LIBERTY FROM TYRANNY

Mark Levin is the host of a radio talk show, frequent guest on national tv talk shows like Hannity, lawyer, and perhaps most importantly one of the best minds in America in terms of understanding the direction that our country has taken since the New Deal under Franklin Roosevelt.

Levin understands so well what is going on that his book Liberty and Tyranny ought to be required reading in every high school and college in America (though that is not likely to happen due to the liberal control of those institutions).

Having just finished reading the book I was greatly impressed with both his understanding and his blueprint for America. For this reason I want to share one short chapter here with you. As a bit of background, Levin mentions "Statists" throughout his work. He defines this term as those who eschew the divine grant of rights from our creator, and presume that all rights come from the "state" or government, and that follow a collectivist or socialist view of subjecting the rights of others to the good of the collective. In this view he mirrors much of what was written by Ayn Rand in her seminal works on individual achievement and rights. This is entitled, "A  American Manifesto" and is the concluding chapter of his book. Enjoy and please give this thought and action.

A C O N S E R V A T I V E M A N I F E S T O

So distant is America today from its founding principles that it is difficult to precisely describe the nature of American government. It is not strictly a constitutional republic, becausethe Constitution has been and continues to be easily altered by a judicial oligarchy that mostly enforces, if not expands, the Statist's agenda. It is not strictly a representative republic, because somany edicts are produced by a maze of administrative departments that are unknown to the public and detached from its sentiment.

It is not strictly a federal republic, because the states that gave the central government life now live at its behest. What, then, is it? It is a society steadily transitioning toward statism. If the Conservative does not come to grips with the significance of this transformation, he will be devoured by i t . The Republican Party acts as i f it is without recourse. Republican administrations—with the exception of a brief eight-year respite under Ronald Reagan—more or less remain on the glide path set by Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. The latest and most stunning example is the trillions of dollars in various bailout schemes that President George W. Bush oversaw in the last months of his administration. When asked about it, he made this remarkable statement: "I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system."1 And he did more than that. In approving the expenditure of $17.4 billion in loans to General Motors and Chrysler, President Bush overrode Congress, which had rejected the plan, and in doing so violated the Constitution's separation of powers doctrine. Just as another Republican president, Herbert Hoover, laid the foundation for Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, Bush has, in words and actions, done the same for President Barack Obama—the most ideologically pure Statist and committed counterrevolutionary to occupy the Oval Office.

Republicans seem clueless on how to slow, contain, and reverse the Statist's agenda. They seem to fear returning to first principles, lest they be rejected by the electorate, and so prefer to tinker ineffectively and timidly on the edges. As such, are they not abandoning what they claim ro support? If the bulk of the people reject the civil society for the Statist's Utopia, preferring subjugation to citizenship, then the end is near anyway. But even in winning an election, governing without advancing first principles is a hollow victory indeed. Its imprudence is self-evident. This is not the way of the Conservative; it is the way of the neo-Statist—subservient to a "reality" created by the Statist rather than the reality of unalienable rights granted by the Creator.

So, what can he done? I do not pretend to have all the answers. Moreover, the act of writing a book places practical limits on what can be said at a given time. However, I do have some thoughts.

The Conservative must become more engaged in public matters. It is in his nature to live and let live, to attend to his family, to volunteer time with his church and synagogue, and to quietly assist a friend, a neighbor, or even a stranger. These are certainly admirable qualities that contribute to the overall health of the community. But it is no longer enough. The Statist's counterrevolution has turned the instrumentalities of public affairs and public governance against the c i v i l society. They can no longer be left to the devices of the Statist, which is largely the case today. This will require a new generation of conservative activists, larger in number, shrewder, and more articulate than before, who seek to blunt the Statist's counterrevolution—not imitate i t—and gradually and steadily reverse course. More conservatives than before will need to seek elective and appointed office, fill the ranks of the administrative state, hold teaching positions in public schools and universities, and find positions in Hollywood and the media where they can make a difference in infinite ways. The Statist does not have a birthright ownership to these institutions. The Conservative must fight for them, mold them, and where appropriate, eliminate them where they are destructive to the preservation and improvement of the civil society.

Parents and grandparents must take it upon themselves to teach their children and grandchildren to believe i n and appreciate the principles of the American civil society and stress the import of preserving and improving the society. They will need to teach their offspring that the Statist threatens their generation's liberty and prosperity, and to resist ideologically alluring trends and fads. Parents and grandparents by the millions can counteract the Statist's indoctrination of their children and grandchildren in government schools and by other Statist institutions simply by conferring their knowledge, beliefs, and ideals on them over the dinner table, in the car, or at bedtime. If undertaken on an intimate, purposeful, and consistent basis, it will shape a generation of new conservatives.

