Saturday, April 9, 2011
**JP** Daily Quran & Hadith
Sura Maryam | Sura : Makki | by Tilawat : 19 | by Reveal : 44 | Ruku` : 6 | Ayats : 98 | Part No. : 16 |
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Thanks & Best regards,
Imran Ilyas
Dubai
Cell: 00971509483403
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**JP** Reprehensible crimes of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto – His skeleton must be re-hanged
Reprehensible crimes of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto – His skeleton must be re-hanged
By: International Professor
In the history of nations the criminals like Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto require reprehension for crimes against humanity, also its state and inhabitants. He was a fascist dictator, ruthless feudal and a flatterer, there is no doubt that he was punished by God and made him admonition for forthcoming generations. We believe that anyone who conspired or had a hand in destruction of our nation would be punished, and a few examples of wrath of God like last part of Indira Gandhi, Sheikh Mujeeb or anyone is very well evidence of our faith.
Breaking of Pakistan was the major crime of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and meaning of "Bhuttoism" clearly defines further breaking, and looting of remaining Pakistan. He must be dragged out of his mausoleums (worth one billion built from the pockets of hungry and naked Pakistani's) and must be re-hanged for his other crimes and murders for which he had not been punished.
Iftikhar Ahmad anchor of "Jawabdeh" who fabricated a program on GEO TV:
Who is Iftikhar Ahmad? And what credibility he has in the eyes of courts to wash true black slur from the face of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, unfortunately Bhutto was hanged in only and only one murder, whereas dozens killed on his orders still needs justice.
Iftikhar Ahmad was shoe bearer and bar tender of Zulfiqar Bhutto, a communist and liberal fascist, he was sleeper cell of Al-Zulfiqar and his hands are also soaked in blood of innocent opponents of Bhuttoism. Since then he is on pay role of anti-Pakistan elements and agencies. There is no justification to trust his versions presented on GEO TV being crony of Bhutto, there is a huge crowd of reporters and anchors in GEO who are on pay role of PPP and ISI simultaneously.
Nobody believes that Bhutto did not commit crimes; the only difference in opinion is whether he should have hang or deserved lesser punishment. On the basis of Fabrication of Itikhar Ahmad and his manipulation in interview with Justice Naseem Hasan Shah, was a pre-planned conspiracy and within telecast of his program an application was filed by Hanif Tahir of "Peoples Lawyers Forum", whereas he says that "Death sentence of Bhutto awarded by Lahore High Courts was wrong decision, and it was a fit case for "Lesser Punishment". Nobody ever pleaded that Zulfiqar was innocent.
On the basis of Iftikhar Ahmad's absurd GEO TV program, the bench of Mr. Justice Sh. Abdul Rashid and Justice Bilal Khan dismissed the petition on Dec 24, 2004.
Iftikhar Ahmad is not a credible anchor and his partisan reporting and grouping is very well known, he is an established crony of Bhutto's, his links with Zardari and views on US war of terror are evidence that all communists of PPP are today's liberal fascists, simultaneously on the pay role of ISI and CIA. At this stage we are not disclosing some personal facts related to his life and reserve right to show public about his character and his links with Al Zulfiqar, moreover his links with foreign elements. His program has no credibility to be made evidence against removal of single decision of High Courts, Supreme Courts, Appeal and mercy appeal (by Nusrat Bhutto) etc.
If you may read carefully the flow of articles and redirections of TV anchors, since hanging of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, one thing is very clear that nobody is denying crime, crime scene, witnesses, proceedings, rights of defense, FIR, police investigations, trust of Zulfiqar Bhutto on courts, many months of trial and reporting by media of every word is on records. Leaving all other media channels, the daily "Musawat", the argon of Bhutto was reporting daily proceedings in headlines, and dozens of scholars were writing comments on daily basis. Unfortunately witnesses were so strong and those were also hanged by same courts.
Current hue and cry in media:
Even though current articles in papers and guests on TV channels are mostly paid by Zardari mafia to propagate and try to made court's decision against Bhutto as a controversial event. Majority of peoples suddenly started to appear on TV channels are mostly cronies of PPP, and those were awarded high posts in Benazir's two terms as bribes because Benazir had question of turning court's decision in her mind and many induced persons on current TV channels have already received their price.
It is laughing that one prostitute was bribed and an affidavit was filed on her behalf that Justice Mushtaq told her that he is determined to hang Bhutto. Half of the current ministers were either in Gen. Zia's cabinet or part of PML, such as Yousuf Raza Gilani, Babar Awan, Mir Hazar Khan Bijrani, Firdous Ashiq Awan, Hina Rabbani Khar and MQM were part of Gen. Zia's Government, majority of members of PML Q in Baluchistan were also part of his cabinet as well that are partners of today's Zardari mafia.
By spirit 90% Pakistani's hate Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto:
During the period of Bhutto's Government everyone in opposition was victimized and feudal mentality fascist decisions were taken, even many in PPP were victimized, humiliated or removed from the scene.
In some well documented cases, Ch. Zahoor Elahi the father of Ch. Shujaat of PML Q was murdered and evidence of involvement of PPP were crystal clear, because Justice Mushtaq Husain was also travelling in the same car along with Court's lawyer who was also murdered along with Ch. Zahoor Elahi on Sept 25, 1981.
Awami National Party was attacked by FSF and goons of PPP at Liaqat Bagh Rawalpindi, where dozens were murdered. Later a case against ANP was represented in Courts and ANP and its leaders were banned. Current form of ANP is a new shape of defunct NAP of Wali Khan Group.
He used air force against Balouch citizens and hundreds were killed.
Father of Mr. Saad Rafiq member parliament of PML N was also killed by FSF.
Ittefaq Foundries was nationalized and family of Mian Nawaz Shariff was pushed to join Gen. Zia's Government, later Benazir and Rahman Malik also humiliated his father Mian Shariff by arresting him due to ego problem.
Dr. Nazir of Jamat e Islami, DG Khan was killed on orders of Bhutto by police and FSF. Abdul Samad Achakzai was also murdered on his orders as well.
There were killings of hundreds of those ordinary peoples, who were opposed to PPP's fascist behaviors, if you may go through date wise accounts of daily Jang and Nawai e Waqt, a comprehensive list of reported killings by media are evidence of fascist and criminal mentality of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his associates.
Murders of famous politicians like Ch. Iqbal, Ch. Zahoor Elahi, Abdul Samad Achakzai, Dr. Nazir and Khawaja Rafiq are enough to re-hang Bhutto.
Thousands were arrested during "Bangla Desh Na Manzoor" campaign and later during 1977 movement against Bhutto's fake elections thousands were arrested. Snatching beards of peoples was routine of Jiala's and bullying on Islamic traditions was their usual practice.
Dillai camp and Shahi Qila torture cells and hundreds of other venues are on records to prove that wrath of God was eminent against cruelties of Bhutto Government.
