And you wonder why these guys are going out of business

Really? That's where they want to go?


At least Romney doesn't throw like a girl..

More guns not less would have minimized CO massacre deaths

Today New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg asked the two candidates for president how they were going to address the massacre in Colorado:

"I mean, there are so many murders with guns every day, it's just got to stop. And instead of the two people – President Obama and [Gov.] Romney – talking in broad things about they want to make the world a better place, [OK], tell us how."

Here's how - start by making it easier (not harder) for law abiding citizens to obtain and carry weapons AT ALL TIMES. My point is - How many would have died in the Aurora massacre if just 1% of the moviegoers were exercising their second amendment rights and packing heat? As it was, the gunman had absolutely no resistance at all. He had a theater full of sheep.

But the liberals' answer - in typical knee-jerk simpleton reaction - is to 'ban all the guns' and the problem will be solved. Of course, this course of action has been proven wrong over and over and over again. Just ask Mayor Rahm Emanuel in Chicago. DC? Since their enforcement of more stringent gun ownership (effectively making it virtually impossible for citizens to obtain weapons) gun related murder rates have skyrocketed.

The answer is more armed citizens not less but this will never be an option for the liberals. Why? because it puts the citizen in control and not the government and that just can't happen. The liberals would much rather sacrifice a few of the electorate than relinquish one iota of control over our lives. Their goal is nothing less than utter and total gun ban. And as usual they are 180 degrees off (just like their view on raising taxes during a recession).

If Romney really wanted to make this event into something positive he should embrace making it easier for citizens to get weapons not harder. It may not be popular with the MSM but it would certainly draw a surefire difference between his vision of America and his opponents'. 

For more evidence that more guns are better see the post right before this one

Exit question: Which of the two gun related events this week will get the most play from the MSM?

This is why we have the 2nd Amendment

How long would it take the cops to get there? My guess is a lot more time than Mr. Williams' bullet took to introduce itself to Messrs Henderson and Dawkins.

I thought the race card was maxed out?

Hypothetically speaking (for this would never - ever - ever happen) but what if President Obama decided to speak at the annual NRA convention? AND, in this hypothetical speech Obama indicated that he wanted to curb gun sales which caused the audience to boo him?

HuffPo's leading headline would be NRA RAICIST, BOO THE PRESIDENT in 36-point font.

Now let's look at Romney - who did indeed go onto the lion's den and spoke at the NAACP annual convention. In his speech (which oddly enough was very close to every stump speech he'd made so far) he criticized the disaster that is O-care and was subsequently booed by the audience.

The headline after his speech? ROMNEY IS RACIST.

This from Michael Tomasky at the Daily Beast:

Romney and team obviously concluded that a little shower of boos was perfectly fine because the story "Romney Booed at NAACP" would jazz up their (very white) base.

Yes Michael, obviously, this is the answer. I couldn't possibly be that Romney is running for president of all Americans regardless of skin color and therefore thought it prudent to at least try to make his conservative case to those who he knows lean left.

Tomasky also calls Romney spineless, disingenuous, and supercilious. His evidence is that Romney does whatever the Tea Party tells him to do. Romney not only showed fortitude by showing up at the NAACP convention, he (if you read the speech) actually makes a case that Obama's policies have disproportionally hurt the black community. 

If Tomasky wants to see real spinelessness, he need look no further than The One. He sent Biden and didn't even bother to show up. If Obama wants to show he has a spin let him go into the lion's den and speak in front of the NRA and make his case for destroying the second amendment rights of all Americans.

I guess if the only thing you have left in your quiver is 8 plus percent unemployment, stagnant economy and no end in sight all you can do is scream RACIST and hope it sticks regardless of the evidence that suggest otherwise.

Golly, you mean health care costs will go up w/O-care?

The republicans on the senate budget committee released the chart above today showing that the cost of Obamacare will actually be about $2.6 trillion over the next 10 years. Notice how the estimated costs just keep on going north by $300 billion each year. Who would'a thunk that?

What do you think will happen once there is no more money left and a future congress stuck with this mess has to cap the increase in expansion? Let's see, what was it that Sara Palin said that everybody ridiculed her for a while back. Oh yeah - Death panels.

In one fell swoop Obama has managed to do what 2 world wars, a civil war and several natural disasters could do. He has effectively ended this great experiment in democracy. Thanks champ.

