In Times Gone By

I've been reading Truman, by David McCullough, a Pittsburgh area native and two time winner of the Pulitzer Prize.  Its a mamoth book on the Democrat President who proceeded FDR.

Legendary basketball coach and President of the Miami Heat, Rick Riley is said to of been so inspired by its in depth portrayals and details that he changed his style of coaching as a result.

I read a lot about a lot, but not so much about Truman, so I'm learning a lot.  Especially a lot about what Democrats where like back in the proverbial day.  Take a moment to read this excerpt from congressional testimony of David Lilienthal, head of the TVA(Tennessee Valley Authority) and prospective head of the Atomic Energy Commission.  He was asked about his stand on communism, which in the day was the big Red Scare and politicians feared them lurking every where.

Regardless, the view on communism is one thing,  his interpretation of what it means to be American, coming from a son of Eastern European immigrants is quite the point for me.

Democrats, do they believe this way today?  Do people who vote Democrat, because they always do, ever think of these things, or think of them this way?

Conservatives do, liberals don't I reckon.  What about President Obama?  Actions speak louder than words, do I have to list the encroachments on personal liberty?

Read and think on this:

I believe in, [he said] and I conceive the Constitution of the United States to rest, as does religion, upon the fundamental proposition of the integrity of the individual; and that all Government and all private institutions must be designed to promote and protect and defend the integrity and the dignity of the individual...

Any forms of government, therefore, and any other institutions, which make men means rather than ends in themselves, which exalt that state or any other institutions above the importance of men, which place arbitrary power over men as a fundamental tenet of government, are contrary to this conception;  and therefore I am deeply opposed to them...The fundamental tenet of communism is that the state is an end in itself, and that therefore the powers which the state exercises over the individual are without any ethical standards to limit them.  That I deeply disbelieve.

It is very easy simply to say one is not a Communist.  And, of course, if despite my record it is necessary for me to state this very affirmatively, then this is a great disappointment to me.  It is very easy to talk about being against communism.  It is equally important to believe those things which provide a satisfactory and effective alternative.  Democracy is that satisfying alternative.

And its hope in the world is that it is an affirmative belief, rather than simply a belief against something else....

I deeply believe in the capacity of democracy to surmount any trials that may lie ahead provided only we practice it in our daily lives.

And among the things that we must practice is this:  that while we seek fervently to ferret out the subversive and anti-democratic forces in the country, we do not at the same time, by hysteria, by resort to innuendo and sneers and other unfortunate tactics, besmirch the very cause that we believe in, and cause a separation among our people, cause one group and one individual to hate one another,  based upon mere attacks, mere unsubstantiated attacks upon their loyalty.... 

As I said yesterday,  I can understand why my grandfather was a Democrat.  But to think that being a Democrat today is the same as being a Democrat back then is mere fiction.

There are a million reasons to be for one party over the other, and we all do find that one weighty issue that defines for us our loyalties, so be it.

Would it be that harmful though to look past some of the innuendos and sneers, against the 'rich' for example,  and do a little internal reflection on what our loyalties, by way of a vote, for a party really support?

Not A Democrat

"Now let me urge upon you:  Get in line, get on the team, do a little work; help make the United States what it must be from now on:  the leader of the world in peace, as it was the leader of the world in war.  I urge you to be good workers in the ranks."

     ~ Harry S. Truman

Now then,  I can understand why my grandfather was a Democrat.

However, have you noticed what the Democrat Party encourages now a days?   Welfare, amnesty, blame it on Bush.

Undeniable.  

That's why I'm not a Democrat. (but not the only reasons)

On Greed

For just a moment, if we can spare one, I'd like to share my thoughts on greed.

Greed is a hot topic for many people now a days if for no other reason than the soon to be GOP nominee for President is a wealthy man.

Admittedly now a tax payer! (There had been some speculation that he hadn't been, but Harry Reid smoked him out.)

Some may never mind that the Treasury Secretary had tax issues, or lack there of, and so did the much ballyhooed oracle of Omaha, and eponymous tax rule proponent,  Warren Buffet.

Let's be frank, we are all greedy.  To those quick to pin that on Romney, as though you've made some profanely and insightful commentary, one question please.  Did you find such an insidious trait in John Kerry?

But its not about wealth then, now is it?  Its really about party politics, and I can spend more than a minute on that, but I want to point out the greed.

I believe its an even more diabolical greed that dwells in the beings of those that don't dwell on the concept that if the government is spending more than its taking in, that's greed too.

I believe that when we have to borrow trillions of dollars, on a yearly basis, that has to be paid back tomorrow, that's greed.  That's out sourcing our future to the Chinese(mostly.)

I believe that when we vote, and we don't pay mind to leaving our children with our debt, we are greedy.

Now Romney may or may not be greedy, any more so than the rest of us.  I don't know.  But I do know that he has asked the lead player inside the beltway with any credence on reducing the debt and deficit to join him in making a case to run this country.

Obama, who may or may not be as greedy as Romney, had a chance to live by his promises, too many to produce, too few fulfilled, but reducing the deficit being one and he failed.  Miserably.

So do we point out the greed in others only and damn the wealthier candidate, unlike in 2004 when the wealthier candidate was John Kerry?

Or maybe lets think about what kind of greed is more detrimental for all of us?

I know this, Romney may have more wealth than many of us, but his efforts to amass that wealth far surpass  the efforts many are taking in their own lives and his taxes paid are doing more for the balance of payments on our greed than many of us commit to, even when its our children that will bear most of the burdens that Barrack Obama and his lot has cast upon us.

Two Sides of the Story

Just yesterday I had an encounter with a clan of Democrats, pure lever pulling Democrats, that could be construed either as direct evidence that Obama is going to win, or quite the contrary, that Obama's base is not fired up, and therefore less likely to show up.

There were about five of them, at a festival, having a good time.  One came right out and asked me if I want to talk politics!  Does shit stink?

But it soon devolved into, on their part, a demonstration of all the nonsensical reasons to vote for anyone, but particularly linked to the liberal left.

Feelings, wasted vote, straight party proclivities.

I attempted one plea,  "Why should I vote for Obama?"  That was after honest assertion that I didn't know who I was voting for in November.   Left unanswered

I also attempted one point, that I was Catholic and cherished religious freedom and that Obama Care is at odds with that constitutional plank.  Lost.

Its not that they couldn't comprehend my concerns if they understood me, but I was left with the impression that they had no idea what I'm referring too.

Catholic Hospitals forced to perform abortions, 'natch.

So there you have it, my contention is that Obama does not suffer from loss of support of the people who voted him in in the first place.  They don't care much about anything other than the letter "d" after his name.

Others may read into the lack of energy and particulars among his supporters as evidence of tepid support in  November -- low turn out.

I'm Sooo Not Alone

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-senate-texas-20120801,0,4846333.story?track=rss

I've been adrift a few days, taking in life, mostly learning; today I got back to the gym and back to giving out my life's advice.

I guess I've been looking for signs that my contrarianism hasn't regressed to individualism because I've been finding them.

Take the story above,  the Tea Party movement is indeed a live and well, and that makes me smile.

I don't know what constitutes membership in the Tea Party, which isn't to say I'm longing to find out, because I do like my own private individualism, albeit with a Republican registration.  I do however feel a kinship with those good people.

Presidential elections, I believe, are the litmus test of Americans.  We dip that stick in the mud every four years and analyse the numbers and results. Obviously, but where I go is that as an individual, what does how I vote mean?  Further, is it a validation or disregarding of any learning I've done in the previous four years, or a turning my back on positions I'd taken since the last election.

The voting booth is sometimes the most courageous event we take, one that sometimes requires a tremendous leap of faith, a blind turn if you will.

That's my generalization, voting is a courageous act, because courage is linked somehow to doing an act that has great trepidation attach to it.  A sense of danger.   Voting has never been that way for me, but based on the statistics, not many people change the way they vote every four years.  Which I find uncourageous because people change and political parties change, although much slower.  Voting based on party loyalty, if not based on principles is also an indication of no personal growth.


For those people, whether they know it or not, voting is a courageous act.  So courageous in fact that many blow it and do nothing but the usual,  pull the party lever.   To hell with that point about immigration or deficit spending that was so vital to hold as the loyal opposition, its the Party on election day, not the principles.

Principles take courage.

Principled also vote for something, not against something.  That would be against principles, unless of course if your principles and the opposition candidate were your only choices.


Yes, if every four years you compromise on your education and principles and vote party, rationale being against the other candidate, that to me is simply lacking courage.  Maybe this year its because this is the most important election ever and the fate of the nation hangs in the balance.  Reflect on twenty years of that rationale and I think its safe to say one's principles aren't so important after all.

