Was the “Restoring Honor” Rally the Biggest Ever in DC?

Glenn Beck remarked during the 8-28 “Restoring Honor” rally that he believed this was the largest attended private event in Washington DC history.

My wife and I attended both the 9-12 March on Washington in 2009 and this past weekend’s 8-28 rally. From my subjective analysis, I believe it can be shown that the attendance at the Glenn Beck rally was roughly equivalent to the 9-12 march, which was estimated to be approximately 1.5 million people. It is possible that the 8-28 rally had the potential to be even bigger.

All DC hotels were sold out during both of these events. On neither of these dates were there any other large events taking place which would have significantly competed for hotel space (other than Al Sharpton’s gathering of 3,000 people on 8-28, who I am assuming were mostly locals).

Parking in DC is very limited, and many of the roads in the city were closed off for these events. Therefore, car and bus access was maxed out. Most of the attendees were transported by car or bus to Metro stations outside of the city. At these stations, access is limited to the maximum possible occupancy of each railcar. Thousands of people stood for hours in interminably long lines trying to buy Metro tickets.

We drove to the Vienna, VA station at the very end of the Metro Orange line. Arriving early in the morning, we got into line outside the station while it was still only a few hundred feet long. Behind us, it grew further than the eye could see. Four lines of this size fed into the station entrances. Underneath the walkway, Interstate 66 was a virtual parking lot stretching over the horizon, a sea of vehicles attempting to get to the overflowing Metro parking lot.

After about two hours, we made it to the ticket machines. There were five of them for the whole station. The one I attempted to use had run out of regular tickets, so I had to purchase day-passes.

Once finally inside the Metrorail, people filled every square inch of space in each car. With human flesh packed so tightly together, it was a good thing we were all there to “restore honor”.

Unfortunately for all of the people who had waited in line for hours at the subsequent stations, there was no room in any of the passing trains. I observed one brief struggle break out during the trip. As the doors opened at one of the stops, a man was violently pushed into our car by the crowd of frustrated commuters behind him trying to get in. Since there was nowhere to go, he shouted in pain as he was crushed between two solid walls of humanity.

The point of this is that DC is only capable of accommodating a finite number of people within any single day, and that maximum was attained on 8-28. My estimate is that at least one-third of the people waiting in the Metro station lines and stranded on the highways could not have made it there by 1:30 pm when the event ended. If the maximum number of attendees possible at a DC rally is about 1.5 million, then there were that many at the Beck rally and perhaps another half million who tried to attend but failed. My estimate might be flawed, but there is no way to accurately determine how many people may have attended the event if they had better access to the city.

As you can see, much of the Mall was standing room only.

Andrew Thomas aka Angel

As published in American Thinker

The Un-Mosqued Truth

Shared Sacrifice?

Should Republicans Surrender the War at Ground Zero?

Time Magazine’s Mark Halperin has just released an article that literally begs the Republican Party not to take advantage of the politically suicidal remarks made by President Obama in support of the “Ground Zero” mega-mosque. Mr. Halperin’s comments beg for a response. He writes:

Republicans have a strong chance to win the midterm elections without picking a fight over President Obama's measured words. And a national political fight conducted on the terms we have seen in the past few days will lead to a chain reaction at home and abroad that will have one winner — the very extreme and violent jihadists we all can claim as our true enemy.

In other words, don’t take advantage of Obama’s stupid gaffe as it will inflame tensions, divide the nation, and jihadists will be even madder at us than they are now.

The disingenuousness of this is galling. As the author pleads for Republicans not to divide the country for political gain, Democrats are actively inducing racial divisions and class warfare throughout the country to get themselves re-elected. The Iraq War itself became a political football in Democrat hands, exploited to grab political power at the risk of the lives of American troops in combat. “The ends justify the means”, is an integral part of the Democrat leftist political playbook. Appealing to Republicans’ civility to “do the right thing” as Mr. Halperin concludes in his piece, is blatant hypocrisy.

And the insinuation that preventing the building of the Ground Zero mosque is wrong because it will anger violent jihadists is ludicrous. I somehow get the feeling that Mr. Halperin was a very small, skinny kid, having at one time donated his daily lunch money to the local bully. In his mind, he did this so that the bully would not be upset with him. Unfortunately, the bully saw this as a sign of weakness, took his lunch money every day after that and beat him up anyway.

