“Bitter”, “Clingers”, “Astroturf”, “Crazies”, “Racists”, “Hostage Takers”, “Hobbits”, “Terrorists”, “Extortionists”…. whatever.
 
The Right is Right. The Tea Party’s call for fiscal responsibility has been the only voice of sanity in American politics for the last couple of years.
As Janet Daley affirms in her UK Telegraph article: If we are to survive the looming catastrophe, we need to face the truth ~
 

The Tea Party faction within the Republican party was demanding that, before any further steps were taken, there must be a debate about where all this was going. They had seen the future toward which they were being pushed, and it didn’t work. They were convinced that the entitlement culture and benefits programmes which the Democrats were determined to preserve and extend with tax rises could only lead to the diminution of that robust economic freedom that had created the American historical miracle.

Thank-you!

We have arrived at the endgame of what was an untenable doctrine: to pay for the kind of entitlements that populations have been led to expect by their politicians, the wealth-creating sector has to be taxed to a degree that makes it almost impossible for it to create the wealth that is needed to pay for the entitlements that populations have been led to expect, etc, etc…
 
The hardest obstacle to overcome will be the idea that anyone who challenges the prevailing consensus of the past 50 years is irrational and irresponsible. That is what is being said about the Tea Partiers. In fact, what is irrational and irresponsible is the assumption that we can go on as we are.

 
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Related:
Obama’s downgraded America ~
S&P tells it like it is: the U.S. is out of money

A short video from our friends at Heritage clearly illustrating the problems associated with federal control over our public schools – although it can be applied to Washington’s interference with every other aspect of our lives as well!:
 

All of us should remember that the Federal Government is not some mysterious institution comprised of buildings, files, and paper. The people are the government. What we create we ought to be able to control. ~ Ronald Reagan ~

Whoopi Goldberg during one of her tirades against the “racist” conservatives, sometime in the last year or two, said something along the lines of “Yeah, the Founding Fathers were so great they thought blacks were only worth 3/5 of a person!” I remember thinking how disappointing it was that Whoopi, who seems thoughtful and intelligent most of the time (except when she’s ranting) didn’t know the real story behind the “Three-Fifths Compromise”. But I’ve realized that this is one of those moments in history that’s been so scrubbed of the truth by the revisionists that the real facts are barely decipherable.
 
Case in point, here’s an opinion piece by John Moore (must be Michael’s brother) at National Post (Canada) deriding the Tea Party:
 

Not all Tea Partiers are crazy, but all the crazies seem to be in the Tea Party… 🙄
…This largely Christianist (sic) movement has extended its Biblical literalism to the American Constitution, a document its adherents regard as perfect. Even when it comes to the passage ranking a black man as having three fifths the value of a white man, they argue it was actually an ingenuous poison pill designed by the founding fathers to bring about the timely end of slavery.

 
Thank you genius. Let’s check the facts shall we?

• Unfortunately, as we all know, at the time the Constitution was drafted slavery existed in the southern American states, where slaves were considered property.
 
• Outrageously, the southern delegates to the Constitutional Convention proposed that each slave be counted when it came to apportioning congressional districts, effectively giving the south more representation (even though slaves weren’t even considered citizens, let alone given the right to vote); yet not be counted as property for taxation purposes.
 
• Heated debate ensued with some delegates threatening to leave the convention. But clearly, the southern delegates couldn’t have it both ways.
 
• James Madison came up with what has come to be called the “Three-Fifths Compromise”. It was agreed that five slaves be counted as three persons for both representation and tax purposes.
 
During the debates attempts were made by several Convention delegates to end the slave trade. The Founding Fathers were not, as the Left frequently implies, a bunch of racist slave owners.
 
Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration, speaking at a convention of Abolition Societies several years after the Constitution was ratified, represented a position held by many of the Founders:

“Slavery is repugnant to the principles of Christianity…It is a practical denial of the extent and efficacy of the death of a common Savior. It is a usurpation of the prerogative of the Great Sovereign of the universe, who has solemnly claimed an exclusive property in the souls of men.”

[Gee – bet Mr. Moore didn’t have a clue that Abolition was a “largely Christianist movement”!]