Bhutto's fascism within his own Peoples Party:
18 murderous attacks on Ahmad Raza Qasoori, attacks on his brother Khizer Hayat and finally killing of his father Nawab Muhammad Ahmad Khan ultimately made Bhutto admonition for next generations.
Bhutto was a clone, joker and murderous killer, snakes were left in the public meeting of Ghulam Mustafa Khar, moreover Haneef Ramay and J A Rahim were humiliated badly that were pillars of PPP. Every leader of PPP who left party gained better status later. Ghulam Mustafa Khar, Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, Kausar Niazi, Meraj Khalid and dozens others who broke the shackles of feudal lords and say good bye to slavery of PPP's feudal minded leaders were later honored better than PPP. Mahmood Haroon was Minister in Zia era and his wife was member of Majlis e Shoora. As Prime Minister Meraj Khalid and as President Farooq Leghari were leading in fixing crimes and kicking out Benazir and Zardari, both were top leaders of PPP.
Killer genes and inheritance of criminal blood of Bhutto:
Benazir and Zardari brutally murdered Mir Murtaza Bhutto along with other companions at Karachi and a case was filed in courts against both.
The night before when Shahnawaz Bhutto was died in France, it is on records that both brothers fought bitterly when both were intoxicated state. Both married to sister daughters of a communist and KGB agent. Whether one brother eliminated other? For share of inheritance through wife was later kept strictly hidden and for political gains Gen. Zia was blamed. Read carefully papers of that period.
Benazir and Zardari are so cheap that in spite of billions corruption and overseas properties, a lone petrol pump owned by widow of Murtaza Bhutto was grabbed many times. Attacks on the widow of her brother and true heirs of Bhutto legacy are under threat and life of son of Murtaza Bhutto is in great danger because he is the only living survivor of true Zulfiqar Bhutto clan. Benazir was involved in petit assaults through police and goons to humiliate children of his brother.
Bhutto's Fascism against media:
Jang Group was major target of Bhutto and he by name threatened Mir Khalil ur Rahman for consequences, today Jang, News and GEO are major propaganda source to defame judiciary and turn fascist Bhutto as hero is very surprising. Media persons who opposed Bhutto were target and cancellation of their declarations was daily practice. Current situation against media and threats by Zardari is action replay of Bhuttoism mean Goonism. I have a complete list of crimes of Bhutto against media and that requires separate columns. As a ready reference Takbeer, Zindagi, Urdu Digest and imprisonments of Mujeeb ur Rahman Shami, Zia Shahid and Altaf Husain Qureshi are well known to public.
Peoples Party always rule with the help of Pakistan army:
Bhutto entered in politics via Iranian Naheed Sikandar Mirza, and she sent him to UNO as a head of a delegation, he was right hand of Sikandar Mirza in all anti-Pakistan and unconstitutional affairs, later he remained part of Gen. Ayub Khan and he was also minister of basic democracy system and front man in opposing Ms. Fatima Jinnah.
History is witness that Muhammad Ali Bogra and Sikandar Mirza were both descendents of Ghaddar e Millat Mir Jaffer. Bhutto being admirer of both broke Pakistan, and peoples named him as second Ghaddar e Millat of sub continents history, he will always be remembered for breaking Pakistan for grabbing power. His friendship with Gen. Yahya Khan has no question mark because Yahya was also Iranian Qizlibash and he passed rest of his life under Bhutto's rule by enjoying women and wines at Rawalpindi.
Bhutto was chief person who instigated Army to kill Bengali's, so hundred thousands were murdered. Army was used against Balouch citizens; he was civil martial law administrator and after 1977 election he imposed martial law in many big cities as well. Democracy and PPP is a joke.
After passing of 1973 constitution, the true spirit and sanctity of constitution was ruined and within short period of time seven amendments were made, whereas notorious 7th amendment made him dictator, after long Gen. Zia passed 8th amendment.
Today brutal murder of Pakhtoon in FATA and frontiers areas, killings of Balouch peoples, target killings at Karachi, suicide attacks, killings in drone attacks, missing persons, bomb blasts and greed of more power by means of licking feet of Pakistan army is the same action replay of Bhutto's fascism that Zardari is replaying, where Gen. Kiyani is second Tikka Khan.
According to careful statistics current war of terror has killed above 100,000 Pakistanis, where as above 30, 000 Pakistanis are in the illegal custody of army, above 1.5 million Pakistani's who were forced to leave their homes have been ruined. Gradually Zardari-Kiyani syndicate would break the records of Bhutto-Tikka Khan-Gen Yahya Khan syndicate. Turn the history pages backward and note that entire PPP's tenure was composed of everyday bomb blasts, use of army against civilians, complaints of conspiracy against Peoples Party, power in the hands of feudal and army persons. Honorable departure of Musharraf is a replay of providing sanctuary to Gen. Yahya Khan.
Benazir inherited blood and fascist genes of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and she was Graduate of "Fraud University of Zardari", as a tradition of Bhutto, she used army, FIA against civilians and current FIA is ditto copy of FSF of Bhutto era. History never witnessed shame less ruler like Benazir who was kicked out of power two times and for third time she negotiated safety of corruption money with ISI chief, lick lacking of Musharraf and signed NRO to save looted wealth, soon before death her connections with MI were exposed. The clandestine of her cell phone for three years by Zardari bears the secrets of her calls to DG MI and ISI, surely after deleting those calls now telephone has been handed over to police.
NRO VS Bhutto hanging case:
Zardari is trying to use same tactics that Bhutto had been using to play delaying tactics in his case but in vain. Judiciary is trying to delay NRO cases and a few evictions by courts is a result of pressure from Government. Most shameful decision of Supreme Courts to reject appeal of 11 persons kidnapped by ISI and turning High Court's decision in eviction of those accused is bad precedent, whether is it not funny that no defense lawyer was ever allowed to represent their point of view in front of army courts. After retirement if any justice of Supreme Court would declare that we were under pressure of army than Zardri-Kiyani syndicate have any justification to hang accused persons.
It is on record that Justice Naseem Hasan Shah was insulted and fake plot cases were floated against him to avenge his decision, continuous use of word "Judicia Murder" is a conspiracy, nobody ever denied that Bhutto was not involved in the murders, hue and cry is based on decision that why he was not given lesser punishment. Iftikhar Ahmad tactfully manipulated the venue when Justice Naseem Hasan Shah was under victimization.
Skelton of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto is liable of re-hanging in many crimes; most justified case of re-hanging is his role in breaking Pakistan.
http://www.makepakistanbetter.com/why_how_what_forum.asp?GroupID=1&ArticleID=13349
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Middle-American Methamphetamine
Middle-American Methamphetamine
In small-town America, drugs are an everyday experience.
