Why Republicans Can’t Fix the Big Problems

Posted on April 13, 2017 by Bryce Buchanan

Here is why Republicans will not be willing or able to seriously address the real problems in our country. The moral sentiments of the population determine what political leaders are willing to do. The moral sentiments of a country may be consistent with reality or may be based on Utopian fantasies, but, either way, they control public policy.

Some people say that America’s problems are solely the result of people abandoning morality. But some of our biggest problems are actually the result of widely accepted, but irrational, moral ideals that are destructive in the long run.

To illustrate, let’s examine the concepts “earn” and “deserve”. In reality, material products and human services are the product of human labor. Food and shelter, for example, do not exist in nature ready for your use. Medical care does not exist in nature. Humans must work to create these things. Poverty is the default position.

This is not a situation that was devised by mean people. This is not a situation that can be wished away. This is just reality.

Earning the material things you desire means producing them by your labor or trading what you do produce in a free exchange with others for the things they produce. I will give you my eggs for your potatoes. Money was invented to make this exchange easier. “Earning” is the name given to your required productive effort.

Personal responsibility is the name we give to the acceptance of reality’s demand that work is required to get the things we desire. In Americas past, this was a widely understood virtue.

In America today, a corrupted concept of “deserve” has replaced the concept of “earn”. In its original usage, deserve meant to do things or show qualities worthy of reward or punishment. So, if you did all the things necessary to grow a crop, you earned the resulting harvest. Today, “deserve” is completely divorced from that meaning.

Today, deserve is a utopian term pertaining to a world of wishes, detached from reality. You may have the moral sentiment that all people deserve (have a moral right to) free housing, free food, free medical care, etc.. You could also say that you think it would be wonderful if fairies delivered these goods to people. Reality does not allow for either free things or fairies. These two wishes are equally unrealistic.

But reality is not a relevant concern to Utopian dreamers who imagine that, with the right leaders in charge, everyone can have everything they really need for free….. somehow.

That is our current situation in America. The prevailing moral sentiment is that everyone deserves all the basic things they want whether they earn them or not. Only mean people would argue or think otherwise. All Democrats and most Republicans accept this utopian moral ideal. This determines what legislative initiatives are even possible to discuss.

Here is an example of how legislating utopian ideals works in practice. Progressives believe that everyone deserves to own a home. Community organizers (including Obama) organized protests demanding that banks drop their standards for making home loans. Increasingly, the government required banks to make irrational home loans to people who had little possibility of ever paying the loan. In the mortgage crash of 2008, reality reasserted itself, as it always does. The mortgage plan that had no possibility of working, stopped working.

The point here is that moral sentiments can require politicians to follow a path that is certain to fail. Do not confuse utopian actions with benevolence. Utopianism leads to chaos and destruction. Truly benevolent actions help people in the long run, in the real world.

Consider more examples of destructive policies that are supported by popular moral sentiment and are therefore unlikely to be successfully challenged.

A study, recently released by the Food and Nutrition Service, showed how the recipients of food stamps spent their money at one grocery chain, so this is just a small sample of what was spent nationally. For this chain, the amount spent in 2011 for soft drinks was nearly $358,000,000; for candy, $134,000.000; for cakes and cookies, $146,000,000, and so on.

The proper way to look at this policy is this – we are borrowing massive amounts of money from our grandchildren for the purpose of harming current welfare recipients. It is a lose-lose policy, bad for people at both ends of the transaction. I don’t believe there is much chance of replacing policies like this with better policies because current moral sentiments do not allow restriction on people who ‘deserve’ to eat whatever they want. Doing the right thing for our grandchildren would not be allowed.

One of the primary things that should bring people down from their utopian fantasies is thinking about the immorality of placing debt on the next generations. Except for emergencies, it is clearly immoral to consume for our pleasure now and give the bill to our grandchildren.

Short-sighted politicians simply avoid thinking about our unbelievably massive debt in any serious way. They buy votes by borrowing from the future and spending now. “Debt limits” are not limits at all.

Politicians of both parties, when confronted, admit that this wild spending is “not sustainable”, but then they cast that thought aside and spend more. Things that are “not sustainable” will end. Politicians who expand all of our big government programs pretend they are the good people who care. They are, in fact, the people who are guaranteeing great harm from the coming collapse of unsustainable utopian programs.

The politicians are following the moral sentiments of our society which demand that people get everything they “deserve”. When reality reasserts itself, the people will get what they deserve and they will get it good and hard. Reality always bats last.

Another big social problem that cannot be addressed honestly is the “quiet catastrophe” of millions of men who choose not to work. There is explosive growth in the number of men who want to live as children for their entire life, letting others work to provide the things they need. There are currently 2 ½ times as many infantilized ‘men’ in this ‘don’t care about work’ category as there are men who are reported by the government as unemployed. This is truly shameful behavior and should not be tolerated, but it will be tolerated and even defended by today’s moral arbiters.

How many people do you think can hop into the wagon before those pulling the wagon refuse to pull? There is a limit.

An even more important issue where politically correct morality does not allow honest policy discussions is race relations. No person who honestly assessed the problems in the black subculture would say that ‘racist white policemen shooting blacks for no reason’ is their most significant problem. It wouldn’t even make the list of the top 50 problems. Yet we grant the moral high ground to a well-funded racist hate group which makes this absurd claim in destructive protests across the nation.

In reality, a subculture that celebrates violence, denigrates women, does not value education, ignores the responsibility of caring for their children, and ignores personal responsibility in general, has no chance of success. Melanin offers no protection from this fact. It is true for all people.

