Government Saved Us!

For those of you who read my last blog, it will come as no surprise that the very scenario I predicted in the Grand Shutdown Opera has at last come true. The scenario being that the GOP would cave on pretty much everything, their grandstanding would all be for nothing, and Obama and the Dems would come out smelling like roses.

How did I know this was going to occur before it even actually happened? BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HAPPENS EVERY TIME. I can't remember the last time anybody in either party took a principled stand that had any measurable effect on policy. I'm fairly young so I'm sure it's happened but maybe I wasn't around or not paying attention at the time that it happened. But it's also about understanding the very nature of government. The ones who might actually give a crap about the American people are few and far between. Like I said, I'm fairly young but I've already figured out that government is a sham. There are the
power players at the top who are the ones who

really pull the strings. This includes the President, House and Senate leadership of both sides, the career politicians, and the ones behind the scenes who we don't even know about. The ones who give a crap aren't at the top. They're at the bottom; they have little to no clout, they're often lampooned or ridiculed by the government mouthpiece media or Establishment politicians, and their common sense bills usually run up against a brick wall. Knowing this, it was not hard to predict from a mile away that this whole shutdown charade was going to go nowhere.

It also doesn't help that our bought and paid for government controlled media dutifully reported all of the exaggerations, falsehoods, and flat out lies that were spoken by President Obama and his cronies in Congress without question or examination. Let's point out a few, shall we? On September 18, speaking to a group of CEOs at a Business Roundtable, Obama rattled off the following absurdity:

"Now, this debt ceiling — I just want to remind people in case you haven’t been keeping up — raising the debt ceiling, which has been done over a hundred times, does not increase our debt; it does not somehow promote profligacy. All it does is it says you got to pay the bills that you’ve already racked up, Congress. It’s a basic function of making sure that the full faith and credit of the United States is preserved."

I'm sorry, WHAT?! How does this man get away with such blatant and outright LIES? How is it that our mainstream media does not trumpet the lies as BREAKING NEWS on the airwaves or as a front page headline?! Of course, the conservative media picks up on this immediately, but they're just preaching to the choir. So what's the rest of the media's excuse?

The sad thing is, is that I've heard and been engaged in many a Facebook debate recently where liberals will spout off this very line. I don't think Obama is stupid. I don't think he actually believes what he says in this instance. But he knows that if he says it, masses of our dumbed down, uninformed, unthinking, naive populace will buy it hook, line, and sinker. He also knows that none of the mainstream media will challenge him on this point. Oh they'll report on it, they'll repeat it, but they'll do it with a completely straight face and no mention of the fact that he's flat out WRONG.

How can anyone actually believe that raising the debt ceiling DOESN'T increase our debt? Why else would we need to keep raising the friggin thing if it didn't actually increase the debt? Duuuhh. What does he think we are, morons? Oh wait...

Obama and his cronies' other masterful use of doublespeak was their repeated insistence that if we do not raise the debt ceiling that it will result in default. This was parroted ad nauseam by virtually all of the MSM outlets.  
  

 

MORE: Senate passes bill to avoid default, reopen government; now heads to House and expected passage: http://t.co/IxDjt1kMTb -SS
— The Associated Press (@AP) October 17, 2013

Notice the headline, "Senate passes bill to avoid default...". Hundreds more versions of the exact same headline were printed everywhere across the country, concealing the reality that we were never going to default! The US government takes in ~$250 billion dollars per month in tax revenue. Our monthly interest payments on the debt are ~$20 billion dollars, 10 times less than our tax revenue. The only way we were going to default on the debt was if President Obama chose to default. Didn't mention that, MSM, did you? Of course not.

