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Senator Barbara Boxer, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is pushing the Obama administration to favorably review the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child and send it to the U.S. Senate for ratification by March 23, 2009.

The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child is an international agreement created by the United Nations fourteen years ago. It was signed by former president Clinton in 1995 but it was never sent to the Senate for ratification because it was known that in a U.S. Senate where the balance of power is evenly distributed between the two primary political parties, U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child wouldn’t stand a chance of passing. Now that the balance of power is overwhelmingly tilted in favor of the Democratic Party, Barbara Boxer feels that it is time to further the liberal agenda that, under normal circumstances would be considered insane.

Legally, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child is an international treaty. According to the provisions of Article VI of the United States Constitution, the ratification of an international treaty or international agreement such as the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, renders it “the supreme law of the land,” and it would immediately supersede all preexisting state and federal statutes. In other words, the rights or laws contained in the U.N. convention would take precedence over all existing state and federal laws in the United States.

The primary criticism against the UN convention is that, if ratified by the U.S. Senate, the United States would be giving up a portion of American sovereignty. We would be giving a group of foreign individuals, in no way accountable to the American people, the authority to dictate how the children in America should be raised, educated and disciplined. Parental rights, the simple freedom of parents to raise their own children as they see fit would be instantly destroyed and the infinite number of parental decisions now taken for granted by American parents would all be placed within the authority of the United States government and the United Nations.

Whether or not a parent disciplined their child for lying or smoking pot, whether or not a parent could take their children to church or allow them to start dating would no longer be the sole responsibility of the parents and it is not entirely farfetched to imagine any number of instances where the authority of the parents would be cast aside by determinations of either the U.S. government or the United Nations.

Barbara Boxer, a Democratic Senator from California, argues that ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child by the U.S. will help secure human rights abroad and she has implied in the past that the U.S. refusal to ratify this agreement has led to the abuse of children in foreign countries. Earlier this year Boxer implied that young Middle-Eastern girls were having acid thrown in their faces by radical Islamic zealots because the United States had not ratified the UN treaty. Admittedly, if you fail to see the logic behind her allegation, you are part of a very large group.

Children in the United States are afforded a variety of protections under state and federal law, however, whatever “rights” a child has within the home has always been a determination thought best left to that child’s parents, and with some exceptions, the generations of decent American citizens who were raised under the absolute dictatorship of their parents has demonstrated the effectiveness of that situation. Giving a young child the right to behave as they will, to think what they want, to accept or reject religious teaching, and the right to privacy in his or her affairs is not only counterproductive to the goals and needs of the parents raising that child, it is downright lunacy.

The one thing that is truly scary about this entire thing is that the American people will not be given the opportunity to decide whether this is the way they want to go or not. Your opinion will not be asked and you will never be given a chance to vote for or against the ratification of this treaty. President Obama will decide if and when this proposed agreement goes before the U.S. Senate and the overwhelming majority of Democratic politicians representing your best interests will make the decision for you on the basis of political expediency, what furthers their political career most or simply for the sake of changing whatever is in their power to change. What you want is not part of the equation.

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Barbara Boxer, Barack Obama, United Nations, parental rights, change

Now that Barack the Omnipotent One has signed the Democratic Party’s $787 billion bait and switch pork spending bill into law some of the less-than-subtle nuances contained in that massively convoluted 1000 page plus document are beginning to come out and the fraction of American people relatively unaffected by the Obama Rapture syndrome infecting the less than stable minds of this nation’s liberal element are becoming more confused than ever by the disclosure of these facts.

Weeks before our newly elected president was inaugurated we became inundated with stimulus talk. Political speeches issued from an assortment of Washington’s talking heads focused on the various aspects of stimulating the lethargic American economy and the need for action. Every newspaper and television news broadcast in the nation seemed to be stuck on the stimulus debates taking place and everywhere we looked we saw another political pundit, high placed economist, or well known political hack unveiling some additional consideration or factor that needed to be included in the government’s comprehensive plan to kick start our nation’s economy. The vast majority of American citizens took all of this as being of a somewhat serious nature and as time went on, it appeared to become even more serious. The American economy was collapsing down around our heads, people were losing their jobs and their homes, banks were closing, retirement accounts were disappearing and the stock market was all over the road. The people, at least a lot of them, began to believe. Something needed to be done and done quickly to reverse the downward trend of the American economy, get the growing number of displaced American workers out of the unemployment lines and back to work and get this nation back on the road to prosperity.

Across the nation millions of glassy eyed liberal minions began crying out for salvation from the impending doom precariously teetering over their pointy little heads while the less gullible conservatives, unimpressed by the growing sense of hysterical desperation were being viewed with the lack of credibility normally reserved for representatives of the Flat Earth Society.

When Obama Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, stated that the current financial crisis would give the new administration the opportunity to do things that could not have been done before, few understood exactly where he was going. When he followed it up with the comment that, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” the path being charted should have been exquisitely clear. When Obama began broadcasting public warnings of impending catastrophe and casting scorn and condemnation on the obstinate Republican hold-outs when they tried to ensure that any jobs created by the legislation went to actual American citizens and at least part of the money went to honestly stimulating the American economy, you would think that the American people would sit up and take notice. When the blessed one plagiarized Diane Feinstein’s 2007 plea for the acceptance of incompetent liberal legislation, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good,” with his “stimulating” revision, “Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the essential,” we all should have been following the rats down the mooring lines to the safety of the harbor below. Unfortunately, as we all know today, that is not what happened. The American people fell for it, lock, stock and barrel, they invited the door-to-door carpet cleaners into their living rooms, they bought into the pitch of the roving roof repairman, bought a slew of unsolicited magazines and signed over their life savings to that smooth talking Nigerian trying to reclaim his money all at the same time, and now the truth is coming out.

In the last days of the debate the Washington elitists jerked out the provision in the Senate version of the stimulus bill that would ensure that all jobs created would go to American citizens, and the provision in the house version of the bill that required federal contractors to e-verify all employees or become ineligible for stimulus contracts was removed from the final version of the bill. The provision that required all manufactured goods used by tax funded contractors be American made was thoroughly watered down, and while some language remained to appear as if there were a requirement that the iron and steel used by tax funded contractors come from American manufacturers, the entire section was subjected to the inclusion of so many loopholes that it might as well of been tossed out entirely. Allowing the head of a federal agency to ignore the “buy American” requirement if he deems it “inconsistent with the public interest,” pretty much nullifies the entire provision.