Democrats need to learn this lesson about radical Islam and other bullies: Appeasement begets extortion.

Republicans need to understand that the MSM is their sworn enemy and cannot be appeased by “civil” behavior. They need to learn to be as ruthless as Democrats on the political field of battle. As Mr. “Chicago Way” Obama said to his own party, “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.”

Andrew Thomas aka Angel
As published in American Thinker

The Tolerant President

Hippies Infiltrate the Political Class

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs got himself in some hot water this week by calling leftwing Democrats “crazy”, and saying that they all should be drug tested. The implication, I assume, is that Obama’s radical left supporters are a bunch of pot smoking ex-hippies.

Well, my curiosity was aroused. So I searched the photo archives of the Weather Underground and Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) for any evidence of anti-social behavior among the political class in their earlier days. After all, these are serious accusations. What I found (see picture below) was absolutely shocking. Shocking, I tell you!

Dems Orange Jobs Program

I Went Through the Congress With a Bill With No Name

WashingtonWatch reports that H.R. 1586 was so slapdashedly passed through the Senate before our dedicated representatives sped off to their vacations that they inadvertently left the name of the bill blank. Its official name is therefore “The_______Act of _______”. It is a spending bill that merely adds another $126.44 burden to every family in America.

The House of Representatives and President Obama are expected to quickly approve it without amendment. They are too busy to worry about such matters as how their actions affect the economy or the survival of the American middle class. Who has time to actually read a bill these days? And who cares, since legislation really has no meaning anymore? Everything passed by Congress now goes through the filter of Obama’s all-powerful executive administration and legion of czars to interpret the actual implementation. So it doesn’t have a name? It’s mind over matter: Congress doesn’t mind and you don’t matter.

I have a suggestion, however. How about “The [Irresponsible] Act of [An Out-Of-Control Government]”.

Andrew Thomas aka Angel
as published in American Thinker

The “Benign Dictatorship” of Barack Obama

Recently, I received a rare visit from my brother-in-law. He is a smart guy, having graduated valedictorian of his high school class and currently running a successful business of his own. Unfortunately, his politics run 180 degrees counter to mine, as he grew up in the socialist environment of his Swedish homeland.

As we talked about the weather and other neutral subjects, he stared into my library. Among my compilation of Holy Bibles and Vince Flynn novels, he noticed my Glenn Beck book collection. “Do you believe in that stuff?” he asked, giving me a repulsed look as though they espoused the philosophy of satanic pedophilia. “I do”, I replied resolutely. Upon which he began a long diatribe on his vehement hatred of George Bush and the fascist dictatorship he created.

President Obama, he declared, although he has his flaws, “means well.” I won’t go into my rebuttal of that statement, but his final thought on the matter was: “Of course, the perfect form of government is the benign dictatorship”.

I have been thinking about that perception for a while now. Not because I believe it’s true, but that it may help explain the motivations of the progressive leftists in this country. I am continually attempting to truly understand the conceptual thinking of progressives, as it is so foreign to my analytical personality. Like Star Trek’s Mr. Spock, I am driven by phenomenological facts and data. Progressives apparently can function with neither.

Over a year ago, I wrote about my theory that liberals “crave a master” who will instill stern discipline and mete out harsh punishments to a deserved citizenry. This was based on my belief that progressives have a predilection for “moral masochism”. While I still maintain the validity of this argument, I am beginning to understand that much of their apparently illogical craving for domination is actually agenda-driven.

To the committed progressive, the leftist priority agenda issues are so pure and righteous that the frustration of not having them immediately implemented is unbearable. For instance, “climate change” legislation is a progressive neo-religious life-or-death cause for which many would gladly give up all of their (and our) democratic freedoms and liberties to achieve.

The US Constitution is a preventer rather than an enabler of the progressive agenda, and therefore must be removed as an obstacle. Obama once called it a “charter of negative liberties”. And so the dream of a benevolent dictator who will powerfully push aside all opposition and enact just and virtuous laws throughout the land dwells in the psyche of the left.

