A general ideal for the American Constitution

I'm an idealist.  What that means is that, in the realm of politics, culture, or generally the way any group of people do something, I dream about an ideal even if it's not likely others will implement it.
For example, when I'm making a sandwich and the miracle whip is getting low in the jar, I have the unpleasant job of sticking the knife all the way into the bottom and pulling it up again.  The result is a messy handle and not as much sandwich spread sticking to the knife as it would if the jar were near-full.  This happens because the jar is (a) roughly twice as tall as it is wide and (b) is narrower at the mouth than it is at the rest of the jar.  If I let myself go, I could go on a tirade about how absolutely clueless the people are who make the decision to market my sandwich spread in a jar like that.  Why not put it in a plastic container no taller than it is wide, without a narrowing mouth at the top?  That's what butter/margarine comes in.  It's so simple, and it would end the frustrations of sandwich making.  The first food company to make this change would put the other companies out of the miracle whip business.
But I digress.  I'm actually thinking about the Constitution.
Our Constitution is like a castle wall.  Inside the castle are our freedoms and God-given rights.  Outside the castle are people who don't believe in freedom and who want to use our political system to take them away.  To them the constitution is an obstacle to be overcome.  (That's the definition of a progressive, by the way -- someone who wants to re-order our society along radically different lines from a constitution that limits his ability to do so.)
When the constitution was first ratified, the castle wall had glaring weaknesses.  There were not nearly enough limits on the kinds of laws Congress could pass.  To prevent the federal government from grabbing power, ten amendments called the Bill of Rights were added shortly thereafter.  Thanks to the bill of rights, progressives have had an enormously hard time trying to accomplish things on their wish list, like banning guns, shutting down talk radio and forbidding any criticism of homosexuality.  But they are getting scarily close.  They are determined to scale the wall, and the wall may just not be high enough.
We need to build the wall.
Progressives attempt to take advantage of the people's ignorance of the constitution (soldiers on the battlements not paying attention), some places where the language is not plain and simple and explicit (the wall is lower there), and activist judges who will pretend the constitution says whatever they say it says, either legislating from the bench or upholding unconstitutional legislation from a progressive-run congress (ladders, grappling hooks, siege towers).  There's also the thing called "judicial precedence," meaning judges are not supposed to overturn previous policy of the court.  (This is where the enemy has actually scaled the wall and is fighting us on the battlements.)
We need to build the wall!
The constitution has problems, and this (and only this) is what I mean: there are not enough restrictions against what congress can do.
Here are some of these problems:

1. It gives congress the power to tax with hardly any restrictions.  Congress' power to tax should be limited, and its ability to raise taxes should be hampered, while leaving its ability to lower taxes easy.
2. The 10th amendment, which prohibits congress from exercising any powers outside of what the constitution specifically grants it, has been overwhelmed by the tide of progressive and liberal programs.  (Unfortunately, the precedent was set during the Civil War when Washington gave itself the right to deny States any right to secede from the Union. [Please, no comments on the reasons for the Civil War -- I want to stay on topic.  If you must know, I do not agree with either the South or the North.  The South was violating human rights and insisting on spreading it to the point of denying a northern state's right to outlaw slavery; the North was violating the constitution by coercing states to stay in the Union.  Understand my point and leave it at that.])  This tide of liberal programs includes such darlings as Social Security and Medicare, and the not-so-darling Obamacare.
3. There is no provision for overturning unconstitutional legislation of Congress.  The Supreme Court has given itself this power, which has mostly been a good thing (though sometimes bad).  But really, the states should have this power, at least to some extent.
4. The nature of religion and morality are not defined.  This was not a problem for most of our nation's history, when our ethics were decidedly Judeo-Christian.  But now we have both secularism and Islam to deal with.  Secularism is having a hay-day in our national policy because it's not defined as a religion.  Islam is also a very different religion than Judaism or Christianity, because its "holy book" advocates using violence to take over the world.  Islam would love to impose Shari'a law on the American people.

There are doubtless many other weaknesses in the wall that need to be fixed.  Do you have any suggestions along these lines?  Please comment.

Tax Policy and the Bible

Some Thoughts

In the Bible, a general standard is set for a tithe (that is, a part of what one makes that is to be set aside specifically for God and His work).  This standard is set as one tenth.


Genesis 14:18-20:


And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. (He was priest of God Most High.) And he blessed him and said,
   "Blessed be Abram by God Most High,
   Possessor of heaven and earth;
    and blessed be God Most High,
   who has delivered your enemies into your hand!"
And Abram gave him a tenth of everything.


Genesis 28:20-22:


Then Jacob made a vow, saying, "If God will be with me and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house. And of all that you give me I will give a full tenth to you."


I sited only two passages, and the issue of tithing isn't as simple as giving one tenth, but all that is beside my point.
This is my point:  Who is the government to claim more importance than God?
Therefore, I would argue that a government built on Biblical principles should be limited in how much it can tax an individual, and it should be limited to 10%.
In fact, 9% would be better.  Then it could be divided into nice clean thirds.
Limit local government to 3%.
Limit state government to 3%.
And limit the federal government to 3%.

To Balance and Restore

What Congress should do to Balance the Budget and Restore Liberty and a Sound Economy


To balance the budget (in this order):
1.  Repeal Obamacare.  Short of that, refuse to fund it.
2.  Cut all government expenditures by 10%.  This includes everything:  The military, NASA, social security, medicare, medicade, pell grants, all welfare programs, everything allocated to various departments, congressional salaries, congressional staff salaries, all federal employee salaries -- everything.  Spare nothing.
3.  Eliminate unneeded (and unconstitutional) federal institutions such as the Department of Education and the National Endowment of the Arts, among others.  The government doesn't need to be involved in the arts, and education should be entirely at the state level or below -- the feds should have nothing to do with it.  All the D of E really does is create more costly overhead and restrict the freedom of the states to make their own educational decisions.
4.  Make a simple, initial reform to social security (which needs to eventually be phased out, but one thing at a time): for everyone 45 and under, shift all the SS regulations having to do with retirement age up by 5 years, and by 10 years for everyone 35 and under.
5.  All of the surplus revenue should be used to pay off the debt, with the priority being used to pay off the supposed Social Security "Trust Fund," which is full of trillions of dollars worth of IOUs.

