Americans are Poorly Served at the Welfare Table
by Carl Mumpower
Americans are Poorly Served at the Welfare Table
Dr. Carl Mumpower
As a country that works far more often than it does not, our future rests on the same American Success Equation of liberty, opportunity, and responsibility that has uplifted generations past. In today's America, there is a struggle to determine whether this equation, or one deceptively labeled as social welfare, will determine our future.
As a vision, the concept of welfare has much to offer. The desire to help our fellow man beats strongly in the hearts of most Americans, but sadly, when man plays God, it is difficult to match the vision to the reality. What results from the stumbling rescue attempts of government, bureaucracies, and even the well-intended is rarely and truly helpful.
Today in America, we embrace four approaches to social welfare, beginning with the most visible - individual welfare. It is hard to argue with the mission of uplifting those needing a helping hand. Unfortunately, as most often practiced, individual welfare has more to do with help to get by versus help to get ahead. The result is an assured relationship of hostile dependency that robs participants of their dignity and autonomy in an expensive exchange for subsistence and hollow hopes.
Community welfare is an overlooked phenomenon that has you and me sending our taxes to Washington to be skimmed and returned to us through a rigged lottery of earmarks and handouts devoted to political special interests. In today's America, those defined as the best politicians are those most able to bring home the bacon - the fact that this bacon was ours to begin with gets lost in the spin.
Corporate welfare has our legislators passing laws granting special privilege to business interests that should be sinking or swimming in our free market economy strictly on their own merits. The subprime loan bailout, relocation incentives, cronyism with Halliburton, and a gerrymandered tax system are all examples of corporate welfare that feeds business special interests at the expense of our collective interests.
The fourth leg of the social welfare table stands on one-sided trade welfare relationships that we have allowed to flourish for decades. The closed markets of Japan, currency manipulations by China, and trademark and patent indifferences practiced by just about everyone else are forms of trade welfare that we tolerate through indifference, habit, or possibly even intentional policy. The results are a "fly now - pay later" philosophy that ignores realty and mortgages our grandchildren's futures.
Grounded in the policies of Roosevelt's hope generating "New Deal", many Democrats have a long-standing marriage to most forms of welfare as a means to cementing loyalties. Republican behavior of the past decade has more than demonstrated that party's vulnerability to similar thinking applied to their own list of preferred customers. In both cases, politicians carry heavy responsibility for manipulating the public into believing that handouts are more about uplifting the downtrodden than upholding the powerful.
It remains that in God's world there is no way around personal responsibility and that the only real love is that which helps people step up versus find a way to sit down. Whether it is an individual, community, business, or country, there is no escaping that living from the labors of others sidesteps the potentials of liberty, opportunity, and responsibility beating in the heart of the American Dream.
America is fighting for its future and yet many of us do not even know there is a struggle. Our politicians and many media outlets continue to seduce us with hollow assurances and distractions that mock the seriousness of our situation.
Yet history tells us, when faced with adversity, Americans can always find a right way forward. The beginning of that process is the realization that we are in real danger of losing the way we have now - and that the outcome will certainly not be in support of our welfare.
Carl Mumpower
11th District Republican Congressional Candidate
www.mumpower08.com
Stories You Thought You Knew,
Lies in the Media Exposed
I'm sure you all remember Mohamed al-Dura (pictured, top left) the 12-year old boy who was allegedly shot by Israeli troops at Netzarim junction in September 2000. As you also know, a French court is currently hearing an appeal from the slander conviction of French businessman Phillipe Karsenty for claiming that a fraud was perpetrated and that Israeli troops could never have shot al-Dura.
On Wednesday night, Cable News Channel 10 ran a story (a Hebrew newscast which I could only get to run using Internet Explorer!) that claims that the scars that Jamal al-Dura - Mohamed's father - claims that he received during the same incident in which Muhammed was killed - were in fact the results of an attack by a gang of 'Palestinians' in 1992 and subsequent surgery from 1994 which grafted a tendon from his foot into his right arm. The story includes an interview with the Israeli surgeon who treated al-Dura in 1994, and who says that there is no way those scars game from gunshots. Here's more from Nidra Poller at PJM:
|MAVERICK NEWS NETWORK| Another al-Dura fraud: Jamal's scars not from shooting
On November 29, 2007... It happened again.
