Editorial: The History of Complacency
As I look around today at the temperament of society I find myself very disappointed and I shake my head and wonder how so many Americans became so complacent.
Recently one of my favorite Talk Shows discussed something called “Change Blindness”. I thought it ironic that the word “Change” was associated with this particular, shall we call it “ailment”. Now before someone gets their knickers in a wad I want to say that this is not an “Attack Obama” piece, he chose the word “Change”, which obviously become a pivotal part in what we now see as the “Change’ he truly meant. I am not here to attack, but to state fact and to show what history has taught us. Okay, enough said, back to the “Change Blindness”.
Change blindness can occur slowly or quickly, but one thing we do know is that in all cases and is related to an induced failure of awareness and it occurs when your brain fails to store all the necessary information in the first place.
So lets say for instance of someone keeps telling you the same thing over and over again even though you are seeing something completely different it is not registering and you believe what they keep telling you. A good example is found in the following scenario. Let’s say that a companion suggests that you take a drive together to rid yourself of some stress, just ride and drive away from civilization. So, it sounds like a good plan, so you do just that. You’re now driving your car and the drive is going to be quite a distance and you are in a soon to be desolate area, your fuel gauge is going down, and you are starting to worry. You tell your companion next to you that you’ll need to stop for gas soon. Your companion proceeds to tell you not to worry about it, its handled, its okay. You continue to drive and the same conversation happens again and again until a short while later you run out of gas. You turn and you look at your companion and you say, you told me, “not to worry about it, its handled, its okay” , so why did I run out of gas? Your companion smiles and simply says “I do have it handled, I knew what was going to happen, I planned it like that, so I consoled you so you would go along with me, I simply wanted to be alone with you in the middle of nowhere, I’ve got you right where I want you.” Pretty scary scenario, aye? Wake up America that’s exactly what’s happening.
As you sit complacent and say to yourself that the things that happened in other countries could never happen here, you are in fact experiencing “Change Blindness”, yes, the “Change”, is there and you are not even seeing it. Will you stand idly by as our Elected Officials take over our economy and make it become their quarterback in their nonsensical game of power and you hence become the water boy?
Our Government has nationalized the banks, nationalized the auto industry, is trying to nationalize energy and healthcare and what are you doing to stop it? So many Americans are sitting and watching the duck, as it walks like a duck, and talks like a duck, and they are still calling it their “golden goose” and waiting for their handout. You refuse to acknowledge the history that is doomed to repeats itself. The history of Venezuela in 1999, Spain in 2004, Italy in 2006 and an even better example is Winston Churchill. Winston Churchill almost single-handedly saved Britain from defeat at the hands of the Nazi’s, but despite his historic victory his Conservative party was defeated within weeks by Britain’s Labour Party that proceeded to run a once great empire into a second rate Socialist state within the span of 20 years.
What other evidence do you need my fellow Americans, if history in itself is not evidence enough that this country is headed down the very same path as Britain, Venezuela , Spain and Italy, than my dear Americans you do not have “Change Blindness”, you are truly blind!!
Even Thomas Jefferson warned us against what we now have as “democracy” which in itself is a form of self-governance. He properly defined it as “nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine.”
How long will you stand by my fellow Americans, how long will you sit and watch history repeat itself and do nothing about it. The old 80/20 rule will not save this country, 20% of the people doing 80% of the work will not save a nation. Please American; stand up and be heard.
America is in a Crisis and the Republic for which it stands is at stake. When the Labour Party took over Britain with its Socialist Fabian policies, it had a motto “For the right moment you must wait… but when the right movement comes you must strike hard.” Wow, that sounds all too eerily familiar does it not? I believe we have heard something extremely similar come out of Rahm Emanuels mouth not that long ago when he said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” because “crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that [we] could not do before.”
If the current administration achieves their goals, those same goals that were articulated in President Obama’s campaign, those same goals that we are turning a blind eye to, the same goals that proved that he was the most liberal Senator in Congress, yes, those same goals, will mark the end of the “America and the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all” and we will all wave goodbye to our sovereign land just as Britain did with the election of 1945.
