The River

Ben Stein accuses Ron Paul of being an anti-semite

2009-12-29T21:59:00.004-06:00

This clip is amazing for two reasons. First of all, Ben Stein comes off as a complete and total jackass. He can't refute a logical argument, so he responds with an ad hominem attack.

Second, notice who is in the middle frame? That's Shelia Jackson-Lee (my "representative" in Washington). And she can't even get a word in! That in and of itself is a notable event. It's often said in Houston that the most dangerous place in town is between Sheila Jackson-Lee and a microphone. (BTW...when I met Sheila at a town hall meeting in December she was nothing but gracious and polite to me. Despite our disagreements on just about everything, we at least had civil discourse.)

But back to Ben Stein. Stein first came to prominence as a speechwriter for Richard Nixon, a noted anti-semite. I really don't understand why people this this guy is so intelligent. He knows next to nothing about economics and every time I see him on Fox Business or CNBC, he is arguing for big government, bailouts, Keynesian stimulus, and printing money out of thin air. He's an apologist for the state - not a free market thinker at all. And apparently he knows even less about human behavior and foreign policy.

Dick Morris. Radical? Extremist?

2009-12-26T10:19:00.001-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

I am on Dick Morris's emailing list. I like the old boy, in spite of his rather sordid political past and in spite of the fact that he and I are not exactly ideological twins. I have read four of his books to my profit and continue to follow his columns and remain interested in where his mind is going. Dick is a political animal who loves the game and knows how to play it. Perhaps when he was burned by the Clintons, or perhaps as a result of his personal failings, I'm not sure, but somewhere along the line he gained a political conscience. I find him well worth my time just about any time he drops something in my inbox.

The following is something I received from him about five days ago, right after the Senate had turned Benedict Arnold on the Republic and the Constitution by enacting the most anti-freedom, tyrannical legislation in our history. First, read his words, then afterwords I will comment.

If they beat us in the Senate, we will fight them in conference. If they beat us in conference, we will fight them in the House. If they beat us in the House over healthcare, we will fight them over cap and trade. We will fight them over immigration and amnesty. We will fight them over the deficit. We will fight them over the debt. And we will fight them in 2010. We will fight them in the House. We will fight them for Senate seats in Connecticut, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, and Arkansas. We will fight them in Colorado and North Dakota and California and Washington State. We will fight them in Illinois and in New Jersey. We will never, never, never, never give up! Our country is at stake!

All our defeats do is to teach us the futility of appealing to moderate Democrats and the necessity - the dire necessity - of replacing them with committed Republicans. There is no such thing as a moderate Democrat in Congress. There are simply those whose votes the leadership does not need in order to promote its socialist agenda.

We will not place our faith in the Nelsons or the Lincolns or the Liebermans or the Landrieus of the Senate. Nor in the Blue Dogs of the House. All we do when we depend on them is to permit them to raise their price and up the ante for their vote. We will place our faith only in the Republicans who oppose them and who will bring the collective insanity which has gripped Washington to an end.

But we will continue to fight each battle in Congress because it is only by blunting Obama's momentum and by demonstrating to the voters of America how their Democratic members of Congress are only automatic votes for socialism that we have a chance to triumph in 2010. And triumph we will. We can only hope that there is still a country to take back!

Stay with us! Help us! Fight with us!

Now that you have read that, I have a couple of questions, and because they are good questions I will also take the opportunity to answer them as good questions deserve good answers.

Question #1 - Is Dick Morris a right-wing extremist?
Answer - Hardly. Morris infamously worked for William Jefferson Clinton as a political strategist for years. He was the brains behind Bill's buffoonery.

Question #2 - Yeah, but that was then. This is now. Has he become a right-wing extremist?
Answer - Again, no. His views are quite moderate I assure you. He still thinks in terms of "government solutions" to societal ills. He still thinks in terms of doing government better and more efficiently as opposed to taking government out of the equation. He is, in short, a moderate statist . . . similar to George W. Bush.

What he is, however, is patriotic. He is also astute enough to realize that Barack Hussein Obama is not. He can see what this administration has done, and is doing to the Republic. He is awake enough to realize that with the enactment of legislation such as this the American idea, the American experiment, is over.

Look at these excerpts again:

"Our country is at stake!"

"There is no such thing as a moderate Democrat in Congress. There are simply those whose votes the leadership does not need in order to promote its socialist agenda."

"And triumph we will. We can only hope that there is still a country to take back!"

I can remember when this sort of rhetoric was reserved for radicals and extremists alone. No longer. There was a time when men like Dick Morris would have cringed at rhetoric such as this. Now they use it.

Constitution Class (Part 1/7) - Property and Your Rights

2009-12-22T18:53:00.004-06:00

I received word today that Michael Badnarik, the 2004 Libertarian Party candidate for President, self-described iconoclast, and self-made expert on the Constitution, property rights, liberty and freedom, had a heart attack while at an event in Wisconsin. I thought this would be a good time to re-watch his classic 7 part series on the Constitution and liberty, available on Google Video.

Here is Part 1 which deals primarily with the concept of property and how property relates to liberty.

John Stossel - The Debate Is Over? Really?

2009-12-17T20:59:00.001-06:00

Posted by James Spurgeon.

Scientific Accuracy (Trust Me On This One)

2009-12-16T07:41:00.004-06:00

Posted by James Spurgeon.

In a hurry this morning. Let's see what I can put up quickly for the cause.

Science is a method of acquiring knowledge and information, not an infallible source of knowledge. No, really. Science is a method, not a source. Ironic, is it not, that while science itself would seem to require skepticism, many in the scientific community would like for us to drop all skepticism when it comes to their latest, greatest theories. In fact, those of us who remain skeptical are dubbed ignorant rubes or worse. Scientists, it would seem, no longer have to prove anything. We should just believe them.

To do this I have to assume that they are (a) unbiased, (b) infallible, (c) have my best interests at heart, and (d) are capable of rising above the interests of those who are funding them (usually government).

Wow.

Why should I give that much benefit of doubt to anyone? Are scientists super-human? Are they made from a better mold, cut from a finer cloth?

Really?

I like science and scientists, don't get me wrong. I am addicted to Discovery Science. I share with them an insatiable desire, that wanting to know. But, I have been around the block one too many times to just accept everything anyone says without question. History proves me right in this attitude.

Does it not?

Radical Theory Change in Science

2009-12-12T14:33:00.000-06:00

Posted by James Spurgeon.

In light of the recent revelations about the doctoring of records and data by global warming scientists at East Anglia University for the stated purpose of shaping public opinion for the advancement of a political cause, and in the face of the arrogance of those on the Left who insist that we all believe their global warming theory because of "consensus" and because the evidence is in and the debate is now over, and because making this sentence even longer will probably succeed in annoying every English teacher I ever had, I dredged up this old post from my old blog to present it to you, here and now, still relatively fresh and relevant.

Professor McGrath is a scientist and Christian theologian. He has written several books including at least two answers to noted atheist Richard Dawkins. I found the following quotations in one of those books and used them as a catalyst for the post. Enjoy.

Alister McGrath brings up an interesting observation in Chapter three of his Dawkins' God--Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life. In that chapter he has a section entitled "The Problem of Radical Theory Change in Science." Here is a quotation:

When I was learning physics at school, I gradually became aware of an awkward contradiction within what I was being taught. On the one hand, I was being assured that the theories of modern physics were completely reliable, the most secure form of knowledge that humanity could ever hope to possess. Yet every now and then, we would venture into a strange, twilight region in which it would be explained to us, in hushed, conspiratorial tones, that "physicists once used to believe this, but don't now." . . . At first, I thought that these old-fashioned views dated back to the sixteenth century. But the awful truth soon became clear. The acceptance of these new ideas dated from about forty years earlier. "Once" turned out to mean "quite recently."--Alister McGrath, Dawkins' God, p.102, paperback, Blackwell Publishing.

Yep. I've noticed that sort of thing myself. No, I'm no scientist, but I am a television nerd--which means I watch all the nerd channels. You know what they are--the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, NatGeo, Discovery Science, History International, etc. I watch shows dealing with astronomy, cosmology, dinosaurs, you name it. One cannot watch many of these programs without coming across statements like the one McGrath notes above. Scientific theories are always changing, always being revised, many being completely discarded and replaced. They are always getting it wrong.

Now is that a bad thing? Of course, not. Scientific discovery is a road paved with wrong ideas, but as we learn and discover further, we grow. Isn't that wonderful?

There's something else I've noted in the scientific community from watching those nifty little nerd channels. Scientists are always arguing with each other. They seldom all agree on their theories and some are even ridiculed for their ideas by their colleagues. Sometimes even, the ones who are ridiculed turn out to be right. Sometimes a scientist comes along who challenges the prevailing opinions, is ridiculed, but in the end, through his diligent experimentation and research, it turns out that he was right and he changes the face of science for a few decades (until the next guy comes along doing the same thing).

All of this is easily evident to the untutored layman like me. Yet at the same time it is astounding how arrogant the scientific community is. Imagine, for instance, a guy like Richard Dawkins. An intelligent man by all accounts, well-learned, articulate, funny, thorough, logical, Dawkins is also arrogant--arrogant to the point of expecting people to radically change their worldview because of a scientific theory. Of course, as McGrath points out, even if one were to accept the theory of evolution as genuine it does not then necessarily follow that one's theism or Christianity be discarded.

Nevertheless, here is Dawkins--who cannot prove his theory. He may be able to point to a mound of scientific evidence, yet the necessary proof is as of yet unproduced. But Dawkins ridicules those who do not accept the theory as fact, even though scientific theories have a way of being found wanting and, after being replaced by new and better ones, being cast upon the forgotten heaps of antiquated errors that litter the landscape of scientific history.

Please, guys. Keep studying, keep learning, keep discovering. I shall watch with an interested eye. But, at the same time, how about adding in a dash of humility to that theoretical cauldron? The stew you are offering will go down much better if you do.

A little more from McGrath:

Historians and philosophers of science have produced long lists of scientific theories, each of which was believed by one generation to be the best possible representation of reality, yet which were abandoned by later generations, in the light of new discoveries and increasingly precise measurements of what was already known. Some theories have proved remarkably stable; many have been radically modified, and others abandoned altogether.--Alister McGrath, Dawkins' God, p.104, paperback, Blackwell Publishing.

And:

Scientific theorizing is thus provisional. In other words, it offers what is believed to be the best account of the experimental observations currently available. Radical theory change takes place either when it is believed that there is a better explanation of what is currently known, or when new information comes to light which forces us to see what is presently known in a new light. Unless we know the future, it is impossible to take an absolute position on the question of whether any given theory is "right." What can be said--and, indeed, must be said--is that this is believed to be the best explanation currently available. History simply makes fools of those who argue that every aspect of the current theoretical situation is true for all time. The problem is that we don't know which of today's theories will be discarded as interesting failures by future generations.

If theories are thus subject to erosion, what of worldviews that are based upon them? . . .Alister McGrath, Dawkins' God, p.104,5, paperback, Blackwell Publishing.

Statists and Violence

2009-12-10T21:24:00.000-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

What do Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Leonid Brezhnev, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Adolph Hitler, Fidel Castro, and numerous others all have in common?

Besides being twentieth century statists who saw government as the end-all solution to every human problem . . . they were all brutal murderers who (ab)used government to murder their own citizens on a very large scale.

They made Tim McVeigh look like a piker.

And what do Ted Kaczynski, Bill Ayres, the Black Panthers, and other sixties radicals have in common? They are all leftists who murdered people in the name of their revolutionary cause.

The Left has a long history of violence in the cause of its statist ideology and has murdered millions. Yet, let someone stand up for individual liberty and he is labeled an anarchist or a Timothy McVeigh by some idiot, leftist drone.

This is done for a reason. It is a tactic known as "poisoning the well" and is utilized by those who are losing the argument and cannot substantively promote their viewpoint.

This is why those of us who champion the individual against the collective are labeled with such epithets as racist, sexist, bigot, homophobe. This is why all politicians on the right are mocked as stupid while all of the leftists are honored as being the smartest people in the room.

Poisoning the well. Obviously everyone who opposes tyrannical government is a murderer in the bud. We are all Timothy McVeighs.

By the same (il)logic then, all environmentalists are Ted Kaczynskis, everyone who supports government-run health care is a Hitler, and all who believe that it "takes a village" are Stalins, Lenins, and Maos.

Right?

Obama: Traitor to Sovereignty and Liberty?

2009-12-10T07:05:00.001-06:00

Amdiral Mike Mullen on civilian casualties of war

2009-12-07T12:36:00.004-06:00

I'm home at lunch watching Admiral Mike Mullen (Chairman of the Joint Cheifs of Staff) speak to soon-to-be-deployed troops at Camp Lejeune. Addressing the subject of civilian casualties, he said that killing civilians is a "strategic failure" that makes an otherwise successful mission a failure.

Adm. Mullen: killing civilians is a moral failure, not a strategic one. There is no acceptable level of civilian casualties in war. Killing innocent people is wrong, and when indiscriminate weapons are used it is murder.

Texas Congressman almost gets it

2009-12-07T01:00:00.001-06:00

Rep. Lamar Smith, a San Antonio-area Republican, recently said of ACORN:

Not a penny of taxpayer's dollars should go to fund an organization that time and again has abused federal funds and the American people's trust.

I agree with the gentleman from San Antonio. We should immediately stop funding the US Government, an organization run by criminals that constantly abuses federal funds and violates the American people's trust by violating our civil liberties; that spreads death and destruction throughout the world in the name of "democracy"; that steals from the poor through the printing of paper money; that places the ambition and materialistic desires of evil politicians above the liberty of the people; and which fails to fulfill the one moral and desirable function of government in a free society, which is to protect individual liberty.

Government - not capitalism - is the problem

2009-12-06T13:18:00.003-06:00

One of my frustrations with today's so-called conservative leaders is that they too often concede the premise of an argument to our opponents on the left. For example, yesterday I had a conversation with a co-worker who qualified her endorsement of free market capitalism with a disclaimer that "we just need some rules that will keep people from being taken advantage of".

This is a position that I hear often, especially in the wake of recent corporate and financial scandals. The statement assumes that fraud and deceit are necessary characteristics of free markets – a patently false assumption that I rarely hear challenged. The only source of fraud and deceit in truly free markets comes from the government and the greedy politicians.

Capitalism

Capitalism is the process where people engage in mutually-beneficial transactions arrived at through peaceful cooperation with one another. In barter economies a farmer may trade a bushel of corn to his neighbor for ten gallons of milk. The price of a bushel of corn would be 10 gallons of milk; the price of a gallon of milk would be 1/10 a bushel of corn. These terms were arrived at through peaceful negotiation – not coercion. Nobody held a gun to their head. And the trade was mutually-beneficial. The corn farmer already had much more corn than he wanted, while the dairy famer's children can only drink so much milk.

Today we use money to determine the relative worth of goods and services. In our example a bushel of corn would be worth 10 times more dollars than a single gallon of milk. The use of money allows other capitalists and consumers to discern important information about the relative worth of all goods and services in the economy. Some capitalist will look at the price of corn, determine that he can produce it for less, and start planting corn. This drives down the market price of corn for everybody – which by definition means that producers of all other goods and services can now buy more corn. Everybody wins in true free market capitalism.

Did you notice what things were not necessary in the example? Fraud and deceit are most definitely not necessary for true free market capitalism. Sure they may exist, and should be dealt with appropriately by the legal system, but fraud and deceit are not required. And coercion is most definitely not a part of free markets. You are always at liberty to not transact, if the market price is higher than you want to pay.

Regulation

Let's look what happens now when the government gets its greedy hands involved and regulates the free market. Assume that the government taxes corn to raise money for the military. Corn farmers must pass that tax on to consumers by raising the price of corn; but they won't be able to pass on the entire tax because there are close substitute products for corn (other vegetables) that consumers could switch to. So the price of corn goes up and profits for the farmers go down. You will eat less corn because it's more expensive, and instead eat more Brussels sprouts. (You really don't like Brussels sprouts, but at least you can afford them without having to cut something else out of your budget.)

As for the farmers, the smallest farmer will now go out of business because he can't produce and sell corn at a profit under the new regime. The average farmer stays in business but can't make as much money as before. Corporate farms will also be hurt, but not as bad because they will be better able to absorb the price hit.

The government, which is collecting money despite being a net negative to society, sees the price of corn rise and is now outraged. It decides to regulate corn prices and sets up a blue-ribbon panel to study the issue. The panel, comprised of politicians from corn-producing states, Ivy League economists and CEOs of large corporate farming companies, decides that the market needs a federal regulator to ensure that prices are "fair" and that the food supply is "safe" for consumers.

The new Department of Corn is headed by the former CEO of GoldCorn Sacks, a large farming conglomerate with close political ties to the current administration. It recommends increased safety procedures for corn production and new rules for marketing of corn. All farmers must make significant capital investment to meet the new rules. Many small farmers simply retire rather than deal with the hassle and added expense. They would like to continue selling corn, and their neighbors would like to continue buying it, but the law is the law.

More Unintended Consequences

Meanwhile the price of corn has increased again to reflect the cost of the new regulation. The corporate farmers can easily afford the new regulations and pick up even more market share from the little guys. You have to eat even more Brussels sprouts and less corn due to the new pricing. Society in total loses because corn is more expensive relative to all other goods and services.

The government has funded its army, and is now exploring the possibility of setting up a similar tax and regulation system for milk. The proceeds of that tax will be used to buy food (corn, not Brussels sprouts, which everybody HATES) for the former corn farmers to eat. And some money will also be used to create job training programs so displaced agricultural workers can perform administrative tasks at the Department of Corn.

The representative who chaired the blue-ribbon committee received record campaign contributions from political action committees associated with Big Corn. It's an election year, and he will have a primary challenger, but should be able to outspend her thanks to these donations.

The biggest campaign issue looks to be whether or not to put tariffs on imported corn. Corn is primarily imported from the nation of Cornutopia, which due to a number of factors including soil conditions and weather, can produce only corn and nothing else. The Cornutopians are the most efficient producers of corn on Earth by necessity. But, imported corn is being sold at less than the market price of domestic corn, so the representative believes that allowing "unfettered free markets" would cause small American farmers to go out of business. He supports the tariff because, in his words, "I stand with the little guy – not the big corporations."

Winners and Losers

The former family corn farmer now depends entirely on the government for basic subsistence through food stamps and other welfare programs. Society as a whole is worse off: because of the increased price of corn, many people that would otherwise prefer the tasty yellow vegetable have to eat other, less appealing vegetables. (Chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, gravy and…zucchini!)

The government has caused two things to happen. First it decreased the quality of life for society as a whole (because corn makes people happier than other vegetables). Then it made society poorer by taxing the corn that was consumed. So government was able to direct some of the people's money to itself, despite the fact that society as a whole was made worse off by government's actions.

Of course some people DID benefit from the new regulations. Big Corn certainly benefited because it now has less domestic competition. And after the elections, the tariff insulated corporate corn growers from Cornutopian corn as well. The politicians benefited because the campaign contributions ensured their entrenchment in office virtually indefinitely.

More Politics

The young representative – now considering a run for Senate in two years – was recently appointed to the House Committee for Foreign Relations. The Committee has pressured key trading partners (all countries in which GoldCorn Sacks has operations) to institute corn regulations as well. This will allegedly protect consumers globally from "dirty, unregulated corn" which countries like Cornutopia produce.

