And that’s just what the Republicans in Congress did to Hollywood when it abandoned the rush to pass SOPA and regulate the Internet for the benefit of Tinseltown. Astonishingly, considering its usual inability to perform competently at even the most basic level, the GOP not only managed to embrace good policy but drove a wedge into the Democratic coalition that may well have dramatic consequences down the road. And, best of all, it provided a bit of long overdue payback to the smug oligarchs of LA’s West Side who have spent the last couple decades treating Republicans like something you’d hasten to flush.

Hey, suckers, how do ya like us now?

The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) is only the latest attempt by Hollywood to breathe some life back into its dying business model. Enraged that online “pirates” are passing around bootleg copies of movies, shows, books, music, and all other manner of intellectual property, the industry did what it has done for years: ran to Congress for ever more burdensome and onerous laws designed to hold back the inevitable consequences of progress. 

But this time, it went too far. Perhaps it was Hollywood’s arrogance. Perhaps it was the provisions allowing Hollywood to use the United States government to shut down any website it pleased on the mere accusation of “piracy” without any due process, a power lefty–fascist bureaucrats would be only too eager to accept.

Not surprisingly, the people who make their living on the web were less than thrilled about giving Uncle Sam and the media conglomerates an off-switch.

Initially, the Republicans once again fell into Hollywood’s trap. When Hollywood needs something from Congress, it dons the mask of “business” and enlists the GOP ideologically. After all, the Republicans are supposed to love “business.” Until now, they have been blind to the fact that many of the “businesses” that plead for special breaks before them are about as capitalist as your typical Occupy Wall Street mutant – the only difference is nicer suits and better drugs.

They aren’t capitalists; they’re cronyists, either relying on government handouts directly or basking in the protection of special favors. And that’s precisely the opposite of what we conservatives are about.

Businesses compete; “businesses” like the entertainment industry use the government to enact rules and regulations that make it so they don’t have to compete.

So, like Pavlov’s dogs hearing the dinner bell, the GOP started drooling when Hollywood started playing the business card. In fact, Republican Lamar Smith of Texas was only too eager to carry water for it – as were several other normally solid Republicans who should have known better.

Of course, Hollywood laughed. It laughed because it holds Republicans in contempt. For decades, Hollywood has endeavored to depict conservative Americans are weirdos, losers, petty tyrants, religious nuts, baby killing fanatics, and idiots. And, once again, the GOP was falling into its trap and dancing to its tune. “What a bunch of suckers!” snickered the Hollywood big shots.

Oh, and the Democrats? Not an issue. Not only are Hollywood and the liberals in ideological lockstep, but Hollywood represents buckets of money and bushels of glamor. The Dems are always on board for whatever Hollywood wants. They know where their locally-sourced, whole wheat artisan bread in non-dairy buttered.

But something funny happened on the way to the fascism.

There was a backlash. The peasants revolted! Tech savvy Americans, both right and left, saw that the Internet that they had grown up with and embraced was in grave danger of being bound by regulations for the sole purpose of ensuring that the dying Hollywood business model would last a bit longer – at the price of stifling everyone else.

No dice.

The rebellion came as a shock to the GOP congresscreatures, who in reality probably had not given much thought to the contents of SOPA – that is, until all hell broke loose. Suddenly, they became VERY interested in intellectual property and telecommunications law.

The Republicans, pushed by a groundswell of opposition from conservative new media types, bailed. SOPA was a non-starter, and now everyone will be looking the next time Hollywood tries to play them. Hey, Hollywood, there’s a new paradigm in Tinseltown.

And the Democrats who supported SOPA  – and who could not back out no matter how outraged the nutroots got – ended up looking both foolish and like tools of the corporate power structure.  And that’s just what they are.

But it gets better.

It gets better because this was a great object lesson all around. To those in Republicans in Congress, it brought attention to a subject that had been sadly ignored but is vital to a huge number of influential voters. It gave them an issue – Internet freedom – that is truly congruent with conservative values, unlike the past political payoffs to connected Hollywood cronies. We conservatives can run on this.

It was also a lesson to young, tech-savvy people who see themselves as culturally liberal and just kind of voted that way, mostly out of habit.  The group that really shares their values – creativity, enterprise, freedom – is the conservativees. The liberals they counted themselves among wanted to shut down websites, not the conservatives. SOPA opened a lot of eyes.

Everything they thought they knew was a lie. Here was Kevin Bacon, and he was telling John Lithgow not to dance.

