Leopards on Wall Street? I didn't think so.

Over the last few days, the media has tried to draw some pretty serious comparisons between the Tea Party and the "Occupy" groups that started on Wall Street and have since cropped up all over the United States. They are suggesting that the two groups are virtually the same, although the Tea Party draws on the Bible and the likes of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Adams for inspiration and the Occupy groups consistently cite Che Guevera and Karl Marx. They are calling Occupy a grassroots movement, even though it has been proven that protesters are being bused in for the event, and in some cases even paid to be there. 


The differences in their fundamental values and desires are, for the most part, polar opposites. Bill Hennessey did a fantastic job of outlining those differences in his blog yesterday.


As Hennessey mentioned, the only thing the Tea Party and the Occupy movement really have in common is our dissatisfaction with the bank bailouts. However, while the Tea Party is opposed to ALL government bailouts, the Occupy movement opposes any government bailout that is given to anyone other than themselves.
I would like to draw a comparison that I think makes a little more sense than the ones the media has been throwing out.


Imagine, if you will, that the Tea Party is actually a group of leopards. Leopards are generally solitary animals. In fact, just about the only time they really socialize is when they are concerned with raising and protecting their cubs. I'm not suggesting that the Tea Party is anti-social - rather, most of the people involved in Tea Party events will tell you that they got involved "because I had to," "because I need to preserve a strong, better America for my children," or "because I don't want my children to be forced to pay for my generation's mistakes." Very few of them envisioned, or even wanted, a life devoted to conservative political activism. In this case, their social activity is very much a function of protecting their children.


If the Tea Party is made up of leopards, then the Occupy movement is made up of monkeys. They swing from the trees, and when the group who went out and gathered food returns, they all surround the successful hunters and beg for food. The hunters share their food with their mates and favorites first, then may or may not share what is left with the others. Those who get little or no food sit on the outskirts of the group and grunt and throw things. They depend on other members of the group to groom their fur and remove parasites and insects from their skin.


What happened this past week is that the media realized that each monkey had one freckle. And instead of seeing a monkey with a freckle, all they saw was a spot that indicated that the animal was instead a leopard.


In the medical profession, there is a saying: "When you hear hoofbeats, think horses - not zebras." The media would do well to take this lesson to mean: "If it looks like socialism, think socialists - not Constitutionalists."

A Night To Remember...

I am exhausted. I got home after midnight, and I had no choice but to finish my psychology homework. After that, I had every intention of falling asleep before my head hit the pillow. Obviously this did not happen. (It is currently 2:03am CST)
I spent the evening at the Sarah Palin/Glenn Beck event, "Defending the Republic." The event was emceed by Jamie Allman and the speakers were introduced by Dana Loesch and Dave Glover, so I knew before I got there that it was going to be at the very least an entertaining evening.


During her introduction, Dana said something that really stuck with me. She talked about the tendency to measure candidates based on the lowest common denominator rather than measuring them based on the Constitution. And it occurred to me that I have used that same basic argument on a different topic. When arguing creation vs evolution on a forum where I used to post, I was accused (as many Christians are) of ignoring the science in favor of religion. I explained that I wasn't ignoring the science, I just wasn't using it to measure truth. "The Bible is truth," I responded, "and by it I measure the truth of all things." Dana is right - that is what we should be doing with our candidates. The Constitution should be the ruler by which we measure all candidates.


Sarah Palin also made one point that really hit home with me. She talked about her famous (now infamous) beef with the mainstream (lamestream?) media. She said that it drives her crazy when all that people want to talk about is the way the media attacks her. "I don't give a hoot what the media says about me!" she said. Her problem with the media is that Americans (to include her own son) have volunteered to fight, to risk their lives - some have given their lives - to protect one of our most essential liberties: the freedom of the press. But with that freedom comes the responsibility to provide the unfiltered and unvarnished truth to the people. When the press ignores that and reports only what they want to and only in the way that they want to, they abuse that freedom and they abuse the sacrifices of those who provide it for them.

