Because personal freedom is disappearing by the second.

And, for a change, it’s not only attributable to the Left – power-hungry politicians on both sides of the aisle are increasingly exhibiting a highly disconcerting tendency to crack down on internet usage by us peons.

The UK – not for a change – is the cauldron in which this black magic is being tested.  It makes inescapable sense for this to be the conclusion of the UK’s slow creep towards a police state.  The Labour government is now proposing a 1,700 percent increase to the budget of its current surveillance regime, so that £380 (over $600) of taxpayer money will be spent wasted every minute on state espionage on what we get up to in the privacy of our homes.

The official explanation for this massive states intrusion goes something like this:  yada yada… terrorism… vigilance… mumble mumble… keep the commoners in check… it’s a scary world… terrorism… blah blah… WMD and AfPaq.

But you can bet your bottom dollar that those in charge have another agenda.

Because this will be a wonderful way to neuter potential future opponents.  The State will know everything about everyone, so good luck with trying to challenge those in the commanding heights when they know all about your dirty/strange little predilections.

For me, personally, it’ll be more embarrassing than devastating.  In fact, judging by my internet history, the authorities probably think that I’m a friendless 13-year old spod.  Whereas others might be Googling all types of nasty porn, I’m searching for things like, “Could Batman beat up Spider-Man?” and “What’s the longest recorded fart?”

Still.  Whatever I want to waste my time doing, that is my concern – not the government’s.

The cover story of the Washington Examiner today is about the grotesque waste of taxpayer money practiced by Montgomery County, MD, a hotbed of liberal idiocy.

This is the micro equivalent of Barry’s macro profligacy.  As the federal government has for so long p*ssed our money away without a care in the world, so have all the mini-me structures of the governmental leviathan followed suit.

Over the past three fiscal years, Montgomery County has paid $8.78 million to treat and compensate 183 employees suffering from sprained joints, $6.34 million for muscle strains of 176 employees, and $1.11 million on 13 employees who supposedly injured themselves when they “slipped, but did not fall.”

Slipped but did not fall.

Which is kind of like saying that you were injured when you fell off a ladder, but by “falling off” what you really meant was “jumping down from the first rung.”

In all, $16.22 million was lavished on 372 Montgomery County employees who basically felt some slight and temporary discomfort in one of their limbs.  That amounts to an average cost of $43,602 per person for those who suffered from these life-changing catastrophes.

You wanna know what the cure for sprains and strains is?

NOTHING.

And that costs NOTHING.

Because there is NOTHING medically wrong with you, you enfeebled idiots, after you sprain/strain anything.  Whatever it is, it will work again just fine if you don’t use it for a little while.

$16.22 million!

Just about nobody can be trusted not to abuse the authority given them through being even a tiny part of the state apparatus.  Take the window-lickers in charge of Montgomery County, multiply it by a million and you have the Barry regency.

At some point or another, nearly everyone who wields any political influence is tempted  to do something that they shouldn’t.  This temptation has to be removed.  The solution, then, is not to make government more accountable – it is to make it less powerful.

In today’s least surprising news, The Washington Times reports that various Democrats are preparing to run in 2010 on platforms of re-re-iterating just how downright mean and nasty the 43rd POTUS was (and evil!  Mustn’t forget to include evil!).

Yeah, this one’s gotten old, already.

We’d better get used to it, though.  As with so many things, the United Kingdom provides a window to the future for what lies ahead for US conservatives.  Despite having been in power there for 12 years now, the Labour Party still runs against opponents whom they defeated all that time ago, barely cognizant of how the Conservative Party has changed in the interceding years.

But why stop with President Bush?  There’s no statute of limitations, is there?  So why not make it party policy to equate modern Republicans with Herbert Hoover, thus drawing a straight line between the Great Depression and its modern variant (in that inimitable Democratic way of making nonsensical mental leaps that would make even Rep. Alcee Hastings proud)?

Oh, that’s why: because it’s stupid.

This either speaks to the stupidity of the politicians (in rehashing an exhausted tactic from yesteryear) or the stupidity of the electorate (in potentially falling for this alleged “strategy” so soon after its last deployment), but I’m not sure which.  Let’s split the difference – there’s plenty enough stupid to go around.

Forget the so-called personal anecdotes, character-assassination pieces and Democratic/media hysteria.

Those who know President Bush almost unanimously portray him as charming, personable and a history buff.  The first MBA president (Woodrow Wilson – the man who segregated Washington D.C., let it never be forgotten – was the first with a PhD), he had a higher GPA at Yale than John Kerry.  He also had substantial private sector experience, the success of which I’ll leave up to you.

He did make mistakes.  Some quite large.  And he knows that the Left will cravenly denounce them at every opportunity.

So it reveals the dignity of the man that he won’t criticize President Obama, because the president “deserves my silence.” Remember that, creatures of the Left, or has your selective-amnesia kicked in once again?

That’s called civility (n. ci·vil·i·ty).

Former Presidents Clinton and Carter, please take note.

Unfortunately for President Bush and us, however, it is now official Democratic Party policy to blame him for anything that goes wrong anywhere until 2067.

Cross-posted at The Green Room.

The thought occurs to me from time to time that if only I were willing to ditch all my troublesome principles and become something that I’m not, then I could grow my blog exponentially through very little effort.

Y’know, I could pretend to be a homosexual Republican (not quite sure that my wife would like it if I adopted a gay online persona, though) or a born-again Democrat (such as the odious Arianna Huffington, who cares for nothing except her own wealth and self-promotion).