To Restore Liberty and a Sound Economy

1.  Provide for the federal income tax to be gradually flattened down to a flat rate of 10% over the next ten years.  Knowing that tax rates will go down and remain stable will encourage business and investment, so that the entire tax bass will grow, which will off set revenue losses.

2.  Immediately eliminate the death tax.

3.  Phase out the capital gains tax.

4.  Pass real healthcare reform: tort reform, competition across state lines, deregulation.  Getting the government out of the way will encourage more people to go into the medical profession, increasing supply, and decreasing cost.

There's a lot of other things congress could do, but this makes a decent beginning.

Progressives think like Nazis.

And Class Warfare is akin to Race Warfare. Observe:

In Germany the Nazis first came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

In America, the progressives first went after the billionaires,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a billionaire.
Then they went after the millionaires,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a millionaire.
Then they went after the Wall Street CEOs,
and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Wall Street CEO.
Then they went after those who made more than $250,000,
and I didn't speak up because I didn't make $250,000.
Then they went after me —
and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Disagree? Leave a comment -- I'll be happy to discuss this.

Dude

UPDATE

An Explanation

The above cartoon expresses the journey of America's swing voter over the last two years.  (DUDE.)  The reason it uses the word dude is because it is playing off of the fact that liberal TV talk show host Jon Stewart, hosting Obama in the last week before the election, was a bit warn out by Obama's socialist talking points and at one point showed his lack of respect for Obama by calling him "Dude."  This is depicted in the second to last frame.

Understand that some of what I say below is facetious.

There were many people (swing voters) who got all excited about Obama's "Hope and Change" campaign in 2008.  (DUDE)  They thought it would be so cool to have a change from the politically marginalized George W. Bush.  Obama was so fresh -- so young and "hip" (whatever that's supposed to mean).

And on top of that, Obama was a serious black candidate (well, half white, a quarter black, and a quarter Arab).  If he was elected it would be so historic!  And no one could say we were racist any more.

And McCain was an old geezer who hardly new what he was doing anyway.

So, the swing voter went for Obama.  Obama won, and the swing voter was so happy.  (DUDE!)

Now, of course, those of us who knew better (because we were conservatives and knew what we believed, as opposed to moderates who go where the wind blows) warned the nation that Obama, although trying to run as a moderate, was a die-hard America-hating socialist.  We had evidence.  But we were dismissed as partisan hacks.

Fine, we said.  You elected Obama.  We warned you.  Now you'll see.

Sure enough, the swing voter saw.

Obama passed an outrageous stimulus bill.  (DUDE?!)

Then he, Pelosi and Reid spent almost a year shoving Obamacare down our throats, even as we begged them not to.

(DUDE!)

Finally, the swing voter could no longer stomach the "hope and change" he had voted for two years ago.

Opposition to Obama increased.  Obama's opponents, of course, were labeled as racists by his supporters.

(DUDE!)

(To which the disgusted swing voter replies, DUDE)

Publish Post

Pianos, Harps, and Election Day

This last month, October, I officially made more by tuning pianos than I did working part-time as a custodian.  That's a good milestone for my business.
Today, November first, I tuned a piano for some folks, and when I was done I tuned a Celtic harp they had recently inherited, as the tuning pins were the same as on a piano.  I'd never played a harp before, let alone tuned one.  I guess I can put that on my resume.
Tomorrow is election day.  Everyone is making predictions, so here's mine:
Republicans will pick up 70 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, and 10 in the Senate.
I think there is a greater chance that I have underestimated than overestimated.  We'll find out tomorrow.

Gettysburg

A couple of weeks ago I was at Gettysburg. It was my third time there -- I'd gone once before, in my high school years, and once again as part of a college choir. But this time I was there for a whole day. And this time, there was a new visitors' center there, one that brought to life what had happened there almost 150 years ago. Walking through it, seeing the events that led up to the war and then the battle itself, was very sobering.

As part of tour, I went up to a circular room, surrounded by a panorama of the battle. It was brought to life with lights and sound, the dramatic third day of Gettysburg when Picket's men charged -- and were slaughtered.

Men died everywhere. They were mowed down with grapeshot. Slaughtered.

Slaughtered.

There isn't another word that describes it better.

The narrator read the number of men who died that day.

I was struck by the humanity. Lives snuffed out. So many.

And the war dragged on bloodily for two more years.

Dear God, is this just part of the price we paid for slavery?

How then, will you judge us for our tolerance of abortion? How can our nation stand?

The Utter Folly of Class Warfare, Part I

NOTE: I posted this last month on Apricotpie, but I thought I should post it here as well. I'm still working on Part II.

We hear it all the time. It’s about the only thing that a majority of “main-stream” Americans and the political elitists agree on. The middle class pays too much in taxes, but the rich don’t pay enough. “Tax the rich!” they cry. “Make them pay their fair share!”

Too many of us buy into this lie. I hope that if you are among them, that you will consider my argument and rethink your position. Here is a fundamental principle of life:

You cannot help the wage earner by tearing down the wage payer.

In other words, when money is taxed away from the rich, it is money that they cannot spend expanding their businesses and investments, which creates jobs; raising tax rates on the rich results in higher unemployment. When the government raises tax rates on the rich, the rest of us end up paying for it.

Not only that, when the rich see their tax rates go up, they get jittery, because for all they know their tax rates may just go up again. One percent higher this year, another one percent next year. So they become more cautious, taking less business risks, expanding their businesses less, and employing less people.

Let me give you an example, to illustrate to you how just a small fraction of this works out. Say there’s a really rich man. We’ll call him Rich. He lives in Oregon, and he owns (among many other enterprises across the world) a chain of fine buffets in Texas, called Rich’s Steakhouse. He usually makes about half a billion dollars a year. In 2010 his federal income tax rate was, say, 25%, and so he paid Uncle Sam $125 million of his dough, leaving for himself only $375 million. On top of that, he had to pay, say, 10% of his half-a-billion to Oregon, leaving himself with only $325 million from that year. But, due to political maneuvering and deals in Washington, the “Bush-tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy” are about to expire, and Rich’s federal tax rate will go up automatically next year, say to 27 percent. And Oregon voters have decided that the rich just aren’t taxed enough, and need to pitch in more to fund their schools and police department (which are facing budget cuts because state politicians in Salem decided to spend money on their pet projects first). Rich’s state income tax is raised only one percentage point, to 11%. Now, instead of paying 35 percent of his earnings in taxes, he is paying 38%, a loss of $15 million.

