The Forgotten Definition of Freedom

When I was a child I was taught the simple definition that living in a Free Country means I can do anything I want, unless it causes harm to someone else.

It seems to me that both the far right and the far left have forgotten the second half of that definition. Yet it is the basis of our republic. The underlying purpose of our constitution and our government is to protect us from harm from others, and to define unacceptable trade offs in harms.

Our country has been widely successful in doing just this for 200 years. There are some exceptions of course, for example it is hard to say from a 21st century view point that the harm that came to Native Americans way of life and lands was acceptable. Yet, despite what happens in some neighborhoods in major cities, most of us leave our homes every morning with a realistic and accurate belief that we will very likely return home that night, rather then being killed by a bomb, being shot, injured in work place disaster, or dragged off to a secret prison by fascist police or government officials. Many places in the world do not have that sense of security, or at least less of it.

So for far right idealogues like Rand Paul to preach against any government rules that limit private business, like civil rights legislation, Occupational Safety and Health standards, and restrictions on private industry on off shore drilling, as an infringement on Freedom he has forgotten the "unless it causes harm to someone else" part of Freedom.

When the left tries to do things like ban full calorie soda are they making a stretch to claim that what kind of soda I drink causes harm to someone else?

When the right prevents gay marriage, are they not doing the opposite of what they preach, invading private relationships that have no effect on anyone else's freedom?

There are so many examples of government making laws and the Supreme Court determining in essence, the level of harm a law prevents or causes. After 143 women were killed in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911 our Government determined that the risk of harm was significant enough that fire codes, building codes and occupational safety codes were necessary.

The Civil War was about determining which harm was worse, the harm of owning other human beings as property, or the damage to the economy of the south should slavery be abolished.

The fact we have building codes that tells private property owners how they must build to reduce likely harm from failure, or earthquake or other disaster is why an Earthquake of the magnitude of the Haiti earthquake destroyed an entire city with thousands of deaths, while the same magnitude in the United States would damage some buildings in a city and likely result in dozens of deaths rather then thousands. So does it cost the builders and the property owners more to build per code, yes. But reducing the harm risk has been determined worth that cost.

The Supreme Court and the Constitution has determined that the potential harm coming from most around us being allowed to own guns is acceptable risk, while the increased risk of harm by guns being owned by convicted felons is not.

Congress and the President has recently determined that the harm caused because too many Americans having lack of access to affordable health care is not acceptable and passed health care reform to fix it.

Currently the Congress is working on financial reform that protects our economy, jobs and financial well being from harm by adding regulations to financial institutions.

Clearly the harm caused by the oil spill in the gulf to livelihoods and the environment up until now has been treated as an acceptable risk to be able to obtain more oil and to allow oil companies to make bigger profits. Chances are that is about to change. Yet people like Rand Paul say, the criticism of BP over their actions or lack of is "anti-business"

We will be debating some time whether any potential harm prevented by Arizona law officials profiling people and asking for their papers, is worth harm caused to those profiled that are citizens.


In short, government involvement is not by definition socialist, communist, or unconstitutional as the tea baggers, the 10thers, the Rand Pauls and the FAUX news mouths keep shouting. Responsible Government action for the purpose of keeping citizens from unacceptable harm by others is the very essence of America and what has kept our free country free.

Message to the Right Wing: The TARP worked

Apparently while the right wingers were busy trying to prove Barack Obama was either from Kenya or Muslim, or a Nazi, they didn't notice a few things. First of all Taxes for 95% of Americans went down. Yes down,,that's less then last year, that's right, no reason to protest higher taxes cause, they are L O W E R.

Their next biggest shout out is protesting the bailouts, or TARP as commonly called. I mean of course they were outraged, Obama, that evil socialist...oh wait, hold up, TARP was in October 2008, Obama wasn't President until January 2009. Bush that Socialist err I mean what was he, oh yes he was the "decider" according to him, George W Bush put through the TARP. So of course Republicans should be...wait, he was Republican, oh so Democrats should be outrag....wait.. I'm so confused.

