Category Archives: Idiots on Parade

Democrats and Republicans: How They Are the Same

Posted on December 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

Last night I spent some time over at alan.com.  Alan Colmes is a liberal commentator on Fox.  He has his own radio show that I enjoy and his blog and chat room are both exceptional.  In fact, it’s because of Alan that I started TarheelRed.  Anyway, so, I was chattin’ up the locals and, as you would expect, found myself in the minority on many topics.

We discussed taxes, education, labor, Presidential politics and even Iran.  The banter was back and forth, very quick and not unpleasant.  It’s hard and frustrating, to be sure, being the only Voice of Reason in a room full of Liberals, but hey, good times.

As I left I had two takeaways:

  1. Democrats and Republicans are very nearly the same.
  2. Very few people understand Liberty

I think that all people, from the Left and the Right, want good things to happen to people.  I think all people wanna help people when they need that help.  I think all people feel that everyone should contribute to society.  I think we’re all on agreement there.  And it goes even further.

Both Republicans and Democrats want to coerce man to cast aside their wicked ways.

The vehicle for the Republicans is Religion.  Via faith and God, the Right attempts to coerce people into doing good things.  The vehicle for the Democrats is the State.  Via laws and guns, the Left attempts to coerce people into doing good things.

We were discussing education.  I tried to make the case that given we ALL want a great educational system, up to and including college, we should work towards building a system that works.  I was immediately accused of wanting to privatize education.  When I admitted that would be preferable I also ceded the argument for the sake of discussion and said we could keep it public.  Even in a public setting, we have room for reform.  For example, disband the unions and allow administrations to hire and fire based on merit.  Provide bonuses and pay increases based on performance.

The response?

I hate teachers and don’t wanna educate the poor.  Why don’t I want the whole country to be educated?  It’s for my own good.  Even evil capitalists want and need educated children and adults.

The premise?

People, left to their own devices, will not find it within themselves to provide an educational experience that satisfies the needs of the society.  And so the Leftist enacts laws, the Conservative pulls on faith, all in an attempt to coerce people into doing what is deemed to be in their self interest.

The folks felt that even college education ought to be free.

I asked them if my neighbor to the west was unable to provide college tuition for his daughter, would I be within my rights to knock on the door of my neighbor to the east and demand money and time from him, by force of gun or sword, in order to provide tuition for my neighbor’s daughter.

They laughed and considered me extreme.

I then asked what real difference is there in THAT scenario and the one where a bunch of people vote to take my eastern neighbors money via the state.  I mentioned that they had a confused sense of Liberty.

Which brings me to point number 2 and perhaps the quote of the year:

Liberty Schmiberty

Sadly, I had to acknowledge that neither the Democrat nor the Republican are interested in Liberty.  Rather, only forcing their brand of charity through their approved vehicle of coercion.

Liberty Schmiberty indeed.

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Posted in Faith, Government, Idiots on Parade, Liberty

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Voter ID Laws

Posted on December 14, 2011 | Leave a comment

The law says that you are only allowed to vote if you are a citizen.  And then only once.

Why is it that the Obama Justice Department continues to block efforts to enforce existing law?

AUSTIN, Tex. — Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. is expected to enter the turbulent political waters of voting rights on Tuesday, signaling that the Justice Department will take an aggressive stance in reviewing new laws in several states that civil rights advocates say are meant to dampen minority participation in the national elections next year.

Can you imagine passing a speed limit law and then forbidding law enforcement from checking how fast you’re going in order to enforce said law?

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Posted in Idiots on Parade, Immigration, Politics: National, Rocket Surgery

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In Which OWS Differentiates From The Tea Party

Posted on December 9, 2011 | 5 comments

Heard this morning on 106.1 WRDU that the guy who shoot up a local grocery store, then took his own life, was a member of the Occupy Raleigh movement.

Members of the Tea Party:

  • Obtain and pay for permits to demonstrate
  • Go home when the time is up
  • Clean up after themselves
  • Have jobs
  • Stand for something
  • Don’t shoot people
    • The irony that the Left complains about Tea Party folks bringing guns to their protests isn’t lost on me.

These are not the 99% folks, they just aren’t.

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Posted in Idiots on Parade, Liberty, Lobby/PAC, Politics: National

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Occupy College Campuses

Posted on December 9, 2011 | 2 comments

Unbelievable.

If the Occupy crowd wants to know why they are graduating with mountains of debt and no viable job options to pay it down, they have to look no further than their own existence:

Occupy Wall Street is becoming a teachable moment for New York City college students.

New York University plans to offer two classes next semester on the protest movement, whose participants frequently marched and rallied around the school’s Greenwich Village campus this fall.

The for-credit undergraduate class, offered through the university’s Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, examines economy and culture. The class has a rotating focus, and for the coming semester, it will be called “Why Occupy Wall Street? The History and Politics of Debt and Finance.”

I bet employers all over the nation are looking to hire kids with THAT on their resume.

