Well, apparently I’m a terrorist.  At least according to the definition of a wide number of Congressmen, reporters, television personalities, and even – so it’s reported – the Vice President of the United States himself.

What did I do to earn this appellation?  Insist that the government live within its means and support politicians who believe likewise.  That’s it.

And for this, I am labeled – by officials of the United States government, no less – a terrorist.

Every dictionary I have consulted within the past 24 hours has defined terrorism as the use of “force” or “violence” to achieve political ends.  Nowhere have I seen terrorism defined as “the peaceful negotiation of budgetary issues through lawfully elected representatives.”  But there you go.  Liberals have never met a definition they wouldn’t defile; never met a word they wouldn’t distort to suit their own twisted ends.

Actual terrorism?  Understandable reactions to the racist imperialism of the warmongering West.   Insisting that the government not spend more than it takes in?  Unforgivable criminality.  Welcome to Liberal Land; watch your step coming through that looking glass.

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Wisconsin is the birthplace of American public-sector unionism. In the 1930s the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) first organized in Madison. How ironic then that Wisconsin may also be the burial ground for public-sector unionism. Governor Scott Walker and the state legislature confront implacable and intractable union opposition as they struggle to bring Wisconsin’s finances under control. The Badger State has become ground zero in the battle between unions intent on expanding their health and pension plans and state governments determined to avoid bankruptcy.

In 1932, a small group of Wisconsin state workers organized in depression-stricken Madison to “promote, defend and enhance the civil service system,” and to spread the gospel of civil service throughout the country. Their creation, the Wisconsin State Employees Union/Council 24, was soon rechristened the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), and in 1936 it received a charter from the American Federation of Labor (AFL):  Public-sector unionism was born.

Times are not as tough these days as they were back in the 1930s, but Wisconsin in 2011 is nonetheless in dire fiscal shape, facing an immediate $136 million deficit and a projected $3.6 billion budget shortfall over the next two years. (Wisconsin has a lot of company: forty-four states and the District of Columbia face shortfalls of $125 billion for fiscal year 2012, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.)  Simply put, the costs of governing Wisconsin are unsustainable, and one of the primary reasons, according to Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, is the cost of state employee health plans, which have risen 90 percent since 2002.Page 2 Labor (more…)

I sometimes wonder if Americans really have any idea of the scope of the danger facing this country. I also wonder if they don’t deserve the disaster that is coming.

Americans loudly focus their anger on the President, who is seeking to profoundly alter the structure and nature of the United States. But they cannot let themselves off the hook; they elected this man, after all, and by a wide margin.

Remember, Barack Obama had long kept company with loathsome men overflowing with hatred for the United States. His associates included an anti-American, unrepentant terrorist (Bill Ayers) and a deranged, anti-American preacher (Reverend Wright). And Obama’s own stated economic philosophy is confiscatory redistributionist – “spread the wealth around,” as he so forthrightly put it.

All of this was known in 2008. And Americans elected him anyway. And now they whine and complain that this man attempting to socialize the republic? What a thoroughly unserious people – if you stick your head in the gaping maw of a ravenous lion, you would be a fool to complain when it closes its jaws. It is the nature of lions to devour flesh; it is the nature of socialists to devour liberty.

And there is another culprit who must not escape blame.

The Republican Party, which botched a war – a just war – so badly that it made a leftist “community organizer” seem like presidential material. The Party which acquiesced to massive government expansions at the expense of liberty throughout the 20th Century; the New Deal, the Great Society, untold bloated federal programs which shamefully betray Republican fingerprints, programs which have habituated Americans to a certain amount of socialism in their society, including socialism in our health care.

And now the GOP makes a stand? Now it draws a line?

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