People who really cared about black lives would concentrate on the changes that would help the most. But the things that would help the most cannot be honestly discussed. Even black people who talk about black cultural values are attacked and silenced by the PC thought police.

The enforced moral position regarding a significant subculture in the black community is that nothing at all is their responsibility and none of their problems are their fault. The problems are all the fault of white people and police. If you are paying attention, you see that white shaming is rapidly being institutionalized in education, government bureaucracies and popular culture. This is an extremely destructive trend. Following Alinsky’s advice to “rub raw the sores of resentment” may achieve his desired goal of revolutionary hatred, but it is not what decent Americans, black or white, want to see.

Decent Americans seek to follow the moral advice of Martin Luther King, who had “a dream that one day people will be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin”. I believe that the vast majority of white people accept this advice and fully respect and honor all people of good character. They cheer the success of black people.

Sadly, King’s dream was crushed by the so-called ‘black leaders’ who followed him. To them, any judgement of character is absolutely forbidden; skin color is everything.

White people, at some point, will rebel against the false charges of racism that are relentlessly hurled against them. When they have had enough and start to answer the charges rather than meekly ignore them, the left will say, “See, we told you they are racists”. The left will claim the moral high ground and they will continue to shape destructive social policy.

Mao sent moral crusaders into the countryside during the Cultural Revolution. Young, idealistic monsters purged China of “wrong thinking”. We have similar, self-righteous moral crusaders at our colleges and on our streets. They will not tolerate opposing viewpoints. Wise and thoughtful people like Charles Murray and Heather Mac Donald were recently silenced by organized mob violence at Middlebury and Claremont colleges. By the thousands, social justice warriors are Organizing for Action. We will see much, much more of them in coming months, with increasing disruption and violence. Their actions will have the moral support of the media, the universities and leftist politicians because these are the very groups who are creating this army. It remains to be seen whether the majority of Americans will tolerate the violent intolerance.

The recent Obamacare debate should have made clear the reasons why Republicans cannot do what needs to be done to create a long-term sustainable system. Our utopian moral ideals have already closed that possibility. Whatever legislation happens next will be an entitlement program involving massive government spending and promising much more than can be delivered. The people will demand it, the politicians will say they can deliver it, and time will prove that rationing and low quality care is the inevitable result.

Thinking that government bureaucracies are the key to managing anything efficiently and inexpensively means that you have not paid any attention at all to how the world works.

Government run health care is a black hole for debt that will consume resources beyond our wildest imagination. And we already have more in debt than any nation in history. By some estimates, our debt, including unfunded obligations, is two hundred trillion dollars, which is more the twice the yearly economic output of the entire world!

It simply cannot work, long term, to add a massive new entitlement to all of our other unfunded obligations. But current moral sentiment will require that we do it.

If disaster is the certain outcome of an action, how can it be considered ‘good’? Beware of ‘good’ people who cannot think.

There is an imaginary world where the laws of economics do not apply, where wishing is more powerful than facts, where debts never come due, where racist police are the biggest threat facing black communities, where politicians can control the world’s climate with a vote, where open borders and a welfare state are a desirable combination, where Islam has nothing at all to do with Islamic Jihad, where you can load ever increasing freeloaders into a wagon, whip the ever decreasing horses, and expect the horses to pull the load forever.

Progressives live in that world. They believe that reality can change its nature to fit our desires. But there is an objective reality that is indifferent to our wishes.

We are going to keep racing toward the cliff because it is the ‘right’ thing to do. And by ‘right’ I mean right in the Utopian dream world that shapes our moral sentiments. In the real world this can only be destructive. Just wait and see.

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First published at American Thinker.

A Little Help For The Ostriches

Posted on January 20, 2015 by Bryce Buchanan

It is entirely predictable that, immediately after an act of Islamic terrorism, certain politicians and leftist pundits will rush to stick their head in the sand. With your head in the sand, reality is blocked from view. “If I see no evil, there is no evil.”

There is no safety in this approach.

French President, Francois Hollande, with sand in his eyes, told the public “these terrorist attacks have nothing to do with the Muslim religion.” Nothing at all. Completely unrelated. He warned the French public that they should not be “confused.”

After the Jihadists slaughtered those who had satirized Muhammad, shouting ”Allahu Akbar”, our President said, “We’re still trying to figure out who is responsible for this attack and what their motivations are.” It’s just so confusing. What could their motivation be?

Despite the confusion, there is one thing Obama does know for sure. These acts of jihadist violence we see around the world “have nothing to do with Islam” and we should guard against making that kind of a foolish judgment. “Islam is a religion that preaches peace,” he said.

Here is a video of Howard Dean, former head of the Democratic National Committee, speaking with his head in the sand. Dean explains that the French jihadists were not Muslims and they don’t understand the Koran as well as he does.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=As65VN_PUn0

There need not be confusion about what the Koran says. The text is readily available. There is a vast amount of commentary, on the web and elsewhere, about the verses in the Koran that directly justify violence and require the forced submission of non-believers, everywhere in the world. It is not difficult at all to extract a brutal, supremacist, totalitarian ideology from the Koran.

Those who wish to see the Koran with clear eyes and understand the religious motivation of Islamic terrorists, will appreciate the following video by David Wood. It would be good for the world if Obama, Hollande and Dean would take a look.

Pat Condell explains how all of these Koran-inspired atrocities around the world have ”Nothing to do with Islam” :

What Obama Should Have Said In Paris

Posted on January 19, 2015 by Bryce Buchanan

I have great admiration for Tim Sandefur, author of “The Conscience of the Constitution” and “The Right to Earn a Living”. Tim is an attorney for Pacific Legal Foundation and has a personal blog called “Freespace”.