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Posted in Fun, Idiots on Parade, Liberty, Rocket Surgery

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Brad and Britt And Glass Houses

Posted on December 7, 2011 | 7 comments

So, two months ago local talk radio show hosts were taking phone calls on their show.  The guys at Brad and Britt are Liberal.  I don’t think that they’d object to being described as left of center.  Anyway, they took this call from a listener and it turned out he subscribed to the more conservative point of view.  Britt, clearly having taken the opposite point of view went into his “Little Rush” imitation.  This is where he puts on Rush’s radio bumper music and does a fantastic impression of Rush.  By itself, Little Rush is hilarious and spot on, using it to yell over an earnest caller is obnoxious.

I called him out:

That Tweet got me “blocked”.

Meanwhile, Britt feels it’s totally appropriate to call out Neil Boortz in a much less polite tweet:

This is how the Left rolls.  Free speech for me, censorship for thee.

 

UPDATE:

It would appear that The TalkMaster blocked Britt months ago:

Not sure that this makes any difference what-so-ever, but Britt felt it was important to include.

Done.

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Posted in Fun, Idiots on Parade, Liberty, Life, Politics: National

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Jon Stewart: Occupy Wall Street

Posted on December 5, 2011 | 2 comments

It doesn’t matter the organization.  Or the society.  Or the group.

People stratify.

It is the nature of man to maximize self interest.  It’s bred into us through 1000’s of years of evolution.  We look out for ourselves.  And when ourselves are looked out for, we look out for “the us”.  We are tribal individuals.  We just are.

If you can find a system that changes humans from the selfish creatures we are to ones that live in “peace” and “harmony”, then we can talk about how better to arrange human society.  But until then, free and open markets are the single best way to organize ourselves.  If you don’t like human greed and our focus on the material thing, open a church or a synagogue or a mosque.  Something that speaks to improving a man’s character.  His inner self.

But don’t legislate it.

Which brings me to Jon Stewart.  And Occupy Wall Street.

Jon continues to be my 2nd source of comedy; Modern Family is hands down #1.  And in this episode he actually takes down the Occupy crowd.  To his credit.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-november-16-2011/occupy-wall-street-divided

I love the fact that the park has segmented into two classes.  And my favorite part is when the protester dweeb is rambling about “access to the goods of life”.  You know, the guy who is worried about “personal property” as opposed to “private property”.

Props to Jon for a humorous sketch on OWS.  Good stuff.

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Posted in Economy, Idiots on Parade, Liberty, Politics: National

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Occupy Raleigh Protesters Arrested

Posted on December 4, 2011 | Leave a comment

Apparently the protesters aren’t aware that private property is, you know, private:

Raleigh, N.C. — Six members of the local anti-Wall Street “Occupy” movement were arrested Friday afternoon after staging a protest at Crabtree Valley Mall in Raleigh.

…

Mall police arrested the protesters around 2:45 p.m. when the group began to demonstrate in the mall’s food court, Sughrue said.

I can’t help but feel dismayed by this.  Somewhere, at some point, some school failed these people.

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Posted in Idiots on Parade, Liberty, Politics: North Carolina

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This Is How Occupy Raleigh Rolls

Posted on December 3, 2011 | 2 comments

Okay, so, I like to engage in debate.  Most especially I enjoy debating people that I tend to disagree with.  I suspect that this has to do with the fact that there is little to gain in debating someone you actually see eye to eye with.  This creates a condition where I only really interact with people who are not necessarily open to my point of view.

However, most of the time, I stress most, I engage with people who “put it out there”.  That is, I’ll engage people through this media.  Blogs, chat rooms or even Facebook.  I typically don’t engage friends, I try not to at least, family, or co-workers. Each to their own in their own daily lives.

So, when I see Occupy Raleigh, a group of people who have banded together to make a point, I might wanna engage them.  I might wanna challenge their facts, their assumptions and their solutions and conclusions.  This becomes more true as they take advantage of public largess and organize in a public manner.

They protest daily.  They have created a blog.  They have a Facebook page.

They encourage dialogue and discourse.

But those are just words.  You see, the Occupy Raleigh movement i n specific, and I suspect the type of individual involved in general, suffers dissent not at all.  They will do everything, EVERYTHING, to suppress your voice, your opinion and your viewpoint unless it conforms to their ideology.  The tolerant Left is a massively repressive regime when it comes to dissent.

They march in protest of CEO speaking at Universities here in Raleigh.  They claim they are denied freedom of expression when they are yanked out of the room.  But when it is THEIR forum, THEIR stage, and anyone tries to speak out against the mob, they shut you down.

I have long avoided confronting the Occupy Raleigh folks.  Some have come here and I try to make my case; I stay away from their forums.  However, the other night I decided to create a Facebook presence for Pino.  I don’t mind these freaks knowing who I am, but I don’t wanna expose my Facebook community to these guys if I can help it.  And I posted a ling on their wall.

It was deleted within 20 minutes.

Then I commented one of their posts.  Nothing untoward, same tone I use here.

I was called a troll.

Later I defended my position and let well enough alone.

Tonight, I got an email telling me that they had replied to my post.  I went to Facebook and they had deleted all of my comments and I’m now unable to post comments.

The left image is from my personal page, the right image from my Pino page.

