NY's 23 and how to feel about it

First of all, can you imagine what a better world it would be if lefties were this excited about winning a war?

Don't be fooled by the apparent jubilance from the left over gaining a seat in the House. Democrats didn't win this race; the GOP lost it by allowing the vote to get split.

And, while Kos is cheering the fact that Democrats "won," with a plurality - not a majority - of votes, the real victors in this race are conservatives. Hoffman's candidacy did wonders for the conservative movement, and will serve as a rallying point.

As a point of fact, nobody cared about this race until there was a conservative candidate on the ballot.

With a real conservative running, it became a race of national interest. The sleeping giant woke up. It is up to us to keep this energy alive. Hoffman should be a fresh, hot cup of morning coffee, not a shot of atropine as a last resort.

Here's what really happened: a principled, conservative candidate from a grass roots effort and against the party leadership nearly won the race; indeed, if you add Scozzafava's 6 percent to Hoffman, the seat would have remained red, in fact it probably would have been redder than ever before.

This is an important lesson for GOP leadership - one that some of us have been trying to drill into them for years. DON'T BACK THE WRONG GUY. Principle is more important than labels.

I see this race as symbolic of conservatives winning back control of the GOP, so I see the loss as a positive thing. Let's kick out the RINOs. Let's take Our party back.

With apologies to Ben Franklin, the Republican Party is ours, if we can keep it.

The new GOP website

I'm not sure how we missed it, but back on the 14th, the new GOP website went live. Despite several negative reviews from the left (as expected), this does appear to be a significant attempt to re-brand the party.

I like the fact that it's RED. Loudly red. This is a clear delineation between the New GOP and the soft, comfortable, mind-numbing blues of the DNC and White House sites. There is no doubt you're in Red State territory. Red is the color of passion, and occasionally of rage. I like red.

Also noticeable is a clear message of diversity and inclusion. While this has been a point of ridicule by those left-leaning critics, above, the message is profound - the site illustrates a clear and long history of Republicans being on the correct side of the civil rights battles in this country and around the world. Used correctly, this could help break the media narrative that Republicans are the party of fat, rich, old, racist, white men.

Most significantly, I like that the party platform has been reduced in size and scope. This is an important step forward for the GOP. It echoes the sentiment of smaller, less intrusive government. A profound mistake the party made in the past was trying to take a position on every conceivable issue, always chasing the Democrats for mindshare. This new, simpler platform makes it easier for people to agree with party on every plank; again, this is an important inclusion message.

I personally would have preferred an even shorter version, with a different emphasis on priority (and slightly more conservative), to wit:

1) Economy (Why is this not first in your version, Mr. Steele?) - DEREGULATE EVERYTHING and LOWER TAXES across the board. Also, consider replacing or repairing the Federal Reserve system.

2) Energy - Drill here, drill now, build more nukes, and then develop alternatives that make good financial sense.

3) National Defense - Yes, we need to rebuild and maintain a strong, capable, all-volunteer military.

4) Education - Get the federal government out of schools. Get unions out of schools. Get parents into schools.

5) Health care - We need deregulation in all facets of the health care and insurance industries, but let's not make the mistake of calling that "health care reform."

Media slip, reporters admit misreporting

Here's the story by Politico reporter Ken Vogel.

I've pulled some relevant quotes:

"... Team Obama is no crasser than administrations past. It’s just that they are being quoted more accurately."

"in most of these conversations that I am talking about, there was an understanding that you weren’t going to quote that language. The same way you didn’t write about Jack Kennedy and sex. It was the same attitude."

"I’m not suggesting you shouldn’t report what someone said if it’s illuminating. I’m only saying you should tread lightly."

Now, I know you're going to say to yourself, "well, it's really only that they're filtering the coarse language." Ostensibly, that's what Vogel's story is about. The reality is that two of the three quotes, above, are speaking in generalities about not reporting information that may be damaging to the source. Why does that matter, you ask? Perhaps Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby could answer that question better than I.

The point is, the media is admitting that they are deliberately hiding from their consumers information that very well may be pertinent to making informed decisions. Media bias used to be covert, intangible, nearly undetectable to the layman. Now that the legacy media, especially print, is in its death throes, the buried lies we've been told for so long are starting to surface.

This story puts both media and government in a very bad light, for if media isn't reporting foul language because it doesn't belong in the course of public debate, then why is government using that language, in the first place? Seems to me that if the media reported it more, the government would be less likely to use it, assuming that it was as damaging as media thinks.

The Federal Communications Commission that is charged with making sure that broadcast media doesn't use foul language. While the FCC rules don't necessarily apply to print, the standard is generally followed, presumably voluntarily in fear that rules might be made, but also, as the story points out, to protect the source. Yes, that's right, reporters are not telling The People things in order to protect Themselves and The Government. There's no other way to spin that little nugget of truth.

So, now we have come full circle. We have the dying media finally getting upset with government for using the very language that it forbids the media from using. The chicken has killed the egg, and the egg helped the chicken do it.

It's (big) little things like this that are causing the sleeping giant of politically-inactive Americans to wake up and participate. Wisdom is about to do battle with convention. For, if a group of men over 200 years ago could predict this very outcome, they might well have written something like this:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

We can only hope that the new media takes a firm stand against regulation of content - regulation that I guarantee is forthcoming. If we're terribly lucky, we'll have people like Nobel Peace Prize loser Wei Jingsheng on our side when Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama and his Congress let our Iron Curtain fall.

Once again, don't be fooled into thinking this is about Seven Dirty Words. The real story is how the government regulation of press and collusion of government with press has wrecked our nation.

A message to "conservative" talking heads

Saturday Night Live, this week, took President Barack Obama to task for getting nothing done. It was a notable episode, in that it's evidence of the legacy media actually being critical of Obama, something we've rarely experienced.

Of course, the SNL skit was making the rounds in the usual conservative channels yesterday and today. The problem is the message I've been hearing from some of these so-called conservatives, specifically the local variety; they were lamenting the fact that Obama hasn't done anything.

NEWS FLASH! We don't want Obama to do anything; everything he has in mind is antithetical to our core beliefs, even to our very existence. As a matter of fact, Obama has accomplished quite a lot in a short amount of time, none of which we find helpful, safe, or necessary.

Let's review some of Obama's major accomplishments, so as to buttress our support against him accomplishing anything else.

1) Just the fact that the guy was elected president, along with a majority in both houses of Congress, has caused a national rush on firearms and ammunition that is responsible 11 months later for a continued widespread shortage of the same. The mini-stimulus of this industry started essentially the day after election day. While this isn't an accomplishment, per se, I'm sure he would spin it as a win if he could find a positive message in it.

2) As mentioned in the SNL skit, he "closed," GTMO - more specifically, the detention program for combatants that have no national affiliation. This was the first step in destroying what was a clear and coherent, if controversial, foreign policy. Despite the fact that this goal is not yet accomplished, the damage, though largely immeasurable, is significant.

3) The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, better known as the Stimulus Package. This piece of crap political payback designed to keep Democrats in power for the foreseeable future is not American, contains no reinvestment, and has nothing to do with recovery. A good, true American president would be unable to sign this treekiller of a bill. The fact that Obama signed it without reading it after Congress passed it without reading it sets a far more dangerous precedent than, arguably, any of the pork in the bill.

4) The Omnibus Spending Bill - the budget for the federal government. Between Stimulus and this budget (not to mention the future budgets we haven't got to, yet), the value of your future dollar will be a fraction of what it is today - probably well before the 2012 election cycle gets underway.

5) GM - after Bush insinuated himself into a situation that the free market alone should have decided, Obama iced the cake of nationalization of industry by securing for the American people a significant stake in a failed enterprise, and the cherry on top was his "firing," of senior management.

