It's time to rubber-stamp the liberal agenda

[Carl]

That is the basis of my question as a civilian and not knowing.
The oath to defend the Constitution...do most rank and file understand that the Chief Executive/Commander in Chief is subordinate to the Constitution and not a vicar of it always.

[Dori]

Don't forget we have a lot of x-military too. 

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

That is the basis of my question as a civilian and not knowing.
The oath to defend the Constitution...do most rank and file understand that the Chief Executive/Commander in Chief is subordinate to the Constitution and not a vicar of it always.

Oaths are worthless to liberals, so it will come down to the individual soldier.

But most liberals won't kill for their cause and damn fewer are willing to die for it.

The people like Pelosi, Reid, Obama, Derek Bell, Soros, Warren etc have cultivated a society based on the leaders caring for the people so as to control them. That is the exact opposite of what you need an army to be during time of conflict.

Consider, by way of contrast: The people who are in the combat arms are notorious fitness freaks. They put themselves through grueling, painful exercise rituals for hours a day; long after the army has asked them to perform their duties for the day. Does any liberal icon or large swathe of their population group strike as those sorts of personality types?

Do you see the obese EBT crowds squaring off against us?

Sure they can riot; but then what?

OK, you destroyed the city you live in. Are they moving, en masse, to bivouac in the field for extended periods of time so as to occupy the productive countryside?

Look at the OWS. Field hygene and sanitation was not their strong suit and as a combat medic I'll say a division sized-element can cease to be combat-effective in less than a month due to poor field conditions. In fact, Gulf War 1.0 was the first war in human history where combat casualties actually outnumbered casualties from disease (I've known a doctor who had to debride the socks off of infantrymen). I doubt the liberal horde could carry on a genuine sustained operation.

Hell, I don't even see a real fight. I think we could literally ignore them to death. They're the ones bred for dependency.

[Carl]

Oaths are worthless to liberals, so it will come down to the individual soldier.

But most liberals won't kill for their cause and damn fewer are willing to die for it.

The people like Pelosi, Reid, Obama, Derek Bell, Soros, Warren etc have cultivated a society based on the leaders caring for the people so as to control them. That is the exact opposite of what you need an army to be during time of conflict.

Consider, by way of contrast: The people who are in the combat arms are notorious fitness freaks. They put themselves through grueling, painful exercise rituals for hours a day; long after the army has asked them to perform their duties for the day. Does any liberal icon or large swathe of their population group strike as those sorts of personality types?

Do you see the obese EBT crowds squaring off against us?

Sure they can riot; but then what?

OK, you destroyed the city you live in. Are they moving, en masse, to bivouac in the field for extended periods of time so as to occupy the productive countryside?

Look at the OWS. Field hygene and sanitation was not their strong suit and as a combat medic I'll say a division sized-element can cease to be combat-effective in less than a month due to poor field conditions. In fact, Gulf War 1.0 was the first war in human history where combat casualties actually outnumbered casualties from disease (I've known a doctor who had to debride the socks off of infantrymen). I doubt the liberal horde could carry on a genuine sustained operation.

Hell, I don't even see a real fight. I think we could literally ignore them to death. They're the ones bred for dependency.

I don`t see the street vermin as anything really but am curious as to what would happen should O (or another leftist President) give the order to the SOD on through the Joint Chiefs and down the line to use our military might against us.
Would they obey or would they revolt?

I do think we are on the path to this turning point and not an arbitrary long ways down the road hypothetical.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I don`t see the street vermin as anything really but am curious as to what would happen should O (or another leftist President) give the order to the SOD on through the Joint Chiefs and down the line to use our military might against us.
Would they obey or would they revolt?

I do think we are on the path to this turning point and not an arbitrary long ways down the road hypothetical.

Would they obey the orders of a president that tells them they cannot unleash our full military might against the Taliban who literally stil wipe their asses with their hands but they should use that same power against political rivals on American soil? To bring My Lai to Main Street?

I can't speak for all of them but the officers I've met have been trained better and are just plain better than that.

Even DAT.