If you dissent, you will be silenced.

This people, is how the Left rolls.  It’s how they’ve ALWAYS rolled.  They claim tolerance and compassion and understanding, but when those same qualities are demanded of them, they balk and and refuse.  They censor, the repress, the silence and they are brutal in the totality of it.

These people don’t represent the 99%.  They don’t wanna hear open and honest debate.  They aren’t about new ideas.  These people are Marxists.  They are Stateists.  These people are hard core Liberal actors bent on changing the way in which America was created.  They don’t like risk and reward.  They don’t appreciate Individual Liberty.

These organizations are damage.  And reasonable people route around damage.

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Posted in Idiots on Parade, Liberty, Politics: North Carolina

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Occupy Raleigh

Posted on November 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

The Occupy Movement gathers strength amongst it’s supporters from the fact that they claim to represent the 99%.  That means that they feel 99% of American’s are being fairly depicted by these people’s actions.  That somehow, the words and ideas and thoughts and thesis of this movement is embraced by the 99% of American’s that are not the richest 1%.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Much of us not in the top 1% realize what it means to succeed in America, what it takes to make a life that is better than the one given to you as a child.  It requires risk, sacrifice and hard work.  It means that things we might otherwise hold dear to us will have to be passed by or delayed in order to achieve the goal.

And sometimes that doesn’t work out.  For some, it means that a life is spent in futile frustration agonizing over business ideas that never took hold.  For others it might mean a life of unrealized potential; an otherwise qualified corporate President is relegated to a life of middle management due to circumstances. And, in some cases, it means that decisions that are made are wrong.  Or if not wrong, less right.

But in aggregate, the fact that Americans all, poorest to the richest, have the best life ever afforded any group of people belonging to a nation in the history of the world is proof enough that Capitalism is the greatest anti-poverty program going.

But that isn’t enough.  For some, they have to make the papers, the news, the limelight.  They have to scream out that the world just isn’t fair and that somehow, of course, it’s not their fault.

And that’s where the Occupy Movement comes in:

RALEIGH — Protesters from the occupy movement disrupted a speech at N.C. State University Wednesday afternoon by the head of Wells Fargo Bank, but the program resumed after police escorted about a dozen protesters from the building.

There were no arrests during or following the outburst that occurred about 4:45 p.m..

John G. Stumpf, the president and CEO of Wells Fargo, was on campus as part of an executive lecture series sponsored by NCSU’s Poole College of Management.

His remarks were disrupted when protesters scattered amongst the audience of about 400 stood and started speaking. One woman protester began a speech and the others repeated and amplified her words.

The protesters said, “John Stumpf, we won’t take your home, but we will take a moment of your time. Your leadership has led to the death of the American dream. Wells Fargo is guilty of widespread predatory lending and holds over $5.7 billion in student debt.”

I suspect that John G. Stumpf has created more jobs in his singular life that the number of jobs that will be created in aggregate of the Occupiers escorted from that room.  Further, the benefit to society by having Wells Fargo around is lost on many, if not all, of those Occupiers.

Proof?

They hold it against this man that his bank holds $5.7 billion in student debt.

I ask you, how willing would YOU be to borrow money to some kid to get a degree in Eastern European Social Studies with a focus on Slovakian history?

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Posted in Idiots on Parade, Liberty, Life, Politics: North Carolina

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Occupy Capitalism

Posted on November 30, 2011 | Leave a comment

A most excellent development in the whole Occupy movement has occurred here in Raleigh.  See, the young socialists had been thinking that they could just camp on public grounds; the capital being public, the idea was they could just stay there.

Well, it turns out that the good people of North Carolina don’t want the Occupy people clogging up and cluttering up the State Capital with their nonsense and noise.  The city and the State has said that they have to move on.

So, they did.  And where did they move to?

Raleigh, N.C. — Protesters with the Occupy Raleigh movement moved into a more permanent base camp last week, thanks to a local business owner who saw his new tenants as a capitalist opportunity.

Rob Baumgart, who owns a Sprint and Nextel sales company called Chatterbox Communications, is leasing a 2,500-square-foot lot near the corner of West and Edenton streets, not far from downtown. He’s charging $400 a month to the group of about 15 people who have braved the cold and rain to camp out for their cause.

It’s what any small businessman who believes in making money would do, he said.

“That’s $400 that I didn’t have last month, and if the city allows me to continue doing it for 12 months, that’s $4,800,” Baumgart said Tuesday. “I don’t know a single American who would turn down $4,800 a year.”

Excellent news!

The young protesters protesting the evils of capitalism are now going to get a first hand look at running something.  See, ow that they pay rent, they are going to expect that members contribute.  See, every month that rent check is gonna come due and they are gonna need their friends to chip in.  Or but out.

We’ve seen how this plays out in other OWS encampments around the country.  We see in NYC that the haves and the have nots don’t always see eye to eye.  In Portland Oregon folks have been angry that people who don’t contribute to the movement are glomming on to the free food and shelter.

The sooner these kids can see that organizations require real leaders, the better they, and we, will be.

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Posted in Economics, Idiots on Parade, Liberty, Life

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