Unfortunately, a “benign” dictatorship is an impossibility outside of a leftist’s skull, in what we call “reality”. Even the most perfect benign dictator in the universe, the God of the Book of Genesis, couldn’t make it work with Adam and Eve. Human beings will always succumb to the corrupt temptations of power.

But that doesn’t stop progressives from trying. There is no doubt that Obama has successfully amassed power to himself unlike any American president before him, in just his first eighteen months. To be fair, George Bush gave him a running start.

The fact that our normal American safeguards have thus far failed to contain this unprecedented expansion of executive power is itself deeply troubling. This failure is due in part to the fact that the executive branch has followed a determined strategy of obfuscating, delaying, withholding information, appearing to yield but then refusing to do so, and dissembling in order to frustrate the efforts of the legislative and judicial branches to restore a healthy constitutional balance.

So spoke Al Gore in a 2006 speech on the Bush administration’s abuse of the Constitution. He railed on about Bush’s power grabs, including the use of warrantless wiretaps and surveillance, efforts to control the internet, and imprisonment of citizens suspected of terrorism without an arrest warrant or due process.

Following in Bush’s footsteps but with a longer gait, Obama has maintained and expanded the wiretapping and surveillance of citizens’ communications, recently including warrantless seizure of private e-mails. He has been granted the power to shut down the internet at any time he deems necessary, and is working diligently to further control all communications through the FCC and his Marxist communications diversity czar, Mark Lloyd.

Most distressingly, Obama has reserved for himself the right to declare any US citizen a “terrorist”, and target them for assassination without a trial or due process. Homeland Security Chief Janet Napolitano has identified veterans, states-rights advocates, people who oppose abortion or illegal immigration, and members of right-wing groups as potential domestic terrorists. To paraphrase Newsweek magazine, “We are all terrorists now”.

The pieces of the “benign dictatorship” of Obama have been set into place. The two primary components are the gargantuan monstrosities known as ObamaCare and the Financial Reform Bill. They were intentionally designed to be indecipherable. Read the statements of our most brilliant legislative minds in Congress:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): "[W]e have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it…”

Rep. John Conyers (D-MI): “What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages…?”

Christopher Dodd (D-CT): "No one will know until this [financial reform bill] is actually in place how it works.”

An August 5th Wall Street Journal editorial on ObamaCare said this:

Earlier this week, the Congressional Research Service reported that the new bureaucracy the bill created is so complex and indiscriminate that its size is "currently unknowable." Capitol Hill's independent policy arm added that among "the dozens of new governmental organizations or advisory bodies," it is "impossible to know how much influence they will ultimately have."

The bottom line is that it doesn’t matter what is written in these convoluted legislative nightmares. They are merely concepts to be molded and interpreted in any way the administration desires. The people who will perform these interpretations are the very scary regulatory czar Cass Sunstein and history’s largest assembled collection of 60’s radicals appointed as government bureaucrats. They, along with Obama, are now in complete control of our lives.

Congressman Pete Stark (D-CA) may be an elitist and a fool, but I believe he is correct when he recently said, “The federal government, yes, can do most anything in this country.” He should have added, “…if it is corrupt enough”.

With a total disregard for the US Constitution and no discernable moral compass, Obama’s Chicago mob administration looks a lot like a dictatorship, but it is hardly “benign”. To use a clinical term, it is a “pathocracy”, i.e., a malignant government.

As Mr. Spock used to say, “Live long and prosper”. With ObamaCare and Financial Reform dictating our future, I fear we shall do neither.

Andrew Thomas aka Angel
edited version published in American Thinker

Homeland Security Proves Effective at Protecting Itself

For the Department of Homeland Security, “the system worked”. Over the past year, the DHS has tried to protect itself from annoying and unwanted requests for information they were legally required to provide through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), according to a report by AP:

For at least a year, the Homeland Security Department detoured requests for federal records to senior political advisers for highly unusual scrutiny, probing for information about the requesters and delaying disclosures deemed too politically sensitive, according to nearly 1,000 pages of internal e-mails obtained by The Associated Press.

