A great article by Mark Steyn

I don't normally copy whole columns on this blog, but this is well worth reading.


Inaugural Disaster
We live in a permanent state of routine emergency, with taxpayers on the hook for the fix.

By Mark Steyn

In just about his last act as president, George W. Bush has declared Washington, D.C., a federal disaster area.

No, seriously. I’m not setting up some lame-o punchline here, like we used to do a decade back in the good old Monica days: “President Clinton today declared his pants a federal disaster area,” etc. What happened last week was that the Bush administration formally declared a federal emergency in the District of Columbia.

So what was it? An ice storm? A hurricane?

No, it’s the inauguration of his successor. The inauguration is scheduled to make landfall on Tuesday and wreak havoc all night long, as Category Five conga lines buckle highways round town and emergency busboy crews find themselves overwhelmed as they struggle to clear drained champagne flutes. So the mayor, Adrian M. Fenty, put in a request for more federal money, and, apparently, the easiest way to sluice the cash to him no questions asked was for the president to declare a state of emergency in the District and funnel however many extra gazillions he wants through FEMA—the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“I don’t know if anybody’s ever done that,” said Dana Perino, the White House press secretary.

Indeed. One reason why nobody’s ever done that before is that a presidential inauguration is not (to be boringly technical about it) an “emergency.” It’s penciled in well in advance—in this case, so well in advance that for years Democrats have been driving around with “1-20-09” bumper stickers on the back of their Priuses. Emergency-wise, that’s the equivalent of Hurricane Dan Rather wrapped around a lamppost in his sou’wester hanging there in eager anticipation every night for half a decade. Generally speaking, changes of government are “emergencies” only in the livelier banana republics, where this week’s president-for-life suddenly spots the machete-wielding mob scrambling over the palace walls so nimbly he barely has time to dial the Liberian branch of FEMA and put in a request for extra Portapotties and a rope-line management team.

The proposition that a new federal administration is itself a federal emergency is almost too perfect an emblem of American government in the 21st century. FEMA was created in the 1970s initially to coordinate the emergency response to catastrophic events such as a nuclear attack. But there weren’t a lot of those even in the Carter years, so, as is the way with bureaucracies, FEMA just growed like Topsy. In his first year in office, Bill Clinton declared a then record-setting 58 federal emergencies. By the end of the ’90s, Mother Nature was finding it hard to come up with a meteorological phenomenon that didn’t qualify as a federal emergency: Heavy rain in the Midwest? Call FEMA! Light snow in Vermont? FEMA! Fifty-seven degrees under cloudy skies in California? Let those FEMA trailers roll!

The Cato Institute’s James Bovard was struck by the plight of Vernon, Connecticut, a town ravaged in the winter of 1995–96 by, er, slightly more snow than they’d expected. So FEMA sent them a check for $40,023. Vernon had 30,000 people, and its town snow-removal costs that winter were $258,000. “That’s just $8.60 per person,” Bovard pointed out, “less than a 12-year-old charges to shovel out a driveway after a good snowfall.”

So why did they need “federal emergency” aid? Because the town had budgeted only $104,516, and so claimed to be “overwhelmed” by the additional costs. Town officials could have asked the good burghers of Vernon to chip in an extra five bucks apiece. But why bother when FEMA’s so eager to give you a warm bath in the federal love nectar? The town government wised up pretty quickly. The next winter, they set the snow-removal budget at just $69,383.

So a “federal emergency” is no longer a nuclear strike on Cleveland or even a Category Three hurricane, but now a snowfall in New England and an inaugural ball at the Mayflower Hotel. As Mister Incredible shrewdly observes to his kid in The Incredibles, when everybody’s special, nobody is. Likewise, when everything’s an emergency, nothing is: We live in a permanent state of routine emergency.


The metastasizing of FEMA teaches several lessons—the first and most obvious being that any new government program, agency, or entitlement will always outgrow whatever narrow purpose it was created for. Which is why we small-government types are wary of creating any new ones in the first place. Thus, an itsybitsy bit of inconsequential government tinkering on the periphery of the mortgage market expanded to the point where federally mandated home loans to the uncreditworthy came close to collapsing not just the U.S. property market but the global financial system.

