Barack Obama Channels Franklin Roosevelt In Court-Packing Scheme

     Scarcely nothing else but the Hindenburg called ObamaCare has dominated the Conservative airwaves, and weighed heavy on the minds of the health insurance-buying public the last few weeks. And as important as the government take-over of one sixth of the Unites States economy is, one of the mechanisms that will allow future government control is quietly being battled by Senate Republicants. The kind of banana republic behavior in which the Obama administration is engaging now has not been seen to this extent since the 1930s and the Roosevelt presidency. I am of course speaking about court packing.
     In the 1930s, President Franklin Roosevelt did not take kindly to the fact that the Supreme Court found some of his policies unconstitutional. So he tried to increase the number of Supreme Court justices and "pack" the additional positions with those that would be amenable to his socialist agenda. Currently, President Obama is trying the same strategy with the D.C. Circuit Court, considered to be one of the most powerful in the country, second only to the Supreme Court of the United States. Many important and Constitutionally substantive cases are heard by the D.C. court, and President Obama wants to transform it into a rubber stamp for his radically Leftist policies.
     The D.C. Circuit Court at present has four Republican-nominated justices and four Democrat ones. President Obama wants to add four more justices, which of course will be fellow travelers with him on the road to the socialist Utopia in which all Leftists believe. There is no other reason to add justices to this particular court, because as it is the most powerful Circuit Court in the country, it is also the most under worked. The D.C. Court hears only a third of the cases of the average U.S. Circuit Court. And while his additional nominees to the court would need Senate confirmation, this would be a fait accompli with the Democrat majority in that body and Republicants like John McCain being unwilling to filibuster any of the President's judicial nominees to any court.
     Mr. Obama's attempt to pack the very influential federal court in D.C. is illustrative of the way in which Leftists operate out of necessity. The President knows that in poll after poll the American people have rejected his policies in large numbers. So in order to pass his unpopular agenda he must resort to racial intimidation, as was the case with the Supreme Court's decision on his unconstitutional health care law, or court packing, as is the current modus operandi of his administration. These kinds of tactics also illustrate that those on the Left realize they would never win elections and would forever be relegated to the margins of public life in America, if they were honest about their true agenda. The Obama administration's attempt to quietly pack the D.C. Circuit Court is something about which every freedom-loving American should be outraged, and every dedicated public servant in Congress should be fighting to their last political breath to stop.

Why ObamaCare Is Not Going Away

     Many on the Right are rubbing their hands together with glee and many on the Left are wringing their hands over the recent ObamaCare disasters. Beyond the half a billion dollar plus website that took over three years to mature to its current state of utter incompetence, is skyrocketing health insurance premiums, deductibles the cost of a good used car, the inability for people to keep their current plan or doctor, and the rationing of care that is looking more like an inevitable reality than a scare tactic of crazy Right Wingers like Sarah Palin.
     The Left is worried that the wave of ObamaCare troubles will drown them at the polls on election day. Those on the Right think the health care disaster created by the President and his congressional marionettes is going to collapse the Affordable Care Act, and Americans will run in mass to a free market solution to the health insurance problems that have plagued 15 percent of the population in the decades prior to the law's implementation.
     I have bad news for both the aforementioned players in this high stakes game of control of America's health care insurance industry. For the Left, they will forever be expending political capital defending a law for which not one Republicant voted. Additionally, they run the risk of losing the support of one of their core constituencies, the young, who are going to be saddled with paying the freight for health care. And for the Right, their dream of ObamaCare collapsing of its own weight is going to morph into the nightmare of a single-payer, government-run health care system when the spectacular failures of the current "reform" are blamed on the involvement of commercial insurance companies. Those on the Right who think that the hundred year wait for government-run health care by those on the Left is going to be abandon now that it has been given the force of law and the blessing of the Supreme Court of the United States, are living in denial.
     No, my friends, ObamaCare or something worse is here to stay. That is why it was so important for Republicants to stop its funding in the recent continuing resolution/debt limit battle. As long as hard-earned taxpayer dollars are free to flow into the Affordable Care Act like current through the electrodes to Frankenstein's brain, the monster of ObamaCare will live. The severity of its failings will only hasten a complete government take-over of the greatest health care industry in the world. This, of course, was the plan that is now right on schedule with help from a weak and flaccid opposition from Republicants. Finally, for all those who still hold out hope of ObamaCare collapsing with the weight of its failures, please tell me the last federal law that was dismissed which affected a sixth of the nation's economy, gave Leftist everywhere wet dreams, and bestowed virtually unlimited power on the executive branch.

The Male "Sin"

     The trend in this country over the last 30 years is towards women having and raising children with no male influence. This is not just teenage mothers, but more and more women in their twenties and thirties are opting for childbirth sans a husband. This form of child rearing has been proven, through modern studies affirming thousands of years of history, to be much less effective in producing children who are balanced and productive citizens. The fact that eighty percent of those in prison come from single-parent homes, should be evidence enough that it is not a desirable way to raise children, especially young males.
     The reason for the trend towards single motherhood is the denounce-ification of all male virtues as sin. The modern culture, driven by Leftist ideology, has deemed the male characteristics of the species to be null and void and a scourge to be eradicated. Over the last 20 years especially, millions of young boys have been medicated with Ritalin and Adderall, ostensibly to treat Attention Deficit Disorder, but in many cases the behavior being treated is the natural male tendencies. Instead of guiding young boys into adulthood by inculcating them with the skills to focus their natural male tendencies in positive pursuits, we have drugged them into numbed androgyny.
     We see the attempt to breed manly qualities out of the culture in entertainment, where more and more leading men in movies, for example, engender fewer John Wayne and Charles Bronson qualities and exhibit behaviors that would be more closely associated with leading ladies. Even the modern fashion industry has tried to festoon young males in an array of evermore increasingly feminine clothing. And male pursuits like the sport of football have become burdened with the desire to regulate out what some consider to be the overly aggressive aspects of the game. In fact, I would not be surprised that within the next twenty years the National Football League transforms professional football into touch football or even a flag football league.
     When male characteristics are discouraged by the culture instead of being developed by way of a strong male role model in the form of a father in a young man's life, the natural male tendencies will reveal themselves in destructive ways to the individual and society. I remember a story about how somewhere in Africa they were having trouble with young, rouge male elephants. These undisciplined and unsupervised adolescent male elephants were wreaking havoc, not only on other families of elephants, but the small villages in the area. The solution to the problem was to bring in older more mature male elephants, who in a very short time taught the rouge youths to behave as male elephants should behave. A lesson that would be valuable for us to learn before we have no collective memory of how real, mature, responsible men ought to conduct themselves in civilized society.

Joe Biden, Preaching The Leftist Gospel

     Last Friday night at the Democratic National Committee's Women's Leadership Forum, Vice President Joe "Laughing Hyena" Biden made what he himself called a "crass" plea for more fundraising to help his party in next Fall's mid-term elections. His "plea" came by way of the circuitous route around the honorable and legitimate goals of the Tea Party, at one point calling them the "biggest impediment to progress in America." The Hyena also used the socialist term "collective" to describe the agenda of the Democrat party, the obvious oppression of the American people being missed by those in attendance who lapped up the Vice President's overheated rhetoric with a child-like abandon.
     Mr. Biden did not, as all Democrats do not when demonizing their political opposition, mention one Tea Party position that actually would impeded progress in America. But then, it is not progress in America that the overly adolescent VP is worried about, but the continued progression of a Leftist agenda that has grown the federal government to a voracious beast that has become almost twenty five percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product. I can understand why a "grow government beyond the restraints of the constitution" progressive like the Hyena would be threatened by a group of people who preach adherence to the founding principles of limited government, and fiscal responsibility.
     Vice President Biden said that to advance women's rights, the country must elect more Democrats and win back the House and maintain their control of the Senate. Mr. Biden, like most Leftist politicians, have trouble with reality when it is in such stark contrast to their agenda. Someone should remind the crass Vice President that it has been women who have suffered more than men under his boss's economy, losing more wealth and shouldering more unemployment than men. Not only have women faired much worse under Obama's America, but the regime itself is a good old boys club that treats administration females with dismissive male chauvinist arrogance, just ask Anita Dunn, former White House Communications Director, who left the regime in November of 2009. Ms. Dunn complained about her and other administration women being treated as second-class citizens by the President and other administration males.
     One more parenthetical aside about Mr. Biden's speech Friday night is the almost Magna Charta way in which he made reference to women's rights depending on Democrat politicians being in control of an almost four trillion dollar federal behemoth. I say Magna Charta because that was the first time in history that those that governed acknowledged that the governed had rights, albeit rights that the rulers bestowed upon the ruled. The United States Constitution that built this great nation was the first and only time in history that the people's rights were acknowledged as originating from God and that no manmade government could impeded or infringe those rights. So it is the Vice President and his party that wish to regress the U.S. and its citizens to a pre-constitution era in which the ruling class had no limiting principle to restrain their rapacious thirst for power.

