The Fantasy Dwellers

     It has been a month since the 2012 Presidential election, which saw the American people reward failure and incompetence with another four year term for President Obama. Over the last month I have heard many hours of analysis from the right, the left and those disinterested parties in the middle. One thing is clear, many in the Republican party are what I call, "The Fantasy Dwellers." They refuse to leave their comfort zone of denial as they blame the election loss on a supposed lack of Hispanic outreach or too strict of an adherence to the social issues like abortion. All of their reasons lead to the same conclusion, less Conservative influence in the party.
      I believe that the recent election loss is a result of Republicans not understanding the contest in which we were involved. We sent a chess player to a boxing match, and expected him to deliver a first round knock-out punch. This is not a criticism of Mitt Romney, he is a decent and accomplished man for whom I have nothing but respect and admiration. But it is obvious now that the world of politics has an ever decreasing tolerance for men who posses decency and honor. And therein lies our problem. The electorate say they abhor negative campaigning, yet they just re-elected a man to the Presidency based solely on his character assassination of his opponent. The more that Republicans deny this fact, the more national elections they will lose.
     But still the "Fantasy Dwellers" persist in their absurd notion that somehow we can keep sending out tit-mice to battle rattle snakes. I'm re-evaluating, based on the election results, my opinion that Newt Gingrich may have been a better choice for our party than Mitt Romney. Recent polling has shown that a majority of those who voted for President Obama don't like his policies and think they are wrong for the country. So why did they vote against their own self-interests? They did so because they were influenced by the barrage of negative ads by the Obama campaign against Mitt Romney. It didn't matter that they weren't true, they made people dislike Mitt Romney more than they disliked the President's policies. The Republican establishment's insistence that President Obama is a nice guy but just misguided on policy, helped President Obama maintain his likability edge.
     Hindsight is always 20-20, but after the 2008 election many on our side were saying we needed to attack Obama on his radical ideology and roots. But the moderate faction of the party, "The Fantasy Dwellers", were afraid of alienating the independent voters as well as being called racists. Well Mitt Romney won the independent vote and was called a racist anyway, and still lost the election. Maybe if we had sent a street fighter like Newt Gingrich into the ring with Obama, the result may have been different. He may have been able to give people a reason not only to vote Republican, but a reason not to vote Democrat. "The Fantasy Dwellers" in the Republican party, unfortunately, seem to be in control. And as long as they are, we can expect to lose elections with candidates who arm themselves with pee-shooters against nuclear-armed opponents. 

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted December 2, 2012.

Obama's "Warning" To Assad

     The Obama administration has sent a stern warning to the embattled leader of Syria, Bashar Al Assad, letting him know in no uncertain terms that he will face dire consequences if he uses chemical weapons on the rebels that are trying to oust him. I seem to remember similar messages being sent to Assad after his forces had slaughtered a thousand of their own countrymen, and each time after that that the death toll increased on its march to the fifty thousand plus it is today. So now with the equivalent of a football stadium packed to capacity, dead in Syria and another 1.2 million people displaced, the Obama administration is going to get tough on Bashar Al Assad.
     Remember the good old days of the Syrian revolution when there were only a few thousand Syrians that had been slaughtered by their own government and Secretary of State Clinton called Bashar Al Assad a "reformer." In fact, no matter where you looked,  you could not find a disparaging word about Dr. Assad anywhere on the left. Even now, there is not the outrage coming from the left over the slaughter of 50,000 freedom fighters as there is over the possibility that tax rates may not be increased on the wealthy.
     Remember the visits made to President Assad by the feckless former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan? If the situation weren't so tragic for the Syrian people, it would have been comical. Good old Kofi would meet with Bashar and leave Syria with the tyrant's assurances that there would be no more bloodshed. The death toll escalated more after each visit from Annan.  I remember the smile on the former Secretary General's face, like Chamberlain after his meeting with Hitler, waving an agreement signed by the evil dictator, and stating emphatically that peace had been secured. This silly and dangerous notion on the left that they can negotiate with evil men, seems to span distance and time. I guess it is their inability to admit that there is evil in the world, because to do so would shatter their idea of  a global Utopia being attainable. Tyrants and other evil men know this fact and use it to give the leftists of the world slivers of hope that they will change their ways, while they use the time to become even stronger and expand their influence.
     The other interesting thing about the Obama administration's warning to Bashar Al Assad about using his chemical weapons, is that it is a circuitous admission that George W. Bush was right about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. Since there is no evidence that Bashar Al Assad had chemical weapons prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March of 2003, and Saddam Hussein did, it can be assumed that the missing weapons in Iraq were shipped to Syria for safe-keeping. When Saddam did not triumph over the U.S. led invasion of his country, Bashar Al Assad was an unintended beneficiary. But no one, especially on the left, seems interested in finding out how Assad acquired his chemical weapons, they only want to send empty warnings and hope that the situation will fade from the attention of the world community. It is typical problem avoidance by the left when the problem involves real evil, which they are unable or unwilling to comprehend or confront.