If you had suggested in the 1970s a new federal agency to cope with municipal snow removal in Connecticut, you’d have been laughed out of the room. But, with government, mission creep isn’t a bug but the defining feature. In mid-September, the “bailout” was a once-in-a-lifetime emergency measure to save the planet. A mere four months later, it’s the new baseline. If your congressman’s lousy boondoggle has got six zeroes on the end, it’s an earmark: Boooooooooo! If it’s got twelve zeroes, it’s a “stimulus”: Hurrah!

I’m not worried about “change” so much as creep. The Obama administration doesn’t have to do anything terribly transformative—overnight socialization of health care, etc. In fact, it doesn’t have to do anything at all. It could just sit there, and America would still drift remorselessly, incrementally left, inch by inch. Eventually, you reach a tipping point: At some point in the next four years, we will reach a situation where the majority of Americans pay no federal income tax but are able to vote themselves more goodies from those who do. The most basic of conservative principles is that if you reward bad behavior you get more of it. We now have a government offering trillion-dollar rewards for bad behavior to the financial system, to the housing market, to the auto unions, and to individual voters. And the heirs to those Connecticut town meetings that Tocqueville regarded as the best form of government ever devised by man now underbudget their snow-removal costs secure in the knowledge that the Feds will pick up the tab.

We’re now told that the problem with the last New Deal is that it was too small, so Obama’s new New Deal has to be even bigger. That’s like telling New Orleans that the problem is they’re not far enough below sea level so they need to dig deeper. If Washington is now a federal disaster area, it would be nice to think of Barney Frank and the gang waving from the roof of the Capitol until they can be evacuated somewhere safe, like one of the outlying South Sandwich Islands or Charlie Rangel’s vacation property in the Dominican Republic. But, alas, Washington is one of those disaster-relief cases where they get the relief and the rest of us get the disaster. As the incoming president has said, this is the worst crisis since . . . oh, at least the great Vernon, Connecticut, snowfall of 1996. To facilitate the stimulus, I urge him to declare every American his own individual federal disaster area.

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I find it highly ironic that the media keeps calling for all Americans to support and embrace our new President when the media (the left wingers) can't even show a modicum of decency and respect toward the man who has led our nation for the last 8 years. Shameful.

Disturbing...

From the President-Elect Obama's website.

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

Requiring community service it not service. Service should be voluntary, encouraged sure, but not required. What's next? Will I be required to put my kids in day care in order to meet my service requirements? As a taxpayer, I feel like I do quite enough for the government already. Whatever happened to liberty, the right that our constitution was founded on? Whatever happened to allowing the spirit of service to flourish in our communities? I feel like I am constantly trying to keep the government's grubby little hands off my property (my time, my money)and it's making me really resentful of all the service I'm already required to do. We already work for the government for over half the year before we get to save any money for ourselves. Why can't I spend my money and time in a way I would choose? I want to gracious and generous with my money, but it's starts to get a little unreasonable, when the government decides that I need to be generous too. Now they want me to volunteer to serve the community and require young kids to do the same. I'm exasperated to say the least and probably exhausted by my already burdensome responsibilities. Perhaps if tax rates were lower, we could afford to be more generous with both our time and money. Sorry for the rant, I'm just sick and tired of the government trying to make us do things that aren't in the constitution. Our government was founded on the premise that every man (and woman) is endowed with the natural rights of life and liberty. The constitution went one step further to protect individual property rights. Our government is supposed to "provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity." It is not supposed to require 50 hours of community service every year. Where does this nonsense end? 100 hours of community service?

Worst 2 day decline since 1987.

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) -- U.S. stocks slid, sending the market to its biggest two-day slump since 1987, after jobless claims jumped and the shrinking economy crushed earnings at companies from Blackstone Group Inc. to News Corp.