By Nick King | April 6, 2011
Since the late 1990s members of the media have routinely trekked into the hinterlands of America to cover the meth "epidemic," flap their lips about the newfound dangers of the heartland, and beat a path back to their urban refuges. I had hoped that this phenomenon would end with the recent decline in meth use, but instead Nick Reding's Methland: The Death and Life of an American Small Town climbed the New York Times bestseller list and claimed the Chicago Tribune's Heartland Prize for 2009. This is especially irksome for me because I grew up in a small town in Southeast Missouri that was sometimes referred to as the meth capital of the world.
According to DEA statistics, Missouri had led the nation in the number of meth labs discovered every year since 2003. When I was in high school, MTV dispatched a news crew to my town and interviewed a number of friends and acquaintances for a story on meth users.
I did meth for the first time when I was 15, and by the time I was 17, I was using it once or twice a week. I can safely say that although many fine writers, Reding included, have attempted to tackle drug use in small town Americaand have exposed the uncomfortable truth that drugs are more prevalent in rural than urban areasnone of them really understand the subject.
These outsiders routinely accept a sensationalized version of meth's power: it is a uniquely addictive drug that ruins everyone it touches. But most people who take meth and other illicit drugs are otherwise normalthey just like to get lifted every once in a while. This is not to minimize the possibly dire consequences of drug abuse. I have a number of friends who died well before their times due to rampant substance-abuse problemsnone of them directly meth-related, however. One of my best friends died after shooting up coke hours before his court date. Few have more familiarity with these tragedies than I do, but they are by far the exception rather than the rule.
Taking meth is like joining a secret society. Most users don't talk about those activities to outsiders, but we can communicate all we need to each other, even when surrounded by the uninitiated, with knowing smiles, quick head bobs, subtle sniffs of the nose. Once I became at least a semi-regular consumer of the drug, I discovered that users extended well beyond the speed freaks at Wal-Mart buying lithium batteries at three in the morning. I could read the signs perfectlythe teeth grinding, chain-smoking, darting eyes, and omnipresent bottles of waterand could even spot those members of my town's upper crust who happened to enjoy a rush. Anyone can spot a tweaker who has been up for days in the depths of amphetamine psychosis, but few non-users have the eyes to see the rest.
Of course, this was also true of most of my town's good, God-fearing folk. They substituted hysteria for real knowledge of the drug. We walked among them as their employeesor employers, for that matterneighbors, and friends, but if they had known who we were, they would have descended upon us like a screech owl on a vole. Anyone arrested for meth got his face splashed across the front page of the paper. Within days, even hours, formerly respected members of the community could have their lives ruinedby the drug but by people's perception of it. But regardless of how shocking the upstanding citizens of town found it when one of their own was exposed as a fiend, the revelation never made them question their presumptions. I remember when two girls around my age were busted cooking off a batch at a local motel. The girls were popular at school and from good families, but after the news got around town, every time I left for a party my mother demanded to know if either one of them would be thereas if they were the only ones at school who did white dope.
Because of the dire repercussions of being found out, we were more tight-lipped about meth than any other drug, even with our peers. When my friend Drew first started using meth, he flaunted his consumption and told anyone who asked exactly what he was on. Drew was friendly and gregarious by nature, but that could not stand. Some of us told him to shut his damn mouth and refused to acknowledge his existence until he did so. He learned more discretion in the next few days than he had hitherto in his life.
Meth is not the whole story here, not by a long shot. In my tribe, almost everyone took almost every kind of drug imaginablemeth included, but it was hardly the sine qua non of our drug universe. On a typical weekend night, we might drink a fifth of whiskey on top of a couple blue bombers of hydrocodone, then snort a rail around three in the morning to keep the party going. The order could be reversed by taking a psychedelic like LSD or psilocybin in the afternoonpossibly accompanied by a little meth or ecstasy to steady the mindand then drinking into the early morning with a nightcap of codeine cough syrup to ensure a peaceful sleep. We smoked weed almost constantly regardless of which route we took, and drinking and driving was treated like a competitive sport.
For the most part, however, we were not the stereotypical burnouts that people expected this behavior from, nor did we think of ourselves as such. Several of my closest friends and I were in the top decile of our class despite being intoxicated half of our waking livesfrequently including school hours. We were almost all athletes and participated in a number of activities and clubs. For two years, every one of my class's officers was a multiple drug felon.
We were also, by and large, neither poor nor neglected by our parents. Our mothers and fathers were solidly middle-class or, in a few cases, upper-class. They worked as doctors, bankers, teachers, contractorsvery few lawyers, oddlyand owned some of the most respected small businesses in town. Busy as they were with work, our parents made every effort to be involved in our lives: attending parent-teacher conferences, cheering us on at sporting events, and taking us to church every Sunday followed by lunch at one of the town's few nice restaurants.
Nor can anyone attribute our wide-ranging illicit behavior to a faltering local economy, as Reding does frequently in Methland:
One example of the connection between financial loss and the increase in meth use was a feeling among small-time cooks that they, like the moonshiners of the early twentieth century, were the last of a breed, not just of rebellious criminals, but of small business people. In the wake of so many closed storefronts, it was the Beavis and Butt-Head cooks, as the police called them, who touted their place in the increasingly weak economy of Oelwein [Iowa].
My town never had similar economic woes. Granted, there were two strip malls that sat largely emptywhere we would congregate on weekend nights to drink, sell drugs, and decide where everyone should go for the eveningbut that was more the consequence of the owner's outlandishly high rents than an indicator for the economic health of the town. The industrial park was always full of humming factories with more moving to town when I graduated, and pretty much all of my friends worked summers and part-time during the school year. There was poverty in the area, to be sure, but in a town where many people were only two or three generations removed from sharecroppingmyself includedthat was nothing new.
It's possible that we turned to drugs out of boredom, but I doubt it. True, there weren't numerous recreational options around town, especially for teenagers. We had the local multiplex and a few pool halls that allowed minors, and that was it. Still, we were good at making our own fun. We were less than an hour's drive from a lake and a number of rivers and creeks, so the springs and summers were a seemingly endless cycle of swimming, tubing, fishing, campouts, and bonfires. Regardless of the season, we had house parties when someone's parents went out of town, and if worse came to worst, we could just drive around all night. The only things the cities had that really interested us were concerts, and we were always game for driving to see our favorite bands.
But it's not as if we used drugs less when we were occupied; we believed they enhanced any situation. In fact, our desire to use drugs increased proportionally to how much fun we thought an activity would be. When we took our senior trip to a tourist trap on the Redneck Riviera in Florida's Panhandle, eight of us brought along eight balls of both meth and coke, a pound of weed, and four ounces of 'shrooms. Most daringly, one friend raided the pharmacy where he worked and filled a large Mason jar full of every pill he could find that had a "may cause drowsiness" or "do not operate heavy machinery" warning. Drugs were not all we were concerned about, however. They were always a secondary concern next to being with our friends. A decade later, I still spend most of my time with the same people despite having moved away from our hometown years ago.
