Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Obama
Considering that Barack Obama has won the election, and is now our President elect, I guess he’s fair game to conservative writers, and to this ol’ redneck it’s open season with no bag limit! Understand that I have nothing against Mr. Obama personally, but I am just a wee bit upset by the political agenda he represents and what I am very much afraid is going to happen to my country. Being a life long American citizen, and after spending fifteen years in the Armed Forces of the United States (in a long cold war and one fairly hot one), I think I have earned the right to speak my piece! Mr. Obama is the soon to be commander-in-chief of the US armed forces, and were I still in uniform it’s quite possible that I would have to face a courts-martial for saying what I truly think about this turn of events. (That’s also the reason I didn’t have much to say about Bill Clinton while he was busily pushing a gay agenda on the military, and chasing young ladies around the Oval Office.)
Philip J. Berg, the lawyer who filed suit challenging Obama’s qualifications to serve as President of the United States, announced that Obama and the DNC had filed a Joint Motion for Protective Order to Stay Discovery Pending a Decision on the Motion to Dismiss filed on 09/24/08. The case is Berg v. Obama, No. 08-cv-04083. Obama cannot produce a certified copy of his “Vault” [original long version] Birth Certificate from Hawaii, Berg claims, because it does not exist. Nor can he produce a Certificate of Citizenship that he would have received when he returned from Indonesia, because it would indicate that Obama was “naturalized” and again not legally qualified to be President. Personally I would think that the DNC had gone through an extensive process of checking all parts of Mr. Obama’s qualifications long before the convention, particularly so considering his background. Then to, with all the pre-convention hate and mudslinging, I would be very surprised if the Hillary camp had not done the same! But stranger things have happened I guess. Given the long and rather convoluted legal process in this country, I’d hazard a guess that Mr. Obama will be inaugurated well before the case is finally settled, one way or another. If the courts determine that he is a qualified citizen he will continue to serve his term. If on the other hand it’s determined that he is not qualified, we’ll have “President Bidden”, and Vice President Pelosi! And that is another scary proposition!
Modern politics is about the manipulation of people’s emotions through words and pictures, along with a good many promises that you have no intention of keeping. The Obama campaign was far better at making vague promises than was the McCain effort. Face it; Mr. Obama speaks quite well and convincingly in public, he just doesn’t actually say anything besides a call for “change”, without specifying just what that change is going to be! Obama’s rhetoric made many moderates and our political left feel like their lives had meaning only if they voted for him. I really don’t know how he pulled that off, but he did. The campaign also indicates that the cult of political personality planted by FDR has taken solid root in our political left. When people have faith in an individual rather than faith in ideas, we’re on the slippery slope to tyranny. We’re supposed to be a nation of laws, where equality under the law, opportunity, and the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution command our loyalty, not the charismatic personality of any individual. Probably the best example of a personality cult in recent times is Adolf Hitler and the “Führerprinzip” in a politically and economically troubled Germany of the 1920's.
Why do we have so much faith in politics and ‘transcendent’ men like Obama nowadays? It’s because people have lost faith in the institutions which used to give their life meaning and purpose, things like family, community, or the local church. All those have been lost because they’ve become federalized, with Big Government as the all knowing authority. This unhappy situation has been slowly developed by people who believe in the use of government power to force their moral outlook on the rest of the world. A lot of people are going to be highly disappointed when they discover that this particular moral outlook is false. High sounding political oratory might make you feel good for a while, in the way you feel when your favorite ball team wins the championship, but by the next morning you’ll find that your life is still there, with all its challenges, fears, and opportunities. Those fine sounding words don’t change anything, Obama certainly can’t live your life for you, he can’t pay your mortgage, gas up the car, make you feel better about a distasteful job, or improve your relationship with wife and kids.
A bunch of liberals now have the idea to send out warm fuzzy messages to conservatives about how they love us and we can all work together, whatever that means. We’ve had years of these people denouncing their own country and it’s elected leaders, these leftists with apparently no understanding of reality, who blindly follow the vague utopian dreams of fuzzy minded intellectuals, who paint everyone who believes differently as mindlessly evil. While American soldiers fought and died in Vietnam, and now in the mid-east, all they cared about was political posturing. But now they get someone they like elected president so let’s all conveniently forget that their recent actions have been somewhat reminiscent of the hate mongering of the 1850’s! Yes, as if the next time something doesn’t go their way they won’t once again revert to their childish ways. Nor can they even tell us what their goals are! If they were to clearly say what they mean, it would scare even them. “Change” is the watchword of the mob’s new favorite, yet they really have no real idea of how much “change” they’re going to be get…
We might well remember that Mr. Obama is already calling for some sort of “National Service” corps that sounds somewhat like a free labor force for the government. He’s also calling for a quasi-military “National Police Force” reminiscent of Hitler’s Gestapo. Now I understand that Mr. Obama is also calling for a “Federal Militia” to assist the new National Police. Humm, does that sound somewhat like the Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel) being aided and abetted by the Brown shirts? The Nazi’s were an extremely liberal political party when they quite legally came to power in 1933, and they did a good many admirable things for Germany and for the German people. However, once they had completely assumed power…
Just where is our new liberal government planning to take us, and where are they getting their ideas from?