According to a White House press release, if you are currently employed and make less than $75,000 per year, the Democrat’s $787 billion pork laden stimulus package contains a paltry $400 tax credit that might reduce the federal income tax withheld from your paycheck by an average of around $8 per pay period. If you make less than $150,000 but more than $75,000 per year that reduction could go as high as $10 per pay period. On the other hand, if you are out of work and have exhausted your unemployment benefits the Democrats will incentivize you to stay that way by giving you an additional 23 weeks of free money and they have taken it one step further by scuttling the e-verify provision to ensure that illegal aliens have the opportunity to secure government construction jobs before unemployed American citizens. Those receiving Social Security Supplemental Income payments, a large percentage of who are illegal aliens with anchor babies, will receive a one time check for $250. The rest of the $787 billion will be funneled into the various, and oftentimes redundant government agencies to waste as they see fit, the back pockets of Democratic politicians, paybacks for the union leaders for their service to the party, and federal grants to groups like La Raza to further their racist. If you are still wondering how any of this is going to stimulate the economy, the simple answer is that it won’t.

Meanwhile, 27% of the U.S. homeowners with a mortgage owe more on that mortgage than their house is now worth and Obama, the all seeing stated yesterday that now that he’s fixed the American economy he intends to put some time in figuring out what to do about how to solve the mortgage crisis. He will probably want the affected homeowners to let illegal aliens move into their houses while they move into the garage, continue paying the debt off, and the Democratic Party gets the deed once they’re dead. In this new world of American socialism that sounds like a pretty fair deal – to a Democrat.

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On another topic, not too far removed, the Center for Immigration Studies released the results of a new study detailing the employment breakdown for immigrants and native-born Americans based on December 2008 data.

The results of this study indicate the following conclusions:

The unemployment rate for native-born Americans of all races who did not finish high school is 17%
The unemployment rate for young native-born Americans of all races who only finished high school is 15%
The unemployment rate for teenage native-born Americans of all races is 21.9%

The unemployment rate for native-born African-Americans who did not finish high school is 24.7%
The unemployment rate for young native-born African-Americans who only finished high school is 20.2%
The unemployment rate for teenage native-born African-Americans is 31.6%

The unemployment rate for Hispanics who did not finish high school is 16.2%
The unemployment rate for young Hispanics who only finished high school is 13.6%
The unemployment rate for teenage Hispanics is 40.3%

Feel free to draw your own conclusions from this information

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Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Democratic Party, pork spending, stimulus, illegal aliens, E-Verify

I can’t help it; you can think I’m a demented nut job or a total pessimist with a near-psychotic grudge against authority, it doesn’t matter, but when I picked up this mornings newspaper off the rain soaked driveway, I could clearly hear the nasal whine of complaining liberals shrieking through the heat-sealed plastic bag. For a few brief moments I considered the possibility that it might be some form of pre-traumatic stress syndrome brought on by the growing dread of impending “Barange,*” but I quickly traced the source of the tinny whining to an article on the front of the business section.

“Early converts to digital are fuzzy about benefits,” read the headline above the news article that turned out to be another one of LA Time’s pieces that attempts to blend human interest with informative journalism and fails miserably at both. The article reported the frustration of a stay at home mom who jumped on the conversion bandwagon somewhat prematurely and describes how let down she felt after hooking her government-subsidized converter box up to her Goodwill store television only to discover that the picture was terrible and the reception sucked. “It doesn’t feel like an upgrade,” she stated unhappily.

This woman’s expression of dismay brightened my morning considerably. Reading the article thoroughly, I was left with the impression that this was someone who actually carved out hours from her daily routine to spend in front of that 27 inch screen. It keeps her company during the day and informs her at night. She faithfully watches the news with rapt attention to every detail, and she probably believes a good portion of what is being reported. Her entire life floats in a marinade of liberal propaganda that she never questions and she undoubtedly regarded the purchase of a conversion box as some sort of civic minded obligation. I would give 100 to 1 odds that she has also installed water saving devices on her toilet and her shower head. and there is no doubt in my mind that this is a person who spends hours meticulously separating her garbage before dropping it into her three color coded trash bins for recycling.

According to DTV.Gov, the government web site for information on the transition from analog to digital television, “An important benefit of the switch to all-digital broadcasting is that it will free up parts of the valuable broadcast spectrum for public safety communications such as police, fire departments, and rescue squads. Also, some of the spectrum will be auctioned to companies that will be able to provide consumers with more advanced wireless services.”

God only knows what actually prompted this congressionally mandated change but you can be assured that some one in the mix stands to make billions of dollars off of it. The cost of subsidizing the converter boxes and educating the public has seriously cut into the expected government profit of anywhere between 20 and 50 billion dollars earned by selling off 108 megahertz of the old analog broadcast spectrum to cell phone companies. When you imagine the money those cell phone companies will make off of the expanded services the additional bandwidth makes possible, we probably have a clue as to who paid congress the most money for this change.

Considering the fact that the analog to digital conversion has been under debate in Washington since 1996 and has probably already cost the American taxpayer more than double the cost of the current stimulus package, you can’t help but wonder about the credibility of this entire escapade. Furthermore, when you consider that millions of American households will now give up those old TV sets for new plasma televisions, you see another problem arising. Those old televisions represent around 4% of the household electricity consumption in the country. Even if it remains turned off, a moderate sized plasma television draws approximately the same amount of power daily as a large refrigerator. When you throw in the additional 250 KW per year consumed by the cable box attached to it and multiply that by the millions of people switching away from their old analog sets, you are looking at a massive increase in energy consumption across the nation at a time when we can least afford it.

The analog to digital converter box may yet become the quintessential symbol of government intervention. We all end up paying more to replace something that worked fairly well with something that is entirely unsatisfactory and more costly so that some individual or corporation can profit off of our loss. This is pretty typical of what happens any time the government gets involved in something they have no business being involved in, and it can serve as a hint of what’s to come with a national healthcare program. If you think things are bad now just wait until the government has fixed all of your problems for you.

