Wizer Oneliner #24

No, Not "angry voters": angry citizens...and determined voters.

These Boots are Made for Stepping In It.

And with iPods and iPads; and Xboxes and PlayStations -- none of which I know how to work -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it's putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy. -- Barry H. Obama

So, information is distracting? I do imagine that it distracts people from disinformation, misinformation, propaganda, breads and circuses.

Reason.com's blog, Hit and Run has it well scoped:

• Taken together, the message here is clear, clever, and wrong. The boom in opinionated, interconnected media is a challenge to our very democracy (it isn't). News needs to be hermetically sealed from opinion (it doesn't). The primary purpose of media consumption should be empowerment (if there was a primary purpose for media consumption, I sure as hell wouldn't trust a president to identify it). And the most dangerous purveyor of untruths is the 24/7 echo chamber (I for one am much more exercised about taxpayer-financed lies backed by lethal government force).

It seems like there are only two places we find this administrations boots: Either on our necks or in Barry's mouth.

Happy Trails Helen Thomas

We won't really know what will happen until it happens. Helen Thomas

When you're in the news business, you always expect the unexpected.-- Helen Thomas

Even Napoleon had his Watergate. Yogi Berra

I don't suppose Helen thought it would end this way. After all, she said a lot more hateful things than this to and about countries, presidents, and citizens over the years. Maybe because she delivered her latest hateful comment with a laugh. Her arrogance was more subtle when she delivered it deadpan. It's pretty appropriate for her to go out that way: every press secretary since Pierre Salinger had their laugh at her silly questions. Here's one from the late Tony Snow.

Sometimes stoneage reporters are kept around way too long. They eventually make a fool of themselves. Daniel Schorr, Dan Rather, Helen Thomas. She wasn't particularly original, intelligent, or fair with her questions, and the world was tired of her act many years ago. Sometimes we just have to dismiss our icons in an unflattering way. This one's for you, Helen.

Let Nanny get that

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. - Benjamin Franklin

Aaron Everitt posted this article on Mises.org, outlining the false sense of security we get because the government pretends to be an overarching protector of our safety.

• Coal miners go to work with an artificially bolstered confidence simply because there is a Mine Safety Administration monitoring their situation. Deep-sea oil workers have misguided confidence in their equipment because the derrick they are on recently won an award for safety from the federal government.

and

• Instead of spending time on adapting their product to the desires of consumers, homebuilders are busy adapting their homes to the code. Innovation is the victim. Most homebuilders don't have the staff to introduce innovative plans while also ensuring that they keep up with code.

I certainly agree with this. We now simply buy baby cribs with confidence because the government is "on the job" making sure they are safe. Well, meeting government standards and building safe products are two different things, and we should never confuse them.

I've read where air bags and seat belts an baby seats and anti-shatter glass, and a number of other things that came ostensibly out of government mandates have increased the likelihood of risky driving. Why not? The message is the government is keeping us safe. We no longer have to do it for ourselves.

Tune in next year when people stop worrying about their health because Harry Reid is going to give them a free kidney anyway Or buy all the sub-prime debt you want because government is here to bail you out.

I don't know what ever happened to personal responsibility, but it no longer seems to be the least bit necessary in order to function in this society. All we have to do is vote for a president who will fill our drug coverage donut holes, not leave a child behind, heal our planet, and spread the wealth.

If you ask me, it's far more risky to farm out any of your personal safety choices to government, than to watch for yourself, because at the end of the day, there's very little difference between Nanny and Big Brother.