The Emotional Weakness Of Leftism

     One of the goals of the Left in this country is to transform the rugged individualism that defined much of American history, into emotional neediness that defines more and more of the current American culture. The end result of this emotional weakness and need is the dependence on government for support. But while government can provide some meager material support to those it has imprisoned on its plantation of dependence, it can never hope to bring healing or strength to one's emotional health. In fact, the more the individual depends on government, or any other person or entity, for material support, the weaker their emotional and spiritual state becomes.
     The modern American culture actually venerates pity and sympathy over stoicism and self-reliance. A case in point is a woman I know in her late eighties who just lost her ninety year old husband to prostrate cancer that he had been battling for ten years. Even though it has been over six months since his death, the woman thinks nothing of taking every opportunity to burden her neighbors and friends with her emotional baggage from the loss. It has gotten to the point where I think she has a greater need for the sympathy and pity than any loss she feels for her dead husband.
      I think Leftist thinking in this country has convinced people that they are entitled to a life sans sadness, loss, loneliness, or discomfort. Many people have been conditioned by the emotional weakness that Leftist philosophy engenders in human beings, and therefore are unprepared to accept the natural conditions with which humans have dealt for thousands of years, including but not limited to, the death of a loved one. One does not have to travel very far back in our ancestry to find a people that accepted death as part of life and, not as we have done today, recast it as a human tragedy.
     Human beings generally gain emotional maturity as they age, but the Leftist ideology keeps its practitioners in a child-like emotional state throughout adulthood. The deeper hold Leftist thinking has had on our culture, the more juvenile and unable we have become to be emotionally independent. This, of course, is to the advantage of the Left, whose goal it is to grow dependence on government and mitigate dependence on self, even emotional dependence. So the government becomes a parent who stops individuals from being bullied, prevents them from being offended by others, and myriad other functions to mitigate any discomfort that life may bring their way.
     The breeding of emotional weakness in a people that found their voice in history based on their ability to overcome emotional as well as physical barricades, and build the greatest nation in the history of man, has been a slow and deliberate strategy of the Left for the last hundred years. It has accelerated in the last forty years, and sadly has become a run away train that will be very hard to slow, let alone stop. But stop it we must, for the very covenant between a free nation and liberty herself demands it be stopped and those riding be released from their emotional, material, and spiritual prison built by a corrupt and dehumanizing ideology called Leftism.

The Smoking Nazis Strike Again !

     The great state of Ohio, in which I reside, has decided to make an attempt to soothe the savage rantings of the smoking Nazis by passing a law making it illegal for Ohioans to smoke in their own vehicles when a child is also riding in the same vehicle. Shockingly, similar laws have been passed in several other states that lie within the borders of what was once the free country of the United States of America. And while these states supposedly support the Constitution of the United States, they have allowed a dishonest and radical group of Leftists to influence laws that restrict citizens liberty and freedom.
     The smoking Nazis are the same people as the global warming Nazis, the lead Nazis, the DDT Nazis, and myriad other categories of Nazis whose real goal is to limit the growth of the citizen's liberty by empowering the growth of government at every level. Their despicable tactics of using children and elderly persons to advance their oppressive agenda is the stuff of totalitarian regimes in third world countries. These statists self-appoint as the protectors of the weak and innocent, characterizing anyone who disagrees with their oppression as uncaring, uncompassionate, and selfish.
     The fact is that there are no credible studies that show second-hand smoke to be a danger to anyone exposed to it. I know this surprises many people, but that is how the Left has corrupted even science. The American Cancer Society sites the Environmental Protection Agency as their source for the dangers of second hand smoke. The EPA has been the conduit for the Leftist agenda for decades, beginning with the ban on the life-saving DDT and continuing through the current global warming scam. But the Left has corrupted science outside the influence of the EPA through organizations like the American Psychiatric Association, which classified multiple personalities as a legitimate affliction based solely on the book Sybil. If what the smoking Nazis said about second-hand smoke was true, none of us would be alive today. I grew up around parents, aunts and uncles and an entire community of adults who smoked. I, just like the rest of my generation, ingested oodles of second-hand smoke and have suffered no ill-effects from it.
      The honest statistical truth is that of persons who actually do smoke, only a third suffer any health problems related to their smoking. The smoking Nazis would have us believe that anyone who is within ten feet of a pack of cigarettes is going to contract cancer or heart problems. But this is the modus operandi of the God-less Left, who have no moral basis for what is evil and what is not, having no belief in the source of morality, God, so they manufacture evil based on a political agenda. It is this manufactured evil which they use to oppress their real enemy, God's gift to humanity, liberty and freedom.
    

The Obama Sin Of Low Aspirations

     As I survey the landscape of the last five years, there are many flash points I see as an impetus for where we find ourselves as a nation. The reckless and deliberate charter of the Obama administration has left this country with more debt, less ability to mitigate that debt, and an assault on individual freedom which some immigrants to this country say they have not seen the likes of since they left totalitarian regimes in their countries of origin with names like the Soviet Union, Cuba, and others.
     But the greatest sin of Barack Obama is not the well-illustrated corruption of billions of taxpayer dollars given to his donors through their phony "green energy" companies like Solyndra and others. Nor is it in the deliberate atrocity of the lack of security in Benghazi, Libya where an ambassador and three other Americans were slaughtered while administration officials watched in real time in the safety of the Whit House, refusing to send help. This most corrupt President in modern U.S. history did not commit the biggest sin of his tenure when he drew a red line for Syrian leader, Bashar Al Assad, then rescinded it after the Russians embarrassed the United States with a show of more influence over world events than America. Barack Obama's biggest sin was not the use of the Internal Revenue Service to suppress the votes of his political opposition by harassing Conservative organizations applying for tax exempt status. Nor is the biggest sin of this President the passage of the most major and sweeping legislation in American history using bribery, graft, intimidation, and unconstitutional budgetary tricks. One would have thought that there could be no sin bigger for a President and his administration than to publicly intimidate the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court into upholding a blatantly unconstitutional law. The major sin of Barack Obama is not the general warrant used to collect phone records and the Internet traffic of tens of millions of innocent Americans.
      The major sin of Barack Obama is the sin of low aspirations. Barack Obama aspires for the U.S. to have a national debt approaching 20 trillion dollars and unfunded liabilities approaching 90 trillion dollars. His sin of low aspirations has driven almost forty percent of working age adults in this country into unemployment, creating the lowest work force participation rate of the last 50 years. Barack Obama aspires for the nation of Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, et al to be a place where wealth creation is punished, dependence is rewarded, and economic growth is almost non-existent compared to its former greatness. Barack Obama aspires for the beacon of hope and freedom in the world that once was the great nation of the United States to be subjugated to the will of Russia and the United Nations. Barack Obama aspires to replace the greatest health care industry in the world that competently served the medical needs of 85% of Americans and replace it with a bureaucratic system that will not and can not serve anyone competently.
     These low aspirations are the deliberate outcomes from a man who has spent his entire adult life in the mediocrity of race-baiting intimidation politics. Barack Obama is a man who sees logic as an enemy and truth as a menace, both of which can tear at the delicate fabric of his ideology which is based on the weakness of dependence and the misery of fear. This is the way of all men who have not the capacity nor the desire to feed and nurture the better angels of human nature found in the cathedrals of liberty and the halls of independence. 

