Showing posts with label Obama socialism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama socialism. Show all posts

Apr 21, 2010

Earth Day Done Right

This ought to crank off the old eco-wind bags, eh? Brilliant! Click here to learn more.

For your further edification, please peruse our past slanders of this Marxist sham of a holiday and the wretched movement that spawned it:
Cheers,

Charlie


Mar 27, 2010

PROCLAMATION of DEFECTION

WHEREAS: Our beloved Britain refuses to repent from her salacious and suicidal obsession with socialism; and


WHEREAS: We’re really quite deeply loathe living in a pet store; and


WHEREAS: The family of our personal secretary, Mr. B. Walter Farley, finds us to be irresistibly cute and cuddly; and


WHEREAS: The United States of America, the Last Best Hope of Mankind, is clearly on its last leg and in need of all the help it can get; now


THEREFORE: I, Charlie Churchill’s Parrot, do hereby proclaim my defection from the United Kingdom and my establishment of my residency with Mr. Farley and family in Wisconsin, USA – a region, we’re told, once referred to as, “The Heartland of America.”


In witness thereof, we have hereunto set our wing and caused the Seal of Executive Authority to be affixed this twenty-seventh day of March in the year of our Lord, two thousand and ten.


Very well then, enough with the formalities, what’s all this about?


A world without an American America is a world within which I do not wish to live. Neither does anyone else; it’s just that an unfortunately large number are too bloody daft to realize it!


Now that the current American government has openly declared war on the American people and their Constitution, a world without an American America is a distinct possibility. (For anyone presuming that by “American America” we make reference to some form of racial component, you need to piss off posthaste!)


Therefore, like Davy Crockett to the Alamo, we hereby publically and heroically (and with characteristic humility) dedicate our 110 year old life, our fortune such that it is, our sacred honor, our fabulous celebrity, and the entirety of our wit and wisdom to the increasingly imperiled American cause; a cause we believe remains, as Thomas Paine declared, in large measure the cause of all mankind.


Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!


Cheers,


Charlie

Feb 8, 2010

The British Guide to National Ruin

Many are the instances where adult children pointedly eschew the profligate ways of their of their drunken and wayward parents. In his fascinating analysis, The Decline of Britain: A Cautionary Tale for America,” Dr. Robin Harris, former policy advisor to Prime Minister to Margaret Thatcher and Director of the Conservative Party Research Department, urges America to do just that: observe and reject the socialism which has rendered old Mother England an economic, political, and social basket case.

“Consanguinity,” (common ancestry for those who are NOT George Will) “works both ways,” advises Dr. Harris. “What works in one of our countries has been shown to work in the other. But what fails in one country also fails in the other, and in crucial respects Britain is now failing. The country’s palpable decline from its prosperity and security of just two decades ago constitutes an awful but, if intelligently observed, timely and useful warning to America.

Harris traces the “remarkable, but also indisputable” parallels of American and British economic and political cycles over the past forty years: regulation and taxation under Nixon and Heath; near bankruptcy under Carter and Callaghan; rebirth and prosperity with Reagan and Thatcher; the watered-down Conservatism of Bush and Major; the triangulation of Clinton and Blair, the War on Terror vigor of Bush and Blair; and now the lunge toward Marxism under Obama and Brown.

What has catapulted Britain into the lead in terms of economic disaster is her legacy of socialism, the roots of which Dr. Harris traces to World War Two.

“The Second World War was arguably the decisive event in the history of British collectivism. It increased public expenditure, taxation, and controls to previously unimaginable levels. The Left argued that total planning, which allegedly had won the war, could also secure universal prosperity. Churchill’s coalition wartime government, bowing to the prevailing ethos, laid foundations for the massive economic and social interventions that were later implemented by the postwar Labour government.”

Presaging Mr. Rahm Emanuel, Clement Attlee and crew let not the very good crisis of the war go to waste. They promised their shell-shocked and war-weary nation heaven on Earth and, having won a landslide victory as a result, implemented a welfare state agenda that nationalized the majority of the economy and made the citizenry dependent on government forever more. Bemused, alienated, and himself more than exhausted, Sir Winston could only watch from the back benches as his beloved Britain succumbed to the siren song of socialism. Later he, and even Lady Thatcher, could steer Britain toward free-market prosperity and credible self-defense, only within the confines of a thoroughly entrenched welfare state.