*BARANGE:
Any change implemented by Barack Obama, including any change implemented by the liberal controlled U.S. Congress at the suggestion of Obama’s administration; also includes changes wrought in the “spirit” of the alleged new era brought about by Obama’s rise to power.

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Barack Obama, change

In Southern California 25,024 homes were repossessed in the first quarter 2008. That is a 316.7% increase over the number of homes repossessed in the same quarter of 2007, and the number of homes currently facing foreclosure has virtually exploded in the end of the first quarter of 2009 approaches. It is estimated that only 32% of the homeowners in the state manage to prevent foreclosure following receipt of the first default notice from their finance company. While there are no accurate records in the state to rely on, it is estimated that nearly 80% of the mortgages for homes purchased in the last six to eight years are currently upside down, that is, the owner owes more on the house than it’s current market value. Most of these home owners purchased their homes at the start of the real estate boon and refinanced later when the value of their property nearly doubled. Now that the bubble has popped and the value of their home has drastically fallen, they are sitting there with a $500,000 mortgage on a house that is only worth around $200,000, if they could find someone who is willing to buy it even at that price. No bank will consider loaning them money for a refinance when the value of the house is less than the debt owned on it and if the owner gets to the point where payments can’t be made the only option is to let the finance company have the property back and write the whole thing off as a total loss. This is a pretty devastating situation for anyone facing it in a state where the cost of renting a place to live is nearly as high as the cost of owning, and in a state where 1.7 million people are currently unemployed and the unemployment rate is quickly rising past the record high 9.3% with no end in sight, the families that are affected by this tragedy are beyond what you would consider being simply “devastated,” they are crushed into a bloody pulp.

Every week hundreds of highly educated, well motivated young California families are being pushed into the street with no place to go and nowhere to turn. They are being laid-off from their jobs by the thousands, their savings have dwindled down to nothing, they’ve tapped out their 401Ks, their creditors are hounding them and the finance company is threatening foreclosure. They have cut everything they can cut from their budgets and they don’t know how they will manage to put food on the table for their kids. They scrape up enough money to put gas in the car so they can go job hunting but every place they go they find 200 other applicants in the same desperate straits.

A study in the Western Journal of Medicine indicates that California is undergoing a near epidemic scale of male suicides and is now sitting at nearly 3% over the national average. The study also noted a 18.9% increase in suicide among males over 65 years old which also represents the second hardest hit demographic group in the state’s downward spiraling economy as millions of newly retired baby boomers find themselves facing a bleak future after their retirement investments quickly disappeared thanks to the recent stock market collapse. Few made the connection between the increased number of suicides in California and the growing oppression caused by the state’s economic problems until the last few months of news coverage began carrying news about unrelated incidents of murder/suicide in the golden state where entire families, beset with intractable financial problems, ended in tragedy. On Christmas Eve recently terminated man killed his ex-wife and eight of her relatives before killing himself; in Yorba Linda, a 41 year old Orland Cho, shot and killed his 39-year-old wife and their children ages 9, 8 and 5 before killing himself with a shotgun blast to the head. The Cho’s 14-year-old son was wounded in the incident but later recovered; a Los Angeles man shot and killed his wife and five children before killing himself; in the San Fernando Valley a man killed his wife, three sons and mother-in-law while they slept in their beds before turning the gun on himself; five members of a Turkish-American family were found dead in an upscale San Clemente as a result of a suicide pact, and the list of victims continues to grow as the collateral damage from California’s failing economy unfolds.

Meanwhile, California’s oversupply of truly hack politicians are announcing that they have finally arrived on the scene of the devastating economic forest fire and they are armed with huge buckets of high-octane gasoline and assurances to their constituents that they will quickly quench the flames and put everything back in order. They intend to take the formerly golden state from it’s current position as the seventh most heavily taxed state to the pinnacle of being the number one most heavily taxed state in the nation and their Governor Schwarzenegger, the same turkey who ran on a “No New Taxes” campaign stance, is leading the bucket brigade for massive tax increases in a state where the spending budget has increased in size more than 30% over the last 5 years.

While California’s already heavily tax burdened and despondent citizens are committing suicide in record numbers as they face astronomical unemployment rates and off-the-chart home foreclosure rates, the state legislators are priming the tax pump to make matters even more desperate than they already are by adding another 1 percentage point to the already high sales tax, doubling the fee for licensing vehicles, increasing the gas tax to a whopping 47 cents per gallon, jacking up the state’s income tax across the board, adding a 5% surcharge on all delinquent tax debts and cutting back the dependent tax credit from $300 to $100. As if any of this were not bad enough, the Sacramento brain trust has also announced an open season on specific groups they have targeted for further hardship and destruction by eliminating the cost-of-living increase for senior citizens and disabled people receiving Supplemental Security Income and State Supplementary Payments. This should prove to be pretty disastrous for California’s senior citizens, many of whom are already on a diet of cat food and whatever they can dig out of the local grocery store dumpster. It would be more humane to simply round them up and gas them to death in concentration camps than to subject them to the long slow process of inevitable starvation on the streets. But then again, rounding them up would cost more than the California legislators are willing to spend and it might cut into the money they’ve set aside to fund educational programs for illegal aliens, no-interest home loans for illegal aliens and political organizing drives for (you guessed it) illegal aliens.

Despite a recent court decision stating that California will either have to improve the medical care in it’s prisons or start releasing inmates in massive numbers, the legislators have cut funding for medical care in the state prisons. The thinking there seems to be that the thousands of violent felons released onto California’s streets will be kept so busy picking off the homeless senior citizens and victims of foreclosure that they will never realize that the really lucrative targets are the state employees and politicians. Hopefully, some grass roots organization will start up an educational program to redirect these wayward criminals to targets of greater value in Sacramento.

California serves as the nation’s parakeet. What happens here inevitably spreads out across the entire country. California’s political stupidity, wasteful spending and it’s associated consequences are already being seen in other locations around the nation as the infection spreads out. By the time it is laying still in the bottom of its cage it will be too late and if the truth be told it is probably already too late for the rest of the nation.

