Of all the myths
of the left, the most exasperating and pervasive
(perpetuated by its media propaganda machine and
trumpeted by blowhards like Ted Kennedy) is the fantasy that
conservatives are rich, cruel, plutocrats who get their
kicks evicting widows and orphans on Christmas Eve,
whilst liberals – salt-of-the-earth-types, don’t you
know -- are champions of the powerless and downtrodden.
The
Supreme Court decision last week in Kelo v. City of
New London should lay to rest that lie for all time.
Kelo was a classic confrontation between the little
guy and powerful, moneyed interests.
The
high court’s five doctrinaire leftists decided to let
New London, Connecticut demolish a middle-class
neighborhood – small businesses (some in the same family
for generations) and private dwellings (one lived in by
a married couple in their ‘80s, for over 50 years) – to
make way for a riverside development, including a hotel,
health club and office complex.
In
keeping with its penchant for rewriting the
Constitution to suit its whims, the court’s Stalinist majority (Stevens, Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter and Kennedy) expanded the 5th
Amendment’s power of eminent domain -- which allows
government to take private holdings for “public use”
(schools, roads and the like) for “just compensation” –
into the stratosphere.
New
London argued that “public use” should be more broadly
interpreted as public benefit. In other words,
because the use planned by a developer will
hypothetically provide more tax revenue and new jobs, it
should be allowed to bulldoze a neighborhood
-- and all the memories,
hopes and dreams contained therein.
Say
the magic words -- revenue enhancement -- and a
liberal’s eyes begin to gleam; saliva forms at the
corners of his mouth. Whatever feeds government’s
insatiable appetite for revenue (while simultaneously
throwing a few scraps to the left’s corporate cronies),
must be constitutional!
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor (who often mistakes the
Constitution for her
conscience) got it right
this time – as did those heartless conservatives,
Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas. In a scathing
dissent, O’Connor noted that the ruling was Robin Hood
in reverse (take from mom and pop businesses and elderly
homeowners, to bestow on corporate giant Pfizer, future
occupant of the office space).
O’Connor: "Any property may now be taken for the benefit
of another private party, but the fallout from this
decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are
likely to be those citizens with disproportionate
influence and power in the political process, including
large corporations and development firms."
This latest judicial
obscenity is courtesy of those who
passionately proclaim their tender regard for what they
condescendingly call working families. Stevens et.
al., are the face of the monstrosity liberalism has
become. If Kennedy, Hillary Clinton and Taliban
Dick Durban had their way, all nine justices would be
intellectual clones of Souter and Ginsburg.
Although I used the term Stalinist earlier (rather
loosely, I must admit) modern liberals are really much
closer to fascists. They don’t want to nationalize
property outright (look at how well that worked in North
Korea). Rather, their goal is a corporate state –
a diabolical hybrid of big government and big
corporations: where competition is limited, profits and
tax revenues are maximized, favored businesses are
patronized (others are allowed to wither) and, one day soon, we’ll all be working for
the company store.
It
may seem counterintuitive to some, but Wall Street loves
welfare-state Democrats. An article in Human
Events (June 24, 2005) notes that New York Senator Chuck
Schumer (American Conservative Union rating – 6%,
lifetime ADA rating -- 98%) is the king of corporate
campaign cash. Since he arrived in the Senate in 1999,
Schumer has hauled in $27.5 million – most of it from
the board rooms.
Schumer is the fair-haired boy of the securities and
investment industry ($1.3 million in 2002 and 2003,
exceeded only by John Kerry’s take). In fact, the
top five beneficiaries of Wall Street’s largesse all are
liberal Democrats. The 6th, Arlen Specter, is
a liberal Republican.
Schumer also made out like a bandit with bankers,
contractors, high-tech tycoons and the tobacco and
liquor industries (famous for their solicitude for the
working man).
The
New York senator is no anomaly. Of the 25
largest contributors to 527 Committees (which campaign
in the guise of education), all but two are Democratic
donors. Between them, George Soros, Peter Lewis and
Steven Bing contributed over $60 million to the
destruction of America in the 2004 election cycle.