The Western media including the Reporters Without Borders organization reported:
11 close family members of Jordanian-based Baathist reporter Dia al-Kawwaz, who runs the online anti-Iraq newspaper Shabeqat Akhbar al-Iraq, were slaughtered in Baghdad. The attack occurred in the Al-Shaab neighborhood shortly after 7 a.m. Shia militia men shot dead two of Kawwaz’s sisters, their husbands and their seven children, aged 5 to 10. They then exploded the house on their way out.
This made headlines around the world.
This was a lie, too.
Two days later, the "dead family members" of Dia Al-Kawwaz appeared on Iraqi television smiling and waving to the cameras.They managed to convince the Iraqi audience that they were in fact quite alive.
** Not one Western Media Organization showed this photo or film of the waving family members.
Not one.
|GATEWAY PUNDIT| Its a Quagmire!... Media Reports 6 Bogus Stories in 6 Weeks!
These are just a few of the examples of the propaganda pushed upon us by the anti-American Legacy Media. Only now, there are people watching them to expose their lies.
News Links for Dec 15th
WNC
|ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES| CHAMPS AGAIN: Mountaineers win FCS championship (with video)
|BLUE RIDGE BLOG| On Appalachian State and Alpacas...|GO ASU| THRICE IS NICE: APPS ROUT DELAWARE FOR THIRD-STRAIGHT NATIONAL TITLE
|MACON NEWS| Is it a Christmas miracle? Driver walks away after dropping 18-wheeler 80+ feet into gorge|THE MOUNTAINEER| Car Wash accident claims woman's life
|ASHVEGAS| What's in the news: Bobby Medford arrested
|BOTHWELL'S BLOG| More on the Medford mess
|ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES| Friday arrests: Clerk accused of stealing lottery tickets
|MACON NEWS| Asheville Symphony orchestra to perform holiday concert at Western December 15|THE MOUNTAIN TIMES| Local Business To Be Featured In Farmers Almanac TV Broadcast
|HILLBILLY WHITE TRASH| Hijinks expected
|HENDERSONVILLE POST| Church Shootings on Rise In U.S.
|SYLVA HERALD| Dillsboro glows for holidays
|HICKORY DAILY RECORD| Parent asks ACLU to help block school dress code|ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES| Medford: Fall from power and grace
|ASHEVILLE CITIZEN-TIMES| Lake Julian Festival of Lights continues today, Sunday
|THE MOUNTAINEER| Waynesville's new mayor
|HENDERSONVILLE TIMES-NEWS| Body found in Brevard identified
|HENDERSONVILLE TIMES-NEWS| Benefactor: New All Creatures site defaced
North Carolina News
PINEHURST — Bill Kristol, Fox News political analyst and editor of The Weekly Standard, recently addressed a John Locke Foundation Headliner luncheon in Pinehurst. He also discussed the 2008 presidential campaign with Mitch Kokai for Carolina Journal Radio.
|CAROLINA JOURNAL| Kristol on 2008|HENDERSONVILLE POST| Dole Anti-Hunger Included In Senate-Passed Farm Bill
At the state's urging, a Johnston County judge on Friday told a farmer he couldn't open his farm next week to Muslim families planning to slaughter lambs as part of an annual religious celebration.
|RALEIGH NEWS & OBSERVER| Mass lamb slaughter is halted|GREENSBORO NEWS & RECORD| Officers wary of crack releases
|GREENSBORO NEWS & RECORD| Fight disrupts Grimsley
North Carolina News
HALIFAX - Solemn faces prevailed Wednesday as the Halifax County Schools District Board of Education was told the dire news. Its financial books are in shambles and there were numerous instances of mismanagement and potential fraud detected in an independent audit of the district.
|ROANOKE RAPIDS DAILY HERALD| Halifax Schools fail audit test|CHARLOTTE OBSERVER| Mackey obtains bond, wants to take office
|CHARLOTTE OBSERVER| S.C. sheriff's deputy dies following chase
|WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL| Winning the championship 'never gets old'
for ASU fans
|RALEIGH NEWS & OBSERVER| Subsidy-rich farm bill gets Senate's approval
|INNER BANKS EAGLE| Battle Hymn Of The Republic
|CAROLINA JOURNAL| Better Mental Health Through Less State Control
Progressive Asheville Up In Arms Over Poem Honoring Veterans
According to this article in the Mountain Xpress, Veteran-haters, America-haters, anti-War types, and Progressives don't want the following poem included on a Veterans Memorial planned for Asheville (despite Lefty attempts to kill lit) sometime soon:
It is the Veteran...