Can you say “Wedge issue?”

Internet freedom, besides being the right thing to do, is a powerful banner to carry aloft into the battle for the next generation’s hearts and minds. The young, affluent, educated voters the Democrat Party is counting on for the future have to choose between the stolid, limited, controlled world of the Democrat’s corporate owners or the free market of the conservatives where their only limits are those they impose upon themselves.

The Democrats can’t flex on this – they are bound to Hollywood for money and what’s left of its fading aura. But the GOP? It won’t miss what it never had.

In fact, Hollywood’s history of trashing conservatives only make it sweeter when its emissaries come to us for help and we laugh in their botoxed faces.

With its crappy product, promotion of (mostly) non-stellar “stars” and sneering contempt for the majority of its customers, Hollywood seems desperately committed to failure. That’s why when is asks us for a life preserver, we should be only too happy to hand it an anvil.

Wow. So much to talk about in last night’s episode of “Glee.” You know I watch it all for you guys. Well, also because it’s wildly entertaining, and any time I can turn something interesting or fun into part of my job, I’m in.

Since the beginning of the season, there have been two election stories going on: the one for a congressional seat, and the one for senior class president of McKinley High.

The congressional race between evil cheerleading coach Sue Sylvester, an unnamed pizza magnate, and gay guy Kurt’s dad Burt came to an end last night when Burt won the seat. But that’s not what I want to talk about.

The high school election came to an end as well, and I do want to talk a little bit about that. The main contenders were the aforementioned Kurt and the stereotypically blonde Brittany. Brittany was the frontrunner since she kept passing out pixie sticks and empty promises to the electorate.

The high schoolers spoke; they wanted pixie sticks – just like so many people in 2008! The people spoke, and they wanted pixie sticks and unicorn dust. That’s why Barack Obama is our president. I really hope that the people watching “Glee” understand that candidates that promise magical powers are never able to deliver.

What I really want to talk about is sex and relationships.

Sex is special, okay? It connects you to another person. It can create a human being. It can pass along infectious diseases. No matter how you look at it, it’s a big deal.

So when Puck and Shelby hooked up, I was aghast! Puck is a high school student (an 18-year-old, after that whole “Desperate Housewives” debacle), and Shelby is a teacher at his school and the adoptive mother of his baby by classmate Quinn Fabray.

Adding to the appalling situation were the circumstances in which they ended up bumping uglies. Baby girl Beth had fallen and cut her lip, and Shelby called Puck from the ER because she was freaked out. He came immediately and was such a man about the situation. He demanded that Beth get proper treatment, and he comforted Shelby.

You know, because all high school bad-asses are really noble underneath it all.

What. Ever. I went to high school. I fell for the bad boys. Thankfully I didn’t get too involved with them, because guess what? High school bad boys don’t have hearts of gold. They have notches in their belts – or whatever the standard unit of measurement is these days for sexual exploits.

“Glee” is doing a disservice to teenage girls that watch the show by portraying Puck as some knight in shining armor. I don’t even want to know how many girls will get their hearts broken by believing that their bad boy is a noble Puck that just wants to have a family and raise his daughter.

Oh yeah, the kids all performed Katy Perry’s “I Kissed a Girl,” which has less to do with homosexuality than with embracing promiscuity. Actual lyric from the song: Hope my boyfriend don’t mind it. You shouldn’t cheat ever, no matter the genders involved.

“Glee,” the therapists of America thank you. Your business will be booming in a few years thanks to this spoon-fed prime-time drivel.

Hello everyone! Didja watch “Glee” last night? Come on, admit it … I know you did. It’s the show we all love and love to hate at the same time. There’s singing! There’s dancing! There’s propaganda!

What’s not to have a love/hate relationship with?

This week, the show opened with Puck fantasizing about Shelby, which isn’t awkward at all, until you realize that she is not only his teacher but also the adoptive mother of his baby daughter with classmate Quinn. Oh yeah, and Quinn is trying to frame Shelby as a bad mother to get baby Beth back, and Puck kissed Shelby in a previous episode.

Amidst the baby mama drama, Kurt’s dad Burt is running against Sue for congress. Actress Jane Lynch has openly stated that her character, Sue Sylvester, will be playing a candidate “more right-winged than Michele Bachmann.”

Which means that we have to take her campaign against (small business owner and proud father of a gay son) Burt to be what Hollywood liberals believe conservatives to be. It’s actually rather disturbing.

