The Meaning of Eternal Vigilance

“It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active.  The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt.” — John Philpot Curran

If July 4th is to have any meaningful significance beyond a historic day in the 18th century– if there is really any cause for celebration, if the founding of this nation holds any transcendence– then it is up to us, the benefactors of the greatest civil inheritance history has ever known to both understand and guard it. This inheritance is the greatest level of personal liberty that man has known under human rule. And the product of this restrained liberty has been the greatest level of prosperity in history. True gratitude for this great legacy requires a jealous defense of the individual freedom which our founding fathers secured for us through the American Revolution.
But the prosperity which we have the priviledge to enjoy today is jeopardized by our collective ignorance and apathy. While it is certainly important to recognize the sacrifices that our troops are making every day and have made in the wars of the past, it is impossible to truly appreciate their sacrifice without fully recognizing the exceptional situation which we have today. We are indeed the freest nation in the world because we have a constitution unlike any other in the world, written by mortal men who truly believed that God’s hand sustained and enabled them to ”secure the blessings of liberty” to themselves and their posterity.  
Eternal vigilance requires that we protect this Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, just as soldiers are required to pledge.  The most basic way to do this is to love and guard our rights which the Constitution guarantees. Obviously, the space and time constraints on me as a writer do not allow me to thoroughly enumerate and expound upon these rights. But there are fundamental rights that the writers of the Constitution identified from which all other rights are derived. This was what was commonly called natural (meaning God-given) law, summed up in the Declaration of Independence as ”life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, but are more commonly referred to as life, liberty and property.
Each of these fundamental rights is continually under attack, more often by domestic than foreign enemies. Our duty, then, is to understand what these rights mean, how they are being attacked, and do whatever we can to defend them. This requires an active involvement in the cause of liberty. If not in direct involvement, at least in indirect or simple ways, like supporting those who protect our freedoms both in the foreign battlefield as well the ideological battlefield, such as the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute or other great institutions. I daresay, however, that without political involvement, particularly at the grass roots level, our Constitution will no longer be relevant to political discussion. Some day, we will have so strayed from the Constitution and our founding father’s original intent, that only a violent overthrow of the government would liberate us. We cannot afford apathy anymore. We must not remain blind to the intrusions on our liberties. While we are still empowered to do something, we must take action.

