The pattern

The pattern for Hitler as well as the Soviet dictators was to reach out and grab territory that didn’t belong to them.  Then when the world complained, jumped up and down and said this can’t stand; the dictators would say, “We have interests here,” or “We were invited in.”  Under more pressure, they would say, “Let’s negotiate!”  Unfortunately, the liberals and pacifists in the U.S., Britain, and France said “Yes, negotiation is the way to go,” and began to negotiate.  The dictators would give half of the country back, and the green weenie liberals in the west would declare it a victory.  This is how National Socialism expanded under Hitler, and how the Soviet Union expanded throughout the world.

Hitler and the National Socialists 

Hitler took over Austria March 17, 1938 and the west did nothing; the Sudetenland part of Czechoslovakia without firing a shot September 29, 1938 and the west complained.  Then he violated the peace agreement he made with Poland by invading in the fall of 1939 and the west complained even more.  In 1940 he invaded France and finally the west had to get involved; he later invaded Russia. 

The Communist Dictators Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and Gorbachev 

The Communists of the Soviet Union were allies with Britain and the U.S. during the later part of WW2.  Following the end of the war, Stalin agreed that all the nations his army occupied at the end of the war would be able to have free elections. 

That didn’t happen, of course; the ‘iron curtain’ descended around East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Bulgaria and Albania – all of which Stalin had agreed would have free elections.  Besides this, the communists occupied Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Tajikistan, Armenia, and Moldavia among a few others. 

Then they began to covertly take over Cuba, Nicaragua, Paraguay, and other western hemisphere countries, along with the attempt to gain access to a year-round warm water port by invading Afghanistan and then going through Pakistan.  

The Obama Democrats

Now, neither the Nazis nor the Soviets are engaging in the same activity, but it worked so well for them that the policy is being followed by the Obama administration and the Democrat Party rewrite the U.S. Constitution without citizen participation; and to carry out a domestic peaceful coup of the United States.

The pattern in health care is to try to take it over 100% in two weeks.  When that didn’t happen, try to do it in the next month or so.  When that doesn’t happen, go home, hold town hall meetings and try to muscle people into giving up.  When that doesn’t work, give away the ‘public option;’ when that fails give away the community ‘non-profit cooperatives;’ when that fails, give away the government controlled private health care company; and when that doesn’t work spend the people’s money to purchase votes; and when that doesn’t work, say you will pass anything in order to declare it a victory.  And it will be a victory because all the boards, commissions, taxes, and control will still be there.

These anti-democrats do not want your input; they plan to dictate everything.  They reach out and steal what belongs to the people, and when we demand they give it back, they want to negotiate.

We have dictators in the Congress and White House; the way to deal with them is by power not negotiation.  Their thirst for power over every aspect of your life is insatiable, you cannot negotiate with dictators.  (I’m wondering if anyone can think of a better name for these people other than ‘dictators.’)  The power of the people must be used in next year’s elections, and the presidential campaign of 2013.  Follow the Nancy Reagan dictum: Just say no.

We show up at rallies only to be called an unwashed mob, Nazis, obstructionists; we show up at town hall meetings with our elected representatives and are pushed out of the meeting by union thugs, delayed until the room is filled with supporters only, ignored, denounced, degraded, treated like junk.  We are considered evil by the mainstream media outlets even as they are going broke for loss of audience share.  Without doubt we terrify the assorted communists, fascists, socialists, pinkos, bureaucratic totalitarians, and new age relativists in power now; we would ruin their (almost completed) takeover of American cultural, economic, political, and religious life.  We point our that their vaunted new clothes are only imaginary, and their naked hatred of the human condition is unsightly.

We are aghast at why they insist on instituting programs that stifle the human spirit; why they think the imposition of their utopian ideas is a better approach than the principle of liberty.  We are baffled by their naïve, child-like approach to evil wherever it exists in the republic itself or the world at large. 

For 23 years I did talk radio in Portland, Oregon, and one of my most memorable interviews was with British philosopher Dr. Roger Scruton regarding his book The West and the Rest, ISI Books 2001.  Recently Dr. Scruton wrote a brief essay titled “Totalitarian Sentimentality” you can (and should) read the essay here.   Purchase the book at a discount here.

“Conservatives recognize that social order is hard to achieve and easy to destroy, that it is held in place by discipline and sacrifice, and that the indulgence of criminality and vice is not an act of kindness but an injustice for which all of us will pay.  Conservatives therefore maintain severe and – to many people – unattractive attitudes.  They favor retributive punishment in the criminal law; they uphold traditional marriage and the sacrifices that it requires; they believe in discipline in schools and the value of hard work and military service.  They see welfare provisions as necessary, but also as a potential threat to genuine charity, and a way both of rewarding antisocial conduct and creating a culture of dependency.” 

“Liberals are of course very different.  They see criminals as victims of social hierarchy and unequal power, people who should be cured by kindness and not threatened with punishment.  They wish all privileges to be shared by everyone, the privileges of marriage included.  And if marriage can be reformed so as to remove the cost of it, so much the better.  Welfare provisions are not rewards to those who receive them, but costs to those who give – something that we owe to those less fortunate than ourselves.”

For liberals, “Far preferable to the hard life in which disciplined teaching, costly charity, and responsible attachment are the ruling principles is the life of sentimental display, in which others are encouraged to admire you for virtues you do not possess.  This life of phony compassion is a life of transferred costs.  Liberals who wax lyrical on the sufferings of the poor do not, on the whole, give their time and money to helping those less fortunate than themselves.  On the contrary, they campaign for the state to assume the burden.  The inevitable result of their sentimental approach to suffering is the expansion of the state and the increase of its power both to tax us and to control our lives.”

 Read this essay; read the book – you’ll love them both.

Well.  The Democrats have spent enough of your tax dollars to purchase 60 votes to bring the Senate health care bill to the floor for debate.  Odds are it will cost hundreds more $millions to pass it.  Too bad the president is busy lecturing Afghanistan on corruption to deal with it here.

We know that the health care bill isn’t about improving health care; lowering the cost of health care, or improving delivery of health care.  We know this, because the legislation does none of these.  

It’s not about improving health care 

The best health care system in the world is about to be junked.  Soon it will be run like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and Amtrak. 

Bubba says the one who pays the fiddler calls the tune.  That means neither you nor your doctor will be deciding anything  about your health care.  Bureaucrats will be telling doctors what they can and can’t do.  Standard of care indeed; a much lower standard of care.  Spread the misery.  

Government employees making your health decisions: think incompetent, obnoxious, factotums with power – the Transportation Security Administration Agents at the airport looking out for your “air safety”.  Think IRS agents helping to insure you are doing your part to preserve liberty.  Soon all doctors and hospitals as extensions of the government will be delivering the same friendly, high-quality service for your breast and prostate exams.   

Yeah, you can keep your doctor.  If he’s still practicing medicine in the asylum. 

It’s not about lowering the cost of health care 

The argument is that we are spending too much on health care because those with health insurance have to pay for the cost of those who don’t have the insurance just go to the emergency room.  So the Democrat Party’s answer to this problem is to require those who have insurance pay for the health insurance of those who would otherwise just go to the emergency room.  For liberals the problem IS the solution!  Neat. 