[docstew]

I don`t see the street vermin as anything really but am curious as to what would happen should O (or another leftist President) give the order to the SOD on through the Joint Chiefs and down the line to use our military might against us.
Would they obey or would they revolt?

I do think we are on the path to this turning point and not an arbitrary long ways down the road hypothetical.

I think even Panetta or Kerry, if he's nominated, would reject such an order. Using the military to quell unrest, sure. Using the military to put down a political protest would lead to an even greater unrest, and the resulting Constitutional crisis would be literally the death of the O regime.

And having spoken to my troops informally, they will not fire on Americans except in self-defense, and even that would be only if there was no other option.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Republicans are seriously considering a Doomsday Plan if fiscal cliff talks collapse entirely.  It’s quite simple:  House Republicans would allow a vote on extending the Bush middle class tax cuts (the bill passed in August by the Senate) and offer the President nothing more:  no extension of the debt ceiling, nothing on unemployment, nothing on closing loopholes.  Congress would recess for the holidays and the president would face a big battle early in the year over the debt ceiling.
 
Two senior Republican elected officials tell me this doomsday plan is becoming the most likely scenario.  A top GOP House  leadership aide confirms the plan is under consideration, but says Speaker Boehner has made no decision on whether to pursue it.
 
Under one variation of this Doomsday Plan, House Republicans would allow a vote on extending only the middle class tax cuts and Republicans, to express disapproval at the failure to extend all tax cuts, would vote “present” on the bill, allowing it to pass entirely on Democratic votes.
 
By doing this, Republicans avoid taking blame for tax increases on 98 percent of income tax payers.  As one senior Republican in Congress told me, “You don’t take a hostage you aren’t willing to shoot.”  Republicans aren’t willing to kill the middle class tax cuts, even if extending them alone will make it harder to later extend tax cuts on the wealthy.

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/12/republican-doomsday-plan-cave-on-taxes-vote-present/

[Karin]

I was reading an article in the post-mortem issue of National Review.  One of the articles was about "Obama's Coddled Elite."  It made my heart bleed less and less for the 2% wealthiest.  They're all Obama voters.  The top ten richest enclaves in the country went overwhelmingly for Obama.  Why are we fighting for them?   Obama has been protecting them through:

* Dodd Frank.  The concept of "too big to fail" is now cemented.  The very rich rely on the big banks to keep them very rich, and this provides for consequence-free risk taking at the high finance level.

*  Regulations.  Who gets rich?  Lawyers. 

All these people consider GOP types to be loathsome rednecks and hillbillies, clinging to guns and religion.  The old stereotype of the "country club Republican" is quite stale anymore. 

I'm sorry if any of my fellow Cavers are in the very wealthy category, but this sort of resonated with me.  I used to live in Fairfield County, CT, and some of those assholes are the biggest sonsofbitches you've ever met.  Particularly Greenwich, CT.   They wanted it, they voted for it, they oughta get it.  Good and hard. 

The $50K or so people, of which I am one, would be devastated by an increase in taxes.  We're all just making ends meet, can't even save for retirement (especially in a high tax area).  Everything costs way more than when Clinton was in office.  And then we have Obamacare staring at us in the face, and most of us don't really know how we're going to manage.

Long rant, that's not like me. 

[Eupher]

I personally don't give a two-fingered **** for Obama's coddled elite. But that ain't the reason I have a problem with raising taxes, ANY taxes.

My problem is that the *******ed government is out of control, huge, wastefully ridiculous and a poster child for "how to **** up and move up." And Barry wants to make it even bigger and have us AND his coddled elite pay for it.

**** that.

You want less of something? Tax it.

Shitbirds STILL don't understand Taxes 101. Oh, wait. I forgot. Tax Cheat Geithner is running Treasury. 

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I personally don't give a two-fingered **** for Obama's coddled elite. But that ain't the reason I have a problem with raising taxes, ANY taxes.

My problem is that the *******ed government is out of control, huge, wastefully ridiculous and a poster child for "how to **** up and move up." And Barry wants to make it even bigger and have us AND his coddled elite pay for it.