If we can't stop this thing by electing folks that will repeal this incredibly bad piece of legislation it will become part of our culture. In addition, every year it is in place it will become harder and harder to get rid of regardless of the cost. The best option is a quick death early next year.

Flash Fiction Time!

Occasionally I get the urge to write a bit of flash fiction. It's a quick and deceptive medium where a lot can be packed into a thousand words or less. The general premise behind it is that you take a photograph and write a story around it.

My favorite flash fiction writer is Sippican over at Sippican Cottage. He published a book with nothing but flash fiction last year called The Devil's in the Cows which is damn near perfect. It is a fascinating read if for nothing else than to marvel at his prose.

Any-hoo enough about him. Here is a bit of flash I wrote recently to limber up the old writing muscles as I attempt to finish my second novel. If you like it check out some of my traditional fiction at Amazon.com here and here.

Room 2A

How I got here, I don't rightly know. The steps taken in life's journey seem insubstantial at the time, but when you reflect…

I have a son, probably 15 or 16 by now. Can't remember his middle name. Ain't that something? I can't even remember my son's middle name. Something like Robert or Ray maybe. Not sure where he is now. His mother up and left 4 maybe 5 years ago. Thought about tracking her down, but what's the use? If someone don't want to be with you there ain't no changing their mind. 'Specially after so many years. I'd like to remember my son's middle name though, that'd be nice.

I got myself an appointment tomorrow down at the 5 and Dime on Main and Market. The manager's name is Carl. He'll let me treat him to lunch then brush me off like the last time. And the time before that come to think on it. I don't mind so much. Found if you don't take it personally it don't hurt so much. Still does though - sometimes.

I got a gal over Burlington way. She's not pretty, has a kid too but we don't talk much. Just there to scratch each other's itch, I reckon. Hardly ever spend the night. Just two souls with nothing better to do and no one better to do it with. Her name's Sal, short for Sally I think, not sure what her kid's name is.

Been on the road all my life. Selling brushes, detergent and other nonessentials out of the trunk of my old Buick, one town after another. There was a time when I thought all this had some meaning, a purpose, if you will, but the Road done beat that notion out of my head long ago.

I like selling stuff. Even stuff I don't particularly like. I'm good at it, or was when I cared, but that was a long time ago too.

I'm happy enough right now, though. I got a fresh pack of Luckies and heading out to that new bar I saw coming into town. It says 'new' on the sign but I know it's just like all the others. Filled with people just like me. Waiting - just waiting for something, but none of us knows for what. I'll sit with them, listen to their stories, offer a few of my own, none of us very interesting - but it helps - it helps to pass the time while we wait.

Maybe tomorrow I'll remember my kids name. That'd be nice, I think. Sometimes, I even hope he'll remember mine, but not often.

More "GOP Hoping America Fails" BS from the left

A few days ago Brent Budowsky had an Op-Ed piece at The Hill where he ties himself in knots trying to portray the GOP as the party that is cheering for the economy to fail all for political gain (emphasis mine):

It is time to talk of patriotism and partisanship and a Republican Party that has lost its heart, its soul and its way. Ronald Reagan would be embarrassed by Republicans today. William F. Buckley would be angry and ashamed. The party of Reaganite optimism is now the party that hopes America fails and blames Americans first.

Blames America first you say? I guess that's nothing like the never-ending apology tour The one embarked on where he wanted to apologies to the Japanese at Hiroshima in 2009? Or apologizing to the families of slain terrorists? And this is just a couple of examples of The One's knee-jerk reaction to blaming America first. Yet Budowsky somehow sees it as the GOP as the party of blaming America for our current woes.

What is really interesting to me is that he points to the latest jobs report as evidence of the GOP cheerleading for America to fail:

And now, the jobs report arrives. Today the ADP report was better than expected, disappointing Republicans who hope for joblessness and cheer-lead for America to fail. We shall see about the big jobs report tomorrow. This much is clear:

Never in the history of the republic has any great party been so passionately hopeful that America would fail as Republicans are today.

Um, just for the record Brent, adding 80,000 private sector jobs to the economy is at best considered anemic by any standard. But let's not take my word for it let's hear from Nancy Pelosi:

"Mr. President, where are the jobs?" Rep. Nancy Pelosi asked on CNN in October 2003. "The American people will not settle for—nor should the Republicans celebrate—a jobless recovery."

Well said Nancy, well s - Oh wait a minute that was way back in October of 2003 when 203,000 private sector jobs were added to the economy and unemployment was a staggering only 5.8%. Golly, what must Nancy think now of Obama's performance? anyone out there?

