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

First presidential debate 2008

Here are a few points that I think McCain could have jumped all over Obama on:

1. Obama described a $300 billion tax cut as giving away $300 billion. McCain should have immediately told the American public, "Listen to how this man thinks. When you keep more of your own money because I lower your tax rates, he considers that to be the federal government giving you money. Folks, it's NOT the government's money to give! The truth is, when he says he will "cut taxes" for 95% of you, he means that he will give you a tax rebate of $500 to $1000 dollars. And if you pay no taxes, then he will send you a check. Now THAT is giving away money. But not only does he have no intention of lowering your tax rates, he intends to raise them by eliminating the Bush tax cuts."

2. Obama said, "No soldier ever dies in vain." This is a convenient concept, but is a gross insult to the American soldier. McCain should have immediately pointed out that every reasonable person knows that to die in vain means to die in a losing cause. He could have pointed out that a lot of German and Japanese soldiers died in vain during WWII, because they not only failed to achieve the goals of their respective nations, but they harmed the people of their own countries in countless horrible ways. To die in vain means to die for nothing, to die in a losing cause. It does not imply that the fighting men are not heroes. The result of the war does not change the reality of individual heroism. There are often many heroes on the losing side of a battle.

3. Obama described North Korea's actions after Bush's "axis of evil" speech as being the result of Bush's characterization. McCain should have immediately pointed out that their actions in fact proved the accuracy of Bush's characterization. Bush didn't make North Korea evil, Kim Jong-il did.

4. Obama employed the classic either/or spending deception: We can either spend our money on education or the war. If we didn't have to spend it on the war, we could spend it on education. This is a total deception and McCain should have pointed it out. We are a wealthy nation. Why, we can spend $700 billion to bail out inept Wall Street managers while at the same time fighting a war. The other point McCain should have made is that education does not improve by spending more federal dollars. In fact, I elieve that the evidence is mounting that the more the federal government gets involved, the worse our schools are doing. This would have been a great time to advocate liminating the department of education and putting education back into the hands of the states and local governments where the founding fathers knew it should be.5. At one point Obama was talking about regaining our stature in the world. He tied this to giving more hand-outs to the citizenry. In other words, his concept is to impress the world by showing how much we do for our people, how well we take care of them, cradle to grave. McCain should have immediately pointed out that this is not what has made America the greatest nation in the history of the world. It was not that we generously redistribute the wealth to those in need. It was that we allow people to live in a free society where they can pursue their dreams and make their own prosperity. And because we are both prosperous and generous as a people, we have countless charitable organizations that may give a man a fish for a day or two, but ultimately expect that man to learn to fish all on his own.