Follow up regarding our childrens indoctrination…

This is a follow-up post regarding my comments on House Resolution (as I was so rightly corrected) 1388. Thank you Glenn Beck for continuing to report on the Liberal’s insidious efforts to undermine the traditional conservative values this country was founded on.

(Click Here for here Video)

Replacement for the New York Times

As newspapers across the country continue to fail, in my area we are seeing an upsurge in local papers. These news services offer local commentary on national news stories that is both poignant and well written but also gives a point of view that is probably the most main stream you’ll find.  Check out the Buffalo Gap Round Up and you’ll see what I’m talking about. So if you’re tired of reading a newspaper that doesn’t reflect your point of view, check out your local news papers, most likely you’ll find that your neighbor sees the world just as you do.

Liberty versus Freedom

A lot has been said about liberty and freedom recently, especially since the inauguration and this régimes ever expanding government. Most people have a rudimentary understanding of these two terms but to my knowledge no one has looked at both of them together and how they interact to create the core beliefs of what our country stands for.

Thomas Paine authored what some believe is the foundation of the government of the United States when he wrote the pamphlet “Common Sense.” Early in this writing he outlines how he believes society develops to need a system of government and how all people start out free and equal. As the population grows, the need to have a larger government replaces the basic one and eventually evolves into what we know today. The people at first start out with equal and individual voices in the government but as things evolve eventually this becomes impractical and is replaced by the representative system. Of course human history obviously doesn’t make direct connections from the prehistoric tribal system to the modern democracies of today, instead it’s an evolutionary path paved with the oppressed populations of our past. We got here not because people said “Hey that sounds good, let’s try that” but by countless trial and error attempts to find a system of government where the people are happy, productive, and safe. Each of these three traits are key concepts to how freedom and liberty tie together to enable our representative style of government to not only be successful but become the reason our country is so great.

Freedom in its simplest terms means to be able to do anything you want. You have the freedom to go anywhere do anything, not bound by any restrictions. To be truly free means you are not hampered in the least but we all know this is not so. Friction and gravity are limitations to physical freedom to some degree; it restricts our motion, tires us when we exert ourselves, and holds us to this planet. These are examples to oppression of freedom that we have no control over yet live with every day. Basic human freedoms such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are freedoms we do have control over. Every human is born to this world with these freedoms but it is Man that restricts them creating the antithesis to freedom; oppression. Of course this isn’t the case with everyone but to some degree we are all limited in some way or another. After all, we can’t just go out and murder someone just because we want to. Society puts limits on true freedom; these limits are what we call liberty.

When we in the United States talk about liberty what we’re talking about is freedom limited by societal norms to create a harmonious environment for all its citizens. We create laws to protect us and regulations to set standards all in the pursuit of as much freedom as possible without infringing on the freedoms of others. As in the murder example from earlier; if I kill someone I put upon them the ultimate limitation to freedom, society is what says this is an unacceptable practice. We use morals and common sense to delicately restrict the population so they can grow and expand and yet do it without stepping on each other’s toes. When Patrick Henry uttered the battle cry “Give me liberty or give me death” to the Virginia Convention of 1775, he wasn’t saying to give us all unlimited freedom, but to give us a society so Americans can govern themselves. He recognized that true freedom equal anarchy and that society would perish under that scenario. The liberty he was describing allows for the people of a land to establish a government which provides for the security and protection of our human rights. A government which positively limits freedom just enough so society stays on a moral and positive path. Too many limits or a limit not embraced by the population however leads to oppression, so the balance is a delicate one at best.

As you can see freedom and liberty go hand in hand to create the happiness, productivity, and security we love in our country. There is no place anywhere in the universe that offers true freedom since the laws of nature oppress us all in some way or another. Human society has learned to restrict human freedom beyond the natural restrictions so that we can all live together. In the past those restrictions are so great that the population stopped being happy, productive, and safe to some point and people suffered. We have evolved to a point to know what can and can’t be restricted so that all three of those core ideas are balance with the morals society decides is positive. I have always said that the main reason we have religions is to define what good behavior from what is bad is. These teachings become the basis for our laws and how they limit ultimate freedom so society remains on the “good” side of morals. Of course there have been those wayward cultures that decide twist morality so evil is redefined as good such as Nazi Germany and Communism, but good normally prevails and places correction to prevent them from recurring. In some cases these little corrections further restrict our freedoms but this is how society tweaks our liberty just enough to allow for growth in society while maintaining order. This is what liberty is, small limitations to freedom based on the moral beliefs of society.

