Obama is Obama as Obama was Made to Be

Modern Sophists, Ancient Trade
By William J. Meisler

article sent by Lisa Rich:

As the scandals surrounding the Obama administration continue to brew and spread, certain apologists for the president are once again accusing Obama’s critics of indulging in conspiracy mongering in order to torpedo Obama’s presidency. The president’s accusers, for their part, claim that the facts back up their suspicions of foul play with regard to Obama’s goals, activities, and his disdain for the Constitution. Such a charge against a president is a serious matter. Are these critics of Obama justified in their suspicions, or are they suffering from some type of delusion?

The dilemma of distinguishing opinion, including opinion leading to delusion or false suspicion, from reality has its roots in the ancient Greek metaphysical debate concerning the existence of a fixed independent reality versus a changing or relative reality based upon individual sensory perception. Are there fixed truths by which human virtue and events can be defined, judged and fully understood in a way relevant to all human beings, or do no fixed standards exist, and is “man the measure of all things,” as declared by the sophist Protagoras (as reported by Plato), because truth and virtue in human society have only relative value and are judged to be valid based solely upon a particular person’s choosing or perceiving them to be so?

Since we live in an age that credits extreme relativism, rather than in an age that strives to understand eternal truths, it should come as no surprise that confusion or even outright denial will occur when someone declares or tries to ascertain the facts of the truth, since for too many people these days the truth — any truth — is regarded to be strictly subject to one’s point of view and preferences, just as they were taught in the public schools; a very advantageous state of affairs for our modern sophists who, like their ancient counterparts, use every means at their disposal to buttress their efforts to cloud the truth in order to win the public debate. In doing so, the relativist resorts to two major subterfuges: abuse of information and abuse of language.

Abuse of information includes the distortion, the misrepresentation, the false correlation, and the willful and willing ignorance of facts, of logic, of common sense, and of preceding events and known patterns of human behavior. Presentations of statistics are a prime example of how data can be cleverly distorted to create a false reality. A selective presentation of only certain historical events can similarly distort the actual historical reality, via what might be termed intentional acts of omission. Ignorance or dismissal of known historical precedents of behavior is another way to distort the narrative or deny reality. If, for example, a politician has a long paper trail and well-established pattern of behavior concerning his sympathies, opinions, or goals, to ignore such a paper trail and behavior is to deny evidence before your eyes and represents an act of folly. Marcus Aurelius stated the maxim best:
It is a shameful and reproachful thing to be surprised when a fig tree produces figs. (Meditations 8.15)
For example, in Mein Kampf and in numerous public statements Hitler made very clear what he intended to do if elected chancellor of Germany, for which reason any opponent of Hitler who brought Hitler’s plans to the German public’s attention in 1933 could not have been rightly accused of engaging in fabricating a conspiracy concerning Hitler’s intentions. Yet to many Germans in 1933 talk of concentration camps, mass exterminations, and the other subsequent vile excesses of the Nazi regime could have appeared (or could have been made to appear) to represent the near lunatic ravings of Germans determined to oppose Hitler’s assumption of power; ravings which then easily could have been ascribed to a conspiracy to undermine Hitler’s promises to transform Germany for the better.

By analogy, when a presidential candidate runs on a platform of hope and change, it is reasonable to look at his paper trail (books he wrote and read, his public voting record, his previous activities and statements) and background (who raised and educated him, his personal and professional friends and associates, his pastor and church) in order to determine what hope and change will mean once he ascends to the presidency, and then not be surprised when that candidate proceeds to implement his program as soon as he is empowered to do so. Not to credit all this evidence represents a foolish abuse of information.

Since language is our medium of communication, abuse of language represents an exceedingly powerful tool with which to cloud reality, direct the parameters of the public debate and sway public sentiment. As the saying goes, he who defines the terms has already won half the battle. Because the left controls so much of the public square these days, opponents of the left must exert constant vigilance with regard to the terms and underlying assumptions of public debate, in order that their conservative message not be undermined by being defined and characterized in terms favorable to the left.

Complaints about the abuse of language on the part of rhetoricians and politicians were nearly ubiquitous in antiquity, starting with the revolution in language usage by the sophists in fifth century BC Greece. The traveling Greek sophist Gorgias of Leontini created a sensation in Athens upon his first visit there in 427 BC by his novel use (and abuse) of language, and while some sophists like Prodicus of Ceos pioneered the accurate use of language and the study of linguistics, many others shamelessly exploited the Greek language, an activity which, in conjunction with their ability to “make the lesser argument the greater,” gave many sophists a bad name, and often rightly so, as can be seen in the dialogues of Plato or the Clouds of Aristophanes. The innovations of the sophists were hand-made for usage in the assemblies and law courts of Athens and other Greek cities, whence those innovations for better or worse passed into the hands of the rhetoricians and became part of the curriculum of rhetoric which persisted as an integral part of higher education until late antiquity. It should come as no surprise that these linguistic and rhetorical devices have had their greatest applications in politics, diplomacy, and the law courts over the centuries.

It is Thucydides who, while describing the civil war on the island of Corcyra during the early part of the Peloponnesian War, gives the most gripping description of how political expediency can change the meaning of words:
The affairs of the cities were rent by civil discord, and in those cities, where civil discord arrived later and where news became known of how such civil discord had been handled previously in other cities, matters were carried to an even greater degree of excess by the devising of new concepts and ideas, as seen in the great cunning of the participants’ undertakings and the inappropriateness of their forms of revenge. And men changed the accustomed meaning of words to conform to the nature of their present deeds as they judged them. Thoughtless daring was judged to be courage in support of one’s allies, prudent delay was termed veiled cowardice, moderation was considered the cloak of the unmanly, the ability to comprehend the whole issue was seen as the ability to do nothing, rash and sharp action was considered the proper portion of a man, to take counsel in safety was called a well-reasoned excuse for desertion. The man who advocated violence was considered in all ways trustworthy, the man speaking against violence was suspected. He who succeeded in plotting was considered intelligent, he who anticipated a plot was considered even more clever, but whoever contrived ahead of time to do neither was called a destroyer of his party and frightened of his enemies; simply put, whoever preceded another in doing evil was praised, as was the man who encouraged another to commit evil who previously had not considered it… (Book 3, Chapter 82).
Similarly, nowadays government spending is termed investment, illegal racial preferences are called affirmative action, abortion is about reproductive justice and the right to privacy, stealing from one person and giving to another is justified as public welfare or redistribution of income, brainwashing is called sensitivity training, leadership is from behind, wanting to improve your own lot and that of your family is selfish greed, amongst an endless parade of Orwellian nonsense that assaults us on a daily basis.