“Even the Thatcher years—again, despite Mrs. Thatcher’s own objections to the consensus—hardly shook the assumptions established at this time (1945) about what government was about.”

And herein lies the core of Harris’s warning to America: DO NOT let socialism into your home. It is a guest that will never leave!

“Britain’s experience offers a serious long-term warning because it shows how difficult it is for another Anglo–Saxon country to escape the legacy of socialism once that ideology becomes entrenched in attitudes and institutions.”

Harris observes that the Tea party movement is a distinctly and delightfully American phenomenon, which indicates the unlikelihood of socialism becoming entrenched in American attitudes. This is happy reaffirmation for those of us who nearly despaired one year ago that the Americans too had become inextricably infatuated by the wiles of the Nanny State. Where America is most vulnerable, however, is in her lack of focus and vigilance in ensuring that collectivist policies do not overwhelm her institutions.

“For the British, the danger is that they revert to collectivism by historically conditioned reflex,” writes Harris. “For Americans, the risk is different but real: It is, as Tocqueville warned, that they may gently and unwittingly slip into it.”

Alas, many of the Americans now crying out against the direction their nation is heading were the very same who voted-in the current occupants of the Executive and Legislative branches of their government. What were they thinking? They were not thinking. This is a dangerous game, for socialism has, in fact, made significant inroads into American institutions. Colleges and Universities, churches and synagogues, the news media, the entertainment industry, philanthropic foundations, even corporations are infested with collectivist thought, expressed through sham programs and initiatives bearing the banners of “diversity”, “sustainability”, and “social justice.”

Only now is the average American awakening to the malevolence these seemingly innocuous niceties possess. We must hasten this awakening. As more and more institutions surrender to collectivist pressure, the nearer to impossible it becomes to effectively oppose the trend, socially as well as politically.

“Conservative timidity is also understandable in straightforward electoral terms because of the sheer size of the public sector and the number of individual voters who are dependent in one way or another on public spending,” explains Harris. In other words, eventually the national motto becomes, if you can’t beat them, join them. Witness Britain’s “Conservative” Party.

The excesses of British government ignited the American Revolution, galvanizing the principles of limited government, no taxation without representation, and the rule of law in the hearts and minds of the American people. We join Dr. Harris and many others who continue to see the United States as the last best hope of mankind in hopes that, by her tragic example, Britain may do so once again.

Cheers,

Charlie

May 10, 2009

American Exceptionalism and the Art of Flying Kites

UPDATE: Mr. Mark Steyn chimes in. Brilliant, of course.

Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.

- Sir Winston Churchill

Sir Winston’s maxim above is so oft cited as to have become cliché. Every parent, teacher, coach, religious instructor, motivational speaker, and supportive friend worth their salt has employed it, or some variation of it, innumerable times. The point – that confronting adversity makes one stronger – is allegedly common knowledge. Indeed it is intrinsic to the ethos of Western man. As Sir Winston declared before the Canadian Parliament in December 1941. “We have not journeyed across the centuries, across the oceans, across the mountains, across the prairies, because we are made of sugar candy.”

And yet, political winds ore’ those Western oceans, mountains, and prairies blow in a different direction today. Western man is evidently tired and seeks respite from the toil of flying his kite and maintaining his Liberty. Since the end of the Second World War Western European nations, Britain, and Canada have succumbed to the seductions of the Nanny State; accepting her high taxation, high unemployment, low growth, and ever-diminishing liberty in exchange for cradle to grave economic sedation. The exchange has rendered them comfortable, for the most part, and secure, so long as America was willing and able to shoulder their defense.

But now Americans too say they are tired, and seek admission into the Great International Nursery.

Our dear friend Mr. Shane Borgess at Political Vindication.com recently brought to our attention a magnificent presentation by Charles Murray, the W. H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, about this very phenomenon. Entitled, “The Europe Syndrome and the Challenge to American Exceptionalism” Mr. Murray’s essay examines America’s seemingly increasing conviction that Europe’s regulatory and social welfare systems are the proper model for U.S. governance and economy. Murray confesses some empathy for this infatuation.