The following quote is attributed to Frances Tytler, A Scottish Politician who had witnessed a revolution.
”The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history has been about
200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following
sequence:” ”From Bondage to spiritual faith; spiritual faith to great courage; courage to liberty; liberty to abundance; abundance to complacency; complacency to apathy; apathy to dependence;• and dependence back into bondage.”
My fellow Americans we are at the complacency part in that quote, will you allow us to go to apathy and on the dependency and then back to bondage? Will you allow the last 230 years and the fight of our forefathers to be for naught? And if you will, how will you sleep at night knowing that you could have made a difference and you chose not to. How will you explain that to the younger generation? The Younger generation that will look to you for guidance and ask you, how and why it had to be this way?
I for one will no longer be a part of sugarcoating the truth, and if you want to call it “fear mongering” than so be it, call it what you will, I will simply call it, truth. You cannot change history but you can keep it from repeating itself. I, as an American Citizen of the greatest country on earth will not sit idly by, I will stand up and I will fight. I will fight for the future of my children and grandchildren, and the only weapons I will use are my Mind, My Speech and the American Constitution. When I am old and grey and they look into my eyes, I will be humble, so very humble when they thank me, for being a part, of saving our “Constitution based America”.
Until next time, Stand Proud, be Passionate and we will prevail.
BreeLee Johnston is the founder of United American Tea Party which is a Chapter of Just Patriots Inc in St. Johns County. She is a member of the National Leadership Council of Tea Party Patriots as well as the Florida Coordinator for ICaucus.org and contributes a regular guest editorial to Historic City News.
Category: Editorials
Subscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Hear, Hear! Beautifully expressed.
Regardless of party, and, in fact, in spite of party affiliation, these are times when we should be vocal and persistent in our core principles. Core principles? Yes, you know them as the ones that our creator gave us – they survive political correctness and peer pressure.
Renew these values to yourself and then to others. This is the time.
I really enjoy reading your articles, however this week is over the top. I was expecting you to actually applaud the government for taking a breather on the heath care stuff until it is properly vetted. I am not sure you have accurately laid out your arguments. You really are basing everything on a rambling story about getting stranded in the middle of nowhere without gas, Obama’s campaign promises (which you do not mention), a liberal label (based on he opposed pretty much everything President Bush tried to do in his 2nd term) and a quote from his chief of staff. Everything else in your article mentions other countries, socialism and well known verses from the Pledge of Allegiance and Constitution. Complaining about spending during a recession is not the way to get back to prosperity. The proper time to rally against gov’t spending is when times are good. Any nationalization of the banks has come and gone as many of them that received assistance through TARP have repaid it with interest. What would you have done in the case of the banks… let them collapse and have everyone with over $100,000 in their account lose their money? Yes 2 of the auto companies received assistance and are working through their issues. Without that assistance they may have collapsed and put thousands more out of work, is that what you would have done? In terms of Rahm Emanuel, I am not positive but I think his quote was referring to the prospect of infrastructure improvements in the stimulus package. He may have also been referring to the opportunity to improve out energy policy (btw, i think cap and trade is a horrible idea but don’t think it will ever pass the Senate, however getting us off foreign oil is a very admirable goal!). I guess I just don’t understand your movement. You say the country has become complacent however the past election had a large number of people (especially young people and minorities) getting involved that were never involved in politics before either by donating money to a particular candidate or participating over the web in online discussions and debate. In terms of adding to the national debt, most of those problems were the result of the previous administration. The current one added to it by passing the stimulus package which I actually think is working. Most economists are saying the recession will end in the current quarter and employment will begin to pick up early next year. As has been said many times employment is always the last thing to improve once a recession ends. Since the stimulus was passed I believe Obama has said anything else that is done will need to be deficit neutral. Are there things that this administration is doing that will not work, yes, are there things they are doing I don’t like, yes, however calling people who voted for a particular candidate complacent just because you simply do not like what that President is now doing is wrong. Comparing our great country to a socialist country run by a dictator is not only fear mongering, but historically inaccurate and very unpatriotic. Our Constitution and the Checks and Balances included in it prevent that from happening.
