Don's Tuesday column

        THE WAY I SEE IT   by Don Polson Red Bluff Daily News   10/15/2013

Liars cannot be talked to, reasoned with

Tonight’s Tea Party Patriots meeting will host Supervisor Bob Williams, giving attendees his take on issues facing the county. Questions will be welcomed; light refreshments provided; newcomers warmly received. It’s at the Westside Grange, 6 PM.

Unless unlikely events transpire between Sunday and Monday, this column will find a yet-partially-shut federal government. Sunday talkers’ words will have amounted to so much hot air; and more disgustingly slanted political cartoons will appear on this page. Such cartoons, broadly reflective of the leftist bias of their creators, are a sharp political stick in the eye of this county’s majority Republican voters.

Whether we read more of the sort of rhetoric I condemned last week remains to be seen. Using the word “terrorist” to castigate the Tea Party is libelous (Webster’s: “statement in writing that may unjustly hurt a reputation”), even a “blood libel.” Terrorists kill, maim and torture innocent people; it is a perfidious lie to write such twaddle. Such a writer likely spent too many hours absorbing unintelligent, hysterical character assassination from the loons at MSNBC: Al Sharpton, Chris Matthews, Al Franken, Rachel Maddow, and their ilk. My words last week still hold that “such flaming verbal garbage has become routine for the Republican-and-Tea-Party-hating left.” If the shoe fits … as they say.

For my part, I offer photo-shopped verbiage from a National Park Service sign on the fence in front of the Lincoln Memorial: “Dear America, Go f*** yourselves. –The Administration” Frankly, I think it’s far closer to the truth than calling the Tea Party “terrorists.”

Correcting misinformation (fallacious, phony and disingenuous arguments) is necessary; often, the truth is simply overwhelmed by the legion of lies in the public airwaves and awareness. An online commenter (who a month ago “questioned the patriotism of those that display disrespect for our President”) ignorantly stated that “Republicans do not get to pick and choose which laws to fund …” Republicans don’t, but it’s utterly false to deny the absolute Constitutional duties in Article I, Section 7: “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives …”

Because, Constitutionally, all Representatives are elected every two years, the House was considered the ultimate, most immediate control of what the people wanted their federal government to spend hard-earned tax money on. James Madison, Federalist #58: “The House of Representatives cannot only refuse, but they alone can propose, the supplies requisite for the support of government. They, in a word, hold the purse, that powerful instrument (for) finally reducing … all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government.”

The voters, having historically swept the Republicans into control of the House in 2010 over Obamacare, and keeping them in charge in 2012, have given arguable approval to Republican attempts to stop Obamacare. Political authority, however, may be fleeting when public opinion and next year’s elections are concerned. I see a massive rejection of Democrats coming, but I’ve been wrong before.

Republicans should assume the fighting posture of Senators Cruz, Paul, Lee and Rubio all the way to 2016. The people will reward strong, principled stands that clearly state the benefits of fiscally prudent, conservative, free-market solutions to all of our problems.  Remember, no Congress can bind a future Congress—there are no laws that cannot be repealed; Americans aren’t required to endlessly fund follies established by previous Congresses.

To hear Democrats, you’d think they’ve never attached “non-budget items” to the debt ceiling (Obama’s claim) or shut the government down over policy differences. Au contraire. Democrats have been the primary manipulators of the debt ceiling to attach and advance their pet legislation: “In 1973, when Richard Nixon was president, Democrats in the Senate … sought to attach a campaign finance reform bill to the debt ceiling … . (Kowalcky and LeLoup) wrote, in a comprehensive study of the debt limit, of the genesis during that time of a pattern becoming full blown in the mid-1970s and 1980s: the use of the debt ceiling vote as a vehicle for other legislative matters.”

“In 1982, Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker unleashed a free-for-all by allowing 1,400 nongermane amendments to the debt ceiling legislation (bringing weeks of raucous debate) on limiting federal court jurisdiction over school prayer and busing …” In 1980, President Jimmy Carter’s energy policy oil import fee was overturned by a bipartisan veto override at the risk of default. (Washington Post’s “fact-checker,” Glenn Kessler gave Obama “Four Pinocchios” for his claim in September) Yes, that makes Obama, by definition, a big, fat, liar. The “When Government Worked” theme is belied by the seven shutdowns brought about by Tip O’Neill under Ronald Reagan.

Republicans have voted to fund virtually every element of the federal government that has been in the news; Obama has signed some of them (i.e. D.C. funding). Harry Reid and Obama alone have said no to funding bills. They’re intentionally creating the “crisis” that Rahm Emmanuel infamously stated “should not go to waste”; their agenda is eliminating any effective opposition to unlimited growth of the benefit-distributing, tax-hiking, borrowing-to-oblivion, all-powerful collectivist central state. Republicans are the only thing standing in the way; people throwing bricks from the sidelines should “lead, follow or get out of the way.”

“You can’t meet brazen liars with reasonable argument.” (David Gelernter)