From Change to Chance?

As your unwavering Conservative Soldier, I am not afforded the comfort or security of living in a bastion of American values and patriots. I come to you week after week from the front lines, from the place that spawned and nurtured Barack Hussein Obama, from an ethical, moral and economic wasteland clinging tenuously to its heritage as The Land of Lincoln. It is today, in stark contrast to Lincoln’s legacy, the land that produced the rocks that Obama, Sens. Dick Durbin and Roland Burris, Rod Blagojevich, et al, crawled out from under.

Today I realized that I am done with the tired logic by the Kool-Aid swillers that goes something like this: President Obama “inherited” myriad problems. We have to give him a chance to show that he has proposed the right solutions going forward. Just give the man a chance.

How did we get from Change to Chance so fast?

This is what people say when a football team hires an unknown coach. This is what PTO moms tell themselves over coffee after the school board brings in an avant garde principal. This is what we tell our kids when they’re frustrated by an activity they can’t seem to master.

Give it a chance. Don’t give up so fast.

This is very good advice for our children. But do we, at the same time, tell them, “Sure, play with the matches. You are not likely to get burned, let alone set the house ablaze”?

If we are willing to chance the demise of the America we have known, the America so beloved by the millions of people around the world, the America that is a beacon of liberty and that embodies the best of mankind, then we are by extension willing to give Socialism a chance, nationalization a chance, Fascism a chance. And on it goes. Where does it end? Do we then give Islamic radicalism a chance?

There is a jarring quotation, around for decades, by the author Ayn Rand (Atlas Shrugged), jarring in that it sends shivers through every fiber of anyone reasonably alive:

“We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force.”

Should Americans turn away from this looming dark period, returning to daily routines, Dancing With The Stars debates and other frivolity, all the while determined to “give Obama a chance”, I am convinced it will be at our peril.

To the extent there is a honeymoon between any U.S. President and the people he serves, please, for the love of God, let us declare this one over. Done. No one deserves a chance to strip us of our liberties or impede the march of freedom.

No one deserves a chance to stack the Supreme Court with racist radicals. No one deserves a chance to subvert the rule of law. No one deserves a chance to bankrupt our nation and our futures. No one deserves a chance to appease tyrants.

The only chance that we can cling to now is the chance that American voters will rise up in 2010 and 2012, determined to avert our rapid descent into one of the “darkest periods of human history.”

Durbinomics 101,000,000,000

Today my email inbox contained a letter from the office of Senator Dick Durbin, the senior Senator from Illinois. Were he not such a destructive Liberal, I could almost feel sorry for Durbin. He holds the distinction of having had as “junior” colleagues Barack Hussein Obama and, for now, Roland Burris, both of them creatures spawned in the cesspool that is Chicago politics.

Durbin’s letter is little more than a boilerplate response, written by some team of rabid interns, no doubt, to a Feb. 5, 2009, plea from me, urging him to vote against the bloated, dangerous $800 billion “Stimulus Bill”. I suggested he and Senate Democrats consider actual stimulative measures, such as cutting taxes on the two lowest tax brackets (occupied by people who actually earn income and pay taxes), exempting unemployment benefits from income taxation, reducing obscene business tax rates, keeping capital gains tax rates stable (or eliminating them altogether), and creating a small business tax deduction.

I pointed out that analysts of the bill determined that only about 12 cents of every dollar is legitimate stimulus. Here is Durbin’s reply (and, in bold parentheses, the pesky little details he either neglected to mention or misrepresented):

Dear Mr. Woodward (aka, The Conservative Soldier),

Thank you for contacting me regarding the (so-called) economic recovery package. I appreciate hearing from you (about as much as a root canal without anesthetics).

We are facing tough economic times (especially now that the Obama Administration has burdened taxpayers with debt of historic proportions). Americans across the country are feeling the squeeze of this recession as hardworking men and women lose their jobs (because we fail to offer businesses meaningful tax relief), state and local governments cut services to avoid deep deficits, and credit is cut back (after my Democrat colleagues stood by and cheered as Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae created a massive housing bubble).

The (Bogus) American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) (P.L. 111-5) enacts a broad mix of tax cuts (actually, tax credits for people who do not pay taxes) and incentives (to not look for a job) aimed at individuals and small businesses. The act also makes investments in infrastructure (and $600 million for new cars for the Federal Government, plus $400 million to study sexually transmitted diseases), moves forward on alternative energy development, and provides tax relief to working families across the country (offset, however, when they start paying higher energy taxes under Obama’s cap-and-trade farce). These provisions are designed to help our economy on the road to recovery (that would have started by now if liberal politicians would stop using the n-word, nationalization).

Critics of the recovery bill argued that the measure does nothing to scale back foreclosure - the number one cause of the economic downturn. The Obama Administration has announced an aggressive new policy to stem foreclosures (to be paid for by Americans, like you, who pay mortgages on time every month, even if it means cutting back on plans for a third car or fourth flat-screen TV), and Congress is considering legislation to help homeowners stay in their homes (that they can’t afford now, and never will) and strengthen regulation of the mortgage market.

Some have expressed concern (as if I care) that the bill adds to the federal budget deficit. While we need to address the deficit over time (after I am dead and my grandchildren are addressing it), the first order of business is to put our economy back on track. No (obvious) earmarks were included in this bill (because we put all of them in the recent $410 billion “Appropriations Bill”).

This legislation is a necessary step toward economic recovery. Thank you again for writing to me (so I can keep my interns busy). I will keep your thoughts in mind as Congress considers legislation to address the downturn (we are fueling). Please feel free to keep in touch (but, please, I beg you, do not actually touch me, ever).

Sincerely,

Richard J. Durbin
United States Senator (Who Was All For Roland Burris’ Appointment Until I Was Against It)