Boiling Frogs Explained 

By Jeff Greenlee

October 12, 2009

“This book describes a baby boomer’s perspective of the United States’ evolution spanning the postwar boom of the ‘50s; to the counter-culture, Viet Nam war and civil rights reforms of the ‘60s; to the rise of feminism, gas lines, stagflation, and no-growth of the ‘70s; to the emergence of Reagan conservatism, lower tax rates, and economic growth of the ‘80s; the replacement of the Industrial Age with the Information Age; the dot com boom and bust; the real estate boom and bust; and now the ever increasing takeover of free market establishments and the intrusion of the federal government into the marketplace. I call this the gradual, radical, relentless, deceptive, and pernicious socialist agenda of the left, which I feel has bankrupted the country, destroyed the Constitution, and stolen the American dream, hence the subtitle of the book. Indeed, we are being surreptitiously boiled like frogs and at this point in time, we are past tepid, past lukewarm, and reaching a rolling boil that looks to end the 233 year old grandiose experiment in self-government called the United States of America. The world is in an economic meltdown, caused mainly by our irreparably broken government. This raises an assortment of emotions, and makes me angry, bewildered, sad, frustrated, helpless and despondent.”   —from the introduction of the book titled “Boiling Frogs” and subtitled “How the left’s radical, relentless, deceptive, and pernicious statist agenda has bankrupted the country, destroyed the United States Constitution and stolen the American dream”, by Jeff Greenlee, begun in August of 2008

Recently, Glenn Beck had a segment on his television program that used the widespread anecdote about boiling a frog to make his point about the citizens of this country (the frogs) being boiled to death (by a surreptitious conspiracy). The premise is: 

“If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, it will float there quite placidly. As the water gradually heats up, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.

—Version of the story from Daniel Quinn's The Story of B

His metaphorical point was it was time to wake up, America, or risk losing our country slowly and surely to a surreptitious takeover by a leftist subculture. That was the point of my book, and it seems like Glenn and I are on the same page. Here is the link from YouTube about the furor Beck caused by making his point on camera. As I watched the program, I felt proud and even vindicated for some of the criticism I have endured for postulating such evil intentions. I have lost friends, alienated others, aggravated relatives, and the book has inspired deep emotions. Sometimes it is more convenient not to bring up sensitive subjects. I intended to brag about Glenn copying my premise and theme for the book, and then I backed off, because I realized this is not about me. It is not about who first realized we are losing our country. It is not even about exposing the real Barack Obama to the “useful idiots” and “naïve idealists” that make up his support base. It not about a conspiracy. It is about reality. 

I was inspired to write the book over a year ago when I began to see the danger of electing a secular progressive, Marxist fascist as president. That is Barack Hussein Obama’s worldview. He is not simply a traditional liberal or a democrat in the style of Bill or Hillary Clinton, for example. As the months wear on, and this charlatan is exposed for the fraud he is, the American people will begin to see what I was seeing before the election. Some people already get it. Have you seen the turnout at the Tea Parties? Have you witnessed some of the emotion and the intense feelings about the healthcare debate that came out at many of the townhall meetings during the congressional recess in August and September? These people see a congress and a president well on their way to forcing us to eat excrement sandwiches, whether we like it or not. This is not fascist Italy during the 1920’s, or communist Russia from the 1900’s, or Hitler’s Germany during the run-up to World War II. Not yet. 

Suddenly we don’t have a congress battling with free-markets, capitalism, and Judeo-Christian principles and ethics; we have the leader of the free-world, and his obsequious minions set out to destroy the country, or in Barack’s own words: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.” This is scary stuff. Rush Limbaugh was right, and many Americans, even patriots who said give him a chance, were wrong. We want this guy to fail. Better said… If Obama gets what he wants, America fails.   

While the geniuses (facetiously, of course) at all the news programs (are you listening, O’Reilly?) wring their hands and wonder why Obama can’t seem to get the economy back on track, or why he wouldn’t vet some of the radicals he has appointed to help him on his mission, or even why he would trash the country and suck up to our enemies, Obama is laughing at them. What if he doesn’t want to fix the economy? What if he doesn’t care about your constitutional rights? What if he doesn’t care or worse, doesn’t want unemployment to go down? What if he doesn’t want people to succeed and gain wealth? What if he doesn’t care about our national security from terrorists? What if he doesn’t care about our troops or Afghanistan, and is just saying the things he says for show? If these things are true, he is successful, while the country is less safe and less economically viable. He is probably thinking, “Wow, I didn’t realize how easy it was going to be to destroy this country and take it over. I’m getting help from everywhere.”

