"The One"

I received this piece in an e-mail, and have no idea of who wrote it, or of where it appeared. Unfortunately it’s far to long to fit into my column, for I think it’s quite appropriate to the situation we find ourselves in today. (Which it is of course, supposed to be.) I wish I could claim to be the author, as this guy's good!


“The One”

And it came to pass in the Age of Insanity that the people of the land called America, having lost their morals, their initiative, and their will to defend their liberties, chose as their Supreme Leader that person known as "The One". He emerged from the vapors with a message that had no meaning; but He hypnotized the people telling them, "I am sent to save you. My lack of experience, my questionable ethics, my monstrous ego, and my association with evil doers are of no consequence. For I shall save you with Hope and Change. Go, therefore, and proclaim throughout the land that he who preceded me is evil, that he has defiled the nation, and that all he has built must be destroyed." And the people rejoiced, for even though they knew not what "The One" would do, he had promised that it was good; and they believed. And "The One" said "We live in the greatest country in the world. With your help we change it"!! And the people said, "Hallelujah!! Change is good!"

Then He said, "We are going to tax the rich fat-cats." And the people said "Sock it to them!" "And redistribute their wealth." And the people said, "Show us the money!"

And then He said, "Redistribution of wealth is good for everybody" And Joe the plumber asked, "Are you kidding me? You're going to steal my money and give it to the deadbeats??" And "The One" ridiculed and taunted him, and Joe's personal records were hacked and publicized. One lone reporter asked, "Isn't that Marxist policy?" And she was banished from the kingdom!

Then a citizen asked, "With no foreign relations experience and having zero military experience or knowledge, how will you deal with radical terrorists?" And "The One" said, "Simple. I shall sit with them and talk with them and show them how nice we really are; and they will forget that they ever wanted to kill us all!" And the people said, "Hallelujah!! We are safe at last, and we can beat our weapons into free cars for the people!"

Then "The One" said, "I shall give 95% of you lower taxes." And one, lone voice said, "But 40% of us don't pay ANY taxes." So "The One" said, "Then I shall give you some of the taxes the fat-cats pay!" And the people said, "Hallelujah!! Show us the money!"

Then "The One" said, "I shall tax your Capital Gains when you sell your homes!" And the people yawned and the slumping housing market collapsed. And He said, "I shall mandate employer-funded health care for EVERY worker and raise the minimum wage. And I shall give every person unlimited healthcare and medicine and transportation to the clinics." And the people said, "Give me some of that!"

Then he said, "I shall penalize employers who ship jobs overseas." And the people said, "Where's my rebate check?"

Then "The One" said, "I shall bankrupt the coal industry and electricity rates will skyrocket!" And the people said, "Coal is dirty, coal is evil, no more coal! But we don't care for that part about higher electric rates." So "The One" said, "Not to worry. If your rebate isn't enough to cover your expenses, we shall bail you out. Just sign up with ACORN and your troubles are over!"

Then He said, "Illegal immigrants feel scorned and slighted. Let's grant them amnesty, Social Security, free education, free lunches, free medical care, bi-lingual signs and guaranteed housing..." And the people said, "Hallelujah!!" And they made him King!

And so it came to pass that employers, facing spiraling costs and ever-higher taxes, raised their prices and laid off workers. Others simply gave up and went out of business and the economy sank like unto a rock dropped from a cliff. The banking industry was destroyed. Manufacturing slowed to a crawl. And more of the people were without a means of support.

Then "The One" said, "I am the "The One" - The Messiah - and I'm here to save you! We shall just print more money so everyone will have enough!" But our foreign trading partners said unto Him, "Wait a minute. Your dollar is not worth a pile of camel dung! You will have to pay more..." And the people said, "Wait a minute. That is unfair!!" And the world said, "Neither are these other idiotic programs you have embraced. Lo, you have become a Socialist state and a second-rate power. Now you shall play by our rules!"

And the people cried out, "Alas, alas!! What have we done?" But yea verily, it was too late. The people set upon "The One" and spat upon him and stoned him, and his name was dung. And the once mighty nation was no more; and the once proud people were without sustenance or shelter or hope. And the Change "The One" had given them was as like unto a poison that had destroyed them and like a whirlwind that consumed all that they had built. And the people beat their chests in despair and cried out in anguish, "Give us back our nation and our pride and our hope!!" But it was too late, and their homeland was no more.