Obama’s demands congressional action to fix the dysfunctional American economy. He tells the legions of glassy-eyed Obamites that the problem is so far out of control that the only hope is big action from big government. They raise their collectively stupefied gazes, wipe the drool from their chins, and overcome with the rapture that only true believers can feel, they acknowledge the simplistic wisdom of their messiah’s naively dim-witted meanderings as if they were hearing the voice of God emanating from the sky above them.

As the subject of their adoration comfortably reclines in the luxury of the presidential plane as it trundles down the runway and launches itself into the heavens for the brief jump back to Washington, the befuddled Obamites, locked into their myopic visions of salvation, continue to lovingly gaze upon the sacred spot where HE stood. The sky darkens above them; rain begins to fall but their chant is unwavering, Obam-a, Obam-a, Obam-a.

For a nation of people who take so much pride in academic achievement it is utterly and completely inconceivable to acknowledge the obvious truth that, instead of sound reasoning, good common sense, logical deduction and historical analysis, the vast majority of American voters base their decisions on a foundation of blind faith, the accumulation of intentionally misleading falsehoods, and the stunningly hollow promises of manipulative and entirely corrupt political hacks fixated only on what benefits them the most while callously disregarding the destructive consequences to others.

I simply don’t get it and what boggles my sense of credibility more than anything are the liberals. In their own minds these individuals are the cream of American society. Politically progressive, highly educated and independent of thought, these are the people who cast scornful looks at the religious right and their faithful born-again followers of a two thousand year old religion. Skeptics, scientists and free thinkers; they wouldn’t dream of accepting anything on faith alone, and yet they guzzle down the kool-aid from the democratic punch bowl and fall placidly into line like mindless zombies.

To make matters even worse, here we are less than a full month into the Obama administration’s term and the Democratic messiah has already done a complete about-face on the single most important campaign pledge that he made to the American people. Time after time Barack Obama stood before the American people, pointed to the faults and failings of American leadership and solemnly promised them that they would see change; that his administration would not be like what they had seen. He pointed to the political scandals of Washington, the lobbyists, the “gifts”, the purchased legislation, the money stashes and secret pay-offs, and he promised the American people that they would see change; that his administration would not be like what they had seen. On countless occasions he stood before large public crowds and described the hardships of American citizens suffering and struggling to make ends meet in a nation whose government was blind to their plight and listened only to the sound of currency passing from the hands of corporate CEO’s as it slipped into the pockets of Washington big shots. He stood before them and solemnly promised that they would see change; that his administration would not be like what they had seen.

At the Lobbying Reform Summit in Washington, D.C. on 26 January 2006 Obama cast his ethics policy in stone and set the tone for his later presidential campaign when he reminded the nation of Teddy Roosevelt’s expressed views on political corruption.

“No republic can permanently endure when its politics are corrupt and base…we can afford to differ on the currency, the tariff, and foreign policy, but we cannot afford to differ on the question of honesty. There is a soul in the community, a soul in the nation, just exactly as their is a soul in the individual; and exactly as the individual hopelessly mars himself if he lets his conscience be dulled by the constant repetition of unworthy acts, so the nation will hopelessly blunt the popular conscience if it permits its public men continually to do acts which the nation in its heart of hearts knows are acts which cast discredit upon our whole public life.”

Here we stand, less than one full month after the dust has settled to the ground, and while the activity level in Washington has been high and the expectations even higher, the promise of change, the promise that Obama’s administration would chart a new course of honesty, ethical integrity and high visibility have all but disappeared. Less than ten days into his term of office this personification of honest politics nominates a full handful of tax evaders to some of the highest cabinet positions in the land. Amidst the ensuing outrage he speaks to the American people, admits his errors and accepts full responsibility for his actions, but then he turns around and creates exceptions to his own standard of ethical propriety so that a few of those corrupt politicians can accept the positions that he has favored them with. Despite their lack of honesty, despite their demonstrated propensity for doing the wrong thing, and despite the obvious fact that they all felt that they were above the same laws of the land that the rest of us feel compelled to obey, President Obama rewarded them with power, authority and high position. He accepted full responsibility for his actions, but what does that really mean? If I were to go out and rob a bank and later stand before a judge and accept full responsibility for my actions will I be absolved of my crime and freed on the spot? I doubt that. Accepting full responsibility for one’s actions includes the acknowledgement and acceptance of all debts incurred as a consequence of those actions. In Obama’s case, accepting full responsibility for one’s actions seems to imply complete absolution, not only of the wrong done, but of any consequences that might follow. In Obama’s case, accepting full responsibility for one’s actions is an entirely meaningless gesture and what he is really telling the American people is “Okay, I got caught, get over it because I am moving on and don’t want to be bothered by it any more.” That is not a change from the sort of government he spoke of during his campaign. It is irrefutably and blatantly dishonest by any definition of the term, and as Obama himself reminded us, Teddy Roosevelt said “we cannot afford to differ on the question of honesty.”

Where are the deafening cries of outrage we should be hearing? Where are the political activists and placard carrying protestors who ranted and raved for the last eight years about the dishonesty of the Bush administration? Where are the headlines plastered across American newspapers condemning this obvious dishonesty? Where are the books being laid out in displays microscopically detailing every millisecond in time leading up to this disingenuous political failure? The simple answer is that none of these things exist. The faithful followers are still every bit as faithful. Their salvation is at hand and it can’t be derailed by facts, by logic, by truth or by reason. Obama’s come to lead us all to Paradise so we either get on board or get left behind.

If I can avoid being trampled beneath the feet of this hysterically stampeding mob as they make their way to their liberal heaven, I am committed to staying behind, and it isn’t because I favor the corrupt politicians and political practices that Obama eloquently described in his many speeches, its because I know that you can’t erase what is wrong by redefining what is right. Our forefathers established a limited form of government because they knew that all governments tended to be corrupt and the more limited the government was the less corrupt it would become. Obama’s vision of government is huge and all encompassing, it reaches into every aspect of American life, it is the answer to every problem and the sole repository of every hope and dream. It is all-seeing, far reaching and all-powerful, and by extension, it is entirely corrupt. I prefer the government of our forefathers so I intend to remain behind while Obama leads his minions off to Paradise; I want no part of it.