The other point I would make is despite saying you were only going to state facts, I could not find one in your entire Editorial. That was pretty unusual because your articles on healthcare were loaded with references to facts and searchable documents.
Response to staug2:
I really enjoy reading your articles, however this week is over the top. I was expecting you to actually applaud the government for taking a breather on the heath care stuff until it is properly vetted.
But their not!!, They are moving things around in the bill and not really taking anything out and hardly changing anything, how can I praise that? We the people are vetting the bill and it is NOT “Reform”. Sadly “We the People” are reading the bill and they that represent us ARE NOT!!!! When they come up with “Real Reform” and NOT Government take-over than I will be happy to praise them regardless of party!!
You said
I am not sure you have accurately laid out your arguments. You really are basing everything on a rambling story about getting stranded in the middle of nowhere without gas, Obama’s campaign promises (which you do not mention), a liberal label (based on he opposed pretty much everything President Bush tried to do in his 2nd term) and a quote from his chief of staff. Everything else in your article mentions other countries, socialism and well known verses from the Pledge of Allegiance and Constitution.
HISTORY, HISTORY, HISTORY, everything else was HISTORY, how many times do I have to say, that word, READ YOUR HISTORY, the things we are doomed to repeat, just as Venzuela, Britain, Spain, etc…REAL LIVE HISTORY, take a few moments and READ IT!!!!>
You said:
Complaining about spending during a recession is not the way to get back to prosperity. The proper time to rally against gov’t spending is when times are good.
Name one just one case in history where this much government spending saved a country, NEVER EVER HAS, NEVER EVER WILL
You Said:
Any nationalization of the banks has come and gone as many of them that received assistance through TARP have repaid it with interest. What would you have done in the case of the banks… let them collapse and have everyone with over $100,000 in their account lose their money? Yes 2 of the auto companies received assistance and are working through their issues. Without that assistance they may have collapsed and put thousands more out of work, is that what you would have done?
Yes, let them fail and let them restructure, OH THATS RIGHT THEY DID THAT, DIDN’T THEY, ONLY AFTER, THEY TOOK THE TAXPAYERS MONEY, go figure!!
You Said
In terms of Rahm Emanuel, I am not positive but I think his quote was referring to the prospect of infrastructure improvements in the stimulus package. He may have also been referring to the opportunity to improve out energy policy (btw, i think cap and trade is a horrible idea but don’t think it will ever pass the Senate, however getting us off foreign oil is a very admirable goal!).
Yes getting us off Foreign oil is an admirable goal, but you know what they paved the road to h**l with right???
You said
I guess I just don’t understand your movement. You say the country has become complacent however the past election had a large number of people (especially young people and minorities) getting involved that were never involved in politics before either by donating money to a particular candidate or participating over the web in online discussions and debate.
I am very happy that more people than ever came out during the election, but more people than ever, had no idea what “change” they were voting for, if you don’t believe me just ask them, How many people just thought the government was going to take care of them and pay their mortgage and give them health insurance and make life “so much easier”. Yes we need to make alot of changes, but people need to take personal responsibility and the government just keeps telling them they don’t have to, that they will take care of them. When have you ever seen the government take something from private industry and fix it and give it back to them, how about, NEVER
You said
In terms of adding to the national debt, most of those problems were the result of the previous administration.
Can I please have a date and time that everyone will stop blaming the previous administration. Yes, Bush was far from perfect, very far from perfect, but, that said no other President in the history of the United States had to deal with everything that he had to deal with while he was in office, BAR NONE
You Said
The current one added to it by passing the stimulus package which I actually think is working.
WHERE is it working????,…wasn’t the unemployment supposed to bottom out at 8.5 per President Obama and all his advisors and statistics??
