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.