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DRAX:   Me and the Marshal’s going fifty-fifty.
ROMANA I:   You and the Marshal?
DRAX:   Yeah, well, he’s out of a job now, isn’t he. I mean, no war, no job, so I took him on.
4th DOCTOR:   When did you arrange this?
DRAX:   In about half an hour’s time, I should think.

Doctor Who The Armageddon Factor 1979

Benito took out papers.  The man snatched at them, but Benito backed away.  He read: “Dear Jon, I could understand your opposition to us last year.  There was some doubt abut the precess, and you expressed fears all of us felt.  But now you know better.  I have no witnesses but you told me you understood Dr. Pittman’s demonstration.  In God’s name, Jon, why do you continue?  I ask you as your sister, as a fellow scientist, as a human being Why?

Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle Inferno 1976

The left’s reaction to some of this week’s court cases, particularly the civil right’s case Monday, makes it clear, if there is one thing that guys like Al Sharpton & his friends fear more than anything else, it’s success.

No not  success in the business sense,  but in a cause.

Think about it, you are of the left, you have crusaded long and hard for your particular cause, you have built up a mailing list, you have fundraised and true believers have sent you their cash.  If your cause injures the political or financial prospects of the right people, larger NGO’s, foreign princes, and political campaigns kick in.  You might even get a pol to slip government funding into a bill or on a list of organizations to help administer one program or another.  Maybe you’ll score a friendly write-up in the papers or face time on MSNBC & CNN increasing your prestige and fundraising reach.

And you’ve built followers and employees.  A college student with a degree in Queer 17th Century Native American studies might not be all that employable in the real world outside of McDonalds but the mindset is a perfect fit for you.  You’ve  become the path of employment for those with useless degrees who frankly aren’t capable of anything else and students not yet graduated come to you, asking you, begging you to let them intern and they’re thrilled when you allow them to spend long hours fundraising for your organization without pay.

Even better you might get some of these students studying your cause at school, after all universities study all kind of natural, social and political phenomenon.  Now your word can lead to university grants,  maybe even federal research funds voted by congress and if your cause is really just (like saving the world from fracking and shale oil) you’d be surprised at how fast alternate energy companies and governments outside the US will be willing to throw a few dollars not only to yourselves but to the university that is willing to sponsor your research.

But what happens if your goal is achieved?

What happens if it turns out the water is, in fact clean, cleaner that it has been for decades?  What happens if the Polar Bear population and deer population are boom?  What happens if every 16 year old in the country has the right to declare themselves whatever sex they want on any given day?  What happens if the US pulls every single soldier out of Afghanistan?  What happens if pipelines are declared illegal or scientists develops a leak proof material able to even stand up to earthquakes?

Or worse,  what happens if science proves your fears unfounded, that the world isn’t warming?  What happens when January 27th 2016 come along and we’re all still here?  What happens if  statistics show your “oppressed” group is voting in greater numbers than ever before?

Do you bask in the glory of your victory?  Do you celebrate that all your hard work has been successful?  Do you breathe a sigh of relief that your children and grandchildren are not going to die a horrible death in a parched poisoned earth?

Hell NO!

You’ve achieved status, you’ve achieved power, you’re living comfortably.  You’re invited to the right parties, feted over by stars who think your cause is SO important and pols on the local, state and federal level care what you say and act accordingly.

So you find a different crisis, it doesn’t matter if water is clean, it isn’t clean enough, it doesn’t matter if the polar bears have recovered, they haven’t recovered enough, sure 16 year olds can declare themselves whatever sex they want, but what about 7 year olds?  Yeah we’re out of Afghanistan but what about Europe?  Yeah we stopped the pipelines, but the trucks are dangerous too?  Do we really trust those figures that say the world isn’t going to end?  We need a 50 year study of our own to be sure.

You demagogue and you frighten people to believe this is so, after all it’s an old game.  During the 1884 campaign the GOP actually suggested electing Grover Cleveland meant the return of slavery so when he did win history records:

 One freedman came to his former owner and said that since he was going to be re-enslaved, he wanted his kind old master back.

The American Pageant 6th edition 1979 p 477

In short the emergency never ends, the solution is never good enough and the need for your dollars is NEVER more critical.