President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan (aka the Stimulus Program) has passed the Senate and is on its way back to the House where Obama’s House lackeys are expected to plug back in all of the pork spending that the Republicans managed to get thrown out during the Senate debate. Obama has stated that he wants them to restore the items taken out related to construction work and the money that was ear-marked for the states. The items he want put back into the bill represent around $19 billion in needless spending and Obama is wailing about a deepening economic crisis if his demands are not met.

As expected, Senators Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania were the only turncoat Republicans to vote for Obama’s stimulus package. Harry Reid predicted that the entire package will be completed by the end of the week and he has cautioned Republicans not to try and delay it’s final progress. For the sake of this nation there are many American voters hoping that the Republican representatives in Washington ignore the dweeb from Nevada and dig in their heels for all their worth.

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stimulus program

Confusingly enough, I keep seeing these headlines across the newspaper about how both parties are working to trim the blubbering mounds of disgusting fat from the proposed stimulus plan, but when I dive into reading the article there’s nothing in it that is even remotely close to describing these two opposing groups working away, elbow to elbow as it were, on a common goal. The word “bipartisan” has probably been printed more often in American newspapers in the last twenty days than it has in the last twenty years, and yet what is going on down there in Washington D.C. is far from anything that could be defined as a cooperative effort. The essential truth in all of this is that the entire concept of the “Stimulus Package” is a creation of the Democratic Party. They own it, lock, stock and barrel, and they are not about to let the Republicans have any say in the matter, large or small. When the dust settles and the thing is firmly embedded halfway down the throats of the American tax-payers, the Democrats want to be the ones who stand with their heads held high and proclaim to the world that this was their creation, and that with their courage, hard work and perseverance this convoluted monstrosity of their design will save the nation from a fate worse than death.

President Obama demonstrated the true depth of his desire for bipartisanship during a recent White House meeting to which he benevolently invited a selection of senior Republican representatives. Following the conclusion of a presentation in which he laid out his plans for the stimulus package, he allowed the conservative element present to express their ideas on the matter. Some of them had fairly comprehensive suggestions. John McCain advanced a plan that included a one-year tax cut in payroll taxes and tax reductions for the two lowest tax brackets. McCain’s proposal also included a provision to help the housing industry (remember them ? that’s where all of this began). That provision was the $15,000 tax credit for home buyers that we have heard a little bit about. All in all, John McCain’s proposal would cost around four and a quarter billion dollars which is roughly less than half of what the Democratic Party’s plan is up to this morning. Senator Ensign of Nevada proposed a reduction in mortgage rates to somewhere around 4%, a proposal that would immediately put huge amounts of cash back into the pockets of millions of American citizens. Senator Thune of South Dakota proposed a comprehensive package of tax cuts and unemployment benefits, an idea that would not only put money in the pockets of the people who earned it but would act as a life preserver for the thousands now facing desperate times after being recently laid off. The price tag associated with his idea was fixed at $440 billion, still less than half of what the Democrats are now proposing. Over the course of two meetings, nearly twenty senators from both parties met with President Obama to discuss the list of possible cuts in the Democrat’s proposed package, cuts that targeted nearly $80 billion worth of questionable spending. All things considered, many of these proposals came from intelligent, well-seasoned and experienced politicians. Individuals who have done their homework and done it well, who know what the problem is, why it happened and what exactly is needed to begin repairing the damage. It is the Republican Party, after all is said and done, that are, by far, the leading experts and proponents of our nation’s free market system and history has proven, time after time, that putting money back into the hands of the consumers is the quickest way possible to “un-stick” a stuck economy and get everything flowing again.

After patiently listening, but indicating absolutely no interest whatsoever, to the ideas and proposals put forth in good faith by the Republican representatives, Barack Obama reminded those present that he was the candidate that won the presidential election and he was the one sitting behind the president’s desk in the oval office, he was the one with the power and authority to say what was what and their opinions on what was going on in the nation’s capital were of no particular relevance anymore. I don’t believe that Washington has ever witnessed such a truly awe inspiring demonstration of bipartisanship.

In the days that followed, John McCain’s proposal was blasted off the floor of the Senate in abject defeat, Senator Ensign’s proposal went down in flames on a vote of 62 – 35, and senator Thune’s idea was shot out of the sky by a vote of 60 -37. McCain later stated that President Obama “gave the Democrats the leeway to basically shut out Republicans starting with the House and now here in the Senate.”

Despite all of the headlines claiming bipartisan cooperation, there is none. East and west coast newspapers carry the news that both parties are working to trim the fat from the stimulus bill, but when you dive into the details you find that the cost is increasing and everyday some knuckleheaded liberal adds another fifty million dollar proposal to take of, yet another imaginary problem, social cause or pressing need.

As it stands this morning, the so called “stimulus bill,” which is Barack Hussein Obama’s cornerstone to his effort to cure what ails the American economy, is squatting over the American tax-payer about to unleash a virtual downfall of putrid effluvium. This revolting marinade currently weighs in at $937 billion and consists of every pent-up project and idle whim that has drifted through the otherwise empty heads of congressional liberals over the last eight years. It is a gargantuan Rube Goldberg assembly of funnels, chutes, trap doors, secret exits and looping turns on top of which rests a massive vault containing nearly one trillion dollars. When the signal is given and the engine started, the money will spray through the aforementioned funnels, fall through the countless collection of chutes into a dizzying array of convoluted loops and magically disappear through an infinite number of cleverly disguised trap doors and secret exits to intentionally undisclosed locations where it is quickly and very quietly scooped up by an assortment of well-favored minions who will, without any doubt whatsoever, be eternally grateful to the Democratic Party for enriching their lives and promoting the causes that they and they alone view as being breathtakingly significant. It can be estimated that, despite the size and weight of the contents contained in the vault, from the time the start button is first pushed to the moment the last one dollar bill falls into oblivion, the entire process will be completed before you have a chance to even begin to marvel at such a cleverly designed mechanism. Before we even begin to wonder where it is all going, it will all be gone.

