What Would A Jeb Bush Candidacy Mean?

     Sometimes I really do not know why I bother to comment on the events of American modernity. Every day it seems as though the porthole of liberty becomes more and more encrusted with the limiting mineral deposits of Leftism. I expect Democrats and the rest of those on the Left to support, condone, and impose public policy that limits the individual while bestowing more authority to government. The sickness of an unlimited central government is exactly why the Founders of this great nation created the antibody to this virus called the U.S. Constitution.
     In recent years it appears that the Leftist virus of big government has become part and parcel to the modus operandi of the Republican Party. Jeb Bush, in announcing his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination for 2016 (in essence that is what empaneling an "Exploratory Committee" means), has proffered the strategy of running without actively pursuing the base of the Republican Party. In other words, Jeb Bush is going to run a campaign that ignores the concerns of the Tea Party and other conservatives in the Party, instead focusing on "moderates" and "independents."
     For a preview of how successful his campaign strategy may be, Jeb Bush only needs to study the 2012 presidential campaign of Mitt Romney. Governor Romney ran a campaign, directed by the Republican Party establishment, aimed at moderates and independents. He won big among that group over Barack Obama and still lost the election. Heaping even more evidence on the pile of proof that Republican consultants are living in an electoral politics bubble that is at least a decade behind the times.
     It is a bubble created by Democrats and voluntarily entered into by the Republican establishment and other Party moderates that says moderates, Hispanics, and independents (as if there are any) must be promised and cajoled into voting for the GOP, at the expense of the "radical" right wing of the Party. And what is it that the "radical" faction of the Republican Party like the Tea Party and others want from their representatives? Smaller government, minimal government spending, and a strict adherence to the Constitution.
     Not only have moderate Republicans become accomplices to the illegal acts of the Obama administration by rewarding unconstitutional behavior with funding for it through September of 2015, but they have also acquiesced to the Affordable Care Act. No one in the Republican Party, except for fringies like Ted Cruz and others, speak anymore about repealing ObamaCare. No, the moderate refrain is change the law to make it better. The moderates miss the point that it is unconstitutional for the federal government to wrap its rather muscular regulatory fingers around the throats of the health care industry and the American people.
     I have no doubt that the Republican establishment and its wealthy donors will ensure that Jeb Bush is the 2016 Republican presidential nominee. He will probably lose, but even if he is victorious, the cause of conservatism and constitutional government will be dealt another debilitating blow. And the American people will move ever closer to severely diluted citizenship as a result of open borders and amnesty, federal control of a larger chunk of not only health care but an ever increasing percentage of our free society, and the making irrelevant of the greatest document of freedom in the history of man.
         

The Ghost Of Calvin Coolidge

     Calvin Coolidge, the thirtieth president of the United States, was known by both his political allies and political foes as a man of principal. Whether those who worked with him, or in many cases against him, agreed with his economy and federalism or not, all understood clearly the principles he lived by, and by which he tried to govern a nation. The extent of his commitment to the founding principle of federalism was tested in the floods of 1927.
     Mississippi suffered a devastating flood and the affected area's representatives in congress tried to pressure President Coolidge into supplying federal monies to aid the stricken area. Coolidge and his administration had worked hard for years to trim the federal budget, which lead to lower spending when he left office than when he entered and a smaller national debt. A feat that has not been achieved again in the ensuing 85 years since Silent Cal left office.
     One Mississippi representative smugly stated that the president would surely open the spigot of federal dollars if his home state of Vermont had been the victim of nature's wrath. Later in the year that representative's supposition was tested when Vermont was inundated with flood waters that damaged whole towns and displaced hundreds of thousands of residents. True to his federalist beliefs, Calvin Coolidge did not open up the federal vault and start shoveling money to flood ravaged areas.
     Calvin Coolidge knew, as the Founders knew who proceeded him by 150 years, that once the federal government had the authority to distribute taxpayer dollars to special interests, even if those special interests were areas of the country affected by natural disasters, then the limiting factor written into the constitution meant nothing. Mr. Coolidge suffered the slings and arrows of myopic politicians of his day who wanted to garner the votes and adulation of their constituents using federal taxpayer money. It was this kind of myopia that would drag the United States into the inescapable cavern of debt in which we currently find ourselves.
     I was reminded of Calvin Coolidge's probity and adherence to his principles this week when House republicans showed just the opposite characteristics in passing a spending bill that will fund the federal government through September of 2015. A cowardly piece of budgetary legislation in which the issue of executive amnesty and the yoke of ObamaCare around the necks of the American people were absent without leave.
     Some defenders of Speaker Boehner and the rest of his support staff for the Obama agenda may point to the fact that Harry Reid and the Democrats still control the senate until the Republicans officially take control next month. That is true, but the Republican leadership in the House would not even allow the hint of standing on principle with their refusal to bring Representative Nick Mulvaney's amendment to the floor for a vote. An amendment that would send a strong signal to President Obama that this is still a nation of laws, laws created by the people's representatives in congress and enforced by the executive branch.
     I fear for our nation, not because of what a rouge president is doing to it, but because those who should be in opposition have become silly excuse machines that continually spew reasons why they can not achieve. Meanwhile the ghost of Calvin Coolidge haunts the corridors and alcoves of the capital and rattles the chains of moral rectitude and adherence to principles. Unfortunately there seems to be no one left with ears to hear, nor the courage to take up the challenges of true leadership.

Whites Not The Problem In Ferguson

     I have been a little out of the loop lately, having spent the last week settling into my new job. There is of course the inevitable getting use to a new system, new people, and new duties. As any regular reader of this blog knows, I have not written any commentary on the days' events for about a week. Much has happened in that week, as it does in every week. And while the coming Republican majority sounds more and more like that line out of that Bad Company song, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss," a city in Missouri burns encouraged by the President of the United States of America, the economy drags along, and Russia, Iran, China, et al thumb their collective noses at the United States and the "world community."
    In the few days since a Missouri grand jury, following the tenets of our legal system, decided there was not a scintilla of evidence to indict officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of street thug, Michael Brown, there have been hundreds of thousands of words written. So the ones I write here will be of no surprise to anyone. I have no startling revelations, or fresh perspectives to share. How could I? One either believes the legal system in this case succeeded honestly or failed miserably.
     President Obama's call for "calm" in the wake of the grand jury's decision was laced with dog whistles meant to be heard by the community agitators in Ferguson and elsewhere to, as he put it in the meeting he had with some of them the day after the mid-term elections, "stay the course." The President's intimation that this country still suffers from "a legacy of racism" is not only absurd, but is fuel to the fire of racial division being played out all over this country. It is a racial division not promulgated by the white community, but by the industry of race-baiters lead by Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and even the President himself.
     Barack Obama's racist rant about minority communities needing more police protection by officers that "reflect the community," because of the high crime rate in these areas, is an admission, if made by anyone on the Right, would be called racist. Besides, is it not racism to suggest that only black officers can properly, or should properly, police black communities? And, as President Obama further suggested, that the only way in which to improve police/community relations is for the police department to reflect the ethnic and racial makeup of the community in which they serve? If the problem in Ferguson Missouri was white police, why then were 80% of the shops looted and burned minority owned?
     "Understanding" people's rage over what they feel is an unjust decision by a legally and legitimately empanelled grand jury, is passive permission for more violence and more lawless behavior. It is a condition which George W. Bush called "the soft bigotry of low expectations." Many on the Right have bought into and suffered from this affliction, and the entire Left, including the Democrat Party, have spent the better part of the last fifty years lowering America's expectations for the black community, which has lead not only to the burning of Ferguson, but the unruly, unlawful, and uncivilized behavior by Michael Brown that caused his death and gave rise to racial opportunists to create more division, not less. 

Are We In A Constitutional Crisis? And Is That A Bad Thing?