**** that.

You want less of something? Tax it.

Shitbirds STILL don't understand Taxes 101. Oh, wait. I forgot. Tax Cheat Geithner is running Treasury. 

They refuse to accept "taxes destroy productivity"

No amount of argumentation will convince them otherwise and they're more interested in forcing the GOP to move from it's sancrosanct position. They want YOU, the GOP voter, to see your reps vote for higher taxes and be so disgusted you stay home in 2014. That's how they won against McCain and Romney (who drew fewer votes than McCain).

We need to tell our reps that if they vote "present" we won't hold them responsible because the dems are acting in bad faith.

We then need to go to our fellow conservatives and the indies and tell them why.

Meanwhile the fiscal house crashes and the dems are left with a constituency that is paid to be worthless but no longer has a paycheck because we're broke and the rest of us refuse to play this bullshit anymore.

Theissen writes today in WaPo:

The Post wrote that Obama’s “offer lacks any concessions to Republicans.” That’s not true. Obama’s demand that Republicans approve to $1.6 trillion in higher taxes, pass $50 billion in new stimulus spending, abdicate their power over the debt ceiling and make no changes in entitlements until next year was no “offer” at all — it was a demand for unilateral surrender.

While Obama was inviting Republicans to capitulate aboard the USS Missouri, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and 32 other Senate Democrats signed a letter declaring, “We will oppose including Social Security cuts for future or current beneficiaries in any deficit reduction package.” Not in a year-end package, mind you, but in any package. 14 Senate Democrats wrote a letter opposing any changes to Medicare or Medicaid as well.

It will be hard for Obama and the Democrats to blame the GOP for taking us over the fiscal cliff when they are the ones cheering for going over the edge. And it will be difficult for them to blame Republicans for wanting to protect tax cuts for the rich, when House Speaker John Boehner agreed to $800 billion in higher taxes for the rich in the form of limits on deductions and loopholes.

Second, even if Democrats succeed in blaming Republicans, going off the cliff is the political equivalent of a suicide-bombing for President Obama: To damage the GOP, he has to blow himself up in the process. Going over the cliff would likely cause a new recession, which would be a disaster for Obama — killing his chances of accomplishing anything of significance for the remainder of his presidency. As Keith Hennessey, former director of the National Economic Council for President George W. Bush, points out in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, a recession would limit Obama’s policy options and “irreparably damage his second term.”

If Obama considers the self-destruction of his presidency “winning,” he’s the Charlie Sheen of American politics.

Third, once we go over the fiscal cliff and tax rates go up for every American taxpayer, we are likely to see a good old-fashioned tax revolt. When is the last time Democrats came out ahead in a tax revolt? Republicans will be able to outbid Democrats in any proposed tax cuts.

Obama thinks he has a lot more political capital than he really does. A White House official told Politico’s Mike Allen this weekend that the “President campaigned on this and won.” So what? In 2004, George W. Bush campaigned on Social Security reform and won. How far did that get him? Bush famously declared, “The people made it clear what they wanted. I earned capital in the campaign . . . and I intend to spend it.” He soon learned he had not earned as much political capital as he thought.

http://www.conservativecave.com/index.php?action=post;quote=997310;topic=81194.75;num_replies=83;sesc=f07e86704b50479be1b4152de661d95f

[Karin]

I certainly agree with that last paragraph.  How much political capital one has is extremely difficult to measure, and easy to over-estimate, especially if you're dealing with a narcissistic megalomaniac.  Anybody who only got 50.6% of the popular vote, just doesn't have bottomless political capital.  Plus, he's widely despised with a deep, boiling passion. 

Now, I've never lived through a period of time where there was a tax revolt.  What is he referring to when he says a "good old fashioned tax revolt?" 

[thundley4]

Democrats signed a letter declaring, “We will oppose including Social Security cuts for future or current beneficiaries in any deficit reduction package.”

Dems are so frelling stupid. Without some changes and cuts for future beneficiaries Social Security will consume the entire Federal budget before too long.