A devout liberal or conservative voting Green or Libertarian is likely principled based each and every time, but some of those folks I've run into over the last ten years have complained about so much, but only when as it applies to the other party.

Take this years election.  Hypothetically,  Obama vs. Romney vs. Tea Party.  What would I do?  Principles. Tea Party.  That's for me.  Maybe for someone else its Romney.

We'll see what happens, how the numbers come in on the first Tuesday in November,  hopefully the numbers show a true reflection on the principles of America, not just how lacking in courage we are.  Either way the numbers will become truth, and quite possibly halt the last best chance America has to changing the system or at the very least providing real pressure to change the system.

Occupy protesters were ardent, but disruption in the voting booth is where it matters most.  The Tea Party may be our last best hope.

I'm Not Alone

Just read "Be Evil"  by Anil Dash in the current issue of Wired, 20.08.

Topic matter is the unshackled Microsoft after 9 years of living under the Clinton era consent decree, but what I really enjoyed were the lines about iTunes.


I've been shunning iTunes since iTunes was a baby, but recently I've downgraded my opinions on it even more since I bought my son an iPod a few years ago.  What specifically flames my ire is the ad nauseum request for your username and password.  


What originally repelled me were it share restrictions.  Which for all I know are long gone.

But I thought I was alone, out of touch, and cranky until I read today:

"Renewed aggressiveness from Microsoft could do the whole tech industry a lot of good.  iTunes is as bloated and user-hostile as Outlook was in the '90s.  That old embrace-and-extend mentality could give us an iTunes competitor that would import your playlists and sync your iPod without making you want to gouge your eyes out."

No further comments needed.

Playing Both Sides

I was wrong, but I am right!

Last weekend I cautioned against the tact of using Obama's words about who built what to gain an advantage in this race, as that approach might backfire.  I even posted a day ago that the President campaign began hitting back, very much along my logic.

However, it appears Romney does have something here, and the polls are demonstrating that.

Good for him,  I hope this works to his great advantage.  I do, truly.

'cause if he starts whipping Obama's butt, then I ain't voting for him.

Here's one of the reasons why.

Mitt is going around now saying how the automatic cuts across the budget shouldn't affect the military, he wants monies protected for our defense.

Well, I don't think what we need from a president is a type of leadership that makes it even easier for nothing to get done.

The automatic cuts concept was a result of not acting on budgetary reform as proposed by a commission, the commission that proposed budgetary reform was a result of no congressional reform in the budget, no congressional reform is the product of do nothing, third rate actors playing the role of Senator or Representative.


To hear Romney remove any sliver from the notion of "across the board" just reminds me how close Obama and Romney are, and how far I am from them.  They got to get something done Mitt,  its already been too long.

Austerity is chic, albeit forced, in Europe today.  It should of been here a long time ago, but even now I don't think many of our Leaders know the word.

The Right Stuff

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/07/23/romney-reprises-obama-build-that-criticism/?hpt=hp_bn3

This is CNN.com finally reporting on the "You didn't build that." fiasco.

You'll find at the end, which in total I thought was a fair piece save that confusing paragraph near the middle, an Obama defense and counter thrust that is effectively my cautionary words a week ago taken up by the Forward campaign.

Also, I wrote yesterday that NCAA penalties levied on Penn State should include vacating the wins during that ugly cover-up era.  I was right on that one too.

http://espn.go.com/college-football/story/_/id/8191027/penn-state-nittany-lions-hit-60-million-fine-4-year-bowl-ban-wins-dating-1998

But I'm not one to gloat....

Lose to Win

Ahead of tomorrow's release of NCAA punishments on Penn State, it seems to me that it should begin with the vacating of all the victories accredited to Joe Paterno from the start of his cover up until the very end.

The School as well.  That seems the least they could do, but just a start.

Love The One Your With

I ought to read my own blog posts.

Conservatism is dead and I have no business giving Mitt Romney advice on how to win the minds over.

Forgive me.

Its a shame though, and this President is so out of whack with my values that I have no recourse but to support Romney.

Its tough though, like a recovering alcoholic, I want my conservatism, I crave it at times, I argue for it.  But I can't have it.  I shouldn't argue about it.  I will learn to live without it.

This is the most important election in my lifetime, and the fate of America hangs in the balance.

Until the next election anyways.

Any takers? I got a hundred dollars on ObamaCare NOT getting repealed.  Not very Romney like in terms of cash wagers, but I'm not very Romney like in many ways.

But I'm a whole lot closer to his views than Obama's....bowing to foriegn heads of state?  I'd never do that.

Give To Live

Here is where the GOP needs to go on the flap about success and the American Dream interpretations from the President.

Its not about getting help for success, and its not about government playing a role, for both of those generalities are correct.    What the key to the American Dream is, is a work ethic.

Put an effort into life, and see what you get out of it.  

I'd love to hear Mitt Romney or John Sununu emphasize more of that positive generality than acting aghast about the words of Mr. Obama, which essentially he's earned the right to say, he's an elected President.

In another consideration, did you hear all the people cheering for what he was saying?  Those are wayward voters there.  Generally speaking, not enlighten to the conservative interpretation of American Exceptionalism.  

The tact of the opposition to the liberal reinterpretation I don't think is going to do much to appeal to the intellectual curiosity of the cheering Obama-ites.  It places Mitt as out of touch.  Let the words as the President lay, its not helping.

Promote work ethic.  That doesn't oppose the president.  The people who like the president have their reasons, and they don't likely like being debased for that like.  They'll become defensive, harden their support.

Mitt needs to crack the mindset.  One way maybe to link success as an effort, link taxes as what they are, a deterrent.  Repeat over and over again that the best way for us to move Forward(steal the slogan) is for all of us to put an effort in.

Taxes just rob life, spending too much raises taxes, needing government begets more spending, working hard for your gains in life ends the downward cycle, and precipitates personal vitality.  

That's the conservative message.

Denying government and others help plays a role in success is absurd, we know that Mitt and Sununu and any other GOP politician have spent careers building just the opposite.  Let the first politician who has not tweaked government to encourage success in his or her district throw the first stone.

Much Ado About Nothing

All this angst about Obama saying the American Dream is had with help is much ado about nothing.

What?  You expected him to share the same values as conservatives?

If he did, he wouldn't be a Democrat.

Besides, didn't Hillary write a book entitled, "It Takes a Village?"

Seems like an honest progression.

You don't have to like it, but the reality is he has a constituency with this.  And the other 90% of people who vote for him will adjust their attitudes accordingly.

Keep in mind its a long campaign,  he's going to say things you don't agree with often, no need to get in a tissy every time, if you were in agreement with what he said, you'd be voting for him.

Further reading:

The Big Question

In the wake of the Supreme Court decision on ObamaCare, I've decided, after much thought, to test the waters of liberalism.

I'm now looking, asking, pleading, for liberals, or progressives, to turn me onto the theory of how all this is going to be paid for?

So that I too may be a true believer.

Oh, I'm not talking just ObamaCare,  I'm talking about all of it, the whole expanded governmnent.

And another thing I'd like to know,  where are our limits?  What, if anything, is asking too much of government?  Cell phones, food stamps, housing, and health care are just some of the service provided.  Is it in my purview to ask for more?

I'm thinking maid service.

How about just more?

Surely any rational, thoughtful idea, as mine are, as what everything our federal government provides, can not be looked over.

Evidently there are no responsibilities or expenses that our government can't legislate a service for, there are only needs that have not been identified yet.

How about just a list from everyone?  What do you need?

Why bother, I realize now, to worry about the cost.

Cost?  That's the exception that proves the rule, now isn't it?

For there is one necessity, cost, that can not be legislated away.

But, some would argue, that is what the FED is for.

Et tu John Roberts

Et tu John Roberts.

Conservatism has no role in government any more.

The attacks on church stand, the attacks on personal liberty stand, the attacks on states rights stand.

The individual mandate is a tax,  who knew?  But of course it is, and the Boston Tea Party just delayed the inevitable. 

The United States of America,  a footnote in history.  A freedom loving people, long since gone.  What could of been had they persevered?  We will never know.

Conservatism,  one of the most common sensical ideas of  political theories, but outside the halls of academia it never caught on.  Truth is, academia never liked it anyways.  Its seems limited government has no role in today's society.  

Fortunately many of us will not be around to see how our progeny like paying for all this.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  Lord Acton was right and John Roberts has his for life.

Menu Item: Pol du Jour

One of the many reasons why I think we have the problems that we have...

Allegiance to our political parties.

That is foremost on my agenda today, exposing how loyalties to the party are killing democracy and our way of life.