“Not only are (European) social democrats intellectually respectable, the European model has worked in many ways… When I get there, the people don’t seem to be groaning under the yoke of an evil system. Quite the contrary. There’s a lot to like—a lot to love—about day-to-day life in Europe.”

But?

“But the European model can’t continue to work much longer. Europe’s catastrophically low birth rates and soaring immigration from cultures with alien values will see to that.”

Mr. Murray then commences his argument as to why the United States must not become more like Europe. He argues, not for economic reasons, (despite Europe’s “sclerotic economies”) but for reasons that could best be described as spiritual.

“My argument is drawn from Federalist Paper No. 62, probably written by James Madison: ‘A good government implies two things: first, fidelity to the object of government, which is the happiness of the people; secondly, knowledge of the means by which that object can be best attained.’ Note the word: happiness. Not prosperity. Not security. Not equality. Happiness, which the Founders used in its Aristotelian sense of lasting and justified satisfaction with life as a whole.”

Murray contends that the European model, where the State seeks to provide all for all from birth to death, is fundamentally flawed because, despite its material successes thus far, it is not suited to the way human beings flourish.

“The problem is this: Every time the government takes some of the trouble out of performing the functions of family, community, vocation, and faith (via social policy) it also strips those institutions of some of their vitality—it drains some of the life from them. It’s inevitable. Families are not vital because the day-to-day tasks of raising children and being a good spouse are so much fun, but because the family has responsibility for doing important things that won’t get done unless the family does them. Communities are not vital because it’s so much fun to respond to our neighbors’ needs, but because the community has the responsibility for doing important things that won’t get done unless the community does them. Once that imperative has been met—family and community really do have the action—then an elaborate web of social norms, expectations, rewards, and punishments evolves over time that supports families and communities in performing their functions. When the government says it will take some of the trouble out of doing the things that families and communities evolved to do, it inevitably takes some of the action away from families and communities, and the web frays, and eventually disintegrates.”

To relate back to Sir Winston’s maxim, as government shields against contrary winds, so fall the kites of all.

As evidence of this decline and disintegration, Mr. Murray identifies sundry pan-European paradoxes: meticulously tended churches, subsidized by the government and unattended by the people; “child-friendly” policies for populations with plunging marriage rates and fertility rates far below replacement; jobs carefully protected by government regulation and replete with lavish mandated benefits for work forces who regard work as, at best, a necessary evil, rarely as a vocation, and who are least likely to say they love their jobs.

“What’s happening?” Murray asks. He calls it “the Europe syndrome,” a mentality that has been documented by journalists and scholars alike.

“That mentality goes something like this: Human beings are a collection of chemicals that activate and, after a period of time, deactivate. The purpose of life is to while away the intervening time as pleasantly as possible.

If that’s the purpose of life, then work is not a vocation, but something that interferes with the higher good of leisure. If that’s the purpose of life, why have a child, when children are so much trouble—and, after all, what good are they, really? If that’s the purpose of life, why spend it worrying about neighbors? If that’s the purpose of life, what could possibly be the attraction of a religion that says otherwise?

The same self-absorption in whiling away life as pleasantly as possible explains why Europe has become a continent that no longer celebrates greatness. When life is a matter of whiling away the time, the concept of greatness is irritating and threatening. What explains Europe’s military impotence? I am surely simplifying, but this has to be part of it: If the purpose of life is to while away the time as pleasantly as possible, what can be worth dying for?

I stand in awe of Europe’s past. Which makes Europe’s present all the more dispiriting. And should make its present something that concentrates our minds wonderfully, for every element of the Europe Syndrome is infiltrating American life as well.”

Murray traces the source of the American outbreak of European Syndrome to the elite American Left who openly express their accord with the above stated world view. This elite American Left has been in control of American popular culture for some time and is now completely in control of the American government. The trajectory is nauseatingly predictable.