You said:
Most economists are saying the recession will end in the current quarter and employment will begin to pick up early next year. As has been said many times employment is always the last thing to improve once a recession ends. Since the stimulus was passed I believe Obama has said anything else that is done will need to be deficit neutral. Are there things that this administration is doing that will not work, yes, are there things they are doing I don’t like,
More economists say the opposite than agree. Do your research on Keynesian economics, I have, and you’ll find out why Stimulus packages are never ever good for the economy,
John Keynes was no friend to Capitalism, he hated capitalism, he tried to hide this fact, but he could not,
Lets go back to 1913 when he adopted the concept of Eliminating Gold as the standard of monetary systems, he actually sold this notion to FDR twenty years later, (he met FDR when FDR was Secretary to the Navy), and this standard of monetary systems was an old socialist catch-all going back to the turn of the century. Sister McCarran points this out in the book “Fabianism in the Political Life of Britain”. Take some time and read “Keynes at Harvard” and you’ll understand more about why what the Government is doing right with raising taxes on the rich to provide to the poor and trying to make everyone equals, doesn’t really work, not unless you want to live in a country like say, Venzuela, Cuba, Korea, etc…like they say History is doomed to repeat itself, if we do not learn from it.
You said;
yes, however calling people who voted for a particular candidate complacent just because you simply do not like what that President is now doing is wrong. Comparing our great country to a socialist country run by a dictator is not only fear mongering, but historically inaccurate and very unpatriotic. Our Constitution and the Checks and Balances included in it prevent that from happening.
I did not compare us to a Socialist country as we stand today, I said that if continue in the direction we are headed than we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes that Socialist Countries have in the past. We are not Socialist, but we are a Democracy, which is “Mob Rule”. We were established as a “Republic” and that it what we need to get back too, “The United States of America and the Republic for which it stands”.
The people that voted for the current administration are not necessarily the complacent ones, I was actually calling on Conservatives, such as my selves and asking them how they have become so complacent
The facts you say were not there, are in the History books, it would make for a rather lengthy article to write about the History of Great Britain, Venezuela, Korea, Cuba, Spain, Italy, Myanmar Republic and more.
People have to take some personal responsibility and read their history, don’t take my word for it, its right there in the History of all those Countries. So how is doing the same thing that others countries have done, going to result in something different than what those countries have today?
Oh and another note on our current system of “Keynesian Economics”, Margaret Cole a Famed English Fabian Socialist Revolutionary once stated, “We Socialists used Keynes and the U.S.S.R. as touchstones”.
So what road are we headed down?
We are not there yet, but if we continue with the same type of policies that created other socialist countries, how will we not become one oursleves?
To St Aug:
Just a “Few” reasons I could not give the Dems Accolades for their efforts:
The Democrats’ Healthcare Bill – By the Numbers
Important numbers relevant to the House Democrats’ 1,018-page “America’s Affordable Health Choices Act:”
114 million — Number of individuals who could lose their current coverage under the bill, according to non-partisan actuaries at the Lewin Group.
4.7 million — Number of jobs that could be lost as a result of taxes on businesses that cannot afford to provide health insurance coverage, according to a model developed by Council of Economic Advisors Chair Christina Romer.
$818 billion — Total new taxes on individuals who cannot afford health coverage, and employers who cannot afford to provide coverage that meet federal bureaucrats’ standards.
$1.28 trillion — New federal spending in the next ten years, according to a Congressional Budget Office score of selected elements of the bill.
6% — Percentage of all that new spending occurring in the bill’s first three years—representing a debt and tax “time bomb” in the program’s later years that will explode for future generations.
$88,200 — Definition of “low-income” family of four for purposes of health insurance subsidies.
33 — Entitlement programs the bill creates, expands, or extends—an increase from an earlier draft.
53 — Additional offices, bureaus, commissions, programs, and bureaucracies the bill creates over and above the entitlement expansions—also an increase from the discussion draft.