Sue releases a campaign ad smearing Burt as a baboon. Last year, Burt almost died and needed heart surgery, so now Sue is playing off of that by saying that he possibly got a baboon heart transplant. Because conservatives are always going around calling Democrats animals. Or something.

The kicker that got me to that banging-my-head-on-the-wall level was the subtitle of the fake commercial: PAID FOR BY ANGRY WHITE PEOPLE TO ELECT SUE SYLVESTER.

Back to the baby mama drama …

Quinn (birth mother of Beth) wants to steal her baby back from Shelby and has planted fake evidence in Shelby’s home in order to get CPS to take Beth away. Of course, she’s unaware that her baby daddy, Puck, is now in love lust with adoptive mom Shelby and has disposed of the planted “evidence.”

In another plot line, Mean Girl Santana has been bad mouthing Finn all over school. Finn finally has enough and very calmly responds, “Hey Santana? Why don’t you come out of the closet?”

In case you were wondering, Santana has recently discovered that she is more attracted to other girls than she is to boys. Finn continues to dig in, telling Santana that she’s a coward because she’s too afraid to come out openly in love with Brittany (which she is) because Brittany might not love her back.

Now here’s where the most interesting part of the episode happened. Burt, Sue, and Glee Club director Mr. Shue call Santana aside. These three? What could be going on? Sue HATES Burt and Mr. Shue. Why would all three be together?

It seems that a third party candidate overheard Finn’s accusations against Santana and has now created an ad targeting Sue, because how dare she run on a family values platform and promote a lesbian to head cheerleader at the same time?

Huh. My first thought on this was, “Why is Sue involved, and acting like she cares? Isn’t her character supposed to hate the gays?”

My second thought was, “Do Hollywood liberals believe that the only way we can unite is over the gay community?”

And my third thought was, “Earlier in the episode, did Kurt refer to dodgeball as modern day stoning?”

Because he totally did. Note to teenagers everywhere: Dodgeball won’t kill you. Stoning will.

—–

Man oh man, Jon Stewart has the left-wing spin and talking points down cold, doesn’t he? No one with even a smidgen of intellectual honesty uses the term “revenues increases,” and to blame the Bush tax cuts (or any tax cuts) on the deficit — especially after Obama’s unprecedented spending orgy — is nothing more than pure propaganda.

Do Tea Partiers want government gone? No.

Do Tea Partiers want to pay zero dollars in taxes? No.

But if you got your news from Jon Stewart, you wouldn’t know that. And God help us all, people do get their news from Jon Stewart.

“Revenue increases?” It’s called a “tax increase.” And if your ideology is so pure, Mr. ClownNoseOffAndOn, and so right and so popular, why are you afraid to say “tax increase”? Why are you afraid to say, “We must take money away from private citizens and out of the private economy in order to give it to the government to spend”?

I thought so.

On Wednesday, Affleck — who wrote and directed “The Town” — said that he too found the whole scenario a touch bizarre. And in a statement his spokesperson provided to The Huffington Post, he suggested that Republicans use a different one of his movies next time they need to whip votes.

“I don’t know if this is a compliment or the ultimate repudiation,” said the actor, who is currently in Turkey directing and starring in “Argo,” an adaptation of the Tehran hostage crisis. “But if they’re going to be watching movies, I think “The Company Men” is more appropriate.”

We weren’t aware it was a slow nws day in DC.

Yeah, seems old, just three days ago….

So buried in a recent Politico article, is this tidbit about Congressman Weiner.

“Two people who spoke to him privately said he had suggested that, as one said, “he took or sent a photo or photos like this
at some point – but in this case actually was hacked/set up, perhaps with a posting of one of his own photos or something very similar.”

Okay, that’s an admission.

And it’s coming from someone who spoke to Weiner, meaning Weiner wanted it out there – a trial balloon to end the junk about his junk.

It may be too late.

But Weiner can look on the bright side.

With so many recent scandals, he must ask himself, was his boner that bad?

Lets play a game I like to call “who would you rather be?”

A: a married Republican congressman caught posting swinger ads on Craigs List?

B: a married Republican congressman caught tapping his feet in an airport men’s room?

C: a married Republican Governor mired in extramarital affairs, one that results in a secret love child?

D: a Democratic Governor busted with hookers, who now has a show on CNN

E. a Democratic Presidential candidate, who cheated on his dying wife, and tried to cover it up?

F: a sleazy French socialist with a penchant for assaulting the help?