Rejecting Populism

Dictionary.com describes populism as follows: 1.the political philosophy of the People’s party 2.(lowercase) any of various, often antiestablishment or anti-intellectual political movements or philosophies that offer unorthodox solutions or policies and appeal to the common person rather than according with traditional party or partisan ideologies. 3.(lowercase) grass-roots democracy; working-class activism; egalitarianism. 4. (lowercase) representation or extolling of the common person, the working class, the underdog, etc.: populism in the arts.  Actually explaining the concept of populism is more complicated. The simplest way for me to explain it is that populism is the victimhood of the common man. Typical populist gripes are about how someone makes too much money (very popular are professional athletes and CEOs) and usually include defeatist attitudes and the general idea of a conspiracy or collusion among the powerful and wealthy against “us.”
In short, populism is an appealing but dangerously insidious force that politicians use in the most cynical ways in order to control people. It takes an educated and critical thinker to resist the siren’s song of populism, but resist we must. We must reject deifying “the common man” or “average joe” as politicians so often like to do. It is a pernicious self-delusion appealing to a false idealization. Populism is the politics of the narcissist. It fails to look the at country, particularly the ever-so-divine middle class with a critical eye. Populism is ugly, self serving and self destructive.
Even conservatives get it wrong, in so many ways about populism. There are so many maxims, myths, and general pie in the sky ideas that are used in common political talk that are based in populist myths, it would take dozens of blogs to debunk them all. Good thing I don’t have many blog ideas right now. I guess this is the start of another series of blogs. Here are just a few examples of populist folklore which politicians run to whenever they are running for office or see their poll numbers tanking: energy independence, outsourcing, price gouging, collusion among businesses, windfall profits, conspiracy theories, golden parachutes, the ridiculously populist and factually incorrect song “shutting detroit down” (which totally drives me nuts), the precautionary principle, global climate change, the two party system has to go, and reality tv. Okay, so I threw in reality tv there at the end, which isn’t really an issue but is totally populist, which is probably why I despise it so much.
In summation, populism is the result of lazy thinking. There, I said it. Now that I called you stupid, since you probably believe in a lot or all of those things you’ll probably hate me. But that’s the risk of going against populist myth. People have already had their minds made up for them about these things because they have failed to look at these issues critically. Instead, they have followed the path of least resistance and are floating downstream like so many dead fish. Please take some time with me, if you’ve read this far and try to look at these issues objectively. Instead of envying the rich, realize that many, if not most of these people are poorer than you in many ways and really have sad existences. This website chronicles some of the really sad stories of those “lucky” lottery winners: http://www.lottoreport.com/sadbuttrue.htm Make it a practice every day like Michael Medved does, to say “I am not a victim!” And understand that returning to a production economy, to return low paying jobs which have been shipped overseas is no way to improve an economy. Realize that in a global economy, “energy independence” isn’t a viable or even attractive goal. And this isn’t a nation of “haves” and “have nots.” We are not stuck in one particular class all our lives and we can always better ourselves financially and otherwise, so long as we live in a free country.
The more I write about this, the more important I think this topic is. It really is something that needs to be heard. I don’t care about being offensive as long as I speak the truth as best I know it. But voicing these opinions in polite conversation probably would result in bitter arguments, that is why I am writing this blog without any provocation. There is no specific impetus for this blog, only my continual displeasure with both friends and family and nearly everyone I ever attempt to talk politics with on these issues. My purpose is not to alienate, but inform. My desire is to put an end to the tactful sidestepping of populist issues. I am no longer willing to just play devil’s advocate to populist screeds. It is time to demolish these myths and insist on logical arguments. Because populism never passes a logical analysis.

The Onslaught of Fascism

“A government big enough to give you everything you want is a government big enough to take from you everything you have. ” Gerald Ford
It’s not even coming slowly any more. No, Barack Obama and his ever willing congress is attacking liberty at every turn. And it’s easy to spot when you know where to look, as it’s not hidden, the fascism is merely camoflaged. It’s simply called government spending. Each dollar that government spends beyond the most basic of national defense and police, the court system, etc. is a dollar spent in the enslavement of the American people. When someone spends more time working to pay taxes than they do for themselves are they actually free? Every single action of this administration has been to one dangerous end: more power for government. This is why instead of cutting taxes to “stimulate the economy”–which is exactly what tax cuts would do– we are spending trillions of dollars that we don’t have. It is a gamble which might make the Barack Obama Presidency significantly more infamous in the future than it has been historic thus far. How any supporter of Barack Obama can justify such massive spending when he hasn’t even begun bankrupting the country with nationalized healthcare and cap amd trade–aka economic suicide– is beyond me.
The result of these radical changes, if they are all implemented, particularly if the economy doesn’t begin picking up soon–I don’t know what will happen, I can’t conceive it, but it will signify the victory of fascism. This is why I don’t think it will happen. The American people will rise up. Obama is a shrewd politician and I don’t think anyone is ready for this radical change. The 2010 election seems so far away, but the Democrats’ overreaching will backfire. Reality is starting to kick in regarding Obama’s naive pledge to close Gitmo.
There’s so much to say here, so many things to write about, it’s very frustrating. I think my recent case of writer’s block is not for a lack of things to say or issues to talk about. To the contrary, there’s too much for my addled mind to focus on just one issue at a time. But it can all be boiled down to a simple idea: Barack Obama and liberals in general believe that they know better than individuals and corporations at running their lives and companies. The only logical solution for this new aristocracy is to take over for us all. And how will they accomplish this? By simply growing government. Every new regulation, every new tax, every new program, every extra-constitutional “czar” added to the President’s staff, every bailout, every smoking ban, every little annoyance, every nonsensical resolution, every government take over, every new welfare program–these are the building blocks of fascism, the links of the chains that enslave each and everyone of us. Please don’t misunderstand me; government is entirely necessary and is even capable of doing good. But it does so by protecting personal freedom. Once the government seeks to do good for individuals, once it steps outside reactive law enforcement and tries to protect people from themselves or bestow wealth to the poor, it begins to take away those freedoms it was supposed to protect.