Monday, November 17, 2008
Aftermath
Reading a wide assortment of news reports over the last few days, it’s rather sickening to see how the remnants of the Republican Party appear to be coming apart at the seams. The accusations and recriminations are flowing freely, with everyone blaming everyone else for the disastrous loss to the loony left! We have the McCain camp blaming the Palin camp for the election day loss, to which the Palin camp is naturally taking great umbrage. The leadership seems to be in a knife fight over who will take over, and as usual nearly everybody’s mad at the “knuckle dragging” religious right conservatives for some reason or other. The left wing media is gloatingly telling all and sundry about the mistakes, real or imaginary, made by the Republicans while nobody seems to be considering that the policies of the last few years just might have been a major “turn-off” to the American voters! Unfortunately the Democrats have the mistaken idea that their winning of both houses of Congress and the White House is a mandate to push their ideas of socialized medicine, big government, “redistributing” the nations’ wealth, along with massive tax and spend social policies. Personally I don’t think that is what American voters want to at all, and the voting numbers can hardly be considered a democratic landslide. However, we’ll see over the next couple of years just how far loony left agenda can fly.
In the meantime the Republicans, and particularly the moderates, are going to be busily contemplating “what happened”, and I would hope planning a major comeback. But if they plan to be more than also-rans in the next national election, somebody had better do some serious thinking about policies, and even what the Republican Party really stands for! Whenever the Democrats lose a presidential election they blame it on the personal qualities of their candidate. This blame-the-messenger idea allows them to conclude that their message was fine, that the American people are calling for higher taxes, big government, a defeatist foreign policy, and gay marriage. I would hope that the GOP can in the next few days rise above such self disillusionment, and that they don't blame McCain the messenger in place of a seriously flawed message. After all, how could Republicans attack the Democratic policies when the GOP said essentially the same, more spending (which means more taxes), more government, a vague tax cut sometime in the future, no way out of a seemingly endless low-intensity war in the Mid-east, no real plan to solve our economic woes, nothing to solve the porous border and illegal alien problems, no response to wild climate change accusations, and of course no idea of what to do about the continued exodus of American jobs to other countries. Both campaigns had essentially the same universal answer of “throwing more money at the problem”, naturally without mentioning where that money’s supposed to come from. Remember the term “Republicrats”? What happened to the idea of political parties offering us a choice? Mr. McCain’s claim to being a “maverick” was apparently based on his voting with the Democrats in the 10% of the time he wasn’t voting with President Bush. In our modern era many people vote for what they perceive as being the lesser of two evils and it would appear that President-elect Obama was seen as being the lesser evil.
The left has continuously attacked the religious right as being everything from “out of date” to “knuckle dragging rednecks”, and then, to make matters even worse the Republican “neoconservatives” did much the same along with expounding their free spending big government agenda. They pushed the “Patriot Act” through congress, which alienated nearly everybody other than the neo-con’s. Now they continue defending their assault on our freedoms by claiming it a necessary “tool” to protect us from whatever threat can be hurriedly dreamed up by homeland security. Nor do I expect anyone, Republicans or Democrats, to repeal this act as it is just far too handy a device for whomever might want to exercise complete control over the American public. Is it any wonder that half the Republican Party is mad at the other half?! About the only way they’re going to heal that rift is by finding another Barry Goldwater to run under the Republican banner in 2012! (Well, perhaps another Ronald Reagan.)
The exodus of American jobs going overseas could be controlled simply by placing a tremendously high tariff on products being imported from overseas. That might slow down the stampede towards globalization as well. Unfortunately that would also antagonize the free trade people, big business concerns that already own our congress, and of course the remainder of the industrialized world. I suppose that wouldn’t really matter though, as most of ‘em are already mad at us.
We have a new president-elect as of November 4th. Perhaps, in the spirit of bipartisanship and to show that there are no hard feelings, we should show the Democrats and their new president the same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president. Of course that would do little more than continue the hate and divisiveness in this country, and that is something we don’t need if we’re going to remain a world power.
Since Barack Obama won the election we can be sure of one thing... that he will lead the largest expansion of the government's role in the economy since the “New Deal”. This "New New Deal," as some Democrats are calling it, will probably have the same result as the last one, turning a rather painful recession into a long and miserable depression that will see a further erosion of our rather shaky standard of living. Will that set the stage for a GOP president in 2012? Unlikely, as President-to-be Obama will play the hard times into a second term, in the same way FDR did… by blaming everything that happens on his predecessors. The worse things get, the more it will be blamed on "eight years of Republican deregulation, tax cuts and greed", obviously requiring even more government intervention to control. The Liberal media will back that up of course.
About the only good thing that came from the McCain campaign is that he placed Sarah Palin on the national political stage. She might well find herself leading a completely new Conservative movement. Starting tomorrow, if not sooner.
