Response to friendly taunting

A little over a week ago I noticed that The Modern Pharisee had resumed blogging. In his post The Lesser of Three Evils, he essentially laid out the case that Ron Paul supporters owed it to themselves and their country to choke back their bile and disgust and vote for "the best conservative candidate on the ballot" this Fall, citing the experience of King David.

In The Pharisee's view, David chose "the lesser of three evils" when given a choice.

While I was reading the post, a paraphrase of Carly Simon's 1970s hit song You're So Vain kept running through my head. "You're so vain. You probably think this post is about you, don't you, don't you, don't you?"

Well, uh, yeah. I did think that post was about me. Hugh and I have had that particular discussion before. But whether or not it was vanity became irrelevant when I received this Google message from Hugh.

Hugh: I'm back to blogging, and this is for you (and a few others)

http://hughmcbryde.blogspot.com/2012/04/lesser-of-three-evils.html.

That got a smile out of me. Okay, taunt accepted. Now it's my turn.

I like your analogy. But it's a bit flawed (sorry, Hugh). David was forced to choose between three horrible punishments, while we may choose between three options that, while not pleasant, are certainly NOT horrible punishments. David's three choices were (a) seven years of famine, (b) fleeing his enemies for three months, or (c) three days of pestilence. Our three choices are (a) vote for the incumbent Corporatist thug, Il Duce, (b) vote for the winner of the Republican primaries Corporatist dilettante hand-chosen by the Team Elephant elites, or (c) stay home and flip 'em both the bird. In our case, choice (c) is not only no punishment, but satisfying, in a juvenile sort of way.

Hugh's analogy further breaks down. David did NOT choose the punishment that befell his people. He chose one of the three options that he absolutely did not want to occur. He left the final decision up to the Lord.

I am in a great strait: let us fall now into the hand of the LORD; for his mercies are great: and let me not fall into the hand of man.

One way or another, in our situation, we have to choose (a), (b), or (c).

We know that choice (a) is out of the question. Il Duce incorporates all of the worst traits of horrendous presidents of the past, including thug Woodrow Wilson, messianic Franklin Roosevelt, "Great Society" Lyndon Johnson, and bumbling Jimmy Carter. But is choice (b) really that much better? Sure, Il Dilettante has great, presidential hair. But he's flip-flopped on every major issue over the past 20 years. If he's a conservative, then I'm Conrad Hilton. The elites moved heaven and earth -- including turning Fox News into the official Romney for President communications organ -- to push Romney through. Why so much effort? It's because...wait for it...NOBODY (and I mean NOBODY) wants him. Okay, Ann Coulter wants him. She can have him.

Choice (c) looks better and better to me all the time. I've already stated that this country is too far gone for any single individual operating as President to fix it.

Four years ago I reacted angrily when The Hausfraurer said that he would no longer vote, because, by voting, he was lending legitimacy to this phony, Corporatist system. Four years later, I completely agree with him.

The game is rigged. There isn't a dime's bit of difference between the "two" candidates. They both love big government; they only disagree when it comes to how big and who pays.

Sign me up for choice (c).

New Tizona Post

It’s bad enough that Abraham Lincoln is revered in this country, notwithstanding the Constitutional wreckage his presidency left behind. But most Americans – including, until yesterday, me – aren’t aware that another Constitution-wrecker is being given special posthumous honors on an annual basis.

Read more at The Tizona Group.

The Looter Czar

Il Duce, the Amerikan President, likes czars.  He's appointed so may of them that I honestly can't even hazard an estimate as to how many there actually are.  While Chairmanship of the President's Council on Jobs and Competiveness doesn't technically qualify as a "czarship", the new Chairman of that Council certainly merits some sort of Czar-like title.  Ladies and gentlemen, I give you - Jeffery Immelt.

President Obama today will name General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt chairman of the new Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, the White House announced overnight.

Why is this any more noteworthy than any other Il Duce appointment?  Because General Electric is the #1 looter corporation, and GE Chairman Jeffery Imelt is The King of Looters.

When Democrats said President Obama was “pro-business,” we didn’t know they meant one business in particular.

There are a few companies on the Obama corporate A List – Democratic patrons Google and Goldman Sachs both turn up again and again at White House functions and for special recognition – but no company seems to get the VIP treatment that General Electric receives.
[...]

Whether it is pushing the president’s plan for global warming fees in order to create demand for his “Ecomagination” line of windmills, solar panels, etc., boosting the president’s national health-care law as part of an effort to sell more medical equipment, or enthusing over the Obama strategy of making loans available for industrial exporters, Immelt has been an Obama stalwart all along. Immelt has also consistently argued to shareholders that there is big money to be made in advancing the Democratic agenda.

The fact is that no company has more riding on AGW than GE, and no company is more involved in lobbying for crap legislation to lock out its competition than GE. The bill that outlawed incandescent light bulbs? GE was behind that. All the crap legislation making our nation's "energy policy" completely reliant on wind, sun, and unicorn farts? GE was behind that.  GE is crony capitalism at its worst.

Il Duce is all about rewarding his supporters and punishing those who oppose him.  This is a bald-faced example of unmerited political payback.

But then, "unmerited" is a looter's middle name.

Message to the looter class

How can you tell when your society is destined for ruin?  Easy.

"Do you wish to know whether that day is coming? Watch money. Money is the barometer of a society's virtue. When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion -- when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing -- when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors -- when you see that men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you -- when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice -- you may know that your society is doomed. Money is so noble a medium that it does not compete with guns and it does not make terms with brutality. It will not permit a country to survive as half-property, half-loot.

"Whenever destroyers appear among men, they start by destroying money, for money is men's protection and the base of a moral existence. Destroyers seize gold and leave to its owners a counterfeit pile of paper. This kills all objective standards and delivers men into the arbitrary power of an arbitrary setter of values. Gold was an objective value, an equivalent of wealth produced. Paper is a mortgage on wealth that does not exist, backed by a gun aimed at those who are expected to produce it. Paper is a check drawn by legal looters upon an account which is not theirs: upon the virtue of the victims. Watch for the day when it becomes, marked: 'Account overdrawn.'

