The connection between Christmas and liberty

It is difficult to find any of our recent presidents speaking to a legitimately national audience or a crowd of public citizens with such fearless religious conviction as President Reagan, who refused to allow the secularization of America deter him from declaring the true meaning of Christmas. On December 23, 1981, Reagan spoke on national television from the Oval Office about how "Christmas means so much because of one special child" and that many "of us believe in the divinity of the child born in Bethlehem, that he was and is the promised Prince of Peace." He told specifically of a "love Jesus taught us," and with unflinching Biblical references, explained that "Americans have always tried to follow a higher light, a star, if you will." And that the success of our nation lies in "trusting in God's help." Reagan went on to declare that even though we have been divinely blessed, we have a reciprocal "obligation to the God who guides us, an obligation to the heritage of liberty and dignity handed down to us by our forefathers." Our 40th president knew and explicitly displayed through his words and actions that America is gift from God, and if we stray from His guidance the very purpose with we have been ordained will gradually erode.

Phony Nixon

I heard and partially saw a promo for this phony film "Frost-Nixon." What a joke. I lived through (the final) part of the Nixon era, and while I have no fondness for Nixon, this film sounds like a cartoon. I don't know how anyone can take this thing seriously. They make him sound like some madman ogre, in a cartoonish sense.

Do words reveal the mind?

Both the current and future Vice Presidents were interviewed this past Sunday. I found it interesting as I read the transcripts how these men express themselves. Usually people with a well-ordered disciplined mind speak in logical coherent sentences. Those who speak in jumbled, fragmented sentences reveal a disordered, undisciplined mind. Note these two examples. The first is Dick Chaney when asked about presidential power:

"The president of the United States now for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in."

Now read the words of Joe Biden when asked if he might be considering serving in the Senate even up until he becomes Vice President:

" No, no, no, no, no, absolutely not. I've already -- if I haven't done it -- to be honest with you, I think I've done it, but if I haven't done it, I've signed a letter, will sign a letter saying, notwithstanding the fact I'll be sworn in the first day, I have no intention of staying up until the day that I am sworn in as vice president. Secondly, I yield responsibility to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to John Kerry. No, I have, no. "

Striking!

Israel vs Obama

I am posting this entire article by Dick Morris because the fallout from this situation could make our economic problems seem like a Sunday school picnic:

With the election of Barack Obama, the United States has moved dramatically to the left in its foreign policy at just the time that Israel, which seems likely to return Bibi Netanyahu to office in early February, is moving to the right. A collision is almost inevitable.Caroline Glick, the highly astute conservative columnist for the Jerusalem Post, writes that the "international community" believes that Obama "will move quickly to place massive pressure on the next Israeli government to withdraw from Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights in the interests of advancing a 'peace process' with the Palestinians and the Syrians." She notes that "people who have been in close contact with Obama's foreign policy transition team have privately acknowledged that the widespread belief that Obama will move swiftly to put the screws on Israel is fully justified. According to one source who has spent a great deal of time with the transition team since last month's U.S. elections, Obama's people are 'scope-locked' on Israel."

Meanwhile, in Israel, there is a growing consensus, reflected in public opinion surveys, that trading land for peace is a chimera. Netanyahu points out that "we do not have a viable partner with whom to negotiate peace." The Palestinian Authority does not speak for the people of either Gaza or the West Bank, and Hamas, which probably does (it won the election), does not want to be a party to any peace agreement. Recent experience suggests that Hamas will quickly install rocket launchers on any territory Israel concedes, using it not as a basis for peace, but as a platform from which to kill more Jews.Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the candidates of the left, Labor's Ehud Barak and Kadima's Tzipi Livni, are deeply committed to land for peace. Their rejection by the Israeli electorate -- the anticipated outcome of the Feb. 10 election -- will signal a bold departure in the political consensus of the Jewish state, a consensus that flies directly in the face of Obama's likely policy.

The difference between the U.S. and Israel also extends to the realm of how strongly they oppose Iranian development of nuclear weapons. While Iran moves closer and closer to a bomb that could and will be used against Israel, Obama speaks of extending the American "nuclear umbrella" to cover Israel.Reading between the lines, this means that he doesn't think he can stop Iranian nuclear ambitions and will retreat to a policy of deterrence, accepting a nuclear Iran in the bargain.If Netanyahu wins the election, he will bring with him a determination to stop Iranian nuclear weapons, no matter what, and a refusal to concede more territory in the name of the peace process. But Obama's foreign policy team will be focusing on pushing Israel in just the opposite direction.The result is likely to be the most significant divergence between Israeli and American policies since 1956, when President Eisenhower sided with the Arabs to halt the British-French-Israeli invasion of Suez.

The United States has tremendous leverage over Israel -- military, financial and political. And Obama's ability to carry the Jewish vote by a wide margin despite his likely Middle East policy makes him largely immune to the kind of political pressure that has disciplined American presidents in the past and forced them to incline toward accommodating Israeli views on the Middle East.But Israel probably has the military capacity to bomb Iran and to win the Middle East war against Syria, Hamas, Iran and Hezbollah that is likely to result. Unlike Olmert, Netanyahu will use ground troops right off the bat and will fight such a war to win and to win big. But they may have to do it without their strongest ally: the United States.

How to save the free-market system a la Bush

"I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system," Bush told CNN television, saying he had made the decision "to make sure the economy doesn't collapse."

This is perhaps the most oxymoronic statement I have ever heard. It's like saying, "I am abandoning Christian principles to save Christianity." It's like trying to save the hen house by sending in all the foxes. Isn't this kind of thinking the definition of insanity?

A time for choosing

Let me commend to you, the reader who may stumble upon this blog, an item listed in the left hand column of this page. Our blog administrator, Dave, has provided a link under the phrase "Rhetorical Gold," to the speech delivered by Ronald Reagan in 1964 in support of the candidacy of Barry Goldwater. I just had the pleasure and privilege of re-watching this brilliant speech. It's astonishing in its freshness, its directness, its implicit respect for the intelligence of the average American citizen.
Click on the link right now and either watch, listen to, or read the comments by Ronald Reagan. His wise words of 1964 ring as true today as they did 44 years ago. Truer, even. And they say that the era of Reagan has passed. Hardly.
This tract ought to be to conservatives what the Nicene Creed is to Catholics: that is, you accept it in all its particulars or you are not a member of the True Faith.

Rise of the Beast

In a December 8 article titled And now for a world government, Gideon Rachman writes: "A taste of the ideas doing the rounds in Obama circles is offered by a recent report from the Managing Global Insecurity project, whose small US advisory group includes John Podesta, the man heading Mr Obama’s transition team and Strobe Talbott, the president of the Brookings Institution, from which Ms Rice has just emerged. The MGI report argues for the creation of a UN high commissioner for counter-terrorist activity, a legally binding climate-change agreement negotiated under the auspices of the UN and the creation of a 50,000-strong UN peacekeeping force. Once countries had pledged troops to this reserve army, the UN would have first call upon them."

Strobe Talbot is the consummate globalist. He was a Rhodes Scholar, served under Clinton as Deputy Secretary of State, and is a member of the CFR. In the July 20, 1992 issue of Time magazine he said: "In the next century, nations as we know it will be obsolete; all states will recognize a single, global authority. National sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all."

We are witnessing first-hand the rise of the Beast of Revelation 13. Call it shared sovereignty, global governance, or one-world government, it's all the same: "And authority was given him over every tribe, tongue, and nation."

Are They Praying?

Is it me, or do those autos executives in the news photos look like they're praying? Praying before the mighty gods of Congress! Have mercy, oh Congressional gods!

"We have to accept the religion of the secularist?"

asked the great Mark Levin, incredulously, last night, referring to "conservatives" who contend we need to "accept" the "fraud" of global warming. He also said, quite accurately, that "Marxism is mass suicide." And that's just what we're preparing to do in this country, economically, militarily, and every which-way. Mark's response to all this? The only correct one: defiance.

