Mark Steyn has an excellent piece over at NRO today about the degredation of Greece, and it as a model of how socialist policies there (and in Europe as a whole) have driven it to the verge of disaster. Are we headed there? Directionally, Steyn says, yes. But there’s still time to recover. It starts off:

While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand-new, even-more-unsustainable entitlement at the health-care “summit,” thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen — because they’re part of the same story. It’s just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They’re at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is farther upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter Twenty (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter Seventeen or Eighteen.

And it ends:

Think of Greece as California: Every year an irresponsible and corrupt bureaucracy awards itself higher pay and better benefits paid for by an ever-shrinking wealth-generating class. And think of Germany as one of the less profligate, still-just-about-functioning corners of America such as my own state of New Hampshire: Responsibility doesn’t pay. You’ll wind up bailing out anyway. The problem is there are never enough of “the rich” to fund the entitlement state, because in the end it disincentivizes everything from wealth creation to self-reliance to the basic survival instinct, as represented by the fertility rate. In Greece, they’ve run out Greeks, so they’ll stick it to the Germans, like French farmers do. In Germany, the Germans have only been able to afford to subsidize French farming because they stick their defense tab to the Americans. And in America, Obama, Pelosi, and Reid are saying we need to paddle faster to catch up with the Greeks and Germans. What could go wrong?

I highly recommend reading the whole thing.

- Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

Let’s explore the law of unintended consequences.  The monstrous Obamacare National Healthcare Takeover wasn’t the only casualty of US Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-MA) election.  The dropping out of Patrick Kennedy is another obvious one, sure.  And I’m also positive there will be many Democrats running into the arms of retirement who would not have before Brown’s election.

But think about this one:  Scott Brown may have saved New York City from having the 9/11 KSM Show Trial held in their backyard.  Why?  Well, before Brown’s election, there were only scant peeps — mostly Republicans — opposing the Obama-Holder plan to showcase KSM & Co. in Manhattan.

SINCE Scott Brown’s election, the roar of disapproval about the 9/11 trials has become so loud that Obama himself has capped Holder at the knees.  Media reports now say a military trial is likely, perhaps even held at GITMO.

Elections have consequences, my friends.  Sen. Scott Brown’s is the gift that keeps on giving back to America every single day.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

I know, I know. I should really be counting my blessings. And I hate to piss on our parade. A HUGE sweep in Virginia (expected) and an incredibly pleasant surprise up in New Jersey (I have to be honest, I wasn’t counting on that, but WOW!). All GOPers should be glad this morning as both major candidates of the party were successful in knocking the ruling power of these two states out and replacing them with Republicans.

On the other hand, I have to say…

Now, I’m a Republican–registered and active (as far as the Hatch Act allows me)–and as such, I’m bully for our side, as they say. But I’m first and foremost, beyond party affiliation, a small-government, low-tax, individual-liberty small-’l’ libertarian. And from that perspective, something else happened last night:

In a solidly (for over a century, we’re constantly being told) Republican district, the clear fiscal conservative lost in (ostensibly) a two-man race against a leftist lawyer. While the constituencies of New Jersy and Virginia alone each dwarf that of NY-23, and together render it completely negligable, something larger happened last night that gives me great pause as to the direction of our great Nation.

It’s not simply a (yet another) Congressional rubber-stamp vote for the Stalinization of the American health care industry, massive tax increases, enormous government expansion and Pelosiesque class warfare that was garnered last night. It was, in a conservative district a repudiation of smaller government and lower taxes, fiscal responsibility and individual liberty. Clearly the only candidate in NY-23 last night running on shaping the US the way small-government, small-’l’ libertarians desire lost. And not in Manhattan or Hollywood. Not in Hyde Park or Washington, DC. In rural, upstate New York.

The entire NY-23 episode was a healthy blood-letting for the GOP, yes. We have proven to all who question that ours is the party of fiscal restraint, personal responsibilty, individual freedom, and smaller Federal government. Ask Ms. Scuzzafava about that.

But a bigger question seems to remain, thanks to Congressman-elect Bill Owens: Can we turn these core American beliefs into an actual movement? This summer’s tea parties and rallies against big-government gave me hope about a new American sense of Independence. The repudiation of this newly-reborn sense of respect for our founding principles last night in (of all places) upstate New York gives me great concern about our Nation and its ability to embrace these precepts that are the very basis of our unique experiment in the first place.

The bottom-line is this: Over the past 9 months, we have heard every political pundit and web-spinner worth his salt interpreting poll results and the general mood of the Country as basically this:

While the president remains terribly popular on a personal level, Americans are en-masse revolting against his policies. They like Barack Obama; they just don’t like what he’s trying to do. His personal approval ratings are still quite high, but his policies are terribly unpopular.

Bla, bla bla.