"When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives for the purpose of becoming the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce, when production is punished and looting rewarded. Do not ask, 'Who is destroying the world?' You are.

An excerpt from Atlas Shrugged by Ain Rand.

How valid is Rand's assessment.  Pretty spot on, if you ask me.  Pretty spot on.

A hearty welcome to the 112th Congress of the United States.  Loot on!

The OC attacks

For the most part, I respond to comments in the {expletive-deleted} Echo comments.  But when there is a comment requiring too much response for just a comment, or a comment that really sticks in my craw, I reply with a blog post.

This comment met both criteria.  It was in response to my comment that we are "living in Atlas Shrugged".

You're living in Atlas Shrugged, which was the vision of a lunatic who has as much insight into living human beings as Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man". To be a consistent Randian you need to have as much contempt for Christianity as for Socialism. Of course it was all that "Good Samaritan" and "Golden Rule" crap that she particularly hated. Is that part of your Christianity?

If you can back up your claims with anything besides wordplay and overuse of the word "literally", that might hold some interest . As it is, you remind me of the "merry pranksters" of the 60s/70s with their "radical" "underground newspapers" with everyone they opposed dressed up as Nazis. I like you in many ways -- primarily when you talk to me directly; not so much when you're preaching, but I gotta speak the truth as I see it.

Don't put words in my mouth. I was neither preaching, nor espousing the incoherent, contradictory, and, frankly, sophomoric epistemology of Ayn Rand.  When I said that we are "living in Atlas Shrugged", I meant the world portrayed by Rand in the novel.  In the book, the government and industry were run by looters --  looters who raped the productive by pushing legislation in the interest of "fairness", etc.

The world we live in has looters pushing legislation "for the children", "to save the planet", "to make us safe from terrorism", "to make health care affordable for everyone", "because they're too big to fail".  The end result of all of these legislative "responses" to "crisis" is the same as those portrayed in Rand's novel.

Wealth is confiscated from the productive.
Government amasses more power over all facets of our lives.
Our personal liberties are lost.

You cannot deny this - not if you're paying attention, not if you're being honest and not disingenuous.

You believe in AGW - hey, how 'bout that?  I don't.  ALL proposed "solutions" to AGW involve confiscation of wealth.  That and nothing more.

You're free to continue your misplaced "faith".  I see AGW for what it is: the hijacking of science to promote an agenda that centralizes government power, redistributes wealth (mostly to crony capitalists), and destroys individual freedoms.

Vulture Droppings: Obamacare begins

Vulture Droppings is a semi-regular feature of this blog. It's a kind of "Random Thoughts" post in which I try to quickly summarize a particularly large event or series of events. Think of it being sort of like what a vulture leaves behind after devouring a horse. You don't get the whole horse, just highly processed leftovers.

---

As modern politics dictates, bad news is always released just prior to the weekend.  This is done to assure that most of the sheeple aren't paying attention.  I mean, it's not like the sycophantic lickspittles of Big Media (the BM for short) are going to go out of their way to embarrass their lord and savior.  They'll report the bad news.  They just won't make much noise in the process of said reportage.

As one would expect, this was the treatment given to the sudden torrent of details regarding Obamacare that spewed out on Friday.  The Drudge Report was the source for these links.  What?  You expected maybe CBS news?  HAHAHAHAHA!

This edition of Vulture Droppings will address those details.

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With one breath, with one flow
You will know Synchronicity

The first detail of note is a dramatic change of semantics regarding the requirement for every American to have health insurance.

When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”

And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.

Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.

It's not a tax...until it's challenged...and THEN it's a tax.  Give credit where credit is due.  This is shear genius.  They rammed through the legislation all the while claiming it wasn't a tax (which would have increased opposition to it) but will defend its patently unconstitutional dictates by claiming it IS a tax, which takes a major bite out of the States' challenges to its unconstitutionality.  Can you say "evil genius"?

Don't be surprised as more of these changes in semantics start to creep out, not just in response to challenges, but also as regards policy.  We won't appreciate fully the enslaving power of this POS until much, much later.

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Many miles away something crawls from the slime at the bottom of a dark Scottish lake

The next item deals with physician choice, something we were assured that the Obamacare legislation would not change.

As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country’s biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals.

The plans, being tested in places like San Diego, New York and Chicago, are likely to appeal especially to small businesses that already provide insurance to their employees, but are concerned about the ever-spiraling cost of coverage.

But large employers, as well, are starting to show some interest, and insurers and consultants expect that, over time, businesses of all sizes will gravitate toward these plans in an effort to cut costs.

The tradeoff, they say, is that more Americans will be asked to pay higher prices for the privilege of choosing or keeping their own doctors if they are outside the new networks. That could come as a surprise to many who remember the repeated assurances from President Obama and other officials that consumers would retain a variety of health-care choices.

We're shocked -- SHOCKED -- to find out that our choice of providers would be impacted by Obamacare. SHOCKED! [/sarcasm]

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Many miles away something crawls to the surface of a dark Scottish lake

Next comes news that Taxachusetts is finding that employers are *shock* looking out for their own interests and dumping the responsibility for health care on the state.

The relentlessly rising cost of health insurance is prompting some small Massachusetts companies to drop coverage for their workers and encourage them to sign up for state-subsidized care instead, a trend that, some analysts say, could eventually weigh heavily on the state’s already-stressed budget.

If this is a surprise to anyone, they're an idiot.  Because, as night follows day, employers are going to dump their health insurance responsibilities on the State as a matter of self-preservation.  This is, not surprisingly to those of us who truly understand what der Staat is, exactly what the administration wants to happen!  There'll be single-payer health care on the British/Canadian model before you know it, administration "promises" to the contrary notwithstanding.

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Many miles away there's a shadow on the door of a cottage on the shore of a dark Scottish lake

Now for the money shot - the taxman cometh!

If it seems as if the tax code was conceived by graphic artist M.C. Escher, wait until you meet the new and not improved Internal Revenue Service created by ObamaCare. What, you're not already on a first-name basis with your local IRS agent?

