FOX Lies About Occupy Protests

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On FOX “news” Sunday, the panel decided that the Occupy movement was un-American and maybe even Marxist but during the Tea Party protests FOX “news” fell over itself to promote them. There is no difference between the Occupy movement and the Tea Party protests – in that they both were an exercise of their right to protest for what they believe in. To say one is “un-American” and the other isn’t betrays FOX’s bias toward the 1%.

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What is the REAL nanny state?

The preamble of the US Constitution says: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence,promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.” That means the government should act in the best interests of the people and in a way that betters our lives such as protecting our health, liberty, and property. Some conservatives like Senator Rand Paul complain about a “nanny state” restricting our freedom to eat as much as we want when we want, waste energy, and to be homophobic no matter that doing all that might encroach on other’s rights.

Recently Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) said:

Sen. Rand Paul, in a tussle with an Energy Department official Thursday, complained about what he described as burdensome, “busybody” regulations that were forcing him to buy a bad bowl.

“Frankly, my toilets don’t work in my house. And I blame you and people like you who want to tell me what I can install in my house, what I can do. You restrict my choices,” Paul said.

The issue on the table was a 2007 law requiring a phase-in of energy efficient bulbs. Paul and others are trying to repeal portions of the law, arguing that it restricts the American consumer.

At a Thursday hearing on the issue, Paul — a freshman Republican who shares a libertarian streak with his father, Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) — aimed his complaints at Kathleen Hogan, a deputy assistant at the Energy Department.

He began his remarks by asking Hogan if she was pro-choice. She replied that she was “pro-choice of bulbs.”

“The point is that most members of your administration probably would be frank and would be up front to characterize themselves as being pro-choice for abortion,” Paul said.

Toilets join light bulbs on Sen. Rand Paul’s list of necessities burdened by ‘busybody’ rules0

Setting aside the ridiculous point of comparing abortion to buying light bulbs, he isn’t the only cheap labor conservative to complain about government regulations that force you to change the behavior you are use to.

I understand Paul’s point about low flow toilets. Early models were clunky, but the current models are cutting edge and leave the old complaints behind.

I support the use of CFL or LED light bulbs over the old inefficient incandescent bulbs that haven’t really changed in over 100 years. I have several CFL bulbs and one of them I bought in 2003 and it is still working. I have not had to change a light bulb for more than 3 years now and I have seen a slight reduction in my electric bill. I plan on moving to the even better LED bulbs once the costs moderate a bit more.

What moron would want to spend money on old bulbs and give up savings on their electric bill? Sen Rand Paul I guess and other Luddites like him. Besides I would rather spend extra now for new technology and make that transition than be forced to do it later when we have to save energy either because oil is running out or some other nasty reason. I’m sure there will be someone who demands the right to pay $10 a gallon to gas up their old SUV that gets 5 miles to the gallon.

To me that is being stupid.

There is also complaints about the insurance mandate and other parts of the new health care reform law, belly aching about the First Lady’s efforts to curb child obesity, and the First Family speaking out against bullying.

They might have a point about the insurance mandate of the health care law over reaching by taxing people who don’t buy health insurance, but who would want to let insurance companies decide if life-saving procedures were cost-effective? Why do some people want to put profit over people? How is that moral?

At least if the government decided what was covered, those decisions wouldn’t be based on the bottom line. Just talk to people who spend hundred of thousands of dollars so they can have a few more weeks with their loved one. Compassionate people can’t and won’t put a price tag or profit over their loved one.

I don’t worry about rules and regulations meant to benefit the most people but I do worry, and find it ironic, that people like Senator Rand Paul thinks its okay to interfere in a woman’s health decisions while whining about the government doing that to us.

He would rather force women to have unwanted children, have the IRS police if tax dollars were used for abortions, yet doesn’t want to spend money to help take care of those children.

It seems when Democrats “overreach” they at least help the most people but when the GOP overreach they want to hurt the most people.

What is really a “nanny state”? One that tries to better the human condition or one that wants to be a selfish ass.

4th of July Diminished

The 4th of July use to be one of my favorite holidays when I was younger. Back in Findlay, the holiday was a community event. Some years there would be kid games and BBQ at Riverside Park. Along with the cascade of flags and a parade it was a fun time. Other years my Uncle Bob would have a shindig at his place which ended with shooting off the illegal fireworks he had bought during the year. Other years we would drive over to the Fort Findlay Mall parking lot and watch the firework show sponsored by the old Hill’s Department Store.

Much like the discount retailer, the show was low brow. It seemed they could only afford one fire tube so we would have to wait minutes for a shell to go up. Then more often than not it was dud – with the loud *BOOM* but no works. Later when I moved to Columbus, their Red White and Boom show blew me away and I knew I could never watch a show like the one at Hill’s again.

In recent years, my fondness for the 4th of July has diminished.

I think it has all to do with our principles and the lack of acting on those principles and in some cases doing the complete opposite.

My disillusionment started when learning that even though the founding fathers said at the start of the United States Declaration of Independence

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That it wasn’t until the mid 1960’s that a majority of people were finally treated as equal humans. But even today there are still segments of citizens, such as homosexual and atheists, who are still treated unequally.

While the United States Constitution had a Bill of Rights, those rights didn’t start being applied equally until after the Civil War and again there are segments of society who don’t enjoy all of those rights today.

Then there was the government supporting dictators in other countries as long as they were anti-communists. This was done with money or training death squads at US bases like the School of the Americas. In some cases the CIA would encourage and finance dissent groups who would overthrow an unfriendly leader like Iranian Prime Minister Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953.

Then there was using the FBI to infiltrate and disrupt so-called dissent groups in the US under the COINTELPRO project from the 1950’s to the 1970’s. As stated in the article linked to here:

In the Final Report of the Select Committee COINTELPRO was castigated in no uncertain terms:

“Many of the techniques used would be intolerable in a democratic society even if all of the targets had been involved in violent activity, but COINTELPRO went far beyond that…the Bureau conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence.”

The Church Committee documented a history of FBI directors’ using the agency for purposes of political repression as far back as World War I, through the 1920s, when they were charged with rounding up “anarchists and revolutionaries” for deportation, and then building from 1936 through 1976.

And today we have a President who doesn’t think twice to using warrantless wiretaps and inhumane interrogation techniques along with a a compliant Congress to further gut our basic principles of democracy and freedoms.

To me, the 4th of July is mere symbolism and until we return to the principles that led to the Declaration of Independence we are just a large body of hypocrisy.

In an illustration of the difference is this quote I heard during the recent HBO series John Adams. Adams is arguing for the passage of the resolution that would lead to our Declaration of Independence. He says to the Congress:

I believe sirs the hour has come… My judgement approves this measure and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, and all that I am, and all that I hope in this life I am now ready to stake upon it. While I now live, let me have a country. A free country.

Adams and the other men gathered in Philadelphia during that hot summer were ready to die for the principles spelled out in the Declaration. King George III had already proclaimed that if the colonists insisted on their course of action they would be tried for treason and hanged.

Today I don’t see men or women with that kind of principle. Too many politicians are worried about being re-elected and too many people take their rights for granted or don’t think giving them up will harm them in the long run. It seems there are few if any people willing to stand up for what our country is suppose to stand for.

Until I see a return to our founding principles, the 4th of July means nothing other than a day off of work.