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted December 2, 2012.

Hippieocrisy

     During the late 1990s and early 2000s, when I was in the midst of some sort of mid-life crisis, I attended some weekend music festivals. These festivals were populated with old hippies whose current lives had become so meaningless that they wanted to escape into their past, when they remember being more relevant. The other attendees to these festivals were the young, modern day hippies who were so void of their own creativity that they wanted to hitch their creative wagons to a star that had long ago burned out. I attended because I enjoyed the music, camping out for the weekend, playing my guitar around a campfire and eating junk food. But I never fully bought into the hippie mentality, and there were several reasons why.
     There was a decidedly anti-Capitalism present in the air and on the ground at the hippie festivals. I saw hippies, young and old, wearing tee-shirts emblazoned with slogans like, "Corporations Kill", "Corporate America is Responsible for Global Death" and the ever popular, "Ban Profit." What bothered me is the pure ignorance of a mindset that would presume there could be jobs, and therefore tax revenue to pay for the social programs for which hippies advocated, without profit from corporations and small businesses. What was more troubling was the hypocrisy exhibited by these anti-capitalist who themselves sold glass marijuana pipes, grilled cheese sandwiches, cigarette lighters and bottled water, all for a profit. What further compounded their hypocrisy is that they sold their wears without purchasing a vendors license from the event sponsor, thereby engaging in the same kind of cheating of which they accused the  corporations.
     The hippie hypocrisy didn't end with engaging in capitalist behavior while at the same time demonizing it, but extended to their environmental views. Once again, the tee-shirt slogans of the hippies did not match their behavior. The catchy little slogans were all about "saving the planet" and "being green", but the hippies actual goal seemed to be to turn the festival grounds into a garbage dump by the end of the weekend. Trash bins were strategically placed throughout the festival grounds, but the hippies preferred to drop their trash where ever it was they happened to be standing when it was time time to dispose of their refuse. When confronted with his slovenly behavior, I heard one hippie say, "Relax man, they have volunteers that pick up the trash." The improper disposal of litter was only one of the ways in which hippies emulated their own characterizations of corporate polluters, but I will save you from the details of their scatological behavior.
     In addition to the hypocrisy I have outlined above, the peace and love of communal hippie living was less in evidence at these weekend music festivals than was child-like self-centeredness. It was a microcosm of why the Liberal creed of "Do what feels good" is a recipe for disaster, whether in the life of an individual or of a culture.

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted December 2, 2012.
    
