Are You Angry Yet?

To his credit, Rush Limbaugh yesterday said, “Tax-paying people who make it all work will not put up long rewarding failure, being forced to reward failure. Beware this huge backlash. It’ll turn. It’ll turn slowly, and like the tide coming in, it is unstoppable. It has already started, in fact. The pulse of the backlash has begun. The pulse of revolution is out there, and at some point the anger that you know is there will surface and you will see it and you will hear it. People will overcome their fear of opposition to this because at the end of the day they will not sit there and let everything they’ve worked for be destroyed, particularly on the basis that they deserve to be destroyed because it’s been unfair in the first place that they succeeded.”

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_022009/content/01125109.guest.html

I woke up planning to write a post about this very subject. Leftists, the hippie protesters and their intellectual leaders, tend to be angry. They are always protesting something. There is always someone who has less and someone else who has more, and they think this cannot stand.

Rush Limbaugh said, “We are all competitive, and it is in our genes to want to improve our lives for our families. It is called working in our own self-interests.”

Success is the result of this work. It is not unfair for some to succeed because of work and thought. The phony anger of the leftists against those who succeed, those who are productive, is nothing. It looks phony, it sounds phony. It will pale in comparison to the real anger of the productive against those who would steal the fruits of their labor.

Here is an early sign of anger, but couched in sarcastic humor, to make it bearable:

http://michellemalkin.com/2009/02/18/more-scenes-from-mesa-i-need-a-beachfront-condo-mr-president/

Look at this video about your nest egg:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bSGgBtqyKY

Whether through inflation due to deficit spending, or through direct taxation, or through endless regulations strangling productivity, or through the vanishing value of stocks and your 401(K), your nest egg will be taken from you.

Speaking of the deficit, here are the facts:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/02/20/americas-deficit-spending-spree-raises-alarms/

And you probably have seen this already:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1039849853

I say, are you angry yet? Maybe you’re too angry. You’re jumping up and down. But you don’t know what to do about it. Let’s calm down. Have a seat. Let’s look at this more deliberately, from a rational, thoughtful stance.

Read this by Walter Williams:

http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/wew/articles/09/EconomicMiracle.htm

Does this considered analysis somehow make you even more angry?

Well, then fight. Fight with all your intellectual might against Washington’s power-mad parasites of the productive.

Why not organize a march on Washington? The leftists do this all the time. It costs money to publicize and organize it. I don’t know if it does any good besides getting TV coverage, but it’s a thought. The theme? “I am not your serf.” “I did not vote for a fascist/socialist state.” “I work for my own sake.” “My property is not yours to steal and redistribute.”

Why not write a letter to the editor?

Why not write a blog or a comment to someone else’s blog?

How about filing a lawsuit against the U.S. Congress for passing a bill that violates Constitutional rights?

Call up and write to people in Congress and in the White House with your opposition.

Send money to organizations that really, truly defend your rights and your freedoms, in an uncompromising way.

How about the Institute for Justice? www.ij.org

David Horowitz Freedom Center? www.horowitzfreedomcenter.org

The Ayn Rand Institute and the Ayn Rand Center? www.aynrand.org

Send money in support of, and volunteer for, real pro-Capitalism, anti-statism political candidates, those who are for limited government and the rights of the individual. Are there any candidates like that? They may not be perfect but there are some candidates who are going to fight the current encroachments on our liberty. Support them.

And be sure to fight the Fairness Doctrine, local content regulations, public interest content regulations, and any other proposed limitations on free speech. I’m going to send you to Rush Limbaugh one more time. Here is his excellent letter to President Obama, published in the Wall Street Journal on February 20, 2009, in defense of freedom of speech:

http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_022009/content/01125111.guest.html

If freedom of speech goes, it’s time to pack.

Jerry Lewis Honored

Jerry Lewis will receive the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the Oscars on Sunday. Unfortunately, he has never received an Oscar for his filmmaking or performances. I think "The Bellboy" and "The Nutty Professor," as well as parts of other Lewis-directed films including "The Errand Boy" and "The Disorderly Orderly," deserve recognition.

Ayn Rand said in a radio interview, regarding her personal taste in comedians, "I cannot stand Jerry Lewis and Phyllis Diller." As I recall, she didn't like their image of Man or Woman as a non-heroic, under-achieving, juvenile (Lewis) or miserable (Diller) type. I'm not sure when the interview took place, possibly the early 60s, but I suspect she was referring to Jerry's work with Dean Martin. In my opinion, Jerry Lewis's characters were less whiny, unintelligent and irritating, and more funny and whimsical,in his 1960s solo movies. I do think the live TV shows with Dean Martin had spontaneous moments of unrepeatable hilarity, mainly when they ad-libbed, because of the dynamic of the team, the exhilerating timing and the relationship of the two performers, as described beautifully in Jerry Lewis's book "Dean and Me".

Jerry Lewis has steered clear of politics most of the time, but I understand he has usually supported Democrats, notably JFK. His few political comments tend to be common sense, and I usually find myself agreeing with his stated opinions.

In his book, "The Total Filmmaker," which helped to inspire me as a teenager to want to make films or otherwise be involved in creative expression (I'm still working on that), Lewis refers to the bureaucratic way film studios are run and describes it as exactly like the scene in Ayn Rand's "The Fountainhead" where a committee alters Howard Roark's building design.

Here's a clip of Jerry from "The Errand Boy":