Self-Reliance Is A Moral Imperative

     I recall back in the good old days when government-run health care was just a twinkle in the eye of Barack Obama and the millions of Progressives looking to government to wipe their sorry noses for them. I remember seeing a bumper sticker that read, "If you think health care is expensive now, wait until it is free." No truer words were ever spoken or written as Americans begin to find out just how crushingly expensive ObamaCare is.
     But beyond the gargantuan waste of 620 million hard-earned taxpayer dollars for a web site that does not work. And beyond a health care reform law that increases Americans insurance premiums, some as much as by a factor of two or more. And beyond the same law which raises health care deductibles for most Americans into a stratosphere where health insurance is rendered useless. And beyond the cold hard fact that doctors and other health care providers are leaving the practice of medicine, running away from ObamaCare regulations like a child running from a swarm of bees. And beyond the mass exodus by doctors and other health care providers resulting in a reduction of supply while exponentially increasing demand, causing cataclysmic rationing to be the only outcome. Beyond all of these things and more is the core difference between Conservatives and Leftists, which determines the direction of a society towards moral prosperity or corrupt dependence, that core difference being self-reliance.
     Even as far back as Biblical times, the moral imperative of self-reliance to the continuation of a thriving culture was acknowledged and encouraged. When members of a society have things provided for them by other members of that society by the force of a governing body, that society is depleted, not only of wealth but of morality. The very moral act of helping a neighbor in need is corrupted by the heavy hand of government taking from those who have and giving to those who have not. If a man sees a neighbor who is in need of food and he gives him half of his own, the benefactor feels good about being able to help someone in need and the beneficiary feels grate-full at being helped. But when government takes from the man who has and gives to the man who has not, the benefactor feels angry and bitter and the beneficiary feels entitled. All morality is removed from the act.
     Beyond the moral depletion of a society, wealth is depleted because the cost of free health care, free housing, free food, free cell phones, free air conditioners, free car repair, free utilities, and myriad other things which are provided to citizens by the confiscated wealth of their fellow citizens, results in less prosperity for the society in general. This is the basic economic lesson that those on the Left do not seem to understand, i.e., nothing is free and the cost is borne by someone, somewhere, and somehow. When this poverty spiral reaches a point where there are two many persons receiving the benefits that too few persons are providing, rationing or bankruptcy or both will occur.
     The salient and visible issue of self-reliance is of great importance as we decide as a society if we are going to allow our government to provide more and pay for it with redistribution, ObamaCare being the largest redistribution scheme in history, the major portion of the cost being borne by young, healthy citizens. Or if we are going to return to the morality of self-reliance and reinstate the greatness that defines the United States of America.
    

What Post-Shutdown Polling Suggests

     The post-shutdown polling is out, and as could have been predicted, has been misinterpreted by Democrats to mean they smashed the Republicant party into tiny little bits and the American people now love ObamaCare, and by Republicants to mean they employed a disastrous strategy at the behest of Ted Cruz, et al. But the real question for Democrats is, "Will this hit Republicants took in the polling last in the very fluid environment of politics, at least until next Fall's mid-term elections?" An equally important question for Republicants is, "Was it the strategy of forcing the administration and Democrats to partially shutdown the federal government, or the fact that moderates in the party forced a capitulation to every demand of the President, that caused their drop in the polls?"
     My money would be on the latter proposition, weakness of any kind not being a desirable characteristic in an individual or a political party. No one wants to follow a general into battle that surrenders to his enemy before the skirmish even begins. The Republicants did not drop in the polls among the American people because of a partial shutdown of the federal government that did not effect most of their lives one iota, but because the Republicants failed to show that they had the courage of their convictions and an overwhelming dedication to moral certitude.
     Some on the Right have even suggested that the Republicants behavior leading up to and during the shutdown is analogous to if the Democrats had used their newly won majority in the House of Representatives in 2007 to force a shutdown over the Iraq war. But this analogy misses some very important facts and is just another example of some on the Right offering up the instrument of their own defeat. The Iraq war did not fundamentally change the relationship between the United States government and the United States citizen. The Iraq war did not limit citizens freedom of choice in anything, especially not in the most personal and intimate arena of something like health care. The Iraq war did not rip one sixth of the U.S. economy from the private sector and place it into the hands of bureaucrats and politicians in the federal government. The Iraq war did not bury a private sector industry like health care insurance under a mountain of regulation which has the specific endgame to destroy that very industry.
     The entire issue of what President Obama and Democrats call health care reform is how much government involvement their should be in this area of a citizen's life that only 60 years ago completely belonged to the free market. Democrats and Mr. Obama have stated publicly they want 100% government involvement through a single-payer system. Conservatives, on the other hand, know that the more health care and health care insurance can be placed back into the hands of the private sector, the better and more cost effective it will be for everyone. But President Obama and congressional Democrats have a goal, not of making health care better for everyone, but making it the same for everyone. So they are in the process of replacing a system with which every poll for the last 25 years showed 85% of Americans were satisfied, with one where no one will be satisfied, but it will be "fair." Equality of misery being the cornerstone of every socialist system.
     It is the impending misery of ObamaCare, and the Republicants unwillingness to take a stand against it and for the American people, which has them suffering in the polls. The American people are drowning in the deep waters of Obama misery and the Republicant party establishment just threw them an anchor instead of a life preserver.
     

HealthCare.Gov: A Harbinger Of Health Care In America

     For anyone wishing to understand the difference between the private and public sectors and why the Founders of this great nation limited the latter, there is no more illustrative endeavor than the online federal health care exchange. There are two main reasons that government can never hope to be as efficient, responsive, productive, and competent as the private sector. One is that government does not have the profit motive and competition driving them to constantly improve, and two is that government has no sense of the value of money, since they have an almost unlimited supply that they can confiscate from taxpayers who have no other choice but to pay.
     Obama administration officials were out this weekend saying that while there were problems with the online government website, healthcare.gov, they are pleased with the quick response from "the best people in technology" they have brought in to help solve the "glitches." Only government can spend 620 million dollars on a website that does not work, and only after it has failed miserably, say that they are proud of their response to what is in essence their own incompetence. My question is, "With 620 million dollars, why were the best people not employed to begin with?" I would have a hard time believing that any of the most popular websites on the Internet spent much more than two or three percent of the cost of the government's health care exchange website.
     The Obamaites bragged over the weekend that half a million people had made application through the federal exchange. But no one knows for sure how many of those Americans used the website or simply made application by telephone. Additionally, that number does not reflect how many people  actually purchased health care insurance through the exchange, only those who made applications, which one must complete just to find out what are the different plans and rates. Some independent sources have tagged the number of Americans who have purchased insurance through the federal government exchange at about sixty thousand, that is a cost of just over ten thousand per "customer", a return on investment that would bankrupt any business in the private sector.
     The administration made excuses for the site "glitches" at first by saying it was overwhelmed with visitors, 8 million in the first days of operation. But sites like Amazon.com have 70 million visitors or more without major meltdowns like the one seen on healthcare.gov. The spectacular failure of the government's 620 million dollar website is a harbinger of what Americans can expect from a health care industry that has been transformed into a system by politicians and bureaucrats. And the future of health care for Americans will not only see a squandering of their hard-earned tax dollars, but their health, lives, individual liberty, and the very founding principles of this great nation.