Bush=Nixon? No and no

Can I sort of change the thrust of this blog for a moment. While we’ve been focused – quite appropriately – for the past few months on Barack Obama and what his election means for the country, there’s something that just drives me nuts. It’s this irrational Bush hatred that consumes so many people.
What has set me off is a story linked from Drudge (where else?) saying that Ron Howard, the movie director and one-time child star, sees great parallels between George W. Bush and Richard Nixon. Both, you see, imperiled our freedoms in horrific, dangerous, and power-hungry ways. Thanks goodness, in both cases, heroes emerged to save us: Jimmy Carter and now Barack Obama.
This is self-indulgent nonsense of the first order.
First, Bush is no Nixon, and secondly, neither was Nixon.
Nixon certainly was a complex and troubled man, but his excesses in office, unforgiveable though they might have been, were certainly nothing out of the ordinary for the chief executive of this great but flawed system of ours.
Presidential excesses seem to go with the territory. The excesses of the Kennedy clan and Lyndon Johnson were epic, and of course, Roosevelt invented new powers for himself almost as a pastime.
Nixon, in other words was nothing exceptional. His problem was that the hard left targeted him for destruction in the early 1950s for exposing one of their own for what he was – a Soviet agent. Alger Hiss was an Ivy League man and Nixon was a rube from out west somewhere; how dare he insert himself into the business of his betters? They set their sights on Nixon and eventually caught him in the crosshairs. On Nixon being caught mixed up in the Watergate mess, one imagines the democratic leadership collectively saying it was “shocked, shocked” at such behavior. Indeed.
So, as I say, Nixon was no Nixon; he was a wartime president elected to lead a society that somehow had to deal with the likes of William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, etc. If that wasn’t a time that called for extraordinary law enforcement measures, I don’t know what was.
And Bush, likewise, finds himself leading a society through the complex challenges of a global war on terror – a war that has been constantly undermined on the domestic front by the likes of – yes – William Ayers et al.
But for all of that, Ron Howard is free to make his movies, speak his mind and trash his president. And congratulate himself on his “courage.”
These people are, I tell you, nothing if not self-satisfied. Ignorant, yes, but self-satified.
What brought all this up? Well, Howard has directed a new movie about the post-resignation, post-humiliation interviews with Nixon orchestrated and conducted by British comedian David Frost.
Comedian? Oh, I know he considers himself an important journalist/interviewer/history maker, but his real claim to fame was as host of the comedy/reality show “That Was the Week that Was,” which anticipated a lot of the so-called news programming circa 2008. Oh, and how could one forget Frost’s memorable hosting duties on the periodic (and idiotic) Guinness Book of World Records TV shows?
In other words, Frost, the hero of Howard’s new film, was primarily a clown. His self-serving account of the Frost/Nixon interviews, which I tried to read, serve as the basis for Howard’s film. Nixon, of course, isn’t around to answer Frost, Howard, or anyone else.

New role for the military

"The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said" (WashingtonPost.com, Nov. 30, 2008).

Rather than reassuring me, this move really makes me nervous. This is a radical change in the purpose and focus of our military. And once they're in place, they could be used for literally anything (like confiscating guns a la New Orleans...or worse).

Taking Candy from Babies

As we await the swarming of the socialist hordes, we can take solace in the fact that we enjoy some distinct advantages over our opponents. People who depend upon a paternalistic government for their every need are, by definition, weak, pathetic, helpless losers. They cannot take the first step in life without instructions from some government functionary. They lack ambition and initiative. A lifetime of listening to false promises of something for nothing has dulled their intellects. They spend their lives waiting for some smooth-talking strongman to save them from the burdens of striving and making decisions. They are takers and not contributors. The more advanced among them expect the strongman to vicariously purify their souls by robbing the haves and giving to the have-nots. As the socialist government's promises fail and the promised nirvana fails to materialize, the drones must turn to the more resourceful members of the society for their needs. A black (that is, "free") market appears, which undermines and discredits the government. The government, already corrupt, becomes loathed rather than revered. The free, capitalist system again has the upper hand.

Therefore, do not compromise or throw in with the collectivists. Continue to clearly and forcefully articulate and defend your beliefs; after all, they are correct. Winning an argument with your opponent is like taking candy from a baby. To have the truth echo in his ears will cause his morale to crack.

Hillary the moderate? Get serious

The local talk radio guy is taking calls about Obama's appointments, notably the appointment of Hillary as Secretary of State. This is a nominally conservative show, mind you. The callers are falling all over themselves talking about how this indicates Obama is moving to the center. What planet are these people from? Hillary is, if anything, a harder left true believer than Obama. She cynically voted for the war in Iraq because she was looking toward 2008 even then and figured the war would be a cakewalk. Let me remind one and all of her eye-rolling spectacle in the joint seession of Congress right after 9/11. That's the true Hillary, the one who figured that, somehow some way, we had it coming to us and that all this flag-waving was distinctly unpalatable. Sure, Hillary pretended to be a "moderate" for a few months during the recent campaign. But she's a far left eurosocialist/globalist right down to her bones.

Regarding these appointments, it's also been observed that Obama's top level figurehead appointments may be of the mild mannered unobjectionable sort; his mid level appointments, where the rubber meets the road, will be the matter to watch. And the thinking is, those appointments will be the hard core activists who'll carry out the transformation of this society that Obama has called for repeatedly.

In other words, folks: don't be fooled.

McCain Pays Court to Lord Barack

This disgusting display vindicates me in everything I have ever said about McCain.

First to throw overboard

“I think the important thing for the Republican Party is now to also look at other issues that are very important for this country and not to get stuck in ideology... Let’s go and talk about healthcare reform. Let’s go and . . . fund programs if they’re necessary programs and not get stuck just on the fiscal responsibility (presumably this means it's okay to be fiscally irresponsible?).” Thus saith Arnold Schwarzenegger, who needs to be the first RINO thrown overboard by the Republican Party. His brand of republicanism needs to be roundly repudiated by every true conservative and he needs to be deprived of any further voice at any Republican gatherings. He is finished.

I Feel So Dirty

I was the one who swore he would never vote for Captain John "Wrong-Way" McCain, under any circumstances. I vividly remember sitting in the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February, 2002, listening to George Will eloquently score McCain's arrogant assault on the First Amendment, known as the McCain-Feingold campaign finance bill. The bile rose on each of the many occasions when our great war hero betrayed his party. The Great Maverick, as a politician, has always been more self-serving traitor than maverick. He's as much a "foot soldier in the Reagan Revolution" as I'm a foot soldier in the Lenin revolution. He's no conservative; his philosophy, to the extent he has one, is a bizarre mix of selfish opportunism and joining with the enemy. He's joined the enemy so many times that he qualifies as a member in good standing of the enemy. Why would I ever vote for such a bum?

Then came Sarah, our young, beautiful, perky, peppy, electrifying, unabashed conservative. I sold out to Sarah on Day One. I didn't need a cross between Ronald Reagan and William Buckley; I just wanted someone to articulate my principles. And that's exactly what Sarah did, with some dutiful parroting of McCain's more hare-brained proposals. I was on board. I made calls for McCain, went to a McCain-Palin rally, wore a stupid McCain hat. My motivation was to "stop Obama," as the sign said that I carried at the rally. I winced at McCain's every boneheaded misstep, hoping against hope that we could avoid the unspeakable nightmare of electing a communist to the position once occupied by George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.

Now, in the wake of McCain's blowout loss (it was a landslide, and I don't assign one iota of blame to Sarah), I feel like I need to take a shower and have my skin pumiced off. Our hero is even now planning his cooperation with Comrade Obama and his fellow travellers, and his torpedoing of his nominal teammates on the Republican side of the aisle. Had he won, perhaps things would have been slightly different from what we can expect once the great "agent of change" takes command. Politics makes for strange bedfellows, even for a proud, pure ideological conservative like myself. And that just makes me feel all the dirtier.

The enemy is within

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor – he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear."

– Marcus Tullius Cicero 42 B.C

Have they already won?

Remember back in the days right after 9/11 when there was a phrase going around – it turned into a joke, actually – that if we didn’t do so and so or such and such, then “the terrorists have already won?” As in, “If we don’t go out to the shopping malls to buy Christmas presents, the terrorists will have already won.”
Remember that? That’s what I’m thinking about these days. Ever since the election, a lot of pundits on the right have been worrying over what Obama will do when Al Qaeda inevitably hits us again. Will he be tough enough? Will he hit back, and hit back hard? He says he will, of course. And maybe he would.
But what if Al Qaeda doesn’t hit us again? And not because they’ve suddenly learned to love us. What if Al Qaeda doesn’t hit us again because they’ve figured out that, with Obama’s election, they have already won. What if they’ve decided that America will no longer stand in the way of their oft-stated and clear ambition to bring the entire globe under the house of Islam? What if they figure out they’ve already won?
And there’s an irony here. During the Clinton administration, the approach to dealing with jihad was to treat it as a matter for law enforcement and the courts. It was Bush who decided that we needed to treat jihad as a military matter - that is, as a matter of war. Now, the tables have turned: Jihad will go forward, of course, as by doctrine it must. But it no longer needs to be carried out as a war or by other violent means. As Obama settles in, as his judiciary takes shape (and it will make rulings for the next generation and more), jihad will prevail in our courts. Quietly, inexorably, inserting itself into the fabric of our national life, just as it is already doing in the old Europe.

Is Sarah the One?

I'm not so sure. This morning at the gym, I was watching TV and reading the captioning. Sarah was on at least two morning shows, and on CNN, according to the caption, she said, "If I cost John McCain one vote, I'm sorry. . . . He's a great American hero," etc. Cost McCain votes? The genius who "suspended" his campaign to "go to Washington" and get savaged by the socialists there and the media, and got absolutely nothing in return? The same idiot who told irate Republican voters in a rally, "Don't worry about Senner Obama, he's a good man, he's a family man, you don't have to worry about him as president"? That idiot? If she keeps this up, if she tries to "redeem" her Katie Couric performance in this fashion, she's toast. Now is her real moment. The eyes of the people who didn't vote for the Messiah are on her, and they are legion. If she blows this, then she is truly not worthy of such a high office, and will be doomed to be the most beautiful governor in American history.