That's not to say that we wouldn't have had to make some painful decisions about government spending, because in order to avoid a default, we would have had to pay our bills. This point has completely been missed by all of the lemmings in the media. If we hadn't raised the debt ceiling, we would have had to start making cuts to our government because right now our tax revenue doesn't cover it. Raising the debt ceiling means we're able to borrow more money so that we don't have to pay our bills; we can keep papering over the fact that we are completely broke. Peter Schiff makes this point brilliantly in his most recent video blog, cutting through the spin and BS that the MSM serves us everyday.

Presently all across America, people are popping the champagne, the confetti streamers are falling, the balloons have floated to the ground, and we can all breathe a collective sigh of relief since President Obama and our saviors in Congress have averted near disaster. We can all sleep tighter tonight knowing that we will keep piling on the debt for another few months, that we have sold out the future of our children, and we have showcased for the world our complete and utter idiocy, instilling confidence in our creditors and investors worldwide. Oh, and did I mention that we still have Obamacare?

There's an old refrain that goes, "Government is good at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch and saying 'There, without government you couldn't walk.'" This government shutdown theater has demonstrated another such example of government loudly and publicly saving itself and the American people from a completely self-made crisis, patting itself on the back for doing so, and expecting the American people to congratulate them on it. We knew this day was going to come. We've known about it since we went through this dog and pony show the last time. Why did we only start talking about it again mere weeks before we were about to reach the debt limit? Why didn't they start holding rounds of discussions immediately after the last debt ceiling crisis to start addressing the whole underlying cause of the present debt ceiling crisis: the debt? Shouldn't that be considered failed leadership? That's what I consider failed leadership. In the twisted world of our government, however, the Democrats are congratulating their anointed leaders for their leadership in the continued herding of the American people down the path of debt slavery. Then we get to wait four months and the Dems and RINOs in Congress will again don their capes and fight this same fight again, courageously standing up for what is good and right in American by telling us that we don't have a spending problem and if we could just borrow more money from Japan and China, all will be right in the world.

Sad thing is, I don't know if those in Congress actually believe their own lies, but they sure do have most of America fooled that this won't have any consequences. They're living in the Keynesian fantasy land that we just need to keep spending trillions more dollars stimulating the economy and once that happens we'll magically be able to grow our economy enough to be able to pay back our debt, however many tens of trillions it might be at the time. Or if not, it doesn't matter because we'll also magically be able to keep interest rates at zero forever so we won't ever have to worry about rising interest rates wreaking havoc on average Americans and the government debt servicing payments. Or if not, it doesn't matter because our creditors don't ever actually want to get paid back because we all know that the dollar will be reserve currency forever so they're happy to hold onto our dollars indefinitely and lending us money even though we've had the printing presses going at full bore since the crisis began. If you believe all this, I have a bridge to sell you.

What happened today would have made George Orwell proud. It reveals the level of indoctrination and education we've been exposed to in this country for the past few decades when we cheer on an effort that impoverishes our nation. We now live in a country where Debt equals Wealth, Truth is Treason, War is Peace, and Freedom is Slavery. We're like a dog that follows the line of free treats not realizing that it leads straight to a cage. Yup, government saved us all right. Time to celebrate.

Shutdown Theater

Have you all been enjoying the show that's been going on for the past couple weeks? What a performance! The House Republicans have been pretending to take a bold stand against Obamacare while the Senate Democrats have collectively yawned, put their hands behind their heads, and shut their eyelids. "Wake me up when the 3rd act is over," they seem to be saying.

You see, these Senate Dems and the President know this is all theater. They know that the House Republicans weren't really going to hold the line on defunding Obamacare. They never do. The GOP lost its spine a long time ago. That's not to say there aren't a few stalwarts in there who would have gladly seen this through to the end, but we all knew, especially and including the Senate Dems and the President, that if they just let this go on long enough that Speaker Boehner would fold. They were never scared and that's why they never felt the need to negotiate.