So according to Budowsky, 80,000 private sector jobs added is groovy while 203,000 added is bad. In what alternate universe does this make sense? The 80,000 jobs added last month is only about half of what we need in this country just to keep up with population growth. However, Budowsky would have you believe that because the number came in higher than expectations and the GOP rightly calls the number below what the American people need they are somehow rooting for America to fail.

That's like saying the Cubs had a great year because they only finished 25 games out when the experts thought it would be 50!

Hate to break it to you Brent but the GOP is not rooting for America to fail, they believe, as I do, that the Keynesian nonsense that this administration has shackled the US economy with does not work.

Budowsky continues to list the various ways in which the GOP is rooting for America to fail (emphasis mine):

Never in the history of the nation has any great party dreaded good news for America the way Republicans do today.

Again, in my book 80K jobs added is BAD news not good news.

Never in the history of America has any great party so callously and falsely blamed Americans who are jobless for being jobless, blamed Americans who are poor for being poor, blamed Americans who are hungry for being hungry or blamed Americans who are hurting for their hurt as Republicans do today.

The GOP is Blaming OBAMA and his economically inept policies - not the American people - for joblessness. Just look at this administration's stance on oil exploration. Millions of private sector jobs are on standby due to the One's war against traditional energy.

Never in the history of the Congress has any leader done what the Republican Senate leader did, boasting that his great dream for America was not putting Americans to work, but politically destroying the president.

Budowsky is referring to Mitch McConnell's comments in summer of 2011 where he said those very words. But in context he said those words in response to Obama's dream of huge deficits and government overreach. With that in perspective I got no problem with it.

While then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) passed job-creating legislation in the Democratic House, Senate Republicans abused the filibuster even more than the bigot senators of the old segregated South in their drive to make America fail. Senate Republicans destroy America's hope for jobs with the same ferocity of their leader's hyper-partisan ambition to destroy the president.

A, ahem, job creating you say? That was the boondoggle know as TARP that helped the jobless rate skyrocket to over 10%. And where Obama bloviated about shovel-ready jobs only to recant it 12 months later saying that the, um, shovel-ready jobs weren't as shovel-ready as he led us to believe. So keeping with Budowsky's theme, ANYTHING the government does, regardless of how ineffective and inefficient is good. And anyone who opposes this point of view is hoping for America to fail. Gothcha.

Budowsky apparently can't resist himself and gives a jibe at Romney for, of all things, being successful.

Never in the history of the nation has any great party been led by a man who praises his own wealth with such conceit and claims this as his qualification for the presidency. Even leading Republicans have called him a vulture.

All things being equal here (and they are not) I'd rather have a man in the Oval office who has actually signed the front of a paycheck not just the back.

Finally, Budowsky trots out the liberal mantra of GOP = the party of 'No'.

The party of Abe Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan is now the party of "no" that hopes America fails and blames Americans first.

If that means saying no to the most expansive increase in the federal government, count me among the not just NO but he HELL NO folks.

UN proposes to regulate gun ownership in America!

This from Forbes:

Under the guise of a proposed global "Small Arms Treaty" premised to fight "terrorism", "insurgency" and "international crime syndicates" you can be quite certain that an even more insidious threat is being targeted – our Constitutional right for law-abiding citizens to own and bear arms.

What, exactly, does the intended agreement entail?

While the terms have yet to be made public, if passed by the U.N. and ratified by our Senate, it will almost certainly force the U.S. to:

1. Enact tougher licensing requirements, creating additional bureaucratic red tape for legal firearms ownership.
2. Confiscate and destroy all "unauthorized" civilian firearms (exempting those owned by our government of course).
3. Ban the trade, sale and private ownership of all semi-automatic weapons (any that have magazines even though they still operate in the same one trigger pull – one single "bang" manner as revolvers, a simple fact the ant-gun media never seem to grasp).
4. Create an international gun registry, clearly setting the stage for full-scale gun confiscation.
5. In short, overriding our national sovereignty, and in the process, providing license for the federal government to assert preemptive powers over state regulatory powers guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment in addition to our Second Amendment rights.

Brilliant - there is already a proposal for the UN to institute global taxation and now they want to regulate gun ownership in the United States.

What other amendments should we ignore all in the name of global equality? This administration has already assaulted the 1st amendment where they thought it prudent to make religious organizations pay for contraceptives against their religious teaching. You could argue the 10th as well - Limits the powers of the federal government to those delegated to it by the Constitution with its massive power grab via Obamacare.