[Eupher]

I certainly agree with that last paragraph.  How much political capital one has is extremely difficult to measure, and easy to over-estimate, especially if you're dealing with a narcissistic megalomaniac.  Anybody who only got 50.6% of the popular vote, just doesn't have bottomless political capital.  Plus, he's widely despised with a deep, boiling passion. 

Now, I've never lived through a period of time where there was a tax revolt.  What is he referring to when he says a "good old fashioned tax revolt?" 

Well, I'd say the activities surrounding the 1765 Stamp Act (basically a tax that pissed off a helluva lot of colonists) and the tax on tea that resulted in the Boston Tea Party were tax revolts.

[Karin]

Well yes, but the technology is so much different now.  They can "get you" so much easier.  I believe CA had a tax revolt in the 1970's.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

Rhode Island’s blue-on-blue showdown is heating up. Famed litigator David Boies is taking a 96 percent pay cut to represent the state against recalcitrant public sector unions. The New York Times reports:

Mr. Boies became involved, he said, because he was convinced that Rhode Island’s pension troubles were just the tip of a $5 trillion iceberg of unsecured retirement promises to the nation’s millions of public workers. “This is something that can cripple state and municipal governments at a time when the federal government is, more and more, cutting back on the services it provides,” he said.

...

“There’s no contract,” he said. “Even if there was a contract, the state, pursuing the public interest, has the right to modify contracts.”

...

As the blue social model decays, the coalition that was once united behind it is becoming increasingly splintered and parochial. Boies, known for representing Al Gore, waging antitrust battles against Microsoft, and fighting California’s Proposition 8 in federal court, has impeccable bona fides as a liberal Democrat. But in the face of economic realities, he and other blue liberals are being forced to make fundamental choices about their values and goals.

blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/12/05/rhode-islands-blue-civil-war/

Meanwhile, on our side, Boehner is purging the Tea Party; so, so much for capitalizing on the Dem's internal strife.

[Eupher]

I find it remarkable that, versus Barry, Boehner is a weeping *****, afraid of his own shadow.

But then he reaches down and finds his 'nads and fires a few tea party reps.

Kinda sounds like a bully to me. 

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

So Obama stages an obscene piece of political theater wherein evey GOP offer will be rejected out of hand.

It makes no difference how much the GOP will bump revenue (by closing the loopholes dems say enrich people like Rmoney) or trim spending without effecting beneficiaries (like how Obama didn't *really* cut $770 billion from medicaid -- he just made it more eficient); their every overture will be thrown back in their faces while Obama calls it unserious even though he never read it, let alone considered it.

Meanwhile, he has no real plan of his own. And the plans that have seeped out are rejected by his own party.

He wants one thing and one thing only -- he wants to do to the GOP as a whole what the dems did to the Elder Bush: force him to capitulate on taxes, **** him over on spending cuts and then blame him for reneging on his promises so as to frame him as a promise breaker so as to destroy the GOP brand.

And how's that working for him?

Marvellously well, actually.

RCP reports Obama's approval is 51.6 and climbing while his disapproval in 44.6 and falling.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/president_obama_job_approval-1044.html

In other words: the public is rewarding him. It doesn't matter how obvious this bullshit is; this is what they want.

These ****ing peasants are out of hand. If this is what they want then let them have it. As Mark Steyn said, it is time Americans start paying for the government they demand.

[EagleKeeper]

I know...it's comifornia but still.

Fifty-five percent said they would rather pay higher taxes and get more government services, while 40% said the opposite.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/12/california-budget-poll.html

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

I know...it's comifornia but still.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/12/california-budget-poll.html

The only men who truly crave freedom are patriots and slaves.

Patriots will trudge through foreign sands to keep bombs off their neighborhood streets. They'll fight and accept the risk of death so others can live undisturbed.

A slave will race after freedom without only a care for his clothes and tomorrow's food. He won't demand a 3-bedroom house, food stamps and an Obamaphone as a precondition for his search for freedom, he just wants freedom.

If they will not be patriots make them slaves.

And then we will both cherish the freedom they so carelessly discard.