Small, you say? He’s still filthy rich? He can afford to contribute more? Sure. Of course Rich can afford to contribute more. But the real question is, can we afford for him to contribute more? You look surprised that I would say such a thing. Well, listen and I’ll explain it to you.

Rich is looking at how his tax rates are rising. He also looks at the news, and sees politicians telling everyone else that people like him have an obligation to contribute even more. “Uh-oh,” thinks Rich. “My tax rates are probably going up AGAIN.”

Now, Rich loves his home in Oregon. It’s beautiful country, much more beautiful than dry arid Texas. He wants to expand his buffet chain and bring it to Oregon. However, with the way things are going with his taxes, both in Oregon and across the nation, Rich doesn’t want to risk as much of his precious capital to expand his various business enterprises (and create jobs). He decides he needs to cut back and be cautious with his money; one of the things he cancels is his plan to bring Rich’s Steakhouse to Oregon.

Well, Rich has a friend in Oregon, a business consultant named Jonathan. Rich was planning to hire Jonathan to help him with opening his buffet. But, since Rich has cancelled his plans, Jonathan doesn’t get the job. Not only that, many other people like Rich are also cutting back their business ventures, and Jonathan isn’t getting a lot of consulting business. He and his wife decide to cancel their plans to remodel their house. Jonathan breaks the news to his friend Jack the remodeler. “Sorry, Jack, I just can’t afford the remodel right now. I was also going to recommend your services to Rich when he built his new restaurant, but that’s not happening either.”

Jack goes home and has a talk with his wife Sarah. “We’ve got to make cuts in our living expenditures,” he tells her. “I’m just not getting the business I used to be getting; for some reason the rich people aren’t asking for remodeling services as much as before. These are tough times.”

After much discussion, they come up with things they can cut. Every little bit helps. “I hate to do this,” says Sarah, “but I’m going to call the piano tuner and tell him we’ll skip getting our piano tuned for a year.”

Hey! Wait a minute! I’m the piano tuner! They were going to pay me a hundred bucks for that!

Rich wasn’t contributing enough to society, so they raised his taxes. After all, he can afford it. Well, just look who ends up paying for it! The little guy, trying to expand his piano business, and still living with his folks because he can’t afford to go out and rent his own place.

Let’s review, shall we?

Rich’s taxes get raised. He has less money to invest in expanding his business, so he cuts back and doesn’t hire Jonathan. Jonathan has less income. He cuts back and doesn’t hire Jack. Jack has less income; he cuts back and doesn’t hire me, and I have less income. Well, maybe I’ll just cancel that trip to Southern California I was planning on. I won’t buy a plane ticket, and South West Air will have less business. There’s a lot of people experiencing the same kind of hardship, and cancelling their trips. South West lays of some of their employees, some of whom are from Texas. These now un-employed Texans decide not to eat out at Rich’s Steakhouse anymore, and (what do you know!) Rich’s gross annual income next year won’t be as large as he was hoping it would be.

Let me repeat this lesson again. When the rich have more money taken from them (’cause they can afford it), the effect of it trickles down and we all end up losing money. I’m sorry if this sounds harsh, but it is the truth: Those of you who think it’s all right to raise taxes on the wealthiest people to pay for services for the rest of us (’cause they can afford it), when the economy sours and you become unemployed, you have no one to blame but yourselves, because you have supported the policies of class warfare.

I beg you, for your sake, my sake, and the sake of our nation: please reconsider your position.

A Simple Economic Lesson

(Please Excuse the one time this man says "It's none of their damn business.")
This man demonstrates with sound logic and reasoning that the capital gains tax needs to be eliminated. And, by implication, he also demonstrates that Barak Obama is, at best, economically clueless.

Federal Health Care Nullification Act

Beautiful in its brevity. I found this at the Tenth Amendment Center.
This will help force Congress to obey the governing authority of the Constitution. I applaud any state that acts on it.

An Act to render null and void certain unconstitutional laws enacted by the Congress of the United States, taking control over the health insurance industry and mandating that individuals purchase health insurance under threat of penalty.

SECTION 1. The legislature of the State of ____________ finds that:

1. The People of the several states comprising the United States of America created the federal government to be their agent for certain enumerated purposes, and nothing more.

2. The Tenth Amendment to the United States Constitution defines the total scope of federal power as being that which has been delegated by the people of the several states to the federal government, and all power not delegated to the federal government in the Constitution of the United States is reserved to the states respectively, or to the people themselves.

3. The assumption of power that the federal government has made by enacting the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” interferes with the right of the People of the State of _____________ to regulate health care as they see fit, and makes a mockery of James Madison’s assurance in Federalist #45 that the “powers delegated” to the Federal Government are “few and defined”, while those of the States are “numerous and indefinite.”

SECTION 2. NEW LAW

A new section of law to be codified in the [STATE] Statutes as Section [NUMBER] of Title [NUMBER], unless there is created a duplication in numbering, reads as follows:

A. The Legislature of the State of _______________ declares that the federal law known as the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” signed by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010, is not authorized by the Constitution of the United States and violates its true meaning and intent as given by the Founders and Ratifiers, and is hereby declared to be invalid in this state, shall not be recognized by this state, is specifically rejected by this state, and shall be considered null and void and of no effect in this state.

B. It shall be the duty of the legislature of this State to adopt and enact any and all measures as may be necessary to prevent the enforcement of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” within the limits of this State.

C. Any official, agent, or employee of the United States government or any employee of a corporation providing services to the United States government that enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States in violation of this act shall be guilty of a felony and upon conviction must be punished by a fine not exceeding five thousand dollars ($5,000.00), or a term of imprisonment not exceeding five (5) years, or both.