 
By taking history of out of context, ignoring half the facts and twisting the rest, the Left builds their entire world view on a warped foundation.
 
So here’s my proposal – until they can exhibit a clear knowledge and firm understanding of American history, I say that we should only count 3/5 of each Leftie vote. Perhaps we can prevent them from doing any further damage to the Constitution and the Republic.
 
Even better, once they do understand and appreciate the uniqueness of America they won’t be Lefties anymore!
 

Lest we forget, we do have a couple champions for sanity among the poltroons on Capitol Hill. Senator Rand Paul (KY) is one of them. Here’s an open letter from Sen. Paul (8-1-11):
 

~~~~~
To paraphrase Senator Jim DeMint: When you’re speeding toward the edge of a cliff, you don’t set the cruise control. You stop the car. The current deal to raise the debt ceiling doesn’t stop us from going over the fiscal cliff. At best, it slows us from going over it at 80 mph to going over it at 60 mph.

This plan never balances. The President called for a “balanced approach.” But the American people are calling for a balanced budget.

This deal does nothing to fix the overreaches of both parties over the past few years: Obamacare, TARP, trillion-dollar wars, runaway entitlement spending. They are all cemented into place with this deal, and their legacy will be trillions of dollars in new debt.

The deal that is pending before us now:

• Adds at least $7 trillion to our debt over the next 10 years. The deal purports to “cut” $2.1 trillion, but the “cut” is from a baseline that adds $10 trillion to the debt. This deal, even if all targets are met and the Super Committee wields its mandate – results in a BEST case scenario of still adding more than $7 trillion more in debt over the next 10 years. That is sickening.

• Never, ever balances.

• The Super Committee’s mandate is to add $7 trillion in new debt. Let’s be clear: $2.1 trillion in reductions off a nearly $10 trillion,10-year debt is still more than $7 trillion in debt. The Super Committee limits the constitutional check of the filibuster by expediting passage of bills with a simple majority. The Super Committee is not precluded from any issue, therefore the filibuster could be rendered moot. In addition, the plan harms the possible passage of a Balanced Budget Amendment. Since the goal is never to balance, having the BBA as a “trigger” ensures that the committee will simply report its $1.2 trillion deficit reduction plan and never move to a BBA vote.

• It cuts too slowly. Even if you believe cutting $2.1 trillion out of $10 trillion is a good compromise, surely we can start cutting quickly, say $200 billion-$300 billion per year, right? Wrong. This plan so badly backloads the alleged savings that the cuts are simply meaningless. Why do we believe that the goal of $2.5 trillion over 10 years (that’s an average of $250 billion per year) will EVER be met if the first two years cuts are $20 billion and $50 billion. There is simply no path in this bill even to the meager savings they are alleging will take place.

Buried in the details of this bill is the automatic debt limit increase proposed a few weeks ago. The second installment of the debt ceiling increase is initiated by the President automatically and can only be stopped by a two-thirds vote of Congress. This shifts the Constitutional check on borrowing from Congress to the President and makes it easier to raise the debt ceiling. Despite claims to the contrary, none of the triggers in this bill include withholding the second limit increase.

Credit rating agencies have clearly stated the type of so-called cuts envisioned in this plan will result in our AAA bond rating being downgraded. Ironically then, the only way to avoid our debt being downgraded and the resulting economic problems that stem from that is for this bill to fail.

This plan does not solve our problem. Not even close. I cannot abide the destruction of our economy, therefore I vigorously oppose this deal and I urge my colleagues and the American people to do the same.

Sincerely,

Rand Paul, M.D.
United States Senator
~~~~~

Other principled, rational Republicans who voted against this farce include: Sen. Rubio (FL), Sen. DeMint (SC), Sen. Toomy (PA), Sen. Sessions (AL), Rep. Bachmann (MN), Rep. McClintock (CA), Rep. Walsh (IL), Rep. Amash (MI), Rep. Paul (TX) and all the House members in South Carolina.
Let them know we appreciate their stand for fiscal sanity.
 
Full roll call on the Senate vote is HERE; House of Representatives HERE.