Most disturbingly, the requesters themselves became targets of government investigation. FOIA documents are intended by law to be freely accessible to all American citizens upon request. The intent of the law is subverted if one becomes too intimidated to ask for the information due to the potential for government retribution. Per the report:

Career employees were ordered to provide Secretary Janet Napolitano's political staff with information about the people who asked for records — such as where they lived, whether they were private citizens or reporters — and about the organizations where they worked.

If a member of Congress sought such documents, employees were told to specify Democrat or Republican.

Coincidentally, this policy was immediately rescinded just as the AP got their hands on the DHS internal e-mails.

This subterfuge over FOIA requests is not unique. Requests have been ignored or refused by other government agencies under the Obama administration. Internal FCC letters concerning discussions of “talk radio” have been concealed from FOIA requests. Requests for climate change data from NASA have been denied. FOIA record requests were ignored by the Holder DOJ concerning the New Black Panther voter intimidation case. And of course all FOIA requests for Obama’s historical documents, particularly the infamous phantom birth certificate, have been vigorously fought in court and the requesters publicly ridiculed.

Update: The SEC has exempted itself from FIOA requests.

To me, this proves that cockroaches and progressives cannot stand the light of day.

Andrew Thomas aka Angel
edited version published in AmericanThinker.com

President's Political Poster Contest Entry

Remember November, Get Over October (Original video by Dark Angel)

Bros N the Hood

NASA Recognizes Islamist Contributions

Overturn the Arizona Immigration Law – Please!

I hope Obama and the Holder Justice Dept. succeed in their efforts to overturn the Arizona immigration law. This should happen, not because it is racist or unfair. But once the Arizona law is out of the way as a political football for the Progressive pro-amnesty crowd, the entire focus of culpability for the consequences of lax border security will be on Obama’s shoulders.

As highlighted by Frank Ross in BigJournalism.com, a 2006 report by the House Committee on Homeland Security spells out the escalating horrors occurring on the southern border. Drug cartels have become sophisticated paramilitary organizations, utilizing military weaponry and armor. They have taken control of border cities, ruthlessly kidnapping, torturing, raping, and murdering innocent US and Mexican citizens.

An even greater concern in the report is that 650 potential terrorists from “special interest countries” were caught crossing the border in 2006. Since federal law enforcement estimates that 10% to 30% of illegal aliens are apprehended, that means that literally thousands of suspected terrorists are smuggled into the US every year.

In fact, a Hezb'allah leader, Jameel Nasr, was arrested at his home this week by Mexican police, accused of organizing a terror network in conjunction with Mexican drug cartels. His home is in Tijuana, just a few miles from the California border. At least we can count on the Mexican authorities to protect Americans from Hezb'allah terrorism, if no one else.

The official estimates of all illegal aliens successfully entering the country across the Mexican border, many escaping criminal prosecution in their home countries, are as high as 10 million per year. Estimates of drugs smuggled annually into the US are as high as 2.2 million kilograms of cocaine and 11.6 million kilograms of marijuana, based on 2005 numbers.

The bottom line is that this is not likely to end well for us, even if the Arizona law is upheld. Unless they have a change of heart and act decisively, the Obama administration’s recalcitrance against protecting the border and the American people for rank partisan political reasons will become their undoing.

Andrew Thomas aka Angel
as published in AmericanThinker.com

Where our Stimulus Tax $$$ Have Gone

•$5 million to create a geothermal energy system for a shopping mall in Tennessee. The mall is over half empty of tenants and has had falling shopper attendance for years

•$1.57 million to Penn State University study fossils in Argentina

•$100,000 to a puppet theater in Minnesota

•$2 million to build a replica railroad tourist trap in Carson City, Nev.

•A boat cruise company in Chicago got almost $1 million to “combat terrorism”

•$500,000 went to Ariz. State Univ. to study ant genetics

•Another $450,000 went to Uinv. of Arizona to study ants

•Almost $400,000 went to Univ. of New York to pay students to drink beer and smoke marijuana for a study there

•$219,000 to the Nat’l Institute of Health to study if young people “hook-up” after getting drunk

•$210,000 to the Univ. of Hawaii to study bees

•$700,000 to crab fishermen in Oregon to pay for lost crab pots

•$5,000 a person tax rebate if you buy a new electric golf cart

•Up to $1 million went to prisoners in $250 stimulus checks

•$54 mil to a New York Indian tribe to run its casino

•$1 billion for a power plant in Mattoon, Illinois that is based on speculative science and may not even work