Thus I do not think that it is a matter of delusion or conspiracy for citizens to harbor serious concerns about Obama’s intentions toward our country. By the sophistic manipulation of facts, information and language a great deal of sleight of hand has taken place in order to endow Obama with the patina of an exceptional intelligence conjoined to a squeaky clean and “cool” public persona, while at the same time suppressing the very real evidence of his paper trail and his close friends and associates. The very perception of all that sleight of hand is alone enough to justify a fear of foul play.

Note: Does anyone remember Barack Hussein Obama’s most important ‘teachers’ in his life, father figure, antiwhite racist, 22 year “church” confidant, Jeremiah Wright, the president’s Harvard fellow Marxists, and Obama’s attachment to Saul Alinsky’s community organizing of communist cells for urban action? Obama is what Obama was made to be…..a fast talking irresponsible Marxist of the third world type.

Dennis Prager’s Basics for Civilizing American School Children

The following article was sent by Arlene Taber regarding modern Leftist American culture:

America has lost its decency, manners, politeness!…..

Listen to the young people, F-this, F-that, and nary anyone will step up and correct them- even with wife and kids in tow!

We watched high school principal Dennis Prager of Colorado , along with Sara Palin and Tom Brokaw on TV a couple of weeks ago….what a dynamic, down to earth speaker. Even though Palin and Brokaw were also guest speakers they did little but nod and agree with him. This is the guy that should be running for President in 2016!

A Speech Every American High School Principal Should Give. by Dennis Prager .

To the students and faculty of our high school: I am your new principal, and honored to be so. There is no greater calling than to teach young people.

I would like to apprise you of some important changes coming to our school. I am making these changes because I am convinced that most of the ideas that have dominated public education in America have worked against you, against your teachers and against our country.

First , this school will no longer honor race or ethnicity. I could not care less if your racial makeup is black, brown, red, yellow or white. I could not care less if your origins are African, Latin American, Asian or European, or if your ancestors arrived here on the Mayflower or on slave ships. The only identity I care about, the only one this school will recognize, is your individual identity — your character, your scholarship, your humanity. And the only national identity this school will care about is American.

This is an American public school, and American public schools were created to make better Americans. If you wish to affirm an ethnic, racial or religious identity through school, you will have to go elsewhere. We will end all ethnicity, race and non-American nationality-based celebrations. They undermine the motto of America , one of its three central values — epluribus Unum, “from many, one.” And this school will be guided by America ‘s values. This includes all after-school clubs. I will not authorize clubs that divide students based on any identities. This includes race, language, religion, sexual orientation or whatever else may become in vogue in a society divided by political correctness.

Your clubs will be based on interests and passions, not blood, ethnic, racial or other physically defined ties Those clubs just cultivate narcissism — an unhealthy preoccupation with the self — while the purpose of education is to get you to think beyond yourself. So we will have clubs that transport you to the wonders and glories of art, music, astronomy, languages you do not already speak, carpentry and more. If the only extracurricular activities you can imagine being interested in are those based on ethnic, racial or sexual identity, that means that little outside of yourself really interests you.

Second , I am uninterested in whether English is your native language. My only interest in terms of language is that you leave this school speaking and writing English as fluently as possible. The English language has united America ‘s citizens for over 200 years, and it will unite us at this school. It is one of the indispensable reasons this country of immigrants has always come to be one country. And if you leave this school without excellent English language skills, I would be remiss in my duty to ensure that you will be prepared to successfully compete in the American job market We will learn other languages here — it is deplorable that most Americans only speak English — but if you want classes taught in your native language rather than in English, this is not your school.

Third, because I regard learning as a sacred endeavor, everything in this school will reflect learning’s elevated status. This means, among other things, that you and your teachers will dress accordingly. Many people in our society dress more formally for Hollywood events than for church or school. These people have their priorities backward. Therefore, there will be a formal dress code at this school.

Fourth, no obscene language will be tolerated anywhere on this school’s property — whether in class, in the hallways or at athletic events. If you can’t speak without using the f -word, you can’t speak. By obscene language I mean the words banned by the Federal Communications Commission, plus epithets such as “Nigger,” even when used by one black student to address another black, or “bitch,” even when addressed by a girl to a girlfriend. It is my intent that by the time you leave this school, you will be among the few your age to instinctively distinguish between the elevated and the degraded, the holy and the obscene.

Fifth, we will end all self-esteem programs. In this school, self-esteem will be attained in only one way — the way people attained it until decided otherwise a generation ago — by earning it. One immediate consequence is that there will be one valedictorian, not eight.

Sixth, and last, I am reorienting the school toward academics and away from politics and propaganda. No more time will be devoted to scaring you about smoking and caffeine, or terrifying you about sexual harassment or global warming. No more semesters will be devoted to condom wearing and teaching you to regard sexual relations as only or primarily a health issue… There will be no more attempts to convince you that you are a victim because you are not white, or not male, or not heterosexual or not Christian. We will have failed if any one of you graduates this school and does not consider him or herself inordinately fortunate — to be alive and to be an American.

Now, please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of our country. As many of you do not know the words, your teachers will hand them out to you.