In order to accomplish this brilliant maneuver they want to create more than 100 new boards, and give government employees access to all your medical information.  (We know how careful government employees are with your private information: remember Dan the Plumber, remember the Pentagon Papers, remember CIA leaks on the front page of the New York Times?)  Give bureaucrats not doctor’s decision-making power over who gets which procedures, and spend another $2 trillion over the next ten years.  What could go wrong? 

It’s not about covering everyone with health insurance 

Mr. Obama says he can cut $425 billion in waste and fraud in Medicare over the next 10 years.  Hooah!  Let’s do that now.  That would save us $42.5 billion a year. Then let’s add the $54 billion a year we can save through tort reform limiting junk medical malpractice awards making the total available now to $96,500 billion.  A year. 

Simple math; divide $96,500 million a year by the highest possible estimate of people in the U.S. without health insurance – 35,000,000 – and you get $2,757 per person.  This amounts to $11,028 to pay for health insurance for a family of 4 covering every individual in the United States said to be without health insurance.  How much will this cost in addition to what we already pay?  Zip.  Why not do it this way?  Because the Democrat health care plans are not about lowering the cost of health care.  They would rather spend a couple $trillion for other reasons.  It’s all about control. 

Government-provided health care – the loss of freedom

Rationing will happen because the government will budget a specific amount for health care services; and then in order to approximate the budget they will deny, delay, and dilute medical services based on their budget, not yours. 

We have already seen how a government panel will use the new Democrat health care legislation – if passed and signed by the President – as a means to denying access to health care; they recommended delaying access to mammograms for more than a decade, then using the diagnostic tool only half as frequently as in the past. 

Screening for breast cancer is a preventative measure; denying and delaying it INSURES more cases of breast cancer.  Denial or delay of treatment is bad enough, but taking steps to guarantee more women get cancer is just too much.  But there’s a reason for it.

More cases of breast cancer and more deaths, means that by killing off more people the Democrats will save hundreds of $millions on health care now; and hundreds of $billions later by not having to provide Medicare and Social Security for so many people.  A twofer money saving tactic.  This is how liberals do cost-cutting. 

Rationing of health care in the U.S. will become an issue of bureaucratic fiat rather than personal economic decision-making. 

The Democrat plan removes choice.   You cannot choose what you want so it fits your own situation; and you do not have the choice to purchase only what you can afford.  Nor can you choose to use any procedure available to treat your diagnosis.  

Possible consequences 

Since the government will be in control of what is covered, they may choose not to pay for the birth of Down Syndrome babies.  It’s their choice, not yours. 

Physicians and hospitals will have no choice but to comply with what the bureaucrats want because the government writes the checks.  Doctors apparently will keep the choice to go into another profession.  The doctors who would stay in such an enterprise for a long term will probably come only from the same bottom 20% of the graduating class as public schoolteachers.  Probably produce the same result as well. 

Delay PSA tests, deny physical examinations, deny coverage for certain prescriptions that are too expensive, control which citizens get fined or jailed for non-compliance, raise the amount of the fines, raise the taxes on ‘Cadillac’ health plans, lower the amount that constitutes a ‘Cadillac’ plan and so on.  God, please let the fools who think someone else is going to pay for this survive long enough to lament the day of their folly. 

The Second Amendment will be controlled by the health care apparatchiks at the National Institutes of Health, because guns can cause damage to people, and therefore is a health issue.

What you eat will also come under the control of bureaucrats, and these decisions will be made politically.  Just wait until the international agri-business corporations get to work on various Representatives and Senators to set out what constitutes a good diet.  They will be in the position of forbidding certain products for sale; and placing taxes on stuff they don’t like.  Got to look out for your health, you know. 

They already do as much as the law allows – tobacco taxes fund all kinds of things the government wants to do.  They don’t want people to quit smoking; they just want to use the industry as a money generating machine to fund what the Democrats want to impose.  Got to keep the money coming in.  Next it will be soft drinks, whole milk, ice cream, coffee.  See part two of this series to look at the kinds of taxes the government already imposes on your freedom. 

The kind of car or truck you drive will become a health care issue.  How fast you can drive, and where.  Air quality will be a health care issue meaning that the backyard barbecue will alternatively be taxed, or forbidden altogether. 

You can expect that government inspectors will be arranging to come into your home to insure safety.  If they’re going to pay for it, they have the right to control it.  They will be checking your stairs for safety, how hot the water heater is, the deck, cleaning chemicals – all of it.  Think of it as your personal visit by an OSHEA bureaucrat.  This has already begun in England; expect it here when the Democrats get the control over your life they have been seeking since FDR. 

The government will control your fireplace, and your dryer exhaust, how warm or cool you can keep your home, how large it can be, and how it is insulated – all health issues you understand. 

So what how much you weigh, and how much of the health care budget you consume will all be controlled by the federal government.  Goodbye state and local government. 

What will it really cost (besides $trillions)? 

Consider: when the federal government was able to predict the cost of anything?  They can’t tell in advance how much it will cost to purchase a toilet seat, a hammer, a jet, a boat – nothing.  When they have undertaken to set the expected cost of any piece of legislation, they have been universally wrong – always.   

Guess – did they estimate the cost too high, or too low?  Silly question.  It depends on what they are predicting.  If it’s bad news, the estimates are low, if it’s good news, the estimates are always too high. “Unemployment (may rise to 8% from 6% without our Stimulus plan.”  Actually it rose from 6% to 10.2% so far with the Stimulus plan.  Do you actually think they would lie?  A crucial question is: why would any single person in the U.S. believe government estimates about how much health care will cost. 

Lyndon Johnson began the War on Poverty trying to convince us he could end the problem.  Today in means tested poverty programs including Social Security and Medicare amount to $17,939 per person below the poverty level.  This would be $64,756 for a family of four to eliminate poverty.  The aggregate money spent on poverty programs since the 1960’s is $15.9 trillion; and we still have the poor with us.  Do you believe the government’s estimates of the cost of health care? 

It will cost more; it will do less; it will take control of almost every aspect of your individual life.  Why would you permit them to do this to you?

Below is a list of 26 specific examples of the use of raw, abusive, force used by Mr. Obama during his campaign in 2008, and the first 10 months of his presidency.  Since the list is long, and I am writing it to permenantly document the abuses, you may want to print this post for future reference.  Feel free to use the links I have provided as proof of Mr. Obama’s malfeasance and calumny.

I am not including the abuse of power Mr. Obama is practicing through the unconstitutional use of so-called “Czars” creating policy without Senate Advise and Consent; nor am I writing the larger questions of circumventions of the law with regard to unauthorized spending of government money for things other than approved by legislation or the attempt to nationalize manufacturing, health care, banking, personal incomes, and more.  I will treat those issues in other posts, I am dealing here with Mr. Obama’s disposition. 

Threatening political opponents

In July of 2008, at a fundraiser, Mr. Obama – quoting the Untouchables who had to fight Chicago gangsters revealed his disposition toward civil debate, “If they bring a knife, we will bring a gun,” speaking of how the campaign would be waged.  As you will see, he was prophetic. 

