Surrounded by Marines

C McDonald, Pat, me, Jonathon at lunch during Jonathon's summer break. Really ... it's a coincidence that we were sitting in front of a beer sign!

Andrew Jackson ....

said the following in his farewell address:

There is but one safe rule, and that is to confine the General Government rigidly within the sphere of its appropriate duties. It has no power to raise a revenue or impose taxes except for the purposes enumerated in the Constitution, and if its income is found to exceed these wants it should be forthwith reduced and the burden of the people so far lightened.

Barack Obama should be forced to right it on a blackboard a trillion times.

Mark Steyn on nationalized healthcare

You’ve Had a Good Innings
Ultimately, government health represents the nationalization of your body.

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTAxYzFjODdiN2E3OWUyNzY1MDU1ODM1ZjZjYmY3YjM=&w=MA==

On the other hand ...

The last couple of days on the bloggersphere has been : you're guy is immoral ... oh yeah! so is your guy. To which I say: A pox on both their houses. I just want fewer and fewer of them:

The problem is big government. If whoever controls government can impose his way upon you, you have to fight constantly to prevent the control from being harmful. With small, limited government, it doesn’t much matter who controls it, because it can’t do you much harm. — Harry Browne

C.S. LEWIS

Even after all these years, C.S. Lewis is still relevant. Tell me this doesn't apply to our current administration:

“It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometime sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.”

We need a definition of "un-American"

This is for Nancy Pelosi, since she seems to think raised voices and an angry electorate is "un-American." The following is from a book by Gordon Wood and describes what happened when congress voted to double its own salary in 1816:

Now the people had a chance to make their resentment felt. Throughout the country public meetings composed of both political parties denounced the law that had raised the salaries of congressmen. Several state legislatures along with Fourth of July orators bitterly condemned it. Glasses were raised in criticism; the compensation law, noted one New York editor, was “toasted until it is black.” In Georgia opponents even burned the members of Congress in effigy.

Critics of the raise were especially incensed at Congressman Wright’s indiscreet comment about not being able to enjoy a good glass of wine and cited it over and over to great effect. Popular outrage was unprecedented, and the reputation of Congress was severely tarnished. Even congressmen who had voted against the law had to promise humbly to work to repeal it and to return the salary they had already received. In the fall elections of 1816 nearly 70 percent of the Fourteenth Congress was not returned to the Fifteenth Congress. In January 1817 a chastened lame-duck Fourteenth Congress met to debate the issue of exactly what representation meant, and by and large it determined that the people had every right to instruct their congressmen.

Taking "branding" a little too far

How creepy is this? Our esteemed leader, who not only has his own logo, has his minions working on a logo for nationalized healthcare. So, let's say for argument's sake that the healthcare bill goes through (God forbid), and it's with us for a very, very long time. Worse case scenario is that President Obama will be our president until 2016. But the modified "Obama" logo will live on and on and on.

See here: http://www.gormogons.com/2009/08/its-all-about-me.html

One clever commentor on another blog said it looks like all of our dead relatives are calling us to the light.