     So now President Obama has taken unprecedented executive action to essentially grant legal status to millions of illegal aliens, in other words amnesty. And while those on the Left make a desperate attempt to justify the president's unconstitutional bestowment of authority upon himself that he does not have legitimately, those on the Right have vowed to stop him by using the Republican control of congress. Well, we shall see about that. My guess is that Republicans will pass a "comprehensive" immigration bill that the president will sign into law, essentially giving congressional enablement to the president's unconstitutional temper tantrum.
     I have previously written that the Republicans have already lost the immigration debate by accepting the Democrats position that the system is "broken" and a "comprehensive" solution is needed. My supposition is primarily supported by the fact that anytime one suggests a comprehensive government solution to anything, the resulting outcome is bigger government and smaller solutions. The executive action taken by President Obama last night was long on Leftist rhetoric but short on actual details about implementation.
     Some on the Right have decided to oppose the president's unconstitutional behavior by trying to convince the populace that it is the end of self rule under the guidelines of a representative republic that the Founders created. And while this president has taken extreme liberties with his authority granted under the constitution, it is not the first, and will surely not be the last time that a president stretches his authority to its breaking point. The nature of executive orders is as a constitutional power granted the president with few guidelines past the granting of a president being able to make such proclamations.
     Abraham Lincoln penned The Emancipation Proclamation without consent of congress, which freed all slaves residing in states that were in rebellion against the Union. I am by no means comparing President Lincoln's executive order to free slaves, to President Obama's to grant legal status to those residing in this country illegally. But to white slave owners in the South, President Lincoln's executive order, with its corollary outcome to free slaves being the destruction of an economic system based on the labor of those slaves, must have seemed as audacious and constitutionally unhinged as President Obama's executive order to issue amnesty to millions of illegal aliens appears to us today.
     Make no mistake, President Obama's executive action is unconstitutional because it usurps the constitutional power given to congress to make immigration law. It also does not follow the traditional purpose of executive orders, which is to support existing laws legitimately passed by congress. Be that it as it may, I do not believe that this executive order is the "End of our constitutional republic," as some on the Right have been lamenting. Since our inception as a nation we have been in constitutional crisis.
     Before those sanctified words were emblazoned on parchment which gave birth, not only to a new nation, but to a never-before-seen system of government, no one could have imagined the governed having the audacity to question the methods by which they were governed. As a nation we have been in a constant state of questioning the constitutionality of government actions. From John Adams signing into law the Alien and Sedition Act which jailed journalists for speaking out against the government, to Franklin Roosevelt interring Japanese-Americans during World War II, constitutional crisis has been the constant companion to Liberty and freedom. And that is not a bad thing, unconstitutional actions by any president are just guardrails on the road of self-governance that draw our attention back to the safety of the solid pavement of the constitution. 

The Left Summed In One Statement

    I heard a philosophy professor once say, "If you think all that matters is that your heart is in the right place, then your heart is not in the right place."  I am not sure of the professor's name, otherwise I would give him credit. Like most brilliant insights though, its brilliance is in its simplicity. As with any remarkable insight it can be applied to individuals as well as to a group of individuals, in the case of the professor's statement, to the entire Leftist ideology.
     The professor's insight sums up in one succinct statement the inherent weakness of a political philosophy based on emotion over critically thought out positions. It is an ideology that values intentions over results, collective failure over individual success, and pandering to human weakness as a substitute for inspiring human greatness. There is no greater a detriment to the human condition than the essence of the professor's summation.
     As a corollary to the professor's insight above is another such uttering by a classic philosopher that is exemplary of the same brilliance. I do not remember which philosopher said it but he stated, "Hope is the worse evil because it prolongs the torment of man." I have thought often about this statement over the last six years, as the man who was elected on the vague concept of hope has brought only torment to a nation.
     Which brings me full circle to the poisonous conclusion that if one's heart is in the right place, nothing else matters. Even if the action or public policy that results from that axiom destroys lives, instead of reinforcing them. Looking at every Leftist policy of the last half century or more, one can see the instrument of a heart in the right place using good intentions to sell misery wrapped in the colorful language of compassion. This has been exceptionally illustrated in the minority communities. George W. Bush called it the "soft bigotry of low expectations."
     Whether it is a political ideology infecting a nation with the wayward results of misplaced compassion, or it is an individual engaging in similar behavior by giving money to homeless alcoholics and drug addicts, the effect is the same. The benefactor feels a sense of moral superiority, and the beneficiary continues to suffer, sometimes even more so than before they were "helped" by those taking action as a result of their complete devotion to the premise that "their heart being in right place" is all that matters.
    
    

Becoming Your Own Worst Enemy

     The coarseness of our public debate has been augmented over the last couple of decades via social media and the Internet. It is an affliction that infects the Right as well as the Left. Which is an admission I never would have made prior to corresponding with those on the Right through Face Book in the last year or so. I mainly acquired a Face Book account, and friended like-minded people simply to drive traffic to this blog. But what I found was an odd assortment of the reasonable, the irrational, and the downright kooky.
     I can deal with the conspiracy theorists and delusional paranoids, after all they have some mental or emotional issues which leads them to such behavior. What I find hard to stomach are those who prosecute President Obama for being divisive using the most disgusting and discordant terms possible. They are the very embodiment of a line from a Bob Dylan song that states, "...fearing not I've become my worst enemy in the instant that I preach..." That pretty much sums up some on the Right who engage in the same behavior and rhetoric of which they accuse Barack Obama.
     I by no means am defending the president for his reckless abandonment of constitutional principles, or for his engenderment of warfare between disparate segments of the American population. But if I am to hold him, and others on the Left, to a higher standard, then it must also be applied to his political opponents. And many who I have met on Face Book have allowed themselves to be dragged down into the gutter of human debate by using the language of ideological barbarians.
     These political flame throwers do not only deny respect to anyone who disagrees with them, even those who may be mostly on their side of the political spectrum, but they fail to respect themselves by marginalizing their beliefs with a scatological thought process. True respect of one's own position comes from the belief that it is worth gaining converts to, not repelling potential converts with insult and invective. Some may say they are not trying to convince anyone, but they are keeping the choir "informed" and "motivated."
     There is no gain in preaching a poisonous sermon meant only to spread hatred of political opponents like the president, instead of developing a network of articulation against his policies. If defeat of President Obama is the goal of these "patriots," then respect for the office, even when there is none for the man in the office, is essential. For what does it benefit the constitution to use its charter of free speech to destroy its spirit of civility? For there is no love of the constitution nurtured by the churlish acrimony born of malice of heart instead of thoughtful reflection of the intellect.
     I hope that my brethren on the Right will take to heart what I have said. And if they truly wish to save the republic, they will do it with sagacious intellects, and not the dull tongue of brutish emotionalism. The greatness of the United States of America is in the tradition of thoughtfulness, not in outbursts of emotions that are the enemy of Liberty and the principles of self-government. 
    

How The Republicans Lost The Immigration Debate

     There was a day, though I can not tell you the exact date, that Republicans acquiesced to the Democrats in the debate over illegal immigration. That day was when the Republicans accepted, as they often do, the Democrats' premise that immigration reform was needed. Instead of the Republicans articulating the roots of their Party that reach deeply into the soil of law and order, they put that concept on the back burner and accepted the premise of a debate they could never win against Democrats.
     The Democrats were brilliant, or maybe the Republicans were just that stupid, in implementing their strategy to fill their voting rolls with a fresh supply of an underclass that would stay dependent on big government and vote for the purveyors of that big government, i.e. Democrats. During the last six years, the Obama administration has refused to execute immigration laws currently on the books, and when border states like Arizona tried to do it themselves, they were set upon by the brown shirt enforcement arm of the Obama administration; Eric Holder and the Justice Department.
     The refusal by the administration to enforce existing immigration laws created a border crisis exponentially greater than what had existed, and which could have been resolved with stricter enforcement of current laws and beefed up border security. This placed Republicans in the position of articulating how the system for dealing with illegal immigration was not "broken", or giving into the Democrats' premise of a crisis they deliberately created. The Republicans chose the latter, and from that day forward put themselves in a position that was going to be subservient to the Democrat position no matter what they did.
     The proof of this capitulation by congressional Republicans is the amnesty bill masquerading as a "comprehensive" immigration reform bill passed by the Senate last year, with Republican senators lining up to curry favor with the Hispanic voting bloc, and creating quite the pandering spectacle. As if their pandering, or all the pandering in the world, was going to drive Hispanic voters away from Democrats into the arms of Republicans. The presidential election of 2012 proved that even if that happened it would have to be to such a great extent as to be out of reach for Republicans simply by passing amnesty.
     According to Byron York of the Washington Examiner, Mitt Romney would have had to secure the votes of 73% of Hispanic community in order to have won the presidency. And this after having pandered to the all important "independent" vote, which he received the lion's share of and still lost. When are Republicans going to quit following the advice of Democrats for how they can win elections, and stand on their conservative principles which when articulated well always win?
     One thing is for sure, no matter what President Obama does with regards to executive amnesty, the Republicans lost this debate when they did not initially stand on the principle of law and order and demand that the federal government enforce its current immigration laws and build better border security. Instead they have accepted that the immigration system is "broken" and needs a big government solution that has its roots in amnesty, an idea pushed by Democrats for their own political advantage.