National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson, who operates inside the IRS, highlighted the agency's new mission in her annual report to Congress last week. Look out below. She notes that the IRS is already "greatly taxed"—pun intended?—"by the additional role it is playing in delivering social benefits and programs to the American public," like tax credits for first-time homebuyers or purchasing electric cars. Yet with ObamaCare, the agency is now responsible for "the most extensive social benefit program the IRS has been asked to implement in recent history." And without "sufficient funding" it won't be able to discharge these new duties.

That wouldn't be tragic, given that those new duties include audits to determine who has the insurance "as required by law" and collecting penalties from Americans who don't. Companies that don't sponsor health plans will also be punished. This crackdown will "involve nearly every division and function of the IRS," Ms. Olson reports.

Well, well. Republicans argued during the health debate that the IRS would have to hire hundreds of new agents and staff to enforce ObamaCare. They were brushed off by Democrats and the press corps as if they believed the President was born on the moon. The IRS says it hasn't figured out how much extra money and manpower it will need but admits that both numbers are greater than zero.

Big Brother just got "bigger". "Do you haff the required insurance, Herr Vulture? Vee haff vays of finding out!"

If you think Das Überwachenden has its nose in your business now, just wait.  It'll only get worse.

---

So what does it all mean?  It means that we've barely scratched the surface of the real impact of Obamacare.  The enslaving nature of this POS has yet to be fully revealed.  When it is, don't come crying to me.  I fully understood what it was really about from day one.

* Section captions from Synchronicity I and Synchronicity II by The Police.  What it is that's crawling from the bottom of that lake, I'll leave to the imagination of the reader.

Even a stopped clock is right twice each day

Ron Reagan is dumber than a bag of hair.  Of this there is no doubt.  But the other night, when Deadeye left the room, leaving the TV tuned to CNN Headline News (She has this habit of leaving me alone with HLN.  I don't like it.  I can feel my IQ dropping by the second.), I caught the following comments from Mr. Reagan in an exchange with Joy Behar and insipid uber-leftist Janeane Garofalo.

GAROFALO: I would hope so, but there should had been regulation. You know, I mean, there should had been regulatory reform as he came into office.

BEHAR: When he came into office.

GAROFALO: Yes.

BEHAR: Yeah. Why didn’t, Ron, why didn`t he do that?

REAGAN: Well, because he`s a corporatist like all our other Presidents have been for a long, long time. That`s what`s being revealed here. Barack Obama is just as much a corporatist as George H.W. – or George W. Bush was. He`s a little less obvious about it. I think maybe his heart isn’t quite as in it.

I'm impressed. He gets it that Il Duce is the same kind of corporatist tool that King George the Dim and his predecessors were.

Of course, then he turns around and says some of the ass-stupidest nonsense ever uttered.

REAGAN: He`s not an actual oil man himself, but listen, he`s between a rock and a hard place here. He just proposed that we open up a lot of our coastline to deepwater drilling here, to offshore drilling. Completely ignoring the fact that any dependence on oil by America is dependence on foreign oil. That`s the thing that I think a lot of people don`t understand here.

Exqueeze me? Oil produced by America is dependence on foreign oil?  Do you even listen to yourself?

Oh well.  At least he gets that we're being ruled over by plundering Corporatists.  I suppose that counts for something, right?

I'm not the only one

Il Duce (the President) got that nickname from me because his policies reflect those of Il Duce (Benito Mussolini), the thuggish ruler of Italy during the 20's, 30's, and early 40's.

For a time I feared that I was the only one making the connection.  The blathering heads on the radio and on TV keep calling him a Socialist or a Communist.  He may be, ideologically.  But his governing style is all Corporatist.

But now I'm not the only one to make the connection. I've finally found someone else who correctly identifies the applied governmental style of Il Duce.

Today’s leaders of the Democratic Party are not at all progressive. In fact, their ideology is regressive – a throwback to an ideology popular in the 1920s and 30s and 40s. Their vision is that people they consider the “ignorant many” should be governed by people who see themselves as the “enlightened few.”
[...]
Nowadays, “fascism” is just an all-purpose insult. Few of those who call people they don’t like “fascists” know what fascism is. Fascism is an economic system. The name comes from an ancient Roman symbol, the “fasces,” a bundle of sticks – referring to how all sectors of society would be tied together by the government.

Back in the day, many intellectuals and other so-called progressives hailed fascism as a “third way” between communism and capitalism. Under fascism, private property does exist, but it is concentrated into big businesses, controlled by the government. Workers are also concentrated, into huge unions, again, controlled by the government.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

“All within the state. Nothing outside the state. Nothing against the state.”

– Benito Mussolini

I couldn't have said it any better myself...except that I already said it better myself.  Corporatism is Oligarchy-friendly Socialism.

I'm currently reading a book called God of the Machine.  It was written 70 years ago, in 1940.  It reads like it was written today. I'll be reviewing it in the next week or two.  It boggles the mind to learn that the bailouts of 2008 dovetail perfectly with the bailouts of The Great Depression: the first recipient of Great Depression "relief" was none other than J.P. Morgan & Co.!

I would recommend that you get a head start on reading that book.  It's an eye-opener to the methods and madness of the collectivist.  Such as, well......pretty much our entire government.

Further proof "conservatives" don't get it

I frequently receive email advertisements from NewsMax.com.  It's what happens when you don't pay attention to checkboxes when you "register" for a website.  I could unsubscribe.  But then I'd miss gems like this.

It is remarkable that Theodore Roosevelt (TR to his friends), who has been beloved as an iconic patriot and president, would become a controversial figure today.

This unusual development is largely due to the rise of Glenn Beck.

Glenn has been right on many issues and his views are resonating with Main Street.

But he is wrong on one big issue: Theodore Roosevelt is not, as he claims, the root cause of President Obama’s intrusive, “big government” policies.

It is no accident that TR’s face is chiseled into Mount Rushmore along with those of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, as he is rightly regarded by historians as one of the greatest presidents in American history.

As TR himself might say, "Balderdash!"

