Summaries for petitions for a minimum wage increase proposal for the 2012 ballot in Missouri have been approved by the Secretary of State, meaning we'll see earnest, well-meaning, economically illiterate people with clipboards out in public places, asking for Missouri voters to put their signatures on petitions to approve a statewide vote to increase the minimum wage--and thereby put even more low-income people out of work.

We do this because we care so much about the poorest among us.

"Their" "democracy" anyway. From the New York Post:

The Zuccotti “cops” had just spent an hour and a half tracking Bezabeh through goat paths in the park armed with a description from the manager.

“We cannot take him in by ourselves, the cops have to come!” reiterates the OWS security force member.

They call the NYPD -- and it becomes abundantly clear that the cops down there are sick of the antics.

“Every single night it’s the same thing. I mean, some guy was a victim of rape!” an officer snarls. “There comes a time when it’s over. This is a disaster. It’s all we’re doing, every two seconds, is locking somebody up every time. It’s done.

“It’s done,” he repeats. “Occupy Wall Street is no longer a protest.”

Scenes like this -- and far worse -- have been playing out since the Zuccotti Park “occupation” began on Sept. 17.

The parcel is now a sliver of madness, rife with sex attacks, robberies and vigilante justice. . . .

“I’m in a tent that keeps getting flooded, ransacked and robbed,” fumes a transgender group leader -- a female who identifies as a male.

He said that the transgender group would create its own police force for transgender protesters and females, since an immense distrust loomed over the OWS-created authority. . . .

A day later, a female-only “safety tent” would be erected to shield women from predators.

Organizers plan to add a medical tent, as well as others designed to provide safe sleeping for gay, transgender and co-ed groups.

The threat of rape is very real here -- for women and men.

Sitting in the McDonald’s just moments after Bezabeh was hauled off in cuffs, Lauren DiGioia, 26, tells me about how she became one of the growing number of victims on her very first night in the park.

Via Instapundit.

This is what their "democracy" looks like. The strong preying on the weak simply because they can. The legitimate use of force to protect life, liberty, and property being completely suspended because someone, somewhere within that "democracy" might become offended that their "rights" (by which they mean their whims of the moment) are being violated--while at the same time aggressively and maliciously violating the actual human rights of countless other people in a myriad of ways--beginning by squatting on privately-owned land which does not belong to them.

This is what a steady parade of Democratic Party leaders ran to the microphones, stood in front of the media's cameras, and loudly and repeatedly praised with great praise, deceitfully and disingenuously comparing this mob of brigands, arsonists and rapists to Tea Parties that consistently left their demonstration areas cleaner than they found them. (And, by the way, not a single rape occurred at any Tea Party. Ever.) This is what a steady parade of Democratic Party operatives masquerading as objective reporters and journalists tried to sell to the American People as a genuine outpouring of grass-roots concern for the future of the country.

Yes, there are a lot of genuinely concerned people who have been sucked into the "Occupy" madness. They are nothing but useful idiots. Which should cause you to ask the question: who's using them?

Who started this "Occupy" thing? Who fanned its flames? Who benefits from mayhem and chaos? Who believes a crisis should never go to waste? Ask questions. And then, and this is important, ask the next question.

The root cause of many of our problems today is that people--especially elected officials, never ask the next question.

It's your country. It's your responsibility.

ASK THE NEXT QUESTION.

Why is it that Democrats can say any damn thing that pops into their head (if it's slanderous to Republicans, that is) regardless of the actual truth of the statement, and never, ever suffer any real consequences? The major media never calls on them to "apologize," let alone suffer any actual consequences for their inveterate lying.

Joe Biden should resign as Vice President for his "rape is up" comments attacking Republicans. Somebody that egregiously, breathtakingly, criminally stupid should not be allowed to operate heavy equipment, let alone be a heartbeat away from the Presidency.

And don't get me started about President "Goldman Sachs" "Let me be clear while I set up this false-choice strawman" Obama . . .

One of the most egregious flaws of the United States Constitution is that it failed to lay out specific, significant penalties for public officials and elected representatives who fail to abide by the requirements and limits of the Constitution.

The Founders naively believed that the people themselves would be both willing and able to defend their Constitution, and would be willing and able to punish Presidents, Senators, Representatives, and other federal officials who transgress against the Constitution's limits on governmental power.

The result is a Federal government far, far, FAR larger and more intrusive into the people's lives than the Founders could ever have contemplated in their worst nightmares. Depending on the issue, and depending on the situation, people of good will on the left, the center, and the right of the political spectrum have been outraged at the actions of Presidents, the Congress, and the Federal government in which we, the people have delegated a portion (but only a portion) of our rights, privileges and immunities, and have watched in horror as the Legislative, the Executive, and the Judicial branches of the Federal government have steadily arrogated power to themselves and steadily constrained and restricted the freedoms and liberties of the people.

We, the people, should fix that problem.

I propose the following amendment to the U.S. Constitution:

Section 1. Constitutional malfeasance shall consist of the action of any elected, appointed, or otherwise authorized representative of the people of the United States who, while purporting to act under color of the legitimate powers delegated by the People to the United States government by this Constitution, approves any law or regulation, makes any ruling, finding or determination, or sets into motion any action or process of the United States government which violates or abridges the rights and privileges of any citizen of the United States.