Cleaning house

Ann Coulter says, "After showing nearly superhuman restraint throughout this campaign, which was lost the night McCain won the California primary, I am now liberated to announce that all I care about is hunting down and punishing every Republican who voted for McCain in the primaries. I have a list and am prepared to produce the names of every person who told me he was voting for McCain to the proper authorities. We'll start with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Then we shall march through the states of New Hampshire and South Carolina -- states that must never, ever be allowed to hold early Republican primaries again."

This is the kind of specific, concrete, naming names type of discourse we need right now. And it must go way beyong Ann Coulter. I am waiting to see who will name names, who will call a RINO a RINO. BTW, in her current column she absolutely nails why I never liked John McCain and why we will all probably grow to, as Brian said, hate him again.

Idle silence

I have never been particularly inclined to toot my own horn. But I once had a job where I allowed a jealous peer to define my performance in the mind of our mutual boss. My reticence to talk about my accomplishments hurt my career considerably. I realized that it was not enough to do a good job; it was also necessary to make sure the boss knew I was doing a good job.

Last week I heard Rush say that the Obama administration will be like Clinton's in that they will never stop campaigning. But I'm not sure this is such a bad thing. I fact, I think it is perhaps the greatest failure of the Bush administration. Of course, Clinton took it too far, using his campaign techniques to obscure the truth and keep the masses deceived (as Obama will do). But Bush has utterly failed to use his prominence as president to simply keep the troops rallied, which I think is not only a legitimate leadership practice but also a necesssary one. Instead, in the name of being "presidential" and staying above the political fray, he has allowed the adversary to define his performance in the mind of the boss (the electorate). This failure on his part has now cost us dearly.

"As we must account for every idle word, so must we account for every idle silence" (Benjamin Franklin).

The new global society?

The Drudge headline on Sunday night says Gordon Brown is calling on the nations of the US and Europe (primarily) to take the lead in forging a new global society. A question: Will the nations of the world openly embrace, with conviction and enthusiasm, the constitution of the United States? Anything less will be unsatisfactory for any true American. No real American will willingly be organized under anything remotely resembling the system anyone such as Gordon Brown (or Barack Obama) might cook up in the Hague.

Brown says the financial crisis of the last two months highlights the urgency of implementing this new order. The problem with Brown - and with Obama - is that they see the entire financial/material order of the world as being based on a zero sum game. In other words, in their view, the material pie is only so big and if the nations of the west are getting big pieces of the pie, that means some other nations are getting smaller pieces, in some cases, vanishingly smaller pieces. Such a view, with its echoes of Malthusian thought and Club of Rome shortsightedness, never accounts for the capacity of human intelligence to invent new ways to expand prosperity and to constantly redefine what constitutes resources.

The Brown/Obama view is simply an essentially Marxist misreading of the forces of history.

The West has created material prosperity for its people not at the expense of other societies but very specifically because of the principles under which it operates, the principles that have guided its social/political/economic development.

If the nations of Africa, for example, embraced - truly embraced - Jeffersonian principles of governance, JudeoChristian values of justice, mortality,, and ethics, and free market principles of economics (the markets, of course, operating under the rule of law), they would find themselves very quickly moving up the economic /material ladder. The fact that the nations of Africa, almost without exception (if there is an exception, please point it out to me) live in kleptocracies and thugocracies has everything to do with their endemic and heartbreaking poverty.

All the well-intentioned (and for the sake of argument, let's grant the intentions are benign) intervention in the world will do nothing, nothing, to solve the problems of third world poverty. An indiscriminate transfer of wealth from west to east and south will only turn the entire third world into a vast, globe-encompassing equivalent of Cabrini Green, a model Obama should well understand.

The leftist globalists, devoured by Western guilt about the rest of the world's dysfunctionality, don't recognize the reasons for the West's material success.

We are in for a world of hurt if the global organizers seize control of the international order in any substantial way.

These people must be fought and resisted with every tool at our disposal.

Fight Them on the Beaches

By now, the shock of the Obama “victory” has worn off to some degree, though that shock, to me, has been equalled only by the September 11 attacks in my lifetime. We who love liberty and independence must prepare ourselves for the assaults to come. Our rights to free speech, association and religion, to private property and to bear arms are all under attack. The idea put about in the media, even in such organs of the “right” as the Wall Street Journal, that Obama will govern from the center,” is preposterous. You will wait as long for that to occur as we have been waiting for the fabled “Iranian moderates” to assert themselves. If we entertain such delusions, we will be steamrolled.

What can we do to slow down this leftist charlatan and his adoring hordes? We must assert ourselves with principled arguments at every point where the Obama agenda is pressed. We must do this with our friends, family and acquaintances. We must write letters to the editor, in order to keep newspapers and other letter writers honest. We must e-mail columnists who now freely list their e-mail addresses. You’d be surprised at how many will respond. We must continue to write or call our elected representatives to make our feelings known. That’s how we stopped the phony immigration “reform” pushed by George W. Bush and John McCain and forestalled the abominable, failed federal bailout. Fifty-six million Americans voted against the Great Agent of Change, and we must mobilize for the battles to come, hoping to take advantage, in the 2010 election, of Obama’s inevitable policy disasters. We must also show our complete opposition to the RINO, so that this contemptible creature will become an endangered species, if not altogether extinct. We must continue to sound the alarm on this and other blogs, and to invite our friends and acquaintances to do the same. We must encourage candidates, like Sarah Palin, who champion our principles, and explore other political parties who might do the same.

The alternative, in the words of the great Ronald Reagan, to be realized sooner or later, is “the soup kitchen of the welfare state.”

Celebrate the Fraud

We're told we're to celebrate the "historic" election of Obama as president. Celebrate, hell. As General Anthony McAuliffe told the Germans when they asked him to surrender his unit in the Battle of the Bulge, "Nuts."

Let's examine what we have to celebrate. The election of a communist who lied, cheated and stole his way to the top office in the land, which gives him command of all the armed forces of the United States. He broke campaign finance laws left and right, taking money from dead people, cartoon characters, and foreigners. His goon squad of socialist storm troopers, ACORN, committed massive voter fraud. He lied through his teeth to a stupefied electorate.

Only a complete fool would think this doctrinaire communist is all of a sudden going to "govern from the center." Anyone who's not an idiot knows what's coming: defense cuts, civilian goon squad storm trooper army, global poverty act, elimination of secret-ballot union elections, legalized theft in the form of "redistribution" of wealth, suppression of free speech in the form of the "Fairness Doctrine," socialized medicine, the destruction of our economy through "cap-and-trade" and other environmental idiocy, open borders, the culmination of Obama's lifetime of black-separatist agitation and thought, suppression of religion in the form of prosecuting those who speak out against "gay marriage" or the religion of the "Messiah," banning of guns, and the general shredding of what's left of the U.S. Constitution.

I don't want to celebrate these atrocities, these assaults on myself and my country. And I don't want to "work" for Obama's socialist paradise. I don't want to "sacrifice" only so that I can have communism's kick in the teeth. To hell with Obama and all of that.

Of our leaders in the media, Rush Limbaugh has been stout in his defiance. That hero of conservatism, Mark Levin, has been absolutely defiant; he's not congratulating anybody for anything. Unfortunately, Glenn Beck wants to "congratulate" and "support" Obama. I e-mailed him, told him he's crazy, then turned off his show in disgust.

We all have a choice: put our heads down and fall in line with all the other drones for our bowl of gruel; or resist this malevolent menace with every fiber in our beings. If you think that's going to be easy, think again. But the only alternative is surrender, and the death of your soul. No thank you.

Shedding republicanism?

Rush is apparently saying the Republican Party needs to be purged of non-conservatives. I think we need to go further.

The fact is, the Republican "brand" may be tarnished beyond redemption. From time to time in this nation's history, new parties rise up to address new issues with new language and new ideas. Now, perhaps, is such a time. Perhaps it's time once and for all to shed the Republican identity and start with something fresh.

I would be willing to bet that all three of us - Brian, Dave, and me -came to the Republican party because of the compelling logic and power of Ronald Reagan's argument. In fact, the "Republican" part was incidental; we came to conservatism.

I for one was always - and still am- uncomfortable with the country club republicanism as embodied by such as Christie Todd Whitman, the Maine sisters (Snowe and Collins), and the well-startched and self-satisfied sorts such as Richard Lugar. I also have always been skeptical of Republican institutional indifference to the excesses of corporate America. Big business and big government are way too cozy (as the recent turn of events in the economy demonstrates all too clearly).

There's plenty with Republicanism, in other words, that I've never embraced. I was willing to go along with it because it seemed expedient; we now see where expedience has gotten us.
So where are we? With a Republican party that has been rejected and, frankly, humiliated, perhaps now is the time for something fresh. Now is the time for a new movement, something as optimistic and sunny as a spring day.

As conservatives, we should no longer carry the baggage of "Republican"; let's start something new, something that says, Whether you're black, white, red, yellow or brown, if you believe in the fundamental principles laid out in the constitution, if you believe in the power of the American idea, if you are not looking for government to solve your problems, if you believe that you should be the captain of your destiny, if you believe that American not only can be, but must be, a shining city on a hill, then you're with us.

We may start out small, but we aren't going anywhere, and history will come around to us. Why? Because we're right. To paraphrase William Faulkner's Nobel address, "I believe that we will not just endure; we will prevail."

