Know Yourself and Stand Firm

I feel in my heart that our nation is at an epoch of epic proportions. We are on the verge of surrendering every aspect of our existence to our government. We are being led by politicians whose main goal is the accumulation of power. Most of them are wealthy by the standards of the average American, but they berate us about paying our 'fair share'. They have a superior health and benefits package while strangling the 'private' insurance and health care industries with regulation. They fly around in jets and ride to events in limousines while berating us for our fuel consumption. They speak of corruption while pandering to lobbyists. The list goes on. Need I say more? Will you spend the rest of you life merely complaining, or will you finally take action?

Conservatives complain about the Liberal majority in Washington, Hollywood, the arts, and education, but do nothing to change it. They bemoan the Liberal stranglehold on political discussion, but do nothing to fight back. They belly ache about the Liberal majority in Congress and our Socialist President, but bear the responsibility of having put them there. They complain about political art depicting Bush as the devil in an SS uniform, but produce nothing to counteract the propaganda. They complain about a government that does not represent the people, is rife with corruption, and continue to vote for the same 'Republican' turncoats and fence-riders. They complain about the Liberal propaganda in film and music, but do nothing to produce or support Conservative values. They complain about the Liberal dogma in our public school and universities, but sit idly by when a professor begins a speech by saying "I wrote this to piss off all the Conservatives in the crowd". Merely being angry is not enough and is, in fact, a reward to the Left. It is their intention to make us angry. They revel in and applaud themselves for it.

Most Republicans have been brainwashed and intimidated by the PC Squad. Is this how you exercise your freedom of speech? Do you have so little faith in your own principles that you will not fight for them? Do you have so little confidence in your own opinions that you will allow them to be stifled? Does your self-esteem mean so little to you that it is maintained by the approval and acceptance of those who would have you censored?

Liberals in power and those who are celebrities have no intention of paying us the level of respect we deserve. Why do we extend them our blessings and our tolerance in return? There is a huge chasm between being a good person and rolling over for the enemy. Why do you fling yourselves into the abyss?

I have found that it is impossible to discuss differing political points of view with the average person. For some reason, most people, regardless of perspective cannot have a discussion based on reason and facts. They are always reduced to emotions. Republicans think Libertarians are pot smoking anarchists, when in fact, most are people who simply want a Constitutional Republic instead of a theocracy or a democracy. Liberals think anyone who opposes big government is a fascist, although this does nothing but indicate ignorance. There are varying degrees of irrationality on all sides and the lack of interaction has led to factionalism and intolerance. Now we have reduced ourselves to single issue voters and purveyors of political correctness or victims of hate crimes. When did Americans become so pathetic?

I do not pretend to be either a source of news or wisdom. I am often guilty of intolerance. However, I do not force people to accept my point of view. I am a propagandist, and proud of it. I have an opinion and lack the fear to state it openly. I live by my principles and expect others to do the same. You have the ability and the right to be a Socialist if you choose. However, do not pretend that you are concerned for others unless you redistribute your own wealth. Do not pretend that your system can work without infringing on the rights of others. Do not condescend to tell me that you know what is best for society. Do the rest of us a favor and remove yourself from our company. Contribute all you have to your Utopian dream and encourage others to join you if they choose. I wish you the best of luck, and good riddance to you as well.

I am not always eloquent, and therefore, endure criticism that I am ignorant. I am an artist, not a scholar, and I pretend to be nothing else. However, I am confident of the knowledge I have acquired and will not be discouraged by insults from people who can not tolerate a difference of opinion. At the end of the day, much of what we encounter in politics, media, and education is boiled down to an opinion. We should respect each other for having the conviction to state them openly in the face of opposition. Freedom of speech does not protect you from the things you don't want to hear. It gives you the right to present your own views in contrast.

One of the hardest things to do is stand up for yourself when you are in the minority. You should neither fear reprisal, nor stifle opposition. Stand firm in your principles and accept no compromise. If you are not willing to fight for them, they are not worth having.

This article is cross posted at Modern Conservative

Destroying the Economy to promote Socialism

I recently received an email with a link that I think everyone should look at. I know the people who support Obama like to call people like me conspiracy theorists, and sweep us under the carpet. It is little consolation that they will have no one to thank but themselves when we are all in an equal state of misery.
Have you noticed how quickly the government and entitlements have grown since January 20th? Rather than waste time with a rant, I will direct you to the information so you can judge for yourself.