•$15 million to back-road bridges that get little traffic in Wisconsin

•$800,000 for a practically unused airport in Pennsylvania

•$3.4 million for an animal walk way under a road in Florida

•$1.15 million to install a guard rail for a lake that doesn’t even exist in Oklahoma

•$10 million to renovate a rail station that has stood unused for a decade

•$578,000 to battle homelessness in Union, New York even though the town says they have no homeless people there

•$233,000 to the Univ. of Calif. to study why Africans vote… in Africa

•$2 million to build a new fire house in a Nevada town that has no firemen

•North Carolina schools got $4.4 million for literacy and math coaches… to teach their teachers!

•$54 million for a railroad project in Napa Valley went to a minority-owned company that then hired a local construction company for half the price, pocketing the rest

•A California company was given $15 million in stimulus money to monitor water quality in a stream it was under indictment for polluting previously
 
See the original article in BigGovernment.com for the sources of the above information.  This man-caused disaster to our economy was for nothing but graft, corruption, and vote-buying.

Angel

Hope and Trains

The Leftist “Purification” Movement

To the contemporary conservative, progressive ideology is often murky and incomprehensible. It is very difficult for someone on the right to understand the apparently illogical and unrealistic machinations of the radical leftist mindset. Their political objectives, if achieved, inevitably lead to further demands for concessions toward an ever-greater ideological purity.

Something even darker and more malevolent is happening, however. The various radical leftist factions and special interest groups are rapidly coalescing into a global movement.

A comprehensive and enlightening treatise on this topic was recently published in Orbis, the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s journal of world affairs, written by University of Buffalo professor Ernest Steinberg. The article is titled, “Purifying the World: What the New Radical Ideology Stands For”. It will open your eyes and scare you to death.

In Steinberg’s analysis, from the historical ashes of failed fascist and communist regimes a new totalitarian ideology is emerging:

Though a mouthful, world purificationism would do well in expressing what the movement wants. It wants to achieve a grand historical vision: the anticipated defeat of imperial capitalist power in favor of a global network of beneficent culture-communities, which will empower themselves through grassroots participatory democracy, and maintain consistency across movements through the rectifying power of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations), thereby bringing into being a new era of global social justice and sustainable development, in which the diverse communities can harmoniously share an earth that has been saved from destruction and remade pristine.

The sworn enemy of the purifiers is simply referred to as “Empire” (preceding it with “the Evil” is not necessary, apparently). Empire’s evil manifestations are capitalism and Zionism. The geographical focus of purificationism’s hatred is the United States and Israel.

Steinberg compares the new movement to previous anti-capitalist and anti-Zionist movements:

Unmentionable for decades in progressive scholarly company, the similarity between totalitarianisms has once again received academic attention, in part because of interest in comparing Soviet, Maoist, Khmer, and Nazi genocides. The new work has renewed appreciation that fascism and communism did not just have similar regimes. They also shared parallel ideologies. […]

Convinced that they have this unique mission, they must motivate hatred of opponents. They carry out or at least legitimize ruthless violence. And they assert the privilege to shape life’s purpose and meaning for millions.

The purificationist dream is a world without borders, governed by a global network of NGO’s. Almost all current activist organizations containing the words “green”, “justice”, “peace”, or “solidarity” would find a position in the ruling structure. These NGO’s would gravitate toward forming a totalitarian regime since, as Steinberg points out, they are “unaccountable to an electorate and escape political checks and balances…”

Even more disturbing is the increasing coalition between progressivism and radical Islam. Steinberg’s piece includes a quote from George Galloway, a progressive British parliamentarian, when asked if Muslims and progressives could unite in a common cause:

Not only do I think it’s possible but I think it is vitally necessary and I think it is happening already. It is possible because the progressive movement around the world and the Muslims have the same enemies… They have the same interest in opposing savage capitalist globalization which is intent upon homogenizing the entire world turning us basically into factory chickens which can be forced fed the American diet of everything from food to Coca-Cola to movies and TV culture... So on the very grave big issues of the day—issues of war, occupation, justice, opposition to globalization—the Muslims and the progressives are on the same side.