He posted a column last week that was an imagined speech, the speech Obama should have given in Paris after the terrorist slaughter. It was very refreshing to imagine a President who spoke with courage and authority and who eloquently defended liberty against evil. Tim’s grasp of history shines through as he compares the struggle against slavery with our current struggle against Islamic fundamentalism.

President Obama would be in a perfect position to make this moral argument. He didn’t and he never will, but you will enjoy reading what President Sandefur would have said:

What Obama should’ve said in Paris. If he had gone.

We in the United States have had our experiences with censorship.

At the close of the American Revolution, many hoped that slavery, that embarrassing hypocrisy in a land devoted to freedom, would eventually wither away. As the founders reached retirement age, it seemed to them that slavery was economically unfeasible in the long run, and that all eyes were opening to the Enlightenment principles of equality and freedom.

That optimism proved unfounded, even disingenuous. At the opening of the nineteenth century, several factors, including the invention of the cotton gin, made slavery more economically attractive, and the south’s willingness to defend it became more virulent. By the 1830s, southern intellectuals were promoting a new “positive good school” of slavery: arguing that it was not a scourge, but a benefit to society and even to the slaves themselves. This was not a fringe movement. The Vice President of the United States, John C. Calhoun, was among its most prominent spokesmen.

Meanwhile, opponents of slavery were speaking out. Benjamin Lundy and his protégé,William Lloyd Garrison, began publishing louder and louder denunciations of the peculiar institution. The abolitionist movement proper is typically dated to January, 1831, when in the first issue of The Liberator, Garrison pounded the table:

I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen;—but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD. …. Read the rest here.

The Most Important Thing…

Posted on January 10, 2015 by Bryce Buchanan

Alexandria – June 30, 2013

The most important thing that happened in the world on New Year’s Day may be an event that our media ignored. If you believe that the future of peace and freedom in the world rests heavily on the ability of the Muslim world to reform itself in a way that rejects violent fundamentalism, then the January 1 speech by Egypt’s President al-Sisi is a cause for some celebration, or at least some positive press coverage.

With 88 million inhabitants, Egypt is the most populous country in the Arab world. In the battle between the violent, supremacist view of Islam and a more peaceful moderate view, al-Sisi and current Egyptian leadership have boldly, and fearlessly, taken sides against the Muslim Brotherhood and in favor of moderation.

Al-Sisi’s speech was an impassioned call for a “religious revolution”. He noted that the fundamentalist view of Islam, “is antagonizing the entire world.” Addressing the clerics directly, he asked them to, “step outside of yourselves and be able to observe it and reflect on it from a more enlightened perspective… Is it possible that 1.6 billion people should want to kill the rest of the world’s inhabitants… Impossible!”

He boldly added, “You, imams, are responsible before Allah. The entire world, I say it again, the entire world is waiting for your next move.”

This great man deserves all of the support our nation can give him in his quest to reform Islam. But he will get very little support from the current administration. This administration has supported the Muslim Brotherhood in many ways and in many places, including Egypt. This fact is not lost on the Egyptians.

I had the pleasure of sitting next to a business executive from Egypt on a long flight inside China in the fall of 2013. He and his family had been part of the largest political demonstration in the history of the world, just two months earlier in Egypt. An estimated 88 million people took to the streets protesting President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. They wanted a real Arab Spring, not Morsi’s move toward religious oppression.

My Egyptian flight partner said the people in his country were shocked that our President was, “on the side of the terrorists, supporting the Muslim Brotherhood.” He said most Egyptians think of Americans as friends, but they were very upset that America was on the wrong side of this issue and popular opinion was definitely turning against us. He thought this mistake would give Russia an opening for greater influence in his country.

It was a disturbing conversation because I shared this man’s goals for greater freedom in his country and it was undeniable that the leader of my country did not. For the Egyptian freedom fighters, just as for the Iranian freedom fighters, America’s beacon of freedom looks dim.

Black Lies Matter

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Bryce Buchanan

In Ferguson, Missouri, the evidence shows that, on August 8, 2014, “Big Mike” Brown committed several crimes in a very brief amount of time. He committed a strong-arm robbery, assaulted a police officer, fought for the officer’s gun, refused the officer’s orders to stop, and charged the officer “like a football player with his head down”. Actions have consequences, and the consequences of Mike’s choices and actions that morning were exactly what anyone of any skin color should expect.

Words also have consequences. In the Brown case, or similar cases where violent behavior leads to tragedy, lessons could be taught that would be helpful to communities where violence is much too common. Our President is in a perfect position to intervene in a positive and helpful way. There could be words about personal responsibility, respecting the rights of others, respecting law enforcement. Anger and violence could be condemned.

Or, ‘leaders’ could lie about every aspect of the Michael Brown case in a way that would inflame racial divisions, create more anger and violence and increase hatred of the police. They could concentrate on grievances in a way that is entirely destructive – an approach that has no chance of improving the lives of black people. They could create a nationwide movement that would tear this country apart. This is the path that was taken by large numbers of people in powerful positions.

The narrative chosen by the racial dividers is everywhere, but here are some examples of the lies used by black ‘leaders’ to create the angry mobs.

Marcia Fudge, D-Ohio, Black Caucus Chairwoman said, “This decision [grand jury] seems to underscore an unwritten rule that black lives hold no value; that you may kill black men in this country without consequences or repercussions.”

Missouri State Senator Jamilah Nasheed called the Brown case “an execution style murder”. She was later arrested with a gun in one of the race mobs she worked to create.