TR is on Mount Rushmore because President Calvin Cooledge was adamant that, in addition to the Father of our Country, George Washington, the monument must include two additional Republicans and one additional Democrat.  Since Republican Presidents not named Reagan have been uniformly dreadful, TR was settled upon as the second Republican, the tyrant Abraham Lincoln being the first.

Notice that the two Democrats chosen for the monument had been dead in the neighborhood of 100 years at the time they were chosen.  You really do have to go back that far to find a Democrat who was worth a damn.

Back to TR.

I've been reading a book called American Progressivism.  It's a tough read; it mostly consists of the speeches and political writings of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.  Mr. Ruddy, TR was everything Glenn Beck says he was.  He may even be worse than Beck has alleged.  Roosevelt was actually proposing grander Fascist policies during the 1912 Presidential campaign than Wilson was!  While Roosevelt may not have brought about the world's first Fascist government -- that was left for Wilson to accomplish -- he was instrumental in setting the table for Wilson's abuses.

So why is Ruddy so adamant in defending Roosevelt?

A few words of disclosure here: I am an ardent Theodore Roosevelt devotee and have been a longtime member of the Theodore Roosevelt Association (the membership roster has me listed after another TRA member, Karl Rove).

And my brother, Daniel Ruddy, a historian, is the author of a new book called “Theodore Roosevelt’s History of the United States” (published by Harper Collins). It draws upon TR’s own words to construct a unique history of the United States based on Roosevelt’s colorful insights and provocative views.

Ah, now it becomes clear! His brother has written a "history" of Roosevelt. The word "history" is in scare quotes because we're all familiar with the kind of "histories" we get when authors with a predisposition to adulation for the subject of their work write.  They tend to produce slavering paeons that conveniently omit the subject's peccadillos.

Anyone who calls themselves a conservative but thinks that TR was peachy keen is no friend of freedom.  No one -- I repeat, NO ONE -- who loves freedom can justify the policies and pronouncements of this smug, "I know best what's good for you the sheeple" elitist a-hole.

Of course, that's the kind of disinformation we get from the Team Elephant mainstream these days.  Get used to it.  Because, notwithstanding all pronouncements to the contrary, this Elephant hasn't changed its spots.  It's every bit the Donkey Lite party in 2010 that it was in 2008.

Ron Paul as Rodney Dangerfield

I tell ya, he just don't get no respect.

Almost as interesting is that Ron Paul only lost to Romney by a single vote. It looks like the Paulistas continue to infiltrate these GOP conferences and demonstrate outsized influence.
[...]
Maybe it just reflects a fundamental split. A quarter just want someone who can win, a quarter want to completely overhaul the GOP in Paulist direction, and half are split up among various socially conservative long-shots.

Sorry, but no. You're completely wrong, wrong, wrong.

There are, in fact, a number of schizophrenic camps masquerading as Team Elephant.  But the breakdown (and boy do I mean breakdown) is more like this:

• Rockefellerite elitists
• All war, all the time Neocons
• Big government in our image Republicrats
• RINOs
• People who want to blow up the GOP and start over

Everyone from the first four categories hates Ron Paul.  H-A-T-E-S him.  Hates him to the point where they'd vote for a liberal Mormon who advocated a Massachusetts health care debacle before they'd vote for him.  Hates him to the point where they disparage his supporters as Paulistas (like some sort of insurgency) who "skew" the results of their precious straw polls.

But you "conservatives" just go ahead and continue to waste your votes on these creeps.  I'm the crazy one, because I walked away from Team Elephant when I realized that they didn't give a rat's ass about anything but the acquisition and exercise of power.  You know, just like the "bad guys", Team Donkey.

One final note on the SRLC.  Ron Paul upset the assembled Elephants by speaking the truth regarding the economic policies of Il Duce.

Republicans and tea party activists are fond of accusing President Barack Obama of being a socialist, but today party gadfly Ron Paul said they had it wrong.

“In the technical sense, in the economic definition, he is not a socialist,” the Texas Republican said to a smattering of applause at the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.

“He’s a corporatist,” Paul quickly added, meaning the president takes “care of corporations and corporations take over and run the country.”

Gadfly. There's that "no respect" thing again.

For those of you a little unschooled in economic systems, Corporatism is the official name of Fascism.  Fascism is the name that gained popularity as the description of the Corporatist economic model in the 1920's due to the success (to that point) of the original Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, in making it work.

But Team Elephant would rather Red bait than speak the truth, so Socialism it is.

Long time no post

Your friendly neighborhood Vulture has been under the weather of late.  The sinus infection from Hell has left me feeling like warmed-over carrion for the past several days.  And while warmed-over carrion might be considered a tasty snack for a scavenger bird, feeling that way isn't any way to go through life.

It's not like there's been much going on worth blogging about anyway.  Obama Mussolini-Care is now the law of the land - hey, how 'bout that?  Il Duce dissed Benjamin Netanyahu - hey, how 'bout that?  At least the administration is finally taking terrorism seriously...oh wait, no they're not - arresting "Christian militia" members in Michigan?  Seriously?

If it seems like I'm maybe a little disconnected from the events of the day, it might be because I am.  I hear a lot of "blah, blah, blah" regarding our government's steady march to Fascism (which the TV blathering heads insist on mis-labeling as "Socialism"), but I don't see much in the way of action.  I hear a lot more about how awful the health care takeover will be for the economy than about how it destroys what's left of our personal liberties.  I guess so-called "conservatives" would be happy with the legislation if it only took away our freedoms but restored the economy.  Or am I misreading the situation?

In any regard, I thought I should post SOMETHING today, just so you'd know I'm still out there (some might say "WAAAAAAAY out there", but that's their interpretation).  I'll post again soon once my health and my attitude are doing better.

CPAC shocker

Will wonders never cease? The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) presidential straw poll wasn't won by that phony Mitt Romney. It wasn't won by that phony Mike Huckabee. It wasn't even won by whiny "you hurt my feelings talking about retards" Sarah Palin. It was won by the man himself.

