Posted on 04/08/2010 2:51:15 PM PDT by UltraConservative
On April 6, 20-year-old Ty MacDowell led a march in Portland, Maine, designed to raise awareness of sexism. She did this by walking bare-breasted down the street with two dozen fellow women. MacDowell was shocked to learn that far from decreasing sexism, revealing her bosom drew hundreds of men with cameras. "I'm really upset by the men," she moped, "watching it like it's a parade."
This is called the law of unintended consequences. Anyone with half a brain could foresee the consequences of MacDowell's march -- there's a reason men spend years of their lives perusing the Internet for booby shots.
There are other applications of the law of unintended consequences, however, that are less obvious.
In the 1960s, liberals dramatically expanded the welfare state under the banner of Lyndon Baines Johnson's Great Society. Johnson and his liberal allies created Welfare, the Job Corps, the Model Cities Program, Head Start, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, Medicare, Medicaid and many other governmental make-work, pay-the-poor programs. Johnson referred to these programs as a "beautiful woman." (Johnson was a serial womanizer, so that was his dearest metaphor.)
At the same time, Johnson was escalating spending in Vietnam; from 1965 to 1968, Johnson augmented the military budget by 25 percent. This frightened Johnson to no end. According to historian Robert D. Hormats, "Johnson frequently remarked to his assistant Joseph Califano that the massive financial demands of World War II had killed the New Deal and the increase in funding for the Korean War had killed Truman's Fair Deal, and he was concerned a similar fate would befall the Great Society." Vietnam was, in Johnson's word, a "bitch."
The beautiful woman and the bitch were fighting over the same tax dollars. Eventually, LBJ was forced to raise taxes dramatically in order to curtail the budget crisis that was destroying the dollar. In 1968, the same man who had created the massive social safety nets, comprising a huge portion of the federal budget, suddenly called for "fiscal restraint" and "responsible fiscal policy." Not coincidentally, in that same speech, LBJ announced he would not run for re-election. Only a few years later, Democrats in Congress refused to fund the Vietnam War, instead choosing to continue funding the social programs LBJ had instituted.
In short, LBJ's Great Society had two major short-term unintended consequences: First, the Great Society weakened us on the home front by foisting tax hikes and unsustainable debts on the American people; second, the Great Society weakened us abroad by sucking up cash needed to win the Vietnam War. The Great Society forced a choice between guns and butter, and the Democrats chose increasingly expensive butter, paid for by productive Americans.
LBJ could honestly claim that he had no idea his programs would do such immediate damage to the financial and military status of the country. After all, LBJ bought the Keynesian myth that FDR's programs had spurred the economy and made us stronger on the military front.
President Obama knows better.
So Barry is the Iron Sheik?
“there’s a reason men spend years of their lives perusing the Internet for booby shots. “
Ben Shapiro must be a member of FARK.
The one person who most needs to be humbled in this nation is uhbamao.
>Ty MacDowell led a march [snip] walking bare-breasted down the street with two dozen fellow women. MacDowell was shocked
> “I’m really upset by the men,” she moped, “watching it like it’s a parade.”
Um, it _WAS_.
“LBJ was forced to raise taxes dramatically in order to curtail the budget crisis that was destroying the dollar.”
At least LBJ wanted to save the dollar. The ‘bama is hell-bent to destroy it.
Shapiro is wrong. Obama is our enemy ,his intent is to destroy the United States of America.
Dr. Jack Wheeler is editor of ToThePointNews “an online geopolitical intelligence service”.
He has had two parallel careers: one in the field of adventure and exploration as the owner of Jack Wheeler Expeditions; the other in the field of political and economic freedom as president of the Freedom Research Foundation.
Wheeler’s articles are also published by WebNetDaily.
Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Thursday, 30 April 2009
Paris, France. It is very cool to be a French intel guy. A spectacular meal at a Parisian bistro with $90 entrées and a $200 bottle of Bordeaux? No problem. I’d known this fellow since he got me out of a jam in Sudan years ago. His James Bond days are over, but still, riding a desk for the DGSE – Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (General Directorate for External Security), France’s military intel agency – in Paris has its decided benefits.