A Repeat……. the Worthy, William Kristol’s “Born Free”…and Becky Gerritson’s Reminder

William Kristol……BORN FREE

article sent by Mark Waldeland, worthy of a second reading:

In Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio, the captive English maid, Blonde, scornfully rejects the advances of the powerful Osmin, overseer of Pasha Selim’s harem: “Pasha here, pasha there! Girls are not good to give away! I am an Englishwoman, born free, and I defy anyone who wants to force me to do anything!”

More than two centuries later, Becky Gerritson, speaking to the House Ways and Means Committee about IRS harassment of the Wetumpka, Alabama, Tea Party, picked up the baton: “I am not here as a serf or vassal. I am not begging my lords for mercy. I’m a born free American woman, wife, mother, and citizen. And I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place. It’s not your responsibility to look out for my well-being and to monitor my speech. It’s not your right to assert an agenda. Your post, the post that you occupy, exists to preserve American liberty. You’ve sworn to perform that duty. And you have faltered.”

And so they have. Not that IRS bigwigs like Doug Shulman and Lois Lerner really believe that they faltered. They don’t seem any more contrite about their bullying than Osmin was about his. The IRS poobahs aren’t quite as imperious as Osmin—though they do seem to have followed the extravagant lead of Oriental seraglios when arranging their own conferences and conventions. But nothing has been more striking over the last few weeks than the annoyed dismissal by the IRS officials and their apologists, particularly the reprehensible representative Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), of the notion that their duty might be to serve the public rather than to boss them around. Nothing has been more striking than their complacent assumption that regular Americans out in the countryside enjoy their rights only at the sufferance and discretion of their political and bureaucratic masters in Washington.

That’s the heart of the IRS scandal. It’s about liberty. It’s about self-government. As Becky Gerritson explained, “This was a willful act of intimidation to discourage a point of view. What the government did to our little group in Wetumpka, Alabama, was un-American. It isn’t a matter of fining or arresting individuals. The individuals who sought to intimidate us were acting as they thought they should in a government culture that has little respect for its citizens. Many of the agents and agencies of the federal government do not understand that they are servants of the people. They think they are our masters, and they are mistaken.”

It’s surely no coincidence that the IRS targeted Tea Party groups. The Tea Parties are the clearest example in recent times of Americans coming together to act on their own, exercising what Tocqueville called the “art of association,” an art crucial to self-government and threatening to the nanny state. Why did the IRS go after the Tea Parties rather than well-established conservative groups or even big Republican donors? Somehow the IRS sensed that the existence, the flourishing, and the possible success of Tea Parties represented a more fundamental threat to the soft despotism of the nanny state than more conventional conservative efforts.

The spirit of self-government manifested by the citizens who have formed and chosen to associate with thousands of local Tea Parties stands in deep opposition to the modern progressive bureaucratic state, which is all about top-down control by experts, not about citizens choosing to govern themselves. That’s why liberals in Congress and the media, like the bureaucrats in the IRS, sense that somehow the Tea Party is a fundamental threat to their dominance. After all, why do liberals so loathe and fear the Tea Party? Isn’t the movement unpopular, as the liberal media keep reminding us? Haven’t Tea Party efforts often been ineffectual, and haven’t they sometimes backfired, as the liberal media claim? If they really believed what they say, wouldn’t liberals sit back and enjoy watching the Tea Parties take conservatism and the Republican party over the cliff?

But they don’t sit back. They know the Tea Parties are a threat. They know what Osmin knows: When Blonde declares that “a heart that is born in freedom will never allow itself to be enslaved,” Osmin exclaims, “By Allah! She would be capable of making all the women rebellious against us.” The spirit of the Tea Party is capable of making Americans rebellious against their overseers in Washington. Thus the attempt to strangle this citizens’ movement in its cradle.

What is to be done by Republicans in Congress and conservatives outside? Investigate, investigate, and keep on investigating. Hold more hearings. Get the facts. Don’t take seriously the crocodile tears of liberal commentators, allegedly worried that Republicans might overreach. Sure, a few congressmen will say foolish things, and not every hearing will produce witnesses as eloquent and sympathetic as last week’s. But the key is to forge ahead, and to determine just what happened and just how pervasive the efforts to target inconvenient groups were.

Nor should Republicans become obsessed with the role of the White House. The notion that a scandal isn’t a scandal unless the president is personally involved is short-sighted. The point is not to indict the president, or some White House apparatchik, personally. The point is to indict the spirit of the Obama administration and of big government liberalism. The point is to defeat the president’s broad project to restore faith in big government and to convince Americans to accept and embrace dependency on government.

Exposing the bureaucratic arrogance that lies beneath the claims of governmental benevolence, lifting the veil on the liberal yearning for domination and mastery that lies behind the expressions of sympathy and concern—these would be the real benefits of laying bare what happened at the IRS. As Evelyn Waugh once said about an attempt at oppression by the British Labour party, “There we have the progressive cat, a great brute of an animal, clear out of the bag.” The IRS scandal is the progressive cat, clear out of the bag.

Many conservatives are worried that the last election suggests a majority of Americans like that cat. We doubt it. One night last week Jay Leno remarked in his monologue, “President Obama says he’s renewing his efforts to close Guantánamo Bay. Guantánamo Bay? How about closing the IRS? Why don’t we do that?” Thunderous applause. Leno continued, “How about shipping the IRS to Guantánamo Bay?” Thunderous applause again. If Republicans proceed with the nerve of Blonde and the wit of Leno, they’ll get the thunderous applause they deserve. They should remember that at the end of theAbduction, a cheerful Blonde goes free, and a thwarted Osmin storms off the stage in impotent rage.

MPIRG MARXISTS NIGHT OUT SEPARATING THE NAUGHTY FROM THE NICE

A couple of years have gone by since my last visit from MPIRG canvasers checking out the neighborhoods for money and Marxists or for money from the confused.

This is an ancient University of Minnesota student funded, Marxist enterprise to raise experience, collect knowledge, and print money, propagandize, and take count of the naughty and nice, for specific left wing causes of the day.

The couple of years ago MPIRG visit came from two gals, a chubby chatty pleasant one, and a Madame DeFarge-to-be for the Obama revolutionary crowd.