G: a sleazy French politician who frequents Moroccan boy orgies?

Or… A guy with a picture of his junk on his phone?

Maybe I’m jaded, but why did Weiner panic over the pic?

If he just said, “the pic was mine and I accidentally sent it” – this thing would be over.

But instead, he strung it out like popcorn on a Christmas tree.

And I thank him.

We’ve done four shows on it!

So why did HE screw himself?

Arrogance.

He’s an idiot who refused to confess his idiocy.

I know – as a fool – my survival requires confessing i’m a fool.

But, for Weiner. It’s too late to cop to an obvious error.

Occam’s razor has become a samarai sword – which he may fall on, sooner than later.

And if you disagree with me you’re a racist homophobe.

Tonight:

Imogen Lloyd Webber

Jesse Joyce

Anthony Cumia

and Andy Levy’s back!

When reporters asked if he sent the photo, he lost it.

So the question is, why?

Well, he assumed the press would let the scandal blow over – a consequence of inhabiting a protective bubble the press affords liberal politicians.

The problem with that bubble – it can burst when the press sees a story too good to ignore.

Sadly, the Congressman can’t see out of the bubble, and see what’s coming. Spitzer could have warned him.

Hence, the mortifying performance. Weiner looked like a deer in the headlights, trying to joke with the headlights.

The panicky bob of his Adam’s apple seemed to be sending Morse code to his friends in the media: “Why! Why! why! I’m one of you!”

It all screams “guilty!” – a whiny tantrum directed not at a hacker – but the media, his allies.

Too pompous to resign, we’re witnessing finessed damage control. As I write this, Weiner is trying to orchestrate this mess into separate bite-size interviews, with enough time in between for counsel.

It’s like a sausage dictating how it should be cooked.

In the MSNBC interview, Weiner calls the whole thing a prank, “not a federal case.” But, like I said last night, it is a federal case.

If, indeed, the account was hacked.

Drew at Ace of Spades makes a good point: if Weiner says it was a prank, then he’s saying he knows the motivation, and likely, the origin.

Could it have been an angry spouse, tired of her hubby flirting with porn stars? Someone should ask her.

After all, Weiner still won’t deny that it’s him in those shorts.

But a bigger question remains: why isn’t Twitter filing charges? Twitter was the entity who got hacked. Sure, Weiner is a bigtime Congressman, but Twitter is a huge company – their servers were presumably hacked – they have standing to file charges.

It’s as if I left a suitcase full of unicorn Hummel’s at your house, and a burglar broke in and stole that case. Sure, I can file charges, but really, you should.

So I ask – where the hell is Twitter in all this?

And where are my unicorn Hummel’s?

Like many Americans, on October 3, 2008 my world changed. That afternoon, Congress had passed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, also known as the Wall Street Bailout.  Like many Americans, I had written Congress, had called the Congressional switchboard, had done everything I could to let my voice be heard. But my government had not listened. I grew up in the 80s, at a time when kids were still taught America was a good idea, because we were a free people with a voice. That Friday I discovered, along with many other Americans, that I no longer had a voice in my government. Somehow, now I was no longer a member of We The People. On paper I was, but in the unwritten evolving “Constitution” of Congressional precedent, Wall Street and special interests were The People who mattered now. Standing there in my kitchen, washing my dishes, watching my kids play in the dwindling daylight, I felt small before the face of my government, and I felt a deep solidarity with all those people who had called the Congressional switchboard with me.

But unlike many Americans, I happen to be a college professor who researches how to understand and model complex systems. My doctoral work dealt with how metaphor and narrative model complexity in economics and neuroscience. All very wonkish to be sure. This work earned me an invitation to research and lecture at the Joint Forces Staff College, Norfolk VA, on how military commanders can lead, understand, and model complex operational environments in real time.

It was my days working in development and movie production in Indie Hollywood that first convinced me of the power of narrative. Narrative is not only found in literature books, or movies themselves, but in days on set, in the hundreds of production details, in shot choices, in schedules, in actor issues, and all financial decisions that go into making a feature film. Complex systems are understood through narrative.

During the week that followed the passage of TARP, I reviewed the news coverage of the Bailout and sensed parts of the story were missing. DC and the media all said that TARP was necessary, but was it? Really? Why had TARP encountered so much opposition in the House when all the power brokers supported it? Why had the Bailout failed on the Monday vote? Why did it pass so easily in the Senate? What changed the minds of those who flipped their votes to support it? Who were the people on the inside who were actually fighting the bill? What did the power brokers do to stop them? And why aren’t those who fought the Bailout getting to tell their side of the story?