 

The Age Of Selfishness

     There is a shift in our culture towards more dependence as it relates to the relationship between the government and the citizen, but the same kind of shift has occurred on a more micro level in our society. This shift has occurred in the family and has taken place within the realm of parenting. Until recently, the goal of parents has remained relatively unchanged and has spanned most cultures of the world. The successful outcome of good parenting is a child who has been transformed into an independent and contributing member of society. This is accomplished through the teaching of moral values, a strong work ethic and a strong sense of independence.
     Unfortunately, the skills of good parenting are lost on some in today's generation of parents. We've all seen the unruly child in public whose parent ignores the uncivilized behavior or even worse, rewards it with whatever it is the child wants. There is an even worse trend of which I have been made aware, i.e. mothers taking inappropriately aged boys into the ladies room. Some have reached the age of 7 or 8, long past the age when a trip to the ladies room with mother is appropriate. It is not only damaging to the sense of independence in the young boy, but is very uncomfortable for other women who may be using the facility. This inappropriate behavior is possibly driven by a fear of what might happen to the young man if he were allowed to enter the men's room by himself. But this is an irrational fear since it can easily be overcome by the mother waiting right outside the door and by previously having properly trained and instructed the boy in how to handle any unusual situation, should it arise.
     Creating independence in a child begins at a very young age. A friend of mine told me a story about a trip he had taken to Amish country. While there, he helped a small Amish girl to her feet after she had fallen. The girl was no more than 3 or 4 years old, and my friend received a stern look from her father. When my friend inquired if he had done something wrong, the Amish father said that the girl must learn to pick herself up when she falls. This is the antithesis of the parenting mentality which causes a mother to take her 6 or 7 year old son into the ladies room. The Amish father knows that a child who is taught to always expect help from others, will grow into an adult who can't do for themselves, and this isn't good for any culture or society.
     Of course there is a fine line a parent must walk between allowing the child in their care to learn the valuable lessons of independence, and keeping them safe and healthy. This line, which was instinctive in our culture for so long, seems to have been obliterated in favor of raising children that remain juvenile their entire lives. It begins with retarding a child's very basic personal responsibilities, like using the restroom by themselves. But it leads to adults who can't fulfill any of the responsibilities of living in a civilized society, like supporting themselves, helping their community and leaving more to the world than they have received. We have entered the age of selfishness which is caused by dependence and leads to a soulless society.

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted December 2, 2012.

The Damaging Effect Of Diveristy On Education

     Equality is the left's version of the golden calf. They have elevated it to the status of a god worthy of their worship, and have melted down every other value of our culture to create it. They have even bastardized this great nation's founding documents in order to have some authority with which to empower government to achieve it. The Declaration of Independence and Constitution do not guarantee equality of results, only that all men are equal in the eyes of God and under the law. The form with which equality takes as it relates to our education system, as it does with so many other areas of our culture, is diversity.
     Diversity, on its face, seems like a good and moral goal. Who would be against the idea of inclusivity in any area of our national life, especially education? But as it is with so many seemingly moral ideas, the left sees them only as opportunities to expand the scope and power of centralized government to the benefit of the ruling class. The bigger question, as it relates to education, is have we sacrificed excellence in order to achieve some bureaucratic idea of diversity? I think the evidence is clear that we have.
      Some may think that diversity relates only to ethnicity and race in the classroom, but it is so much more than that. Government administered diversity has resulted in an education system that teaches to the lowest common denominator. This causes the emphasis to be placed on failure rather than success. Lower achieving students are not raised up, but rather the higher achievers are, in a sense, lowered down. Diversity is responsible for many schools abandoning honor rolls and even meaningful grading systems, so as not to make the less-gifted or less ambitious students feel bad. Excellence in higher achieving students is not used as a motivational goal for the students at the lower end of the academic achievement scale, but is discouraged all together.
     As a result of the Liberal insistence on using the full force of government to make the classroom more diverse, they have actually made it less so. The students are asked to sacrifice a quality education in the name of diversity, which has the effect of an equally lower result for all students with very little room for excellence. Real diversity comes from teaching to a higher standard and expecting all students to meet it. It doesn't come from tethering more gifted students to lower achievers for the purpose of artificially inflating the self-esteems of those at the lower end of the academic achievement scale. It is only through an emphasis on a higher academic standard, for all students, that we can achieve excellence and diversity in our education system.

