Funny How It All Came Together

I had mentioned in my last post that the Occupy Wall Street folks need to be focused.  They're trying to pattern themselves after the Tea Party movement, which is laser-focused:  Lower taxes and smaller government.

I saw 3 different "spokespersons" be asked the same question late last week, and they all had basically the same answer. "What are you trying to accomplish?  What are your goals?"  All three of them - San Francisco, DC and somewhere else basically said, "We don't know (WTF?!)  We've got a communications dude that will be figuring it out for us."

After the first one, I thought it was a joke.  Really?  You're out protesting, but you don't know why?  But it appeared as though it was the rule, and not the exception.
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They appear to now have more focus - they hate banks and Wall Street - but there's no agenda or end-game.  Some commie type guy called a radio station Sunday night, and the host was giving him all the rope he needed to hang himself.

"So.  Let's say you're successful, and you're able to shut down, oh, Bank Of America.  How will your life be better?"  Queue crickets chirping.

After the bilge water between his ears caught an electrical signal, he went back into the pre-planned rant against the banks, their evil white executives, blah, blah, blah.

The hostess tossed him another question:  "If you're able to shut down B of A, what will you tell the hundreds of thousands of employees that will have lost their jobs?"  More crickets.  Then rage.

This REALLY pissed him off.  He went into this hyper-wired rant about how "the people" would start a bank that was fair and equitable, and not have any profit, and blah, blah, blah.  It sounded like he envisioned a commune credit union that did business out of a cash drawer picked up at Office Depot.

The hostess noted that that would require Congress to re-write all of the banking laws, including those just force fed to us by the Dodd-Frank banking reform - the same laws that cut some fees banks were charging, so they just made new fees, and that's what you're out here protesting?  He was unclear on the concept.

Then, the hostess just got plain cruel.  She questioned the role of government.  Big government.  "And really, shouldn't you protesters be hammering the government, and not the banks, since it was the government that made the decision to give the banks the bailouts?"

I believe I heard his head explode on air.  A good time was had by all.
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Ooops.  It seems that some of this "spontaneous," grassroots, "of, by and for the people", protesting isn't quite so.  It seems that some of them are being paid to be there...

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/1207109585001/wall-street-protestors-getting-paid/?intcmp=obinsite

Hey, at least it's kinda, sorta helping with the unemployment problem, huh?  The Tea Party organizers are just cheap, I guess.

Funny how I missed this story on the network TV news shows.  I'm sure if there had been paid Tea Partiers it wouldn't have made the news either....
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Did you hear what Governor Jerry "MoonBeam" Brown did here in California?  It's now illegal to get a tan, but if you're illegal, you can go to college.

Yep, if you're under 18, you can no longer go to a tanning salon.  The decision isn't up to you or your parents - the state knows best.  My guess is that going to the beach - unless you're in a burka - will soon be illegal as well.

But there is good news if you're here in California illegally:  You can now get government-paid financial support to go to college.  Isn't that special?  You're here breaking the law, so we heap benefits on you.

I sure am glad we're using up our state surplus on these high-minded programs.  We've got a surplus, right?
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That festering piece of Brown shit (sorry, I'm pissed off) also signed a bill making open carry illegal,.

All for good reason, though -

"We view the open carrying of unloaded handguns as a threat to the safety of the communities we police and the safety of our officers," said David L. Maggard, Jr., president of the California Police Chiefs Association.

Really, Dave? You want to explain that one? How in God's Name could it be a threat to the community by someone carrying an UNLOADED GUN?  Of course, there's an exemption... for police officers.

We're their boss, right?  Not the other way around?  Yet they've got more rights (again) than we do.  Hmm.

Not to leave good enough alone, Brown also signed a bill requiring the state to keep records of long gun purchases.

The justification for that one?

In a message accompanying the signed bill, AB809 by Assemblyman Mike Feuer, D-Los Angeles, Brown wrote, "Since the state already retains handgun purchaser information, I see no reason why the state should not also retain information pertaining to the sale of long guns."

Hey, we're already invading your privacy, why not do a little bit more, huh? What's the harm?
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I think I've known in my heart that I would eventually be leaving this state.  I've worked very hard to come up with alternatives.  Many of the more rural areas are less restrictive with gun laws, and we could just move there.

What is not changing is the insanity in Sacramento.  This over-arching need to spend money we just don't have.  This insane belief that we must be "moral and compassionate" and turn a blind eye to laws that are mean to people that are here illegally, or whom choose to "make a living" by not working.

I called one of my brothers yesterday and said that my own personal "line in the sand" had been crossed.  The event was something I had witnessed a hundred times before, but this time, it was one of those "Perfect Storm" moments.  More newly legislated state spending, more newly legislated reduction in personal liberty, and witnessing the result of this mind-set.  It dawned on me that California will NEVER change.  Never.  I just won't play any more.

Death By A Thousand Cuts has finally bled me out.

The event I witnessed was three generations  of women buying receiving food.  On my dime.  Grandma, mom and sissy, each with their own cart, each in turn pulling out their various forms of government script.  Mom and sissy each had cell phones plastered to their heads.  All three were adorned in beautiful clothes, each had newly quaffed hair and spiffed up nails.

What none of them had was an ounce of shame.  There was no attempt to cast their eyes away from the glare they were getting from me.  To the contrary.  Their look was one of, "I'm entitled."

After they had bagged their bounty, they all proceeded to the section of the store where cigarettes and alcohol are sold.  I bagged up, and went to my car and waited.  Grandma and sissy cooled their heels at the curb while mom went and got the car.  A few minutes later, she pulled up in a late model SUV.  The hatch was popped, the bounty was secured, and off they went.

I felt the life drain from me.
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I've lived my entire 52 years in California.  My entire family lives here.  I've worked hard to find a way to stay here to stay close - "Maybe I can move to XYZ county and it won't be quite so bad."

Well, it's just not going to work.  The political pandering will continue.  The welfare state will expand.  Personal liberty will be reduced.  I know all of this as fact.

This state has a terminal cancer.  No amount of chemo or surgery can help. The model we've built is one of parent and child.  The state, as the parent, is dying.  The children are being stuck with the hospital bill.  Some of the kids are furiously working to pay the bills.  Some of the kids are stealing the parent's meds.  More and more, kids like me recognize the parent is terminal, and withdraw.

We're sad.  We remember how lively and vibrant our parent used to be  We wonder if there was something we could have done differently.

But the parent has no chance of recovery.  Death in imminent.  We only hope it happens quickly.

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