Some random thoughts, somewhat tongue-in-cheek at times, on what will happen if the crap and tax (also known as cap and trade) legislation becomes law.

If coal is left in the ground because it is too expensive to mine then power plants will either cease operations or retool to meet new requirements. Either way plugging in that hybrid will cost you more. Why? Reduction of energy available will make utility bills spike. Having to retool power plants for natural gas, wind, solar, and whatever else will make utility bills spike. Shock! Those big evil power companies won't be the ones who pay for the stupidity of Congress and Obama - their customers will!

If we reduce carbon emissions then trees will die. Take that, you silly tree huggers! If trees die then contractors won't have a supply of wood for building. No wood, no houses. But at least we won't have to worry about showerheads that automatically shut off after "X" number of gallons of water are dispensed because we won't have homes to live in. However, business could be really good for stores specializing in camping equipment. Oh wait, the government must issue a permit before you can light a lantern or cook on an open fire. And there will be hell to pay if you roll out your sleeping bag on top of a type of grass protected under mandates.

++Insert tribute to Billy Mays here++ BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!! If you agree to have your thermostat replaced with a satellite controlled model that will be more efficient then you can also have a second one absolutely free! NOW HOW MUCH WOULD YOU PAY?! The question is moot. Congress will decide the price and if you argue with them you will be required to attend a civics class taught by Professor Joe Biden on how to be patriotic.

---beep---beep---Oh darn, that is my computer alerting me that I'm about to use up my alloted time on the internet. Remember, we must all save the earth by reducing the amount of bandwidth we use each day.

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Most everyone has heard or read about the tragic wreck that happened on the Washington, D.C., area Metro Transit Red Line earlier this week. Let me say straight up that I'm not trying to make light of this event but it does provide a vivid example of how government runs things.

National Transportation Safety Board officials said the system failed to heed a 2006 warning to upgrade or eliminate its oldest train cars, including the lead car of the train that slammed into another train Monday, killing nine people. Despite NTSB concerns that the 30-year-old cars couldn't withstand a crash, the officials said the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority didn't act.

--from the Wall Street Journal article linked to above.

Public transportation, light rail in particular, is being promoted by some groups and politicians as an answer to traffic headaches in many metropolitan areas. However, reality met with the law of unintended consequences earlier this week. The dangers lurking in these outdated, overused cars in use by the DC Metro Transit were well known by the authorities. So why wasn't action taken to help prevent a disaster like the one on Monday? A glaring, disturbing pattern, year after year, is a primary culprit. The pattern of insufficient funding for the upkeep of the Metro Transit cars. In other words, caring for the rail system was RATIONED because public funding was routinely cut. The Light Rail Myth

We are told it will cost, for example, 300 million dollars to build a light rail system but extreme environmentalists and politicians often forget about those pesky little things called maintenance, operating expenses, and depreciation. Why should they care? Unlike in the business world, Congress will just raise taxes or ask the Federal Reserve to print more money if it turns out to be an ill-conceived plan.

One could also consider the congressional oversight of the mortgage and financial markets another train wreck that resulted in the market meltdown of the past couple of years. The federal government demanded that banks and lending institutions make bad loans even though many had warned again and again that a financial markets and housing crash would ensue. A Completely Preventable Crisis

I suggest that the Metro Transit tragedy is also a preview of what ObamaCare would be like. As the population continues to increase, and the incentives for innovation are obliterated by a national or socialized health care system, funding will be a perpetual concern for politicians. Which line will get the needed maintenance? Why spend needed money on repairing older models (senior citizens) or defective cars (people)? Rationing of care will become urgent as ObamaCare slides into an unsustainable bottomless pit of despair. Kiss Your Access Goodbye

Unfortunately, Monday's tragedy was not the first nor will it be the last disaster coming down the line from Washington, D.C. How many more train wrecks, literally and figuratively, must we endure before realizing that public funding of industry will always, uh, jump the tracks?

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Last week I was visiting one of my favorite haunts, Borders Bookstore. In the magazines section my eyes were drawn to a title on the front cover of Liberty magazine: "Obama - The Hollow Man." After thumbing through the pages I bought a copy, brought it home, marked it up and would like to share some salient portions of the article.

At the outset, Jim Walsh, the article's author, takes steps to make it clear he is not writing some sort of hit piece. Not some crazy theory. Jim declares: "Obama does pose serious threats to the republic. ... The threats he poses aren't in his person; they're in his policies and his philosophy ... to the extent that he has one."

In summary Mr Walsh lays out five points as follows: 1) Obama's no visionary; he's an empty vessel. 2) Obama's statism comes from political expediency, not philisophy. 3) Obama believes in a warped form of meritocracy. [see below for definition] 4) Obama believes, as Dick Cheny did, in an imperial presidency. 5) Obama encourages a cult of personality.

If I were to chose one excerpt from the entire article it would have to be the two paragraphs where Walsh defines meritocracy and the dangers such a belief can pose. "He [Obama] believes in a brand-name social heirarchy, purchased retail. Like Bill Clinton, he has surrounded himself with striving Ivy League graduates who are much better at repeating the wisdom of their professional schools than at developing original ideas."