To me, this sounds like a coalition between factory chickens and poultry butchers. But it exemplifies the unreality in the strategic thinking of progressives. They visualize a world of communities living in perfect harmony with nature and each other, with minimal industrial activity, no profit motive, and no greed. Everyone is tolerant of others’ beliefs (unless they are capitalists or conservatives). How they intend to deal with the violent intolerance of Islam toward other religions and cultures is not considered.

It is imperative to thoroughly understand this evolving ideological movement in order to effectively resist it. The socialist ideology is so pervasive that it will probably never be completely defeated. Time after time, it has been seemingly destroyed and discredited, only to rise again in a new incarnation. Its adherents play by no rules (other than Alinsky’s), and their ends justify any means required.

One issue that Steinberg does not address is the pervasive, unrelenting propaganda machine that constitutes the progressive mainstream media. As long as free-thinking individuals are misled and kept ignorant of the purificationist agenda, the infiltration of our institutions and the destruction of our freedoms and values will continue.

We who believe in capitalism, the US Constitution, and individual liberty must do everything possible to educate others and disrupt this movement. Otherwise, the sweet dreams of the purifiers will inevitably result in an unending totalitarian nightmare of global proportions.

Andrew Thomas aka Angel
as published in AmericanThinker.com

Steve Wynn Embraces the Horror

This is the best analysis of our current economic situation you will hear anywhere:

Capitalists Dance with the Devil and Get Burned

The phrase “useful idiots” has taken on new meaning with Obama’s betrayal of the Business Roundtable, an exclusive club of distinguished corporate CEO’s. Kimberley Strassel’s op ed in Friday’s Wall Street Journal reports that the Roundtable “worked closely with policy makers” in the Obama administration to help enact the Democrat agenda, and played a key role in getting Obama Care passed in Congress. They were outspoken in their support of new regulations, taxes, and green initiatives. It was almost as though they were a de facto arm of the Democrat Party, taking positions similar to SEIU, AARP, and ACORN.

What motivated these bastions of capitalism to sell their souls to the progressive movement? How does the Obama thugocracy get everything done? Through threats and bribes.

First, Obama threatened to discontinue tax breaks to evil American multinational companies who “ship jobs overseas”. Next, he dropped a carrot through Clinton minion Robert Reich: "The President needs the cooperation of many big corporations if he's going to get universal health insurance…He might be willing to take [the tax hikes] off the table if big corporations lend him active support . . ."

So naturally they folded like a deck of cards, helping to usher in the largest government expansion and takeover of the private sector economy in history. Then they learned how well appeasement worked for Neville Chamberlain.

Roundtable President John Castellani and his pals are now “shocked” to now find out that Obama had no intention of taking corporate tax increases off the table. $14 billion in new corporate taxes have been pushed through the House, with the promise of more business- and job-killing horrors to come.

And what does the NRA anticipate the result of their cave-in to congressional Democrats will be, acquiescing to a “carve-out” in the First Amendment perversion known as the DISCLOSE Act in return for their silent endorsement of the bill? Why should they think they won’t be screwed, just like the Business Roundtable and everyone else who runs up against our Chicago Way government? One group is getting screwed for sure – the American people.

When conservatives and capitalists sacrifice their principles to dance with the devil, everyone pays the piper.

Andrew Thomas aka Angel
as published in AmericanThinker.com

God, Socialism, and the Lowest Common Denominator

“Faith-based initiatives”, once anathema to the political left when promoted by President Bush in 2003, are now highly popular with the Obama administration. Not only do they embrace the once-reviled church-state relationship, Obama’s forces are now co-opting religious groups for the purpose of furthering their political and ideological goals. Former vociferous critics of this apparent infringement of church and state separation are amazingly silent. As TheocracyWatch.org stated in 2004, “Under the Bush administration, our country is experiencing a major transformation from a secular to a religious government.”

Now, Nancy Pelosi implores Catholic clergy to promote illegal immigrant amnesty from the pulpits and the EPA offers ministers “access to financing” for preaching the gospel of global warming.

Why are critics on the left silent? Because they understand that it is not Obama’s intention to transform “from a secular to a religious government”. It is to transform religion into a secular arm of the State to promote the tenets of socialism under the banner of “social justice”.

