Citizen Tom

UPDATE at the bottom just before the cartoons; I added Other Views.  Since the blog is not about me, I try as much as possible to propagate other views.  Do I always agree?  No, and I do try to explain why.

When we look around at the Tea Party movement, one aspect is striking, particularly to the corporate news  media.

• Tea party movement has anger, no dominant leaders – CNN
  

  “It’s opened for a leader. I don’t see anyone out there that can grab it,” he says. “I’ll be surprised if someone emerges. I don’t see who that is.”

• What next for the Middle America Rebellion of 2009? — Washington Examiner
  

  Whatever the number of attendees, this was possibly the most significant Washington protest since the civil rights movement’s epic March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom in 1963. Indeed, about all that was lacking was a charismatic leader like Dr. Martin Luther King to deliver an “I have a dream” address for the ages.

• Obama supporters, not health care protesters, are real mob — San Francisco Examiner
  

  They invested their hopes and dreams in Obama, as did a number of disenchanted moderates and Republicans. The utopian expectation that Obama could exorcise the country’s sins and conflicts was extravagant. He also lacked executive experience.

  The town hall and Tea Party protesters, in contrast, make for a poor mass movement, however discontented they may be. They do not feel empowered — quite the opposite — they have no charismatic leader, no majorities in Congress, nor a clear, overarching alternative agenda to support.

• GOP Sees Protest As an Opportunity — Washington Post
  

  Indeed, many activists say in interviews that they look more to conservative commentators for leadership than they do elected politicians. Ryan Rhodes, a leader of the “tea party” movement in Iowa, noted that Beck and radio host Rush Limbaugh had come to the cause years ago. Rhodes said he had little enthusiasm for George W. Bush or for McCain, the 2008 GOP presidential candidate.

As the quotes from above suggest, the Tea Party protesters do have not a movement leader.   As the San Francisco Examiner’s article in particular suggests, that is a good thing.  Instead of being committed to a man, the Tea Party protesters have committed themselves to a cause.  Hence, instead of being manipulated by a leader, they are insisting upon the loyalty of their leaders to the cause of liberty.

What is the next step? We must replace those leaders who see themselves as our masters with men and women willing to serve as public servants.

How?  We exercise political power when we get our candidates elected to public office.   With just the number of people who rallied in Washington, DC, this last weekend, the Tea Party protesters can take over the Republican Party.  The problem is making the effort.

Politics requires discipline, tenacity and hard work.  Once again just showing up is half the battle.  To become effective activists, Tea Party protesters must show up at party meetings (Republican Party meetings would be the most profitable) and promote those candidates that share their commitment to liberty.  To intelligently exercise influence, Tea Party protesters must learn something about how the local parties in their states operate.  Then they must figure out what it takes to get a liberty loving and God fearing man or woman elected to Congress.

What is the immediate reward?  In 2010, Tea Party protesters can muster the numbers necessary to swing the Congressional majority resoundingly back towards Conservatism.  The entire House will be up for reelection and one third of the Senate.   However, to have maximum effect, the Tea Party protesters must get involved in the nomination process.  When necessary, they must defeat Liberal incumbents, and that will take considerable persistence and effort.   So the Tea Party protesters must start running and supporting their candidates now!

Other Views

YankeePhil in Reason at Tea Party provides a nice synopsis of the views of some of the Tea Party protesters.

We will RockDem provides a CNN video in the post “Indonesian Muslim turned welfare thug and a racist in chief.” As usual, CNN focuses on the tenor of the argument rather than the actual substance of the argument.  Apparently, die hard Obama supporters conceive that any opposition can only come from those with evil and vile intentions.  Thus, when he launches a wholly unwarranted attack (suggesting the Tea Party protesters are racists), Anderson Cooper supposedly destroys one of the leaders of Tea Party protesters.       This is the kind of brainless nonsense that is destroying CNN’s ratings.

In her post, 9/12 March on Washington … faces from Shenandoah Valley #1, SWAC Girl lists some of the names of the supposed bigots.  She arrived with six bus loads of them from the Shenandoah Valley.

JAB, in his post, Meanings for the 9-12 March on Washington (on Deo Vindice), explains what he thinks the march was and is about.

The Write Side of My Brain in this post; You can ignore 9/12, but it’s not going away; praises the blogosphere for its coverage and provides a nice survey of that coverage.  That includes a post by the Gateway Pundit, CLEAN Conservatives vs FILTHY Liberals– A Photographic Essay.  When viewing that photo essay, I suggest some caution.  While there is no doubt some truth to the rumor that Liberals do not know how to pick up after themselves, we did not need to protest to prove that.  We must remember our objective.  The Tea Party movements exists to promote liberty, not to demonize Liberal pickpockets; chastise Liberal loafers; or excoriate Liberal liars.  We do not hate those people; we just want them to stop trying to “fix” everyone else’s lives except their own.  Given their incompetence, their focus is obviously misplaced.

There is lots and lots of chatter about health care reform.

Supposedly, we are not in a rush to pass “reform.”