Anyways that 700 billion dollar bailout is breaking our economy, exploding the deficit, and was a total failure...... OK wait again...I just saw a Bank of America Commercial, wait, weren't they going to fail? Citicorp surely was, pardon? they still exist too? Well the American Auto Industry was doomed and TARP money was used .....GM sales are up? Chrysler is rehiring 1900 workers?

OK well so it worked but was it worth it after all it cost the Taxpayers 700 billion dollars that my grandchildren are going to have to pay......630 billion has been paid back? OK well then 70 billion is a lot of money.......that is expected to be paid back within 5 years?,,,wait with interest?

OK so the TARP saved our banking system, the auto industry and our economy overall and in the end its going to cost the taxpayers, nothing. Yes Clearly another Bush failure...I'm so confused.

Oh wait now the tea baggers and the right wing want to blame Obama for the TARP. hmm OK, works for me!

What Obama has done to the Economy

Under the leadership of President Obama and his administration a number of significant things have happened to the economy while many were distracted. As we are given endless images of a few thousand sore losers funded by far right organizations and promoted by a fake news channel, things have been happening. While Ohio right wing blogs like Liberally Conservative posts pseudo intellectual pieces trying to prove Obama is a Communist, and nut cases promote endless chain letters purporting everything from Obama is Hitler to the Antichrist, his administration has been at work. As they scream about hanging on to their guns and government takeovers Obama has continued on.

So what has been happening.

The 700 billion Bank bailout that angered many Americans and set them off on screams about government spending and the deficit done during the Bush administration, has under the guidance of the Obama administration has not only saved our banking system from catastrophe but now approximately 620 billion has now been paid back.

We went from losing 700,000 jobs a month during the last year of the Bush administration to less and less each month of the Obama administration to now we are actually gaining jobs once again.

General Motors that was on the brink of disaster which would have lead to millions of job losses and a blow to our economy from which we would have never recovered was saved. People screamed "government motors" and all kinds of knee jerk cute phrases that appealed to the ignorant. But here we are a year later and GM has paid back the government in full with interest.

Investors, including millions of Americans retirement plans and 401k, hit the skids as the stock market reached its lowest point in decades under Bush. Under Obama it has recovered most of its value and the Dow Jones industrial average in the 10,000 range once again.

They screamed things like: "death panels", "government takeover" "socialized medicine" when the Health Care Bill was being debated. Yet what we got was Health Care Reform that maintained the private ownership of insurance companies, makes sure that no one can lose their insurance if we get sick, gets rid of preexisting conditions, keeps the young covered under their parents policies, and covers 30 million uninsured Americans all the while reducing the deficit by reducing costs.

So what has been happening while we all weren't paying attention. The economy and yes capitalism is doing quite well. After 8 years of policies that lead this country almost into depression, an actual competent President has been quite successfully leading us toward prosperity. Oh and the most surprising thing of all, he has done this all while lowering the taxes for 95% of Americans.

So shout all you want tea partiers, draw those crowds of 3-8000 angry old white men. But understand its reality that lead to hundreds of thousands at some Obama rallies last election and will lead to his win by a bigger landslide in 2012.

The Fear of Obama's Success

After 8 years of a Presidency full of failures, we have President who has lead our country through success after success. In all areas, the economy, education, taxes, foreign policy, the war on terrorism, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Nuclear proliferation, and Health Care, President Obama has shown something Americans haven't seen in some time, competence.

It is quite clear this scares the right to no end. It is impossible for them to debate the actual facts as they will lose. So they have no choice but to resort to falsehoods, fear, misinformation and flat out lies. They cannot debate the success on the economy so they have tea partys not about taxes, because their taxes have actually gone down. But instead they talk about spending, which they forget it was Republicans that took our nation from a surplus to a deficit. It was Republicans policies lead to the biggest economic meltdown since the depression, which lead Obama no choice but to spend to fix the holes in the roof. They scream about details on how trials for terrorists may be held despite the fact that its been 9 years since 9/11 and Bush didn't bother to have any trials, and it is Obama that has killed and captured more terrorists around the world in a year in a half in Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan then Bush did in 8.