In reading Mr. Murray’s essay, the voices of many echoed in our minds; Tocqueville, Russell Kirk, Pope Benedict the XVI, Churchill of course. But the voice most resonant was that of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, particularly as expressed in his indispensable 1978 graduation address at Harvard, “A World Split Apart.”

Here Solzhenitsyn is highly critical of the very mentality Murray identifies and its effect on the souls of free men.

“When the modern Western States were created, the following principle was proclaimed: governments are meant to serve man, and man lives to be free to pursue happiness. (See, for example, the American Declaration). Now at last during past decades technical and social progress has permitted the realization of such aspirations: the welfare state. Every citizen has been granted the desired freedom and material goods in such quantity and of such quality as to guarantee in theory the achievement of happiness, in the morally inferior sense which has come into being during those same decades. … the majority of people have been granted well-being to an extent their fathers and grandfathers could not even dream about; it has become possible to raise young people according to these ideals, leading them to physical splendor, happiness, possession of material goods, money and leisure, to an almost unlimited freedom of enjoyment. So who should now renounce all this, why and for what should one risk one's precious life in defense of common values, and particularly in such nebulous cases when the security of one's nation must be defended in a distant country?

Even biology knows that habitual extreme safety and well-being are not advantageous for a living organism. Today, well-being in the life of Western society has begun to reveal its pernicious mask.”

(Sir Winston’s kite theorem is again brought to mind.)

But is Solzhenitsyn here suggesting that the vision of the American Founders was to create a welfare state tasked with providing for the material comfort and ease of all the people? Quite the contrary.

“In early democracies, as in American democracy at the time of its birth, all individual human rights were granted because man is God's creature. That is, freedom was given to the individual conditionally, in the assumption of his constant religious responsibility. Such was the heritage of the preceding thousand years. Two hundred or even fifty years ago, it would have seemed quite impossible, in America, that an individual could be granted boundless freedom simply for the satisfaction of his instincts or whims. Subsequently, however, all such limitations were discarded everywhere in the West; a total liberation occurred from the moral heritage of Christian centuries with their great reserves of mercy and sacrifice. State systems were becoming increasingly and totally materialistic. The West ended up by truly enforcing human rights, sometimes even excessively, but man's sense of responsibility to God and society grew dimmer and dimmer.”

The consequences of this drift from God are manifest for all with eyes to see.

“A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party and of course in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. … Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?”

“No weapons, no matter how powerful, can help the West until it overcomes its loss of willpower. In a state of psychological weakness, weapons become a burden for the capitulating side. To defend oneself, one must also be ready to die; there is little such readiness in a society raised in the cult of material well-being.”

One might here be tempted to conclude – as is rather the fashion these days - that Solzhenitsyn has declared the death of Western democracy (in particular the American Republic) and is suggesting that only government via strict regulation and economic planning can restore the vitality and direction necessary to bring these nations back to their original greatness. One would be dead wrong.

“I hope that no one present will suspect me of offering my personal criticism of the Western system to present socialism as an alternative. Having experienced applied socialism in a country where the alternative has been realized, I certainly will not speak for it. The well-known Soviet mathematician Shafarevich, a member of the Soviet Academy of Science, has written a brilliant book under the title Socialism; it is a profound analysis showing that socialism of any type and shade leads to a total destruction of the human spirit and to a leveling of mankind into death.”
What then? If all species of socialism and wanton materialism both ultimately lead man to the same state of spiritual and practical ruin, by what system is man to achieve – as Murray describes it - “happiness, which the Founders used in its Aristotelian sense of lasting and justified satisfaction with life as a whole” ?

Solzhenitsyn suggests a return to fundamental spiritual values – sacrifice, restraint, prudence, forbearance, humility - not by force of law, but by voluntary change of heart.

“If humanism were right in declaring that man is born to be happy, he would not be born to die. Since his body is doomed to die, his task on earth evidently must be of a more spiritual nature. It cannot be unrestrained enjoyment of everyday life. It cannot be the search for the best ways to obtain material goods and then cheerfully get the most out of them. It has to be the fulfillment of a permanent, earnest duty so that one's life journey may become an experience of moral growth, so that one may leave life a better human being than one started it. …. Only voluntary, inspired self-restraint can raise man above the world stream of materialism.”