Barack Obama is Destroying Our Economy on Purpose. Description: A pair of radical Columbia University professors by the name of Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven wrote an article in the radical magazine known as The Nation. The article was published on May 2, 1966 and laid out what is now known as the "Cloward-Piven Strategy".

The plan calls for the destruction of capitalism in America by swelling the welfare rolls to the point of collapsing our economy and then implementing socialism by nationalizing many private institutions. Cloward and Piven studied Saul Alinsky just like Hillary Clinton and President Obama. Listen as Brannon and his guest James Simpson explain how Cloward and Piven inspired the creation of ACORN that Obama worked for as a community organizer.

This interview must be e-mailed all over the country. Americans must awaken and understand the goal of these radicals and what is to come if they succeed. Time is of the essence. Obama is not over his head as some have claimed; he knows exactly what he is doing. Understand the Cloward-Piven Strategy, the rules of Saul Alinsky and their Cultural Marxist world view and you will understand that what is occurring is not by mistake.

Google Cloward- Piven, below and you will see clearly what the strategy of the left really intends for this country.

THE SITE http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967

My first protest!

These pictures are all from the Atlanta Tea Party Protest. The little girl's sign read:
Don't Mortgage My Future

By Frances at Machine Politick

I attended the Tea Party protest at the Atlanta Capitol building yesterday. Because this was my first protest, it was very exciting to be there. Hopefully it is the beginning of a much larger movement to restore our country to the Constitutional Republic it was meant to be.

First, let me say how impressed I was by the turnout. It was cold and rainy all day yesterday. When I left home, I was afraid there would not be a significant turnout because of the weather. Boy, was I wrong, and happily so. In the spirit of the original Tea Party in Boston ,people from Atlanta showed up with their tea bags and their signs to protest the recent escalation of government spending that can only lead to higher taxes. I spent all day on Thursday making my sign and getting ready for the protest. When I got into downtown Atlanta, and drove past the Capitol building, the steps were packed. I couldn't say how many people, but it was impressive, given the weather. A gentleman was nice enough to share his umbrella with me on the way over from the parking garage, and everyone seemed in high spirits when I got there. Passers by were honking and waving, possibly in response to some of the protestors' signs. The girl next to me had a sign that read: Honk if you're paying my mortgage. And, honk they did. One of my favorite signs from the rally was a large banner that read: Read Atlas Shrugged before it happens. I couldn't have said it better. I hope to post some of my pictures later today on my blog.

Several Atlanta officials spoke, as well as the organizer of the protest and a few people from the crowd. Many of the participants had video cameras and posted live video to YouTube. I will provide the links at the bottom of the article. Chip Rogers gave a good speech. Some of his points had great impact; encouraging the crowd to raise their voices and their signs. He said, "We owe our Founding Fathers for their sacrifices to build this country, ...It's time to kick out the Socialists in our government, ...The time to stand by and be nice is over, ... and Let's stand up for our Freedom!"

John Oxendine was there as well, and got the crowd motivated with his comments: "This economy was caused by government intervention in the private sector...This bailout teaches irresponsibility... This is a revolution, we are going to take back control..." I was not close to the speakers, and it was too wet for a notepad, but you get the idea. I was closer to the street most of the protest, and was happy to see how well the people driving by were reacting to the protest. In fact, people were honking and waving at me after the rally as I made my way back to the car, soaking wet in a coat that probably weighed as much as I do. I think if it had been held on an evening or weekend, there would have been a much larger turnout. Many people who were discussing the event during the planning stages were unable to attend because of work.

I was very impressed by the level of organization and the number of people involved. Many of the people who were there had only just gotten word of the protest and quickly made signs to join in. I am glad to see that conservatives are learning to network and use the internet to organize events. In the past, we have always been afraid to get in other peoples' business or expose ourselves publicly for political issues. Yesterday, I saw many people who were fed up and fired up. I hope this will lead to future events and spark a movement to have our voices heard. Whether we are the majority or minority, our rights remain the same and we have to stand up for them. Standing quietly by in fear of offending other people will only lead to oppression of our principles and freedom. In a few short weeks, Obama and Congress have shown a willingness and ability to push their agenda with no regard for its effect on the American people or the economy. We must fight back before it is too late.

