THE AFTERMATH
Guy de Maupassant ends his great novel “Une Vie” with the statement “Life is never as good or as bad as one thinks.” Conservatives should understand that in politics, things are rarely as good or as bad as one thinks in the aftermath of an election.
Hat tip Paul MirengoffDEMOCRACY’S FATE
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.”
― Alexis de Tocqueville
ca. 1840WELCOME TO RANDOM THOTS
If you are a new reader of Random Thots we invite you to click on the SELECTED POSTS link in the FEATURES sidebar on the right.
Here you will find a list of the most significant articles published within the last year or so, each with a brief synopsis of its content and an easy link to the full article.
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LAST 20 POSTS
- HOW YOUR TAX MONEY IS BEING SPENT – THE PROCESS
- WHAT DEBT?
- SOMEONE WILL HAVE TO PAY THE BILLS
- A CANADIAN PARLIAMENTARIAN LOOKS AT THE U.S.
- SOLUTIONS ARE NOT THE ROAD TO POWER, A CRISIS IS
- WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND IT’S US
- OLD WHITE MEN AND THE FISCAL CLIFF
- WHAT IS THE EUROPEAN VIEW OF AMERICAN POLITICS?
- GIMME THAT OLD TIME SECESSION…
- JUSTAKARTOON
- JOHN KERRY FOR SECRETARY OF DEFENSE
- REACTION FROM A READER
- “MORE FLEXIBILITY AFTER MY RE-ELECTION”
- THE RESCUE OF AIRMAN ROGER LOCHER
- IT WAS NOT ONLY ABOUT STUFF
- AMERICA LOST THE ELECTION
- IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE ELECTION RESULTS HERE IS WHAT YOU CAN DO
- THE LAWN SIGN AND BUMPER STICKER PREDICTOR
- SNIPPETS FROM ELSEWHERE
- OBAMA’S INFRASTRUCTURE DEMOLITION TEAM
Monthly Archives
Category Archives: Audio/Visual
TURKEY IN THE STRAW
Happy Thanksgiving Day! How about a little Turkey in the Straw?
Or perhaps you will like this version.
Posted in Audio/Visual, Music
JUST A PHOTO, Nov 2010
This is just a photo. No story and no implications intended. We hope to bring you more Justaphotos from time to time. Some with implications, some not. Click the image for a better view.
THE POST-AMERICAN PRESIDENT
The video is very disturbing. Obama praises India lavishly, asserting it is a land of great innovation but says America is flawed. You know he is referring to the United States when he says we are living in an era of greed with economic injustice that has endured down through the years. Indonesia does not recognize Israel’s right to exist. People from Israel are not allowed to enter the Muslim country today. Yet Obama praises Indonesia for its tolerance while reminding the world of slavery that has been extinguished for a century and a half.
America has made a horrible mistake. We have elected a man who despises us to lead us, a man whose dreams are of his father and whose heart is in his Indonesian and Muslim roots. We have elected as our President a man who sees our dominant status in the world to be a modern form of colonization, a power for bad, not a power for good.
We have chosen a man to lead today’s America who seeks retribution for slavery as though unaware that scourge was ended over 140 years ago, and that we did it from within with great sacrifice of blood, white blood we might add, shed in order that blacks might be free.
We have elected a man to lead us who is dedicated to change, but what he wants to change is not our faults but that which made us great. We have elected as our President a man who has publicly declared the Constitution he has sworn to uphold, along with the Declaration of Independence, are but a meaningless set of words. We have chosen to lead us a man who would subvert us, a man who seeks to take from those among us that which has been earned and distribute it to those who earned it not.
America has made a horrible mistake. And in so doing, we have proven the vulnerability of Democracy.
— 0—
To leave you on an upbeat note we close with a musical tribute to the people in our Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force. It was filmed in Iraq. If we capture the enthusiasm of these men and women who serve us abroad, and I think we have, we will be triumphant in the ideological battle here at home.
Please tell your friends about the messages in this post.
Posted in Audio/Visual, Political polemics
MILTON FRIEDMAN ON GREED
Milton Friedman was not only a brilliant economist; he was a great debater as well. He had a knack of going straight to the core of an issue. He spoke in words anyone could understand, a rare talent among those in his profession.
Economics is an in-exact science, comprised less of facts and more of schools of thought. The belief in free markets, the sanctity of private property and the Rule of Law is known in the field of economics as “the Friedman school”. Friedman is a Nobel Prize winner but the highest honor an economist can earn is to have the world add the word “school” to your name.
Here is Friedman’s response to Phil Donohue’s version of the age old question, isn’t capitalism a travesty on the poor?
Posted in Audio/Visual, Political philosophy
Tagged Donohue, greed, Milton Friedman, poverty
DEMS TO PELOSI – GO, YOU HAVE DONE ENOUGH HARM ALREADY
Defeated Democrats Implore Pelosi to Leave. Read it here.
A reasonable leader would find the grace to take defeat and retire with pride. Pride for what she did? Yes, pride. We abhor her goals and her methods. We detest what she accomplished. But she could have rejected us as we have her and walked into her own world with the knowledge that she did what presidents before her could not. For what we call Obamacare was named after its father but it was Nancy who gave it birth.
Now she fights on after the war has been lost and in her stubbornness turns on those who made her accomplishments possible only months ago. Radicals are unreasonable by nature. Thankfully they tend to be internally divisive as well. The radicals are scattered and only radicals will support her now. Nancy is done.
As far as she is concerned our time for anger is passed. Neither do we have time for pity.There is too much we have to do now that the sun is coming back out.
For instance:
OBAMA ON REDISTRIBUTION OF PRIVATE WEALTH
In this 2001 interview Barack Obama lamented the fact that the Warren Supreme Court had not seen fit to take property from people who had it and redistribute it to those who did not. That notion is more Marxist than Socialist. It doesn’t bode well for a presidential candidate to have that sort of view be widely known.
Joe the plumber was instrumental in bringing it to national attention. He hit the nail on the head… ok, that’s a carpenter’s job, but Joe isn’t a union worker so if something needs to be done, and he is there and can do it, he does it. So Joe hit the nail on the head when he said he didn’t want someone elses money. He just wanted a fair chance to earn and keep his own.
But Obama didn’t concur and said instead, it was “time to spread the wealth around”. It was a political gaffe. The statement was not defensible so it was time to destroy the plumber. But the plumber was right.
Posted in Audio/Visual, Political polemics
A STICK OF BAMBOO
Lun Lun and her happy cub at the Atlanta Zoo
No politics, few cares, whether in Shanghai or the Atlanta zoo, all it takes for the good life is a stick of bamboo.
If your computer is capable you can watch them on the zoo’s Panda Cam here.
Posted in Audio/Visual
THE FOUNDATIONS OF CONSERVATIVE BELIEF
If one picture is worth a thousand words then a picture than moves and talks must be worth infinitely more. Realizing this, some conservative film makers have come to the fore. Andrew Klavan is one. His style is music and humor. Bill Whittle is another, but with a scholarly approach. He has produced a series that crystallizes the essentials of conservative belief.
Whittle puts an occassional plug in for the Tea Party. We would prefer he hadn’t. We support the Tea Party but the principles he explains are not part of a movement; they did not come from the Tea Party nor are they embraced only by the Tea Party. That is very minor criticism of a very fine work. Here is the first in the series.
Posted in Audio/Visual, Political philosophy
Tagged free enterprise, Klavan, limited government, Tea Party, Whittles

