Goodby 2014: From Gruber to Ferguson, Evil is the new Good - The History of Progress begins with its absence, part 5 a,b, c & d

a) Evil is the new Good
I know what you're asking, 'Why this?' Right? I mean, we've got Ferguson exploding again, and what with all the rest of the News Cycle churning around and more, why am I continuing with this odd... sort of History-ish series of posts pursuing the nature of Progress and Regress?

Let me answer that question with another question.

Why are these situations so common, rather than uncommon?

Consider that since I first began writing this post, we've passed through several news cycles, led by Jonathan Gruber admitting that ObamaCare was a lie to fool the 'stupid people', Obama has declared his intention to issue an Executive Order to let in illegal immigration, Ebola has come and (or so we hope) gone, ISIS is still beheading fast and furiously, Houston's Mayor launched an assault on religious liberty (forgot about that one, didn't you), Gruber is back, ongoing efforts against the 2nd Amdt, or Common Core#Ferguson has exploded with rioting against against the judicial system, and now Korea closing our movies and Taliban slaughtering a school... and that was within hardly more than a month's time.

And we certainly don't need to limit our time frame to just the last couple months to see a virtual parade of more of the same. I mean, it's not as if these very same issues are really anything new, right? Ferguson/Watts? Ebola/AIDS? ISIS/Al Queda? Houston or Catholic Hospitals or forced fed healthcontrol? Marysville/Sandy Hook/Colorado? And Common Core/Race To The Top/every-educational-reform-going-back-to-1800? Don't let the seeming kaleidoscopic events snow you, instead ask yourself if there is some sense in which these very separate events are in some sense fundamentally similar?

I've questioned, answered and posted on these ever recycling news cycle issues enough times already - more than enough times. The reason why these issues are so common is because having the ability to look at these situations in a more productive way, has become so uncommon. All of these seeming changes, are the result of a long ago change that has too long remained unchanged and unchallenged, and that change is central to the reason why all of the progress made in recent centuries has been transforming into the rapid regress of today. Granted, beneath the surface of the news cycle, what has not changed is difficult to see, and while the superficial distractions of the recycling are easily mistaken for real changes - the only real changes taking place have been within us - all of which serves to mask what remains unchanged... and so... here we are.

Yes, that requires a bit of explanation.

Easier done perhaps by looking at one aspect of some of the more recent changes in us as a people, one that is very much worth noting, though maybe not for the reasons you might think. The embarrassing boastings of Jonathan Gruber, and the results of the #Ferguson Grand Jury verdict, though seemingly different on the surface, have quite a lot in common, with each other, and with the recycling of the news cycle.

I've already ranted a bit on the #Ferguson situation here and here, and even a quick hit on Gruber, but aren't Gruber's lies just politics as usual?

Nope, at least not the part that I see as being worth noting. What's easily noted is that we had a well respected MIT economics professor, Jonathan Gruber, who was a highly paid consultant to the administration precisely because of his position as a highly respected MIT economics professor (and who was previously employed by Romney, BTW, and for the same valuable 'insights' that the Obama administration payed him so handsomely for), who was caught on video - multiple times - cheerfully advocating for a policy of highly opaque administrative lies, so that they could take advantage of the 'stupidity of the American voter' - for their own good.

Rant: Say Goodnight (if you dare), the Party's Over.

rant:What does freedom of speech depend upon? What depends upon freedom of speech - other than every freedom and liberty we have? Do we really have freedom of speech if the Govt doesn't censor us, though it meekly allows any random thug or nation to prevent us from speaking freely? Threatening the American people and businesses with death and destruction should they dare to watch and listen to something that a foreign tyrant finds offensive, is... tolerable? 

THE worst act that President George H.W. Bush committed in office was his mealy mouthed - 'measured' - response to the Ayatollah of Iran when he threatened to bomb American book stores if they dared to sell Salman Rushdie's "The Satanic Verses". That utter failure to defend not only our freedom of speech, but of commerce, trade and association, on top of Reagan's retreat after the barracks bombing, guaranteed, as weakness to tyranny always does, the terror soaked decades that have followed.

Today North Korea has topped the Ayatollah ten fold, threatening American theaters with a "9/11 response" should they dare show a movie he finds offensive. And not only has there been no response from this administration, there has been very little response from ether the media or from the public at all.

Seth Friggin' Rogen has made the most vocal response to this.

Might as well turn out the lights folks, the party's over.
/rant

Gruber is as Obama does.

Courtesy of the Gateway Pundit, here's ObamaCare co-architect Jonathan Gruber taking a stab at putting on a 'humble and contrite' face, after being called to testify to the House today, in regards to
the multiple videos (6? or is it 7 now?) gloating about conning the American 'Stupid People' into buying ObamaCare (and being paid millions of dollars to do it). Here you can hear him as he tries mightly to hide the words he can't avoid saying:

"Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI): The Obama administration promised the American people 37 times that if you like your plan you can keep your plan. When you were working on the law did you believe Mr. Gruber, did you believe, that no one would lose a plan that they liked due to Obamacare.

Gruber: I believed that the law would not affect the vast majority of Americans.

Walberg: The vast majority? But did you believe that no one, as the president said, would lose a plan they liked?

Gruber: As I said I believed it would not affect a vast majority of Americans. But, it is true that some people might have to upgrade their plans because their plans were not comprehensive as defined by the law.

Walberg: So they couldn't keep their plan, even if they liked it.

Gruber: What the law says is that there are minimum standards to be met.

Walberg: Why did the President make this representation if his experts, including you, knew it was not true, that some, as you said, would not be able to keep their plan, they'd have to upgrade, or they'd have to change it?

Gruber: I'm not a - political adviser, I have no answer to that question. "

But Gruber needn't have put himself through all the discomfort of trying to seem like a decent person, there was no need to call the American (Leftist) people 'Stupid', had he simply reflected upon two old American sayings first. They are:

"You can't cheat an honest man." and "There's a sucker born every minute."

Because an honest man isn't looking to get something for nothing, the American Right were never among those Gruber and Obama aimed their ObamaCare con at, so he wasn't addressing them at all, stupid or otherwise.

But he also didn't need to call the Leftists, Independents and RINO's 'stupid people', they were simply willing partners to the lie. After all, anyone who's interested in getting something for nothing, clearly isn't interested in anything to do with reality or the truth to begin with - they're simply looking for an excuse to justify going along with the deception.

The people Gruber called stupid were really only partners to Obama & Gruber's lie, and so calling them stupid was not only clumsy and rude, but self incriminating. True, that is stupid, but as neither their target audience nor themselves were ever interested in the Truth to begin with, there was no point in telling that inconvenient truth at all.

Oh well, I suppose there's another old saying that fits here: Stupid is as stupid does.