A new "long march?'

Mark Steyn, writing this morning in National Review Online, touches on a theme that has been a favorite of mine: the Obama victory marks the culmination of the left's long march through the institutions. And he argues that the right will not succeed in taking back the country until it completes its own long march, because 21st century elections will increasingly be decided on the basis of cultural issues and the left owns America's cultural institutions.

That's all well and good, but one must ask, how do you go about reclaiming the institutions? Will the academy suddenly open its arms to the right? Hardly. The reason the left seized the academy was because at one time, the academy was governed by reasonable people who thought they were bing open-minded and fair by allowing all viewpoints to have a so-called place at the table. Unfortunately, the people who claimed that place at the table are not reasonable people and they have absolutely not intention whatsoever of opening up any seats to right thinkers.

The same is true across the entire cultural spectrum. (For example, the judiciary is now lost to the right for at least a generation).

So, what to do? I think the idea of doing our own "long march" is out of the question. The institutions are closed to use. What's needed, I believe, is to create an entire parallel universe in which conservative values and principles will be absolutely foundational .

Any thoughts?

Our long national nightmare

Well, that's it.

I've been reading the ongoing blog on National Review Online and was sickened and disheartened to read the genial notes of congratulations to Obama from worthies such as Jonah Goldberg, who one thinks would be one of the good guys.
What you realize is that to most folks inside the beltway - even so-called conservatives - this is all a game.

The attitude is something like, "We lost this time. But we'll get 'em next time." Reminds me of the scene in Bridge on the River Kwai when the William Holden character fully realizes that the British commando team he'"volunteered" with treats their entire suicidal mission as some sort of game. Holden shouts to the Jack Hawkins character, "By all means! Good hunting! Good show! Jolly good fun!"

I'm afraid that's where we are.
This election is a wake up call; matters needs to be taken out of the hands of the political operatives who have just been disastrous for conservatism over the past generation. A true grass roots effort, unbeholden to anyone, needs to reclaim the movement, the party, and the nation.

The New Dollar

Phone Bank Phun

Ah, the phone bank. In exchange for three tickets for the McCain-Palin rally in Hershey, I caved in and agreed to do two hours of phone calling for the ticket. I could have said no; but, hey, they told me they needed my help, and civilization hangs in the balance. I hadn't done phone banking for at least twenty years. Now I remember why. I realize now that I'd rather have multiple root canals, without Novocaine, or a barium enema, or be admitted to a hospital, than make unsolicited political phone calls.

They give you a list. Where did the list come from? Who knows; they didn't tell us. Most of the numbers are wrong numbers. And even if the numbers are right, nobody answers a land-line phone anymore. And with those generic, robotic answering messages, you don't know if you're calling the person on your list or Mickey Mouse (an Obama supporter, by the way). Of the few people who do answer, quite a few just hang up on you. Even people who support your candidate don't like being called.

And wherever the list came from, why do people give their work numbers? Applebee's? At least they have those head sets. "Patch me through." You want political campaigns calling you at work? And yesterday, on my third shift making phone calls (yes, I'm a big sucker), I finally called a dead person (another Obama supporter). Her son wasn't too happy to have to tell me that his mother has been dead for five years. And guess what? The automatic phone system does have a selection for "deceased."

I wish I had a dollar for every time a respondent, after I asked for the person on the list, said "Who??" You ask yourself, why am I doing this? Why is anybody doing this? I guess if our guys win by a couple votes (throwing the election into endless litigation anyway), it'll be worth it; but isn't there a better way?

Tomorrow, I'm putting in my last hour. ("An hour a day keeps Obama away," they say.) I guess the script will say, "Hello, did you know there's a world-changing presidential election today?"

Redistribution of wealth? Been there, done that pretty darned well

It strikes me that one has to be willfully dishonest - driven, I can only conclude, by a profound antipathy toward America - to argue that this country needs to embark on a government-enforced policy of wealth distribution.

Why dishonest? Because few things in this world are more apparent to the honest observer than that the US has proven to be the most effective wealth-redistribution system ever devised by the mind of man. No where at no time on the planet have more goods and services been spread more effectively across a broader swath of the population than in the US. It's just a fact. And it's no accident. The country's prosperity is a direct result of the limitations placed on government by the very constitution our soon-to-be president publicly disdains.

Let's not be blind or dishonest ourselves: there is still human suffering in this great and still-free country. When we can do something to genuinely assuage that suffering, we must try to do so. Where government policy traps people in poverty, we must fight to change that policy. Where government policy, union corruption, and political cynicism combine to keep people trapped in poverty, we need to fight for justice for the poor. But let's be clear: the poison policies and practices I'm talking about here are the very policies, the very medicine, the socialist doctors want to prescribe on a wider and wider scale. Only more poverty and despair will follow.

And let us also be honest and mature enough to understand that much of the poverty and despair that occur in our communities is the result of bad, selfish, self-indulgent, self-destructive choices. The result, in other words, not of a failed society but of human failings, character flaws. The problems of endemic poverty and despair will not be solved by a redistributionist government. Our trillion-dollar investment in our inner cities over the past two generations is testament to that.

Again, the US is the greatest distributor of wealth in the history of the world. If the millions of people who clamber for our shores can see this so clearly, why cannot our socialist so-to-be overseers? And again, one can only conclude they view this nation through a lens of utter animosity and desire at a deep level to see us undone, unmade, unraveled.

The Obama Base

So far we have the Iranians, al-Qaeda, the Palestinians, and Louis Farrakhan all making public statements to the effect that they are rooting for Obama, not to mention the entire Muslim population of Kenya.

A Collaborative Effort

For twenty years after Ronald Reagan left office, we've basically held it all together, somehow. Now, it appears we're ready to drive full speed off the cliff. What happened?

Of course, the socialist demagogues in the Congress deserve much of the blame. The enablers who continually, and sometimes perpetually send them back to Washington are a big part of the problem. These enablers have shrugged their shoulders as, piece by piece, our civilized society has been dismantled. Many millions of Americans have acquiesced, if not participated in the coarsening of our culture and the degradation of our values. They have consumed the vile television shows and insipid, violent, propaganda-filled movies pushed out by Hollywood. They have neglected their children and addicted them to video games. They have sat and watched as avowed communists, anarchists like William Ayers "promote" education by destroying it. Popular culture, public education, a business sector infected with political correctness, the legal system, our political system--all have become so rotten that one need only kick out the rotted timbers so that the whole thing will come crashing down, to be rebuilt by the likes of Barack Obama and William Ayers.

In his famous "Time for Choosing" speech, given during the 1964 presidential election campaign, Ronald Reagan told a story of a Cuban immigrant who told his story to two friends of Reagan's. One friend said to the other, "We don't know how lucky we are." The Cuban responded incredulously, "How lucky you are? I had someplace to escape to." Reagan went on to explain that America is the last stand on earth. There is nowhere else to go, nowhere else to escape to. God help this country if we are foolish enough to elect a determined, cold-blooded, soulless communist as president.

But where have the protectors of the nation's dignity, our Constitution, and our cherished traditions been while all this has been occurring? Where has the conservative party been? The sad answer is that they have lined up right behind the socialist left, raiding the treasury, disregarding the Constitution, establishing gigantic new entitlements, and now, worst of all, buying up entire industries with money that we don't even have. Not only do we not have it, we can't even borrow it anymore. We're looking like some banana republic, run by demagogic socialists, followed and supported by a bunch of stupid, greedy dolts. The last resort of a country in such a condition is simply to print money, thereby cheapening our currency, like Weimar Germany of the 1920s, or Zimbabwe of the present.

Regardless of who wins the presidency, we in the sane minority, the "rump" United States, have a lot of work in front of us, because we have nowhere to go, and we won't give up or give in.

My address is the bench at 5th and Maple.

In the beginning, the Founding Fathers agreed that only men who owned property would be entitled to vote. That concept was tossed out the window a long time ago. Today, however, we have reached all the way to the opposite extreme as a federal judge in Ohio has ruled that counties must allow homeless voters to list park benches and other locations that aren't buildings as their addresses.

Hold my nose? No!

Rather than offer a comment to the posts below about “holding my nose” to vote for McCain, let me launch this as a new post. Not only will I not hold my nose, I will vote with my fingers crossed, my lucky rabbit’s foot in my pocket, and my nose – or at least my chin – held high.

John McCain is not the perfect candidate. Far from it. Indeed, he’s been a nuisance and often a fool throughout his career. Indeed, that career has done nothing to endear him to Republicans, let alone conservatives. One has often had the sense – arrived at fairly – that McCain has always considered the good favor of the New York Times to be more important than the good favor of The National Review. He has very much earned the scorn that conservatives have heaped on him.

In the primary campaign, it was perfectly understandable that conservatives voted for ABM – anybody but McCain. That’s all past us now. Because of the flawed rules of the nominating process – which allow independents and even democrats to have a voice in the selection of our Republican candidate – McCain divided and conquered a flawed field of candidates and emerged as the nominee.

