Popgun's World

Irrelevant and Academic        

It is almost to the point where it is almost academic which side wins the election.

Over at Bayou Renaissance Man, Peter makes the case that the economy is in such a state that whoever wins will be constrained by the box we are in, no matter what.

I suspect that the reason neither Sarah Palin nor Paul Ryan ran for POTUS is that they see it coming – and don’t want to be blamed for it. As whoever is “in control” when it all hits the fan, will be blamed for it by the general population – and their party will, too.

It’s a dilemma: Conservatives want control in order to try to save the country from the incredibly irresponsible financial policies of liberals, among other reasons; but if they can’t turn it around in time, the conservatives will probably get the blame, if they win the election. Because there is a significant possibility of collapse within the next administration’s term.

The converse is also true. If Obama wins, the liberals will take the heat.

So it really is going to be interesting to watch; the same way watching an alligator eat a goat is fascinating. Horrible, but you can’t take your eyes off of it.

-Popgun

ADDENDUM: New article over at Bayou Renaissance Man: Waiting for the Collapse. READ THIS ARTICLE.

I see that the CIA, FBI and so forth stopped another underwear bomber a few days ago.   This is great news!  But then, it turns out that the very man who was to carry out the suicide mission is a CIA operative.  Very efficient.

Of course, then I start wondering:  Who pulled the trigger on this “suicide” mission?  Al Qaeda …. or Obama?  After all, Obama really needs to look good right now; and, at the end of the day, this operative works for him.  And, there was no actual risk to the public, since the “bomber” is one of ours….

It might be totally legitimate.  But then again, maybe not.  I don’t know, but I suspect.

Funny how often I find myself saying that, in regards to President Obama.

-Popgun

Obama has hosted more fundraisers than the last five presidents combined!

And he’s been on sixteen (16) vacations in his first three years in office!

Plus 60 or 80 games of golf.

Somehow, I don’t think he’s paying attention in the areas that he needs to be focusing on.

– Popgun

You know, when we go on vacation, we have to pay for it ourselves; the gas, the meals, the lodging, whatever fun we decide to have – we have to pay for it. And it’s getting harder to do, all the time.

I’m full-time employed, and I can just about afford to take a driving trip about once a year – and that is a real strain on our budget. I should mention here that we, unlike the federal government, have a budget.

There are a heck of a lot of people out there right now that are doing well to put food on the table, much less get to go on vacation. And a lot of the reason for that is sitting around the breakfast table at the White House.

In the three years since President Obama has taken office, the Obamas, together or separately, have taken sixteen (16) vacations. [1] So they average a bit over five vacations a year. [2]

Who pays for their vacations? We taxpayers, that’s who!

Their Christmas vacation in Hawaii alone cost around $4,000,000. I’ve seen estimates exceeding $10,000,000 for all the vacations together, but it could easily exceed that number by quite a bit.

The people I work for do not pay for my vacations. And I don’t think the people Obama works for should pay for his family’s vacations, either. He gets a salary just like I do – let him use it!

In point of fact, I think this policy should apply to every President. But the Obama family has been having a high and mighty time, while the rest of us are trying to keep the economy alive – and while we pay for their fun.

This makes me so mad I could spit!

-Popgun

[1] References here, here, and here. Do your own research, it’s easy to find.

[2] For you liberal hard-left environmentalists that voted for Obama, I’d like to point out that Air Force 1 doesn’t run on batteries. Like Al Gore with his home that uses 12 times the electricity most homes do, Obama’s commitment to reducing fossil fuel usage is extreme – as long as it doesn’t apply to him!

P.S. While we’re at it, I think Obama – and every president – should d$%m well pay for his own campaign expenses, too!

UPDATED: It looks like I was spoofed. Snopes has the clarification. My apologies.

Up until now, I have been pretty well convinced that Obama met the legal requirements to become President of the United States.  After all, I reasoned, if there was a problem there to be found, Hillary Clinton would surely have found it in the 2008 campaign.  Since there were also some good indications that Obama was in fact a legal citizen, I just didn’t worry about it.  During all of this “Birther” nonsense, I’ve dismissed it as nonsense.