D. Any public officer or employee of the State of ____________ that enforces or attempts to enforce an act, order, law, statute, rule or regulation of the government of the United States in violation of this act shall be guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding two (2) years or by a fine not exceeding One Thousand Dollars ($1,000.00) or both such fine and imprisonment.

E. Any aggrieved party shall also have a private action against any person violating the provisions of subsections (C) or (D).

SECTION 3. This act takes effect upon approval by the Governor.

The Legacy of Entitlements

Never Surrender

It seems the Left is finally pulling the third leg out of our hands.

Healthcare is well on its way to being taken over by our wonderful, benevolent government.

Now, for our own good, they can control our lives and make our decisions for us.

Unless this thing is stopped.

And it will be.

To congress and Speaker Pelosi, I have this to say.

"We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender!"

We're not done. But you are. You can kiss your jobs goodbye in November. Enjoy the corruption, the money, and the drunken feeling of "do-gooder" power for the few months that you have left.

Marco Rubio's CPAC Speach

This is the kind of leadership our country needs.



Marco Rubio, the next US Senator from Florida.
I also wouldn't mind if he was the next President of the United States.

Writing Frustrations

I really want to write more often. And I don't want to write just about politics. Yet that's what I've been doing lately. Well, correction: I've been letting others write about politics. Four in a row: two videos and two articles by other people, all about politics and political ideology. And before that, three posts by me about the same thing.
Don't get me wrong, discussing politics is important; but if that's the only thing, it's woefully unbalanced. Politics is not the queen of all sciences, after all: that title goes to Theology. If America falls, if liberty vanishes, if children are confiscated to be brainwashed -- yea, even if we are all to be tortured and slaughtered -- Yahweh is still sovereign. He sits on his throne in heaven, and scoffs at the nations, the kings, the political leaders, the presidents, who say, "let us throw off our Creator's chains." He is ready to pour out his wrath on this world -- political victories by those who love what is true and right will only be temporary. Eventually, this whole world will fall into rebellion, and choose for themselves a man as their "messiah" instead of Jesus -- who is Lord --, and they will worship him as a god and spurn the True and Living God. Then God will pour out his judgment on a wicked people (from whom, by the way, all of us who trust in Jesus the Lord have been saved by God's sovereign grace -- we have nothing to boast about other than the torturous, bloody, shameful, scandalous cross).
I suppose I am getting long winded here. All that is to say: politics are relatively unimportant. Our nation (great as it is and as much as I love it) won't last forever -- but people will. Everyone on earth is marching toward a lasting eternity in hell, unless he or she believes the message of the torturous, bloody, shameful, scandalous cross, confessing Jesus is Lord.
I hate lies. I hate it when people tell lies. I hate it when people tell lies they don't believe. I hate it when people tell lies they do believe. I hate it when gullible people believe these lies. No matter what the lie is about, I hate it. Lies are everywhere, and everywhere people believe them, whether it is about theology, scripture, the life that pleases God, or politics.
I must confess: I tend to be unbalanced in the arena of political happenings. I am a citizen of heaven by the Grace of God, yet all to often I find myself consumed over the human destruction of my earthly home, my country, rapidly loosing its liberty, and any remaining vestiges of its Christian heritage -- one that used to acknowledge Jesus as Lord. I must remember this world is not my home. If I have to suffer under an ungodly dictatorship for the fifty, sixty or agonizing seventy remaining years of my life, hiding my children from the clutches of Caesar, loosing my loved ones, facing separation, torture, and possibly martyrdom, what is that compared to an eternity with my Lord, who saved me?
I will continue to post about political things, but that will by no means be the only thing I post about. A country at stake is a great matter; an eternity is infinitely more.

Sowell's Thoughts on the Republican Party

Right now my mind is experiencing block... There are many things I want to write, but I'm having trouble composing them. And then I find another great article that everyone should read. And, knowing that you are more likely to read it here than if I merely link to it, I posted it below. One of my favorite authors has described the current political situation better than anyone else I've read. Ladies and Gentlemen, Thomas Sowell.

Are Republicans "Due"?
By Thomas Sowell

High Stakes Even For Non-Republicans
When a baseball player has come to bat after failing to get a hit 20 times in a row, some fans say he is "due" for a hit. But statisticians say he is no more likely to get a hit in this at bat than at any other time. In other words, there is no such thing as being "due."
After the Republicans went from being the dominant party, at both the state and national levels, just a few years ago, and got clobbered at the polls by the Democrats two elections in a row, some people think the Republicans are "due" to make a comeback in this fall's elections.
Maybe it will happen. The polls show that the voting public is getting more and more fed up with the Obama administration and with both houses of Congress that are dominated by Democrats. But, when Election Day comes, nobody can vote for polls. It still takes a candidate to beat a candidate — and the question is whether the Republicans come up with the kinds of candidates that can win.
Those of us who are not Republicans nevertheless have a huge stake in this fall's elections, because the current administration in Washington is not merely deficient but dangerous, both at home and abroad.
In just one year in power, the Obama administration has not merely tripled the deficit and circumvented the Constitution with their "czars" who rule by decree, but have moved to dictate the medical treatment of all Americans — which is to say, they are moving toward getting the power of life and death, to add to all the other powers they have seized.
Increasing numbers of Americans are saying that they are having trouble recognizing the country in which they were born and grew up. They will have even more trouble recognizing America if the Washington juggernaut does not lose a substantial part of its power in this year's election.
The dangers are not only in domestic policy but even more so in the Obama administration's foreign policy. Their diddling around while fanatical leaders of a terrorist-sponsoring nation like Iran are moving toward producing nuclear bombs can take us and the world to a point of no return.
No nation on earth will let three of its cities be annihilated by nuclear bombs without surrendering. The fact that the United States has never surrendered may make it difficult for Americans even to imagine that it could happen, much less what a horror it would be to live under hate-filled fanatics like the current Iranian leaders. But Japan had likewise never surrendered in its entire history until it was hit with two nuclear bombs.
Unlike us, Iranian leaders — going back to the Ayatollah Khomeini — have said plainly that they are willing to see their country destroyed as the price of destroying the enemies of Islam — which, in their view of the world, includes the United States.
Perhaps serious sanctions might have been enough to stop the Iranian nuclear program a few years ago, by crippling their economy. But nobody in the West had the stomach for that.
The longer we wait, the higher the price goes — the price of either action or inaction.
Just three years ago, the people currently at the top in Washington — including President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton — were ready to turn tail and run in Iraq.
Former Ambassador John Bolton has written a book titled "Surrender is Not an Option." But that is an option for the kind of people at the top in the Obama administration.
It would take a leader with extraordinary courage, pride in America and dedication to the values, traditions and the people of America, to stand up to enemies who could annihilate Los Angeles, Chicago and New York with nuclear weapons.
Does this sound anything like the president who has gone around the world apologizing for this country and literally bowing to foreign leaders?
The stakes in this fall's elections go far beyond the fate of either the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. The fate of America is on the line. The Republicans need to understand that — and to understand that they are not simply "due" because of polls.
They have a job to do, and what will happen to our children and grandchildren will depend on how well they do it.