The Obama revolutionary crowd has returned with only one representative this evening…..a bouncy guy with a friendly smile to a point of quick ‘return’.

Again, MPIRG is funded by Minnesota students who pay university tuition. How’s that for a Marxist enterprise?

Let me see what the University of Minnesota is selling these days: According to their public internet spot they claim to be:

“Nonprofit organization founded, funded and directed by college and university students. An advocacy group on issues of the environment, consumers and social …”

….and another more directed: “University of Minnesota – Twin Cities – MPIRGwww.mpirg.org/students/U-M_twin_cities.html‎ ……..This semester, we are focusing our efforts against the anti-marriage amendment and the voter suppression amendment on the Minnesota ballot. We are actively …” At this point I decided to check Wikipedia to see how this Marxist group is identified. Wiki reads:

“The Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (also known as MPIRG) describes itself as “a grassroots, non-partisan, nonprofit, student-directed organization that empowers and trains students and engages the community to take collective action in the public interest throughout the state of Minnesota.” [1]“

I turned to the MPIRG page for its institutional propaganda and found the Marxist devoted group claiming the following:

Empowering Students Since 1971

Mission // The Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG) is a grassroots, nonpartisan, nonprofit, student-directed organization that empowers and trains students and engages the community to take collective action in the public interest throughout the state of Minnesota.

MPIRG works with seven colleges and universities in Minnesota. Nominal student membership fees provide for a support staff who works with students and shows them how to stand up to powerful interests.

How Are Issues Selected? // The Issues & Actions Conference is held every year in April to set the agenda of MPIRG and to select its issues and campaigns. It is the mechanism by which MPIRG continues to be responsive to the needs of students and community members. Issues are selected for three years (but may be renewed). The current issues are environomics, corporate accountability, and affordable higher education. Specific legislation and campaigns are selected for each issue by the Board of Directors. MPIRG also selects projects each year, which include fair trade, campus sustainability, women’s rights and youth voter participation.

Organizational Structure
Board of Directors // An essential part of MPIRG’s mission is to be a student-directed organization. MPIRG’s board of directors is entirely composed of students that are elected from each campus chapter. The board of directors elects the statewide leadership at its annual meeting in May.

The leadership is comprised of a chair, a vice chair, a treasurer, a secretary, a representative of the public colleges, a representative of the private colleges and a representative of the Greater Minnesota colleges. The board is responsible for the governance of the organization, sets the budget and reviews all financial documents, hires and fires staff, raises funds for the organization, coordinates the short-term and long-term planning processes and hosts the annual Issues & Actions Conference.

Over 130 students gather at MPIRG’s annual fall retreat to set priorities for coming year..

Staff // The Executive Director is the head of the paid staff and oversees the day-to-day operations of the organization. MPIRG has a Community Organizing department of field and phone canvassers that connect to the broader community. The Campus Organizing department consists of campus organizers who work directly with students on each campus.

School Chapters // Students may sit on the local board of directors of their school. Each chapter is run by a student chair or co-chairs. Chapters are further divided into task forces which are facilitated by a task force leader. MPIRG’s structure is rooted firmly in democratic principles, with chapter members electing task force leaders, co-chairs and local board members; local board members electing state board members; and state board members electing the organization’s leadership, to whom the staff are accountable.

No mention seems to be made that every student who pays tuition contributes to this Marxist organization….Minnesota’s State Religion. It is the only religion that has received judicial approval.

My visit with the bouncy MPIRG salesman was very short. He instroduced himself as a MPIRG representative.

I asked him what his mission was this time…..and he responded….ORGANIZING….ORGANIZING BIG TIME…..

I told him I wasn’t interested in organizing for “YOUR PRESIDENT.”…He immediately snapped back in angry defense….”Your president started a War in Iraq.”…

I discovered all I wanted to know and asked him to leave.

Minnesotans are simple minded people. As Leftists they are very fond of themselves. They believe education is good for souls, but no longer know what education means. “Peace” is also a popular word…..almost as popular as “feminism” at the University, the female institution that restricts all knowledge to one Party thinking, collecting, and voting.

Feminists, that is, female Marxists, are against thinking. Reason is so male, so “thing of the past”, so “era of wars”, replaced by female superiority, women’s intuition and her inate quick action of feelings.

Maxine Waters Reveals Obama Database Foolproof to Win Future Elections

Democrat Maxine Waters: Obama’s Database Surveillance Will Win the White House for Democrats Again(Stunning Video)

http://beforeitsnews.com/obama/2013/06/democrat-maxine-waters-obamas-database-surveillance-will-win-the-white-house-for-democrats-stunning-video-2452410.html

(Before It’s News)

This video was candid and prescient. How did Maxine Waters know that Obama was constructiing his database on the citizens of the USA in advance? Watch the video and you be the judge:

What do you Know about Tribal Colleges?

Tribal Colleges: A Dubious Government Investment

from the National Center for Policy Analysis:

Everyone knows a little about the University of Chicago, MIT and Harvard, but few know about the country’s tribal colleges. They are fairly new — Congress authorized and funded them in 1978, and most of today’s 35 colleges got their start even more recently. Funds for the colleges come overwhelmingly from federal taxpayers; state taxpayer funds and casino profits contribute a very small portion of total funding, says Tom Burnett, a former member of the Montana House of Representatives.

Enrollments at tribal colleges range from a few hundred to nearly 2,000. The schools emphasize Native American cultural preservation, and preparation for service in tribal government and social service agencies.

•Readying students for transfer to rigorous colleges and to compete in the global job market has a low priority.
•These colleges not only have high costs per graduate, but also weak educational results.
•The reasons are complex, but they start with the fact that many reservations are places of despair with levels of alcoholism, drug use, suicide, out-of-wedlock childbirth, violence and unemployment that would shock the average American.
•Crucially, tribal students at these colleges pay little or nothing. One faculty member claimed, “If you’re Native American, it basically costs you nothing to come to college.”
Graduation rates are low. When they do complete school, students receive certificates or degrees in a variety of subjects, including accounting, business, Indian arts, native language, nursing, customer service, office technology and commercial driving. The main emphasis is on training students to serve the social services programs on a reservation. The needs of tribes determine the course offerings. The idea that an individual would advance himself or herself, probably leaving reservation boundaries and succeeding in the market economy, seems incidental, and possibly opposed to the program design.