As you look at what’s happening in the world today, watch for increases in these limitations. We have seen a recent upsurge in the limitations to our freedoms which are reaching a tipping point for our society. Many people look at politics as a pendulum swinging between the core beliefs of limited government and an overly oppressive one. Somewhere in the middle is the level of liberty we desire while the tips of the pendulum swing come very close to anarchy and totalitarianism. It’s liberty that we most desire though. Our liberty provides us with the security blanket we so need and yet ensures the freedoms our humanity requires. This is what truly makes us happy but the balance is very tenuous at best. Do we want to continue to lose freedom like we’re seeing? Is our liberty so ill defined that we can’t see what we’re losing? History is replete with examples of an over reaching government who’s mass engulfs the freedom of its population to a point of revolt. Yet in almost every case the governments stand was that it was creating these limits to human freedom for the betterment of its people. Look at the concepts of Communism. They limit their people’s freedom to a point that they take everything from them and dole out only what the government decides is what they need. They have no freedom to pursue a better lifestyle because if they do it will only be taken away from them so the government can give it to who they decide has a greater need. This form of government squelches the basic human desire of self improvement by oppressing the ability to better ones self. Look at almost any dictatorial or totalitarian style of government and you will see the same problem. But the other side isn’t any better.

When there were very small pockets of government surrounded by massive frontiers of anarchy, people lived on the fringes and experienced almost total freedom. Look at the frontier era in the 18th century and you will find examples of how human vices taking over individuals who had no moral center. Alone in the wilderness they lost their desire to adhere to the moral standards of society and became wild men living on their own, little more than savages. Most of the time this happens when desperation and survival instincts overcome a group of people with a massive cataclysmic outside influence thrust upon them. A great example of this is the Donner parties attempt to cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains and becoming trapped by massive blizzards. Hunger, starvation, and isolation created the perfect environment to force the group into cannibalism just to survive. The madness that ensued due to this group’s deviation from established morals had long standing affects on the region and the country. The group’s abandonment of their morals led to their path to anarchism and almost all of them died because of it. Of course this example is an extreme but it does show that without some restrictions humans can revert to the savages that true anarchism defines.

What is our course now however? Are we going to allow the pendulum to swing all the way to the totalitarianism side as its heading? What is our society’s breaking point when it comes to allowing government to limit our freedoms? How small are we going to allow our liberty to shrink before we stand up and put a stop to things? Each and every one of us owes it to ourselves and our country to find the answers to these questions in our hearts so that we know what our breaking point is. As our pendulum approaches its apex, we need to know when to put into affect the balances so that we don’t break that plain and destroy the democracy we enjoy. This is how liberty and freedom intertwine themselves into each other to ensure our happiness, our productivity, and our security. These are the core beliefs of our country and something we should all hold dear.

AIG Executive Bonus’s – We’re all pointing fingers (at the wrong people)

Who is really to blame here?  Is it the company which took a hand-out so they could make ends meet? Nope, there just doing what they have to do with the funds they have.  There’s a lot of stories out there about why they have to pay these bonus; a lot of legal and moral reasons for them to meet the promises to their employees.  Yes it’s with our money but there was no stipulations concerning this when they got it from us.  And who’s fault is that?  Who else; the idiots in Washington that have created this mess.

It’s been well documented how we got into this mess.  Not from corporate greed or poor business practices, it was from over regulation and involvement of the government.  The idiots liberals in Congress thought they would make life easier on people by changing the requirements to lending practices of banks and created a ton of bad debt that had little hope to be recouped.  Banks didn’t want this, Wall Street didn’t want this but the do-gooder liberals in Congress forced it upon them under the mantra of urban renewal and fair lending practices.  Through those laws people without means could procure loans to by houses they could never afford. The loans for these were designed with timed increases in hopes that the income of the borrower should be able to afford the increases but in reality these increases had no basis on the reality of cost of living increases.  Lending institutions, in response to government intervention created an environment of failure just to comply with the laws passed by people who had no idea what the consequences would be.  Now we’re in this mess and the same idiots who got us in here are passing the same inept un-thought-out laws that got us into this mess.