I drove by a house today with an Obama / Biden 2012 placard in the window.  Now I'm the first to concede that there are people out there that ought to support this duo, and I'm not going to condemn them for it.  I may not understand it, but he has a natural constituency.

What was striking about the placard I saw today was that it was in a window of a home of someone I know.

Oh my gosh, right?

But I'd admit that of all my acquaintances, they would be at the top of the list of suspected stooges for the party.

I can't go further drawing generalities out of anecdotal experiences without revealing that after a couple political conversations in the past, when I exposed the strawman for who he was, that he refuses to engage me in politics anymore.

And there you have it,  in microcosm.  An individual, no different from millions of other individuals, who so ardently pimps the party's politician du jour, that he neverminds the particulars of why he's spending his clout on the person at all.

But that is how it is today.  Reverse the party in residence at 2600 Pennsylvania Ave. and I'm certain chapter and verse of all the petty, quasi-villainous, and or immoral behavior of that President could be recited for my distasteful pleasure.

Its behavior from both sides. Though recent history has a plethora of examples where the left just doesn't care that their guy(or gal) is dastardly in much the same way as the scoundrels they condemn on the right.

To deny that is to admit ignorance, and proves my point.

Enron is to Solandra?

Drones are to Patriot Act?

Gitmo is to Gitmo?

Fast and Furious?
....

We can't expect the people we elect to be anything but what they are today, that is unaccomplished bad actors, if we don't scrutinize those who prefer to have us believe we are in their best intentions.

They Don't Get It.

I really like to over think voting.  I do.  For all the weight my one vote has out of over hundred million, I spend an exuberant amount of time thinking about which way to go.

Maybe I don't get it.  In light of my contention that it doesn't matter anyway which of the two major party candidates we elect, that our path is still to ruin, why shouldn't I just free my mind to follow sports unfettered with all this political silliness.

But here I go again.

I was in conversation with my beautiful wife when I let my mind and mouth run off on a splendid diatribe asking what's the point of liberalism today.

They are winning, that is to be sure.  So why aren't they doing what's right,  winning for long term success?  If they did that, people like me, people who think about things like this, would be able to think about other things. Like soccer.

So sorry soccer, until we get this issue resolved, I'm afraid I don't have any time for you.

Here it is, we are getting deep in the election year, and I'm already over thinking the choice we have to make in November.  Obama, and his leftist inclination with an added touch of pragmatism, vs Romney, with his right leaning economics influenced by centrist accommodations.

I'm thinking that neither choice is going to make this government any more sustainable.  I'll give the benefit of the doubt to Romney though, cause Obama left me with no benefits to the doubt I already had about him before he got elected.

Now, obviously, it's clear that Obama isn't interested in creating a sustainable government, in fact it appears his goals are diametrically oppose to rational and sustainable government.  Which of course lies bare the claim of his non-politically allies, that he is indeed pragmatic.

Pragmatism may sound like philosophy, but like obscenity, I know it when I see it.  Getting further in debt with no plan out of it, isn't very pragmatic.

The point to me is, as I've said, this form of Government is unsustainable.

The truth of politics is that the liberals are winning, but they are destroying the prize.  The conservatives are losing, but what they are fighting for is a prize that the liberals would claim, cherish, and call their own.

Democrats do not have to win another presidential election for some time and their agenda will still move forward, the younger Bush Administration is contemporary evidence of that thought.  I accept that, even though I am a conservative.  I'm at peace with their agenda moving forward, my choice for President almost  always loses, but I have my own little way of protesting the direction.  You're reading one way, another is I work to discourage voter turn out.

My acceptance is metaphorically related to reading a good book that you know will end poorly.  Not a romance but a tragedy.  An ugly, historically epic, and equally avoidable yet unavoidable tragedy.  By definition you know it won't end well, but you're enjoying the read, or the life as it may be, so your not counting the pages to the end, you're just wrapped up in the here and now.

I realize this isn't going to end well,  I look upon liberals as the villians in this tale, they are not happy with winning.  They want more.  Not aware of what they have, and unwilling to listen to their countrymen who caution against their lavish spending with money they don't have.

Want to impress me with largess? Craft a system that pays for itself, that has savings and limited commitments. A bank account that could buy other nations, not drag other nations down.

Liberals could aid their own cause,  but while their goal of champion government in all respects moves forward, who are they really helping?  The poor today aren't climbing, that is evident.  With the system we have, tomorrow's generations will have to pay for this spending, thus robbing them of life and prosperity.  That sure doesn't sound like liberalism is a boon to them either.

So liberals want more and to contribute less.  That can't be disputed.  Clearly adding more government, to a government that already is not paying for itself, is asking for more while contributing less.

Help yourselves to restraint and true pragmatism, liberals, please.  For your sake, as much as my own.

I Don't Get It

I was reading this piece posted in the Wall St. Journal by Kimberly Strassel identifying intimidation tactics used by the Obama Administration presumably to silence donors of Mitt Romney's campaign.

Of course I was alarmed, but frankly I'm so skeptical and jaded that 1.)  I don't doubt the allegations, nor am I surprised and 2.)  in my opinion, by and large anyone supporting Obama just doesn't get it.

I'm not talking the intellectual adage of 'getting it', the Aha! moment, the epiphany if you will.  I'm saying they just don't see the information.

I just don't think the vast majority of Americans supporting the Democrat in office are regularly shown the stories that could  effect changes in their loyalty.

How do you fight that?  I tried during the Clinton years.  People trust the party more than the shady allegations.

Let me flipped this now.  Another thing happened to me during the Clinton years, I bought into this notion that is being resurrected by fine Conservative thinkers that this election is the most important ever(of course) because if Obama wins he will roll back the 22nd Amendment.

(I'd like to know if very many Democrats were fed a similar line when Bush was running for re-election in 2004.  I expect it to be so, but my bias would prohibit me from listening long to something so silly, so I don't know with any certainty.)

I'm off the reservation on this one.  Obvious, right?  The 22nd Amendment is the one that term limits the Presidency.  Its also the one that has done the most damage to our fine institution of government, which I have written about often in the past.

The short version is that everyone just waits the President out.  Congressman from the other party?  No term limits.  Third world dictator?  No term limits.  Corrupt bureaucrat?  No term limits.

My answer to allegations that Obama wants to roll back the 22nd Amendment?  If he could do that, I'll vote for him.

But he can't do that.  Can he?

And if he could do that, why run the risk of loosing your re-election, why not just do it now?

If the point is that perhaps he could begin a campaign after his re-election to rally support for a new Amendment to nullify that 22nd Amendment, again, I'd vote for him.

While I think less of the average policy maker, bureaucrat, and Idealogue than I have in the past, I still think we could craft a suitable Amendment with some reigns on a particular over zealous occupant of the White House, i.e. exempting the occupant at the time of passage.  Meaning Obama's terms would conclude before the new law would come into effect.

One would hope.

But no,  I don't see that happening in anyway if Obama gets re-elected.

I read that Bill Clinton is against the 22nd Amendment too,  maybe there is some sort of cell forming here,  ten years from now we could have all these former presidents clamoring for the repeal  that would allow us privileged Americans to pick and choose amongst any number of former failed Presidents to have another crack at it.

I bet we get change then.

On To November

Well technically I still have a choice, but what choice do I really have?

Pennsylvania's primary is coming up, the field is three.  On paper, as they say.  But the empty feeling in my gut may be the working man's blues, or it may be that old time disenfranchised religion.

Romney isn't a bad choice after all.  Much better than McCain or Dole.  He may even be a better choice than Bush the Younger, but before I go that far let's see how he campaigns for the contest in November.  On paper, and in front of the podium, he is well represented and well spoken.  Not since the aforementioned Dole, has a GOP candidate been given so much fodder to run a campaign on.

I think my ultimate choice in November will come down to this.  If Romney runs like Dole I'll take a pass and go third party conservative.  If he is aggressive, like Bush downing McCain in the 2000 primary, I'll vote for him.

I think we'll see the latter.   Despite my protest of the treatment his Super PAC has given his opponents, inwardly I like it.  I'm not hoping for a candidate hell bent on taming the world but I am desirous of a GOP candidate that has the proverbial blood in his mouth.  Rabid to win, willing to be more aggressive than the sheepish Republican establishment.   Despite hammering the guys I liked in this primary season, the way he distanced himself from the PAC was marvelous, and was a Hopeful sign of Change from the typical softball campaign of his predecessors.

Where I've Been

It's been a while, and I'm alright with that.  It happens,  life is busy, I was busy.

I'll tell you a little of what I've been up to.

