please remember to be cordial, respectful, and polite, while of course being forceful, sincere, and honest. I realize these issues are important to us, I realize things are getting heated, but we don’t need to shout, we don’t need to scream, and we don’t need to behave like an angry mob. Leave those tactics to Acorn, because quite frankly, such tactics are beneath us. Let’s act like the adults that we are, not like the sniveling spoiled children in Washington.
I think I’m going to start some kind of new theme on this site with videos that I’ll tag as “Watch & Share”. These videos will in some way perfectly encapsulate a specific aspect of the healthcare “reform” debate and do so in an efficient, concise, and engaging way. My hope is that these videos will both educate and inspire you, so that you can then forward them to your friends and family, thereby educating as many people as possible about the true nature of the “reforms” Obama & the Democrats are currently trying to rush through Congress.
The first such video comes from VerumSerum.com, and I first heard about it thanks to the folks at No Sheeples Here (love the blog name!). It does a brilliant job of using the words of Obama himself, along with Democrat Representative Jan Schakowsky and Yale professor Dr. Jacob Hacker, to explain exactly what their proposed “public option” would really do to the health insurance market. Meaning – in their own words, mind you – it’s merely a trojan-horse system that will ultimately lead to single-payer government-run health insurance. Don’t want to take it from me? Take it from them.
Please, watch this video and share it with everyone you know. We need to find out what’s really inside this trojan horse of a plan, before we open up the doors and bring it into our lives. As every country that currently employs single-payer health coverage will tell you, it’s nearly impossible to get rid of once it’s implemented. Yeah, you heard me right: nearly every nation with a single-payer government-run system has – and still is – trying to get rid of it, but to no avail. Yup, even Sweden & the UK! The last time I was in the UK there was a huge effort in Parliament to get rid of the National Health Service. But of course, it failed, since the NHS is the largest employer in the nation, and as such, provides a massive voting bloc.
Do we really want to let this trojan horse into our lives without really understanding the true intentions behind it? Listen to the words of the Democrats themselves, the words they uttered when they thought only their allies were listening. Only then will you be able to hear their true intentions, and only then will you understand precisely what they mean by “reform”.
Please keep an eye out for future ‘Watch & Share’ videos. I’ll post them here, on Twitter, and I’ll add them to a special ‘Watch & Share’ playlist on my YouTube account. And of course, if you’d like to recommend any videos, please feel free to post a comment on the blog or email them to me at NoWayNObama AT gmail DOT com (just replace the “AT” and the “DOT” with the appropriate symbol and punctuation, thanks!)
Rest assured, we can still stop the government from taking over our right to make our own healthcare decisions. We’ve delivered crushing blows to the Democrats’ attempts already, by forcing them to delay votes past the August recess. But the fight is far from over. There’s still so much to do and there are still so many people left to educate, we simply can’t stop now.
As if there were still any doubts about the Democrats’ true intentions regarding their healthcare “reform”, I’ve found yet another article that clearly outlines a few nuggets of truth hidden throughout the latest healthcare bill to come out of Congress.
This time the article is from the NY Post of all places. They’ve discovered that – besides outlawing personal private health insurance policies – there will be an entirely new government agency whose sole purpose is to evaluate every single health insurance company and the policies they provide. This agency will then select certain specific policies which will meet some sort of arbitrary set of guidelines (and who knows what those are); these bureaucrat-approved policies will then be called “qualified plans”.
The kicker is, if you or your employer don’t select one of these government-approved qualified plans, you’ll be fined thousands of dollars via the IRS and then automatically enrolled in a randomly selected plan against your will. So in other words, even though you’ll have the freedom to pay through the nose for a private health insurance plan, whose cost will skyrocket, you won’t have the freedom to choose a plan that fits your own needs. No, silly mindless puny human, obviously a government bureaucrat knows far more about what you need than you do! How could you be so naive…
Yet again, this flies in the face of Obama’s campaign promise that “if you like your health plan, you can keep it,” even after he reforms our healthcare system. Yeah, well, what if I happen to like my current plan but a government bureaucrat isn’t as fond of it as I am? I guess then Obama’s promise won’t mean squat. But hey, maybe there was fine print hidden at the end of his teleprompter that we just couldn’t see.