The more I researched the data, spoke with eyewitnesses, and reflected on what I know of the way complex systems behave, the more a conviction arose in me that a complex political battle had been fought inside Congress, one that did not easily fit parties or political organizations. In an atmosphere of great panic, a powerful few, with much to lose, used the system of American government to save themselves. Those who fought them were actually taking the stand that we, so many of us, were asking them to take.  Given my background in both film production and complex systems, I realized I had the available resources to understand this battle and work with other filmmakers to bring the inside story of this monumental event to the big screen.

Now, after two years of extensive research, including off-the-record interviews with the eyewitness congressman, staff members, and other witness, my production company is partnering with Advent Film Group, a Virginia based production company, to produce RED SEPTEMBER, a theatrical feature film recounting the inside story of the fight against the 2008 Bailout of Wall Street. As George Escobar, founder of Advent Film Group explains, “Other movies about the Bailout are focused on Wall Street. RED SEPTEMBER is the only film centered on Congress. It shows clearly how Congress, not Wall Street, caused the financial crisis. Going into the 2012 election year, this movie will be a powerful rallying cry for voters who seek to rein in Congress and the President.”

Consistently, in off-the-record interviews, I heard the fight against this bill was the most bi-partisan cause that Congressmen could remember. RED SEPTEMBER tells the story of this great bi-partisan fight for our country. Current polls show that the debt is the most important issue on the minds of 2012 voters. Recently Democrat and Republican leadership negotiated to cut 38 billion dollars from the budget, but it turned out that actual cuts, without the funny math, amounted to only a few hundred million. Another budget cutting proposal currently offered by Republicans will cut 6 trillion from the budget, but that 6 trillion is only from what President Obama wants to spend over the next ten years, not from the actual budget. Given the looming debt crisis, many are wondering why the government is not taking decisive action to get its financial house in order. Even Standard & Poors is threatening to downgrade the rating on US sovereign debt. After watching RED SEPTEMBER and seeing how many of these officials behave under pressure behind closed doors, the current political absurdities will make a lot more sense.

The production of RED SEPTEMBER will be fashioned after two classic films: APOLLO 13, depicting the intensity of a crisis, and MR. SMITH GOES TO WASHINGTON, demonstrating the courage necessary in doing what’s right for the people and by the people.

My partners and I expect RED SEPTEMBER to resonate with the Tea Party and many independents. We’ve been careful not to water down the economics of the Bailout or the financial crisis. Like the recent film INCEPTION, RED SEPTEMBER respects the intelligence of the audience. Some in the media have popularized a caricature of the Tea Party as an anti-intellectual, anti-academic, hick movement, but the concerns of the Tea Party are far more intellectually defensible, and I think the film will show that.

Michael Snyder, Advent co-founder, has said, “This story is critical because the Bailout gave rise to the Tea Party. The Bailout is also widely recognized as America’s watershed moment toward overt socialism. It opened the door to trillion dollar deficits that now plague our economic future. RED SEPTEMBER shows what we must do to reverse our course.”

Nevertheless, this project has caught the attention of conservative activists, actors, and investors. They’re attracted to RED SEPTEMBER because it shows the solution and the choice for the next generation: either restore America to what the forefathers intended for their children, or sell it and enslave them. “Investors have been calling even as the final offering paperwork is still being finalized,” Snyder explains. “We’re on a fast-track schedule to get funding in place for a summer 2011 production start. We want RED SEPTEMBER to be a tipping point for electing true leaders in 2012 who will defy the corrupt forces of Washington and defend American liberty.”

The 19th Century political philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville wrote, “A democracy cannot get at the truth without experience, and many nations perish for lack of the time to discover their mistakes.” What Tocqueville observed almost two hundred years ago is equally true today. When democracy forgets its experience, it forgets the truth it discovered. The ramming of the 2008 Bailout of Wall Street through Congress, against the loud protests of the American people, slap-startled American democracy to the reality that Washington no longer represents the People. Rather, it steals from them. This knowledge led to protests and a change in the balance of power in Congress in 2010. But the momentum toward corruption, big government, entitlements, bailouts, etc, is so great, that only the concentrated effort of the American people over time can change that momentum. But democracy can forget its experience. If it does, no matter the party in power, momentum against these evils will halt, and America will return to her self destructive course. To sustain a long war, we must remember why we fight.