Obama’s stimulus: only for party members

This is a quote of a quote, but I think it is right on point. James Pethokoukis, quotes Economist Joel Kotkin here:http://www.usnews.com/blogs/capital-commerce/2009/3/8/obamas-chicago-style-economics.html saying,

“The question is what strategy? Right now it seems like Chicago style interest politics with a Moveon.org spin. Money will be there for key what passes for”left” groups – urban real estate interests, greens, smart growthers, wind/solar lobby and, the shocktroops, the public employee unions. This is not a growth strategy but a politic technique designed to knit together a coalition of poor urbanites, bureaucrats, professors, greens and the Gorite energy speculators. It may work politically but I wonder what it will do longer-term for the economy.

Few serious people outside the Administration and its “ditto heads” around think this will turn around the private economy, although it may boost many individuals’ economies. Private sector employment is collapsing even in the last strong economies – the Great Plains and Texas. The hangover in capital markets will make the government the defacto funder of first resort.”

My thoughts precisely. These are investments with no expected payoff, except politically. Which is what liberals mean when they call public spending “investment.” It is an investment in their political future, an investment to grow their political base.

Obama doesn’t care about your IRA

President Barack Obama doesn’t care about your 401k or your precious IRA. As he said Tuesday, “the market bobs up and down day to day, and if you worry about that, you’re probably going to get your long term strategy wrong.” Displaying his vast lack of financial knowledge, he also stated that stocks are “potentially a good deal” because “profit and earning ratios are starting to get to the point where buying stocks is a potentially good deal if you’ve got a long-term perspective on it.” Of course, P/E ratios, which stands for price to earnings and measures a stocks relative value (literally the value of all outstanding stock divided by the annual earnings) have been going down, but the reason stock prices are more than the earnings is because investors factor in anticipated earnings. Therefore, the stock market isn’t just a barometer of the current economic situation, but also a measure of the perceived future of the economy. And unfortunately for Obama, the market hasn’t fluctuated since he won the election in November. It has tanked. I wonder if he’s noticed? After all, why would he refer to the stock market being down 30% since his election as “market fluctuation”? Isn’t that a slap in the face to everyone with a retirement savings plan? Calling 200 point drops in the DJI average every other day “market fluctuation” is like calling a bank robbery “asset fluctuation” or referring to the Minnesota Timberwolves’ season as “record fluctuation.” It reflects either a lack of understanding of the serious nature of the problem, a callous disregard or ignorance of how it affects investors (including just about everyone with an IRA, 401k or any stocks or mutual funds) or maybe, just maybe he is aware of all of this but just doesn’t care. There’s one thing I want to make abundantly clear here: I am not one to impune the motives of those who I disagree with, no matter how vehement the disagreement. I believe that Barack Obama wants the best for his country. I don’t think that Obama is “a radical communist.” I don’t even think he’s a fascist, despite his fascist tendencies and several blogs I might have written with Obama and fascist in the title. I believe that he believes he knows what’s best for this country, and probably thinks he could help you run your life a little better. And what’s best for this country? Less money for the rich, he can spend it better than they can. Don’t worry, all you demonized yacht and private jet manufacturers, your bailout is coming soon. And don’t worry charities who are losing large donations because of higher taxes on the rich and limited tax deductions for donations. The government can do it better than you. Besides, the government doesn’t have to ask for donations, it just has to raise your taxes.  But this is also why I say President Barack Obama doesn’t care about your IRA. Because he doesn’t care about the stock market. The stock market is simply for the independently wealthy and if they lose money, who cares? And Barack Obama has previously indicated that the health of the economy isn’t as important as fairness. It is more important to bring the rich down than for everyone to do better. This is what he said a little over a year ago while on the campaign trail. “[W]hat I’ve said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness. We saw an article today which showed that the top 50 hedge fund managers made $29 billion last year — $29 billion for 50 individuals. And part of what has happened is that those who are able to work the stock market and amass huge fortunes on capital gains are paying a lower tax rate than their secretaries. That’s not fair.” He later stated how he didn’t want to raise our national debt (a lame excuse for raising taxes if there ever were one, and obviously untrue). This was in reaction to a question about how cutting capital gains taxes helps the economy. And he did not bother to disagree with this statement, though he didn’t agree either. The point he made is very clear, however. It isn’t fair to make too much money, and if cutting your taxes helps the economy it doesn’t matter, because fairness is more important. This is the tyranny of socialism. This is the contradiction of so-called progressivism. Equality trumps economic progress. Equality of results is favored over equality of opportunity. So, if those super wealthy lost billions and the average joe just thousands, this is a win in Barack Obama’s mind. Bringing those on the top down is at least as or more important than bringing those on the bottom up. And those on the bottom? Don’t worry, that’s what the government’s there for.