After a highly amusing introduction from Dave Glover, Glenn Beck finally took the stage. He began with a rather disheartening story, then paused briefly midsentence. The crowd suddenly and inexplicably began to cheer. For a moment, Glenn looked confused. Then he nodded and said, "The Cardinals won, didn't they."
He talked about the crowds of people who are currently "occupying" Wall Street and many other locations across the United States. He talked about the hypocrisy of a President who basically endorses the protests and publicly decries the evil Wall Street "fat cats" and private jet owners - while he himself travels freely about the country in Air Force One and his wife flies separately in Air Force Two, he allows the taxpayers to foot the bill for his campaign stops disguised as "speeches to promote the jobs bill," and he holds $25k-$35k per plate fundraising dinners to which he invites the Wall Street "fat cats" he has just publicly insulted. (But if you think about it, the billions they stand to get in bailout/stimulus money probably help to take some of the sting out of being called a "fat cat"...)


But mostly, Glenn talked about the importance of God. He stressed the difference between claiming that God would be on our side and making sure that we were on His side. And he cried (well, he IS Glenn Beck) while reading Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural speech about rebuilding a nation without malice. We have to rebuild with that same attitude, be willing to get on our knees and pray for our ideological enemies, our political enemies. But mostly we have to remember that real change comes from the people, not the government. And people only change when God is in their hearts, and at the heart of the change.


Beck. Palin. Glover. Loesch. And a Cardinals win to top it all off. That's not an evening that will be easily surpassed. (And now I'm going to sleep. Seriously.)

Occupy Washington DC (We Are Not the 99%)

I spent a lot of time looking at the "Occupy Wall Street" insanity yesterday. And it isn't just Wall Street. Mobs are cropping up all over the United States, in some cases invited to join the protest by state institutes of higher learning. Here in St. Louis, along with offering advanced degrees in exciting fields such as Union Thuggery and How-to Accidentally-Bitch-Slap-a-Citizen-Journalist, University of Missouri St Louis (UMSL) is now actively recruiting students to participate in OccupySTL. 

So far there have only been a few arrests at Kiener Plaza in comparison to the thousand or so in New York, but it's early yet...


I find the whole situation amusing because most of the people protesting are against the banks and Wall Street fat cats, but for Barack Obama. It's a wonder they can even see him, what with him being so deep in the pockets of Goldman Sachs...


But I digress. I have created a Facebook page for those of us who want to "Occupy Washington DC." Not by crowding the streets and obstructing the flow of capitalism, but by flooding it with our votes and our voices. Because I am not the 99%, and I believe that it will get done if I do it, not if I demand that someone else be made to do it for me.


Join me here and make your voice heard as well.

Odd man out...for now, anyway.

"I am a 32 year old mother of four. I pay nearly $1000 per month so that my kids can get a real education rather than the substandard indoctrination we have come to expect from state schools. I go to school full time on the Montgomery GI Bill, which I earned by giving ten years of my life to the United States Army. My ex works cash only jobs to pay for his beer and his cigarettes and help to support his new girlfriend (and her two children), but of the $20,000 he owes in back child support, we have yet to see one cent. We have no medical insurance, so we have to pay up front every time we visit a doctor or dentist.
My husband is a small business owner, and if Cap and Trade passes his business will go under. Every time he has work done at the business and hires a private contractor to do it, his business gets picketed by Union Employees who may be getting paid more to picket him than he pays the guy painting his sign or fixing his roof. Because he consistently hires nonunion contractors, he has been on and off local business blacklists pretty much as long as his family has had the business."

Oh, and for the record: I AM NOT THE 99%

I sound like part of the 99%, right? I am definitely not part of the 1%, and I have the debt to prove it. I have been reading the personal manifestos of those who call themselves "the 99%." You can read some of them here: http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/archive 
Many of these people find themselves in awful situations. Many of these people are not personally to blame for those awful situations. But the common thread in every picture, every post, is that ALL of these people are looking at their situations the wrong way. Each of them is demanding that someone else be made to fix the situation. Not one is willing to do anything more than write up a short blog and snap a picture in order to help themselves. They are willing to "Occupy Wall Street" when it involves sipping Starbucks and attempting to avoid arrest, but not when it involves getting an actual education and showing up in business attire with a stack of resumes.