And education should not stop at the front door. We, the people, are a vast army of educators and communicators. When the occasion arises in conversations with neighbors, friends, coworkers and others, take the time to explain conservative principles and their value to the individual, family, and society generally.

The Conservative should acquire knowledge outside the Statist's universe. He should not ignore the media, Hollywood, government schools, and universities, but they should not be the primary sources of information that shape the Conservative's worldview. Technology has made access easy to an unprecedented wealth of resources that contribute to the Conservative's understanding, including the Avalon Project,2 which makes available online, among other things, a large collection of the nation's founding documents; the Atlas Economic Research Foundation,' which offers sources of free-market thinking; the CATO Institute, which produces scholarly materials oriented around Adam Smith's philosophy; and the Heritage Foundation, which produces scholarly materials oriented around Edmund Burke. Moreover, established publications, such as Human Events and National Review, engage in conservative thought relating to current news events. Talk radio provides a dynamic forum for conservative thought and debate. There are academic institutions, particularly Hillsdale College and Chapman University, that provide formal educational opportunities. Groups such as Young America's Foundation, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, and the Leadership Institute promote conservatism on college campuses throughout the nation. There are, in fact, many outstanding conservative organizations and institutions, too numerous to list, that are accessible to the public.

The Statist has also become masterful at controlling the public vocabulary. For example, when challenged on global warming, he accuses the skeptic of being a "denier," "favoring corporate polluters," or being "against saving the planet." Draconian measures that threaten liberty and prosperity, such as cap-and-trade, are marketed in appealing and benign slogans, such as "going green." The Statist never destroys, he "reforms." He never disenfranchises, he "empowers."

President Ronald Reagan understood the power of words. He framed the debate on his terms. How can limited government and fiscal restraint be equated with lack of a passion for the poor? How can a tax break that puts a little more money in the weekly paychecks of working people be seen as an attack on the needy? Since when do we in America believe that our society is made up of two diametrically opposed classes—one rich, one poor—both in a permanent state of conflict and neither able to get ahead except at the expense of the other? Since when do we in America accept this alien and discredited theory of social and class warfare? Since when do we in America endorse the politics of envy and division?

Reagan dissected the Statist's language and recast the morality of the message. Americans are not at war w i t h each other over money and class. And when Americans keep the fruits of their labor, it is a good thing. This is both seminal and fundamental. The Statist's vocabulary provides the Conservative with opportunities to highlight the Statist's duplicity and the bankruptcy of his ideas by stripping the rhetorical veneer from his message and contrasting it with the wisdom of the Conservative's principles. The battle over language, like the battle over ideas, is one that conservatives should relish.

The Statist has constructed a Rube Goldberg array of laws and policies that have institutionalized his objectives. His success breeds confidence in the limitlessness of his endeavors. For the Conservative, the challenge is daunting and the road will be long and hard. But it took the Statist nearly eighty years to get here, and it will take the Conservative at least as long to change the nation's direction. Still, there is no time to waste. The Conservative must act now. A n d in doing so he must reject the ideological boundaries the Statist and neo-Statist seek to impose on him, since they are self-defeating. He must be resolute in purpose yet flexible in approach. He must search out opportunities and exploit them. He must be both overt and covert. He must not reject compromise if the compromise is likely to advance the founding principles. He must reject compromise if the compromise is of little consequence and a diversionary end in itself.

The Conservative must take heart from, and learn the lessons of, his nation's history. America's founding, the Civil War, and World War I I were epic and, at times, seemingly insurmountable wars of liberty against tyranny, which would have destroyed the civil society had they been lost. The challenge today is in many ways more complicated, because the "soft tyranny" comes from w i t h i n and utilizes the nation's instrumentalities against itself.

However, it is also a bloodless struggle and, therefore, should enlist all conservatives with the courage of their convictions. There is a dynamic to prudential change that makes impossible the production of a step-by-step guide to tactical actions fixed for all circumstances and times. But tactical actions must be taken today, under known conditions, i f the civil society is to survive tomorrow. Therefore, based on my own knowledge, observations, and experiences, herewith are some of the hard things the Conservative will have to do i f the nation is to improve:

A CONSERVATIVE MANIFESTO

1. T A X A T I ON

Eliminate the progressive income tax—replace it w i t h a flat i n come tax or national sales tax—for its purpose is to redistribute wealth, not fund the constitutionally legitimate functions of the federal government. A l l residents of the country must be required to pay the tax so they have a stake in limiting its abuse. Eliminate the automatic withholding of taxes, for it conceals the extent to which the federal government is confiscating i n come from its citizens. Eliminate the corporate income tax, for i t is nothing more than double taxation on shareholders and consumers, and penalizes wealth and job creation. Eliminate the death tax, for it denies citizens the right to confer the material value they have created during their lives to whomever they wish, including their family. A l l federal income tax increases will require a super-majority vote of three-fifths of Congress. Limit federal spending each year to less than 20 percent of the gross domestic product.5

2. ENVIRONMENT

Eliminate the special tax-exempt status granted to environmental groups, since they are not nonpartisan charitable foundations. Eliminate special statutory authority granting environmental groups standing to bring lawsuits on behalf of the public, since their main purpose is to pursue the Statist's agenda through litigation. Fight all efforts to use environmental regulations to set governmental industrial policies and diminish the nation's standard of living, such as "cap-and-trade" to regulate "man-made climate change."

3. JUDGES

Limit the Supreme Court's judicial-review power, which far exceeds the Framers' intent, by establishing a legislative veto over Court decisions—perhaps a two-thirds super-majority vote of both houses of Congress, not dissimilar from the congressional override authority of a presidential veto.

Eliminate lifetime tenure for federal judges, given the extra-constitutional power they have amassed and their routine intervention in political and policy decisions—which the Constitution leaves to the representative branches. No judicial nominee should be confirmed who rejects the jurisprudence of original-ism.

4. T H E ADMINISTRATIVE STATE

Sunset all "independent" federal agencies each year, subject to Congress affirmatively reestablishing them. Require federal departments and agencies to reimburse individuals and enterprises for the costs associated with the devaluation of their private property from the issuance of regulations that compromise the use of their property. Eliminate unions for federal government employees, since the purpose of a civil service system is to promote merit and professionalism over patronage, and the purpose of federal unions is to empower themselves and promote statism. Reduce the civilian federal workforce by 20 percent or more.

5. GOVERNMENT EDUCATION

Eliminate monopoly control of government education by applying the antitrust laws to the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers; the monopoly is destructive of quality education and competition and is unresponsive to the taxpayers who fund it. Eliminate tenure for government schoolteachers and college university professors, making them accountable for the quality of instruction they provide students.

Strip the statist agenda from curricula (such as multiculturalism and global warming) and replace it with  curricula that reinforce actual education and the preservation of the civil societythrough its core principles. Eliminate the federal Department of Education, since education is primarily a state and local function.

6. IMMIGRATION

Eliminate chain migration, which grants control over immigration policy to aliens and foreign governments, and which the Statist defends to expand his electoral and administrative state constituency.

Secure the nation's borders and discourage those who violate them—illegal alien and citizen lawbreaker alike—by enforcing the immigration laws. End multiculturalism, diversity, and bilingualism in public i n situations, which beget poverty, animosity, and ethnic balkanization; promote assimilation and unity of citizenship, allegiance to American culture, and English as the official national language.

7. ENTITLEMENTS

Social Security is going bankrupt. Medicare is going bankrupt. Medicaid is going bankrupt. These programs and others have accumulated more than $50 trillion i n IOUs due and payable by subsequent generations. Educate the young people about the i ntergenerational trap the Statist has laid for them—which will steal their liberty, labor, opportunities, and wealth—and build a future electoral force for whom the elixir of entitlements is understood as poisonous snake oil. These programs were created in politics and will have to be addressed in politics. Only in this way can they be contained, limited, and reformed.

Fight all efforts to nationalize the health-care system. National health care is the mother of all entitlement programs, for through it the Statist controls not only the material wealth of the individual but his physical well-being. Remind the people that politicians and bureaucrats, about whom they are already cynical, will ultimately have the final say over their choice of doctors, hospitals, and treatments—meaning the system will be politicized and bureaucratized. Remind them that this human experiment has been tried and has failed in places like Britain and Canada, where patients have been subjected to arbitrary treatment decisions, long waiting periods for lifesaving surgeries, antiquated medical technologies, the denial of high-cost pharmaceuticals available elsewhere, and the inefficient rationing of health care generally. And remind them that despite past Utopian promises, the Statist rarely delivers. Ensure that all foreign policy decisions are made for the purpose of preserving and improving American society.

8. FOREIGN POLICY AND SECURITY

Reject all treaties, entanglements, institutions, and enterprises that have as their purpose the supplantation of America's best interests, including its physical, cultural, economic, and military sovereignty, to an amorphous "global" interest. Ensure that America remains the world's superpower. Ensure that at all times America's military forces are prepared for war to dissuade attacks, encourage peace, and, if necessary, win any war.