Handicapped By Inarticulateness
Some people say that there is no real difference between Republicans and Democrats. Whether that is said because of being too lazy to examine the differences or because it makes some people feel exalted to say, in effect, "a plague on both your houses," it is a dangerous self-indulgence.
When Republicans were in power, they acted too much like Democrats, with big spending and earmarks, lending weight to the notion that there is no real difference. Among the differences between the parties is that Democrats are more articulate.
Admittedly, the Democrats have an easier case to make. It takes no great amount of thought, nor much in the way of persuasive powers, to sell the idea of government handing out benefits hither and yon. It is only when you stop and think about the consequences, for this generation and generations to come, that some grim questions arise.
But if Republicans don't raise those awkward questions, and don't take the trouble to explain what is wrong with government playing Santa Claus, then the Democrats can soar on a cloud of euphoria. Sometimes it doesn't matter that you have a better product, if your competitors have better salesmen.
Republicans lag not only in the articulation department, they also lag in seeing the long-run importance of the federal bureaucracy. When the Democrats load the federal bureaucracy with liberals, those liberals stay on during Republican administrations and in many cases can shape the perceptions that reach the media and the public, by the way they present data, hire consultants and make grants.
The Bureau of the Census is a classic example. The tendentious way that data and pie charts are presented provides a steady stream of material for a political and media drumbeat about "disparities" that call for government intervention.
Data on income differences, for example, are presented in a way that suggests that the different income brackets represent enduring classes of people over time, when in fact other studies show that the vast majority of people in the lowest income brackets as of a given time rise out of those brackets over time. More people from the bottom fifth end up in the top fifth than remain at the bottom.
Household income data are presented in ways which suggest that there is very little real improvement in the American people's standard of living over time, and innumerable editorials and television commentaries have elaborated that theme. But per capita income data show far more improvement over time. The difference is that households have been getting smaller but one person always means one person.
Just by deciding what kind of data to present in what way, the Census Bureau has become, in effect, an adjunct of the liberal establishment, even when conservative Republicans are in control of the federal government. This is not necessarily deliberate political sabotage, just liberals being liberals.
Robert Rector of the Heritage Foundation has for years repeatedly exposed the fallacies of the inferences drawn from Census data. Yet when Republicans controlled the federal government — as they did for 12 consecutive years, beginning in 1981 -- did they try to appoint someone like Robert Rector to a position where they could put an end to tendentious statistics that promote misconceptions with political implications? Not at all.
Too many Republicans don't even know their own party's history. One painful consequence is that too many Republicans act as if they have to apologize for their party's civil rights record — which is in fact better than that of the Democrats.
A higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. It was Republicans whose "Philadelphia Plan" in the 1970s sought to break the construction unions' racial barriers that kept blacks out of skilled trades.
Just as boxers have to do training in the gym and roadwork before they are ready for a boxing match, Republicans need to do a lot of homework before they are ready for their next match against the Democrats.

Connecting The Dots For Black Voters
If the Republicans think that they are simply "due" to start winning elections, perhaps buoyed by the recent polls showing the public turning against Democrats in general and the Obama administration in particular, then they may neglect to do the things they need to do if they are to turn their hopes into realities.
One of the things that is long overdue is some Republican re-thinking — or perhaps thinking for the first time — about the approach that they have been using, with consistently disastrous results, for trying to get the black vote.
Within living memory, it was considered nothing remarkable when Republicans received 30% or 40% of the black vote. Today a Republican presidential candidate is lucky if his share of the black vote is not in single digits.
The black vote was once consistently Republican, from the time of Abraham Lincoln to Herbert Hoover. Even after Franklin D. Roosevelt won over the black vote to the Democrats, it was not considered remarkable when Eisenhower got a higher share of the black vote than any Republican president in recent times has.
It may be years before Republicans can again get a majority of the black vote. But Republicans don't need to get a majority of the black vote. If they get 20% of the black vote, the Democrats are in trouble — and if they get 30%, the Democrats have had it in the general election.
In some close congressional elections, if the Republicans increase their share of the black vote by even modest amounts, that can be the difference between victory and defeat.
There is no point today in Republicans continuing to try to win over the average black voter by acting like imitation Democrats. Those who like what the Democrats are doing are going to vote for real Democrats.
But not all black voters are the same, any more than all white voters are the same. Those black voters that Republicans have any realistic chance of winning over are people who share similar values and concerns.
They want their children to get a decent education, which they are unlikely to get so long as public schools are a monopoly run for the benefit of the teachers' unions, instead of for the education of the children. Democrats are totally in hock to the teachers' unions, which means that Republicans have a golden opportunity to go after the votes of black parents by connecting the dots and exposing one of the key reasons for bad education in inner cities and the bad consequences that follow.
But when have you ever heard a Republican candidate get up and hammer the teachers' unions for blocking every attempt to give parents — black or white — the choice of where to send their children?
The teachers' unions are going to be against the Republicans, whether Republicans hammer them or keep timidly quiet. Why not talk straight to black voters about the dire consequences of the pubic school monopoly that the teachers' unions and the Democrats protect at all cost, even though many private schools — notably the KIPP schools in various states — have achieved remarkable success with low-income and minority youngsters?
Blacks have been lied to so much that straight talk can gain their respect, even if they don't agree with everything you say. Republicans need all the credibility they can get. When they try to be imitation Democrats, all they do is forfeit credibility.
Most blacks don't want judges turning criminals loose in their communities to plague them and their children. These are almost invariably liberal judges, appointed mostly by Democrats.
Many of the key constituencies of the Democratic Party — the teachers' unions, the trial lawyers, and the environmentalists, for example — have agendas whose net effect is to inflict damage on blacks. Urban Renewal destroys mostly minority neighborhoods and environmentalist restrictions on building homes make housing prices skyrocket, forcing blacks out of many communities. The number of blacks in San Francisco has been cut in half since 1970.
But, unless Republicans connect the dots and lay out the facts in plain English, these facts will be like the tree that fell in an empty forest without being heard.