Ultimately, the true test of this plan’s effectiveness will be extremely evident for all to see and it will be possible to measure that effectiveness by the beneficial impact (if any) it has on our nation’s economy and the speed by which the downward spiral is decreased and eventually reversed. With that being said, I feel that I should highlight the suggestion that none of us give into the urge to hold our breaths in anticipation of any significant improvement.

Essentially, what we are seeing is not a stimulus plan in any sense of the word. The bundle of political pay=offs and favors currently packaged under the heading “Stimulus Plan” by the Washington Democrats will not jump start the stalling economy and, if the truth be told, it was never intended to do that anyway. While they will never admit to it, the Democrats know very well that the free market system will correct itself over time regardless of what they do and the American economy is capable of absorbing the additional trillion dollar debt they intend to dump on it providing sufficient time is allowed without too many big surprises. Basically, they are gambling that that the recipients of their largess will be so eternally grateful and forever after loyal to their cause that they will again claim victory in 2012 even if the economic problem still exists. By the time 2016 rolls around, the free market will surely have corrected the problem to some degree for which they will claim credit, and just possibly, if the American people are still as gullible as they were in 2008, they will ride the crest of that wave into a third term of Democratic control. Nobody can ever make the claim that the liberals don’t have vision, unfortunately their “vision” is remarkably similar to what the rest of us consider hallucinogenic and one of the primary problems with their plan for the future is that it doesn’t take into account the simple fact that their “Stimulus Plan” may fall flat on it’s face two steps out of the gate.

It should be noted that the American voter has not demonstrated an over-abundance of intelligence. They’ve swallowed a good six or seven years worth of Liberal kool-aid and they’ve bought into the liberal media’s hysterical lies about G.W. Bush and all things conservative. Like a heard of crazed lemmings they became fixated on the vague goal of “Change” without too much concern over the specifics of what that change would be, and up to this point in time there has been no indication of a let up. They are still charging toward the edge of that cliff in a mad rush and none of them have slowed down enough to notice that their messiah, the almighty Obama is now standing off to the side watching. He is no longer running with them. As soon as he got elected he became the focus of what they wanted to change instead of the motivating force behind the change itself, and they have yet to figure it out. If the Republican Party has any hope of recovery in the future, or of picking up the fatigued lemmings too tired to keep up the pace, they need to withstand the urge to go along with the crowd supporting the current fantasy of a stimulus package. The media may paint them as being irrelevant but time will point out the error in that sort of thinking. The stimulus package will only stimulate further debt and misery and the Democrats need to own every bit of what they are creating.

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Barack Obama, bipartisan, Democratic Party, Republican Party, stimulus program

Its been nearly three weeks since Barack (the Wondrous) Obama’s coronation took place in the shadows of the White House and the peevish Democrats are still rampaging through Washington in a reign of terror as riotous liberals seek out and destroy every miniscule reminder of George W. Bush and the conservative party’s legacy of influence as the newly crowned Lord and Master of the Realm arrogantly gazes out over his new subjects distributing gifts on the favored and condemnation on all who would dare to oppose the far left agenda he now stands poised to enforce on the former bastion of freedom and liberty.

On his first day and within brief minutes of his ascension to power, Obama, The Anointed One, revoked Executive Order 13233 and provided full access to the records of former United States Presidents, regardless of the confidential nature of the material many of those records may contain or the damage to U.S. security interests that might ensue.

On his second day in power he ordered all agencies and departments within his administration to “adopt a presumption in favor” of the Freedom of Information Act and restored free access to tons of previously classified documents that can be used by America’s enemies in assessing the value and security weaknesses of potential targets for attack by terrorist groups from outside the country.

On his third day in power, Obama announced the closure of the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility within a year and signed an order demanding that every one of the sadistical psychopaths incarcerated therein be afforded the most humane and politically correct treatment possible regardless of their crimes against humanity.

On his fourth day in power, the Wondrous One revoked the funding ban for groups that provide abortion services and counsel potential parents abroad to kill their unborn children and concludes his day by killing 16 Waziristan villagers and 7 alleged militants in Pakistan (an American ally) as if to demonstrate to the American people that he has the stomach to slaughter human life by remote control.

On his fifth day in power, the new American king addresses his loyal subjects and allows them to bask in the radiance of his arrogant gaze via YouTube.

On his sixth day, the Omnipotent One displays his infinite wisdom with a brief but meandering dissertation of the subject of energy independence. Shortly after, he directs the Department of Transportation to create higher fuel efficiency standards for American automobiles before the 2011 models are released, and follows this up with a directive benevolently allowing individual states to raise their emissions standards above the national standard, thereby freeing the nearly bankrupt state of California to make it all that more expensive and burdensome for their increasingly oppressed citizens to survive in an already harsh economic environment. He concluded his busy day with a heartfelt interview broadcast to his friends, compatriots and possibly campaign contributors in the Muslim world by Al Arabiya, an Arabic-language television news based in the United Arab Emirates, and owned by the Saudi-controlled broadcaster Middle East Broadcasting Center. During this interview, the Lord and Master of the American people spoke openly of his close personal ties to the Muslim world from which he came and extended his hand in a gesture of friendship (from a safe distance) to the broader Muslim world while proclaiming a, “new way forward based on mutual respect and mutual interest.” As if the extent of his whiny subjugation to the powers of the Islamic world were insufficient to get his point across, he implicitly condemned his predecessor’s use of the term “War on Terror” as being counter-productive to the effort to establish a warm and fuzzy relationship with the Islamo-facists who deemed America the land of the “Great Satan” and have dedicated themselves with religious fervor to killing and decapitating American citizens for the last seven years.

On the seventh day, unlike his heavenly counterpart, Obama the Magnificent did not rest. He forged ahead pushing his liberal agenda before him, not unlike the lowly stinkbug rolling his personal collection of balled up dung. During a two-hour meeting with the newly reformed Defense Secretary and the Joint Chiefs at the Pentagon, Obama the Petulant took another offhanded swipe at his predecessor by advising them that the U.S. has relied too much on its military might and too little on diplomacy in dealing with the psychopathic Islamic mass murderers terrorizing the planet. He laid out his intention to abandon the infant democracy struggling to mature in the wastelands of Iraq and announced the beginning of a comprehensive review of U.S. strategy in Afghanistan where he plans to supplement an increased number of American troops with hordes of non-military liberal do-gooders guaranteed to muddy the waters, inject politically correct nonsense into an already difficult situation and make it all that much easier for American liberals to sacrifice young American lives in a hamstrung war effort they associate more with Obama’s predecessor than with the unprovoked attacks of 9-11.