This debacle that we’re experiencing is a testament to how liberal ideals are failure in waiting.  Making laws that are based on feelings rather than sound practices will always result in failure. “Oh the poor need our help to buy a house. Lets make it easier for them to borrow money so they can…” Making money easy to get buy people that can’t pay it back doesn’t help anyone.  It just spreads the problem to others; doesn’t that sound like wealth redistribution? It’s the same argument these idiots use towards the global warming myth.  “Oh we have to save the planet.  Lets make everyone conserve and go green.”  It’s the same liberal “feeling-based” methodology that pulls at the heart-strings of the emotion but does nothing but create problems in reality.

So who is to blame for all this mess?  Harry Reed, Nancy Palosi, Chuck Schumer, Barney Frank, and all those other liberals and RINOs (republican’s in name only) who voted for all this crap that got us here.  This mess didn’t start last fall when we were told of the impending Wall Street melt-down.  It started years ago when this Democrat leadership took power and started their liberal agenda.  These people are raping our society and destroying our country and we choose to point fingers at a few corporate executives who are doing nothing but fulfilling an existing contract.  It’s the leadership in Congress that created this mess and yet they feel that they can tax these poor saps out of the money we gave them.  And the most culpable person in all this… Barack Obama.  At some point in time the back can’t be passed any more and his ineptness in economic understanding is showing.  His appointment of the tax-cheat Geitner was the first sign that he had no idea what he was doing.  He took the word of his Democrat brethren that this guy was the smartest guy out there on the economy and put him at the helm of the very organization Geitner had worked to destroy.  And now he sets on the sidelines and does nothing while his lieutenants go out and do the dirty work leaving Obama to claim plausible deniablity to our countries destruction.  This whole mess is a leadership problem and the government leadership needs to be held accountable.  Not the corporate leadership who knew they were about to fail and took a lifeline so they could stay solvent.

I said this when all this mess started and I will say it again.  These companies need to fail. If their practices are so bad that they are loosing money then bankruptcy should have been their course and not a handout from the government.  They took the money without any plan to fix the problem, jus tto continue on with the failed practices that got them into this mess.  And who fault is that?  It was the lack of specificity in the original bail-out bills to dictate to these companies to change their ways.  While I think we should never have given them the money, when we did we should have made them change their ways so they wouldn’t fail again.  But that didn’t happen because the people who drafted these bills had no idea how to fix the problem.  Their idea to just throw money at it and it would go away has created an even bigger mess with no fix in sight.  This is Democrat ideology at it’s worst; spending money on a problem but not making any solutions.  When are these people going to figure out that money doesn’t solve problems, people do.

If you think that government needs to come up with a solution then what you need to do is identify the problem.  The problem is a regime hell-bent on social engineering and wealth redistribution.  Their liberal ideals will continue to guide their hand as they create laws that will end up in more messes like this.  They have a proven track record of failure and this current mess is just one example.  What we really need is to get these idiots out of Washington!  What we really need to do is hold accountable the people who got us here.  When this happens the true story of what happened and how we got here will come out and I’m sure we will find that the leadership in Washington now are the true culprits.

House Bill 1388 – The Stepping Stone to Obama’s Youth Indoctrination

It seems that President Obama is making progress on his plan to create a replacement for our military in defending our borders. No he’s not creating a new branch of the Department of Defense, he is starting the framework to one of his campaign promises to establish a “civilian national security force” as he outlined on his July 2009 campaign speech. In a house bill (hr1388) passed this week a framework was laid to establish volunteer programs aimed at our nation’s youth age 14 to 24. These programs, some new and some expansions are being run by what some would consider ineffective and wasteful organizations such as AmeriCorp who oversees the National Civilian Community Corps. It outlines plans to grow this organization from 100,000 to 250,000 participants thus creating an even larger drain on our rapidly shrinking tax pool. It goes on to require the Director of Corporation for Nation and Community service to encourage members of the Baby Boomer generation to volunteer. How are they going to do that? More ad money spent on ineffective PSA aired after midnight?