9. FAITH

Oppose all efforts to denude the nation of its founding justification—that is, God-given unalienable, natural rights that the government can neither confer on the individual nor deny to him. The Statist seeks the authority to do both, which explains his contempt for, or misuse of, faith. Moreover, faith provides the moral order that ties one generation to the next, and without which the civil society cannot survive.

10. THE CONSTITUTION

Demand that all public servants, elected or appointed, at all times uphold the Constitution and justify their public acts under the Constitution. Oppose all efforts to "constitutionalize" the statist agenda. Eliminate limits on and rationing of political free speech through unconstitutional "campaign finance" laws, which benefit incumbent politicians, the media, unions, and other Statist-related groups. Any American citizen or group of American citizens should be free to contribute to candidates as they wish, as long as the source, amount, and recipient o f the contributions are made known.

Defeat all efforts to unconstitutionally regulate the content of political speech on broadcast outlets, such as radio. The Statist now seeks to consolidate the power he has accumulated by silencing non-compliant voices through a variety of schemes that would regulate broadcast content.

President Reagan said, "Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we w i l l spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free." We Conservatives need to get busy.

Footnotes:

1 Candy Crowley interview with George W. Bush, "Bush on Economy, Iraq, Legacy," CNN, Dec. 16, 2008, http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/l 2/16/intv.crowley.bush. long, cnn? iref=videosearch.

2 Avalon Project, available at http://avalon.law.yale.edu/.

3 Atlas Economic Research Foundation available at http://www .atlasusa.org/V2/main/page.php ?page_id=385.

4 National Archives and Records Administration, Ronald Reagan, "Remarks at a Conservative Political Action Conference Dinner," February 26, 1982, Public Papers of Ronald Reagan, Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, http://www.reagan.utexas

5 See Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose: A Personal Statement (New York: Harcourt, 1980), Appendix B.

6 Ronald Reagan, "Encroaching Control (The Peril of Ever Expanding Government)," A Time for Choosing: The Speeches of Ronald Reagan 1961-1982, ed. Alfred A. Baltizer and Gerald M.

Bonerto (Chicago: Regnery, 1983), 38.

THE POST-RACIAL PRESIDENTS RACIAL POLITICS

In his 2008 campaign, Barack Obama has described himself as the "post-racial" president. His implication that his election as a (at least part) black man eliminated race as an issue in American politics.

These Obama claims could define the term "lip service". Since taking office, and in support of the choruses of the like of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and their ilk, Obama continues to pound the racism drum to his political benefit.

Now of course the "black leaders" like Sharpton, Jackson and Rangell don't want racism to go away, because that is the stuff of their support. They have to be able to threaten playing the race card to obtain money from big business to "insure" that they don't have race problems. If racism went away, they would be out of a job.

None of them need to worry about job security. They can count on the fact that in the coming presidential election Barack Obama will use his billion dollar Chicago campaign machine to somehow make it wrong to be white. He will undoubtedly be using the race card, and claims of a lack of racial sensitivity to imply that only a black president (him) can be appropriately respectful to all Americans.


Never mind that the Obama administration has made every effort to demonize successful white American males, personified by Mitt Romney. Obama would have you believe that they only achieve success by somehow wrongfully climbing on the backs of others, and that they are insensitive to the needs and concerns of others. This from the "black" president who has seen his personal net worth go from less than $1 mil. to more than $8 mil. in less than three years on a $400,000. per year salary (is that the new math?). However acolytes will contend that it is not fair to argue that successful blacks are out of touch with their less than successful brethern (unless those successful blacks happen to be conservatives-i.e. Herman Cain-Uncle Tom types).

In the coming campaign it will be as wrong to be "white" as it is to be "right" according to the Obama campaign and its superpacs and celebrities singing the Obama party line.

Mark my word, we will now be seeing, as the campaign for the presidency heats up, more and more allegations of racial insensitivity, claims of racial slight, and curiously these claims will be on matters of little real consequence, but will be trumpeted from the housetops by the Obama apologists.

So, remember, most of the allegations you hear will be nonsense. When you consider the coming presidential candidates, please look at their prior history of performance. If you do that there is no way that you can vote for Barack Obama. AOB-Anyone But Obama makes sense. He has no accomplishments that benefit America to run on.

WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A DEMOCRAT (LIBERAL PROGRESSIVE).

We’ve all received various political emails, some funny and some not.  I thought it worth sharing here as it is so true.  All of these 40 items are characteristic of the Democratic Party and the liberal progressive view today and paint them out for what they really are and believe. See if you identify with these values.

1. You have to be against capital punishment, but support abortion on demand.

2. You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.

3. You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are more of a threat than nuclear weapons technology in the hands of Chinese, North Korean Communists and Iran.

