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Parting Shots

By Wm. R. Lowry
Editor & Publisher, MiBiz
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Notable Quotes

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”

- Abraham Lincoln

“The people will save their government, if the government itself will allow them.”

- Abraham Lincoln

“We the people are the rightful masters of both Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”

- Abraham Lincoln

“You cannot escape the responsibility of tomorrow by evading it today.”

- Abraham Lincoln

Just Super

Please bear with me, but I feel a pent-up rant coming on and simply cannot suppress it any longer.

Let’s begin with the so-called Super Committee. This archetypal Washington, D.C. brainchild was charged with the most widely anticipated Don Quixote-like mission of the new century: agreeing on a bipartisan recommendation to trim $1.5 trillion (a mere $150 billion per year) of debt over the next decade.

Given the colossal $15 trillion federal debt (current liabilities only), exacerbated by annual operating deficits now running some $3 trillion in the red, you can appreciate that the committee’s challenge essentially amounted to identifying a rounding error.

Various dictionaries define “super” as: excellent, wonderful, marvelous, outstanding, smashing, superb, magnificent, glorious, terrific, sensational, awesome, top-notch, peerless and matchless. Alas, if you follow each just mentioned adjective with the word “failure,” you have defined both the Super Committee and the Congress that begot it.

Notable Quotes

“What you’re seeing with Occupy Wall Street and the others are people who are unhappy, and they’re directing their unhappiness now toward Wall Street and toward those they think are doing too well in our society.”

- Colin Powell

“I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get advantage of her as I can, as is usual in such cases.”

- Henry David Thoreau

“The way for a young man to rise is to improve himself in every way he can, never suspecting that anybody wishes to hinder him.”

- Abraham Lincoln

“We all have private ails. The troublemakers are they who need public cures for their private ails.”

- Eric Hoffer

Pooper Scooper

From Super to Pooper: Speaking of rants, a comment on the Occupy X movement cannot be stifled another moment.

Let’s get real: Envy-driven class warfare is not exactly beautiful to behold. American moms of yesteryear schooled generations to combat and overcome the universal urge to covet their neighbors’ stuff.

The remedy was pretty simple and readily available to those who would avail themselves of it: the dynamic duo composed of public education and the American free enterprise system. Indeed, it was widely appreciated that the single-minded charge to educators was to adequately prepare youth for the opportunities that government-protected free enterprise produced in spades. Dads were a bit more direct (and statistically correct): “Not everyone can be above average.”

My, how things have changed. Today’s reality in education finds American youth falling behind their global counterparts at a frightful pace as the teachers unions rise in triumph. At the same time — and on many fronts — government has not only abdicated its responsibility to sponsor and protect free enterprise, but instead views and treats private business as an easy target of ever-increasing taxes, regulation and ridicule. It is nothing short of government mission creep turned torrent.

Given this about-face from the fruitful philosophies that made America the land of opportunity — and envy of the world — it is sad to witness this great nation on the precipice of transitioning from Super to Pooper.

Short of our national leadership experiencing a miracle akin to that of Saul of Tarsus on the road to Damascus, we’ll all soon be participants of Occupy America. (For a sneak preview, please re-watch the classic film Dr. Zhivago).

But who exactly will provide 300 million of us ninnyhammers with the free food, shelter and iPhones we so richly deserve? Not to mention the porta-potties?

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• parting shots
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