Say Anything Blog

Richard Henry Lee

The San Francisco Chronicle announced that they would stop publishing their newspaper at their aging, unionized printing plant and instead outsource the printing to a Canadian owned, non-union company.

The Chronicle had signed an agreement a few years ago with Transcontinental Northern California, which is a subsidiary of Transcontinental Inc. with headquarters in Canada, to construct a new printing plant and print the paper for the next 15 years.

Not surprisingly, the move has upset the labor unions:

  Several Chronicle pressmen said they are upset that neither they nor their colleagues had been hired there. Union members of the Teamsters Local 853, which represents Chronicle delivery drivers and pressroom insert staff, want the plant unionized. They had been picketing it for alleged workplace violations until last week, when the protest was suspended temporarily so that union drivers could be trained on the pickup procedures at the new plant, said Rome Aloise, principal officer for Local 853.

The Chronicle lost $50 million last year and could not afford to replace the plant themselves.

The publisher of the Chronicle stated:

  “Several years ago we made a conscious decision that we need to be in the news and information business, and that printing was better left to professional commercial printers.”

The move comes at a time when California unemployment is 11.5% and there are threatened layoffs at all levels of government in the state.

In other Chronicle labor news, Gail Murray, a Bay Area Rapid Transit Board member responded to a letter from area state legislators who asked the Board to be nice (that is, generous) to the unions during current labor negotiations:

  In particular, Murray was reacting to a June 24 letter that Assemblywoman Fiona Ma, D-San Francisco, and 14 of her Bay Area legislative colleagues sent to BART General Manager Dorothy Dugger. In their letter, the lawmakers raised concerns about BART’s tough bargaining stance with the unions.

  Murray, however, recalled that it was local and state pols who stepped into the middle of BART’s negotiations eight years ago to force a deal that gave the unions a 24 percent boost in salaries and benefits over four years.

The party affiliation of the other 14 Bay Area legislators was not mentioned, but we are probably safe in assuming they are also Democrats.

A large part of the fiscal problems in California stems from the clout that the powerful public sector unions have over the Democrat-controlled state legislature and other Democratic officials who routinely grant the unions costly benefits and salaries while increasing the number of state employees, even during the current budget crisis.

[...]

Obama’s pandering and payoffs to unions will bring the same results to the US in general.  Not good.

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Press Continues to Ignore the Public’s Shunning of Bailed-out GM and Chrysler, Part 2: Telling Details

By Tom Blumer

Part 1 (“The Big Picture”) is here.

Quick:

  1. Which company sold the most light trucks in the U.S. in June?
  2. Which company came in at Number 9 in car sales in June, down from Number 7 a year ago?
  3. Aren’t smaller players in the auto industry obviously gaining ground on the big guys because of their small, fuel-efficient cars?

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, it’s because the press has been doing a poor job of covering what’s really been going on in the industry since the Era of the (Failed) Auto Company Bailouts began in December of last year.

[...]

The answers to the three questions are as follows:

  1. (in white on blue above) In June, Ford sold more light trucks than General Motors for the first in many, many years. Just a year ago, GM had a lead on Ford of over 50%.
  2. (in black on yellow) In June, Chrysler was the Number 9 seller of cars in the U.S. Even a year ago, it was only Number 7, miles behind the top five in the category, and even badly trailing Hyundai. In the past year, Kia has passed Chrysler and established a bit of distance. VW outsold Chrysler during June, for the first time in probably forever—and remember that this was a month when the 25% of dealers that were terminated had going-out-of-business deals going. It seems more than a little likely that BMW will catch Chrysler in the coming months.
  3. (in white on green, for irony) While many of the larger makers have focused their efforts on smaller cars, the rest of the pack, contrary to established non-wisdom, has made significant inroads in generally higher-profit light trucks. While light truck sales at the six biggest players are off over 25% in the past year, the smaller players are down less than 9%.

If the establishment press was doing its job covering the industry, the first two items would be widely-known stories. The third, though a bit less obvious, certainly throws into doubt the conventional wisdom that going small is the ticket to success.

Other developments that bear watching include:

  * Given Chrysler’s dealer terminations, Toyota may soon overtake Chrysler in truck sales. Honda might catch up and pass both.
  * Ford has a shot at overtaking Honda in car sales.
  * Toyota is perilously close to surrendering its lead to GM as Number 1 in monthly car sales.