Furthermore, the goals of tribal colleges, as given by their mission statements, focus on cultural transmission. Even cultural transmission efforts fail, though. An official at Little Bighorn College admitted that for all the money schools spend to teach native language, few students show interest. She said the only hope is for parents to tutor language at home, a solution that seems to have little chance of success because few parents do it.

Spending on tribal colleges has proven to be a dubious investment. Tribal colleges should sink or swim on the educational value they provide, not on the ability of officials to wheedle money out of far-away politicians.

Source: Tom Burnett, “The Tragedy of Tribal Colleges,” Pope Center for Higher Education, June 9, 2013.

The Orwellian Obama is Making America Orwellian

OBAMA’S ORWELLIAN LEGACY

by Justin Walker at realclearpolitics

Is America moving toward the Big Brother dystopia envisioned by George Orwell in some of his most famous novels?

That question has been on many minds in the wake of revelations about the National Security Agency’s sweeping surveillance of phone records and Internet data. The ACLU, for one, called these programs “beyond Orwellian” in a statement released last week. The ACLU’s response is characteristically feverish, but in at least one respect, the organization is right: We are indeed approaching an Orwellian world.

Given the safeguards in place against abuse, the surveillance programs are not the problem. Although Americans are right to jealously guard their liberty and to display a healthy degree of suspicion about government programs of this scale, suspicion should not obscure two truths. First, the evidence released thus far suggests that the programs are necessary and effective in disrupting, dismantling, and defeating terrorist networks that so often rely upon phone and Internet communications. Second, the Constitution’s checks and balances are at work in the oversight of these programs.

The phone monitoring component does not allow the government to listen in on anyone’s calls without a court order. PRISM — the program that collects emails, videos, and other data from major Internet companies — is limited to foreign targets and does not include U.S. citizens. These programs have been supervised by all three branches of government; Congress has approved them and is regularly briefed, and federal judges continue to scrutinize requests for targeting of specific terror suspects.

But the fact that these operations are operating under the rule of law is not the end of the story. For if we are not approaching the totalitarian nightmare of a novel like “1984,” the revelations provide a stunning example of how President Obama has come to resemble a character in Orwell’s other dystopian parable, “Animal Farm.”

That 1945 novella tells of a farm revolution led by pigs, who drive out their oppressive human master, only to move into his house, don his clothes, and wield his brutal whip to subjugate the other animals. At the story’s conclusion, the pigs’ victims gaze in on their new masters drinking and playing cards with half a dozen farmers. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

To anyone comparing the conduct of Barack Obama with that of George W. Bush, the sense of confusion should feel familiar. America’s 44th president ran against almost all of Bush’s national security policies. But once power was in his hands, he began to embrace them as avidly as the pigs wielded their whips.

Senator Obama had voted against renewal of the Patriot Act in 2005 because he said it allowed the government “to go on a fishing expedition through every personal record or private document — through library books they’ve read and phone calls they’ve made.” But in 2011, President Obama signed the renewal of the same law and defended its roving wiretaps and searches of business records as vital to America’s counterterrorism efforts.

Presidential candidate Obama ran against the very ethos of Bush’s national security program, saying it put forward “a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide.” But just last week in California, President Obama told Americans they “have to make some choices as a society” because “you can’t have 100 percent security and also then have 100 percent privacy and zero inconvenience.”

The real effect of the NSA stories is to cement a narrative about Obama that will likely become part of his legacy: the liberal senator and constitutional law professor who, like the pigs in “Animal Farm,” metamorphosed into what he had so notoriously opposed. Guantanamo remains open. Drones still rain down on Pakistan, Yemen, and anywhere else the president sees fit. Leaks are prosecuted vigorously and reporters are investigated to uncover their sources. And now, the president is affirming the surveillance practices he once mused could be unconstitutional. In light of these actions alone, it seems that Barack Obama has learned that George W. Bush got a lot of things right.

The point of noting the president’s porcine transformation is not to criticize his current policies, but rather to serve as an instructive example for future White House aspirants: The responsibilities of power are difficult to reconcile with lazy criticism that is so easy to dispense from the sidelines. As long as he fails to recognize the debt that he, and the nation, owe to his predecessor, he will be practicing a vice that Orwell was a master of depicting: hypocrisy.

Dustin Walker is the editor of RealClearDefense.

Comment: Considerably more Orwellian in Obamaling society is the nation’s one party press, educational, entertainment, and even religious industries, none of them concerned regarding there own bigotry, its power, and what controlled thinking and believing has done to the nation and the nation’s individuals.

Climate, Weather, and Controlling Beauty

(I am a professional landscape gardener who began his training 75 years ago, at about age 4, when I discovered a sand box to occupy my time. At age thirteen, my Mother, often in an angry mood when she saw me wasting human time attached to that little space for painting a garden canvas, shouted, “Glenn Ray, you’re too old to be still be playing in a sand box!”

Experienced in language at this point in my life with Mother, despite countless hours of punishment, I snapped back with confidence and truth….”I’m not playing in a sandbox! I’m making scenery!!!”

I was too big to be hit.

She used to be pleased all of my years inbetween 4 and 13, to see me daily gravitate to the sandbox, my neighbor’s, not even my own. It was like hiring a baby sitter hour upon hour, day upon day, month upon month…..at no cost whatsoever to our family’s very thin wallet.

Yet, her message had stirred my fears deeply. It was the last time I ever visited that box of sand, my blocks, Tootsie-Toy cars, stone bridges, miniature gardens, cigar box buildings, arborvitae twig street trees, and other garden and urban adornments. No longer would I create parks for my cars and their roads to visit. No longer would the houses I built be so fortunate to exist among beautiful vegetation….including swipings from my Mother’s own sacred garden which no one in the world could touch except hands operating from her brain and imagination.