We must fix the health care system before it goes broke!

The citizens complaints at Congressional Town Halls are just astroturfing.

Our concerns about socialism are overblown.

Our concerns about the constitutionality of the bill are much too selective.

Nonetheless, that figure of 47 million uninsured does not mean much.

So where is the crisis?  If there is no crisis, we have time to ask a few questions.

1. The Federal Government is already spending hundreds of billions on Medicare and Medicaid.  These programs are going bust.   If the Federal Government cannot run Medicare and Medicaid efficiently, why should we trust the Federal Government with the entire health care system?
2. Don’t the president and our congressmen take an oath to support and defend the Constitution?  If the Constitution does not empower our elected officials to run our health care system (and it does not), why should we trust such liars with the lives of our loved ones?  Do we really want to trust our health care to politicians who will break their oath of office without any qualms?  Where is the need for such stupidity?

Today’s Prince William Extra has an interesting piece on two proposed asphalt plants, “Bristow Residents Mobilize Against Asphalt Plants” (Note that the article was not yet on-line when this post went up.).  The county’s planning commission approved these two plants for construction in the Bristow area on locations near Hornbaker Road, but the Prince William Board of County Supervisors (BOCS) has yet to consider the issue.

The PW Extra article begins breathlessly enough.  We hear about a worried mother and her two small children with asthma.  Nonetheless, by the time we reach the end of the article, we have to wonder what the fuss is about.  Although an asphalt plant sounds like an awful thing to have for a neighbor, the emissions from the plants would actually amount to very little.    A more likely problem would be the expected large volume of truck traffic.  Yet that problem may be unavoidable.  Since the land is already zoned for heavy industrial use, the land is already effectively zoned for a large amount of truck traffic.

So what is the rationale for opposing the two plants?  The article mentions this website, www.bristowopposition.com.   Based upon the material on this site, the only logical conclusion is to not build the asphalt plants.  In fact, given the content of www.bristowopposition.com, we should not have any asphalt plants at all.   Instead, we should be demanding that one of the companies mentioned in the PW Extra article shut down its plant in the Manassas Park area.  Otherwise the plant will poison everyone anywhere near it.

On one page (here), www.bristowopposition.com states the following:

Please don’t be mislead by EPA standards. There are no safe limits for poisons!

The fact is that asphalt is made from naturally occurring product (see here and here).  We make our roads with asphalt, and we waterproof the roofs of our houses with it.  People have been using asphalt for centuries.  So it is a little late to be getting in a panic over asphalt.

Of course, nobody should try breathing concentrated fumes off of hot asphalt.  That will make you sick.  Your lungs need relatively clean air, and the fumes off hot asphalt do not qualify as clean air.  Just the same, there is no such thing as perfectly clean air.  So nature has adapted our bodies to deal with minor imperfections.  There are safe limits.  To say otherwise about such a common product as asphalt is rank hysteria.  Don’t people work with asphalt every day?  Are these people all keeling over and dying from asphalt poisoning?

So what is the alternative?  None of us want to live near a heavy industrial area.  That is one reason why we have zoning laws.  We do not want to buy our house and then have a slaughter house open next door.  For similar reasons,  it is appropriate to insist that any new asphalt plant be built in a properly zoned area.  From all appearances, that is exactly what the companies building these proposed asphalt plants want to do; they want to build on appropriately zoned land.  So it appears that the Planning Commission fulfilled its obligations.  Nevertheless, their opposition is fierce.

GRR Land of Virginia, one of the two companies involved, wants to build its plant only a quarter mile from houses.  Moreover, it is seeking a waiver from a 1989 proffer that prohibits asphalt plants on their property.  So it is probably not too surprising that with all the publicity it has requested an “indefinite deferral” from the BOCS.

On the other hand, the other campany, Finley Asphalt and Sealing, wants to build a plant that is a mile from any housing or schools.  Is that far enough away?   If there are no safe limits for poisons, then the answer is no.  Unfortunately, if we take that attitude, we will soon have nothing to eat.  The trucks that bring our food to us will soon have no roads on which to drive.

Is the land appropriately zoned?  If not, why not?  What are we doing wrong?

What should worry us most about this situation is the total inability of our government to respond.  Instead, what is overriding is the Not In My BackYard (NIMBY) response we all have when something like this comes up.  It seems the only rules of this game is that there are no rules.  That is not good for our general prosperity.  Because we cannot get the politics right:

• Our cities sprawl.
• We cannot easily build new power plants.
• We are not building any new petroleum refineries.
• Heavy industry finds it more and more difficult to locate in the USA.
• Good jobs are going overseas.

Once one of the greatest advantages of the USA was the ease of doing business.  No one needed to bribed.  The laws were straightforward.  We provided the world’s finest transportation and communication infrastructure.  And best of all, we had a hard working and enthusiastic work force.  Instead of NIMBYs, we had people who wanted jobs.  Then we discovered pollution:  chemical, noise, visual, and whatever else might be generally unpleasant.