This all seemed perfectly normal to us. We didn't match the conceptions of drug users presented by the media or government, but we were certain the same thing was happening everywhere in the country. We were not disabused of this notion until our friend Calhoun moved to Kansas City and came back to visit, telling us that all his new acquaintances thought he was an addict. I remember his explanation very clearly:
So the first day at work I start talkin' to the guy that's showin' me around the place, and I ask him where I can get some weed, and, ya know, he tells me. And then I'm like, 'so where can I get some pills,' andagainhe tells me. Then I ask him where I can get some meth, and he says he doesn't know. So I ask him if he knows where I can get some X, and he's like, 'what the f–k's wrong with you!?'
Calhoun shrugged in disbelief. "I don't know! I just thought people liked to party. I guess up there ya just do like one or two drugs at a time or somethin' like that." This pretty well blew our minds. Who wouldn't do any and all drugs available to him? We weren't even the craziest people we knew, so if we were addicts, we simply didn't have the terminology to explain the people who were really out therepeople like The Hawk and Bodean.
The Hawk was the best meth cook I knew. While the less competent chefs cooked up batches of gray or even brown dope filled with impurities, The Hawk's stuff was always pure whiteor occasionally blue when he was experimenting with a new recipeand burned hard and pure going up the nostrils, like a white hot nail straight into your brain. But again, he did not fit the popular stereotype of a chef as some backwoods hick, rail-thin with half his teeth missing. He was skinny but not unusually so, in his early twenties when I knew him, with dark hair and nondescript features. If he wore dress pants and a tie he would have looked like a car salesman, but he was a damn sight smarter, nicer, and more honest than most car dealers I know. The Hawk sold drugs, but from what I could tell his primary income came from weed; the meth was more of a hobby. As friends of his, we never paid for the lines and quarter grams The Hawk gave us over the years, and even when dealing with higher quantities he never charged us retail. The guy was addicted to meth and probably benzos to boot, but he never wronged me or anyone I knew and still goes down as a standup guy in my book.
Bodean was something else. If someone I trusted had told me he was the Norse god Loki, I would have believed it. You never knew what he would do next, but the good money was always that it would be violent and destructive. Although he was just as familiar as The Hawk with the white-dope devil, he always remembered to eat and lifted weights, so his body was 190 ripped pounds in 70 inches. His hair was jet black with long bangs that fell to one side of his face almost down to his sharp jaw. If he had grown it a little longer and put it into a devil lock, he would have fit in on stage with the Misfits. I was friends with Bodean, but I knew better than to cross him when he was angry, especially if he had been drinking bourbon.
A guy in the class below mine once had the misfortune of becoming the target of Bodean's rage when he was pounding Jim Beam. It was a misunderstanding, but Bodean landed about ten elbows to the kid's face before he knew what was happening. Another time, the cops came to bust a party, and while they were occupied inside, Bodean attempted to steal their cruiser. When the cops ran back outside, he jumped out of the car and yelled, "F–k you, pigs!" in his guttural, almost caveman-like drawl and took off through the backyard. The cops chased after him, but were literally clotheslined in the next yard while Bodean ducked and kept running through the cemetery, across Main Street, and through the woods to homeabout two miles. Although I can't be sure what mixture of drugs Bodean was on for all his adventures, the only occasion I am certain he was fueled primarily by amphetamines was the time he shot his PlayStation with his MAC-10. He had been up for days, and one of his friends wouldn't stop playing Tony Hawk, so Bodean walked into the room and shot right through the console and into a water line in his basement. Fortunately, many plumbers in the area would work for crank.
Bodean was also involved in the drug tradepretty deeply at timesbut we didn't necessarily consider him a drug dealer. Drugs were not his only source of income, and he was by no means a kingpin. Most people we knew only sold drugs to get their own supply for free, so we didn't think of them "real" drug dealers because such a wide definition would incorporate pretty much everyone we knew at one time or another. We considered sellingor at least givingdrugs to your friends a social duty. If I bought a quarter pound of weed and sat on it while my friends were dry, it would have made me an instant pariah. There were few deeds nobler in our minds than breaking the law by, say, trafficking a sheet of acid back from a rave for no profit save a fantastic experience shared with your friends.
We took a much dimmer view of cops, our natural enemies. We had a certain grudging respect for a cop who really believed he was making the world a better place by busting people for getting highquixotic as that belief isbut crooked cops were the lowest of the low in our taxonomy. After two of the cities' top narcs busted a friend of mine with a pound of weed, it was agreed that no charges would be filed as long as the cops kept the pot and my friend never mentioned it again. We already knew those particular officers were crooked, so it was hardly a revelation to usother townspeople might have reacted very differently to the newsbut we were all sickened by the theft. They were worse than highwaymen because they publicly claimed a noble purpose.
Still, we didn't want them to quit being cops; if you had to get busted, it was best to get popped by them. What we really wanted was for crooked cops to be punished for their sins in dramatic fashion. We hoped that they would be struck by lightning, in an obvious act of God's anger, but we would have settled for having them publicly exposed as crooked and sent to prison. But as long as such people lived in our town, they could do the least harm as police officers.
While we took our trips on LSD and the cops took theirs on power, the good townsfolk had their religion. Our town was a departure point to parts unknown, and most people chose to ride one of two trains: drugs or Jesus. Both groups believed they were bound for enlightenment and cursed the other as hopelessly naïve and probably wicked. Conveniently, if anyone grew weary of his chosen car, the trains ran on parallel tracks, and people frequently jumped from one to the other.
My friend Matt was as devoted a space cadet as I knew. The summer before our senior year, we had a running contest to see who could take the most acid at one time. Some might wonder why two intelligent young men would do something so hazardous to their mental health. It was for the same reason Sir Edmund Hilary conquered Everest: because it was there. We were determined to scale the mountains of our minds then dynamite them to pieces, only to build them higher still and do it all again. I bowed out of the contest after I ate a ten-strip of Tim Leary blotter paper at a hippie festival and came to believe that I had zipped my tackle off while taking a leak, but Matt pressed on. He ended up eating 22 hits at an outdoor rave, and he claimed he saw a girl we knew turn into a duck-billed platypus. He more than doubled a total that had nearly destroyed me, and you would never know a nervous thought had crossed his mind. It was as if tripping were his natural state of being.
Nevertheless, he frequently bounced back to the Lord. It seemed that every time a girl broke his heart, his world would shatter, and he would spend the next two or three weeks attending prayer groups and preaching the Good News to us. This tendency was probably attributable to the reform school his mother sent him to near Patterson, Missouri. The teachers were former Marines and zealous Baptists who beat the students and forced them to memorize Bible verses. While Matt was there, one of his classmates slashed another student's throat in an attempt to take over the school. That school was the only topic Matt felt uncomfortable discussing, and I have to believe it is part of the reason Matt could be intoxicated on a far deeper level by Jesus than by LSD.
