Free Republic

As always, I hope you enjoy the new video! Comments of course are appreciated.

HumbleGunner, let me see if I can explain this a bit better than my fellow Freepers have.

Rush knows that if he attends the Tea Parties, it will look like he wants them to be just about him. People will say “Oh, these are Rush’s tea parties, that villain is their source.” That creates a way politicians who don’t like our message can make excuses - if Rush is involved, it’s all about him, not a spontaneous uprising of ordinary people.

If he stays away, they are an independent grassroots movement that is NOT just about him. Ironically enough, without his attendance to be a giant lightning rod, it’s more clear that the movement is from the grassroots, and not the ACORNS either.

He is clearly a big supporter of the movement, but wants to be clear that he is not the movement; ordinary average people are.

He certainly was not staying away as an expression of snobbishness or disdain. He is obviously an admirer of the movement and a lot of his show has helped promote it.

Hope that helps.

D

You are most welcome! I enjoyed taking them!

D

He probably feels he has little to gain by acknowledging them, since they indicate a sizable percentage of the population is upset at his policies. I don’t expect anything from him; he can look presidential and thus above the fray.

The overall anti-politician slant of the tea parties is covered here:

http://voices.kansascity.com/node/4274

I’m not sure if I agree the events are truly non-partisian. The West Palm event had both Republicans and conservative Democrats as speakers, but it was clear the crowd was 99% Republican. “You should have voted Republican” and “I voted for Sarah Palin” were common sentiments. (Interestingly enough, McCain’s name was rarely mentioned).

Pajamas Media says the Tea Parties have bad news for both parties:

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/dc-tea-party-republicans-should-not-be-rejoicing-quite-yet/

But really, since the only realistic opposition to President Obama is through the Republican party, it strikes me that it’s fabulous news for Republicans and terrible news for Democrats. The Republican ideology is certainly highly compatible with what was said at the Tea Parties.

Now all we need is candidates that express that ideology instead of the traditional dealmaking that’s destroyed the credibility of our government, on both sides.

(I forgot to mention that my reporting includes 180 photos of the Tea Party - if you like creative signs and the like, it’s a real feast for the eyes!)

I was there for the entire event, so I have a fuller report that I hope all of you will enjoy!

Enjoy!

D

After an age, I’m back with a new location and new original reporting! If you feel any of the old gang over in LA would enjoy this report, please ping them.

Video will be added sometime tomorrow - I have a new high definition video camera which is very picky about its formats and such.

My article is excerpted so I can point people to the original link, which will contain additional information and links to video in the morning.

If my memory serves, Moore actually condoned piracy of Fahrenheit 9/11 so that his message would get out to more viewers.

This stance didn’t seem to hurt its box office. I don’t know if it will for this, either, because the in-theater watching experience is very different from the on-computer experience. Bringing a date to watch a pirated movie just doesn’t have the same appeal.

On the other hand, would you invite your date to watch a film called Sicko?

So we’ll see, but I don’t think this will hurt him as much as many here and in the ad biz believe.

Incidentally, one producer threatened to sue YouTube after excerpts from a commercial movie were posted there ... not realizing the filmmakers posted it to get publicity. So even if the production company sues it’s possible that it was a deliberate plant by Moore.

Incidentally, anyone reasonably well informed knows Cuba has a multi-tiered health system, and thanks to the publicity potential, I am sure Moore and his friends got the “head of state” version. This makes the premise of this movie entirely false.

On the other hand, if it costs $3,000 a day to keep someone in the hospital and run a few tests, as it did for me recently, there is clearly something horribly wrong with a system that is this absurdly expensive. I have yet to receive a convincing explanation of why health care is this expensive and whether we should research alternatives before we are pauperized in our old age by the present system.

i don’t think single payer is the answer, but I’d like to hear some fresh thinking about this issue.

D

I don’t think the public is going to want to touch down in Ontario or Palmdale if their destination is Santa Monica or Downtown Los Angeles, though.

In many situations, the ground trip to the final destination would take longer than the flight!

D

The OLEDs also have better battery life (by about 25%) and allegedly give more even illumination. (I haven’t seen one yet so I can’t comment directly on that one).

I think Steve would have added them whether Greenpeace wanted him to or not.

D

Ants contribute nothing to our economy; they do no work.

Illegals work very hard in exchange for very low wages. There are plenty of small businesses that could not exist without their help.

That seems like a big difference right there.

That’s why this is such a tough issue for many. It seems like an easy issue only when you look at one point of view (worker or employer).

I worked for a business that depended on illegals to run its factory, and supported about 50 people on the sales and administrative side, all of who were legal residents.

By getting rid of illegals, some of our own jobs will be in danger.