I know a man who is highly partisan, which is a trait that attracts me like a moth to light on a hot summer day, and I've been in correspondence with him though out the years.  Sometimes we exchange a large volume of emails, sometimes not so much.  In my absence of writing this blog, I've been venting on him.

It isn't fair really, and I'm not so proud of myself.  I loose control and at times really bombard him with opinions and stories that are contrary to his stated opinions and news stories he's shared with me through out the years.  I'm not sure why I do it, and for the umpteenth time I've sworn him off.  I'm not writing him anymore cause the stories and opinions I'd write him aren't really mine, and it just seems like not a nice thing to do, its not genuine.

Bob Dylan sang, and I've used it so many times, "If there is an original thought out there, I could use one right about now."  Frankly, he didn't actually sing it as much as he said it accompanied to music, but there again, I digress.

Why, you may be wondering, would a words smith like myself, a man capable of writing nonstop for hours without end, go through the efforts to email a partisan, someone unlikely to change his opinions, with material that isn't even mine?  What would be the point?

I know, I know!

Understand one thing, the material I was sending him wasn't mine, it was his.

I heard every conceivable and inconceivable thought and position out of this man during the eight years of the Bush Administration, and believe me a rationale mind wouldn't utter some of the rants I was inundated with, that I began to relish the bumbling, contradictory, and ruinous escapades of Barrack Obama and his ilk, just so I could  throw some mud back at my friend.

What was great about the tirade I've been up to, is that all I was doing was throwing his mud back at him.

I thought I could jar his mind loose, but I was wrong.

So I quit.

Again.

That's the problem with partisanship.  These parties will make you look like a fool if you let them.  The complaints about Bush are the same complaints about Obama.  Prove me wrong, and I'll prove me right.

I would love to have an honest debate about policy, but its usually never that elevated.  Its usually just silliness.

I'll leave with an impression today, not from my friend, but from current events.  Mitt Romney, whom I'm on record as not exactly an admirer of, is on the receiving end of that classic wedge tactic of class warfare.  "He  is so rich he is out of touch."

I'm sure my friend would echo that sentiment.  I'm sure of it because I don't think he's missed a negative story, anecdote, or opinion about the GOP in his life.

But to me its irrelevant.  His wealth.  On second thought its actually an indication of his success, which should be relevant.

At one point wealth was irrelevant to the critics of Romney too.  It wasn't that long ago that a very large percentage of them were voting for the fabulously wealthy John Kerry.  Wealth didn't make him out of touch, but it has for Romney?  How do they know?

That's what partisanship does for you.  It blinds you to how what you say or do today is contradictory to what you said or done yesterday.  Politicians love that.

I don't.

Now whats the big difference between Romney and Obama?  Personal wealth isn't the issue.  Unless to say Romney earned his one way and Obama another.

The Time Is Now

Maybe it's time for a man like Newt.

Hear what I have to say.  Does anyone believe that any of these ideas coming out of the debates by the candidates is going to get enacted?  If you do, then I got a bridge for you in Brooklyn.

(That line reminds me, as it is an election year, of the campaign slogan for the 1996 re-election of Bill Clinton.  "A Bridge to the 21st Century."  A lot of people bought that bridge, and as I dislike to point out, the off ramp was, like the Brooklyn Bridge, at the southern point of Manhattan, only Clinton's bridge terminated at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.  Fitting as it is also, Newts latest troubles stem from that era as well.)

So its admitted, we all expect nothing out of these candidates.  A little around the edges, that's all I can reasonably expect.  Even from Newt.

But I'll say this, Newt is the only one that I'd expect to be confrontational.  I think Romney would placate sooner rather than later, and that Santurom would hold out just a bit longer.  I don't expect Newt to ever placate.

He never has.

Newt has done the improbable, winning the House in 1994.  He accomplished much in his time there, that gives me hope that he would change things.  All the sarcasm that a simplistic sentence like that is entitled to, please.

But seriously,  while I can see Mitt and Rick being beaten by the press and the party, I don't think Newt would  succombe to that.  Additionally, lets not forget for the least the type of characters that pass for Senators and Representatives these days.   I guarantee the first critics of Newt Gingrich will be the those Mensa's running Congress.  "How abrasive and uncompromising Newt is."

I would love to hear  Newt tell them to quit their belly aching.

I thought Perry would be a nice antagonist to congress, what with his sharp tongue on part time sessions.  I absolutely expect Newt to be an antagonist.

Its time for an asshole for President.

Good Guys Don't Finish First

Newt was absolutely correct in one particular observation during the South Carolina CNN debate the other night.  The media and the process has discouraged any decent human being from running for President.

Although Rick Santorum is struggling mighty hard to prove he is the exception to the rule.  He is also running third, and will likely be the next candidate to drop out.  So where does that tact get him?

I take that statement of Newt as an admission too.  He knows what he is, and that isn't the most decent of human beings.

Be that as it may, he's still the most accomplished in D.C.  Romney is accomplished, I'll give him that, but not inside the beltway.

Rational Anarchist

"A rational anarchist believes that concepts such as 'state' and 'society' and 'government' have no existence save as physically exemplified in the acts of self-responsible individuals.  He believes that it is impossible to shift blame, share blame, distribute blame . . . as blame, guilt, responsibility are matters taking place inside human beings singly and nowhere else.  But being rational, he knows that not all individuals hold his evaluations, so he tries to live perfectly in an imperfect world . . . aware that his effort will be less than perfect yet undismayed by self-knowledge of self-failure."

    -- Prof. Bernardo de la Paz

I Should Like Mitt

I should like Mitt.

With an opening statement like that, you would assume I don't, and you would be correct.  I don't personally dislike the guy, but as to why I don't like him, can certainly be taken personal.  I think he's a little too fake. Contrived.  Acted.

Which is not to say he's a bad guy.

This sentiment may merely be a manifestation of my contrarian streak, which I can argue myself out of, but it may also be the reality of it.  He certainly has some positions today, that he didn't have back in the day.

If I take the New Hampshire approach, I wouldn't look at him beyond his electability, whatever that means, but I'm not living there, I have my own reality to deal with, and I'm not convinced his positions today are the ones we'll get if he should win high office.  That victorious occupation is a slim reality, in my opinion as well.  But I digress.

Continues

After the first primary, and the second event, with the third immeniently and projected much the same, is it too early to recognize the trend I already wrote about?  The conservatives are out polling the front runner. Too bad this is a race for plurality, not majority, and the majority is losing.  Like they always do.

I got so much to say that I may find this is no longer a hobby.

Do I go with the rant about the nominating process or the reasoning behind the voters choice, reached through exit polling?

I'll build upon the concept of a third party candidacy that I'm not really supporting but espousing.  I've been voting that way for years, I'll try to explain why.  But I'm not actually in that place yet this year, its still early, but they say history repeats itself, and this nomination process reminds of 2008 and every election year before that.

Before you tune out, consider what choice I'm being presented with.  Not certain, yet, but likely indeed.  The momentum makers, the voters in Iowa and New Hampshire, and particularly New Hampshire, cited as a top tier reason for voting for Mitt Romney his electability.

What? That's as ephemeral and manipulable a reason as I wound never ever want to see in regards to voting for a presidential candidate.

You think he looks good now?  Able to win, do you?  Just wait, that can suddenly change, as the news makers see fit.

But I'll give them this, being where we are in the process, Iowans and New Hampshirites are at least putting it out there first and early.  Moving forward, anyone with that reasoning is either intellectually daft or demonic.   Either way, I'd like to remove them from the voting lists.

I scornfully predict that this reasoning isn't going away though, and neither is this election process that over values the voices in two tiny states over the other mostly larger, but maybe not brighter, forty eight states.

Keep in mind that this process, these influences, these King makers, will deal from the deck and lay a hand on you and I that we are expected to play loyally in November.

It will happen by and large as they hope.  Some will have a red face, not of a royal flush, but from the anger, for it is preordained that those who don't call on electability, will fold to the manipulation that has proven successful for years, pissing off the electorate.

How do you think Obama got in there?  Rationally and empirically the Bush years weren't as bad as the Democrats were making them out to be, Obama's record is much worse.  Voters are more sedate now however, the loud and frequent gripes from the left aren't needed, yet.

Which brings me back to Romney not even winning the majority of his party, yet.

The conservative voices are not going to win the day, again, and while that part of being a splintered vote is their own damn fault, the fact that I'm not going to have a say at all is what riles me.  My chance to vote is in late April, it will be decided well before then, if not before February.

To think that people who put as much thought in it as the "electability" crowd will somehow inspire millions of clones to do just the same and decide this, and proudly admit as much is beyond my patient sensibilities.