A dispassionate look at the economy

“Men of intemperate minds never can be free: their passions form their fetters.” –Edmund Burke

“We are always paid for our suspicion by finding what we suspect.” — Henry David Thoureau

There’s a story I am fond of telling, the origin of which is forever lost between synapses destined never to fire again. A professor, in an experiment, assigns to two different groups of students the same project. Go out and survey a certain number of people. The students were told to ask one question, with only a yes or no answer. One group was told that the average or expected results would be 60% yes and 40% no. The other group was told to expect 40% yes and 60% no. The groups came back, and both groups got what they were told to expect. Expectation and perception are two very big shapers of what we commonly call “reality” or “life.” Unfortunately, the liberal media often actively shapes our perceptions in the most imperceptible ways. And it is almost never for the good.
With regard to the economy, it is almost exclusively destructive. To paraphrase Jack Nicholson in As Good as it Gets, We’re drowning here, and they’re describing the water. But it is more like a constant drumbeat of a sort of fatalistic, mololithic press that cries “Recession! Recession!” with the wince of a masochist, barely able to hold back a giant grin. For good news is truly no news these days. Consider the inane and utterly unnewsworthy coverage of gas prices on a weekly basis when our economy was actually growing. Now that gas prices have fallen precipitously, where is the coverage? Where is the silver lining that comes with this recession? I’ll give you a hint: you won’t ever hear of one on ABC or CBS or NBC. You won’t find stories about the natural business cycle in your local, state or national newspaper. No one will ever actually admit that the government can’t prevent, fix, or shorten a recession. Because that doesn’t fit with their story. Its no wonder we’re in a recession. We’ve been talking ourselves into one for the last 3 years. This is why the consumer confidence index is such an important economic indicator. Consumer confidence is by definition a psychological factor– guided by perception as much as hard economic reality. The only fix for this economy is a vital combination of individual action and collective optimism. Individually, we must prepare ourselves for the worst but hope (in the Obama meaning) for the best. Collectively, we need to remember we still live in the greatest nation in the world and have the most economic opportunity of anyone. And focusing on the rising water will only hasten our demise.

