The Price Of Greatness
By Mitch Berg
I’ve been doing some digging – and I’ve found what really happened at a number of key moments of American history…
July 4, 1776: [Scene: Independence Hall, Philadelphia].
JEFFERSON: “OK, here it is. When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to fully fund entitlement programs which have connected them with another, and to assume among the budgets of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Government and of Government’s God/Goddess entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of The Budget requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation and the costs, amortized over 30 years, of said separation, as adjusted for inflation, with due diligence paid toward the opportunity costs arising from said separation.
MADISON: “Good – but we need more on bonding. Could we go back to the bit on bonding?”
August, 1864: [Scene: The War Department, Washington DC].
GENERAL HALLECK: “President Lincoln, General Grant is a drunk”.
PRESIDENT LINCOLN: “Then perhaps all of our generals should have a bottle of whatever he’s drinking. (Turns to secretary) We’ll call the program “The Cheap Blend Surge”; we can fund it through an excise tax on player pianos!”
GENERAL HALLECK: “Capitol idea, sir!”
December 25, 1944: [Scene: a basement, Bastogne, Belgium. General MacAuliffe, commander of the US 101st Airborne division, which has been surrounded by seven German divisions for nearly a week, is approached by a German emissary under a white flag].
GERMAN: “General, vot iss your ansah to ze offer of zurrendah?”
MACAULIFFE: “Nuts”.
GERMAN: “Pardon me?”
MACAULIFFE: “Nuts – I cant’ find my slide rule. I’ll have to take the idea under advisement, but honestly, I’m not sure that we have the budget to support 12,000 POWs. Can we schedule a meeting on this?”
August 28, 1963: [Scene: The steps of the Lincoln Memorial, Washington DC].
MARTIN LUTHER KING: “I have a dream that one day this nation will be able to fund a program that will pay community leaders to organize us to rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are entitled to an equal share of this nation’s budget!.'”
June 12, 1987: [Scene: The Brandenburg Gate].
RONALD REAGAN: “If you want peace, General Secretary Gorbachev, increase the funding for East Berlin’s transit redevelopment environmental impact mitigation process! Secretary Gorbachev, open the books on East Berlin’s transit redevelopment environmental impact mitigation process! Mister Gorbachev, tear down the barriers to fully funding the timely completion of the transit redevelopment environmental impact mitigation documentation as part of the pre-design environmental impact and mitigation process preparatory to getting approval from the affected district soil, water and easement committees!” [1]
April 26, 2010: [Scene: a house in the Midway of Saint Paul (whose bathroom is the pride of the entire neighborhood]
FLASH: “The state can’t go through 4 more years of the same policies that have gutted they very budget items that made Minnesota great.”
Immigrant pioneers struggling through blizzards to eke a living out of the sandy soil. 241 Svens and Oles fixing bayonets and charging at 2,000 Bubbas and Billy Joes, saving the Union in the process. Doughty miners doing daily war with the rock beneath our feet for generations. Ingenious inventors working in obscurity to invent the modern flour mill, the gyrostabilized bombsight, the supercomputer, the pacemaker, the amalgamation of R’nB and rock’nroll, the greatest medical center in the world…
…whew. Good thing all of that was in the budget!
Thank you, State of Minnesota, for budgeting for life itself!
NOTE TO THOSE WHO ONLY LAUGH AT COMEDIC MATERIAL DULY VETTED BY JON STEWART: No, none of the speeches above ever happened – except Flash’s.
Again – it’s satire.
April 26th, 2010 at 1:31 pm
Too bad June 12, 1987 isn’t really a seminal event in history. The Soviets were undone by their own mismanagement and the cost of Afghanistan, Reagan was merely a grand-standing, showboating politician, taking advantage of an opportinty to make a demand for something others already understood was inevitable. Past that, most of Europe feels it was their openness and support that brought down the WarPac (including the DDR), not Raygun’s belicose bloviation.
Once again, though, you’ve proven that when you can’t justify something with facts, you need to make up BS.
Let me give you a counterpoint –
Scene: Second Continetal Congress, Philadelphia, 1776 –
Thomas Jefferson – “Good Sirs, concience demands conduct ourselves differently than our British overlords. We oppose random searches, bills of attainder and the like. When we determine how our new nation should be governed, would it be right for us to repeat the sins of the past? Shall we endeavor to enact laws which have our citizens subject to random search? NO, I say! We find these sorts of abuses, these excesses, to be abominations.”