So, now I don’t care. If you don’t want to hear it… too bad. I choose my words very carefully, and the meaning should be very clear. If that offends you, either delete my notes, tell me you want to “unsubscribe”, or tell me not to discuss religion or politics, and instead focus only on lighter subjects, jokes and cartoons. I will gladly obey. No offense intended. I can’t force anyone to believe what I believe, and I can’t stop anyone who wants to live in a superficial world. I hope you respect that I am passionate in my beliefs without being totally consumed or pathological. I just see it better than most people who choose to operate in a state of denial. Everything I saw over a year ago that inspired me to write my book is coming true. Everything. I wish it wasn’t true, but it is.   

My father told me that he quit college and veterinary studies as well as football at Iowa State, when he determined we could not win World War II unless he got involved. It might have had something to do with his first conversation with the head football coach, who was watching him get off some booming punts in practice. “Where are you from kid?” the coach asked. “Sioux Falls, South Dakota, coach,” my dad answered. “Who was your head coach there?” the coach continued. “Coach Howard Wood!” my dad beamed. “Never heard of him,” came the reply. “He’s probably never heard of you either,” my dad snapped back. It probably wasn’t coincidental that he spent a lot of time warming the bench. 

I visited my friend Susan on the big island of Hawaii in August of 1998, and we stood by a plaque at Parker Ranch dedicated to the U. S. Marines who trained and practiced their landings over and over on the lava rock beaches on the north shores of the island. Even though they didn’t know where they were going to fight the Japanese, they knew they were training for a big battle somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. I got queasy, tearful, and proud as I pictured my father in his marine fatigues, ready to risk his life for the United States of America.  

I failed Advanced Army ROTC at South Dakota State University when I didn’t get my incomplete satisfied fast enough after missing 13 classes in the spring of 1968 when I played on the college golf team. So, on December 4 of that year (a month after my 21^st birthday), I was drafted into the Army and in April of 1969, I was sent to the DMZ in Korea. Like my father who earned Bronze and Silver Stars as well as a Purple Heart from the Marines for his time during the battle for Iwo Jima in February of 1945, I was resolved to give back something to my country when I was asked to serve. I cannot tell you I wasn’t ecstatic though, when I was told at the end of advanced infantry training to turn in my jungle gear, because my orders for Viet Nam had been cancelled, and I was going to Korea. That euphoria lasted until I was in Korea for a week or two. I went on patrol in the demilitarized zone, and the North Koreans shot two guys from my company on a work detail next to the military demarcation line, and then shot down the rescue helicopter we called in and 9 died. 

For my father and for me, the America we know is the country we love for so many reasons. I met a native American Indian who taught me the saying you can’t truly understand another person unless you have walked in their moccasins. I now know what he was saying and what he meant, and yet not all who read this will understand why some of us feel so strongly about this country and its traditions. Being free to choose our own destiny is not to be taken for granted. Freedom is not free. So I cringe when I see my country being destroyed from within by an evil, America-loathing, anti-capitalist, non-believing, charismatic secularist leading Kool-Aid drinking minions, just like the pathological communist Jim Jones who, in Guyana was able to induce 909 followers to commit mass suicide in November, 1978.

Barack Obama did not ruin the country. He just happens to be the right person at the right time with the perfect agenda and worldview. Secular progressives did it. What is a secular progressive? It is a person who does not believe in Judeo-Christian principles; is anti-capitalist; anti-freedom; anti-property rights; and despises market-based economics and most of the U. S. Constitution. While they are often called liberals, they are not. They believe in tyranny, not freedom. They are intolerant and insufferable. When you don’t believe in a higher power, you believe in anything. Many nihilists (those who question everything, not just believe in nothing) are secular progressives.   

But these people cannot tolerate debate. They cannot win a debate with their indefensible orthodoxy. So if you challenge them, they go ballistic. Examples of secular progressives are most of the feminists (except the conservative ones), who really don’t believe in women’s rights, but leftist women’s rights. Ask Sarah Palin. Other examples are most of the black groups, with the exception of the conservative ones. The NAACP does not believe in the advancement of colored people; they believe only in the advancement of leftist colored people. Ask Clarence Thomas. Many (maybe even most) democrats are secular progressives. The ones that are not are sympathetic to those that are. They learn to hate capitalism, profits, The Bill of Rights and all its restrictions on what government can and cannot do, and anyone who is successful. They are not happy unless people with differing opinions are stifled. Rules do not apply to them; rules apply only to the people they despise, like Christian conservatives. 