Understanding the 2008 election

“He changes times and seasons; He sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning.” Daniel 2:21 (NIV)

This is perhaps the most difficult blog for me to ever write. Not that these are exceptionally difficult times or anything melodramatic like that. But because I am both perplexed and conflicted in writing it. Perplexed because I don’t understand the why, and conflicted because I want to think better of my countrymen. But here I am, writing, trying to simplify the complicated while still trying to figure it out. This is what I seek to do in every one of my blogs: to connect the dots which so often seem to be scattered so haphazardly. I do this because it seems that truth is constantly obscured, and also because it allows me to understand things personally. That is, while I know what I believe and what I think instictively, writing enables me to put things in perspective.  There is something enlightening about writing. Writing about a given subject doesn’t expose my understanding of it, but rather enables my understanding. I hope I can do the same thing for those reading this.
First, let’s understand that the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency is not by any means the sole concern of the 2008 election, though of the contests it might have been the most clear. More troubling, it seems to me is the number of “red states” which turned “blue” in the national election. Obviously, this had to happen in order for Obama to win, but the way it happened is quite disconcerting. North Carolina, Colorado and Virginia aren’t supposed to vote for a democrat, but they all did. Likewise, Elizabeth Dole wasn’t supposed to lose her senate seat in the (formerly?) conservative state of North Carolina. Mitch McConnell, Republican Senate minority leader isn’t supposed to struggle to maintain his seat in conservative Kentucky. In Pennsylvania, the detestable Jack Murtha–who openly called his own constituents racists, then when confronted didn’t retract his comment, but instead changed his insult to rednecks–managed to keep his seat in Congress. Of course, this was not Murtha’s only repulsive comment in recent memory. Murtha infamously disgraced himself and discredited his military service by proclaiming that marines had killed innocent civilians in cold blood in the Iraqi city of Haditha. This, despite the fact that the investigation of the Haditha incident was still under investigation and Murtha hadn’t even read the report. But Murtha was an incumbent. The situation in Minnesota is almost as bad. The immently disgraceful one, Al Franken nearly won a US senate seat over the experienced, competent, independent and thoroughly likeable Norm Coleman. Franken isn’t even a good comedian, is an unsuccessful talk show host and a remarkably angry and meanspirited political commentator, and as cuddly as a porcupine. Yet Coleman barely won the election and it was so close there is a mandatory recount that will get started any month now. Granted, Dean Barkley entered the race and probably stole a few of Coleman’s votes, but the fact remains that Al Franken was only a couple hundred votes away from being Minnesota’s second radical left wing senator, possibly to the left of even Amy Klobuchar.
The examples of how liberal this election was are numerous and can be seen at nearly every level. The question is, why? Rather than impune motives, denegrate the intelligence, or question the patriotism of the electorate, I submit that to some extent this election was an indictment of our character. Specifically, this election exposed our growing love of convenience. Leisure has become our new national past time, one which we will legislate, if necessary. Why should we pay for and choose our own healthcare if the government can do it for us? Why should we have to work to pay off our school loans if the department of education can pay for it? Why should we have to pay attention to what we eat, when the FDA and legislators can just outlaw what’s bad for us? Why should we take responsibility for our family, when human services can handle it? We have spurned individual responsibility in favor of newly found “rights.” We have mistaken subjective fairness for objective justice and rejected reason in deference to emotion.
Barack Obama was wrong. His campaign slogan might have been “change we can believe in”, but it was nihilism–a belief in nothing at all– that won the day. This is not a declaration of defeat, nor an indictment of the United States as a whole. This is still the greatest country in the world, and we still love freedom more than anyone else. To lose faith in the American people is unthinkable, for it would mean surrendering to the same nihilism.