I knew she was right. For several years I had sweated, worrying what I would do if I were seen by any of my guy friends, where I actually occupied so much of my time which, like my Mother’s, never had anything to spare.

I never returned to that box, except by memory of my explorations and employment of how I could make a place of sand ever more beautiful.)

SPRING IN OUR NORTHLAND, 2013…..by glenn h. ray:

Cool to cold, mid January to mid June……snow to rain, more rain, and a helluva lot more rain, mid January to mid June in the year of our Lord, 2013, Northland USA.

What has this cooling and wetting meant for those of us oriented to the beauty of life living outside brick, concrete, asphalt, and flourescent lighting?

For plants, the overwhelming number of them from an inch to 100 feet of stature, this has to be nearly the best chapter in their genetic history ever experienced.

Regular, reliable moisture…..not too little, not too much, twice a day, three times a night….more the quiet stuff rather than the huff and puff of a thunder storm, tornado, or volcano eruption or an avalanche.

Nature itself, unknown perhaps to the New Yorker cement and concrete people who might have missed Earth’s outdoor life thus far in their lives, is an eternal battle between order and disorder……harmony and disharmony.

Each environment is in a constant state of war…..or competition, if you prefer, to stay alive….to defend its form and being from the everlasting threat of invaders.

Culturally, we Northlanders along with our pals from coast to coast, live in social disharmony where beauty is disdained. If something is beautiful, it is dicated politically and educationally, in newsprint and authorship, that something is NOT beautiful. We are better people, they preach, if we make everyone and things around us equal so as not to hurt feelings.

If beauty by sight and feelings, thought and action is noticed rather than disdained or ignored, the human animal might be moved, as in the past, to do better than merely exist, but to seek understanding of beauty, if for no other reason, to be shocked by its power to make the day more beautiful no matter the opposition.

Beauty is most penetrating through sight and hearing. Beethoven should never be allowed by any literate, civilized, Godfearing society to go deaf among its peoples.

More animal in us humans is our drive to witness the beautiful. Millions, perhaps billions of dollars are spent annually by people reaching out to view beauties of nature……yet they remain ingnorant, nearly void of any hint that beauty BEGINS AT HOME, whereever home may be.

Moreover it begins with the soul of the individual, not to be memorized at school, but to be led into an experience when each individual can radiate when they begin to understand the various basic rules, steps, reasons, and results of why some things, despite political and certain religious propaganda that all things are equally beautiful.

IF ALL THINGS ARE EQUALLY BEAUTIFUL, THEY ARE EQUALLY UGLY!

Spring 2013 in our Minnesotaland has been unusually beautiful in nature’s plantworld. It has been spoiled by the cool, the unthreatening, the reliable, which has allowed its color, textures, stature, and fragrance to radiate and therefore inspire all who are lucky enough to notice and enjoy….especially for those skilled enough to create beauty and work in the midst of doing so for an occupation in life.

Economically?……well, Spring, 2013 hasn’t been very good for an outdoor business. It’s hard to work in the constant mud.

We Have a 3rd World President….Do We Want a Third World America?

As in Britain a generation plus ago, our national government establishment, now mostly left wing- big business, is determined to secure its own personal dictatorships by securing their constituencies with government dependent 3rd World populations.

Think BRITAIN….Study BRITAIN…. BRITAIN is in our American future when the State controls human life through its power to buy constituencies with $$ or other special favors. Review the campaign of 3rd World president, Barack Hussein Obama’s reelection tactics in 2012.

Dear Readers…..Your America has already become foreign to you with the rise of the sex, drink, and drug populations created by familylessness, megabusiness, and university Marxists and their assaults against the American male.

Help SAVE American values so honored and set forth by the Law of the Land, which today’s 3rd World intruder, infidel Barack Hussein Obama has organized his administration to destroy.

PLEASE READ CAREFULLY THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE FROM TOWN HALL:

“The ‘Gang of Eight’ bill is not immigration reform. It is big government dysfunction. It is an immigration Obamacare. All advocates of true immigration reform — on the left and the right — should oppose it.” — Mike Lee
”On every major front, this legislation fails to deliver on its core promises. It delivers only for the special-interest groups who helped write it. Should it pass, it would represent the ultimate triumph of the Washington elite over the everyday citizen to whom Congress properly owes its loyalty.” — Jeff Sessions
At a time when the Obama Administration is imploding under the weight of its own scandals and the GOP’s odds of taking back the Senate in 2014 are rising almost by the day, it’s incredibly ironic that the Republican Party is working with the Democrats on an amnesty bill that will depress the conservative base in 2014, permanently cement in a Democrat majority in America and give Barack Obama almost everything he wants in return for absolutely nothing of consequence.

It’s at moments like these when you realize that Republicans really richly deserve to be called “the stupid party.”

1) The bill legalizes illegal aliens before security measures are put in place: The entire history of immigration reform in this country over the last thirty years has consisted of the government promising to improve security and then not living up to those promises. Reagan signed on to a “one time” amnesty in return for security measures that were never put in place. Under Clinton, programs like Operation Vanguard were stopped BECAUSE THEY WERE EFFECTIVE at driving illegals out of the meat packing industry. Under George W. Bush, the fence the law says we shall build on the southern border was never completed. Under Barack Obama, an illegal DREAM ACT that never passed Congress was put in place, his administration essentially stopped deporting illegals without felonies on their records and thousands of already detained illegal immigrants were released. Claiming that we’ll give legal status to the illegals that are already here and then put security measures in place later isn’t even a good faith argument; it’s an attempt to deceive the American people by sleazy politicians whose only concern is amnesty for illegals at any cost.