They cannot debate foreign policy as Bush isolated the United States from most of the world with his aggressive and failed policies telling lies to start a war of choice. While Obama, manages to get a Start Treaty signed 9 years after the last expired, have gotten China and Russia to be more cooperative on North Korea and Iran. Bush had to be snuck into meetings in foreign countries at night, Obama arrives to cheering crowds.

The right cannot use facts about taxes, health care reform, abortion or even gun control to attack Obama because he has lowered taxes, the vast majority of Americans like what is actually in the Health Care Reform Bill, he has implemented no pro abortion policies or laws, nor has he changed or supported a single change in gun laws.

So what do they do instead? They try to claim he is Nazi like, unamerican, not born here and question his religion. They spread fear over things they say, he might do, regardless of the fact he has never done or even expressed desire to do anything of the sort. They send out viral emails with so called "experts" who claim everything that Obama is everything from Hitler to the Anti-Christ. They claim they want to restore the constitution while they advocate violence and try to de-legitmize an election.

One thing is clear, President Obama is a successful President. His policies are making our country and the world better. This why Obama will be reelected in 2012 by a larger margin then he won in 2008. What will the tea baggers, the false email forwarding, Fox News watching fools say then?

A Tale of Two Countries

"It was the best of times,


it was the worst of times;


it was the age of wisdom,


it was the age of foolishness;


it was the epoch of belief,



it was the epoch of incredulity;


it was the season of Light,


it was the season of Darkness;


it was the spring of hope,


it was the winter of despair;


we had everything before us,


we had nothing before us;


we were all going directly to Heaven,


we were all going the other way." -



Words of course by Charles Dickens in a Tale of Two Cities

Placing the Blame Where it Belongs

There is a lot of frustration in this country right now for various reasons. First of all the economy. Everyone knows without a doubt President Obama inherited a mess. We were heading into a depression, possible bank failures, and the loss of thousands and thousands of jobs. We came within weeks of losing the American Auto Industry. We are impatient, we want things to be fixed overnight. We want our jobs back, we want normalcy and we want change to prevent greed from doing this to us again. Yet it seems little is changing fast enough for our tastes

Then there is Health Care. Thousands are continuing to lose their coverage every day. Those of us that have it are constantly hit with sticker shock as our premiums continue to go up. Then we try to readjust our budgets again and again to cover health expenses that are not covered and that we didn't expect. Yet we grow weary of the seemingly endless debate and are losing hope anything of value will be done.

Then there are the wars. 8 years in Afghanistan, still working to get out of Iraq. We may be getting out of Iraq yet we still hear almost daily of another bombing or troop death. In Afghanistan we are aware of a situation so complicated that its hard to see what can be done.

Then there is the deficit something most of us really don't truly understand yet we try to apply common sense to it and get worried. We know it can't be good, but we want everything solved too, so that costs money.

With all this frustration it is not surprising Obama's poll numbers are showing it. Yet lets look at what is actually happening right before our eyes every day. On one side we have a President that clearly sees and is working to find real solutions to the very real problems that are in his inbox. He is bringing in advisers and the smartest people available to him to work toward solutions.

He put in place a stimulus package that is less then 50% spent. Though we would like instant change, real problems take real solutions that take time. The Health Care Bill is nearing completion. Does it have everything anyone wants? No. Does it have things some don't want, Yes. But this is 40 year battle, it was not going to be easy and it hasn't been. Yet improvement is about to happen. Iraq is coming to an end, no ifs ands or butts. Afghanistan is still a mess that is going to take real effort and real soldiers and real hard work to improve. He is working to do that with thought, with reflection, and with all the information available. He is also doing it with a vision and a plan to bring it to an end.