6) Sonya Sotomayor - a few short months before Obama proved what a racist he was by criticizing a lawful arrest of one of his cronies, Obama gave us a hint of our bleak future by nominating Sonya Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. Sotomayor, an interventionist progressive judge with a smattering of racist of her own, as the court's youngest member, will pollute the Supreme Court with her anti-gun, anti-white, anti-male views for a long, long time. Justice is no longer about right and wrong, it's about feelings and whether or not a wise latina woman can judge better than, oh, I don't know, a wise black man (Clarence Thomas). Her first Supreme Court session started yesterday, so we're weeks, maybe even days away from seeing just how significantly this accomplishment will hurt America.

7) A long list of foreign relations botches, including the Obama World Apology tour, hugging our adversaries and condemning our allies, and extended deliberation of what to do in a war that, arguably, he was elected to stop. His stagnation on the issue, which is causing destabilization in the region, is more importantly causing needless deaths of American soldiers.

Let's stop fooling ourselves that President Barack Obama has done nothing. He has accomplished so much that I wish the 2012 election was next month. He's already done much more than I hoped he would, and the speed with which these things have happened is frightening.

Enough change, already.

Who will be Obama's Enron?

I just read the White House's answer to "You Lie." Contained in the text is this gem:

"Undocumented immigrants would be able to buy insurance in the non-exchange private market, just as they do today. That market will shrink as the exchange takes hold, but it will still exist and will be subject to reforms such as the bans on pre-existing conditions and caps." (emphasis mine) (here's the link)

What you should take away from that is that Obama wants all insurance to be purchased in the government market. What they're intending to do with this "exchange," is roughly analogous to rounding up all the fast food restaurants in town and placing them all inside the Government Shopping Mall, forcing them to pay government rent and produce exactly the same hamburger and follow the government rules regarding acceptable employee appearance.

In order to meet all of the new government rules, private insurers will have to raise their prices significantly; obviously, the government will fix that by capping prices, a move that worked so well for Gray Davis.

Who's Gray Davis, you ask? He was the governor of California that basically got fired mid-term for instituting price caps. The energy scenario that catapulted him, and Enron, to national infamy is extremely similar to what Obama and Democrats are trying to do with health care.

If you want to know how well a government exchange works for private companies selling a commodity, you should study California's energy market. The insurance exchange, with or without a "public option," will create the exact scenario that led to millions of Californians not knowing whether or not they would have electricity from one day to the next.

Democrats back then were keen to blame Enron, but in reality the scheme was concocted by Democrats. The system collapsed not because the "free" market (Enron and others) took advantage; the system collapsed because there was not a free market.

So, which company will be the next Enron? Will it be Aetna, or Humana, or Cigna?

Dammit, Joe! You could have been a hero!

Joe Wilson has apologized.

11 ACORN workers in Florida voter fraud

GASP - what, you mean that people that work for ACORN are dishonest?

I love how this is being spun as a positive for ACORN. Their "quality assurance," department caught the suspect registrations?

When it comes out who these 11 people are, I wonder how many of them will have prior convictions for things like identity theft, fraud, etc. It certainly has happened before (well, actually since - the Nevada investigation started in July, 2008; the Florida investigation in June, 2008).

If ACORN's quality control is good enough to catch a these phony registrations, how come it's not good enough to keep identity thieves out of the registration process in the first place?

If nearly half of the cards these people turned in were fradulent, WOW. Just, WOW. How many registrations did ACORN not catch? I mean, they can detect an error on a single piece of paper, but they can't catch the criminals in their midst? Obviously, their quality control is flawed. So, how many fake registrations did get through quality control? And, how many of those turned into Obama votes (yes, I know the answer is all of them, but I want to quantify)?

A Moment of Pause - H.R. 3200

Wow. House Resolution 3200. We started at 1, early in the year - HR1 was the Stimulus plan, if I recall correctly.

HR3200.

Has anyone given any thought to the fact that each new law means one less freedom We the People previously had?

HR3200. In less than a year, we've had over Three Thousand new restrictions on our freedom proposed, from one side of the Capitol alone?

This Congress isn't necessarily worse than the last, but still, you have to wonder - how many freedoms do we have left? Can we survive another Congress?

We the People part 2

One of the poison pills we have allowed ourselves to take is the notion that laws have to be passed, otherwise what are those guys and gals on Capitol Hill good for? Another poison pill is that the people on Capitol Hill are our leaders. Senators are supposed to represent the States' interests, and Representatives are supposed to represent We the People's interests. I'm not sure how one makes the leap from "representative," to "leader," when, in fact, the two are quite nearly diametrically opposing terms. But, I do know why we consider these people to be so powerful - because they are.

The whole point of the bicameral legislature was to balance the power of the people against the power of the states. That power cannot be balanced if the people's side of the equation doesn't carry enough weight. The biggest and longest debates in the founding period were over what number of people was to be the maximum number of people one representative could represent. Never in their arguments, that I can find, did that number exceed 50,000. At the end, the number that was decided upon was 30,000.

In fact, it was at the very end that the number decided upon was 30,000 - you can see where it was revised down from 40,000 by looking at the original Constitution, the first word of the ninth line of Article I, Section 2 - you see, they didn't have white-out or word processors, back then, so they rubbed off the beginning of the word forty and heavily inked in thirty over the top of it.

You have to understand the climate of the day to catch their error. The constitutional convention was on a tight deadline to produce the Constitution, so that the states they needed to form the more perfect union wouldn't just go form their own countries, thus diluting the strength of the secession and probably leading to the King taking America back. While it was always the intent that 30,000 be the maximum number of people to be represented, it was left out of the original Constitution, probably as an oversight, but mostly because everyone agreed on that number, so there was no need to address it further.

Some of the states when ratifying the Constitution were aware of this defect, and apparently 11 others, because in order to ratify the Constitution, they were promised the ability to address these 12 defects in a document we call the Bill of Rights - yes, the Bill of Rights is the 12 proposed amendments, not the 10 (actually 11, now) adopted amendments, despite what you may have been erroneously taught in grade school.

Just for effect, I'm going to quote the preamble to the Bill of Rights here, now: "in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution."

That's right - over 200 years ago, we predicted that we would find ourselves in exactly this situation!

As it stands, today, 11 of the 12 defects the ratifying states found in the original Constitution have been corrected. The one that has never been fixed is, ironically, the very first one they addressed - explicitly defining the ratio of popular representation.

If you want to see America's problems fixed, if you want to see us get out of debt, out of recession, out of our statist Marxist socialist whateverist oligarchy, if you are serious about Taking Our Country Back, here is the simple solution - increase our representation.

The conversation needs to start now. This summer's town hall debacles are the perfect indication of this problem, and the catalyst to make this into a real legislative priority. You need to write your senators, your congressman, your state representatives, your governor, your friends, your family, your neighbors and tell them all one thing: 715,000 people is way too many people for one representative; we need a saner number like 30,000, which is what the founders always thought we would have. We the People want more representation, now!

For more information, see thirty-thousand.org, a site with which I'm not affiliated, but it is the concise collection of information on this issue - fully referenced and annotated, very well put together.

(edit - I've just discovered that the National Archives omits Articles one and two of the Bill of Rights from their "transcription," - with omissions like that, intentional or not, it's no wonder kids are taught incorrect information about their government)

We the People

Take a minute to look at the Constitution. I don't mean take a minute to read it, I mean just look at it.

What do you see?

We have gotten way, way off track with President Obama and the current congress. I'm not blaming our current situation on them, yet, because the road that has led us to them has been diverging from the course our founders set us on for quite some time. Besides the words in the document, the aesthetic of the document is pregnant with significant meaning.

"We the People," is first, so we remember that government is secondary to us.
"We the People," is large, so we remember to keep the government small.
"We the People," stands upright, in contrast to the slant of the government.
"We the People," is heavily adorned, in contrast to the plain script of the government.

The government is secondary to us means that any power the government has is granted to it, for a limited time, and for a limited purpose, by us. Part of the problem, here, is that we have ceased to refer to the government as part of our community; we think of it as a separate entity. Some of that is cause, and some of that is effect, but it's just plain wrong. I don't fear my next door neighbor, but I do fear the government. If I actually knew anyone in government, then I might be able to think of them as a neighbor, but that's not the solution to this problem - to the contrary, that merely highlights the problem further. This is not an issue of quantity of government employees; rather, it's an indictment of the quality of our government.

