British Election Day Hardball … A Lesson For American Voters
All three of our current politicians running for the Oval Office seat hold liberal views, of one degree or another.
And with the people of our country crying about their dire financial situations, WHY would anyone consider voting for someone who is promising loads of government programs and help … and NOT realize it will be MORE coming out of their paychecks? Government IS the problem …
I can never understand that.
Perhaps it is time we review and take a serious example of what others have gone through in their ‘nanny-state’ systems … deciding if THAT is really what we want and need in this country.
Elections: U.K. voters resoundingly rejected the Labour Party in local elections last week. It was no capricious shift, but a citizen revolt against trendy carbon and nanny-state taxes that empower only bad government.
For Labour, it was the worst election in 40 years. In a massive turnout, the Conservative Party took 256 seats in parliament, along with control of 12 town councils and 44% of the vote. Labour and moderate Liberal Democrats got to split the remains, and even the Liberal Democrats ,with 25%, won more than Labour.
Best of all, London’s 5.5 million voters threw out Labour’s biggest bum: Marxist Mayor Ken Livingstone — a man so detested he forced Labour to spend the bulk of its campaign cash to defend his re-election after eight years in power to the neglect of other districts. Nice going, Red Ken.
The “very big moment,” as Tory chief David Cameron put it, echoed conservative victories in France, Germany, Sweden and Italy and signaled Britain’s alignment with them. The reason was also largely the same — costly, overweening and unresponsive government that does what big governments do best: fail.
In Britain, the burden was intolerable. Labour has savaged the poor, battered Brits with tax after tax, pushing the government’s tax-take to its highest level ever.
At a time of high oil prices, Labour taxed motor fuel and, for good measure, threw on a $16 daily “congestion tax” in the city of London. It also made a $5 billion raid on company pensions, which had been the best of Europe, and left British pensioners poorer.
Prime Minister Gordon Brown also imposed a 10% payroll tax that was so ill-received it drove angry fishmongers in the Labour stronghold of Bury (now turned Tory) to yell “Brown Out” until the tax was withdrawn.
In London, green taxes were tacked onto everything from renewable-energy schemes to plastic bags. This month, Londoners are bracing for a $50-a-day tax to be slapped on those driving SUVs or luxury cars.
Labour officials were amazingly clueless about the burden these green taxes placed on ordinary Britons and merrily proposed more.
“If someone drops litter, they should be arrested,” Livingstone threatened during his campaign, thinking his resolve would impress rather than infuriate voters with its ecologically correct pettiness in a city otherwise awash in real crime.
Every tax and intrusion imposed by Labour in recent years was justified as being for voters’ “own good.” Ending global warming, reducing carbon footprints, lowering carbon emissions and raising public funding of renewable energy — all were excuses used to hit the voters’ pocketbook with more taxes.
Yet none of these taxes improved the quality of life. Instead, just a few of them — the same ones the green lobby wants here — showed British voters this was a puritanical scheme to reduce the quality of life and substitute a Roundhead feeling of virtue as its own reward.
“In other words, don’t even think about enjoying yourself,” wrote Malcolm Davis on Reuters’ site.
But in the meantime, crime rose, state services declined, the bureaucrats proliferated, the National Health Service deteriorated and British purchasing power evaporated. “Many feel the government is creating a green fear for monetary gain,” Mark Hodson of Opinium Research told the Independent newspaper.
Worse yet, government’s only strength seemed to be in harassing its own citizens. Britain, for instance, had been covered with security cameras — which no doubt would be used by Livingstone to nab litterbugs — but have done little to prevent terrorism. It’s telling that last year a car full of bombs was detected not by anti-terror cameras, but by over-active tow trucks looking for illegally parked cars.
“Don’t vote for a joke, vote for London,” said Livingstone, urging Brits to turn away Tory mayoral candidate Boris Johnson. Amid rising green taxes, an increasingly intrusive state and government harassment, Brits took him up on his recommendation.
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Well, what do you know, there’s hope for the UK yet.
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:26 amBritain’s Labour = America’s democrats.
Let’s hope (and pray) this is a harbinger of November…over here.
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:32 amOne can only hope Americans don’t vote for Red Hillary or Red Obama this November.
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:40 ambut is there hope for us? we have a whole lot of bums that need thrown out also. the majority of congress needs to find themselves on their asses.
May 3rd, 2008 at 7:44 amAs I was reading this I was thinking of a familiar image of the flat gray world of communism, and the head down and sour faced babushka wearing woman as she sweeps the walk in front of her government issued housing, when I came upon this:
“In other words, don’t even think about enjoying yourself,” wrote Malcolm Davis on Reuters’ site.
Exactly.
So, how bad does it have to get here before the voters realize the destruction that socialism creates in human society?
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:01 amWill democracy win out and help turn back the stalinists or will we have to resort to armed revolution to restore individual freedoms?
We could do this in the USA. Start with Pelosi and Reid.
May 3rd, 2008 at 8:05 amThge last straw for the Brits was the proposed massive global warming taxes. The election was mostly about that.
The Senate is debating the McCian-Liberman bill, oops sorry they changed the name, I think it is now named Warner-Lieberman since the maverick is in disguise right now. Vote is scheduled for June.
So what to do, let the Liberals win, that way there will be no one to blame but them in 2 years. Everyone is a maverick now.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:14 amOne thing I never understood about Republican pol thinking and it drives me batty. It’s a wonder most Republicans can even win an election.
Why is it they don’t point to some sterling examples of Dimocratic strongholds and say “here’s what you get when you vote for socialists Dims…”
Take a good, hard look at Michigan or California as example and their fiscal shape. Completely in the toilet.
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:22 amIf MacNasty dies, the GOP stands a good chance…
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:26 am
serfer62
May 3rd, 2008 at 9:45 amMacNasty…I’m assuming you mean the only Republican who can truly empathize with the families of those in harms way? By harms way I mean Iraq and Afghanistan, so my point is to ask you if you really believe that if MCCAIN, which would actually make it McNasty, died the GOP would be better off? I would contend that if anyone who makes similar comments to yours were to die, the GOP would be even better off.
Problem is there will always be someone who wants something for nothing. As long as they exist, then so will democrats (the free hand-outs party)
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:13 amoh snap!
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:14 amapparently we have 25 mil vets in this country–
if 5% or 1.25 mil, pushed back, if that time became a necessity, this country would be restored in hrs.
I think the lefties don’t ponder this much, they think they have it all going their way at the moment.
But for the moment, we have the ballot box, but those elected think were are low life idiots, to their ultimate demise.
I believe it was Thomas Jefferson, “Every once and a while the tree of liberty has to be watered with the blood of martyrs”
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:50 amI believe it was Thomas Jefferson, “Every once and a while the tree of liberty has to be watered with the blood of martyrs”
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The 2nd Amendment is the reset button on the United States Constitution
May 3rd, 2008 at 11:46 am
83delta -
May 3rd, 2008 at 11:47 amAs you know, the military oath calls for the defense of the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
Cool. Convservative, pro-US, pro-war governments are on the rise, yet the media still insists that President Bush made the whole world hate America.
May 3rd, 2008 at 6:21 pmdanielle: good observation. Add S. Korea to the list.
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:44 pm