Medary.com

All afternoon, I've been sitting here, working my way through the web sites I downloaded from my Google Reader list this morning.

I'm not all the way through yet.

There's so much going on, and so little of it good for anyone, except Obama and his cronies.

This is, of course, a tactic on the part of the gang of collectivists and authoritarians who now hold all of the reins of power in the United States. Call it "flood the zone," call it the Cloward-Piven Strategy, call it being nibbled to death by ducks if you want. But simple freedom is now under attack from so many directions that it's getting difficult to be aware of all of the attacks any more.

I can easily see how most people will just tune things out, shrug and say "well, I'm sure it will all work out OK in the end." The problem is that collectivism never, ever works out well in the end. At best, the wealth of millions is squandered and destroyed for quixotic social programs which attempt to change the core of human behavior. At worst, people die. Lots of people.

So far, we're headed straight for the best case scenario I just mentioned--the mere collective impoverishment of the country to benefit the few who hold power and those who help them stay there. I don't want to live in a country like that.

Now that I've (I hope) sufficiently depressed and/or dismayed you, here's the list of the stuff I really don't want to read any more, but taken together paint a very, very disturbing picture of where this country is being taken by the Democrat leadership in Washington. I've tried to extract a single sentence or three from each of the articles (after the Read More, if you're on the main Medary.com page): FCC speech czar a myth, FCC threat to speech is real at the Technology Liberation Front:

(FCC associate general counsel and "chief diversity officer" Mark Lloyd's) paper stopped short of endorsing a return to the FCC’s old Fairness Doctrine, but not because Fairness Doctrine violated the principles of free speech, but because it was not “effective.” But the steps recommended in the study are explicitly intended to reach the same end by other means. And that end – changing the content of media through government action – is offensive to First Amendment values.

The day real Internet freedom died at the Technology Liberation Front:

. . . the presumption of online liberty is giving way to a presumption of regulation. A massive assault on real Internet freedom has been gathering steam for years and has finally come to a head. Ironically, victory for those who carry the banner of “Internet Freedom” would mean nothing less than the death of that freedom.

Coverage Story: Does the cost of uncompensated care justify forcing people to buy health insurance? at Reason Magazine:

These numbers are important because the president's main justification for requiring every American to buy health insurance, a central element of his reform plan, is that uninsured people unfairly impose costs on their fellow citizens. That rationale not only has a weak empirical basis; it conceals the real motivation for the individual insurance mandate while dodging moral and constitutional questions about it.

Alaskan oil abundance vs. Washington's wasted billions at Reason Magazine:

New oil drilling in Alaska and off America's coasts would create hundreds of thousands of American jobs and billions of dollars in real tax revenue for Washington. Compare that to government spending to create jobs, which costs some $200,000 per job. Furthermore, administration claims for alternative energy rarely mention the billions of dollars in subsidies, lost tax revenue, and new government debt they require.

Obama speech to the UN: The data at Openmarket,org

Myron has already pointed out how most of what the President claimed were the threats from global warming are exaggerated. Here’s the data to back that up.

How big is American government? at Cato@Liberty:

Federal, state, and local government spending will be 42 percent of U.S. gross domestic product in 2009, according to data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That’s huge–more than 4 out of every 10 dollars of everything produced in America now gets channeled through governments.

Video: the book on Democratic civility at Hot Air:

A cute “greatest hits” collection from the NRCC, which has so much material from this summer that it could keep the webads rolling for months. When Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer talk about the “un-American” protests at town-hall meetings, people can use this as a rebuttal. The Masterpiece Theater theme helps set the contrast between Democratic demands for civility and … Pete Stark’s interesting concept of “blessed urine,” for lack of a better term. Enjoy the stroll down Memory Lane.

Do Democrats ever learn from the past? at Gay Patriot:

The unhappy Barney Frank is at it again. Like many Democrats, this mean-spirited man from Massachusetts, has such faith in the power of government to right all wrongs that his House Financial Services Committee is moving forward on legislation to expand the reach of the Community Reinvestment Act. Yup, you read that right. So, what if that legislation contributed significantly to last fall’s financial meltdown. Barney’s fellow Democrats think it just needs a broader reach so . . .

Obama Needs a Health Care Plan Before he Engages the Public

So, let me offer a suggestion to the President on how to proceed, based on a comment I wrote in response to thoughtful commentary offered by one of our perennial critics. Before again going public with his push for an overhaul of health care, the President should sit down with legislators on both sides of the aisle to craft a bill specifying how they wish to effect those reforms.

The NEA: Defending the Indefensible at Big Hollywood:

Let’s also set aside the brazen arrogance. Despite rejecting and dismissing charges that this administration is attempting to turn the United States into a South American Banana Republic, these folks keep doing things that make Hugo Chavez envious. State run propaganda through the NEA, silencing critics with the stigma of “racism,” setting up official channels to rat out your neighbors for “thought crimes” with flag@whitehouse.gov, and restructuring our economy with wealth redistribution schemes like socialized medicine and cap and trade are just a few of their moves right from the Trotsky play book. And they do it all with righteous indignation. They claim that we students of history are too ignorant, too blinded by our prejudices, to really see what’s going on.