Speaking of the number of government employees, the size of the government should be small in scope, not small in number. In fact, the upper limit of the number of representatives is directly proportional to the population of the country - it's a formula, not an exact number. As our country grows, so too shall the government - in quantity, so that We the People are amply represented. The intent of the founders was that We the People should never lose our voice. Sadly, that idea started to die when James Madison did, and congress put the final nail in the coffin in 1929, when it passed it's arguably unconstitutional law fixing the size of our already under-representative body at 435.

We the People stand upright, signifying that we are a righteous people. The government slant is to the right, because the founders thought that any government runs the risk of becoming abusive, so Our government should strive to uphold our values. The letters of We the People are decorated so that we remember that we are the most important part of this document. The government letters are standard script, indicating that no frills, comforts, or adornments are required of the necessary evil that is government.

All of this I get from just looking at "We the People."

Today, we have us and them, two distinct philosophies at war. They are the government - mostly Democrats, some socialists, some communists, and even some Republicans, that are striving for nothing more than their own prosperity. Their sycophantic voter base is of the same philosophy, that if we just create enough government programs, everyone will have what they want. Everyone, that is, except for us. We are what is left of We the People, and we're looking at this unwieldy machine that was created in our name. This abomination of a government would be instantly recognizable to the founders as exactly what they were trying to escape from, a life where the people are mere subjects of the government, rather than independent free people that make their own way in life, striving for success, but sometimes having to cope with failure.

How do we escape this time? The answer lies in addressing the single deficiency in the Constitution that has yet to be corrected. More on this tomorrow.

Connecting the dots

Well, the school year is pretty much under way in the entire US, and President Obama will be addressing our children next week. I predict this speech will be historic - it is certainly unprecedented. I think someday, we'll look back at this speech and say, "wow, why didn't we see that coming?"

Somebody like me looks at the events of the day and asks himself, "why does the President of the United States need to address our nation's children, when there are arguably more important things going on?"

World Net Daily is known for it's alarmist, over-the-top reporting. So, this story about H1N1 should be no surprise to anyone. What surprised me is that WND is connecting all the dots that I've been trying to connect, and coming up with a similar picture.

What world do we live in? A flu virus that to date has been completely underwhelming has The State so afraid that we're facing untested, unproven vaccinations administered to us and our children - by force, against the will of parents if necessary - states of emergency already declared in several cases, the specter of martial law being enacted, the suspension of 4th Amendment rights, among others?

This is like a bad science-fiction movie. Yeah, this is exactly like the beginnings of those over-the-top liberal Hollywood doomsday movies.

I took notice of the fact that, aside from the Democrat-controlled congress and White House, this stuff is predominantly happening in blue states. That's right, it's Democrats that are doing this to us. The apple known as the Democratic Party has fallen very, very far from the tree of liberty. For all of their Patriot Act fearmongering, Democrats - you know, that party that used to champion civil liberties - Democrats are strangely silent about this bear trap that is being crafted out of H1N1. If this trap springs, I think we'll look back to Obama's address to the children, and the sound of our palms hitting our foreheads will be deafening.

Alarmist? Sure, I'm terrified of what our shiny new transparent government isn't telling us. I'm convinced that H1N1 is the manufactured crisis that Joe Biden was talking about. I'm worried that our President wants to address our children under these circumstances, and I'm getting tired of connecting the dots. I don't want to see what this picture turns out to be.

Pastor, parishioner, pastor, parishioner

Rumor has it that Chris Broughton, the AR-15 guy at President Obama's recent Phoenix town hall, is a member of a church where the pastor is praying for God to call Obama home, soon. My primary problem with this is the analogy between this pastor/parishioner relationship and the relationship between Obama and Revered Jeremiah Wright. When I heard it this morning, I called in to the radio show to point out the duplicity, but they wanted to stay on the "it's irresponsible to wish the president ill will," train.

See, you can't make a valid argument that the Broughton wants to assassinate Obama unless you concede the point that Obama is a radical black supremacist racist.

And what's weirder is that there is more than one pastor calling for Obama's death - here are three links to another one.

Our Diminishing Voices

Have you ever wondered why people are unhappy with government no matter who's in charge?

Here's a little thing I call the People's Voice Index. It's a simple formula that takes the number of US Representatives (fixed at 435 since 1913), divides that by the concurrent population, and multiplies the result by 1 million (so that it shows up in my spreadsheet).



It's pretty easy to see the downward trend, which represents our shrinking voice within our government. Mathematicians would said that our PVI is converging on zero. I would say that our country is converging on revolution.

While Bush was still in office, with the Democrat-controlled congress, it was still easy to delude ourselves that we had some semblance of representation. People yelling and screaming at town halls during this summer's congressional recess are just trying to be heard, but every year their volume gets turned down just a little bit more. With some representatives already saying they've hit the mute button, how long can we continue on this course?

Why Obamacare (still) scares me

The following is my script for a "live" blog entry I did as part of the Last Word event a few Sundays ago, before the town hall events started happening. My performance in world wasn't as good as this reads, and I subsequently forgot to post this, here. It's still very relevant.

Hello, all, and welcome to The Last Word In Politics at the GOP Cafe. Thanks to Wyatt, Sofie, Srooc, KC, and all the others that have made this forum possible, and continue to make it a success. That includes everyone that comes here and participates, most of all.

The format this evening is something a little new, I think - I expect it to be a "live blog post," if that makes sense. Yes, I will be working from a teleprompter. I think I can get through it in 10-12 minutes, if we save open discussion for post-game. I beg your indulgence on this - if it doesn't work, I'll not do it again. But, definitely let me know if I'm going too fast.

Tonight, I want to dwell on Universal Health Care some more. I blogged about it earlier in the week, and it continues to weigh very heavily on my mind.

I believe UHC is the most important measure we stay unified against. If we let Pelosi, Reid, and Obama get away with it, Universal Health Care will be the catalyst for the greatest limitation of freedom we have ever seen.

Put simply, once public money is paying for your health care, your health is public interest.

One very large example of this is the Master Settlement Agreement with big tobacco. The plaintiffs weren't smokers, the plaintiffs were government. The government had "standing," because it was paying for health care costs of some smokers.

Money coming out of the settlement is essentially a tax, paid annually in perpetuity to the general coffers of the states, as if it was just one big revenue stream. Who pays this tax? If you said the tobacco companies, you'ld be wrong. Smokers, the very people who suffered the most from the alleged conspiratorial nature of the tobacco companies, are paying more for their drug than ever before.

Was anybody helped? No.

This illustrates just one of the ways how dangerous UHC will be. The joke since the tobacco settlement has been Big Food would be next. You haven't seen anything, yet. If UHC passes, the joke will be on us. UHC promises much, much more than just higher taxes and higher cost of health care.

When your health becomes Public Interest, We The People will tell you what you can and cannot eat, when you can eat it, how much you will weigh, how often you see your doctor, which doctor you see, how much you pay to see the doctor, how much the doctor is allowed to make, how much you sleep every night, how often you have sex, who you can have sex with, what contraceptives you're allowed to use, what contaceptives you are required to use, if you must have an abortion because you already have 3 kids, and if you can have open heart surgery because your mom's sister's boyfriend's uncle (thrice removed) died because his chronic syncope attacked while he was hang-gliding.

We The People will tell you what clothes you must wear - we can't have any accidental skin cancer or frostbite cases, can we? Not when we can prevent such things. We The People will tell you what type of music you can listen too, and how loud. We The People will tell you what television you can watch. There will be no fireworks without sunglasses!

We have to be concerned with your mental health, as well. We'll tell you what books you can read, and what videogames you can play. We're even going to tell you that you can't keep a gun in your home (ask me about this later).