We need leadership.

Who in our government has the courage to look directly upon the festering face of our debt crisis? Upon the complex vascular structure of political issues that feed it? Who has the courage to lead us clear of it? America has had great leaders before. What would that kind of leadership look like today?

The first step is to remember our history. This is why I believe RED SEPTEMBER is so important at this moment in our history.

Historical fact supports that George Washington was a great leader. We need not be suspicious of that even though we live in a cynical age. There really are great women and men. If we want great leaders, we must be faithful to remember the faithfulness of great leaders who have gone before us. Especially given the cultural importance of history and of accurately remembering our history. History is a story, and our history is our story. Because our history is a story, and because our current reality flows out of our real past, it is vitally important that we tell it right.

This is because values are meaningless without stories.

Courage. Justice. Sacrifice. Faithfulness.

Without stories, all virtues are just words. Look at them. To see them each on a page, followed by a period, makes the eye stumble. Each is nothing without a person acting, and a person acting with courage, or faithfulness, is part of a story. Values are not intelligible without stories. To destroy our nation’s values, an adversary must change our traditions and history, and, specifically, make our citizens either forget our history or believe the values of our forefathers no longer apply.

Those who would undo and overtake our nation are doing both. It’s not enough to preserve the memory of our history. Cynicism in the present will make us treat our true past as mere legend.

In September 2008, America learned irrefutably that we no longer have a government by the people and for the people, and we will live with the consequences of that month for years to come, as this film illuminates. But what America doesn’t know, is that in that great struggle, we did have leaders with the character of our forefathers. Leaders who were willing to put their security and sacred honor on the line for the People.  The nation needs to see that our national character is not a legendary folk story. There are people like that today. And if we are faithful, we can be that nation again. But we need to see what that character looks like in the 21st Century.

And there were people who demonstrated that character in real recent history. If we want to be a nation of people with this kind of character, we must remember with esteem those people who demonstrate the values and character of our founders. And if we who love America, and the values of our founders, do not call “honorable” those who live out those values, who will?

Those who name win.

If we cannot name this kind of virtue and character as “honorable” in our present day, we by our silence cede the initiative to those who want to “change… our history….” If we let our values only be the stuff of legend, we rob them of their power to give a spine to our next generation, and we make men without chests. As C.S. Lewis writes, “We make men without chests and expect of them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honour and are shocked to find traitors in our midst.” It goes without saying that honor is worthy of praise. But when many shame what is honorable, noble character is all the more praiseworthy.

Motion pictures are irrefutably the most vivid way to mass-communicate narrative. And narrative (history) establishes values. If we want to have people like the founders, like Washington, in the future, we need to show our nation, especially our young people, in the way that resonates with our culture, what that kind of moral character factually looks like in the present, and that it’s possible to lead as that kind of character-driven leader in the real world.

If you want America to have those kinds of leaders then believe in RED SEPTEMBER.

To learn more or for interviews, visit: www.RedSeptemberMovie.com or contact Michael Collender at 626-214-8920, or email producer@3-r-productions.com. Mike Snyder can be reached at 540-338-8023, or email mike.advent@gmail.com.

Youthful Flashback:  My dad holding a $20 bill in his hand… he hesitates and looks at me.   First year of college, I was heading off to Hollywood with some pals for a concert and I had asking him if I could have some spending cash. 

“I’m not sure I’m doing you a favor giving you this,” he said with a faint crinkle in his eye.  I just made a clever joke and thanked him and was off for rock’n’roll heaven.   Years later, it came to me what he was saying.  Had I planned ahead and worked and earned the twenty bucks I’d have been further on up the road of becoming a man.  I would have developed a greater sense of independence, capability and competence; and I would have foreshortened greatly my prolonged adolescence.  (Some say extreeeemely prolonged.)

We do our kids no favors when we fail to teach them that if they want something, they need to get their butts in gear and go earn it.  And I think we’re losing that in our country.  I see our greater national malaise as being symptomatic of this failure.  We have failed to instill the basic work ethic in a large segment of our society.  Rather than gazing upon the frontier of their future with an eager lust of conquest and adventure…an ardent desire to become something exceptional, to produce great things… too many look out and see only a land of great abundance — to which they are entitled.    And the cause of that entitlement is for no reason other than that they breathe air.