Truth is, we don't really have a 2-party system in this country anymore. We don't have true checks and balances. While it was a good idea in theory, I'm sure the Founders didn't realize we would soon be electing a bunch of spineless, gutless, remorseless, idiotic psychopaths to run our country. A group of people who are so morally devoid, who lack individual thought, who grew up with and espouse no set of guiding principles, who can't even honor an oath to their spouses nonetheless to a piece of paper, and who have no moral character whatsoever so as to render checks and balances useless, nay, to render even a 2-party system useless. It's not Republicans vs. Democrats anymore, they're all in bed together now. It's the ruling class vs. the rest of us. I'm quite certain the Founders never saw that coming.

And so we get to be entertained by the great Shutdown Theater spectacle. It's like going to watch a play about the Titanic, we all know how it's going to end. The House Republicans, to mollify their base, have to put on a great show about taking a principled stand and not backing down and finally using the system to their advantage. That whips the base up into a frenzy, cheers and shouts and encouragement ensue. The Democrats do their part to add to the drama by engaging in nonstop hyperbole and finger pointing, which gets their base fired up too. President Obama sings the climatic aria by spitefully shutting down the most visible and beloved parts of government to show just how necessary and important Government really is, pissing people off on every side of the aisle. Oh man, this show is really getting good now. It's like the Real Houses of Congress DC. Next we just need to cut to a scene of Harry Reid flipping a table over in anger at a DC restaurant and our masterpiece will be complete. 

Sadly, all good things must come to an end. Just like we knew the Titanic was going to sink, we knew that the House Republicans were going to fold, having pretty much nothing to show for this grand stand despite all the theatrics. But bravo, boys and girls, what a performance! You really had us going there for awhile.

There were many low points of the show, from trying to keep WWII vets out of their own friggin memorial, to kicking people out of their homes which happened to be on federal land, to locking people in a hotel on federal land, to shutting down open waterway systems. There was no deed too petty for uber-villain Obama not to order his minions to undertake.

The one that took the cake for me, though, was when a South Carolina man who voluntarily took it upon himself to groom some of the monuments and mow the lawn at the Lincoln Memorial was told to stop. I think this is just the perfect illustration of what's wrong with things today. The authoritarians in power can't let it be shown to the world that life goes on without government. They can't let it be shown that there might actually be answers to questions like "But without government, who would mow the lawns?" or "But without government, who would build the roads?" Nope, we must maintain the illusion at all times that every stinkin' part of our $16 trillion-dollar-in-debt-the-cupboard-is-bare-there-are-no-cuts-to-make (props to a cameo by Ms. Pelosi for another gem of a statement) government is absolutely essential, therefore no volunteerism allowed during a government shutdown.

The man said he didn't take any money for it or expect to be paid. This in itself provides the answer to many liberals' objections that if government didn't provide these services that capitalist, greedy pig bloodsuckers would take over and price gouge everyone for their monopoly on lawn mowing services. And yet people were approaching the man and offering him small bills for what he was doing, trying to pay this individual for his efforts. But wait, this here again blows up that capitalist, greedy pig myth liberals like to use. You mean to tell me that in the absence of a government service people will voluntarily provide that service and that instead of forcing society to pay for a service that they might not want or need via legalized theft (taxation), that other individuals who do value this service will voluntarily give money for this cause? No way! Waaay. This one man band, in one small but noble deed, just illustrated the system of voluntary exchanges beautifully. That's precisely why he was shut down. We can't show the people how irrelevant most government really is to our lives. It might not have been the grandest gesture or the most ballyhooed, but it spoke volumes to me.

Thus concludes shutdown theater. I think the whole brilliance of the act was not the star performances of John Boehner, who really had (some of) us believing for a moment he was serious about defunding Obamacare, nor Harry Reid or President Obama, who played their role as villains who were ruthlessly withholding benefits and spitefully shutting down open swaths of earth brilliantly. No, the true magic of this performance was leaving the theater feeling not that you'd been entertained, but that somehow the players themselves were winking at each other throughout the entire play giving you the sick feeling afterwards that somehow the joke was on you. I want my money back.