If we are to save our country and preserve our freedoms, we must return to the principles on which it was built. My sign for the rally read: Give me Liberty or Give me Death, Restore America to a Constitutional Republic. We have to scale back the government to its Constitutionally mandated powers and function. Socialism does not and cannot work. History has proven, the only way to achieve collectivism is through force and tyranny. The productive must be punished in the name of the 'common good'. There is no longer any incentive to be productive, and everyone suffers as a result. Socialism does not raise up the meek and the downtrodden. It brings down the successful members of society who produce the wealth and provide the jobs and services that we all need. People need to learn personal responsibility and the fact that our actions have consequences. If the government steps in and rewards failure, there is no reason to make the right decision.

My favorite sign from the protest was dripping and tattered by the time I saw it, but I was able to get a picture. There was a family not far from me, and one of their little girls had a sign that was dragging on the ground. It read: Don't mortgage my future. As the mother of a five year old boy, that says it all for me. I don't want my child growing up in the kind of country that America is becoming. For that reason, this was the first of many protests to come for me.

Pictures from Dennis in Atlanta

Pictures and News from James Arone in LA

Other sources of information on the Atlanta and National Rallies include: The AJC, The LA Times, Jacksonville, Santelli, and YouTube, as well as a long list on Google.

I have cross posted this article at Modern Conservative

The Ayn Rand quotes, continued...

...very little has been said about actual life under communism, about living beings, not slogans and theories. Theories against practice...I don't give a damn about theories. I do give a good deal about human beings...
...the individual against the collective. That problem interests me above all others in my writing...The plot of my novel is entirely fictitious. The background and circumstances which make the plot possible are entirely true.

The apparent enthusiasm for the manual worker, for the afflicted and for social justice; serves as a mask to facilitate the refusal of all obligations, such as courtesy, truthfulness, and above all, respect or esteem for superior individuals...[In regard to] Dictatorship, we have seen only too well how they flatter the mass-man, by trampling on everything that appeared to be above the common level.

Everything accepted on faith or someone else's authority is only a warmed over spiritual hash.

...the means have become the end...

If all of life has been brought down to flattering the mob, if those who can please the mob are the only ones to succeed - why should anyone feel any high aspirations and cherish any ideals?...

Instead of preaching more collectivism, men must realize that it is precisely collectivism, in its logical consequences - a subtle, unnamed, unofficial, but still all-powerful collectivism - that is the cause of mankind's tragedy...since collective ethics are claimed to be necessary for collective economics - take a look, gentlemen, we have those ethics already. We have them and we don't like them; it is not a pretty picture.

The first cornerstone of his convictions is equality... all possess intrinsic value by the mere fact of having been born in the shape of men...
this talk is on a grand scale, staggering, magnificent, its bromides well hidden under the latest scientific terms, the whole worked out on a formula of saying things that sound profound until one stops to think of what exactly they mean and finds they mean nothing... beliefs are important to them only as a means to an end... he is not bothered by his inconsistencies, by the vagueness and illogic of his convictions. They are efficient and effective to assure the ends he is seeking...

Once the equality of men is established, the advantages to his type are obvious... assure him of superiority...
The liberals and humanitarians are now faced with a choice: either admit that their are differences among men more profound and irrefutable than those of money or aristocratic birth, and therefore fight for the rights and freedom of the best among men, rights and freedom which the average men do not want, do not understand and cannot use or protect, and stop the damnable preoccupation with the "poor" as such, the poor who have no distinction beyond their poverty; or - deny these ideals... bring mankind down to the level of the masses...

It's the aggressive, imperious expressions that are awful - on these people who are supposed to stand for equality, freedom, kindness, justice, etc...

All artistic creation has a philosophy. The first condition of creation.

Ayn Rand quotes for Muchacho

Muchacho Enfermo requested more Ayn Rand quotes and I am happy to comply. Because I am a huge fan of her writings, I have decided to do a series of paintings based on them. These quotes are from: Journals of Ayn Rand, edited by David Harriman with a Foreward by Leonard Peikoff. I will not be able to post everything at this time, so expect a series.
I am posting the quotes as I will use them, so you will need to read the book to get the full context of each one. Keep in mind that my work qualifies as propaganda and I intend to use these quotes to reinforce my own views. The imagery will, of course, do the same.

Life is achievement...Give yourself an aim, something you want to do, then go after it, breaking through everything, with nothing in mind but your aim, all will, all concentration - and get it.

...theme is that of humanity - warped by a corrupt philosophy -is destroying the best in man for the sake of enshrining mediocrity... bitterly denouncing a world that seems to have no place for heroism.

