Pretty Incredible Photo from 1918

1918 photo of 18,000 US soldiers formed up as the Statue of Liberty at Camp Dodge, IA.

Wisconsin in the Balance

Going to be interesting to see what happens in Wisconsin tomorrow. Shady dealings perhaps? This will be an interesting test of union political power.

I get the union folks all coming out against Walker. People tied too heavily to unions seem to become drones without a mind of their own, where personal self-interest over shadows everything else. That doesn’t surprise me. What I don’t get is hardworking middle class people who work for private entities supporting engorged unionized government workers who work for inflated salaries and benefits. I also don’t get the “Greece mentality” of liberals. Cost, resources and ability to pay doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is that I get mine. From sit-ins to riots in the street; it doesn’t matter as long as you get what you think you deserve.

It’s always about selfishness. Don’t fix the system. Don’t deal with problem. Just do what it takes to keep my gravy train rolling. Reality does bite though. Union benefits and plans don’t mean much when the piper really does have to be paid. Just ask all the unemployed ex-union members in the rust belt how that worked for them. Fighting for the right to get paid $25.00 an hour to turn a bolt was all good until the plant closed down.

Hopefully the people in Wisconsin with some sense will turn out in strong enough numbers to outdo the monkey business the unions are going to try to pull.

We’ll see.

Bad News Mr. President

These numbers look about as hot as a cold cup of coffee.

You Might be a Liberal

The White Shark has been on an extended hiatus but is back and thought I’d have some fun.

You might be a liberal

…if you believe punishing your employer with higher taxes, brutal regulations, and insane union demands enhances your job security.
…if you believe marriage is an antiquated institution but that gay marriage is the issue for our day.
…if you believe that a cold blooded killer doesn’t deserve the death penalty but an inconvenient baby does.
…if you believe that the Constitution has magical protections for things like abortion and bathrooms for cross dressers but doesn’t matter where guns and religion are concerned.
…if you believe that government benefits are the path to prosperity.
…if you believe that voter I.D. is racist but I.D. to get food stamps and government benefits is okay.
…if you believe that Christianity is the greatest evil in the history of mankind while mass murdering atheist regimes have nothing to do with atheism.
…if you believe that Jesus wasn’t real and that the inquisition murdered millions.
…if you believe that the United States of America has a terrible human rights record while China, North Korea, and Cuba have been bastions of tolerance and kindness.
…if you believe that you can spend your way out of debt.
…if you believe the government has its own money.
…if you believe that a tax cut that reduces the tax burden on those who pay the most is unfair to those who pay nothing.
…if you believe that Ronald Reagan was an idiot and Barack Obama is a genius.
…if you are sitting at home with no job because unreasonable union demands caused your plant to close down and move but that the problem was the evil business.
…if you think that NBC, ABC, CBS, and CNN are centrist but that FOX is way to the right.
…if you believe that MSNBC is something more than low brow comedy.
…if you believe that Bill Maher’s show which puts an idiot and two liberals against one moderate is an example of a fair fight on the issues.
…if you believe that Bill O’Reilly is a right wing nut job.
…if you believe that Al Gore actually did invent the internet.
…if you believe that climate change has never occurred before the industrial revolution.
…if you believe that liberals think for themselves while conservatives are brainwashed by the Bible and talk radio.
…if you believe that killing baby seals is bad but killing baby humans is okay.
…if you believe that Christianity is a religion of war but Islam is a religion of peace.
…if you believe that racist and misogynistic remarks by liberals are okay if their heart is in the right place.
…if you believe that Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton deserve the title of reverend.

Playing Politics

Obama’s speech yesterday was cheap political leveraging at its finest. The Wall Street Journal calls it “dishonest even by modern political standards.”