Fallacies Of A 'Big Tent' Approach
During this election year, and in the presidential election year of 2012, Republicans will not only do battle with the Democrats but with each other. How they handle both battles may have more to do with the outcomes on election days than do the polls showing public disenchantment with the Democrats.
A long-standing battle within the Republican Party, going back at least as far as the 1940s, is between those who want the party to clearly differentiate itself from the Democrats and those who seek a broader appeal by catering to a wider spectrum of social and ideological groups.
The "smart money" advocates a "big tent" and deplores those who want a clearer adherence to the kinds of ideas espoused by Ronald Reagan. What the "smart money" fails to explain is how Reagan won two landslide presidential elections in a row.
He certainly didn't do it by trying to act like Democrats. That's how the Republicans later turned off their own supporters, without gaining enough other voters to keep from being wiped out by the Democrats in two consecutive elections.
There is no way that Ronald Reagan could have won two landslide elections in a row if the only votes he got came from hard-core conservatives. He obviously got the votes of other people who liked what he said when he was running for the presidency and liked what he had done when he was up for re-election.
The big fear today is that the Republicans might offend Hispanics by supporting some controversial policies, such as border control or ending bilingual education. This is a very strong fear, now that Hispanics are the largest minority in the country.
But there is no way to follow any consistent principle without offending some members of virtually every racial, ethnic, regional or economic group. Yet, even on a very controversial issue like abortion, the same voters have at various times elected candidates who are "pro-life" and candidates who are "pro-choice," even if candidates who tried to waffle on the issue may not have done well.
Most voters have enough common sense to know that they are not likely to find candidates with whom they agree 100% on every issue. One of Ronald Reagan's great strengths was his ability to explain his position, so that even people who did not agree with everything he said could respect his principles — which required that they first knew what his principles were.
When you try to waffle and be all things to all people, you can end up being nothing to anybody. That is where the "smart money" crowd has gotten the Republicans in recent years.
All Hispanics are not the same. A surprisingly large share of Hispanic voters are opposed to so-called "bilingual education," and not all Hispanics are advocates of open borders. If Republicans can just make inroads into the Hispanic vote, by appealing to those with similar values, that can be the difference between victory and defeat.
Of course particular groups — racial, regional or whatever — are especially interested in how a candidate's principles will affect them. Here is where the Republicans have fallen down completely in recent years, even though they have a strong hand to play, even with minorities, if they would only play that hand, instead of trying to pander in transparent ways that only reduce their credibility.
Minorities have been the biggest losers from numerous liberal policies promoted by the Democrats — whether in maintaining the monopoly of failing public schools for the sake of the teachers' unions, restricting the building of housing for the sake of the environmentalists, turning criminals loose in minority communities for the sake of the American Civil Liberties Union and like-minded "progressives" or artificially expanding unemployment among minority young people with minimum wage laws.
All that needs to be explained — and explaining is what Republicans have been neglecting for years, except for Ronald Reagan, who knew that you can have your big tent and your principles at the same time, but only if you took the trouble to make your case to the public in plain English.
Republicans have the time to do some real homework on issues and on explaining issues. Whether they will use that time for that purpose is the big question for them — and for the country.

What's Wrong with the Public Option?

Yes, I know: another video. But watch it. It's not long.

Alright. If you're a liberal, you might have to watch this a few more times to get it. Don't give up. It's not that hard to understand what everybody else already knows about the government.

The American Form of Government

Every American needs to see this before registering to vote.

In these days of constant assault on liberty by our own elected officials, the implications of this video's message are more urgent than ever.

What's Wrong With Socialism?

A man at the American Thinker named Joe Herring recently wrote an article titled, What's Wrong With Socialism? While Socialism has so many flaws it would take volumes of books to explore all their various aspects, Mr. Herring does a good job of summing it up. Below is his article; you can also read it here.

What's Wrong With Socialism?
Joe Herring

I recall a conversation I had with a young coworker in the latter weeks of Obama's campaign for president. Joe the plumber had just exposed the redistributionist bent of the candidate, and I expressed my assessment of Mr. Obama as a not-so-closeted socialist. My coworker then quite earnestly asked, "What's so wrong with socialism?"

I initially assumed he must be joking, although his face gave no indication. I stared at him dumbfounded, only later realizing I must have looked like a palsied old man -- my mouth working wordlessly, the incomprehension as evident on my face as the sincerity on his. It eventually dawned on me that he really didn't know what was wrong with socialism. I began reciting the litany of horrors: the crimes of the Holocaust, the purges of the Soviets, the thuggery and inhuman brutality of the statist regimes of the last century. The Nazis, for crissake! How could he not know about the evil of the Nazis? He listened to all of this, nodding his understanding as he recognized some of the events I described, but I could still see a question behind his eyes. While he had been taught of the existence of these atrocities, he had not been clued into the one commonality they shared. They were all perpetrated by the adherents of various forms of socialism. Indeed, such crimes were the only outcome possible.

In the late 1930s, the noted economist Friedrich Von Hayek wrote his landmark pamphlet "Road to Serfdom," laying bare the diseased skeleton of socialist/utopian thought that had permeated academia and the salons of his day. With an economy of words that showcased the significance of his conclusion, he pointed out the Achilles heel of collectivist dogma: for a planned economy to succeed, there must be central planners, who by necessity will insist on universal commitment to their plan.