"What's wrong with this? Isn't that the American Dream? Well, no. The dark side of manic meritocracy is the elitist idea that education and social standing give a person or group of people an inherent right to coerce others. This is wrong in many ways. The most important is suggested by the fact that our Constitution requires the protection of individuals from the tyranny of consensus, which is precisely the tyranny than Obama and his associates represent."

The government takeover of GM and Chrysler being overseen by a 31-year-old Ivy League graduate is one example of Obama's meritocracy. Combine that with Obama's narcissism that craves worship as a cult figure, or an adored celebrity, and we begin to understand the harm to the United States of America the current occupant of the White House could inflict.

I suggest this philosophy of meritocracy also manifests itself in Obama's frequent reminder that he taught Constitutional law and was editor of The Harvard Law Review. The recording many of us have heard where Obama describes how the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties and puts too many constraints on government also illustrates his smug, elitist, holier-than-thou (and don't you forget it) condescending behavior.

The "sharing" or "spreading of the wealth" rhetoric illuminates Obama's fixation on his educated, upper-crust social class snobbery disguised as benevolence or compassion. Since Obama has a lack of self-confidence he attempts to convince others that he is superior both in his motives and his intellect. As Jim Walsh states in closing: "Statists encourage personality cults because they want to concentrate political power in a single person, rather than spreading it across a system of checks and balances, in which people are judged by what they legitimately accomplish not by what they or their followers claim that they existentially are."

This is not the first time individual liberties have been assaulted by Congress or the President. I agree with Walsh's final assessment of Obama when he says that America will survive his presidency - first because Obama, although he claims to be, is not so transformational that he can obliterate the pillars the United States was founded upon. Second, average citizens are not the stupid idiots elitists suppose them to be; rather, they are savvy, reasoning individuals that will hold their leaders accountable.

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Several weeks ago I made several "tweets" on Twitter about the results of some U.S. elections. One thing I find quite striking is how similar the House and Senate majorities elected in 2008 are to those elected in 1992. Reviewing this brief list also confirms the view of many that big government harms our nation rather than helping it. For instance, consider the presidency of Woodrow Wilson, who also had a Democrat governing majority. During his watch the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Reserve Bank were created.

And now, the "tweets" of the story:

>>2008 current House count is 255 Democrats (very similar to 1992 results as some have noted)-Pelosi/Reid will go too far to left and 2010? >about 1 hour ago from web

>>2006 elections result in return of House to Dem control, after a couple years of Republicans acting like big spending liberals-Reps lost way about >1 hour ago from web

>>1994 elections result in repudiation of big government policies,give Republicans control of House and Senate for first time in 40 years! about >1 hour ago from web

>>1992 elections gave Clinton a 258 seat majority in House of Reps and control of Senate-HillaryHealthcare,Interstate Banking Act,stronger CRA >about 1 hour ago from web

>>Imagine, people get to keep 72% of income at the highest level rather than 30% - talk about new capital available for economic growth! >about 1 hour ago from web

>>Why is he known as Ronaldus Magnus? Reagan accomplished what he did even though he never had a majority of House of Reps. Freedom works! >about 1 hour ago from web

>>Carter's bumbling also allowed fall of Shah which resulted in Muslim radical control of Iran,American hostage crisis,high interest,inflation >about 1 hour ago from web

>>1976 election results gave Carter a 292 seat majority in House of Reps-created Depts of Education,Energy and C.R.A.,gave away Panama Canal >about 2 hours ago from web

>>Result of 1964 elections gave Dems 295 seats in House of Reps. Can anyone say War on Poverty, Medicare/Medicaid,Vietnam War escalation? >about 2 hours ago from web

>>As result of 1936 elections there were only 88 Republicans in House of Reps! The next election Republicans gained 81 seats-FDR went too far >about 2 hours ago from web

There is not space enough to list the behemoths given life by FDR and his long majority in both houses of Congress. Suffice it to say that the depression only became The Great Depression after years of big government programs enacted by those in Washington, D.C. who could not effectively run the government but somehow thought they knew how to run the businesses across the land.

And what of LBJ and the hapless peanut farmer from Georgia? War On Poverty, Medicare, Departments of Energy and Education.

The Clintons' co-presidency is almost entirely responsible for the mortgage meltdown we now find ourselves in. Attorney General Janet Reno threatened banks with lawsuits if they did not make loans to people who could not possibly repay them. The Interstate Banking Act of 1994, passed while Clinton still had a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, cleared the way for the likes of Lawrence Summers, Barney Frank, Chris Dodd, Robert Rubin, Franklin Raines, Jamie Gorelick, Rahm Emanuel, Kent Conrad, Jim Johnson and a host of other Democrat Wall Street insiders to pillage the markets and then design plans to have taxpayer money fund their shananigans.

History makes clear that liberals and, might I add, their RINO accomplices, easily succumb to the drunken stupor of spending everyone else's money. Freedom loving citizens have as their duty taking away the keys of elected office from these ego-centric miscreants. Friends of freedom do not let politicans drive drunk on the spending of OUR MONEY! Take note, TARP and stimulus bill supporters - rooms are being prepared for you at the detoxification center known as a return to private life. WE THE PEOPLE are declaring 2010 as the year of sobering up. Got it? We're coming to take away the bottle.

**Orginally posted at my political blog (MrWebsmith's Journal) on Townhall.com

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