The last item just noted is the only one in either of the two posts about the industry situation that is even remotely favorable to GM. If it comes to pass accompanied by heavy press coverage, it will be further proof (as if we really need any) that the press is firmly on the side of the failed bailout attempts, never mind the wreckage they have inflicted on the economy, the rule of law, and on people who didn’t deserve it.

The public knows that Obama’s power grab of GM and Chrysler is wrong, and are voting with their dollars against him.

Rick Moran

[...]

The bombshell dropped today as Michael Slackman and Nazila Fathi of the New York Times report: that the clerics have issued a statement saying that the disputed presidential election and the new government (is) illegitimate

  A statement by the group, the Association of Researchers and Teachers of Qum, represents a significant, if so far symbolic, setback for the government and especially the authority of the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose word is supposed to be final. The government has tried to paint the opposition and its top presidential candidate, Mir Hussein Moussavi, as criminals and traitors, a strategy that now becomes more difficult - if not impossible.

  “This crack in the clerical establishment, and the fact they are siding with the people and Moussavi, in my view is the most historic crack in the 30 years of the Islamic republic,” said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian Studies Program at Stanford University. “Remember, they are going against an election verified and sanctified by Khamenei.”

  The announcement came on a day when Mr. Moussavi released documents detailing a campaign of fraud by the current president’s supporters, and as a close associate of the supreme leader called Mr. Moussavi and former President Mohammad Khatami “foreign agents,” saying they should be treated as criminals.

  The documents, published on Mr. Moussavi’s Web site, accused supporters of the president of printing more than 20 million extra ballots before the vote and handing out cash bonuses to voters.

I would say 20 million extra ballots would go a long way toward stealing an election, wouldn’t you?

The significance, as the Times story points out, is symbolic - for now. It depends on what Rafsanjani wants to do. It may give him a boost in the Assembly of Experts which could, given enough support for the ex-president, topple Khamenei himself or severely restrict his power. It won’t be enough to hold another vote or oust Ahmadinejad but it certainly puts the regime on notice that change is in the air.

All we can do now is wait for Round Two.

The Iranians want freedom, even if Obama won’t support them in that.

By Lloyd Marcus

Read the whole thing.  It’s an inspiring story, and couldn’t be effectively edited.
Racism is bad behavior, and the cure is good behavior, not hurling accusations and hating.

Rick Moran

The liberal blogger Brad Friedman (BradBlog) fancies himself a ” citizen investigative journalist,” pushing several conspiracy theories over the years about electronic voting machines and their manufacturers.

But the gossip mongering Friedman outdid himself when he “broke” the news that “federal investigators” were about to hand down indictments in what he calls the “Iceberg Scandal:”

  Okay, I’ve now been able to get independent information from multiple sources that all of this precedes what are said to be possible federal indictments against Palin, concerning an embezzlement scandal related to the building of Palin’s house and the Wasilla Sports Complex, built during her tenure as Mayor. Both structures, it is said, feature the “same windows, same wood, same products.” Federal investigators have been looking into this for some time, and indictments could be imminent, according to the Alaska sources.

  The BRAD BLOG has not been able to receive confirm from any federal sources on this. Our information comes from local Alaskans who follow Palin, and who have been keeping an eye on this for some time, while keeping it quiet at the request of federal investigators.

No confirmation, but hey! Let’s smear the woman anyway with rumors of wrong doing.

It’s obvious that Friedman never talked to the FBI who announced that Palin is not under investigation according to this Josh Meyer piece in the LA Times:

  A day after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin resigned, a federal official in her home state dismissed one potential explanation for her sudden and unexpected resignation: a rumored FBI investigation into the former Wasilla mayor on public corruption charges.

  Despite rumors of a looming controversy after the Republican governor’s surprise announcement Friday that she would leave office this month, some of them published in the blogosphere, the FBI’s Alaska spokesman said the bureau had no investigation into Palin for her activities as governor, as mayor or in any other capacity.

  “There is absolutely no truth to those rumors that we’re investigating her or getting ready to indict her,” Special Agent Eric Gonzalez said in a phone interview Saturday. “It’s just not true.” He added that there was “no wiggle room” in his comments for any kind of inquiry.