D

Sac, the “islamic monsters” are here and there are more of them coming, legally. They don’t need to sneak in across the border and in fact I suspect most don’t have the toughness or competence needed to do so.

As you point out, the only way to defeat terrorism is to put resources into, well, defeating terrorism. Border fences and restricting recreational boating and all that sort of things may or may not be desirable according to some people, but they’re not going to fight terrorism. In fact, I would expect them to divert resources from the kind of unglamourous law enforcement and intelligence work that’s been successful in combatting terrorists.

Most of the people involved in the Fort Dix plot were legal residents. Two of the illegals had been arrested numerous times. This indicates that, instead of building a fence, we should simply change our policy so that we do check the immigration status of people who are arrested and throw them out. That might have foiled this plot then and there. The fence wouldn’t have done a thing.

Unfortunately there are plenty of legal residents of our nation who have decided their Islamic identity is more important than their identity as Americans. Consider John Walker Lindt; he was not an illegal alien but he fought against us in the Afghan war. He surely could have participated in attacks within the US. The border fence does nothing to people like him.

So again, I’m all for more law enforcement resources being placed against terrorism. I’m all for more intelligence resources being placed against terrorism. I am against measures such as the border fence and this attack on recreational boating because I think they nibble at - literally - the periphery of the issue, while we need people to stab straight to the heart of it.

Rides The Miles, it’s interesting that you point this out. As you would know if you read my other posts, I am one of the very few Freepers who thinks illegal aliens are largely benign. I think the overwhelming majority of illegal aliens are harmless and just want to work. As a result, the border fence strikes me as a huge waste of time and resources.

I did think when I was writing my response to this question that my opposition to such measures pretty much followed from it. In this recreational boating proposal, we are talking about huge reductions in freedom for potential gains that are in my view entirely illusory. In the fence proposal, we are talking about spending billions of dollars on a measure that will only reduce terrorism in the most indirect possible way.

I know this response was against what many of you believe, but I hope it made you think, and was of interest because of that.

D

It also requires a level of comfort and technical competence that these folks obviously didn’t have.

You know, nowadays the tape was probably MiniDV and if they’d bought a Mac Mini they could have used FireWire to transfer it and iDVD to burn it without any trouble at all. I think there are even fairly inexpensive PCs that will do the same thing.

But I suppose a Mac Mini ($599) was out of their budget ...

I wonder how much they were charged for the transfer.

D

No question about this.

But anyone could steal your houseboat (if you were not using it at the time) and send it straight into the dam, and I doubt that transponders would do (pun intended) a dam bit of good in stopping someone who wanted to do it.

D

You could cut the wire to the solar panel and throw the whole mess overboard and nobody would be the wiser. Sorry, this one just won’t fly.

The more I think, the sillier this gets - Al Queda buys (or steals) a used Cigarette boat, capable of travelling at 80mph. Leave the transponder in the boat and keep it on. When you get right next to the nuclear power plant, trigger the explosives. Nobody will know to stop you until the last few seconds and then it’s too late, transponder or no.

We’re losing a lot of freedom through proposals like this and yet I don’t think they add to security significantly, if at all. I find it appalling that this kind of thing is even being proposed.

(Also see my #4).

D

Are boats really that different from cars? I don’t remember Mohammed Atta and crew having any trouble with drivers’ licenses, so I don’t think boat licenses are going to be any more help. Boats are already registered through the DMV.

There’s no question that I can drive right up to the Sears Tower or any other major building with my car. I could even get pretty close to a nuclear power plant or other major facility.

I’m going to take a wild guess and say transponders for every boat is unlikely to be a popular proposal and almost certainly wouldn’t get through the boating lobby. And in this case, quite frankly, I’d be on their side.

All a lawbreaker has to do is cut a set of wires or remove a battery, or toss the thing overboard, and there’s nothing that can be done to stop him.

Why not just keep doing what we have been doing, successfully? We have a pretty good record now of detecting and turning in people who are members of these conspiracies. If a boat is involved, it’s no different from a car or plane.

The resources that would go to any boat licensing or transponder programme are going to be a lot better spent looking directly for the real criminals instead of inconveniencing millions for such a dubious payoff.

D

When I lived in Los Angeles, I picked up the local hippy rag, the LA Weekly, whose founders got very rich on ads for phone sex, fancy restaurants and expensive boutiques. I liked it because it was free, and because I thought they genuinely cared about local issues in a place where the population at large is mainly indifferent.

What always amazes me is that publications like the LA Weekly will probe deeply into the nastiness of how the Los Angeles City Council really runs, and then suggest you vote for people who want to expand the Council’s ability to tax and spend.