Because that’s when you quietly admit to yourself  that you’re not in the problem solving business, or the crisis prevention business,  you’re in the fundraising business, and the cause you support isn’t the rain forest, the whales, stopping big oil or the rights of man, it’s you.

Or as Niven and Pournelle put it

As we walked away, Jon screamed after us, “I’d have been nothing if I gave up the movement.  Nothing!  Don’t you understand?  I had to stay on as president!”

Al Sharpton is just a panhandler with a fancier title and a nicer street corner.

On the day of the vote I want to see you in the front row. Keep your eye on the doorkeeper. If I don’t need your vote, Fishbait Miller will give you the sign and you’ll be free to vote your district.”…

…when Leo took his seat in the front row, he looked around and saw thirteen other guys that Sam had in his pocket in case he needed them. It wasn’t just Leo. The entire front row was sitting there and waiting for the nod from Fishbait Miller.

Tip O’Neill Man of the House 1988

Looking at the “Gang of Eight” bill I’m reminded of the last days of Obamacare.

Democrats had a vast majority in the house, more than enough votes to get Obamacare through but as citizens became angrier and angrier at what was coming members of congress understood that not only was the GOP going to give them absolutely no cover but voters were so upset at this bill that a Republican would win a senate election in Massachusetts for the first time since the Nixon years.

Democrats has stalled and stalled but when it became clear that the media was not going to convince any more members of the public and Scott Brown’s election meant nothing else was going to pass the senate she needed a fig leaf to give her some of her members cover.

Thus came the Stupak Amendment and the fig leaf he provided while proving disastrous to him and his followers was a Godsend to others as he said later:

“I had a number of members who thanked us after because they could vote no.”

But Stupak fig leaf would quickly wither. His seat and 62 others for democrats would not survive election day and even more shocking to the left the New GOP majority would remain even after the re-election of President Obama and the popularity of his bill remains so poor that the re-election machine of the president is still running ads to sell it.

Which brings us to Corker-Hoeven.

It’s axiomatic that if this was a good bill, a bill that would solve problems, a bill that would both secure the border AND take care of the problem of millions of illegal aliens, a bill that would make Hispanics happy with pols who passed it not only would the GOP be falling over itself to pass this bill with the democrats but there would be absolutely no chance that any Democrat running in the 21 states they are defending in 2014 would fall away.

The reality is the bill is over 1000 pages of trouble and for all the 70 vote talk each day the bill remains un-passed  voters hate it more and the Danger becomes that even with the 4 GOP members of the gang of 8 + Ayotte voting for it,  Harry Reid will still need every single Democrat to pass this bill, which means, that every Democrat becomes the 60th vote.

This is why Corker-Hoeven is so important, not for the GOP but for Harry Reid. Reid needs every GOP vote possible to allow him to give the senators in those 21 states who haven’t already announced retirement the ability to give a no vote that they can tout in their districts.

“The bill can’t pass as it’s currently written,” one GOP aide told Breitbart News. “They can’t get 60 votes as it’s currently written. The bill has to be amended with not only stronger border security measures but should also include verification that progress is being made on the border before the legalization process begins.”

“If Corker-Hoeven doesn’t pass, then the most likely scenario is that the bill can’t pass,” the source claimed.

Harry Reid has put himself in a box, with all the 70 vote talk if this bill fails it becomes his failure so even if he has to whip every democrat for their vote to get this bill passed he will, but what he really wants is the ability to give 4 to 5 democrats the ability to vote “no” and help preserve them for 2014.

If Corker Hoven passes and brings some republicans with it and the bill still only manages 60 or 62 votes nobody will remember how many democrats voted No, they will only talk about the number of republicans who voted yes, and like the Stupak Amendment if the bill actually becomes law the provision of that Amendment will be finessed until they become meaningless.

We’ve seen this picture before, but what is amazing to me this time is not that some kind of face saving cover is being provided for Harry Reid, what is amazing is that it’s the GOP is the party that is providing it.

Update:  Pay no attention to the people in Dirksen 201

Ruk: That was the equation! Existence. Survival must cancel out programming.