Intimidation to prevent personal embarrassment of Barack Obama

During his campaign for president, Mr. Obama appealed to the Justice Department to asking them to file criminal charges against individuals helping to fund the American Issues Project because the group was running a political ad that was embarrassing to Mr. Obama. 

Intimidation of WGN in Chicago

The Obama campaign sent instructions to his supporters through an “Obama Action Wire” to harass radio station WGN in Chicago because a guest on an interview show discussed documents proving that Mr. Obama was lying when he said he had no connection to terrorist Bill Ayers. 

Intimidation of Joe the plumber

During the campaign while stopping in Ohio, Mr. Obama was asked by Joe Wurzelbacher, “I’m getting ready to buy a company that makes $250 to $280 thousand dollars a year.  Your new tax plan’s going to tax me more isn’t it?” 

Mr. Obama replied, “It’s not that I want to punish your success, I just want to make sure everybody who is behind you, that they’ve got a chance at success.  My attitude is that if the economy’s good for folks from the bottom up, it’s going to be good for everybody.  If you’ve got a plumbing business, you’re gonna be better off if you’ve got a whole bunch of customers who can afford to hire you, and right now everybody’s so pinched that business is bad for everybody and I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s a good thing for everybody.”  (Never having operated a company, Mr. Obama couldn’t explain how taking profits away from the plumbing company to give it to potential customers so they pay the plumber back his own money would make anyone better off.) 

Immediately following this encounter, supporters of Mr. Obama who worked in the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services began combing through Wurzelbacher’s government files releasing privileged information to Obama supporters in media outlets in an attempt to embarrass a private citizen who had the nerve to ask Mr. Obama a question. 

Intimidation of media in Missouri

During the campaign state prosecutors and county sheriffs in Missouri who supported Mr. Obama were asked by the Obama campaign to threaten any media outlet if they broadcast or printed anything the Obama campaign determined to be embarrassing to Mr. Obama. 

Intimidation of the Washington Times, Dallas Morning News, and the New York Post

Another strong-arm tactic that Mr. Obama used during the campaign should have warned the voters about his disposition to abuse power was to throw reporters from his campaign bus.  Reporters from the Washington Times, Dallas Morning News, and the New York Post were denied access to the media bus traveling with Mr. Obama immediately after the three newspapers endorsed Mr. McCain. 

Threatening a whole political party

On the third day of his presidency Mr. Obama lectured Republicans in Congress telling them that they better not listen to Rush Limbaugh.  This was an attempt to silence Mr. Limbaugh, and to intimidate elected officials with regard to whose opinions they listen to.  The Bill of Rights be damned. 

Voter intimidation

Not long after his election, Mr. Obama’s hand-picked (and incompetent) Attorney General Eric Holder squashed a Department of Justice investigation in process. DOJ attorneys were building a case against thugs from the New Black Panther Party in a number or states who were obstructing and intimidating voters - white voters they suspected might vote Republican. 

The lawyers investigating were not politically motivated – they were staff attorneys, not political appointees.  They had video and audio of members of the New Black Panther Party dressed up like Nazi’s brandishing police batons threatening and intimidating white voters who they thought might support John McCain for president.  Despite clear violations of the Constitution and federal laws, Mr. Obama is clearly willing to permit street thugs to take care of intimidating his political opponents and then use the U.S. Department of Justice to let them get away with it.  This will no doubt encourage more abuse in the future since denying potential conservative voters the opportunity to vote is obviously a goal of the Obama administration.

Intimidation of pro-lifers, gun owners, and military veterans

In April of this year, the Department of Homeland Security under the direction of Janet Napolitano wasted no time attacking conservative people in the United States as potentially planning terrorist attacks inside the country.  The report named people who are “pro-life,” who support “the Second Amendment;” those who take a stand against “illegal aliens,” and “returning military veterans,” as risk groups for committing terror attacks in the U.S. 

This had no basis in fact of course, and the outcry about this brazen Democrat attempt to suppress what they think is disagreeable political thought was so loud the White House had to distance itself from the report; soon it was retracted.     

We know this act by Homeland Security was in keeping with Mr. Obama’s disposition regarding conservative citizens in America.  We have him on tape denouncing people who disagree with him as people clinging to their guns or their religion, who oppose immigration; and includes them with those who don’t like the idea of a black man in the White House.  This is Mr. Obama’s view of people who support legal immigration, who are serious about their Christianity, and who support the Constitution.    

Intimidation of Gerald Walpin to protect fraud committed by supporters of Mr. Obama

Inspector General of the Corporation for National Community Service, Gerald Walpin, was charged with insuring that government money given through grants to organizations promoting community service was summarily fired. 

Inspectors General are independent from the entity they audit in order to ensure honesty.  They are to provide oversight to help prevent fraud, waste, and criminal activity with involving your tax dollars.  The Corporation for National Community Service is the government entity that distributes $millions to various groups including AmeriCorps (highly favored by Mrs. Obama) and Mr. Walpin’s audit found a great deal of fraud in an organization founded by Kevin Johnson the former NBA basketball player and ardent supporter of Mr. Obama.  The money was given to St. Hope to provide tutoring for poor kids in the Sacramento school system. 

He found that more than $800,000 of government grant money was misspent on Sacrament School Board political activity, salary increases for St. Hope employees, paying personnel to provide personal services for Mr. Johnson like mowing his lawn, washing his personal car, and running errands. 

Soon after Mr. Walpin issued his report he received a call to his mobile phone on a Wednesday night from attorney Norman Eisen, the Special Counsel to the President for Ethics and Government Reform.  ‘Mr. Walpin, the president wants me to tell you that he really appreciates your service, but it’s time to move on,’” Walpin recalls.  “Eisen said, ‘You can either resign, or I’ll tell you that we’ll have to terminate you.’”  Mr. Walpin said he needed some time to think about it; Eisen said he had one hour.  Eisen called him back in 45 minutes. 

Mr. Walpin knew the timing was critical.  What he had reported made the Directors of AmeriCorps very – they didn’t want a DOJ investigation of their funding of pet projects for political supporters of Democrats.  Walpin declined to resign.  He was immediately fired.  Walpin reminded the officials that Mr. Obama himself had supported legislation that made it impossible to fire an Inspector General without 30 days’ notice, and that he wasn’t resigning.  The Obama administration had to back off.  For 30 days. 

Obama knew that the so-called Stimulus Bill would provide tens or hundreds of $millions for Sacramento and New York, and that helps attract votes for him, but the violations were so serious that both cities could lose any future funding.  The answer: squash the message and kill the messenger; Walpin had to go. 

When the 30 days were up, he was fired; now he has filed a lawsuit against the government for the illegal firing.  This is what happens when a member of the ‘Obama family’ gets caught engaging in illegal activities – “Pick the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It, and Polarize It.”  Saul Alinsky shows the way for the Obama administration.  Disagreeing with Barack Obama can seriously cost you. 

Intimidation of private by promoting secret reporting on neighbors to the White House

Following the East German Stasi program of ratting out your neighbor for being insufficiently ardent about his health care plan, Mr. Obama sought to intimidate American citizens by asking people who received any email with criticisms of his plans to forward the email to a White House website.  Doing this would provide political operatives with email addresses and URL’s for those he perceives as political enemies.  This is not the only attempt on the part of Mr. Obama to create an “enemies list.” 