In the meantime the Republicans, and particularly the moderates, are going to be busily contemplating “what happened”, and I would hope planning a major comeback. But if they plan to be more than also-rans in the next national election, somebody had better do some serious thinking about policies, and even what the Republican Party really stands for! Whenever the Democrats lose a presidential election they blame it on the personal qualities of their candidate. This blame-the-messenger idea allows them to conclude that their message was fine, that the American people are calling for higher taxes, big government, a defeatist foreign policy, and gay marriage. I would hope that the GOP can in the next few days rise above such self disillusionment, and that they don't blame McCain the messenger in place of a seriously flawed message. After all, how could Republicans attack the Democratic policies when the GOP said essentially the same, more spending (which means more taxes), more government, a vague tax cut sometime in the future, no way out of a seemingly endless low-intensity war in the Mid-east, no real plan to solve our economic woes, nothing to solve the porous border and illegal alien problems, no response to wild climate change accusations, and of course no idea of what to do about the continued exodus of American jobs to other countries. Both campaigns had essentially the same universal answer of “throwing more money at the problem”, naturally without mentioning where that money’s supposed to come from. Remember the term “Republicrats”? What happened to the idea of political parties offering us a choice? Mr. McCain’s claim to being a “maverick” was apparently based on his voting with the Democrats in the 10% of the time he wasn’t voting with President Bush. In our modern era many people vote for what they perceive as being the lesser of two evils and it would appear that President-elect Obama was seen as being the lesser evil.
The left has continuously attacked the religious right as being everything from “out of date” to “knuckle dragging rednecks”, and then, to make matters even worse the Republican “neoconservatives” did much the same along with expounding their free spending big government agenda. They pushed the “Patriot Act” through congress, which alienated nearly everybody other than the neo-con’s. Now they continue defending their assault on our freedoms by claiming it a necessary “tool” to protect us from whatever threat can be hurriedly dreamed up by homeland security. Nor do I expect anyone, Republicans or Democrats, to repeal this act as it is just far too handy a device for whomever might want to exercise complete control over the American public. Is it any wonder that half the Republican Party is mad at the other half?! About the only way they’re going to heal that rift is by finding another Barry Goldwater to run under the Republican banner in 2012! (Well, perhaps another Ronald Reagan.)
The exodus of American jobs going overseas could be controlled simply by placing a tremendously high tariff on products being imported from overseas. That might slow down the stampede towards globalization as well. Unfortunately that would also antagonize the free trade people, big business concerns that already own our congress, and of course the remainder of the industrialized world. I suppose that wouldn’t really matter though, as most of ‘em are already mad at us.
We have a new president-elect as of November 4th. Perhaps, in the spirit of bipartisanship and to show that there are no hard feelings, we should show the Democrats and their new president the same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president. Of course that would do little more than continue the hate and divisiveness in this country, and that is something we don’t need if we’re going to remain a world power.
Since Barack Obama won the election we can be sure of one thing... that he will lead the largest expansion of the government's role in the economy since the “New Deal”. This "New New Deal," as some Democrats are calling it, will probably have the same result as the last one, turning a rather painful recession into a long and miserable depression that will see a further erosion of our rather shaky standard of living. Will that set the stage for a GOP president in 2012? Unlikely, as President-to-be Obama will play the hard times into a second term, in the same way FDR did… by blaming everything that happens on his predecessors. The worse things get, the more it will be blamed on "eight years of Republican deregulation, tax cuts and greed", obviously requiring even more government intervention to control. The Liberal media will back that up of course.
About the only good thing that came from the McCain campaign is that he placed Sarah Palin on the national political stage. She might well find herself leading a completely new Conservative movement. Starting tomorrow, if not sooner.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Obama's Here
We’ve just finished a particularly long and messy presidential election campaign, that’s been about as bad as any I remember seeing. Barack Hussein Obama will soon be our new president, which has the Democrats (and the Europeans) dancing in the streets, while the hard core Republicans are standing around in shock. A combination of disillusionment with eight years of George Bush’s marginally successful neo-conservative policies, a failing economy, and overall disappointment with John McCain pretty well doomed the republican chances of winning at the federal level. Could some other republican have led the GOP to victory? Perhaps. It’s to late to worry about that however, because now we’re faced with four years of Obama / Reid / Pelosi, and a liberal agenda that I for one am very much afraid is going to end our countries days as a great nation. ‘Course I pretty much said the same thing when Slick Willy Clinton got himself elected, and while the country didn’t exactly fall apart, things went downhill in a hurry as far as I was concerned. I will, as every American should, support our duely elected president as best I can, irreguardless of my personal feelings. However, there is always the next election, and a lot of hard work coming up in order to get my prefered candidates (whoever they turn out to be) elected.
Our new President has a lot of problems on his plate, and I do not envy him at all. At the moment our nations economy is somewhere in the basement, our national debt (depending on who you listen to) is somewhere between seven and fifteen trillion dollars, we’ve got a nearly trillion dollar bank bailout to pay for, escallating prices, two wars going on, an energy crisis that can only get worse, a rapidly swelling federal government, sabre rattling from Iran and North Korea, a resurgent Russia, massive trade imballances, an ageing infrasructure, a flood of illegal immigration, and a whole lot of disalusioned citizens grumbling and growling about the present turn of events.