Cornutopia, now unable to sell its corn in the world's 10 largest markets and unable to grow any other crops, experiences extreme civil unrest, famine, and eventually a military coup. The democratically-elected government has been overthrown and replaced by a socialist dictator. The U.S. begins mobilizing it's army, which was initially funded by corn taxes, to fight the dictator. The plan is to install a new, hand-selected replacement (although "elections" will be held because the goal is to spread democracy, and the new leader has to be viewed as legitimate). The new soon-to-be democratically-elected leader has already agreed to force the recommendations of the U.S. Department of Corn upon the Cornutopian growers in exchange for half a billion dollars in foreign aid.

Because the war to spread democracy to Cornutopia is so expensive, and because we must support the troops at all costs, the legislature is now considering increasing taxes on all food products, including increasing the tax on corn. A dollar just doesn't go as far as it used to.

Summary

And all of this happened because in the beginning our "leaders" did not challenge the assertion that free market capitalism needs regulation to operate fairly. To summarize:

Free market capitalism: Cooperative, mutually-beneficial, peaceful, resources allocated based on the value that you provide to other people

Government regulation: Coercive, benefits only the politically connected, violent, resources allocated based on arbitrary decisions made by bureaucrats

So the next time somebody argues with you that we need more regulation because "free markets get out of control" or "we need somebody to make sure everything is done fairly" – be sure to challenge them!

Ron Paul discusses perpetual war on FOX Business

2009-12-02T19:17:00.005-06:00

Ron Paul appeared on FOX Business Channel today to discuss President Obama's asinine Afghanistan policy and the very real possibility of perpetual war in the Middle East.

Global Warming - Scam of the New Millenium

2009-11-24T23:38:00.000-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Not much time to write, but for a delicious holiday morsel, try this.

Apparently, some hackers broke into some computer files for the University of East Anglia and these files contained some pretty enlightening and embarrassing information about collusion and conspiracy within scientific and academic ranks to keep the global warming fires burning, as it were. In short, global warming is a scam and the lid has been blown.

Here is a sample from the above-linked article in the Wall Street Journal:

This is downright Orwellian. What the Post describes is not a vigorous debate but an attempt to suppress debate--to politicize the process of scientific inquiry so that it yields a predetermined result. This does not, in itself, prove the global warmists wrong. But it raises a glaring question: If they have the facts on their side, why do they need to resort to tactics of suppression and intimidation?

It is hard to see how this is anything less than a definitive refutation of the popular press's contention that global warmism is settled science--a contention that both the Times and the Post repeat in their articles on the revelations: "The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument," the Times claims. The Post leads its story by observing that "few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world's climate," and that "nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal." (As blogger Tom Maguire notes, this actually overstates even the IPCC's conclusions.)

The press's view on global warming rests on an appeal to authority: the consensus among scientists that it is real, dangerous and man-caused. But the authority of scientists rests on the integrity of the scientific process, and a "consensus" based on the suppression of alternative hypotheses is, quite simply, a fraudulent one.

That guy is a lot more generous than I am.

Frauds. That is what they are. Frauds and liars and thieves.

Also, check out this.

And this.

And this.

And this.

And, of course, this.

I am so glad that with all the fraudulent religious, right-wing, Christian nutcases out there we can at least trust the scientific community to give us the truth.

What is Law?

2009-11-22T20:00:00.000-06:00

The proper role of government in a free society is to defend individual rights. Governments do this through application of the law; without government there would be no law.

But what is the law? And by whose authority does government enforce laws? Frederic Bastiat provides the answer in his essay from 1848 entitled The Law.

Existence, faculties, assimilation — in other words, personality, liberty, property — this is man.

It is of these three things that it may be said, apart from all demagogue subtlety, that they are anterior and superior to all human legislation.

It is not because men have made laws, that personality, liberty, and property exist. On the contrary, it is because personality, liberty, and property exist beforehand, that men make laws.
What, then, is law? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Nature, or rather God, has bestowed upon every one of us the right to defend his person, his liberty, and his property, since these are the three constituent or preserving elements of life; elements, each of which is rendered complete by the others, and cannot be understood without them. For what are our faculties, but the extension of our personality? and what is property, but an extension of our faculties?

If every man has the right of defending, even by force, his person, his liberty, and his property, a number of men have the right to combine together, to extend, to organize a common force, to provide regularly for this defense. And what is property but an extension of our faculties?
Collective right, then, has its principle, its reason for existing, its lawfulness, in individual right; and the common force cannot rationally have any other end, or any other mission, than that of the isolated forces for which it is substituted. Thus, as the force of an individual cannot lawfully touch the person, the liberty, or the property of another individual — for the same reason, the common force cannot lawfully be used to destroy the person, the liberty, or the property of individuals or of classes.
For this perversion of force would be, in one case as in the other, in contradiction to our premises. For who will dare to say that force has been given to us, not to defend our rights, but to annihilate the equal rights of our brethren? And if this be not true of every individual force, acting independently, how can it be true of the collective force, which is only the organized union of isolated forces?

Nothing, therefore, can be more evident than this: The law is the organization of the natural right of lawful defense; it is the substitution of collective for individual forces, for the purpose of acting in the sphere in which they have a right to act, of doing what they have a right to do, to secure persons, liberties, and properties, and to maintain each in its right, so as to cause justice to reign over all.

The Real Reason for War

2009-11-21T21:40:00.000-06:00

Why do we have wars? Because it elevates the role of the state in our lives, of course. I mean what better way a tyrant like Carl Levin to increase the pressure of his jackboot on our throats than to help start a war, then use it as an excuse to raise taxes?

Of course maybe we should consider ourselves lucky that all the government wants from us is a figurative arm and a leg; the innocent women, children and other non-combatants on the other end of American bombs will sacrifice those things quite literally.

Deregulate marriage!

2009-11-20T13:14:00.000-06:00

Posted by Allen Lewis

In 2005 the State of Texas Constitution was amended in an effort to ban gay marriage and same-sex civil unions. Article 1, Section 32 of the Texas Constitution reads:

Sec. 32.
(a) Marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman.
(b) This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.

Former attorney, US Senate candidate and current candidate for Texas Attorney General Barbara Ann Radnofsky believes that subsection b may actually ban all marriage in Texas.

Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages.
She calls it a "massive mistake" and blames the current attorney general, Republican Greg Abbott, for allowing the language to become part of the Texas Constitution. Radnofsky called on Abbott to acknowledge the wording as an error and consider an apology. She also said that another constitutional amendment may be necessary to reverse the problem.

In my view, this would be glorious news for everybody that is truly concerned about the sanctity of marriage. The government has no moral right to regulate marriage. Citizens should not have to pay the state for a license granting the right to enter into any type of contract, marriage included. We should not have to ask the state's permission to get married. The government should not be involved in marriage in any way whatsoever.

The institution of marriage has been irreversibly harmed in this country, but it's not for the reasons commonly cited by many conservatives. The state has taken what should be a sacred contract between two people - something that has historically been sanctioned by a religious authority - and made it the domain of the government.

By placing marriage (or more succinctly, the right to marry) in the domain of the law, our government has served only to perpetuate the insulting notion that the state should regulate the most personal of choices in our lives. We should deregulate marriage immediately.

Judge Andrew Napolitano and Nullification

2009-11-19T18:00:00.001-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

I love the Tenth Amendment Center Blog. Like our friends over at the Repeal the 17th Amendment Blog, they are pretty well focused on one thing. I hope you will check them out from time to time as they raise consciousness on these important issues. I continue to look to the 10th amendment as the most viable cure available out there for out-of-control federal (or as Napolitano points out in the following video, national) government. Despite being a bit long, this clip is fabulous and enlightening. I viewed it at the aforementioned Tenth Amendment Center blog and liked it enough to want to put it here. It also serves as a good companion for the video in Allen's last post and together they make for a good introduction to Judge Napolitano. When Judge Napolitano begins his segments on constitutional law we will bring them to you as well.

Debra Medina on Freedom Watch

2009-11-18T22:31:00.009-06:00

Posted by Allen Lewis

Debra Medina, who is running for Governor of Texas against two absolutely awful (but powerful) career politicians - Governor Rick Perry and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison - appeared on Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano today.

I had the honor of working with Debra as a co-organizer on the 2008 Houston-area End the Fed rally. Debra is a true champion of liberty and freedom, unlike Governor Gardasil and Kay Bailout, who use the rhetoric of liberty when it suits them but govern and legislate, respectively, as leftists.

Walter Williams on Mao, Stalin, Lenin, and American Academia

2009-11-18T07:13:00.000-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Professor Williams is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University and for several years served as the Chair of that department. His weekly columns appear in 140 newspapers nationwide.

Go here to see a list of books written by Walter E. Williams.

The following is a portion of his most recent column. Click here to read the entire thing.

Walter Williams: Alan Kors, University of Pennsylvania history professor, gave the evening's keynote address. What he revealed about the dereliction and character weakness of academics, intellectuals, media elites and politicians is by no means complimentary, but worse than that, dangerous. Professor Kors said that over the years, he has frequently asked students how many deaths were caused by Joseph Stalin and Mao Tsetung and their successors. Routinely, they gave numbers in the thousands. Kors says that's equivalent to saying the Nazis are responsible for the deaths of just a few hundred Jews. But here's the record: Nazis were responsible for the deaths of 20 million of their own people and those in nations they conquered. Between 1917 and 1983, Stalin and his successors murdered, or were otherwise responsible for the deaths of, 62 million of their own people. Between 1949 and 1987, Mao Tsetung and his successors were responsible for the deaths of 76 million Chinese.

Professor Kors asks why are the horrors of Nazism so well known and widely condemned, but not those of socialism and communism? For decades after World War II, people have hunted down and sought punishment for Nazi murderers. How much hunting down and seeking punishment for Stalinist and Maoist murderers? In Europe, especially Germany, hoisting the swastika-emblazoned Nazi flag is a crime. It's acceptable to hoist and march under a flag emblazoned with the former USSR's hammer and sickle. Even in the U.S., it's acceptable to praise mass murderers, as Anita Dunn, President Obama's communications director, did in a commencement address for St. Andrews Episcopal High School at Washington National Cathedral where she said Mao Tsetung was one of her heroes. Whether it's the academic community, the media elite or politicians, there is a great tolerance for the ideas of socialism -- a system that has caused more deaths and human misery than all other systems combined.

Academics, media elites and leftist politicians both in the U.S. and Europe protested the actions and military buildup of President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and ultimately the breakup of the Soviet Union. Recall the leftist hissy fit when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the evil empire and predicted that communism would wind up on the trash heap of history.

Professor Alan Kors did not say this but the reason why the world's leftists give the world's most horrible murderers a pass is because . . .

Well, don't you want to know why? To find out what Professor Williams's answer is, go to the column and read it.

Pelosi . . . Are You Serious?

2009-11-13T20:00:00.001-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

I found this at CNS News. Click here for the whole article.

After this short audio clip, I'll quote some from the news article.

Now from the news article:

Currently, each of the five health care overhaul proposals being considered in Congress would command every American adult to buy health insurance. Any person defying this mandate would be required to pay a penalty to the Internal Revenue Service.

In 1994, when the health care reform plan then being advanced by President Clinton called for mandating that all Americans buy health insurance, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office studied the issue and concluded:

“The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States. An individual mandate would have two features that, in combination, would make it unique. First, it would impose a duty on individuals as members of society. Second, it would require people to purchase a specific service that would be heavily regulated by the federal government.”

CNS News also sent the following questions to Pelosi's office:

“If it is the Speaker’s belief that there is a provision in the Constitution that does give Congress this power, does she believe the Constitution in any way limits the goods and services Congress can force an individual to purchase?" CNSNews.com asked. "If so, what is that limit?”

UPS, Teamsters, Federal Government vs. FedEx

2009-11-13T18:10:00.003-06:00

Posted by James Spurgeon.

This particular video is pretty relevant for me because I am currently employed by FedEx.

Government picking winners and losers based on which corporation has the right ties and makes the right contributions to the right politicians is right out of Atlas Shrugged. It is disturbingly dirty on a number of levels.

Buy Insurance or Go To Jail

2009-11-12T19:19:00.000-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

For the first time in the two hundred thirty-three years of the Republic, the federal government in Washington, D.C. is poised to mandate by law that citizens (subjects) purchase a commodity. Why has this never happened in the past? There is a simple answer. It is against the law. It is unconstitutional. That little wrinkle will not stop this government however. The House, under Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has already passed such legislation. They did it while you were enjoying your weekend last Saturday and, hopefully (in their minds), not paying attention.

Is this the kind of transparency Obama promised? Is this the kind of health care reform Obama promised? Witness this short video.

Then there is this video, also short.

Obama, of course, is complicit.

Besides not answering the question, and thus answering it by his silence, this is the most ridiculous argumentation imaginable. Does he apply this reasoning when it comes to welfare? providing of services for illegal aliens? This man's whole ideology and political career is based upon requiring a few responsible people to carry the load for those who are irresponsible. And, now he wants people to start being responsible or he is going to fine them?

But is it fair to send people to jail who refuse to buy a government-mandated commodity? Nancy Pelosi thinks so:

The thirteen colonies declared independence from the crown for lesser grievances.

Without Power, There Can Be No Corruption

2009-11-11T19:30:00.004-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Early this morning I was browsing over on the Tenth Amendment blog and ran across a couple of quotational gems with a link. The link took me to Nolan Chart and an op-ed piece by Brian Irving of North Carolina. Brian is a libertarian with some great thoughts on the real source of political corruption and how to end it. I wrote and asked for his permission to reprint his op-ed piece here and now you have it, just as it appeared on his blog and at Nolan Chart. (I added the Lord of the Rings photo just for fun and because I am a LOTR nerd. Be sure to run your mouse over any photos you find on this blog.)

Welcome Guest Blogger Brian Irving.

Just as predictable as the media's "gotcha" coverage whenever a politician gets caught cheating or stealing is the inevitable call by political reform groups for more laws to prevent such abuse in the future and for "better" ways of financing campaigns. They ignore warning from our nations Founders' who understood that the more corrupt a State the more it legislates.

We certainly do need honest and moral people with integrity to run for office. We certainly should applaud and support those elected officials who are honest and keep their hands out of the cookie jar.

It's pointless and disingenuous however to propose that forcing taxpayers to fund political campaigns they don't agree with will promote honesty. Compelling anyone to pay for something they oppose is not just dishonest and corrupt, it is immoral.

Corruption stems not from lobbyists money but from taxpayer money. As long as government isn't limited in what it can spend your money on there will always be people who will find a way to get the politicians to spend it on them.

Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt. Absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely." The corollary to this is that without power there can be no corruption for the politician has nothing to sell.

The absolute corruption of absolute power is evident in North Carolina government. Taxpayer-funded elections would only further strengthen the absolute power of the Democrat-Republican duopoly that wields on iron grip on state government by manipulating the law to favor supporters, reward cronies and thwart any third party or independent candidate who challenges that control.

Government is no longer about protecting individual liberty and promoting personal responsibility, it's about "what's in it for me" and "how much can I get."

If you reduce government power and restore the concept of limited government our nation was founded on, you eliminate the opportunity for corruption. Of course, the major party duopoly is not interested in reducing their power. That is why North Carolina has the most restrictive ballot access laws in the nation.

Any non-Demopublican or independent candidate must collect 80,000 or more signatures to qualify for the ballot. That takes time and money. Once they have climbed that mountain they can start running a campaign. That is, if they have not exhausted all their volunteers, resources and energy just getting to the starting line. It's like asking an athlete to run a marathon before entering 100 meter race.

Real campaign finance reform will begin the ballot box when Libertarians, Greens, Constitution and independent candidates can challenge the two-party state in a race without first having to have run a marathon.

Op Ed written for North Carolinians for Free & Proper Elections

I took the opportunity to link Brian's blog on our blogroll in the right column. Be sure to check him out.

Thomas Sowell on Bringing Down Health Care Costs

2009-11-11T10:00:00.001-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Here is Thomas Sowell stating the obvious on what Obama Care will do to bring down the costs of medical care.

By Thomas Sowell
Although it is cheaper to buy a pint of milk than to buy a quart of milk, nobody considers that to be lowering the price of milk. Although it is cheaper to buy a lower quality of all sorts of goods than to buy a higher quality, nobody thinks of that as lowering the price of either lower or higher quality goods.

Yet, when it comes to medical care, there seems to be remarkably little attention paid to questions of both quantity and quality, in the rush to "bring down the cost of medical care."

There is no question that you can reduce the payments for medical care by having either a lower quantity or a lower quality of medical care. That has already been done in countries with government-run medical systems.

In the United States, the government has already reduced payments for patients on Medicare and Medicaid, with the result that some doctors no longer accept new patients with Medicare or Medicaid. That has not reduced the cost of medical care. It has reduced the availability of medical care, just as buying a pint of milk reduces the payment below what a quart of milk would cost.

Letting old people die instead of saving their lives will undoubtedly reduce medical payments considerably. But old people have that option already — and seldom choose to exercise it, despite clever people who talk about a "duty to die."

A government-run system will take that decision out of the hands of the elderly or their families, and thereby "bring down the cost of medical care." A stranger's death is much easier to take, especially if you are a bureaucrat making that decision in Washington.

At one time, in desperately poor societies, living on the edge of starvation, old people might be abandoned to their fate or even go off on their own to face death alone. But, in a society where huge flat-screen TVs are common, along with a thousand gadgets for amusement and entertainment, and where even most people living below the official poverty line own a car or truck, to talk about a "duty to die" so that younger people can live it up is obscene.

You can even save money by cutting down on medications to relieve pain, as is already being done in Britain's government-run medical system. You can save money by not having as many high-tech medical devices like CAT scans or MRIs, and not using the latest medications. Countries with government-run medical systems have less of all these things than the United States has.

But reducing these things is not "bringing down the cost of medical care." It is simply refusing to pay those costs — and taking the consequences.

For those who live by talking points, one of their biggest talking points is that Americans do not get any longer life span than people in other Western nations by all the additional money we spend on medical care.

Like so many clever things that are said, this argument depends on confusing very different things — namely, "health care" and "medical care." Medical care is a limited part of health care. What we do and don't do in the way we live our lives affects our health and our longevity, in many cases more so than what doctors can do to provide medical care.

Americans have higher rates of obesity, homicide and narcotics addiction than people in many other Western nations. There are severe limits on what doctors and medical care can do about that.

If we are serious about medical care — and we should be serious, since it is a matter of life and death — then we should have no time for clever statements that confuse instead of clarifying.

If we want to compare the effects of medical care, as such, in the United States with that in other countries with government-run medical systems, then we need to compare things where medical care is what matters most, such as survival rates of people with cancer. The United States has one of the highest rates of cancer survival in the world — and for some cancers, the number one rate of survival.

We also lead the world in creating new life-saving pharmaceutical drugs. But all of this can change — for the worse — if we listen to clever people who think they should be running our lives.

The last sentence sums the problem up rather nicely, I thought. Our problem is that there is a group of people who think it is their right to take charge of how the rest of us live our lives. They wish to control every aspect of it. It is about power. Our freedom is an assault on their power while their growing power means an assault on our freedom. Tell the oligarchy no.

Department of Homeland Security

2009-11-09T22:07:00.005-06:00

Posted by Allen Lewis

One of the great failures of the George W. Bush administration - and there are many to choose from - was the wild expansion in the size, scope and power of the state. The Department of Homeland Security is a prime example. This agency (the third largest Cabinet department by headcount) has been a cesspool of waste, ineffectiveness and fraud since the day it was created. And now we find out that US "intelligence" agencies which fall under the purvey of DHS knew that Major Nidal Hasan was in electronic contact with al Queda in the months before his rampage at Fort Hood.

Like all government agencies, DHS is not subject to market forces. In a market system, when a firm fails to provide goods or services of adequate quality, it goes out of business. The incentive to succeed (with success defined by the customer) is clear, and the cost of failure is the immediate and complete withdrawal of resources to the firm by the market.