2) Most of the key security measures in the bill are left up to the discretion of the Obama Administration: After the Obama Administration has shown little appetite for enforcing immigration law and the IRS has politically targeted conservative groups on Obama’s watch, it’s almost unimaginable that there would be Republicans who are essentially willing to say, “We’ll just take Obama’s word for it on security.” Yet, that’s exactly what this bill does time after time, in clause after clause. If the Obama Administration says we’ve met a security standard, then we’ve met it. Here’s what Mark Krikorian from National Review and the Center for Immigration Studies has to say about that.

Almost every requirement in this bill can be waived by Janet Napolitano: for instance, the time limits on when people can be legalized, the requirements on criminal activity or even the enforcement triggers. Those basically don’t mean anything if any of them is held up in court, still. …The litigation over the 1986 bill didn’t end until just a few years ago. The ACLU has been quite clear that it intends to sue to stop mandatory e-verify and probably sue to stop a bunch of other things. If, for instance, mandatory use of electronic verification is still in the courts 10 years after the bill passes, it’s entirely possible the Secretary of Homeland Security can just give everybody Green Cards on her own — and there are hundreds of other examples of that kind of discretion.

It’s not too much of an exaggeration to say that this 1,000 page bill after all of the amendments could be boiled down to, “We trust you, Obama; just do the right thing.”
3) This bill allows illegal immigrants to have American citizenship: Simply put, nobody who is in this country illegally should be given the privilege of applying for American citizenship. Truthfully, illegal immigrants don’t deserve to even be allowed to be part of a guest worker program, but let’s say theoretically as a huge compromise, the bill had gone that way.

That would have taken worries about massive chain migration off the table, it would alleviate concerns that the Democrats would be adding huge numbers of new voters, it would mean the retirement of poor, manual laborers would be an issue for their home country, not us and it would “get them out of the shadows.”

It’s better for America in almost every single way except one: It wouldn’t add millions of new voters for the Democrat Party. It might not be admirable that the Democrats would hold out for a provision that’s horrible for the country, but good for the Democrat Party, but it’s at least understandable. Why any Republican would try to demographically flood conservatism out of existence, put Americans out of jobs and hurt the country to get amnesty at any cost is a question voters should ask them the next time they’re up for reelection.

4) Illegal immigrants won’t be forced to pay back taxes: Illegals are able to “do jobs Americans just won’t do” because they are allowed to “do things Americans just can’t do.” You could work for a lot less per hour yourself if you didn’t have car insurance or health insurance and could cheat on your taxes with impunity. Illegals broke the law to be here and they committed document fraud to work and both of those should be disqualifiers are far as American citizenship goes, but even if you ignore that, they should at least have to pay their taxes just like Americans do. Isn’t that the least we could ask? Not according to Marco Rubio, John McCain, Kelly Ayotte and the other Republicans who support this bill.

Under the proposal as offered, immigrants would not have to prove a tax history. There would be no obligation to show evidence of prior filings or payments. It’s basically a simplified version of tax amnesty: there is no responsibility for settling up back taxes. The only exception to the rule involves a situation in which the Internal Revenue Service already has a taxpayer in their crosshairs; if you have an outstanding liability in your name, you’ll be obligated to pay up. Interestingly, this is a change from the current rules for applying for residency or citizenship status which makes tax compliance a criteria for legal entry.

On its face, the rule makes sense. It would be a near impossibility to require previously undocumented persons to show that they had filed and paid taxes. There are simply no records: we call them undocumented workers for a reason.
In a world where Tea Party groups are being politically targeted by the IRS and you have to pay your taxes or go to jail, the people who support this bill believe that illegal aliens shouldn’t have to pay the taxes they already owe. That’s not just wrong; it’s an offensive double standard.

5) Provisions in the bill could add as many as 30 million new immigrants: When massive numbers of Americans can’t find a job, how much sense does it make to import 30 million new workers?

The sponsors promised that the bill would not significantly increase legal immigration. However, it will grant legal status to at least 30 million immigrants over the next 10 years if you add up the proposed surge in legal arrivals, approval of 4.5 million previous green card applicants, plus work authorization and legal residency for an estimated 11 million here unlawfully today. The number grows higher if you take into account the removal of annual caps on migration for immediate family members.
Keep in mind that the vast majority of these people won’t be highly educated, won’t be highly paid and will cost more in government services than they pay out over the course of their lifetimes. A Heritage Foundation study put the cost to taxpayers at 6.3 trillion dollars over time.

Of course, advocates of amnesty hotly dispute Heritage’s claim and say that making illegal aliens citizens would be a huge financial boon to the country. Maybe if this were 100 years ago before America became a welfare state that was heavily reliant on highly skilled labor, that might even be true. But today, as Mark Krikorian has noted, the idea that making illegal aliens into citizens could benefit the nation economically is ridiculous.

Nobody would be saying, “Let’s close some high schools because we want to have more people with only a sixth grade education. That really benefits America.” It’s a joke. The very fact that they can say this with a straight face without being laughed off the stage is more a testament to the media’s gullibility than anything else. I mean, you expect politicians to engage in brazen lying, but the problem is too many people swallow this stuff and believe it.
What it all comes down to is that if you want amnesty at any price, this is the bill for you. However, this bill won’t secure the border, get an E-Verify system in place, stop future illegal immigration, fix our broken immigration system, build a fence or do anything but set us up for the next “one time amnesty” ten or twenty years down the road. Passing this bill will practically guarantee that we won’t take any serious measures to secure the border for the foreseeable future. In fact, just enforcing the laws we have on the books would do considerably more to secure the border and stop illegal immigration than this bill ever could. This bill would be a disaster for the country, a nightmare for conservatism and the end of any hope of getting border security in the next decade. There is nothing you can do to help your country right now that’s more important than speaking out against this bill, calling your senator and doing whatever it takes to stop this amnesty from becoming law.

What the Uneducated and Other Obamalings Would Like You to Believe about Conservatives

Jon Favreau was Barack Obama’s ‘mouth’ for a considerable period of time.

A chief PROGRAM he and his Obama introduced to the White House is RACISM, CLASSISM, SEXISM, AND THE MARXISM THAT GOES WITH THE MOVEMENT’S GODLESSNESS. The weapon most often used besides intimidation is projection….the art of attacking an opponent for performing ones own evils.