Slowly, but surely, we are making it more and more unprofitable to do business in the USA.  Unless we can get the politics right, we are well on our way to becoming a Third World banana republic.  Then our children will still suffer man-made pollution.  That is because even if we can still afford keep a roof over our heads and food on our tables we will still produce waste.  If nobody wants that waste anywhere near their backyard, what will we do with it?  How will we process it?  Is it possible we will just tie ourselves up in knots?  Let’s hope not.  Even human waste has to be put some place.

Other Views and News

Stop the Asphalt Plants is another website set up by opponents.

Corey Stewart announces his opposition here.

Delegate Bob Marshall announced his opposition in an op-ed (here).

InsideNoVA (here and here) and the Gainesville Times (here) provided earlier stories on this issue.

Fox 5 News (here) and WUSA9 (here) provided coverage in May.

The Cartoons

From time to time I get one of those chain mails that constantly weave their way through cyberspace.  What I think happens to be the most humorous and thoughtful ones I post.

LETTER FROM THE BOSS…..

As the CEO of this organization, I have resigned  myself to the fact that Barack Obama is our President, and that our taxes, and government fees will increase in a BIG way.   To compensate for these increases, our prices would have to increase by about 10%.

Since we cannot increase our prices right now due to the dismal  state of the economy, we will have to lay off six of our employees instead.  This has really been bothering me, since I believe we are family here and I didn’t know how to choose who would have to go.

So, this is what I did. I walked through our parking lot and found six Obama bumper stickers on our employees’ cars and have decided these folks will be the ones to let go.  I can’t think of a more fair way to approach this problem.

They voted for change; I gave it to them.

I will see the rest of you at the annual company picnic.

CEO,
Smart Thinker

Undoubtedly, some will be horrified that a CEO would consider laying off anyone because of their political beliefs.  However, election idiocy has consequences.

Consider the nature of Democratic Party majority.  Is this not a political party that places political correctness far ahead of corporate profits?  If the CEO is not suppose to use profit as his primary criteria for deciding which employees to lay off, what criteria should he use?  Would poetic justice work?

If your vote just happens to be one of those votes that your boss thinks helped to cripple his company, why shouldn’t your boss fire you?

The Cartoons

Here we have the usual complaint about excessive management.

So what does our political leadership propose?  We need layers and layers of government to manage every aspect of the economy.

What follows is a health care proposal that just might improve both our health care and the economy.

I find it hard to read the angry pundit.  I have no desire to be infused with someone else’s steaming emotions.  Nonetheless, I have grown more sympathetic.  The anger is all too easily understood.

R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is often the angry pundit.  In “Fourth Estate follies,” Tyrrell Jr. explains how he became unsuited to do a particular political talk show.

Tyrrell gets a call requesting his appearance on a talk show.

A media booker was at my ear inquiring whether I would accept the invitation of a well-known cable news show to talk about how the Republican Party was being affected by Obama critics who have been harassing Democratic politicians with claims that the president did not have a legitimate birth certificate and was born abroad, perhaps in Botswana or Upper Volta or Lapland.

Tyrrell agrees to appear.  In fact, he has good news.

Choosing me to discuss the president’s national origins was an inspired choice. A crack reporter of mine at the American Spectator had investigated the matter when it was a hot rumor during the presidential election and found no empirical evidence in support of the story.

Better yet, the Spectator’s reporter found evidence militating against the story. At the time of President Obama’s birth in 1961, a notice of the blessed event was published in the major Hawaiian newspaper. I would not rule out dark and treacherous conspiracies by a Democratic president, especially one in cahoots with Rahm Emanuel, but a conspiracy going back almost five decades exceeds even Mr. Emanuel’s diablerie.

Unfortunately, Tyrrell’s good news disqualified him.  Tyrrell’s good news did not fit the script.

Back comes my disappointed booker after conveying the good news that we would be setting the record straight on the show shortly. Alas, the show’s producers did not want me to set the record straight. They had wanted me to defend the false story. But I reminded the booker that I knew the story to be false. In fact, I had provided the show with irrefutable proof that the story is false. Mr. Obama is American-born.

The show proceeded to find a guest who would repeat the false story, either knowingly or out of ignorance — so much for getting to the truth of issues on television. As for me, I would never knowingly publish anything I knew to be untrue, not in this column or in the American Spectator.

Facts often seem dull and unexciting.  We want the entertainment of conflict.  We want someone else to blame and demonize, but the facts do not always affirm our world view.   Then we are obligated to work towards the Truth.  Then we must be prepared to discard a portion of our beliefs and rework them to fit the facts.  Then we must support news organizations more concerned with news than with entertainment.

If you want the full effect of Tyrrell’s anger with the major media, read his column, “Fourth Estate follies.”  Then try understand how we contribute to this twisted use of “the news as entertainment rather than the dissemination and analysis of fact.”  Do you go for the facts or do you “thrive” on meaningless and pointless debate?   The choice is yours.  The news media provides us the news in whatever form we are willing to receive it.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.

The Cartoons