4. You have to believe that there was no art before federal funding.

5. You have to believe that global temperatures are more affected by human activity than by scientifically documented cyclical changes in the earth’s climate. Public policy should be based on “An Inconvenient Truth.”

6. You have to believe that gender roles are artificial, and that being homosexual, or transgender is natural and normal.

7. You have to believe that the AIDS was invented originally by the government to destroy minorities and is spread by a lack of federal funding.

8. You have to believe that the same teacher who can’t teach fourth graders how to read is somehow qualified to teach those same kids about sex and alternative lifestyles.

9. You have to believe that hunters don’t care about nature, but environmental activists who have never been outside of San Francisco do.

10. You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.

11. You have to believe that Mel Gibson spent $25 million of his own money to make The Passion of the Christ for financial gain only.

12. You have to believe that the NRA is bad because it supports certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good because it supports certain parts of the Constitution.

13. You have to believe that taxes are too low, but ATM fees are too high and wealth needs to be redistributed to provide a safety net and level the playing field.

14. You have to believe that Margaret Sanger and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, and Alexander Graham Bell.

15. You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides are not.

16. You have to believe that Hillary Clinton is normal and is actually a very nice person.

17. You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn’t worked anywhere it’s been tried is because the right people haven’t been in charge.

18. You have to believe that conservatives telling the truth belong in jail, but a compulsive liar and sex offender deserved to be in the White House.

19. You have to believe that homosexual parades displaying drag queens, transvestites, and bestiality should be constitutionally protected, and manger scenes at Christmas should be banned.

20. You have to believe that illegal Democratic Party funding by the Chinese Government is somehow in the best interest of the United States.

21. You have to believe that it’s okay to give federal workers the day off on Christmas Day, but it’s not okay to say “Merry Christmas.”

22. You have to believe that illegal immigration is okay because they want a better life. So what if their numbers sap the infrastructure as long as they vote Democrat.

23. You must believe that radical Islam is not a threat to the peace and stability of the world, besides Bush invented it to get re-elected.

24. You must believe that more radicals should be allowed to emigrate to the U.S. in the name of diversity and fairness.

25. You have to believe that only ABC, MSNBC and CNN should be allow to exist because they are the most objective and FOX or Talk Radio might confuse you with facts and should be shut down or the “Fairness Doctrine” re-instituted.

26. You have to believe that group rights are more important than individual rights. After all it takes a village to raise a child.

27. You have to believe that Barack Hussein Obama is a messiah and will bring real ”Change” to America although he isn’t able to articulate it.

28. You have to be non-Christian and believe that the practice of Christianity is hate speech against Muslims.

29. You have to believe that Christians are the greatest threat to America and an eventual ”one world government” and that America should relinquish its sovereignty to the U.N. and the World Court.

30. You must believe the US Constitution is an outdated document and that only Democrats have the right to re-write it to meet their liberal satisfaction.

31. You must believe that the federal government is God and only the government can give you your inalienable rights.

32. You must believe it is better to receive than to give, also known as Welfare.

33. You must believe that that having a white anything is racist while Black Entertainment, Black History Month, NAACP, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are not.

34. You must believe that the Mexican flag should be flown above the American flag on Cinco de Mayo (May 5).

35. You must believe that it’s better to give government aid to illegal citizens instead of US citizens.

36. You must believe that it is unconstitutional to require proof of US citizenship to vote while at the same time claiming it is constitutional to require citizens to carry proper ID and proof of insurance.

37. You must believe that is better to supply guns to the Mexican drug cartel than it is allow Americans to own them.

38. You must believe that it is better to release convicted murders and jail law abiding Border Patrol agents.

39. You must believe that a convicted felon has more rights than their victims and are allowed to sue them for damages.

40. You must believe that is acceptable for a teacher to ridicule a student’s Christian believe in front of the entire class but it’s not acceptable for a Christian student or teacher to express their faith.

Are these really the values of America and of the founders when they were willing to risk everything for individual freedoms? I don't think so.

TURKEYS ABOUNDED ON THANKSGIVING!

Like the frustrated taxpayers in the cartoon, I have a lot of frustration with our president. 

It's no secret, I don't like his domestic policies, which clearly seem aimed at destroying our free market economy, subjecting citizens to a nanny government with an oligarchy of political class winners selected by Washington.

But I am really getting concerned about the world situation, and the lack of a response by the condemner in chief. While he is busy apologizing to the world, and appearing a lackey to the socialistic liberal progressive puppet-masters who program his teleprompters pip-squeak countries like Pakistan continue to receive his billions in largess while thumbing their noses at us! While it is unfortunate that some Pakistani soldiers were killed and injured, it's a war, s*** happens, so get over it. Pakistan kills more of their own citizens for political reasons than happened in this accident of war.