With Obama’s pre-election tax plan, 95% of American taxpayers (those making under $250,000 a year) are supposed to get a tax cut. Naturally the remaining 5% of our population, who already pay for the vast majority of our government, will see their taxes raised yet again. This is called “redistributing the wealth” in democratic circles, but in reality does little more than take from the wealthy and give to the government… Spread the wealth around? Do the Democrats really believe the government can do a better job of spending my money than I could, and that business should not be allowed to make profits for the owners? That idea didn’t work for the Russians under communism either. Tax cuts huh? Okay, and just how are little things like increased gasoline taxes, windfall profits taxes, capitol gains taxes, death taxes, assorted “sin taxes”, and “carbon taxes” going to affect all of us? How much is social security and free medical care for twelve million illegal immigrants going to cost us? Hang on to your wallets folks, the long arm of a liberal idealistic world is reaching for your pocket.
What else does the new democratic regime have in mind for us? Well, it’s going to be hard to accurately forecast this soon, but one bright idea is to take “freedom of choice” away from the working stiff. It won’t matter if you want to unionize your job or not, as the big labor czar’s will be able to walk in and take over at will under the new “Union Supremacy” ideas which not incidentally also eliminate any “secret ballot” ideas we might have in the union hall. Then of course we’re going to have the new rules about political campaigning on radio and TV. Which, boiled down to the nitty-gritty means that if Pat Buchanan doesn’t spend exactly the same amount of time pedaling half baked liberal ideas as he spends plugging conservative ideals, he won’t be allowed on the air. And by the way, any required media advertising for the “opposition” would naturally be free of charge. (I think I’m going to start learning how to write handbills and broadsides... after all, they worked for Tom Paine. If you don’t know who he was, you definitely need to study American history!) Filibustering has never been a political maneuver I particularly cared for either, but it is a legitimate “last ditch” effort to stop some political action that might be found particularly abhorrent. With an effective one-party rule in Washington, that idea can be written off as well. I would expect unemployment to rise as the military is downsized yet again and a few hundred thousand unemployed soldiers are dumped on the streets.
Something else that will affect all parts of the media, and probably private conversation as well, will be “political correctness”. All you have to do is remember that freedom of speech is a fine and wondrous thing, as long as nobody could possibly be offended by your words, either in public or in private. Conversation is going to become pretty bland I’m afraid. Porous borders will become even more the norm, considering that we’ve already been told to “learn to speak Spanish” you might remember. Al Bore and global warming will probably become our new national religion I suspect, even if the folks who can't tell us if it’s going to rain next weekend can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt within ten years if I don't start driving a “green” car. Organized religion will probably take a pretty good hit as well, particularly Christianity. And with some sort of a full blown “Freedom of Choice” law, it’ll be OK to slaughter of millions of unborn babies, so long as we keep all the child molesters and mass murders on death row alive and appealing their sentences. Don’t you just love the fact that under upcoming new liberal laws the kids will now be able to marry whatever they want, including the neighbors horse? And on that general line, as a self confessed knuckle dragging redneck, I probably should know that I'm way too irresponsible to own a gun, that the police are all that is needed to protect my family from murderers and thieves, and that a benevolent liberal government will make sure that I’m not tempted to shoot some home invader threatening my family, by completely banning the bearing of arms despite our second amendment rights. That’s OK too I guess, as liberal judges will now be able to rewrite the Constitution and Bill of Rights every few days to accommodate some nut or other who would never get his wild ideas past the voters under the old order.
OPEC is really upset by the recent reduction in oil prices, so they’re about to reduce worldwide oil production in the hopes of driving the price back up to over $100 per barrel. With Reid and Pelosi running the show in congress, our domestic oil certainly won’t be developed for our use, and the off-shore oil reserves that we’re not allowed to touch will probably be given to China in an anti-poverty scheme. Any wealth we might have left over will likely find itself being shipped to the Swiss bank accounts of assorted African despots, so they can “assist” their poverty stricken victims… err “citizens”. We can expect to see an increased role for United Nations authority within our borders, while globalization will be greatly expanded and American jobs will continue to leave our shores.
Hopefully when we pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan with our tails between our legs the bad guys will stop fighting because they’ll now know that we're really good guys at heart. After all, we only need to sit down, hold hands, perhaps sing a few bars of Kumbaya, and negotiate with the terrorists to convince them to change their ways irregardless of the simple fact that negotiations have never worked with terrorists or despots. What will happen to the mid-east if we pull out and allow a totalitarian Islamofascist theocracy to take over? Have a look at the works of assorted dictators like Saddam, Idi Amin, Stalin, Hitler, or Attila the Hun…
I’m not predicting the end of the western world necessarily, but I’m very much afraid that our distinctly American culture is in for some serious challenges.
Have no fear, Obama’s here!
Our new President has a lot of problems on his plate, and I do not envy him at all. At the moment our nations economy is somewhere in the basement, our national debt (depending on who you listen to) is somewhere between seven and fifteen trillion dollars, we’ve got a nearly trillion dollar bank bailout to pay for, escallating prices, two wars going on, an energy crisis that can only get worse, a rapidly swelling federal government, sabre rattling from Iran and North Korea, a resurgent Russia, massive trade imballances, an ageing infrasructure, a flood of illegal immigration, and a whole lot of disalusioned citizens grumbling and growling about the present turn of events.