Does the Constitution mean nothing to these people? Wait never mind don't answer that..

UN proposes a global tax on financial transactions

Call me old fashioned but didn't we fight a war about this about 250 years ago? You know that outdated notion of taxation without representation. By what authourty does the UN propose to administer this tax?

According to this statement posted by the UN, under the auspices of the Human Rights Council (emphasis mine):

"Where the world financial crisis has brought about the loss of millions of jobs, socialized private debt burdens and now risks causing significant human rights regressions through wide-ranging austerity packages, a financial transaction tax (FTT) is a pragmatic tool for providing the means for governments to protect and fulfill the human rights of their people," said the rights experts on extreme poverty, food, business, foreign debt and international solidarity.

"EU countries must take bold leadership now to pave the way towards what should eventually be a global FTT," they urged, welcoming recent EU proposals to implement the financial transaction tax across the Eurozone.

Ahhh, social justice of course. And given the UN's record of corruption and mismanagement how much of these dollars will actually find its way to the intended targets? Well the group are called the Human Rights Council so they must be good global citizens right? Well here is a partial list of members:

Libya
Cuba
China
Saudi Arabia
Russia
Cuba

Sounds like an amicable group if you want to be robbed blind. These countries are on the Human Rights Council - Seriously!

Listen, the UN jumped the shark a long time ago. Why the US and our allies give this corrupt group of bandits any credence is beyond me. Let me ask this question. Given China and Russia have veto power in the Security Council - what exactly is our reason for even being part of this group of misfits? If we pulled out of the UN tomorrow what would happen that is not happening anyway. Iran is still building nuclear weapons; North Korea is still trying to develop missiles that will reach America's mainland.

Honestly, if we pulled out of the UN it would do nothing less that de-legitimize the entire organization to the point that it would cease to exist. And that would not be a bad thing.

California high-speed rail gets green light!

Hell and yes! My mother always said, if you decide to do something you might as well do it all the way. California's willful spiral into insolvency just got a huge boost. This from AP:

California lawmakers gave the green light to start building the nation's first dedicated high-speed rail line, a multibillion dollar project that will eventually link Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Keep in mind that the state government is projecting a $16 Billion deficit for 2012 alone! And the projected cost for this cho-cho is $100 billion! Never mind that there are already many other options for commuters going between LA and San Francisco with much more flexibility not to mention cost effective. It appears that Brown and his economically illiterate allies are hell bent on making California the Greece of the Union.

What was the reason the Dems gave for going forward with the project you might ask? Dan Richard, chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, which is managing the project, explains:

 California would have lost billions of dollars in federal aid if the Senate fails to pass the bill before adjourning Friday for a month long recess.

Really - so regardless of the fact that this thing is untenable in any economic sense, California is so desperate that they will build the train to nowhere just for a few billion bucks. I guess once you are on the Federal Government's dole you never go back.

Now people all across the country are going to pay for this boondoggle as more and more federal dollars roll in because California has absolutely no way of finishing this pile of steaming crap with their own tax revenues. Hope the folks in Enid, Oklahoma like their new Cho-Cho that they will never see.

So let's see if we have all the bases covered:
Project that we have no way to pay for - check
Project that replicates more efficient alternatives - check
Project that will make the unions happy - check
Project that will eventually cost the rest of the country money - Check
Project that is built on one of the most dangerous fault lines in the entire world - check and double check

This, my friends, is what passes for state governance in California. Nothing to see here folks move along move along

The 12 Step Program for Liberals

The president said today that the jobs figure (88,000 added last month) is - "a step in the right direction." That's like an alcoholic saying - "I only had 5 scotches today as opposed to my usual 7."

