by Russell Longcore

The term “Bread and Circuses” is credited to Juvenal, a Roman writer and satirist (AD 55-127). He was describing the Roman citizens’ enthusiasm for free food handouts and gladiatorial games at the Circus Maximus and later at the Colosseum. He felt that Romans had lost the capacity to govern themselves through their mindless self-gratification.

“Bread and Circuses” is a phrase that can accurately be used to describe the American population. Americans are so addicted to entertainment and personal pleasure that they ignore civic responsibility and gladly accept government authority with unflinching obedience.

Well, maybe some of us flinch a little. Reminds me of a bawdy story.

Three friends dared each other to go skydiving. They found a skydiving club and paid their money. After a short lesson, the instructor took them up to 8,000 feet and opened the door of the plane. The first two friends jumped, but the third friend was too scared.

The instructor yelled, “If you don’t jump right now, I’m going to rip off your pants, bend you over and have sex with you.”

“Did you jump?” his friends asked him later.

“Well yes…a little at first,” was his reply.

Americans jumped “a little at first” after the Revolutionary War and up into the mid-1800s. Shays’ Rebellion happened in 1787, The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions were written in 1798 an ‘99 by Jefferson in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, and the Nullification Crisis happened in 1832. But by 1860, they were willing to allow Lincoln to make war upon the Southern States and completely ignore the Constitution. It was all downhill from then until now.

Thankfully, there are still some American patriots that jump when someone tries to attack them from behind, so to speak.

Just as Juvenal observed in his day, so I believe that Americans have lost the capacity to govern themselves.

Actions speak louder than words. Stated another way, if you want to learn what people truly value, don’t listen to what they say, only watch what they do.

The majority of American citizens want socialism. They may say that they are against socialism but they continue to elect and re-elect politicians that enact socialistic laws and regulations. They do not storm Washington when those politicians violate the Constitution and commit treasonous, criminal acts. They do not impeach and prosecute the criminals in Washington.

Naw…“Trueblood” is on TV. “Harry Potter” is in the theaters. Football season is just around the corner. Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett just died and we must mourn them indefinitely.

America is on the auction block, and the Executive and Legislative branches of the Federal Government are the auctioneers. The American citizens expect their elected officials to “bring home the bacon,” which means get more Federal dollars coming back home than they are sending to Washington. American citizens want more than their share.

America wants socialism.

Over the past 100 years, American citizens have become addicted to the money that comes to them from Washington. It comes as fat defense contracts to little machine shops, farm subsidies, student loans, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, The GI Bill, Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security…and the list goes on. Because most Americans have their taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks, they don’t feel the weight of their tax burden. So, it FEELS like benefits are flowing from Washington back to home.

America wants socialism.

In 2008 and 2009, the Federal Government nationalized the banking industry, the investment industry, a giant insurance company and part of the automobile industry. America barely made a peep.

America wants socialism.

Afore-mentioned Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the biggest entitlement programs in the history of the planet, have become as familiar as the air we breathe. Conservatives in Washington accepted the big social welfare programs long ago, and don’t lift a finger any more to fight against them…or even try to control their budgets. In fact, some of the biggest spending legislation ever enacted came from Washington while Conservatives controlled the House and Senate, and Republicans lived in the White House.

America wants socialism.

America totally forgave George Bush for lying the USA into a Middle East war. American has completely accepted an ever-expanding worldwide military, and embraced the wars in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan. They festoon everything with yellow ribbons, and “support the troops”…even when the troops are murdering foreign civilians and violating the Constitution with their actions abroad. (By the way, a tenet of communism was to spread communism by military action. Americans think we’re trying to spread democracy.)

America wants socialism.

Washington politicians have gutted what was left of the Constitution since 2001. Individual liberties have been destroyed. The Patriot Act was enacted, the Transportation Safety Administration made airports into “no-rights zones,” and the Department of Homeland Security has vastly expanded its power over American citizens. All done with only a few whimpers and few objections.

America wants socialism.

The Obama Administration is taking this window of opportunity to take over health care and health insurance in the USA. American citizens have watched the nation’s insurance companies destroy the health insurance industry. There are over 45 million Americans today without any health insurance at all. So, Obama and Congress have the political cover to do a government takeover. American citizens are exhausted from fighting to get health insurance. They want health insurance at any cost, and are willing to trust Uncle Sam to run the healthcare and health insurance system.