Section 2. This Constitution shall be interpreted at all times according to the plain intent and common meaning of the words of this Constitution, and shall be interpreted at all times in a manner that restricts the activities of the government and preserves the liberties, rights, privileges and immunities of the People.

Section 3. The supreme Court of any of the Several States shall have authority upon presentation of satisfactory evidence under this article to make a finding of Constitutional malfeasance.

Section 4. The supreme Court of the United States and any such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish shall have authority upon presentation of satisfactory evidence, make a finding of constitutional malfeasance.

Section 5. Any citizen of the United States shall have standing to make a complaint of Constitutional malfeasance to any State court or any court of the United States, and the disposition of such complaints shall be disposed of in a serious and timely manner.

Section 6. Congress shall, by three fourths majority of both houses, be empowered to make a finding of Constitutional malfeasance by a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States.

Section 7. Any person found to have committed Constitutional malfeasance shall, regardless of any subsequent disposition of the matter, from the date of the finding and forever more be ineligible to serve the United States or any State in any position of trust or authority; and shall from the date of the finding and forever more be ineligible to receive any salary, pension, payment, remuneration, or monetary benefit of any kind whatsoever from the United States or any State. Such ineligibility shall not be subject to review or appeal.

Section 8. Any Representative, Senator, President, Justice, Judge, or Officer of the United States who is found to have committed Constitutional malfeasance shall be fined no less than ten million dollars, such amount to be distributed in equal measure to any and all citizens of the United States whose rights and privileges were abridged or violated. Such fine shall be subject to review and appeal in the usual and customary manner for judicial appeals.

Section 9. Any Representative, Senator, President, Justice, Judge, or Officer of the United States who is found to have committed Constitutional malfeasance shall be imprisoned for no less than ten years. Such imprisonment shall be subject to review and appeal in the usual and customary manner for judicial appeals, however no person shall be released from imprisonment until and unless that person is found not guilty on appeal.

Section 10. Congressional authority under this Article shall be limited to that authority delegated to it by the People in Section 6, and that Congress may modify the amount of the fine described in Section 8, and the length of imprisonment in Section 9, except that neither the fine nor the imprisonment shall be less than that described in this Article.

Update: Performed some minor edits to the Amendment.

There are, in fact, two Republican Parties.

One can be called the "Establishment Republican Party." This includes most of the elected Republicans, the Republican Party organization, their corporate (crony) supporters and that (small) proportion of the media who are not full-blown collectivists. They are The Republican Party as we have come to know and not-so-love today.

The other might be called the "Main Street Republican Party." This includes most of the people who actually vote for Republicans, in the hopes that the Establishment Republicans actually, this time, will come through on their campaign rhetoric of trying to return government to its proper Constitutional boundaries, and generally getting the government off of their backs. If you remember the old "Peanuts" comic strip, the Main Street Republicans play Charlie Brown to the Establishment Republican's Lucy, who always pulled the football away at the very last second after holding it for Charlie Brown to kick.

Sarah Palin is one of the few prominent Republicans on the national scene who, when elected, did not defect from the Main Street Republicans to the Establishment. This earned her the scorn and enmity of the Establishment Republicans that, if anything, exceeded the vitriol she attracted from her natural enemies, the collectivists of the Democrat Party.

It is the Establishment Republicans who are now dancing joyously upon Sarah Palin's political grave, after her announcement that she will not pursue the GOP Presidential nomination in 2012. Among the most vigorous of those dancers was Eric Erickson, an Establishment Republican operative who runs the web site redstate.org.

Stacy McCain has a post and an article up about Palin's announcement.

This is the comment I posted on his blog:

I wonder how many people Erickson and the rest of the mindless knee-jerk snarkmeister Palin-haters sent away from the effort to unseat Obama, install a liberty-oriented Congress, and restore the Constitutional Republic?

Granted there were a lot of people who were engaged in Palin hero worship, but unlike most politicians, Palin herself wasn't doing anything to encourage that. As far as I could tell, all of her public comments re-directed the attention back to the public policy issues and the problems faced by this country. Whenever she was asked if she was running, her response was consistently a variation on the theme of "I'm praying about it and talking to my family." And surprise! her decision was based on prayer and what she thought was best for her family. What a tease! She's obviously just in it for the money!

The Palin-haters of the right made the basic mistake of conflating the over-enthusiastic Palinistas with Palin herself. That's the thing I found most frustrating and appalling. In the process, they may very well have successfully taken a sizable chunk of the liberty coalition and sent them to the sidelines. And the grave-dancing I've seen in various places in response to Palin's announcement will keep a lot of people on the sidelines.

Everyone needs to remember that politics is people. People have feelings, and people have memories. You don't burn sources if you're a professional journalist, and you don't burn political allies if you're really interested in winning elections. Some Palinistas forgot this, but a whole bunch of Palin-haters on the right forgot it, too.

I hope we don't all pay for decades for their self-indulgent juvenile spite.