We're going to have regulated alcohol and tobacco intakes as part of a multi-year phase out of the legality of those substances. Liver failure and cancer will become histoire, (that's a thing of the past for those of you in Rio Linda).

We'll tell you all this, and more, because We are paying for your health care, so we have the right to tell you what to do. And, if you don't do it, we'll put you in prison for tampering with Our Property (your body).

And, when all of those fail to keep you healthy, we're going to start looking into your genetics. After all, it's only science, and it's in the public interest. If you have a fat gene, well, we're not going to allow you to have kids. If you are predisposed to diabetes, no kids. If you have a history of glaucoma, well, there's one more way we can reduce our health care burden - as Larry Thomas said, No Kids For You!

The road will be difficult, but at the end of the day, we'll be a much better nation for it. Imagine how much money we can save if we stop paying for people that are of no use to us. In fact, I'll go ahead and charge Reich Leader Philipp Bouhler and Dr. Karl Brandt "with the responsibility for expanding the authority of physicians, to be designated by name, to the end that patients considered incurable according to the best available human judgment of their state of health, can be granted a mercy death."

Yes, I know this all sounds alarmist and reactionary. It should. Universal Health Care is one of the most alarming ideas I've ever heard, precisely because UHC would make it so easy for us to reach the conclusions I have, above.

The Mises Institute, a sort of free market think tank, has a favorite saying borrowed from Virgil: tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito. Translated, that says do not give in to evil, but fight boldy against it. Here is one easy opportunity to stand loudly in opposition to that which the statists are bringing us - we must stand against it, and I believe we have a good shot at defeating it. But, if we do not defeat it loudly and decisively, we'll have to fight this same battle again, later.

Thank you for putting up with me. And now, the floor is open for discussion.

Liberal media saved!

The liberal media has been rescued from the abyss of the low-Obama news cycle by this morning's news of the passing of Senator Edward Moore Kennedy. Obama, by the way, couldn't make it through a full week with no press conference; he re-nominated Ben Bernanke to his post as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, even though Bernanke's current term doesn't expire for 6 months! Talk about manufacturing a reason to be on television! Obama's ego is getting a little too big for this country.

We'll be deaf from all of the unadulterated manlove the press has for Kennedy, and for his brothers, President John and Senator Robert by Sunday. In this way, his death has some meaning - it means that the mainstream media just got a little bitty stimulus package. There will be a veritable cottage industry producing documentaries, stories, opinions, and eulogies for the end of this historic Senator, the end of his father's political dynasty, the end of an era. I expect the first specials will be advertised as early as tonight. And, I'll bet that more than one of them uses some form of the phrase "it may be the end of an era, but it may also be a new beginning." How poignant.

Recently, Senator Kennedy made news by urging Deval Patrick, governor of Massachusetts, to break the law and appoint a new Senator as soon as possible, in a desperate attempt to aid in the passage of Obamacare before the citizens of Massachusetts have a chance to elect someone that might not be so amenable to Obamacare, perhaps even a Republican. It was said that this means that even in death, Kennedy would be helping his "lifelong goal," of a socialist state, err, umm, affordable and universally available health care.

The circumstances of Kennedy's illness and death were tragic. My condolences to his family and friends who have lost their loved one, and I sincerely mean that. But, I have to say that I'd much rather that his passing means the end of Obamacare, instead of the reinvigoration of Obamacare. In that vain, I urge the State of Massachusetts, and all her children, to please respect the rule of law - have your special election, and make it truly special by giving the United States something we haven't had in over 30 years: a Republican senator from Massachusetts.

Have some gas

Prepaid gas cards are seemingly all the rage, these days. A program we just used in my family was to pay $40 to get $50 worth of gas. It was a good deal for us, your mileage may vary (pun intended).

The primary gimmick in the prepaid gas card is offering you a discounted price today on a guaranteed future purchase. Nothing at all wrong with that. That's how a number of pieces of our economic system work - bonds, for instance. You pay some money now, and you get more money back at the end. The basic principle at work, here, is credit.

Let's look at the cost of that credit, in fairly realistic but completely made-up numbers:
If gas today is $2.79 per gallon, and I buy $40 worth: 14.34 gallons. A complete fillup for me. If I buy the $40 gas card today and fill up $50 of gas in two weeks, when the price is $2.89: 17.3 gallons - of course, I only have a 15 gallon tank, so that extra 3 gallons is not used: $8.67 remaining. So, that $8.67 gets deferred to yet another future purchase. Maybe then gas is $2.99. Maybe it's $2.59. What does it matter, you have to go back to that station, and chances are you'll fill up and use the $8.67 against your total bill. At $2.59, you get 3.34 gallons on the card, and you pay an additional $28.49 in cash for the remaining 11 gallons.

From a business perspective, this is a masterpiece. The business paid less than $10 to guarantee a month's worth of business totalling $68.49 - a net revenue gain to them of $58.49 if you weren't previously a customer of that company. The consumer gets what is essentially a 15% off coupon on a single gas purchase - gas they were going to buy, anyways.

Prepaid cards (and most gift cards) also take advantage of the 'we get to keep any unused funds after date X' principle. Many takers of the particular card we used will be paying $40 for $49.36 in gas, or whatever the leftovers on the card makes it not worth it to try and get such a little amount out of the pump. You may call that evil, I call it ingenious.

What I find most interesting about prepaid gas cards is that they are a method of increasing future demand.

What? How can that be? You've been told that the reason that gas prices are so high is because there's so much demand for so little product. If there's so much demand, why do the gasoline companies need a gimmick to get you to buy more gas?

Gas companies need higher demand for one reason alone - rampant greenthink is trying its hardest to put them out of business.

Consider Cash for Clunkers, the $1 billion, nay, $3 billion program to get people to trade up into higher mileage vehicles. While essentially, Cash for Clunkers was a tax cut (I'll explain in a moment), its primary purpose was environmental in nature - that is, get people out of their CO2-making gas guzzlers, and get them into little cars that they probably can't afford the loan on (it will probably only be 6 months before we start seeing repossession stories in the news, but that's a whole other post) which make slightly less CO2.

I did a little math on the Cash for Clunkers program. Did you know that state and federal governments will see an annual revenue decline of between $23.6 and $36.9 million - that's right, by driving a higher MPG car, you're paying less in federal and state excise taxes on gasoline. Those 650,000 to 850,000 people that got cars under the program are benficiaries of that effective tax cut, small as it is.

Now, for the business revenue cut: those Cash for Clunkers people will be responsible for an approximate decrease in revenue to Big Oil of between $145 and $226 million per year in lost gasoline sales.

That's pretty scary, but not a lot of money in the grand scheme of things. Since George W. Bush signed in EISA back in 2007, we're looking at having to do this on a national scale - by 2020, all new cars should be getting 35 mpg, significantly higher than the 27.5 new cars are supposed to get under current CAFE standards. Do the approximate math on this and we're looking at billions in revenue lost every year, both to the oil companies and to our state and federal governments.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't strive for more efficient cars, or develop alternative methods of powering them. There are two things you should take away from this, though. First, the environmental policy of the government is hurting the oil business and its own revenue stream. Second, just as business will look to make up the lost revenue by raising prices, so too will the government look to raise taxes.

Now, I know that all of this is being done with the best intentions. It's our biggest flaw - our best intentions always end up hurting people. The first sign that things were going wrong with our economy was back in 2005 - gas prices started going up at a level that nobody seemed comfortable with. Why? I don't think it was so much the hurricanes or the mideast crises as it was the change in CAFE standards for light trucks - the majority consumers of gasoline - after a 10 year level period.

CAFE standards for trucks went up again in 2006, 2007, 2008, and this year, and they're slated to be raised in 2010 and 2011. The higher gas prices each of these years meant less production of gas, which also means less production of diesel, the fuel of our shipping and transporation system. That caused shipping and transportation costs to increase, which cause product prices to increase, which in turn caused us to spend less and become more thrifty. That started meaning lower production in retail goods, and so on, and so on.