On his eighth full day, Obama the All-Seeing One encouraged more frivolous lawsuits against the evil bastions of corporate America by signing into law the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act which amends the statutory limitations period for filing civil cases against business that may or may not have engaged in discriminatory wage practices years after the fact.

Barack (Blessed be his name) Obama, concludes the first calendar month of the year and his ninth day of rule by appointing Joseph (Flapping Lips) Biden to control a newly formed “Middle Class Working Families Task Force.” The Middle Class Working Families Task Force (MCWFTF) is being publically billed as a “major initiative targeted at raising the living standards of middle-class, working families in America,” but as most mature American citizens are well aware, the term “Task Force” is a Washingtonian code word for any group assigned to handle issues a presidential administration does not want to be bothered with. Along with Joe Biden, Obama added the secretaries of labor, health and human services, education and commerce, the director of the National Economic Council, the Management and Budget office, the Domestic Policy Council, and the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to this Chinese fire drill team. With no set budget or teeth in their collective head, this gaggle of bureaucrats will be restricted to whining at the door of the oval office over the relatively unimportant matters related to the creation of “green” jobs (whatever those might be) and the boring concerns of private sector retirement plans, which the current administration views as favoring only the geriatric wealthy who have accumulated their ill gotten gains at the expense of the poor and needy they spent their lifetime abusing.

Ten days into a reign of power that is impressing the American liberals more than it is nauseating everyone else, the little town of Paris, Texas is treated to a racial free-for-all disguised by liberal journalists as a “frank community talk on the long-taboo topic of race.” With a nod from the ever-observant Obama his loyal minions in the Justice Department direct what they call “Conciliation Specialists” to conduct the first of what may be many such events in Paris, Texas and similar southern towns around the nation where the level of alleged racial injustice has yet to meet the expected demands of continuously expanding liberal sensibilities more commonly referred to in conservative circles as politically correct hogwash. Be that as it may, the lackeys of Obama’s Justice Department collared the interested parties of both the White and Black elements enmeshed in the ongoing racial disharmony taking place in the otherwise sleepy southern burg for what turned out to be a fairly one-sided venting wherein the black residents ranted and railed at the whites as they sat on the opposite side of the room silently stone-faced with their arms crossed protectively across their chests. With federal mediators encouraging the assault and three local police cars blocking their retreat the white residents of Paris, Texas were treated to a four hour non-stop screaming rant by black residents incensed by what they view as “Southern Attitudes” of white superiority, the visual insult of the towns large cast bronze confederate memorial, and accusations about the unfair treatment given to convicted black felons in comparison to that given to white convicted felons both of which are undoubtedly in large supply in the remote peckerwood community. At any rate, the little towns soon to be dumped by his constituents Mayor wiped the drool from his fat rubbery lips at the conclusion of this exercise in futility and announced to the world that “Every city should have a dialogue like this,” and as if that were their cue to action, the resident spokeshole for the U.S. Department of Justice announced that they would be offering this “service” to other communities around the nation on an “as needed basis,” which is undoubtedly something we can all look forward to in the future. Obviously, the white supremacists of Paris, Texas haven’t been made aware of the fact that their struggle to maintain superiority has officially come to an abrupt halt and that racism in America is dead and buried in a long forgotten shallow, roadside grave.

On his eleventh day, King Obama sat on his royal butt in front of a mirror and basked in his own magnificence.

Obama the Exalted and Omnipotent, kicked off his February entertainment on the twelfth day of his reign by nominating a handful of tax evaders and corrupt politicians to various high positions of authority within the government, and finishes his day off discussing the Democrat’s economic stimulus plan which is actually nothing more than a liberal ploy designed to pay back the business interests and special interest groups that assisted the Democratic Party’s overthrow of the dwindling conservative government’s feeble hold on power in America.

On the thirteenth day the Blessed Voice of the Almighty announced that from this day forward any company receiving American tax-payer funded bail-out money through the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), which many Americans believe should have been named the Corporate Assets Relief Program (CRAP), would have to comply with the government required cap on executive pay at $500,000 per year. While this might seem to some as the right thing to do it was actually a meaningless gesture and will only force those corporations into finding more creative ways to lavish the tax-payers money on their ethically challenged elitist executives. In fact, before the echo of his masterful voice faded from the ears of those paying rapt attention to such things, the corporations in question had already figured out a half dozen ways around the meaningless gesture of this largely symbolic action. Unsatisfied with this merely futile nod to fairness, our sainted leader concluded his afternoon in a signing ceremony for the twice-vetoed SCHIP reauthorization and expansion which he pointed to as a down payment on his campaign pledge to implement socialized medicine in America. With one sweep of his god-like hand he flourished his signature on the bottom line of the law that will inevitably soak the already beleaguered American tax-payers for billions of additional dollars to subsidize the health care costs for literal legions of illegal alien waifs who, under saner circumstances, would be rounded up and deported.

On the fourteenth day of his magnificent reign, the wonderful one derailed his predecessor’s puny push for energy independence by revoking 77 oil leases in the state of Utah and reclosing much of the American west to the development of the plentiful shale oil resources located therein. The gnat kissing tree huggers of America swooned with joy as their beloved leader predictably placed the welfare of bugs above that of the American people.

On the fifteenth day of his rule I was overcome with nausea at the very though of keeping up with any more current events, tore the newspaper into small shreds, unplugged the computer and went back to bed at 8:30 am with a bottle of cheap tequila. I stayed there throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth days and I am considering the possibility of remaining here in my bed until 2012.

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Barack Obama

It appears that the Democrats are poised to begin pointing fingers at the Republic legislators if the much awaited Stimulus Package doesn’t pass the Senate soon and President Obama has already jumped into the fray with his warning of impending catastrophe if the bill isn’t quickly passed. With the same tired phrase that popped up during the 2007 Immigration Reform debate, Obama said of the current stimulus legislation, “Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the essential.”