In the realm of government, failure is rewarded with additional resources, which are always stolen from the people through theft, legal plunder, and/or inflation. This is because a lot of politicians and moneyed special interests have a lot to lose if a government entity were to fail. Further, I categorically reject the idea that Americans have to give up their liberty to the state in order to secure liberty. DHS should be abolished immediately.

(Interesting bit of trivia: what was the last government agency to be abolished, and when did it happen. The answer is surprising, if not disheartening.)

Cal Thomas on the Tenth Amendment

2009-11-09T21:31:00.004-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

I thought this was worth mentioning because it is the first time that I have noticed any pundit on a national level bringing attention to the 10th Amendment and how it is supposed to protect the states from runaway federal government expansion. Here is Cal Thomas:

Can the Tenth Amendment Save Us?

By Cal Thomas

Does the U.S. Constitution stand for anything in an era of government excess? Can that founding document, which is supposed to restrain the power and reach of a centralized federal government, slow down the juggernaut of czars, health insurance overhaul and anything else this administration and Congress wish to do that is not in the Constitution?

The Framers created a limited government, thus ensuring individuals would have the opportunity to become all that their talents and persistence would allow. The Left has put aside the original Constitution in favor of a "living document" that they believe allows them to do whatever they want and demand more tax dollars with which to do it.

Can they be stopped? Some constitutional scholars think the Tenth Amendment offers the best opportunity. The Tenth Amendment states: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

In 1939, the Supreme Court began to dilute constitutional language so that it became open to broader interpretation. Rob Natelson, professor of Constitutional Law and Legal History at the University of Montana, has written that even before Franklin Roosevelt's court-packing scheme, it was changing the way the Constitution was interpreted, especially, "how the commerce and taxing powers were turned upside-down, the necessary and proper clauses and incidental powers, the false claim that the Supreme Court is conservative, how bad precedent leads to more bad court rulings, state elections as critical for constitutional activists, and more."

While during the last seven decades the court has tolerated the federal welfare state, Natelson says it has never, except in wartime, "authorized an expansion of the federal scope quite as large as what is being proposed now. And in recent years, both the Court and individual justices — even 'liberal' justices — have said repeatedly that there are boundaries beyond which Congress may not go." … "Chief Justice John Marshall once wrote that if Congress were to use its legitimate powers as a 'pretext' for assuming an unauthorized power, 'it would become the painful duty' of the Court 'to say that such an act was not the law of the land.'"

It would be nice to know now what those boundaries are and whether Congress is exceeding its powers as it prepares to alter one-sixth of our economy and change how we access health insurance and health care.

Natelson makes a fascinating argument in his essay, "Is ObamaCare Constitutional?" (www.tenthamendmentcenter.com/2009/08/18/is-obamacare-constitutional), using the Court's Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973. In Roe, he writes, the court struck down state abortion laws that "intruded into the doctor-patient relationship. But the intrusion invalidated in Roe was insignificant compared to the massive intervention contemplated by schemes such as HB3200. 'Global budgeting' and 'single-payer' plans go even further, and seem clearly to violate the Supreme Court's Substantive Due Process rules."

Constitutional Attorney John Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute, tells me, "Although the states surrendered many of their powers to the new federal government, they retained a residuary and inviolable sovereignty that is reflected throughout the Constitution's text. The Framers rejected the concept of a central government that would act upon and through the States, and instead designed a system in which the State and federal governments would exercise concurrent authority over the people. The Court's jurisprudence makes clear that the federal government may not compel the states to enact or administer a federal regulatory program."

Lawyers are busy writing language only they can understand which seeks to circumvent the intentions of the Founders. But it will be difficult to circumvent the last four words of the Tenth Amendment, which state unambiguously where ultimate power lies: "…or to the people."

Americans who believe their government should not be a giant ATM, dispensing money and benefits to people who have not earned them, and who want their country returned to its founding principles, must now exercise that power before it is taken from them. The Tenth Amendment is one place to begin. The streets are another. It worked for the Left. --Cal Thomas

It has become more and more clear that the solution to our problem in and with Washington does not lie in Washington at all and that the only way to check its burgeoning authoritarianism is at the state level. Our founders gave us protection from this and they did so, in part, in that great Tenth Amendment.

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Who Made God?

2009-11-08T19:09:00.006-06:00

Posted by Friar Rick.

Who Made God?

It is a question often asked by children but seldom asked by adults. It is a good question, nonetheless, for it presumes something which I would like to discuss in this post. What it presumes is known as causality or what you and I know intuitively as cause and effect.

How and why are questions we have been asking since we were old enough to speak. The very questions themselves demonstrate this intuitive knowledge of cause and effect within us. There is a reason for everything, and just as there is a reason for everything there is also a reason for everything that is . . . to be.

We know this both intuitively and by our experience. Every effect must have a sufficient cause. Things do not happen for no reason. Effects do not spontaneously come into being. There is a cause. How did this milk get on the table? It was spilled when a glass was knocked over. How did the glass get knocked over? It was knocked over by Jimmy's elbow when he was reaching for the mashed potatoes. How did the milk get in the glass? It was poured there by mom. Where did she get it? She got it from the gallon jug which was in the refrigerator. How did the jug get into the refrigerator? Dad brought it home from the store and put it there . . . and so on ad infinitum.

How long could we play that game? How far back does our chain of cause and effect go? That is the question at hand and the answer to that question is a valid, effective, and reasonable argument for the existence of God.

For the universe to exist there must be a sufficient cause outside of that universe to account for its existence.

Either that or you must confess that there is an infinite chain of cause and effect, that we could play our little game for eternity and never come to a first cause. But would that be logical? Theists contend that it is not and here is why.

I pose the question to those who might contend that there is no first cause, that our chain of cause and effect goes infinitely into the past. What caused that chain of events? Something did. An infinite series with no beginning involves a contradiction. It goes against the assumption that allows for the existence of the chain in the first place, to wit for every effect there is a cause.

We have a universe. That universe consists of matter and energy. It consists of space and it consists of time. What caused those?

While science cannot answer that, philosophy says that something must have caused them or they could not be.

And that is where it stands. Either you believe that matter is eternal, that it has always been, for it cannot have spontaneously generated, or you believe that there is an extramundane cause that brought it into being. The same for energy, time, space, and life, for none of those things can be explained as having been spontaneously generated without a cause.

An infinite chain of cause and effect is a logical absurdity. If a chain of three or four events cannot exist without a sufficient cause then no chain of events can exist without a sufficient cause, even if it is a chain of a million or a billion or a trillion events. As Charles Hodge put it,

"Nothing multiplied by infinity is nothing still. If we do not find the cause of our existence in ourselves, nor our parents in themselves, nor their progenitors in themselves, going back ad infinitum is only adding nothing to nothing. What the mind demands is a sufficient cause, and no approach to it is made by going back indefinitely from one effect to another. We are forced, therefore, by the laws of our rational nature, to assume the existence of a self-sufficient cause, i.e., a Being endued with power adequate to produce this ever-changing phenomenal world. In all ages thinking men have been forced to this conclusion. . . . The theistical argument is, that if everything in the world be contingent, this eternal and necessary Being must be an extramundane First Cause."

Which brings us back to our original question. Who made God? And the answer to that question is that no one did, for he is the uncaused First Cause. Without him nothing else in the universe makes sense. Without his existence, nothing else can exist. While everything in our universe is contingent, he is the Something standing outside that universe which is self-existent and contingent on nothing else.

Michael Moore, Capitalism, and Corporatism

2009-11-06T22:38:00.000-06:00

Please welcome guest blogger Michael Labeit.

(The following is cross-posted, with permission, from EconomicPolicyJournal.com)

By Michael Labeit

The primary trailer to Michael Moore's latest hideously unwatchable “documentary” Capitalism: A Love Story features a narration of a series of events surrounding the financial crisis beginning in late 2008 and the federal government's particular method for addressing it with Moore ultimately proclaiming that “By spending just a few million dollars to buy Congress Wall Street was given billions.” No arguing with that proposition.

After just 22 seconds time Moore takes us to Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D) of Ohio who laments the fact that

“Everything was being handled by the Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs...they [influential Wall Street firms] had Congress right where they wanted them...this was almost like an intelligence operation.”

Again, touché madam. Immediately after Kaptur's last words evacuate her, the screen swings to an unidentified man in front of a Condo Vultures logo who asserts categorically that “this is straight up capitalism,” an assertion that ends up sounding--perhaps inadvertently--like a conclusion, one inferred, consciously or not, from the previous claims within the trailer. It is here where our brief search for the nonsense ends.

I cannot possibly recount how many times I have encountered this ubiquitous fusion, one that is pervasive but usually implicit, embedded within both the makeshift and prepared arguments of academics, pundits and politicians. Moore invites us to commit it ourselves.

It's the error of mistaking corporatism for capitalism.

I find myself having to identify and explain the fundamental differences between capitalism and corporatism incessantly to everyone from shout-and-holler Bill Moyer lovers to scandalously sloppy PhD professors. Unfortunately, I tend to come across people, thanks to both misinformation and disinformation from school and the media, who are staggeringly impenetrable to valid, logical demonstrations. Arguing with some very easily becomes futile, hellishly so. Nevertheless, the distinction between capitalism and corporatism exists and it must be made public.

What is Capitalism?

Defining our terms is the first step we must take in order to prove capitalism/corporatism unionists wrong. Capitalism is a social system based upon the recognition of individual rights, including private property rights where all goods, both intermediate goods and final goods, are owned privately. The “rights” referred to above are ethical-legal principles that identify and sanction man's freedom of action strictly within a social context.

Under capitalism, each individual possesses the legally unalterable authority to support and sustain himself, to conduct himself in accordance with his own independent judgment, to control the material product of his mental and/or physical labour, and, in connection with these rights, each and every individual has the legal authority to be free from the initiation of physical force. The initiation of physical force, also known as aggression, refers to any act that disturbs or upsets the soundness or cohesion of a non-aggressor's body, his property, or ownership of his property. A man must think and act in order to survive; his survival requires both mental and physical activity. Rights recognize and sanction man's freedom to proceed with thinking and acting in his self-interest. Only the initiation of physical force can frustrate another’s attempt to take those actions condoned by his rights. A man is prevented from exercising his rights only from the coercion of another. Murder, assault, vandalism, and theft are apt examples. Such actions and all other examples of aggression are illegal under capitalism, period. Accordingly, all relationships under capitalism must be formed voluntarily between consenting adults. Furthermore, this absence of aggression that exists under capitalism allows for the formation of the free market, the vast network of voluntary exchanges of property titles to intermediate and final goods.

Government intervention is yet another exemplar of initiated force since it is the use of aggression to fulfill certain socio-economic objectives. As such, it contradicts the essential nature of a capitalist economy as a non-aggressive economy. An economy remains capitalist so long as the government, or any other agency for that matter, refrains from intervening coercively in the peaceful private lives of citizens. The implications of this fact are substantial: under pure capitalism there are no taxes, no price ceilings, no price floors, no product controls, no subsidies to either the rich or the poor, no public streets, no public schools, no public parks, no central banks, no wars of aggression, no immigration restrictions, etc. Government neither resorts to aggression under capitalism nor does it sanction its use by others, end of story.

What is Corporatism?

Corporatism shares no such description. It is a social system where the government intervenes aggressively into the economy, typically with political instruments that benefit large corporations and enterprises to the detriment of smaller businesses and private citizens. Such instruments include subsidies, tariffs, import quotas, exclusive production privileges such as licenses, anti-trust laws, and compulsory cartelization designs. All involve the initiation of physical force: subsidies come from taxes, tariffs are taxes, import quotas restrict trade, license schemes prohibit non-licensed producers from producing certain goods, anti-trust laws allow competitors to gain or retain market share through legal competition in court, and compulsory cartelization speaks for itself. Economists David Gordon and Thomas DiLorenzo elaborate well on the less-than-pleasant nature and history of corporatism and economic fascism here and here . Read Murray Rothbard’s analysis of government intervention for further reference here.

Similar to socialist governments, corporatist authorities seize control of land and capital goods when they feel it is necessary to do so without regard for private property rights. However, unlike socialist governments, corporatist states usually do not formally nationalize private sector firms, choosing instead to assume de facto control over them rather than de jure control. This difference however is procedural, one of style, not of essence, making it superficial--ancillary at best--and therefore fundamentally useless as an argumentative tool of fascists and socialists to distance themselves from each other. Corporatism is a system of institutionalized aggression. Between the complementary terms “capitalist” and “non-capitalist,” corporatism finds itself comfortably within the latter.

This means that the latest attempt by the federal government to save the financial industry by subsidizing failed or failing institutional investors and banks is an illustration of a corporatist, not a capitalist effort. Market forces have nothing to do with the Troubled Asset Relief Program or the misleading “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” These Congressional gems do not present themselves as intellectual dilemmas for capitalists, for advocates of the free market-–not whatsoever. Under capitalism, firms that do not satisfactorily satisfy consumer demand are made promptly to surrender their assets and their business influence. Financial capital is siphoned away from these unproductive enterprises and allocated toward those who have proven themselves capable of taking up the mantle of “producer.” I want at this moment to intrude the name Ludwig von Mises, the man who bluntly argues in his text Human Action that

Ownership of capital is a mandate entrusted to the owners, under the condition that it should be employed for the best possible satisfaction of the consumers. He who does not comply with this imposition forfeits his wealth and is relegated to a place in which his ineptitude no longer hurts people's well-being.

Conversely, the kinds of legislative bills, laden with underhanded plots to subsidize various politically-connected businesses and undertakings, which see the desk of our current president, and have appeared before to his immediate predecessor, are political tools meant deliberately to obstruct the operation of this most capitalistic profit and loss mechanism. Call it what you’d like but you may not call it “capitalism.” If you find yourself cursing the wretched collaboration of businessmen and statesmen, by all means proceed. I welcome it. However, if that’s the case it is not the free market system that you find so reprehensible.

A Plea for Scrupulousness

So as we see, the implicit argument made within Mr. Moore’s trailor, if it may be designated as such, is a non-sequitor. “Bailouts, influence by Wall Street firms, ergo capitalism” is not even worthy of scrutiny. The intended fulcrum of the argument has nothing whatsoever to do with the inference. Its poor quality is as flagrant as its careless ambitiousness; it reeks, with few reservations, of a willingness to jump to conclusions. Such casual “reasoning” is enough to put me on my guard and tells me what to expect from the rest of the film.

It all boils down to diligence versus sloppiness. To put it vulgarly, capitalism is not whatever America has, or whatever Washington does, or whatever the rich do. It has a very specific identity, as does corporatism. Failing to discriminate between the two makes it that much easier for the government to further extend its authority beyond already breached Constitutional bounds. Crises make for serendipitous occasions for propagandists and pseudo-intellectuals. An economically inclined public can hedge against this menace.

"Capitalism!?! Say that again, would you."

-Von Mises, Ludwig. Human Action. 4th ed. Irvington: Foundation for Economic Education, 1996. Print.

Michael Labeit is an economics major, a disgruntled army reservist, an aspiring freelance writer, and an amateur logician. He currently resides in the People's Republic of New York City and can be reached at logician179@yahoo.com.

Copyright 2009 EPJ Group LLC

Ann Coulter on Voting for Obama

2009-11-06T07:53:00.000-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

From her latest column, here is the beautiful and audacious Ann Coulter on voting for Obama:

Except the problem is that voting for Obama a year ago was a fashion statement, much like it was once a fad to buy Beanie Babies, pet rocks and Cabbage Patch Kids. But instead of ending up with a ridiculous dust-collector at the bottom of your closet, the Obama fad leaves you with higher taxes, a reduced retirement fund, no job and a one-year wait for an MRI.--Ann Coulter

Dick Morris on Democrat Arrogance

2009-11-06T06:00:00.002-06:00

Dick Morris may not be ideologically straight, but he is politically savvy. He knows the game. That's why I respect his opinion when it comes to political analysis. Here he is describing how and how much Democrats just don't get it. I hope he's right.

As Santayana said, "Those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it." Congressional Democrats: Take note!

Are the elections of 2009 precursors of the same kind of massive partisan upheaval in Congress that we experienced in 1994? The historical data says yes, they are.

In Virginia, the outcomes in 1993 and 2009 were almost identical. In 1993, after the Democratic incumbent, Doug Wilder, could not seek reelection, the governor's race pitted Republican George Allen against Democrat Mary Sue Terry. Allen won handily, 58-41 -- virtually the same margin by which McDonnell defeated Deeds this week.

And in New Jersey, the parallels between 1993 and 2009 are equally striking. Democrat Jim Florio, then the governor, was seeking his second term against Republican Christie Todd Whitman. Just as in 2009 Chris Christie beat Jon Corzine, so in 1993 Whitman edged out Florio by 49-48. Chris Christie's margin was bigger, but his vote share was almost identical to Whitman's.

So if New Jersey and Virginia both behaved the same in 2009 as they did in 1993, will 2010 bring the same kind of sweeping Republican victory that 1994 did?

And will the Democratic defeats in these two states presage trouble for President Barack Obama's healthcare proposals in Congress?

Will history repeat itself? It depends on the depth and half-life of Democratic arrogance. If Democratic incumbents from red states start to take account of their own self-interest, the political environment for healthcare legislation in the House and the Senate will change dramatically. Democrats like Sens. Byron Dorgan (N.D.), Kent Conrad (N.D.), Mark Pryor (Ark.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Mary Landrieu (La.), Evan Bayh (Ind.), Kay Hagan (N.C.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.) will have to rethink their support for a bill that is dragging their party down.

It is clear that healthcare legislation and rising unemployment are exacting a toll on Democratic legislators and cost Corzine and perhaps Deeds the governor's mansion.

Will Democrats get the message?

If Democratic congressmen and senators continue to believe that they can be saved by Obama or by massive campaign budgets, they have only to look to New Jersey to understand how little either factor counted. Corzine outspent Christie by three to one and Obama campaigned actively in the bluest of blue states for the Democratic governor.

Of course, the 1993-94 political calendar was a time of improving economic news. The recession had ended in 1992 and unemployment was dropping.

The budget deficit was declining. So the worsening job picture so far in 2009 and the dire warnings of a jobless recovery in 2010 make this cycle even more perilous for Democratic incumbents. The message is clear. The handwriting is on the wall. But can Democrats read it?

The recent indication that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is considering a vote on healthcare reform this coming Saturday, blithely continuing as if the New Jersey and Virginia elections had not turned out the way they did, is evidence that she, at least, cannot read the writing on the wall.

For the House to pass Obama's healthcare bill five days after so huge a repudiation of the Democratic Party and its program is breathtaking in its arrogance. Voters all over America will get the point: The congressional Democrats don't give a damn what the voters think.

He is certainly right in his analysis of Pelosi's psychology.

Thomas Sowell on Hope and Trust

2009-11-05T07:24:00.001-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

The following is taken from an opinion piece published by Thomas Sowell on October 30. The entire piece can be found here.

Many years ago, at a certain academic institution, there was an experimental program that the faculty had to vote on as to whether or not it should be made permanent.

I rose at the faculty meeting to say that I knew practically nothing about whether the program was good or bad, and that the information that had been supplied to us was too vague for us to have any basis for voting, one way or the other. My suggestion was that we get more concrete information before having a vote.

The director of that program rose immediately and responded indignantly and sarcastically to what I had just said — and the faculty gave him a standing ovation.

After the faculty meeting was over, I told a colleague that I was stunned and baffled by the faculty's fierce response to my simply saying that we needed more information before voting.

"Tom, you don't understand," he said. "Those people need to believe in that man. They have invested so much hope and trust in him that they cannot let you stir up any doubts."

Years later, and hundreds of miles away, I learned that my worst misgivings about that program did not begin to approach the reality, which included organized criminal activity.

