The Inherent Unhappiness Of Leftism

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

The "Pale Pastels" Of The Republicant Party

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

    
    

Successful Strategy Or Biggest Blunder ?

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

Will Republicants Snatch Defeat From The Jaws Of Victory ?

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

A Nation Built Upon Primacy Of Conscience

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

The ObamaCare Conscientious Objectors Are Wrong

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

Who Is Winning The Shutdown Battle ?

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