The Nazis of Gotland, Sweden

What would you do if your child was kidnapped? I can imagine few things as tragic and terrifying for a child or parent. What if the kidnapping was done by your own government? Christer and Annie Johannson were homeschooling their child in Sweden and had decided against certain vaccinations. They were actually moving to India and were on the airplane about to leave the country when police halted the plane on the runway and took young Dominic into custody. BTW — I’ve seen two spellings of Dominic’s name so at this point I’m going with the one in the news stories I have read.

More information on the story can be found at http://www.domenicjohansson.com. Christer was recently arrested because he took Dominic off on an unsupervised visit. It wasn’t a wise move, but I cannot begin to imagine the frustration of dealing with a year and a half legalized kidnapping. Now the very people who kidnapped his son have charged him with kidnapping his son. What would you do? I don’t know. I would sorely be tempted to take my child and flee somewhere for sanctuary. I’d be tempted to hire a fishing boat to go to Poland and seek asylum. It would be a tough call, and risky. Failure would mean pretty massive jail time and long term separation from your child. Unfortunately, now that he is in jail it is too late for Christer to make those kinds of decisions.

Christer and Annie are like most people. They believed that the Swedish government was initially acting in good faith and that with some negotiation and a little time this could be resolved. Unfortunately, the Swedish authorities have dragged their heels and thrown up roadblock after roadblock for the Johannsons. Swedish authorites have turned a deaf ear to pleas for this family to be reunited.

This is an example of why government power is not to be trusted. Can anyone really explain to me what is right about this? Of course social services advocates may argue that the Johannsons must have been doing something. There must have been some sort of abuse. Nope — all they wanted to do was homeschool and forgo some vaccinations.

So here we deal with the statist question — who do the children belong to? Totalitarian regimes claim that children are the property of the state and that the state has a right to do what it will. Most people would not think of Sweden in such terms. We think of Sweden as some kind of mildly socialist democratic nation that upholds human rights. Unfortunately, the truth is somewhat grimmer.

A component of the liberal/socialist continuum is conformity — conformity to a thought process and to certain ideas. Free speech is touted but only to a certain point. That’s why in this country we see liberals pushing for hate speech laws. Hate speech morphs from being actual threats against people to be anything that makes anyone vaguely uncomfortable. Of course, Christians and conservatives are usually excepted targets. Government schooling is critical in places like Sweden to turn out good little citizens. Germany has much the same mindset. The purpose is to turn out good little statists who worship at the altar of the government. Government will take care of you from the cradle to the grave.

Liberty is not easy to get or easy to hold. The Founding Fathers knew this. That’s why they gave us the Constitution as THE compact of our way of life. That’s why they set up checks and balances in our government. As we watch the erosion of Constitutional authority our liberty is indeed threatened. The Constitution is a document that ultimately protects each of us as individuals. Individual protection from the excess reach of the state was a cherished ideal.

In the Johannson case we see why that matters. Some local twerp from Gotland’s social services made a decision to go after the Johannsons. Some bureaucrat, indoctrinated in the necessity of conformity and the altruism of the state, made a decision that will irrevocably change and scar this family for life. Sweden stayed neutral during World War II. They avoided Nazi occupation, primarily, because they would have been more trouble than they were worth. They might have avoided Nazi occupation but that didn’t keep them from becoming like the Nazis.

Efforts have been made to get the European Court of Human Rights to take a look at the case but have so far been fruitless. If you click on the How You Can Help link at the Friends of Domenic Johannson website they have created a list of things you can do. This is truly an egregious abuse of government power.

Ezra Klein — Too Dumb even for MSNBC

This guy is a piece of work. A contributor for the Washington Post?? It’s both non-binding and confusing because it is old?

What if Jesus had never come?

Molotov Mitchell on the impact of Jesus Christ on this world from both a spiritual and natural point of view.

Video from the Alliance Defense Fund on Domenic Johannson

Gotland Social Services Horrible Abuse of Power

This is a truly horrible abuse by a government agency. You wonder why Conservatives have a fundamental mistrust of the nanny state? This could easily be exhibit A.

More to come.