Housing bubble aside, Fanny, Freddy, and bank/credit crisis aside, I think it's pretty clear that environmentalism is equally complicit in the reduced stature of our economy right now. We're not all economists. Any economist that reads this drivel of mine will probably agree with me that I'm not an economist. But, as a consumer I can see the effects of this drive to get off fossil fuels in my wallet. As a businessman, I can see the effects of this drive to get off fossil fuels in my payroll.

Just remember this post as we head into the weeks and months ahead. President Obama has a very green agenda, and he will use that agenda as part of the Change We Need to crawl out of this mess. It's imperative that we remember that environmentalism helped put us here in the first place.

Quick thought on conservatism

To me, conservatism has always been synonymous with what today we're calling Originalism, which is a view associated with the interpretation of our Constitution - that it was intended to be a perfect document at the time of its writing, and that the best and most necessary political knowledge and wisdom can be derived from a solid reading of that document.

Well, not everything is perfect, I'll be the first to point out. The ideals and philosophies of those men that wrote our Constitution, however, in conjunction with the words that were written are the key to understanding the vision that our founders had. Their vision has outlasted every other government to date, and if we keep a sharp eye on Washington, it will continue to outlast every other form of government in perpetuity.

What started me thinking about this, today, was some people's notion that the Constitution is a living document. Certainly, I was taught that in grade school and again in high school. Chances are that you, dear reader, were taught the same thing. It is one of the most heinous and irresponsible things any teacher could teach in this country. For, if we are not men of our words, what are we? My literary self says that we are dogs, but even a dog has loyalty to its master.

If we allow ourselves the indulgence of second-guessing anything that was written in the Constitution or its amendments, we fall right into the trap of devaluing everything that the Constitution has, is or will be. At such a point, we have abandoned all notion of the rule of law, and substituted it with the felonious rule of men. For, if the words in the Constitution today are not what the founders "really meant," than the words you substitute or replace will subsequently be not what the founders "really meant.," if not only for the most obvious reason than the founders didn't write them.

Any change, either by amendment or via interpretation of the Supreme Court, poses the risk of being disastrous to us and to posterity. Any change through legislation has the potential to be just as damning. For over 230 years, we've worked very hard to ensure our success, and we've done quite well with only a minimal amount of change. Our financial situation right now is not the best, that's for sure. But, we've still weathered through more difficult storms.

Don't be lured by the promise of change - the promise of staying the same is the only thing that matters. Staying the same has taken us from being an upstart group of upset merchants to being the de facto leader of the entire world.

Hypocrisy Alert!

This has me wondering... if the press is to be fair, we should be hearing a lot of stories about the Obama girls the next few days. What they wore, if they played "doctor," with local children - you know, the sort of family-members-are-not-public-figures treatment that they gave to Sarah Palin and her children.

Universal Health Care - another hidden cost

What's the number? 50 million people, now, that are uninsured? If that's the number that we're using, then the bottom line price tag for Universal Health Care will be disgusting. See if you can follow my fuzzy math:

If the 50 million number is to be believed, that puts us at about 260 million people with health care. The average medical visits per person per year is almost 4, so we'll use 4. If the average visit uses 17 minutes of a physician's time, a physician can see about 140 patients a week, assuming that all (s)he does is see patients in a 40 hour work week. Now, we have just over 1 billion doctors visits per year, currently, and we have a little over 7 million doctors. I think you'll see that my math is almost right, so far.

Now, let's put those 50 million people into the mix. The argument is that these people can't get health care, now, so we'll assume that they are not included in the 1.1 billion doctor visits cited by the CDC, above. Working through all the math again, we see that in order to get those 50 million people to a doctor in the next year, we'll need to have a net gain of over 1.4 million new doctors.

Still with me?

I'm unsure exactly what the average doctor earns in a year, but let's say it's $150,000, well below Obama's rich line of $250,000. Where do you think the additional $212,500,000,000.00 in doctor salaries is going to come from?

Just making 1.4 million new doctors available is a giant undertaking, considering that it takes 4 years of med school on top of 4 years of college to become an intern. How are we going to train 1.4 million new quality medical practitioners in the next year? And, how many nurses does each doctor need? And, where are these 1.4 million new doctors going to practice their art? This is starting to sound really expensive.

These 50 million people can't afford to see the doctor, now, we're to believe. So, where is all this money going to come from? You guessed it - higher taxes.

It's interesting to see that the CBO thinks this is going to run around $200 billion per year. I get that number just by paying the doctors - the CBO's study takes into account a whole lot more than that. Obviously, this means that the 1.4 million doctors that don't exist, yet, will be making substantially less money under the proposed reform, or Congress just forgot to take into account the fact that you have to actually pay people to work. Either way, one thing is clear: the bottom line for health care reform is substantially higher than anyone is saying.

ABCNews is afraid for Obama's safety

I'm not sure which headline for the story is more damning: Obama's Safety: Hate Groups Thrive Amidst Town Hall Health Care Debates or Fear for Obama's Safety Grows as Hate Groups Thrive on Racial Backlash, but one thing is clear: This is despicable journalism. The authors are disgusting human beings who are concocting an outright lie in front of us. ABC should fire these people immediately, if not only because it took three whole people to come up with the several paragraphs.

The guy with the gun was carrying his gun legally. He was protesting legally. They didn't arrest the guy, they let him be, and THEY LET HIM KEEP HIS GUN. The reporters bring this guy up only as an effort to legitimize its hate story. It was a non-issue, except to those elitists living in the 8 states where open carry of a firearm is illegal.

This story is a smear designed to "connect" Rush Limbaugh with conservatives with militia groups with white supremacists. On top of that, they want us to believe there is an underground impending attempt on the President's life, and it must be conservatives' fault, because Limbaugh said "Nazi." Talk about leaps of logic!

We have a president who repeats racial rhetoric in policy speeches on live national television, proving that he has barely risen above the black supremacist stew he simmered in for the majority of his life. He is Racist In Chief, the absolute guilty party when it comes to stirring the pot of racism these last few months.

True conservatives would never advocate the murder or physical harm of any sitting president, or his/her family, or any other duly elected official (or, basically, anyone, outside of a self-defense scenario).

I want to be very clear on this point: I can think of no more damaging incident than an attempt on Obama's life. All the progressive socialism aside, the thing I fear most about Obama is if he is assassinated. If such a thing were to occur, the disarray this country would be thrown into would be far worse than the health care reform being passed with all its faults intact. I shudder to think of the inevitable riots followed by what would have to be widespread, if not national, martial law should such a terrible day come to pass.

And, for all the left's accusations about right wing rhetoric, it's left wing lies like this story which are really creating the danger. ABCNews, Walt Disney would puke blood if he knew what you're doing to his company. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

I've never seen anything like this

In all my years as a constituent, I've never seen anything like this - the majority party which controls, depending on your point of view, all three branches of our federal government is crumbling under popular pressure.

Sure, it's part and parcel of the Democrat party to demonize those that oppose them, so it's not at all surprising to hear Nancy Pelosi or Brian Baird suggest we are Nazis (brownshirts were the SA, a sort of unofficial, self-appointed police force that supported Hitler), or to hear Charles Rangel suggest that we are acting like the Ku Klux Klan.

Sure enough, as they said it, the proof comes out: The reality is Democrats are being characterized as Nazis for their health care plans, which many view as a dramatic increase in Socialist policy in the US. Nazi, by the way, is shorthand for Nationalsozialistische, which translates from German as National Socialist.

Obama's Office of Misinformation could be straight out of Orwellian prose. All of those bad things that George Bush was accused of doing with the Patriot Act? Meaningless in the face of Obama's snitch line (flag@whitehouse.gov), which is purely an executive action, it didn't come out of both houses of Congress.

Some of the things Democrats are denying are either reality, or based on earlier positions they have taken.

When you hear a Democrat say something like "in all my years in office, I've never seen anything like this," you would think that they might take the hint, that what they are trying is wildly unpopular, and the harder Congress and Obama push for it, the harder regular Americans are going to push back.