Today, he is what we have standing between us and the Democratic People’s Republic of the Americas. For all his flaws, McCain demonstrably loves his country. For all his flaws, McCain has already shown that he will not betray this country – even when hanging from a meat hook, he will be true to America. He doesn’t blame America for the world’s ills; he doesn’t believe that half this country’s people – the most generous and magnanimous people in the history of the planet - are racists. He does not believe the Constitution is fundamentally flawed. He does not believe America needs to be remade from the ground up. He does not believe infants should be flushed away into the nation’s s sewage system. John McCain has plenty of flaws; others have detailed them elsewhere. I’m not interested in those flaws just now. Just now, I don’t care that he doesn’t measure up to my idea of the perfect candidate.

So, no, I will not hold my nose when I vote for John McCain. I’ll hold my breath.

The Ayers coup

As the inevitability of an Obama presidency becomes increasingly apparent, we must understand and acknowledge what the elevation to the highest office in the land of this hardcore leftist activist represents. In plain and simple terms, what we are seeing played out right before our eyes is a coup d’etat by William Ayers. And George Soros. And all those who joined in on the Long March Through the Institutions.

40 years ago, the broad mainstream of the American people rejected the revolution these repellant monsters, these spoiled Trustafarians, were peddling. (Ayers was the son of privilege; when he wearied of his life on the lam, in true revolutionary form, he had his daddy, a powerful and influential figure in Chicago’s corrupt public square, help him cut a sweetheart deal.)

Even though their campaign of violence proved counterproductive, the radical new left vowed it would carry on its war by other means. And for these 40 years, we’ve yielded ground — good ground, high ground — to them at every turn. The Ayers brigade — or should I say brigada (viva la revolucion!) has been firing shots; we at first hunkered down, then just chose to run away.

We yielded the academy — the academy that for generations had taught our kids the meaning of citizenship and the global necessity of American exceptionalism — we gave up the academy without a fight.

We yielded the media — our precious and beloved free press, the fourth estate that had served as proxies for the regular citizens of this country, who held the high and mighty accountable for their actions — we yielded the media with hardly a whimper.
We yielded the churches — the one place where, in a troubled and overly politicized world, we could ponder the deeper meaning of existence and our very reason for being here — we yielded the churches so thoroughly that in most mainstream churches, the Sunday sermons heard by a dwindling body of the faithful could have been written by William Ayers himself.

We yielded the entertainment industry — an industry that once saw stars like Jimmy Stewart, Tyrone Powers, Clark Gable, and countless others practically begging to serve their country — we yielded the entertainment field to the Ayers brigada.

We yielded the courts. We allowed scores of honorary — and active — members of the la brigade de Ayers to decide unilaterally on fundamental questions of life and death, on justice and due process, on matters of self-defense, on the very institution of marriage itself. We allowed the courts to throw out thousands of years of hard-won human wisdom in the name of . . . what?

We yielded on the fundamental matter of patriotism. We allowed the Ayers brigada to assert, without reasoned opposition, that they love America, when they demonstrably do not. To the contrary, they hate America and have said so many, many times. The Ayers brigada clearly blames the ills of the world on America; the Ayers brigada sees American “greed” and “imperialism” and “racism” as the source of poverty and suffering the world around. The Ayers brigada believes that the fundamental structure of American society — free market capitalism operating within the framework of a popularly enacted constitution — is fatally flawed and must be radically altered. Yet we yielded to them on the matter of patriotism.

William Ayers and his minions vowed 40 years ago they would seize control of this nation — and they are now one week away from making good on that promise once and for all.

And let us not kid ourselves — this has not been a bloodless coup. Not by any means. Bodies — or should I say body parts — are strewn across the countryside, the necessary collateral damage Ayers, his wife, and their fellow revolutionaries left in their wake. And they are ready and even eager to see the bodies pile up, if such is needed to realize their revolutionary ambitions.

We have allowed the coup. Now what?

Principle vs "the lesser of two evils."

In his debate with Ralph Nader, Constitution Party candidate Chuck Baldwin asserted that conservatives should vote for him as a matter of principle and not yield to the "lesser of two evils" doctrine. Let me first say that I really like the principles of the Constitution Party and intend to consider getting involved with them after this election. I also believe in the principles of our Founders as expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Yet one of my principles has to do with evaluating each political choice within the framework of the current reality. In other words, I don't see the guiding principles of conservatism as operating in an idealistic vacuum but rather in the political realities of the real world.

I have no objection to the idea of a third or fourth party, but only once have I voted for a third party candidate and that was in a governers race here in Pennsylvania (she was the only anti-abortion candidate). Even though this candidate did not win, she did get about 15% of the vote, which had the effect of holding the feet to the fire of the one who did win (at least for a little while). So I can understand voting for a third party candidate as a means of sending a message to the winner, especially if that winner is the lesser of the two evils. But if the lesser is not assured of victory and the greater presents a genuine assault of evil against the principles our nation was founded upon, then I must disagree with Mr. Baldwin and vote for the lesser.

I may have voted for Teddy Roosevelt in 1912, but I only would have been helping Wilson get elected. If I had voted for Perot in 1992, I only would have contributed to the victory of Bill Clinton. The truth is, those liberals who voted for Ralph Nader in 2000 may be the reason George W. Bush made it into the Oval Office. These are political realities. Next Tuesday, at least in the swing states, a vote for Baldwin is tantamount to a vote for Obama. My conscious and judgment just won't let me go there, irrespective of how attractive the Constitution Party may be. Maybe in four years, but not this year. The stacks are too high. When the choice is between a RINO and a Marxist, the RINO must win.

The de Tocqueville Dictum

When a young college student tells Barack Obama how she is struggling to pay for her college education, instead of commending her for her industry and hard work, and telling her how much the experience will benefit her for the rest of her life, he tells her that when he becomes president, he will help her out (i.e. a $4000.00 tax credit for college tuition, which presumably means a person must owe at least that much in taxes, but with Obama who knows?). This is the fulfillment, right before our eyes, of the de Tocqueville Dictum, which states, "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money" (Alexis de Tocqueville). What Obama is telling this young woman is that he will take some of the hard-earned money of her friends and family members and give it to her to help cover the cost of education. He calls this fairness. I call it legalized theft and/or the redistribution of wealth and/or pandering to the "what's in it for me?" spirit. Or as de Tocqueville so insightfully called it over 150 years ago: bribing the public with the public's money. Once the de Tocqueville Dictum has become the standard political currency of the day, is it possible for a nation to ever go back? I am beginning to doubt it.

What's Past is Prologue

“Barack was only eight years old when Ayers did his bombing,” they childishly parrot. So what? I was a year old when Castro seized control in Cuba and started killing people who disagreed with him. If, when I was thirty-five years old, I travelled to Cuba, had an audience with Castro, went on a Potemkin-Village tour, and then came back to America singing the dictator’s praises, reasonable people could say that I was an admirer of the communist dictator and probably a fellow traveler. If, at Castro’s invitation, I joined a board on which he sat in order to promote education or anything else, for that matter, one could reasonably conclude that I was comfortable sitting on a board with a murderous, communist dictator. And if I am a moral, freedom-loving human being, why would I want to associate with a murderous, communist dictator? Even if the mass-murderer utterly renounced his past, I would not have anything to do with him. The same would be true with regard to a neo-Nazi figure or board, or one dedicated to Nazi principles.

Obama’s political life has consisted of a series of associations with communists, communist sympathizers, and radical black nationalists. Frank Marshall Davis was a communist. Bill Ayers is an admitted communist who is sworn to the destruction of the American system. Extreme leftist Alice Palmer, Obama’s predecessor in the Illinois senate, travelled to the Soviet Union to attend a Communist Party congress and came back with an admiring report about the Soviet system. Jeremiah Wright is a vicious, venomous, hateful, racist extremist who blames “white people” for all the ills of black people. Davis was Obama’s mentor and confidant. Ayers was Obama’s board-mate and hosted Obama’s political “kick-off” in the home he shares with fellow notorious bomber and terrorist Bernardine Dohrn. Palmer was Obama’s political mentor and benefactor, and endorsed his candidacy for her seat. Obama sought out a church, and deliberately joined Wright’s, allowing Wright to marry him and “baptize” his children. Obama spent at least 18 years listening to Wright’s frenzied, hateful tirades. These are the people with whom Obama associated himself; not with capitalists, free-market proponents, or lovers of the American founding documents and individual liberty. As Mark Levin points out, Obama never talks about individual or property rights, free markets or entrepreneurism.

You don’t associate with people like this because you abhor their deeds or principles. In Obama’s “Philadelphia” speech, he refused to disown Jeremiah Wright, and threw his much ballyhooed “white grandmother” under the bus. Later, when he yielded to overwhelming pressure and quit Wright’s hateful church, Obama made a statement filled with outright lies that only a fool would fail to recognize.

This incontrovertible case is laid out for anyone who cares to look at it. Obama himself has admitted it in his books and in his public statements. Now, what kind of fool would vote for this despicable, dishonest, malevolent figure to be president of the United States?