Idaho County

I’ve lived in Idaho County on and off, for roughly half of my life. The other half was spent in a number of states, and even in a few foreign countries thanks in part to the US Air Force. I’ve been to a few places that I liked, and a lot of places that I didn’t care for at all. Southern California was a pretty nice place… back in the 1940’s and early 1950’s. Arizona wasn’t bad either, if you like living in a blast furnace. South Florida somewhat resembles a sauna in the summer, and is occupied by a liberal supply of swamps, snakes, and alligators, in the winter it’s a bit cooler, but infested with Yankee tourists. Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley was quite beautiful before the developers and sub dividers arrived from California. Overseas I liked Germany just fine, and thought Norway was a fantastic place to visit. But back in the days when we still owned Wheelus Air Force Base, North Africa really didn’t impress me at all. (But we really outta consider making camel riding a rodeo event! It’s almost as much fun as riding a saddle bronc… for a couple of hours at a time!) Exotic Thailand was impressive and a great opportunity for an amateur photographer, while Laos has a lot of beautiful scenery along with some real friendly people, even if the neighbors do have a bad habit of shooting at American flyers.

I guess I’ve seen my share of the world through the years, and in comparison with Idaho I’ve seen bigger mountains, larger rivers, taller trees, more game animals, and sometimes a lot better weather. Funny though, I’ve never seen ‘em all in the same place, or at the same time. When opportunity knocked, I came back to Idaho, and Idaho County, because warts and all, this is my home. And we do seem to have more than our share of problems, mostly economic, and which I will, in my ever popular style, blame on “government”.

Back in the old days, when I was growing up around here, I really don’t remember anybody being homeless, or even “broke” as such, but it always seemed like money was in fairly short supply among most of the folks I knew. Dad was a logger, and while he was usually busy Mom had to work as well, and I noticed that the luxuries were generally few and far between. Today it seems that much the same situation exists among far to many of our citizens. In doing a little checking on county demographics, I found that the average yearly income in Idaho County is approximately $29,515, or about seventy percent of the national average of $41,994 per year, and that about a quarter of our citizens live below the national poverty level! While I wouldn’t expect a rural area to be quite as affluent as a high-tech urban area, that disparity does seem a bit much. From that twenty-nine thousand dollar average income we all pay… TAXES… city, county, state, and federal taxes, along with those of a wide assortment of taxing districts, and a few things I have yet to figure out as well. Taxes are of course the curse of just about everyone, with the exception of the politicians who get to spend all that money, and the folks that think “government” is supposed to take care of us. (Personally I think that if they want the government to take care of them, they can go ahead and work, send their paycheck to the IRS, and then try to subsist on food stamps. But that’s a story line for another day.)

Any government entity has to operate on the income from its tax base, which at state and federal level can be fairly good sized. Cities and counties on the other hand don’t have all that much income, and they still have to provide the services that their citizens demand. With that, they’re always looking for means by which they can improve their income, and some of those means are pretty innovative! (I believe it’s New York City that charges a fee for city tax forms, and then levies a tax on that fee!) Most communities aren’t quite that desperate I guess, and generally settle for little more than property taxes, sales taxes, and what have you. The greater the property value, the more money the community can take in, and thus spend. In our case, the county budget runs about twelve and a half million dollars per year, with the lion’s share of the money going to things like schools, roads, and the Sheriffs Department. It seems however that there are always a number of projects that have to be held in abeyance for a few years due to a lack of funds. With that, the county is always trying to attract new businesses that will build (taxable) factories and hire a lot of local people, thereby enlarging the tax base even more.

According to the US Census Bureau, our county consists of a total area of 8,502 square miles, of which, 8,485 square miles is land and 18 square miles of it is water. According to my calculator, 8,502 square miles comes out to 5,441,280 acres, of which the vast sum of 15% (or 816,192 acres) is private land, and thus taxable to support the rest of the county! The Nez Perce National Forest is located entirely within Idaho County, and comprises approximately 50% of the entire county land area. In addition we have parts of five other National Forests located in the county. That leaves four million, six hundred and twenty five thousand acres that “belong” to government, and who do not pay property taxes on said lands. With the Idaho County tax base working out to about $2 per acre of private land according to Idaho County Accessor James Zehner, along with whatever else he can find to tax. Instead of property taxes on forest lands, we get PILT (Payment in Lieu of Taxes) funds from the feds every year. I realize that undeveloped forest land probably doesn’t have the same taxable value as producing farm land, but PILT pays the princly sum of thirty-two cents on the acre each year. (Incidently, Idaho received $25,831,812 in PILT funds for the entire state in 2008, and that has to be spread between all forty-four counties!)