I didn't fully comprehend how warped my little town was until I moved away for college. I attended an elite Midwestern university, and many of my classmates came from supercilious locales like New York and L.A. For the most part, they thought of my friends and me as half-mad provincials with minds twisted from the tedium of small-town life and adulterated methamphetamine. The same attitude pervades the journalists who cover drug use in rural America. (Reding is exceptional in that he has a small-town pedigree and makes a noble attempt to see through his subjects' eyes. Still, despite his best efforts, he remains an outsider in the places he describes.) They come to find madmen, who are admittedly easy to find, confirm their prejudices, and file their stories confident that they've made a difference. True, they have told the rest of the world more than it ever wanted to know about rural America's underbelly. But they can't tell us the whole truth because they don't know it and never will.
Nick King writes from Missouri.
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/middle-american-methamphetamine/
Freedom From Freedom
Freedom From Freedom
by J. Paul Henderson
There's a basic quality of freedom. And Americans have forgotten it. Simply stated, freedom can only be to. It can't be from.
You can be free to eat, but you can't be free from hunger. You can appear to be free from hunger, but in reality, freedom from hunger is a privilege bestowed in exchange for giving up another freedom.
The natural state of freedom is always to. Governments can't grant freedom to because freedom to is a natural right of human kind. We have natural rights and freedoms simply because we exist; not because governments dole them out.
In recent years, the government in this country has perverted the meaning of the word freedom, and in so doing has confused Americans as to the very nature of freedom.
Whenever the government grants "freedoms" to a specific class of citizens, it's really granting special privileges. Privileges that come with costly strings attached.
Think for a minute about today's concept of freedom. It's freedom from hunger Freedom from worry. Freedom from discrimination. Freedom from medical bills. Freedom from anything and everything in life that one might consider unpleasant.
Freedom from discrimination in housing can only be accomplished by taking away the freedom to manage or dispose of one's property as he or she chooses. The difference between a property owner and a property renter is that the owner may do what he chooses with the property, while the renter has to obey someone else's rules.
When the government tells a property owner how to manage his property, or to whom he may rent or sell it, the property owner becomes, in effect, a renter. The government is the new landlord. In the name of freedom from discrimination, the government grants a would-be buyer the privilege of buying property the previous owner may not wish to sell him. For whatever reason. The property owner's freedom to has been usurped by the government in order to grant the would-be buyer a specific freedom from.
But here's one of those attached strings. As soon as the would-be buyer takes possession of the property, he becomes a property owner and subsequently loses his freedom to.
As more and more segments and classes of society are petitioning the government for special freedoms from, even more people are losing their precious natural rights of freedom to. And sadly, the very same people who've acquired special freedoms from are also losing their real freedoms. Their freedoms to.
As more and more privileges (freedoms from) are granted to the myriad of political special interest groups, an increasingly growing number of freedoms to are being forever taken by the government. Eventually, the end result of selling out our freedoms to for specific special privileges will result in the ultimate freedom from: Freedom from freedom itself.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig12/henderson-jp3.1.1.html
**JP** Tasawwuf
The purpose of a Muslim's life is to attain Allah swt's pleasure.
To do this successfully, he has to act on the shariah completely.
The part of the shariah dealing with external acts of worship has been classified as fiqh. While the part dealing with internal states, character and actions is the subject of disscussion in tasawwuf.
In summary, acquisition and rectification of internal moral states (iklaq e batini) with adherence to external commands of Shariah is tasawwuf. These internal moral states form the basis of worship performed by our body. They include,
A. Acquisition of;
Repentance (taubah)
Sincerity (ikhlas)
Slavehood (abdeyat)
Love of Allah swt (muhabbat)
Awe (khashoo)
Fear (khauf)
Hopefulness (raja')
Humility (tawaduh)
Thankfulness (shukur)
Patience (saber)
Reliance (tawakul)
Dependence (tafweedh)
Acceptance (raz(dh)a)
Abstinence (zuhud) , etc. and
Sincerity (ikhlas)
Slavehood (abdeyat)
Love of Allah swt (muhabbat)
Awe (khashoo)
Fear (khauf)
Hopefulness (raja')
Humility (tawaduh)
Thankfulness (shukur)
Patience (saber)
Reliance (tawakul)
Dependence (tafweedh)
Acceptance (raz(dh)a)
Abstinence (zuhud) , etc. and
B. Elimation or rectification;
Love of the worldly (hubb e dunyah)
Love of fame (hubb e jah)
Arrogance (kibr)
Showing off (riya)
Backbiting (ghibah)
Calamities of Tongue: Lying (kazb), carrying tales (namemah), humiliating others, talking harshly & rudly, talking unnecessarilry.
Anger (gazab)
Envy and Hatred (hasad wa bugz wa keana)
Being stingy (bukhl)
Being spend-thrift (israf)
Greed (hirs), etc.
Love of the worldly (hubb e dunyah)
Love of fame (hubb e jah)
Arrogance (kibr)
Showing off (riya)
Backbiting (ghibah)
Calamities of Tongue: Lying (kazb), carrying tales (namemah), humiliating others, talking harshly & rudly, talking unnecessarilry.
Anger (gazab)
Envy and Hatred (hasad wa bugz wa keana)
Being stingy (bukhl)
Being spend-thrift (israf)
Greed (hirs), etc.
These basic concepts should be very clear in regards to tasawwuf.
Regards
BazMi
Karachi-Pakistan
BazMi
Karachi-Pakistan
LNC in Arlington April 16
How to find us: The LPNOVA is working on getting a hospitality suite. We will update this meetup as details unfold.
"LP members are welcome to attend! LNC members generally LOVE
to meet fellow Libertarians. The only time the non-LNC members
are asked to leave the room is if they must go into an
executive session. Executive session is only for discussing
limited topics (regulatory or legal matters, personnel issues,
contract or other negotiations, etc.). But those sessions are
usually pretty rare.
For a taste of items discussed, see the LNC Minutes archive:
http://www.lp.org/lnc-meeting-archives"
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The Budget Battle
The Budget Battle
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.
Watching the public debate on the budget, we are reminded of two boys on the floor playing with toys. One has a bear and the other has a dinosaur. They are forever threatening the other kid with taking the toy away. One warns he will take away the dinosaur (military spending) and the other says he will grab the bear (domestic spending). They pull and tug and eventually settle the dispute so long as each gets to keep his favorite.
Oh, and one other thing: both toys belong to other children.
That's the public debate, which should strike anyone as preposterous on its face. If the goal in this crisis is to balance the budget without raising taxes, everything has to be cut regardless of political ideology. But of course that's not what political parties do. The goal of a political party is to shovel the largess in the direction of its constituent supporters while punishing the loyalists of the other party, which is attempting to do the same.
The tit-for-tat is always resolved the same way: more for both sides, from third parties.