The memory of that long-ago episode has come back more than once while observing both the actions of the Obama administration and the fierce reactions of its supporters to any questioning or criticism.

Almost never do these reactions include factual or logical arguments against the administration's critics. Instead, there is indignation, accusations of bad faith and even charges of racism.

Here too, it seems as if so many people have invested so much hope and trust in Barack Obama that it is intolerable that anyone should come along and stir up any doubts that could threaten their house of cards.

Among the most pathetic letters and e-mails I receive are those from people who ask why I don't write more "positively" about Obama or "give him the benefit of the doubt."

No one — not even the President of the United States — has an entitlement to a "positive" response to his actions. The entitlement mentality has eroded the once common belief that you earned things, including respect, instead of being given them.

As for the benefit of the doubt, no one — especially not the President of the United States — is entitled to that, when his actions can jeopardize the rights of 300 million Americans domestically and the security of the nation in an international jungle, where nuclear weapons may soon be in the hands of people with suicidal fanaticism. Will it take a mushroom cloud over an American city to make that clear? Was 9/11 not enough?

When a President of the United States has begun the process of dismantling America from within, and exposing us to dangerous enemies outside, the time is long past for being concerned about his public image. He has his own press agents for that.

Thomas Sowell could not be more right. This administration, and the Left in general, believes it has already won the debate, that there should no longer be a debate, and that anyone who disagrees with them is stupid, racist, stirring up hate, you fill in the blank. They are among the most closed-minded people to walk the planet and feel as if they are entitled to be obeyed without question because they are the smart and beautiful people and they know better than the rest of us. We prols, and rubes, and peasants should just obey, not question. You can see this attitude on display even in relatively minor things--like how they feel the need to teach us how to sneeze properly.

They do not consider us citizens. They consider us subjects. And they are the ruling class.

Barack Obama and Book Burning

2009-11-03T19:25:00.004-06:00

Posted by James Spurgeon.

My local paper is the Tyler Morning Telegraph. It is rather conservative as newspapers go. On its opinion page (which is one of the few things I find interesting in a newspaper) one will usually find conservative and/or libertarian opinions. Among the regular columnists are Cal Thomas, John Stossel, and Walter Williams. This past Sunday morning I picked it up and was blessed to read one of the best editorials I have read in a long time. I do not know who the author is, but here it is as it was run in Sunday's paper and I will also link you to it, here.

Late today, a church in Canton, N.C., reportedly will host a bonfire and barbecue. Into the bonfire, they'll be tossing "Satan's books," including all versions of the Bible that aren't the King James version.

"Pastor Marc Grizzard claims the King James version of the Bible is the only true word of God, and that all other versions are 'satanic' and 'perversions' of God's word," Fox News reports.

That includes more up-to-date translations such as the New International Version.

"On Halloween night, Grizzard and the 14 members of the Amazing Grace Baptist Church will set fire to other versions of the scripture, as well as music and books by Christian authors," the report adds.

These include authors such as Billy Graham and Rick Warren.

"We are burning books that we believe to be Satanic," Grizzard said. "I believe the King James version is God's preserved, inspired, inerrant, infallible word of God for English-speaking people."

It's not this or any newspaper's place to tell a religious body how best to worship God. But the event planned for this evening illustrates that some important things seem to be missing in our culture -- dialogue, disputation and debate.

Ideas are things to be engaged, tried, tested and weighed. They're not things to be exterminated.

The early church fathers didn't shy from disputation. Neither did Jesus. He engaged the ideas of the Pharisees, for example.

Yet as a society, we do shy from disputation.

We see it in the White House, which has chosen to answer the critical coverage from Fox News not with better arguments, but by claiming Fox News isn't a legitimate news outlet.

ABC News reports, "On Sept. 20, President Obama appeared on all the major Sunday morning news programs except Fox News. Last week, White House communications director Anita Dunn asserted 'Fox News often operates almost as either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party.'"

This is a logical fallacy called "poisoning the well."

"If the White House could persuade moderates that any story originating with Fox is politically motivated and hence suspect, it might reduce the initial impact of Fox-generated content," says Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. "What the White House appears to be trying to do is reduce the migration of stories from Fox to other cable, broadcast, and print."

But those stories -- which include the ACORN scandal and "Green Jobs Czar" Van Jones -- have migrated.

A far better response to criticism is to answer the charges, point for point. Engage the ideas. Dispute your opponents. If your ideas are better, you win.

That's the point the Amazing Grace Baptist Church and pastor Marc Grizzard are missing. The ideas contained in those books they're burning won't be extinguished. In a perverse way, they'll become all the more attractive to those young people the church wants to protect.

It's much better to face those ideas, weigh them and debate them.

That's what Jesus would do.

Mike Pence - Nancy Pelosi Health Care

2009-11-03T19:09:00.002-06:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Walter Williams on the American Idea

2009-10-29T21:23:00.000-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

It is no coincidence that I am often re-posting columns and embedding videos produced by Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams. I do so because these two men consistently prove themselves to be among the best and most relevant thinkers on the right. Here, again, Walter Williams gets to the heart of the problem with the Obama administration, this Congress, and our thinking about them. At issue is the Constitution. At stake is the Constitution. At stake is the Republic itself.

And now, Walter Williams:

Americans are harder workers, more philanthropic, individualistic, self-reliant, anti-government than people in most other countries. We’ve turned what was an 18th-century Third World nation into the freest and most prosperous nation in mankind’s entire history. Throughout our history, United States has been a magnet for immigrants around the world. What accounts for what some have called American exceptionalism?

We Americans, as human beings, are no different from any other people, including Germans, Russians, Chinese, Africans and other people who have produced tyrannical regimes such as those of Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Idi Amin. As such we are just as capable of committing acts of gross evil that have been a part of mankind throughout his history. We’ve not been a perfect nation but we’ve never approached the level of hideousness seen in other nations. That’s despite the fact that our population consists of people who have for centuries been trying to slaughter one another in their home countries, whether it’s between the French and Germans, English and Irish, Japanese and Chinese, or Palestinians and Jews, Igbos and the Hausa of Nigeria. Thrown into the American mosaic are religions that have been in conflict for centuries such as Catholic and Protestant, and Christian and Muslim. The question is: Why is the United States an exception and will it remain so?

At the heart of the American idea is the deep distrust and suspicion the founders of our nation had for government, distrust and suspicion not shared as much by today’s Americans. Some of the founders’ distrust is seen in our Constitution’s language such as Congress shall not: abridge, infringe, deny, disparage, violate and deny. If the founders did not believe Congress would abuse our God-given rights, they would not have provided those protections. After all, one would not expect to find a Bill of Rights in Heaven; it would be an affront to God. Other founder distrust for government is found in the Constitution’s separation of powers, checks and balances and the several anti-majoritarian provisions such as the Electoral College and the requirement that three-quarters of state legislatures ratify changes in the Constitution.

The three branches of our federal government are no longer bound by the Constitution as the framers envisioned and what is worse is American ignorance and acceptance of such rogue behavior. Look at the current debate over government involvement in health, business bailouts and stimulus packages. The debate centers around questions as whether such involvement is a good idea or a bad idea and whether one program is more costly than another. Those questions are entirely irrelevant to what should be debated, namely: Is such government involvement in our lives permissible under the U.S. Constitution?

That question is not part of the debate. The American people, along with our elected representatives, whether they’re Republicans or Democrats, care less about what is and what is not permissible under our Constitution. They think Congress has the right to do anything upon which they can secure a majority vote, whether they have the constitutional or moral authority to do so or not. What Congress does have is the brute force to enforce compliance with their unconstitutional acts. You say, "What do you mean, Williams?" Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution grants Congress the power to tax and spend for the enumerated activities therein. Every American is duty bound to pay his share. Congress has neither constitution nor moral authority to take the earnings of one American for the benefit of another American. What do you think will happen to you if don’t comply, say with Congress' demand that part of your earnings be taken to bail out a failing business? You’ll see all the brute force that you want to see and if you resist too much, death is not off the table.

We are losing what’s made our country great. Instead of moving toward greater liberty, we’re moving toward greater government control of our lives.

Abortion and Science

2009-10-29T18:55:00.004-05:00

Posted by James Spurgeon.

I cited the following quotation in my last post on this topic:

"If the unborn are not human, no justification for elective abortion is necessary. But if the unborn are human, no justification for elective abortion is adequate."--Gregory Koukl, Precious Unborn Human Persons, p. 7

As I posited previously, the entire abortion question centers on this question: The unborn, what is it?

To answer that question I am going to go to more than one source of authority. The first one I will cite is "science." What has the medical and scientific community had to say on this question?

Before answering that question let me say that, of course, science is not infallible. Science is a method of inquiry, not a source of authority. It only becomes authoritative when its methods prove something to be true. However, in this case, since (a) the scientific community is virtually unanimous on this question, (b) to the secularist scientific opinion takes the place of religion as the source of authority on nearly every matter, and (c) this is a scientific question, then I do think it is proper to cite the opinion of the scientific community on this matter.

Again, I refer you to the website Case For Life. I found the following quotations there.

Scott Klusendorf at Case For Life:

"In its 1859 Report on Criminal Abortion, the American Medical Association (AMA) understood that 'the independent and actual existence of the child before birth as a living being' was a scientific truth. Nothing has changed since that time. For the past 150 years doctors have known that life begins at conception."

Consider also this quotation from a medical textbook published in 1968, five years before the infamous Roe v. Wade decision:

"It is the penetration of the ovum by a spermatozoan and resultant mingling of the nuclear material that each brings to the union that constitutes the culmination of the process of fertilization and marks the initiation of the life of a new individual." (Bradley M. Patten, Human Embryology, 3rd ed., New York: McGraw Hill, 1968, page 43.)

Or this quotation just two years after:

"Every time a sperm cell and ovum unite a new being is created which is alive and will continue to live unless its death is brought about by some specific condition." (E. L. Potter and J. M. Craig, Pathology of the Fetus and the Infant, 3rd ed., Chicago: Year Book Medical Publishers, 1975, page vii.)

Dr. Watson A. Bowes of the University of Colorado Medical School testified before Congress in 1981:

"The beginning of a single human life is from a biological point of view a simple and straightforward matter - the beginning is conception." (Subcommittee on Separation of Powers to Senate Judiciary Committee S-158, Report, 97th Congress, 1st Session, 1981.)

The Senate later concluded:

"Physicians, biologists, and other scientists agree that conception marks the beginning of the life of a human being - a being that is alive and is a member of the human species. There is overwhelming agreement on this point in countless medical, biological, and scientific writings." (Subcommittee on Separation of Powers, Ibid.)

Now, let me quote Scott Klusendorf again:

"Prior to advocating abortion, former Planned Parenthood President Dr. Alan Guttmacher was perplexed that anyone would question these basic scientific facts. 'This all seems so simple and evident that it is difficult to picture a time when it wasn't part of the common knowledge,' he wrote in his book Life in the Making. (A. Guttmacher, Life in the Making: The Story of Human Procreation, New York: Viking Press, 1933, p. 3.)

The science is clear. Life, human life, begins at conception. If this be the case, then abortion is, and always has been, the destruction of a human life.

Lessons From H1N1 Pandemic

2009-10-29T07:36:00.000-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Dick Morris asks another important question concerning the health care debate in this op-ed piece sent to my inbox this morning.

How can the government pretend that it can manage, overhaul, streamline, and reform the health care system in the United States when it can't even deliver enough flu shots to prevent a pandemic?

We have seen the H1N1 virus coming for over a year. It is no surprise that much of America needs vaccination. It was no secret that the flu season was approaching. But, now that it is upon us, we find ourselves pathetically short of shots.

One year ago, the government told us that we would have hundreds of millions of vaccinations available. Then, over the summer, the prediction was that 40 million would be on hand by the end of October.

Last month, the estimate was scaled back to 28 million. And, as of late last week, only 11.5 million had been delivered, leaving tens of millions vulnerable and, tragically, likely leading to hundreds of preventable deaths. Given the tendency of the virus to strike the young, many of those deaths will be among children.

It should be a fairly simple task to produce and distribute a vaccine - as we do with regular flu shots each and every year. But it was apparently beyond the capacity of the Obama Administration to manage such a routine feat.

If it can't run the epidemiological equivalent of a two-car funeral, how can Obama promise that the government will do an adequate job of managing the nation's health care system? (To say nothing of two car companies and a trove of banks and insurance firms?)

In the debate over health care, the implicit assumption has been that the government can act with competence and timeliness. The discussion has largely centered on what powers to give the government - not on whether it had the ability to wield this new authority. The bill making its way through Congress empowers the federal government to decide on protocols of health care, penalize excessive costs, and moderate reimbursement fees. These are all difficult and delicate tasks and involve decision which must be made promptly and wisely for the system to have a chance of working. Otherwise, endless delays, bottlenecks, and snafus can eventuate. And these failures can have drastic consequences for the health of all Americans.

Do we really have confidence in government's ability to make these decisions? Does its manifest inability to protect us from the Swine Flu do anything to inspire such confidence?

Not so far!

Thomas Sowell on Barack Obama

2009-10-28T23:03:00.001-05:00

Thomas Sowell seems, of late, to be on an anti-Obama roll and we are glad to see someone of his stature standing up and stating the obvious. Barack Obama is a dangerous ideologue and is taking this country in a dangerous direction. Let him speak for himself:

Just one year ago, would you have believed that an unelected government official, not even a Cabinet member confirmed by the Senate but simply one of the many "czars" appointed by the President, could arbitrarily cut the pay of executives in private businesses by 50 percent or 90 percent?

Did you think that another "czar" would be talking about restricting talk radio? That there would be plans afloat to subsidize newspapers — that is, to create a situation where some newspapers' survival would depend on the government liking what they publish?

Did you imagine that anyone would even be talking about having a panel of so-called "experts" deciding who could and could not get life-saving medical treatments?

Scary as that is from a medical standpoint, it is also chilling from the standpoint of freedom. If you have a mother who needs a heart operation or a child with some dire medical condition, how free would you feel to speak out against an administration that has the power to make life and death decisions about your loved ones?

Does any of this sound like America?

How about a federal agency giving school children material to enlist them on the side of the president? Merely being assigned to sing his praises in class is apparently not enough.

How much of America would be left if the federal government continued on this path? President Obama has already floated the idea of a national police force, something we have done without for more than two centuries.

We already have local police forces all across the country and military forces for national defense, as well as the FBI for federal crimes and the National Guard for local emergencies. What would be the role of a national police force created by Barack Obama, with all its leaders appointed by him? It would seem more like the brown shirts of dictators than like anything American.

How far the President will go depends of course on how much resistance he meets. But the direction in which he is trying to go tells us more than all his rhetoric or media spin.

Barack Obama has not only said that he is out to "change the United States of America," the people he has been associated with for years have expressed in words and deeds their hostility to the values, the principles and the people of this country.

Jeremiah Wright said it with words: "G0d damn America!" Bill Ayers said it with bombs that he planted. Community activist goons have said it with their contempt for the rights of other people.

Among the people appointed as czars by President Obama have been people who have praised enemy dictators like Mao, who have seen the public schools as places to promote sexual practices contrary to the values of most Americans, to a captive audience of children.

Those who say that the Obama administration should have investigated those people more thoroughly before appointing them are missing the point completely. Why should we assume that Barack Obama didn't know what such people were like, when he has been associating with precisely these kinds of people for decades before he reached the White House?

Nothing is more consistent with his lifelong patterns than putting such people in government — people who reject American values, resent Americans in general and successful Americans in particular, as well as resenting America's influence in the world.

Any miscalculation on his part would be in not thinking that others would discover what these stealth appointees were like. Had it not been for the Fox News Channel, these stealth appointees might have remained unexposed for what they are. Fox News is now high on the administration's enemies list.

Nothing so epitomizes President Obama's own contempt for American values and traditions like trying to ram two bills through Congress in his first year — each bill more than a thousand pages long — too fast for either of them to be read, much less discussed. That he succeeded only the first time says that some people are starting to wake up. Whether enough people will wake up in time to keep America from being dismantled, piece by piece, is another question — and the biggest question for this generation.--Thomas Sowell

Life, Abortion, the Unborn

2009-10-27T20:59:00.004-05:00

Posted by James Spurgeon.

The most radically anti-life President in US history now resides in the White House. God help us.

Rather than get into his record, or make the issue about him, I thought I might take the opportunity Tom affords me in posting here to talk about the abortion issue itself.

This is an issue fraught with much difficulty, chiefly because of the emotional element attached to it. Picture an abortion debate in your mind. What do you picture--protesters, placards, people screaming, graphic images? The debate has been framed in terms of women's rights, human rights, states' rights. Is it really something we need to drag up and get into? Is it worth it?

I think so.

Let us start with this cut and paste from Case For Life:

The abortion controversy is not a debate between those who are pro-choice and those who are anti-choice. It's not about privacy or trusting women. To the contrary, the debate turns on one key question.
What is the Unborn?
Pro-life advocates contend that elective abortion unjustly takes the life of a defenseless human being. This simplifies the abortion controversy by focusing on just one question: Is the unborn a member of the human family? If so, killing him or her to benefit others is a serious moral wrong. It treats the distinct human being, with his or her own intrinsic worth, as nothing more than a disposable instrument. Conversely, if the unborn are not human, elective abortion requires no more justification than having a tooth pulled. As Gregory Koukl points out, "If the unborn are not human, no justification for elective abortion in necessary. But if the unborn are human, no justification for elective abortion is adequate." (Koukl, Precious Unborn Human Persons, p. 7)

This is not to say that abortion is easy for most women. To the contrary, a decision to have one may be psychologically complex and perhaps even agonizing for some. But the topic today is not psychology, but morality: Can we know what's right even if our emotions are conflicted?

Everyone agrees that abortion kills something that's alive. After all, dead things don't grow! But whether it's right to take the life of any living being depends entirely on the question: What kind of being is it?--Scott Klusendorf

So I ask you. What kind of life is being taken when a pregnancy is terminated? Is it human?

This is, I believe, the crux of the entire abortion debate. If the life is human, then it is innocent, and the taking of innocent life is a monstrous evil.

Consider this an introductory post, something we will delve into more deeply in the future. I will be positing many of the arguments posited by Scott Klusendorf at Case For Life, and will be happy to discuss and defend his viewpoints with all comers.

John Stossel--More Sense Than the Dollar

2009-10-26T11:02:00.000-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

John Stossel has more common sense than all of the city of Washington D.C. combined. Here is a clip from the Fox Business channel that I found over on the Repeal the 17th Amendment Blog.

"America was built by people who said, 'We'll take care of ourselves.'"--John Stossel

White House Thuggery and Taxing the Sick and Handicapped

2009-10-26T10:37:00.000-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

This gem showed up in my email inbox this morning. It is slated, I think, to appear later today at Dick Morris dot com.

Obama Taxes Pacemakers, Heart Valves

by Dick Morris

The more fiscal details of the health care bills emerge, the more appalling they seem. The Senate Finance Committee bill includes a broad provision taxing all manner of medical devices. This tax includes such frivolous luxuries as pacemakers, stents, artificial heart valves, defibrillators, automated wheelchairs, mechanized artificial limbs, replacement hips and knees, surgical gurneys, laparoscopic equipment, and the like.

President Obama is planning to reduce the cost of medical care by taxing it!

The most recent Gallup Poll reflected that 49% of respondents said they believed that the Obamacare plan will increase their health care costs. Only about 20% said it would lower them. It is taxes like these that substantiate this kind of concern.

The origins of this new medical device tax are troubling as well.