Jon Favreau, without a doubt, has gone to college somewhere where he memorized the following to accompany the art of projection Obamalings have become so successful employing in its political campaigns.

College attendant Favreau learned at college what he writes in his Daily Beast advice below to GOPers of the present as prelude to the death of the GOP which he predicts:

College Republican National Committee Report Has Grim Findings for GOP
by Jon Favreau at the Daily Beast:

Here’s what many millennials don’t like: the ‘closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned’ GOP. That’s the finding of a sober study by the College Republican National Committee. Jon Favreau says it’s a wake-up call.

If you were among the roughly 97 percent of Americans who didn’t tune into one of the Sunday shows this weekend, you might not realize that the only two issues currently worthy of sustained national debate are the stupidity of some IRS bureaucrats and the overzealousness of some certain federal prosecutors during an investigation of leaks that may have jeopardized U.S. assets within al Qaeda and North Korea.

Perhaps you are old-fashioned and have additional concerns that are a bit more naive, even trite. For example, what is the political system doing to help businesses create jobs or lift incomes? What are both parties proposing to help people afford a decent education, buy a home, or save for retirement? Who, if anyone, is offering a compelling agenda that speaks to the aspirations of younger generations?

How cute. And yet, while one Sunday show was asking panelists to analyze painfully awkward clips of IRS employees line dancing (please stop that), the College Republican National Committee was busy launching a sober, thoughtful, well-researched conversation about the future of a major political party that is now viewed favorably by only 33 percent of Americans under 30.

As a Democrat who turned 32 on Sunday, which just barely qualifies me as a millennial (1980–2000), I find this conversation hugely important. Young voters, long dismissed by pundits as too cynical and disengaged to vote, famously did so in record numbers in the 2008 election. In 2012, when we were supposed to stay home and sulk because President Obama didn’t take us from near depression to full employment in 45 months (Politico: “Young Voters Sitting Out This November?”), we surpassed our previous turnout, handing the president his larger-than-expected margin of victory over Mitt Romney.

With the help of the Republican Party’s leading millennial pollster, Kristen Soltis Anderson, the College Republicans set out to discover how to win back some of these Americans in future elections. And what they found is younger voters simply don’t want the current brand of crazy that so much of the national Republican Party has been selling with such fervor.

One of the headlines from the study were the words that up-for-grabs young voters used to describe today’s GOP: “closed-minded, racist, rigid, old-fashioned.” And the party clearly is out of step with millennials on many of the social issues that receive so much media attention. The College Republican survey found that only 30 percent of young voters believe marriage should be legally defined as only between a man and a woman. Even strongly anti-abortion-rights voters said they were disturbed when Republican candidates talked about defunding Planned Parenthood and “redefining rape.” Young people were more likely to value environmental protection than older voters and most frequently listed a path to citizenship as the best way to reform immigration.

The Republican Party cannot keep hiding from an entire generation of voters who expect both sides to address their aspirations with smart, sensible, mainstream solutions.
Jon Favreau took to ‘The Daily Show’ to discuss the difference between rhetoric and reality in politics.

But to me, the most significant finding in the survey was the wholesale rejection of the national Republican Party’s economic agenda. For four years, Republican candidates have been telling Americans that Obama’s policies are responsible for nearly all their financial ills. Yet a majority of young people believe Republican policies played either a major role or the biggest role in bringing about the Great Recession, giving Democrats a 16-point advantage over Republicans in handling jobs and the economy.

After decades of pushing bigger and bigger tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest individuals and largest corporations, Republicans must face the fact that only 3 percent of the next generation wants more tax cuts for the wealthy. Three percent. In a survey taken after the January budget deal that raised taxes on the richest Americans, a majority of young voters still believe those taxes should be even higher.

Despite a push for lower corporate tax rates that has come from both Republicans and Democrats in Washington, only about a third of young people think such a policy would help create jobs or improve their lives. Despite a sustained Republican jihad against even the most basic regulations on Wall Street banks or insurance companies or corporate polluters, only 40 percent of young people believe they’d be better off if business regulations were reduced.

And after the 37th failed vote by House Republicans to repeal Obamacare—a perverse obsession that seems to defy both substantive and political logic—only 37 percent of young Americans believe they’d be better off if the law no longer existed. Today Obamacare is favored by 9 points among young people, 44 percent of whom say “basic health insurance is a right for all people, and if someone has no means of paying for it, the government should provide.”

It’s clear that young Americans are concerned about unnecessary government spending and unsustainable debt. But unlike much of Washington, we have not been afflicted with Simpson-Bowles fetish syndrome. In the College Republican survey, young people want more spending on education, not the massive cuts proposed by nearly every Republican candidate and congressman. We worry about the rising cost of entitlements, but not nearly as much as we worry about the rising cost of college and student-loan debt. In the survey, young people clearly recognize that the president is working to address these challenges while Republicans have been indifferent at best.

Soltis Anderson ends the College Republican report with an admonition: “Economic growth and opportunity policies cannot just be about tax cuts and spending cuts.” Among the next generation of American voters, she has found ample evidence to support that claim. And yet, if a Republican candidate for president said such a thing, he or she would be driven from the race by a horde of torchbearing, pitchfork-waving Tea Partiers.

The truth is, the Republican Party today doesn’t have an economic agenda that goes beyond tax cuts and spending cuts. It can spend the next few years hiding behind investigative witch hunts and over-the-top rhetoric that most Americans don’t take seriously. It can hide behind another 37 failed repeal votes of a health-care program that’s already working as it’s supposed to in states like California. But the party cannot keep hiding from an entire generation of voters who expect both sides to address their aspirations with smart, sensible, mainstream solutions.

As millennials, we’re not stupid, cynical, or naive. We’re educated, we’re engaged, and we’re ready for a serious conversation about our future.

Jon Favreau is the former chief speechwriter for President Obama.