Virginia and (to an even greater extent) New Jersey tell us that President Obama is wildly unpopular. Not able even to deliver the bluest-of-blue Garden State to an incumbent(!), and the gubernatorial vote swinging about 25% from his victory in last year’s presidential contest clearly shows that the president’s political wave has ebbed to say the least. On the other hand, a red district (historically, yes, I know it went to Obama last year) in rural New York just sent a guaranteed vote for Nancy Pelosi and every cockamaime big-government Leftist scheme to the House of Representatives. This turns every political analysis of the past spring, summer, and fall on its ear.

From where I’m standing, I’d have traded New Jersey and Virginia for NY-23. Am I crazy? Please say so.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

Today President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010 which includes language making it illegal for a person basically to think the wrong things while committing a crime.

Yes, the Defense Authorization includes the pearl of Leftists, Hate Crimes (sic) language.

Before I get too far into what will necessarily be a mischaracterization of what I want to say here, let me be perfectly clear: I think those who support this legislation more or less have the best intentions in mind. I, too, am disgusted by the crimes against Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. I am glad that those who perpetrated these vilinous acts against Shepard are currently each serving two consecutive life sentences. They will never again see the light of day. Meanwhile, two of the three murderers of Byrd are awaiting their executions while the third is currently serving life in prison.

What must be realized, however, is that the fates of these five men are symbols of how the justice system in America worked without the need for a hate crimes act.

Plain and simple, this is a law that criminalizes what someone is thinking.

All instances of its execution necessarily have contingent upon them the breaking of a law that already exists, and the justice that certainly follows thereafter. All that will happen is that an accused person will be held criminally liable for thinking things.

This law is brought forth with all the best of intentions and I don’t think those who support it realize how insidious and counter to our system of liberty it really is. It’s truly the stuff of Orwell

It is an abomination of liberty, and hopefully the Supreme Court will knock down its clearly unconstitutional basis.

That said, it is incredibly poetic that in July, anti-gun activists celebrated the defeat of a rider to the same bill that would have made it easier for law-abiding citizens to travel among the states with concealed weapons.

Tell you what: If you want to stop hate crimes, here’s a first step: Allow people to defend themselves!

It seems to me that these two riders tell the story of the Left in America today: Trust us. We’ll take care of things for you. Leave your liberties aside and put your faith in the government to take care of you.

It troubles me.

- Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

I somehow missed the videos from “Thomas Paine” that went viral a few months ago. I rather like these and I find it hilarious that the guy portraying Paine is a former actor from the 70s Hawaii Five-O TV show!

While this video is addressed to President Obama, what I find interesting about it is that it could be directed at just about every president and congresscritter that have been in office during my lifetime. Basso’s choice of Thomas Paine to portray in these videos is probably quite appropriate as the real Paine if he were around today would be taking all of our politicians to the proverbial woodshed.

– John (Average Gay Joe)

Mark Steyn at NRO hits the health care nail squarely on the head in a piece published yesterday. What I’ve been screaming since the debate began (and goes along great with my New Independence Movement concept) he has a much better way of saying calmly and to great effect: That we concede the noble high-ground if we allow the debate to be about anything other than liberty and responsibility. I remember from history class that this Nation fought a war for that once. From Steyn:

How did the health-care debate decay to the point where we think it entirely natural for the central government to fix a collective figure for what 300 million freeborn citizens ought to be spending on something as basic to individual liberty as their own bodies?

Too much in this great piece for me to cut-and-paste the good stuff. You MUST read the whole thing.

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot, from HQ)

I’ve been disappointed with the response I have received from my earlier post on Sarah Palin and what her seeming withdrawl from politics may mean for the cause of individual responsibility and freedom in America.

Most have treated it as an opportunity to opine on her chances and what her exit may mean to the party and/or it’s/her chances for 2012. I think, however, my disappointment is in my own lack of clarity.

Perhaps I could put a finer point on it and hopefully spark a conversation on the idea I’m looking to develop:

How can we, as conservatives, help promote and develop within our Ameican society a sense of self-sufficiency and self-reliance that will further the ideals of our Nation’s founding?

We’ve seen over the past decade or so how Republicans as well as Democrats have escalated the size, cost, and intrusion of the Federal government. Yet far too often we trouble ourselves with the details and tactics of politics and getting people elected or ousted. Secondarily only do we concern ourselves with the anti-liberty policies these people pass (and by then, far too late).

In the end (frankly, in the beginning), it really comes down to promoting these ideals that will move the proper agenda forward. Believe me, with the right thinking again in America, the question of who is elected will hardly be a matter of concern.

So the question becomes: What sort of work can we do to develop a new sense of self-sufficiency and self-reliance in our Nation? What can we do to promote the concept that the answers to our problems lie within the individual rather than in the government?

How can we begin A New Independence Movement in America?

Thoughts?

-Nick (ColoradoPatriot), from HQ