U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, a stalwart foe of government spending, won a blowout victory Saturday in the annual Conservative Political Action Conference presidential straw poll.

With participants naming "reducing the size of federal government" as their top issue, the 74-year old libertarian hero captured 31 percent of the 2,400 votes cast in the annual contest, usually seen as a barometer of how the GOP's conservative wing regards their potential presidential candidates.

Right on Dr. Paul! And right on Young Conservatives.

Paul's victory might be seen, in part, as a result of his support among anti-establishment Tea Party activists -- who turned out in force at this year's conference and expressed some frustration with the Republican Party.

Reflecting the college atmosphere of the annual event, young people dominated the voting: 54 percent of participants were between the ages of 18 and 25.

It seems that the generation that will get stuck with the bill for government's profligacy wants its voice heard.

Team Elephant's neocommie wing had a beef with the poll results.

The announcement of Paul's win, a surprise victory unlikely to have a major impact on the 2012 presidential contest, drew a volley of loud boos from the CPAC audience.

"How dare those impudent curs vote against our platform of fascism (albeit implemented more slowly than it has been by Il Duce) and war without end!"

Two positive things or one negative thing can come out of this straw poll. Guess which I'm betting will happen?

• More and more mainstream Elephants will get behind Ron Paul and his vision of a return to Constitutional government.
  


• The Rockefeller wing of Team Elephant will kick and scream and fight, driving the Tea Party wing to split and form a third party with Dr. Paul as its standard bearer.
  


• The Rockefeller wing of Team Elephant will rig the next straw poll to favor a candidate more to the liking of the oligarchical elite that has run the party since...well, for as long as I can remember.

Team Elephant hasn't got the brains to see the writing on the wall. They will once again buck the will of the party faithful in favor of the party elite and push forward with their stubborn neo-commie agenda and slate of bland, phony-baloney candidates. They're too stubborn and too stupid to realize the gift that Il Duce has laid in their laps that could lead to them dominating the political scene for generations if they'd only listen and act accordingly.

Expect Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee in 2012. Trust me on this one.

Missed it by that much

Right about now Il Duce is feeling the sting of defeat. And the Vulture is enjoying the bliss that is schadenfreude. Why? Because health care legislation the forcible take-over of 1/7 of the American economy by the federal government has gone down in flames.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday that she lacks the votes to move the Senate's bill through the House and to Obama's desk. Under a plan backed by the White House, the new law would be followed by a separate measure making changes sought by House members, such as easing the Senate's tax on higher-cost health plans.

"Air Force 3" lacks the votes? But...the American people demand government health care! Il Duce said so!

The turning point? No surprise there: it was the election of Scott Brown as Senator in Massachusetts.

Pelosi, D-Calif., spoke to reporters after House Democrats held a closed-door meeting at which participants vented frustration with the Senate legislation.

Many rank-and-file Democrats said the stunning defeat in this week's Massachusetts special election — in which Republicans captured the Senate seat held for decades by the late Edward M. Kennedy — meant it was time to seek more modest health legislation.

Let me translate. Team Donkey Congresspukes saw one of their own go down in flames in the most liberal place in America outside of Berkeley, and it occurred to them that their cushy gig in Washington would surely meet a similar fate if they were caught on the wrong side of the steaming legislative turd crafted by "Air Force 3" and Harry Reid.

One vote. One special election turned the tide. Pelosi and Reid and Il Duce were simply going to hijack 1/7 of our nation's economy, the people be damned. One vote saved us from that.

We missed this fate by the narrowest of margins (as Maxwell Smart would say, "Missed it by that much!"). We just missed having our very lives consigned to Der Staat, signed, sealed, and delivered. We would have gone from citizens to property overnight.

Now is the time to ponder whether Il Duce is a skilled politician or simply an ideologue who's in way over his head. As I wrote prior to Duce's inauguration, he can overreach and recover, like Clinton. Or he can overreach and expose himself as a simpleton W-A-A-A-A-Y out of his league, like Carter. Or - the worst scenario of all - he can go all Woodrow Wilson on us and unleash the deadly power of Der Staat against its citizenry.

Interesting times. Interesting times indeed.

Vulture Droppings - Il Duce's first year in office

Vulture Droppings is a semi-regular feature of this blog. It's a kind of "Random Thoughts" post in which I try to quickly summarize a particularly large event or series of events. Think of it being sort of like what a vulture leaves behind after devouring a horse. You don't get the whole horse, just highly processed leftovers.

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It's been 1 year since Il Duce took his oath of office. 1 year ago, Il Duce put his hand on the Bible and swore that he would uphold the Constitution. And he has - if by "uphold" you mean "wipe your ass with it".

This special edition of Vulture Droppings is a look at the Obama presidency, year 1. And what a year it's been.

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The following is a list of Il Duce's greatest achievements from his first year in office.

* sound of crickets chirping *

Uh.....yeah.

Even the Associated Press expressed dismay with the lack of tangible achievements from the President's first year in office in a piece entitled "After year, hope turns into disappointment."

Forget "can," "change" and, above all, "hope." The new word echoing in the blogosphere and beyond as Obama enters Year Two: disappointment.

Disappointment may be the word of the day for supporters of the One World Socialist Utopia, but the rest of us are left jaws agape at the magnitude of overreach perpetrated by Big Media's (the BM for short) Chosen One.

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Where to begin describing the voracious magnitude of Il Duce's grasping? Here's the short list - I'm sure I've forgotten something.

• The nationalization of 2/3 of the American automobile industry
• The nationalization of a large number of financial institutions
• A cabinet full of tax cheats and grifters
• A racist Supreme Court appointee
  
• A gargantuan, monstrous stimulus package (read: corporate welfare)
  
• The decision to treat terrorists as criminals, complete with the rights guaranteed to American citizens
• A Nobel Peace Prize for.........hmmm, I STILL haven't figured that one out yet
  
• Cap-and-Trade legislation
• The Hopenhagen "deal" (non-binding, thankfully) for reducing greenhouse gases
  
• Escalation of the war in Afghanistan (breaking a campaign promise in doing so)
  
• Nationalized health care (read: the forced takeover by the federal government of 1/7 of the American economy)
• Trillion-dollar deficits as far as the eye can see
  

Now, in fairness, it must be noted the the nationalization of the automotive industry and financial institutions was simply a logical continuation of King George the Dim's policies. It must also be noted that Mr. Obama inherited Afghanistan.