With Obama’s pre-election tax plan, 95% of American taxpayers (those making under $250,000 a year) are supposed to get a tax cut. Naturally the remaining 5% of our population, who already pay for the vast majority of our government, will see their taxes raised yet again. This is called “redistributing the wealth” in democratic circles, but in reality does little more than take from the wealthy and give to the government… Spread the wealth around? Do the Democrats really believe the government can do a better job of spending my money than I could, and that business should not be allowed to make profits for the owners? That idea didn’t work for the Russians under communism either. Tax cuts huh? Okay, and just how are little things like increased gasoline taxes, windfall profits taxes, capitol gains taxes, death taxes, assorted “sin taxes”, and “carbon taxes” going to affect all of us? How much is social security and free medical care for twelve million illegal immigrants going to cost us? Hang on to your wallets folks, the long arm of a liberal idealistic world is reaching for your pocket.
What else does the new democratic regime have in mind for us? Well, it’s going to be hard to accurately forecast this soon, but one bright idea is to take “freedom of choice” away from the working stiff. It won’t matter if you want to unionize your job or not, as the big labor czar’s will be able to walk in and take over at will under the new “Union Supremacy” ideas which not incidentally also eliminate any “secret ballot” ideas we might have in the union hall. Then of course we’re going to have the new rules about political campaigning on radio and TV. Which, boiled down to the nitty-gritty means that if Pat Buchanan doesn’t spend exactly the same amount of time pedaling half baked liberal ideas as he spends plugging conservative ideals, he won’t be allowed on the air. And by the way, any required media advertising for the “opposition” would naturally be free of charge. (I think I’m going to start learning how to write handbills and broadsides... after all, they worked for Tom Paine. If you don’t know who he was, you definitely need to study American history!) Filibustering has never been a political maneuver I particularly cared for either, but it is a legitimate “last ditch” effort to stop some political action that might be found particularly abhorrent. With an effective one-party rule in Washington, that idea can be written off as well. I would expect unemployment to rise as the military is downsized yet again and a few hundred thousand unemployed soldiers are dumped on the streets.
Something else that will affect all parts of the media, and probably private conversation as well, will be “political correctness”. All you have to do is remember that freedom of speech is a fine and wondrous thing, as long as nobody could possibly be offended by your words, either in public or in private. Conversation is going to become pretty bland I’m afraid. Porous borders will become even more the norm, considering that we’ve already been told to “learn to speak Spanish” you might remember. Al Bore and global warming will probably become our new national religion I suspect, even if the folks who can't tell us if it’s going to rain next weekend can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt within ten years if I don't start driving a “green” car. Organized religion will probably take a pretty good hit as well, particularly Christianity. And with some sort of a full blown “Freedom of Choice” law, it’ll be OK to slaughter of millions of unborn babies, so long as we keep all the child molesters and mass murders on death row alive and appealing their sentences. Don’t you just love the fact that under upcoming new liberal laws the kids will now be able to marry whatever they want, including the neighbors horse? And on that general line, as a self confessed knuckle dragging redneck, I probably should know that I'm way too irresponsible to own a gun, that the police are all that is needed to protect my family from murderers and thieves, and that a benevolent liberal government will make sure that I’m not tempted to shoot some home invader threatening my family, by completely banning the bearing of arms despite our second amendment rights. That’s OK too I guess, as liberal judges will now be able to rewrite the Constitution and Bill of Rights every few days to accommodate some nut or other who would never get his wild ideas past the voters under the old order.
OPEC is really upset by the recent reduction in oil prices, so they’re about to reduce worldwide oil production in the hopes of driving the price back up to over $100 per barrel. With Reid and Pelosi running the show in congress, our domestic oil certainly won’t be developed for our use, and the off-shore oil reserves that we’re not allowed to touch will probably be given to China in an anti-poverty scheme. Any wealth we might have left over will likely find itself being shipped to the Swiss bank accounts of assorted African despots, so they can “assist” their poverty stricken victims… err “citizens”. We can expect to see an increased role for United Nations authority within our borders, while globalization will be greatly expanded and American jobs will continue to leave our shores.
Hopefully when we pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan with our tails between our legs the bad guys will stop fighting because they’ll now know that we're really good guys at heart. After all, we only need to sit down, hold hands, perhaps sing a few bars of Kumbaya, and negotiate with the terrorists to convince them to change their ways irregardless of the simple fact that negotiations have never worked with terrorists or despots. What will happen to the mid-east if we pull out and allow a totalitarian Islamofascist theocracy to take over? Have a look at the works of assorted dictators like Saddam, Idi Amin, Stalin, Hitler, or Attila the Hun…
I’m not predicting the end of the western world necessarily, but I’m very much afraid that our distinctly American culture is in for some serious challenges.
Have no fear, Obama’s here!
Monday, November 3, 2008
VOTE!
And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country.
John F. Kennedy, Inaugural address, January 20, 1961
The election is upon us… finally! I’ll be rather glad to have it over and done with, as I for one an eternally sick and tired of all the claims and counterclaims, charges and countercharges of what seems to have been the messiest election campaign that I can remember. Strangely enough the mudslinging all seems to have come at the federal level, which is pretty sad considering that we’re supposed to be a civilized people. And neither party has room to be indignant about it either. The campaigns here in Idaho seems to have been kept pretty clean throughout, which speaks well of our candidates for state and local offices. About all that’s left for us to do is cast our ballots and wait for the count to tell us who won… with a few recounts here and there… and probably plenty of screaming and crying about “stolen elections” at the national level. I suspect both major parties are lining up their legal specialists in hanging chads, and searching for user friendly people who can determine the voters intent from faint marks on a piece of paper.