Intimidation by secretly tracking American citizens’ comments on the Obama presidency

In another attempt to gather dirt on people who may not support his politics, the Obama administration – without any public notice – began to collect and archive comments made by tens of millions of Americans on social networking sites like Facebook.com and Myspace.com. Mr. Obama continues to engage in the practice without notifying those who make posts on these personal websites.

By using this information, political operatives can keep tabs on who supports and who does not support this administration’s politics.  When seen as part of a larger picture, these attempts to gather the political thoughts of every American, and the illegal nationalizing of American manufacturing, banking, energy, and healthcare, it gets scary.  It’s clear that those who oppose the President can be identified and, given past performance, could be denied business banking loans, health care services and other goods and services now controlled by Mr. Obama and his operatives.  We have seen this ruthless policy already carried out with the Chrysler bondholders and dealers who supported John McCain – goods and services denied to citizens based solely on their opposition to Mr. Obama’s political policies. 

Intimidation of Tea Party citizens to deny them Constitutional rights

After trying to socialize American health care demanding that it be done in the space of two weeks, the debate heated up, and the Tea Parties began.  Mr. Obama and leading Democrat politicians attempted over and over to intimidate hundreds of thousands of Americans who were engaging in a Constitutional right.  Powerful government officials referred to these American citizens as Nazi’s, terrorists, unwashed mobs, and more, in a blatant attempt to coerce them into silence.  This single-minded policy on the part of Mr. Obama and the Democrat Party seeks to deny people the right to freely support or oppose the politics they want, and to force them into alignment with Mr. Obama’s political agenda.  We need to see this for what it is.  

Intimidation of citizens at townhall meetings

Recall these meetings held by Senators and Representatives during the summer recess.  In some cases, citizens were locked out of meetings to deny them the Constitutional right to peaceably assemble.  In other cases, supporters of the Democrat politicians were bussed in to fill the room prior to opening the room for constituents; sometimes union thugs were present to intimidate constituents, sometimes very small rooms were used in order to prevent access to Congressional representatives.  In more than one case personal ID was required to access the room to speak to an elected official. 

Intimidation of private businesses

During the health care debate, Humana – one of the largest providers of private health insurance in America – notified its members about Humana’s opposition to the President’s plan and why they opposed it. 

Immediately Mr. Obama and his operatives began threatening Humana.  If Humana doesn’t stop promoting their own views on health care, the president and Congress will strip the insurance companies of anti trust protections. 

This is a private company, yet Mr. Obama will use the coercive power of the government to force them into compliance with his personal political agenda.  

Intimidation of democratic leaders in other countries

Manuel Zelaya, President of Honduras was elected in 2006.  Under the Honduran Constitution, anyone elected to the office of President can serve only one three-year term. 

In the course of his term Mr. Zelaya declared special trade deals with Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua; he imported doctors from these countries who immediately went into the countryside indoctrinating the peasants with communist ideas of revolution.  He defined anyone with more than a two bedroom home as rich and these “rich” people had to house the poor in their homes.  He raised the minimum wage by 60%, unemployment skyrockets, and he becomes very unpopular. 

In the last year of his presidency, Zelaya decides he wants to serve another term despite what the Constitution says and orders a referendum to be attached to the upcoming presidential primary ballots with a special place for people to vote on eliminating presidential term limits.  It is so outrageously illegal that he cannot find a printing company in Honduras to print the ballots; the entire Congress – minus 3 members – votes against this criminal move – even members of his own political party. 

Zelaya has the ballots printed by his friend Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, and are shipped to Honduras.  Mr. Zelaya orders the Chief of Staff of the Honduran military to distribute the ballots, and the Chief of Staff refuses because of the illegality of the move.  Mr. Zelaya fires the Chief of Staff; the Honduran Supreme Court orders him reinstated and the illegal ballots confiscated.  

Mr. Zelaya turns to radical supporters and street thugs ordering them to break into an Air Force base and seize the confiscated ballots. 

Honduras had finally had enough.  A thug is trying to take over their country, and must be stopped.  There is no provision for impeachment in the Honduran Constitution, but the laws apply to every citizen including the president.  Honduran law states, “The citizen who has served as head of the Executive branch shall not serve again as President or Vice President of the Republic…He who violates this disposition or proposes its reform…shall immediately be removed from office.” 

Because of the law and its violation by President Zelaya, the Supreme Court orders him arrested.  The military carried out the arrest warrant.  The office of Vice-President was vacant so the next in line to serve was the Speaker of the House who is sworn in as President; this individual – Roberto Micheletti – is a member of the same political party as Mr. Zelaya. 

Immediately Mr. Obama denounced this transition as a “military coup,” and began to punish the Honduran people for acting according to their own Constitution trying to preserve their democracy.  Up to this moment Obama insists that Honduras reinstate Zelaya who is attempting to do exactly what Hugo Chavez did in Venezuela.  The Obama administration has cut off consular visas with Honduras, as well as funding for the small country in desperate need of U.S. help.  

The Law Library of Congress was asked to investigate the legality of the Honduran actions, and produced a report for Congress in August stating,

“The Supreme Court of Honduras has constitutional and statutory authority to hear cases against the President of the Republic and many other high officers of the State, to adjudicate and enforce judgments, and to request the assistance of the public forces to enforce its rulings. The Constitution no longer authorizes impeachment, but gives Congress the power to disapprove of the conduct of the President, to conduct special investigations on issues of national interest, and to interpret the Constitution. In the case against President Zelaya, the National Congress interpreted the power to disapprove of the conduct of the President to encompass the power to remove him from office, based on the results of a special, extensive investigation.”   

Not getting the result he wanted, Democrat Senator John Kerry demands that the Law Library of Congress retract its analysis.  Can anyone pronounce the word “censorship”? On October 29, 2009, the Law Library of Congress has issued a statement saying they stand behind their report. 

Why would Mr. Obama and leading Democrat politicians insist on supporting a thuggish communist attempting to illegally take over the democratic government of Honduras; and oppose his legal ouster by our democratically elected friends in Honduras?  Perhaps Mr. Obama wants to set a precedent for his own future designs on the political structure of the U.S.  Scary. 

Intimidation of Chrysler bondholders

The Obama administration was so intent on providing financial support for the United Auto Workers union that it subordinated $6.9 billion in Chrysler bonds. Under legal standards, the bondholders would be paid first in case of a bankruptcy, but Mr. Obama ignored the law.  He accused the bondholders of being “speculators” because they had loaned Chrysler almost $7 billion, and accused them of “refusing to cooperate.”  This browbeating and intimidation cost people who invested in the company through bonds almost $5 billion; the income from these bonds constituted retirement money for many of these people. 

The President forced them to accept $2 billion on the bondholders’ investment of $6.9.  Then he gave 55% of Chrysler Corporation to the UAW, and demanded that the company be brought into the Fiat Corporation, an Italian auto manufacturer.  By violating the law and not permitting a bankruptcy, Mr. Obama was able to transfer $billions from investors and bondholders to the unions. 