This bill is replete with troubling aspects. First off the focus on the youth of the nation by working new training programs focused at our public schools and university campuses. They are targeting our most moldable minds and enticing them with money so they can establish time away from the parents to indoctrinate them into liberal biased philosophies. Through the Learn and Serve program participants they establish a “Summer of Learning” program designed to have our youth doing up to 100 hours of community service for a $500 education reward. Sounds good until you read what they want our kids to be doing. Targeting elementary and secondary students this program will focus on civic engagement and community involvement (catch phrases for Democrat programs such as ACORN). It also outlines authorization for higher education services to incorporate service learning as part of specific degree programs (health services, criminal justice, political science, and teaching). This will result in an upcoming force of educators, investigators, health professionals, and politicians with training grounded in liberal Democrat ideas. Talk about ensuring the voter base!

It goes on to provide “special consideration” to Black, Hispanic, and Tribal colleges. The bill requires that at least 50% of the participants be “disadvantaged youth and be composed of youth from ethnically diverse backgrounds.”? Why would they do this? Is this the “thug-ocracy” of the Obama’s Chicago political machine? It could be that they had to add this provision in just to secure the the votes from the do-gooder liberals in congress who think they should be the saviors to the minorities? Or maybe this is because they know that this target audience is the most susceptible to molding such as this, taking advantage of their economic plight and hatred of the wealthy. Yes most likely this is the case but all this will do is increase the rift between the “haves” and “have not’s”.

This bill also establishes a requirement to create 25 “Campuses of Service” but does not explain what or where these campuses will be. Some speculate these will be the summer camp style indoctrination camps where our youth will go to learn all these liberal ideas. Innocuous ideas such “service learning” and “community service” will be the bases of the campuses but if you know what the Democrat agenda is these are key words that indicate they’re plan to mold the minds of our children to think like they do and develop the liberal “do-gooder” mentality at all costs. These are basic tenants to establishing a Democrat voter and developing a voter base that will have far reaching effects into our nation’s future. By use of grants from the government, these campuses will focus on training in energy conservation, emergency and disaster preparedness, emerging technologies for low-income communities, mentoring of middle school youth by high school youth, and research and evaluation on service learning. Sound good? Read between the lines folks.

• Energy conservation; this is a focus on perpetuating the myth of global warming and humans destruction of our planet.
• Emergency and disaster preparedness; how are kids going to help out in this area? Do you think your 14 year old has the maturity to respond when our nation experiences devastating hurricanes or wild fires?
• Emerging technologies in low-income communities; what the heck is this one? It sounds so ridiculous that it most likely is some boondoggle worked into the bill to line some Congressmen’s pockets.
• Mentoring middle school by high school students; a subtle attempt to ensure the ideology is passed down to the next generation. What better way to ensure someone is indoctrinated than by hearing it from someone they trust and look up to? It’s the old hippy mindset to not trust anyone over the age of 30.
• Research and evaluation on service learning; this will be the way they change their process to whatever they want to make their agenda work; a check and balance system. This bill also has provisions in it to establish an electronic citizenship verification system. What could this be? Well let’s follow the thought process here.

They indoctrinate our youth into a mass of community organizers and now they need to have them do something. Might as well have them go out and collect all this information on the rest of the citizens. This is the most troubling aspect of this bill, it is basically creating an organization similar to the “Hitler Youth” of Germany and the “Young Pioneers” in the Soviet Union. A group of children indoctrinated into a specific ideology trained by the government to track what the citizens of the country are doing, and at what cost? Aside from the monetary cost we are allowing this Democratic Congress to create a program to promote their ideals and teach our children that their ideology is the answer. This bill is nothing more than a nefarious plan to ensure the voter base of their party well into our future so they can ensure the perpetuation of their previously failed programs. They target our least savvy, least mature, and most easily mold-able minds who will accept a philosophy of “feel good” liberalism without question. It will create a culture of weaklings who won’t be able to deal with real the real problems of the world such as national defense, world trade, and fiscal stability. All they will be able to do is look at problems and blame everyone else and not come up with any solutions. Is this the future our country wants? Will these programs create the strong leadership our country will need in the future? I don’t think so.

So how does this replace our military within our borders? This is just the first step in our Presidents master plan. He knows that he must start with our youth to train their minds to accept the next step of dismantling the standing army. As far as he is concerned the greatest enemy to our country is the Republican Party and all our international problems have been created by the imperialist mindset of previous regimes. To him a standing army to respond to international threats is an outdated paradigm that can be replaced by negotiation and acceptance. Since he feels that the biggest threat to our country is from within so he is establishing a force to deal with it, a force built around the youth of the country. A force who will eventually be so indoctrinated to liberal ideals they will reject conservatism and drive this country into the socialist nirvana President Obama envisions. This bill is the stepping stone which will lay the frame work to his ultimate goal; extending the reign of the Democrat liberal machine.