Celebrity Over Personality Over Character

In his book The Seven Habits..., Stephen Covey asserted that up until around 1950, Western society functioned under what he called the Character Ethic. Then, with the advent of television, we moved into what Covey calls the Personality Ethic. This, in my opinion, is reflected in the way so-called presidential debates are now conducted (compare them to the Lincoln-Douglas Debates). The purpose of debates has changed from a detailed discussion of substantive issues to the staged, glossy exhibition of human personality.

Dwight Eisenhower was the last Character Ethic president we have had. People didn’t vote for him because of how he looked or spoke. They weren’t overly concerned about his personality. He was elected on the basis of his proven character and accomplishments in, and after, WWII. Immediately after him we had the Kennedy-Nixon debates where Nixon lost due to his five o’clock shadow, which gave him, in the opinion of many, a sinister look. Kennedy became our first Personality Ethic president, and no one would deny that he had an extremely charming and engaging personality. Johnson won the next election on sympathy, but Nixon won twice, at least partly because his personality trumped that of his opponents (Nixon was full of personality, he just didn’t have enough to beat Kennedy.)

Think of the next seven elections: in every case the one with the most engaging personality won. Carter over Ford (at the time, Carter’s down-home persona seemed more appealing than the mid-western personality of Gerald Ford, which came off as rather staid and boring). Reagan, with his sparking personality, then toppled Carter for obvious reasons. He also trounced the rather bland Mondale. Now, no one could accuse Bush I of being overflowing with vivacious personality, but even he had more personality than the diminutive Michael Dukakis. Of course, it wasn’t enough to thwart the power of the highly personable Bubba (arguably the greatest triumph of personality over substance and experience). Clinton also had enough to utterly trounce the respectable but monotoned Bob Dole. Then came Bush II, who is only slightly more of a jewel than his father, yet seems utterly dazzling when compared to the wooden Algore and snobbish Kerry.

I believe that we have now moved as a society into the era of the Celebrity Ethic. In other words, a person no longer needs even an attractive or provocative personality, much less a thoughtful position on the key issues of the day (e.g. Algore, Hillary, Paris Hilton, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, etc.). The only thing a person needs is that vacuous attribute called celebrity. Remember those shows like Hollywood Squares. Who were some of those people in those little boxes? What had they ever done? The answer is, nothing. They weren’t in there because of the quality of their character and usually it wasn’t even because of a sparkling personality. What they had is celebrity!

The Celebrity Ethic is now playing itself out in the presidential race. Barack Obama’s personality is bland and pundit-like. Sure, he comes off as cool and self-assured, but those are not qualities that engender warm feelings and cause us to enjoy being around a person. No, Mr. Obama is not where he is because of his arresting personality. And it is certainly not because of his proven character (which has not been proven) or because Americans have taken a hard look at his proposals and find them to be admirable and worthy of implementation. No, Mr. Obama is where he is because somehow, in the process of this interminable election process, he became a celebrity!

What about the 'defectors?'

What to make of the “defections” of a number of high-profile conservatives, who now claim they intend to vote for Obama? In the first place, anyone who willingly votes for an unambiguous socialist (perhaps that’s too mild a word) cannot, by definition be a conservative. As Michael Medved pointed out in a recent column, an Obama presidency will lead to fundamental changes in our society, changes that will be almost impossible to undo. And the changes are not the kind that will warm the heart of a conservative (to say the least). So if you're voting for Obama, you're not a conservative. Period.

Many of the so-called defectors have cited their deep misgivings about Sarah Palin as the proximate cause of their decision to support Obama.

While I'm not giddily enthusiastic about Sarah Palin - I do think her experience is on the thin side (but not as thin by any means as Obama's) - I think she's been extremely ill-used by our supposedly free and objective media. The left over the past decade has become pathologically vicious (perhaps you've seen examples of it). While seemingly oblivious to their own rage, they project that rage and venom onto all conservatives - accusing McCain and Palin, for example, of running a hate-filled, vile and negative campaign. In fact, the McCain campaign has been maddeningly benign. As I say, it's sheer projection, but with the media transparently in their corner, they're allowed to project away. By the way, here’s what Wikipedia says about projection:

In psychology, psychological projection (or projection bias) is a defense mechanism in which one attributes one’s own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts or/and emotions to others. Projection reduces anxiety by allowing the expression of the unwanted subconscious impulses/desires without letting the conscious mind recognize them. The theory was developed by Sigmund Freud and further refined by his daughter Anna Freud, and for this reason, it is sometimes referred to as "Freudian Projection."

I think this fairly accurately describes what we’re seeing played out every single day. Of course, projection has been a leftist trait since at least the ascendancy of the Clintons. (Recall how Clinton would talk - still talks - about the right-wing hate machine and the politics of personal destruction? Of course, no one was more the master of that black art than Bill and Hillary – until the Obama operatives came along.

What we're seeing with this rabid leftist hate-mongering and the accompanying brown shirt-type tactics (I'm convinced) is the beginning of a new era in America politics and society, one in which free expression is going to be sharply curtailed.

Anyhow: what about Buckley, Powell et al?
I think the smartest analysis of the entire campaign is that it basically represents the establishment figures vs. the anti-establishment.

Ironically, for all their conceits of being "progressive" (an offensive term, is it not, as used by leftists?), it is the democrats who represent the establishment in this era, just as Republicans represented the establishment two generations and more ago. As much as they like to hold desperately to their 1960s wild-in-the-streets grotesquely romanticized self-image, the left is actually blandly mainstream and backward-looking these days. They are, frankly, the real "conservatives," if that means clasping old and tired ideas to their chests and refusing to let go.
The left's idea of new ideas is to recycle worn-out socialist concepts that were shown decades ago to be fundamentally flawed. The east coast Brahmins -who used to embody the very epitome of Republicanism - are now solidly left-leaning. And aren’t their schools basically left-wing training camps?
The fact is, authentic countercultural figures such as Palin and McCain rather embarrass establishment types. They just aren’t the right kind of people. (And note that this has nothing to do with race.) They didn't go to the right schools (Christopher Buckley ludicrously and cheerfully noted that Obama is a "Harvard Man" as a qualification for the presidency. Buckley also cited - with exclamation points strongly implied - that Obama writes his own books! If that's a qualifying factor, let's elect Clive Cussler - he's written lots of books! Buckley’s father once famously said he’d rather be governed by the first 2,000 names in the new York City phone book than the Harvard faculty.)
The McCains and Palins in this country – and there are lots of them –aren't glib and smooth and polished; they don't get invited to the right parties; they don’t exchange emails with starlets or pal around with romantic “revolutionaries.” And so on. As banal as this sounds, in many cases, the support for Obama comes down to just this.
Buckley, Noonan, Brooks, Powell and the other so-called "conservatives" who have ostensibly jumped ship to back Obama really are very much establishment figures (they have always been more establishment than conservative) and with this election they are finding their own comfort level. They could, just barely, stomach Bush – he was an Ivy Leaguer, after all, but was something of an embarrassment himself, shrugging off as he did his Blueblood background and embracing his inner Texan.
The fact is, the “defectors” just feel better being aligned with an administration made up of a "Harvard Man" and his Ivy League cabinet. (Obama may have a rainbow cabinet but it'll be the least "diverse" cabinet in history when it comes to what really counts: how do you think about issues. His cabinet, frankly, will be a Politburo pure and simple.)

Don't Believe the Media

Rush Limbaugh makes a good point. A number of the reliable national polls show the presidential race as pretty tight, even by a couple points. Yet the polls in many of the battleground states show Obama running away with it. This doesn't make a lot of sense. Limbaugh talks about who they are talking to in these polls. It's mostly Democrats. Fair enough--there are probably more registered Democrats. But what about talking to likely voters? And GOP voters turn out in greater numbers. The Democrats will be home smoking the cigarettes ACORN gave them for submitting false voter registrations. The media are doing everything they can to demoralize those opposed to Lord Obama, the Most Merciful, by making the McCain effort look like a lost cause. Then, if McCain manages to win despite all this fraud, we're all a bunch of racists and the cities go up in flames. Polls purporting to show that yes, Americans do want socialism are probably fraudulent, too. All of us can be susceptible to this. Don't fall for it.

Obama Lies About His Lies

With his ill-gotten campaign money, obtained by the tens of millions from foreigners and through fraud in the United States, all in violation of federal law, Obama is bombarding Pennsylvania with TV ads. This morning I was treated to an ad claiming it was “outrageous” and “false” to contend, as John McCain does, that Obama voted, as a state senator, to let babies born following botched abortions to simply die. He proceeds to change the subject, claiming McCain wants to ban abortion in all cases. Well, this is exactly how Obama voted in the Illinois legislature. It is a matter of record, and Obama himself has stated he voted against the measure because he was concerned it would limit a woman’s right to an abortion. So, it is Obama’s position that, for the sake of a woman’s right to an abortion, a baby born alive should be literally thrown away, left to die of neglect. What is outrageous is for this despicable charlatan to lie, and lie again, about so profound a matter.