Surely it should have been obvious that giving money to those folks is like giving a loaded gun to an infant, but somehow their touching faith in what would happen if, say, Antonio Villagrosa became Mayor, continued.

Well, Antonio is now Mayor. He’s certainly vibrant and that’s a nice change. Anyone know how he’s done? I’ve left LA and am now out of touch.

D

Anyone know what this paragraph is referring to?

These policies include opening the Iraq economy to lucrative oil refining and private banking opportunities by American and British companies shut out of Iraq for three decades. Hundreds of Iraqi-owned enterprises have been shut down as Iraqis are being forced into the privatized world of the World Trade Organization.

What Iraqi enterprises is he referring to? Those run by Saddam's goons?

D

The national creed, in my view, is that all people deserve a chance, even those from other countries who are suffering under oppressive or incompetent regimes.

It follows that those people should be welcome here, assuming our economy can handle them.

So far the economy is grabbing all the immigrants it can get, so I don’t see a problem. It seems like a win/win.

Certainly it’s possible that our policies regarding medical care might have to change, or we need to find better ways to provide medical care to those who don’t want to pay thousands of dollars a day for simple diagnostics, and tens of thousands for treatment.

I see no justification in the costs associated with our current medical system, so if having illegals around causes us to look for alternatives that are more cost effective, well, that might benefit me too when I get sick.

When I went to the hospital on the insistance of my business partner to check some vague symptoms, and they kept me overnight after running various tests, the bill came to $8,000. Insurance reduced it to $3,000, which they paid. I think that’s just plain absurd.

It should not take $8,000, or even $3,000 to put me in a room less comfortable than a Motel 6, shared with another person who was woken up at 3am for his medicine. It should not take that kind of money to do about an hour’s worth of diagnostic tests on fancy machines. And yet the machines aren’t THAT expensive, I spent very little time with a doctor (maybe 1-2 hours max) and I receieved no treatment other than a patch which i think cost about $20.

So when hospitals say that illegals cost them $x thousand, I assume the illegals don’t have the skill in negotiating down bills insurance companies do. This means that the costs we see associated with illegals are inflated, probably at least two or three times, over costs that are already absurd.

After receiving that bill and seeing what happened to it, quite honestly I don’t believe a word hospitals say. They had better become more efficient or bust. And I live in an area where the percentage of illegals is probably 1% or less - we just don’t see them.

Illegals are not to blame for high hospital bills; an incompetent and inefficient system is. We have to fix the system instead of blaming people who have little to nothing to do with the situation.

I don’t love illegals but I don’t hate them, either. I know that I liked life a lot more living in Los Angeles, a dynamic place with lots of growth, including illegals, than I do living in Pittsburgh, where the population is shrinking and there are hardly any illegals at all.

If illegals give us growth, and dynamism, and an expanding economy instead of a contracting one, I don’t see why people concentrate so much on the negatives and ignore the positives of having them around.

If we kick ‘em out we get stagnation instead of growth. As you said, fewer schools, fewer hospitals, less of everything. I’m just confused as to why you would find that desirable.

Aren’t we supposed to be the party of economic growth and hope?

We’re acting like the party of shrinkage, stagnation and depression, of decaying buildings and depressed economies.

Is this really what we want? There had better be some really powerful gains from it, and I don’t see a single one.

D

I think of America as a set of ideas more than a firm border.

Some of the ideas include that of hospitality to those outside of its borders, a long-standing tradition here.

I happen to find that tradition very appealing and find it very sad that many people speak so negatively of it.

I also appreciate another American tradition, one of defiance of rules many consider unjust, and using that defiance to change the rules.

Let me flip this over for a minute. I think you understand now why I like the idea of open borders - it is hospitality, and fair dealing with people who genuinely want to work. They want to help us out, doing jobs most of us don’t want to do, and in return all they ask is to be left alone.

I just don’t see anything bad about this.

So tell me, what’s so great about closed borders? Why is inhospitality, turning your back to people, so appealing to you? Why do you want to separate willing workers from employers which need employees?

Why not let people work who want to work?

I like to see a nation that grows, and a society that is open minded and receptive to all who do not threaten or oppose its core values. Many Muslims do oppose our core values, and I’m right with you in wanting to throw them out. But the hispanic immigrants who are 99% of this situation are Catholic, support our core values and just want the opportunity to work hard and succeed like Americans do.

Tell me why this is so bad.

D

(Please ignore the impact on the health and educational system. I’d like to hear what is wrong with having them here, not how their kids are educated or their health is treated. I want to understand about the principle of borders itself and why you consider it important. Frankly, I think if there was no impact at all on our educational or medical systems, you would still want to get rid of illegals, and I want to know why this is.)