How do you attain total commitment to a goal from a free people? Well, you don't. Some percentage will always disagree, even if only for the sake of being contrary or out of a desire to be left alone. When considering a program as comprehensive as a government-planned economy, there are undoubtedly countless points of contention, such as how we will choose the planners, how we will order our priorities when assigning them importance within the plan, how we will allocate resources when competing interests have legitimate claims, who will make these decisions, and perhaps more pertinent to our discussion, how those decisions will be enforced. A rift forming on even one of these issues is enough to bring the gears of this progressive endeavor grinding to a halt. This fatal flaw in the collectivist design cannot be reengineered. It is an error so critical that the entire ideology must be scrapped.

Von Hayek accurately foretold the fate that would befall dissenters from the plan. They simply could not be allowed to get in the way. Opposition would soon be treated as subversion, with debate shriveling to non-existence under the glare of the state. Those who refused compliance would first be marginalized, then dehumanized, and finally (failing re-education) eliminated. Collectivism and individualism cannot long share the same bed. They are political oil and water, and neither can compromise its position without eventually succumbing to the other. The history of the twentieth century is littered with the remains of those who became "enemies of the state" for merely drawing attention to this flaw. As Von Hayek predicted, the socialist vision would not be achieved without bloodshed.

So this is the challenge we face. My young coworker had no frame of reference by which to judge the events unfolding around him. He had been presented with only the intentions of socialism, not the inevitable results. He had been given the whitewashed fantasy of the Left, who never saw a failure that couldn't be rationalized -- or better yet, blamed on others. Our job, then, is to teach the lessons of history to those who fail to see the danger. We have to provide that all-important perspective to a generation that has been denied it. We have to do this one at a time, conversation by conversation. Tell your friends the truth; don't assume they know it. Become the person your friends and family consult when the subject turns to politics.

I successfully informed my coworker of the irreparable crack in the foundation of socialist thinking, and he is now aware of the need to burrow beneath the surface of politics to find the roots from which the tree springs. We can't wait until the tree bears fruit to determine its worth. Fruit bears seeds, and seeds scatter. Better to tear it out as a single sapling now than to hew down an entire forest of diseased wood after it has poisoned the ground.

The Left will not willingly lay claim to the true legacy of socialism, so we will have to hang it around their necks. They have grown accustomed to shedding responsibility for the damage they have done, and are adept at shifting the blame. Traditional means of holding them to account are failing. Fellow travelers in the academy and media will not challenge even their most egregious lies, so howling about bias will gain us nothing.

If you doubt the effectiveness of the Left's methods, ask any ten people under the age of forty whether Hitler and the Nazis were a product of left-wing or right-wing ideology. The obstacle we face will become painfully clear. It is not enough that you know the truth. You alone are not likely to singlehandedly shape the outcome of an election. Everyone has to know the truth. We have to reclaim our younger generations from the wolf in sheep's clothing, or it won't be long before the wolf no longer needs the disguise.

Pro-Lifers Tricked

How did this happen?
Speaker Nancy Pelosi was able to get this 1,990 page monstrosity passed, 220-215.
If just three more congressmen had voted against this thing, it would not have passed.
How did Pelosi pull this off?
By tricking gullible pro-lifers.
At the last minute, an amendment was inserted into the bill that prohibited funding for abortions.
With that amendment, she got one Republican vote and several "blue-dog" Democrat votes (democrats who are supposedly more conservative than average).
This is single-issue voting.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against voting against a candidate who is good on all the issues except the life of the unborn. I have no problem making abortion a litmus test against a politician or a bill.
What I take issue with is voting for a politician or a bill just because he, she or it is "pro-life," even if he, she or it is awful on everything else.
There is no excuse for voting for a bill that will enslave us all to the government, just because it prohibits abortion funding. In fact, if Pelosi added language to the bill that (when translated into English) would result in every Crisis Pregnancy Resource Center around the country to receive a million-dollar check and further financial incentives for not having one's baby murdered inside the womb (not that such a thing would even remotely happen), I'd still appose this bill. It's nothing but a bribe to get people who are against murder of the unborn to become accomplices in the destruction of our nation and the enslavement of our people to its government.

Ironically, even with the amendment prohibiting funds for abortion, this is still the most pro-death bill to ever pass the United States House of Representatives. As I stated in my previous post, the government will attempt to cut down its health costs, and the only way to do that is to deny expensive treatment to those who need it, especially with the elderly and the terminally ill. In other words, there will be a panel of bureaucracy determining who will live and who will die. It's not that hard to figure out; we don't need Sarah Palin's help to come to that conclusion.

Mind Control

It’s a three legged stool of control.

They’ve taken the second leg, and they’re after the third.

They've taken our possessions.

They know too much, and they never hate to meddle.

They know our incomes down to the penny. It’s none of their business, but they know it anyway. They’ve made it their business. It’s unconstitutional – or it was, until they passed the 16th amendment. But they haven’t stopped there. They want to limit our paychecks too. If I become rich, they reserve the right to take my money away. “It’s just not fair to everyone else that you have so much,” they tell me. They take my money away, and use it to write their welfare checks; it’s thinly disguised. They’re buying themselves votes. They hate the rich. They hate the middle class. We are independent. We don’t need them; we don’t need their checks. They can’t bribe us so easily to vote for them. Their scare-tactics don’t work so well in preventing us from voting for their opponents. But they’re determined to change that.

They will make us pay.

They will make us depend on them. And their checks.

They will grind our economy into dust and dump economic ruin on us. They will make us dirt-poor. They will force us to depend on them. They will make us come begging to Washington, pleading for mercy. “Please,” we will say to them. “Write us checks. Pay our mortgages. Buy us food. Don’t let us starve!”

They hate our independence. It’s so arrogant, to think that we average citizens can go about running our own lives, creating goods and services, improving our quality of life, and impacting our communities without help them. Why don’t we ask them for help?

Perhaps it’s because they haven’t helped us enough. They haven’t given us enough hand outs. They haven’t forced all those greedy rich people to pay us back what they stole from us (how else could those rich people have gotten so rich?). Perhaps, they reason, we’ve given up on them helping us; we’ve withdrawn and become bitter, clinging to our guns and our religion.