Intimidation and theft of Chrysler dealerships

As the deal with Fiat was put together, administration officials targeted Chrysler dealerships that were to be closed.  Although never admitted to by the administration the list of owners who were targeted to lose their dealerships were owners who had donated to the GOP, to conservative causes in general; and even included those who had previously supported John Edwards or Hillary Clinton. 

The administration made these decisions based on political affiliation, not on the dealerships that had run successful Chrysler dealerships.  This deal was absolutely corrupt, and was designed to punish those who politically do not support Mr. Obama and use their money to reward those who do. 

Intimidation of Arizona State University by threatening IRS audits

At a commencement speech at Arizona State University, Mr. Obama noted that A.S.U. had refused to give him an honorary degree because of his lack of executive experience and the debate about it during the campaign.  Mr. Obama followed this statement by saying, “I really thought this was much ado about nothing.  But I do think we all learned an important lesson.  I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets…President Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS. 

No doubt he meant this as a joke, but when you’re the president and you can make it happen, you don’t joke about it – especially when you have a reputation for taking a gun to a knife fight.  The mafia don is asking, “How are the wife and kids?”

Intimidation of the nation’s physicians

As the health care debate dragged on, Mr. Obama wanted to intimidate doctors who will bill Medicare and Medicaid for services rendered into supporting his government operated health care plans.

He made a speech in which he said the government needs to act on his plan because doctors would rather remove a child’s tonsils than treat an infection because they make more money for the surgery.

He gave another example of the importance of government taking over health care by suggesting that doctors would rather delay treatment of diabetes, because they could make more money later by amputating a patient’s foot.  Then he went on to suggest that the doctor stood to make $25,000, to $50,000 for the amputation rather than the $750 to $1,200 they are really paid.

Physicians who desire a different approach to providing health care than Mr. Obama wants can expect outrageous denunciations that they are greedy, have no interest in their patients, and are unworthy parasites who must be brought to heel by government bureaucrats.  Post partisan indeed. 

Intimidation Carrie Prejean

Along the way, Carrie Prejean won the Miss California USA pageant, and was runner-up for the Miss USA crown.

You will remember that during the final event, an ardently and publically gay pageant judge asked Miss. Prejean about gay marriage.  She said she harbored no animus toward gays, but preferred traditional marriage.  Instant outrage ensued.

She became the runner-up when most everyone thought she would win the pageant.  Immediately she became the object of opprobrium from the leftists in the country, called despicable names, and was ultimately stripped of her Miss California USA crown. 

The top political advisor to Mr. Obama, David Axelrod, said during an (tax subsidized) NPR interview that Carrie Prejean was one of 3 finalists for the Obama family dog.  The audience roared with laughter and cheers.  No one is immune to the poison and vitriol and abuse the Obama administration will heap on those they perceive as not supporting their political positions.  This is just great; Mr. Obama’s henchman beating up a Miss USA contestant.  No one is safe. 

Intimidation of white police officers

Earlier this year when Henry Louis Gates arrived home from a trip abroad, he couldn’t find his keys.  He and his escort – both black men – began trying to break through the front door of Mr. Gates’ house. 

A neighbor seeing two men attempting to break into a home called the Cambridge police.  When the officers arrived, the door was open and they thought a burglary or home invasion was in progress.

They entered the home and encountered Mr. Gates.  Not knowing who he was, they demanded ID.  He refused and told them to leave.

Thinking there may be a hostage held elsewhere in the home, the officers (one of them a black officer) asked Mr. Gates to come out on the front porch.  Mr. Gates began berating the officers accusing them of being bigots and racists, abusing their power, pushing around a black man. 

The argument continued with Mr. Gates refusing to identify himself.  The officers then took Mr. Gates out on the porch while he continued to berate the officers.  By now, they had secured the home and identified Mr. Gates, but he was arrested for disturbing the peace because of his insistent yelling at the officers calling them racists, calling Officer Crowley’s mother a :bitch,” and telling them, “You don’t know who you’re messing with.” 

Mr. Gates is a friend of Mr. Obama.  Upon hearing about the arrest and then being asked publically about it Mr. Obama said he didn’t know much about it.  “But I think it’s fair to say No. 1 any of us would be pretty angry.  Number 2, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home.”  

Apparently Mr. Obama doesn’t need to know much about a thing to have an already strong pre-formed opinion about it.  Harboring racist thoughts in his own heart, Mr. Obama’s prior assumption is that a white officer arresting a black man is prima facie evidence of racism.  This was a clumsy attempt to intimidate white police officers on the part of the president. 

Intimidation of Fox News

Mr. Obama has always had animus toward Fox News because the reporters at the company have attempted to be fair and balanced; and we know that Mr. Obama supports only unfair and out of balance news organizations that support his political positions.  Besides the news segments, Fox also has opinion shows – but so do the favored networks, like leftists Larry King on CNN, or Keith Olbermann on MSNBC.  An opinion show is designed to express opinions regarding facts, not just the facts themselves like the news segments do.  Some of the opinion show hosts on Fox are decidedly not in sync with the Obama agenda; for that reason the administration recently launched a dangerous attack against Fox news. 

Administration officials have stated that Fox News – more than twice as popular as any other two cable news organizations combined – isn’t a news station at all.  They went on to suggest that other news organizations not follow up on any Fox generated stories like people who are communists, revolutionaries or internationalists; or who support forced abortions in the U.S. or a government takeover of all our uses of energy working in the White House.

This is an open attack to force compliance with the thoughts of Mr. Obama.  No one should listen to any voice that doesn’t support him; no one should be permitted to produce information that opposes him.  Everyone who disagrees with the Dear Leader must to vilified, denounced, ridiculed, and stopped.  “Pick the Target, Freeze It, Personalize It, and Polarize It.”

Attempting to intimidate Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck

Rush Limbaugh who is a syndicated talk show host whose show would be listed on any station’s format as “entertainment,” has long been the object of scorn from the Democrat Party.  Democrat politicians are operating on the assumption that they have the right to express their opinions, but unless you agree with them, you don’t have the right to express yours. 

Lately Glenn Beck, a private individual, has become an object of Obama intimidation for outing the Obama administration’s ‘Green Jobs Czar’ Van Jones as a ‘truther.’  That is, Jones believes President George Bush conspired with Osama bin Laden to create the attacks on 9/11 resulting in the murder of 3,000 American citizens.  Beck also showed film where Jones announced that he himself was a communist.  

He didn’t apologize for the horror of permitting Van Jones to become responsible for $billions of tax dollars without realizing he was a communist.  No, Mr. Obama obviously knows Mr. Jones’ political commitments so he cried havoc and let slip the dogs of war against Mr. Beck. 

Again Mr. Obama is demonstrating that he opposes our Constitutional right of free speech and freedom of the press, and by extension, broadcast media; and makes no apology whatsoever for his intention to ignore the law. 

Intimidation of Senator John Kyl

Arizona Senator John Kyl was critical of Mr. Obama’s ‘Stimulus Plan,” so administration Cabinet Secretaries attempting to intimidate Sen. Kyl sent letters to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.  One of them said, “If you prefer to forfeit the money we are making available to the state, as Senator Kyl suggests,” let us know. 