Hancock “But sir, truly we must fear the Spanish. They will undermine our wages, we MUST give our police the right to stop the hispanic looking among us – and what about the Asians? Surely we will suffer from the yellow menace once we engage in exploiting the Chinese. Perhaps we should demand identification be carried by all non-white citizens which our police agencies may demand upon any ‘reasonable suspicion?!’ What say you? I say put them in camps! Protect America and it’s liberties even at the cost of liberty for those non-Anglos!”
Franklin, “Sir, to do so would give license to the state to impose intrusion and interference at will and without justification upon those with less authority than most to stand up against it. It would leave our citizens to the vagueries and mercies of the police who could, without review, simply harrass any they may choose.”
Jefferson, “Yeah, but they hate America.”
Franklin, “Well, ok then.”
April 26th, 2010 at 2:20 pm
The Soviets were undone by their own mismanagement and the cost of Afghanistan, Reagan was merely a grand-standing, showboating politician, taking advantage of an opportinty to make a demand for something others already understood was inevitable
I’ll make some popcorn and sit down to watch this one…
April 26th, 2010 at 2:25 pm
Funny that penigma should mention “belicose[sic] bloviation” in his little “I really, really don’t get it” rant.
OK, more redundant than funny.
April 26th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Franklin, Jefferson and Hancock are alive and debating laws in the Arizona legislature? I had no idea!
April 26th, 2010 at 2:28 pm
At least he managed to spell Franklin right. “concience” is pretty funny, though. I wonder if Peev can spell Pershing II and Western Germany? He does have bloviation down pat.
April 26th, 2010 at 2:32 pm
Pen,
Glad you made it back!
Your understanding of history is still deeply flawed, but that’s OK. Glad the volcano didn’t affect your flying schedule.
Too bad June 12, 1987 isn’t really a seminal event in history.
For purposes of this post, it doesn’t really matter; it wasn’t a list of “seminal events” as much as raw comedic material.
However, yes. If you were backing Western Civilization, it was pretty seminal.
The Soviets were undone by their own mismanagement and the cost of Afghanistan…others already understood was inevitable.
Now, Pen? We’ve been through this before. If “others” understood it was “inevitable”, NONE of them were saying it in 1980 through 1988! During that period, the left’s intelligentsia were all saying the Second World was here to stay!
So you’re basically conjuring fictional history, here, Pen.
Past that, most of Europe feels it was their openness and support that brought down the WarPac (including the DDR), not Raygun’s belicose bloviation.
Really? Show us “most of Europe” saying anything of the sort.
I’ll give you a hint; Eastern Europe – the part with the skin in the game – knows better. That’s why they are both strong US allies (or were, until Obama started serially insulting them) and huge trustees of the Reagan legacy. They’re naming streets after Reagan in Krakow – not after Jimmy Carter.
Once again, though, you’ve proven that when you can’t justify something with facts, you need to make up BS.
Well, do favor us with anything that’s not true. You haven’t yet, but I”m sure you have some big evedential sunday punch waiting in the wings. Hopefully it won’t be a reference to Charlie Wilson’s War or an anonymous neighbor who was also a senior NSC staffer who must remain nameless but, oddly, completely endorses your every otherwise-unsupported point.
Any day now.
Honest.
April 26th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
Do they still allow drunk moonbats on aircraft, or did teh peevee get transported back via the UFO he communicates with using his tin-foil chapeau?
April 26th, 2010 at 3:22 pm
peev just dropped by to troll this site with his usual narcissistic drivel in vain hopes of driving up the traffic at his site since lately the only people dropping by his site are himself and his little water girl dg
April 26th, 2010 at 3:35 pm
I heard Peev has an ex-KGB general living next door who has given him the inside story on how Reagan had absolutely nothing to do with the collapse of the USSR.
Don’t tell anyone.
April 26th, 2010 at 4:12 pm
“undone by their own mismanagement and the cost of Afghanistan,”
How’s that HOPE and CHANGE working out? “undone” by it you say, eh, Peevish Boy.
Now watch me signal peevee that she needs to do laundry. Bachmann!!!