Obama’s fascist Third Way

In Barack Obama’s new health care commercial the velvet-smooth narrator intones, “On healthcare reform, two extremes, on one end government run healthcare, higher taxes. On the other end, insurance companies without rules, denying coverage. Barack Obama says both extremes are wrong. His plan? Keep employer paid coverage, keep your own doctor, take on insurance companies to bring down costs. Cover pre-existing conditions, cover preventive care. Common sense, for the change we need.” As my favorite talk show host, Michael Medved would say after hearing such pie-in-the-sky drivel, “uh-huh.” Of course the brilliant thing about this tax–ahem–healthcare plan is the third way aspect. Barack Obama stole one right out of Benito Mussolini’s handbook! As Jonah Goldberg put it in his superb book Liberal Fascism, “Fascist and Nazi intellectuals constantly touted a ‘middle’ or ‘Third Way’ between capitalism and socialism. Mussolini zigzagged every which way, from free trade and low taxes to a totalitarian state apparatus.” Goldberg later continues, “The ‘middle way’ sounds moderate and un-radical. Its appeal is that it sounds unideological and freethinking. But philosophically, the Third Way is not mere difference splitting; it is utopian and authoritarian. Its utopian aspect becomes manifest in its antagonism to the idea that politics is about trade-offs. The Third Wayers say that there are no false choices–’I refuse to accept that X should come at the expense of Y.’ The Third Way holds that we can have capitalism and socialism, individual liberty and absolute unity. Fascist movements are implicitly utopian beacause they–like communist and heretical Christian movements–assume that with just the right arrangement of policies, all contradictions can be rectified. This is a political siren song; life can never be made perfect, because man is imperfect. This is why the Third Way is also authoritarian. It assumes that the right man–or, in the case of Leninists, the right party–can resolve all of these contradictions through sheer will.”
Are the pieces falling together now? Is this portrait clear? Barack Obama, the man who would be king–who fosters so much ambition that he can’t serve more than a year in a national office before starting a Presidential campaign–is now advocating a Third Way, and this isn’t likely to be confined to just healthcare. Obama’s overriding ambition and utopian idealism are a dangerous combination. And with a Democratic majority in both the house and the senate, the damage that could be done might be monumental. Don’t be fooled by Obama’s promise to let us “keep employer paid healthcare” (is that better than allowing people to buy and choose their own healthcare?) he is promising to allow those without healthcare to get the same coverage that government workers get. Which is, of course, better than many or perhaps most of employer subsidized health care plans. So how many people are going to keep their employer paid healthcare if they can get cheaper coverage from the government? Just reading Obama’s healthcare plan exhausts an entire year’s worth of suspended disbelief. But this is the man who requires that you believe in to such an extent that he can raise spending by a trillion dollars yet still cut the budget–without any proposed budget cuts to speak of. Is this hope? The true believers sure have hope. They believe. Call me a doubting Thomas, but I want proof.  

 

A study in contrasts: McCain’s Leadership, Obama’s lack of focus.

John McCain has set out a course of action. Barack Obama shrugged and said he will answer his phone if anyone needs him. McCain has set aside his campaign to focus on the biggest potential financial bailout in US history. Obama has intimated that its simply a matter of multitasking, like answering the phone while you are baking cookies. Or maybe calling for takeout while working on a spreadsheet. Is this Barack Obama’s belief in his own political superpowers? Does he actually believe he isn’t subject to the laws of physics and can actually be in two places (Washington and the campaign trail) at once? Or is he underestimating the importance of this issue? I would venture this: he believes, very firmly that talk is more important than action, that his campaign is more important than the economic crisis we’re facing, and most likely that once he becomes President “we will provide care to the sick and good jobs to the jobless…the rise of the oceans began to slow and the planet began to heal” and since we will have a 100% employment for the first time in the history of the US (and not just employment mind you but “good jobs”) we shouldn’t have to worry about any current economic crisis. So that’s our two Presidential candidates’ plans in this, the biggest economic crisis in decades: one is going to Washington to commit his time in a very close election to helping solve the current crisis, the other is making sure to check his blackberry in between campaign events. One is leading by being involved, determined to get the best deal for the taxpayer and to get it done by this weekend, the other is determined to not let this crisis get in the way of his campaign.
You can tell a lot about someone’s character by looking at their priorities. Obama’s priority since gaining office has been his personal ambition, most likely with the idea that the more resposibility he had the more people he could help. This is probably why he voted “present” on 130 (presumably) controversial bills in the Illinois state senate, and began running for President a short two years and two weeks after being sworn into office in the US senate. You can also tell a lot about someone’s leadership by examining their response to crises. McCain has taken leadership by proposing an aggressive series of meetings with the President and leaders in Congress, affirming his resolve to come to a solution within the week. Obama has shirked responsibility, letting the leaders of Congress and the President figure it out themselves and letting them know they can call him if they need him. How anyone can see a leadership in Barack Obama’s reluctance to be involved in solving one of the biggest financial crises in recent history can only be explained by pure partisanship. Die hard leftists will support Obama no matter what, but those who value leadership, those who seek decisiveness and clear thinking in crises need to look elsewhere.

