Why Borders Don’t Matter

May 24th, 2010 by The Flannel Avenger

Why Borders Don’t Matter… to some at least.

While Wikipedia is by no means an unbiased and impartial source, I find it’s frequently a good starting place when looking for information. Especially if one isn’t trying to write academic our journalistic quality articles. In this case, I think it can provide an important insight into why the political left recoils from enforcing the Southern United States Border like a vampire recoils from Holy Water:

“Pure communism” in the Marxian sense refers to a classless, stateless and oppression-free society where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made democratically, allowing every member of society to participate in the decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life

and:

Stateless communism, also known as pure communism, is the post-capitalist stage of society which Karl Marx predicted would inevitably result from the development of the productive forces. Stateless communism is closely related and connected to world communism.

Strictly speaking, pure communism is a stage of social development where material and productive forces are advanced to a degree where actual freedom (freedom from necessity, and thus from wage labor and alienation from work) for every person is possible.[citation needed] The state apparatus becomes redundant because classes cease to exist.[1]

* Anarchists and Marxists both agree on the long-term desirability of a stateless society, but disagree on how such a society will emerge and on what strategy, if any, is to be used for achieving stateless communism.

No borders is straight out of the founding doctrines of  Marxism (the unholy trinity of Marxist political philosophy being Communism, Socialism, and Fascism).

It’s you that suck…

May 13th, 2010 by The Flannel Avenger

Regarding my previous posting, this seemed appropriate.

It’s not your business model that sucks, it’s you that sucks!

Found at Right Angles Blog

There they go again…

May 13th, 2010 by The Flannel Avenger

ABC News needs some better editors.  In a story about Laura Bush’s views on abortion and homesexual marriage, they had this to say…

Bush’s comments sparked reaction – and criticism – from both sides of the aisle. Liberal groups said she should have spoken out sooner when she had the White House as a bully pulpit. Conservatives defended the merits of their arguments despite, being seemingly unable to convince the wife of one of their movement’s most prominent figureheads.

President George W. Bush… figurehead?  I hope that somebody at ABC news is embarrassed.

But, then again, why am I surprised, these are the same people who can’t even bother to look at Wikipedia (nevermind bother to actually do research for a story) to articulate the difference between the semi-automatic weapons regulated by the so called “assault weapons ban” and the fully automatic rifles which they proclaim reign fire down upon Mexico.

A Rare Disagreement with Coulter

May 12th, 2010 by The Flannel Avenger

I have a quibble with Ann Coulter’s column this evening.  She wrote:

We are at war. The Supreme Court has no right to stick its fat, unelected nose into the commander in chief’s constitutional war powers, particularly in a war against savages whose only reason for not nuking us yet is that they don’t have the technology.

While I certainly agree that the only reason that the crazy jihadist Muslims haven’t set off a nuclear bomb yet is that the technology has thus far eluded them.  I would quibble that we are not at war.  Not in any sense of the term.  We are not taking the threats against us seriously, example one the abject refusal of the Federal Government to do anything at all about the crime and chaos on the southern border.

But, seeing as how we are Not. At. War. the President has no war powers whatsoever.

There are right and legal ways to do things.  We are supposed to be a nation of laws.  It is important to do things the right and legal way.  Which, of course, was Ann Coulter’s larger point.  The Supreme Court has taken upon itself the powers rightfully delegated to the Congress  (so has the Executive Branch).   It was this sort of behavior that got the Republicans cast from the halls of power in 2006, and apparently got Bob Bennett thrown out of the halls of power in 2010.

Related Reading:  We Are Not At War.

I was right!

May 10th, 2010 by The Flannel Avenger

Well, it’s been 5 years, but WRAL is reporting that I was right.

Me, 5 Years Ago:

It seems very painfully obvious to me that what little money the government gets to keep will be used for more pork barrel politicking (The money will “go” for education, but that doesn’t mean that the education money is going to stay where it is).

WRAL Today

When state lawmakers passed the lottery in 2005, they promised that the money would not replace tax dollars meant for education, but analysis of the numbers shows that is exactly what has been happening.

“I don’t think we’ve ever seen the lottery as a game changer. We’ve seen it as: this is a nice addition to our portfolio,” said Wake County Debt Manager Nicole Kreiser.

Kreiser says Wake County’s annual construction allotment, about $10 million this year, covers less than half of the cost of an elementary school. Lottery money helped build the new Herbert Akins Elementary in Fuquay-Varina.

The problem, she says, is that state leaders pulled back corporate tax receipts that were also going to build schools.

“It’s essentially gone and we’ve been left with the lottery, so that may be a supplant issue,” Kreiser said.

It’s the same issue for lottery money directed to reduce class size. About $100 million pays for approximately 2,000 teachers. That allotment helps maintain student-to-teacher ratios in kindergarten through third grade based on state statute, but not reduce class size. Plus, budget cuts elsewhere are increasing class sizes in higher grades.