The solution’s so obvious: tax those greedy rich people some more. Give more handouts, more government programs, more free lunches. Encourage everyone to come and take freely! (Vote for ME!)

One of their leaders reassured us that 95% of us would get a tax cut. Only the 5% who were rich and obviously didn’t need a tax cut wouldn’t get one. They’d still get half their income taken away; they’re rich, right? They can afford it.

Never mind that their Marxist reasoning is wrong. Never mind that when they tax half my profits away in the name of “fairness,” I have to raise my prices, stop hiring, hold off raises, cut wages, and lay off employees.

They claim that they are motivated by fairness and compassion. I don’t believe them. They’re after power. Power and votes. But even if they were honest, they’re motivations are irrelevant. Look at the results: their policies are cruel! Wealth is confiscated, poverty is subsidized. Success is punished, failure is rewarded. Who wants to work hard just to have his earnings taken? Why not live on the dole and relax?

And thus, the rise of the dependent class. Never mind helping someone to stand on his own two feet again. Just make sure he keeps getting that check, and tell him that if he votes for the opposition, his life-line will be cut.

They have power over our money. And they drive their tentacles ever and ever deeper in search for power, leaving behind them an abyss of debt.

They control our possessions.

They’ve taken the second leg, and they’re after the third.

The third leg is healthcare.

No longer content that they only control our possessions, they’ve decided to take over every aspect of our lives. And so they bribe us. “Those mean, rich, greedy insurance companies are ripping you off,” they tell us. “They don’t have to charge you so much money; they do just because they can get away with it. Doctors rip you off too – they’ll make up stuff just so they can operate on you and charge you more.”

Slander. Lies.

It’s all slander and lies. Yet, hoping we won’t look to deeply, they continue without pausing for a breath: “If we were the insurance company, we could help you out so much! We’re so compassionate – we’d never try to make a profit off of you. We’d give you much better service at a much lower cost. In fact, let us do that – that will force those mean private companies to compete and stop ripping you off.”

But most of us like our insurance. We don’t want to give it up for some sort of government option. “Don’t worry,” they tell us. “If you like you’re insurance, you can keep it.”

Until it goes out of business – that’s what they don’t tell us. Their “compassionate insurance” will be subsidized by our wallets, enabling them to artificially lower the rates. Real insurance businesses won’t be able to survive – and the plans we have that we would rather not give up will disappear. Then, we will be at their mercy.

“That’s not true,” they tell us. “Our plan will be one that pays for itself – minimal overhead, non-profit, and no subsidies from the general fund.” These are the same people that have put social security, Medicare, and the postal service in the red, besides giving us a twelve trillion dollar debt. They promised us they wouldn’t, but they did.

Why believe them now?

Indeed, we will be at their mercy. Their “compassionate affordable insurance” will be the only one left. And that’s when they assert their control.

Now, every choice we make in life will affect the cost of their program. They will tell us what we can and can’t eat. They tell us where we can and can’t live. They will regulate what we drive. They will put red tape around everything we do. Any of us who struggle with obesity will be ordered to report to a fitness center or pay a fine.

Eventually the whole system will be free when taxes aren’t counted. Demand for health services will skyrocket, but supply will not increase enough. The government can’t hire too many doctors – it costs too much. Shortages will develop. People will be knocked off the list, and the elderly will be first. They’ve lived their lives; they need to get out of the way and stop draining the system of the resources it needs to treat the younger generations.

This is the third leg of the stool they want from us. And they are so close to getting it.

They have the second leg.

How did they ever get this kind of leverage and control over us?

The answer is both simple and tragic.

We GAVE them the first leg.

We gave them our children.

The government controls our schools.

Not all of them, of course. There’s private school – but that costs money. We’re already paying for the public schools with our taxes. Most of us can’t afford to send our kids to private schools.

There’s also homeschooling. But most parents can’t imagine how they could teach their own kids. Education of posterity is supposed to be outsourced to credentialed professionals, right?

Thus, the vast majority of Americans send their kids to public schools. And while one might be able to argue for an exception here and there, these schools are being run by the same kind of people who want the government to take over everything.

In the 1960s, there were a lot of young, hot-headed Marxists running around with violent tendencies – like Bill Aires, who blew up buildings and killed innocent civilians. He still says to this day that he’s not sorry for doing it – he wishes he’d done more. But as these Marxists got older, they realized they were only turning people off. So they became more sophisticated: they settled down, lived quieter lives, and infiltrated the public education system.

Government education is brainwashing generations of Americans into a very particular worldview: the idea that government can solve all our problems if only the right people are in power; an attitude that lives only for the moment and doesn’t care what the consequences down the road will be; a religion that worships the government instead of God.

When politicians argue that the rich shouldn’t get tax-cuts, and we need to “spread the wealth around” to make life better for everyone, they might as well say that you can add two negative numbers and get a positive one. But so many people don’t get it. Too many have been indoctrinated in our government schools.

Right now, 54% of Americans oppose national healthcare. In the past, that number would have been in the sixties, the seventies, the eighties…

There’s a good chance that they will fail to nationalize healthcare this time around. But they will try again 15 years from now, just like they did 15 years ago. And the next time, they may just succeed. By then, there will be millions more brand-new young voters – people who are just getting out of diapers right now, people who are just learning to say their ABCs. And the vast majority of them will have been brainwashed into believing that government needs to solve their problems. By and large, they will support a government takeover of healthcare, and will not think critically through the issues. When the politicians come along claiming to be compassionate and caring for poor helpless people, this new generation will not have the basic discernment to understand that they’re hearing lies. The government will appeal to their emotions, and they will blindly follow like sheep headed for the slaughter.

Thus, as Americans, we will cease to love the freedom we once died for, and lay it down for the false promises of security. We will become surfs to the ruling class, and lose our republic – a free society governed by laws and the constitution – gaining instead an oligarchy, a country governed by the elites in Washington.

We gave them the first leg. We didn’t object when they took the second leg. Now they want the third leg, and we’re objecting. But we are still giving them the first leg. Every day we offer them our children’s minds… it’s only a matter of time before they’ll have the whole stool.