Glenn Beck's Convenient Letter

     I never liked people like Glenn Beck, you know the type, the smartass kid in the school yard who insists on possessing knowledge no one else has, even if it is not true, just so he can assert the subterfuge of his superiority. Or the disgruntled teenager who thinks his parents are purposely plotting against his happiness. And as adults we have all worked with folks, who like Mr. Beck, are always spreading rumors about the company's impending demise. No one knows for sure why persons suffering such affliction behave in such a manner, but they have kept research psychologists flush with material for at least a century.
     I am not saying I necessarily disagree with Glenn Beck's assertions about how President Obama and other Progressives have slowly eroded the soil from around the edifice of freedom. But where others take a reasoned approached to this encroachment, Mr. Beck works hard to lead his legions of lemmings to leap off the cliffs of common sense into the chasm of irrationality. The mechanisms he uses are his radio show and books, all aimed to give substance and authority to his delusional theories in order to increase his audience for the former and unit sales for the latter.
     The latest drivel I heard rolling off the tongue of this modern day P.T. Barnum is that all of history as we previously knew it is a lie created by the Progressives for the last hundred years. His "evidence" for such a claim is a letter found in a box belonging to Upton Sinclair which was purchased at auction by one of Mr. Beck's votarients. This one letter, which Glenn Beck never even questioned the authenticity of because it supported his agenda to serve up more conspiracy slop to his masses, proves that Progressives have engineered the manufacturing of history with the willing participation of the press (which is what the media was called in the days when there was only the print medium).
     The Progressive movement was not that formulated back in the early 1900s to engage in such an elaborate scheme as Mr. Beck and his "letter" suggest." The movement began in the Republican Party with Theodore Roosevelt, and Calvin Coolidge even considered himself a devotee of the ideology for a time. The movement flowed between parties and ideologies, sometimes firmly planted in the garden of the Right, and sometimes drifting into the garden of Leftism. It was not really until the Franklin Roosevelt administration that the Progressive movement became the Leftist ideology we know today.
     Of course the real trajectory of history does not suit the purposes of Glenn Beck, it is much to gray to fit into his black and white world. So he must twist and mangle the limbs of history to fit into his conspiratorial casket. The reason is simple; he wants to sell more books, increase his radio and cable audience, and keep his empire based on doom and gloom propped up with the stilts of deception. The persons who buy into Mr. Beck's special brand of self-aggrandizing delusion will find themselves poorer for the experience, both financially, as those who bought gold on Mr. Beck's recommendation and have lost up to a third of their investment, and in piece of mind that never comes as a result of believing conspiracies.

Jonathan Gruber: Face Of The Democrat Party

     The recent video of Jonathan Gruber, chief ObamaCare architect, that has surfaced showing the hubris-laden MIT "professor" admitting that the cornerstone of the new health care law was "lack of transparency" and lies, has been virtually ignored by the main stream media. That is not surprising to me, the greatest sin against journalism is the main stream media's compunction not to report. No, the Gruber revelation of what many conservatives already knew about the law, is that his pettifoggery is the standard modus operandi of the Democrat Party in modernity.
     As each new day passes, and brings with it evidence of the Democrat Party's complete contempt, not only for their political opposition, but for their own voters, I am amazed there are still any average Americans that can justify a vote for any Democrat. But then maybe Democrat voters do not mind being called stupid by those they entrust with their tax dollars and with an ever increasing chunk of their personal liberties.
     Mr. Gruber was rewarded handsomely for his role as chief liar, a cool $400,000 of tax payer money was used to fluff up his nest of artifice and venality. Not bad for a guy who designed the largest public policy initiative ever, a gruesome creeping thing that will not only change the relationship between government and the people in this country, but the free market economy in which Mr. Gruber has never actually worked. This too is the modern face of the Democrat Party. The government of, for, and by the people has been infused with the arrogantly ignorant who have no clue how the machine of free markets operates, yet aim to impose their academic theories upon it.
     Are there any sensible Americans who still vote Democrat? Can there be anyone who believes in the founding principles of this great nation that could willingly place the descendants of Liberty's Sons into the hands of those who despise them? The Gruber revelation is not so much in the words spoken by this turkey stuffed with the arrogance of his own ignorance. No, the real revelation is that there are any Americans left who support a political Party that has spawned such a blight on freedom.

Advice For The Unemployed

     There are fewer events in one's life that create more vulnerability than losing a job. I have recently become painfully aware of such vulnerability, being dismissed from my employment of eleven years due to a reorganization of my employer's work force. The emotions of unemployment range from sadness to anger along the continuum of job loss, and I understand how it can lead one to become depressed, complacent, and acquiescent. Especially in a flaccid economy like we have been experiencing the last six to seven years,
     Nothing I can say will placate the feelings of rejection that result from being let go from a job, especially when it is for reasons unrelated to the individual's job performance. Unemployment is a status just about everyone will experience in life, some more than others. But those who deal with it as a bump in the road as opposed to a sojourn through a dark and unexplored jungle, will inevitably survive the experience and thrive as a result.
     The first thing one must do upon losing a job is to stay in a routine. Get up early every morning, shower, and dress for the day. If nothing else, this act of participation in the ethos of work will prepare one for the eventual return to work. The small sense of accomplishment one gets from preparing to engage in the world as it is, instead of languishing in depression over the world as it was, will clear the mind of negative thoughts so new opportunities may reveal themselves.
     It is not easy, but one must actively seek work every day, this is the "job" now. Attack it with vigor, or if vigor is in short supply, "Fake it 'Till You Make it.". Set the attainable goal of applying for at least one job position a day. Again, this will nurture a sense of accomplishment and will build upon itself. It will also mitigate the feeling of rejection that may result from applying for too many positions at a time or none at all. Slow and steady wins the race. It is better to spread out the job search effort so that every day the seeker is doing something towards attaining employment.
     The most important part of being unemployed is to keep emotions as level as possible. Do not take the rejections too hard, or get too excited about potential job opportunities. The job search is an odyssey of ups and downs, mitigation of both will lead to less chance of depression and anxiety. Even in a slow moving economy there are opportunities. One must not limit oneself to only positions comparable to the position just lost. New careers usually rise up in the ashes of old ones. And above all repeal depression by always being grateful for what you do have, not saddened for what you have lost.
    
        

The Big Ebola Bust

     The crescendo of panic and the fortissimo of hysteria over the Ebola "crisis" began this past Summer around the end of July when two doctors infected with the virus were brought to the United States for treatment. From there it was a rapid descent into irrationality and delirium, especially after infected Liberian, Thomas Eric Duncan came to the United States and ultimately died from his contraction of the Ebola virus. There were some saying that it was just a matter of mathematics, and by January there would be 1.4 million Americans infected with the Ebola virus.
     Throughout this manufactured crisis it has struck me as odd that we were being told that this virus was highly contagious. Those who were pushing Ebola-as-epidemic escalated its contagious nature from one having to come into contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, to the spread of the virus by anyone who virtually just thought about an infected patient. If Ebola was human I am sure it would be suing for defamation of character. But since it is just a virus it is at the mercy of the fear mongers who aim to use Ebola to advance a political goal.
     At this time, with the announcement of the New York doctor being given a clear bill of health, the United States is Ebola-free. This virus that was suppose to be so contagious as to be caught by practically just looking at an infected person, was not even competent enough in its contagiousness to infect any of Mr. Duncan's relatives living in a small Dallas apartment with him while he was in the final stages of infection. Nor was Ebola strong enough to infect any of the 163 persons who came into contact with nurse Amber Vinson, they were taken off their 21 day observation last week.
     News of the United States being Ebola-free has strangely passed without as much fanfare as some were touting it as a plague that was going to destroy up to as much as 90% of the world's population. I, by no means, believe that the United States will never see another Ebola case, however, it is no where near the threat that it was being marketed as by political pettifoggers. I watched my fellow Americans buy into that marketing campaign with every last dollar of sanity they possessed. The dichotomy of a nation being thrown into a panic over one death by way of an African virus while 20,000 Americans die every year from the common flu, over 40,000 by their own hand in the act of suicide, and 300,000 a year from smoking related disease, was more than a little unsettling for me.
     The Big Ebola Bust that was the end result of the Big Ebola Panic, leaves me unsettled mainly because of my fellow Americans' vulnerability to believe the cheap parlor antics of charlatans who wish to control them through political hypnotism. For if we believe in a devastating epidemic with no visible proof, then  might we not believe, as some were calling for, in a more muscular government to "fight" it? And if we fall prey to accepting, and yes, even demanding a growing government to protect us from non-existent threats, then how much more will we allow that government to grow to protect us from real ones?