Rules For ObamaCare Radicals

     I am an ObamaCare radical, or better put, an ObamaCare dissident. To borrow a sentiment from Patrick Henry in paraphrase, "Give me free market health care or give me death!" Radical is not a term that I self-apply, but a label that is given to anyone in modern America who believes in the free market principles that men like Patrick Henry fought the most powerful military in the world at the time, just to have the freedom to practice. And while many may subdue their patriot spirits that yearn to be free with acquiescence to bad law, my duty, respect, honor, and dedication is to the law of the Founders contained within the Constitution of the United States of America.
     The first rule for ObamaCare radicals is to mitigate one's need to place one's body in the medical system. This is done by engaging in good health habits, like proper nutrition and exercise. It also involves making choices that do not put one in dangerous or risky situations. This may seem obvious, but the less need there is for a service, the more freedom of choice the individual has over their circumstances.
     The second rule for ObamaCare radicals is never, under any circumstance, place your information into the ObamaCare exchanges. We are under no obligation to follow unconstitutional mandates from an overreaching federal government. We are, however, under an obligation to decency and morality to oppose corruption, whether it rears its ugly head in our personal lives or in the form of oppressive laws passed in the dark of night by a single tyrannical political party.
     The third rule for ObamaCare radicals is to elect persons to the United States Congress and Presidency that will see overturning ObamaCare as a mission worthy of the patriots respect and honor. Men like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee and others who have stood against the onslaught of tyranny's arrows, as well as from "friendly" fire, and, even though they may have lost a battle, their honor and integrity remains intact. The election to high office of people who see themselves as servants to the Constitution and not masters over those they govern, is essential to the continued prosperity, liberty, and advancement of this great nation.
     The fourth rule for ObamaCare radicals is to seek out black-market medical care, doctors that will serve for cash. Do not think that these persons will not exist, the American spirit of ingenuity and free market will burn, even in ember, no matter how hard tyrants in government try to extinguish it. It may be difficult to find these sources for health care delivery, but believe me they will exist to be found by those who believe in freedom of choice and liberty of the human spirit.
     Above all else, the ObamaCare radical needs to remain strong and dedicated to the goal of eradicating the health care oppression that has been imposed upon a free nation by those who seek to control it, subdue it, subordinate it, and fundamentally transform it. Finally, remember the words of Thomas Jefferson who wrote, "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance." Each generation has their resolve for liberty tested by those whose aim it is to take it away. The liberty of future generations depends on the resolve and the eternal vigilance of the current one.

Conventional Wisdom Values Politics Over Principle

     I purposely subjected myself yesterday to the blathering of moderates on the Right with their conventional wisdom that concluded since Republicants surrendered to Obama and Senate Democrats, that their initial strategy was somehow flawed. These scared mice masquerading as men have been predicting Republicant defeat all along, causing it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. And the thrust of their blame is not directed towards those who surrendered without a shot, but at Texas Senator Ted Cruz, who has been one of the very few warriors for liberty.
     Conventional wisdom said that the Cruz strategy had little chance of winning a political victory, so therefore, should have never been tried. These fools on the Right pushing this brand of conventional wisdom still do not understand what Ted Cruz and the conservative movement is all about. Since when is political victory more important than the very survival of the republic? Since when is political victory more important than taking up arms in the defense of liberty and freedom? Since when is political victory more important than the very lifeblood of this great nation, its founding documents and the principles and values contain within them? So are we as conservatives now expected to accept our representatives in Congress placing a higher value on politics than principles, just like the Democrat representatives?
     These conventional wisdomers who wish to hide and ignore their lack of courage to defend their principles have said that Cruz and the House Republicants' strategy was the wrong one. That it was politically ill-advised. Let me dispel this theory with facts. The American people were behind the Republicants and there were an ever-growing number of them that did not want any part of ObamaCare. President Obama's approval rating hit an all time low during the shutdown. Mr. Obama and the Senate Democrats were nervous that they were losing the battle and that is why, even though they said they would not, they were beginning to negotiate with Republicants. And instead of pushing the Democrats and the President into a hole and burying them, the Republicants let them up and got in the hole themselves. But the conventional wisdomers use polling data to determine strategy instead of reading the defense. It is analogous to a quarterback asking the fans in attendance what play he should run instead of reading the defense on the field and running a play he thinks will defeat them.
     I do not have much sympathy for those who believe in conventional wisdom in this situation, nor do I have any acrimony for them. Conventional wisdom is a salve used to soothe those who do not posses the courage of their convictions. These folks on the Right want to be assured that before they defend conservative principles that they will score a political victory. George Washington did not know if he was going to win the American Revolution, but he still fought it because he believed its principles were worth fighting for, win or lose. I have a little news for the conventional wisdomers on the Right. When the dust clears, and the future is looking for strong leadership, it will be men like Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, et al that will be hoisted into the halls of the people's trust over the lifeless political bodies of men like John McCain, John Boehner and others who placed a greater value on politics than principle.
      
    

Animal Farm Congress

     In the final scene of George Orwell's novel, Animal Farm, the pigs are having dinner with the humans inside the farm house as the other animals stand outside and look in through the windows. The pigs, as you remember, had become the elite ruling class on the farm after the animal revolution which banished the humans. In this final scene, the animals standing outside realize that they can no longer tell the pigs from the humans. I was reminded of this scene as I watched Republicants like John McCain, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and others give up the cause of liberty and join Democrats in passing a spending and debt limit bill that betrayed the American people, and the conservative principles which formed the basis of this great republic.    
     The Senate bill, written by Majority Leader Harry Reid extends government spending into next year, along with the debt limit. Once again the Democrats have succeeded in kicking the can down the road with the support of their trained Republicant monkeys in the House and Senate leadership positions. But beyond the disposition of John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and other Republicants who have not distinguished themselves from Democrats, are the questions that remain. The question of where do conservatives go for representation in congress? And where do the American people go for relief from the onslaught of Socialism that seems to be the all-consuming mission of the modern Democrat party? Furthermore, why did the Republicants cry uncle when they had the Democrats in a full Nelson and were winning the battle everywhere except inside the Washington beltway? And finally, why did the Republicants join this lawless administration in a clear violation of the United States Constitution, which requires all spending bills to originate in the House of Representatives, not the Senate as this one did?
     I really thought that this time, just maybe, the apparent backbone that Republicant congressional leadership was showing was not vapor that would disappear in the slightest wind. I felt that someone was finally standing up for the American people against the thuggery and tyranny of this administration and the Democrat party in the United States Congress. I was foolish enough to believe that the enormity and seriousness of the dire circumstance in which this country finds itself after five years of a President whose goal was to "fundamentally transform America," had dawned in the dimly lighted minds of congressional Republicants. Now I just feel like those animals on the farm, looking in through the windows, and not being able to tell the Republicants from the Democrats.

The Inherent Unhappiness Of Leftism

     Ask just about anyone you meet and they will say that they want to be happy. It is such a driving force in the human condition, that some will try to attain it through acquiring material things, and some even by subjecting themselves to the counter-happiness behavior inherent in drug and alcohol abuse. The concept of happiness was so important to the Founders of this great nation that they gave prominence to its pursuit in the United States Constitution. But with all the talk of happiness, its constant companion, appreciation, is conspicuously missing from many persons' quest for this seemingly fleeting of all states of the human mind and heart.
     I have discovered throughout my life that the happiest people are those that are appreciative of life, even if it offers them only meager blessings. There is very little doubt that one can be happy without appreciation, it is the spirit that inspires the choices and decisions that lead to the very inner sanctum of happiness. The engagement of good decisions based on the core values of righteousness taught through time, may not always lead to material wealth, but it will lead one to happiness.
     The fact that Conservatives have been found to be happier than those on the Left in several studies, is no surprise. The Leftist ideology engenders unhappiness by its core belief and teaching that others who have more material wealth are to be despised and the target of government confiscation of that wealth. Leftism does not value appreciation but envy and jealousy, which will lead no one to a happier life.
     Happiness is a function of having control over one's life and making decisions that lead to more independence, Leftism teaches just the opposite. In the Leftist world, dependence on government is a sacrament bestowed upon the practitioners of the faith almost from birth. The more dependence one has on anyone or anything, the less self-worth they feel and happiness will allude them. This is why the Leftist ideology is so destructive, it "rewards" bad behavior and wisdom-less choices with crumbs leftover from government-confiscated tax dollars, thereby stealing the individuals ambition, desire, and in the end, their self-worth.
     Happiness dos not come from other people's money or even material things purchased with one's own money. Happiness is created from a sense of well being that can only exist as a result of a morally balanced life whose choices and decisions have lead the individual to real accomplishments and inner satisfaction. Development and feeding of the human spirit is essential to happiness and is anathema to the Leftist ideology because it fosters responsibility, self-reliance, and independence. Our Founders knew that a people pursuing their own happiness would make better citizens and create opportunities for others to secure their happiness. And a happy nation would be more prosperous and advance the cause of liberty and freedom not only at home, but throughout the world.   