The medical device industry had its day at the White House as did the insurance industry, the drug makers, the nurses, and the doctors. In turn, each group heard the White House request that they come up with voluntary cuts in their health care costs and support Obama's proposed changes in return for assurances that Congress would not impose deeper cuts (or, in the case of the doctors, that it would actually rescind cuts already scheduled under current statutes).

But, unlike all these other groups, the medical device industry refused the deal. This posture enraged the tyrants in the White House who vowed to punish the industry with cuts imposed by Congress. The result was a decision by the revenue-hungry Senate Finance Committee to extract billions in funds from the industry.

The legislation does not work like a sales or excise tax. Rather it follows the model of the punitive tobacco settlement imposed on cigarette companies in the 90s. It assesses an industry-wide payment which firms must make in proportion to their market share. It bars the them from passing along the cost of the assessment by charging more for certain basic products, but allows them to raise the price of others to raise the funds for the fee.

So, the result will be that virtually every piece of advanced surgical equipment will be subject to a price increase to meet the levy from Washington. No matter that these devices often make the difference between life and death and that, in effect, taxing them raises the cost of vital treatments. The vengeful White House will have its pound of flesh from the medical device industry for daring to be independent and to refuse to knuckle down to Administration pressure!

This tax, imposed in a spirit of haughty arrogance, falls on totally inappropriate objects. Valves, prosthetic limbs, pacemakers, hearing aids, and such are essential therapies that make life longer, better, and less painful. To tax them makes no sense. Except in the world of sharp elbows and interest group politics that grips this take-no-prisoners and show-no-mercy White House.

The Problem With the GOP

2009-10-26T10:13:00.000-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

The problem with the GOP is clearly exposed and represented by this post that went up last night at big government. It was written by a gentleman named Patrick Tuohey. In his post he expresses the exact opinion which has led to the liberal take-over of the Republican Party. Election cycle after election cycle this party now ignores its base and gives in to the Left in an effort to attract "moderates and undecideds." The Republicans are simply socialist lite or socialist smarter these days, but nowhere to be found in it is anyone who will give more than lip-service to constitutional government.

The Constitution, remember that?

What is more interesting than Mr. Tuohey's post, however, is the explosion of negative comments the post received. As of this writing there are more than 200 negative responses with maybe three or four positive ones.

The title of the piece: Tea Party Dilemma: Honey, I Shrunk the Party

Read it for yourself. The Republicans still do not get it and it illustrates why they have become and will continue to remain the Loser Party until their epiphany comes.

Children Removed From Obese Family

2009-10-23T22:56:00.002-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

(Another Reason Not To Emulate Europe)

Appalling. Read this from the London Daily Mail.

Short clip:

An obese couple’s seven children are all to be taken into care after their newborn daughter was removed over fears she would become dangerously overweight.

Three children had already been removed by social services before the infant was taken from her mother within hours of her birth.

Now her ‘heartbroken’ parents have learned that their three other children will be taken away from them too.

They say the children of the so-called 'fat family' are being removed over fears they would also become clinically obese.

Before she became pregnant, the mother, 40, who cannot be named for legal reasons, weighed 23st. (322 lbs.)

Removing children for obesity, or even 'potential' obesity . . . coming soon to an America near you. This is horrid, absolutely horrid--tyranny at its worst. A favorite C.S. Lewis quotation comes to mind right now.

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”–C.S. Lewis

But in this case (and soon to be in our case) it will not simply be a matter of the moral superiority which the Left oozes from its very pores, but it will also be a matter of fiscal responsibility. After all, we cannot afford to pay for the extra medical costs accrued by such morally repugnant personal health decisions as overeating. Am I wrong?

Socialized medicine, it is evident, is an excuse for the oligarchy to stick its nose into and control nearly every aspect of the individual's life and makes the individual, every individual, a ward of the state. The state which provides you your health care rules you and owns you. You are its slave and will live as it says.

Solution to Teen Pregnancy Problem?

2009-10-23T21:10:00.000-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Click Here for a potential solution to the problem of teen pregnancy.

Okay, I'm not saying it is a real solution, or even the best solution, but let's be honest, if this happened more often and was reported there would be less teen pregnancy.

Am I wrong?

And now a confession. I laughed until my side hurt when I read this story and then did it all over again when I watched the video.

John Stossel Now On Fox News

2009-10-23T13:00:00.002-05:00

Since I do not usually watch Fox News I was not aware of this, but apparently investigative journalist and libertarian John Stossel (formerly of ABC News' 20/20) is now on Fox. Here is a clip of a conversation between John and Glenn Beck on the Glenn Beck program:

Four New Blogs Added to Roll

2009-10-22T21:39:00.001-05:00

I am somewhat slightly annoyed when I go to a blog and find 300 to 500 other blogs linked, annoyed to the point, that is, of resolution--resolution not to water down my own list of blogs to that extent. I mean, after awhile, doesn't it get to where the sheer number of blogs linked kind of defeats the purpose of linking them? With that in mind I never plan to have more than fifteen or twenty other blogs linked in the sidebar. We are not near there yet, so today I add three believing that you will find them full of good writing and/or good information. Here are the three:

The Tenth Amendment Center Blog

Small Business Against Big Government

Economic Policy Journal

I also recently added this blog:

Repeal the 17th Amendment

The 10th Amendment Movement

2009-10-22T20:53:00.000-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Rumblings. Nothing in the news, really, nothing explicit, just rumblings. Sometimes on talk radio, sometimes on an obscure blog somewhere . . . you can hear them if you are listening.

Can you hear them? It is the sound of the forgotten states who are beginning to awaken and are remembering their 10th amendment rights under the Constitution.

Check out this video.

Expect to see more on this here. Much more. We are going to put the bugle to our lips and see what we can't stir up.

Walter Williams: The Morality of the Stimulus

2009-10-21T12:47:00.001-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Walter Williams again explains the immorality of socialism and, I believe, the unconstitutionality of income redistribution.

Reason, God's Means of Communication

2009-10-20T22:55:00.001-05:00

Posted by Friar Rick.

I made my first erstwhile splash into The River by attempting to lay a foundation. That foundation was the assertion that reason, far from being the enemy of the Christian, was actually the friend, indeed the tool, of the Christian theologian. A rudimentary knowledge of Christian theology would suffice to instruct the atheist of this truth were he not too arrogant or lazy to inform himself on that which he denies.

First, understand that, in Christian theology, reason is the means by which the God Who Is has chosen to communicate with his people. Both Christians and Jews believe that God has chosen to reveal himself to his people through the vehicle of special revelation. This special revelation is found in the form of written communication. Whether one is Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, or even Orthodox Jew, this written communication is the foundation and, to one degree or another, the source of every tenet of faith in these systems.

When one entity communicates with another through means of the written word (or any means, for that matter), it assumes the use of intellectual faculties. Reason is utilized both by the communicator and by the one with whom he is communicating. Without the faculties of reason this process could not take place. Words and sentences become the vehicle of thoughts which are conveyed and understood because the meaning of those words, those sentences, is commonly understood by both participants. Without reason this would be impossible.

Listen to the author to the Epistle to the Hebrews as he introduces his readers to the Christ, the theme of his letter, and explains how Christ is the culmination of all God's attempts (if one may use such a word when speaking of anything done by the Almighty) to communicate with his people. Christ, in his assertion, is the ultimate communicator of God's message.

Hebrews 1:1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. (ESV)

And see what St. Paul writes in his letter to Timothy:

2 Timothy 3:14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. (ESV)

Everything to which the apostle alludes in those two sentences involves the use of reason: learning, teaching, correction, training, competence. . . .

St. Paul also exhorts his readers to the exercise of discernment. Witness his second epistle to the church at Thessalonica:

1 Thessalonians 5:20 Do not despise prophecies, 21 but test everything; hold fast what is good. (ESV)

How are we to "test everything" if not through the use of intellect, reason? Witness also his words to the church at Rome when, after giving his great soteriological treatise which encompasses the first eleven chapters he exhorts them thus:

Romans 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (ESV)

The phrase which St. Paul uses at the end of verse one above, the phrase translated "your spiritual worship" in the English Standard Version, can also be translated, and often is translated, in the following way: "your rational service." In fact, this is the alternative rendering given in the margin of the English Standard Version, given because the phrase in Greek conveys both ideas.

Think about that. In Christian theology both "worship" and "service" are intertwined and interchangeable and, it would seem, so are the adjectives "spiritual" and "rational", at least in some cases.

We should present ourselves to God, in the manner which St. Paul describes, because it is spiritual and rational to do so. And if we are to follow both the negative and positive commands of the following verse, if we are to be non-conformists to this world, and instead, transformed, it must be through the renewing of our minds that by means of discernment we might understand fully what God's will for us is.

We are commanded to use our minds. In fact, we are to love the Lord our God with all our hearts, souls and minds and this is the first and greatest commandment, according to Jesus.

The Christian faith is to be a cerebral faith--not solely cerebral to be sure, but our minds are definitely a part of our worship and faith.

I wanted to point this out both as a reminder to those of you who are Christians and as a point of emphasis to those who are not. Christians do not throw reason to the wind, or at least we are not supposed to. Nothing in the Christian faith is unreasonable, and the idea atheists promote and insist upon that reason is the antithesis of faith is a straw man. Let us dispense with it.

Thomas Sowell on Praising Obama

2009-10-19T22:44:00.002-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Thomas Sowell, in a recent column, states what is becoming more obvious by the day about our supreme leader, Barack Hussein Obama. Here is the entire column.

Here is his quote:

Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez, Muammar Qaddafi and Vladimir Putin have all praised Barack Obama. When enemies of freedom and democracy praise your president, what are you to think? When you add to this Barack Obama's many previous years of associations and alliances with people who hate America — Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Father Pfleger, etc. — at what point do you stop denying the obvious and start to connect the dots?-- Thomas Sowell

The far Left in this country, of whom we have a prime example in Barack Obama, loves dictators and thugs of all types. They do so because they crave that kind of power over people for themselves. Why should they not admire the ones who have it now and why should they not seek to curry their favor? In Obama we have a President who will say not one word to encourage those who seek democratic reform and a rule of law in Iran, but who will speak out to condemn the rule of law in Nicaragua when the rule of law is enforced in the removal of one who would seek to defy it in order to procure more power for himself. Actions speak louder than words and Obama's actions speak loudly and clearly. He stands for dictatorial power and against individual liberty and the rule of law. In doing so he is the quintessential anti-American President.

Record Federal Budget Deficits

2009-10-19T19:05:00.000-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

From the USA Today:

The Obama administration has released new deficit numbers, and they are not pretty.

The deficit for fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30, came in at a record $1.42 trillion, more than triple the record set just last year.

In addition, future deficits are currently projected to total $9.1 trillion in the coming decade.

The political lines are being drawn. . . .

Click here for full story.

I think what we need is for Washington to keep spending all our money for us, because, as everyone knows, Washington politicians know better what to do with our money than we do, that's why they should probably just take all of it from us and then re-disburse it in the best way possible. That way things would be fair. Social justice, I think it's called.

Limbaugh Speaks Out on NFL and Media

2009-10-16T21:08:00.003-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

Rush Limbaugh spoke candidly on his radio show yesterday, telling his side of the story in the media debacle surrounding his bid to become an NFL franchise owner. You can hear him yourself here.

This evening, the Wall Street Journal posted an op-ed piece written by Limbaugh and I took the liberty of copying and pasting it here for your perusal.

Here is Rush:

By RUSH LIMBAUGH

David Checketts, an investor and owner of sports teams, approached me in late May about investing in the St. Louis Rams football franchise. As a football fan, I was intrigued. I invited him to my home where we discussed it further. Even after informing him that some people might try to make an issue of my participation, Mr. Checketts said he didn't much care. I accepted his offer.

It didn't take long before my name was selectively leaked to the media as part of the Checketts investment group. Shortly thereafter, the media elicited comments from the likes of Al Sharpton. In 1998 Mr. Sharpton was found guilty of defamation and ordered to pay $65,000 for falsely accusing a New York prosecutor of rape in the 1987 Tawana Brawley case. He also played a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot (he called neighborhood Jews "diamond merchants") and 1995 Freddie's Fashion Mart riot.

Not to be outdone, Jesse Jackson, whose history includes anti-Semitic speech (in 1984 he referred to Jews as "Hymies" and to New York City as "Hymietown" in a Washington Post interview) chimed in. He found me unfit to be associated with the NFL. I was too divisive and worse. I was accused of once supporting slavery and having praised Martin Luther King Jr.'s murderer, James Earl Ray.

Next came writers in the sports world, like the Washington Post's Michael Wilbon. He wrote this gem earlier this week: "I'm not going to try and give specific examples of things Limbaugh has said over the years because I screwed up already doing that, repeating a quote attributed to Limbaugh (about slavery) which he has told me he simply did not say and does not reflect his feelings. I take him at his word. . . . "

Mr. Wilbon wasn't alone. Numerous sportswriters, CNN, MSNBC, among others, falsely attributed to me statements I had never made. Their sources, as best I can tell, were Wikipedia and each other. But the Wikipedia post was based on a fabrication printed in a book that also lacked any citation to an actual source.

I never said I supported slavery and I never praised James Earl Ray. How sick would that be? Just as sick as those who would use such outrageous slanders against me or anyone else who never even thought such things. Mr. Wilbon refuses to take responsibility for his poison pen, writing instead that he will take my word that I did not make these statements; others, like Rick Sanchez of CNN, essentially used the same sleight-of-hand.

The sports media elicited comments from a handful of players, none of whom I can recall ever meeting. Among other things, at least one said he would never play for a team I was involved in given my racial views. My racial views? You mean, my belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race? Where football players should earn as much as they can and keep as much as they can, regardless of race? Those controversial racial views?

The NFL players union boss, DeMaurice Smith, jumped in. A Washington criminal defense lawyer, Democratic Party supporter and Barack Obama donor, he sent a much publicized email to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell saying that it was important for the league to reject discrimination and hatred.

When Mr. Goodell was asked about me, he suggested that my 2003 comment criticizing the media's coverage of Donovan McNabb—in which I said the media was cheerleading Mr. McNabb because they wanted a successful black quarterback—fell short of the NFL's "high standard." High standard? Half a decade later, the media would behave the same way about the presidential candidacy of Mr. Obama.

Having brought me into his group, Mr. Checketts now wanted a way out. He asked me to resign. I told him no way. I had done nothing wrong. I had not uttered the words these people were putting in my mouth. And I would not bow to their libels and pressure. He would have to drop me from the group. A few days later, he did.

As I explained on my radio show, this spectacle is bigger than I am on several levels. There is a contempt in the news business, including the sportswriter community, for conservatives that reflects the blind hatred espoused by Messrs. Sharpton and Jackson. "Racism" is too often their sledgehammer. And it is being used to try to keep citizens who don't share the left's agenda from participating in the full array of opportunities this nation otherwise affords each of us. It was on display many years ago in an effort to smear Clarence Thomas with racist stereotypes and keep him off the Supreme Court. More recently, it was employed against patriotic citizens who attended town-hall meetings and tea-party protests.

These intimidation tactics are working and spreading, and they are a cancer on our society.

More NFL Hypocrisy & More on the Limbaugh Libel

2009-10-16T07:32:00.001-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

While we are on the subject of the NFL and its leftist stance, I thought I might bring you this little gem I found in Mark Steyn's mail bag:

JUST ANOTHER DAY
Here is something to write about on the subject of the NFL and Rush. . . . If I recall the details correctly, Arizona was the only state to allow their citizens to vote on whether the gov't employees should get a paid day off or not, and call it Martin Luther King day. They voted it down. Not the recognition, just the idea of giving state employees another paid vacation.

The NFL yanked the Super Bowl from Phoenix as punishment.

Someone from Arizona called the NFL offices on MLK day on a hunch. Turns out that it is just another day for NFL employees. A spokesman said that it is a busy time of year for them, so they can't honor MLK by giving their workers the day off.

Dave Mikelson
Saint Paul, Minnesota

And about Rush Limbaugh, there was also this at the American Thinker, written by a guy who obviously was looking at Mark Steyn's mail bag at the same time I was yesterday.

Rush Limbaugh, Libel, and the NFL

2009-10-15T21:45:00.001-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

I am not a great fan of the NFL so it will not be a great sacrifice for me to decide that I have had enough of that organization and will no longer be spending any money or time on it. Decision made.

What has happened over the last week concerning Rush Limbaugh and his bid, as part of a buying group, to purchase the St. Louis Rams, an NFL franchise, has been well-documented in several places. Try here, here, here for a run-down on the political hatchet job that has been done against Limbaugh.

The incident exposes the mainstream media in this country for the leftist hacks that they are (as if they hadn't already exposed themselves in that vein a thousand times over). See this libelous screen shot from CNN for example:

This was not the only false quotation attributed to Rush Limbaugh nor was CNN the only place where it happened. Like lemmings, the entire main stream media followed Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton over that cliff. Everyone knows Rush Limbaugh is a racist, why should anyone actually check facts? Right?

Make no mistake. Rush is the victim of a deliberate and malicious campaign of character defamation perpetrated by our society's self-proclaimed arbiters of civility. (What ever did happen to civil discourse?) And this was done to send a message. Did you get the message?

Here it is: if you disagree with us, keep your mouth shut. If you do open your mouth we will destroy you even if we have to make up quotations out of whole cloth and attribute them to you falsely. We will lie and lie with impunity to destroy you if necessary. So keep your mouth shut.

That's the message from the main stream media and the progressive movement as a whole and it does not just apply to Rush Limbaugh, it applies to the rest of us as well. He was made an example for us.

There is also a message from the NFL and it is this. If you are conservative or libertarian--in other words if you disagree with the current climate of political correctness and progressive/liberal thought--and you dare speak openly about it, you are not welcome. You have proved yourself to be a second-class citizen. We do not want you.

Meanwhile, the real racists, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, are quoted all over the place as if they are authorities on race. The NFL, presumably, would rather be associated with the likes of them than of Rush Limbaugh. Rush Limbaugh, you see, is too polarizing, too controversial. Of course, no one thinks that Keith Olbermann is too polarizing or controversial. No one in the NFL front office thinks he is guilty of hate speech. And the NFL has no problem being affiliated with him. The NFL has chosen sides. They have said "yes" to the Jesse Jacksons, Al Sharptons, and Keith Olbermanns of the world and "no" to conservatives and libertarians. Really, why should we give them our money?

Roger Goodell is an idiot, or a hypocrite. You decide. Maybe just the term "leftist" will suffice.

Walter Williams Again: Patients in Need of Patience

2009-10-15T13:07:00.001-05:00

Here's another video clip from Walter Williams on socialized medicine. Warning: this is an unabashed capitalist pointing out some of the negative aspects of socialized medicine and comparing them to the liberty we enjoy now.

I just have to say that if even half of the statistics he quotes are true I want no part of it. When someone else pays for you to have anything then that entity owns you, controls your life concerning that aspect of your life for which he pays. I would not sell my health and well-being to any government for any price and any such system is foreign to the vision our founders had for this country.

Thomas Edison vs. Al Gore

2009-10-14T07:58:00.000-05:00

I have been away for a few days and I see there are comments I need to catch up on. I also see that a couple of the other team members have posted. Good stuff, thanks, guys. In keeping, sort of, with the chosen theme of James's post I give you this from the guys at reason.tv

Compact flourescents are illegal at my house, btw.

Hello

2009-10-13T00:01:00.003-05:00

Hello, River readers. I'm Allen Lewis and am a new contributor here at The River.

First of all, thanks to Tom for allowing me to be a contributor to his blog. I appreciate the opportunity to continue posting my thoughts on the issues of the day. My background is in finance and economics, and I currently work in the investments department of a Houston-area trust company. Prior to blogging here, I experimented with my own blog, which was called Texas Conservative. (Tom previously linked to it from The River.)

