4/30/2010 – Doug Patton – Human Events

“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.” – Ayn Rand

Author and objectivist philosopher Ayn Rand was born in Russia just before the Bolshevik Revolution. She literally witnessed the slaughter and the dismantling of her country from the window of her father’s pharmacy—which was subsequently seized by the Leninist state. As a young woman, she fled to the United States, where she never forgot what she saw in her native country. She developed a deep distrust of government as she became one of the most celebrated writers of the mid-20th Century. more »

Human Events | by Martha Zoller | 4/23/2010

“So I’ve been a little amused over the last couple of days where people have been having these rallies about taxes. You would think they would be saying thank you.”—President Barack Obama, April 15, 2010

Mr. President, with all due respect, you don’t get it. The Tax Day Tea Parties weren’t about taxes alone, they were also about spending.

And the tax cuts the President often talks about are, by and large, one-time checks that will do nothing to protect the taxpayer from future tax hikes. And he is concealing many tax increases in his budget right now. more »

American Thinker | by Ed Lasky | 3/29/2010

The government in the Age of Obama has gone beyond the big brother that watches out and cares for us. Instead, it has becomes the big brother that torments and bullies us and then takes what is rightfully ours: our savings, our freedom, and our futures.

Liberals are often labeled as wanting to bring out the nanny state (the feminine version of a big brother). This is wrong. A nanny cares for her wards so that they can mature into responsible adults able to take care of themselves. more »

American Thinker | by Joseph Rosenberger| 3/26/2010

A society that compels each individual to provide for the personal happiness of one’s neighbor, which can come only from selling one’s labor or one’s private property, and then handing those earnings over by confiscatory taxes, is a society with less individual freedom or liberty. At the current bankrupting levels of benevolence that comprise Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, this health care log will no doubt pulverize every bone in the camel. The destruction of our great nation — what the enemies of America could not accomplish by war, we are doing to ourselves by misplaced compassion.

We are not a collective. Nor are we slaves or servants to each other. While we hold many things in common, we must keep our hands off that from which all goodness and compassion come: the individual. more »

New Ledger | by Ben Domenech | 3/22/2010

For as long as the political fight took over the past year, the abbreviated review process on the health care legislation currently pending on President Obama’s desk is unquestionably going to result in some surprises — as happens with any piece of mashed-up legislation — both for the congressmen who voted for it and for the American people.

One such surprise is found on page 158 of the legislation, which appears to create a carveout for senior staff members in the leadership offices and on congressional committees, essentially exempting those senior Democrat staffers who wrote the bill from being forced to purchase health care plans in the same way as other Americans. more »

CNSnews | by Matt Cover | 3/22/2010

The Internal Revenue Service will function as the government’s chief enforcer for health care reform, should President Obama sign the bill into law as expected, monitoring both businesses and individuals to certify whether they have the insurance coverage the government requires. more »

American Thinker | by Steve McCann | 3/22/2010

In the 1970s, there was an evocative public service advertisement on television. It showed an old and grizzled Native American Chief with a tear rolling down his cheek as he surveyed the pollution scaring the landscape of the once-pristine land.

As the House of Representatives passed Health Care Reform, many of us who were blessed to immigrate to the United States in search of freedom and opportunity (and were welcomed with open arms) found ourselves looking across the panorama of our adopted land with a tear rolling down our cheek.

Many of us who came to the United States did so to escape the brutal hand of government or as survivors of the consequences of tyranny run amok.

It has become difficult to watch, as our adopted land appears to have chosen a path that will lead to a nation we dare not imagine: a nation beginning to resemble what we left behind. more »

Telegraph UK | by Nile Gardiner | 3/22/2010

The passage last night of Barack Obama’s health care reform bill through the House of Representatives is yet another blow to freedom in America inflicted by the Obama administration. The legislation, which comes at a staggering cost of $940 billion, will hugely add to the already towering national debt, now at over $12 trillion. It is yet another millstone round the necks of the American people, already faced with the highest levels of unemployment in a generation. more »

Obamacare: A Nightmare for America

American Thinker | by Janice Shaw Crouse | 3/18/2010

What we’re seeing in Washington, D.C. is not “politics as usual” with the arm twisting and “horse trading” that is typical in getting a bill passed; instead, it is ideological warfare. What Obama, Reid and Pelosi are doing is not legislating; it is an act of tyranny — overturning all the rules and principles of government in a representative democracy. Attempting to pass the Senate version of ObamaCare in the House under the ironically named “Slaughter Rule” (to circumvent the objections of the Stupak coalition to taxpayer funding of abortion) is an exercise in raw power akin to the many acts of judicial tyranny the American public has endured over the last 40 years from judges who have little regard for the Constitution.