The federal government has so far killed our timber industry, strangled our mining industry, and is now attacking our ranchers through their grazing allotments. The fledgling recreation industry that we so painfully started will quite likely be stillborn, thanks to forest road and trail closures. (So much for the “multiple use” of our public lands.) All this federal attention has hit the county tax base where it hurts, right square in the budget, and it’s not doing our employment situation any good either. In return, the feds send us our annual welfare check to the tune of 16% of what the rest of our land owners have to pay!

County Commissioner James Rockwell recently made comment that if the feds were “good neighbors” and paid the same tax rate per acre that the rest of us do, the county’s economic balancing act would be a whole lot simpler, and we wouldn’t need PILT money, Craig-Wyden funds, or any other federal handout. He’s quite right of course, but just how do we go about getting the feds to do that? They are after all busily robbing us blind… and like good little citizens we’re all standing around with a smile on our faces, and not doing a darn thing about it!

Secession?

Secession? The subject of last week’s edition of Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s “Texas Straight Talk” took me by surprise, and aroused my curiosity as well. After all, any serious discussion of a state seceding from the Union has been somewhat unpopular in this country ever since Yankee bayonets enforced federal authority at Appomattox Courthouse nearly 150 years ago. Still, the subject has come up in the media any number of times in recent years, most recently when Texas Gov. Rick Perry, in comments following an anti-tax "TEA party" on April 16th, suggested that Texans might get so fed up with taxes and the federal government that they would want to leave the union. He never specifically advocated Texas breaking away from the United States, but even his mild comment was sufficient to trigger a firestorm of media reaction across the country, and once again screaming outrage from the liberal left.

To many in the United States, secession is much the same as treason and rebellion, a fact resulting from ignorance of the words real meaning. Yet the United States itself came about from an act of secession, in an era when secession and self determination were not only believed to be inalienable rights, but were practiced, often with mixed success. In North America, Virginia set the ball rolling in June of 1776 by declaring her independence from Great Britain. The twelve other colonies jointly declared their independence the following month. Still, most Americans generally associate secession only with the US Civil War, and usually think the issue was settled for all time. Yet even a cursory search of the internet finds that nearly half our states have secessionist movements active today! From New Hampshire to Hawaii, from Alaska to Texas, these groups are alive and well, and passionately pleading their cause. Oddly enough, Idaho isn’t one of those states with an active secessionist movement. All are rather small organizations naturally, but in some cases are quite vocal if nothing else. What are their chances of success? Slim I’d say, but keep in mind that only three percent of the American colonists actively planned, staged, and won their rebellion in 1776.

Today of course, we are “much more civilized” than our forbearers, and given the largess distributed by our benevolent federal government, we have no need to withdraw from our great union. Or at least that’s what we’re supposed to believe. It seems almost un-American to believe that the compact which holds the Union together might be sundered. Yet the right to secede is not denied us by the US Constitution, or by any State Constitution that I’m aware of! (I don’t think a state can be involuntarily kicked out either.) The framers of the constitution apparently assumed that if we join the Union voluntarily, we would have the right to withdraw from it if we so desire. With that, obviously, the next question would be… why would American citizens wish to secede from the union?

Man is a social creature after all, and has been since the dawn of the human race. People banded together in small groups in prehistoric times, they built tribal communities, and over time developed the system of government that gave rise to the modern nation state. Government is supposed to be the guarantor of greater peace, tranquility and health than might otherwise be obtainable. In theory it serves to protect property and rights, even though it does not grant or create them. John C. Calhoun in his “Disquisition on Government” expressed the view that; "although intended to protect and preserve society, has itself a strong tendency to disorder and abuse its powers, as all experience and almost every page of history testify.” What then are we to make of this fearful creation that we rely so heavily upon? How do we make government the servant of our needs, and avoid becoming servants of the government? Strangely enough, the framers of our constitution had the answer to that as well, when they very severely limited the powers of the Federal government. Federal powers were clearly described, and the individual states are guaranteed all other powers that are not specifically denied them. Unfortunately, since the end of the Civil War, the several states have quietly allowed the Federal government to assume many of those powers, a trend that does not seem to be ending.