Each of these people is also blaming the wrong party. They are blaming the job creators (business owners and corporations) rather than job restrictors (government regulations) that force those business owners to send jobs overseas. They are blaming the banks for giving out bad loans when the banks were ordered by Congress to make those loans available. And what about the people who KNEW they couldn't make the loan payments and took out the loans anyway? Do they not get some of the blame?

This woman, who posted this picture here, also posted a comment under it: "I have done awful things to make my mortgage payments…including selling my body. 

But I am no longer willing to sacrifice my remaining shreds of dignity on the altar of a faceless institution that gave me

 

an ill-advised loan to begin with.

Are you guys really THAT greedy?" 

 My question to her is this: YOU took out an ill-advised loan to pay for something YOU wanted but could not afford. Are YOU really that greedy?

They are blaming banks for charging a $5 per month debit card fee when Congressman Dick Durbin issued legislation demanding that the banks find ways to assess fees to cover their own losses (and then suggested that people leave the banks when they did exactly as he told them.)


As you have probably guessed, the "manifesto" at the beginning of this post is mine. But I don't blame the 1% for my situation. I blame my ex-husband for not taking care of his children. I blame progressive policy for the fact that Cap and Trade could single-handedly sink a business that has been around for nearly 100 years. I blame "No Child Left Behind" for the fact that a smart kid can't hope to get a good education in a public school. And I blame Union bosses for attempting to strangle private contractors when there is enough work to keep both of them busy without blacklisting businesses and petty picketing.


So where do I fit in? I'm not the 1%, and I refuse to claim association with "the 99%." For now, I guess I'm the odd man out. But something tells me I'm not alone, and that our voices are getting louder.

What I Didn't See Last Night (And I'm Glad Someone Else Did)

I left the St Louis Tea Party protest early last night. I was out there with my four children (missing my husband and my stepson) joining in protest of wasteful stimulus spending. We were gathered in Forest Park, just West of the History Museum and nearly directly across the street from the Carnahan home. Because of the two crowds gathered, one to protest Obama and one to catch a glimpse of their hero, we had to park nearly a quarter of a mile from where we stood. 


Just as darkness fell, just as we realized that the President and his motorcade would be arriving shortly, one child began complaining of a headache and two began doing a synchronized potty dance. I knew that it was time to go, so I got our things together and disentangled the kids from the crowd. We began the trek towards the car, and as we reached the edge of the crowd, Van Harvey stepped out and without question walked with us to the car. 


Sounds like a nice gesture, right? The gentlemanly thing to do? Wait until you find out what I didn't see...

This is what happened almost immediately after my departure. Not really a surprise. More on the story here: http://bigjournalism.com/dloesch/2011/10/04/obama-supporters-cuss-at-tea-partiers-their-kids-call-black-congressional-candidate-uncle-tom/#more-226132

I didn't see the crowd coming from the "blindly-support-Obama" end of the street. But they were headed for the big target, Martin Baker. They were headed for the guy they could easily hit with racial slurs and epithets. What could they possibly want with me?

I also didn't see the two or three Obama supporters who broke formation and headed toward me and my kids as we left the crowd. Van Harvey did.

I'd Like a Little Party With My Tea, Thanks.

I picked my kids up from school today and drove them to Forest Park. The St Louis Tea Party Coalition was beginning to gather across the street from the home of Tom Carnahan as we arrived. A block away, a much larger (and louder) gathering was also taking place. Why all the excitement? President Barack Obama visited St. Louis today. He appeared at a reception at a hotel, and then proceeded to our location for a $25,000-a-plate fundraising dinner. 

When we arrived, people I didn't know offered American flags to my children. They struck up conversations about mutual friends, and introduced their children to mine. Within fifteen minutes, my kids were sharing their fruit snacks and cookies with kids they had just met, chasing each other around the trees at the edge of the golf course, and waving their flags at cars driving by. They held signs that protested wasteful government spending. "I owe the U.S. $30,000 and I'm only 5," "Where's my windmill?" and "Hot air fuels politicians, not nations." 

The family hosting the Obama fundraiser, the Carnahans, are political royalty in Missouri. And because of that, when Obama pushed his last stimulus, the Carnahan family received $107 million to fund the family wind farm. Trading favor for favor, the Carnahans then hosted this fundraising dinner for the President.