I'm not done yet,  we have a debt that is in the tens of trillions, I hesitate to be specific here because by the time I click publish, the number I cited may rise, and will rise by some not insubstantial amount.  We have a nuclear Iran coming around the corner, and I've been reading the rhetoric for years -- its not good.  We have open borders and high unemployment.  We have as many problems as we do debt, seemingly.

If it weren't for the simple fact that we have a ridiculous election process that is manipulative and disenfranchising I'd have something other than sarcasm for our society.  As it is, how can I not be cynical while I'm expected to vote for the party in November, regardless.  How is it too, that I can not help but be cynical toward any rhetoric that we can fix the nations ills when we can't even get our elections right.

Maybe the conservatives are right in one regard, the fore fathers of ours were inspired, they made an elaborate system that presumably they understood, though I swear to you, I don't.

More to Say

When I finished writing about the third party option, I really had more to say.  I want to break new ground on this issue, ferment a little Jeffersonian rebellion.

There is news out today spotlighting the latest ad by Newt Gingrich plowing into Mitt Romney.  Specifically his "timid" approach to the economy, likening his plan to that of the President.

Many think Newt is a progressive, just as bad as the President.  Mitt and his supporters certainly characterized Newt as a scoundrel as vile as the President, successfully enough in Iowa to beat down the numbers that ultimately came in for Gingrich.

In the end, in Iowa, Romney won by the slightest of margins over conservative Rick Santorum.  He won with 25% of the votes, depending on the way you slice it, the conservatives out gained the mainstream candidate by more than two to one.

Do you see what these generalizations mean?

It means that unless the conservatives coalesce around one candidate the end will be destined for a  man that could not convince a majority of his own party, perhaps not even a plurality, to vote for him.

What if this continues through the rest of the 49 states?

The conservative voices will fail to achieve the ultimate prize and again settle for the second billing with a second rate new comer, a la John McCain and Sarah Palin.  I believe the ticket will fail just as well.

We will have the "mainstream" candidate, with 25% of the GOP Primary support, out lasting conservative choices that singularly would do better. When the dust settles GOP pundits and ardents will lay on us why we have to coalesce around the winner for the sake of our future.  This election is just too gosh darn important to allow Mr. Obama to win again!

You think I exagerate the influence the successive defeats of the conservatives in the primary season has on ultimate nominees?  Consider Bush/Quayle begat Dole/Kemp who begat Bush/Cheney who begat McCain/Palin who begat Romney/?.

All well to the left of right, whose Veep was considered more conservative.  Many say the distinctions between the Democrat and Republican are waning.

Well, that is the game isn't it.  Sometimes you win and sometimes it comes in spurts.  You see that in sports all the time.

But consider also the talk that predictably surrounds all recent primary and general elections.  Fraud.  Its become routine for some observer to claim or point out the obvious, that voters in caucuses and primaries aren't exactly party members, much less ardent supporters of anyone.  More like an Occupy tactic of disruption.  Disruption of an nomination process.

Weigh it anyway you want, but obviously the conservatives some how out number mainstream candidates but suffer in the end for it.

The glue that keeps us together, but at some point fails, is the concept that together we share a common enemy, the liberal democrats.  If we stand together we have a better chance of winning the top prize.

Maybe that is part of the problem.   We think of the left as enemy and the occupation of the White House the prize.

Maybe I'm too indifferent, but I don't see the demonization of the administration or the other side in general as very insightful and inclined toward success on election day.  The left did that to Bush but he still won.

The prize is the power to advance the idealogy of smaller government, etc., not just having someone with an "R" next to his name.

What good is it that the predominant thinking of the GOP takes a back seat every four years like an obedient dog standing aside while a better looking or better spoken or more compassionate pedigree takes top spot.

Full disclosure, I don't get a say in the nomination process because there will be a victor by the time my state, Pennsylvania, has its primary.  As is always the case.

Maybe that is why I can't dance too tight with a party.  I'm practically disenfranchised.  Twice.

Conservatives wouldn't be harmed by going third party, history suggest they may need to, to be heard.  Jefferson said a little rebellion is good now and then.  Conservatives may do well to listen to their best advice, heed what the founders warned about.

My Third Party Rant

Happy New Year!

"It's getting to the point where I'm no fun anymore.  I am sorry."
 -  Crosby, Stills, & Nash.

Gosh I really like that line, at times it seems like it was written for me to use, and use, and use.  When it comes to some political arguments, I gotta fall back on those words because I'm not entertained by the thoughts I'm hearing and I'm no fun in responding.

What got me riled up late last week was the stoking of that age old American quandary of what are we going to accomplish by voting third party.

There may of been a time, but I doubt it, when I was such a party guy that the idea and action of voting for someone outside the two main parties was ridiculed by me.  I have been Going Rogue  longer than Sarah Palin's  been Sarah Palin and I've yet to be persuaded by any opinion that it is contrary to my best interests.  I believe voting third party is appropriate and I'll use the line "so be it" in response to the thought that its a vote for the incumbent or the Democrat, whichever the worse case may be.  So be it.

I've heard all the reasons,  too numerous to recite, but I welcome any that you may have to challenge me and persuade me to vote as you deem fit.

The talk on the radio, where I was stoked, was regarding rumors swirling around Donald Trump.  If we are to believe them, those who know The Donald say he is seriously considering a run at President as a third party candidate.  Great!  Doesn't mean I'm voting for him, but I love the idea.

And so the natural response by GOP operatives and ardants is that he is only going to take away votes from the Republican candidate, thus enabling if not assuring a victory for Mr. Obama in November.

Its sounds plausible and frankly, likely.  Buts its not my problem.  Well O.K.  it is a problem but I'll be darned if I'm going to put my principles and thoughts, well honed over thirty years, aside to vote for someone I don't believe in so that someone else I equally don't believe in will be denied a victory.

Why should I?  I don't believe that these two parties are that far apart on so many issues, that having one in office over the other is such a stark contrast.  If I did feel that there was such a difference in candidates, I'd be voting for one or the other despite the third party candidate.

If, for example Mitt Romney, can't persuade me to vote for him, a candidacy of Donald Trump is going to persuade me to vote for Mitt Romney either.

I have this crazy idea that when a citizen enters the voting booth, he or she should be selfishly voting for his or her's best interest.

We live in a representative Democracy with yearly elections, weighted every four years with the Presidency on the line.  The system is set up so that on those yearly occasions we all migrate somewhere, pull the level or punch the card or hit the button for the candidate we believe will represent ourselves as well as we could represent ourselves.

Collectively, the will of the people is filtered this way,  the winner lays claim to be representative of his constituency.  Within a representative democracy, it is incumbent upon the office holder to champion his voters positions, but ultimately decide and govern.  Compromise if need be to get things done.

But for this system to work well over time, we need to be selfish in the voting both, otherwise we don't get office holders reflecting our values.  We get office holders reflecting the muddled values of being electable.  

For my part, I'm voting once a year,  only once in four do I get a say at the high office.  I'm not compromising my views in this context.   If I do, that is a conscious decision  meant to indicate my displeasure in some way, perhaps as a protest vote.

If I'm displeased with a candidate from the GOP but yet vote that way its a capitulation on my part of my principles.  The Democrats win either way because its demonstrating to future GOP candidates that THEY, THEMSELVES, can be positioned  nearer to the left and still garner support from the electorate that pretends to be diametrically opposed to the Democrat ideology.  Thus future elections are between two candidates that are closer in views than even today's politicians, and thus providing no real choice in the final place.

And in four years we'll hear the same arguments as to why we need not to vote third party all over again.

I've also said a thousands times, we got two parties in this country, a corrupt party and an inept party.  Relatively speaking of course.  I've come to believe they aren't so different.

Presently, one of the only true distinguishing characteristics of the two parties is the predilection of the conservative block to retain their principles and vote accordingly, even outside the GOP if they are forced to.  When that value changes, we will no longer need to worry about having one corrupt party and one inept party.  There will be no difference.

I actually enjoy being different from the left.  Those critical of voting third party are right in this, the left doesn't splinter.  I'm somewhat proud and smug at the thought that I still retain the liberty to vote freely, in my own best interest.  I think taking up the argument that we got to get behind the GOP candidate no matter who is boring and reflects a loss of liberty.

To buck the establishment is fun, maybe there is some fun left in me after all.

With Friends Like These

I began this piece by looking up the alleged Eleventh Commandment,  the one about not speaking ill of fellow Republicans.

I read this on Salon.com.   Which by now should sound familiar to all those observing current events.

Its been a couple of days now since the latest compromise by House Leader John Boehner.  I got the word while running a couple errands, a radio host on one of the conservative national shows was breaking the news, running with the press conference, and then proceeding to denigrate the actions of the Speaker for reaching an agreement with the President on the pay roll tax cut extension.