In the last two years, I've come to believe that the conservative-liberal construct for classifying political thought is nothing more than a heuristic used by people to avoid having to think critically about their core values and principles. Most political talk radio is based on this heuristic. Conservatives are good and liberals are bad: which one are you?

Part of the reason I gave up on Texas Conservative is because I wanted to move away from that label - conservative. It's quickly becoming a pejorative, and I really don't fit the current widely-held perception of what a conservative is (in today's America, "conservative" typically refers to the neoconservatives), so why burden myself with the label? If people want to apply it to me, fine. At the end of the day, I care about principles: labels mean diddly poo to me, save for one. The one label that I will not willingly accept is "neoconservative".

As for my principles, there are three: liberty, property rights, and peace.

Liberty is man's natural right to be free to act in his own self-interest, according to his own values and by his own judgment, so long as he respects the mutual rights of others.

Property rights refers to man's exclusive right to control scarce resources. Clearly defining property rights is important not because it leads to utility-maximizing outcomes (it does) but because it helps us to solve disputes amongst ourselves peacefully, without force, and in a non-arbitrary manner.

Peace is the final - and possibly most important - principle. Peace means that in our interaction with other individuals, we must act cooperatively (as opposed to coercively) and in a manner that respects the liberty and property of others. Some ask whether peace is a goal rather than a principle - is it the means, or the end? I strongly believe it to be a principle, a conscious decision that individuals are at liberty to choose.

Anyway, thanks for reading The River. I look forward to some great conversations with all of you in the months to come.

Science or Faith?

2009-10-12T09:03:00.007-05:00

Posted by James Spurgeon.

In keeping with the theme on this blog, I thought I would start my first post with an interesting quotation from Tom's favorite band Rush and their song "Natural Science."

Science, like nature
Must also be tamed
With a view towards its preservation
Given the same
State of integrity
It will surely serve us well . . .

. . . The most endangered species ---
The honest man
Will still survive annihilation
Forming a world ---
State of integrity
Sensitive, open, and strong

--Neil Peart

And now a quotation from MIT professor Richard Lindzen:

"With respect to science, the assumption behind consensus is that science is a source of authority. Rather, it is a particularly effective approach to inquiry and analysis. Skepticism is essential to science; consensus is foreign. When in 1988 Newsweek announced that all scientists agreed about global warming, this should have been a red flag of warning. Among other things, global warming is such a multifaceted issue that agreement on all or many aspects would be unreasonable."--Richard Lindzen, "Global Warming Debate Is More Politics Than Science, According to Climate Expert," Environment and Climate News (Heartland Institute), Nov. 1, 2004, http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=15893. (emphasis mine)

I love science. Not enough to have actually chosen it for a career, but I do find it fascinating and Discovery Science is one of my favorite channels. I could easily make some aspects of science a major hobby in my life. Of particular interest are physics, cosmology, paleobiology, astronomy, . . . I could go on.

While I find science intensely interesting I find the psychology of the scientific "community" and of some people regarding science to be even more interesting. The scientific "community," if I may refer to such as an entity, is unquestionably arrogant. The latest theories are so certain in their minds that they are often presented as fact. In order to do so they must ignore literally thousands of revisions each theory has undergone and the hordes of changes which will take place to it in the future. Here is another quotation, this time from scientist and theologian Alister McGrath:

When I was learning physics at school, I gradually became aware of an awkward contradiction within what I was being taught. On the one hand, I was being assured that the theories of modern physics were completely reliable, the most secure form of knowledge that humanity could ever hope to possess. Yet every now and then, we would venture into a strange, twilight region in which it would be explained to us, in hushed, conspiratorial tones, that "physicists once used to believe this, but don't now." . . . At first, I thought that these old-fashioned views dated back to the sixteenth century. But the awful truth soon became clear. The acceptance of these new ideas dated from about forty years earlier. "Once" turned out to mean "quite recently."--Alister McGrath, Dawkins' God, Genes, Memes, and the Meaning of Life, p.102, paperback, Blackwell Publishing.

Arrogance probably comes easily to those who are undeniably more intelligent than most and have been told so their whole lives. While that is a reasonable statement, it is not really an excuse. Individuals intelligent enough to be scientists should also be able to see their own flaws and capability of error. A simple perusal of scientific history is enough to make the assessment that science is often wrong, has often been wrong, and is likely to be wrong in much of what it believes now.

Let me say that again:

A simple perusal of scientific history is enough to make the assessment that science is often wrong, has often been wrong, and is likely to be wrong in much of what it believes now.

Now look at the last part of my statement above because I think it is very important. The word choice was a natural one and I doubt if it sounded strange to anyone's ears, yet it states something that is obvious and often overlooked by even scientists themselves. I used the word "believes" in conjunction with the latest scientific theories. It was undeniably the right word to use in this context because theories are, by nature, unproven and thus subject to such concepts as doubt, skepticism, and faith.

Much of the scientific community looks with disdain on the religious community because, according to popular thinking, science deals in facts while religion deals in speculation. Science deals in reason while religion deals in faith. In that sense, the scientific community collectively rolls its eyes at religion and believes itself to be above those aspects of primitive human thinking which religion supposedly represents. This kind of thinking is not thinking at all, it is arrogant bigotry.

Science utilizes faith as much as does religion, in that scientists often choose to believe things that are, as yet, unproven. In fact, science has much faith in any and/or all of its latest, greatest theories. That is why they present these theories so often as fact. But understand that to believe something that is as yet unproven involves faith.

Here is a question/trap which is often posed to people on the right whether it be the religious right or the political right.

"Do you believe in evolution?"

If the answer is "yes" then the individual is considered to be enlightened while if the answer is "no" the individual is deemed a toothless caveman or worse, a "religious fundamentalist."

Yet, the question is a faith question. Do you believe . . .

Thus, the scientist poses a faith question and then ridicules those who lack the faith they have as being ignorant or unscientific. Does anyone else see the irony in that?

This brings us full circle to our quotation from that MIT professor, Richard Lindzen, concerning global warming. Heed his words well.

"With respect to science, the assumption behind consensus is that science is a source of authority. Rather, it is a particularly effective approach to inquiry and analysis. Skepticism is essential to science; consensus is foreign. When in 1988 Newsweek announced that all scientists agreed about global warming, this should have been a red flag of warning. Among other things, global warming is such a multifaceted issue that agreement on all or many aspects would be unreasonable." (emphasis mine)

So I ask the scientific community now, should I rely on facts or should I take the leap of faith and believe in global warming? And if I choose not to believe, who comes off as the reasoned thinker and who the religious zealot?

Government Thieves

2009-10-08T23:17:00.000-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

In keeping with the spirit of my last post, I bring you this gem from Walter Williams and Liberty Pen. It makes the point very well.

Rush Limbaugh: Sad and Disgusting Video

2009-10-08T22:09:00.001-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer:

This video, which is actually just an audio clip from today's Rush Limbaugh program, pretty much says it all. Here's the video, my comments to follow.

These are the victims of socialism, the dependent class birthed by the Great Society. This is the sad and disgusting fruit of socialism.

It is sad because these people have value, they have something to offer, they have worth to society and have far more potential than they could ever imagine. Yet they have been programmed to believe that they can accomplish nothing on their own, that this is not their fault but rather the fault of an unjust society, and that voting for Democrats, who will in turn give them money, is their only hope. So instead of realizing their God-given potential they just stand around looking for handouts. The government rewards their irresponsible behavior because those who are in government derive power from them.

Here is the message of the liberal, socialist Democrat: "You are incapable of taking care of yourself. You need me. Vote for me and I will supply the needs in your life."

Government has become God to them. They perform the sacraments of voting for big-government socialists and filling out forms. These sacraments procure for them favor and the ability to live irresponsibly. Government becomes almighty and necessary for them to subsist. It is a symbiotic relationship and it is sickening on several different levels.

It is disgusting in that one class of people (the party, the socialists) is subjugating another class of people (the prols, the dependent class). Ironic, is it not, how socialism claims to abhor a class system and yet actively sets one up? Government becomes master while the people become slaves. These people are slaves and they don't even know it. But you can bet their masters in Washington do.

But it is worse than that. It is worse because government here turns these people into monsters who actually demand that they be fed, clothed, taken care of, given money simply because they exist. They offer nothing in return and they are angry when their demands are unmet. And they give not even one thought to where the money comes from.

Not one.

I would like to inform these two individuals who were interviewed by this radio station of a couple of things. First, Barack Obama has not given you any of his own money. Not one penny. The government has not given you any of its own money either for the government has no money. Detroit is in debt. Michigan is in debt. Washington, D.C. is in debt. They have no money. And even if they did have money it would be money that is not rightfully theirs for they would have had to have taken it from someone else--from other people.

But that's not all. The next thing you need to realize is that the money you are receiving is mine. It was taken from me by force. Worse than that, if you want to get more specific, it was taken from my children and grand-children, for it is they and their hard work which will be used to pay back this monstrous debt. So money was taken from us--taken by threat. If we did not give it this government would throw us in jail. We were robbed no differently than a man who holds a gun on a store clerk and demands that a register be emptied into his bag. We were robbed by a thug in the Oval Office and his cartel on Capitol Hill, and it was done for the purpose of keeping you dependent and keeping them in power.

So enjoy your money. I mean, enjoy my money.

Ann Coulter Answers the Infant Mortality Rate Canard

2009-10-08T00:08:00.002-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer.

To read all of Ann's op-ed pieces go here.

To see this piece in its original location go here.

Ann Coulter: (17) America's low ranking on international comparisons of infant mortality proves other countries' socialist health care systems are better than ours.

America has had a comparatively high infant mortality rate since we've been measuring these things, going back to at least the '20s. This was the case long before European countries adopted their cradle-to-grave welfare schemes and all while the U.S. was the wealthiest country on Earth.

One factor contributing to the U.S.'s infant mortality rate is that blacks have intractably high infant mortality rates -- irrespective of age, education, socioeconomic status and so on. No one knows why.

Neither medical care nor discrimination can explain it: Hispanics in the U.S. have lower infant mortality rates than either blacks or whites. Give Switzerland or Japan our ethnically diverse population and see how they stack up on infant mortality rates.

Even with a higher-risk population, the alleged differences in infant mortality are negligible. We're talking about 7 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in the U.S. compared to 5 deaths per 1,000 for Britain and Canada. This is a rounding error -- perhaps literally when you consider that the U.S. tabulates every birth, even in poor, small and remote areas, while other countries are not always so meticulous.

But the international comparisons in "infant mortality" rates aren't comparing the same thing, anyway. We also count every baby who shows any sign of life, irrespective of size or weight at birth.

By contrast, in much of Europe, babies born before 26 weeks' gestation are not considered "live births." Switzerland only counts babies who are at least 30 centimeters long (11.8 inches) as being born alive. In Canada, Austria and Germany, only babies weighing at least a pound are considered live births.

And of course, in Milan it's not considered living if the baby isn't born within driving distance of the Côte d'Azur.

By excluding the little guys, these countries have simply redefined about one-third of what we call "infant deaths" in America as "miscarriages."

Moreover, many industrialized nations, such as France, Hong Kong and Japan -- the infant mortality champion -- don't count infant deaths that occur in the 24 hours after birth. Almost half of infant deaths in the U.S. occur in the first day.

Also contributing to the higher mortality rate of U.S. newborns: Peter Singer lives here.

But members of Congress, such as Reps. Dennis Kucinich, Jim Moran and John Olver, have all cited the U.S.'s relatively poor ranking in infant mortality among developed nations as proof that our medical care sucks. This is despite the fact that in many countries a baby born the size of Dennis Kucinich would not be considered a live birth.

Apart from the fact that we count -- and try to save -- all our babies, infant mortality is among the worst measures of a nation's medical care because so much of it is tied to lifestyle choices, such as the choice to have children out of wedlock, as teenagers or while addicted to crack.

The main causes of infant mortality -- aside from major birth defects -- are prematurity and low birth-weight. And the main causes of low birth-weight are: smoking, illegitimacy and teenage births. Americans lead most of the developed world in all three categories. Oh, and thank you for that, Britney Spears.

Although we have a lot more low birth-weight and premature babies for both demographic and lifestyle reasons, at-risk newborns are more likely to survive in America than anywhere else in the world. Japan, Norway and the other countries with better infant mortality rates would see them go through the roof if they had to deal with the same pregnancies that American doctors do.

As Nicholas Eberstadt demonstrates in his book "The Tyranny of Numbers: Mismeasurement and Misrule," American hospitals do so well with low birth-weight babies that if Japan had our medical care with their low birth-weight babies, another third of their babies would survive, making it even harder for an American kid to get into MIT.

But I think it's terrific that liberals are finally willing to start looking at outcomes to judge a system. I say we start right away with the public schools!

In international comparisons, American 12th-graders rank in the 14th percentile in math and the 29th percentile in science. The U.S. outperformed only Cyprus and South Africa in general math and science knowledge. Worse, Asian countries didn't participate in the last 12th-grade assessment tests.

Imagine how much worse our public schools would look -- assuming that were possible -- if we allowed other countries to exclude one-half of their worst performers!

That's exactly what liberals are doing when they tout America's rotten infant mortality rate compared to other countries. They look for any category that makes our medical care look worse than the rest of the world -- and then neglect to tell us that the rest of the world counts our premature and low birth-weight babies as "miscarriages."

As long as American liberals are going to keep announcing that they're embarrassed for their country, how about being embarrassed by our public schools or by our ridiculous trial lawyer culture that other countries find laughable?

Don't be discouraged, liberals -- when it comes to utterly frivolous lawsuits against obstetricians presented to illiterate jurors so that John and Elizabeth Edwards can live in an 80-room house, we're still No. 1!

Lemuel Calhoon Nails It Again

2009-10-06T23:08:00.002-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer

Swinging his rhetorical hammer like a cyber John Henry, our friend Lemuel Calhoon over at Hillbilly White Trash has blasted through the mountainside of healthcare debate misinformation and carved out a tunnel of truth wide enough to drive a train through. The following is an appetizer, but you really ought to go over there and read the whole piece by clicking here.

Lemuel Calhoon:

"This reflects the American free market health care system's commitment to providing the best health care possible rather than the best care possible within budgetary constraints.

This commitment to healing injury curing disease and providing an ever higher quality of life to senior citizens is simply not possible under any system of socialized health care. Without profits to fund research and development what little R&D that occurs is government funded which means that the sought after outcomes (whatever anyone says to the contrary) will be political rather than scientific.

Remember a few years ago when Phillips first began marketing plasma TV's? They had this commercial where some geeky looking teenagers carried a plasma up to their apartment and sat on the couch watching Flipper.

At the time that TV cost more than $20,000.00. I just bought a Samsung 46" LED TV which weighs less, generates far less heat, uses far less power, will last far longer and produces a vastly superior picture for less than a tenth of what those first Phillips plasmas cost.

This is what happens to the prices of goods and services in a free market economy - they become much better and cost much less as time goes by. That this process is not happening to health care costs faster in the United States is due to the distortions in the market caused by government bureaucrats and unscrupulous trial lawyers (like celebrity baby-daddy John Edwards). Remove the dead hand of government and the greedy hand of the tort bar and the health care market in the US would normalize and we would see more rapid advances in technology and reductions in price."

Don't forget to go read all of it.

Faith and Reason

2009-10-06T07:09:00.004-05:00

Posted by Friar Rick

I suppose I should say "hello" first and perhaps introduce myself. I'm Rick, friar Rick. I'm not really a friar, though if I were it would likely be after the Augustinian order. Neither am I mendicant in subsistence, but rather am blessed of God through the fruits of my own labors. I also abstain from all forms of celibacy, being happily married and joyfully engaging in those benefits which the Lord has enjoined to that vocation.

The idea connoted, however, by the word "friar," specifically that of spending quality time seeking out the truth in matters of the holy, meditating on them, searching out their intricacies, and passing along what knowledge I attain to others, is an idea that appeals to me and that is why I have chosen my specific and peculiar appendage.

Tom has asked me to contribute to this blog on the subject of Christian apologetics. I have agreed with the caveat that I must be able to inform you that I am no professional, nor any great authority on this subject. I lean heavily on my teachers and they are numerous. They are the experts and I am but a poor reflection of them. However, I will endeavor to post their arguments in as clear and concise a manner as I can and do you the favor of translating them into layman's language. An argument does no one any good if it is either unclear because of technical terms or too uninteresting to endure. Thus I shall attempt to add a little spice to them as well. I will let you be the judge of whether I am successful or not. Enough of me, let's lay a brief foundation.

A favorite canard of the atheist against religion is that religious thought is the antithesis of reason. Here is a pertinent quotation:

"Christian theism must be rejected by any person with even a shred of respect for reason."--George H. Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God, (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1989), 51.

I cannot help but laugh at the blatant irony embodied in such a statement. The ignorance of Christian theology which this and a thousand other similar statements made by atheists demonstrates their total lack of having attempted to learn exactly what Christians believe and why they believe it. It is as if two thousand years of Christian theologians and apologists never existed or if they did none of their writings were ever published. Men of the cloth have been defending their faith against all other belief systems, whether they be pagan, atheistic, or otherwise, since the great Apostle to the Gentiles first took up his pen. And they have been doing so with reason.

So let me assure you now that the Christian faith is a reasonable faith. The God Who Is approaches us through the faculties of reason and offers us a reasonable system of belief for he, himself, is the author of reason and the only perfect practitioner of it.

Faith cannot be the antithesis of reason, for God is not a contradiction, nor does he allow the existence of such in his universe. Everything is ordered, everything is logical, everything is completely whole. God is truth. Therefore truth, being a reflection of him, is owned by him in every way. He never asks us to believe something unreasonable.

It will not be necessary for me to prove this assertion with arguments. I simply state it in the beginning and will endeavor to demonstrate it over time. I will engage atheistic thought on its chosen turf, staking the claim that this turf was never rightfully theirs to begin with, but God's. May God be my help.

A Word About the New Blog

2009-10-05T22:55:00.002-05:00

Posted by Tom Sawyer

As Dennis Miller would say, "Let's light this candle."

I have invited a friend or two to join me in this little excursion down Heraclitus's metaphorical river. I hope you will grow to appreciate their navigational skills as much as I do. They each have their peculiar strengths to add and I trust my faith in them is well-placed.

We will not always agree. That's a good thing.

But we mostly agree, and in agreeing we hope to put up a strong front for liberty in the face of impending tyranny, a bulwark of truth amidst a modern promenade of pretense.

We hope to challenge you and do not mind if you try to challenge us. We believe we are ready. Truth has nothing to fear from error and to be challenged can do nothing but serve truth's greater cause.

Montana and Gun Control

2009-10-01T22:36:00.001-05:00

From Newsmax.com - (read the whole article.)

HELENA, Mont. -- If Montana has its way in a lawsuit filed Thursday, there will be far less federal gun control in the state.

The state's libertarian streak--which has spawned efforts to buck the federal Real ID Act and sparked widespread contempt for the Patriot Act--is now triggering a fight over whether Montana should have sovereignty over made-in-Montana guns and equipment.

If gun advocates win, the state could decide which rules, if any, would control the manufacturer, sale and purchase of guns and paraphernalia. And Montana would be exempt from rules on federal gun registration, background checks and dealer-licensing.

"For guns, it means we can make our own in Montana and sell them in Montana as long as they are stamped 'Made in Montana' and don't leave the state," said Gary Marbut, who runs the Montana Shooting Sports Association and is leading the lawsuit. "We will be able to do that without federal regulation, or having the ATF breath down your neck."

The association, joined by the Second Amendment Foundation in the lawsuit, hopes to ultimately win a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits the application and reach of federal rules over state business. The suit is challenging the right of the federal government to oversee gun sales under the guise of interstate commerce regulation.