It’s an easy seduction, the Entitlement Riff.  This is America, the land of Freedom.  I can do what I want.  I can acquire what I want.  I’m an American.  Therefore, I should have what I want.  And I will vote into office anyone who promises me that if they’re elected to public office, then I will get what I want.   And anyone who disagrees is a greedy, racist, Republican bigot homophobe.

(No, I’ve never worked for the New York Times but thanks for asking.)

When our top leaders can get away with exhorting us straight-faced to claim our ‘rights’ to the fruits of other people’s efforts; there is a national epidemic of envy afoot.  Envy leads to misery and anger.  Evil people harness that energy for their own power and ‘workers revolutions’ are spawned.  The means of production is taken by violence or threat of violence by ‘The People’.  Only the evil, the petulant, or the willfully ignorant refuse history’s lesson of what an ultimately endless and downward spiral-staircase of despair and ruination to which this leads mankind.  Close to a hundred million people in the last century – innocents – murdered by such despotic notions.

Victimhood.   We look at our plight (whatever that may be)…and we see injustice.  And if we don’t see injustice, just listen to NPR, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, the NY Times, or any variety of mainstream media news sources, and they’ll tell you – our society is unjust and you need to be compensated for it.  Paid reparations.  You got it coming. 

It’s easy to fall into.  Hey, all my friends and family are doin’ it, what the hell!  Just go along with it.  The Money-for-Nothing, Where’s-My-Check, Low-Hangin’ Fruit Express.

And the rationale for it all…. aw, that’s easy!  Rather than looking to ourselves for the source of our personal troubles and challenges…we look to our neighbor and covet what they have and we don’t.  Buttressed by the arguments of the Left, we see this disparity of property ownership as a Great American Injustice.   We’re good people – why shouldn’t we have more?   It’s not fair.

And we fabricate cause – we affixed blame.  It’s those rich people’s fault I don’t have more.   They’re taking too much.  There’s not enough left for me.  It’s their fault I’m poor. 

It’s not fair.  There should be a law.

The Something-for-Nothing promise has long lured the shiftless and greedy to the polling place to vote for the latest Snake-oil salesman who promises great rewards for a pittance of a price.   A couple hundred years ago as this nation was climbing onto its feet, fly-by-night salesmen roamed the new land selling remedies of all sorts – available to all for mere pocket change.  Snake-oil was one such ointment, brought over from China and sold as a ‘remedy to relieve all pains’.  Though some claimed it worked, it soon became known as a false panacea with dubious effectiveness.  And often these energetic sure-cure hawkers were run out of town as charlatans and shysters. 

I wonder how those townspeople would deal with our current White House occupant.

Because our Snake-oil-Salesman-in-Chief is selling us a new remedy (that’s not so new):  A cure-all to heal what ails us.  A new re-envisioned America.   A new ‘re-invented’ America.   In this America, no one ever will go hungry.  No one will ever go broke.  No one will ever want for anything.  Because everything will be provided, at no cost to them, by the Government.   Isn’t that fantastic!?   We no longer have to struggle.  And the checks will be delivered to our door.  We don’t have to worry, we don’t have to work; hell, we don’t even have to get out of bed!   Electronic transfers will happen automatically.   Finally, we’ve accomplished what no man or group of men have ever been able to accomplish in human history – a self-generating, perpetual-motion machine.   All known physical laws defied by the magnificent and exalted Leader of the New Global Order — Barack Hussein Obama.  I’m not sure any of you fully grasp what this huge accomplishment portends!   A new system of human interaction.   Human nature reversed!   Rather than people acting first and foremost in their own self-interest, human beings are now unleashed to explore the higher goals of Universal Mind.  A New Enlightenment is upon us, o my brothers and sisters…a new world realized…in which the lion will lay down with the lamb…and the bum on the street can help himself with impunity to the contents of your pockets.  It is a great day indeed.

However…sadly…many of you are still under the mistaken notion that what’s yours…is yours.  This is an old model, an outdated way of thinking.  For, after all, why should you have so much, when so many others have so little?  Is that fair?

