Dems Agree: America Needs A Change From Prosperity, Growth

From Iowa to New Hampshire, from South Carolina to Nevada, the Democrat candidates for president all agree; they are the candidates for change. They also all agree America is ready for change, that we can't go on with the Status Quo. No more must America be burdened with such things like a record low unemployment rate of 4%. No more can America stand for victory against foreign enemies. We need to change the fact that Americans have so much personal liberty! And it's high time we, as Americans, stopped settling for all of this abundance and plenty! Is it fair that even the poorest of the poor here in America have it better off than most people in third world countries? We need change, people, and the Democrat party has promised it! Scared yet? I get the feeling that when Democrats talk about change, they're talking about the few pennies you get back after the IRS is done with you. They want to change our current health care system so that it more closely resembles a line at the post office or DMV. They'll tell you what doctor you can or can't see, provided you follow their health guidelines. They want to help the economy by soaking the rich, thereby making the rich stop investing in business and creating jobs. They'll punish those greedy oil companies for providing small business owners with gas station franchises to run. They want to pull us out of the war on terror to improve our standing in the world. After all, nothing says, "Don't Tread On Me" like tucking your tail and running. They will send a clear message to our allies that we won't be there for them. And of course, there are just too many Americans out there making their own decisions...Democrats will change all of that. Banning things like transfats and smoking was just a start. They promise to pass legislation banning smoking in your own car, "for the sake of the children," although they'd happily have applauded the abortions of those same children, because for Democrats, there just aren't enough of those happening. They'll change that, too. Democrats won't be happy until they "change" America into a larger version of Cuba. All I can tell you is, if you decide to sit this election out because there isn't a "perfect" choice, get ready for "change." Slogans are nice. Reality is better.

Don't Say It, Don't Even Think It (It May Be Illegal, Anyway)!

Happy New Year, It's 1984, everyone! Actually, it's been 1984 for a couple of decades now, but I guess only a handful of us have noticed. For a lot of people, worrying about "Big Brother" means another new episode on CBS, but for those of us who trade in ideas, which can be more offensive than anything some bimbo in a bikini might say or do on T.V. to those in the land of PC, we are acutely aware that we are being listened to, if not watched. We laughed, at first, at the ridiculous social paranoia exhibited in the use of such expressions as, "hearing impaired," "weight-challenged," or "Native American." What was wrong with a little honesty? If you can't hear, you're deaf. If you weigh too much to be healthy, you're fat. If you ask the folks at AIM, the American Indian Movement, what they'd like to be called, they'll tell you; Shawnee, Quawpaw, Cherokee, Arapahoe, Ottawa, Delaware, and Miami are just a few names they like. We tried to show the absurdity of it all by referring to our scrambled eggs as "partial-birth abortions," or by calling the Clinton Administration "ethically challenged." People like George Carlin, Dennis Leary, Howard Stern, Don Rickles, and Don Imus have made careers out of being offensive, but now having a sense of humor can be dangerous, as Imus and others have found out. At worldnetdaily.com today, there is the story of Marc Howells, a former director of a company called Barclaycard, who was fired for telling an insensitive joke during a presentation on the firms' quarterly figures. The punchline? "The results were like Muslims - some were good, some were Shi'ite." That's an old one. Kids were telling that one when I was in High School during the first Gulf War. To me, it's not funny because it lacks imagination and borders on toilette humor. To Barclaycard, it's not funny because it might offend a Muslim and cause him to bomb a crowded coffee shop. Ok, maybe that sounded a little prejudiced. I'm sure there are a lot of Muslims out there who abhor coffee shops and resent the implication. The point is, why fire him? Did the firm lose money because of the bad joke? Did his lack of tact affect his ability to analyze Pie Charts? I've worked with jerks, too, but I never demanded they be fired for being jerks, unless they were incompetent jerks. "Lighten up," you might say to me. Good advice, you should take some. However, there is a more sinister PC monster that the crime of "hate speech" has given birth to, and its' name is "hate thought." Consider the implications of H.R. 1592, also known as the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act. According to the law, a preacher who claims homosexuality is an abomination could be indicted. That's hate speech. Moreover, if a person who hears that preacher goes out and commits a crime against a homosexual, the preacher might be considered an accessory. Why? Well, he may not have verbally encouraged violence, but he probably thought about it, besides, such speech could be construed as intimidation by any homosexuals listening. What now matters is the supposed intent of speech, which means thought. I can hear the lawyers in the court rooms now: "You may not have said witches and warlocks should be burned at the stake, but you were thinking it. Such dangerous thought, inferred from you calling Ms. Doe, quote, 'a sick witch," is what caused Mr. Doe to burn my client with a cigarette! I demand the maximum punishment according to the law!" Am I overreacting? Does this sound like hyperbole to you? Time will tell. One thing that I wonder is this...if Marc Howells had called some one a Jesus Freak instead of "insulting" Muslims, would he have lost his job? Well...you probably already know what I think. Let's just hope there's no law against it.