This is wonderful news. Once upon a time, the federal government did not dare to overstep its bounds and usurp the authority of the individual states, as spelled out in the Constitution, specifically the 10th Amendment:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Then came FDR and the search for a way around the Constitution in order to expand federal power and control everything from Washington D.C. It was found in the interstate commerce clause. This clause was used as a pretext to, in effect, overturn the 10th amendment, make it pointless. Their willing accomplices in the Supreme Court at the time shamelessly aided and abetted them in this virtual coup. The interstate commerce clause has since been the pretext by which the federal government has usurped the sovereignty of the individual states in a whole host of areas.

Understand that much of what Washington has done over the last 80 years would have been considered unconstitutional by the framers of the Constitution, and while some of them warned that this sort of thing might eventually happen (the anti-federalists, for example), others of them believed that there were enough safeguards to ensure that it would not (the federalists). All of them would be appalled at what Washington has become.

But the last few months have brought us the rumblings of a coming storm. Some of the states have had enough and are starting to push back. We saw this when a few governors spoke out against the stimulus bill and threatened to turn down funds allocated to their states because of the controlling strings which were attached. Here in Texas we have heard this kind of anti-Washington-control rhetoric from our governor Rick Perry, who is moving swiftly to the right in an attempt to secure the Republican nomination for another term as governor in the face of stiff opposition from Kay Bailey Hutchison. Now we have Montana deliberately pushing back against the machine. It could not come at a better time. Let us hope for the best.

I will keep you posted.

The Future of Health Care?

2009-10-01T22:28:00.001-05:00

The Future of Health Care?

Dr. Lemuel Calhoon, magister maximus of Hillbilly White Trash, posted this gem at the end of one of his weekly re-postings of Ann Coulter's op-ed genius. I wanted to bring it here because, well, he is exactly right.

Read it for yourself here, or go there and read it.

Lemuel Calhoon:

"The absolute worst thing about socialized medicine in the US is that it will slow the advancement of of medical science in the whole world to a glacial pace.

Right now the vast majority of new medical techniques, drugs and technology are discovered in the United States. This is because America still has a thriving free market health care system. For-profit companies which develop and manufacture drugs and medical equipment are free to pour their profits into research and development to bring new medications and medical equipment to market. All in pursuit of profit.

Because our doctors are not employees of any kind of National Health Service they are not required to see X number of patients per week and to choose only from a government approved list of treatment options (approved more for reasons of cost than effectiveness). Doctors in the US are free to innovate and experiment.

The fact that in America we attempt to keep our elderly people alive as long as possible and give them the best quality of life possible (in addition to proving our moral superiority to other nations) provides a test bed for methods of managing, treating and even curing chronic conditions which are associated with (but by no means exclusive to) aging. You can see that this is far more conducive to creating an upward spiral of medical knowledge than the "give granny morphine until she stops breathing" approach taken by nations with government run health care.

Let me tell you a true story about Mother Calhoon, who is 76. Earlier this year she broke her leg. In 1950 the doctor would have set the bone and put her leg in a cast. The bone would have taken the better part of a year to heal and would have never been the same. During this time her mobility would have been so severely restricted that she would have not been able to live at home alone. So mom would have gone to a nursing home where she would probably have spent the rest of her life. But the doctor's bill for setting the leg and applying the cast would have only been a few hundred dollars.

Today mom was taken to an excellent hospital where a doctor operated on her leg installing a metal rod to support the bone so that it would not break again. She was given a battery of tests which determined that she had mild osteoporosis and was put on medication to treat the condition. After a few days in the hospital she was sent home where a nurse looked in on her three times a week for the next three months. The cast on her leg was designed to allow her to walk and she was encouraged to do so (with the aid of a walker, then a cane). As time went by she was instructed to put more and more weight on the leg until now, less than a year later, she has no cast and no longer needs walker or cane (unless she is going to walk for more than two miles or so, then she brings along the cane). The cost of the entire episode came to around $40,000.00 - which comes to $4500.00 in 1950 dollars.

Assuming that we do not plunge down Barack Obama's rat hole of socialized medicine and freeze the advancement of medical science what can a 76-year-0ld woman with a broken leg expect in 2050?

With the proviso that no one can predict the future with absolute accuracy I would assume based on current trends in medical science that it would go something like this:

The ambulance brings the patient to the emergency room where a doctor scans her leg building a detailed three dimensional picture of the injury, including damage to tissue and blood vessels caused by the broken bone. The doctor then looks over the computer's recommended course of action and signs off on it. The patient is then sent to surgery where the surgeon adds a few refinements to the computer generated plan.

In the operating room the woman is sedated and her leg is immobilized. A robot surgeon will then set the bone and repair any other damage to the leg - while a human doctor and nurse observe ready to step in if required. The leg will then be placed in a rigid cast and the woman will spend the next few days in a hospital room while bone regenerators heal the fracture.

A few days later she leaves the hospital with her leg as strong or stronger than it was before. While it is impossible to estimate the dollar amount of the bill for this treatment I very much doubt that it will be more, in 1950 dollars, than the 2009 bill. But look at how much better the outcome for the patient!

But what if we adopt Obama's plan for government run health care? What will a 76-year-0ld woman with a broken leg face in 2050?

The doctor will set the bone and put her leg in a cast. The bone will take the better part of a year to heal and will never be the same. During this time her mobility will be so severely restricted that she will not be able to live at home alone. So she will have to go to a nursing home where she will probably spend the rest of her life. But the doctor's bill for setting the leg and applying the cast would have only been a few hundred dollars - in 1950 dollars.

This assumes that the hospital's rationing panel (we won't call it the "death panel") doesn't decide that at her age she (who will never again pay income taxes) simply isn't worth the money to treat. Then she will be put in a bed and given morphine until she stops breathing. The bill for that will be under a hundred bucks.

The problem with a government solution to anything is that government is a piss-poor innovator. Let the government decide that something is so important that the private sector cannot be trusted to run it and whatever "it" is becomes frozen in time. It cannot be otherwise when a powerful entrenched bureaucracy has a massive vested interest in keeping things exactly as they are.

Someone suggested this thought experiment. Imagine that some visionary in government had looked at Henry Ford's Model T and realized how important the automobile would be to America's future. Suppose that this visionary had been able to convince the legislature and the president that the development and manufacture of cars was too important to be left to the profit-seeking private sector.

You don't have to imagine what the result would have been. All you need do is look back to East Germany before the Wall fell and remember how an East German could spend his fifteen years on the waiting list dreaming about what he would do when he took possession of his new Trabant.

Some things are too critically important to be taken out of the hands of the private sector. Our health care is one of them."

National Gun Registry?

2009-10-01T22:27:00.000-05:00

National Gun Registry?
Dr. Paul Broun, U.S. Congressman, Republican (GA-10), has sent out an email which came to me via Townhall.com containing information on House bill H.R. 45--Obama's gun control package. Among other things, this bill would establish a national gun registry database of every gun and its owner for the whole country. According to the email, "Your private information and every gun you own would be in the system."

It also bans all private firearms sales.

Big Brother is coming after our guns.

Charlie Gibson - Derelict or Dishonest?

2009-09-15T20:46:00.000-05:00

The ACORN videos have been available on-line and reported on by Fox News television for nearly a week. It has been the hot topic on talk radio for several news cycles. There have been interviews, scripted statements, firings, threats of lawsuits, you name it. Yesterday, the U.S. Senate took action, adopting an amendment to a transportation and HUD appropriations bill that would de-fund ACORN.

But from ABC, NBC, and CBS? Silence. The New York Times? Nothing. The Washington Post? Not a peep.

If it does not fit the template, big media ignores it.

Big media bias has been well-documented for decades. They used to at least pretend objectivity, but even that is now out the window. They are no longer biased, they are active propagandists.

And their deportment exhudes hubris. If they do not report it, then it is not news-worthy. Obviously.

Enter Charlie Gibson on a radio interview this morning in Chicago. Here is the transcript:

Don: Ok here’s my question, Senate bill yesterday passes cutting off funds to this group called ACORN. Now we got the…we got that bill passing, we got the embarrassing video of ACORN staff giving tax advice on how to set up a brothel with 13 year old hookers. It has everything you could want corruption and sleazy action at tax funded organizations that’s got government ties. But nobody’s covering that story why?

Charlie Gibson: (laugh) I don’t even know about it. Uh, so you got me at a loss, I don’t know. Uh, uh, but, but My goodness if it’s got everything including sleaziness in it we should talk about it this morning.

Roma: This is the American way…

Charlie Gibson: Well maybe, maybe that’s one you just leave to the cables.

Roma: Well I think that this is a huge issue because there’s so much funding that goes into this organization and it’s a multi…

Charlie Gibson: Well, I know we’ve done some stories about ACORN before but uh, uh this one I don’t know about.

Roma: Jake Tapper did some blogging on it. I know he’s at least blogged once on this scandal.

Charlie Gibson: You guys, you guys are really up on the uh on the website.

For audio click here.

So here we have the news anchor for ABC news. If anyone is going to be the last one to know about something it is not going to be him, right? I mean, we're talking about Charlie Gibson, not Ron Burgundy. Aren't we?

Or maybe he is Ron Burgundy. Either that or we have a blatant ideologue masquerading as an objective news anchor. Those are our choices. But objective, intelligent news anchor? That is not a conclusion we can draw with any credibility. Charlie, himself, does not leave us that option.

Obama Stage a Coup?

2009-09-14T15:52:00.000-05:00

I have heard rumblings of this over the last few months. It is a reflection, I think, of the growing fear that regular Americans have of government, and the immense swing to the left that Obama has attempted to take us on in his first few months in office. Add to that Obama's radical associations and the Chicago-style one-party politics that are Obama's forte, plus the fact that he stubbornly marches forward with his agenda in spite of the overwhelming opposition of the population at large, and you have ample reason for many people to entertain these fears.

But, says Bruce Walker at American Thinker, these fears are not likely to materialize. Here is his column. (or go here)

Some conservatives have begun to openly wonder if Obama is going to seize power in America. Would he want to do this? Perhaps so (a scary thought, but he has promised change.) No one dreamed that Carter, the worst president of the last century, wanted or planned to seize power. Clinton wanted to win power, but the worst anyone expected of Clinton was Huey Long bossism.

Obama rose in politics through the thoroughly corrupt one-party government of Chicago. His spiritual advisor sounds like a rabble-rousing storm trooper. His intellectual mentor, Saul Alinksy, like the Bolsheviks and Nazis, believed in state terrorism. If Obama wanted to follow their leads, could he? I believe not.

Once it became clear that Obama was acting without any pretense of constitutionality, he would need muscle to back him up. Yet the greatest source of that muscle, the United States Military, loathes Obama as much as he loathes them. He would need intelligence, yet his maltreatment of the CIA ensures that those operatives would toss more bananas peels in front of him than real information should he make an extraconstitutional move.

Obama would also need the police, yet the President’s comments about a Cambridge policeman, a member of what has to be among the most politically correct force in America, shows the natural antipathy between Obama and law enforcement officers. The police, “pigs,” to the crowd that Obama belonged to as a community organizer, cannot be a solid support of any seizure of power.

What about the civilian national security force promised by Obama during the campaign? Conservatives are much more likely to be veterans and own guns than leftists. The creation and coordination of a real civilian army would also profoundly antagonize all state and local police forces.

Our federal system still exists, although states’ rights have declined greatly, but state governments still exercise real power (as several governors demonstrated in rejecting stimulus funds.) Nazis, Soviets, and Fascists all had to first crush federalism before gaining absolute power. States founded America, something almost unique among nations – state governments still have a special role in our United States. Crushing states completely would be very hard and very risky.

Beginning a coup or a revolution from above, as some fear Obama may do, also presumes that the revolution will end in a certain direction. If Obama and his elitist cohorts began a revolution, it would surely end: but how? Not only are the military, the CIA, and the police generally disgusted with Obama, but the ideological sentiment of the American people is profoundly out of step with Obama.

In every single state of the nation, according to a recent Gallup Poll, conservatives outnumber liberals. Consistently over the last decade, including the most recent, Battleground Poll, sixty percent of Americans call themselves conservatives. It is impossible to imagine conservatives support a leftist coup or revolution from above.

But the problem for Obama would extend beyond that. Attempting something like a seizure of power could be expected to alienate vast numbers of moderates and many self-defined liberals as well. Probably three-quarters or more of Americans would oppose any practical effort to end democracy, suspend civil rights, or end the Constitution which was open and clear.

Even his political party would have nightmares about any attempt by Obama to seize political power. The consequences of failure, which would be likely, could be a conservative counter-revolution. More likely, though, would be an electoral nightmare for Democrats which would last for decades. This is why a seizure of power is unheard of in the English-speaking democracies of Britain, Canada, America, Australia, and New Zealand.

The British Parliament, in which the Labour Party has huge majorities, has the theoretical power to pass a law which ended the requirement for new elections at least every five years. The Labour Party could simply make its power permanent. This would not even be an unconstitutional seizure of power. Yet no one believes Prime Minister Brown would ever propose that or that he could persuade his party to accept that. Even though he will be thoroughly trounced in the next general election, there will be an election in about nine months.

Politicians need elections just like lawyers need lawsuits. Without contested elections, Congress becomes as irrelevant as the Reichstag after Hitler got the Enabling Act passed. So even Obama's own party, or much of it, would oppose a seizure of power.

Finally, if Obama attempted an effective seizure of power and provoked a real national revolution, the repercussions for Democrats and the left in a successful counter-revolution could lead to a second American revolution in which vast amounts of political power could be explicitly returned to the states, the role of government in our lives precisely defined, the semi-divine status of judges overthrown, and power returned to the people.

Could the leftist choke hold on the media prevent a new revolution? Well, the left has tried to stop the Tea Party movement and the Town Hall protests with no success at all. Polling data shows the increasing ineffectiveness of the establishment media in controlling American’s thinking and actions.

Obama is not going to try to seize power, because he would fail utterly and damn his precious radicalism for decades in America. What he will do is what his predecessors on the left have done: acquire power through Fabian tactics; win one battle (like increasing union bosses’ power) and then move to the next lever of power in government and society. That is the dangerous path we have been on for many decades. We need to fight the very real enemies, not imaginary ones.

For an alternative viewpoint (sort of) click here.

The Bizarro World of Babylon D.C.

2009-09-10T20:52:00.000-05:00

Only in Washington D.C., where the real world and the ethos of the common people seldom enter, could the spectacle of last night and this morning have taken place. As I contemplate these things, it causes me to muse on that magical, mystical place . . .

We shall call this chimerical city Babylon D.C. Behold its mystery and mayhem!

First, we have King Barack I, whose wardrobe consists of the world's finest oratory. A quick check with the opinions of all the smartest and most beautiful people will squelch any doubts about that. Just ask them. These, in fact, whether one asks them or not, are always at the ready to remind us of that indisputable point. Barack I is the finest orator to have ever ascended the throne of Babylon D.C. To say otherwise, to doubt such hyperbolic orthodoxy, is akin to saying he has no clothes on at all!

Next, we have the Democrats, champions of the people! These brave heroes never miss an opportunity to stand up for fairness, justice, and the little guy, thumbing their considerable noses at special interest groups, big corporations, and evil right-wing Nazis like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin. Truth is their Gibraltor and they will fashion that Gibraltor on their potter's wheel into whatever form best suits their political ends. We might point out that one cannot be a champion of the people while robbing individuals of their rights and property, but in doing this we prove ourselves to be just the mind-numbed minions of Rush Limbaugh. We should learn to think for ourselves . . . think like Democrats! We must be at one with the beautiful and important people. Watch them as they hail the great leader!

And watch the Republicans follow suit! Those evil neo-cons are always trying to destroy our democracy by standing in the way of the smart and beautiful people. They dare to offer an alternative--themselves as the wiser, safer central planners. They seek to show us a better way. "Let us grow government, yes," say they, "but let us grow it leaner and more efficiently, and in slower increments." We might point out to them that the end result is still the same, a bloated distortion of the founders' intent, but they only respond, "Reagan! Reagan! I was a foot soldier with Reagan!" And so they applaud the great leader as well, and admire his fine clothing.

Behind King Barack I sits Lady Pelosi, Duchess of Ditz. She wanly smiles, fearing to overdo it lest the royal botox injections should be stressed at the overmuch pressure. Above all things, Lady Pelosi desires, nay lusts, to obtain and to wield Barack's scepter, to take his reins and turn him in whatever direction she chooses. It is her agenda he is pushing, or is it vise versa? Who wields the scepter when it is just the two of them behind the scenes?

And for what reason has this regal assemblage been called? Is it a call to war? Is the kingdom at stake? Must some catastrophe be averted? It is all three. This coven has gathered to expose and then cast out that infernal disease, that enemy of the state, corporate greed, along with its sibling, profit, and its progenitor, irresponsibility (that wicked criminal which has ever haunted us under the pseudonym freedom.)

Silence ensues as King Barack pauses to begin his speech. The willing crowd is mesmerized at his electrifying elocution, his dynamic diction, his resounding rhetoric. A thought pops into someone's head . . . this guy is wholly dependent on the telepromptor, what would, what could he do without it? But the thought is quickly squelched and evaporates into the oblivion as kingly rhetoric overcomes it.

"Black is not black," says the King. "It is white."

Everyone cheers.

"There are those who have been saying that black is black. Such in-sophisticants do not deserve our time nor attention. Nevertheless, they have poisoned the minds of many with their mis-information. Their words are false and deleterious. These are just pushing their corporate agenda. They are against reform just for the sake of being against reform. They make up facts. I am not just speaking of rancorous radio hosts or nefarious news programs on cable television. I am speaking even of politicians. In short, they lie." His mind's eye reaches out to the wicked witch of Alaska as he says it. "But I'm here to tell you tonight that black is white, has always been white, and never will be otherwise, not as long as I am king. Moreover, it is free! It will never cost anyone anything!"

"You lie!" hollers a young knave from the gallery.

Everyone stops. The king pauses, stutters, mumbles, then goes on. Botox bubbles appear on the rosy cheeks of Lady Pelosi seated behind the king. But, the moment is lost.

Finally the Liar is finished with his speech. The great assembly of liars and thieves is delighted. We shall work together. We shall overcome. We shall create utopia! But not until that young and foolish villain is brought under the iron fist, forced to bow the knee!

Before anyone can think what to do, old general McCrotchety speaks up and speaks out against such insolence as was brazenly and doltishly displayed by the upstart Congressman. He demands an apology.

And, thus, the young scallywag is brought forward and forced to submit, under the guise of decorum, as truth and integrity are assiduously ignored.

And so all the earls and dukes with their royal knights and ladies attendant leave, lying to each other about what has taken place, how important they all are, how great was their king's oratory, and how much good has been done for the people, while the lone honest man is censured.

Welcome to Babylon, D.C.

"The General Welfare" (re-visited)

2009-09-09T21:01:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, I posted the following. After having done so I thought of some additional comments I wanted to make. You will find them at the end of this re-post.

"...promote the general welfare."

This little clause, found twice in the Constitution if I am not mistaken, is the favorite clause of the Left and the one used most often as a pretext to foist whatever form of wealth-redistributing, soft tyranny they wish upon the public. What did the founders, the actual writers of the Constitution, have to say about it?

First, James Madison.

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, elaborated upon this limitation in a letter to James Robertson:
"With respect to the two words 'general welfare,' I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. If the words obtained so readily a place in the 'Articles of Confederation,' and received so little notice in their admission into the present Constitution, and retained for so long a time a silent place in both, the fairest explanation is, that the words, in the alternative of meaning nothing or meaning everything, had the former meaning taken for granted."