The thoughts on radio programs, on TV, and in print would be so poignant and profound if those weren't the thoughts we hear each and every time from the word smiths when compromise was reached with this president.  As facts would have it, its been going on a lot longer than during this President's term. Since I can remember the titular leaders of the GOP have been pillaged and beaten by the national press over matters of politics far more often than the Democrats.

Two points aside.  One, I'm not espousing no scrutiny from the national press, I'm just now echoing the thought that there is a bias.  Scrutiny is well, bias needs to be weighed.

Two, rhetorically.  For the biased on the right, why doesn't the Eleventh Commandment apply to you?
Obviously the left has an Eleventh Commandment too.  Never spoken however, more devoutly lived.

Oh, to be sure, and I never used those three words more seriously, to be sure,  there is a leadership deficit in America.  I just don't see it as a deficiency in John Boehner when he compromises on any of these issues.  I see it as a deficiency in John Boehner when he can't grasp the correct tact to use so that when he does compromise its accepted as not a capitulation, but as a reasoned response to unreasonable leadership.

John Boehner's position wasn't a two month extension, it was a year extension.  What's more reasonable?  One year, two months, or nothing at all?  I'm going to allow for the opinion that nothing at all would be more certain for the markets than two months, but most Americans would likely take two months of tax cuts over none.  One year would be the most reasonable.  Obviously?  I guess not, 'cause someone in the White House thinks two months is ideal, and he got an awful lot of support for this idea.  He's also gets less scrutiny on this short term solution.

We do have bias in the media, as a result, truly, I only see what they let me see.  I don't have time or patience to listen to and watch C-SPAN to catch all the words and actions Mr. Boehner threw at this.  Did he say the words that I would want to hear and it just so happens the press didn't convey those words to me when I went looking?  I don't know.

That's part of the problem then too for Mr. Boehner.  While acknowledging he does have leadership weaknesses, and who hasn't, I reckon he has argued well enough for me at times, because he has argued well enough for me at times, that his one year plan is more reasonable than Obama's two month plan.  That problem is the press general isn't giving him the air time and gravitas as the President gets.  Part of that problem is contributed by his own right leaning air wave mavens.

For all the rhetoric that is heard about how stark the contrast is between the right choice and the left choice, when issues get decided, far to often the right pundits sound so much like the left in bashing the GOP leadership, that I've begun to tune them out all together, they aren't helping.

I'm not against scrutiny of Mr. Boehner, yet if we are going to engage in political battle by choosing sides and making careers out of it, as some have don't quite well with,  lets artfully, politely too, lay leadership failures at the feet of those who truly deserve it.

A President who promised so much and spends so much, as to be expected, on his programs and politics is the real amateur in this deal.  A two month extension is the leadership and dramatic change he professes to personify?  Is this where the smart money went in 2008?  I'd laugh if it wasn't so unprofound and less poignant.

To The Democrat Thinking

I got an email the other day, it was short and provocative, it was from a life long, unabashed, unapologetic Democrat.

" Just so you know the Iraq war ends today, the leaders from Iraq didn't attend the cerrmony??? Gee I wonder why?? We did such a good job???"

So I asked back, why? I wonder why too.

"Just like I told you many times before, I never saw an Iraqi on tv saying how glad they were to have us there??? Only you and George were glad???"

Here is a link to a letter from the Iraqi President in 2006.

How did we get here from there?

You have to look no further than the White House. Mr. Obama's White house.

Michele Bachmann said it best, he had victory on a silver platter and screwed it up.

Yet, I don't think Obama was unintentionally degrading the relationship between our two countries. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew it would never be questioned by his voting blocks.

The war in Iraq, despite bipartisan origins, became a place where Democrats would never allow a specter of glorious success linger too long. The "failed war plan" mantra began just days into operations, their hand was shown early and they never folded.

Democrats and their cohorts were quite successful in framing the situation, at least to their kindred souls in the Unions, AARP, and Green jeans, as a fruitless mission, destined for failure, and sure to be unappreciated.

And that is exactly what they have today.

Why would no Iraqi leaders be at the ceremonies? Maybe that is just how it was destined to be with a Democrat in the White House.

What should be questioned is how this President squandered a bond like we had, if only for a glorious moment in time, for political purposes, at the cost of so much of our national treasure, both human and monetary.

For years the left complained about the waste of our treasures, well its assured now isn't it?  All that vigilance during Bush's term went to naught as soon as one of their own were given the keys to the office.

Thanks for what?  Being malcontent and subversive for eight years and then oddly quiet thereafter?  Why?

That answer lies in a perplexing disposition that places party above country, rationality subservient to propaganda.

In Response to Glenn Beck

He not busy being born is busy dying.

So I began this post with that line from Bob Dylan's, "Its Alright Ma(I'm only bleeding)" only because it popped into my head just now.  But subconsciously I must know what I'm doing, cause it fits with my thoughts.  Sort of.

I was listening to Glenn Beck today, something that I have been doing increasingly more of lately.  Today Glenn Beck was dedicated to burying Newt Gingrich.

Readers of my work likely know two things about me, one is I'm a Newt guy, and two is I'm not afraid to listening to other points of views and acknowledge that ideas make sense to me that aren't stereotypical of the label I place upon myself, politically speaking.

What?

I'm a conservative, that's my label.  But I have views and ideas that are not going to be found on the Wikipedia page on Conservatism.  I'm O.K. with that.

Glenn Beck maybe not so much.

Glenn's villian du jour are Progressives.  With that in mind, I'm sticking with Conservative.  Don't want to get in the cross hairs of Mr. Beck and his media Empire, I might find myself on GBTV or The Blaze, but not in a flattering way.

So Newt is a Progressive,  Glenn told me so, time and again.  Now I must admit, he had me lmao mocking Newt's self described "Real Politik Wilsonian" label.  But other than that, I was not impressed with his dire predilection of what the fate of our nation will be with another Progressive in the White House.

Obama being one, but not the first, and Newt would be another, perhaps the last.  'Cause we couldn't survive another one....

I just don't buy into it.  I don't buy into the hype and fear he attaches to Progressives.

What if it doesn't turn out the way Beck prophetizes?  Through the years I've heard alot of opinions of what the future holds, and except for my uwavering support in January 2006 when I knew the underdog Steelers were going all the way to the Super Bowl, I've yet to hear anyone nail the future down.

That list includes profession seers as well as professional politicians, and not one has been able to predict the future well enough to be impressive.

But Beck has the corner on the oracle market?  I don't think so.

The reality is, and I agree with him, we got Progressives in both parties, totally immersed in the establishment from both the Right and the Left.

That is where we find ourselves,  and if Newt wants to draw himself closer to the Progressives than I would, that is his business.  As a voter it is mine too, its just not a deal breaker for me.

Here's why.  Acknowledging the influence Progressive have in governing and government, I'm looking for the nuance that separates them.  I'm a small government/balance budget Conservative.  I believe Newt is too.  His track record  is good enough for me.  I also believe Newt sees a bigger role for government on many more issues than I do, and that he'll have ties with people across the political spectrum.

While I usually want less government, I also am a "Real Politik _____"(fill in your favorite politician's name that has gotten things done), so that means I'm not damning a politician for compromising in the goal of getting something accomplished.

I played the less progress is good progress game already, its over, the era of reckoning is upon us and inaction is the only terrifying thought I have of the future.

You see, I have this relatively new belief that typically speaking, a man or woman with a family is less likely to intentionally harm the community he lives in.  I find it hard to believe that certain politicians are only in the arena of public service for the express purpose of destroying the public.

In other words, some people maybe screwing up and their ideas have historically been shown to be fruitless, but that doesn't mean they have bad intentions in the first place.

The Constitution, as Beck places it, is the bulwark against Progressives.  Its either them or It in the future.  Black and White.  We either got the Constitution or we got the Progressive agenda.  I used to be a thinker like that,  but I've been busy thinking.  Busy being born each day.

The Constitution is great, and its the best, and all the platitudes, but evolution of government is what it is.  We got Progressive minds  all over, and we also aren't going to get back to that mythical time when it was only the Constitution and no Progressives.  That time, according to Beck, would be over a hundred years ago, before Teddy Roosevelt.

While there are certain aspects of the era that would be appealing, I'm not sure I'd like it over this era.  I'm not big on government, I'm big on getting out of our hole.

Newt did it in the 1990's.  Label him what you want, or accept his own label. I'm not in a suicide pact, I want progress.  If that makes me a Progressive, I may disagree, but know that I only have the best intentions in mind.