Chicago Tea Party??

Here’s a nice CNBC video showing the frustration of the people about all these bailouts and throwing money at failed practices.  I think the interviewers got a little more than they planned on. 

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1039849853

Schumer’s World – The American People Don’t Care

Wow, sometimes this stuff writes itself.  I think I know what Senator Schumer is talking about here but I think his statement is a little too broad.  Sure some people don’t care what he does, after all, he is an elected official.  The folks that really don’t care are the people who put him into office, the rest of us… well lets just say that thankfully the good Senator from New York doesn’t speak for everyone.  There is a group of Senators and Congressmen in Washington who actually believe things like this and for some they’re right; some people don’t really care what they do.  Those people are the uninformed, the unintelligent, and for the most part clueless as to what is right in the world.  You all know who I’m talking about… we call them Liberals.  That all encompassing umbrella word that categorizes those who think that Washington doesn’t do enough to control our lives, that think Washington is the “Holy See” of environmentalism, and that the United States is the ultimate doom to human existence.  These people don’t care what Mr. Schumer does or how much he lines his pockets with our tax dollars as he’s doing it. You know the type; the ones that protest our response to an enemy that attacked us, the ones that feel that just because they’ve been in a movie they’re intelligent, the ones that sit in their air conditioned private jets gallivanting around the globe to promote some “cause” all the while telling us to only use one piece of toilet paper.  Yes Senator Schumer some people in the country don’t care what you do but they are the MORONs of the country! As for the rest of us, we do care. Don’t include me in your constituents of idiots who elected you to that office.

Do you folks not see the real problem in Washington?  It’s people like Senator Schumer that don’t give a damn how much money they spend nor do they care where it came from.  They could care less how much sweat equity you put into every tax dollar, all they want to do is spend it on some “special project” so they can be re-elected.  These people are drunk with the power they have surrounded themselves with and have lost touch with the roots of their position. The don’t care what you think and have the audacity to tell you that you don’t care either.  If there was ever an argument for term limits Senator Schumer is it.  His total disregard for the people who elected him is a travesty.  He was elected into a position of responsibility; as a steward for our money, and he has squandered it.  To the folks in New York, don’t wait for the next election year, do a recall and get that idiot out of office, in other words show Mr Schumer how much you do care.

Census Gerrymandering?

Ah, the vocabulary.  We all sit around hearing words that we know are real but really don’t know their definition.  Right now the word “Gerrymandering” is being used extensively to describe the new regimes plan for the upcoming census.  How does this word apply? Well according the Wikipedia “Gerrymandering”is a “form of redistribution in which electoral district or constituency boundaries are deliberately modified for electoral advantage. Gerrymandering may be used to help or hinder particular constituents, such as members of a political, racial, linguistic, religious or class group”.   Sound familiar?  Do you remember President Obama’s infamous quote to Joe the Plumberabout redistribution? He said the Supreme Court never ventured into the subject of redistribution of wealth and considers it one of the tragedies of the civil rights movement.  Is taking over control of the census a tactic to fix this problem as he sees it?

According to Wikipedia, the term gerrymandering is derived from Elbridge Gerry (1744–1814), the governor of Massachusetts from 1810 to 1812. The term first appeared in the Boston Gazette on March 26, 1812 as a combination of the governors name and the word salamander. Salamander was selected because the governor’s rearranging to the districts created a salamander shaped series of districts that that tended to vote more Democrat.  The redrawing of the districts shifted the base enough to ensure a Democrat representative in Washington and Boston for the state while disenfranchising the Republican party.  Hmm, sound familiar? 