Now, the question is, what do we do about it?

At least there are still some Conservatives somewhere.

May 8th, 2010 by The Flannel Avenger

There are at least some Conservatives willing to hold their officials accountable for their treason.

Senator Bob Bennett of Utah couldn’t get enough of his own party’s delegates at the Utah GOP convention to get past the second round of balloting for his re-election bid.  After coming in third in the first two rounds, Bennett was automatically eliminated for the third round of voting.  Earlier, he had pleaded with delegates to give him a second chance after coming under fire for supporting the TARP bailouts:

It’s a shame that North Carolina Republicans don’t share the sentiment.  See:  Richard Burr.

Primary Day

May 4th, 2010 by The Flannel Avenger

It’s primary day.  The day that I enact plan A for revenge against the TARP lover.

I have my list of candidates to vote for.

Man the torches and pitchforks!

Irony

April 24th, 2010 by The Flannel Avenger

This is just too priceless not to post.

Woman Holds Up "Hate Free Zone" sign as people express hate.

A woman holds up a "Eugene: A Hate Free Zone" sign as her fellow protestors express hate towards Sarah Palin

Irony is just lost on some people…

Shame on WRAL

April 20th, 2010 by The Flannel Avenger

Shame on WRAL and Capital Broadcasting.

This article is blatantly biased.

The Raleigh City Council voted unanimously Tuesday afternoon in favor of a resolution outlining arguments against re-segregation of schools in Wake County.

Re-Segregation of schools.  Yeah.  That’s not biased at all.  NOBODY has suggested segregating the schools.  And it is apparent that Capital Broadcasting can’t keep its editorial opinion out of the newsroom on this matter.

Lets think this out.

1)  The courts have ruled that it is, in fact, illegal to assign a student to a school based on their race.

2)  Opponents of the Wake County school board attempts at reform keep calling it “re-segregation” or other synonyms thereof.  They are the ones making it an issue of race.  Not proponents of neighborhood schools.  But by saying that ending the “socio-economic diversity” policy is “re-segregating” the schools, they have ADMITTED that they are, in fact, making school assignment decisions based on race.  Which, as we have already discussed, is illegal.

But, it gets even better.  The United States Commission on Civil Rights in 2006 found that:

Specifically, the Commission finds that “there is little evidence that racial and ethnic diversity in elementary and secondary schools results in significant improvements in academic performance; studies on the effect of school racial composition on academic achievement often suggest modest and inconsistent benefits.” Similarly, the Commission notes that “studies of whether racial and ethnic diversity result in significant social and non-educational benefits report varied results.”

Now, being in favor of assigning students to school based on their “socio-economic status” is one thing.  But accusing somebody of being a racist, of trying to do harm to children because they’re a minority, is unconscionable. It is a slander and these people should be very deeply ashamed.

Republicans Running for US Senate

April 20th, 2010 by The Flannel Avenger

As an almost immediate follow up to my previous post about Republican options for US Senate this year, I have been reading their pages.

I particularly like this quote from the Brad Jones for US Senate site:

8. No government funds should be given, for any reason, to the largest provider of abortions in the U.S.; namely, “Planned Parenthood.” A baby is God’s creation from the moment of conception. If it is unwanted, for any reason, adoption is the only moral choice. The only reason to consider abortion is when the life of the mother and/or baby is threatened.

I couldn’t agree with that more.  Not. One. Dime. For. Planned Parenthood.  Ever.

And regarding Richard Burr, it seems that Mr. Jones agrees with me.

1. The current incumbent senator went along with all of the Bush administration’s outrageous spending policies up to and including the multi-billion dollar TARP bail-out passed in Bush’s final hours in office. Just recently he aligned with Kay Hagan to toss away another 15 billion of our tax dollars on the fiasco known as “The Jobs Bill.” We already have one Democrat party too many, yet our incumbent senator did all he could to help George Bush outspend the Democrats and create a second Democrat party. Now, he continues to do so.

Next up we have Eddie Burks

Here’s the money quote:

The Death Tax needs to be killed, cremated and the ashes buried, scattered abroad and shot into space.  Now, I don’t come from a wealthy family and probably won’t inherit anything of any great value other than sentimental, but the Death Tax is one of the worst, most unfair taxes ever created.  How on earth does it make sense to punish the citizens of North Carolina who have already earned income, that has already been taxed, and simply want to leave a family farm, business and home to a future generation?  For a family to have to sell off an inherited property to give more money to feed a giant government is just cruel.  Who better to grow our economy with a family business than the family that created it?

According to The Caswell Messenger, Larry Linney doesn’t have a campaign site, just a Facebook, so no easy quotes for him.

They all seem like good guys.  And I’d be perfectly happy to see any of them oust Burr in the primary.