The Republicans are frothing at the mouth about ACORN registered voters and busily searching for irregularities and possible voter fraud. (I understand that ACORN was caught registering a single voter 72 separate times in one city, and that quite a few long deceased citizens are expected to be voting in Las Vegas this year!) ACORN, the “Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now”, is a self proclaimed non-partisan organization, although it generally follows the Democratics on policy matters. This alignment, and some liberal causes have made ACORN the subject of considerable partisan conflict. Organizations like this, and the disinformation spread by tightly controlled media outlets have been giving the Republicans heartburn for months. I’ll bet there are more than a few Republican programs along with a lot of conservative writers that are giving the DNC sleepless nights as well.
All in all, this will be a real interesting election, if the American people even bother to vote. I spoke with Rose Gehring the other day, and she commented that she hopes all registered Idaho County voters would show up and cast their ballots. As having a large turn-out makes a lot of work for the elections officials, I asked why she wanted to see such a large turnout. Rose said that there are 10,050 registered voters in Idaho County, and that she has a ballot waiting for every single one of them. Grinning, she explained that preparing for an election is somewhat like preparing a banquet, and when only half the expected guests’ show up the cooks have the discouraging job of throwing the extra food away. I can see where that would get frustrating.
Voting is the peaceful mechanism established by our constitution whereby we select our leaders, by the ballot and not by the bullet as happens in so many other countries, nor by the police intimidation we recently watched occur in Rhodesia. The American system of handing over the reins of power every four years is almost unique in today’s world, and we’ve been doing just that for well over two hundred years.
So why do so many qualified Americans choose not to vote? Well, a lot of infrequent voters and those unregistered said they do not vote or do not register to vote because they are too busy. The idea that politics are controlled by special interests is held by about two-thirds of non-voters, and they think that voting is “immaterial”. A feeling that the candidates don’t really speak to them was another reason why many people don’t vote. Still, 93 percent of infrequent voters agreed that voting is a very important part of being a good citizen and 81 percent of nonvoters agreed it is an important way to voice their opinions on issues that affect their families and communities.
The chance of a single vote in a system such as our Electoral College has an very low possibility of influencing the outcome. But we should also keep in mind our last two presidential elections, where the outcome was decided by only a relative handful of votes. At the same time, while my vote might be only a “drop in the bucket” on the national level, it’s a lot bigger “drop” in selecting Idaho’s Senators and Representatives to Washington, along with all the folks we send to Boise representing us. Voting is quite important at the local level as well. Remember those 10,050 voters in this county? Those are the only people who can select our county office holders, and the decisions those people make generally have a more immediate effect our daily lives than do people at the federal level. Consider that the nine or so million dollar budget in this county is your tax money after all. If you don’t like the office holder, the State of the Union, or the condition the county’s in, don’t blame anyone other than yourself if you didn’t voice your opinion with your vote. So on November 4th, simply get off the couch and go cast your vote!
A good friend of mine, Mr. J. D. Ray of Portland Ore. recently got into a bit of a “discussion” on the internet about voting. J.D. and I don’t always agree on matters political, but I’d say he’s hit upon several very good points in his rebuttal. He kindly gave me permission to quote a part of what he wrote:
I vote because I believe financial responsibility should be enforced on our government the same way it is on us.
I vote because I believe that all life is sacred, and that killing someone in their home on the other side of the world is the same as killing an unborn child.
I vote because I believe that in America, the right to free speech should be upheld, because it's in our constitution, and the right to not be offended shouldn't, because it's not.
I vote because I believe in states' rights, and that when my state votes something into law, the federal government shouldn't create a law specifically designed to make it illegal.
I vote because I believe that the government shouldn't be concerned with the definition of the word "marriage," but should concern themselves with what makes a binding contract between two domestic partners. "Marriage" should be left to churches and other social organizations.
I vote because I believe that the market should be free to rise and fall without being pushed one way or the other by the government.
I vote because I believe taxes should be fair for everyone.
I vote because I believe government is too big.
I vote because I believe illegal aliens should be sent home, not put to work in factories because they work cheap for off-the-books wages, nor allowed to sit around sucking up our country's benefits, killing our citizens in gang warfare, or taking jobs when Americans are unemployed.
I vote because I believe America wants to believe in itself again, and is ready and willing to work to make that happen.
I vote because I'm proud to be American, and if you don't like it here, get the hell out.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Two Men
In 1986, Arizona Congressman John McCain announced his candidacy for the Senate seat of retiring Barry Goldwater. McCain, a graduate of the US Naval Academy, had already completed a successful career in the US Navy, retiring with the rank of Captain (one step below Admiral), had been a member of Congress for slightly less than four years, and had been an active member of the Republican Party for less than 10 years. Since that time, and all political rhetoric aside, John McCain has also had a successful twenty plus year career as a US Senator. His self proclaimed hero’s are Barry Goldwater, Ronald Reagan, and Teddy Roosevelt. (A very good choice in hero’s as far as I’m concerned.)