But the rest of it is all Duce's - every last fetid, steaming, freedom-sapping piece of it.

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Il Duce's stunning affinity for the fascist (or corporatist) economic model has been breathtaking. Many mistakenly call Duce a socialist or communist. Oh no, not he! He is a National Socialist in the tradition of Mussolini, Franco, Peron, and, of course, Hitler.

Mind you, I want to make clear that Duce's comparison to Hitler is economic only -- at least for now. We'll see if he goes "Woodrow Wilson" on us as his plans for the reinvention of America begin to run into increased opposition.

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So what can we expect in the coming year? It's hard to say, particularly today, when Massachusetts (WHA-WHA-WHAT?!?!?!?!) has elected a Republican to Teddy Kennedy's seat in the senate. There have been more documented Bigfoot sightings than Republicans elected to the Senate by Massachesetts, for crying out loud! I didn't think anyone could top Bill Clinton's feat of losing the House of Representatives to the Republicans after 40 years of Team Donkey control; this may, in fact, be bigger than that.

The fallout has been stunning. Many Donkeys are running for cover, not wanting any part of the healthcare legislation that Scott Brown used as the fulcrum to pry Kennedy's seat away from the Donkeys.

Il Duce insists that he is going to stick to his agenda. Apparently, that would include even more nationalization of private businesses, starting with student loans. It remains to be seen if Donkey party members of Congress will play along after losing the People's Republic of Taxachusetts.

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So here's hoping that the DoublePlusGoodHopeChange we were promised dies a quick and painful death before our nation does. The 2010 elections can't come soon enough.

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Weekend wrapup

Ah, the weekend that was! 50 degrees and beautiful on Saturday, 40 degrees and rainy on Sunday. And thank God it was 40 degrees! Had the temps been 10 degrees colder, we'd have had about 1 1/2 to 2 feet of snow!

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Boy can the Vulture pick 'em! I was wrong on EVERY SINGLE GAME played in the Divisional Playoffs this weekend. Thank God I'm not a gambler - I would have lost my shirt!

The Cardinals started it off with a thud by playing the absolute worst defense in playoff history against the Saints. Then the Ravens laid an egg. Then the Cowpukes dropped a cow pie. And then the Norv Turner Project once again did what the Norv Turner Project does best - choke away the big one.

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And while we're on the subject of "choke" - how about that Pro Bowl kicker, Nick Kaeding? He gacked away 3 - count 'em, 3 - kicks, including one that would have made it a one-score game. When you look at Kaeding, Neil Rackers, and Shayne Graham, and their "performances" in this year's playoffs, I think it's safe to say that we may have witnessed the 3 least clutch performances of the 21st century in one playoff year.

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Boy are the Cowboys a big bunch of babies! Keith Brooking took umbrage yesterday when the Vikings put up a late touchdown with the game already firmly in hand. Hey, Keith! As Lou Holtz once said, "It's our job to score points. It's their job to stop us from scoring points." So stop QQ'ing and man-up!

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Am I the only one who was damn sick and tired of hearing about Haiti every 15 minutes during the football games? Yeah, they had an earthquake. Yeah, they're butt-HURTing right now. We get it. Can we PLEASE watch the games - our escape from the real world - without getting your faux sensibilities thrust in our faces? Please?

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Team Donkey is really sweating this Massachusetts special election for "Ted Kennedy's" seat. Wassa matta, Donkeys? Afraid you won't be able to ram any more fascism down our throats without your supermajority?

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Monday. It's like a glass of ice water in the face. Bye, weekend!

Wiener of the Year - 2009

It's time for the least prestigious unknown award currently offered on the old WWW - The Vulture's Wiener of the Year.

I started with a list of potential nominees I considered to be quite deserving. Toes made some suggestions of her own.

My nomination for WotY is the Prezbo. Second is a 3 way tie between Pelosi-Reid-Nepolitano. Can't forget Al Gore or the Nobel Committee

All good candidates, all deserving of the dishonor.

Before I name the Wiener, I'd like to give appropriate "props" to the also-rans.

• President Obama, Il Duce to you regulars. What an MCF of a presidency this guy has had so far! Stimulus dollars for his well-heeled buddies. The Fascist takeover of a large portion of the financial sector and 2/3 of the Big Three auto makers. Special deals for his "friends" buried in the disastrous health care reform Fascist takeover of 1/7 of the nation's economy. And let's not forget his participation in the grotesque charade that is the AGW myth. He's awful, and most deserving of a Wiener.
  


• Al Gore and his sycophants who comprise Big Warming. Not even the smoking gun of the leaked emails of faux scientists actively perpetuating fraud in the service of One World Socialist Utopia (AKA Climategate) has slowed Mr. Gore and his ilk from pursuing new ways to destroy the economies of the West and bring about their desired One World government. He's deserving of a Wiener; hell, he's deserving of a Lifetime Achievement Wiener!
  


• Pottawattamie County, Iowa, prosecutors. As I detailed last April, these execrable slimeballs deliberately hid exculpatory evidence that might have cleared two innocent men from prosecution for killing a police officer. For these lowlifes, winning the case took precedence over justice. They deserve to spend the same 25 years in jail that the two defendants endured. Wiener worthy? You bet!
  


• Congress. Where to begin? (I believe I used those same words for last year's detailing of Congress' Wiener qualifications). Ah, the accomplishments of this Congress! Nationalization of a large percentage of our nation's financial sector. Nationalization of 2 of the Big Three automakers. Passage of Cap and Trade. Passage of health care reform the fascist takeover of 1/7 of the nation's economy, pending committee resolution of the House and Senate bills. And let's not forget H.R. 4173, the "financial reform" legislation passed by the House earlier this month, which provides for as much as $4 trillion in emergency funding the next time Wall Street crashes. God help us when these avaricious clowns are in session. Most Wiener-worthy, particularly leaders Nancy "Air Force 3" Pelosi and Harry Reid.
  