Finally, and maybe the one that will get me in the most trouble… secular progressives are non-believers. I do not believe you can be a Christian, and condone, or even ignore the wholesale slaughter of life that begins at conception. That might be above Barack Obama’s pay grade, but as a Christian, it is not above mine. You cannot be support much of the secular progressive (re: Barack Obama’s) orthodoxy and call yourself a Christian. The Bible says if you are not for me, you are against me. It is not a moderate statement. It is black and white, not gray. God does not allow lukewarm, as you can see from Paul’s Epistle to the Laodiceans.

Secular progressivism is a disease that has infected the stability of the world. It affects people and societies like a pandemic, spreading easily and infecting populations uncontrollably. Like herpes simplex virus, it remains in the body permanently, has no cure, but can be controlled. The medication is a dose of reality which controls those who are able to reason and discern. Nihilists, who similar to atheists actually believe in questioning everything rather than believing in nothing, appear to be the only group that cannot be treated for secular progressivism. Barack Obama appears to be both a nihilist and an atheist. Oh, I know, he calls himself a moderate and a Christian… yeah, right, and my name is Willy, not Silly! 

If we use Ben Franklin’s decision-making advice, we can compare the societal benefits of free-market capitalism and secular progressivism and weigh that against the negatives. But the problem is that secular progressivism has no benefits to society as a whole. None. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Oh, there may be some program or some principle of secular progressivism that appears to be a good program. It may even benefit one or more groups, but it is always to the detriment of the balance of the society plus there are always harmful, unintended consequences. 

For example, secular progressives use government’s heavy hand to confiscate wealth from one group and use it to enrich others of their choosing. They call it fairness, but is it fair if I walk over to my neighbor’s house, confiscate some of his wealth, and either keep it or share it with someone else of my choosing? I believe there are laws which would imprison me if I decided to take other’s property for my own benefit, even if it was for charitable choices and not my own. Is it morally or legally acceptable for government to forcibly confiscate one person’s property and redistribute it to another? Why and how is that different from an individual confiscating and redistributing? Is it because they can do it at government without consequences? 

How about creating jobs, such as the giant stimulus package of nearly a Trillion dollars, also known as The Generational Theft Act of 2009? There is one little problem that those infected with Secular Progressivism Disease (SPD) seem to not understand. The government cannot create one job without taking money from someone else. The exception is they own the printing presses, and can simply print more money if they run out. That is not done in a vacuum, however, because the net effect is all dollars become less valuable. Economic realities cannot be ignored like the present government seems to believe. The bigger problem is that the job created shows a net negative multiplier effect (it benefits less than it costs) because government is not efficient and bureaucracy is not free. After their cut, the new job holder gets less benefit than the job that does not get created by the original owner of the money. In private industry the pie gets bigger because of productivity, profits, and wealth creation. This is called a positive multiplier effect in economic terms. In other words, $1 in the private sector becomes more than $1 after investment. This velocity is what has made this country great. It ends recessions and depressions. It creates prosperity for all. Ronald Reagan understood economics. The government, on the other hand, takes away a whole pie (or a whole  $1) and distributes what is left (less than a whole pie or less than a whole $1) after they feed their own humongous appetite. Excessive government intervention only stagnates economies and slows growth (or worse, puts economies into negative growth and high unemployment). Where are we in 2009, and where are we going? Obviously, we are 180 degrees off line. Too simplistic? It is 100% true. 

Let’s use some of Henry Hazlitt’s “Economics in One Lesson” (first published in 1946) to make a point in economic stimulus. Chapter Two talks about “The Broken Window Fallacy”. This should be required reading for the morons in congress who voted for the renowned “Cash for Clunkers” program. Let’s say a hoodlum or thug throws a brick through a bakery owner’s front window. Assume it will cost $250 to repair it. Some believe since the glazier who repairs the glass will earn $250 (less his cost of raw materials) for fixing it, that the money will help keep the glazier in business. As additional benefits, that money circulates through the economy, such as the food he will be able to buy from the grocer, the house he can live in, and the clothing he wears. All the other merchants likewise benefit from the glazier’s business. According to this reasoning, the thug who threw the brick actually did society a benefit instead of a negative. Because of the $250 spent to repair the window, many received direct and indirect benefits. While that is true, how about the shopkeeper that cannot buy the suit he was saving for that cost $250? What about the tailor that didn’t sell the suit? If he was going to buy the suit that very same day, he would have had a suit and a window. But because of the vandalism, he will only have a window and no suit. 