Now, I’m not so sure.

Obama’s officially released birth certificate has been admitted to be a forgery.  By Obama’s lawyer.  This appears to be legitimate.  I’ve checked as best I can to see if it is a hoax, and I don’t think it is one.

So, it appears that the Obama administration did in fact release a forged birth certificate for Obama.  Why would they have done that?

I cannot think of ANY good reason to release a forgery, other than that:

1. Obama cannot produce his own, original birth certificate; or,
2. There is something on his birth certificate he does not want us to know, of such magnitude that it would create MORE problems for him than releasing a forgery and getting caught.

What would that sort of a problem be? I will not speculate here. It is an interesting question, though, isn’t it?

I will note that, if all this is true, it still does not prove that Obama is not eligible to be President. The fact is, we still don’t know.

One thing is certain, though. We’ve been lied to – again.

–->>> This time, apparently by some clever but dishonest “birthers”.

– Popgun

For those who “believe” the science is settled on global warming, here is proof that it is not.

If you hear someone use the word “believer” or “non-believer” or any variation, in reference to any true science, it is a key give-away that science is not involved, or is being intentionally distorted. Being a skeptic is an honored thing, in real science. The watch-word is “proof”.

Science does not involve “belief”. Science is based on facts. If the science was truly settled on global warming, there would be no real dissent.

Even Obama’s Energy Secretary Steven Chu said that “there are “bumps and wiggles” that are not understood” about climate change.

Respectfully, Mr. Chu, if you don’t understand the bumps and wiggles, what the hell are you doing using your admittedly flawed understanding to set the energy policy of this nation?

Idiot.

ADDENDUM 4/17/2012: John Lott points out that the scientists pushing man-made global warming use models based on carbon dioxide in the atmosphere – and their computer models cannot even predict the past, much less the future. This strongly indicates that their predictive power is nil.

-Popgun

Footnote: I have recently noticed a rash of articles, statements on TV, and even a new movie starring Matt Damon, putting forth the idea that “fracking” is harmful to the environment. I would like to point out that there is not one shred of evidence to date, that this is so.

Of course, the truth – and science – never gets in the way of an environmentalist. If they don’t like the answers, they just make up their own.

I sure wish we’d get some rational upper management.

O.K., everybody, let’s just calm down.

First, we have Trayvon Martin’s death at the hands of a white man. It seems that every black person with a chip on his shoulder has come out of the woodwork and shouted “racism!”. In spite of the fact that there is no evidence of racism whatever (available to the public, anyhow), other than that Trayvon Martin was black, and George Zimmerman is not.

Folks, if you can’t read minds, you don’t know if racism was a factor or not. Zimmerman made no racist comments, at least on the recordings I’ve heard.

I won’t argue the merits of that case, either way; I was not there, and all the information I have about it came from the TV and the web. I realize that I don’t really know enough about what happened to have an informed opinion. So I won’t judge.

Instead, I’m expressing my opinion of all those racists who are hollering “racism!”

All those people yammering about racism in this case don’t know the truth about what happened, any more than I do. But they don’t let that stop them. The loudest voices, in this case, have an agenda. Like Rev. Al Sharpton, and those of his ilk, who have a vested interest in racism, as long as they can keep it alive. And, certain news media also profit by it.

It is interesting to me that this case achieved national recognition, and yet the several cases discussed here and here did not. Black teens pouring gasoline on a younger white boy, and setting him on fire! Among other examples. In these cases, there actually was an obvious and clear racist motivation.

Oh, but in these cases, the victims were white, and the racists were black.

I wonder why Obama didn’t comment on those cases…

I wonder why the liberal national “news” media didn’t make a big deal about those cases.

I wonder why Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, resists prosecuting cases of racism when the victim is white?

Certain black people, among them Obama and Holder, apparently think that racism is only racism if the victim is black. It is a real tragedy that the victims of past racism cannot seem to rise above that level. They’ve gone through racism, come out the other side, and have become what they hate.

Folks, what needs to happen is that we – all of us – need to quit listening to those who want to drum up race hatred. Jesus never taught hatred, not even of those who betrayed Him.