That's not the case, though. Now, we're unrepresentative? Now, we're un-American? Now, we're dangerous?

What we have to do now is stay the course. Keep asking tough questions. Keep protesting (in a civil manner). We have them on the run. They are literally scared of us, which isn't as good as being idealogically scared of us, but it may be enough to kill health care reform when Congress resumes next month. Don't give up. Don't give in. Don't back down.

MAJOR Obama gaffe

"If you look at it, UPS and FedEx are doing fine, it's the Post Office that's always having problems."

This is Obama's argument for a public option.

So, which is a bigger problem for Obama, the fact that UPS and FedEx are not in competition with the US Postal Service when it comes to actually delivering mail (since mail is a Constitutionally protected enterprise), or the fact that the USPS is always having problems?

Why we are angry about health care reform

We had some great conversation in the Cafe, last night, about the nature of representation. Following on those talks, I have come to some new understanding about the anger that we are all feeling with respect to our representatives.

I said before that it would be a tactical error to try and meet the Democrats at the bargaining table with health care reform. I stand by that. The reality is that conservatives don't want health care reform. We do want quality, affordable health care, and the path to that is through deregulation and free market competition. We've made the mistake of calling this "reform."

Democrats have seized on that mistake. Our "reform," is exactly the opposite of the reform the Democrats are proposing, which is to constrict the market and impose more regulation and bureaucracy.

Here's my analogy: If conservatives and liberals wanted to build a bridge, but we disagreed on how to build the bridge, at the end of the day, there would be a bridge built, because we had a common goal. This is what Democrats are telling us is the nature of the health care reform debate. Democrats want a great big bridge, and they think we do, too.

But, conservatives don't want any bridge. They are big, they can be unsightly, they are costly to maintain, and they are prone to collapse from hurricanes, earthquakes, and other foreseeable disasters. Our solution is boats, but almost all the boats right now are either ferries or ocean liners. We want affordable boats, a lot of boats, sailboats, rowboats, and motorboats, and maybe some will be ferries, and some will be personal watercraft, and there will be some yachts, and maybe an ocean liner or two. You can choose what boat you want, based on your ability to pay for it. You can own your boat, or you can rent one when you need it, or you can pay to ride on one of the ferries or ocean liners. You can navigate yourself to the other side, or you can pay somebody to do it for you. You can sight-see on the way, maybe even do a little fishing, swimming, or diving. If the boat in front of you is going too slow, you can go around it. Every now and then, a boat may sink, but the other boaters passing by will be able to help the survivors out of the water.

If Democrats put up the bridge, it will start to get in the way of the boats. At first, you can keep your boat if you already have one, but finally the people without boats will be able to cross the water. This sounds great, but as the years wear on, and the cost of maintaining the bridge goes up, more people will be forced to use the bridge so they can generate more revenue to keep it operational. They'll take your boat away, not by force, but by driving the boat-maintenance market out of business to combat pollution and global warming some more. To accommodate all the people that need to cross the water, the bridge will have to get bigger and bigger, and eventually we'll all have to just use the bridge. If the bridge collapses, nobody can cross the water until it's repaired or rebuilt. Democrats may think that's good enough, but some of us really enjoy being on the water.

The nature of our anger stems from the fact that solution we want is precluded by the solution the Democrats want. There is no room for bargaining, no room for compromise. And, that means that they are not representing us. In order to represent us, we'd have to agree on building the bridge, and they would have to make sure that we got our bridge, even if it wasn't exactly how we wanted it to be built.

Democrats see the health care problem as a lack of a bridge. Conservatives see the problem as boats being too large and expensive. We're angry because we are telling them to lower the cost of boating, and they're saying the cost of boating will eventually be zero once they're done building the bridge. Boating will become illegal, but that won't matter because the bridge will have displaced all the water.

Town hall meetings - week 1

Democrats are treading on thin ice, I think. There are so many opponents of health care reform making so much noise, and Democrats are really refusing to listen. The situation is becoming dangerous.

Represent us:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8UjY3YDlwA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-Bpshk5nX0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-gTJqU7VoU&feature=response_watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn71-wNccsw&NR=1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOLs7Cybnqw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBa3dSGt0aE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXzJxKVJQds

How insulting: I guess we can't be serious, because we dress too nice? Well, then, explain yourself or any of your colleagues, or the President. Should you all be taken seriously?

HUNDREDS of people showed up, but only 20 were there in support of health care reform?
What does that tell you?

Who do they represent? Bi-partisan my ass. You can't participate in the discussion unless you agree:
"'There seems to be an organized Republican effort to have people come to a Democrat's town meeting and dominate the discussions,' Green said."

Now, you can't protest except in your own district! What about Cindy Sheehan? That once-media darling camped outside of Crawford for weeks - that's more than an hour's drive from California, by the way. She was actually encouraged by Democrats and the media, but it's OK to assume that somebody that drove an hour to protest was part of a concerted Republican effort?

What about this concerted effort stuff, anyway? What if it is all Organized at the Community level by concerned citizens? I guess that's not the Change Democrats were looking for. When Democrats do it, it's called a grass roots effort. When Republicans do it, it's called Rent-A-Mob? These people make me sick.

Let the malignment begin

This is nice... angry citizens who don't want the health care reform that's being rammed down their throats are noisy mobs; partisan hacks, rabble, or right-wing extremists affiliated with anti-tax “tea parties.”

Maybe we're angry because we're not even sure which of the 620 health care reform bills to oppose?

Liberals "know," that no person that was thinking correctly could possibly not want health care reform. After all, our system is "broken." Inevitably, the sanity and morality of those who stand in opposition to health care reform is being called into question.

But the real reason for their discontent is that our "representation," refuses to listen to us. Screaming is about the only avenue we have left. I twice have petitioned my representative to not go forward with this reform; both times, the response I received made it evident that he (or his staff) failed to even read my letter. They saw my letters concerned health care, dumped me into the "for," bucket, and I got responses thanking me for helping support the way forward. It's no wonder there have been multiple demonstrations at his office. Maybe I'll take part in the next one.

It's interesting to note that my district is 2/3 liberal. I know several personally that are sickened by the thought of this health care reform, especially on top of Stimulus, Mortgage, Tobacco, and a slew of other pet project legislation that is now public law.

So, just who are our representatives claiming to represent?

Obama: Racist in Chief

Astounding. Shortly after Obama tells us that the problem with the current health care system is that MDs are fleecing patients instead of doing what's best for their health, Obama - to all outward appearances - goes way off script to address his friend's recent arrest in Boston.

After acknowledging his bias because Henry Louis Gates Jr. is a friend, Obama said, "... what I think we know separate and apart from this incident -- is that there is a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately, and that's just a fact."

First of all, if this was "separate and apart from this incident," why bring it up?

Second, as the Chief Executive of our nation, that's about the most obnoxious and irresponsible thing he could have said. It sounds like he's directing officers to arrest more white people, and stop arresting so many blacks and latinos. Not only would this policy be a travesty of justice, and insulting to the founding principles of America, but it directly undermines the ability of police to do their jobs.

Worst of all, though, is that Obama has built a reputation for calculated, orchestrated interaction with the media. Because of this reputation, it is difficult to believe that the question was not a plant. Because of this reputation, it is difficult to believe that his answer was not scripted and rehearsed. In other words, he did not misspeak - his answer belies his true feelings on race and equality.

When you add those together, you start to get a sense that we should be very, very afraid of Obama and what he represents. Obama is not in office to be a good president, or to make the world a more peaceful place, or anything that would be remotely positive. Obama is in office to exact revenge on white people.

If the truth were anything less than that, his answer would have been different. He would have said how it's important that we not jump to conclusions before the facts are known. He would have said that it's imperative that we do not let our feelings about race impact the just application of law. At the very least, he could have just refused to answer the question.