That's living in the here and now, not the painted black future or painted white past.

Rebirth

What I'm trying to do is, not write about Penn State....

So I went looking for inspiration and in the process chilled my hands, which adds to my cooled disposition.

Its getting cold outside, finally. Snow tomorrow? We'll see.

 I came across a small piece on Real Clear Politics.com on the latest hit Diane Sawyer put on Sarah Palin. Pun intended? or does Sawyer go too far herself?

I'm still not passionate yet today. But I did get to thinking about something that Newt is doing that Palin may already of thought about. Something Dan Quayle did not achieve.

Resurrection.

Obviously, politically speaking, Sarah Palin is an ego that is bloodied, beaten, and withdrawn. That she is still targeted by Diane Sawyer provides fresh wounds that may or may not heal, and indicates the mood of the media establishment toward her.

But its not significant anymore, these attacks in the short run. Palin is too damaged to be anything more than a T.V. star for now. Not that its insignificant to be a T.V. star, but its a long way from the White House. 

She may of been closer when she was living in Alaska and the Campaign of 2008 wasn't yet a butterfly in her stomach.

But she's still there, lurking, taking more hits, but giving hits out too. Just like Newt did after he left the House of Representatives.

Obviously its not a complete analogy, Newt Gingrich is a heavier political body than Sarah. His accomplishment in the House had already secured his survival, but not without considerable efforts by the opposition to totally neuter him.

Today, more than a decade later, Gingrich is a front runner for the Republican Presidential nomination. Who would of thought that was possible back when he was slinking out the back door after his unsuccessful attempt to convict Bill Clinton of high crimes and misdemeanors.


A better analogy may be with Dan Quayle, the former Veep under George H.W. Bush.  Up to this point.

Here's what I can believe, cause I think she is that smart, I think she wants to have that second life on the grand National stage that Newt is now living. I believe she has done the political calculations and knows that she has to slow down and recover, not be ambitious, but still show ambition.

I don't know what happened to Dan Quayle. I mean, did he quietly disappear with the intent to never come back? I don't think so, I read his memoir at the time, and though that was twenty years ago, I don't recall him portraying his career as over.  Still he hardly ever resurfaced, and will certainly not now.

Newt Gingrich never gave me the impression he was going away, just that he was slowing down for a bit. Rethinking his brand, as is chic to say now a days.

I think Sarah is smart enough to learn the lesson from these two men.  That's why she isn't going away, and why the likes of Diane Sawyer still take shots at her.

I don't think however, that I'm smart enough to know what she is thinking, like I don't think I'm smart enough to know what Obama is thinking, but I was just thinking none the less.

The Best We Have

Some disparate and desperate thoughts from watching the Debate on Saturday night.

How is it that in my lifetime, the candidates are always smarter than the President. Yet its always one of those candidates that gets the job and then promptly looses all of his smarts.

Statistically, we are going to eventually elect a President capable of retaining all those bright ideas past that magical Tuesday after the first Monday is November. Just don't hold your breath that its gonna happen anytime soon.

But it might, because there were some really good ideas put forth last night, not the least of which is that quadrennial favorite, "I'm going to surround my self with the right people." Not at all like the President himself, who typically seems to surround himself with the wrong people. Coincidentally, this selection process begins sometime on or after the Wednesday after the first Monday in November.

I thought there might be something to this approach when Mr. Santorum promised to surround himself also with like minded people. Right and like minded. How could I fault that promise?

Not to be outdone, Governor Perry promised extraordinary people.

With these bold and game changing ideas, I'm cautiously optimistic that we, our nation, can walk that tight rope we find ourselves on in any number of issues.

I was asking my lovely wife, hypothectically of course, how is it we always elect the best candidate, the most promising option, the oracle of truth, only to find ourselves with so many problems and so long in the making, that could sink our everything. Our Everything.

Newt had a terrific idea, his plan for dealing with Iran would include a multitude of covert actions to massage the attitudes of the radical leadership. Of course the current President isn't doing any such thing.

It seems that we come to the point where we even expect the Commander in Chief incapable of grasping the concept of covertness. He'd tell us if he were, duh.

I thought the most efficient user of his 89 seconds was Ron Paul. He made a lot more sense than Huntsman, who I think got about 3 seconds more.

Am I alone on an island here when I say I wanted to hear the former Ambassador to China for more than thirty seconds on his views and approach to our complex relationship with the rising force in the East?

Instead we got more time from Romney and Perry.

Don't ever wonder why I can't be impressed with many of these news men and women.

Romney seemed the most polished, like many successful candidates before him. Bully you Mitt, bully you. Which is about what I expect if he'd win. Another bullied President, ineffectual and unintellectual.

Which brings me back to Newt. Again, he demonstrated a superiority in many facets, amusingly evident when he out wits the press.

I'm still with Newt, but If I can't have him, then, well if I am going to get screwed, as the critics of the GOP contend I will be as a working man, then it may as well be by a woman.

Judging by her minute and a half, Michelle Bachman seems quite capable of that. More than some of those men up there.

Not My Type

I've been compiling a mental list of how many types of people there are in the world, and its more than two.

I'm letting you in on one of my own personal inner dialogues. Have you ever heard the expression, "There are two types of people in the world, those that...and those that..." Truth is I have a hard time finding just one schism where there are only two sides. There are always more than just two types of people.

But maybe I've encountered, finally, a divide where there are only two sides. You're either with Joe Paterno or you are against Joe Paterno.

That's it, there are just two types of people in the world, for or against Joe Pa.

Let me tell you, so that there is no ambiguity, if you are inclined to pal around, hire, protect, enable, or otherwise allow in your life a pedophile serial rapist, then don't count on me to be in your corner.

I wouldn't want to associate or even be seen in the same room with such creatures, and yes I would judge my friends and acquaintances in accords with my views.

So if you are with Joe Pa, and you're o.k. with the quality of friends and associates he keeps, then you and I are at odds in a singular way, there are just two types of people in the world, and I am absolutely not that type of person.

Adjustments

Its been a while since I last wrote, and for that I must apologize.

There are a few reasons, I left one job and started another. School and after school activities rose above normal. I read a book by Tom Friedman.

I read, That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back, which is where I left of with this blog over a month ago. While it didn't take me all of a month to read the book, it did take longer than usual to finish it.

Frankly, it's a book that no one would like.

No American that is, surely our enemies would love the narrative of the broken system our proud nations is mired in.

I found it energy draining. Until the end, when Tom and I found common ground again, and that was in his suggestion that we vote third party. The idea would be that by voting this way, we affect the thinking of the major parties. We in effect splash the cold water of reality in their monopolistic faces.

Friedman cites a few examples of it happening in the past, Teddy Roosevelt and Ross Perot both ran as third party candidates and effectively moved their opponents off the party reservation.

Personally, I've been liberal before and I have liberal ideas, although nothing too important, for example I can't see any reason why the national government should be involved in marriage, but I am not liberal en mass anymore.

Reading this book, I was beginning to wonder about my conservatism, whether the idealogues and candidates today who profess conservative views are as smart as I thought they were. Have they been adjusting to the times? Have their ideas moved in any manor to adapt to the realities of today?

This is natural and healthy skepticism. I've read many liberal books over the years, and been influenced by the them all, but not one has stirred such second thought in my mind as this book.

I don't doubt much of what Friedman writes, although he positioned Obama as much wiser than I give the president credit for. I do doubt that government is capable of solving many of these problems we face with more government.

Which brings me to Newt Gingrich. I watched my first debate last night. Many of my readers know I am a proponent of the former Speaker of the House. There is no one, not one candidate for president( the current occupier included ) who is as articulate, thoughtful, and accomplished as Newt. He created the surplus at the end the Nineties, he reformed welfare, he created the impetus to end the era of big government.

And he, again, provided me with the optimism and confidence that there are conservatives out there, running for high office, who get it. Who understand the world we live in today, and have contemporary ideas on how to fix our problems with minimal government growth, in fact with negative government growth.

I'll give Newt and any conservative who can inspire me with their ideals seven times seventy opportunities to fix the mess we are in before I'd pull the level for a liberal candidate who would rather place more trust in government than individuals in making the right decisions for themselves.

Its All Nuance

All politics is nuance.

History repeats itself, but for you to believe the narrative, you have to buy into the nuance from filters you believe in. By filters, I mean anyone providing information to you.

Let's be honest and clear, no one, including the President, can be assured of knowing every thing, or even the simple truth. We rely on people to provide information to us. They are all filters.

A filter, by definition, limits what goes through it. Political filters limit the information you are given, so that you only receive the nuance which supports their story.