1,683 — Uses of the word “shall,” representing new duties for bureaucrats and mandates on individuals, businesses, and States—and an increase of 306 mandates from the discussion draft.
$10 billion — Minimum loss sustained by taxpayers every year due to Medicare fraud; the government-run health plan does not reform the ineffective anti-fraud statutes and procedures that have kept Medicare on the Government Accountability Office’s list of high-risk programs for two decades.
Zero — Prohibitions on government programs like Medicare and Medicaid from using cost-effectiveness research to impose delays to or denials for access to life-saving treatments.
2017 — Year Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund will be exhausted — a date unchanged by the bill, which re-directs savings from Medicare to fund new entitlements for younger Americans.
$2,500 — Promised savings for each American family from health reform, according to then-Senator Obama’s campaign pledge—savings which the Congressional Budget Office has confirmed will not materialize, as the bill will not slow the growth of health care costs.
Ok, first off, the Lewin group may be non partisan, however it is hardly neutral in this discussion. It is funded by United Health Care, one of the largest health insureres in the country.
Now I just don’t think things are as black and white as you make them out to be. In terms of this being Bush’s vs Obama’s economy. It is Obama’s economy now, he has stated that. I was referring to the huge deficits, not the overall economy. How a Conservative President with a Republican Congress could vote for enormous spending for the war in Iraq without increasing taxes to pay for it or cutting spending in other areas is beyond me and completely unsustainable. And before you think I’m some left wing loony, I’m not, I voted for Bush. I will say this though, I think Lincoln and FDR were Presidents that had much tougher things to deal with than Bush did. Remember when he came into office he had budget surpluses and if he had just kept on the economic path that he had been left, would wouldn’t have any deficit at this point.
In terms of government involvement to impact recessions there have been efforts by the government in all recessions since the 1930′s to lessen the impact of them. There is really no way to measure the impact lowering interest rates, tax cuts and short term spending increases have but we have 1 big example of what can happen when nothing is done. To listen to you talk about “let them fail” you sound like Hoover. I don’t think you will get too many people to agree with you if you keep saying letting the banks fail would have been good for the country. It would have most likely started a run on the banks. It would also have left many companies with no way to take out short terms loans to pay their employees which in turn would have left many of those employees without a paycheck for a few weeks. I just don’t think that would have been helpful. I would add that many of the banks that received help through the TARP legislation (passed by a Dem congress and Republican President) have paid back that money with interest.
I wasn’t really trying to say govenrment spending can save a country, I was saying it can lessen a recession’s impact. If you want an example of a time when the government helped out an industry, got it through a rough time and turned it back over, you have one in how the TARP funds were handled with the large banks. They took that money, used it, got through the rough period, found takers to sell their own bonds to, paid the money back and got on to business as usual. Another example is the savings and loans bailout that occurred during Regan’s administration.
If your article was meant to be a call to arms for conservatives I will let you know what I think you should do. Get better candidates. The problem with our electoral system is that in the primaries candidates need to go as far right and and far left to get the hard core people to come out and vote. Then they get into the general election where most Americans are middle of the road. They don’t always agree with one party for everything. As one of those Independent voters McCain absolutely lost me when he picked Palin. If he had picked Romney he would have had my vote.
In terms of personal responsibility, I completely agree with you. One of the things I really like about Obama is when he talks about personal responsibility, especially for minorities. Here’s an excert from his speech to the NAACP:
“We have to say to our children, Yes, if you’re African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not. But that’s not a reason to get bad grades, that’s not a reason to cut class, that’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school. No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands – and don’t you forget that.
To parents, we can’t tell our kids to do well in school and fail to support them when they get home. For our kids to excel, we must accept our own responsibilities. That means putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It means attending those parent-teacher conferences, reading to our kids, and helping them with their homework.”