Ooops! Another “scoop” by Friedman bites the dust. It’s about what you’d expect from a guy who boasts about writing for that bastion of journalistic integrity, Truthout.org where serial exaggerator Jason Leopold insisted for months (and was backed up in writing by his hapless publisher) that an indictment of Karl Rove was on the way, thus sending the netnuts into paroxysms of ecstasy. Later, most sane liberals tip-toed away from Leopold and Truthout when it became apparent that Leopold, another self styled “investigative journalist,” was no better than a gossip monger like Friedman.

[...]

Friedman’s piece was picked up by dozens of liberal blogs. One wonders if any of them will bother to issue a “clarification” now that the facts are out.

The lying leftie attack dogs get smacked with the truth.  Good.

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The National Black Republican Association (NBRA) has issued a petition requesting President Obama to issue a proclamation of apology to black Americans for the Democrat Party’s 150-year history of racism in America. The organization’s current newsletter, “The Democratic Party Owes Blacks an Apology” by Chairman Frances Rice, outlines the reasons for the petition.

The NBRA is not asking this of our government, our country, American citizens, nor the Republican Party. They are asking it solely from the Democrat Party. Further, they ask Democrats to stop “issuing unwarranted apologies on behalf of America, while simultaneously using racial politics for partisan political gain.”

The organization places the blame for current racial divides in America at the feet of the Democrat Party. In the newsletter, they contend the Democrat Party is “the party of the four S’s: Slavery, Secession, Segregation, and now Socialism.”

They believe the socialist policies of the Democrat Party harm blacks, rather than help them, and serve to further racial tensions through victim-mongering.

Chairman Rice spells out how the socialism of the Democrat Party uses a “despicable..strategy …to keep blacks poor, angry, and voting for Democrats.” And further, that “the socialist policies of the Democrats have destroyed the economic and social fabric of black communities.”

She states that there are two main reasons for black support of the Democrat Party, despite the fact that most blacks are generally conservative. First is the Democrats’ false branding of the Republican Party as being racist. And second, is the deeply-rooted belief that “the government must do something for blacks”. Whereas the Republican Party promotes self-sufficiency among the black community, the Democrat Party insists on blacks’ dependence on the government.

[...]

Chairman Rice concludes by asking Democrats to “stop using race baiting as a political weapon and apologize to blacks so that our nation can finally heal our racial wounds.”

It’s about time someone started telling the truth about Dem racism.  Obama sure isn’t doing that.

Tom Suhadolnik

What happened to Sarah Palin is a political game changer on the national level.  It also may be a preview of what every American may face in a few years.

The 18 ethics charges filed since she rose to prominence in Republican circles might be the first time the left has successfully used the Cloward-Piven Strategy to stop an individual politician on the national level.

For those who do not know, the strategy was developed in the late 1960s by two sociologists at Columbia.  In a nutshell it seeks to “hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse”.

It was implemented in NYC where activists on the left lobbied for new social programs then worked to fill the rosters.  By the early 1970s there was one person on welfare for every two working in NYC.  This nearly resulted in NYC declaring bankruptcy in 1975, averted only by a federal emergency loan.

In the case of Sarah Palin, political opponents overloaded her with a flood of complaints and consequent legal fees, thus pushing her toward a personal financial crisis and her exit from the public arena.  Like NYC she may come back, but the rules of the game have changed.

Some of the complaints her legal team responded to were simply absurd.

  [...]

The mere fact that she had to engage an attorney to respond to it means anyone with a computer, printer and a few stamps can force a politician to incur thousands of dollars in legal fees.  And while these sort of Kafkaesque tribunals have normally been reserved for prominent Americans, we might all get to participate in the future.

TARP, the Stimulus Bill, GM/Chrysler Bailout, Cap & Trade and Healthcare reform will create hundreds of new bureaucratic tribunals and czars with the power to investigate and punish those who are found to be non-compliant.  You don’t need to hire a lawyer to trigger an investigative process; you just need to file a complaint.

Whether it’s a politically motivated effort or just the rant of a schizophrenic neighbor we all might get to experience this sort of madness in the future.

There were never any valid arguments against any of her actual policy positions, only lying smear and false accusations were used against her.
That tactic is evil and dishonest.