Correctly, the Arizona Republic newspaper said, “Let’s not mince words here.  The White House is intent on shutting Kyl up…using whatever means necessary.” 

Intimidation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Very recently the Obama administration has tried to intimidate the Chamber of Commerce.  This is a membership group promoting the interests of businesses in the U.S.  Presumably they have insight into what is good for job creation since the member companies together employ tens of millions of Americans.  But Mr. Obama who has never hired an employee he had to pay, and has never even operated a lemonade stand knows better. 

Since the Chamber has opposed Mr. Obama’s health care plan, the president has sent Rahm Emmanuel and Valerie Jarrett out to dismantle the Chamber by cleaving off important businesses from the positions the Chamber itself has taken.  They have gone directly to IBM, Wal-Mart, Time Warner, Kodak, Amazon, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks in order to try to break the influence of the Chamber of Commerce. 

This is a process of intimidation; Jarrett said, “The question is: does the Chamber really represent the business community the way it used to?  It seems as though their members are disengaging.”  Of course any member business is free to quit the Chamber at any time.  Any process of “disengagement” was the attempt of the Obama administration in their attempt to destroy this private organization that had the nerve to disagree with Mr. Obama. 

Conclusion

We can determine what the new United States will look like by observing the policies he is pursuing.  He is seeking federal government control over: what health care services you will be permitted to have, your banking accounts and the loans you create with any bank; your credit cards, the kind of job you can have, and now how much you will be permitted to earn.  He is seeking control over what constitutes marriage, and your opinions regarding sexual morality.  He is seeking to control what you are permitted to believe about immigration, the Constitution; and what kind of company you can create.  He is seeking to control the temperature of your home, when you can run your dishwasher, and how hot you can have your water.

Considering this collection of concrete and verified instances of intimidation, and vicious cage fighting against private, individual citizens:  a beauty pageant winner, private physicians, constituents attempting to speak to their representatives, entertainers; against political speech by researchers, pro live-loving moms, ordinary supporters of the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights; against military veterans who have given their all in defense of their country, government employees who are charged with insuring good accounting; against innocent investors, and business owners, and University Presidents; against white police officers in the orderly conduct of their task, leading news outlets, and Republican Senators; the conclusion is inescapable: Mr. Obama is, on the outside, a sophisticated, urbane but committed leftist intent on “transforming” the United States.  

On the inside, there is overwhelming evidence that he is a Chicago thug in the mold of previous Chicago gangsters.  He has surrounded himself with cut-throats; people who play for keeps.  He commissions them to go out to harass, intimidate, browbeat; to call names, to ruin reputations while he publically remains the professorial, reticent, sophisticate.  He publically expresses a sort of benign patience with we lesser mortals who aren’t bright enough to follow his deep reasoning, but on the inside he is an angry man who is willing to steal money dedicated to provide services for the elderly so he can give it to someone else.  If we could remove the practiced smile, we would see Mr. Obama as he is; an angry, jealous, bitter, man with his teeth barred; a man of infinite ego consumed with hubris.  We know this because of the instances I show in this post.  He feigns patient sophistication while he and his gang slit the throat of American cultural and economic history.  The blood of American tradition is squirting out in all directions.  We are dying of cultural exsanguination; and Barack Obama is the assassin.

The only question that remains is, what will you do about stopping his hostile takeover of the United States?  Are you invested so totally in Mr. Obama that you give him every benefit of the doubt?  Can you look honestly at what this man has done since becoming president?  Are you willing to admit the bullying he has done to anyone with the courage to disagree with him?  Are you willing to look squarely into the abyss that Mr. Obama is “transforming” America into?  Are you willing leave behind all that has made this country good and great: the envy of the world; the shining city on the hill for emigrants everywhere?  Consider what our election of Barack Obama will cost the world; and reconsider what politics you support.

Now there are 6 people looking for a job for every job opening, with 10% of the work force unemployed.  The number of job openings in manufacturing has decreased by 47.0%, and in professional and business services, by 21.1%.  But those cushy, well-paid federal government jobs just keep coming – like Old Man River, they just keep rolling along. 

Adding insult to injury, now we know that civilian federal government employees earn an average of $79,197 in salaries each year – the average employee.  The average private sector employee who is taxed to pay for those federal employees makes $49,935 annually.  So the private worker earns 63% of what the federal worker earns. Tax the poor to pay the rich.  If you include benefits, the situation is much worse.  Including wages and benefits, the AVERAGE civilian federal employee earns $119,982 a year; that’s how much it costs for the AVERAGE private employee earning
$59,909 a year to pay for the AVERAGE federal employee.  That’s just less than 50% of what a federal employee earns! 

In 1960, federal workers averaged $1.24 for every $1.00 earned by a private employee.  In 1980, it rose to $1.50; by 2000, $1.66, and now its $2.00 for every $1.00 earned by private employees.  The AVERAGE federal employee earns twice as much as the AVERAGE private employee. 

Government job security 

Then there is the issue of job security.  During the average year, 1 in 5,000 federal civilian workers is fired.  “Involuntary separations” are four times higher in the private sector.  Almost consistently across the various agencies of the federal government, the percentage of workers fired each year is 0.02%.  In the Labor department the rate is 0.04% while in the Departments of State and Transportation, the rate is 0.00% for the latest statistical year.  

In addition, federal employees file discrimination complaints at ten times the rate in the private sector.  Besides this, federal workers are protected by “whistleblower” protections, and frequently this exemption is used to protect an employee who really should be fired, and is not deserving of the protection. 

You will also be happy to know that there are 11,000 US Postal workers who are idle at any given time.  It is known as “standby time.”  Because of union negotiations, the Postal Service is required to pay an average of 45,000 hours of “standby time” every week which costs about $50 million a year. 

“Most of us bring books and puzzles.  Sometimes we just sleep,” said one employee on “standby time.”  Supervisors would like to use the time for these employees to brush up on training, but when they tried this, the union shop filed a grievance.  “We’re on standby time, not training time.  Standby time is different…You can’t make people read training materials on standby time.”  For this you pay an average of $119.982 a year for each of these employees.  After months of doing nothing, some supervisors have relented and begun to allow employees to break the rules by reading and playing cards. 

Cost of state and local government employees 

State and local government workers are paid an average of $25.30 per hour while the private sector averages $19.00.  This means that state and local workers are paid 33% more than private workers are paid on average.  Beside this, there is collusion all along the way with supervisors agreeing to raise pay during the last month of pay in order to justify a higher retirement benefit for the rest of the employee’s life, this is so common it is called “spiking.”  For example, recently a California fire chief announced his retirement (at age 51) and three days prior to his retirement, his salary was increased in order to boost his pension to $241,000 a year. 

Government pensions 

In addition, government workers are permitted to retire not only with guaranteed pensions but are able to retire much earlier than most people in the private sector.  We have all seen the 42 year old police officer retired with more than $2 million in benefits coming his way over the next 50 years of his retire life.  In addition, disability retirements are easily arranged for some workers like police and firefighters so they can quit working at early ages, and spend the rest of their life relaxing, playing golf, or getting another job with losing their disability pay.  Sometimes these “disabilities” actually don’t exist. 