Instead, Obama decided to echo the same racial rhetoric that Gates was screaming as he was taken into custody. If we're to accept that Obama is one of the smartest and brightest among us, then we must also conclude that he meant to stoke the flames of racial inequality higher, especially considering his "separate and apart from this incident," qualifier.

Go Drudge!

Hold their feet to the fire!

Universal Health Care and our death wish?

Something about this rubs me wrong (full story). Certainly, it's troubling that we are going to have such a large population eligible for (and most certainly on) Social Security benefits for so long. But, that's not primarily where I'm troubled.

Here's my concern:

"A recent Pew Research Center poll of 2,969 adults found that Americans, on average, would like to live to 89; the current life span is 78. One in five people would like to live past 90, while 8 percent would like to pass the century mark."

I went looking for the Pew report and found it. The actual question is "If you had your choice, how long would you like to live? That is, until what age? (READ IF NECESSARY: Just your
best guess is fine.)" It's an open-ended question, allowing the respondents to choose their target age. I read through the aggregate data, and, it hit me.

It's a little fuzzy because the aggregates are so large, but I'm guessing somewhere between 10 and 20% of people over the age of 65 want to die in the next several years - that is, before 2013 - including an amusing handful that wish they had already expired.

Assuming these people are voters, and recognizing that baby boomers are starting to cross into this demographic, the real problem becomes evident. We have a growing segment of our population that can explain away their support for Social Security, Medicare, and universal health care by saying, "what does it matter, I'll be dead in a few years."

Census estimates that we currently have 36 million people over the age of 65. In ten years, that number will nearly double to 62 million, outpacing the total growth of the population (2010 projection is 13%, 2020 projection is 18%). As life expectancy continues to increase, the total taxpayer burden for social programs will, as well.

And, as the "old" segment of America grows, so will that marginal number who want benefits but are hoping to die pretty quick, too. These voters, apparently unburdened with a conscience, will become more and more of a problem for those of us who stand against socialism. As they already number in the millions, by my fuzzy math, they are poised to have enough of a representation in Congress to affect future legislation.

Why we must defeat Universal Health Care loudly and decisively now is precisely because of these marginal voters. In four or eight or ten years, when the idea rears its ugly head again, we can't let ourselves be as close to its reality as we are right now.

They're putting the Universal in Health Care

If the details in this story are correct, we need to rally everyone against Congressional Democrats right now. When politicians say everyone has the right to health care, they apparently mean everyone has health care.

Your freedom disappears under this bill. You will not be able to choose to not have health care as an individual, and you will not be able to choose to not provide health care as an employer.

Employers will have to pay 8% of employees' wages to government or else provide private health care. Employers will lower compensation to offset the cost of this, no doubt - either way, your paycheck will get smaller.

Individuals will be charged 2.5% of their incomes if they do not take health insurance.

The spin is that everyone will finally have the right to health care. The reality is that everyone will be losing the right to not have health care.

If this passes, we're only one step away from government-mandated doctor visits. Government will have the power to compel you to visit the doctor of its choice on its time line.

This is just disgusting, and we must stop it.

Water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink

Have you ever taken just five minutes to contemplate bottled water? Even if you have, I ask that you indulge me for the next five, because I'll bet you've never thought about water quite like this.

One of the most profound failures of government is illustrated through the astounding success of the water purification industry - filters, purifiers, bottled water, etc. People don't trust the water that their government puts in their tap. This one mistrust is so large that we don't even see it without me calling attention to the phenomenon, but that's exactly what it is - people don't trust the water in their pipes for consumption.

This is not a taste issue, it's a trust issue. The proof is that we have a bigger government entity, the EPA, that sends us annual water quality reports which tell us exactly how much we should (mis)trust our municipalities. How scary is that? We need a big government organization to continually attempt to convince us to trust our smaller government organizations. And does it work? Nope.

But, it's heartening to see that the people, in their mistrust, turned to the only place they could get relief from government: business. Capitalism wins, government loses. Big Water is a multi-billion dollar industry primarily because people don't trust their government.

Now, how many liberals do you know that will only drink bottled water, but are unconditionally committed to universal health care? There's a winning argument against universal health care. Use it wisely.

July 4, 1776

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

****************************************************************

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

American Independence Revisited

As we head into the Holiday weekend, I thought it worth studying the reasons for American independence from Britain, rather than just mildly celebrating this day which seems to have little meaning outside of barbecues, beer, and small explosives.

Certainly, most in this audience are familiar with the fact that the American Colonies were governed by the King and the British Parliament. It's easy for those of us who are freedom-oriented conservatives to reject any imposition of authority. But, that wasn't the original problem.

The first problem the colonists faced were the Writs of Assistance - basically, search warrants that violated privacy and property rights of the colonists. Compare and contrast to today's TSA airport screenings, or the door-to-door gunhunting that the ATF is engaged in currently in Houston, Texas. Compare that to some of the questions on the forthcoming decennial census.

Next was the taxation-without-representation. Far from the last straw on the camel's back, a series of crippling taxes which threatened to destroy what little wealth and prosperity the colonists had achieved were levied by Parliament. Compare this to the way American wealth has been destroyed in the last 9 months, and all of the crippling taxes that we know are merely around the corner. Compare this to the fact that we have a mere fraction of the representation guaranteed us in the original, unaltered Constitution, or even in the properly-executed language of the yet-to-be-ratified Article The First, 1 of the 2 Amendments that did not become the Bill of Rights.

Finally, there were the Intolerable Acts - four new laws by Parliament that would be seen by any right-thinking person as an act of war. The Massachusetts Government Act, which replace the elected government and prevented assembly (free speech); the Administration of Justice Act, which took away the people's ability to try their local officials for crimes; the Boston Port Act, which was a military blockade of Boston designed to starve Boston into submission (how is that not an act of war?); and, finally, the Quartering act, which allowed governors still loyal to the King to take over private residences to use as barracks.

Why, yes, I am suggesting that most of the reasons the colonists had for revolution apply to us, today. I'm not advocating a violent revolution, however, nor the formation of a new country. Ask yourself, though: how long will it be before our Congress passes our Intolerable Acts? Has it happened already? If not, I fear it's going to happen soon.

As we head into July 4, 2009, and we scurry off to our barbecues, beer, and small explosives, let's really honor what those early Americans did for us. Take the time to talk to your families and friends. Remind them that the things that Congress and Obama are doing are so close to what Parliament and the King did to the colonists. Ask them how far they think is too far. Tell them how far you think is too far. Then, let's set the next American Revolution for November 2, 2010.

Happy 4th,

Asha Vultee

(un)Dear Congress

Ladies and Gentlemen of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives:

We, The People, hold you in Contempt. You have betrayed our trust and confidence for too long.

It is impossible to refrain from the use of profanity, because you need to hear the desperation in Our voices as we cry these four words at you:

Read the fucking bill!

Each Yea for a bill that you have not read and understood - in its entirety - places us all in jeopardy.

We find that you are either unwilling or unable to spend an appropriate amount of time considering each item that you pass into Law. Accordingly, the following short Amendments to the Constitution are proposed.

Article the first. No bill or measure for consideration, before either Chamber of Congress, may exceed in length an article of writing that a Person of average intellect and education can read and fully comprehend in a single sitting. No measure in its final form as presented to the President for passage may exceed this length.

Article the second. Regarding any method of affixing unrelated legislation or appropriation to a bill or measure under consideration, before either Chamber of Congress, as an effort to ensure or prevent passage of either the affixed measure or the primary measure: Such action is forthwith viewed as an attempt to subvert the Will of The People, and is prohibited.

Article the third. No two measures, being substantially unrelated, may be voted or acted upon simultaneously in any phase of the legislative process.

Begin the important work of passing these Amendments into law, or we will elect someone who will. You have been warned.

Regards,
The People of the United States (Your Boss)

The conservative recession is over

I knew this day would come, and it's arrived sooner than I thought. Even though just this morning we're seeing ABC News quite literally become the propaganda wing of Barack Obama's White House, backlash against Obama and his Democrats is alive and growing quickly.