47 year old Barack Obama is presently the junior U.S. Senator from Illinois, a seat he filled in 2005. Educated at Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years, he transferred to Columbia University in New York, where he graduated in 1983 with a degree in political science. He moved to Chicago in 1985 where he worked as a community organizer with low-income families. He entered Harvard Law School in 1988 and graduated magna cum laude in 1991. Returning to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer, he also taught at the University of Chicago Law School. His advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate and he was elected in 1996 from south side Hyde Park. Obama seems to think he’s the rightful inheritor of John F. Kennedy’s mantle of liberal leadership, a claim leaving many people questioning his sanity!
Obama is proclaimed to be the “agent of change” by the Democrats, and in the absence of Hillary is held somewhat in awe by the looney left, almost as if he were the returned messiah. The radical right who abhor both Obama and Hillary are grudging following McCain, who is currently pretty much the leader of the conservative right if only by default, and who is (for a number of good reasons) not fully trusted by any conservative group.
McCain wants to cut taxes or so he claims, while Obama wants increased taxation to pay for even more social programs. Humm… How soon we forget… Wasn't it Ronald Reagan who cut taxes, and the treasury receipts promptly increased? Newt Gingrich and the Republicans had a contract with American that trimmed our taxes somewhat, and revitalized our economy, just in time for Bill Clinton and the Democrats to claim the credit. Generally higher taxes mean less money into the public coffers, lost jobs, more small businesses failures, and of course less money in your pocket. Our current economic woes are the result of massive government overspending, coupled with people wanting bigger homes than they could afford, big gas guzzling cars they couldn't afford, and enormous credit card debts from buying all the things they can't afford to pay cash for. All this to keep up with the "wealthiest one percent" of our population, who they claim don't pay their fair share of the tax burden in this country. I guess the most affluant taxpayers paying 85-90% of the nations taxes isn't their “fair share”? What neither candidate seems to be mentioning at the moment is that we’re going to have a pretty stout tax increase no matter what. It’s going to be a dire necessity to pay off that huge Wall Street bailout that the American people didn’t want, and Congress passed anyhow! However the election turns out, congress is going to have to go along with the presidential proposals before they can take effect. And congress is falling all over themselves in avoiding their responsibilities.
With his military background, John McCain would probably be a bit more “user friendly” to the Defense Department than Barack Obama, who seems to have cut his teeth on a “the military is the great satan” far left liberal mantra. For some reason (probably in considering all the hate and discontent going on in the world) McCain seems to believe in a strong national defense. Generally the far left seems to think we’de be better off with no defense establishment at all, and that we could “defend” ourselves by sharing our wealth (paying Danegeld) with every two-bit dictator in the world. The trouble with that is (as the democrats never seem to realize), that once the dane gets a taste of easy money he gets greedy, and then he’s darn hard to get rid of. A lot of folks (mostly hard core republicans I suspect) question Obama’s patriotism. The “evidence” presented, such as his refusal to salute the flag, is highly suspect but quite compelling as well. One that seems downright silly is his reported desire to change our national anthem to “I’d like to teach the world to sing”, which Coca-Cola Corp. would probably appriciate, but would certainly upset the rest of us! The American Flag lapel pin flap is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot if it’s the only complaint about his patriotism. Heck, I don’t wear one either… but only because I somehow lost mine, and haven’t found a replacement yet. I do however dislike the “show your loyalty” fetish currently running rampant across the nation. Things like that lead to the downright rediculous “Victory Cabbage” instead of sauerkraut campaign during WW I. It also led to Americans of Japanese decent being tossed in concentration camps during WW II.
Another subject that gets a lot of media attention is the question of same sex marriage. It appears to me that most Americans are opposed to the idea, or somewhat neutral, with only a few quite vocal liberal adheriants considering it to be a major talking point. Personally, I’d think that if a couple of people want to play house they can do so without making a big production of it, or later tieing up our courts when they inevitably decide to get divorced. I look at gay marriage as little more than another step in the liberal destruction of our national character.
Heading for the White House is the most far left-wing member of the US Senate according to the National Journal. The current political polls show Obama to be ahead of McCain by two whole points, and the national media makes that out to be the end of the world for the republicans. Two points huh? That sounds a lot more like a neck and neck race to me! Still, consider that most of the polls are taken in east coast urban areas and are hardly indicative of what the rest of the nation thinks, which never seems to bother whoever the media’s fair haired boy is at the moment. As usual, the eastern liberal media is once again loudly touting the numbers in trying to influence how we think and vote, rather on the line of a “McCain’s already lost, so all you knuckle-dragging Republicans might as well stay home” sort of thing. ‘Kinda makes me wonder if perhaps we shouldn’t reconsider Barry Goldwater’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment about sawing off the eastern seaboard and letting it drift out to sea.
Thus we have two men running for election to the highest political office in the land, and representing opposing ends of our political spectrum. They are much alike in many ways, and yet oh-so-different. One of them will be chosen our next president, and over the next four years will have to lead the way through some of the worst problems ever to face our nation. Of the two, I’d prefer having a leader of men out in front.