Richard Henry Lee

Filing ethics complaints against Gov. Sarah Palin (R) had become the favorite sport in Alaska among those with a liberal agenda. The complaints were largely frivolous and exacted a heavy price tag for the Palin family with legal bills amounting to $500,000. One of the reasons Palin gave for her surprise resignation was the cost to the State’s taxpayers and to her family from the complaints. Every one of the complaints has been dismissed.

But the complainants had an agenda unrelated to ethics law violations.
One of the complaints involved Palin wearing a jacket with a logo. According to a press release by Palin’s office:

  The complaint, filed by Linda Kellen Biegel, a blogger designated by the 2008 Democratic National Convention to represent Alaska bloggers, alleged that the governor violated the ethics act when she acted as the official starter of the Iron Dog snow machine race in February while wearing a jacket with the name Team Arctic, a logo of the Arctic Cat Company.

Another press release states:

  “In the past several months, we have seen an orchestrated effort by the governor’s opponents to make differences of opinion and ideology almost criminal,” said Mike Nizich, the governor’s chief of staff. “Governor Palin has spent a considerable amount of time and money fighting ethics complaints - and no charge has been substantiated. I hope that the publicity-seekers will face a backlash from Alaskans who have a sense of fair play and proportion. I served six previous governors, and I’ve never seen anything like the attacks against Governor Palin.”

[...]

If it is a crime for a governor to wear a jacket with a logo, to advocate for or against a proposition, to engage in politics, or to travel out of state for political purposes, then all of our governors are guilty and should be locked up.

These complaints were distracting and costly to Palin and they impaired her ability to do her job. The motive behind the attacks was to silence a conservative voice which threatened the liberal agenda.

By resigning, Palin has an opportunity to lend her voice to the conservative cause without the relentless attacks she has encountered as Governor. She also has a chance to regroup with her family and work on her book. I wish her well.

Palin and her supporters have established The Alaska Fund Trust to help pay her legal costs. Click on the link if you wish to contribute.

It’s not surprising that none of the leftie news outlets has even covered this obvious reason for her action yesterday.
This is an illustration of the evil of false accusations and lying smear as a political weapon.

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Team of Researchers Blames Children’s Films for Perpetuating “Heteronormativity”

By Kathleen Gilbert

ANN ARBOR, Michigan, June 24, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Researchers at the University of Michigan have concluded that the love stories told in classic Disney and other G-rated children’s films - such as the Little Mermaid - are partially to blame for the pervasiveness of what they label “heteronormativity.”

“Despite the assumption that children’s media are free of sexual content, our analyses suggest that these media depict a rich and pervasive heterosexual landscape,” wrote researchers Emily Kazyak and Karin Martin, in a report published in the latest issue of the Sociologists for Women in Society (SWS) publication Gender & Society.

Kazyak and Martin said they studied the role of heterosexual relationships in several of the highest-grossing G-rated films between 1990-2005.

The results, say the researchers, illustrate two ways that the children’s films “construct heterosexuality”: through “depictions of hetero-romantic love as exceptional, powerful, transformative, and magical,” and “depictions of interactions between gendered bodies in which the sexiness of feminine characters is subjected to the gaze of masculine characters.”

“Characters in love are surrounded by music, flowers, candles, magic, fire, balloons, fancy dresses, dim lights, dancing and elaborate dinners,” the researchers observed. “Fireflies, butterflies, sunsets, wind and the beauty and power of nature often provide the setting for - and a link to the naturalness of - hetero-romantic love.”

The SWS press release on the research blamed what they called the “old ideals” of romantic relationships, specifically those found the Brothers Grimm fairy tales, which in many instances inspired the films’ storylines, for “such heavily gendered depictions and glorified portrayals of heterosexual relationships.”

The team says the results point to heterosexuality achieving a “taken-for-granted status” “because hetero-romance is depicted as powerful.”

[...]

The SWS press release concluded: “President Obama may have declared June to be Gay Pride Month, but entertainment for children therefore continues to perpetuate a less inclusive message, leaving those outside its confines with little to build their own dreams of happily ever after.”

Sexuality expert Dr. Judith Reisman told LifeSiteNews.com (LSN) yesterday that the “politically correct” study reveals “the growing dominance of Heterophobia within academia and the spread of heterophobes among female professionals.”