Rejecting Political Rigidty

“The person who agrees with you 80% of the time is your friend and ally not a 20% traitor” -Ronald Reagan
They’re coming again, those well meaning but ultimately dangerous advocates of political puritanism are back on the attack, up on their high horses. They claim that John McCain’s support for the bailout bills prove that he’s some sort of socialist or worse. The truth is, I’m not sold on how great or awful any of the proposed bailout bills were. There were plenty on both sides of the issue who on other issues would be very unlikely to disagree, and frankly I didn’t have the time and/or patience to read each bill. Obviously, the initial bill was flawed, but to keep insisting that any of the bills would actually cost $700 billion is a bit dishonest since the bills involved purchasing assets and then eventually reselling them. Of course, it is usually this part that conservatives balk at. Clearly, buying and selling property isn’t a normal function of government, and it certainly should be one of the last things that this government does. There are many who have insisted that we should let the free market resolve the credit crisis caused by the unwise use of credit by lenders and lendees, but it wasn’t, in fact the excesses of the free market that caused the credit crisis, but government intervention. Should the market be forced to to correct the wrong that well intentioned federal policies have caused? Perhaps it is betraying my free market principles, but I don’t know how to put the genie back in the bottle. Can we return to a pure free market now, when we have allowed socialism to creep in so far? I hope we can, and it’s too late to debate this since the bill has finally passed, but the credit crisis disabled the free market, and though it would eventually free itself, I don’t see a great deal of harm in this single instance of government intrusion. I certainly could be wrong though, I must admit. It is rare that I feel so politically uncertain as I do right now. But there were many reasonable members of congress who voted for the final bailout bill, including: Bachus, Shadegg, Boozman, Lundgren, Herger, Radanovitch, McKeon, Tancredo, Putnam, Weldon, Souder, Lewis, Rogers, Alexander, Boustany, McCrery, Hoekstra, Camp, Kline, Blunt, Boehner, Schmidt, Cole, Sullivan, Fallin, Shuster, Barrett, Brown, Wilson, Wamp, Sessions, Conaway, Thornberry, Brady, Granger, Cannon, Cantor, Ryan, and Cubin, who all had at least a 90 or higher conservative rating (on a scale of 1-100) from the American Conservative Union in 2007, many who had a perfect 100 rating. Was this the right bill? It’s hard to say, it certainly was very far from perfect. The urgency behind it, though disconcerting, was probably necessary considering the shape of the market last week.
I didn’t mean to go into such detail concerning the bailout bill, because there was a bigger point I wish to make, but it certainly is the biggest political issue since the decision to go to war against Iraq, so I certainly couldn’t ignore it. The point I need to make is that McCain’s lack of perfection isn’t a good enough reason to vote against him. It certainly would be understandable to vote against McCain in the primaries, but this is the general election coming up and rigid political idealism in a national Presidential election would mean voting for someone who has no chance of winning. For a serious conservative, voting for a third party candidate or not voting for President is the same as voting for Obama. For those who proclaim the importance of personal responsibility, copping out and not voting for John McCain is inexcusable, because John McCain is the only candidate who has shown an ability to reject a spending bill, and Barack Obama has never seen a tax he didn’t like. Moreover, there are likely to be two or three new Supreme Court justices in the next 4-8 years. John McCain has promised to appoint strict constructionist judges, Barack Obama prefers activists like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Paul Stevens. The Supreme Court justices should be enough to convince any on-the-fence conservative that voting for McCain isn’t optional. How a conservative can say they are voting their conscience and not vote for McCain in November is beyond me. To me, it seems they are voting with their heart, because I think their conscience would take issue with not voting against Barack Obama, and that’s the real issue, make no mistake. Primary voting is over, and the candidates are the candidates. We don’t get a do-over in November, we just have to make do. A Barack Obama Presidency would be a disaster, one which would be exceedingly difficult to redeem. And remember, there will be no Republican majority in the house or the senate this time. A McCain Presidency is the only thing that will stand between a Democrat majority and total socialism in the United States. Socialized medical care. Higher taxes across the board. Less religious liberty. No more war on terror. A weak national defense. The list is endless. Just try sell to the American people cutting all the programs Obama will create in four years. And you won’t have the McCain voters to blame.