The group down the block from the Tea Party Group had gathered for a different reason. Hoping for a glimpse of the man they idolized, they too eagerly awaited Obama's arrival. But they waited to cheer on the furtherance of his failed policies, to praise his efforts to stir up class and race warfare, and to demand that he stick it to those evil rich people who just don't want anyone else to get any of the money.

The whole time I was there, the tone remained mostly civil. A few people from down the block came over to where we were, and I heard a few mumblings of "this is crazy," "these people are idiots," and "I need to get away from these people before I have to bust some ass." Let me point you back to the above paragraph and remind you that the "crazy idiots" who inspired "ass-busting" were sharing fruit snacks, carrying flags and demanding accountability for the uses of their tax dollars. The scandal! I can see how that would push someone right over the edge...

Because of a few very badly timed potty emergencies, we had to leave before the Obama entourage arrived. From what I heard, after we left, several of the Obama supporters advanced on the Tea Party gathering and proceeded to yell and curse at the peaceful protesters in front of their children.

I am of two minds on the subject. I told my kids before we got out of the car that people might say mean things to us because of what we were doing. I told them that some people do not have the ability to disagree with you without being nasty about it. That being said, half of me is glad that they didn't have to see my warning proved accurate tonight. I'm glad that they didn't have to witness their mother and her friends being called names that they are not allowed to say. 

But on the other hand, being called those names is what solidified in me the strength that I have today. My mother mentioned to me about a month ago that she didn't remember me being so outspoken politically even just a few years ago. I told her that's simply because I wasn't. But something pivotal happened to me three years ago: I had the audacity to vote against a black man. Because of that one simple action, I was labeled a racist, a bigot and several other names that I am not willing to repeat. When you are called names like that, you can have one of two reactions: You can back down, or you can learn to defend yourself and do it fast. Backing down is not in my nature.

 Surprisingly, the only *green* vehicle that showed up at the $25k-a-head fundraiser...

 Bill Hennessey, warming up the crowd.

Gateway Pundit Jim Hoft, resisting much.

I know my kids will have to learn that lesson on their own, and I want them to see me live that lesson before someone puts them on the spot. Maybe it wasn't tonight, but I know it's coming. Bring it on. 

This one's for Jim...

After a morning buried in jury nullification - how it works for the justice system, and why judges should not counsel juries against it - I emerged just long enough to shuffle some children to and from school and do a little bit of grocery shopping. Once that was done, I was forced to dive head first into OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration), its origins and its purpose. So you'll forgive me if I indulge in a little family time rather than the customary brilliant political analysis...

I spent the weekend steeped in politics. No, I didn't get a last minute ticket to TeaCon 2011. (I wish.) I spent the day Saturday holed up with the Martin Baker Campaign team. We talked strategy, kicked around slogans, and began to shape the roles that each of us were going to play in the upcoming campaign.

You would think that 12 hours of straight political strategy and such would be enough to make one a little crazy. And I guess, depending on what type of "one" you happen to be, that may be the case. Not me. I love it. I thrive on it. And I'm pretty sure that I drive my extremely tolerant husband insane with it on occasion.

Let me tell you a little bit about this man: He is a baker, so most days when he leaves the house I am just rolling over to find a more comfortable position in which to sleep for the next four hours. By the time I get up, he has already been working at a physically demanding job for three to four hours, and he'll be at it for awhile longer. Most days he leaves the bakery to go straight to the gym. Sometimes he sees the trainer, sometimes he kills himself on the machines. (of his own free will - insane, I know) Most days he still stays up until after dinner, helping me with school pick-ups without the benefit of a nap. Add in the days that he has to go back to the bakery for an hour or two, and you realize that he moves through life exhausted. And through the fog of that exhaustion, he sees fit to take on the responsibility of a wife, a son, and four other children who are only his by marriage.

So today I take a break from politics, from homework, from housework (I'm especially enjoying this part) to recognize the man who puts up with all of the insanity for a few minutes everyday with me. Sometimes he spends those few minutes snoring, but every one of those minutes is well worth it.