Meanwhile, we have a foreign policy which is defined by field trips in Air Force 1, but has no substance. Got a single terrorist to kill, sure, he will loose the Seals. But have a policy to enhance the image of America and remind the world of its strength and resources (which the foreign nations so frequently seek from us-with no attendant support or payback) not a chance.

Are we feared or respected around the world any longer? Nope. Would a Reagan or a Bush have tolerated the disrespect of the worlds "have-nots" as they demanded our resources to support their very existance? Not!

This nation has the resources, the ability to be financially sound, and the leadership to overcome our current problems and establish result oriented solutions. But, we cannot do that until Washington has a house cleaning on both sides of the isle.

There must be a fundamental return to the Constitution to govern all government actions. There must be a end to government intervention in private enterprise to allow it to prosper except in the very limited circumstance where there is a potential serious to public health and safety to mandate regulation. That means about 80% of government regulation will go away, and with it can go the bureaucratic drones who enforce the unnecessary.

Like the lyrics of the Bonnie Tyler song, our nation is "Holding out for a hero".

Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed?
Late at night I toss and turn and dream
of what I need:

I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night
He's gotta be strong
And he's gotta be fast
And he's gotta be fresh from the fight
I need a hero
I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light
He's gotta be sure
And it's gotta be soon
And he's gotta be larger than life 

We now need that political hero, to step up, put the trappings of power behind the interests of the citizens, and put this nation back on the right path. I'm still holding out. . . 

CAMPAIGN MODE-THE PIN IS BACK ON.

Now as we enter campaign season, which is getting as early as Christmas displays at Costco, we see a subtle change in the anointed one.

Anyone notice that since entering this mode where he is attempting to end-run congress by executing hordes of executive orders to make himself look decisive and presidential, Obama is also now wearing his American Flag lapel pin again.

Much discussion was had of this early in his tenure, when the pin disappeared, failure to salute at the national anthem, or pledge of allegiance raised the specter that this president did not really like his country, and intended to fundamentally reshape it to his vision of a socialist/Marxist/euro type state.

Remembering, this president, who went on around the world apology tours, trying to diminish the stature of the US in the eyes of the world. Portraying the nation as a global bully, Obama has become the laughing stock of world leaders, who consider him the true paper lion. They view him as the man who has the ability to bite, but a lack of will to do so.

Recent disclosures show the political chameleon Obama is, always conscious of the re-election impacts of his every move. It is disclosed in a book just released on the Bin Laden operation, that he stayed on the golf course until just 20 minutes before the actual strike for the express reason of having deny-ability if the action went awry. The famous picture we all saw of him in the command center looking concerned and presidential was taken after he knew his presence there presented no political risk.

So, what are we to take from the new found patriotism of wearing the flag pin and presidential while damning Congress for not acting when he is so decisive? The realists in the audience will take it for exactly what it is. . .pretentious posturing by a president who will put his re-election above all else.

REFLECTION AS ELECTION SEASON NEARS

As the election season nears, I have spent some time reflecting on the process of selecting leaders for America. In that reflection, I have looked at my own feelings as this process grows to a crescendo with nearly a year of events starting with whoever will end up as the first state to "kick-off" the season. Politics are like a football game, as pictured here. Different sides call for the support of their favorite, often becoming angry or vindictive about the actions of referees, opponents or fellow fans who disagree with their opinion.

As I look at elections as they appear now in America I am immediately struck by several points which I think are hard to deny.

1. Elections have become a process of media marketing giving the voting public little in depth understanding of either the candidates or the issues which really matter to the nation. This has been fostered by a Washington DC culture which is divorced from its constituency and appears to generally act principally to protect prospects of re-election, and the sources of the funding necessary to "buy" the best possible campaign. Despite a new breadth of access to information from the internet, and 24/7 news coverage it depth has been about that of a childrens wading pool, rather than the deep end of an Olympic diving venue. Further and unfortunately, the integrity of the media is woefully lacking. Almost every media source has its political positions, and makes no pretense of impartiality. Talking heads both in news and talk media frequently lie about facts or simply ignore facts in order to support or avoid embarrassment to the positions they support. Journalism, in the pure reporting of news sense has all but disappeared except for the report of the local fire or car accident. National media appear to always report with an agenda, though some appear to try to reach balance more than others.