So what has the other side done. What have they done to improve the economy, what have they done to improve health care, what have they done to solve any problem whatsoever that our Country faces? Nothing. They instead have made political games and sour grapes their purpose. They have clearly no desire to solve our nations problems but instead criticize, obstruct and play partisan games. They are putting their desire for Obama to fail over the needs of their country. They have made health care reform almost impossible, they are fighting to protect the greed of the banks over the needs of a stable economy. They are doing everything from screaming theories about Obama's birth place, to distortions about health care proposals to outright lies.

They scream socialisim and that the government is trying to take over the banks and the auto industry yet remain silent when clearly TARP worked, the banks are paying back the government with a profit even GM says it will pay back its loans by June. Will the Republicans ever give Obama credit for all that has worked? What do you think?

Conservative money and media goes into organizing fake grass roots protests, that are simply racist uniformed dog and pony shows. Based on no facts whatsoever. They protest taxes when taxes are actually at the lowest rate in 70 years, they protest the deficit when its their party that took our nation from surplus to deficit. They shout hate and false attacks daily. This solves America's problems how?

Then there is the left. We had high expectations for Obama. After 8 years of utter frustration finally hope. But were those expectations too high perhaps. But on the other hand are we heading in the right direction? Is Obama broken a single campaign promise? No. Everything he campaigned on he is working toward. There have been no flip flops whatsoever. Yes it is taking longer then we would hope, But again, real problems take real solutions. If they were easy to solve they would have been already.

So where should we place the blame? It's quite clear it belongs in the squarely in the hands of the Republican Party.

Thank God we do have a President of strength and vision that is fighting to actually solve the real problems rather then trying to score short term political points. Because of this, for the first time in a long time, I have hope in a better future for our nation, both in the short and even more so in the long term.

BSC Michele Bachman leads Ignorant Crowd

Well known bat sh*t crazy Congresswoman Michele Bachman leads a crowd of Faux News inspired tea baggers today at Capital Hill. They of course are trying to reinvigorate the August events by shouting things like "socialism" and "government takeoever" none of which of course has any resemblance to anything in the actual health care reform bill to be voted on.

The Crowd estimate is around 3500. I can be assured who are not there are any of the 14000 that are losing their health insurance today, or any of the 1998 filing bankruptcy today due to health care costs, or any of the 123 Americans that will die today because of lack of insurance.

Keep up the stall tactics and ignorant political games Bachman it keeps getting you more press while more Americans die every day.

Oh on a humorous side note, somewhat BSC Congresswoman Cynthia Lummis just called Rupert Murdoch's Wall Street Journal "main street journalism" while quoting it as proof against health care reform.

Is it about race?

To try to lump the motives of those behind the poisonous political climate into one package would be wrong and simplistic. It would be as incorrect as the right is when claiming the teabaggers represent a majority of Americans views. From my own experiences working and living in Central and Southeastern Ohio, and my experiences from the actual campaign, I have seen a number of themes behind opposition to President Obama.

Like in the Clinton years, there is this talk radio led trashing of anyone that is a successful democrat that happens regardless of the race of the office holder. Have we forgotten the accusations of the Clinton's being behind everything from fraudulent real estate deals to even accusations of murder? I can remember hearing Rush Limbaugh calling the First Lady of the United States, Hillary Clinton at the time all kinds of things including a bitch on the public airways. This kind of total lack of respect and irresponsible rude behavior continues with the Obama Presidency.

There are those that actually do have real political disagreements with policies. Concerns about taxes, spending, wars and so on. In no way is having a disagreement or criticizing policies race related.

Then there are the others where race is a factor. The night Barack Obama was elected there was such a groundswell of pride and good feeling among many Americans including myself. There were tears of joy, and pure happiness. But among others there was another reaction. Fear. There were those that deep down actually believe either a Black man is not capable of running the country, or that he will lead to some sort of discrimination against whites, or as one person said to me, "here comes all the give aways to blacks now."