It’s just my opinion that the stimulus is working just as it is others opinions that it is not. I feel the incentives in it for home purchases, tax cuts, and the infrastructure improvements are helping. I also think that the help given to the states saved a number of teachers/fire fighters/cops jobs. The recession which started in Dec 2007 has abated and will most likely be declared over in the current quarter. Since March of this year the stock market is up huge. i don’t think us ordinary citezens will ever know just how bad things were in Sept/Oct of last year when the TARP was passed. For Dems and Repubs to pass that big of a package right before Nov elections it had to have been in very bad shape.
Reply to St Aug
Good comments, I agree with you that some of the incentives seem to be working, and yes it was a call to Arms for Conservatives, and yes our Goal as Tea Party Patriots is to vote the incumbents out of office that refuse to stand up for the people that is probably our biggest goal. Our Mission statement that we actually had to pay to publish in the St. Augustine Record since thy consistently refused to report the facts is as follows. We do not take our mission statement lightly it is compromised of a lot of hard work and input from many members.
Mission Statement
The Mission of the St. Johns County Division of Tea Party Patriots is to return the State and Federal Government to the people. The Organization is non partisan. We no longer can accept the ruling of a Political Class who define themselves as Democrat or Republican but govern as a separate and distinct class of citizens who us tax money to further their party or personal agendas despite the needs of the citizens they are supposed to represent. We are for Congressional Term Limits, Balanced Budgets, Significant Tax Reform, Immigration Enforcement,
Energy Independence and Federal Governance as laid out by the Constitution of the United States, specifically Individual States Rights.
We only want what’s best for the future of this country and spending the amount of money they are spending on useless projects that have no future like the Turtle Tunnel for $3.4 million in south of Orlando and the $30 Million for the Salt Water Mouse Habitat, is only the tip of the iceberg, click the following link for the Congressional Pig Book http://www.cagw.org/site/DocServer/Pig_Book_full__April_13_2009_.pdf?docID=3561, and this has been going on for years and years and years, not just with this administration. In addition to the fact that the truth is coming out now that some of the worst bridges aren’t getting fixed and even our lame stream CBS wrote about that http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/07/31/national/main5199914.shtml.
I am so glad that many civil service jobs were saved, i.e. firefighters, but for how long, in most cases you are looking at two years tops, then what, and what about all the strings that were attached to the stimulus money that were completely unconstitutional? FDR’s New Deal only prolonged the inevitable and I fear that President Obama’s New “New Deal” is going to do the same.
If you get some time read that online book about Keynes and Harvard, it really is rather eye-opening, if you read it with an open mind. It’s facts and it gives you resources that you can check for yourself. Keynesian Economics could be the downfall of this country. http://www.keynesatharvard.org/
Thanks for the great input; I do enjoy sparring with you
, I find often times we agree on things, like personal resposnsiblity, stimulating the economy in the right places, etc….., Nobody agrees with anybody 100% of the time, and often times I see us agreeing more than disagreeing, keep up the good comments mate.
These guys need to go Republicans and Democrates alike,
Reply to St. Aug
As far as the Presidents and tougher times, there was no tougher time to deal with than after 9-11, no president ever faced those tough decisions. Bush did alot of non-sensical ridiculous spending as well and he is to blame for alot of things.
However remember Congress had control for the last two years of Bush’s presidency, they pushed the stimulus through and yes, he signed it.
McCain introduced a bill back in 2003 and tried to get Congress to get a handle on things with fannie and freddie fiasco, but , nooooooooo….they couldn’t have that. Remember what Maxine waters said, about how fannie and freddie were fine under the wonderful leadership of Barney Frank? Once they did that with the housing market, it was all downhill and it just it was like melting snowballs under a steamroller.
We have to get these idiots out of office and we have to set term limits. It makes no sense that our President and Governors and only serve a certain number of terms but congress and senate can just keep going like the Eveready bunny, and thats just wrong!!
We have got to quit being so COMPLACENT!!
Bottom line on the deficit, when we went to war with Iraq, Congress should have let Bush’s tax cuts expire to pay for it. If they had we would be in much better financial shape than we are. So instead of paying for it when it started we are now going to have to pay for it plus any interest on that amount.