Jesse Jackson, speaking to angry protestors, said, “The civil rights of Michael Brown was violated… I would hate to think what would happen if you had black police maliciously killing white children in this way… The forces of evil choose to undercut our dreams. ”

Our chief law enforcement official, Eric Holder, rushed to characterize the case as an unjustified killing by a racist cop. While the grand jury was examining evidence, Holder was pronouncing a verdict. To nationalize the anger he said that the problems caused by racist cops “are truly national in scope” and they “threaten the entire nation”. He said, “Our police officers cannot be seen as an occupying force”.

Speaking at a University in Baltimore, Louis Farrakhan said that if the demands of those who wanted to lynch Office Wilson were not met, “we’ll tear this goddamn country apart!” The crowd cheered. Promoting a race-war Farrakhan added, “We going to die anyway. Let’s die for something.”

NAACP President Cornell Brookes said the Brown case was a case of “police brutality” that is “commonplace in communities of color all across the country”. He announced nationwide “Journey for Justice” demonstrations against police misconduct.

President Obama supported the race-baiter narrative. He even brought up Ferguson at the the U.N. General Assembly, saying that this racist incident demonstrates how America has “failed to live up to our ideals”. He invited the mob organizers to the White House on two occasions to express agreement with their grievances and to urge them to keep demonstrating, to “stay the course”.

You can know everything you need to know about Obama’s strategy on racial issues by knowing that the ever-despicable Al Sharpton is Obamas “go-to guy on race”. Sharpton is a very frequent visitor to our White House, where he and Obama plan their strategies on racial issues. Cornell West said Sharpton is, “the bona fide house negro of the Barack Obama plantation”. Sharpton said of Obama, “He’s calculating… he gets the game”.

What is the game? It’s different things for different players and it has nothing to do with honestly addressing the real problems of the black underclass. It’s about power, money and the march toward leftist utopian dreams.

Most of the people on the streets are “useful idiots” who are pawns in the game. Notice how easily the lies of demagogues can arouse a mob. The “hands up, don’t shoot” myth was re-enacted by people lying in the streets, by legislators, by educators, by athletes, and by television commentators. It’s a parade of angry misinformed fools. Think of them as the Alinsky Army in training. The deaths that have been part of this training operation are just collateral damage. There will be more destruction.

Those who are directing the show are simply following these Alinsky’s rules:

“The organizer’s first job is to create the issues or problems, …’The organizer ‘must first rub raw the resentments of the people of the community; fan the latent hostilities of many of the people to the point of overt expression. He must search out controversy and issues, rather than avoid them, for unless there is controversy people are not concerned enough to act. . . . An organizer must stir up dissatisfaction and discontent. …From the moment the organizer enters a community he lives, dreams… only one thing and that is to build the mass power base of what he calls the army. “

Obama taught and practiced Alinsky’s methods of community agitation. After the premier of the 1998 stage play, “The Love Song of Saul Alinsky”, there was a panel discussion by the most noteworthy Alinsky radicals. Barack Obama was on that panel. Obama served on the board of the Woods Foundation with Bill Ayers from 1999 -2002. They funneled money to the Midwest Academy, an Alinsky training institute. Obama also had a close association with ACORN, another subversive Alinsky inspired group.

The Bill Ayers association relates to the current racial turmoil. Instigating a race-war was an explicit part of the Weathermen’s plans to fundamentally transform “AmeriKKKa”. The plan was for white radicals to trigger a worldwide revolution by instigating racial violence here. If you think Ayers has changed his destructive plans, you would be wrong.

You can take his word for it. At an Occupy Wall Street rally in 2012, he said, “I get up every morning thinking, today I’m going to make a difference. Today I’m going to end capitalism. Today I’m going to make a revolution. I go to bed every night disappointed but…I’m back again tomorrow.

In a radio interview in 2012 he said, “I think the people who practice white supremacy and who benefit from it are going to have to be stopped. And I think that’s a huge undertaking and I think it takes a revolution.”

Since Ayers has the same revolutionary goals “every day”, we can assume that he had those goals on the day that he hosted a fundraiser in his living room to launch the political career of Barack Obama.

You may be shocked and saddened by the choreographed violence in the street, but you must realize that there are those who are encouraged and excited by it. Do not cede the moral high ground to these people. The fundamental transformation they seek is utopia in theory but very real destruction in practice. Do not under-estimate the danger that these people pose to your future.

Sick Political Theater

Posted on November 29, 2014 by Bryce Buchanan

The events in Ferguson, Missouri are the latest example of sick political theater, carefully orchestrated to shape public policy. The theatrical productions are pure fiction, but are presented as fact. They are morality plays with heroes and villains and are intended to create strong emotions directed at a political objective. All of the elaborate productions are based on central lies. None would be possible without a complicit media to carry the script.

If you consider some examples you will see that the various plots all have a similar structure.

When Jared Loughner shot Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the “Why Did Sarah Palin Cause Giffords To Be Shot” political theater began almost immediately. Palin was not related to the shooting in any way, but there was an explosion of stories about her culpability. There were headlines like, “Giffords Blood Is On Sarah Palin’s Hands” Democrat politicians joined in. Wasn’t it just awful how violent those conservatives are?

False accusations and moral posing by liberals are part of each script.

The climax of the play is when the Poseur in Chief assumes the godlike role of lecturing to us about morality. We watch the arsonist, who helped set the fire and who stoked the fire, speak to us about how disappointed he is that we have a fire. In the Palin-Giffords case the climax was quite a grand production.