Cash for Clunkers took working automobiles, and paid money (up to $4,500) for partial payment on new cars. It looks like a benefit to the car dealers, the car manufacturers, and the person who got subsidized to purchase the car. It appears to keep or create jobs plus it stimulates the economy. If it is so good, let’s take the program and multiply it so everyone in the country gets a new car at a $4,500 discount. That way we could stimulate Trillions and insure auto-related jobs. Plus everyone could have a new car, and not just 100,000 or so. But wait… like the shop owner that could have had a suit and a window, we could have had a car and not had to take away $4,500 from someone else to pay for it. And what happens when the guy who could only afford the used car can’t make his new monthly payments on a car he can’t afford, and the car is repossessed? Does the housing bubble disaster also fit in this modus operandi for the mental midgets we elected to run this country? Anyone in congress who voted for this disaster should be voted out, and then incarcerated for incompetence, assuming we can find laws they broke or a constitution they ignored. While they sit in jail, they should have to study micro- and macroeconomics, and then pass an economics competency test before they are allowed to get out.

How about the minimum wage increases that recently took effect? Raising the minimum wage is a good stimulus, right? It’s good for the person earning more money, but how about the boss? What if that squeezes their already squeezed profit margins? What if they have to lay people off because they can’t afford to lose and stay in business? If $7.25 per hour is a reasonable minimum wage, why not raise everybody more wealthy and make the minimum wage $20 per hour? Or better yet, why not $100 per hour? Think of the stimulus if all the minimum wage employees made $4,000 per week, or $208,000 per year!  What? It wouldn’t work? If the boss had to charge $150 for a hamburger so he could pay the cook, how long could he stay in business? Secular progressives somehow don’t understand market economics or if they do, they don’t care about these immutable laws as much as they care about their own idea of fairness. 

Witness Barack Obama’s view on taxes and fairness, caught here during the campaign with Hillary Clinton, where he states he would raise capital gains for all and income taxes on a group of higher earners even if it meant less money to the government, all in the meaning of fairness! At least this is his definition of fairness in his twisted mind. Since the top 10% of taxpayers in the U. S. pay 70% of the income taxes, how much more would Obama want before he thought it was fair? Maybe we could take 100% of the wealthy people’s money and use it to balance the budget. It not only wouldn’t happen, it wouldn’t be enough. Anyone who voted for this secular progressive fascist knowing his stance on capitalism, freedom, and market economics, should be ashamed. He wants to hire people to break windows (for the first example), buy houses they can’t afford with a down payment from the government, and drive cars made by his car company GM (Government Motors) and paid for by our children and grandchildren. Work is optional for him. If people in Detroit don’t want to work, he will send them some “Obama money”.  

We either need to take our country back, or relegate our offspring to a life of reduced rights and freedom, less prosperity, and more restrictions by an inhumane, tyrannical government. May God Bless America.

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Armageddon for America 

By Jeff Greenlee

October 7, 2009

For me, pragmatism is not enough. Nor is that fashionable word "consensus."... To me consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects -- the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead.  What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner "I stand for consensus"? 

 --- Margaret Thatcher in a 1981 speech

It is time to choose sides. The bad guys are winning. Barack Obama is conducting a surreptitious transformation of our country. His followers have many faces. Some blindly support him because they feel he sincerely desires to make the world more equal in its outcomes. To them, the only thing that ever matters is that some people have cheated or used the system to enrich themselves at the expense of others. Let’s call these people the “Zero-Sum Gamers”. They are cousins to another group of economic zealots, the “Anti-Capitalists”. That group believes markets operate best when prices, wages, supplies and demand is regulated and controlled, even when it never has worked and never will work for the benefit of the country and its citizens as a whole. 

Others support him because of the color of his skin. To them, if you have one black parent and one white parent you are not racially diverse, you are black. Contrary to their favorite martyr’s own words, they do not believe people should “… not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”.[1] If you disagree with Obama, in their world you are a racist. Let’s call those people the “Race-Baiters”. To this group, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) only pertains to liberal colored people, however, and not to those with the worldview of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, Dr. Walter E. Williams, or Dr. Thomas Sowell, to name a few prominent conservative blacks. 