The principle of “one man, one vote” refers to the fact that all citizens, regardless of where they reside, are entitled to equal legislative representation. Initially, the House of Representatives was apportioned by the population of each state. Thus, as the nation’s population grew, so did the number of seats in the house. When the House reached the unwieldy number of 435 members, the law was juggled as to apportion those seats in such a manner that voting power (and thus political authority) was retained by the densely populated urban states at the expense of the rural states. While we might think this is all well and fine, it completely overlooks the fact that the wishes and needs of urbanites are usually totally different from those of our rural citizens. One example of this disparity might be the stimulus program. While large amounts of money are being handed out to every state and most counties in the country, the larger cities are making out like bandits, which is great for the cities, but rather difficult for the ruralites in the country, who, making up around 48% of the population, are going to find themselves paying 48% of the bill. Keep in mind also that Mr. Obama’s budget will increase the national debt by more than that of President Reagan, both Bush’s, and Bill Clinton… combined. Where is either the justice or even the equality in that? Besides, with all that stimulus money being borrowed from China, what are we using for equity on that loan, our big cities perhaps, or maybe our countries natural resources that just happen to be located in rural areas? Or are we supposed to believe that Communist China is loaning us those trillions of dollars out of the goodness of their hearts? For all practical purposes this disparity might be considered as making us two distinct countries under the same flag!

There are always people who generally figure that their knowledge and ideas are superior to all others, and who like nothing better than to tell everyone else what to do. Government seems to be the natural home of these control freaks, where they can happily become mini-tyrants. On a small scale they can generally be ignored, but when they become “the government” with the power to enforce their radical ideas, they quickly disturb the peace of mind of everyone around! When the citizenry isn’t in agreement with the government, the army is always available to enforced obedience. Remember that our revolution was decided by force of arms, as was our civil war. All of our early day incipient rebellions fizzled out when faced by the US Army. The same situation exists today, considering that a mob of aroused citizens armed with hunting rifles isn’t going to last long when faced with an organized and disciplined army equipped with tanks, machine guns, and attack helicopters!

Secession? I think I’ll keep calling for a voter’s rebellion instead…

RS 2477

Albert Einstein is often credited with saying “Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.” Old Al was a pretty smart guy I think, and the US Government seems determined to prove him right once again. More specifically, the feds are once again attempting to take our rights away from us. With Congress doing little more than sitting on their hands, and with the assistance of the “Republic of the 9th Circuit Court”, the bureaucrats are following an agenda that could well have been written by extremists from the Sierra Club. And from all appearances they will very likely succeed. More specifically, we face the imminent loss of our RS 2477 roads to bureaucratic decree. Many of us will remember the escapade a few years ago wherein the Idaho County Commissioners “wasted” our tax money in having all known RS 2477 roads in the county tracked down, inventoried, and mapped. At the time I stayed out of the donnybrook, mostly because I had no real idea of what these roads were, or why they are so important. As it turns out, the commissioners were right, while the nay-sayers (along with the fence sitters) were wrong.

In July of 1866, Congress, realizing that transportation was crucial to the development of the western territories, passed a one-line law that granted “the right of way for the construction of highways over public lands, not reserved for public uses.” (A one line law… My, how times have changed!) It granted to counties and states a right-of-way across public lands whenever a highway was built. Remember that nearly everything was public land at those days, and that every farm, ranch, mine, homestead, and burgeoning town needed a road or trail for public access. This statute, commonly called “R.S. 2477,” remained in effect for 110 years, with most of the roads, railroads, and waterways in the West being established under that authority. During that period of our history, national policy promoted the development of public lands into private (productive) hands, with R.S. 2477 rights-of-way being a key part of that policy. Unlike any other federal land statute, the establishment of R.S. 2477 rights of way demanded no formalities: no entry, no application, no license, no patent, and no deed from the feds; and no formal act of public acceptance on the part of the states or localities involved. The Supreme Court of Utah noted 75 years ago that R.S. 2477 “was a standing offer of a free right of way over the public domain,” and the grant may be accepted “without formal action by public authorities.” It’s also interesting to note that in the common use language of the time, a “highway” was nearly any route by which people, livestock, or materials were moved from point A to point B. They included but were not limited to roads, trails, footpaths, railways, waterways, and even the occasional goat path! If it could be traveled over, it was a legal “highway”, with Revised Statute 2477 granting the status of a permanent right-of-way. Even more crucial, those rights-of-way were held by the individual state and county governments, not by the federal government, and particularly not by any federal land management agency. By Congressional intent, the feds have absolutely no authority over those routes. Nor do they have any responsibility for maintaining them.