That would surely bring the hits.  Plus it would even set me up to do this sort of thing, which is pretty much my most desired non-R rated fantasy.

But I don’t do it.  I try to live by my beliefs as closely as us mortals can do.

So I wish that other people who stop pretending to be things that they aren’t.

I wish that Barney Frank would stop pretending to know anything about anything.

I wish that Dianne Feinstein would stop pretending to serve the people, when all she does is serve the interests of her and her husband’s bank accounts.

I wish that Charles Rangel would stop pretending to be anything other than a complete bigot who has gotten rich and fat off of persistently inciting racism.

I wish that Nancy Pelosi would stop pretending that she’s not 137 years old and with a brain to match.

But most of all, I wish that Barry Obama would cease and desist with the pretense that he is not what every word, deed and molecule of his being reveals him to be: an unrepentant communist.

As with all of you, I have a really, really hard time justifying to myself my subordination to stupid people.

Thankfully, it doesn’t happen very often.  I was not brought up nor educated by, and neither have I worked for, stupid people.  I tend not to hang around with stupid people when it’s avoidable (although, truth be told, stupid people in small doses can be very entertaining and magnificent for one’s self-esteem) and I don’t watch the endless glorification of idiots on programs like Big Brother, TMZ and C-Span.

But there is one massive exception, which I’m sure you saw coming…

Politics.

It’s difficult for me, to say the least, to accept being ruled by idiots.  I subject myself to their expertise in no other area of life, so why should I have to tolerate their imbecilic misconceptions in this most important field?

Idiots aside, everyone else should feel this way.  Why would you trust government to do something for you more than you would trust yourself?  Why are people so ready to accept that government not only knows better than them but actually is better than them?  Why ascribe to government the good characteristics that are absent in so many people?

Politicians are nothing more than implements of the people (well, they shouldn’t by anything more than that, anyway).  They should not be venerated.

And, when the person who sits atop their summit is this awe-inspiring, they should be toppled.

The above is a Conservative campaign poster from 1979.

And it is awesome.  Be careful not to stare at it for too long, for fear of melting your retinas.

Maggie Thatcher came to power in 1979 after Labour had successfully failed at everything.  Stagflation gripped the economy, Trade Unions had unfettered power, strikes were so widespread and crippling that trash accumulated in the streets and dead bodies went unburied, and Britain humiliatingly resorted to an IMF loan in 1976.

It’s not quite as bad as asking Somalia for some cash, but it’s almost there.

Despite the lessons of Thatcher and Reagan, we are returning to a time when politicians believe that they should have more power over the market and, even more foolishly, that the market will withstand their sustained assaults.

So it is no great surprise to learn that, according to the US Labor Department, unemployment topped 10 percent in 16 states last month.  In Michigan, it’s over 15 percent (for the first time since West Virginia last held that distinction in 1984), a catastrophic level of joblessness.

The national rate, as we all know, is a neutron away from 10 percent.  Which is when things are going to get really interesting.  Double-digit unemployment is up there with hyperinflation and warfare as a catalyst for domestic revolution.

While the Blame Bush doctrine fulfills the twin Democratic ambitions of obscuring their own agenda and dumping complete culpability on the previous president, it is not going to satisfy the more than 3.5 million people who have lost their jobs since Obama took office.

2010 mightn’t be so bad, after all…

Losers, idiots, conspiracy theorists, communists, self-loathers and perpetual victims, your time has well and truly come.

The prelude of the previous two months is now giving way to some real meat.

Such as a provision in the House climate bill that would allow “self-proclaimed victims of global warming, or those who “expect to suffer” from it, to sue the federal government or private businesses.”

Expect a sh*tstorm of entirely unnecessary and whiny lawsuits as the result.

I stepped in dog-doo last week – can I sue?  I also swallowed a fly not so long ago.  Horrible experience, I eventually belched it back out of my right nostril.  Can I hold Nature accountable?

How long will it be before it’s discovered that oxygen is unfairly distributed in the atmosphere and that America’s greedily consuming more than its share?

Sarah Palin is one of those rare creatures – a politician with deeply held beliefs, who not only pays lip service to those values but also lives according to them.

And for that she continues to be vilified like no other politician, even after the Republican defeat last November.

See here.  And here.  And here.  And here.

The last couple of days have brought with them a new double-whammy: Levi Johnston – scumbag supreme – appeared on the Tyra Banks show to talk about Bristol Palin and Todd Palin’s half-sister has been arrested for burglary.

This, of course, is manna from Heaven for the dead tree press.

Why is the same attention not paid to Joe Biden’s coke-snorting daughter?  Or to John Edwards cheating on his terminally-ill wife?  Or to President Obama’s illegal alien relative?  Or to Herman Thomas and his male rape escapades?  Or to Hiram Monserrate attacking his girlfriend with a glass?  Or to Marion Barry’s continued corruption?  Or to Adolfo Carrion’s shady dealings?  Or to Vincent Fumo’s conviction on 137 charges?  Or to the dozens of Democratic tax-evaders?

And with that anger out of my system, I’m off to bed.

Fascists of both the Left and the Right seek to control every aspect of the lives of those under their control.

In this mindset, nothing is insignificant – even down to the way people greet each other on the street.

With that in mind, how does this news from Drudge strike you?

Emotions are now seemingly a matter of import to the government.  How caring of them.

And Rightly So has a great little post about government-subsidized cell phones.

But only for those who are “income-eligible.”

[I'd normally say that someone is "income-eligible" if they can afford to pay the bill, but these are strange new times we're living in.]

About time, too.  I want a government phone to go with my government house, government car and government job.

Now where are the government girlfriends…