[NHSparky]

And yet what they don't realize is that those "higher taxes" end up doing little more than funding an ever-expanding bureaucracy, and they get nothing instead of depending upon themselves for their needs/wants.

[DumbAss Tanker]

I know...it's comifornia but still.

Fifty-five percent said they would rather pay higher taxes and get more government services, while 40% said the opposite.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/california-politics/2012/12/california-budget-poll.html

It's because, thanks to 'progressive' taxation, at least 55% think they will reap more in benefits while someone else has to pay the increased taxes to fund them.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

What Does Let It Burn Mean?

—DrewM.

As one of the first, if not the first, people to say Let It Burn, I’m clearly thrilled with the growing chorus of voices joining the movement.

Like any movement, there are true believers and Let It Burn In Name Only (LIBINO) types. Since it’s never too early to purge a movement of its impure elements, let us lay out some key principles of Let It Burn.

1- America isn’t a conservative country anymore and hasn’t been for a while. Yes, you can point to lots of surveys that show people identify themselves as conservatives and they even say government should be doing fewer things.

The fact is, a conservative country doesn’t “accidentally” elect Barack Obama twice. It doesn't continue to send Democrats to the Senate who voted for ObamaCare and force the GOP to run as the saviors of Medicare.

People want the ever expanding welfare state, they simply don’t want to have to pay for it. They are happy to pretend they can “ask the rich to pay a little more” (it won't work) or to pile on debt for some generation to be born later to pay for it. What they are very clear about in their votes is...”don’t you dare touch my “free” stuff”.

One foundation of conservatism is to see the world as it is, imperfections and all, and not the way we wish it to be. Unless we can admit the reality of the country we are living in, Let It Burn makes no sense.

If you think we're just one or two tactical moves and a great candidate away from political victory, you're not in the Let It Burn camp.

2- Gabe and several commenters yesterday wondered, why isn’t Bob Corker’s “tax cuts now, entitlements later” idea consistent with Let It Burn?

The answer is simple: It’s a deliberate action is based on doing several things- raising taxes and then magically reforming entitlements.

Even if the GOP managed to "win" this standoff with Obama by generating more revenue through tax reform than hiking tax rates, who cares? We don't have a revenue problem, we have a spending problem.

“Let It Burn” is about inaction. There’s no point in trying do anything that avoids going over the fiscal cliff/sequestration. Remember, the deal that got us to this point was agreed to by House Republicans, Senate Democrats and signed by Obama. That’s as bi-partisan as it gets. I’ve heard from squishy low information voters, Obama and the media that “bi-partisan problem solving” is the Holy Grail of politics. Well, here it is.

Will it lead to massive disruptions? Yes. That’s the point. The current system is rigged against conservative. We should play no part in its perpetuation. If you can’t win the game, concede and start new one. That’s the heart of Let It Burn.

This isn't some petty "I lost so I'm taking my ball and going home" tirade. This is what people want. It's simply not sustainable. If we can't stop them, we don't have to continue to enable them either.

Bill Kristol has a column attacking the Wall Street Journal for opposing any tax hikes. John Podhoretz challenges any conservative to argue with it. Well, I just did.

What Podhoretz should have done is challenge any Republican to argue against Kritol’s analysis. That can’t be done in a serious way.

We need to start disassociating conservatism from the GOP. We’ve tried it for 30 years. It hasn’t worked.

We’ve tried to save the country from the folly of expanding liberalism and the country said, “we don’t want to be saved”. Let It Burn just means letting them have what they want and rebuilding later.

After 2010 I had some hope that we might be able to turn this massive welfare state around. The full implementation of ObamaCare means that isn’t going to happen. At least not absent a total collapse of our fiscal house of cards.
Let It Burn isn’t an option, it’s an eventuality. The questions are will we be complicit in it any longer and do we want to delay it? I say no. Let the liberals own it. Very few things are made better by delaying the day of inevitable reckoning.

The sooner it burns, the sooner we can try and rebuild.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/335557.php

[NHSparky]

The sooner it burns, the sooner we can try and rebuild.