A History Lesson In The Destructive Nature Of Progressivism

     The modern day progressive religion masquerading as a political ideology has roots stretching back to the beginning of the 20th century. Its leaders were not only Democrats like Woodrow Wilson, but Republicans like Teddy Roosevelt. Their commonality was the belief that government had a rightful place in pursuing a role in the interests of business, not to the benefit of its customers, but to shrink that in the private sector that was big so as to grow the authority and influence of government. In many cases, like that of the railroads, the government meddling of progressives destroyed industries and left both businesses and customers more impoverished.
     The rail industry in the United States got a late start in developing compared to other countries like France and England, but within the years between 1820 to 1840 the United States laid more track than all other countries combined. The growth of the railroad, by private interests, culminated in the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869 by the Central Pacific Railroad and the Union Pacific Railroad. The privately run railroad industry, which included city trolleys, gave customers an inexpensive method of travel that was both faster and more comfortable than horseback or even stage coach.
     In the early 1900s, the rail industry kept the price of passenger fares low by subsidizing them by also hauling freight. That was until Louis Brandeis, the newly formed Interstate Commerce Commission, and Theodore Roosevelt, using the regulatory power of government, put enormous downward pressure on fees railroads could charge to haul freight. The mere mention of fare increases by the railroads set in motion advocacy groups like Joseph Eastman's Public Franchise League. Further demonizing the railroads as big, greedy corporations trying to use their unfair advantage in public transportation to price gouge.
     Many railroads were crushed by the heavy hand of government, aided in their task by the advocacy groups, simply because they were big. Progressives like Roosevelt and Brandeis made no secret of the fact that they considered big corporations evil simply for being big. The nationalization of the railroads by President Wilson during the first World War put the final nail in the coffin of the railroad industry. Even after the war when the railroads were denationalized, the epitaph for this once great and thriving American industry was written in the blood of government ink.
     Today, the passenger train industry is all but gone, run entirely by the government rail known as Amtrak. A government enterprise that every year, surprise surprise, bleeds red ink comprised of taxpayers' dollars. It is ironic that today's progressives who are pushing for passenger rail projects, funded of course with taxpayer dollars, are descendants of the progressives of the early 1900s who destroyed the passenger rail industry then and sent Americans running to buy automobiles. It is the perfect illustration of what Ronald Reagan said about those on the Left, "They see something moving and they want to tax it. If it keeps moving, they regulate it. If it stops moving they subsidize it." It is the Lefts cycle of government dependence for needs formerly supplied by the private sector which impoverishes us all and stomps on the throat of personal Liberty.

A Last Stand Against ObamaCare

     Some of the scared rabbits on the Right have suggested that the new Republican majority not try very hard to repeal ObamaCare because it is a losing battle. They say a repeal vote should be taken quickly to satisfy the constituencies of those who made it a campaign promise, but the new majority should not jeopardize future electoral victory by dwelling on repeal too long. Their point is that even if Republicans pass repeal in the House and the Senate, President Obama will veto such an effort, and Republicans do not have anywhere near a veto-proof majority.
     I too thought as the scared little rabbits of the Republican Party thought, but then I actually looked at the issue in the cold daylight of reality. ObamaCare is the single biggest detriment to Liberty and to financial security in this country, and it will, more than any other piece of legislation passed in modern history, become a deleterious effect on the relationship between the people and their government. From that stand point, all efforts to remove the yoke of government-run health care from around the necks of the American people should be attempted.
     The Republican control of the House and Senate will allow them to pass a repeal without a problem. But before they do they should have a free market alternative to the current law. It is more than a little suspicious that the Republican establishment has had five years to coalesce Republican rank and file around an alternative to the Affordable Care Act, and have failed to do so. It is almost as if the scourge of government-run health care is a virtue as long as they are in control of the government that administers it.
     Once the Republicans have an alternative, which they must draft immediately, they need to gain public support for it by marketing it as a viable alternative to ObamaCare. If they are successful in their public campaign it will add pressure on Democrats in the Senate to support such a plan. Freshly stinging from the mid-term elections just passed, and knowing it was in large part due to President Obama's unpopularity which is anchored by ObamaCare, Democrat senators may join Republicans to over ride a veto of a repeal and replace law. Do not think it has escaped Democrats' notice that 28 Democrat senators who voted for ObamaCare are no longer in the Senate.
     The Republicans would only need about 15 Democrat senators who are in fear of losing their seats, and may not want to go down with the Obama sinking ship. There have been rumblings that many of the old guard of the Democrat Party like the Clintons, have patience that is at its breaking point with Barack Obama and his shenanigans. There is even talk of an "intervention" of some kind, where the president is taken to the Party woodshed and given a good whacking for putting the Party in such perilous straights.  
     There is never going to be a more opportune time for Republicans to rid the country of the unconstitutional health care law and stem the precipitous slide into the darkness of socialism. It is unfathomable to me that anyone who believes in the cause of Liberty would accept defeat without even engaging in battle. It is a battle, I think, can be won, must be won, and will be won because there really is no other option but to meekly accept the chains of tyranny.

Did Party Moderates Win The Mid-terms?

     Since the Republican victory on Tuesday, I have listened to the bloviating by moderates in Party leadership and others in talk radio who say that this election was a clear victory for the establishment and against the Tea Party and conservatives. As evidence of their misguided supposition they point to the fact that none of the Tea Party candidates won in Republican primaries, so therefore only establishment Republicans were running in the mid-terms.
     I will now destroy this foolishness with two felled swoops. First, the Republican national Party did not have a message or platform for this election, and that was their stated strategy. They said they were going to stand back and let the Democrats implode. So there is no way, according to their own strategy, that voters could have been supporting the establishment position as they went to the polls on Tuesday.
     Secondly, every Senate seat that was a pickup for Republicans was done so by a candidate who unapologetically articulated conservative principles, i.e. Tea Party principles. They ran on one or all of the so-called "social" issues that send the moderates running for the Maalox due to the butterflies they get in their stomachs every time they even get close to talking about such things. From support for traditional marriage to opposition to amnesty, these candidates took up the gauntlet of the people with the vim and vigor of a Ted Cruz not the tired, worn lackluster droll of a Mitch McConnell.
      The winners who brought the Republican party the majority in the Senate did so, not by out-Democrating the Democrats as the modertes would have us do, but by standing up and articulating conservatism. And Republicans in the future would be wise to learn the lesson of this election, which is that the moderate establishment message, when there is one, does not resonate with voters, but well articulated conservatism does.
     I have even heard some pundits on the Right say this election was a bigger victory than the 2010 mid-term, which gave the Republicans control of the House. This tact has been the approved messaging of the Party establishment in order to downplay the Tea Party's success in 2010 and gin up this falsehood that it was moderate values that won this election. But in pure numbers that argument does not even hold a thimble's worth of water. In 2010 the Republicans, thanks to the Tea Party, gained 63 seats in the House and 6 seats in the Senate. In 2014 they gained 19 seats in the House and 7 in the Senate. Had it not been for 2010, the Republican majority in either House of Congress would not exist today.
     The Republican victory in this passed election is a harbinger of the future of the Party being in principled conservatives like Ted Cruz, Joni Ernst, Mike Lee, Mia Love, et al, not in spongy, go-along-to-get-along politicians like Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, John McCain, etc. And the old guard establishment would be wise to get on board or get out of the way.     

    

A Winning Agenda For The New Republican Majority

     Now that the American Voter, having been thoroughly kicked around by President Obama and a Democrat controlled Senate for six years, has given the Republican Party control of the entire legislative branch of the United States government, everyone is holding their collective breath to see how the new majority will perform. I have a three point plan that I think Mitch McConnell and the rest of his Republican colleagues in the Senate should implement immediately upon officially taking the reins of that body in January, 2015. A winning strategy for the country and for the Republican Party.
     Agenda Item 1: Immediately begin votes on the 350 bi-partisan bills passed by the House in the last few years that Harry Reid refused to let see the light of day. If Republicans do not succumb to pressure to reinstate the filibuster rule which former Majority Leader Reid and his colleagues eliminated, these bills can be brought to the Senate floor for a vote in fairly quick fashion. Furthermore, if Republicans keep Party discipline and vote as a block they can pass most of them.
     This first agenda item should be executed until every bill now languishing in the Senate has had a fair hearing on the floor. If the Republicans can send a bill a day or more to President Obama's desk for signature or veto, they can force him to either become a productive member of government, or expose himself as the obstinate and obstructive ideologue that he is. This item would also keep the president too busy to do much else but respond to the Republican majority, in other words put him on defense. Additionally, in the event that the president's natural laziness motivates him, any bill he has not signed or vetoed within ten days will automatically become law.
     Agenda Item 2: Make it perfectly clear to President Obama that if he wishes to govern through executive orders instead of constitutionally with the consent of Congress, they will not fund any executive order they feel is damaging to the country. President Obama must be made to understand that if he forces a government shutdown through his rigidity, the Republican majority is more than willing to carry such a shutdown through to its conclusion. That conclusion being a more constitutional form of responsible government.
     Agenda Item 3: The Republican House and Senate must restrain the president with a budget that decreases government spending. The Mack Penny Plan would be a good start. This is the plan which would freeze spending levels and reduce it by one penny of each dollar spent each year. Under this plan in 3-5 years the country would be living under a balanced budget, and in 10 years we could pay off the debt.
     The president must be made to understand that no more will the federal government run under the continuing resolution system it has been. There will be a budget submitted and worked out by both sides and imposed upon the federal government as the Constitution requires. The Republican majority must distinguish itself from the former Democrat majority in the Senate, which never passed a budget, by passing a workable and fiscally sound budget every year.
     These three agenda items would be a good foundation for stopping an out-of-control executive. There can be no substance to Tuesday's electoral victory unless the new majority imposes constitutional discipline as vigorously as the president and the former Democrat majority placed upon this government of, for, and by the people the extreme yoke of imposition that is the constant companion to men trying to rule over law.

