Jeff Ellis: It's Impossible To Start A Fire If You Have No Desire To Burn

Ennui Thoughts

Blogging is a lot like playing golf and nothing like riding a bike.  You don't want to get out of practice because you will forget how to do it properly.

I'm afraid to say that the month of August, so far, has been devoid of passion for me.  Not even the Obama Health Care Plan can destroy this lethargic ennui.  Sure, I could sit here and write about how it will ultimately do more harm than good.  I could explain why socialism, ultimately, does not work.  I could talk about the elitist foolishness that currently passes for policy among those in the American Left.

But another part of me says, "Why bother?"  The American people, ultimately, will not swayed by reality.  The American people will only be swayed by fantasy.  Right now, they have a fantasy of Barack Obama leading them, like sheep, through the Pearly Gates.

Still, Obama's approval rating has declined.  Occasionally, you hear people openly criticizing him.  Sometimes, even Katie Couric seems to be struggling to figure out how to present a positive spin on the Obama administration.

I will continue to blog.  I will continue to offer my insignificant voice to the times that we live in.  I will do so though I know it will do no good.  I do so because we all have to do something.

We have to do something.

Leftist Quote of The Day

'There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people.' - Howard Zinn

Hopefully, the federal government understand that this is as true on native soil as it is in a foreign land.

Dan Rather Tries Out Uncle Walter's Shoes

With the recent passing of Walter Cronkite, it would appear that the role of Bitter-Old-Doom-Sayer has been passed on to Dan Rather.

The main duty of this role is to continually insist that 1) America is only as great as the mainstream media, 2) that the media has lost its way now that it's being run by a bunch of snot-nosed brats in their early (as opposed to late) 60s), 3) that the current state of CBS News is the number one issue facing this country, and, most importantly, 4) that there is no other legitimate source of information out there beyond the networks and the newspapers.

Admittedly, Rather was already doing this before Cronkite's passing.  However, now that Dan Rather has the stage to himself, one can expect him to take these efforts to the usual Rather extreme.

Case in point: at the Aspen Institute, Rather recently called on the federal government to "save journalism."  Apparently, Rather wants the Obama administration to establish "a White House commission on public media" which will somehow free the mainstream media from the demands of financial institutions and political interest groups.

Perhaps Rather is hoping that the federal government will bail-out the American journalism establishment.

Speaking for myself, just the idea would seem to be a massive violation of freedom of the press.  If, as both Cronkite and now Rather were fond of claiming, the proper role of the press is to be critical of the government (and they're both right as far as that is concerned), then it also seems like the last thing any true journalist would want would be for that same government to involve itself in how the mainstream media works,

Does Rather seriously believe that the federal government would step in and "save" journalism without expecting anything in return?

Does Rather seriously believe that this is the best way to maintain an "independent" press?

Is he truly the naive?

Probably.

Why Does The Left Produce So Many Mass Murderers?

I just read a blog post concerning a question that I myself have given some thought to as of late:

Why does the Left produce so many mass murderers?

The author pretty much hits the nail on the head in both his explanation of why Adolf Hitler was, regardless of the conventional wisdom, a man of the left and why socialism and personal liberty cannot share the same oxygen.

I would add one thing to the author's analysis and that is this.  The Left produces so many mass murderers because the crimes of the Left are always justified as being done in the name of "the people."  Anything can be justified as long as you say you're doing it for the "greater" good. 

The Left gets away with it because no one wants to be the one to admit that the wise man is a selfish man and that self-interest has been the most constructive driving force in human history.

Health Care Worries

Your President Obama should be on television tomorrow night.  This will be his latest attempt to sell America on his health care plan.

There's always a danger of falling into hyperbole when criticizing Barack Obama and, for the first few months of his administration, I have tried (perhaps to a fault) to avoid going to extremes when voicing my disagreements with him.

However, now is not the time to be subtle.

Obamacare will be the greatest threat to individual liberty and privacy in my lifetime.  If passed, it will, over the upcoming years, transform countless Americans into members of the already growing Dependent Class.