Al Sharpton, Obama’s Reverend Wright, Jessie Jackson, and all those who teach Black Liberation Theology – pastors all – profit by promoting racism. And they have the blood of innocents on their hands. They are rabble-rousers, riot instigators, hate crime creators – and they are racist, by their actions.

We need to turn away from all such hate-mongers. If you truly want racism and bigotry to stop, you will not achieve that goal by listening to those people who profit or gain power by promoting it.

We need to consciously decide not to go there any more. If you hate black folks just because they are black – you are wrong. If you hate white folks just because they are white – you are just as wrong. If you hate anybody because of what they are – black, white, yellow, Christian, Jew, Muslim, whatever – you are bigoted.

Jesus never taught hatred – no matter what your preacher tells you.

-Popun

ADDENDUM April 7, 2012: Bayou Renaissance Man has a good article about racism here.

What follows is probably the most clear synopsis of why the liberal notion of justice is so screwed up:

This is a quote of a quote: I’m quoting from Bayou Renaissance Man, where I found this quote from Lawrence Auster, which struck me with it’s clarity and conciseness:

“The problem can perhaps be better understood by considering how the leftist view of justice departs from the traditional Western view of justice. Traditional morality and classical philosophy define justice as giving each person his due, with equals getting equal results and unequals getting unequal results. Leftism, as we have said, defines justice as the guaranteed equality of outcome between individuals of unequal abilities and accomplishments. But equality between unequals cannot be just (because it involves the expropriation of the justly earned fruits of more talented labor) and is incompatible with liberty (because it requires force to achieve). To give the same to everyone requires that undeserved disadvantages be imposed on the more productive and therefore “better off” individuals and that undeserved benefits be provided to the less productive and therefore “worse off” individuals.” -Lawrence Auster

That statement clarifies concisely why I dislike Obama and all of his policies. His end goal is redistribution of wealth, which he sees as doing good for poor people; but which cannot be achieved without taking that wealth from those who earned it, by force. Enforcement of this in turn requires a strong state with dictatorial tendencies, which Obama is creating, one executive order at a time.

If you don’t think the government takes your wealth by force, look again – if you persist in not paying your taxes, eventually they will come get you; and the folks who come to get you will have guns.

This also explains clearly why Obama is anti-capitalism. Capitalism, by its very nature, requires a level playing field to function properly. That level playing field means equal opportunity – it does not guarantee equal results. That means that some talented people will be good at it, and achieve much; and others will not. This matches up with natural law very well; in the animal kingdom, the strong and smart generally live better and longer than the dull and weak. That is the natural order of things.

Every economic disaster the world has ever seen has been the result of a government monkeying around with the natural order of pure capitalism. It’s not nice to fool with Mother Nature…

The current economic problems are the direct result of people with Obama’s mindset trying to take wealth that doesn’t belong to them and give it to people who did not earn it. Government programs that required lending institutions to make unsafe loans to people buying houses that could not afford them was one of the major causes of our current economic woes. Government programs paying for the medical expenses of people who cannot afford them are the largest single expense leading to the incredible level of federal debt we now face.

Doing more of the same to try to correct the problem is way past simple idiocy. Doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results is one definition of insanity.

Unfortunately, all Obama has in his toolbox is more of the same. All the bailouts and redistribution may even appear to be working for a while; but it will eventually fail when we run out of countries that are willing to loan us money. That day is coming, soon.

I would recommend you read “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal” by Ayn Rand. Liberals hate her guts, because she speaks the truth. However, her essay in this book, “What is Capitalism” is the most clear, logical treatise on the subject I have ever read. Her logic is impeccable in this area.

Liberals hate this because they don’t want the world to work this way. But the world does work this way, and it always will. Failure to understand this simple truth is what makes liberals so unsuited to survive in the real world – they require socialism in order to survive. Unfortunately for them, as Margaret Thatcher said, “The trouble with Socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”

And, here we go: the entire world is almost out of other people’s money. Get out the lawn chairs and the popcorn, it’s going to be quite a show.

-Popgun