April 26th, 2010 at 4:24 pm
“The Soviets were undone by their own mismanagement and the cost of Afghanistan,”
Sure Rev King made a nice speach in DC, and wrote those cute little letters while in the Birmingham jail, but come on. Segregation and racism were really over by then. Right?
April 26th, 2010 at 5:07 pm
By the way, Pen – you do realize that the post wasn’t about history, right?
It was about the idea that our budget defines our virtues?
Care to comment on that?
Or have one of your neighbors do it?
🙂
April 26th, 2010 at 5:12 pm
Penigma hates America so much that he can’t even give it credit for defeating its enemies when that is clearly the case.
He could have responded that it wasn’t Reagan, but the American taxpayer who crushed the Soviet dream, but he did not.
Instead he takes the side of communist, America-hating pseudo-historians.
April 26th, 2010 at 5:21 pm
where’s peevs schoolmarm sidekick DG? Shouldn’t she be here carrying water for him?
April 26th, 2010 at 5:39 pm
Schoolmarm?Pffffffffffft Is that the only example of polite women you can come up with? Not much imagination Kel; or maybe just not much exposure to polite people, male or female?
I don’t think of myself as Pen’s sidekick, but as his friend and colleague Kel, since I write as much or more than he does on Penigma, and I write elsewhere besides.
Thank you, but no thank you – Penigma draws a mostly very different readership than SitD, with little overlap; so there is no reason to post here to expand that. I just did basic admin over the weekend and our stat counter continues to indicate a steady gain in readers overall, with some all time highs in both first time readers, and returning readership.
Pen`and I visit and comment here because, regardless of politics, Mitch is our friend, and has been for oh…a couple of decades.
April 26th, 2010 at 5:48 pm
“I don’t think of myself as Pen’s sidekick, but as his friend and colleague”
Yeah that’s what Robin says about Batman too.
April 26th, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Penigma is fact-challenged, Dog Gone. Seriously. He’s a bigot in the true sense of the words — he holds strongly to opinions derived from ignorance.
April 26th, 2010 at 7:48 pm
I know that Penigma doesn’t consider me his sidekick, either, LOL.
Gee, Mitch, as someone who actually KNOWS us – do YOU think of me as oh, ANYBODY’S Sidekick? Ever? Perhaps you will have more luck in correcting Kel than I have enjoyed.
In the meantime Kel…….do you just hang out here, or do you actually write anything, anywhere? That would make you a hanger-on, then, and well below anyone’s ‘sidekick’; you’re not even a ‘wannabee’.
Terry, knowing Pen personally, and having regular long discussions with him, I will respectfully disagree with you on the subject. In a parallel discussion with Mitch (hope you don’t mind Mitch) we were discussing th
April 26th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
oops!
We were discussing the differences between how people appear in blogging compared to how they seem in real life.
I remain deeply loyal to both gentlemen, and consider it a privilege to be their friend.
April 26th, 2010 at 7:57 pm
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by mitchpberg. mitchpberg said: Budgeting the greatness of the American people! http://bit.ly/clyfmC #narn2 #hhrs […]
April 26th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
“polite women”
Ad hominem and name calling hardly describes polite.
Deegee has been called on the carpet once again.
But some might describe a schoolmarm as bitter… vindictive… abusive… jealous…
April 26th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
clearly I must, in the interest of accuracy, amend my comment above.
where’s peevs thin-skinned schoolmarm sidekick DG?
April 26th, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Penigma draws a mostly very different readership than SitD…
HAHAHAHAHA…yeah, like none!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhaahahahahahahaha You dolts kill me! hahaha
hahahahahahahahahaahaha
April 26th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
“since I write as much or more than he does on Penigma,”
followed by,
“our stat counter continues to indicate a steady gain in readers overall, with some all time highs in both first time readers, and returning readership.”
My how humble. What characterization of a schoolmarm comes to mind now?
What next, comparing PenisBlog to SitD?
Then what, claiming to be a bigger blog than PowerLine? Fraters? HotAir?
No offense to any of the above, but it is just blogging. Twitter on that.
April 26th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
“where’s peevs thin-skinned schoolmarm sidekick DG?”
Any thinner skin and deegee would have a reservoir tip hat.
