via IJReview

Photo credit The Daily News (Memphis, TN), click on link for full story and larger picture.

I wonder if in the "Dummies" series there are the titles Governing for Dummies, American Political Philosophy for Dummies and Obeying The Very Law You Do-Gooding Twits And Idiots Yourselves Passed 'In Order To See What's In It' for Dummies.

Perhaps we could take up a collection and buy for Obama and his administration the complete set. Not that it would actually do a lot of good with this bunch, I'm afraid. But it's the thought that counts, isn't it?

Definition, from The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics:

As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer.
. . .
Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it.

See also:


Image scraped from Andrew Malcom's Twitter feed.

Obamacare aka the "Affordable Care Act" is an unmitigated disaster. Many people who think they’ve signed up for a plan actually have not.

It is stillborn. But like a bereaved mother, its backers clutch its lifeless body to themselves, murmuring softly to it and urging it to suckle. But to no avail.

It's dead, Jim.

Sure. Why not?

3 Ways You Know BuzzFeed Is Taking Your Stuff

Missouri Lawmakers Override Veto to Enact Good Samaritan Law -- Yes, out-of-state doctors can now legally provide medical services to Missouri poor and inner-city people. No, they could not have done so before. Yes, the Democrat Governor of Missouri vetoed the bill to allow doctors to be doctors in Missouri. Yes, the Republican legislature of Missouri overrode the veto. Tell me again which party cares more about the poor?

And Now We Dither . . . -- Incompetence combined with a tragically mistaken worldview has its consequences.

The Death of Gun Control

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emmanuel apologizes for decades of police torture -- Hmm. What political party has been so dominant in Chicago that it's commonly referred to as a "machine?" Do you suppose maybe that's not a real good idea?

This Depressing Economy: It's far closer to the dreadful 1930s than you might think.

Chicago Ends Gun Registration Requirement -- Not voluntarily, mind you . . . forced to recognize citizen's rights by Federal courts. Hmm. Which party dominated Southern slave-holding states before the Civil War? Hint: Not the Republicans. That other party is all too willing to ignore large swaths of the Constitution when they find them inconvenient. Do you suppose maybe that's not a real good idea?

Gallup: Number of Americans Who Trust Government To Fix Country’s Problems At All-Time Low…

American Ineffectualism: Every American ally is cringing with embarrassment at the amateurishness of the last month.

Rush Limbaugh Producer: Mainstream Media Want to Take Down Champions of Conservatism -- That producer, who's had the job for many years now, is black, by the way.

Legendary Rock Star Eviscerates Media in Powerful Defense of Tim Tebow: ‘They’re A**holes’

Democrats block resolution to create joint select committee to investigate Benghazi

Yeah. That's enough. For a LONG time.

I'll be back when I can stomach some more of this . . .

Oh, my.

Ace. Of Ace of Spades HQ fame.

Ace comments:

I never doubt the equality of the sexes until I read Feminists.

Yeah. I'm there. I'm totally down with the equality of the sexes thing, until I get a snootful of doctrinaire, activist "feminist" rhetoric, which is nothing but tiresome, warmed over politics-of-envy and Marxist dogma (but I repeat myself).

See, that's why Ace is firmly ensconced in the second or third tier of big-time bloggers, and I'm . . . well . . . I post stuff, every once in a while. He's able to pound out a thousand-word-plus post inspired by this nonsense, and I am--significantly more taciturn. Sometimes I think I have an insufficiently disdainful view of my fellow men. And women.

OK, I often think my view of mankind in general is insufficiently disdainful. Hey, what can I say? I'm an optimist . . .

Watch this.

Now.


And watch this too.


You are being lied to. Constantly. Repeatedly. By people who have no honor or shame, and who believe totally that "the ends justify the means."

And the ends they seek are nothing less than re-instituting a sort of 12th-Century feudalism--with themselves as the feudal lords, and you, the "middle class" as the serfs. Of course, this is all for your own good, or so they say.

Slavery is always a good idea if you're the one holding the whip and the end of the chain. Those who wear the shackles and feel the whip on their backs may, at some point, come to have a differing and politically incorrect, non-MSNBC/DNC-approved opinion, however.

Item 1: My personal health care insurance premium will be 20.79% more expensive next policy year (starting September 1, 2013) than it was this past year. And since it is an individual policy (I'm retired and not a member of a group) it was already plenty expensive.

Item 2: The official name of the Obamacare legislation is "The Affordable Care Act." Raising insurance rates by over 20% is an exotic and novel application of the word "affordable" that I myself would not have thought of. That's probably why I'm not a politician. I can't lie smoothly enough.

Item 3: My personal physician a dedicated health professional who started as a nurse before getting a medical degree and becoming a general practitioner, is abandoning general practice of medicine to go into the specialty of bariatrics. She had previously been an independent physician but that independence was impossible to financially sustain and had to seek affiliation with a physician's network. That network--in no small part because of the requirements of the Affordable Care Act--is now in the unenviable position of essentially requiring its member physicians to abandon general practice and go into specialties.

It's every bit the disaster I thought it would be. No politician who voted for this monstrosity should ever be considered for public office again (and should probably be investigated by appropriate grand juries or special prosecutors--but you can say that for most every politician, regardless of their view on Obamacare, can't you?)

Adam Smith, the 18th century natural philosopher, once said "there is a lot of ruin in a nation."

Today, we know the answer to the natural follow-up question: How much ruin is there, then, in a nation?

The answer can be seen in Detroit, Michigan.

Detroit is what inevitably happens when "equality" becomes the primary goal of a society, trumping other values such as "the rule of law," "self-improvement," "personal responsibility," and other values less amenable to demagoguery. Exactly the same policies and behaviors of so-called "equality" which bankrupted and shattered the Soviet Union have bankrupted and shattered Detroit.

Exactly.

The.

Same.

Policies.

And.

Behaviors.

Wise fools like Paul Krugman and Barack Obama continue to cling to those disastrous policies and behaviors with near-religious fervor. They are after all members of that self-appointed elite who live high on the plunder of the masses while telling you that they're working tirelessly--tirelessly, mind you (between vacations and golf games, that is) on YOUR behalf, so shut up, keep your head down, and pay your "fair share," serf. It's for your own good, and if you were only as smart as we are, you would understand.

My contempt for them, and for those who despite all evidence continue to support them, is almost boundless.