Murray agrees.

“If we ask what are the institutions through which human beings achieve deep satisfactions in life, the answer is that there are just four: family, community, vocation, and faith…. The stuff of life—the elemental events surrounding birth, death, raising children, fulfilling one’s personal potential, dealing with adversity, intimate relationships—coping with life as it exists around us in all its richness—occurs within those four institutions.”

This spiritual maturity necessary to willingly and enthusiastically accept these duties; the voluntary, inspired self-restraint to which Solzhenitsyn refers, is the essence of American Exceptionalism. Is it not vastly evident in the words and deeds of the Pilgrims who first settled the American coast; the Colonists who established communities and nurtured a passion for self-reliance; the Founders who crafted a brilliant system of government devoted to the maintenance of ordered Liberty; the pioneers who risked all and endured the unendurable in search of greater opportunities and new lands; the ordinary citizens who weathered a Great Depression and two World Wars? It is this Exceptionalism – the American soul – despite all its resurgence in the years since Solzhenitsyn’s 1978 address, that Murray says is today in danger of being lost forever.

"What it comes down to is that America’s elites must once again fall in love with what makes America different. I am not being theoretical. The possibility that irreversible damage will be done to the American project over the next few years is real. The drift toward the European model can be slowed by piecemeal victories on specific items of legislation, but only slowed. It is going to be stopped only when we are all talking again about why America is exceptional, and why it is so important that America remain exceptional. That requires once again seeing the American project for what it is: a different way for people to live together, unique among the nations of the earth, and immeasurably precious."

It is not too late America. Seek not the protection of the Nanny State Nursery, for its shelter is that of a tomb. Instead, step boldly once again into the winds of adversity and set your kites as high as you see fit, living as the Creator decreed and the Founders intended – in sacred freedom.

Cheers,

Charlie

Dec 14, 2008

Celebrating THE NEW Bill of Rights Day


Each year on 15 December, millions of American’s celebrate Bill of Rights Day. Well… all right. But seriously, 12/15 is Bill of Rights Day; first declared in 1941 by FDR to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights.

Originally the Framers adopted the Bill of Rights “in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its (the Constitution’s) powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.”


In other words, the Framers sought to further define the LIMITS of American governmental power so that free men might employ their individual creativity, industry, and sense of good will in pursuit of “beneficent ends” as they saw fit. This would, in the light of current political fashion, make them craven right-wing greed-crazed nut-monkeys.

Regardless, none of that matters now, for it is a new day. The free market is dead. The government of the United States is finally waking to the full realization of its awesome responsibility in the care and well-being of its people. No more of the oppression, racism, injustice, and brutality that have characterized America’s tragic story heretofore. Hope and change will end it all by ensuring the true “rights” and “beneficent ends” deserved of all Americans – nay, the entire global village!

Hence, in celebration of Bill of Rights Day 2008, we present to you: the United States of America’s NEW Bill of Rights.

Amendment I
No person shall be denied health care of any kind, any where, any time, for any reason, regardless of actual need, citizenship, or ability/willingness/intention to pay.

Amendment II
No person shall be denied a home mortgage of any kind, any where, any time, for any reason, regardless of actual need, citizenship, or ability/willingness/intention to pay.

Amendment III
No person shall be denied a personal computer and high-speed broadband Internet access regardless of actual need, citizenship, or ability/willingness/intention to pay.

Amendment IV
No business venture shall be forced to endure the humiliation of bankruptcy or foreclosure even in instances of bald-faced incompetence or immorality.

Amendment V
No person/organization/nation shall be forced to honor debts of any kind, be they incurred honorably or dishonorably, or with the slightest ability/intention of ever actually being paid.

Amendment VI
No person shall be subjected to the humiliation of earning less than a suitable “living wage” the definition of which to be determined entirely at the whim of the wage earner and his/her respective activist support network.

Amendment VII
No member of government at any level shall be held accountable for any act, ever, no matter how utterly unscrupulous or deleterious to the welfare of the United States of America, unless they be Republican.