And, of course, it will all be done "for our own good."

When following the debate over Obamacare, remember one thing.  Good intentions rarely make good law.  The American people may need health insurance.  They also need the right to be free.

Horrors!

I've seen a lot of news stories recently about Barack Obama's approval rating.

Apparently, it is declining.

Historically, this is what tends to happen when a new president comes in.  The people approve of him until he actually starts to promote his policy.  At this point, people start to disapprove because this is the U.S.A. and we're free to express our disagreement with the government.

What's interesting is the shocked tone of these latest stories.

Is it possible, the mainstream media seems to be asking, that there are actually people out there who are not 100% behind President Obama?

It's pathetic really.

Happy Independence Day

As this 4th of July comes to a close, there's a lot of things I want to say about the state of America today.

And I was going to say them all.

But this not the day for partisan bitterness.

This is not the day to be a pessimist.

This is a day to remember what the promise of America is and to decide for yourself whether or not this nation is living up to that promise.

I know how I would answer that question.

I hope you know how you would answer as well.

Whether you agree or disagree with me is beyond the point.

All that matters is that, whatever you may believe, believe it because it's what you know to be true as opposed to what you desire to be true.

Happy Independence Day.

Don't take it for granted.

Neda, R.I.P.

Right now, Iran is in chaos. Citizens are protesting, the government is reacting, and -- as always happens when an oppresive government is challenged -- innocent people are dying.

As the saying goes, "Information is power." Certainly, the Iranian government understands this as they have basically spent the past week trying to close Iran off from the rest of the world and prevent any new information from leaving or entering the country.

Fortunately, information is getting out, not through the traditional mainstream media (who, quite frankly, seem to be too busy swooning over Barack Obama to care about any one else in the world) but instead through the Internet. Sites like Twitter and YouTube have become Iran's connection to the outside world.

Yesterday, a video from Iran appeared on YouTube. This video has spread, it seems, across the entire Internet. It's a disturbing video and I debated with myself whether or not to actually embed this video on my site (as opposed to just including a link to it). In the end, I did decide to embed the video on this site because I feel it's important that people actually see the true face of an oppressive government. Far too often we hear about riots and violence in other countries and we hear about the evils of dictatorship but we do not understand what that truly means.

Again, the video below is graphic. Quite frankly, the images in this video will haunt me for the rest of my life. It is a video of a young woman dying and chances are you've already seen it on television. It is, of course, the "Neda" video.

Many bloggers have identified the woman murdered in this video as being an apolitical citizen named Neda. Others have said that she was actively protesting Iran's government. Quite frankly, I don't know if her name was Neda. I don't know what her politics were. I don't know if she was shouting, "Magbar Am'rika" before she gunned down in the street. I don't know and quite frankly, it does not matter.

What matters is that she was gunned down by a government that, in the past, would have claimed to be her protector.

I don't know who Neda was in life but I know that in death, she has come to represent every citizen that is not free. She represents the lengths that men in power will go to keep their countrymen from being free.

In death, Neda has become every vicitm of every dictatorship.

Neda, R.I.P.

Welcome Back, John Edwards

If you were still in doubt as to whether or not John Edwards is trying to set himself up to run for President in 2016, check out his interview with the Washington Post.

One of the unfortunate results of the whole Reille Hunter scandal is that it has led people to forget just why exactly the political career of John Edwards self-destructed in the first place.  All of the focus on his personal life has created the false impression that Edwards was a victim of the "morality police."  It's left the door open for him to achieve a Gary Hart-style rehabilitation.

The truth of the matter, of course, is that the whole Reille Hunter affair was really just the icing on the cake when it came to the collapse of the Edwards campaign.  Long before the general public even knew who Reille Hunter was, John Edwards had pretty much transformed himself into a political nonentity.  This was because, consistently over 2007 and 2008, John Edwards proved himself to be one of the most empty-headed, shallow politicians to have ever been forced upon the American public.