The Tragedy of the Unconstrained Vision at Big Hollywood:

Sowell argues that when it comes to the culture wars, each of us will be drawn to a specific trench not because of policies or parties but rather because of the vision we may hold of human beings and how they are constructed. He names these the Constrained and Unconstrained visions of humanity; Mankind either as constrained by his biology to moral weakness and self-interest, or, on the other hand, a creature unconstrained by his biology and therefore perfectible.

Worst Foreign Policy Ever? at Powerline:

A Washington Times editorial makes the case that Obama administration foreign policy is the worst foreign policy ever. It's an impressive indictment, and I happen to agree with it. Making the necessary changes, American foreign policy in the Age of Obama is what it would be if Alger Hiss or Advise and Consent's Robert Leffingwell were president. Michael Barone appropriately finds Obama caught in a time warp.

Then They Came for the Fresca, at Slate:

Wow. This isn't socialism. It's sheer paternalism. It applies even if you cover every cent of your medical expenses. You buy and drink soda because you want the "short-term gratification." Later, you regret this purchase because of its "long-term harm." This, according to the authors, is a market failure that justifies taxation to alter your behavior, totally apart from its impact on public health costs.

Acorn's a Creature of the CRA (Community Reinvestment Act), at RealClearMarkets:

Acorn found its way into the mortgage business through the Community Reinvestment Act, the 1977 legislation that community groups have used as a cudgel to force lenders to lower their mortgage underwriting standards in order to make more loans in low-income communities. Often the groups, after making protests under CRA, were then rewarded by banks with contracts to act as mortgage counselors in low-income areas in return for dropping their protests against the banks. In one particularly lucrative deal, 14 major banks eager to put CRA protests behind them in 1993 signed an agreement to have Acorn administer a $55 million, 11-city lending program. It was precisely such agreements that helped turn Acorn from a network of small local groups into a national player.

Democrats on path to repeat housing disaster at the Washington Examiner:

"From 1995 on, there was an incredible push by the Clinton and Bush administrations in every way they could -- CRA, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other ways -- to increase the homeownership rate," says Russell Roberts, a professor of economics at George Mason University. "What that did was to push up the price of housing, and that made it imaginable to lend money to people you never would have lent money to, on terms you wouldn't have done before."

ACORN’s Lobbying Shenanigans at Big Government:

Whether this reflects ACORN’s institutional carelessness or a calculated effort to deceive, the discovery throws some light on how ACORN treats its employees, moves money around the ACORN network, and deals with the federal government. Federal lawmakers have known for years about ACORN’s unorthodox and possibly illegal practices, including its use of government resources to promote legislation and its extensive commingling of funds within its network of affiliates.

Defending President McCain from Glenn Beck at Hot Air:

John McCain was not my choice for the GOP nomination. He ran a perfectly appalling campaign, all the more heartbreaking because he squandered the only exciting opportunity he managed to create: the selection of Sarah Palin. McCain’s greatest mistake, which America has not finished paying dearly for, was allowing the Democrat crooks behind the subprime crisis to skate away without penalty. The miscarriage of justice involved in leaving Barney Frank to happily count the money he looted from American taxpayers pales beside the damage he continues to inflict on the economy.

Remarks: Obama at the U.N. General Assembly, at Time.com:

The danger posed by climate change cannot be denied, and our responsibility to meet it must not be deferred. If we continue down our current course, every member of this Assembly will see irreversible changes within their borders. Our efforts to end conflicts will be eclipsed by wars over refugees and resources. Development will be devastated by drought and famine. Land that human beings have lived on for millennia will disappear.

FCC's Diversity Czar: 'White People' Need to be Forced to 'Step Down' 'So Someone Else Can Have Power' at Newsbusters.org:

As (Mark) Lloyd has said repeatedly if not exhaustively in writing, he thinks too few white people hold too many of this finite resource. And he has designed (in his 2006 book Prologue to a Farce) and co-authored (the 2007 Center for American Progress report "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio") a fee, fine and regulatory nightmare to effect a reduction in the number of the licenses they hold so that they may be redistributed to "more people of color, gays" and "other people."

I think that's quite enough, don't you?

William F. Buckley's definition of conservativism as "standing athwart history shouting 'STOP'" applies here, I think.

I just want to read some science fiction, work on my science fiction novel, maybe watch some tv, some football perhaps, spend a bit more time with my wife--you know, just live life. But NO!

I have to spend time pounding out article after article here trying to point out that what Obama and the Democrats are trying to do is dangerous and doomed to failure. People have tried this before. It doesn't work.

Freedom works. Collectivism--by any name, doesn't. The history of the United States taken in the context of world history proves that--or should prove it anyway.

But I'm afraid nobody studies history any more.