The "Pale Pastels" Of The Republicant Party

     In order to maintain my optimism and not be driven completely insane, I must believe that history will one day convict the modern Democrat party for its outright lies, deceit, manipulations, and corruption. They have spent the better part of the last half century implementing Bill Ayres' strategy of infiltrating the schools and inculcating their young and impressionable audience with their Leftist ideology born of half-truths, misdirection, and downright deceit. These "students" now populate not only the main stream media, but business, entertainment, and even religion. And in their positions of power and influence, the students advance the agenda of their Svengali teachers who now control the reins of government.
     The latest in a long line of Democrat lies sold to a deliberately dis-informed public is that Republicants are responsible for the partial shutdown of the federal government. According to some polling, a majority of Americans actually have dismissed their own experience and good sense to believe the Democrat lie. Do these Americans not remember that it was Democrats and President Obama who first proffered the concept of a government shutdown before the first salvo of negotiations was even shot across their bow? And with each succeeding compromise offered by Republicants, the President and the Democrats became more entrenched in the position that they would rather see the government shutdown than even talk to Republicants in good faith.
      But it appears, if the polling is to be believed, that too many voters believed that it was Republicants who were being unreasonable and forcing a government shutdown. These same voters also must not be aware that the Republicant-lead House of Representatives sent over a dozen bills to the Senate to fund the areas of the government which were shuttered as a result of the partial shutdown contrived by Democrats. These funding bills, for what Democrats called "essential functions of government", were rejected by the Democrat-controlled Senate. And now the Democrats and President Obama have been able to convince a sizable segment of the voters that if they are not given the authority to borrow and spend as much as they want, the U.S. economy and the world economy will collapse.
     Many on the Right would say that Democrats have been able to convert their lies to truth in the minds of many Americans because of the assistance they receive from a main stream media that lost any remnants of journalistic integrity decades ago. But as much as that is a problem, those on the right have drifted through those same decades being complacent, scared, and dismissive. Republicant politicians have accepted many of the premises of the Left, and only argued about degrees of policy to address them. It has been Republicants abandoning their principles which allows the Left to convince Americans that they are something they are not. If an individual, group, or political ideology does not define itself in what Ronald Reagan called "bold colors and not pale pastels," then someone else will.
     Since many decades have passed in which Republicants have been unwilling to distinguish themselves from Democrats with "bold colors," they have been defined by Democrats as a pastel version of the Left. The Democrats on the other hand have been able to characterize themselves as having been "boldly colored" with principle, only that principle is one of more government and less citizen. It is essential to the survival of individual liberty for those on the Right to define themselves with Reagan's "bold colors" and instill in Americans the desire to make those bold colors resident in their hearts, minds, and lives.
    

    
    

Successful Strategy Or Biggest Blunder ?

      Whether President Obama or Republicants get blamed for the partial shutdown of the federal government remains to be seen. But one positive outcome for the President can already be attributed to the shutdown, it has distracted the American public from the embarrassment that is the Obama administration's foreign policy blunders in the Middle East in general and Syria specifically. The Obama shutdown has almost completely erased Syria as an issue from the public discourse in this country, at least as it relates to the main stream media.
     It is hard to believe that it was less than two months ago that Bashar Al Assad was accused of the most heinous and despicable crime of using poisonous gas on his own people in a suburb outside Damascus, killing over a thousand people. At the time, Mr. Assad was roundly accused by the "world community" of being a monster, even though in the two years prior to the August 21st attack he was responsible for over one hundred thousand deaths of his countrymen. But those deaths by conventional weapons did not seem to trouble the world community or our very own president. In fact, President Obama drew his "red line", not at the slaughter of innocent men, women and children in the tens of thousands, but at the use of chemical weapons. This "red line", if crossed, would necessitate U.S. military involvement in the conflict.  
     After Bashar Al Assad boldly leaped over the "red line" and landed squarely on President Obama's words, it appeared the Syrian leader's days were indeed numbered. Mr. Obama and the rest of the intellectual elites at the United Nations maintained that Bashar must be punished by being removed as Syria's ruler. Then the Russians rescued both Bashar Al Assad as the Syrian people's chief tormentor and Barack Obama's impotence as a "red line" enforcer. This Russian "help" transformed Bashar Al Assad from murderous tyrant to the world's lead diplomat in ridding it of chemical weapons. And the United States and its President have been relegated to spectator of world events instead of a major participant in shaping them.
     If Bashar Al Assad ordered the use of chemical weapons by his military on August 21st, it was a brilliant strategy to involve the Russians in negotiating the destruction of those weapons, thereby distracting the "world community" from removing him as Syria's leader. If the Al Qaeda-lead rebels used the chemical weapons to put the final "red" nail in the coffin of Bashar Al Assad, they committed one of the biggest blunders in history. For the "red line", far from being a swan song for the Assad regime has been its triumphant march to securing the leadership of Syria and a more influential hand in the Middle East. 
    

Will Republicants Snatch Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory ?

     Two mutually exclusive data bits have existed this week in tandem with each other, allowing the main stream media and the Democrats to deny the existence of one and commit to stone the other. The two bits of data are that the American public overwhelmingly blames Republicants for the partial shutdown of the federal government, and Barack Obama's approval rating is at its lowest point, thirty seven percent, since his term as president commenced almost five years ago. Of course anyone who understands statistics knows these two "facts" can not both be true. Especially since the President's approval rating has seen a four percentage point drop since the "shutdown" began, twelve days ago.
     I am going to go out on the proverbial limb and say that the latter statistic, the President's plummeting approval rating, is the accurate one. I do not say this for partisan reasons, although it makes the partisan in me satisfied to see the American people finally waking up to the Obama train wreck presidency, but because of President Obama's reaction in the last two days. He has softened his "I will not talk until the Republicants surrender unconditionally to the power that is me" stance, and met with Speaker Boehner and other Republicant leaders on Thursday at the White House. And although there was no outcome from the meeting other than the meeting itself, it is a sign that the White House's internal polling may be showing that they are losing the shutdown battle in the minds of the voters.
     My previous analysis not withstanding, I am not foolish enough to ever under estimate the ability of John Boehner and House Republicants to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. And these "negotiations" with Mr. Obama may be a well disguised surrender plan by Republicants. I will consider it so if the debt limit ceiling is increased, even for six weeks, with only a promise from President Obama to negotiate on the other issues at some time in the future. Because as we all know, and the Speaker should be painfully aware, the President will conveniently lose his tongue to talk about anything once he is allowed to take the country further into debt.
     The idea that the United States would default on its financial obligations if the debt limit is not increased is a fallacy that even one of the largest credit ratings agencies in the world, Moody's, dispelled this week in the Wall Street Journal. The federal government confiscates 230 billion dollars in taxes from the private economy every month, the interest on the outstanding debt is 18 billion dollars a month. I am not quite sure how anyone can create a default out of that situation, unless Barrack Obama deliberately decides not to pay the interest on the nation's debt, almost half of which he is responsible for in the last five years. These are indeed perilous times in which we live, made even more so by a President who is hell bent on burying future generations of Americans under a mountain of debt, and an opposition party that appears not to fully understand the meaning of that term.