The people who supported Palin now will decide who, if anyone, they will get behind for President in 2012. The antics of the Establishment Republicans both before and after Palin's announcement will be a factor in that decision.

Actions, and words, have consequences.

But really: If you're not protesting against President Goldman Sachs, you're not protesting against "Wall Street."; You're just a hack. Sorry. “The modern anarchists are just the far-left’s muscle. Look at when and where they show up, who they march with and for, and how carefully the press ignores them and their acts.”

The ignorant souls with their inchoate grievances who began to gather in Wall Street at the call of Marxists (Van Jones) and anti-Semites (Ad-Busters) either don't realize or don't care that they're being used by the powerful to maintain their power--or they simply want to join the club of the powerful.

They are absolutely correct, that things are wrong and spinning further out of control. They are sadly and disastrously misled by the major media and their "leaders" as to the causes and the cures of our problems. The purpose of the Wall Street demonstrations is to maintain in power the very people who have caused the problems in the first place.

Posted as a comment over at Big Government

There is a Media-Government Complex, even more dangerous and corrosive of liberty as Eisenhower's "military/industrial complex" (which, if you actually go back and read Eisenhower's speech--he's warning against much the same crony capitalism that Palin highlighted once again in Indianola, Iowa.

Eisenhower:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military/industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

"We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. "

Palin::

"Ever notice how so many of them arrive in Washington, D.C. of modest means and then miraculously throughout the years they end up becoming very, very wealthy? Well, it’s because they derive power and their wealth from their access to our money – to taxpayer dollars. They use it to bail out their friends on Wall Street and their corporate cronies, and to reward campaign contributors, and to buy votes via earmarks. There is so much waste. And there is a name for this: It’s called corporate crony capitalism. This is not the capitalism of free men and free markets, of innovation and hard work and ethics, of sacrifice and of risk. No, this is the capitalism of connections and government bailouts and handouts, of waste and influence peddling and corporate welfare. This is the crony capitalism that destroyed Europe’s economies. It’s the collusion of big government and big business and big finance to the detriment of all the rest – to the little guys. It’s a slap in the face to our small business owners – the true entrepreneurs, the job creators accounting for 70% of the jobs in America, it’s you who own these small businesses, you’re the economic engine, but you don’t grease the wheels of government power."

So we're told that the downgrading of the United States government's credit rating by Standard and Poor's is because of the Tea Parties.

Uh, yeah.

That's exactly like the alcoholic (who just spent a drunken night at the casino maxing out his credit card while losing all of his money on "sure thing" plays and burning out his liver with twenty straight shots of tequila) blaming his alcohol poisoning/hangover on his family who are doing the intervention on him to try to save his life.

EXACTLY like that.

The problem isn't really the credit card debt at all.

The problem is the trip to the casino.

The entire welfare state mentality of the "progressives" is the problem--the idea that you can buy a better society with somebody else's money. It works, just like alcohol works at first to make you feel better. But eventually, inevitably, the hangover comes, if you go too far with the alcohol. The problem is that for the "progressives," "too far" is never far enough. There is no problem that can't be solved with another hit from the bottle. It never enters their mind that at some point, the bottle is empty, and there's no more money in their pockets to buy another. Because there will always be somebody else who will give them another bottle, or give them the money to buy another fifth.

Won't there?

The sob story has always worked in the past for the "progressives." You see, they have a system, a sure thing to beat the casino and hit the jackpot, and all they need is a bit more cash and a bit more time to make it work, and besides they have all those kids at home to feed, and you wouldn't want kids to go hungry, would you? And until now, they've always found someone who will believe them.

The Tea Party people have finally stood up and said: No, you don't have a system that works. You're a drunk, and you're addicted to gambling. You need to get sober, and you need to stay out of casinos. For the rest of your life. Or it will kill you.

The only sure cure for what ails this country--and the entire world--is freedom, and its necessary corollary, personal responsibility. But the drunk "progressives" aren't ready to hear that, yet. Which means that things will get worse before they begin to get better.

Sounds like a 500 point, 4.3% drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average in one day. As Ace points out, the Dow is down 6% since Tuesday. Thats . . . um . . . three days ago.

What could possibly have happened--say--last weekend, perhaps--to tip the applecart over at just this exact time?

The only good news coming out of today is that -- for now -- the world's investors have (improbably) flocked to U.S. Government securities as the only remaining relatively safe refuge. So it's possible that the other shoe may not drop immediately.

But look at the cash burn rate of the Federal Government. Look at the unfunded obligations of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in the next few years. The other shoe is dropping. It is dropping NOW. And thanks to Obama, the Democrats, and yes the Republicans in Washington, when the other shoe hits the American public on the head, it is going to hurt.

A lot.

The Federal government's budget needs to be balanced. Not next year. Not in ten years.

Tomorrow.

Half-measures and politically-determined tactics designed only to win the next election won't cut it any more. But nobody in Washington, D.C. seems to realize that. And what's worse, it seems that most people outside Washington don't realize it, either.

But reality has this really nasty habit of whapping inattentive people upside the heads, and doing it very, very vigorously.

I think that question says everything you really need to know about which party is actually trying to fix the problem, and which one is cynically using it as a political billy-stick against the American people.