In the case of Professor Gates arrest, the climax was a small production. The policeman who answered a call to protect Mr. Gates home was unfairly attacked by the President for “acting stupidly” and then the media script expanded to the topic of racist police. The climax was Presidential pontification at a “beer summit”.

The fictional stories written for the Mike Brown/Darren Wilson and the Trayvon/Zimmerman morality plays followed nearly the same script. Two wonderful young black men were shot by racist white men for no reason at all. They were “executed”. They were “gunned down like dogs”. America is racist. Cops are racist.

The leftist media present the fictional story with glee, repeating the lies endlessly, sometimes doctoring the evidence and always ignoring the facts. They appear oblivious to the hatred and division that they are causing. Or worse, they appear to seek violence as a ratings booster. In Ferguson, the mob knew the script. For media and mob it was, “lights, camera, action!”

In both cases, Obama, Holder and many Democrat politicians played important roles in fanning the racial flames. In private, they call this motivating the voter base. In the play, they assume the role of moral heroes. They are attacking white society, attacking police, attacking America and selling a message of anger and victimization to black communities ‘because they care’.

Obama, who is always happy to attack America in an international forum, discussed Ferguson at the U.N. as a sign of America’s moral failing. He met with the mob leaders and urged them to “stay the course”. Missouri’s Governor, along with many other Democrats, acted as lynch mob leaders calling for Officer Wilson’s head prior to an examination of the facts.

Eric Holder sent large numbers of Dept. of Justice agents to both Ferguson, MI and Sanford, FL. He does not send large numbers of agents to investigate the massive number of black deaths where there is no political motivation for his ‘great concern’. He mostly sends no agents at all and shows no special interest at all. Few people realize that Holder sent community activists to Sanford to foment racial tensions in the Trayvon case. And he repeatedly got the message out in Ferguson that the problem was racism. When a policeman shoots a charging 290 pound man who had assaulted the officer moments before, what could it be but racism?

Eric Holder knows every detail of the eyewitness testimony and he knows the physical evidence. He knows, but he doesn’t care. He has a role to play in this sick, political drama and the facts will not change his role in any way. He and the ever-present, ever-despicable, race-baiters like Sharpton and Jackson throw Molotov cocktails of racial division into the crowds. They are mob creators, and Sharpton (an Obama adviser!), truly has blood on his hands from a mob he created in Crown Heights in 1991.

The work of these hatemongers, with the help of a leftist media, directly created the destructive mobs we have seen in Ferguson and other cities. In this morality play, their role is portrayed as righteous, justified anger. They are the aggrieved party. You, if you are white or are a policeman, are the guilty party.

In reality, the Brown/Wilson tragedy does not fit the narrative of a racist cop killing a gentle black man. The opposite is true. Let’s examine some of the other narratives that were pushed by the emotional, misinformed mobs. Three common chants and protest signs were: We Want Justice, Black Lives Matter, and Stop Killing Us.

“We Want Justice”- It is an undeniable fact that the credo, “snitches get stitches” dominates black culture. Co-operation with the police is explicitly forbidden and those who testify about crimes are very often punished for it. There are many black murder cases where significant numbers of people witnessed the murder and none of them will talk to the police. The do not want justice.

“Black Lives Matter”- Where are these demonstrators when thousands of other black lives are snuffed out. It appears that “Some Black Lives Matter”, the ones that are part of the show. “Stop Killing Us” - 91% of black murder victims are killed by other African-Americans according to FBI statistics. You should stop killing you. White people and white policemen are not the problem. Thomas Sowell has some insight on the real problem here and Jason Riley here.

Not all of the plays reach the final act. In some, the central lies are too great to be sustained. The debacle in Benghazi was not “caused by a video”. The extensive targeting of conservative groups by the IRS was not “caused by a couple of agents in Cincinnati”. The massive recent influx of young illegal aliens was planned in advance to be a “humanitarian crisis” and an inducement to change immigration laws, but it backfired. The final act of the Fast and Furious gunrunning operation was supposed to be Holder and Obama (the gunrunners) speaking as moral authorities, bemoaning the damage caused by American guns and explaining necessary restrictions on the second amendment. The “Cruel Republicans Shut Down The Government ” story did not fool the thinking people, but it did fool the Republican leadership, who have now essentially abandoned the power of the purse.

To a large extent, it is elaborate fictional stories that shape public discourse and public policy. In the current drama about race, it is very disturbing to see blacks manipulated like angry puppets on a string by their perennial masters. It is very disturbing to see the degradation that the welfare state has produced. It is sickening to see the very people who produced this degradation, the people who profit from this dependency, posing as saviors. What an evil and destructive game this is.

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This essay was first published at American Thinker.

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Updates: The grand jury transcripts show that several witnesses were threatened and pressured not to tell the truth… because the mob doesn’t want justice, they want lies. There is a chilling story of witness intimidation here.

There also is a column here about “Black Lives Matter”. An excerpt:

The focus of the [black lives matter] campaign would have much more moral authority and would be taken much more seriously if it focused on those actions that do devalue black lives- which have very little to do with white cops and everything to do with blacks themselves. According to data collected from 1980-2008, in 2008, the homicide offender rate for blacks was almost 25 percent, seven times higher than the offending rate of whites (3.4%). The homicide victimization rate for blacks was about six times higher than the victimization rates for whites. Blacks were also 47.4% of all homicide victims and 52.5% of all homicide offenders. During the same period, blacks accounted for 62% of all drug-related homicides compared to 37% committed by whites. Over 65% of all drug-related homicide offenders were black; whites comprised 33 percent. Blacks were 44.1% of felony murder victims and almost 60% of felony murder offenders. For gun homicide rates, blacks were 51.4% of all victims but 56.9% of offenders. Black offenders committed 93% of all black homicides. The FBI statistics aren’t any better. In 2012, of the 2,648 black victims of homicide, blacks were responsible for 2,412. Of the 14,581 total murder offenders that year, 5531 (38%) were black.