2. The pool of political candidates is narrowed by the politics of personal destruction. Any candidate who want to run for a national office now must have a pristine personal history, or be prepared for attacks for every little wart in their past, and in fact the making-up of issues if none can be found. An example-candidate Rick Perry's relative leased a ranch in Texas and later Perry took it over. On that ranch when the Perry family leased it was a rock with the "N" word painted on it. Perry on finding that artifact had it painted over, years ago. Now an anti-Perry person reports to the media that rock's existence. The media goes out and looks and claim that you can read the bad word under the paint, and this is somehow an indication that Perry is a racist. Can we get any further from the reality of his qualification for office? Mit Romney is attacked by the Perry camp because of his religious affiliation, just as JFK was when he ran, and opponents claimed the nation would be run by the Pope since he was Catholic. Again, attacks with no real relationship to the fitness or qualification to serve. Serving as a elected official should be a decision made by a person who has been successful in their life, to give a period of service to their nation. It should not be a path to a career, financial gain, or egotistic pandering. Unfortunately, the current approach discourages the truly qualified from running. Example. The election in California for governor. Candidate Meg Whitman is accused of misconduct by a fired domestic servant, and her opponents play that issue into a racial card, to bias Hispanic voters against her. The result-a retreaded politician who will likely harm California's collapsing finances is elected.

3. Integrity is lacking in elected officials. Every elected official takes an oath. That oath should be taken seriously, and with deliberation of their willingness to comply with its terms. That oath requires the official-elect swear to support the United States Constitution. It appears that most in office consider this a pro-forma step to taking office, and then not only never give another thought to the oath, but instead spend the rest of their terms attempting to make end runs around the Constitution when it serves the political or personal purposes. There are of course exceptions to this, but they are clearly in the minority.

So, what can we do, to get the system to make sense. How do we get politicians to act in the interest of the community as a whole, not their own best interest, the special interests of others who fund campaigns, and as true public servants. Well I would offer some suggestions for rule changes which I think would solve that issue.

1. Term limits. No one should be allowed to make a career of elective office. A lifetime limit of 12 years in any national office should be imposed. The Presidency should be excluded from this lifetime limit, as it has its own term limits.


2. Elected Officials Compensation. Elected officials should not set their own compensation. There should be no retirement benefits conveyed beyond social security as available to all citizens, and a 401K program equal to that offered by average private business. i.e. something like a program where you donate and the employer matches a small percentage of the donation to your retirement as an incentive. There should be no health insurance for elected officials other than that offered to general federal employees. Increases in salary or benefits for elected officials should be tied to national economic performance. Just as private employees benefit from successful performance, politicians should be the same. 


3. There should be only limited immunity in statements concerning candidates. An action at law for libel or slander should lie even though candidates are public persons for any statements which are demonstrably false, defamatory, or lack substantiating evidence.

We need to reform the financing of campaigns in some way to level the playing field. But that is a bigger issue for another day.


Think about our elected officials today, in comparison to the Washingtons, Jeffersons, Lincolns, and other presidents who served with integrity, honesty and in a true attempt to unite the nation. We don't need the Obamas, Pelosis, and Reids who are willing to divide the nation to serve their own egotistic interests.

OCCUPY WALL STREET-OR MAYBE LOOK FOR A JOB?

You may have seen the recent "Occupy Wall Street" activities in New York, and now spreading among the wacko lefty's to other cities. This unfocused general complaint of the have nots wanting a hand out from the haves is symptomatic of the class warfare arguments that our divider-in-chief is trying to hinge his re-election on.

The picture here, taken from the uprising's web site, reflects the misinformed view of the protesters that the engines of growth and progress in American business are somehow the devils, and the "kum by ya" generation should rise again, send us back to the farm, and all will be well.

Consider the list of demands (comedic as they are) from the protestors:

"Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market to level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages. Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Demand four: Free college education.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy."

Let's address each of these and take a look at their merit.

 1. Restore the Living Wage. This is a meritorious goal. So lets look at how our protesting friends want to effect that change. I assume this is also a call for universal employment. The first element they call for is trade tarrifs on all imported goods. Perhaps not a bad idea for those countries who dump into our markets, but in the long haul, what we need is for our goods to be so in demand, because of their innovation and quality, that they are sought on the world market. They also say we should make an arbitrary increase of the minimum wage to $20. per hour. That provision in itself would unemploy millions as business would have to lay off half their staffs to be able to afford the cost of the remaining employees. Small businesses would close, and the effect would be catastrophic. Instead our steadfast protestors might consider reduction of business taxes, reduction of government red tape and bureauracy, and a reduction in the size of government, all lowering the financial burden on business. Then growth, and attendant increases in jobs will occur.