These pensions are guaranteed by state law, and regardless of how the invested money fares, the taxpayers are required to pay them.  Even if a state would experience 25% or more in unemployment, the pensions of he retired state workers MUST be paid. 

At the federal level, there is a $trillion pension disaster looming.  When the stocks and other investment vehicles the retirement funds are placed in decline, the government must pick up the slack, and that means any amount of taxation that may be required.  You could be completely impoverished and still you are required to pay retirement benefits for federal, state, and local government workers.  Now that the U.S. government is a stakeholder in General Motors, we are also on the hook for all those union pensions.  

Health care benefits 

Non-military federal workers have access to a wide array of healthcare choices.  Through the FEHBP (Federal Employees Health Benefits Program) they have access to more than 200 private health insurance plans – fee for service, HMO’s, and PPO’s.  Sometimes the location of the federal worker limits the number of private insurers they have access to, but it is never less than a dozen.  These workers can change their choices in private healthcare insurance every year. 

Because they have many choices and they can change plans every year, the companies bidding to provide coverage for federal workers have to be very competitive. 

Besides, as taxpayers, we help pay the premiums for these workers as well.  We pay 70% of the cost for these federal workers’ private health insurance.  The companies providing coverage for these workers are not limited by not being required by various state governments to provide all kinds of mandated coverages, nor do they have to live with specific benefits requirements mandated by the federal government.  The approach of the government for federal workers is that they pay for the benefit; for Medicare, they mandate the coverages.  As a result of the choices federal workers have, and these other issues, the FEHBP costs grow much more slowly than other private health insurance coverage. 

We know that the Obama administration has no interest in making federal employees change to the new plan they have for the rest of us; and we know as that they have no interest in providing access to this kind of program for us either.  They are considering neither.  I wonder why Obama wants to continue blue ribbon coverage and lower cost for federal employees, but want to force the remainder of us into grade B coverage with government-controlled coverage. 

Separation bonuses 

Many times, school districts and other public entities have to pay unbelievable sums to get rid of incompetent leaders.  Case after case of school districts and municipalities paying a year or two of salary plus a lump sum along with other agreements to pay health insurance for life and the like are seen in newspapers everywhere.  This is the reward for incompetence. 

The poor support the rich 

While Democrats howl about the rich stealing from the poor, in fact the reverse is true.  The average American earns half of what federal workers earn, yet those who earn that half are taxed sufficiently to guarantee the pay, healthcare, and retirement of federal workers who have a guaranteed job with a 0.02% risk of being fired.

The moral stain

Moral and cultural failings in the past led to slavery gaining a foothold in America. (I plan to write more extensively about this in a future Post, but note that it was principally white males who had the power, and who saw the injustice of the practice, and white males who ended it.)  I add that many black Africans were engaged in capturing and selling blacks for the slave trade and there were black slave owners in the United States.  Today, there are blacks in Africa who own many slaves whom they have purchased from slave traders.  So slavery isn’t a sin committed only by “white males.”

Following the Civil War in the mid 19^th century, a number of states enacted all manner of laws to impede the progress of freed slaves – making it difficult for them to find work, to vote, to purchase property; in many states they could not serve on juries, or hold local political office.  Slaves were freed, but the Democrat Party gained political power in the southern states by openly appealing to white bigotry imposed these laws throughout those states.  Their philosophy was that even though slavery was outlawed they could still continue to divide blacks from whites by means of segregation.  They referred to this as “separate but equal,” but it was not equal at all.  By the 1870’s some states had segregated schools, separate drinking fountains and bathrooms; white and black restaurants, and so forth. These laws are referred to as “Jim Crow.” 

Small progress was made during the first half of the 20^th century, particularly in some states, but the legal situation wasn’t remedied until some black activists began to break the rules in the worst of the states.  (It is important to know that despite the bigoted attempts by southern Democrat leaders, black literacy rates by the 1920’s were higher than black literacy rates today!  We know this from military entrance exams and other research.  Many blacks had moved to northern states for work where they occasionally found a warmer reception than in southern states.) 

(As a side note, in 1927, Rep. Robert Bacon introduced what became Davis-Bacon legislation.  He was joined by Sen. James Davis – who was openly bigoted – to support the legislation.  A contractor in Bacon’s district employed black workers to build a Veteran’s hospital in the district.  The unions were upset, and he said on the floor of the House that the “neighboring community,” was “very upset.”  Davis also complained about the “Outfit of Negro laborers” who were working on the hospital.  What we know today as ‘prevailing wage’ jobs began as a union inspired, openly discriminatory piece of trash designed to prevent black workers coming north to escape Jim Crow so they could get jobs.) 

Dr. Martin Luther King

Choosing to ride in the front of a bus instead of staying in back where blacks were required to ride, Rosa Parks began a momentous series of events.  But soon we meet Dr. Martin Luther King. 

When Dr. King spoke on the Washington Mall August 28^th 1963 he electrified the world by sharing his dream with us; he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”  These are immortal words; a lesson for the ages and I am still profoundly moved as I remember them.  It is a tragedy of history that the government Dr. King relied on has insured that his dream could not come true.  Hi children do not live in such a country because color os skin is central to the liberal program today.  Unfortunately soon after this, Dr. King was assassinated by a white bigot, and his movement of goodwill and equality he began degenerated into a bastard child. 

Once the “civil rights movement” took hold, it led to a series of U.S. Supreme Court decisions forbidding discrimination based on “race.”  Clearly we had to have a remedy for the injustice of discrimination and Jim Crow.  Perhaps there were other ways of crafting the laws and subsequent judicial decisions that could have spared us the regrettable metastasis that has evolved from the way this was handled. 

I speak of what we have today as a “regrettable metastasis” and a “bastard child” because the spawn of the courageous Civil Rights leaders has become exactly what Dr. King said he hated and wanted to change – a system where people are legally required to be treated by the color of their skin rather than the content of their character.  His dream has been turned into a nightmare. 

You may differ, but I think Dr. King would be embarassed and ashamed by the huckster Al Sharpton and others like him.  Sharpton become famous for championing the cause of Tawana  Brawley, a 15 year old from New York who claimed to have been repeatedly raped by  3 white men, one of whom was a cop, who left her covered with feces in a trash bag.  It turns out that she was a troubled person who did all of this herself.  She was missing for 3 days because she was afraid of being beaten by her mother’s live-in boyfriend.  The feces was from the neighboor’s dog. She often slept with boys, and came up with this story as a coverup for her own malfeasince. Al Sharpton, Bill Cosby among other “black leaders” championed her case; leading attorneys came to her aid.  

The horror of the allegations fed into the – justifiable – deeply held distrust many black had for whites in general, and white cops in particular.  The story became huge.  Al Sharpton was sued for defamatory statements made in the press, lost, then refused to pay what the court ordered.  Many years later, Johnny Cochhran and other wealthy black individuals paid the $65,000 debt Sharpton owed to Dutchess County Assistant District Attorney Steven Pagones. 

I tell this story because Mr. Sharpton showing up whenever there is a camera to denounce someone of being a racisist is getting tiresome.  The same can be said for Jesse Jackson and a number of others who have gotten rich by stirring up racial animosity without solving anything.  