Who is responsible for our financial crisis?

This is a very hard question to answer, believe me I’ve tried and tried to figure it out. And it’s only because I don’t have a reactionary temperment, nor endless hours to research that it’s taken this long. The answer: nearly everyone. Is one political party more resposible than another? I am very confident to say that it was more the Democratic than Republican party, but it comes down to individual members than whole political parties. Even Alec Baldwin, as loony left as they get, acknowledges that Democrats, especially Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, have a great deal of responsibility. Read this: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2008/10/04/baldwin-blames-financial-crisis-clinton-dems-barney-frank. More thoroughly, the eminent economist Thomas Sowell addresses the culpability in one of his recent columns. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell100308.php3. It is titled “Do Facts Matter?” because Democrats enabled the financial crisis. And of course, one of Barack Obama’s chief financial advisors, Frank Raines just happened to be running Fannie Mae, which nearly single-handedly causes this crisis. But for some reason people “feel” that Obama can help us out of this crisis. It’s like a bad joke.

Obama’s Hypocricy

“What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

One thing that’s become painfully obvious to me since he took the office of the President is the very hypocritical nature of Barack Obama. I emphasize the word nature here, because it seems that it is something that he is totally unaware of. The other part of his character that has been exposed is his ability to blame shift, two qualities which complement each other quite nicely. Concerning the massive and crippling budget deficit, for instance, he did both. First, he blamed and attacked Bush for how huge the deficit had grown, then, just let us know how displeased he was with Bush’s deficit, Obama quadrupled it. He proposed spending that would result in the largest budget deficit mankind has ever known, and increased spending to degrees that might even have caused FDR or LBJ to blush–then, with no apparent irony, no tongue-in-cheek, and presumably straight faced, proposed an economic responsibility conference. Then, he makes a bold pledge to take the defecit which he quadrupled and cut it in half. Only after the economy grows at rates well beyond a prudent forecast would project. But the examples come out every day. Just yesterday he said that we can’t be perpetually bailing out the auto industry. This is another trick Obama plays. While on the campaign trail, Obama pledged he wouldn’t sign a bill with earmarks. Then, he signs a spending bill with thousands of earmarks and immediately declares that this is the last time he was going to do this. Yeah, right. He almost sounds like an addict, declaring this is his last beer, or this will be his last hit. But any objective observer could tell you that if he’s sincere, the addict would forego that last drink. 
Despite what he may say, Barack Obama isn’t spending this money out of necessity. He isn’t taking over companies like Mussolini because he has to. He’s doing it because he wants to. His actions belie fascist tendecies  few who merely listen to what he says could even imagine.

If only John McCain were as on point as his ads…