Americans want socialism. And Americans are getting socialism as quickly as Washington can deliver it.

I always used to think that America was being misused and abused by Washington. I have changed my thinking about that. I believe that Washington is simply giving America what it wants.

Perhaps the Washington politicos are the most astute observers of human behavior. They are certainly the best at survival.

Curious, though…that last sentence also aptly describes the relationship between a leech and its host.

“It is hard NOT to write satire.” ~Juvenal , Roman satirist, writing about the Rome of his day)

Russell D. Longcore, owner and editor of DumpDC, also owns Abigail Morgan Austin Publishing Company and Cornerstone Claim Services in Marietta, Georgia

Copyright 2010 Russell D. Longcore. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given. http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1HWRZS/www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2010/01/05/bread-and-circuses-americas-insatiable-desire-for-socialism/

Within twenty-four hours of the terrorist trying to blow up the plane, the White House was giving briefings by a “Senior Administration Official” who mostly like was Obama, Axelrod, or Jarrett, pointing out that the terrorist watch list was created by the Bush administration.

Then the White House Counsel’s Office sent out a memo demanding any and all documentation to show that the Bush administration had done worse.

Then the White House decided it needed to look into the “systemic failures” of the operation that George Bush had put in place.

234 days into George W. Bush’s first contentious year in office, four planes were hijacked and used as missiles to strike the United States. Shortly thereafter, Richard Reid tried to blow up another jet.

George Bush never tried to disown 9/11 or Richard Reid. He never tried to say, “hey, it was Clinton’s problem.” Sure, in fact, a lot of what led to 9/11 happened on Bill Clinton’s watch and he failed in most every measure to shut down Al Qaeda.

But after 9/11, George Bush didn’t spend his first day, second day, or third day blaming Clinton. He set out to destroy Al Qaeda. After Richard Reid, we’ve been pretty darn safe flying.

In fact, under George Bush leading scholars and pundits declared Al Qaeda marginalized. By 2003, the pontiffs of miasmatic beltway wisdom were near unanimous that Al Qaeda was near dismantled.

You really need to read this editorial in the London Telegraph by Toby Harnden. It really hits this point where it needs hitting.

For a man who campaigned denouncing the politicisation of national security under President George W Bush, it is worth noting how intensely political Obama’s treatment of what might henceforth be known as Underpantsgate has been.

His White House recognised its political vulnerability more readily than it comprehended the level of danger faced by Americans.

That last bit is the most troubling part of this.

At the end of the first year of Barack Obama’s administration, there’s something moving in the shadows of Mount Doom. It wasn’t there while George Bush was in charge. But Barack Obama is no George Bush. And the strategy of blaming Bush for being weak on terror will not work after eight years of blaming Bush for being too bloodthirsty. http://www.redstate.com/erick/2010/01/02/barack-obamas-vulnerabilities-will-get-us-all-killed/

BarackObama said both human and systematic failures allowed the foiledChristmas Day attack on Northwest flight 253 to take placePhoto: GETTY

In his weekly radio address yesterday, President Barack Obama pattedhimself on the back for having "refocused the fight - bringing to aresponsible end the war in Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11attacks".

He then told people to remember that "our adversariesare those who would attack our country, not our fellow Americans",before decrying "fear and cynicism" and "partisanship and division" -the code phrases for horrid Republicans used during his 2008 electioncampaign.

Complacency, faux moralising and partisan shots atRepublicans. It was a neat summary of where Obama is going wrong afterthe Christmas Day debacle when the Nigerian knicker bomber managed towaltz onto a Detroit-bound flight.

For a man who campaigneddenouncing the politicisation of national security under PresidentGeorge W Bush, it is worth noting how intensely political Obama'streatment of what might henceforth be known as Underpantsgate has been.

His White House recognised its political vulnerability more readily than it comprehended the level of danger faced by Americans.

UmarFarouk Abdulmutallab's father had courageously contacted the AmericanEmbassy in Abuja in November and met the CIA station chief to tell himthat his son was involved with fundamentalist elements in Yemen.American intelligence had also intercepted discussions in Yemen about apossible attack by "the Nigerian".