In all honestly, I’m absolutely thrilled with my health insurance, just like 87% of Americans who are very satisfied with theirs as well. Through my Father’s job, my family has a plan with Anthem/Blue Cross Blue Shield. They’ve been absolutely wonderful, even when dealing with my rather obscure and difficult to treat disease. Compared to the treatment my friends with the same disease get from their socialized medical systems in the UK, Canada, & Australia – i.e. no care at all – I think I’m much better off under the current system than I would be under ObamaCare’s medical dictatorship.
To give you some idea of the quality of my care, I have three nurse case managers, one with my Dad’s company and two with Anthem, all of whom help to track and coordinate my care so that I can get the most out of my coverage. They’ve never disputed anything that I’ve had done, and believe me, I’ve had a LOT done. My medical bills just for the past couple years have added up into the millions. Hell, a few years ago when I desperately needed five rounds of high volume liposuction to keep the disease from killing me by age 22, Anthem actually paid for all of it, even though they’d never before in the history of the company ever encountered medically necessary liposuction, let alone paid for it in full. And that’s just a small sample of the great working relationship I’ve had with Anthem – I could go on and on about all that they’ve done for me and my doctors.
So all in all, I adore my health insurance company. I love them to pieces. In fact, if it weren’t for their help, I’d be dead by now. I’d damn well like to keep Anthem as my health insurance provider. But if Obama and the Democrats have their way? Well, their good track record of taking care of me won’t matter anymore – it’ll be up to some no-name in a suit who has never met me, sitting behind a government desk, whether or not I’ll get to keep paying this company for their wonderful services. That hardly seems fair, that hardly seems free, and that hardly seems to be in keeping with everything Obama and his fellow Democrats have been saying about their true incentives for passing their healthcare “reforms”.
You know, as I was reading that NY Post article, I couldn’t help but think of something. If their healthcare plan is going to cost us a whopping $1 trillion dollars in the first year alone, only to go up by the trillions from there, couldn’t we use that money in a more effective way, without stripping those of us who have health insurance away from our current coverage?
I actually came up with an idea that I’d find more palatable, but still as radically comparable to Obama’s proposed reforms. As I’ve already explained, despite everyone claiming there are 40 million Americans uninsured in this country, the truth is the actual figure is closer to roughly 12 million or so, once you discount illegal aliens, citizens making more than $50k a year, and those who already qualify for existing government programs. How about we take that $1 trillion dollars from the first year of the Democrats’ proposed reforms and instead split that up amongst the 12 million uninsured? We could give them some sort of government coupon that would only be applicable toward purchasing health insurance, that way they couldn’t go and blow it on big screen TVs and exotic vacations. If we did that, each and every one of those 12 million uninsured Americans would receive $83,333. Don’t you think that’d buy one hell of an insurance plan? Hell, even if there really were 40 million uninsured American citizens, they’d still get a whopping $25,000!! That’d definitely be one way that Obama could actually fulfill his campaign promise of ensuring that those who are already insured won’t lose their coverage, yet we’d still be able to get the uninsured covered without creating another massive, bloated government bureaucracy whose sole purpose in existence is to siphon off our freedoms.
Oh, and it’d also help with Obama’s unnamed – yet painfully obvious – goal of drastically expanding our deficit. Hooray.
Whaddya say, Obama? Or gee, is getting people insured not your real incentive here at all? Cause honestly, my idea’s sounding a heckuva lot more appealing right now than yours is.
I was just listening to a speech by Daniel Hannan, who happened to share a great little nugget of wisdom from history: a story of Winston Churchill & Clement Attlee, sharing a moment in the loo.
Let me tell you a little story that seems apt to our present discontents. The year is 1945. Clement Attlee is Prime Minister, and one day he is relieving himself in the Gents at the House of Commons. The door swings open and it’s the leader of the opposition, Sir Winston Churchill. Churchill spies the Prime Minister at the urinal and he strides purposefully to the farthest end.
”Feeling a bit standoffish today are we, Winston?” asks Attlee.