What Now Republicans?

     The 2014 mid-term elections are "in the can," and the Republicans have emerged with their majority in the House of Representatives intact, and with a brand new two seat majority in the United States Senate. The voters have spoken, although not so clearly in favor of Republicans as they have spoken against President Obama and the Democrats. And inasmuch as I am sanguine about the Republicans taking control of the Senate, and expelling Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader, the new Leader, Mitch McConnell, may just be a distinction without a difference.
     The GOP's majority may vaporize in 2016 if the Republican establishment, as they are so oft to do, misinterpret the voters' decision in this election to mean they want "bi-partisanship" and for the newly anointed Republican Senate to "reach across the aisle." Voters are drowning in the shark infested waters of Democrat rule and want the Republican Party to do something, anything to save the country from the blood thirsty sharks currently destroying it.
     While I am thankful for the Republican victories last night, and control of the Senate being put in their hands, I am cautiously pessimistic about their political courage to confront and defeat progressive policies where and when they can. In the past six years, and especially in the past four years that the Republicans have controlled the House, the pathetic refrain from GOP establishment types has been, "We do not have any power." or "We only have control of one half of one third of government."
     Well the people have spoken, albeit in a somewhat muted voice, and have given Republicans control of an entire branch of government. The people have said, "OK Republicans now you have complete control of both Houses of Congress, whatcha gonna do?" Depending on the response by the GOP in these next two years, the voters in 2016 will either reward them with the White House or admonish them with a loss of the majority in one or both Houses of Congress. We shall see which is the path the Republican establishment chooses for its Party.
     As for now, we can breath a sigh of relief that there is at least a plurality of voters in this country that still believe in the Founding principles set forth and enshrined in sanctified documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Federalist Papers. Not all have succumbed to the desperate and disparaging ideology of the Left proffered by the modern Democrat Party. No, the people of the United States of America still believe in, wish to continue, and will do battle for the precious God-given tenets of Liberty. We will see if the Republican Party joins them in that quest, or if they cower from the challenge in the face of what is sure to be a political fire storm rained down upon them by the minority Party in Congress and their slavish sycophants in the media.

Election Day-Our Most Precious Tradition

     Election day always makes me think of the connection it provides to the founding of this great nation. It was, after all, the right to choose representatives in our government that fueled the American Revolution and gave rise to the greatest expansion of Liberty ever in the history of man. And it all started with the right, privilege, and duty of voting. In this age of cynicism there are some who may say voting does not matter, that anyone who engages in this passé activity is just a pawn of a system run by big business and big government. So if that is true, then how does not voting help mitigate that system?
     Those who would say it does not matter, that one's vote does not count because of the fraud involved in the process, are only continuing the fraud by not voting. Besides, since the first residents of the city/state of ancient Greece voted, there has been deception and fraud in the process. Where there are men involved, larceny and greed can not be far behind. And just as those ancient Greeks knew, the duty of every citizen towards self governance is exercising their vote. To do any less would mean to be unworthy of Liberty.
     Some have blamed modern electronic voting for an increase in voter fraud, but I have not seen one empirical study that shows that is true. Besides, paper ballots were not the paragon of voting virtue some now make them out to be. Remember the 2000 presidential election with the hanging and pregnant chads? Or the trunk load of paper ballots found in the trunk of a poll worker's car that gave Al Franken his Senate seat in 2008?
     So as this final day of voting in the 2014 mid-term elections advances into the twilight of election history, let us remember the words of Calvin Coolidge, thirtieth president of the United States of America, spoken on an election day in 1924:
          All the opportunity for self-government through the rule of the people depends upon one single factor. That is the ballot box.... The people of our country are sovereign. If they do not vote they abdicate that sovereignty, and they may be entirely sure that if they relinquish it others will seize it, and if they fail to govern themselves some other power will rise up to govern them. The choice is always before them, whether they will be slaves, or whether they will be free. The only way to be free is to exercise actively and energetically the privileges, and discharge faithfully the duties which make freedom. It is not to be secured by passive resistance. It is the result of energy and action....
          Persons who have the right to vote are trustees for the benefit of their country and their countrymen. They have no right to say they do not care. They must care! They have no right to say whatever the result of the election they can get along. They must remember that their country and their countrymen cannot get along, cannot remain sound, cannot preserve its institutions, cannot protect its citizens, cannot maintain its place in the world, unless those who have the right to vote do sustain and do guide the course of public affairs by the thoughtful exercise of that right on election day. 


    

While We Slumbered

     Some may look around at the state of the union and ask, "How did we get here?" A more poignant and relevant question to me is, "Why did we allow ourselves to get here?" From an education system that is the worse outcome of Plato's two most important questions for a society, "Who is teaching the children, and what are they teaching them?" To Voltaire's observation that, "Virtue begot prosperity, and then the daughter ate the mother." We have allowed ourselves and our children to be corrupted by what conservative commentator Dennis Prager calls the "most dynamic religion of the last hundred years." That is Leftism.
     While we slumbered, in the warm embrace of the prosperity brought to us by the morality and virtue of free market capitalism, we have allowed an unholy alliance between corporations and government to form. It has corrupted a system whose fairness is exemplified by the moral act of a supplier of a good or service and a consumer who wants, needs, or desires that good or service coming to terms without the interference of government.
     While we slumbered, the poor have been radicalized by their dependence on government which demonstrates itself in acrimony and even hatred for those who pay their freight. And the once strong, independent, and virtuous middle class has been inculcated with a dependence on government which has eroded their strength, independence, and virtue. We have allowed this behemoth called big government to grow to unwieldy dimensions as an unholy sacrifice to the false gods, of compassion, fairness, and equality.
     While we slumbered, our children have been taught to hate their own country, which has advanced the human condition more than any other in history, and they have ben prepared to accept the dark, immorality of decency's enemy called Islam. Recently, scarcely more than a dozen years after radical Islam took down the World Trade Center buildings and murdered 3,000 innocent Americans, their evil doctrine is being taught not only in our public schools, but in some so-called Christian schools.
     While we slumbered, Multiculturalism has replaced a culture that brought the world advancements in medicine, technology, engineering, manufacturing, and the cause of Liberty that was and is unmatched in all the world and the long history of man upon this earth. Abraham Lincoln called the United States of America the "The last best hope of man on earth." Ronald Reagan in his Seminole speech, A Time For Choosing,  said that we will "save for our children this last best hope of man on earth, or sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness."
     While we slumbered, while we slumbered, while we slumbered. But soon the slumber will end and we will awaken to that darkness about which President Reagan spoke half a century ago, or we will awaken in time to save that "Last best hope of man on earth." The choice is ours, not politicians in Washington, not those in corporate boardrooms, and not our enemy that currently invades our homeland one head at a time. It is ours, and we must choose while the choosing is still a choice..

Republicans Are Missing Steady Hand On The Tiller

     As everyone knows, the mid-term elections are Tuesday, this is the day that all 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for grabs, and a third of the Senate seats. Some Republicans have been over confidently predicting a "wave" election where they keep and possibly add to their majority in the House, and wrestle control of the Senate away from Harry Reid. My question is "Where is the Republicans' Harry Reid?"
     Say what you want about Harry Reid , but he is completely dedicated to his political ideology and is willing to do anything to advance it, even if that means doing nothing. The Harry Reid-lead Senate has been the least productive in modern history, with over 350 bills passed by the House sitting in a closet that he refuses to even bring to the floor for debate. This is one reason I think it is not going to make much difference if the Republicans win a majority in that body next week.
     This is especially true in light of the fact that Republicans have done nothing with their majority in the House. Sure they have passed over 30 bills to repeal ObamaCare, none of which had any chance of going anywhere and were only attempted to placate the base of Republican voters. When it came to actually standing behind an effort that had a better chance of defeating the deleterious effects of ObamaCare, they folded like a poker player with a pair of nothing.
     My prediction is that Americans awaken Wednesday morning to a United States Senate that is still controlled by Harry Reid and the Democrats. And even if the Republicans win enough seats to place them into the majority of that chamber, the Majority Leader will be Mitch McConnell, who on the political spectrum is firmly planted in the middle. Except of course when it comes to criticizing the Tea Party and the conservative base of the Party, then he drifts to the Left on the spectrum. Mr. McConnell's leadership will be a distinction without a difference compared to Harry Reid's tenure as Leader.
     I do not know, maybe I am just all wet from the gloomy, rainy Northeast Ohio day, and maybe the Republicans will win the Senate and they will stop Obama in his tracks with their principled leadership. And maybe President Obama and the rest of the Leftist cabal he has inculcated in every bureaucracy of the federal government will see the light of conservatism and change the course of the country to one of freer markets, less dependence, and a more muscular foreign policy.
     Then again, if Republicans have been unable or unwilling to stand on principle having control of one House of Congress for the last four years, I do not see much hope of the progressives in the Party loosening their grip if and when they win control of the Senate. I hate to be the horse patties in the middle of the street during the Republican parade, but many on the Right are looking to this election as an ends in and of itself, instead of a means to an end that is far down the road. A road that will require a steady hand on the tiller of the Republican Party so that is does not veer from its conservative course. As of this writing, I do not see such a hand.