A Nation Built Upon Primacy Of Conscience

     Sometime during the last 60 years, or maybe better put as, progressively during the last 60 years, Democrats diverged from Republicants in so much as they no longer supported the premise of the United States Constitution. There were always policy differences and implementation of policy issues, but both parties use to agree on the founding principles of the republic which were delivered through the ages by the wisdom of what was the Founders' words. But the modern day Democrat party has been hi-jacked by Leftists, and the well-intentioned members of what was once an honorable party, have been driven out or silenced by intimidation and fear.
     The premise of the United States Constitution, as well as the other founding documents of this great country, is the primacy of conscience. The Founding Fathers created a form of government that respected above all else the individuals religious, political, and economic conscience. This primacy of conscience was what drove individuals, not government, to create the greatest country in the history of mankind, a country which by far advanced the human condition more than any other through the ages. This idea of primacy of conscience allowed the citizens of this country to thrive religiously, politically, and economically like no other in the history of man. The Framers of the Constitution knew that if respect for the citizens' conscience was held prime above all else, the country could flourish in ways that even they could not foresee.
     This ability for Americans to live as their conscience instructed them has been under assault from the corrupt and oppressive ideology of Leftism. The driving force of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. specifically, and the civil rights movement in general, was religious conscience that rehabilitated the political conscience of a nation to align it with its founding principles. This is why the Left tries to revise not only the history of the civil rights movement, but the very religious nature of Reverend King by, among other things, insisting on calling him Doctor King and sanitizing his persona of his religious identity.
     Today, the religious primacy of conscience has been attacked by courts that require photographers and wedding chapels who do not subjugate their moral beliefs to those of the radical gay rights agenda, to do so or face severe penalties. This assault on religious primacy is also in evidence with ObamaCare, requiring religious institutions to provide health care insurance that covers things they are morally opposed to such as birth control and abortions. The Left is so bold as to violate federal law by allowing health care premiums from the ObamaCare exchanges to be used to pay for abortions.
     We have seen the effects of political primacy of conscience being violated by the Obama administration with the use of the Internal Revenue Service to silence political opposition to his radical agenda. The violation of primacy of conscience is in evidence almost on a daily basis by the Obama administration with everything from using IRS audits of those who speak out against them like Doctor Ben Carson, to trying to force military chaplains to perform gay marriages. If the Left can succeed in eliminating primacy of conscience for individuals and replace it with the conscienceless primacy of government, liberty and prosperity will fail to inhabit the future of this country and forever be relegated as quaint relics of this nation's great past.

The ObamaCare Conscientious Objectors Are Wrong

     A theory being proffered by some on the Right who do not have the courage to fight an all out war against the tyranny of ObamaCare, is that it should be allowed to be fully implemented. Once it is fully implemented, the theory goes, it will be such a huge disaster that it will collapse of its own weight. This is what I call, "The Naïve ObamaCare Conscientious Objector Theory." One will find naïve ObamaCare conscientious objectors in the United States Congress, as well as in conservative talk radio and print media. Along with their inability to muster the courage to defend liberty, is a desire to disparage anyone who does, such as Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, et al.
     The naïve ObamaCare conscientious objectors are wrong for two reasons, the inability of the Left to judge their policies by results and the intended goal of ObamaCare. I have been initiated in politics long enough to understand that whether it is a Leftist individual or policy, results are never evaluated, only intentions. And since the publicly stated intentions of ObamaCare are to provide uninsured patients with medical insurance and generally make health insurance more affordable for everyone, it does not matter if it fails to live up to its billing. It was initiated with good intentions by Leftists, who everyone knows care more than those on the Right, and so therefore it does not matter if it falls completely short of living up to even the most meager of expectations.
     The second reason that the naïve ObamaCare conscientious objectors are wrong is that failure of the law as written is the intended outcome for the law created by President Obama and his congressional health care thugs. Chaos is the cornerstone of every successful Leftist because it mitigates the growth of liberty and necessitates the almost limitless expansion of the central government. What better way to do this than to destroy the private health care insurance industry with a choking amount of new regulations under a law that allows the federal government to compel individuals to purchase health care insurance, and with mandated fees for that insurance which will drive private health insurers out of business. Once this occurs, it will be necessary, in the Leftist view, for government to institute a single-payer, government-run health care system to replace the greatest health care industry in the world.
     So as many on the Right are pointing to the recent disaster of the launch of the ObamaCare exchanges on October 1 as evidence that government can not manage something as large and complex as the United States health care industry, Mr. Obama sits smiling. He sees the health care exchange debacle as one more step towards a single-payer, government-run system that will place almost unlimited power in the hands of the ruling class and their bureaucrats. An unfeeling system that will be bereft of compassion for Americans who will have little choice in how they live their lives because an overreaching government will not only be in their homes, but their very physical beings as well. If the naïve ObamaCare conscientious objectors have their way, it will not be ObamaCare that collapses of its own weight, but the very edifice of individual liberty.

Who Is Winning The Shutdown Battle ?

     The feared partial shutdown of the federal government that is in its second week has not turned out to be the disaster for Republicants that the establishment GOP and some in talk radio tried to say it would be when it was just a glimmer in Barack Obama's eye. At least up until this point in its second week, the polling shows that Republicants are not losing the battle of the shutdown, in fact, in some surveys, they are actually gaining ground on the Democrats as the party that is trying to resolve the stalemate.
     But for some scared little rabbits on the Right, like radio movie critic and self-proclaimed Conservative, Michael Medved, the shutdown is analogous to the Goldwater loss in the 1964 presidential election. Mr. Medved actually whined for weeks before the event that Republicants would be slitting their own throats if they engaged in such reckless behavior as standing on their principles. Even after the shutdown occurred, it was Mr. Medved who suggested that Republicants find a "gracious way to lose." And that statement, in a nut shell, is what is wrong with the moderate and establishment influence on the party of Lincoln and Reagan.
     Had John Boehner and the Republicants in the House stood against the oppressiveness of President Obama and Senate Democrats and done nothing after the shutdown, I would agree that it would not have gone well for them. It still may not, but their strategy of sending individual funding bills to the Senate for various functions of government, and letting the Democrats own the shutdown lock, stock and barrel, is the best strategy for success. And the bill passed by the House last weekend to authorize back pay for federal workers after the shutdown ends, was a stroke of brilliance. If Harry Reid and the Democrats in the Senate refuse to take up the bill, they will be pilloried by the federal workers and their unions. If they pass the bill, the American people will wonder why back pay for federal workers is more important than Veterans Affairs, National Institute of Health, Parks and Monuments, Federal Emergency Management, Defense and Homeland Intelligence, and other government functions that the House has chosen to fund but the Democrat-controlled Senate has not.
     President Obama called congressional leaders to the White House last week just to say that he was not going to negotiate. This week, he called John Boehner to say the same thing and to tell the Speaker that he, the President, would accept nothing less than complete surrender from the Republicants. One does not keep telling one's opponent that he is unwilling to negotiate if he thinks he is winning. And President Obama's behavior is analogous to a child holding his breath to get what he wants, and seeing that his parents are not giving into his demands, he then threatens to run away from home. President Obama is not threatening to run away from home, unfortunately, but his insistence that he will not negotiate with John Boehner and the Republicants is just as empty a threat. And it signals his growing concern that the Republicants are winning the battle for the minds and hearts of the American people when it comes to assigning blame for the shutdown. This battle is the Republicants to win or lose, stand on principle and keep sending funding bills to the Democrat-controlled Senate to ignore, or get weak in the knees and give President Obama the surrender he wants but to which he is not entitled.