Sadly, that may be all that's left.

[Zeus]

LEARN FROM THE PAST: GET SPENDING CUTS FIRST
By: Mark LaRochelle   
12/10/2012 06:00 AM

So determined is President Obama to raise taxes next month on “the rich,” that he is willing violate his most oft-repeated pledge—not to raise taxes on “the middle class”—to do so. This tax hike, he says, will “get the economy growing faster.”

BUNK

The president’s tax hike will do just the opposite, according to the former chair of Obama’s own Council of Economic Advisers, Christina Romer.

The Office of Management and Budget estimates that Gross Domestic Product for FY 2013 will be about $16.3 trillion, so Obama’s $82 billion tax hike would represent about one-half of one percent of GDP. A 2010 paper co-authored by Romer found that a tax increase equal to 1 percent of GDP reduces output by about 2 percent to 3 percent over the ensuing ten quarters. Assuming that a tax hike half that size will have roughly half the effect, Obama’s tax hike should reduce GDP by about 1 percent to 1.5 percent. Extending the Bush tax cuts, on the other hand, “would boost real GDP by a little less than 1.5 percent by the end of 2013,” according to the Congressional Budget Office.



Wells Fargo forecasts that real GDP will grow at an annualized rate of just 1 percent this quarter. The company projected that last quarter’s growth would be 2.7 percent—an estimate that was right on the money, according to the latest revision from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis. If Wells Fargo’s estimate for next quarter is equally accurate, the downward slide from 2.4 percent in 2010 to 1.8 percent in 2011 will continue, with growth for 2012 falling again, to 1.75 percent.

Starting 2013 at that level, then subtracting 1 percent to 1.5 percent over ten months (due to the “Romer effect”) would bring GDP growth down to just 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent through 2014—within a hair’s breadth of tipping back into recession.

That would take us right up to the 2014 mid-term elections. Even if voters blame Obama for continued poor economic performance (or even a double-dip recession), he will not be up for re-election—but Congress will. If those elections are anything like 2012, Obama and his sympathetic media will do their best to blame congressional Republicans, whether we go over the “fiscal cliff” or not.

Establishment Republicans are urging the GOP to “compromise” with Obama—signing onto his soak-the-rich scheme in order to shield the middle class-—in return for promises of spending cuts down the road.

Republicans will refuse, if they are capable of learning from history.

In 1982, establishment Republicans persuaded President Ronald Reagan to accept a similar “compromise”—hiking tax rates in return for a promise by House Speaker Tip O’Neill to cut spending by $3 for every $1 in new taxes. Reagan kept his word, delivering the tax hike, but the Democrats reneged, actually increasing spending. According to then-Attorney General Ed Meese, Reagan always said that his biggest mistake was accepting higher tax rates first, with a promise of spending cuts to come later. The lesson is: In any “compromise,” get the spending cuts first.

While going over the fiscal cliff may produce a short-term recession, in the long run it might be in the best interests of the nation. As the CBO put it, avoiding the cliff (and sequestration) would cause “a continued surge in federal debt during the rest of this decade and beyond” that “would raise the risk of a fiscal crisis (in which the government would lose the ability to borrow money at affordable interest rates) and would eventually reduce the nation’s output and income below what would occur if the fiscal tightening was allowed to take place as currently set by law.”

If Obama’s tax hike—even if it excludes the middle class—reduces long-term economic growth, Obama and the media will certainly blame Republicans—even if they are complicit. Since the GOP is going to be scapegoated anyway, there’s no reason not to do the right thing.

 

[Dori]

There is no win for Republicans in this situation, which ever way it goes.  I don't think Boehner has a prayer of getting the house to pass a tax increase and it wouldn't matter even if they did.  The tax increase would only cover, what...8 days of government spending?   Big whopping deal.  

If Boehner does get it passed, you can probably count on the fact he won't get re-elected as Speaker which might be a good thing and probably even strengthen conservatives for 2014.
 
The real fight will come next year with the debt ceiling.  The only options we have at this point are to go over the cliff hill and call Obummer's bluff.  It will be his economy.