Apparently Obama, Reid and Pelosi aren’t worried about losing control of Congress in 2010 or even the presidency in 2012, because their higher goal is to irrevocably institutionalize their leftist ideology. more »

Investors.com | by Svetlana Kunin | 9/10/2009

In the USSR, economic equality was achieved by redistributing wealth, ensuring that everyone remained poor, with the exception of those doing the redistributing. Only the ruling class of communist leaders had access to special stores, medicine and accommodations that could compare to those in the West. [...]

In the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, I was taught to believe individual pursuits are selfish and sacrificing for the collective good is noble. In kindergarten we sang songs about Lenin, the leader of the Socialist Revolution. In school we learned about the beautiful socialist system, where everybody is equal and everything is fair; about ugly capitalism, where people are exploited and treat each other like wolves in the wilderness.

Life in the USSR modeled the socialist ideal. God-based religion was suppressed and replaced with cultlike adoration for political figures. more »

Investors.com | 3/16/2010

Fiscal Policy: The latest data show a record number of people with no tax obligation. We also have the highest-earning nontaxpayers ever. With more riding the wagon and fewer pulling, it should soon break down.

A record number of the 142 million tax returns filed in 2008 resulted in no taxes owed, according to the Tax Foundation’s analysis of the latest IRS data. About 51.6 million returns, or 36.3%, were filed by those whose deductions, exemptions and tax credits wiped out any federal income-tax obligation. more »

by Dennis Prager | 3/16/2010

Among the things left and right, religious and secular, agree on is that one of the few real needs human beings have is to be needed. When we are not needed, life feels pointless.

The need to be needed is universal. Men need it; women need it. The sexes may feel needed in different ways, but the depth of the need is the same. Many women feel particularly alive when needed by their young children; many men feel worthy when needed by their family and/or their work. That is why most women navigate difficult emotional straits when their adult children leave home and assume independent lives, and why most men find it so crushing to lose their job — not necessarily because of loss of income, but because of the loss of meaning that comes from no longer being needed. more »

Obamacare: A Nightmare for America

LifeSiteNews | by Steve Jalsevac | 3/12/2010

When human life is measured only by its cost, then you know there are wider and very concerning implications about what such people believe and will do.

We are seeing the Obama Democrats come out these past few days revealing, more explicitly than ever before, their true nature of being political thugs.

All stops are being pulled to ram their health care legislation through – no matter how much the American public opposes it, no matter how much they have to lie and trash the constitution and legislative traditions, and no matter how much they have to bribe or threaten fellow Democrats who won’t go along with their corrupt program.
more »

Question 9 - Census Form

by B. Chrysostom | 3/9/2010

Mark Krikorian from the National Review Online has a great suggestion on how we can all fight back against the divisive racial classifications perpetuated by the government via the Census.

Mark’s recommendation is to enter “American” as our response to Question #9 on the 2010 Census Form that will soon be mailed out to all American households.

We urge you to do this and stop the continual segregation of America into more and more racial categories. We are one people and one country under God. We are all Americans! more »

Townhall | by Linda Chavez | 3/5/2010

Arrogance is an occupational hazard in politics, one that is often fatal, and the Democrats show every sign of having succumbed. You would think someone in the party would sound the alarm. But, so far, Democrats seem willing to follow their leaders off the cliff. The president, House speaker and Senate majority leader appear ready to defy the American public and ram a disastrous and unpopular overturn of health care down our throats, regardless of the consequences to the country or their own political futures. There is something deeply disturbing about this turn of events — and undemocratic. more »