...her dominant premise is that men are responsible for the ideas they choose to take... she cites the ideas that have led to the moral corruption in the world, and her implication throughout that men choose to accept these ideas or not...

Your life, your achievement, your happiness, your person are of paramount importance. Live up to your highest vision of yourself no matter what circumstances you might encounter. An exalted view of self-esteem is a man's most admirable quality.

Do not paint one side of the world, the polite side, and be silent about the rest; paint a real picture of the whole, good and bad at once, the "good" looking more horrid than the bad when seen together with the things it tolerates. Men see only one part of life at a time, the part they have before their eyes at the moment. Show them the whole.

...One cannot believe one thing and do another, for such a belief isn't worth a nickle and that's what humanity's doing.

...men act on feelings, not on thoughts.

Show the silent terror that is life at present, the silent terror that hangs over us, chokes us, that everybody feels and nobody can define, the nameless thing that is the atmosphere of humanity.

Show that the mob determines life at present and show exactly who and what that mob is...show that all humanity and each little citizen is an octopus that consciously or unconsciously sucks the blood of the best on earth and strangles life with it's cold sticky tentacles.

Communism, Democracy, Socialism are the logical results of present day humanity. The nameless horror of [these systems], both in their logical end and in the unconscious way that they already rule mankind.

...I want to show that there is no good at present, that the "good" as it is now understood is worse than the bad, that it is only the result, the skin over a rotten inside that rules and determines it: I want to show that all the conceptions of the "good", all the high ideals have to be changed, for now they are nothing but puppets, slaves, and accomplices to the horrible [stifling] of life. There are too many things that people just tolerate and don't talk about.

Show them the real, one and only horror - the horror of mediocrity.

...to be loved by the mob is an insult and that to be hated is the highest compliment it can pay you.

He half-consciously realizes that he possesses something sublime, and that he is going to be condemned for possessing it. From this - his tense, wild, ferocious attitude.

They are too small and weak to feel with all their soul - and they disapprove of such feelings... They are too small and profane themselves to know what sacredness is - and they disapprove of anything being too sacred.

A small soul choked with a poisonous ambition to dominate and crush everybody and everything..."I know that I am inferior and therefore I don't want to let anything superior exist". This is subconscious of course, because one of those muddy souls would never admit it to itself. Consciously it believes that "we are all equal" and defends that equality with all the jealous, greedy zeal of a bulldog that has his teeth sunk into a piece of meat; the dull despotic zeal of mediocrity that is [concerned with] the equality of those above, which it wants to pull down, and not with those below, which it [allegedly] wants to pull up.

Okay, these aren't the most uplifting quotes, but I'm just going in order. The parallelsto modern times and political action are appropriate however. It is amazing tome how many of the problems she foresaw have come to pass, and no one cares.
I would like to know where the hell is John Galt?

This made me smile...

So I decided to pass it on.
http://americantruckersatwar.com/2009/01/18/dear-american-liberals-leftists-social-progressives-socialists/

Ayn Rand Quotes

For those of you who don't know, I'm a huge Ayn Rand fan. If you want a little perspective into my personality, read some of her work. If you're new to Rand, I suggest Anthem and We the Living first. My all time favorite, of course, is Atlas Shrugged, but no self-respecting artist would go through life without reading the Fountainhead.

That being said, I decided to follow up yesterday's EFCA post with a couple of quotes from Ayn Rand pertaining to Unions and government intervention in business.

Needless to say, I am wanting now, more than ever to have that meeting with John Galt. I probably flatter myself that my leaving society would have all that much impact on the world, but one can dream. I'd certainly like a little vacation from the current level of government sponsored insanity and generalized buffoonery.

Quotes:

Unions and trade associations are not directed against employers or the public but against the best among their own members…This is one of the most obvious demonstrations of the fact that collectivism does not aim at any kind of “justice” or “fair play”, or protection of the weak [man] against an actual infringement of his rights by the strong for the sake of the weak – stopping ability for the sake of incompetence – not just robbing the production of the able, but stopping him from producing – not raising the weak in any way whatever, but simply forcing the strong down to the level of the moron. (Of course, if you do that, you destroy the world – weak and strong both and the weak do not profit by this – not even for the moment).

…Man will not produce if all the essential elements involved are not under his rational control, i.e., if they are not understandable to him, and therefore, predictable, so that he can set his purpose and plan of action, his end and means accordingly…If his productive activity has to depend upon the arbitrary decision/whim of some human agency, against whom he has no recourse and no chance (such as the government) – he will not produce.