2. The second demand is a call for Obamacare, only with a single payer government bureaucracy taking private insurers out of existence. We all know how well government manages anything, (i.e. the Post Office, Energy Department, Fannie & Freddie, and the general budget) so we would want to hand over the entire health care of the nation to that bureaucracy.  I am guessing that this demand is aimed as currying support from Emperor Obama (which has already been expressed). While some health care reforms are certainly in order, co-opting the market is not the approach.

3. Guaranteed free living wage. Universal welfare at $20. an hour for not working. Now there is an entitlement program that is guaranteed to bankrupt government, and in the process require the taxing of business to the point of surrender by businessmen and entrepreneurs. Who among the business world will support oppressive tax rates, rather than cash out, and avoid the grief? The answer is what you are seeing now as wasteful entitlement programs and government spending have depressed the economy to 10% unemployment, and if this proposed benefit were adopted you could up that number to 20 or 30 percent. Another socialist view, with no sense as to how it would be paid for.

4. Free College education. Again a great idea, but the system we have provides partial funding for anyone who wants to attend college. Would the protestors require that we pay for Harvard or Yale for anyone who wants it, or that the colleges be required to accept anyone applying. After all that sounds fair, right? The naivety of the demands is amazing. Do these lib-idiots not understand who really pays for the demands they make?

5. End fossil fuel dependence and adopt alternative energy. Again another failed idea. Just as the tanking of the money sent to Solyndra by the Obama administration, the real need is to utilize the resources we have in the United States to replace dependence on Middle-Eastern oil as we develop alternative resources at a realistic pace. Saying do it now is a unrealistic and childish view reflecting the immediate gratification needs of the protestors.

6. Spend a trillion dollars on infrastructure right now. Not next year, right this minute. Another unfunded mandate from the protestors who are acting like the federal government when they make demands on the states without providing a means to pay for those demands. 

7. Spend another trillion on the environment, and killing all nuclear power. Another lefty/environmentalist wacko wet dream that has no basis in reality. The call is for removal of dams, and returning the environment to a state that does not take into account human usage or presence. I don't know about you, but I consider myself as part of the environment, and don't want to be excluded from the equation, not to mention discussing where the trillion dollars would come from.

8. Adopt a racial and gender equal rights amendment. I think we already have this in the existing laws. Racial and gender discrimination is already prohibited. I think the problem is the micro minorities which are trying to define new genders, and races from those which were actually biologically created. It is really not something we need to create new and more and more bizarre protected classes. Pretty soon, if the protesters had their way porcupines would not be allowed to have spines that would create gender/race discrimination as they attempt to breed with hummingbirds.

9. Open the Borders. This happy group which seems to want more from the American pie, then also wants to create more and more diners at the table for that pie. They would open the borders and allow anyone and everyone to come here, and join the feast. Doesn't matter if they mean to attack us, our values, our form of government, or fundamentally transform America into something different, its OK. Again a unrealistic and naive demand from juvenile mentalities.

10. Paper Ballot Elections. I don't particularly have a problem with this, however it would be costly over not using the technology which exists to expedite the process, however, I suspect that this merry group would object to limiting voting privileges to the actual citizens of the nation and states, and would want the open borders folks voting too. Can you imagine the outcome? Every border jumper will vote for more money in entitlements, without a thought for where it comes from (Big Uncle will take care of it). Like Obama's Aunt (see the U-Tube videos) America owes her and any other person with a need to pay their way.

11. Across the board forgiveness of all debt in the world. Wow, what a concept. All debt is forgiven, all businesses fail as their assets evaporate with the debt and securities provided for that debt, and then we all return again to the "Kum by ya" economy, trading our chickens and vegetables for the neighbors marijuana and mushrooms. What a concept. This again needs no real description to address its ridiculousness and juvenile conception.

12. Outlaw all credit reporting agencies. Now this should not be necessary under the new world order, since all debt would be gone. However, in a real world, there is a need to assess the ability to repay debt, and those agencies have simply met that commercial need. 

13. Allow workers to join unions. Well, I believe that right already exists. Or are our friends just throwing that one in to get support from the public employee and teachers unions to continue funding their little junket? These rights exist now, there is no need for a demand.

In conclusion, we might just want to consider the level of maturity of the demands of this small time protest. This is like the "Million Man March" that really was about a fourth or less than that in actuality. They want to act like a big deal, but it seems most of the protestors are dupes to Union bosses, lefty community organizers (kinda like the one in the White House), and other progressives who have no real grasp on financial reality. Go home folks, get a job, and take your rhetoric, your trash, and your filth off someone's private property.


A Footnote: Since this was first published, it has come to light that organizers are paying protestors to appear for the Occupy Wall Street protests. So much for dedication and sincere belief in the cause.