Well actually, yes.  As long as you didn’t break the law and acquired what’s yours legally, of course it’s fair.   Ethics are the gray area here – and this is the Great Divide between Left and Right.   The Left thinks it is unethical that a person work, risk and struggle to become successful and then get to actually keep what he earned.  The Left thinks he should have to be pinged for his success (and at a higher rate than the rest of us) and the proceeds be fed into the government coffers to be distributed according to government’s pleasure.  The Right thinks that the government, when it ‘redistributes’ his hard-earned wealth to those who haven’t earned it, are stealing from them.   As one capitalist put it, “At least the Highwayman has the decency to wear a mask.”   The Left think it’s government’s job to ration out charitable compassion – the Right believes that in a free society, it is up to the individual to decide to whom and when to administer charity.   The President last week blamed much of our economic woes on “unpaid-for tax cuts… that will force us to borrow an average of $500 billion every year over the next decade”.  

Does he just make these numbers up as he goes along?

‘Unpaid-for tax cuts’.   Will somebody please explain to me the logic of that phrase the President is so enamored with?   You won’t be able to because logic is not factor in the phrase – to try to prop that old turd up with logic would ignite a mobius in which the head is chasing the tail and well…only a proctologist can undo it.  This may explain a commonly recurring posture of so many on the Left.   No mention of the fact that reducing taxes actually increases tax revenues by broadening the tax base.  I guess they don’t teach that at Harvard.  (What DO they teach?)   I guess they also don’t teach this – that if you take money from those who work and give it to those who don’t…you shouldn’t be surprised when the number who work decreases and the number who don’t increases.

It pains me deeply to see the America I grew up with fast-become a footnote in history.  Yeah, it was great while it lasted, but sayonara, baby.  We got a New New Deal.  A ‘fundamentally transformed’ chicken-in-every-pot America.  The Great Workers’ Paradise.  

Bullshit.

We are in debt up to our eyeballs to China, we’re at war with a fanatical Cult of Terror hell-bent on destroying us; and at the same time were facing the worst financial collapse in history, our domestic fiscal policy more closely resembles Eurotrash socialism than it does the economic boom of the ‘50’s and 60’s.  Our leader is laughed at by our enemies and distrusted by our allies.  American business is hunkered down, consolidating resources, afraid to expand or hire new workers because they are fearful what this business-hostile president might hit them with next.

And yes, Mr. Obama is a very charming and likable man.  But all the charm in the world won’t keep our markets from spiraling down the tubes, or our enemies from striking us around the globe, or our people from losing faith in our own way of life.  Mr. Obama and his Leftist cronies are ruining America.  My great grandchildren will still be cleaning up the mess decades after I’ve passed.  

Unless we fix it now.  I say it’s time to undo this nation’s undoing.  It’s time to say NO to the President’s plans to ‘fundamentally transform’ this nation.   It’s time to work daily to see that every Lefty in government is unemployed come 2013.

Don’t mean to sound ungrateful, Mr. President…

…but I don’t want my great nation to become un-great.

Even if you have questions from a libertarian perspective on the duration of intellectual property rights, during whatever term you think appropriate those rights still are property rights.  Enforceable property rights are at the bedrock of our free market.  And if the government is not the backstop for egregious—often criminal–violations of those rights, then what good are the rights in the first place?

During the Bush Administration, the Congress created the office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator, a White House position that was first filled by President Obama but that will continue into the future regardless of the President’s party.  While the title sounds grandiose, the IPEC performs an important facilitating role to focus the resources of the Federal government on the stick part of IP rights.  If you are on the side—my side—that believes strongly both in a free market and also the property rights that are the basis of it, at some point you want the government to help level the playing field.  While I loathe the idea of government seizing private property for any reason, including eminent domain, I equally loathe the government essentially allowing—through a failure to enforce the laws–big corporations and pirates to seize private property.  Government should enforce these private property rights and reduce free-riding and negative externalities occurring due to piracy. 

As I watched Chairman Goodlatte’s recent hearing in the House IP subcommittee on the theft of America’s intellectual property assets, a fundamental question came to me that no one asked.  Few would argue that a creator has the right to call the police when their physical property is being stolen.  When it comes to IP, somehow it’s different to some people.  Opponents of intellectual property rights often think that creators should be forced to pay for private litigation against large corporate interests, or pursue transborder pirates in China, Russia or CatchMeIfYouCan-istan–even though these shadowy operators sell US IP in the US illegally. 

If a creator’s car is being stolen, they can call the police, but some would have the law say that if their life’s work is being stolen, creators have to spend a fortune on litigation or suck it up.  This is inconsistent with free market principles.  The IPEC’s recommendations are consistent with fundamental first principles and are a necessary back-fill to loop holes that have been exploited by parasitic free riders for far too long.