Neal Boortz on “black lives matter”:

Here’s a question … how many blacks have been killed by other blacks since Officer Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown. One estimate I’ve read says 2,100. Thousands of young blacks are murdered every year. The numbers in recent years range from almost 6,000 to 9,000. The average is around 7,900. One statistic that is borne out is that 93% of these murders of blacks are committed by other blacks. This is to the tune of over 20 each and every day. Michael Brown attacked Officer Wilson on August 9^th. That’s 108 days between the incident and the report on the grand jury’s findings. Multiply by the average of 20+ a day and you have 2,160 during that period. If you want a more alarming statistic, try this one. The number of days elapsed since the killing of Trayvon Martin and the report from the Ferguson grand jury? That would be 1003 days. That means 20,000 killed and over 18,000 of them killed by other blacks.

During this entire time frame the ONLY time I saw a “black lives matter” sign was in connection with a protest over Michael Brown’s death. Didn’t the other 20,000 black lives matter as well? Where were the signs? ….

Perhaps blacks need to recognize that negative attention focused on their communities isn’t necessarily due to feelings of white or genetic superiority. Maybe it has something to do with the prevailing culture of violence in the urban black community … especially the YOUNG urban black community. A community that revels in mimicking prison garb, complete disregard and disrespect for women, an anti-learning and anti-achievement culture in schools, and visceral hatred for the police is not a community that is going to be well regarded by others. It has nothing to do with skin color, and everything to do with culture – behavior.

Thomas Sowell explains in “Opinions vs. Facts” who benefits and who suffers from the actions of the racial grievance industry. The last paragraph is about the history of Detroit, but it could also be about the future of America. Read it here

Bill Whittle exposes the real race war. There is a staggering amount of racial violence that is well hidden:

20 Delusions That Shape How Liberals Vote

Posted on November 4, 2014 by Bryce Buchanan

It is instructive to consider the premises that underlie the liberal view of the world. These are the ideas that determine their votes in elections; ideas that could shape the future of our country. Taken together, it is striking how detached from reality the beliefs are. The list could be much longer, but consider the following 20 beliefs from the imaginary world where liberals live.

The “Affordable Care Act” will reduce the cost and increase the quality of health care, because if you want something done efficiently and economically, then you definitely want unionized government bureaucracies to handle it. History has demonstrated that bureaucrats provide efficient service at lower cost. If we can eliminate consumer choices and let a government monopoly take care of things, like managing all health care, that is a dream worth fighting for.

President Obama is correct that “we don’t have a spending problem” and Nancy Pelosi is correct that government is cut to the bone and “there is no place left to cut”.

It is morally acceptable to borrow massive amounts of money from our grandchildren to support our own current consumption.

The 22 trillion dollars spent on the War on Poverty was quite successful in reducing the number of people in poverty.

As you look at the plight of women around the world, it is clear that the most important problem for feminists to concentrate on is free birth control for American women.

The Social Security Program is a trust fund where your money is placed in a government account for you and invested intelligently. That money belongs to you and you will be guaranteed a good return. It may be true that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are headed for certain bankruptcy without major reforms, but the people who want to talk about reforms to protect the programs from collapse are just mean people. We should stay on the course we are on.

Political “compromise” means move to the left and only to the left. Those who do not understand this are “obstructionists”.

The most serious problem effecting black communities is that racist policemen are shooting young black men for no reason at all. The facts around the Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin cases show that these two fine young men did nothing to provoke the racists who killed them. This proves that our racist country has not really improved at all since the 1950’s. The lynch mobs in the streets, and the lynch mob organizers in these two cases have the moral high ground. There is just no reason in the Michael Brown case to spend much time seeking the facts when you know the policeman is white.

The way to help black people is to teach them that none of their problems are their fault and none of the solutions are their responsibility. The good men in the racial grievance industry, like Sharpton and Jackson, are creating the kind of anger that will lead to a brighter future.

All the problems in black communities are caused by racist Republicans who want to return to segregation and are trying to keep blacks from voting. It was racist Republicans in the South, who tried to keep black people out of white schools and keep them sitting at the back of the bus. Fortunately, the Southern Democrats worked hard to stop this Republican racism.

The earth has been warming very rapidly in recent decades. The polar ice caps are disappearing and polar bear populations are dying from lack of ice. ‘Climate change’ means that it is much warmer, colder, wetter, drier, and stormier than ever before. And it is going to get much, much warmercolderwetterdrier in the future. There is good news, though. Politicians in this country can vote to change the world’s climate to be an ideal climate.

Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. The fear that Islamic Jihadists represent a supremist, totalitarian ideology, similar to Nazism, only worse, is an irrational fear called “Islamophobia”.

The best available evidence from intelligence agencies and from those on the ground during the Benghazi attack was that there was a demonstration about a YouTube video that got out of hand. Administration officials reported the best information they had to the public with no consideration given to upcoming elections.

President Obama immediately authorized the military to do every single thing possible to protect our Benghazi heroes. As the law requires, he immediately granted Presidential authorization for rescuers to cross the Libyan border, an essential first step in the rescue. As our men fought bravely for many hours, begging for help, our Commander in Chief was doing everything he could to rescue them.