”No,” replies Churchill, majestically unbuttoning his fly. “But whenever you see anything big, Clement, you nationalize it.”
Perhaps those sentiments are the reason why Obama didn’t want to stare into the eyes of the Winston Churchill bust, which he so rudely returned to the British people not too long ago?
Still, it’s remarkable just how apt Winston’s wisdom, given our current global predicament. If only Winston were around today, to persuade yet another world leader with a little potty wisdom.
My friend Joey just sent me a short article written by Investors Business Daily that I sincerely believe every American absolutely must read before they make up their minds about the Democrats’ initiative to pass healthcare “reform”. It’s not an opinion piece, it’s not an editorial, it’s simply a short 1-page article referencing a direct quote from the Democrats’ new healthcare legislation. That’s all.
Please, I urge you to read it. I beg you to send it to everyone you know. If only more Americans realized just what sort of soft tyranny is contained in the first sixteen pages alone of that 1,018 page bill, the Democrats’ true motives would be uncovered and Americans would be able to salvage so much of their own personal liberty before it’s too late. I hate to sound so dramatic, but seriously, if you aren’t free to make your own choices about your own life – decisions that could mean life or death – are you truly free?
The more I think about it, the more I realize it isn’t even fair to call what the Democrats are trying to achieve “socialized medicine” or “universal healthcare”. No, this goes so far beyond that it’s not even funny. At least in the UK, for instance, you’re still free to buy private medical insurance, even though you’ll pay through the nose for it (I’ve heard anywhere from 4- to 6- times as much as we pay here.) No, what they’re trying to accomplish goes beyond mere government-run, single-payer healthcare; this is a medical dictatorship.
Finally! Someone has finally had the nerve to point out that the reason we’re no longer paying 1960s-era prices for healthcare is in part due to the fact that the highest cost expenditures for hospitals have long since evolved from being ‘clean linens’, as was the case in 1960. I’ve been screaming this at the TV every time I see a politician waxing sentimental about healthcare costs of yesteryear. Yeah, well, I’d love to see how they’d like to settle for the healthcare benefits of the 1960s as they’re battling a serious infection, treatable cancers, or some other previously incurable disease. Not that I’m wishing ill on anyone, but seriously, so many diseases that we can easily cure today weren’t even named by the 1960s! Let’s remember, all was not so cheery back then, as yes, we were paying far less, but receiving far less care. As quality goes up, as services go up, so must prices.
Another large part I’ve been dying to see someone mention? Gee, government involvement which certainly keeps the healthcare market in this country from truly being ‘free’ and ‘capitalistic’, which would keep prices more in line with what the market expects to pay for them. Any time a politician says our healthcare market is currently free, or that Obama’s plan would only provide for an infusion of capitalistic competition into our healthcare market, I can’t help but laugh as I’m gagging on their dishonesty.
And who finally had the nerve to say all these things? Shock of shocks, the Washington Post. This is one of the signs of the apocalypse, isn’t it?
You really have to read this recent op-ed from George F. Will, it’s a spectacular piece of honesty.
Healthcare is complicated these days, as more and more services are provided by hospitals and we expect bigger, better, more miraculous care. And there’s certainly nothing wrong with those expectations, so long as we aren’t expecting miraculous 21st century care with a 1960s-vintage price tag. Let’s stop looking backward, shall we? We must stop looking backward at the prices of yesteryear, and we absolutely must stop looking backward at outdated models of government-run healthcare that have already proven to be spectacular failures in every single nation that has dared try such experiments. Why look backward when we expect our healthcare to look forward? I can guarantee you that no American will tolerate the long waits and routinely denied care of socialized medicine. Let’s try something different for a change; let’s try something that has a proven track record in every market to which it has been applied, yet hasn’t been truly and completely applied to healthcare: truly free capitalism.
Who knew the writers at the Wall Street Journal watched South Park?!
Well, apparently they do! And one such writer just produced a hilarious new article examining President Obama’s many “plans” for this nation through South-Park-colored glasses. It’s definitely worth a read, cause hey, not only is it accurate but it’s surprisingly funny. Click here to check it out.
At least, we sure can hope.