American history is full of leaders who emerged stronger from scandal.  Often times, the most sordid of scandals actually forced these politicians to grow up and become the type of leaders that we continue to celebrate to this day.

Judging from his interview with the Post, John Edwards is not one of these men.  If anything, he's emerged from Hunter scandal with even less substance than he had beforehand.

For example, when asked if it was a mistake to continue running for President even while this scandal threatened to explode and his wife was battling terminal cancer and the primary race was obviously shaping up to be a battle exclusively between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, Edwards replies, "Time will tell."

Well, Time has told, John.  Time tells us that, even before the Hunter story broke, you were pretty much a total nonfactor in the Democratic primaries.  Time also reminds us that your campaign's reaction to being in third place was to launch a series of personal attacks on both Obama and Clinton.  Though Time is hardly an expert, I think Time would probably agree that there's something really quite arrogant about insisting on staying in a race that you obviously can not win even though you fully know that, by staying in that race, you're massively increasing the chances of a sordid little story coming to light and causing your terminally ill wife to be publicly humiliated while she fights for her life.

Now while this would seem to suggest that John Edwards, if nothing else, was being incredibly selfish, it turns out that he wasn't running just for his own pleasure.  John Edwards was a man on a mission.  And that mission was apparently to expose the fact that there are -- believe it or not -- poor people in America!

Or as Edwards himself put it:

"If you were to ask people during the campaign who's talking most about [poverty], it was me.  There's a desperate need in the world for a voice of leadership on this issue… The president's got a lot to do, he's got a lot of people to be responsible for, so I'm not critical of him. But there does need to be an aggressive voice beside the president."

It's really hard to know where to start with a statement like this.  First off, I guess I'll point out the obvious.  It is true that John Edwards spent a lot of time talking about poverty.  It's also true that he's still talking about poverty.  Quite frankly, that's about all that John Edwards is doing as far as poverty is concerned.  John Edwards specializes in talking.  Indeed, a close examination of his political career will reveal that he's far more comfortable talking about problems than actually taking the risks necessary to solve them.

Humorously, Edwards feels the need to assure us that "(t)here's a desperate need in the world for a voice of leadership on this issue..."  I have to wonder just where exactly John Edwards is getting his news from.  Every world leader has -- in some way -- set himself up as a "voice of leadership" on poverty.  Whether promising to keep the middle and upper classes from ever having to risk poverty or trying to rally the lower classes against those that they hold responsible for poverty, the exploitation of the uneven balance of wealth and resources in the world has pretty much served as the fuel for every government currently in existence. 

If anything, John Edwards appears to have the type of viewpoint on poverty that could only be afforded by somebody who has never actually had to deal with it on first hand basis.

Edwards goes on claim that be staying in the presidential race, he pushed Obama to embrace "progressive" positions.  Actually, I believe Edwards has that backwards.  If anything, Obama's continued presence in the race inspired everyone from John Edwards to Hillary Clinton to John McCain to move sharply to the right in an effort to paint Obama as an extremist. 

In the end, Obama did not make the economy his focus because of John Edwards giving speeches on poverty.  He made the economy his focus because he knew that was an issue he could exploit all the way to the White House.

Welcome back, John Edwards.

Thank you for reminding us why we showed you the door in the first place.

Freedom of Ridicule

A South Carolina GOP activist is currently in hot water for comparing Michelle Obama to a gorilla.

This is being denounced as racism with such passionate righteousness that one can be forgiven for missing the fact that the activist in question did not compare black people to monkeys but instead, compared one individual who happened to be black to a gorilla. 

As we have been repeatedly told that the Obamas are post-race, one would think that it would now be acceptable to poke fun at them in any way possible without having to worry about a few eagle-eyed do-gooders insisting that everything has a double meaning.

Indeed, these previously mentioned eagle-eyed do-gooders often times seem to be more concerned with renewing their own "tolerance" credentials than with actually bothering to do anything to seriously address the issues of race and prejudice in this country.

A leader that can not be ridiculed is a dictator.

Pure and simple.