In 1976 Congress abandoned its development approach to public lands, and adopted a preference for retaining public lands in federal ownership, with, at the insistence of various environmental groups, an emphasis on conservation and preservation. As part of that statutory change, Congress repealed R.S. 2477. There could be no new R.S. 2477 rights of way after 1976. But as Congress repealed the original act, it specified that any “valid” R.S. 2477 rights of way “existing on the date of approval of this Act” (October 21, 1976) would continue in effect. The difficulty is in understanding what this all means, with the BLM apparently thinking that “if it ain’t paved, it ain’t in use”. In its Report to Congress on R.S. 2477: “The History and Management of R.S. 2477 Rights-of-Way Claims on Federal and Other Lands” (June 1993), the Department of the Interior lamented that R.S. 2477 highways “were constructed without any approval from the federal government and with no documentation of the public land records, so there are few official records documenting the right-of-way or indicating that a highway was constructed on federal land under this authority.”

On January 22 1997, then Sec. of the Interior Bruce Babbitt wrote a departmental memo "Revoking" the Department's prior policy regarding R.S. 2477 road rights-of-way, which forms the bulk of the rural transportation network in the Western states and is critical to all public lands access, for everything from natural resource production to recreation. The revoked policy was an attempt to reflect long-established law regarding these right-of-ways, which are owned and managed by state and local government entities. Interior Department personnel were instructed to offer no recognition of any R.S. 2477 right-of-way without prior authorization from the Secretary unless the holder gives evidence of a "demonstrated, compelling, and immediate need". Babbitt created a situation where government personnel would in effect say: "You can't exercise your rights unless we acknowledge that it's valid (or for you to go to court to prove it), and we are prohibited from taking action to acknowledge its validity. Therefore, if you exercise your rights, the United States may sue you". Since Congress had prevented issuing any new regulations, Babbit's memo claims that this is not rule making, even if it has the same effect. The memo stated that the Department will determine whether a right-of-way meets certain criteria concerning "withdrawals and reservations", "construction" and "highway". Given the BLM's proven hostility towards public access to federal lands, these terms will not be clearly defined, but applied on a case by case basis. Here we have yet another example of government bureaucracy being totally out of control! After all, Congress writes the law, it’s not the job of a bunch of regulation issuing pencil pushers sitting behind their desks in Washington DC. At the urging of environmental activists, our land management agencies are using regulatory decisions as another way to keep American citizens off our public lands. Why? Well, consider… The United States has more known energy reserves (coal, oil, gas, and Uranium) than almost anywhere else in the world. If however, we don’t utilize those reserves, the environmentalist ideal of “Stop Global Warming” is realized. At the same time, the energy producers of the world can continue to get rich at the expense of the American people. How to do both jobs in one fell swoop… simply lock up the American west in even more wilderness and roadless areas through land management agency regulations, whereby they win their War on the West by default.

Still, no matter what they claim, those rights-of-way do not belong to the feds to close or whatever, they belong to the individual states and counties. The same states and counties who have the legal right, and authority, to tell the feds where they can put their regulations! If it calls for a long and expensive court fight, so be it. All we have to do is explain to our duly elected city, county, state and congressional officials, that if they won’t fight for our rights, we can surely elect people who will!

TEA Parties

At the moment there are no final numbers available for the April 15th “Tax Day Tea Party”, but the present estimates are that over 650,000 upset American citizens showed up at more than 850 locations to protest a number of government policies. Unlike many of the somewhat “riotous” left wing political protests of past decades, this was a peaceful demonstration of conservative American citizens’ reaction to the loony left’s aggressive and rapidly accelerating efforts to create a radical, socialist country out of the once free United States of America. The Tea party folks did not just demonstrate what they are against, but what they are for as well, minor little things like free enterprise, limited government, accountability, lower taxes, and less spending. Much like the 1773 Boston Tea Party, the 2009 version was in response to the actions of a government that treats American citizens as if they were subjects/slaves to be ordered about, rather than as citizens of a free country with constitutionally guaranteed rights. For the most part the elitist media are trying very hard to ignore this citizen’s protest, which the leftist government promptly labeled as a right wing “extremist” plot, and that has the loony left hysterically up in arms denying that any sane person would oppose their political agenda. That’s nothing unusual I guess, considering all the weeping and wailing (along with the rioting) that happens whenever they don’t get their way. The Tea Party showing was rather impressive, especially since the media virtually ignored the entire movement, no big donor was behind it, and conservative Americans usually have jobs that severely limit their chance to do much more than work and pay taxes. For the most part they also lack the professional “community organizing” experience of the left, experience that began with college students who had nothing better to do than violently protest the Vietnam War. David Axelrod, President Obama’s chief strategist, told CBS’s “Face the Nation” that the Tea Party movement was potentially “unhealthy.” He might be right with that one, as it indicates to me that the “silent majority” just might be getting completely fed up with the leftist demands for a socialist nanny state.