There is “not a smidgen of corruption” in the IRS. Some people say there was an organized effort to silence the political speech of those extremists who want limited government, but the whole, so called , ‘problem’ was just a couple of agents in Cincinnati who made a harmless mistake. There was “nothing political about this at all”.

The “Fast and Furious” gun-running program was a sensible plan to sell weapons to drug cartels and then track these non-trackable weapons right to the doorstep of the drug kingpins. Those who question Holder’s and Obama’s story on this (or any other) policy are racists.

The rules for stopping the spread of highly contagious diseases should be shaped by politics and multi-cultural sensibilities.

With the right politicians in power, people will be given their expanded human rights. Everyone has a right to a certain standard of living including good housing, food, education and medical care. Progressive politicians can make these goods and services free for anyone who wants them. If politicians who really care vote for more free stuff, it will just be there.

The concept “earn” must be replaced by the concept “deserve”. People deserve things, so liberal politicians will reshape reality to create that wonderful utopia where people have everything they want. The leaders in the past who have tried this and have left only blood and poverty in their path were doing it wrong. We can do it right this time. Forward!

If a government program does not work and creates more problems than it solves, you can fix it by spending more money. If the intentions of the program were good, then it’s a good program regardless of the results.

The mainstream media, popular culture and the education establishment live primarily in this imaginary world. They believe in it and they teach it. They also teach a strong sense of moral and intellectual superiority to fellow believers. They are the good people. And, despite the detachment from reality of their voting premises, they consider themselves the smart people.

Our country’s future will be determined by this: Do the voters who live in reality outnumber the voters from the world of liberal delusions.

“Let’s Compromise” – What They Really Mean When They Say It

Posted on January 28, 2014 by Bryce Buchanan

We constantly hear that conservatives need to compromise. We just can’t “move forward” unless conservatives compromise. There will not be “progress”, we are told, unless conservatives “reach across the aisle” and work with the liberals.

As an observer of political discourse for many decades, I do have a clear picture of what the calls for compromise really mean. I have compiled a handy list of the terms commonly used in this political debate and I think it will help you understand the liberal argument if you understand the true meaning of their words.

First, take a look at these three charts to get a picture of how the federal government has changed in the last 50 years. [It is a similar story for State governments.] The charts tell the real story about compromise.

fed-reg1

For at least 50 years, when a liberal says “Let’s compromise”, he means, “Let’s move left…. let’s move in the direction of larger government. “

When a progressive says, “We are not going to get anywhere until you are ready to reach across the aisle”, he means, “We are not going to get anywhere until you are ready to completely move across the aisle and join me in the quest for a larger government.”

When mainstream media reporters say, “The conservatives are unwilling to compromise and this extremist position is slowing the progress of important legislation”, they mean, “Some bad people believe that we need to slow the growth of government and we are going to pound them until they accept the progressive position.”

When a RINO says, “There are some wacko-bird, Tea Party types who just don’t understand how things get done around here”, they mean “We are quite comfortable with a huge and growing government. We like our power and don’t want these limited-government types to mess it up. Our role as Republicans is to occasionally pretend we don’t like big government, but we can’t stand these radicals who say that and actually mean it. ”

When the Democrats say that all they want is “a balanced approach” in budget negotiations, they always want the ‘balance’ to be larger government and more spending first, with the promise of reduced spending and taxes way off in the future. The reduced spending never comes. Republicans seem to have an unlimited supply of gullibility in buying into this recurring scam. It could also be that they understand the game, but don’t really have strong objections.

If some principled conservative legislator says he is not buying into that scam, Senator Schumer will say, “You cannot negotiate when they take hostages and when they extort, period.” Senator Durbin will say it is “political terrorism” to demand a reversal in the growth of government. The media will agree. The Republican leadership will agree. The government will continue its un-sustainable growth.

President Obama says that because of Fox News and Rush Limbaugh “there is a Republican base of voters for whom compromise with me is a betrayal.” He says those nefarious forces have resulted in, “the inability of my message to penetrate the Republican base”. Obama makes no allowance for the possibility that some Americans heard his message clearly and disagree with it. He has perfected self-righteousness, which has always been a strong suit for liberals in general.

Obama’s position is: My policies are correct, and if it wasn’t for people disagreeing with me, then we would all agree. And then we could move forward smoothly to “the complete transformation” of this country.

When Obama says, “The one unifying principle in the Republican Party at the moment is making sure that 30 million people don’t have healthcare”, he may actually believe that absurd statement. He may be incapable of seeing that many people oppose government controlled healthcare because they know it will harm the quality of healthcare. They oppose it because they know government never runs things efficiently or inexpensively. Even with those facts clearly on display in Obamacare, with more Americans losing insurance than gaining it, with the economic assumptions of the law shown to be absurd, with chaos and incompetence everywhere, leftists will never acknowledge that their critics were right.

The history of the last 50 years is the history of relentless growth of government. The ‘compromises’ have been in one direction. This is not ‘give and take’. This is just take. Take more power and take more money for the ruling elites. Democrat politicians and apparently most Republican politicians like it that way. To many Republicans, compromise simply means capitulate.

There is some solace in the fact that a recent Gallup poll reported that 72% of Americans say “big government” is the greatest threat to our country’s future. In another poll, 3% of Americans think immigration reform is a top priority. Global warming consistently ranks at the bottom of the list of concerns. Americans are much smarter than their leaders.

In the State of the Union speech and beyond we will be urged to “compromise”, to increase the size of government, to change the world’s climate with legislation, to open our borders. We need to “work together” and “be reasonable” to make sure that the red lines in the charts above continue to skyrocket upward in an absolutely unsustainable trajectory.