Honestly, the White House should enroll in the 12 step (economic reality) program. And, being the good guy that I am I created for your reading pleasure the 12 step program for liberals who wish to end their addiction to stupidity:

1. We, progressives, admit we are powerless over applying disastrous Keynesian economic models over and over again and expect the results to be different than the previous twenty times.
2. We Came to believe that the power of the free market is greater than even Obama, and can restore economic sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of Paul Ryan and the Tea Party.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves and found ourselves in an echo chamber called MSNBC.
5. Admitted to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our utter and total lack of economic literacy.
6. Are entirely ready to have the Paul Ryan and Tea Party remove all these defects of our character.
7. Humbly asked the Tea Party to make the government smaller and lower taxes.
8. Made a list of all future generations that we have harmed through our incessant borrowing and spending, and became willing to make amends to them all by cutting spending and shrinking government.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible by promising never - ever - ever to spout Keynesian nonsense and bogus social justice claims ever again.
10. Continue to take personal inventory and not yell RACIST every time we are confronted with irrefutable facts.
11. Sought through meditation to improve our conscious contact with The Tea Party, looking only for knowledge so that we have the power to understand that borrowing money and raising taxes will not get us out of a recession.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, so that the next time some dimwitted liberal starts spouting about social justice and big government we will use a reasoned argument describing in detail why taking from half of the country and giving it to the other half is a recipe for economic disaster.

Your welcome America - make sure you send this to your liberal friends so they can get started on their recovery today!

Happy Birthday America!

This hangs in my son's room

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. 

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, 
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Reich: Hating Government is now unpatriotic!

 I was slumming over at HuffPo and found this gem from Robert Reich's blog post on June 26. In it, Reich cleverly pens a new moniker for conservatives, he now calls us Regressives (the opposite of Progressive I suppose). Anyway, one paragraph just stunned me because he is not even pretending anymore concerning the role of government in American's lives. Here it is and I will break it down sentence by sentence to show just what's in store for us if we give Obama another term :

True patriots don't hate the government of the United States. They're proud of it. Generations of Americans have risked their lives to preserve it. They may not like everything it does, and they justifiably worry when special interests gain too much power over it. But true patriots work to improve the U.S. government, not destroy it.

First Sentence: So it's now unpatriotic to hate the government and by extinction a true patriot is one who loves the government? Could this be any more Orwellian. What's next, mandatory 2 minutes of hate each day? Mandatory love letters to Dear Leader? Sorry Robert bu the Government works for the people NOT the other way around.

Second Sentence: Patriots are proud of government? No Robert, patriots are NOT proud of government per se, patriots are proud of America and the leading role we play in creating wealth through equal opportunity. Hate to break it to you sir but government does none of those things. In fact in every single instance where the government sticks its nose in the market they invariably create unequal opportunity and inefficiencies - just take a gander at ANY green jobs initiatives the Obama administration has endeavored to force down the taxpayer's throats subsidize.

Third Sentence: Our men and women in uniform risked their lives for Government? Really? I mean just Really? You know way back in the 80s when I was in uniform I'm pretty sure that I wasn't serving it to save the government. If I remember correctly I was there to uphold the Constitution of the United States and everything it stands for - boiled down to one work - FREEDOM.

Forth Sentence: Special interest groups you say Robert? Yeah we regressives worry about special interest groups like the greenies, and both the Public and Private Sector Unions. Yeah there's a good patriot.

Fifth Sentence: Patriots work to improve the U.S. Government. Sorry Robert but true patriots do NOT work to improve government and to do so suggests servitude - rater true patriots work to improve themselves but unfortunately your brand of 'patriots' are making it harder and harder to do as the government has increasingly butted into our lives through regulation and executive fiat.

Look, our founding fathers were fearful of government's overreach and specifically designed the constitution to limit the role government can (and should) play in our lives. For evidence, look no further than the preamble to the Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

It clearly states in the first three words that the power of this constitution starts and stops with THE PEOPLE.

But Reich is not finished, his next paragraph tries to paint conservatives regressives as unpatriotic because we - wait for it - 'loath' government.

But regressive Republicans loathe the government -- and are doing everything they can to paralyze it, starve it, and make the public so cynical about it that it's no longer capable of doing much of anything. Tea Partiers are out to gut it entirely. Norquist says he wants to shrink it down to a size it can be "drowned in a bathtub."

Um, golly that does sound unpatriotic - I mean who wouldn't want the government to take care of all of us and essentially making us 'equal' (not to mention completely depended upon Uncle Sam)? What Reich and his ilk fail to realize is that it is essential that every American have equal opportunity. What each of us make of that opportunity is our business NOT the federal government's. To quote Ronald Reagan:

"I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, liberty contracts."

I think that about sums up the counter argument pretty well. Reich sees government as the be all and end all. Conservatives Regressives see government as a necessary evil much as the founding fathers did. 

Unfortunately we are now at a cross roads in our history. We are about to tip over the abyss where there is no turning back. In November we have the choice to say no to the ever insatiable government or we ride straight into the abyss never to return.