The Results Of Barack Obama's Success

     The deafening roar of silence from the main stream media and other Leftist sources in our culture on the new survey information from their government that shows the Obama "recovery" as the first one in recorded economic history to feature a precipitous drop in personal income, is not surprising. It is also not surprising that these same sycophants of Barack Obama have ignored the largest chasm ever between the rich and the poor, that is also part of the same report. After all, this is the same media, et al, that tried to convince the American public that the economic sky was falling during most of the George W. Bush administration when unemployment was under five percent and Gross Domestic Product growth was well over three percent.
     It is no stretch of the nation's collective imagination to say that Barack Obama's fiscal policies have been an abject failure, if one defines success as strong economic growth, a higher work force participation rate companioned with a low unemployment rate, and an increase in the wealth and prosperity of the nation. It would take a deliberately obtuse American to deny that President Obama's strategy to date has been to manage the economic and foreign policy decline of the United States. His statement shortly after taking office that he sought to "even out" the economy and the markets so there would not be highs or lows, is evidence enough. But his recent comments to the markets that the partial shutdown of the federal government was going to be long and protracted, and that the markets should not expect a resolution any time soon, sounded as though it was purposely meant to have a deleterious effect on those markets.
     During every other government shutdown in recent history, whomever was President has worked with the opposition party on a daily basis to tamp down the flames of partisan rhetoric and find a resolution. President Obama appears to be needling his opposition as he refuses to meet with them, adding fuel to an already destructive inferno. All to protect his disastrous signature legislation, ObamaCare. If the President was being honest about wanting to lower unemployment and make the middle class more prosperous, he would pay heed to the realities of outcomes associated with his government take-over of the health care industry. Even the Congressional Budget Office has predicted a loss of jobs and a skyrocketing of premiums for Americans and, at last accounting, a tripling of the original cost to taxpayers than was estimated when the beast was passed into law three and a half years ago.
     I think it is time for those Americans who still support this President, or are inclined to believe that he is just incompetent, to face the truth about Barack Obama that many of us have known for at least five years, i.e., he has deliberate intent to redistribute America's wealth and influence and manage her decline. Those on the Left and the Right who savaged Rush Limbaugh shortly after Barack Obama was elected for saying that he hoped the new President would fail, are now seeing the results of Obama success. It is a future of chronically high unemployment, economic growth suffocated by the growth of government, a lawless executive that chooses which laws are obeyed and which are not, and worst of all, liberty in chains waling at the gates of tyranny begging to be released from her servitude to the usurper of constitutional freedom.
    
    
    

The Loss Of U.S. Influence-The Real Obama Legacy

     The partial shutdown of the federal government which commenced last week and will last until President Obama and congressional Democrats decide it is no longer to their political advantage to continue, has unfortunately distracted the American attention and focus away from potentially devastating world events. And while the petulance of Barack Obama is unfortunately the driving force that animates this administration and therefore governs this country, it has also created abandoned global allies and embolden world enemies.
     A glaring case in point is Israel, our only real ally in the Middle East, and one of the United States' best friends in the world. This island of democracy and decency is surrounded by those who wish to destroy her and banish her to the ash heap of history. The reprobate theocracy of Iran, which was facilitated into existence by Jimmy Carter in 1979, has now sprouted and grown into a full-fledged world menace, and an especially dangerous menace to Israel, who Iran has vowed to "wipe off the face of the map." This menace to the moral ethicacy of the human condition has been legitimized, not only by the United Nations, which one would expect, but by the current United States president, Barack Hussein Obama.
     At the recent United Nations General Assembly, Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, gave warning to Iran that Israel will act to prevent their possession of nuclear weapons, and gave notice to the United States that he did not trust the current leadership to do the right thing in Iran specifically and the Middle East in general. This lack of confidence in America from a friend and ally like Israel is not just a difference of opinion between the leaders of these two great nations, but a divergence of the moral ethos which guides all decent nations of the world. It is also a signal that the United States, at least under the leadership of President Obama, has relegated its authority to be a force for good in the world, to meaningless and impotent words of the increasingly liberty-challenged United Nations.
     I have every confidence that Israel, under the leadership of Prime Minister Netanyahu, will be victorious in foiling the profane plans and schemes of Iran. I am not as confident that the United States will be an active participant in that victory, choosing instead under the current leadership to huddle in the comfort of their rabble-rousing domestic community organizing. This loss of ability to influence world events for the good is not only a great loss to the United States, but to the future history of real peace, real justice and real liberty for all the peoples of the world.

Do You Want Some Cheese With That Whine ?

     Of all the drama that played out this week amidst the partial shutdown of the federal government, the thing that stuck in my crawl the most was not related to the politicians in Washington. It was not the fact that Senator Harry Reid placed furloughed federal workers in his state above children with cancer. Nor was it President Obama calling Congressional leaders to the White House, not to engage in a good faith effort to end the stalemate, but to reinforce his public statements that he will get his way or else. The troublesome thing about this week was not even that President Obama sent seven armed guards to the World War II memorial to keep out veterans of that war, two more than he sent to Benghazi to protect our ambassador and embassy personnel, as Rand Paul so aptly pointed out. And even the fact that House Republicants have tried to fund various aspects of the federal government, but have been ignored by Harry Reid and the Democrat-controlled Senate, did not bother me as much as a five second sound byte I heard on my local news.
     The sound byte in question has a furloughed federal worker lamenting the fact that after only two days without his salary, his mortgage is at risk of not being paid. I was incredulous that after only 48 hours without pay this federal worker, who on average receives twice the salary that his counterparts in the private sector receive, would not be able to meet his financial obligations. This gentleman's statement is illustrative of the government and union mentality that they are entitled to their salary and benefits simply for breathing. And that compensation should never stop no matter how hard the taxpayers in the private sector have to work to fund them. Apparently these federal workers never heard the old adage, "save for a rainy day." Well once again the rain has come for someone of privilege who works for the government and they expect someone else to foot the bill or have sympathy for them.
     This unwillingness of many Americans to forgo the independent spirit which built this country and made it great, has lead us to the brink of the tyranny of government dependence. It is the main reason, I believe, that Barack Obama has been elected President of the United States twice. The desire to be taken care of is exemplified by government and union workers, but it has spread throughout the general population like a highly communicable disease. The disease overtakes the common sense that financial planners talk themselves blue in the face trying to impart to financially irresponsible Americans. Common sense that says one should save a percentage of each paycheck at least until they have two years expenses in the bank. There is no reason that most workers in this country  should be at risk of not paying their mortgage after only two days without pay, or even two months without pay.
     The furloughed federal worker I heard on the radio is endemic of a larger problem in our society, and what has lead to the government take-over of health care and the growth of the welfare state in general, the unwillingness of people to help themselves by engaging in good decision-making. This furloughed worker's mortgage is at risk after only two days without pay, not because of the partial shutdown of the federal government, but because of his decision not to save. And the only thing worse than listening to people whine about the negative results of their own choices, is their insistence that they be provided with some cheese to compliment their whine. Because, of course, that cheese will most likely be government cheese provided by the hard work of the tax payers of this great country.

The Second Sacrament Of The Modern Left

     The first sacrament of the modern Left is abortion, they would sooner sell Ronald Reagan posters at a Republicant convention than allow facts to enter the abortion debate that may lead to a hardening of opposition to it. The second sacrament of the modern Left is health care, the government-run kind being the hopes, dreams and aspirations of Leftists since the modern era of progressivism began a hundred years ago. The religiosity that the Left has injected into the commodity of health care which has transformed it into a human right, has also made religious zealots of many Democrats and the President.
     This religious zeal has been on full display lately as Mr. Obama and his flock have tried to rhetorically stone anyone who suggests that the law should be re-worked, or at least slowed down. But to these zealots, Congress' Constitutional authority to amend ObamaCare has been subjugated to the only authority they deem worthy enough to do so, the high priest of health care, Barack Hussein Obama. The watered down compromise by House Republicants to delay ObamaCare implementation took its lead from what President Obama had already done with his proclamation that the employer mandate would be delayed and that 2500 of his closest supporter and donor businesses and organizations would receive a waver from the destructive law that bears his name. He also summarily deemed that the United States Congress would not be subject to the full wrath of the law.
     The slavishly religious devotion to his ideology over politics and governance makes President Obama unique among other Presidents. Every other president, whether they were Republicant or Democrat, has always at least paid lip service to negotiating in good faith with congressional opposition on policy and budgetary issues. Mr. Obama is the first president to publicly state that he refused to negotiate, and even further, said he did not have to offer anything to Republicants in exchange for their cooperation in steamrolling the American public with his oppressive policies.
     The Democrats keep telling Republicants that ObamaCare is the law of the land and they have to accept it. Well thank God that the people of 19th century America did not feel that way about the Dredd Scott decision, or we may still have slavery in our midst. The founders placed specific mechanisms in the Constitution to amend bad laws and repeal even worse ones if they were beyond the bounds of what is constitutionally acceptable. But not even the greatest document ever conceived by the minds of men, the United States Constitution, has any sway over the wild-eyed health care zealots that occupy positions of power in the Democrat party and the federal government. And this fact is to the detriment of that constitution, the great people of the United States of America, and to the very cause of liberty itself.    