In other words, this is all political play, which is obvious from the numbers and the norms. In the first place, no one is talking about actual cuts, not even the supposedly radical Republicans. These are cuts in projected spending, meaning that everyone is dealing with symbolic changes in a future that is just as symbolic. Even on paper, the only way to consider these cuts is to compare them with the GDP and the national debt -- both of which are slated to rise. Forgetting those two metrics, and looking at the actual numbers, there are no cuts at all and only increases.
Even the dating of the Republican's balanced budget is ridiculous. So the budget will be fully balanced in 2040? That's three decades from now. Few of the people in office will still be in office, and many will be dead. To see how viable this is, consider how many political plans of the year 1982 still survive today.
The Republican plan proposes domestic cuts in these gargantuan programs like Social Security and Medicare with nothing specific beyond the old prattle about establishing bi-partisan commissions and sending block grants to the states. There is nothing specific here beyond a numbers-laden pipe dream. No programs are abolished, no benefits are slashed or even trimmed, and although the propagandists claim to attack the culture of spending in Washington, there is not one word about taking on the money-printing machine that made the $14 trillion national debt possible in the first place.
The real legislative battle is over current-year spending, and there the Republicans appear to be taking a slightly less profligate line than one might expect, due to pressure from Tea Party types. The government might "shut down" unless an agreement is reached, and I hope it happens. It doesn't, of course, mean the end of government as we know it, but it can produce a few days of entertainment.
The Republicans are at least correct on this point: the government's finances are in a state of total calamity, thanks to them and the Demcrats. With each shift in the business cycle, we keep going through the same stages, only it gets worse each time. During the boom, tax revenues soar and the president and Congress initiate vast new spending for their interest groups. Then the recession hits and tax revenue plummets, driving up the deficit. But rather than cut back on spending, economists instruct Congress to do what they want to do anyway, spend even more! And so it goes, as we spiral down into the pit.
The only reason this nonsense is sustainable is due to the promise of the Federal Reserve to back all this spending with money creation. The Fed is what makes the whole racket too big too fail. This is why budget battles end up being insignificant to the future of government spending patterns. If the Republicans wanted to seriously take on the fiscal mess, they would begin with reining in the Federal Reserve. Apart from such reforms, budget battles end up being theatre.
The time to start paying close attention is when Democrats take on entitlement programs, Republicans propose serious cuts in military spending, and both parties agree on fundamental monetary reform. Until that time, these battles have all the significance of the battle between the two children. Both sides need to return their toys to their proper owners.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/budget-battle177.html
**JP** ہم کہا ں کھڑے ہیں؟؟
ہم کہا ں کھڑے ہیں؟؟
دنیا میں وہی قومیں عروج حا صل کر تی ہیں جو ترقی کے زینے پار کر تے ہو ئے اپنی عوام اور آنے والی نسل کیلئے کچھ نہ کچھ کر تی ہیں چا ہے وہ مسلم ہوں یا غیر مسلم اس با ت سے کو ئی فر ق نہیں پڑتا۔ یوں تو قوموں کی تاریخ مختلف مثالوں سے بھری پڑی ہے لیکن حال ہی میں قوموں کے عروج کا معیار حالیہ آنے والے جا پا نی زلزلے کے بعد دنیا پر ظاہر ہوا اور حقیقت میں جس کا تصور ایک عظیم قوم کے طور پر ہو سکتا ہے اس زلزے نے جہاں ہزاروں لوگوں کو مو ت کی ابدی نیند سلا دیا وہیں ایک منظم، ہنر مند اور اخلا ق یا فتہ قوم کا وہ چھپا ہوا چہرہ بھی دکھا دیا ہے جو کہ آ پس کے مضبو ط تعلقات اور غیر وں کیلئے جھولی کھلی رکھنے کاا ہتما م تھا۔ اس زلز لے میں تمام جاپانیوں نے اپنی خودداری، عظمت اور ترقی کو رکنے نہیں دیا اور نہ ہی دیگر ممالک خاص کر تیسری دنیا کے ممالک کی طرح دوسروں کی طرف دیکھا بلکہ ہر ایک نے اپنے اپنے حصے کا کام بھر پور طریقے سے انجام دے کر یہ ثابت کر دیا کہ 1945ء کے اندوہناک واقعے سے متاثر ہونے والا جاپان جو ایٹم بموں کے نتیجے میں نیست و نابود ہونے کے بعد بھی ڈگمگا نہ سکا وہ 2011ء کے زلزلے اور سونامی کے بعد بھی اسی رفتار سے ترقی کی را ہیں ہموار کر رہا ہے' جس طرح چند دن پہلے کر رہا تھا ۔ اس زلزلے میں جس بھا ئی چارے کا ثبوت دیا ہے وہ انگلیوں پر گنی چنی قو موں کا شیوہ ہے اس سونامی میں چھوٹے چھوٹے دکانداروں سے لے کر بڑے بڑے سٹور وں نے اور عام لو گوں نے اپنے اپنے گھروں سے ضروری سامان نکال کر سڑکوں پر رکھ دیا اور سا تھ بکس بنا کر یہ لکھ دیا کہ'' اگر کو ئی ان چیزوں کی جتنی قیمت دے سکتا ہے تو بخو شی دیدے اور جس کو جس چیز کی ضرورت ہے وہ لے جائے '' جاپانی عوام کے اس بے لوث اقدام کے نتیجے میں اس کام سے (امدادسے) 50 لاکھ سے زائد لوگوں کی مدد ہو ئی جو آج واپس اپنے اپنے گھروں کو جاچکے ہیں۔ اسی طرح جا پان کے ہنر مند افراد نے متاثرہ افراد کو مدد پہنچانے اور ڈاکٹروں نے بیماروں کا علاج خود ہی شروع کر دیا۔ اسی طرح وہاں کے مزدور اور انجینئرز نے اپنے ملک کا خود پر قر ض سمجھتے ہوئے پلوں، ٹیلی فون لائنوں اور با قی ضروریات زندگی کو ٹھیک کر نے میں بغیر کسی ذاتی مفاد کے مصروف عمل ہو گئے۔ یہ ہے ایک عظیم قوم کی کہانی جس نے تاریخ کے اوراق پر سنہری حروف میں اپنا نام رقم کر دیا ہے۔ اسی طرح چلی میں ہو نے والے واقعے میں کان کنوں کے صبر اور وہاں کی حکو مت کی کارکردگی کا جائزہ لیا جائے تو احساس ذمہ داری کی بے پایاں مثال سامنے آتی ہے چلی کے وزیر اعظم صاحب خود وہاں اس وقت تک موجود رہے جب تک متاثرہ کان سے تمام کان کنوں کو بحفاظت باہر نہیں نکالا گیا۔ اس سلسلے میں چلی کی حکومت نے کوئی دقیقہ فروگزاشت نہ کیا اور تمام مشینری کو ان کان کنوں کی بخیریت واپسی کیلئے استعمال کیا۔ سلام ہو ان تمام قوموں پر جنہوں نے ہوس، لا لچ، کرپشن ، رشوت اور با قی تمام اخلاقی بیما ریوں کو اپنے اپنے ملکوں کی عوام سے دور رکھا اور آ ج بھی وہاں کے لیڈرز کو ان کی عوام ایسے ہی پسند کرتی ہے جیسے پہلے کر تی تھی۔ ابھی ان با توں کی دھول بیٹھنے نہ پا ئی تھی کہ پاکستان میں کا ن کنوں کے کام کر تے ہو ئے کان میں دھما کے کی خبریں آ نے لگیں اس دلخراش واقعے میں 40 سے زائد افراد وفات پاچکے ہیں اور ان کی لا شوں کو بھی باہر نکال لیا گیا ہے' مگر حیرانی اس بات پر ہے کہ یہاں بھی بیان بازی شروع کر دی گئی اور بجا ئے وہاں کسی حکومتی عہدیدار کے جا نے کے پوا ئنٹ سکو رننگ پر کام شروع کر دیا ہے جب کہ زندہ قوموں کے صدور و وزیراعظم ان جگہوں پر تب تک رہتے ہیں جب تک تمام لوگ صحیح سلا مت با ہر نہ آ جا ئیں مگر ہمارے ملک میں سکیورٹی کا زیادہ خیال رکھا جا تا ہے اور اس وجہ سے غریب اور محنت کشوں کیلئے صرف ''ووٹوں کے دن'' ''خدمت کے دن ''مختص کر دیئے جا تے ہیں۔ اس بات سے یہی سوال ہر کسی کے دل میں آ تا ہے کہ ''ہم کہاں کھڑے ہیں'' کیونکہ ہم میں ایسی کو ئی صفت موجود نہیں جو عظیم قوموں کی ہوتی ہے۔ ہمیں اب بھی اجتماعی طور پر کوشش کرنی ہوگی کہ خود کو بدلا جا ئے کیونکہ ایک مچھلی ہی سارے تالاب کو گندہ کر تی ہے۔ اپنے ملک کے حالات کے پیش نظر ہمیں باہمی تعلقات کو مظبوط اور اسلامی تعلیمات پر عمل پیرا ہو کر پاکستان کو ایک عظیم مملکت خداداد بنانا ہوگا۔ اگر ہم اسلام کے اصولوں کے مطابق اپنی خواہشات کو کنٹرول کرلیں اور دوسروں کو اپنی اشیاء دے کر ان کی کمی پوری کردیں تو امید ہے آئندہ آنے والے کسی بڑے سے بڑے سا نحے میں پاکستان کو کسی بھی ملک کی جانب نہیں دیکھنا پڑے گا۔ بس شرط یہ ہے کہ ہمیں خود کو اسلام کے مطابق ڈھالنا ہوگا اور کفا یت شعاری کی عادت کو حکومتی و عوامی سطح پر اپنانا ہوگا۔
* *BEST REGARDS
* Muhammad Wajih Us Sama,Columnist*
*http://wajisama.wordpress.com/*
*
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Will the Tea Party be a Casualty in the Looming Budget Battles?
"There is still no consensus on how, exactly, Americans would interpret a shutdown, but the dispute has essentially come down to ideology, with Republicans insisting on a series of inflammatory amendments involving federal funds for NPR, Planned Parenthood, the EPA and other Tea Party punching bags. At the same time, Obama has taken pains to distance himself from both congressional parties and to make the pragmatic case for reaching a deal: It will hurt the recovery if we don't! It's hard to see how swing voters won't find his posture more reasonable than the House GOP's -- especially when you consider that swing voters' negative feelings toward the Tea Party have spiked in the last few months. 'Tea Party' is no longer a term that most voters associate with generalized frustration with Obama'a agenda; now, it seems, they're just as likely to regard it as the ideological movement behind extreme-sounding Republican proposals."
Will the Tea Party be a Casualty in the Looming Budget Battles?
Written by Joe Wolverton, II
Friday, 08 April 2011 09:12
The finger of Speaker of the House John Boehner is hovering over the power button of the federal government. Despite his posturing, those in the know report that he does not want to push it.
Whether or not Speaker Boehner and the rest of the Republican congressional leadership will actually allow the gears of government to spin down, there will be repercussions for the GOP, particularly for those lawmakers who sailed up the Potomac under Tea Party steam.
In the beginning it was the unleashed frustration with billion-dollar business bailouts, massive healthcare overhauls, and incalculable TARP handouts that propelled the Tea Party into prominence and that momentum was quickly converted into electoral power.
This power play will test the resolve and the mettle of Tea Party-backed legislators. As the pressure increases and the battle intensifies, all these newly elected freedom fighters will now show if Mount Shutdown is the hill they want to die on.
Given the political implications of the result of this game of financial chicken, no matter who blinks first, the Republican party will lose because the bloc of Tea Partiers not willing to sign off on the compromise (and there will eventually be a compromise) will be branded as "right-wingers" or "obstructionists" and they will draw away voters from the Republican Party.
Everyone who pulled a lever for a candidate based on that candidate's promise to restore constitutional balance and reduce the size of government will have two choices in 2012, based on how that candidate voted on the government shutdown.
First, if the candidate stood firm and supported the shutdown, he will likely enjoy the continued support of voters. And, given that congressman's opposition to his party's leadership (let's face it, the leadership of both parties have everything to lose by refusing to reach a settlement on the shutdown dilemma), he will further weaken that party's power.
On the other hand, if that freshman legislator fell in line behind the cadre of Republican brass, then he will eviscerate the body of backers that sent him to do precisely the opposite of what he did. Seeing as how most of the Tea Party-promoted representatives caucus with the Republicans, their one and done congressional career will drain the GOP of its freshest blood.
The notion that Tea Party lawmakers are independent isn't borne out by the figures. As one source explained it:
Although some Tea Party leaders have tried to stress the movement's independence from the Republican Party, supporters of the Tea Party movement overwhelmingly identified with the Republican Party and reported voting for Republican candidates. Eighty percent of Tea Party supporters were Republican identifiers or independents who leaned toward the Republican Party and 54 percent were strong Republican identifiers. And Tea Party supporters definitely were not political newcomers -- 93 percent reported voting in the 2008 presidential election and 96 percent of these Tea Party voters cast their ballots for John McCain.
In the face of those numbers, there is yet one variable in the equation that hasn't been defined: How will all this commotion and realignment add up for the Tea Party and affect their status as a relevant force in the future of American politics?
Will Americans, eager for genuine change and burned by the betrayal of men and women who caved into their base cravings for power, abandon not only them but the Tea Party, as well?
There is evidence that voters not registered with either major party are already losing faith in the Tea Party. Some read these numbers as proof that Tea Party congressmen are interested in furthering their own narrow ideological agendas rather than effecting any lasting and permanent change on Capitol Hill and this perception is turning off potential voters.
