In a Green Tree View 688 20110815

View 688 Monday, August 15, 2011

I wonder if anyone in Washington actually takes anything seriously other than winning office and retaining power? At the Iowa debates the big trick question was, if a Deficit Dance bill had a tax increase in it, but had ten times as much in cuts, would you reject it? All the candidates raised their hands. They would reject it. And of course today the President of the United States had to say something about that in insulting tones:

“I know it’s not election season yet, but I just have to mention the debate,” where Republicans said they would not increase taxes under virtually any circumstance, Obama said at a town hall. “Think about that. That’s just not common sense.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/campaigns/obama-kicks-off-midwest-bus-tour-with-harsh-words-on-the-economy/2011/08/15/gIQAZecOHJ_story.html

The nation is drowning in debt, unemployment continues high, and the president buys $3 million worth of busses to take a political tour in which he doesn’t say what he’s going to do, but has plenty of time to say it’s not common sense to try to balance the budget with sending cuts rather than tax increases. Does anyone realize that we’re in trouble? Real trouble? Is anyone looking at the cost of the regulatory nightmares business people face? Is anyone looking at the costs of the environmental regulations vs. their effectiveness? Does anyone care that we have to borrow the money to keep the budget increasing exponentially at above 5%, that this will go on forever, and no one in the Deficit Dance seems to ask for real cuts in spending as opposed to possible reductions in increases?

I’ve said it before: if you continue to borrow money to spend on Bunny Inspectors, you won’t cut much else either. The mind set is that that government spending must increase exponentially, there can be no cuts even in the most ridiculous programs, that can be no examination of whether the programs are doing enough to justify borrowing money to fund them, and “common sense” says that we must raise taxes and increase revenues so that we can continue to increase the deficit.

Of course the Republican candidates rejected the trick question; and no one seems to be asking President Obama for specifics. If you promise ten times the cuts as revenue increases, what will you cut? If you can cut those, why not cut them now, and argue for the revenue increase after the cuts are made? So far every time there has been a deal with budget cuts in return for more taxes, the result has been more taxes and more spending, but no cuts. Why would it be different now?

It wasn’t possible in a “debate” to ask any such questions. The President does not find it in his interest to do so, because he does not want to waste a crisis.

But is anyone in Washington asking those questions?

I have a ton of mail regarding the barbarians in England. There are plenty of bizarre events in the United States. Civilizations fall when there is no one to defend them. The values of our civilization are no longer defended in our schools or our universities, and those who accept those values (and are pretty well the ones who pay the taxes) are expected to pay for all this. The liberal view of the world is that things can only go on improving; there is no need to defend a civilization’s values.

And of course all children ought to have a world class university prep education so they can be exposed to more deconstruction of the society.

Possony used to say that one sign of a coming collapse of a civilization is bizarre crimes and activities. Another is a leadership that no longer understands the necessity for common values. We have deconstructed the common values for a long time.

Commentary on the London/UK riots

I think this is probably about the best thing I’ve read on the subject. Of course it helps that the writer works at what could be called ‘ground zero’ for these riots with youths who probably were involved in the riots.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2011/08/simon-marcus-listen-to-the-children.html

Francis Turner

From that essay:

When I first saw what went on in the streets around the Academy I couldn’t help but think of the line from Luke 23:26: “ For if men do these things when the forest is green, what will happen when it is dry”

We are a strange lot, the human race. We learn in funny ways. Once you break a taboo it is gone, once you break a boundary it is gone, if you get away with something and you enjoy it, you do it again. When kids attack teachers, (and it happens thousands of times a year) being sent to the cooling off room is pretty much a reward, a fixed term exclusion often makes no odds either. If a social worker tells a teenage mum the word ‘no’ emotionally damages a child, a message goes out. If an adult admonishes a gang of children for littering and gets a police caution a message goes out. If a father is reported to the police for smacking a child a message goes out. If an adult is arrested for grabbing a child who is stealing, or assaulting another child, a message goes out. If knife criminals receive community sentences, a message goes out. If people tell you about your rights as a child, and never about your responsibilities, a message goes out. If teenage girls are given flats for having babies a message goes out. If the police arrest you fifty times and nothing happens a message goes out.

How did it come to this? It is all about the power of ideas. The left wing sales pitch of grievance, victim, blame and excuse has done immense damage to society, as has the rights culture and the sense of entitlement many young people now have. If we look there is clear chain of causality that goes through the decades as other poisonous ideas took hold and turned society on its head: The family is outmoded, children don’t need fathers, they should be treated the same as adults, they don’t need discipline or boundaries, authority is oppression, everything is society’s fault, right and wrong are relative concepts, as is morality, ethics are contextual and no one view is worth more than another. Well-meaning this may be, but no society in the history of the world has taught its children this and survived. Edmund Burke must be turning in his grave.

We have sown the wind. Now we reap.

And I have just heard that most of the bizarre crimes are the fault of the Tea Party. Never waste a crisis.

Luke 23:26

And as they led him away, they laid hold upon one Simon, a Cyre’nian, coming out of the country, and on him they laid the cross, that he might bear it after Jesus.
27  And there followed him a great company of people, and of women, which also bewailed and lamented him.
28  But Jesus turning unto them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but weep for yourselves, and for your children.
29  For, behold, the days are coming, in the which they shall say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and the paps which never gave suck.
30  Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.
31  For if they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?