Good Strategy, Bad Execution

     The strategy of House Republicants during this partial shutdown of the federal government of passing individual funding measures, each addressing whichever federal department or program the Democrats are demagoguing that day, is a good one. It has, however, illustrated two character flaws, one on the Left and one on the Right. If this partial shutdown of the federal government can achieve anything at all, shedding a light on the folly that is Leftist ideology and the child-like thinking of Republicants, would be two outcomes that would go a long way to improving, not only the federal government, but the voters' perception of it.
     The House Democrats, in rejecting the funding of Veterans Affairs and National Parks, said that it was unfair for Republicants to make them choose between federal programs to be funded. This statement is illustrative of one of the greatest tyrannies of Leftism, the spending of other peoples' money to fund programs that perpetuate and augment the authority of those in the ruling class. It does not even occur to these Democrats that every responsible individual, family, business, community, state and yes, even country, has to make financial choices based on priority. Most entities following a budget do not have the luxury of unlimited funds to indulge every one of their child-like whims and fantasies. The Democrats' statement exemplifies how they look at the federal government as a big ATM machine that is forcibly funded with tax payers' money which is then used to pay off their political supporters and donors.
     The House Republicants' weakness was best illustrated by Congressman Mick Mulvaney in an interview I heard Wednesday morning. He said, in answer to a question about Republicants' messaging being flaccid and weak, that when you are doing the right thing, people will find out. This has been a problem with the Republicant party for as many years as I can remember. They think that right makes might, but the Democrats political might springs from the essence of what Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels said, "Lie big and lie often."
     This inability or unwillingness of Republicants to market their ideas to the public causes their good strategies, like the current one of passing individual funding bills, to be nullified by poor execution. Another example of this Republicant weakness is when ObamaCare was passed into law using the legal but inappropriately unconstitutional process of reconciliation. A process used only for budgetary measures that have bi-partisan support. But the Republicants allowed Democrats to violate the very spirit of the Constitution instead of educating the public with a marketing campaign that pointed out that a major piece of legislation like ObamaCare, which allows the federal government to commandeer 17% of the private economy, was unconstitutionally made law with one-party support in violation of the rules of good and decent lawmaking.
     No one quite knows how and when the current standoff is going to end. But one thing is clear, Democrats will continue to lead the country on a death march towards the Leftist cliff of an ever increasing tyranny because Republicants, while well intentioned, are all the same incapable of making the case for liberty to the American people.
    
    

The Born Again Republic

     Now that we have traversed day one of a partial shutdown of the federal government, with the United States Congress having seen fit to fund the essential functions of that government, the true nature of a representative and constitutional government is abundantly illuminated. That nature is defined and completed by the term "essential," because after all, those are the only functions the founders saw for the central government, whose power they severely limited in favor of giving that authority to the people and the states in which they resided. So this is not so much a government shutdown as it is a born again republic.
      I would like to see the 800,000 federal workers who were furloughed as a result of this born again republic, be permanently furloughed. Now before you accuse me of being heartless to the plight of those people losing their jobs, let me explain. The so-called "non-essential" functions of the federal government are those things which the government does that either restricts private sector growth or gives large swaths of power to unelected union bosses and bureaucrats. With the federal government restricted by a lack of funding, they would no longer be able to stick their greedy little fingers in every aspect of our lives, communities and businesses. Those 800,000 federal workers would have no problem finding work in the burgeoning private sector economy that would result.
     It may take some time for those federal workers and others to heal from their unhealthy dependence on big government and unbridled union influence, but in the long run, they and the nation would be healthier for it. They would have to learn to fend for themselves like the rest of us, e.g., pay for their own health care insurance, their own retirement accounts and work some holidays that they currently get paid for not working. And without those federal bureaucracies and their multi-billion dollar budgets, politicians would have to learn to live with much less control over the lives of individuals, businesses and the country as a whole. The crony capitalists would also have to conduct their business without favors from government largess created by the politicians who hand it out in exchange for campaign donations.
     Yesterday's spectacular failure of the online registration system for ObamaCare was illustrative of what results from government straying outside the bounds of the essential functions that the founders outlined for it almost 240 years ago. Even the national parks, which have become more and more off-limits to the very tax payers who support them, could be maintained and preserved by private sector organizations and donations. The born again republic, which is glimpsed by this partial shutdown of the federal government, would make the founders smile and the rest of us enjoy the kind of liberty that they intended for this great nation.

To Delay Or Not To Delay?

     The Republicant majority in the House of Representatives may not have to concern themselves with whether or not they should allow John Boehner to continue as Speaker of the House. The voters in next November's mid-term election may remove him by virtue of placing the Democrats in the majority of the House, thus we may see Nancy Pelosi as speaker again. The current continuing resolution fight and its corollary issue of what to do about ObamaCare, is scarily reminiscent of the 2011 debt limit increase fight, where Democrats stood back and watched as John Boehner and House Republicants negotiated with themselves until they had a deal that weakened them politically and left the Democrats and President Obama holding all the cards. Some have suggested that watering down the legislative opposition to ObamaCare with the delay tactic is analogous to getting half a loaf. But for Republicants and the nation, delay is not half a loaf, it is barely the crumbs from one slice of the loaf.
     The current contest between Republicants has had them in a race to comprise their principles so quickly, it resulted in going from repeal and replace to de-fund and disarm to delay and distribute, in a matter of months. Now that they have watered down their demands along with their principles, they are going to engage Democrats in negotiations, which may result in even less being achieved for the national good. But even if the Democrats have to settle for a delay, it could actually work out just as well, if not better, for them politically. The President and the Democrats may resist the deal to show how bi-partisan they are when they finally accept it. Make no mistake, they have orchestrated this beautifully. I could be wrong, and Republicants may cave after just a few hours or a few days of a government shutdown, and capitulate to the demands of the President and Senate Democrats, eliminating the need for delay. But it just appears to me that President Obama's rigid opposition to compromise will make him seem all the more magnanimous if and when he does.
     The myriad problems with ObamaCare have been well chronicled for the three and half years since it became law. The mountains of new regulations that have forced insurance companies out of the health care insurance business and doctors and other health care professionals away from practicing medicine, have already had a deleterious effect on Americans' health care. And now with employers being given a pass by the President on providing their employees with health insurance, more companies will find it necessary to kick their workers off the company plan that, because of ObamaCare, would bankrupt many of those companies if they kept them. Additionally, many companies have kept or reduced their payrolls under the fifty employee limit to avoid the law as well as converted full-time employees to part-time. The cost of health insurance premiums have skyrocketed in many markets as a direct result of ObamaCare and the medical device tax in the law has already caused a slow down in medical device innovation that will have an ever increasing negative effect on all our health care in the next twenty years.
     But all of these problems being blamed on the law are a moot point if it gets delayed. The problems will still be there, and probably will become much worse, but the President and the Democrats can and will make the case that the disasters in health care are the fault of Republicants and the free market. They will say it can not be the fault of the law, since those evil Republicants orchestrated its delay. This strategy will setup the Democrats nicely to take back control of the House and increase their margin in the Senate. And because the problems in health care will have grown exponentially because of the new law, which will not have been implemented, the American people will be screaming for relief and see the Democrats with their unimplemented health care law as a saving grace. In the final analysis, delay will only increase the need and likelihood for implementation not eliminate it.