Social concerns, religious beliefs, and moral absolutes are all highest on the priority list for more of Obama’s die-hard supporters. When feminists threw Sarah Palin under the bus, we learned that feminism was not about policies to enhance and enforce all women’s rights. Only if those policies were pro-abortion, pro-gay, and secular would a woman qualify. Let’s call these intolerant women “Feminazis” and “NAGS” (National Association of Gals), aptly named by their favorite antagonist, Rush Limbaugh. Closely aligned are moral relativists who feel only their superior intellect and insight is valid. Mostly found on college faculties, government offices, and scientific laboratories, these egotists believe anyone who doesn’t share their worldview is a redneck, a bigot, or a homophobe. By projecting their own intolerance, they have an insatiable appetite for controls and restraints legislated against anyone who disagrees with them. The catch-all name that has become favored for them is “Liberals”, but they prefer “Progressives”, and more accurate is the term “Statists”, “Socialists”, “Fascists”, or just “Leftists”.

Even those self-described as “Moderates” helped form a significant share of the majority that ushered Obama to power. Some of this wishy-washy group has wandered back to their inevitable, dissatisfied straddle position in the middle, refusing to take a stance and risk failure. But by not committing, they are actually relegated to perpetual unhappiness. The bible says “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters”.[2]  If you are not for at least a foundation of moral absolutes, and do not believe in at least basic immutable laws of economics, you are sadly another useful idiot and victim of the left’s power brokers. Ignoring the obvious detrimental effects of secular statist policies, even if administered in a surreptitious manner, is akin to supporting them. Ignorance and inaction combined with self-inflicted naivety are the foundation of leftist control. Going along to get along is as much of a sin as supporting evil intentions. 

Students, hip-hop fanatics, and others too-cool-for-school, all easily led astray by promises of ice cream for everyone, no tough choices, no obligations, and no restrictive rules, are the targets ACORN and its corrupt cousins exploit and use to further the autocratic leftist power machine. It didn’t make any difference whether those who wanted their own ice cream, plus healthcare, schools, and welfare, were in the country legally. ACORN didn’t want to seem judgmental, especially knowing all their votes were going to the candidates on the left. Let’s call them “Illegal Aliens”. Clueless John McCain couldn’t figure out why some of these parasites wouldn’t come to him for goodies as he reached across the aisle. Many other groups contributed to the historic election of 2008. Some of those who supported the election of Barack Obama defied groupings and included those usually sympathetic to a more conservative candidate (but not McCain) were simply frustrated and unhappy with George W. Bush. Still others overlapped groupings and could be included with more than one. But put together, they gave Obama a decisive win, and the democrats complete control of Congress.     

In a perfect storm of discontent with the war in Iraq, the collapse of the housing sector, and looming recession, Barack Hussein Obama was ushered into power. The Zero-Sum-Gamers, the Anti-Capitalists, the Race-Baiters, the Feminists, the Liberals, the Progressives, the Statists, the Socialists, the Fascists, the Moderates, the Illegals, and the Hip-Hoppers all cast their votes for The Chosen One, anointed to lead us to utopia.

As a few wise realists understood, the honeymoon and euphoria was not forever. Less than 20% of Americans identify themselves as having values mostly consistent with Obama. According to a comprehensive series of surveys with topics such as social values, religion, gun rights, felon voting, taxes, energy, oil drilling, justice, healthcare, trade, defense, and government spending, the Obama position and the average American (center-right) position creates a cognitive dissonance never before seen in an elected American president.[3] Charisma, coolness, and a blindness to reality has somehow replaced common sense and facts as the lemmings lined up to follow this charlatan. It reminds us of the immortal joke about a loyal wife who caught her husband red-handed in a dalliance. His response: Are you going to believe me, or your lying eyes? 

How long can Barack Obama continue to prevaricate about the economy? If he truly wanted things to get better with unemployment and the economy, why would he do everything possible to destroy it? Every single program initiated and administered by Obama is meant to make the government larger and more powerful. Meanwhile, the public sector, freedom, jobs, taxes, debt, and national security have all been diminished… intentionally. Capitalism and free markets are being excoriated and destroyed. The dollar is falling rapidly and gold prices are rising as people seek a safe harbor from the destruction.