In the last week, we've been treated to Bill Maher's wish that Obama was more like George W. Bush, and Letterman's repeated apologies for making an off-color joke about Sarah Palin's daughter. And, I caught this little nugget from MSNBC , which accuses Obama of continuing Bush's policies while implicitly calling Obama a liar.

While you might argue that those instances were simply the left wishing that Obama was further left, it's hard to ignore these next items. Maybe you didn't hear that the United Kingdom is a little upset with us over the transfer of four detainees from Guantanamo to Bermuda. Israel is more than a little pissed since Obama is trying to railroad Israel into the nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. And, Obama's mouthing off about a "robust debate," has now backed us into a corner with respect to Iran.

Have you read or heard that conservates and moderates account for 75% of the US population. That is truly good news, despite Gallup's attempt to dilute the truth by including liberals in the moderate count. With all the bad press that Obama's getting, it's beginning to look like Conservatism will make significant gains on the congressional seating chart next year.

Accordingly, I declare that the conservative recession is now over. But, it's not at all downhill, from here. We need to stand strong and continue to loudly and vehemently object to every single agenda item coming out of the White House and the disproportionately liberal congress. They are in a fight to keep their jobs - we can't let them win. Prepare yourselves accordingly - the fight against Universal Health Care started yesterday, and ABC News, in a move that would make Walt Disney puke blood, has already chosen its side in the fight - against us.

Mr. President, I might be rabid

Rabies. Most people agree that rabies is a bad thing. It is usually fatal. With non-human animals, the surest and simplest route is to put the suspected-rabies-infested animal out of its misery before it has the chance to spread the disease to others. An estimated 1 human dies from rabies every 24 hours. That's pretty serious.

If your dog was suspected of having rabies, your vet may advise you to put the dog down because if the dog licks you in your face while you're asleep, there's a chance you could be dead before a positive diagnosis of rabies on your dog is achieved. Not even Ingrid Newkirk would argue with that logic because, really, it comes down to survival of you (and your children, family, friends, etc.) or the dog. How much you love the dog really doesn't enter into the decision once rabies becomes a suspect.

So, what is it about rabies that deserves my attention in this conservative political forum?

If you guessed that I'm writing about Muslim extremists, you win the prize. Actually, I want to pause right there. The people I have in mind are not extremists - they are idealogues with fantastically terrible ideas. We used to call them terrorists, but I guess you can't call a spade a spade, anymore.

To compare, serial killers aren't Murder Extremists - they're just murderers, not unlike the guy that killed his wife because his dinner was cold. Adding the extreme modifier to Muslim is the equivalent of saying that all Muslims are bad, but we tolerate the ones that don't actually kill in Allah's name. We know that's not true, so let's get rid of the extremist tag, please - show some respect for the millions of good Muslims.

The President of these United States did just the opposite in his speech yesterday morning. By apologizing to the Muslim world at large for our actions and attitudes in the wake of 9/11, he made us out to be racist Muslim-hating rabid dogs, while at the same time insulting the intelligence of the entire Muslim world by suggesting they thought we adopted a mission to kill all Muslims because of 9/11.

Bad Muslims, you know, the Taliban, Al Qaeda, other unnamed terrorist murdering bastards - they do look at us as a rabid dog. They're not looking for amends, they don't want Obama's apologies. In their mind, we are the rabid dog that just bit their infant daughter. We can lick their feet all we want, it doesn't change the cold and simple fact that THEY FEEL OBLIGED TO KILL US. Now, thanks to President Obama, the message that Bad Muslims have been trying to communicate to the rest of the Muslim world - that we're rabid dogs that need to be put down - that message was silently echoed by Obama.

Hey, Mr. President, you can apologize until you're impeached (which, incidentally, is #6 on my list of top 10 things that will probably not happen); it doesn't change the fact that THEY FEEL OBLIGED TO KILL US. The only way to defeat their mentality is to survive it. And, before you go drawing parallels to Mutually Assured Destruction, I need to remind you that Muslim terrorists ARE CONTINUALLY AND UNRELENTLESSLY TRYING TO KILL US (or, didn't you read the 9/11 Commission Report?).

If you want to be a truly good President, if you want to actually earn the adulation that you have already been bronzed in, you need to follow this very simple plan to deal with terrorists:

1) Kill the bastards first - because it's only a matter of time before they kill us, or so they claim

Hugging them, metaphorically or otherwise, is not going to work. It merely gives those that want to kill us an opening to drive a knife into our belly.

Mr. Obama, you can't earn respect by prostrating yourself or your country. Respect is earned through the righteous and judicious application of force (see a future post for a thorough definition of force). Period.

What you have done with this speech, Mr. Obama, is encouraged a relationship of servitude between the USA and the Muslim world, with Muslims as the master. Rest assured that terrorists (and any enterprising Muslims that have a better sense of market economies than you) will take advantage of your astounding projection of our weakness.

What you have done with this speech, Mr. Obama, is demonstrate how horribly inept at foreign relations you are. Our enemies hated Bush, but they are laughing at you. Go ahead, bask in the warm waves of applause from people that you don't even represent.

What you have done with this speech, Mr. Obama, is tell the world that the USA is a problem for Muslims, that we overreacted and were emotional and cranky, and unjustly injured people, not unlike a rabid dog.

Thank you so much for continuing to endanger my life and livelihood.

Discussion Series: Thomas Paine's "Common Sense"

The five-part series began last Thursday, May 7, and will continue tonight and at least the next three Wednesdays:

• May 13--Part 2, "Of Monarchy and Hereditary Succession" (text, audio)


• May 20--Part 3, "Thoughts on the Present State of American Affairs" (text, audio)


• May 27--Part 4, "Of the Present Ability of America: with some Miscellaneous Reflections" (text, audio)


• June 3--Part 5, "Appendix to the Third Edition" (text, audio)

All discussions will be held at the GOP Cafe in Second Life at 6:00 p.m. SLT/PDT.

Video: "GOP Cafe Tea Party"

Video: "GOP Cafe Tea Party"

Tax Day Tea Party 2009 in Second Life

Rally, videos, discussion
6:00 p.m. SLT/PDT
GOP Cafe in Second Life
Follow the arrows or directions to the dock.
Free tea party signs will be available.

Thursday Night Discussion at GOP Cafe: Gathering Ammunition on Global Warming

Thurs., Mar. 5
7:30 p.m. SLT/PST
GOP Cafe in Second Life
to help members gather ammunition to support conservative principles and Republican issues in discussions with our political opponents

Understanding the Stimulus plan

I got this in an email and thought it was worth sharing.

Shortly after class, an economics student approaches his economics professor and said, "I don't understand this stimulus bill. Can you explain it to me?" The professor replied, "I don't have any time to explain it at my office, but if you come to my house Saturday and help me with my weekend project, I'll be glad to explain it to you." The student agreed. On Saturday, the student showed up at the professor's house. The professor stated that the weekend project involved his backyard pool.
They both went out back to the pool and the professor handed the student a bucket. Demonstrating with his own bucket, the professor said, "First, go over to the deep end, and fill your bucket with as much water as you can." The student did as he was instructed. The professor then continued, "Follow me over to the shallow end, and then dump all the water from your bucket into it."

The student was naturally confused, but did as he was told. The professor then explained they were going to do this many more times, and began walking back to the deep end of the pool. The confused student asked, "Excuse me, but why are we doing this?" The professor matter-of-factly stated that he was trying to make the shallow end much deeper.

The student didn't think the economics professor was serious, but figured that he would find out the real story soon enough. However, after the 6th trip between the shallow end and the deep end, the student began to become worried that his economics professor had gone mad. The student finally replied, "All we're doing is wasting valuable time and effort on unproductive pursuits. Even worse, when this process is all over, everything will be at the same level it was before, so all you'll really have accomplished is the destruction of what could have been truly productive action!" The professor put down his bucket and replied with a smile, "Congratulations. You now understand the stimulus bill."