It is the VETERAN, not the preacher, who has given us freedom of religion
It is the VETERAN, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press
It is the VETERAN, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech
It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble
It is the VETERAN, not the politician, who has given us the right to vote
It is the VETERAN
Who salutes the flag
Who serves under the flag
Whose coffin is draped by the flag.
Thank you Veterans.
I ran across the controversy on a local Yahoo! Group, where noted Progressives were trying to insist that the poem denigrated, or put down everyone except soldiers (when the poem mentions veterans), and in the Xpress article some even reaching into their nether regions to drag forth various reasons to protest:
Wally Bowen was watching BCTV, the county-government access channel, when a poem titled “It is the Veteran” appeared on the screen during a brief segment on the planned WNC Veterans Memorial. Bowen, who is executive director of the nonprofit Mountain Area Information Network, says he’d been considering buying a brick on the memorial (for a donation of $500 or more), but he has problems with the choice of poem.“I support veterans,” he explains. “There are a lot of veterans in my family, going all the way back to the Battle of King’s Mountain [in 1780], but the poem kept nagging at me.”
To Bowen, the poem is “a grave misrepresentation of American history. Our founders had deep misgivings about the influence of the military and of standing armies. We have a long tradition of the military being under civilian control. The rule of law is what ensures our freedoms. This flips that on its head.”
I would call "Bullshit!" on the allegation that he was considering buying a brick, I'll let that one slide for now...it is merely pretext for giving him "gravitas" for the take down of the poem, which otherwise would not be possible given his anti-war views. His second statement is what I wish to call attention to, where he engages in building himself (calling upon those of his ancestors who were veterans) up so that he might takedown the poem. Then he says, "but," remeber, when someone says "blah blah but, blah blah" know that the speaker doesn't really believe all that went before, it is merely a device to get to what they really want to say. In his case, the poem kept nagging at him.
I'll just bet it did. When I hear that poem, I am thankful for the service of our brave boys and girls, upon whose broad and tall shoulders I stand.
Wally goes on to bring in a complete misdirection away from giving tribute to veterans, and bringing up boogie men to with which to frighten people.
Nowhere in the poem are standing armies mentioned, and he goes on to tell a bald-faced lie...that the rule of law ensures our freedoms, to which I say:
"Oh, really? I never read about the lawyers who sued King George for our Freedom. And I don't recall the lawyers who served a summons to appear in court over secession from the Union. I'm sure the Kaiser would have recalled his troops back to Germany, as would have Hitler, Tojo, and Saddam Hussein.
Force of arms were required in everyone of those cases, and civilians were transformed into soldiers to get the job done, whereupon the survivors became veterans when they returned to civilian life."
Wally Bowen cannot see that through his socialist-stained glasses that hold meritorious achievement in disdain.
Let me help you understand just who Wally Bowen is, in case you aren't familiar with him:
Profile on Media Literacy
An appearance on Democracy Now!
One of his websites, IndyLink, which is full of progressive links.
Another profile, on the Media Giraffe Project
Just be aware of who Wally Bowen is before you take him to be a person wishing to honor veterans on their merits. I'm sure he would prefer a statute honoring "workers" instead of "veterans."
It is time more people began to stand up to this kind of nonsense from the left, and time that the regular people took Asheville back from these cretins!
Appearing before a raucous Duke University audience, Rove said public opinion polls suggest that if Clinton captures the Democratic nomination, she will have a difficult time defeating the Republican nominee, even though she is far better known.
If voters want change, Rove said, Clinton may not be the best spokeswoman.
"For Senator Clinton, it's difficult to make the argument for change when she wants to go back to the '90s," Rove told more than 1,000 students at Page Auditorium.
Rove, who left the White House in August, had been the principal political strategist for President George W. Bush throughout his political career. He spent the bulk of his nearly 90-minute talk defending the Bush years, including the war in Iraq.
Most students were polite, but Rove was frequently interrupted by members of the audience who shouted "liar" or who accused the administration of sanctioning terror. He also was applauded at times, especially when he discussed the sacrifices of those serving in Iraq.
Rove seemed unrattled through the evening, although he dismissed one hostile questioner as a "kook."
"You're a murderer," someone shouted.
"I don't like to be slandered," Rove shot back.
Source: Raleigh News & Observer
Commentary
When are conservatives going to rise up, stand on their hind legs, and start giving lefty speakers a taste of the same medicine? I'll bet they would not stand for it. And neither should we.