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted November 26, 2012.   

Did The Government Really Build That?

     Big government Liberals, like President Obama, like to think that nothing would exist without a centralized government authority. This concept was the point of President Obama's, "You didn't build that" comment during this past Summer in the heat of the Presidential campaign. But his statement, and more importantly his ideology, misses the point that government would not exist without everything else. Giving the government credit, for instance, for the existence of the modern-day Internet is like giving credit for the development of the automobile to the caveman who invented the wheel.
     The recent Liberal argument that business couldn't exist without roads and other infrastructure built by government, labors under the assumption that businesses exist in a vacuum. After all, businesses and their employees pay taxes that fund infrastructure projects. In fact, since every taxpayer works for some kind of business, I would go so far as to say that government infrastructure projects could not exist without business. Business, on the other hand, would find a way to build infrastructure if government didn't. The Lincoln and Dixie highways were built by the private sector and many government projects are actually contracted out to private firms. So in many cases the government just acts as a middle-man in the construction of public works.
     The President likes to point out that the government created the Internet, and by so doing is responsible for all the Internet businesses that exist today. The Internet was developed by the military, the redheaded step-child of Liberal government. Two things are important to remember about the creation of the Internet. One, the government fought commercialization of the Internet for years and two, does anyone really think that the government was the only entity capable of creating the Internet? My contention is that had the government not fought commercialization for so many years, the Internet may have actually advanced much more rapidly.
     There are indeed some things that only the government can build. They include, but are not limited to, a 70,000 page tax code, over-regulation of the banking and energy industries, destruction of the black family, massive debt that will take generations to pay off if ever and of course the ever popular, if not thoroughly destructive, welfare state. 

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted November 26, 2012.

The Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy President

     Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is a mental disorder which affects woman in 85% of the cases diagnosed. The disorder manifests itself with the caregiver of a child deliberately keeping the child ill, sometimes to the point of death, in order to fulfill an overwhelming desire on the part of the caregiver for attention and sympathy. As long as family and friends are focused on the sick child, that focus is also extended to the caregiver of that child.
     I only bring up this rare disease as a sequoia into discussing the motivation of President Obama for the obviously destructive policies he advocates. In a way, the President has a version of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, only it is an entire nation that he seeks to keep sick. One thing is clear about Barack Obama, he is a narcissist, and as such he needs constant stimulation of his ego. A healthy and thriving economy places the government and the President in a much less prominent role in the lives of the citizenry. Inversely, when things are in turmoil and people are unemployed, there is much more attention paid to the President, thereby giving him a sense of importance. Of course, the environment of constant crisis does allow, as Rohm Emanuel framed it shortly after President Obama's victory in 2008, for the government to do things that it ordinarily wouldn't be able to do. But forcing socialist policies on the country is only one outcome of crisis for President Obama, the other is to feed his ego.
     To understand why the President is a practitioner of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, one only needs to look at his childhood. He was abandoned by his father and his mother sent him to live with his grandparents to separate him from his step-father, Kolo, because she felt his free market ideas were poison to her young impressionable son. By a very young age, Barack Obama developed not only a hatred for capitalism, but a desire to be a better father than his biological father had been to him. These early lessons, along with the constant ego-stroking he received throughout his life, created a potent combination of a desire to be in control like a father and a distrust for anything that might claim that responsibility from him, such as free market capitalism.
     Barack Obama's need to keep the nation in a constant state of crisis and malaise is rooted then in his desire to father and to have constant attention focused on his every word. This is why he prefers speech-making to governing and confrontation to cooperation. The first step in the therapy process for treating Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is the separation of the victim from the person with the disorder. Unfortunately, Barack Obama has been given another four years to continue the economic sickness of the nation and thereby feed his need for attention. We, as his victims can only become sicker and hope we don't die before help arrives in four more years.

Click here to watch my latest political song parody. Posted November 26, 2012.