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one...."
-- James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, January 21, 1792

Now, Thomas Jefferson.

"Congress has not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but only those specifically enumerated."
--Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Albert Gallatin, 1817

It is worth noting that in the two founders I have quoted above we have both sides of the American political spectrum from the late 18th century represented.

That is, we have Madison who represents the Federalist party and who was one of the major contributors for The Federalist Papers, papers written in defense of federalism and for the adoption of the Constitution into law.

And we have Jefferson, who represents the Democratic-Republican party, the one opposed to the Federalist party.

So we have both sides of the political aisle in the late 18th and early 19th century, the time of the founding of the country, opposed to the modern idea that the "general welfare" clause should be used (abused) in the way it is today by many in both major parties.

Would you say we have drifted?

Would you say that to a man the founders would have stood against this sort of misuse of the Constitution to enable the federal government to do whatever it wanted? The only possible exception I can think of to that would have been Alexander Hamilton, and even he would have been far to the right of today's political center.

The American Form of Government

2009-09-08T10:41:00.000-05:00

I ran across this gem while looking around over at the home page of Walter E. Williams, columnist and professor of economics at George Mason University. I had to bring it here, and though it is ten minutes in length it is well done and most certainly worth your time.

I'm thinking of putting it permanently, somehow, on the front page here, perhaps at the bottom.

The Collective vs. the Individual

2009-09-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

The heart and soul of the health care debate hinges on whether one holds to a theory of government which champions the collective or a theory of government which champions the individual. This is evident both from the arguments I have heard proposed on the radio and from a reading of my on-line discourse with our Aussie liberal friend.

Whether it is Marxism, fascism, fabian socialism, Eurpoean-style social democracy, or even old-style monarchial systems, a common thread runs through all. That is this. There are a few elite people, an aristocracy or an oligarchy, who are more qualified to make decisions for the masses than the individuals who make up those masses. This is the modern Left, ironic that it should be so because it is the fallback position of most human government throughout history.

The Right, in this country at least, seeks to steer government away from a collectivist mentality and back toward the innovations and ideals of the founders of this nation . . . Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Madison, Adams, et.al. These men championed the rights of the individual over that of the collective.

At least this is what the Right is supposed to be about. In recent years, however, it has been more or less just a lighter version of the Left.

The collective . . . "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." Logical, is it not? At least Captain Spock thought so in Star Trek II, the Wrath of Khan. But then Admiral Kirk showed him the nobility of the opposite viewpoint in Star Trek III, the Search for Spock.

(Don't you just love Star Trek references?)

The arguments for nationalized health care all run along this theme. They are the product of a collectivist mindset. How can we (the smart people, the beautiful people, the ivy-league-set) make society a better place? They cite statistics to prove, ostensibly, that their system would work better for society as a whole. Nevermind that they trample on the rights of individuals. That's not important. Nevermind that they take away the decision-making ability of individuals, most people don't know what is best for them anyway do they?

This kind of thinking can be seen in articles like this piece from the Los Angeles Times in which it is lamented that the states most vehemently opposed to ObamaCare are those which stand to benefit most from it.

Freedom is a dangerous thing. Individuals who have freedom often act very stupidly with it. They are free to eat what they want, so they overindulge, become obese. The Leftist aristocracy comes along and says, "We have a problem in society--too much obesity. What shall we do?" Then, as if they have been appointed the caretakers of individuals, they seek legislative answers to subjugate the freedom of individuals and stop this obesity "problem." This is what happened with smoking. This is what is happening with health care, right now.

(By the way, it is patently stupid to cite statistics on the general health of a society and believe that the only cause affecting that general health is the medical industry. As Captain Spock might say, "That is illogical." There are many other factors involved, including genetics, environment, diet, daily activity, cultural practices . . . I could not possibly name them all. But such is the illogic of the Left.)

The collectivist, be he a European social democrat, an English monarch of old, or a Leninist from Moscow, would seek to improve society as a whole at the expense of individual liberty. The United States of America, in contrast, has historically been the safehouse of individual liberty. Whether or not this works out best for society as whole--according to the theories of some Harvard elites--is unimportant. In America, the rights of the individual have always been more important than the needs of the collective.

At least until now.

We shall see what this Congress and this President do, whether they will uphold American traditions and values and stop this madness, or whether they will stomp on individual rights and thus stomp on everything our founders believed.

Let us hope and pray for the former.

A Solution -- Healthcare Reform

2009-07-16T22:59:00.000-05:00

I have a solution for the "healthcare crisis." It struck me, earlier today, as a relatively simple solution to a complex problem. I know that this crisis is on everyone's mind right now, what with 48 gazillion uninsured serfs dying daily in the streets of America for lack of good coverage. Never fear, dear proletariat, your dear friend and comrade Tom has the solution.

Ready?

Let's put a revolver--check that--a good, solid semi-auto (perhaps a Glock .40 caliber S&W) to the head of every evil rich guy we can find. Let's tell him (them) that if he makes over one million a year that he has to give at least an additional 5.4% of his income to us so we can give it to the underprivileged so that they can have government insurance. In fact, let's tell him that if he doesn't give up this additional income we are going to throw his sorry, rich ass in the slammer with Big Bubba for a cellmate.

Hear that, rich guys? You're gonna give us your money or we're going to throw your butts in jail.

Then, when we have their money, let's create a whole new government bureaucracy (something like the post office, for example) and put it in charge of everyone's health care and then let's put those evil private insurance companies out of business. Then, we'll tell those greedy doctors what they can and cannot charge and if they try to go around our system we'll throw their butts in jail too.

Then, after all the evil corporations and sinister small businesses drop health insurance coverage for their employees in favor of putting them on the government plan, we'll make it illegal for any of them to seek out their own private plan.

What an idea!

This way everyone has the same great coverage and everything is fair. It works so well with the VA and on the Indian Reservations . . .

Wait a minute, I just noticed something.

Dang it! My plan is the same as Obama's!

No Longer a Republican

2009-07-14T23:45:00.000-05:00

Dennis Miller is one cool cat, to use an expression he might use. Miller has an exceptional vocabulary, an encyclopedic memory, a razor wit, and a unequalled command of the art of the metaphor. I love Dennis, absolutely love him.

Today he had Mike Murphy of NBC news and Time magazine as a guest on his radio show. Murphy is one of those northeastern Republican political pundits . . . let's not go there . . . and the topic of discussion was Sarah Palin, her resignation, her impact on the McCain ticket, and her possible political future. Murphy is no Palin fan. Too bad for him.

There were several things I disagreed with Murphy on, but I think the thing that grated on me the most was the apparent lack of understanding he displayed of what is going on with the Republican "base." Rank and file conservatives are fed up with how they have been treated lately by the Republican party and Murphy doesn't get that.

According to Murphy, Palin was a drag on the McCain ticket because she didn't add anything. Admitting that she was a charismatic and engaging figure, Murphy could not see how that was anything McCain really needed. I won't quote him from memory, but the gist of his point was that McCain needed someone who would bring in swing voters and Palin could not do that. All she could do was energize a base that was going to show up for McCain anyway.

Wrong.

Murphy said to Miller something akin to Come on, Dennis, those guys were going to the polls for McCain anyway. Do you think they would vote for Obama?

Wrong again. I wanted to talk to this guy so badly, and they did take some callers but I was not in an area for a good signal, so I didn't try.

Mike Murphy could not be more wrong. I was not going to vote for John McCain. I did not like him. I viewed him as a compromiser. I viewed him as a man who epitomized the problem with the Republican party and I absolutely, positively was not going to vote for John McCain.

And, no, Mike Murphy, I was not going to vote for Generalissimo Obama either.

I had made up my mind to go to the polls, vote in every other race, then for President vote for Ronald Reagan as a write-in candidate. My first Presidential election was 1988 and I never had a chance to pull the lever for the Gipper and I thought that this way I could at least tell my grandchildren that I had.

But John McCain was not getting my vote. Period.

Then McCain picked Sarah Palin as his veep and I decided I would vote for them . . . her. So I did.

So, yes, Mike Murphy, Sarah Palin did add something to McCain's ticket. She added me and along with me a whole lot of other frustrated, disgusted conservatives who had also planned on sitting out. If not for Palin it would have been far uglier than it was.

As for me, after seeing how the McCain campaign treated Palin, and after noting that not one Republican political figure would stand up for her, I dropped out of the ranks of the Republicans. I now consider myself a constitutionalist--a libertarian independent. And I will never vote for a moderate Republican again--for anything.

Truth, Lies, and Democrats

2009-07-01T23:01:00.000-05:00

It was my Christian upbringing that gave me my love for truth. Ironically, it was that love for truth that caused me to cast off many of the traditional Christian beliefs I was taught as a child. I am still a Christian, just not the same kind. And I still have a great love for the truth, whatever that truth happens to be.

If you are of Jewish or Christian faith, you may be familiar with a Proverb that often pops into my head and which I have adopted as a maxim for life. Here it is:

Proverbs 23:23 (ESV)
Buy truth, and do not sell it;

I've always pictured an object labeled "truth" sitting on a shelf and I'm looking at it and wondering if it is worth buying or not. Is it? Apparently so. But what if it costs a lot? Doesn't matter, I still should buy it. What if it costs me everything? Doesn't matter, I still should buy it. "Buy truth."

Okay, but now that I have it what if someone offers me money for it? Should I take the money?

No.

What if they offer me a lot of money, more money than I've ever seen? What if by selling it I can achieve everything I've ever dreamed of?

"Buy truth, and do not sell it;"

Pretty simple, isn't it? And plenty wise, too.

But people don't love truth anymore, if they ever did. People don't want the truth. People don't believe the truth. People go out of their way to avoid the truth.

And politicians seemingly can gain anything they want by lying to a populace who loves to be lied to.

Which brings us, of course, to the Democrat party. Democrats lie all the time and their constituents not only expect, but they seem to love, to be lied to. Remember how the press used to admire Bubba Bill Clinton so much for his great gift of lying? He would look at them, smile, lie through his teeth, and they would fawn over him for it, admiring his abilities. Meanwhile, inner-city-public-school-indoctrinated-idiot democrat voters would swallow those lies whole and then spew them out ad nauseum as if they were gospel and end-all arguments.

This isn't an anomaly. This is how Democrats roll in their hood.

Most people tell lies every once in a while. It's a part of our fallenness. It jumps out at us as a cheap avenue of escape. We know it's bad, but we hope it will save us something--maybe embarrassment, or culpability of some kind.

But Democrats lie with impunity. They lie because they know they can. They lie because their constituents are stupid. They lie because they simply cannot tell us the truth. If they did, nobody would vote for them. Their agenda is that un-American.

All of this brings us to Barack Hussein Obama, liar-in-chief. Remember how he was going to have more open and honest government?

Yes, 69 million fools believed that load of horse manure. In these past six months have we seen enough to know better yet? Sadly, I doubt it. You can fool some of the people all of the time.

Obama has presided over a Congress recklessly ramrodding voluminous tomes of horrid, corpulent legislation in the dark of night, without anyone even reading it first. Half the members of Congress voting on any given piece of legislation in the last six months haven't even known what the hell they were voting on.

Obama is a lying . . . (you fill in the blank).

But you already, knew that. He's a Democrat. It's how they roll.

Need more? How about his no-new-taxes pledge. Remember that? Remember how no one earning less than $250,000 a year was going to see a tax increase? Then along came that huge hike in tobacco taxes, as if no one earning less than $250,000 a year ever buys tobacco.

For any idiot Democrat who happens to blindly blunder by here, yes (I'm typing s-l-o-w-l-y so you'll be able to keep up) that's a tax increase for people making less than $250,000 a year.

Anybody making less than $250,000 a year buy gasoline, or diesel, or heating oil, or electricity? You just got punked by Obama, too. Unless the U.S. Senate rises up and saves us, somehow, you're about to get bodyslammed by the biggest tax hike in U.S. history. It's called cap and trade. More on that later.

Obama. Liar.

Liar. Obama.

It's the truth. Buy it.

Cap and Trade 2009

2009-06-26T21:50:00.000-05:00

Well, it happened. I heard it on the radio about 5:40pm CDT. Another large piece of our liberty was sold down the river and probably for less than thirty pieces of silver.

While most of America was obsessing over the death of a psychologically disturbed pop star, the U.S. House of Representatives rushed through, and got passed by a narrow margin, an energy tax bill that will cost thousands of jobs and hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But don't feel too bad. Government just got bigger . . . and more intrusive . . . and richer . . . and . . . isn't that the goal of this Congress and administration anyway?

Government wins, the individual gets screwed. Welcome to 21st century America.

These people have no shame.

What's worse--the bill passed by seven votes, eight of which were Republicans. When I find out their names I will post them here. It is bad enough when Democrats sponsor and pass tripe like this--they were born stupid. But when Republicans are involved it makes my stomach wretch. You can't belong to the party of Reagan and do this. It's like a Jew selling gold swastikas on a chain . . . the ultimate betrayal. I hope this traitorous octuplet suffer a very painful, agonizing, miserable, horrible (political) death.

Only my better nature caused me to return to that previous sentence and add the word "political." But, honestly, in my heart I left it out.

Another victory for tyranny.

Missing Governors

2009-06-26T20:44:00.000-05:00

Much was made of the absence of South Carolina governor Mark Sanford over Father's Day weekend. While the Democrats and media tried to make political hay of it and the governor's mansion, including Sanford's wife, sought in turn to make nothing out of it, Sanford himself, ultimately, is the one who made it what it was--a wreck.

Just what we needed, another political sex scandal. Sadly, this time it was what looked to be a good guy involved in it instead of the usual miscreants. Looks can be deceiving, it appears. (chuckle)

One of the more interesting aspects of all this, in my view, was one of the whines that kept squeaking out while the Palmetto-in-chief was out on his alleged Appalachian jaunt. It was repeated several times in my hearing even after the governor had returned from what turned out to be a romp on the beach with a mistress. This whine was uttered by one particularly miffed caller to the Dennis Miller radio show in the following fashion: "How can a governor just leave his state like that without even leaving anyone in charge? What if a natural disaster or something had happened while he was gone?" To the caller's discredit, I don't even think he was a citizen of Sanford's state. At any rate, that particular sentiment had already been expressed enough to irritate me, then this guy came along and provoked me into the following rant . . .

(Here's what I wish I could have said to that guy)

Are you serious? How old are you, twelve? You can't get along in your life without a governor for a couple of days? Where did we get this dependency upon government to the point that we are actually afraid that something bad might happen and we won't have the governor around to save us? Is the governor your daddy? Protector and provider? Arch-nemesis of the boogie-man?

Here's what you do, junior, if a natural disaster happens while the governor isn't around . . . be responsible for yourself. Take care of yourself. Provide for yourself.

Handle it yourself.

Have we really reached the point where we get nervous if the governor of our state steps away for a few days? I bet there are a lot of people out there who ardently wish their governor would go awol. I can remember a time when Ann Richards was messing with Texas that I would have felt great relief to get up in the morning and read a news story saying that she had been missing for several days. An awol governor can't screw things up.

Say, I have an idea. How about someone convincing the unholy trinity of Pelosi, Reid, and Obama to go awol? God knows I would love to tell them to take a hike.

A Nod to Neil Peart and Rush

2009-06-23T21:07:00.000-05:00

The idea for this blog came to me while listening to the classic Rush song Tom Sawyer. The lyrics were, at least in part, penned by Neil Peart, while Geddy Lee's voice wailing "The river!" is simply unforgettable. It is a powerful song with powerful lyrics--too heady for me to really get when I first heard it as an impressionable but slightly dull twelve-year-old. But at forty I think I pretty much get them and it wouldn't be right to have this blog with this theme without acknowledging Lee, Peart, and Lifeson, and their inspiration for it. Tonight I tip a cold one back for you boys and hope all is well for you.

Here is a link to their site.

By the way, all their old albums have been re-mastered and are available on CD. I've been purchasing them one at a time and re-enjoying them. Besides their great music, I appreciate the depth of their lyrics some of which are quite poignant in today's political climate. No Leftists these guys, unless you mean in the classic Jeffersonian sense. At least in their early stuff they come across as quite the Libertarians.

I recommend you buy some of their music if that style is your cup of tea. And if you've never heard them before give them a shot. They are, in my opinion, the pinnacle of rock-n-roll.

The Republic for which it stands (Who is Tom Sawyer?)

2009-06-21T23:02:00.000-05:00

"I pledge allegiance to the flag
And to the Republic for which it stands . . ."

That Republic no longer exists.

It has been replaced by a monolithic government which robs men of wealth, property and liberty. That monolithic federal government so little resembles the Great Republic of Washington, Jefferson, and Adams that these men would not even recognize it. Their Republic has died the death of a thousand cuts--none of them budget cuts to be sure.

Individual liberty is on the run. No longer in fashion, she has fled in search of a defender, a protector, a refuge. She finds it nowhere, not in either major political party, not in any major city, not in any newspaper or major media outlet. Those who still love her are few and those among them brave enough to stand up for her are impugned barbarously. Tyranny is now in vogue and woe be to those who oppose that ravenous beast.

I am one of those.

Am I a right-wing nut job--a conspiracy theorist who believes the world is run by Jewish bankers or the Illuminati or Bilderbergers? No. People who believe in vast conspiracies are idiots, even if they happen to be First Lady or Senator from New York or Secretary of State. No conspiracy theorist here.

Am I a militia member? Nope. Those guys need to get a brain too.

What am I then?

I'm fed up, that's what I am. I'm fed up with career politicians who exist to serve themselves and their own greed and power at the expense of taxpayers. I am fed up with a federal bureaucracy which gets more bloated by the minute, sucking the private sector dry. I am fed up with Washington/New York/East Coast/Hollywood elitists who think they exist to run (read: ruin) our lives. I am fed up with the lies these elitists feed me every day and expect me to believe thinking I must be as stupid as they are.

For what do I stand?

I stand for the individual--his life, his liberty, his property, his pursuit of happiness. I stand for states' rights, once regarded as sacred, now no longer in existence. I stand for de-centralized government. I believe in free speech, free press, freedom of religion, freedom to assemble and redress the government for its abuses, gun rights, freedom from excessive, unjust, and abusive taxation, and freedom from the tyranny being perpetrated on this once great land by a mob of elitist so-called progressives who meet regularly in a swamp area known as Washinton D.C. in order to conspire to take away those liberties which we as a nation once valued above our own lives.

If Thomas Jefferson were alive today he would be leading another rebellion.

I am not here to start or lead or even join a rebellion. What I am here to do is to stir up enough trouble for those Washington D.C. parasites that they will have to deal with an educated populace--armed with truth and angry for liberty. I am not for armed resistance. I am for civil disobedience. The difference between those two is the difference between Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X.

Enough is enough.

Today's Tom Sawyer

2009-06-17T00:12:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the River.

Perhaps you fashion yourself as an independent thinker. That's nice.

Maybe you think of yourself as well-informed on the news of the day. That's nice, too.

Maybe you think you have things figured out. After all, you think. You feel. You're hip. You know who you are and what you are. You're a conservative . . . or a liberal . . . or a moderate . . . or a libertarian . . . or whatever. You're also a Christian, evangelical, maybe Roman Catholic, . . . or not. Maybe you're above religion. You don't need a crutch.

Whoever you are, whatever you are, I'm here to challenge you. My name? Tom Sawyer . . . today's Tom Sawyer. Pleased to meet you.

I hope you'll stick around and be challenged. I want you to think. Yeah, I know. Sure. Whatever. I've heard it before. I know you think that you think . . . it's just that I don't believe you. That's right. I'm calling you out. On this blog I'm really going to make you think . . . about politics, religion, philosophy, you name it. I am here to challenge the status quo, conventional wisdom, and you.

Are you up for it?