Americans Have Been "Next Thinged" Out Of Their Country

     Recently the commandant of the Republican Party, Reince Priebus, had a conference call with members of TeaParty.net. During the conversation, Mr. Priebus promised concerned Tea Partiers that if and when the Republicans take control of the United States Senate, that they would use every authority available to them to stop the president from granting illegal aliens amnesty with the stroke of his pen. He enumerated these authorities as legislative, legal, and defunding of certain activities which would hurt President Obama's illegal activity. Sure.
     The fact that the Constitution gives Congress the authority over immigration and naturalization means little to President Obama. And forgive me for not believing Reince Priebus, but I have heard this song and dance from Republicans for six years. They have been acquiescing to the Obama agenda for that long, and then telling their base that they would find the intestinal fortitude to stand up to the out-of-control president on the "Next thing." We have waited for the "Next thing," which has come and gone, and left the Republicans curled up in a fetal position after giving the president what he wanted. We have been "Next thinged" out of basic Liberties and have lost the core principles of self-governance that made this country great.
     It is suspicious to me, and should be to those Tea Party members on the conference call with Mr. Priebus, as well as it should be to every Republican and conservative, that the Republican establishment has been downright adversarial with Tea Partiers, and now that it is time for an election, they come with their hat-in-hand full of promises to secure the votes of their base. They are like the abusive boyfriend, and we the put upon girlfriend who knows her partner does not have her best interest at heart but thinks that maybe, just maybe this time his promises of change will bear fruit.
     After acquiescing to the president on every continuing resolution over the last six years, every debt ceiling increase, and every other issue where they promised to make a stand, establishment Republicans now expect us to believe that they will "do everything in their power" to stop the president's unconstitutional amnesty for illegal aliens. It is that phrase, "everything in our power" that is the placation of the base used by the establishment to quell the rumblings of revolution within the party. But the revolution is a quiet one, in 2012 for instance, an estimated 4 million Republican voters stayed home on election day rather than vote for Mitt Romney.
      Mitt Romney the man was honest and decent. Mitt Romney the campaign was just another limp-wristed, establishment-influenced exercise in political futility. It may just be, when it comes to establishment selected nominees, the base is saying, "We will support the next thing."

Republicans Set To Lose The Mid-Terms

     The 2014 mid-term elections that so many on the Right have been anxiously awaiting are just a week away. And while Republicans are already planning on what actions they will take once they maintain their control of the House of Representatives and wrestle control of the United States Senate away from Harry Reid and his band of Democrat Party miscreants, they have forgotten one very important detail. They still must win the majority of seats in both houses of Congress next week, and that is far from the forgone conclusion some may want to delude themselves that it is.
     In  most of the races where Republicans must win, the polls are fairly tight. No Republican in those races is leading by more than a couple of points, and in many cases it is a dead heat. And knowing the Democrats well substantiated proclivity to commit election fraud, a few point lead for any Republican means a loss on election day. The races where the polls show the Republican ahead by only several points is very surprising to me, it also spells disaster considering the current situation.
     With a continuing economic malaise caused by Democrat policy, the fecklessness of bureaucracies like the Center for Disease Control and the Veterans administration, and the general incompetence of Democrats who have been running the government for the last six years, one would think Republicans would be 20 points ahead in every congressional race. Well maybe not 20, but they should be at least 10 points ahead in each race. There are some governors, like John Kasich of Ohio who have commanding leads over their Democrat challengers. But for the most part the Republican field has had a lackluster showing.
     Maybe it is because Republicans know their proclivity towards snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, and decided to remain silent and let the Democrats implode. The only problem is that Democrats may not be imploding as much as Republicans thought they would. It is the same mistake the Republicans made in 2012. Thinking that one of the worst economies in post-WWII history would sink the Obama bid for re-election. We are all painfully aware how their non-involvement in that campaign turned out.
     Even if what Republicans see as the best case scenario happens, they would pick up only enough seats to bequeath them a 1 or 2 seat majority in the Senate. The population of moderate and even  Leftist Republican Senators may neuter any advantage election victory may bring them in that body. Also, they will not have enough seats to override any veto, which are sure to come from the president if the Republicans pass any legislation that does not conform to the Obama agenda.
     Some think that having both Houses of Congress (assuming the Republicans win the Senate and keep the House) will force President Obama into cooperation. I do not know where these people have been for the last six years, but Barack Obama does not have to cooperate. He can veto any Republican efforts and has his ten pound hammer of executive orders to force upon the country anything he sees fit. It is going to be a long two years whether Republicans are successful next week or not.
    

The Coming Ice Age....Again!

     I have maintained from the beginning of this Ebola "crisis" that it was hyped in an effort by those on the Left to spend money we do not have, and expand government into areas of freedom that have previously been undiscovered by government. Beyond the fact that the Left is in love with huge, unwieldy government bureaucracies and limited individual Liberty, is that their last "crisis", i.e. global warming/man-made climate change, has been recently shown to be a bust.
     Do not get me wrong, they have been successful at inculcating in the naïve and the younger generation for the need to keep spending an estimated 22 billion dollars of taxpayer money every year to "fight" a non-existent environmental Armageddon. But global warming devotees are becoming increasingly tougher to recruit in this time of global cooling.
     It appears the only warming that has occurred, especially over the last 18 years, has been that of the fevers generated in the rabid believers of the climate change religion. In fact, according to NASA, the earth has only warmed 0.36 degrees in the last 35 years, most of which happened from 1979 to 1998. Since the late 1990s the earth has actually cooled. As has the general acceptance of this specious science and its mandate in the minds of Americans that we must spend gobs of money and restrict a plethora of freedoms to fight it. In addition to federal government outlays of tax money, it is estimated that the global warming hysteria costs individual and corporate Americans 1.75 trillion dollars in added costs every year due to climate regulations.
     With the cooling of the earth in the last 18 years, and the recent satellite study by NASA that showed the polar ice cap has actually increased by 43% (Remember Al Gore saying the entire ice cap would melt away and cause a rise in sea levels by now?), I fully expect the Left to turn 180 degrees on a dime and begin to proffer the notion that we are in danger of a new ice age, as they did back in the 1970s.
     Even though the general population has become wise to the Lefts environmental subterfuge, they now have in place the ability to suck up tens of billions of dollars a year to fund efforts to "fight" non-existent calamities. That is why government should never be placed in control of something as unlimited as the environment. In so doing we have given them unlimited power and have shattered the Founders notion of enumerated federal authority.

Do Gay Rights Rise To The Level Of Civil Rights?

     In an effort to impose the tyranny of the "gay rights" oppressive agenda on the whole of American society, its defenders have equated "gay rights" with the hard fought civil rights for minorities. And while it almost borders on despicable to proffer the idea that someone being lynched for being black and wanting to vote Republican is synominous with a homosexual couple demanding that an unwilling baker create their "wedding" cake, this is the argument "gay rights" supporters expect the public to swallow whole.
     Primary to discovering whether "gay rights" are equal to civil rights is defining what a civil right is. Any civil right is about choice. The choice to sit anywhere one wishes on public transportation that is specifically designated as public seating, without regards to race, ethnicity, or sex. Have gays been denied this right? Basically civil rights are being allowed to make choices about one's participation in public life that lie within the realm of possible choices for all citizens.
     Some may say that gays are being denied their civil rights by states that support, via law, traditional marriage. But I would like those who support gay marriage to explain how gays are being denied what is readily a choice for anyone else in society, i.e. the right to marry anyone of the opposite sex that is of age and not already married. If anything, the supporters of the militant gay position which seeks to impose their life style on those who have a religious difference with it, such as bakers, caterers, and ministers, is analogous to denying the civil rights of those persons.
     Not only is the radical gay lobby insisting on denying the civil rights of those who disagree with them, but their Constitutional right of free association. The greatest violation of civil rights is the absence of choice, which is what is being imposed on those who do not support gay marriage. As it is with most of the Lefts agenda, the homosexual life style is not supported by the majority of Americans, and so the tiny minority must impose itself on the vast majority through the implementation of manufactured "rights."
       The argument that gays are having their civil rights violated by not having government support to do something for which no one has a government sanction to do, i.e. marry someone other than one person of the opposite sex, is a specious argument at best. A group of persons or an individual is not being treated unequally simply because they say they are. Furthermore, civil rights are not so much about having equal outcomes but equal access to choices. A Founding concept that those pushing the radical gay agenda, as well as the entire Left, refuse to understand.