The radicalization of Islam is a prime example of the successful transformation of a religion into a government-controlled nightmare of evil. Could this happen to Christianity or Judaism? Absolutely, it has happened before. The Spanish Inquisition comes to mind. But are religious organizations and socialism natural partners? Is God a socialist? In a word, the answer is a resounding “NO”.

For centuries, Catholicism has been at odds with repressive regimes whose leaders understood that belief in God is a barrier against government control of the populace. The following was written in 1891 in the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII “On Capital and Labor”:

The elements of the conflict now raging are unmistakable, in the vast expansion of industrial pursuits and the marvelous discoveries of science; in the changed relations between masters and workmen; in the enormous fortunes of some few individuals, and the utter poverty of the masses; the increased self reliance and closer mutual combination of the working classes; as also, finally, in the prevailing moral degeneracy. […]

To remedy these wrongs the socialists, working on the poor man's envy of the rich, are striving to do away with private property, and contend that individual possessions should become the common property of all, to be administered by the State or by municipal bodies. […]

Socialists, therefore, by endeavoring to transfer the possessions of individuals to the community at large, strike at the interests of every wage-earner, since they would deprive him of the liberty of disposing of his wages, and thereby of all hope and possibility of increasing his resources and of bettering his condition in life. […]

And in addition to injustice, it is only too evident what an upset and disturbance there would be in all classes, and to how intolerable and hateful a slavery citizens would be subjected. The door would be thrown open to envy, to mutual invective, and to discord; the sources of wealth themselves would run dry, for no one would have any interest in exerting his talents or his industry; and that ideal equality about which they entertain pleasant dreams would be in reality the leveling down of all to a like condition of misery and degradation. Hence, it is clear that the main tenet of socialism, community of goods, must be utterly rejected, since it only injures those whom it would seem meant to benefit, is directly contrary to the natural rights of mankind, and would introduce confusion and disorder into the commonweal. The first and most fundamental principle, therefore, if one would undertake to alleviate the condition of the masses, must be the inviolability of private property.

Echoing Pope Leo XIII, noted Catholic priest Fr. John Corapi writes in his book, “Letters”, published in 2010:

At a time when it surely seems that capitalism has run amuck and poised the world on the edge of economic ruin, the temptation is very strong for the pendulum to swing too far left into the failed and immoral territory of socialism. Historically pure socialism has never worked, philosophically it cannot work, and morally it is inherently evil… The common error is to think that socialism helps the poor and disenfranchised… Rather, it reduces everyone to the same lowest common denominator of poverty and misery, while at the same time drying up the very sources of capital.

Socialism has never raised the standard of living or improved the moral complexion of a society. Instead, it lowers the economic and societal norms, as is occurring in Venezuela. The larger the social collective, the lower its common denominator will be.

We are now witnessing the fall of socialist Europe. Greece, their weakest link, becomes the lowest common denominator. Like mountain climbers tethered together by a rope, first Greece loses its grip and falls. The higher European nations are dragged off the cliff one by one. They are all equally flattened at the bottom of the mountain. Social justice and economic equality prevails.

The only positive outcome of this collapse is that it may temporarily slow the march toward global governance once the inevitable consequences become evident. One can only imagine the lowest common denominator environment in a global socialist regime. Perhaps Somalia will be the model for society in the dystopian future. The US must untie the rope before it is dragged into the abyss with the rest of the international socialist mountain climbers.

Greek labor unions are rioting on the streets of Athens. On May 5th, the protesters fire-bombed a bank, killing three people. After last week’s episode of an angry SEIU mob protesting at a private residence in Maryland, is it so hard to envision the union-driven anarchy in Athens repeated on our streets? A question for Janet Napolitano: Based on these recent events, who is more likely to be a “domestic terrorist”? A Tea Party protester or a union thug?

As Fr. Corapi states, socialism is “inherently evil”. How could God be a socialist? After all, He addresses the issue in two of his Ten Commandments:

#8: Thou shall not steal.

#10: Thou shall not covet your neighbor's house; thou shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.

In other words, keep your damn hands off of other people’s property.

Angel

Was The SC Democrat Primary a Test Run for Massive November Voter Fraud?