Bearing that in mind, I would like to have a better understanding of how giving $750 million dollars to groups like Acorn and La Raza is going to benefit the American economy. How is the American economy going to benefit from the liberal senate’s proposal to give $2 billion for child care, $75 million to stop smoking programs, $13 billion to help the homeless, $20 billion for an expanded food stamp program and $335 million for the treatment and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and, last but not least, $650 million on the conversion from analog to digital television? These are not items that will create jobs for American workers, stall the increasing number of home foreclosures or relieve the American tax-payer of even the smallest portion of his or her tax burden, and since these items do nothing to stimulate the American economy or provide any real across-the-board benefit to the American people, then we can safely assume that they are not “essential” to the stimulus package and should be pulled. These seven items are, by a long shot, not the only non-essential pork presents proposed in the Senate’s stimulus proposal but the total cost to the American taxpayer for these seven items alone is $36 billion 810 million dollars of pure unadulterated government waste.

While I am not entirely convinced that we need any sort of stimulus package at all or that if the entire idea were scrapped, the American economy would probably recover on its own over the next two years, I admit that I, and quite a few very good economists, could be wrong and maybe we do need some sort of a stimulus package to help things along. If that is, in fact, the case then it would be more sensible for the government to propose actions that would stimulate the economy quickly rather than the proposals they are currently making which will slowly stimulate the economy over the next four years. If the purpose of taking any action is halt the downward momentum then the package needs to be front-loaded so the impact is immediate, but that is not the case, and because that is not the case it makes the entire stimulus package proposal more than a bit questionable.

As it is currently laid out the stimulus proposal now being debated in the U.S. Senate appears to be designed solely to promote the Democratic agenda over the next four years and to ensure the continuation of that party’s control of the U.S. government after Obama’s first term of office. There is little or nothing in it that will actually stop, or even slow down, the deteriorating American economy and a good portion of the provisions included appear to be nothing more than payback to various special interest groups for campaign contributions and work on behalf of the Democratic Party during the last election cycle. Compensating the friends of the Democratic Party is not essential to the repair of the American economy and it is not something that the American people should be burdened with for generations to come.

“Let’s not make the perfect the enemy of the essential,” is a nice tight phrase and it rolls off the lips of a politician with the air of wisdom and importance, but when you get right down to it, the phrase is nothing more than a plea to accept incompetent partisan bumbling when intelligent and decisive action is needed.

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The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) has joined forces with the racist Hispanic organization, La Raza, and similar groups in the effort to stifle the expression of all contradictory opinion in the illegal alien debate.

While the NHMC is currently saying that they are not asking the FCC to re-impose the Fairness Doctrine at this time, they are asking the FCC to “collect data, seek public comment, explore what they say is the relationship between hate speech and hate crimes and ‘explore options’ for combating it.” To put it in simple terms, the NHMC is requesting the FCC to supply them with the fodder they need to muscle the U.S. Congress into censoring the immigration debate by re-implementing the Fairness Doctrine.

The National Hispanic Media Coalition defines hate speech as “speech whose cumulative effect is to create an atmosphere of hate and prejudice that legitimizes violence against its targets,” and if that isn’t a load of horse pooey then I don’t know what is. Specifically the brain trust at the NHMC have pointed out to the FCC that “the alleged connection between illegal immigration and crime” was discussed on 94 episodes of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight, 66 times on Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, and 29 times on Glenn Beck’s Headline News show. By their use of the term “alleged,” I am assuming they have some significant doubts about whether or not illegal aliens actually commit crimes in the United States. Its possible that they aren’t aware that entering the U.S. without the proper immigration authorization is a violation of American law and the people that have come here without the proper immigration authorization are, by extension, “criminals.”

Whether or not the National Hispanic Media Coalition knows it, illegal aliens are criminals, and in many cases it isn’t just the illegal entry that makes them so. Taking employment in the U.S. while here illegally is also a crime, falsifying a Social Security number for the purpose of securing employment is another crime. If these alone are not sufficient for the people at the National Hispanic Media Coalition then maybe they should consider the fact that the majority of Latino street gang members in Los Angeles are illegal aliens and these are the scumbags that are out in the Hispanic neighborhoods every day preying on the legal immigrants and blasting away at little Latino kids with automatic pistols stolen in burglaries all over Los Angeles. Maybe the National Hispanic Media Coalition should check the California State Sex Offender Database to see what ethnic group makes up the majority of people listed. If that isn’t enough for them they could drive down to an East L.A. emergency room some Friday night and witness for themselves the number of people being brought in on stretchers after being shot, stabbed, run over by hit and run drunks, gang raped and beaten and all at the hands of the illegal alien criminals they do want to hear anyone discussing. They must think if we just ignore the problem it will go away.

The American people can not allow the NHMC, La Raza or any other pro-illegal alien advocacy group to dictate what we can say or how many times we feel the need to repeat ourselves. Obviously, since the liberal majority in the U.S. Congress is still pushing for illegal alien entitlements, we haven’t been loud enough. The message the anti-illegal alien crowd is trying to relay to their legislators is not hate speech and the only violence that it might legitimize would be whatever was required by the proper authorities to apprehend someone who resists being deported.

Being concerned about the safety and security of your nation is not a hate crime and expressing your honest heartfelt opinion on the issue of illegal aliens does not make you a bigot. This is the United States of America, a country where free speech is considered as something not granted or taken away by our government, but as an inalienable right granted to all free men by their creator. The National Hispanic Media Coalition and La Raza are all too aware that their arguments in favor of illegal aliens appear faulty and illogical when those arguments are compared to the actual facts of the issue and for that reason alone they want to silence their opponents and stifle the expression of those who would dare to point out the plentiful supply of statistical evidence pointing to the fallacy of their obvious agenda. That may pass for freedom in Mexico or some other third world country but in a free America it is a contemptible opinion worthy of outrage and scorn.

If there is to be a debate then let all sides come to the table armed with their opinions and their substantiating facts. Let us compare the true worth of what all have to say and let us weigh the the merit of evidence presented so that we can see the truth with our own eyes. Only then can we bring this dicussion to its much deserved and final conclusion.

“The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.”
JOHN STUART MILL (1806 – 1873)

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