Overwhelmingly, the richest men in the Senate are
liberals – John F. Kerry ($675 million), Jon Corzine
($400 million), Herb Kohl ($300 million) and Jay
Rockefeller ($200 million). And still the
coupon-clipping bastards have the audacity to regularly
take to the floor and beat their breasts over the plight
of the poor – while doing everything in their power to
keep them impoverished.
Forget about Congress. When was the last time you
met a liberal with dirt under his fingernails – or one
who had a job that actually mattered? By and
large, the humanistic horde is composed of journalists,
trial lawyers, academics, educators (so-called),
"entertainers," social workers,
bureaucrats, union bosses (who occasionally appear on
the factory floor in a tuxedo), “neighborhood
activists,” mental-health workers, and lesbian owners
of holistic–healing centers. Their cause is
financed by donations from corporations, foundations and
the taxpayers’ pockets.
Here are a few of the many ways the left has
non-consensual relations with the objects of its
affection:
·
Tax Cuts – Who’s really
hurt more by taxes, the man struggling to get by on
$40,000 a year, or the corporate exec making $400,000
per annum? For one of them, the tax bite means
taking his third annual vacation in the Bahamas instead
of St. Moritz. For the other, it’s sending his
kids to a crappy community college, instead of a decent
private school.
·
Vouchers – The filthy rich
don’t subject their offspring to public education.
(Kennedy’s kids all went to exclusive prep schools.) The
urban poor – especially minorities – suffer the most
from public illiteracy factories. The Democratic
Party will fight to the death to keep them in these
over-priced day-care/detention centers. The party
of special interests is in thrall to the teachers’
unions. Also, it’s in the party’s interest to create
increasingly stupid voters.
·
Social Security – The
system is going to collapse (it’s demographically doomed
by the left’s population policies). The rich have
their investments and corporate pensions.
Congressmen have their own gold-plated pension plan that
would make King Tut envious. Liberals are
determined to keep the rest of us prisoners of their
Ponzi scheme until the bitter end. In our old age,
when we’re really hungry, perhaps we can break open the
Social Security lockbox and eat government IOUs.
·
Energy policy – Who feels
more pain at the pump, the man driving a Porsche or the
guy in a Buick? By blocking energy development in
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Kerry and the rest
of the Sierra Club latte-guzzlers are sacrificing the
salesman who logs a few hundred miles a week and the guy
who drives 60 miles roundtrip to his job as a security
guard, for their precious caribou.
·
Illegal immigration – The
poor and middle class suffer more than most from the
left’s commitment to open borders. (Some
conservatives are equally culpable.) Corporate America
wants cheap, docile labor. Democrats pander to
the Hispanic lobby. Blue-collar workers and even
skilled craftsmen lose their jobs to the legions
arriving daily from points south.
·
Homosexual marriage -- The
decline of the American family hits the poor
particularly hard. In the name of equality (their
god), liberals are determined to turn the family into a
free-form institution, thus undercutting the real safety
net of the under-class.
So, Joe Average comes home
from a day at the factory – from a job he may soon lose
to Juan from Tijuana, who’ll work for half Joe’s wages.
Every week, his commute costs a few dollars more, thanks
to the caribou-huggers in their SUVs.
Joe’s 15-year-old daughter
is pregnant (sex education works wonders), while his
17-year-old son can barely read a comic book -- both
products of public mis-education. A tax cut would
help Joe put his 6-year-old in a parochial school, but
tax cuts only benefit the rich, Ted and Hillary insist.
If Social Security is even
around then, Joe can look forward to a comfortable
retirement eating dog food. Soon, the sodomites
down the street will be able to marry, making a mockery
of his marriage – one of the few things that gives his
life meaning.
To top it all off, now that
it has a green light from those defenders of the common
man on the Supreme Court, his town is
thinking about taking his modest, middle-class dwelling
for a strip-mall.
Who loves ya, baby?
At the end of George
Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” the pigs, who’ve taken over by
selling themselves as liberators of the other animals,
are ultimately unmasked as the new oppressors. “No
question, now, what has happened to the faces of the
pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, man
to pig, and pig to man again; but already it was
impossible to say which was which.”
The pigs of politics, the
pigs of the judiciary and the pigs of the board room all
merge together in one snarling, ravenous beast-face.