The Heresy Of The Non-Judgmental

     The Founders of this great nation, some of whom were not especially religious, created a system of government that respected and enshrined the free exercise of religion into the Constitution. They knew that a secular government could only succeed if it were populated with religious men. Since the time of the Founding, the pollution of Leftist thought has convinced many that expression of religious faith should be cloistered in private and not shared publicly for fear that it might violate someone's rights, and the non-existent constitutionality of separation of church and state.
     The Left has redefined deviancy as normal by essentially outlawing judgment of it. And the path of righteousness has, under the guise of being "enlightened," become a road less traveled by those afraid of being judged bigots by the very ones who have outlawed judgment by everyone else. The resulting debasement of virtue in our society has resulted in an out-of-wedlock birth rate of 43% in the United States, the spread of the impoverishment of the culture, over 50% of the populace dependent on government handouts in one way or another, and most importantly the rise of radical Islam and radical Leftism which are the twin barbarians to the coming age of darkness and oppression.
     Even the traditional arbiters of virtue and Godliness, the churches, have joined the fray of the non-judgmental. Choosing to be liked over spreading the laws of God, of leading their flocks down the path of damnation over doing the hard work of saving souls, and of being one with the world instead of making the world one with the laws of God. Many of these faiths have chosen the ephemeral nature of modernity over the eternal nature of God's righteousness. And in so doing, in not taking upon themselves the burden of judgment, they have fallen short of their promise to God.
     True judgment based on the laws of God is a burden, especially in a world that becomes ever reticent to the message of salvation. If we as a nation, and more importantly as God's representatives on earth, do not judge sin, then we are as guilty as the sinner of those sins. For of what use is preaching the forgiveness of God if there is no sin having been judged worthy of forgiveness? And what value is there in preaching the Good News if we are unwilling to acknowledge, i.e. judge, the opposite? For there can not be light without first judging the darkness, and there can not be good without judging what is evil.
     The heresy of the non-judgmental has cleared a path for the inequities of myriad sins. And in so doing has lead the people of God into darkness and hardship. There is no greater void than that of the Godless life, and without the cleansing power of judgment the chasm of sin swallows the rock of salvation and weakens the ground upon where humans stand.

From Civil Rights Movement To Civil Rights Industry

     At the exact moment when the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. lay slain by an assassin's bullet, and Jesse Jackson smeared the blood of this great man on himself for the benefit of media photographers, the civil rights movement transformed from a movement into a big business. Since then, those like Mr. Jackson who claim the desendency of Reverend King, have engaged in the thuggery of nickel and dime hoods operating a protection racket, and the hallowed halls of government have been infiltrated by a sort of racial constranada.
     The modern day civil rights movement is about civil rights like the modern day environmental movement is about the environment. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et al have engaged in a shake down operation where money is redistributed from businesses to their organizations, and to Democrats running for office. The way it works is that Jackson, or whom ever, approaches a business and accuses them of engaging in discriminatory hiring practices. The corporation, in order to avoid the embarrassment of picketing and boycotts agrees to pay a butt-load of money to Jackson's organization in the form of high paying jobs in the company's newly created "diversity" department.
     The shake down process works much the same way in government agencies which threaten to use the force of government to "take down" a company which refuses to "donate" money to advocacy groups or pay direct fines to a government agency. The latest of these shake downs was exposed several years ago in the Eric Holder Justice Department. The Attorney General intimidated banks into paying hundreds of millions of dollars in protection money or be charged with civil rights violations. And as someone once said, every American commits at least three felonies a day, so if the government wants to get you they will.
     The modern day civil rights industrial complex is fueled by myths and lies about slavery and racism in America. Primary to these myths is that white men originally brought slavery to America. Not true. The first American slave was John Casor who was owned by a black man named Anthony Johnson. The year was 1654 and Johnson had indentured Casor for a period of seven years, which had expired. Johnson refused to release Casor, and the latter left and began working for another farmer named Parker. Johnson sued Parker and the court found that he had the right to hold Casor indefinitely, thus creating slavery in America and making the black man Anthony Johnson the first slave owner.
     Another myth about slavery is that America was the most prodigious of slave nations. Not true again. There were more white slaves brought into North Africa by the Ottomans than there were ever black slaves brought into America. And the African white slave trade lasted until long after America had become the first nation in the world to ban the barbaric practice altogether. Many wrongly think it was Great Britain that was the first country to ban slavery, but they only banned the slave trade. Many within the UK held slaves long after the American Civil War had essentially eradicated slavery in the United States.
     Race has become such an industry in this country that there are those who owe their careers to the fomentation of racial divide, such as our current president and those in the media like Chris Matthews, who are bereft of any intellectual heft sans the charge of racism. It was recently estimated by the Kato institute that the race industry in this country, in the private and public sectors, generates over a hundred billion dollars in revenue for various groups who depend on perpetuating that which they claim they are against. And it all began when the blood of a Godly man was used by an un-Godly one to forever enslave a nation in racial divide for the material benefit of a few. 

The Controlled Burn Of A President

     There has been recent examples of those on the Right pointing to less than flattering statements about President Obama in various media outlets. The most recent has been that of Tina Brown, founder of the Leftist "news" website, the Daily Beast. Ms. Brown espoused the theory that women in particular have not felt safe with Barack Obama, domestically, economically, or in the arena of national security. These outbursts by the media against President Obama are really about saving their future credibility and giving those on the Right like Rush Limbaugh something to point to as proof that media support for "The One" is on the wane.
     Do not think that the Obama votarients in the media have engaged in this criticism of their own volition. I am sure that the administration has given them the high sign that it is OK to criticize the president, now that he no longer needs their support. Barack Obama will not run for political office ever again, and therefore a slavish media just is not that important. His future after leaving office will be dominated by million dollar speeches and golf.
     Those in the media gain from criticizing the president by having "fair and balanced" credibility with the public. If criticized by those on the Right, they can point to the stories they do in the out years of the Obama administration as proof that they were not in the tank for him all along. And since the president no longer needs public or media support to advance his agenda, having his pen and phone and needing nothing else, criticism of him or his policies by media is irrelevant.
      Barack Obama is in an enviable position, where most presidents in the final stages of their presidencies are lame ducks, he will be a charging bull. These next two years may prove historic in the amount of policies enacted by any president, and all without the aid of Congress. Even if the House remains in Republican hands, and the Senate falls out of Democrat hands after next month's mid-term election, the president's only opposition will be the Supreme Court, if they choose to act.
     Executive orders that President Obama may pen can be overturned or revoked by a successor or by the Supreme Court, as they did with President Truman's Executive Order 10340, which essentially gave the federal government authority to seize private steel mills whose workers were on strike. Executive orders have three levels of standing. An order has the most standing when it supports the explicit will of Congress. It has dubious standing when its issuance is on that which Congress has not ruled. An Executive Order has the least standing when it contradicts the will of Congress on either something it has ruled for or ruled against.
     The increased criticism of President Obama by the media is a controlled burn meant to save the forest of journalism from years of blind support for a president that has been by far the biggest presidential detriment to the economy, foreign policy, and the Constitution. The media has already done their part in destroying the very fabric of freedom in this country, and now, with permission from the administration, they are trying to save any shreds of their integrity that may remain.