It Won't Just Be Obama

These voters who go for the smooth, suave Obama don't realize that by electing this man to the presidency, you don't just get the angry communist and his mean wife. A whole army of Ivy League nerds, left-wing activists and "community organizers" will descend on Washington to take over the executive branch of the United States government. That includes the military and all the executive departments of government. The Justice Department will become the "Social and Economic Justice" Department. That means reverse discrimination, redistribution of wealth, and attacks on business. The Labor Department will be just an omnibus labor union headquarters. Remember when the Clinton administration gave Chinese generals tours of our military facilities and installations? Expect more Chinese generals, and some from Russia, Venezuela, maybe even Cuba, Iran and North Korea. If Clinton and his fool Secretary of State Madeleine "not-so" Albright wanted China to have nuclear weapons, too, so that everything would be "fair," what do these voters think will happen with Obama? He'll just send nuclear physicists to these rogue nations to really make things fair.

Whether or not Obama will be able to remake the Supreme Court, after an Obama administration the federal courts will be infested with dedicated socialists, all appointed for life, who will treat the Constitution will all the reverence they show for used toilet paper. Then only a revolution would be able to turn things around. Citizens who respect our Constitution and traditional values will be faced with either knuckling under or resorting to civil disobedience. (Or is the latter only legitimately employed by liberals?)

Rights our founders revered and our people have fought and died for, including the rights of free speech, religion and expression, the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, and the right to bear arms will be in danger.

I appeal to anyone who might read these words not to allow this leftist ideologue to destroy this nation. Obama has instructed his followers to "get in people's faces." Well, make it your business to turn at least one person around from voting for Obama. If you remember the 2000 election, you know that every person's vote counts. Every person can make a difference. Fight for your country. Don't go quietly.

Ugh is right!

Vote McCain-Palin

Vote for McCain (Ugh!)

To true conservatives, John McCain is an exasperating old fool, a traitor to the cause of conservatism, an ally to the most odious liberals in the Senate, an enemy to Senate conservatives, and a horrible campaigner. I long ago vowed I would never vote for him, under any circumstances. What changed my mind was Sarah Palin. Still, as I have watched McCain bumble and continually shoot himself in the foot, I have vacillated, wondering if I could pull the lever (actually, touch the computer screen) for him.

Don't tell me about war heroes; I want a hero to stop a communist from taking over the United States, driving a stake through the heart of capitalism and stripping me of my liberties. That's the most important "war" this country has faced since World War II; and if you're not leading our cause in that war, I have no use for you.

John McCain has continually made us want to pull out our hair and cover our heads with duct tape, from telling his stunned supporters not to worry about Obama as president to talking about putting left-liberals Andrew Cuomo and Warren Buffett in his cabinet. Unfortunately, McCain is the only thing standing between us and the Union of Soviet Socialist States of Amerika. Thus, we have no alternative. We'll go into the wilderness if we must; but we have to take this last measure of defense to prevent ourselves from being overrun by Obama's socialist hordes. And no, I'm not exaggerating; anyone who denies or doubts this is either a socialist himself, ignorant, uninformed, or a victim of Obama's smooth deception. If you're in the latter category, God help you: you might not be able to find your way to the polling place, anyway.

So let's pull that lever, touch that screen, or do whatever we have to do to register our votes for McCain (and, of course, Sarah Palin). Hold your nose if you have to. Just think of it as voting for Palin, who might be our political future.

White guilt, white racism

The biggest canard in this election is the one that asserts that if Obama loses it will be because of white racism. Now, I'm not foolish enough to argue that there aren't some whites who will vote against Obama strictly based on his race, but I would argue that that number is relatively small.

Why do I draw that conclusion? In the first place, Republicans will not vote for Obama in any case - not because he's black, but because he's a democrat. I for one haven't knowingly voted for a democrat in 32 years (I voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976, lord forgive me). Thus, by definition, to the extent that racism plays any role at all in this election, it must be understood that it comes from democrats and so-called independents, and not from Republicans. However, there's no credible poll to indicate that democrats and independents are inordinately concerned about Obama's race - at least not in a negative sense.

What the polls do suggest, to the contrary, is that certain percentage of white voters (presumably democrats and independents) are more predisposed to vote for Obama because of the color of his skin. Burdened by white guilt, this class of voters gives Obama a boost that he might not otherwise receive. These guilt-ridden white voters have dismissed the McCain candidacy out of hand - not because they disagree with him (his policies vs. Obama's policies are irrelevant) - but because they've already decided they need to assuage their guilt by voting for a candidate of color.

I think one can legitimately make the case that white guilt will be a bigger factor in this race than white racism.

This racism canard is a very reckless one - it may be the most damaging single lie that's ever been spread in a presidential election. (It's certainly the most dangerous lie that's been broadly disseminated by ostensibly legitimate media in the nearly 50 years I've been watching these things.)

Long before the votes have been cast, the opinion movers and shakers have already created a dishonest narrative that feeds into African American resentments and suspicions. (And let’s be honest here: African American have had – and still have – legitimate grievances about their lot in this society. It’s still a tough lot, probably tougher than I fully appreciate.)

So what about this lie regarding racism’s role in this particular election? It’s a lie that plays to African Americans’ collective despair, a lie that legitimizes their despair.

Obama supporters of color have not been prepared to accept the simple fact that the nation may reject Obama because of his political views, his ideas about how society should be ordered. Rather, they have been stoked to accept as gospel that if their candidate loses it will be because the white man will never, never, never allow a black man to rise up in this racist country.

Obama, to his shame, has done little to nothing to discredit this lie. Rather, he has made it clear in many ways, in many venues, and on many occasions, that for all his talk about being a "post-racial" candidate, he will use race - and white racial guilt – any time it can give him an advantage.

It probably sounds gratuitous of me to say so, but I am sincere when I say I would love to be able to vote for an African American for president. I do believe that the elevation of an African American to the White House could be a good and healthy thing for this country and I would bend over backwards to find reasons to support an African American with whom I largely agree.

Obama simply isn't that man. Not for me.

Third Presidential Debate 2008

I suppose most of us have done things in the past for which we carry deep regrets. The idealism of young hearts and minds is often degraded by their lack of wisdom gained through experience. So when the mistakes of the past come up, we are quick to acknowledge how utterly foolish we were. In other words, we express our regret. We repent. But not so with the now infamous Bill Ayers. Not only did he do something far worse than most of us (participate in the bombings of the Pentagon and the Capitol), he has expressed regrets as recently as 2001 that he didn't do enough (i.e. he should have done more bombings). Americans are forgiving people. When someone comes clean and seems genuinely sorrowful, we are willing to give them a second chance. But Barack Obama has palled around with this abhorent character for over ten years now knowing full-well, not only his "dispicable deeds" but also his lack of repentance. This is the issue John McCain should have brought up last night. How would Obama have answered if McCain had looked him in the eye and said, "Mr. Obama, while I was rotting in a Vietnamese prison camp, your friend Bill Ayres was bombing the Pentagon, an act for which he has never expressed the slightest remorse. You may consider him acceptable company, but I consider him to be a foul and loathsome traitor." Now that might have been enough to turn the tide.

God?

It occurs to me that the savior, the most merciful Obama never mentions God, faith, Divine Providence, our Creator. Nothing. I don't remember this ever happening with a guy who's on the verge of being president. It seems to me that even the ones who didn't necessarily believe it nevertheless paid some lip service to these notions. But not this guy. This is because God doesn't figure in his world view. His religion is based on "black liberation theology," which is not even religious; it's a political ideology, and it is essentially Marxist. Jesus is merely a prop, who can be shaped for political needs by extremists like the "Wrong Reverend" Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who doubts this can merely read anything by Wright, or the man Wright loves to quote, James Cone, or look at or listen to any sermon by or interview of Wright. It's all on the Internet, and it's free. And as believers in black liberation theology, these men are black separatists, like Malcolm X. Listen to a speech by Malcolm X; some of his speeches are on the Internet, on the American Rhetoric website. Black separatism means that blacks will be separate from other races, especially the "white" race. Well, if the president is black, and in fact a black separatist, then where does that leave those who are not black, or who do not approve of black separatism? If the black separatist president is on the inside, and is in power, then where does that leave those of us who are not black separatists and are not even black? And who are they separating from, where, and how? Where are we non-black-separatists being separated to? How could separating the black from the white race be accomplished in a nation of 300 million people? Why isn't anybody asking these questions?

My "right" to health care

As I recall, I learned in elementary school that a right has two attributes: 1) it does not infringe on the rights of anyone else; and 2) it does not cost anything to exercise it. For example, I have the right to speak freely, and I don't have to pay to do it and neither does anyone else. I have the right to redress the government concerning my grievances, and I don't have to pay to do it and neither does anyone else. And I can exercise both of these rights as little or as much as I want to, and the rights of no other citizen are infringed upon by my exercise. Yet last Thursday evening, presidential candidate Barack Obama stated explicitly that health care is a right. It is not a privilege, it is not a commodity, it is not even an entitlement. It is a right! That means that I can exercise my right to health care (of any sort, I suppose) and it costs me nothing. No one ever has to pay for a right. Therefore, if my eyes are not working quite right, I have a right to lasic surgery. If I have cold symptoms, I have a right to a bottle of NyQuil. If I break my foot playing touch football, I have a right to a cast, and it should cost me nothing. It is my right. Of course, I would not expect anyone else to pay for it either since it is my right. So who pays for it? No one. If you don't understand how that would work, you'll have to ask Barack Obama.