Star Trek What are little girls made of 1966

Data: I Cannot permit this to continue

Star Trek TNG The Most Toys 1990

Amy Pond: You took my baby from me. And hurt her. And now she’s all grown up and she’s fine, but I’ll never see my baby again.

Madame Kovarian: But you’ll still save me, though. Because *he* would, and you’d never do anything to disappoint your precious Doctor.

Rory: Ma’am, we have to go, now!

Amy Pond: [to Kovarian] The Doctor is very precious to me, you’re right. But do you know what else he is, Madame Kovarian? Not here.

Doctor Who The Wedding of River Song 2011

If you’ve read the first three parts of my worries concerning the IRS scandal there is one assumption that might not make sense to you. The left often portrays the Tea Party as a group of violent gun toting thugs, ready to snap into a multi-shot rage at the drop of a hat. A collection of cowboys. That being the case, why on earth would they not fear to provoke such well armed people with  a violent streak?

The answer is very simple. The left may say all these things about the right and violence, but the leaders who spew this stuff know it simply isn’t true. They’ve seen the tea party crowds pick up after themselves, they’ve seen the right to life marches bury the capital in people without an arrest. They saw Glenn Beck events take place with little or no incidents. Even more significantly they’ve seen their own speakers at colleges around the country walk without fear while speakers of the right need massive security to function. This has gone on for years and years and years without a reaction. The left assumes that as long as they don’t strike first at the right they can do what they wish.  It’s reached the point where the very suggestion that the right would fight back is almost quaint.

This forgets a basic fact about the traditional American Culture that the left have abandoned:  Americans take a long time to reach their breaking point but if you keep prodding them they eventually reach it. 

Consider:

• There were decades of problems with England before the colonies finally rebelled and even so only a 1/3 of the supported it.
• We paid off the Barbary pirates for years before finally deciding Enough!
• Impressment went on for many years before War was declared on England
• Ten years passed between the Alamo and the Mexican war
• The slavery issue boiled for decades before Sumter,
• Europe fought for 3 years before America jumped into World War I
•   and if Japan didn’t hit Pearl Harbor FDR would have had a hard time getting the US to declare war on the Nazi’s.
• Even in modern times,  the 1st gulf war took months before things started. 
• Without September 11th there are no wars in Iraq or Afghanistan and even in Iraq it was a very long build up to war and votes in congress before the bombs started falling.
• American culture traditionally is like an old Popeye cartoon. It takes hit after hit after hit until finally it exclaims:

Or if you want a more current example one you might understand better. (and current is pretty relative here) consider the Star Trek the Next generation episode: The Most Toys. After kidnapping and imprisonment Data finally gets a chance to escape.

When people read this this

As chairman of the House Homeland Security oversight subcommittee, Duncan (R-S.C.) toured a federal law enforcement facility in late May and noticed agents training with the semi-automatic weapons at a firing range. They identified themselves as IRS, he said. “When I left there, it’s been bugging me for weeks now, why IRS agents are training with a semi-automatic rifle AR-15, which has stand-off capability,” Duncan told POLITICO. “Are Americans that much of a target that you need that kind of capability?”

and this:

A bureaucracy is bad. A politicized bureaucracy is worse. A paramilitary politicized bureaucracy is nuts. And, in fact, evil. There is no reason in a civilized society why the Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Paperwork should have his own Seal Team Six. As I wrote in the magazine last year

and this:

Please note that the story says that the Secret Service acknowledged that there was no threat. Then why were they visiting this person and talking about taking his guns away? I have no problem with the Secret Service following up on a possible threat, but this is simply harassing political opposition–similar to the misuse of the IRS.

people are going to start concluding this:

The government of The United States is not legitimate. Act accordingly.

That’s all he can stands, he can’t stands no more! If enough people start thinking that in our well armed society, bad things happen.

I really don’t think the left sees this danger or if they do perhaps they have decided that an armed paramilitary IRS etc is the way to solve it. I submit and suggest that the best solution to this is not IRS agents with AK-15s ready to shoot guitar makers who might resist. Perhaps instead Government might try regaining the trust of the people by acting like they work for them rather that rule them. It’s so crazy it just might work, but I suspect there are plenty on the left who won’t care, as long as willing dupes do their fighting for them

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