“Now, if the Ladies of the Sociology Society think pornography is becoming the heteronorm and that Disney is contributing to that form of what is really Heterophobia, they might have an argument,” Reisman noted.

“However, the Ladies of the Sociology Society appear to favor Homoerotic child propaganda, as the current academic party line dictates.”

Another shot in the war on heterosexuality.  Hijacking marriage by homo activists is just the first step.  Look for claims that heterosexuality is a “hate crime”.  It’s all a result of the phony “rights” argument.

Seventy-Five Years after the Night of the Long Knives

By Bruce Walker

June 30, 2009 is the seventy-fifth anniversary of a ghastly reminder about the nature of evil in the modern world.  The Night of the Long Knives showed, for those who still needed to be convinced, that the only object of totalitarianism is power.  Adolf Hitler ordered the extermination of those who he considered a threat to his power.  Bland histories of Nazi Germany portray this as the destruction of the SA (the Nazi paramilitary force commanded by Ernst Roehm) as a way of placating the German Army or the liquidation of the Left wing of the Nazi Party, led by men like Greggor Strasser, once the second most powerful Nazi.

Hitler did murder these Nazi rivals, but he did much more than that.  Nazi persecution of Christianity began long before the Night of the Long Knives.  In Prussia, the Gestapo began arresting Protestant clergymen from almost the beginning of Nazi rule.  On June 11, 1933, Nazis savagely beat with steel and rubber truncheons priests who had addressed the Catholic Workers Union.  On January 22nd, 1934, Nazis broke into the study of Pastor Jacobi and beat him up.  Eleven days before that, Pastor Rzadki had been sent to a concentration camp.

[...]

The Night of the Long Knives was not an attack on the “socialism” in National Socialism, as it is so often suggested.  Two weeks after the Night of the Long Knives, Graf von der Golz, Deputy Commissar in the Ministry of Economics in July `5, 1934 speech to businessmen said: “Any organization that represents the interests of the employer will be regarded as illegal and disbanded and the guilty parties will be prosecuted.”

A few months later, on October 16th, Nazis raised the highest income tax rate from 40% to 50%.  Income tax rates were raised twice again, on February 17, 1939 and September 9, 1939, but exempted incomes of 2,400 Reichmarks a year or less.[ii]  The Nazis removed the exemption on business taxes for many types of businesses and it increased the progressivity of the business taxes.  The Loan Stock Law of December 4, 1934 virtually confiscated all dividends of six percent or, in some cases, eight percent by ordering the beneficiaries of stock dividends to invest those monies in state bonds.

An act of August 27, 1936 raised the general business tax rate from 20% to 25% and to 30% for each year thereafter; then on July 25, 1938 corporate profits of more than 100,000 Reichmarks per year were subjected to an additional tax of 35% with that rising to 40% for each year thereafter; and on March 20, 1939, the Nazis imposed an excess profits tax.[iii]

It is not just that the Nazi state raised taxes (Leftists like to argue that this was just to fund the Nazi War Machine), although in four years, Nazis had raised taxes to approximately one fourth of the national income.[iv] No wonder Fritz Thyssen, one of the industrialists who did help bring the Nazis to power, said in 1940:  “Soon Germany will not be any different from Bolshevik Russia; the heads of enterprises who do not fulfill the conditions which the ‘Plan’ prescribes will be accused of treason against the German people, and shot.”[v]

The Nazis specifically placed higher tax rates on the rich and not the poor.  Why did the Nazis, like all totalitarians, embrace draconian socialism?  Totalitarianism has everything to do with crushing all sources of opposition and nothing to do with any notional “ideology” (power is the only ideology of any totalitarians.)

The Night of the Long Knives is a reminder that totalitarianism is all the same, everywhere, all the time.  It is a reminder that every totalitarian leader is a jealous god.  Hitler murdered not to prevent socialism but to make sure he had power.  He murdered religious leaders, like he enslaved businessmen, to make sure he, alone, had power.

As we watch our Leader’s face everywhere on television, his words as answers to every problem, and his inspectors general fired when they find malfeasance, his legislators asked to vote for bills they have not read, our media practically scripted in its treatment of him, is it not prudent to ask how little the lust for power has changed in the last seventy-five years?