The Obama administration knewmost, if not all, of this by last Sunday, 48 hours after the attack wasthwarted. But the priority in Obamaland was to play things down andtake pot shots at the Bush administration.

Janet Napolitano, theHomeland Security chief – who prefers the term "man-caused disasters"to "terrorism" - blithely stated that there was "no indication that itis part of anything larger". She then insisted that the "system isworking".

Although Napolitano has taken a lot of flak for thesecomic utterances, she was not "misspeaking" but trotting out the agreedtalking points of the day.

Robert Gibbs, Obama's chiefmouthpiece, also stated that "in many ways this system has worked" andwould say nothing about a possible wider plot.

In Hawaii, whereObama was holidaying, Gibbs's deputy Bill Burton told the press that"we are winding down a war in Iraq that took our eye off of theterrorists that attacked us" and that Obama was reviewing "proceduresthat have been in place the last several years" (i.e. Bush institutedthem). He added, without apparent irony, that "the President refuses toplay politics with these issues".

Meanwhile, the White House wasworking overtime to build a case against Bush. A source in the WhiteHouse counsel's office told The American Spectator of memos franticallyseeking information that would "show that the Bush Administration hadhad far worse missteps than we ever could".

Republicans smellblood. There is a pattern in the Obama administration of dismissingIslamist terrorist attacks as regrettable random acts. In his radioaddress after Major Nidal Hassan's slaughtered 13 at Fort Hood, Texas,Obama made no mention of terrorism or militant Islam, instead blandlypromising that the "ongoing investigation into this terrible tragedy"would "look at the motives of the alleged gunman".

Hassan was acommitted Islamist who had corresponded with the fanatical Yemeni imamAnwar al-Awlaki. In June, Abdul Hakim Mujahid Muhammad, a Muslimconvert being watched by the FBI and who had previously travelled toYemen, murdered a US Army recruit in Arkansas. That rated only a tepidstatement by Obama about a "senseless act of violence".

But theviolence wasn't senseless, it had a calculated objective - just asAbdulmutallab was not, as Obama described him, an "isolated extremist".No wonder many Americans want to grab Obama by the lapels and scream:"It's the Jihad, stupid." Dick Cheney, the former vice-president,clearly struck a nerve when he charged last week that Obama was "tryingto pretend we are not at war".

The White House communicationsdirector Dan Pfeiffer eagerly descended into the political fray,responding to Cheney with the obligatory jibe about Iraq and also alitany of examples of Obama's "public statements that explicitly statewe are at war".

It's a sure sign that you're losing the argumentwhen you have to research quotes from your boss's speeches to provethat he gets it that America is at war. The problem for Obama is thatpeople are now judging him by his actions as well as his words.

Theincompetence of the US intelligence bureaucracy is not the only thingthat makes Underpantsgate so damaging for Obama. More serious is hisfailure to understand or acknowledge the nature of the enemy - and toview war as mere politics.

Last night in Washington, close to one hundred leaders of the conservative movement gathered in a townhouse just down from the United States Capitol to hear Senator Jim DeMint and Florida Speaker Marco Rubio at a Senate Conservatives Fund fundraiser for Marco Rubio.

The people in the room for Rubio were the same people who blew up NY-23, helping Doug Hoffman and crushing the chances of a far left Republican, Dede Scozzafava.

Just prior to the start of the fundraiser, a bomb went off in Florida. According to Rasmussen, the Florida Senate primary is now tied between Rubio and Crist.

For perspective, only about six months ago, Rubio was in the single digits with Crist safely over 50%.

Jim DeMint told the crowd that Rubio is one of a handful of “new Republicans” running to take back our country. And the new poll shows it is working.

Charlie Crist is the only candidate the National Republican Senatorial Committee will admit to endorsing. The actually used the word “endorse.” Since their endorsement, Crist has seen a top fundraiser indicted for a ponzi scheme, taken every position possible on the Obama stimulus plan, replaced his campaign team, and gone from over fifty percent in the polling to tied with Marco Rubio.

Rubio will win. The Establishment will be defeated. Conservatives will advance and with them freedom.

Jim DeMint told the crowd that attended if they were there, they were no longer part of the establishment. The leaders of the conservative movement were there and they and their checkbooks are going to throw the GOP establishment under Barack Obama’s bus.