No. This leftward compromise must end. To survive, we need 50 years of “compromise” in the other direction.

Excuses For Fools

Posted on November 2, 2013 by Bryce Buchanan

The Obamacare rollout is a world-class failure. The most expensive website in history doesn’t work and those who battle through the website to get to the cost of the policies are most often shocked to see expensive policies with very high deductibles. So it’s time for the well-used Obama Excuse Machine to start pumping out excuses. Consider the following stories we have heard from Democrats:

1. Our problems are caused by the fact that Republicans said our plan would not work. They said government could not manage this gigantic health care takeover in an efficient or inexpensive fashion. That’s the real cause of our wildly expensive and inefficient plan.

2. The Republicans didn’t give us enough time or money to get this right. Three and a half years and hundreds of millions of dollars were simply not enough.

3. People should not have wanted the policies that they are losing because of Obamacare. They should want the much more expensive policies we offer. Our policies are so desirable that we decided to make them mandatory.

4. It’s the insurance company’s fault that millions of people are losing their insurance coverage. Obamacare made the old policies illegal to sell, but it’s the bad insurance companies fault that they are not allowed to sell them.

5. Capitalism is the reason people are being forced out of their old plans. When the government intervenes in markets and limits choices, that’s capitalism.

6. The website has not really crashed. It’s just a little slower than we would want.

7. Our new insurance market has been very popular. We are completely unwilling to tell you how many people have bought our wonderful new plans.

8. You may have heard that our website security measures are sub-standard, but your personal data is completely secure with us.

9. Obama did not lie when he guaranteed you could keep your plan and your doctor if you wanted.

10. MSNBC reports that Obamacare is “so positive” and “tremendous” that reporters “are having a hard time saying something nice about it or positive about it because they might be viewed as journalistically compromised”.

These are arguments aimed at people who cannot think. The arguments are aimed at the Democrat voting base. Democrat leaders must have a very low opinion of the intelligence of their voters.

— Published on American Thinker —

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The Confident Liar

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Bryce Buchanan

The fact that President Obama is a confident, skillful liar is not a surprise to any objective observer. His personal history is fiction in many key respects. He lied about his membership in the socialist New Party in Chicago, he lied about the extent of his relationship with Bill Ayers. He lied about an open and transparent administration. He lied about letting the public review legislation for 5 days before any vote was taken. He lied about cutting the deficit. He lies about being a non-partisan President who is always open to consider proposals from his opposition. When he is caught in lies about the growing list of administration scandals, he lies more.

When he lies, he usually assumes his pose of moral superiority. He begins many lies with the phrase “Let me be clear”. You can see video samples of 21 lies here:

Obama’s lies about the Unaffordable Health Care Act were so blatant and were repeated so many times that even the mainstream media is noticing and publicizing the bait-and-switch pitch. The lackeys at NBC are reporting that Obama knew his sales pitch was a lie. Obama repeatedly said things like:

“You can keep your doctor and keep your plan. The only thing we are going to do is lower costs.”
“No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”
“No matter what you’ve heard, if you like your doctor or your health care plan, you can keep it.”
“This will not increase the deficit by one dime.”

Some key employees, like Kathleen Sebelius, are also comfortable lying. In this recent whopper, she repeated the Obama phrase, “regardless of what you’ve heard”, which is meant to denigrate the people telling the truth.

SEBELIUS: “In every state in the country, regardless of what you hear. In every state in the country, there will be a new health marketplace open for business on October 1. There will be online availability that now is up and running.

After the rollout disaster, Sebelius explained the cause of the 700 million dollar website failure: The problem was that, ”the majority party at least in the House was determined to stop this any way they possibly could”. This is truly sick and pathetic.

Obamacare was designed to fail. The insurance company and union fools who supported the plan will suffer greatly under it. Many millions will lose insurance coverage that they liked. Younger people who were supposed to sign up for much more expensive coverage won’t do so. Revenue will be much less than expected and costs will be much higher than expected. The plan, as written, will fail.

Then we will be told that the only solution is government control of all health care.

In 2003, Obama said, ”I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer healthcare system for America, but as all of you know, we may not get there immediately.” In 2007, he said, ”But I don’t think we will be able to eliminate employer-based coverage immediately. There is potentially going to be some transition time.”

Illinois Representative, Jan Schakowsky, explained to a group of supporters that private insurance would be destroyed by Obamacare. She said that the public option would, “put the private insurance companies out of business and lead to single-payer.” Her audience cheered.

In 2008, Yale Professor Jacob S. Hacker openly explained the deceitful strategy. He said, ”Someone once said to me this is a Trojan Horse for single payer. It’s not a Trojan Horse, right? It’s right there! I am telling you. We are going to get there. Over time. Slowly. But we are going to move away from reliance on employer-based health insurance, as we should, but we will do it in a way that we are not going to frighten people into thinking they are going to lose their private insurance.”

Harry Reid has already explained that the country has to “work our way past” insurance-based health care. On a Las Vegas PBS’ program, Reid explained, “What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever.”

When then asked whether he meant ultimately the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it, Reid said: “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes.”

This law was passed without anyone even knowing what was in it. It was a step toward government control, and that is all that mattered to them. It was passed against the will of the American people. Mr. Reid “deemed” it to be law without even a vote on the actual bill. They argued forcefully that it wasn’t a tax and then they argued in court that it was. The entire Obamacare endeavor has been a deceitful scam played on the public for the purpose of extending government power. It will severely damage the greatest health care system on earth, but, to them, that doesn’t really matter.

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Hitler finds out about Obamacare Exchange problems -

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