The scary part of this is many of these racists don't even know they are. There have been dozens of times that I have had conversations with people about Obama's policies that on the details of the policy they were in agreement, but often the conversation would end with, "But there is something about him I don't trust."

There are many out there that nothing he could do, nothing he could say would they listen to. These are the ones that fall prey to the ridiculous rumors of his birth certificate, his religion and so on. We laugh at times thinking how can they be so stupid. Yet the concerning thing is, they believe these lies because they need to find a reason for their dislike of him other then admitting racism. So they will bite on anything.

There are of course the overt racists at work as well. They see a change they do not like. They know they are losing the hearts and minds of the majority of the American People. But those in control do not give it up easily. So thus the violent words, the hate talk and so on that is so evident on our televisions every night. This explains the growth of hate groups throughout the country, people arming themselves against government headed by a black President, and most concerning it explains the incredible number of death threats against our President. The talk of secession is absolutely racist, when was that last time that was threatened? Over slavery.

What angers me the most is those that are using this racism to promote their own agendas. Limbaugh, Glenn Beck say and do things overtly racist. Beck's attacks on Acorn are blatantly racist. Lou Dobbs using the fear of "illegal Immigrants" to push his books and ratings. Last night he showed a white kid getting beat up on a school bus by a couple black kids on his news show. How many fights are there in schools and school buses every single day in this country? What was his purpose in showing that one, last night. it was for no other purpose other then to stoke racial fear.

Is the climate out there right now all about racism? No, but to deny that it has nothing to do with racism is clearly wrong and dangerous to ignore.

OH 18: Jeanette Moll shows Troops Are not Important to her

In a press release yesterday candidate for the 18th Congressional District in Ohio, Jeanette Moll made it clear that concern about our troops and the real serious issues in Afghanistan and Pakistan are not important. In fact she claims Zack Space should instead listen to wacko Tea Party screamers like she has been listening to rather then checking on our troops in harms way.

She said this about Space's Trip to Afghanistan: "While other members of congress held town halls, Zack Space got as far away from you as he could get."

Thank goodness we have leaders in Congress that are dealing with real issues and showing concern about our troops over playing political games like Moll clearly does.

Jeanette spend all your time hanging out with nut job Coach Dave like you did yesterday or at another "tea Party" protest in Zoar this weekend who I still can't figure out why they are protesting the fact that 95% of Americans taxes were lowered this year? Meanwhile our Congressman will be working on real issues and supporting our troops.

Good Old Georgia

As we have watched as angry mobs shout lies and insults. We listen to them call people Nazi's, Hilter, Socialists and Communists. We have watched their implicent threats, and their brandishing weapons. Then we hear this justified as free speech.

But yesterday when a man objected to a astroturf tea party group blocking the sidewalk to his local post office in Brunswick, Georgia and expressed his opinion in opposition, he was told he needed a permit.

Source:

Tea Party Protest in Brunswick Results in Arrest

firstcoastnews.com

I guess only white right wingers are allowed free speech in Georgia.

Ignorance Test

Answer True or False to the Following questions:

Fox News is fair and balanced T or F

Rush Limbaugh is a beacon of truth. T or F

I am middle class and Obama is raising my taxes. T or F

I went to a "Tea Party" today. T or F

Obama is gonna take away my guns. T or F

Obama wants to kill babies. T or F

Socialists are taking over our Government. T or F

FEMA is creating reeducation camps. T or F

The country is less safe under Obama. T or F

Ok add up the number of times you answered True to any of the above questions.

If you got 2 or more your sadly misinformed try watching something other then Fox News.

4 of more you choose to be ignorant and are a hopeless cause

6 or more, please burn your high school diploma as you are an embarrassment to every student that attended your high school and a reason for early retirement to every teacher that taught you.