Blackstone, the largest private-equity firm, fell 12 percent after posting the biggest quarterly loss in its 18 months as a public company. News Corp. sank 16 percent after the media company controlled by Rupert Murdoch said ad sales decreased. Chevron Corp. fell 6.4 percent as oil tumbled to a 19-month low, while an unexpected decrease in chain-store sales dragged down 25 of 27 shares in the S&P 500 Retailing Index.

``We're a long way from the end of the economic challenges,'' said Mike Morcos, who helps manage $1 billion at Old Second Wealth Management in Aurora, Illinois. ``Earnings next year are going to be significantly lower and estimates are going to continue to come down.''

It's going to get a lot worse, I predict. Full story HERE.

Conceding victory

First, I would like to congratulate President-Elect Obama. It is no small feat to run for President and receive the votes of 63 million people. You weren't my pick, but you prevailed and will be my President. Second, I would like to thank Senator McCain for being most gracious in his concession speech.

In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

I've always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Senator Obama believes that, too.

But we both recognize that, though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation's reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters.

America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.

AND

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

Read the whole speech here.

To my conservative friends, read this.
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Freedom of Choice Act

President Elect Obama has promised that the first thing he would do as President is to sign this piece of legislation. Thee FOCA would remove any state restriction whatsoever to abortion.

HERE is the bill.

I don't watch the news on television anymore. In fact, I would have to think long and had about the last time I even turned the TV on. Why don't I watch it? Well, I stopped watching it after Sarah Palin was selected as McCain's VP. The news media tried so hard to destroy her. Was the down-syndrome baby really hers? How could she be a mom AND a Vice President... Who does this hick/beauty queen small town mayor think she is?????? And so on. No, they could not bother with her policies or political positions. They had to destroy her FAMILY, her lifestyle. I thought liberals were the open-minded ones. I'm so done with mainstream media. If she is giving a speech, I would watch it on c-span. I can't stand the edited interviews, the selective reporting with the editorializing that fits a liberal agenda. All I have to say is that the media doesn't care at all about Barack Obama's past and it is pretty evident by the softball reporting of his campaign. They won't even go into his extreme liberal positions, his political friends, and the 3 times he voted to against life-saving/medical care for survivors of abortion!

Voter Fraud

I think people who commit voter fraud should go to jail.

What is a right?

HERE.

During the presidential debate Tuesday night, Barack Obama was asked if he thought health care was a “right.”

He said he thought it was a right. Well, if you accept that premise, I think you can ask some logical follow-up questions: Food is more important than health care. You die pretty quickly without food. Do we have a “right” to food in America? What about shelter? Do we have a “right” to housing? And if we do have a right to housing, what standard of housing do we have a right to? And if it is a right, due to all Americans, wouldn’t that mean that no one should have to accept any housing, or health care, which is inferior to anyone else’s… since it’s a right?

Do we have a right to be safe? Do we have a right to be comfortable? Do we have a right to wide-screen televisions? Where does this end?

See, by taking something to a ridiculous extreme, we can illuminate the problem here… what is a right? How do we know? What’s the difference between the right to free speech — which is enshrined in the Constitution — versus the “right” to health care, which is not?

Well, back in the day, we would simply say that a right has legal authority — it’s in the Constitution and therefore it’s a not just a right, it’s a birthright. So why shouldn’t we amend the Constitution to include the rights to health care, food, housing, education — all the rest? What’s the difference between the rights we have and the “rights” Obama wants to give us?

Simply this: Constitutional rights protect us from things: intimidation, illegal search and seizure, self-incrimination, and so on. The revolutionary idea of our Founding Fathers was that people had a God-given right to live as they saw fit. Our constitutional rights protect us from the power of government.

But these new so-called “rights” are about the government — who the Founders saw as the enemy — giving us things: food, health care, education... And when we have a right to be given stuff that previously we had to work for, then there is no reason — none — to go and work for them. The goody bag has no bottom, except bankruptcy and ruin.

Does that ring a little familiar these days? Because isn’t the danger here that if you’re offered something for nothing… you’ll take it?

Only it’s not something for nothing. “Free” health-care costs us something precious, and no less precious for being invisible. Because there’s a word for someone who has their food, housing and care provided for them… for people who owe their existence to someone else.

And that word is “slaves.”