I'm reading Tom Friedman's new book,That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back and although I'm not far into it, I've been catching myself wondering then why he didn't get behind any of the initiatives of G. W. Bush. Well, of course we know that Bush is a Republican and Friedman is a unabashed liberal Democrat.

Being a liberal Democrat is all well and good, and it goes far in explaining why his talk of the post cold war era begins roughly around 2001. It fits his narrative and filters out the fact that we had a whole decade prior to Bush to do something right, but really didn't.

To be sure, Mr. Friedman and his co-author Michael Mandelbaum don't come right out and say the post cold-war era began in 2001, they merely filter out the 1990's from their story. So far at least.

But in the opening chapters, the authors proclaim that one thing that America is lacking since the fall of the cold war is a common goal, a large mission, a unifying ambition that we could all coalesce around that would reassert that legendary American Can Do Attitude.

So I was wondering where they were when Bush began the War on Terror and its subsequent battles. Of course they were opposed to much of the Bush administration. Its a matter of record, especially accessible from Mr. Friedman writings.

So it maybe too much to ask for all Americans to support war, it is killing after all. But for these two who cite the cold war as an example of our common course and mission, with all its associated killings in third world nations, I wonder why they have a nuance now on the use of American military to fight a prolonged war against enemies both foreign and domestic. The cold war lasted fifty years after all.

Or what about the investment Bush made in green technology or his historic Malaria Initiative.

Surely they could of found something to martial Americans who were necassary opposed to Bush's wars in the above examples.

But no, they didn't. Not then, and they don't recognize the efforts now.

Its all nuance.

However I agree that prior to Bush, there wasn't much put forth from D.C. to address many of our problems that still persist today. They don't say that, but its part of the era that they begin their book with.

That's not to take away from their efforts to identify our common obstacles and provide a solution. My nuance is, read the book, because any ideas to solve our problems is welcomed by me, I reserve the right to disagree in the end though.

A big problem I see in America is that both sides are so nuanced that no matter what the other side does there can't be harmony, the filters won't let it happen. Ironically both sides, from the long perspective of history in regards to partisan politics, are so similiar any more that it is only nuance that separates them.

If they are so close politically, Republicans and Democrats, you'd think we could get more done not less. But its all nuance.

My Immigration Chat

Earlier today I had a conversation with someone near and dear to me about immigration. Our dialogue began and ended at about where'd you expect, but with a little sprinkling of history thrown in.

My wife works at an airport, she been telling me about the plane loads of immigrants coming in and wondering just how in the heck all these folks are making their way here in America. You know, those basic needs questions. Where are they working, how are they feeding their family, where are they staying? Are they speaking our language?

Apparently I wasn't as worked up as I should of been, cause I had to explain myself. I began that all waves of immigration to this country have been met with various blends of disdain, prejudice, confrontation, and pessimism about what this will do to our culture.

As time has gone by the Irish, Italians, Polish, Russian, German, et. al. have all assimilated rather well by the third or fourth generation. I said that sure, the parents and kids coming over may not speak our language, but by the time the grand kids are running around English is primary and likely spoken better than the natives.

Today, assimilation in our culture is complete for many waves of immigration, and those fears and concerns of our grand and great grand parents never materialized.

The Irish Catholics, the Italian Catholics, the Polish Catholic all built churches a hundred years ago and spoke only the mother tongue, much to the chagrin of the protestants already here.

Now only the Baptist and Mormons have problems with the Catholics, and that isn't going away, but is relegated to Sunday afternoon, or if one knocks on your door for polite conversation.

I suspect it will be the same for the Muslim and African refugees arriving now.

So I slowed her down. She is a fourth generation Italian, so it wasn't hard to see my point.

But, and its a big but, all those waves of immigration in the past I spoke of did so squarely of their own accord or with the help of their communities.

They were not getting government hand outs, or preferential treatments. Perks that we both agreed are not now affordable, nor desirable in this time of high unemployment and large deficits.

Do we really want people coming over here whom we have to support with welfare?

Not that all immigrants get welfare, but many do, and I don't agree with it.

I practice an enlightened self interest in terms of my politics, If I'm not benefiting by a government action, or if I'm harmed by government action, I'm not for it. Frankly, I'm not looking to benefit from government, thus I'm typically not for more government.

I fail to see what benefit it is of mine to take in the world's poor when all they endeavor to do is get here and become the U.S. poor.

I'm not alone, I stand with my wife.

Many Americans do to, and this is certainly one of those subjects that I think needs debated openly and honestly amongst us voters. Government needs to shrink, that has been my slogan for years, here is a prime example of where we can cut back. If they can get here and support themselves like my forefathers did, then fine.

If they aspire to nothing more than getting here and living off our generosity, then we have to adjust that attitude, eliminate the appeal of the U.S. somewhat so that unambitious folk don't want to come here.

Unfortunately, neither party has been successful in demonstrating to me that this influx will come to an end anytime soon.

Yet another reason why any pressure on the two party establishment to reform is good pressure, whether from the left or the right.

In My Time

Just finished In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir.

In wiser times the well written, well spoken bluntness of the Vice President would widely be appreciated. As it is, many are not going to benefit from a attentive reading of Mr. Cheney's story.

Buy yourself a present, get this book and put it on top of the queue.

Its 500 plus pages, but obviously it could be much larger, he doesn't belabor an issue, just keeps rolling along, writing how he saw it.

As an aside, I've read many books by the major players, its uncanny how they are always on the right side of decisions. I mean, for every issue there is one approach to the problem, and then there is the correct approach. Of course the writer is always making the right decision. Perhaps an exception to prove the rule, Mr. Bush's book was, I thought, a little too hard on the author. Perhaps the most honest of memoirs, and the shortest.

With Chaney's book, the players making the incorrect decisions were frequently Ms. Rice and Mr. Powell. While Don Rumsfeld was highly accurate, as expected -- his own memoir will attest to that.

Paint me partial, but I appreciate Dick Cheney, I'm glad he was there when he was there. Of course you wouldn't expect anything else from a memoir, but his narrative is rather convincing in portraying himself at the nexus of many a correct decision.

I really appreciated his well written arguments, the utilization of language, rightly used, simple and concise. Yet intelligently driven.

A way or writing I'd love to emulate, but I usual lack the brevity.

Rumsfeld, Krugman, & Sargent

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/about-that-paul-krugman-allegation-of-911-shame/2011/03/03/gIQAdwBMNK_blog.html

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html


These guys are fantastic! They see demons where there aren't any, I wrote last week of our minds being our worst enemy, consider this example given.

Krugman is crying like a kid who got his argument for more flowers in the schoolyard turned down, when what everyone knew was we needed more physical interaction to get the neighborhood bully to back off.

Really, Greg? Really. " I say it again tonight, I say it again tonight: thank God that George Bush is our president." is your crescendo? Evidence that there was an atmosphere of fear and intimidation created by the GOP after 9/11.

Have you ever heard Jimmy Hoffa speak?

Really. Greg, have you ever heard Jimmy Hoffa speak?

What you quoted were politicians being politicians.

Nothing more, nothing less.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/10/us/10iht-currents10.html?_r=4&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1315569719-RpR5AuX40tZqZl8xOiUg7g

NY Times will require you to sign on.

Why am I always talking about the Tea Party when we got debates and national addresses to cover?

Because talk is cheap and they always have the right answers, unless they've gotten power, then they have only wrong answers.

We'll see.

But this Tea Party business, this is where the real action is taking place.

I wrote of the pressure this movement exerts on the GOP, its a good thing. Sarah Palin, the first target of the left inside this group, has made progress in cracking open the liberal nut, which has been mostly hostile and blind to the cause.

But she's said it in a way that one of them, and that's a start, is beginning to see clearly. Its not a movement that is in antithesis to anyone, unless of course the shrinkage of government threatens you in some way.

The liberal mind shouldn't be hostile to the Tea Party. Indeed they should be doing the same inside the Democrat Party. Alas they are not.

But Palin, she said it in a way that touched Mr. Giridharadas, who openly admits to not being a big fan. What Palin spoke of was well thought out and presented, yet its not new.

What is troublesome to think about is their lack of observational skills, the gap of honest information earned from independent inspection of the apparatus' surrounding you, that many of our liberal friends may be unaware they are suffering from.

The Tea Party, and the like minded American's who quietly side that way, aren't a malignant condition within the political body, they are more akin to white blood cells that are energized to find the tumor and eradicate it.

Oh, and racist? Don't be silly. At some point in our lives we got to ask ourselves if our perceptions are a little foggy, its a natural maintenance for sane people. Especially poignant if you are finding racists everywhere, which is a behavior someone lacking in fine observational skills may exhibit.