Containing the monsters

Over the next decade, the US will be required to face down three extremely dangerous and very real threats to our national security: 1) The Islamic nazi movement that seeks to subjugate the world to Allah (over one billion people); 2) The atheist Chinese military machine that seeks to dominate world trade and power (over one billion people); and the soulless Putin-led Russian mafia that seeks to rebuild the Soviet Union and then...who knows. The idea that we can contain these power-hungry behemoths through diplomatic negotiations is ludicrous. They have specific objectives based on ideology and greed and to think that we can simply talk them out of it is like thinking we can talk the fox out of going for the hen house. I would like to know specifically how our candidates for president intend to deal with these ugly threats (clearly the UN is worthless). And I don't mean how we will win in Afghanistan or whether or not Georgia should be admitted to NATO. I mean, what is the strategic plan for containing these monsters and securing the freedom of all Americans?

Organize the Resistance

As "Dandy Don" Meredith used to say on Monday Night Football when the game was out of reach, "Turn out the light; the party's over." The left has a very skilled candidate, and our side has an incompetent candidate, who, moreover, has no guiding philosophy. How many times have we heard the self-professed "Reagan conservative" utter the word "conservative" in the debates? Once?

It is time to organize the resistance to what will be a very oppressive Obama regime for people who love liberty. He will likely be aided by an enthusiastically leftist Congress. If the leftists achieve a filibuster-proof Senate, the socialist juggernaut will be essentially unopposed. This means that socialized health care, more nationalized industries, dramatically increased taxes, redistribution of wealth, central economic planning, the "fairness doctrine" (which is a dagger aimed at the heart of talk radio), restrictions on free speech, further division of Americans one against another, leftist judges and Supreme Court judges who will disregard the constitution, a pacifist foreign policy, ceding of American sovereignty, and one world government are all coming fast.

We are heading for the political wilderness, and will have to maintain resistance to the bulldozing of our system of government and way of life. I, for one, do not intend to go down without a fight. We have no use for RINOs. We need people with conviction who can inspire the many resisters across the country. Viva the resistance!

Second Presidential Debate 2008

I am now poignantly reminded why I was never a big John McCain supporter. Last night he sounded like a liberal trying every now and then to talk conservative. He expressed himself poorly and incompletely, often repeating verbatim the trite phrases that became increasingly irritating in the first debate (Okay, John, we heard what you said about earmarks. Move on.). His attacks on Obama fell flat as Obama, always in full control of the debate, adroitly brushed them aside while striding the floor in graceful, self-assured, unruffled, above-the-fray, quasi-presidential dignity. John McCain has now succeeded in kiboshing every bit of good will and hopeful expectation he had acquired from the Convention in St. Paul. His only hope is that enough people will be unwilling to vote for Obama and heartened by the idea that they might get to see and hear more of Sarah Palin. But that is an increasingly thin hope. If a man can't win a race on his own virtues and his own merits, then he doesn't deserve to win. What an utter disappointment!

Compelled charity is not charity at all

I was listening to NPR the other day (September 24) and they were interviewing a congressman from California. Because a constituent had recently called him to say that he was afraid to go to the doctor because he didn’t have health insurance and didn’t know how he would pay for it, this congressman was conflicted about what to do with the proposed $700 billion bailout bill. He bemoaned the fact that he couldn’t help but think that perhaps instead of spending the $700 billion on the bailout, the money should go toward providing health insurance to people such as his constituent. You could hear the guilt in the congressman’s voice. For some reason he really felt that it was his responsibility as a public servant to provide the money to pay this man’s medical bills.

This reminded me of de Tocqueville’s warning about what would happen when the citizens realize that they can vote themselves largess from the public treasury. I couldn’t help but wonder how James Madison would have responded if a farmer from Virginia had proposed that he (Madison) should, as his elected representative, see to it that he (the farmer) is able to pay his doctor bills. He might have said, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” He then may have summed up his view by saying, “Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.”

The man without health insurance reminds me of those people who periodically call the church office looking for a handout. Now don’t get me wrong, we recognize our Christian duty to help the needy. But when they act as though we are required to help them because we are Christians, they have just shut off our bowels of compassion. The Bible says that God loves a cheerful giver. But how many people cheerfully give their hard-earned money to the government so that it can be doled out to their needy neighbors. Requiring the citizenry to turn their money over to Uncle Sam under compulsion for charitable causes is antithetical to the American way.

Bailout for the irresponsible

The bailout bill passed by the House yesterday seems to me to be a bailout for the irresponsible. It bails out mortgage lenders who knowingly made bad loans. It bails out Congress (i.e. Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, et al), who knowingly looked the other way even as the Bush White House tried over and over to correct the situation. It bails out Bill Clinton and his cronies who, in their idealistic zeal (was it really?) for housing parity between the bourgeoisie and the proletariet, forced banks to make many of these "sub-prime loans." They then deceived the public by calling this adventure in Stalinist central control "afforable housing." The new legislation also bails out the home-buyers who over-borrowed by granting judges the power to not only reduce the interest rate on their defaulting mortages but also the principle. Not only that, the bailout bill also forces health insurance companies to pay the cost of treating so-called mental illnesses, many of which are the direct result of irresponsible lfestyles. Moreover, many therapists will tell you that having to pay the fees for treatment is often a fundamental part of the therapy itself. So in the end, the bailout bill is primarily a bailout for the irresponsbile.

Letter to Senator Casey

I just sent this letter to Senator Bob Casey in response to an email letter he sent me: Dear Senator Casey, In your letter to me of 10/3/08, you wrote: "Like you, I am not happy with the current crisis, and I'm angry about the climate of deregulation and deference to Wall Street over the last eight years that got us into this mess." Senator, you know as well as I do that the "climate of deregulation and deference to Wall Street over the last eight years" is not what got us into this mess. President Bush has tried on several occasions to get Fannie and Freddie under control but has been stymied by Congress. The root of this crisis is the Clinton effort to provide so-called affordable housing to low-income families. By requiring mortgage lenders to lower their borrowing standards, the housing market was flooded with new buyers, which ran home prices up faster than ever. Then, as the cost of gas and other essentials began to rise, suddenly these unqualified buyers were unable to pay their mortgages. This opened the flood-gates on foreclosures, which caused stagnation and decline in the housing market. Then we began to see foreclosures on homes that could not be sold for enough to pay off the principle on the mortgage. AIG, as the insurer on many of these bad loans, suddenly found itself without adequate resources to pay on the mortgage insurance claims. This is why we are in the current mess. It is not that Bush has failed to regulate; it's that he was saddled with the Clinton regulations that required banks to make loans to people who were not credit-worthy (sub-prime mortgages). This is exactly the kind of regulation that needs to be done away with forever. It is an unwelcome incursion of federal power into the free market. So Senator, don't bother trying to bluff me. I know what caused this mess, and I know that the bailout bill passed by the Senate is exactly the kind of bloated legislation that causes the American public to hold most of the members of Congress in contempt. What, for example, does requiring health insurance companies to pay for mental illness treatments have to do with solving the current crisis? I wrote you asking you not to support this bill, but you did anyway. So be it. I hope the House will be wise enough to reject it.

For back-up support of what I'm saying, watch this short video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QBRIsCkGQ0

Palin's Task

It is not an easy assignment to carry water for John McCain. This is because he doesn't have a core set of principles. This means that poor Sarah Palin has to be educated in McCain's many often conflicting and irrational positions before she can speak to anyone in public. To be an advocate for John McCain is virtually an impossible task to perform satisfactorily. Sarah's appeal is in her assurance and confidence in her principles, which are conservative principles. This sets her apart from McCain. Therefore, when evaluating her interview performances, which are of course conducted by hostile, condescending liberals like Charlie Gibson and Katie Couric (I love how the diminutive forms of these names are forced upon us, as if these are "cute" people whom we all love), we need to cut her a little slack. She needs our support the way Dan Quayle did in 1988. The hostile, left-wing media are endeavoring to define Sarah Palin. Don't let them get away with it.

If Sarah is merely a trained parrot for our unstable "maverick" leader tonight, the entire Sarah Palin phenomenon will have been wasted, certainly for 2008 and possibly even for 2012. If she continues to whine about the poor people who were victimized by "predator lenders," then we might as well prepare for our years of resistance in the wilderness. She needs to display the strengths and sparkling qualities that first endeared us to her.

Having partisan leftist Gwen Ifill as the moderator of this debate is a farce and a setup. Ifill has written a glowing book about Obama, scheduled to come out on inauguration day. Has anyone with enough intelligence to brush his teeth considered that if Obama loses, the whole premise of Ifill's book, the rise to the top of black politicians, loses its significance, leaving the book a lot less marketable? That the whole premise (and, the "bet") of the book is that Obama breaks through and makes it to the top? That if Obama loses, this allegedly unbiased, professional journalist makes a lot less money than if Obama wins? In the legal world, we call that a conflict of interest. Of all the liberal journalists who could moderate this debate, do we have to have the one who has written an approving book about Obama, to be released on inauguration day? I blame McCain for this. Will his crazed zeal for the nonexistent "bipartisanship" drive his--and Palin's--candidacy into a ditch? Brian