47 year old Barack Obama is presently the junior U.S. Senator from Illinois, a seat he filled in 2005. Educated at Occidental College in Los Angeles for two years, he transferred to Columbia University in New York, where he graduated in 1983 with a degree in political science. He moved to Chicago in 1985 where he worked as a community organizer with low-income families. He entered Harvard Law School in 1988 and graduated magna cum laude in 1991. Returning to Chicago to practice as a civil rights lawyer, he also taught at the University of Chicago Law School. His advocacy work led him to run for the Illinois State Senate and he was elected in 1996 from south side Hyde Park. Obama seems to think he’s the rightful inheritor of John F. Kennedy’s mantle of liberal leadership, a claim leaving many people questioning his sanity!
Obama is proclaimed to be the “agent of change” by the Democrats, and in the absence of Hillary is held somewhat in awe by the looney left, almost as if he were the returned messiah. The radical right who abhor both Obama and Hillary are grudging following McCain, who is currently pretty much the leader of the conservative right if only by default, and who is (for a number of good reasons) not fully trusted by any conservative group.
McCain wants to cut taxes or so he claims, while Obama wants increased taxation to pay for even more social programs. Humm… How soon we forget… Wasn't it Ronald Reagan who cut taxes, and the treasury receipts promptly increased? Newt Gingrich and the Republicans had a contract with American that trimmed our taxes somewhat, and revitalized our economy, just in time for Bill Clinton and the Democrats to claim the credit. Generally higher taxes mean less money into the public coffers, lost jobs, more small businesses failures, and of course less money in your pocket. Our current economic woes are the result of massive government overspending, coupled with people wanting bigger homes than they could afford, big gas guzzling cars they couldn't afford, and enormous credit card debts from buying all the things they can't afford to pay cash for. All this to keep up with the "wealthiest one percent" of our population, who they claim don't pay their fair share of the tax burden in this country. I guess the most affluant taxpayers paying 85-90% of the nations taxes isn't their “fair share”? What neither candidate seems to be mentioning at the moment is that we’re going to have a pretty stout tax increase no matter what. It’s going to be a dire necessity to pay off that huge Wall Street bailout that the American people didn’t want, and Congress passed anyhow! However the election turns out, congress is going to have to go along with the presidential proposals before they can take effect. And congress is falling all over themselves in avoiding their responsibilities.
With his military background, John McCain would probably be a bit more “user friendly” to the Defense Department than Barack Obama, who seems to have cut his teeth on a “the military is the great satan” far left liberal mantra. For some reason (probably in considering all the hate and discontent going on in the world) McCain seems to believe in a strong national defense. Generally the far left seems to think we’de be better off with no defense establishment at all, and that we could “defend” ourselves by sharing our wealth (paying Danegeld) with every two-bit dictator in the world. The trouble with that is (as the democrats never seem to realize), that once the dane gets a taste of easy money he gets greedy, and then he’s darn hard to get rid of. A lot of folks (mostly hard core republicans I suspect) question Obama’s patriotism. The “evidence” presented, such as his refusal to salute the flag, is highly suspect but quite compelling as well. One that seems downright silly is his reported desire to change our national anthem to “I’d like to teach the world to sing”, which Coca-Cola Corp. would probably appriciate, but would certainly upset the rest of us! The American Flag lapel pin flap is nothing more than a tempest in a teapot if it’s the only complaint about his patriotism. Heck, I don’t wear one either… but only because I somehow lost mine, and haven’t found a replacement yet. I do however dislike the “show your loyalty” fetish currently running rampant across the nation. Things like that lead to the downright rediculous “Victory Cabbage” instead of sauerkraut campaign during WW I. It also led to Americans of Japanese decent being tossed in concentration camps during WW II.
Another subject that gets a lot of media attention is the question of same sex marriage. It appears to me that most Americans are opposed to the idea, or somewhat neutral, with only a few quite vocal liberal adheriants considering it to be a major talking point. Personally, I’d think that if a couple of people want to play house they can do so without making a big production of it, or later tieing up our courts when they inevitably decide to get divorced. I look at gay marriage as little more than another step in the liberal destruction of our national character.
Heading for the White House is the most far left-wing member of the US Senate according to the National Journal. The current political polls show Obama to be ahead of McCain by two whole points, and the national media makes that out to be the end of the world for the republicans. Two points huh? That sounds a lot more like a neck and neck race to me! Still, consider that most of the polls are taken in east coast urban areas and are hardly indicative of what the rest of the nation thinks, which never seems to bother whoever the media’s fair haired boy is at the moment. As usual, the eastern liberal media is once again loudly touting the numbers in trying to influence how we think and vote, rather on the line of a “McCain’s already lost, so all you knuckle-dragging Republicans might as well stay home” sort of thing. ‘Kinda makes me wonder if perhaps we shouldn’t reconsider Barry Goldwater’s somewhat tongue-in-cheek comment about sawing off the eastern seaboard and letting it drift out to sea.
Thus we have two men running for election to the highest political office in the land, and representing opposing ends of our political spectrum. They are much alike in many ways, and yet oh-so-different. One of them will be chosen our next president, and over the next four years will have to lead the way through some of the worst problems ever to face our nation. Of the two, I’d prefer having a leader of men out in front.
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