An article in FoxNews.com exposes the potential for massive voter fraud using electronic voting machines.  Were the ES&S electronic voting machines in South Carolina tampered with?  How is it possible that a total unknown like Alvin Greene, who ran no campaign and is facing a felony conviction, was able to win over the official Democrat Party nominee by 59% of the vote?  That is a virtual landslide.  Mr. Greene won 11% more of the absentee votes than standard votes, which is highly unusual and suspicious.  This is similar to how Al Franken stole the Senate seat away from Norm Coleman in Minnesota. 

Was this a test to see if the November elections can be stolen en mass?  Republican Jim DeMint is a virtual lock to gain re-election.  Democrat operatives would have little to lose in testing a voter fraud scheme on this primary election, in preparation for the big one in November.

OK, it sounds like a conspiracy theory, but something very bizarre has happened here.  And we know how devious Democrats get when they are desperate.  We need to solve this mystery.

Angel

YouTube / Google Censors Anti-Hamas Spoof Video

They won't even allow posting the Eyeblast version on this blogsite.  This is of course pure political censorship of information to which the Progressive elite does not want you to have access.  However, you can see it by going to this link.

Are You Smarter Than a Progressive?

The trouble ain't that people are ignorant: it's that they know so much that ain't so.
- Josh Billings

Economics professor Daniel Klein has apparently found a significant blind spot in the progressive intellect. Ignorance of basic economics seems to be a consistent trait in the ultra-liberal mind, a place where ideology trumps reason and logic.

In his June 8 Wall Street Journal article, “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader”, Klein explains:

Who is better informed about the policy choices facing the country—liberals, conservatives or libertarians? According to a Zogby International survey that I write about in the May issue of Econ Journal Watch, the answer is unequivocal: The left flunks Econ 101.

The Zogby survey asked 4,835 American adults to identify their political ideology as either libertarian, very conservative, conservative, moderate, liberal, or progressive/very liberal. They were then provided eight fairly basic economic assertions, and asked to respond to each statement.

Consider one of the economic propositions in the December 2008 poll: "Restrictions on housing development make housing less affordable." People were asked if they: 1) strongly agree; 2) somewhat agree; 3) somewhat disagree; 4) strongly disagree; 5) are not sure.

The correct response, of course, is to agree with the statement. After all, fewer available houses will naturally make them more expensive. This is simple supply and demand economics. In this survey question, the only incorrect responses counted were “somewhat disagree” and “strongly disagree”. “Not sure” was not an incorrect answer for any of the questions.

The other questions were: 1) Mandatory licensing of professional services increases the prices of those services (unenlightened answer: disagree). 2) Overall, the standard of living is higher today than it was 30 years ago (unenlightened answer: disagree). 3) Rent control leads to housing shortages (unenlightened answer: disagree). 4) A company with the largest market share is a monopoly (unenlightened answer: agree). 5) Third World workers working for American companies overseas are being exploited (unenlightened answer: agree). 6) Free trade leads to unemployment (unenlightened answer: agree). 7) Minimum wage laws raise unemployment (unenlightened answer: disagree).

How did the six ideological groups do overall? Here they are, best to worst, with an average number of incorrect responses from 0 to 8: Very conservative, 1.30; Libertarian, 1.38; Conservative, 1.67; Moderate, 3.67; Liberal, 4.69; Progressive/very liberal, 5.26.

Based on party affiliation, Democrats averaged 4.59 incorrect answers, Republicans averaged 1.61 incorrect, and Libertarians 1.26 incorrect. As Mr. Kline states, “The pattern was not an anomaly.” It is compelling evidence that the further you lean left, the more ignorant you are of basic economics.

This test appears to be a wonderful indicator of political ideology. Ask your friends and family these questions and see where they stand. They may learn something in the process.

While we’re at it, I can think of a few more. Ask if they agree with the following statements:

“We can borrow our way out of debt.”

“Higher taxes on the ‘wealthy’ will revive the economy.”

“Government control of health care will improve quality and reduce costs.”

“Taxing carbon dioxide production will lead to energy independence.”

“Pigs can fly and unicorns are real.”

Andrew Thomas aka Angel
article published in AmericanThinker.com

"Malaise at Mellon"