• Big Media (the BM for short). These Il Duce-worshiping tools have been most successful at ignoring news that is inconvenient to his royal worship's dismantling of our economy. They've also managed to almost completely ignore Climategate. Virtually all news related to Climategate and its particulars has come from the British press. The BM should be ashamed. As I wrote last year, they are, collectively, as pompous, imperious, and out-of-touch a group of people as anyone on this planet outside of Congress. Their Wiener-cred is unchallengeable.
  


• Judge Barbara Walther (last year's Wiener). She has done everything in her power to steamroll through convictions against FLDS men accused of crimes in the wake of the militaristic (and questionably Constitutional) raid on the Yearning for Zion ranch last year. She has shown her true colors as an authoritarian who wipes her ass with the Constitution. She is worthy of a Wiener, but more appropriately deserves prison time for judicial malpractice.
  


• The Team Elephant establishment, who insist on marginalizing populists like Ron Paul and Sarah Palin in favor of Rockefellerite losers. There will be no two party system in this country so long as elitists run the Republican party. Wieners? You betcha.
  


• The Team Donkey establishment. The party of John Kennedy, Scoop Jackson, and Hubert Humphrey is now the party of Bill Ayers, ACORN, and Nancy Pelosi. This is NOT a party interested in advancing America or American interests. They are all about establishing a One-World Socialist Utopia. The only question is whether they are more deserving of a Wiener or to be brought up on charges of treason.
  


• Janet Napolitano. What a waste of oxygen! From the minute she took her position as the head of the Department of Homeland Security (DHSS - you can't spell Schutzstaffel without the double S) she has been an epic fail. Her handling of the latest act of terrorism was epic in its incompetence. She needs to be fired. She's a walking example of what the Wiener award is all about.
  

This year's Wiener was chosen because of the harm that people like these pose to a free Constitutional republic (or, in the case of the USA, what REMAINS of a free Constitutional republic).

The 2009 Wiener of the Year is shared by two blogs: Caput Penitus Culus and FLDS Texas.

These two sites exist solely as a meeting place for bigots where they can share their bigotry in a little echo chamber.

They are openly hostile to arguments that bring their bigotry into question. They engage in the worst sort of character assassination imaginable against those whose views are different from their own. I was actually called a pedophile for simply opining on the Constitutionality of the YFZ raid!

Commenters who persist in questioning their views - particularly if those commenters match venom with venom - are banned as "trolls". There is no reaching these people with logic, reason, or even baseball bats.

So what makes them a threat to our Constitutional freedoms?

These are the very sort of people who made the Third Reich possible. They are people who are more than willing to attribute the worst sort of crimes to people different than themselves. They are people who are more than willing to see these scapegoated outsiders punished to the fullest regardless of what kind of shady actions were taken by the government to secure those convictions. All that matters to them is that the outsiders are punished (or, preferably, expelled).

They willingly sell our freedoms - particularly the 1st and 4th Amendments - just to assure that the government can "get" the outsiders. Then, as if that weren't enough, they pronounce legal justification for what has happened!

They are too caught up in their hatred and bigotry to figure out that they have imperiled anyone who is "different" in any way to be a target of voracious agents of der Staat. They're too stupid to realize that they've imperiled THEMSELVES.

You may disagree with my choice for WotY; if so, have at me via comments.

Congratulations, bastions of bigotry! You're the Wiener of the Year!

Better than WHAT?!?!?!

Has the DoublePlusGoodHopeChange jumped the shark? Apparently it has, so much so that even King George the Dim's dismal reign is seen as preferable to 44% of a recent poll's respondents.

Perhaps the greatest measure of Obama's declining support is that just 50% of voters now say they prefer having him as President to George W. Bush, with 44% saying they'd rather have his predecessor. Given the horrendous approval ratings Bush showed during his final term that's somewhat of a surprise and an indication that voters are increasingly placing the blame on Obama for the country's difficulties instead of giving him space because of the tough situation he inherited.

Gee, what a surprise [/sarcasm].

It may well be the biggest insult that one can make to a President. "You suck so bad I'd rather have a dim-witted Neocon with the common sense of a lamp post than you."

Consider the question as posited by the pollsters. Which practitioner of Fascist economics would you prefer, the Neocon, or the Neo-Commie? It's like asking you about your preference for your own execution: death by fire ants, or death by drowning.

I noticed that the poll results didn't add up to 100%, so perhaps the missing 6% of respondents answered (as I would have) with a resounding, "You want me to pick one of those two bozos? Go sell crazy somewhere else!"

Wiener of the Week

You might notice that I haven't made a show of opining about the debacle that is Health Care "Reform". I've thought about it, but considered it redundant. After all, anyone who's ever read this blog knows how I feel about governmental intrusions into the lives of the American people.

But if, perchance, you're new around here or, God forbid, actually SUPPORT the government's attempted takeover of 1/7 of the American economy, to be run as a Fascist cooperative, you'll be enlightened when you read this post.

This week's Wiener is the person who may someday have the award named after her, she's received it so many times. I give you ChairTool Pelosi and her $15,000 "free" health care.

Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.
[...]
Speaker Pelosi’s decision to leave in the jail time provision is a threat to every family who cannot afford the $15,000 premium her plan creates.
[...]
According to the Congressional Budget Office the lowest cost family non-group plan under the Speaker’s bill would cost $15,000 in 2016.

$15,000 is a small price to pay for trading in the Cadillac of health care for what will soon become the same nightmare of waiting and rationing that the British and Canadians now endure. Not to mention that we will be handing over to government lackeys the power of life and death over us once we reach a certain age or if we contract a disease whose treatment cost is deemed excessive.

Now THERE is "change you can believe in" [/sarcasm].

Nancy "Air Force 3" Pelosi, you're the Wiener of the Week.