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Merkel Pledges Tax Cuts Despite Rising Deficit

By ANDREA THOMAS

BERLIN—German Chancellor Angela Merkel defended her plan to cut taxes despite the country’s soaring budget deficit as she introduced her conservative alliance’s manifesto ahead of national elections in September.

Lower incomes taxes would “provide motivation” and encourage economic growth, Ms. Merkel told a conference of her party, the Christian Democratic Union, and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union.

“It would be wrong not to do what is right and necessary for growth, and so prevent ourselves emerging quickly from this crisis,” Ms. Merkel said in her conference speech.

The conservative parties’ election platform promises tax cuts worth €15 billion ($21 billion), but gives no time frame. The parties plan to cut the lowest income tax rate to 12% from 14% at present, raise the threshold for paying the top income tax rate of 42%, and reduce the degree to which a rising income leads to a progressively higher tax rate.

[...]

Ms. Merkel has repeatedly ruled out the possibility of tax increases in the event she wins the election, saying the German economy wouldn’t be able to deal with the burden of higher taxes when it is struggling to regain some growth momentum.

[...]

The essence of good financial management is to live within your means.

By Ken Shepherd

Here’s something most likely to go unnoticed as the mainstream media continues reporting on the fallout of the New Haven firefighter case.

In his “Bench Memos” blog, National Review’s Ed Whelan explains in “9-0 Against Sotomayor” how even the four liberal justices in today’s Ricci v. DeStefano ruling thought Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor goofed in issuing summary judgment for New Haven when the case was before her (italics Whelan’s, bold mine):

  In footnote 10 of her dissent, Justice Ginsburg states: “Ordinarily, a remand for fresh consideration [whether the City of New Haven in fact had good cause to act] would be in order.” But because the majority saw no need to remand, Ginsburg explains “why, if final disposition by this Court is indeed appropriate, New Haven should be the prevailing party.” (Emphasis added.)

  In other words, Ginsburg doesn’t believe that final disposition of the case is appropriate. She and her fellow dissenters therefore believe that Sotomayor and her Second Circuit colleagues and the district court were wrong to grant summary judgment to the City of New Haven.

[...]

At any rate, thanks to Whelan and the conservative blogosphere, what may go unnoticed and unheralded in the mainstream media will not remain completely unreported as we move forward to Sotomayor’s confirmation hearings.

The truth comes out: Sotomayor goofed, big time.
She’s not qualified to be on SCOTUS.

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Media nervous on new Duke U. rape case (updated)

Thomas Lifson

A new and even more scandalous rape allegation has surfaced at Duke University. Yet the usual media and campus PC crowd are keeping mighty quiet. Identity politics apparently trumps all sense of outrage.

Of course, after the disgraceful media and university reaction to the phony allegations against Duke Lacrosse team members, it is wise avoid jumping to conclusions, but the comparative silence on the current case is nonetheless remarkable, considering how many particulars of the case were left out of the main AP account.

Mike Adams, writing on Townhall, lays out the facts the MSM won’t:

  Frank Lombard is the associate director of Duke’s Center for Health Policy. The university administrator was recently arrested by the FBI and charged with offering up his adopted 5-year-old son for sex. I tried to contact Frank Lombard over the weekend to probe his expertise regarding the health benefits of raping small children. So far, he’s declined to comment.

  University administrator Lombard is accused of logging on to a chat room online and describing himself as a “perv dad for fun.” The detective who wisely looked into the suspicious screen name says that Lombard admitted to molesting his own adopted son. All this was before allegedly inviting a stranger to travel to North Carolina from another state to statutorily rape his already-molested adopted son.

It gets worse. The allegations are stunning and sickening. Adams spares us what he says is the worst.

However, identity politics are probably also involved in understanding the media response. Again, Adams:

  The Associate Press (AP) did not mention the fact that the five-year old offered up for molestation was black. Bringing that fact to light might be damaging to the political coalition that exists between blacks and gays. Nor did the AP mention that the adopted child is being raised by a homosexual couple. Bringing that fact to light might harm the gay adoption movement.

I am afraid that as far as the media and academic communities are involved, it is not the crime itself that matters, but rather whether the alleged perp is a member of an “oppressor” group. Although white, Lombard is gay, so in the interest of avoiding unpleasant stories involving homosexual adoption, the media is anxious to shut down public interest in the affair.