For example, there is this from Salon.com:
There is still no consensus on how, exactly, Americans would interpret a shutdown, but the dispute has essentially come down to ideology, with Republicans insisting on a series of inflammatory amendments involving federal funds for NPR, Planned Parenthood, the EPA and other Tea Party punching bags. At the same time, Obama has taken pains to distance himself from both congressional parties and to make the pragmatic case for reaching a deal: It will hurt the recovery if we don't! It's hard to see how swing voters won't find his posture more reasonable than the House GOP's -- especially when you consider that swing voters' negative feelings toward the Tea Party have spiked in the last few months. 'Tea Party' is no longer a term that most voters associate with generalized frustration with Obama'a agenda; now, it seems, they're just as likely to regard it as the ideological movement behind extreme-sounding Republican proposals.
When the smoke clears on the shutdown battlefield, the casualties will be counted and the pundits will rush to declare winners and losers. Of all the doubts, there is one thing that is clear: the combat will continue.
For example, as we wrote about in another article, the budget proposal recently produced by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan is chock full of unconstitutional expenditures and at best only pumps the brakes on the runaway federal train and comes nowhere near derailing it.
In light of that and the fact that what is now a budget proposal will soon be a budget bill (or series of bills) subject to very heated deliberations, voters will be witnesses yet again to congressional conflicts and it will up to them to decide if the war of words is a real skirmish over the future of the Republic or the mere pantomiming of professional players adept at pretending to be warriors, and who are always willing to change costumes depending on the level of applause.
Finally, those who self-identify as Tea Party proponents will have a few questions to answer: Can they tell the difference between soldiers and actors? Will the Tea Party be co-opted by the proffer of power to those lawmakers anxious to bolster their own political clout? If the Tea Party abdicates its seat of power, where will disaffected voters turn and what movement will fill the vacuum?
And most importantly, will there ever be a majority of congressmen committed to never compromise on issues of constitutional fidelity?
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/7033-will-the-tea-party-be-a-casualty-in-the-looming-budget-battles
Will the Tea Party be a Casualty in the Looming Budget Battles?
Written by Joe Wolverton, II
Friday, 08 April 2011 09:12
The finger of Speaker of the House John Boehner is hovering over the power button of the federal government. Despite his posturing, those in the know report that he does not want to push it.
Whether or not Speaker Boehner and the rest of the Republican congressional leadership will actually allow the gears of government to spin down, there will be repercussions for the GOP, particularly for those lawmakers who sailed up the Potomac under Tea Party steam.
In the beginning it was the unleashed frustration with billion-dollar business bailouts, massive healthcare overhauls, and incalculable TARP handouts that propelled the Tea Party into prominence and that momentum was quickly converted into electoral power.
This power play will test the resolve and the mettle of Tea Party-backed legislators. As the pressure increases and the battle intensifies, all these newly elected freedom fighters will now show if Mount Shutdown is the hill they want to die on.
Given the political implications of the result of this game of financial chicken, no matter who blinks first, the Republican party will lose because the bloc of Tea Partiers not willing to sign off on the compromise (and there will eventually be a compromise) will be branded as "right-wingers" or "obstructionists" and they will draw away voters from the Republican Party.
Everyone who pulled a lever for a candidate based on that candidate's promise to restore constitutional balance and reduce the size of government will have two choices in 2012, based on how that candidate voted on the government shutdown.
First, if the candidate stood firm and supported the shutdown, he will likely enjoy the continued support of voters. And, given that congressman's opposition to his party's leadership (let's face it, the leadership of both parties have everything to lose by refusing to reach a settlement on the shutdown dilemma), he will further weaken that party's power.
On the other hand, if that freshman legislator fell in line behind the cadre of Republican brass, then he will eviscerate the body of backers that sent him to do precisely the opposite of what he did. Seeing as how most of the Tea Party-promoted representatives caucus with the Republicans, their one and done congressional career will drain the GOP of its freshest blood.
The notion that Tea Party lawmakers are independent isn't borne out by the figures. As one source explained it:
Although some Tea Party leaders have tried to stress the movement's independence from the Republican Party, supporters of the Tea Party movement overwhelmingly identified with the Republican Party and reported voting for Republican candidates. Eighty percent of Tea Party supporters were Republican identifiers or independents who leaned toward the Republican Party and 54 percent were strong Republican identifiers. And Tea Party supporters definitely were not political newcomers -- 93 percent reported voting in the 2008 presidential election and 96 percent of these Tea Party voters cast their ballots for John McCain.
In the face of those numbers, there is yet one variable in the equation that hasn't been defined: How will all this commotion and realignment add up for the Tea Party and affect their status as a relevant force in the future of American politics?
Will Americans, eager for genuine change and burned by the betrayal of men and women who caved into their base cravings for power, abandon not only them but the Tea Party, as well?
There is evidence that voters not registered with either major party are already losing faith in the Tea Party. Some read these numbers as proof that Tea Party congressmen are interested in furthering their own narrow ideological agendas rather than effecting any lasting and permanent change on Capitol Hill and this perception is turning off potential voters.
For example, there is this from Salon.com:
There is still no consensus on how, exactly, Americans would interpret a shutdown, but the dispute has essentially come down to ideology, with Republicans insisting on a series of inflammatory amendments involving federal funds for NPR, Planned Parenthood, the EPA and other Tea Party punching bags. At the same time, Obama has taken pains to distance himself from both congressional parties and to make the pragmatic case for reaching a deal: It will hurt the recovery if we don't! It's hard to see how swing voters won't find his posture more reasonable than the House GOP's -- especially when you consider that swing voters' negative feelings toward the Tea Party have spiked in the last few months. 'Tea Party' is no longer a term that most voters associate with generalized frustration with Obama'a agenda; now, it seems, they're just as likely to regard it as the ideological movement behind extreme-sounding Republican proposals.
When the smoke clears on the shutdown battlefield, the casualties will be counted and the pundits will rush to declare winners and losers. Of all the doubts, there is one thing that is clear: the combat will continue.
For example, as we wrote about in another article, the budget proposal recently produced by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan is chock full of unconstitutional expenditures and at best only pumps the brakes on the runaway federal train and comes nowhere near derailing it.
In light of that and the fact that what is now a budget proposal will soon be a budget bill (or series of bills) subject to very heated deliberations, voters will be witnesses yet again to congressional conflicts and it will up to them to decide if the war of words is a real skirmish over the future of the Republic or the mere pantomiming of professional players adept at pretending to be warriors, and who are always willing to change costumes depending on the level of applause.
Finally, those who self-identify as Tea Party proponents will have a few questions to answer: Can they tell the difference between soldiers and actors? Will the Tea Party be co-opted by the proffer of power to those lawmakers anxious to bolster their own political clout? If the Tea Party abdicates its seat of power, where will disaffected voters turn and what movement will fill the vacuum?
And most importantly, will there ever be a majority of congressmen committed to never compromise on issues of constitutional fidelity?
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/7033-will-the-tea-party-be-a-casualty-in-the-looming-budget-battles