Attempted balance

In a post last week, I excoriated the Left for their penchant for GroupThink. I certainly stand behind what I wrote. But it did get me thinking. Well, that and the Team Elephant leadership and their BS "big tent" (read: "Donkey Lite") electoral philosophy.

GroupThink isn't limited to Leftists. Life-long Republicans are just as guilty. "What?!?!?!?", you say. "Not ME!!!" Really? Answer honestly, dear Republican. Have you ever said or thought:

• A vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for the Democrat.
• A vote for a third-party candidate is a wasted vote.
  
• It doesn't matter who the candidate is, I vote for the guy with the 'R' after his name.
• Our nation's well-being can only be assured by Republicans.
• A RINO (i.e. John McCommie, Olympia Dukakis) is STILL better than a Democrat.
• The Republican party has the REAL interests of America at heart.
• Oh, he just says that stuff during the election to get moderate votes - he doesn't really BELIEVE those things; after all, he's a Republican.

If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, you need to take a little quiet time to think things through. Because Team Elephant is led by individuals that are every bit as venal as those from Team Donkey and Team Elephant's record on ethics is every bit as tawdry as that of the Donkeys.

The fact is that every one of the statements in the bullet points is demonstrably false. A vote for a third-party candidate? It's an absolute DUTY for individuals in this country to vote their conscience and to vote for candidates -- regardless of party -- who reflect their beliefs. The only wasted vote is a vote for some despicable assclown for the sole reason that they have an 'R' after their name. If you have to hold your nose in order to vote for a candidate (i.e. John McCommie) then YOU'VE wasted your vote, NOT the individual who voted third-party.

RINOs have made much of the road to serfdom under a Fascist economic system possible. RINOs have made the abuses of the Education Department possible. RINOs -- particularly NeoCons -- made King George the Dim's Eternal War possible.

The bullet point that you need to rethink more than any other is this one: "Oh, he just says that stuff during the election to get moderate votes - he doesn't really BELIEVE those things; after all, he's a Republican."

It was THAT little gem of illogic that got King George the Dim elected.

Understanding people (read: I don't) - UPDATED

Friday I made the colossal mistake of wading into a hornet nest. Coram Non Judice, or as I prefer to call it, Capus Penitus Culus (Latin for "head inside ass"), is the hornet nest of which I speak. WHY I bothered to go there and try to reason with those people is beyond me, but go there I did.

TxBluesMan (or as I like to call him, the Caput a Palos - THAT, I will not translate; suffice it to say it's not very nice) is the proprietor of that blog. Who is he? Who knows? See, his thing is to blog anonymously. In what passes for his mind, he is simply following in the tradition of "Franklin, Hamilton, Adams, et al during the founding days of our republic". Yes, that is a direct quote from the egomaniac.

Of course, the Founders wrote anonymously because the things they wrote had the potential to get them arrested, imprisoned, or even killed by agents of the King. The things that the Caput a Palos writes certainly do NOT meet any comparison to the founders. Let me count the ways.

• He presents himself as some sort of legal expert. Of course, by blogging anonymously, his actual legal credentials are unknown.
• He slanders commenters who disagree with him. More on that follows.
  
• He writes horrible, ugly things about the FLDS and those who support them.
• He is extraordinarily rude, egomaniacal, and verbally abusive.
• He has "outed" (revealed the identity of another anonymous blogger) or attempted to "out" (in my case) others while treating his own anonymity as sacrosanct.
  

The truth is this: if the Caput a Palus wrote the ugly things he writes "in the clear", with his name, city of residence, and picture prominently displayed on his blog page (like, for example, MINE), I don't believe he'd write the way he does. He's not blogging anonymously in some sort of altruistic mission like that of the Founders. No, he's blogging anonymously because he's a coward and a bully.

Among the slanderous and abusive things the Caput a Palos has written about me (never mind others whose opinions he disagrees with) - in complete anonymity, remember - include:

• That I am pro-pedophilia and pro-polygamy
• That I am a wannabe lawyer (As if! I hold lawyers in utter contempt - and the Caput a Palos has done nothing to change that opinion)
• That I am a "religious nut"
• He mocked the very idea of a computer programmer like me expressing an opinion on legal matters - only the opinions of "lawyers" are valid in matters of law in his view
• Responding to a commenter who alleged that I was one of those people who are concerned about our own rights but tend not to want others to have rights, he wrote, "Only if they are Protestant - they tend not to be very tolerant."
• His latest: that I support the right of the FLDS to molest children
  

He, anonymously, writes vile accusations about me and others, who are not anonymous. If that's not cowardly, I don't know what is.

His sycophantic commenters are every bit as vile as he is; they've accused me of being menopausal, questioned my sexual preference, accused me of being a pedophile, and accused me of being a bad Christian.

That his commenters disrespect me is of little importance, except in this regard. They have made me even more aware of a basic flaw in human beings. When a core belief or deeply held prejudice is challenged by someone else, no matter how logical or persuasive the arguments against it, they will NEVER change their minds. N-E-V-E-R. They may not have counter arguments that make a lick of sense. It matters not. They will shut down the conversation by either fleeing or in the manner of an enraged ape, by flinging feces. There was lots of feces flying yesterday.

Reflecting on this tendency, I have to say that I'm VERY pessimistic about the future. If you can't convince someone that even unpopular minorities like the FLDS have rights under the US Constitution, how in the world are we going to convince the TV Generation that our government is engaged in fascistic takeovers of the automobile industry, the banks, and - coming soon - health care?

Am I wrong? I think not.

By the way, there IS one existing picture of the Caput a Palos - and I've found it.

UPDATE:

It seems that the anti-FLDS community is full of...well, something. I was over exchanging views at the FLDS Texas blog and had most of my comments purged because I was labeled a "troll" by the administrator.

Folks on that site accused me of misogyny, bigotry, supporting the molestation of young women, hating women, trying to inflict my "man" opinions on others, and, once again, I had my sexual preference questioned (if I EVER meet that c***s***er Stamp, I'll show him which way I go!). For this, I get flagged as a troll.

It sort of makes my point, doesn't it? Try to change the strongly-held beliefs and prejudices of some people and you'll only get feces in the face.