Amendment VIII
No person at any level of income, up to and including no income whatsoever, shall be denied the means of a comfortable retirement in keeping with the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed, or to which they aspire.

Amendment IX
No person shall be denied the standard of living they feel they deserve, regardless of their willingness to undertake the activities traditionally associated with achieving it.

Amendment X
No person shall be denied Freedom from Want, a right more sacred even than those of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

With these strictures firmly enshrined in the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution, the nation it governs will at last fulfill its promise as the all-expense-paid Carnival cruise it was intended to be. And, when the economy collapses, Americans - purged of all delusions about individualism, liberty, and personal responsibility - will be thoroughly primed for servitude at the hands of their new international feudal lords.

Cheers,

Charlie

Nov 18, 2008

And so it begins...


The “Office of the President-Elect” has announced its plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 Percent by 2050. It would accomplish this through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to “implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.” This would “make the U.S. a leader on climate change.”

This would also make the U.S. a third world nation. Well why not, pretty much everyone else is!

The Heritage Foundation reports,

“This intrusive regulation will cost the American economy nearly $7 trillion dollars in lost GDP in just 20 years, and result in massive job losses. Heritage’s respected Center for Data Analysis estimates non-farm employment losses will exceed 800,000 in some years, and manufacturing jobs will plummet. Some industries would lose over half of their jobs. Government permits would be needed to expand small businesses and build homes, hospitals and schools. To add insult to injury, foreign competitors will not have to abide by these regulations, leaving American businesses at a disadvantage.”

America, this is a very real threat to your very real economy for a nebulous, unsubstantiated, and quite likely non-existent threat – global warming. You are already well down the road to socialism. Giving this degree of economic control to agencies of the government would pretty much cinch the deal. Will you give it all away so easily?

Nov 2, 2008

Liberty Schmiberty – Gives Us Our #$&^%* Goodies!


(Don't miss our smash new YouTube video: “Say the Magic Word and Vote Obama”)

"There can be no doubt that socialism is inseparably interwoven with totalitarianism and the abject worship of the state. Socialism is in its essence an attack not only upon British enterprise, but upon the right of the ordinary man or woman to breathe freely without having a harsh, clumsy tyrannical hand clasped across their mouth and nostrils. (Labour) would have to fall back on some form of Gestapo, no doubt very humanely directed in the first instance."
- Sir Winston Churchill, 1945 election broadcast

We have seen all this before. In 1945 the British people demonstrated their appreciation of the man who had saved them from enslavement at the hands of National Socialists by voting him out of office and voting in the socialists.

Why?

The socialist (a.k.a. Labour) promised “Freedom from Want” via all manner of Lefty goodies like government-created full employment, a tax-funded universal National Health Service, and a cradle-to-grave welfare state; their sunny campaign slogan: "Let us face the future.”

By contrast, Sir Winston’s familiar grumblings about God and country had grown tiresome. The war weary electorate sought hope and change. They got it.

With Labour's landslide victory in 1945, the fundamentals of the British economy were nationalized, changing British society forever. Lady Thatcher’s attempts at recovery beginning in 1979 were heroic and surprisingly productive. Nonetheless, the tide could not be turned. The people must be coddled.

Thus today, Britain is the defenseless, international irrelevance that it is, on the verge of becoming the northwestern most outpost of the current global caliphate.

Presently America finds itself at a nearly identical crossroads and appears poised to follow Britain’s lead. On November 4 we shall find out once and for all. (Amid all the rioting and charges of vote fraud, of course, it may take a few extra weeks.)

We would highly (desperately) recommend voters seriously consider the matters raised not only in our own video above, but in the following:

-The Obama Strategy
- Obama’s WBEZ Chicago interview
(Beak tip to Always On Watch!)

Everyone wants to feel hope and experience change. Everyone wants freedom from want (ironic, eh?). History has demonstrated in no uncertain terms , however, that these are states of mind, not of government; and attempts at bringing them about through the power of government can be done so only with tanks, terror, reeducation camps, or in this the smiley-faced era, “human rights commissions.”


America - choose wisely. Please!

Cheers,

Charlie