Democrats aren’t the only party that attempts this type of thing.  Our political history is replete with lawmakers trying to shift the voter base in areas simply by redrawing the district maps.  In 2003,  Republican Congressman Tom DeLay attempted to redraw the districts in Texas to reduce the impact of the Democrat voter in heave Democrat areas. While Texas is mostly a republican state we do have large pockets of Democrat voters mainly centered int eh metropolitan area’s.  By redrawing the districts in such a way to split up the Democrat voting base and seeding it with a larger Republican population he tried to shift the state to an almost entirely GOP entity.  The districts made no sense though, some being centered along major interstates and in reality did not accurately reflect the geography of the region.  In December 2005, the Texas Justice Department concluded that “the redistricting plan illegally diluted black and Hispanic voting power in two congressional districts.” In 2006 the Supreme Court invalidated the redistricting plan siting violation of the Voter Protection Act and the districts returned to their original borders.  Later on Tom Delay was forced to resign from office from this and many other ethical issues surrounding the Congressman.

Redrawing congressional districts is a normal process and happens for various reasons.  If a large shift in population occurs for one reason or another it may become necessary to add government representation so that the people are properly represented.  The term “one man one vote” is the concept the founding fathers used to when they put into the Constitution a requirement to do a decennial census as a way to validate the allocation of Congressional seats.  It also adjusts the electoral process based on population density.  The motivation of the census should be clear, to give the government an accurate picture of the population of the United States so it’s citizens are accurately represented.  Allowing corruption and “Gerrymandering” into the census process undermines the very foundation of the entire government.  We as a nation want our voices heard, we want our concerns represented and want to participate in the governmental process.  Allowing one party to control the process that we use to make sure these basic rights are maintained brings into question the entire governmental process.  I live in a mostly Republican state but what if my district was redrawn to bring in a majority Democrat voter base?  Am I now represented that way I want?  After the election I found a few maps that showed the counties and how the voted, red for Republican and Blue for Democrat.  It’s easy to see that Republicans tended to be spread across the rural sections of the country and the Democrat would center into he more populated urban areas.  It does not show numbers but it does show locals.  What if we redrew all of these so that they all had a Democrat majority.  A little creative squiggling across the map and viola you have a “blue” country.  Would this accurately reflect the voters of the United States?  This is the danger of allowing a political party to control the census. 

If there is anything in Washington that needs to be totally non-political the census is it.  The long term implications of an inaccurate or slanted count of our population could undermine the very foundation of our government and put into a tailspin our very freedom.  We must not change the way the census is taken nor shift the oversight on who decides what to do with the information. It’s been tried in the past and shot down but never has it been tried on such a grand scale as what is happening now by shifting the census process to the White House.  If your a Republican do you want Rahm Emanuel deciding how to redraw the congressional map? If your a Democrat do you want the future Carl Rove deciding?  No, this is a bad precedent and must be stopped in it’s tracks.

Dehumanizing Rush

President Obama’s comments concerning Rush Limbaugh have been all over the headlines but the issue begs the question; Why Rush? If you look at conflicts and warfare one tactic used by both sides the dehumanization of the other. In World War II we didn’t fight the Japanese, we fought “Tojo”; we didn’t fight the Germans, we fought the “Krauts”.  In the Cold war our enemy wasn’t the Soviet Union it was the “Reds”.  Notice the trend? Well now President Obama and his Democrat backers are in a war and they are picking a target to dehumanize, Rush Limbaugh. 

Why Rush? It’s a simple question with a complex answer.  First off, Mr. Limbaugh is an easy target since he has been a loud voice against everything the liberal Democrat agenda. His ever expanding radio audience listening to his version of conservative ideas is direct threat to the agenda the new regime in Washington want us to swallow.  In other words they want us to believe in what they are saying but we aren’t because we’re listening to Rush. In their mind the only reason we don’t go along with them “whole hog” is due to Mr. Limbaugh’s ability to pollute our minds and ideas with what they feel are lies and misdirection. They goal is to silence his voice, first telling us not to listen to him, then if that’s not succesful they will take more drastic measures. What are the drastic measures? Check out the “fairness doctrine“, an FCC run program the Liberals want to implement to silence talk radio.