[...]

Welcome to the wonderful world of leftie identity politics!

There seems to be a need in American society to have to relearn the same hard lessons over and over again, regardless of whether the results were seen on the other side of the planet or suffered through by our own people.

We’re living in a country that elected a President who believes in redistributing wealth. He’s mentioned this himself, from the “Joe the Plumber” incident to his critique[ii] of the failures of the civil rights movement. Whether you call it Socialism, Communism, Marxism, or by its simpler name, theft, they are all part of the same economic system that destroys private property and puts everything in central control of the state.

The lesson we, and the rest of the world, seems to fail to learn is how socially and economically destructive this sort of system is. The problem is, these lessons don’t have to be learned from studying the histories of far off lands, for we have numerous examples of collectivist/socialist experiments here at home.

In Jamestown, there was no welfare state. Originally meant to be a trading colony, too many of the original inhabitants were adventurers or people seeking to gain wealth through the export of things they could find in the new world. Preoccupied with their own ideas of fortune, they found that in the wilderness of what was North America their habit of avoiding physical labor meant life or death. It was here that John Smith proclaimed, “He who will not work will not eat.”[iii] It worked…sort of. While success still eluded the colony, the mortality rate did go from 60 percent to 15 percent.

Imagine a politician on any level making Smith’s proclamation today. Cities would burn. Of course, when Sir Thomas Dale arrived there in 1611, he saw “where the most company were, and the daily and usual workers, bowling in the streets.”[iv] Apparently Smith’s proclamation had only motivated the people enough to do the minimum. Sir Dale had to motivate the people to fix up their houses, plant corn, and secure the defenses of the fort.

Lord De La Warr, the first official governor of Jamestown, continued with the communal storehouse practice. This meant that no matter how hard one worked; everyone was entitled to food so nobody would (in theory) starve. It only prolonged the hardship. Seeking a way around this, the administrators began using the incentive approach (as opposed to Smith’s harsh approach) and privatized land ownership. With tobacco finding a market back in Europe, the private property incentives mixed with trading allowed Jamestown to finally get over the hump and begin to prosper.[v]

The Pilgrims sought to live in a society that promoted “just and equal laws.” Their first year saw the death of half of their population through disease, starvation, and malnutrition (again, thanks to communal farming). In a story that’s getting more and more circulation in today’s internet age (and thanks to Rush’s yearly reading of the story of Thanksgiving), we learn that only when William Bradford instituted private property that people began to work harder and innovate more.[vi] Even women and children went out to the fields with their husbands, which meant more crops were planted and ultimately harvested. This led to more trade with the local tribes, earlier repayment of debt to the English sponsors, and overall prosperity of the colony.

Let’s fast forward a bit.

[...]

The term “socialism” was actually coined by Owen’s followers around the time New Haven failed.

Eighteen other communities were established on the Owen collectivized model across the United States. Modern Times, the name of the community established on Long Island, was the last to fail. This was in 1863.

Charles Fourier, a French social theorist, came up with the solution to the problems associated with collectivized living: It should be done on a smaller scale. He calculated that 1,620 was the ideal population and that they should live on 6,000 acres. These were called phalanxes. In the 1840’s, a man named Charles Brisbane decided to implement this idea, ultimately establishing 28 of them. All failed within 12 years.[x]

[...]

In 1841, Humphrey Noyes started the “Perfectionists”, and wrote a book on his theories titled Bible Communism in 1848. Noyes took collectivism to the next level; not only was all property communal, but so were spouses. The term for this was “complex marriage” and in practice it meant, “all the men in the Perfectionist community considered themselves husbands to all the women, and each woman the wife of every man.”[xii] Before coitus, and even conception, people had to have consent granted by the whole community. Economically, and with a hint of irony, they flourished by building and marketing animal traps. However, this particular communist experiment ended when they established a joint-stock company called Oneida Community, Ltd.

[...]

These few examples, and there are more out there, show how American culture even before the Civil War (or the War of Northern Aggression, depending on your location) tried communal living and centrally planned economic models. Despite the good intentions of the people involved, they always fail because of the inherent flaws in Socialism. Unfortunately, given the reach of the federal government and current make-up of the executive and legislative branches, we are set to learn this lesson the hard way. Again.