One of them is not being infected with Obamamania. “My agency considers him a joke,” he confides. “Every day there is some fresh lunacy that we cannot believe. Mr. Bush would often make us angry. But at this man we just laugh.”
“In truth, it also makes us sad,” he continued. “French resentment towards America is strong, so being able to laugh at your country feels good. But it is such a sad and strange thing to see America – America The Great! – do something so crazy as to elect this ridiculous man.”
“There are many people in America who think he isn’t a legitimate president as he wasn’t born in the US and isn’t a natural citizen. What do you think?” I asked.
He shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had reason to make an inquiry.”
“There are a lot of people convinced he is a traitor who hates America and is actively determined to destroy it. Any opinion on that?”
He didn’t shrug at this. After a long slow sip of wine, he mused, “I would not go that far. Many of his actions, however, are very puzzling because they are so counter-productive regarding America’s best interests. There seems to be a consistent pattern in that direction.”
“What does Sarkozy think of him?”
“Nothing but contempt.”
After a pause he asked, “And Langley?”
“Well, if you thought the war they waged against Bush was intense, it was nothing compared to how they’re going to screw Obama. He has tried to gut them with the ‘torture memo’ release and slashing their budgets. The morale is depressed, sullen, and enraged. You know what a left-wing outfit Langley is. They thought he was their boy and they feel betrayed. All kinds of damaging stuff on him will be appearing via their media friends.”
He nodded. “And in Tel Aviv City?”
He was referring to the huge underground city complex of Langley’s underneath the US Embassy in the Israeli capital. “That’s an interesting question. You know how vast and deep the relationship is there. Langley is making every effort to overcome the total and massive distrust their Israeli colleagues have for Obama, whom they know is selling them down the Jordan River. So far though this effort is in words. The Israelis are waiting to see what Langley does.”
He said nothing. I smiled. “You guys wouldn’t be Langley’s cutout for thwarting BO regarding Israel, would you? I’d never suspect that…”
He continued to say nothing, gave me only a slight smile in return, and poured me another glass of wine. “The Bordeaux is good, yes?” I nodded.
“You know, the French media worships this man the same as yours in the US. All of this ‘100 days’ talk, it is impossibly stupid. Most anyone in the French elite, the business leaders, Sarko’s people, they all know this. They all think this is some crazy joke of the Americans. But it is a very, very dangerous joke. For 100 days your president has been a laughingstock among the tout le monde of Paris. No one may be laughing 100 days or 10 months from now.”
He leaned forward. “The world can go – how do you say – sideways with this man very quickly. No one he has working for him knows what they are doing – possibly excepting Mrs. Clinton – and he certainly does not. All of us in our little community are worried – us, our friends in Berlin, London, Tel Aviv, and Langley too as you say. It is not like the barbarians at the gates. It is every barbarian horde in the world being told there are no gates. The Somalis, Chavez, Iran, Putin, Beijing, the ‘Norks” as you call them, the list is long and it is growing. We are not sure what to do.”
It took me a moment to respond. “The best thing that has happened now is Obama making Langley his enemy. They will be cooperating with you more, be more a part of your worried community. Working together, you can undermine his efforts more effectively, block and maybe even repair the damage.”
It was my turn to lean forward. “Then again, all together you could be more pro-active. The man is a mystery. Nobody can make public his actual birth certificate, or even the particular hospital he was born in, or his college grades, or how he got into Harvard, or how he made editor of the Harvard Law Review and never wrote a single article for it. It goes on and on. He really is a Zero. I think all of you guys should find all of this out and make it known.”
I added, “The quicker the better, before the laughing stops and the real dangers begin.”
“What is that phrase you use?” he asked. “Something to consider?”
I laughed. “Yes, there is much to consider – and much that you can do. I mean, really, if the Soviet Union could be dismantled, so can this presidency.”
It was a beautiful April afternoon in Paris. He walked me back to my hotel. It could be that the times we live in may get even more interesting.
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