Still though, why Rush?  There are many talk radio hosts out there using the conservative format for their show;  Sean Hannity, Micheal Savage, Mark Levin, Glenn Beck, and many other use this format because it successfully connects with an audience.  Many people out there tune in every day to hear their opinions and frustrations aired even though they may not agree with everything they said. Americans tend to be moderate and while these shows promote the conservative agenda they’re dogma is more easily swallowed than those of the liberal.  An attempt was made to create a network of liberal talk shows but it failed miserably because the market would not support it; the type of people who listen to talk radio just couldn’t buy into the concepts of the liberal mind. On top of that, television is ripe with liberal tripe and those that want to hear that type of dogma can tune into those networks any time of during the day.  Who listens to talk radio? The working man. Radio is the perfect medium for the person sitting in a cubical, driving a delivery truck , or just going about their daily business.  Radio can be listened to at any time, doing almost anything, while television requires you to sit and watch it. Since talk radio has such a large market it reaches almost the entire nation and so these shows reach a huge section of the populous and are successful.  They’re successful because they are saying what people want to hear and no one does it better or bigger that Rush Limbaugh.  He is the leader in this venue and thus is the first target to silence it.

Mr Limbaugh is the de-facto leader of the “conservative movement”. Just like we did with Hitler, Hirohito, and Bin Laden; the enemies of conservatism are doing to him.  Rush will be the first to tell you “it’s not about Rush” but it is about what he is saying. Since the departure of President Bush the Republican party is experiencing a leadership vacuum and Mr. Limbaugh’s voice is filling that vacuum in the minds of many Republicans.  John Boehner, and Mitch McConnell are trying to provide leadership (and their doing a fine job within Washington) but the nationwide leader is Rush.  President Obama recognizes this fact and so he has made Rush his number one enemy. He is waging a war of words against conservatism by using his bully pulpit to dispel the ideas of it’s leader. His simple statement “Don’t listen to Rush” was just the seed of things to come.

Neither a Borrower nor Lender be – Problems with the Bailout

“Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry”. – Shakespeare, Hamlet (Act I, Scene III).

As we contemplate and debate the next round of bailouts and the stimulus package we need to remember this passage from Shakespeare.  One of the problems with lending money is that you lose the right to say how it’s used.  Today, as I listened to some talk radio, a lot of hay was being made over corporations who had received money from the original bailout bill had spent it on what we defined as wasteful projects. Expensive rugs for executive offices, remodeling bathrooms, junkets for sales personnel, etcetera, etcetera; the list goes on and on. This is the very thing we warned about when we told congress NOT to give them money. At that time the media reported our dissent but did little to assist our voices in stopping this boondoggle and here we are today hearing how poor our gift was managed.  I use the term gift because we never did secure any oversight into how the money was used so we lost all control over it.  Technically it was a “loan” but as I said, without oversight we don’t know who got what or where the money was used; so it was a gift. The last part of that quote pretty much explains the problem we’re seeing now.  Husbandry is the word used to define the care and management over the money. That is the very thing we lost sight of in the first bailout and yet we’re so willing to do it again.

One thing my parents taught me as I was growing up was that if you lend money consider it gone, if it’s returned consider it a gift.  I doubt very much that we will ever see all the money we have given out in these series of bailout bills.  We may see some token returned but since we don’t know where all this is going how can we track to see what is returned. Our representatives in Washington are planning on spending trillions of dollars trying to fix a problem by giving the money to the very folks that caused the problem.  Actually the people who really created the problem (Congress) are the ones who are dolling out the money but their doing it without getting a receipt.  Yet again Congress is proving their ineptness when it comes to being the stewards of our money.  If someone you knew came up to you and said they had money problems and wanted you to help them out, but wouldn’t tell you how they were going to fix their problem, would you do it?  If you went to a bank to get a loan to fix your own financial problems without any collateral would they even give you the time of day? The answer to those questions are the same we need to tell Congress to do with these bail-out plans; NO!

There is an old Russian proverb, “When money speaks, the truth keeps silent.” It makes one wonder what the truth really is in all these bailouts.  The banks aren’t going to tell us the truth, they want the money.  The government isn’t telling us the truth, they control the money. So what is the truth of this supposed crisis we’re in?  Could it be that Congress’s over regulation of lending practices created this mess? I don’t think Congress wants us to know the truth as to why we were forced into these bailout bills to begin with, so they set it up so that the person holding the purse strings has autonomy and freedom to spend the money anywhere they want without having to tell us what they’re doing.  Oh, we may be in a crisis but the folks responsible don’t want us to know why, they just want us to pay the bill. Fidel Castro once said that “Capitalism is using its money; we socialists throw it away.” Well folks we pretty much threw away $700 billion in the first bailout bill; do we want to use our money like true Capitalists, or throw away like the socialists of the world?