Barack Obama had Dinesh D’Souza arrested and held on half a million dollars bail over a minor campaign finance violation – saying that they have zero tolerance for law-breakers.
This would be the same Barack Obama who commits massive breaches of the law on an hourly basis.
Zero tolerance for anyone else who has a different opinion …
Obama has Zero Tolerance for job creation. What a strange President the US has.
http://m.weeklystandard.com/blogs/1-8-american-men-between-ages-25-54-are-not-working_793938.html
All laws are selectively enforced.
That’s how americans like it. Lots and lots of laws selectively enforced on ‘bad’ people. Or people who don’t agree. Or weird people. Or people who don’t go along to get along… it’s a free country so long as you’re the same as everyone else.
Let me correct that for you.
All laws are selectively enforced.
That’s how
americansthe political class likes it. Lots and lots of laws selectively enforced against competitors, or those who complain, or those who get in the way. And if that doesn’t work, well there is always assassination.I agree with you both. I call it freedom of thought. We don’t have it here in America – not that I have seen in my life. From my late childhood I have seen it. Many claim to be “free thinkers” but are far from it. Thinking must produce valid, verifiable results; call it scientific if you like; but thinking has to produce valid, constructive, and predictive conclusions. Not the pure nonsense of word-play, sophistry, and fancy. Call that for an excellent example climate science rather than free-thought.
Now, free thought, is directed thought, at a problem at hand (don’t we have plenty of those?), just facts, just data, now design a solution. That. The design part. Is free thought. That kind of thought is rare here in America. But I might add, IMHO, a little true free thought goes a long way.
Gail, while I agree with the thrust of your comment, I am a little discomfited by the redolence of elitism. To assuage that I try to think of “freedom of thought” also allowing me the right of “freedom from thought”
The political class cultivates it and exploits it, but it’s how the american people are.
Suggest raising a speed limit to, oh the 85th percentile speed. The valid engineering method for setting a speed limit. Observe what happens. Never mind that it doesn’t change the speed people drive, it merely makes what they are driving legal. Then suggest putting up speed cameras to enforce the existing speed limit and see what happens. Americans likes selective enforcement.They do not like mechanical unbiased enforcement. They never think they’ll be chosen, just the bad people, and that government needs tools to go after the bad people. Nail the guy driving the Mustang but not the woman in the Camry for the same speed.
Now the speed limit is where I first noticed this many years ago. But I see it over and over again. Watch americans cheer the ruling class stomping on some small business man with its regulations to keep us safe. Americans like it this way. If americans didn’t like it this way the political class couldn’t exploit it.
Much of what you are seeing is intentionally shaped by the propaganda from the media.
When farmers were fighting the WTO – AoA specifically NAIS, we saw an incredible amount of propaganda that was pure out and out lies.
At that time I was corresponding with John Munsell. He told me a well known NY mag, sent a reporter out for three days to get the e-coli story. It was polished, OKed by the editor and just before print it was killed by the OWNERS.
Read the last excerpt so you understand just how badly the US public was scammed by international Ag cartels with their WTO agreement on Ag, HACCP/Food UNSafety Modernization.
REFERENCES:
A humorous accounting of the STORY: http://www.cattlenetwork.com/cattle-news/latest/jolley-five-minutes-with-john-munsell–a-trip-to-the-woodshed-with-the-usda-114324559.html
The Problem: http://johnmunsell.com/articles/HACCP-Disconnect-From-Public-Health-Concerns.html
Investigation by outside group:
http://www.whistleblower.org/sites/default/files/Shielding_the_Giant_Final_PDF.pdf
Agreement on Agriculture – World Trade Organization Document:
http://www.wto.org/english/docs_e/legal_e/14-ag.pdf
or
http://www.wto.org/english/res_e/booksp_e/analytic_index_e/agriculture_01_e.htm
ALL the “recommended” Regulations (This is where the Food Safety Modernization Act comes from.) Darn the info has changed again but here is something from Iowa:
https://store.extension.iastate.edu/Product/On-farm-Food-Safety-Guide-to-Good-Agricultural-Practices-GAPs
Some older info from my files:
“Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) are sets of regulations and practices designed to improve the safety and quality of produce. Governments, NGOs, producer organizations, and other food industry players have developed different sets of GAP codes, standards, and regulations in recent years in an attempt to standardize food production and processing procedures.” (FAO, 2008)
The original I looked at that has since been removed is
http://www.oie.int/eng/publicat/rt/2502/review25-2BR/25-berlingueri823-836.pdf
It had goodies in it like:
Are these people talking about a prison, a drug manufacturing facility or about some guy with a couple of cows, or chickens or sheep? Do we have to bulldoze our entire operation and build new according to their “Guidelines”?
And none of this does diddlesquat when the USDA/FDA says it is ok to have feces in the meat and they will no longer inspect anything but PAPERWORK!
Cutting 80 Percent of Pathogen Testing for Produce – USDA
IMO the biggest difference between a banana republic and the US has been it occasionally free-wheeling press. In the past five years that has been pissed away for a dream. One can only hope that it will be back in 2017, and is not a permanent condition. Another reason we need a Repub President.
Correction, we need a Libertarian president.
We need the federal government to be dramatically cut back. A Republican or Libertarian president may only stem the tide of bloated bureaucracy. A Senate and House who put principle and liberty of the people above their own self interest are needed. I’m not holding my breath.
Better yet, an Objectivist who is registered as an Independent.
Do you like our Constitution and Bill of Rights? They were written by Libertarians. There is little, if any, real difference between Libertarians and Objectivists. The main selling point for me is that both abhor Progressives, and both highly value individual liberty.
When you get right down to it most Americans are Libertarian in their core beliefs, but because the Libertarian message gets drowned out by Progressives on the right and left, they are lost in a sea of partisan noise.
+1
My Bankster is an Objectivist. No fool he and the bank is doing very well though he has since retired. He managed to side-step the Clinton banking laws fiasco in 2007-8 by good management.
Caveat: Risque – “It’s good to be the King” – Mel Brooks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=StJS51d1Fzg