The intensity of the liberal response quite surprised me with its vitriol. It’s common practice on internet news sites to have a space where people can leave comments about whatever story they wish to respond to. I’ll quote a part of one such comment about the TEA parties: “Attention Tea-Baggers, (CENSORED), Red-Neck White Trash, racist pigs, Neo-cons. red-staters, in-bred, Appalacia, Sheet Wearers, War Hawks, Porn-lovin' bible thumpers, and Hillbilliys and Cowboys: I put up with your sorry (CENSORED) for 8 years. You go straight to (CENSORED) or Texas which ever you get to first. Keep your (CENSORED) guns and put those where the some (?) don't shine. You are so disgusting I could and have vomited thinking of you. Take your Confederate States and GET OUT NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are morally repugnant. (I'll pause while you look that up). As an aside; I was raised in Applacia - I know what you scum bags are, what you do, and what "feeds you stupidity." Just go NOW.” (As this paper is intended for reading by mixed company, I did censor a few of the more descriptive terms.) If the writer of that particular literary masterpiece is typical of American liberals, I’m going to be really concerned about Mr. Obama’s choice of office holders in his radical leftist government! The “Left”, according to one government report, is much better educated that the “right wing extremists”, more “gainfully” employed, much better paid, and of course totally unlike us “inbred” redneck conservatives. They are I noted, much more likely to be college graduates, and prone to include Doctors, Lawyers, entertainers, Government employees, and with that I presume social workers as well. If the above is an example of what the “educated” American left thinks and says, I’ve got an eight year old granddaughter that does a much better job of writing, if she dosen't know anything about politics!

Every American is, or at least should be, concerned about the harmful effects of big government, big deficits, big bureaucracy, big politicians and big taxes. Left leaning economists admit that spending a few hundred billion dollars hasn’t done any good so far (read that as “failed”), so they consider that as proof that we need to spend a few trillion more dollars that we don’t have! But today’s vocal liberals want to know where the conservative TEA Party protesters were when Mr. Bush was busily running up a trillion dollar deficit, if we’re so concerned about spending deficits. Well boys and girls, for your information we were here, and busily protesting, but we aren’t in the habit of burning down cities, throwing rocks at police officers, or blowing up college campuses when we protest. That of course means that we’re not newsworthy, so nobody hears about it.

Left leaning politicians and pundits are doing their best to discredit the Tea Parties by describing them as a partisan Republican movement, and as a revolt of greedy rich people who don’t want to pay more income tax. After all, we did get a tax cut they parrot… which only means that I get to keep a couple of extra dollars of my own money each week. What the media missed is the fact that state and local taxes are spiraling out of sight for everyone. Add higher gasoline taxes, corporate taxes, “sin” taxes, death taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes, along with the threat of an energy tax. All of these are convincing people that the overall tax burden is still getting bigger despite Mr. Obama's "tax cut".

Tea Party participants are not just angry about higher federal income taxes, but are alarmed at the growing burden of government on all Americans. Keep in mind that California tried the Obama soak-the-productive "stimulus" plan years ago. In just a few years Democrats had turned California into a state (it's now known as a "job-free zone" I understand), with a $41 billion deficit, a credit rating that has reached junk-bond status, and a middle class that is now living in Arizona. Democrats governed California the way Democrats always govern, they bought votes with taxpayer-funded jobs, salaries, and welfare benefits, and then accused productive people of "greed" for not wanting to have their taxes raised yet again. California was a laboratory for Democratic fiscal policies… the rabbit died, so now they want to try it on the entire nation!

So let me see if I understand the “change” we’ve been promised, and apparently are about to get. Spending trillions of dollars we don’t have on social engineering experiments is good for the country. Check. Taxpayers supporting a few million illegal aliens is good for the country. Check. ACORN subverting our election system is good for the country. Check. Cutting national defense yet again is good for the country. Check. Liberal activists disrupting Congress and vandalizing Marine Corp recruiting stations is good for the country. Check. Conservative citizens defending the Constitution and protesting runaway government spending is unhealthy. Humm….