The question still remains; who makes the better Black Knight, deegee or peevee.
Mitch and foot have called DG out on the Bachmann disinformation several times, not only here but elsewhere. Fact. Yet they still spew such disinformation and claim it was but a flesh wound.
Bwwwwaaaahahahahahahahaaaaaa!
April 27th, 2010 at 11:43 am
Thin-skinned school marm:
“I remain deeply loyal to both gentlemen, and consider it a privilege to be their friend.”
As a great character in “Braveheart” said, “The Almighty says, Don’t change the subject…”
You and Mitch and your likewise thin-skinned comrade already know that, and the rest of us couldn’t care much less.
Everyone knows that the Pernicious Miss Peev and you are each other’s sidekick… in the great leftist/Marxist tradition, neither of you is better than the other.
Now, enough of this distraction. Back to the effing point, for the love of Christ.
April 27th, 2010 at 12:01 pm
Let’s see. . .
Penigma “deigned” to start blogging in May of 2008, after ages of leaving an endless slug-smegma trail of comments here. The Penigma Stat Counter indicates 6,137 visitors since the blog’s inception.
Yeah, that’s really raking in the visitors there. Probably includes about 2,500 “visits” from Pen himself hitting refresh in the hopes of seeing a comment.
April 27th, 2010 at 12:23 pm
I don’t know, Yoss… that’s a job for his Yes-Man “Hasslington” and his sidekick Dog.
April 27th, 2010 at 12:34 pm
It’s all about managing expectations, Yoss.
April 27th, 2010 at 2:50 pm
I quote from those philosophers, AC/DC…
Come on, come on, love me for the money
Come on, come on. listen to the money talk
April 27th, 2010 at 3:05 pm
The nice thing about the details provided by the stat counter is that it allows you to check who has visited by IP address, where the visitors are from, what other sites they came from if any, and what pages they scanned, in what order, who made comments, and what the page was on which they left the site.
When I joined Penigma, Pen wrote very rarely; we still produce far less volume than SitD, but I’m pleased with our content. It has drawn a steady increase of readership, and I expect it will continue, along with new writers joining us, and with other blogs interested in cross posting. If you take where we are now from a similar period on SitD, I think we are doing quite well. I write for at least three other sites, all of which are drawing new readers. Since Penigma isn’t a blog designed as a revenue stream, this works out well for us, but we do not attract primarily a conservative readership; although we have a conservative author on our roster, and we do draw some conservative readers. We are not in competition.
I’m enjoying it for the adventure of where the writing takes me. Just today, after updating one of my recent Affinity Scam series to reflect the plea bargain failure of Trevor Cook, for example, I was in contact with the scam receiver to suggest a new trail to follow the money. Following that contact, I’m interested in the results of the new Obama Fraud Enforcement unit that seems to be racking up some impressive success, and I hope to follow up with them on what I believe to be a related scam to the Cook / Kiley case that Dan Browning and Pengima and I have been writing about.
In the meantime, I’m perfectly happy with the encouragement I’m getting from professional editors and journalists for what I write. I don’t need the SitD approval – although I am appreciate suggestions, advice, and insights from Mitch now and then. The approval of the rest of you…….not too important to me. I’ve been doing this for a year as of next month.
April 27th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
361 words boiled down to: We’re a way-below-average blog with less than minimal traffic, and we take ourselves WAY too seriously.
April 27th, 2010 at 4:59 pm
“…we take ourselves WAY too seriously.”
The sheer number of words they use in which to say so little is a dead giveaway.
April 27th, 2010 at 10:10 pm
I managed to read far enough into Dog Gone’s last comment to read this:
I’m interested in the results of the new Obama Fraud Enforcement unit that seems to be racking up some impressive success, and I hope to follow up with them on what I believe to be a related scam to the Cook / Kiley case that Dan Browning and Pengima and I have been writing about.
Obama’s personal friend and big-time political backer was Tony Rezko. Rezko used Obama’s influence to get state money to finance his real estate scams.
Good God.
April 28th, 2010 at 11:45 am
if your posts aren’t a bajillion words long guys you might get more traffic, keep it short but sweet.
April 28th, 2010 at 11:59 am
You’ve heard of the expression, “Pearls before swine,” or “you are casting pearls before swine,” haven’t you, Ben?
😉