Admonitions From A Former Altar Boy

     I was born into the Catholic faith and completed 12 years of Catholic education. I was an altar boy in grade school, helping the priests in my parish celebrate mass on the weekends and many times early in the morning before school began. I guess like many Catholic boys I thought about becoming a priest for period of time, but rejected the idea once my hormones really began to kick in. I always thought that my faith was a beautiful expression of God's law precisely because it was not of this world. I did not always keep that faith, but I always thought it was worth keeping.
     The ways in which the Catholic church has prostituted itself to modernity has sickened me over the last few decades. From the enabling and encouraging of gambling amongst their flock, to support by their priests and nuns of Democrats who support abortion, the church which Jesus built upon his Apostle Peter, the "Rock," has lately had a foundation of ever shifting sand. And the worst part is that instead of a Holy Father that is the Vicar of Christ, we have in Pope Francis an unholy alliance with the sins of the world for the sake of progressiveness.
     Pope Francis's recent welcoming of gays and of his blessing of co-habitation by unmarried couples is evidence of a Church that has lost its way in the darkness that is the human heart. The Church was not meant by Christ to be progressive, it did not need to progress, it was already at its destination from the moment Jesus bestowed upon Peter the task of shouldering His Church here on earth. Being His Church meant that its tenets were those of God in heaven, not of man on earth.
     The Catholic Church, through Pope Francis, is becoming transformed from the Church of Christ into the Church of Leftism. The Leftist faith has infected the Vatican with the destructive tenets of "social justice," homosexual tolerance, anti-capitalism, and extreme environmentalism. Instead of living by the credo that Christ left his followers of "If the world hates you, remember it hated me first," the current Church under the leadership of Pope Francis seems to be one of placating a sinful world.
     To Pope Francis, who has changed the mission of the church from being God's rock here on earth, to an ever malleable mudslide of moderation. And to all the Cardinals and Bishops who have allowed themselves and the Church to become one with the world. And to all the priests and nuns who have violated their sacred trust with God by supporting those who do not respect the sanctity of life. And finally to all those Catholics who have turned away from the word of God in favor of the words of fools and charlatans who practice the false faith of Leftism. Your Church is dying the death that all things of the world die.
     As for me, I continue to wander through this world witnessing the death of faith, and it only makes my faith stronger. I continue to see the false prophets in and out of the Church leading their flocks to the barren meadows of sin, and I am steeled in my determination to search for God's meadow of righteousness. I see the Church I once respected for their dedication to God's law becoming disciples of the whims of man, and I am saddened. But there is hope for all those who seek that Rock, and who eagerly hunger for the Word. But you must first abandon the sinking ship of your faith and find a new faith as you cling to the life preserver of your personal relationship with God.

There Are No Conservatives In Crisis, Or So It Seems

     There is an old saying that states, "There are no atheists in foxholes." That is to say everyone, when faced with the possibility of death, has a desire to be saved by a force greater than themselves. I have been thinking much about this saying lately in the clamor and pall that has beset our country as Obama administration scandals and a flaccid economy have been subjugated to the threat of Ebola. My intent here is not to add anymore to the cacophony of information, misinformation, disinformation, or speculation about the virus itself, only what it apparently has done to our country in a non-medical sense.
     If one were to replace atheists from the aforementioned saying with conservatives and foxholes with crisis, it would encapsulate the concern I have beyond the spread of a virus that attacks the human body, to a virus that attacks Liberty itself. I have been absolutely appalled and sickened by the response of Republicans, which I might expect to engage in such behavior, and conservatives, which I would not expect to engage in such behavior, engaging in behavior that is more illustrative of those on the Left.
     What is the behavior I am talking about? It is the weakness of the victim looking for a government cure to what ails us. A case in point is the almost constant clamoring by many on the Right for the Obama administration to implement travel bans on flights making their way from West Africa to the United States. Whether the administration should or should not is not important to my thesis.
     I have not heard any airline, any customers of airlines, or anyone in congress suggesting the airlines self-ban. Why must we sit, helpless to ban flights from Ebola infested countries, waiting for the government to act? Can not the airlines stop arrivals and departures from those countries themselves? And can not the citizens, instead of demanding action from an incompetent and tone deaf administration, demand action from the airlines? And are Republicans in congress not able to call on the airlines in this time of national emergency to stop flights that may bring more Ebola-infected persons into the United states?
     I have been more than a little disheartened lately with conservatives, who claim the belief in small government, but recently have been demanding bigger government to deal with what may or may not be a crisis. I mentioned in a previous post congressman Tim Murphy telling the CDC that what ever additional funds and authority they need to deal with the crisis, congress stands ready to give them. Screaming for a government flight ban is another example. Additionally, the focus on the new Ebola Czar having no medical experience rather than making the case that the position should not even exist, is another acceptance of big government by those on the Right.
     The appearance of what may be a crisis should not in any way enervate conservatism, and its core value of smaller government. It is myopic for conservatives to desire a big government solution to the Ebola problem, and then foolishly think that that expanded federal authority will disappear when the crisis has passed. Ronald Reagan once stated that "the closest thing to eternal life on earth is a government program." And not even the absence of Ebola will eliminate the bureaucracy created to fight it.
    

Republicans Set To Give Obama Unlimited Power In Wake Of Ebola

     On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to show the American people that they have no clue what to do about the spread of the Ebola virus, held hearings. After the hearing Republican Congressman Tim Murphy told the director of the Center for Disease Control that congress stands ready to give his bureaucracy all the money and authority he needs to battle the Ebola virus. Of course the CDC is part of the executive branch, so whatever is given them by congress is actually given to President Obama.
     There are other Republicans like Rand Paul who said that Ebola is easier to contract than the AIDS virus, further ginning up the hysteria and making it more likely that the CDC and Obama administration will gladly take up Congressman Murphy's generous offer. Senator Paul irresponsibly said that one can contract the Ebola virus at a cocktail party. I am not sure what kind of cocktail parties Mr. Paul attends, but I assume they are the kind where guests go around depositing Ebola infested loggies into each other's drinks. For the rest of us I think we are fairly safe.
     I have been a conservative most of my adult life, and have tried to be fair minded about giving those on my side of the aisle the scrutiny that I give those on the other side. With that spirit in mind I have to question the motivations, more specifically the political motivations, of those I respect in talk radio and elsewhere on the Right, spreading hysteria over the outbreak of Ebola in the United States. I challenge my side by asking if their response would be the same if there were a Republican administration in control and everything else remained static. I have to say in the cleansing light of intellectual honesty that I do not think it would be so.
     Do not mistake my supposition as letting Obama or anyone in his bumbling basket of buffoons off the hook for their very visible incompetence in the handling of this issue. It pains my heart to think that my friends on the Right have taken to politicizing something like Ebola to push an agenda, an agenda that does not need to be surrounded by political gimmickry. The Left must do such things because their ideas and policies do not withstand the winds of truth and reality. But I have always felt that conservative ideas did not need cheap political theatrics to recommend them.
     In the spirit of self-examination, because as Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living," those on the Right spreading panic over Ebola for political gain must then take partial responsibility for the increased government control that results from it. In my opinion those in congress like Mr. Murphy and Mr. Paul, as well as those in talk radio, have played into President Obama's hands.
     Barack Obama, being a votarient of Saul Alinsky, advances his agenda by creating and using crisis to "do things you think you could not do before," as his first Chief of Staff, Rohm Emanuel phrased it when speaking to a group of donors just after the 2008 election. I am sorry to say that many on the Right have become part and parcel to the crisis mentality needed by the president to further "Fundamentality transform America" and sublimate the individual Liberty of the American people.

"Obama The Magic Negro" Strikes Again

     When Los Angeles Times columnist David Ehrenstein, a black journalist and political pundit, published an article in the aforementioned newspaper entitled "Obama The Magic Negro" in March of 2007, he had no idea how right he was. Even though Mr. Ehrenstein's reasoning was faulty, his conclusion was right on-the-money. His theory was that Barack Obama was magical because he appeared out of no where to assuage white guilt by allowing them to vote for, in the words of Joe Biden, "a clean articulate black man." But the real magic of Mr. Obama is not in the result of his presence on whites, as Mr. Ehrenstein suggested, but in how he performs this and other "magical" tricks.  
     A case in point is his slight-of-hand in distracting Americans from the alacrity with which constitutional rights are being eroded, with the hysteria over Ebola. While the crazies are preparing to make war against an "out of control" government to resist being sent to "FEMA camps," which we all know is the reason that Barack Obama deliberately spread the Ebola virus in the U.S. (I say with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek) the Mayor of Houston is assaulting the Constitution with vim and vigor unmatched in the modern era.
     Mayor Annise Parker, an openly lesbian woman, recently demanded that the pastors of Houston's churches hand over their sermons containing any references to gays. It stemmed from a new city ordinance that forces public restrooms to accommodate transgender and wannabe transgenders, which the pastors have refused to abide. The Mayor, and her supporters, are claiming that since the churches have tax exempt status they are restricted from engaging in political activity. Gee, I wonder why this law does not apply to Leftist groups like the NAACP.
     The Houston case is demonstrative of the Left trying to re-categorize issues of faith as political issues so that they can control free speech and the free exercise of religious faith. It is also illustrative of the brilliance with which Barack Obama has distracted the nation with his left hand of crisis and scandal, while he quietly rips away God-given rights protected by the Constitution with his right hand. The real fear of the Ebola "crisis" is not the numbers of persons that will ultimately be infected, or the institution of martial law and FEMA camps being turned into "death camps," but it is the fundamental changes to our system of government that will be implemented in "fighting" the crisis.
     After all, Barack Obama from the beginning said he wanted to "fundamentally transform America." That transformation comes at the expense of freedom, Liberty, and the very founding of this country. But almost as importantly, that transformation is being achieved by distraction and the slight of hand masking the political magic of Barack Obama.