The dream becomes a nightmare

What passes for equality under the law in the United States today is exactly what Dr. King opposed all those years ago.  The legal remedy for discrimination ended up not being aimed at defending persons from discrimination, but only members of groups.  One didn’t have to be deserving, he only had to be in the right group.  This is the same situation that the 13^th and 14^th Amendments to the Constitution, and all the Supreme Court decisions of the 1950’s and 1960’s were designed to end!  The Dream has become the nightmare.  Instead of working at becoming colorblind, we are frequently blinded by color; adding up numbers, being constantly reminded about what hasn’t been accomplished. 

This malignant process has come to profane every element of culture – excusing black malfeasance at the same time it exploits white guilt.  The recent death of Michael Jackson brought to the surface claims by famous black entertainers that “Michael was one of ours,” meaning perhaps that while white people watched his videos and purchased his music, Michael was black and didn’t belong to everyone.  Aside from the fact that Michael tried to turn himself into a white man, why should his skin color be the glass through which we see him?  Why can’t he be just a famous entertainer?  There are people of every hue who are accomplished in economics, mathematics, law, music, choreography, academics – every field of human endeavor.  Why the constant reminder of skin color?  There is a whole industry dependent on perpetuating bigotry; they are paid to solve it.  If it was permitted to go away, these people might have to get real work. 

It greives me to think about some of the consequences of the original Civil Rights cases brought us just through the nomenclature used.  They refer to discrimination based on “race,” among other things.  There are no “races” of human beings.  The word is a political construct designed to divide (and conquer) the people.  It is completely imprecise; and causes people to think of variations of ethnicity or skin color as if it meant something important; like species.  When two tall people marry and have children, the likelihood their children will be tall is very high.  When a familiy has tall children, and those children marry other tall husbands and wives, we don’t begin speaking of them as if they were a “race;” the “tall” race.  But our government speaks of variations less important than height, and then separates those in that group from all other groups dividing the population is ways slaveholders couldn’t imagine.  No, people aren’t being purchased and sold; beaten and worked to death.  But the group is bought and sold in much the same way as slaveholders did 200 years ago only this time for the accumulation of political power rather than for agrarian labor.  Why do we let them divide us like this? 

Throughout history rivers, mountain ranges, religions, epidemics, earthquakes and other natural disasters have separated people who then intermarried with each other, and their offspring developed certain characteristics in common.  This doesn’t make them a different “race.”  This horrible term has caused no end of disruption; playing into bigotry; cited in favor of discrimination, and so on.  The genetics of complexion and hair texture does not divide us whatsoever.  Mountebanks, hustlers, fear-mongers, bigots; the stupid and uninformed, and the politicians – on the other hand – do. 

The opportunists and bigots among us have seized upon this term to foment hatred, fear, suspician, fury, or murder; and usually these unfounded emotions are meant to be used to make money or gain prominence for the perpetrators.  They pretend to speak for Black Americans or Hispanic Americans retelling the stories of bigotry and hatred without discussing the progress made toward ending them, or encouraging the behaviors that will help people succeed despite lingering bigotry.  They stir up animosities that could have largely disappeared long ago. 

If this wasn’t bad enough, the way everyone is seen by government is through the microscope of color: are you a member of this group, or that group?  This is why I say the government CAUSES us to be “race” conscious; in fact, we are REQUIRED to be.  We have to think about it; our own government will not permit us to see each other as equals. Federal law requires us to treat each other as equals, and at a the same time will not permit us to treat each other as equals.  The Census will require us to focus on skin color; any company with any government contract will have to count noses of all types and shades in order to keep their contract.  Any government hiring for any level of government scrupiously counts these noses too. 

Even worse yet, the success that the despoilers of Dr. King ‘s memory have had is now being followed by other members of our culture.  Now we see women’s groups pitting themselves against men constantly and loudly announcing that they haven’t gotten their fair share of the pie.  Now we have homosexuals claiming the same thing; desiring, even, marriage.  There is some “support group” for virtually every sub group of Americans clamoring for a bigger piece of the pie; demanding everyone pay them attention.  Perhaps they think this is a better approach for gaining economically than actually working hard. 

Government requires bigotry

The bad part of this is that people should be loved, and hired, and promoted, married, fired all for “not for the color of their skin, but for the content of their character.”  Alas,  character can’t count anymore, because we are required to focus of the number of melanin cells in a given patch of skin.  Because of Lincoln’s assassination even the Civil War with over 200,000 deaths, along with Constitutional amendments didn’t settle the issue of bigotry.   Promises weren’t kept.  People were ruined.  Jim Crow instituted by the Democrat Party.  But I ask whether or not those sins committed by people now dead against people also now dead justifies requiring us to engage in the same process of constantly defining people by color today?  Does it heal anything?  Does it rectify the wrong done?  Does it move us forward?  Or does it divide the people, create suspician and resentment; and work to the benefit of the few who exploit the fear? 

We all have evil ancestors.  There are no perfect pedigrees.  There are no pure ethnics.  At some point, everyone has an ancestor who was maltreated by some different person.  Are we to construct a culture that seeks to reverse what happened centuries ago by requiring more maltreatment and exploitation today?  There are people of Irish descent in the U.S. whose grandparents were discriminated against, not permitted to work because they were irish.  Should we, then feel it necessary to hire an Irishman today because of what was done to his grandfather a hundred years ago? 

The Biblical approach would be wise here.  Paul taught that “all have sinned.”  John in 1 John says it even clearer, “If we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar.”  That’s because God Himself knows we have all sinned.  Jesus, when brought the prostitute to be stoned said, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”  Since we all have an interest in ending this nightmare, let’s just not permit bigotry be stated without our opprobrium.  Let’s tell people we aren’t going to listen to ethnic jokes – we don’t find them funny.  Let’s not have the prior assumption that a person who looks different is different.  Let’s not continue to permit the murder of anyone’s worth through a thousand small cuts; we have to speak up and name this evil for what it is.  

Let’s start tellng the government that the Constitution gives rights only to “persons,” not groups – with the ammendments passed long ago there are no group rights in the Constitution.  In fact the Constution expressly forbids them.  Perhaps the courts could have handled this more wisely, but we don’t have to continue down this path carving out this ethnic group and that; this native American tribe, that Albanian group or South American Indian group, Eskimoes, Inuits, Pacific Islander group; polygamists, gays, transgenders,  or whatever asking to be on the “approved” list of people especially deserving of official discrimination.  It’s ripping the country apart. 

So now, we even see “reverse discrimination.”  We have reached the state where,  since it is illegal to  discriminate against anyone because of their ethnic background we are, in fact, required to do so in order to achieve the result mandated!  So people not on the approved list of officially deserving the benefits of discrimination apparently can be discriminated against.  Wow!  It’s all so confusing. 

Why don’t we just hire the people best suited for the job, fire the ones who refuse to do it well, and forget the other stuff?  Why should an otherwise undeserving person get points for having more melanin cells per square inch than other candidates? 

What we will lose

If we continue down this road, I assure you the destination is not where any of us really want to go.  We have already lost much freedom of choice in our culture; if we permit the government to continue to expand their regulatory activities over even more of our lives, we will have no freedoms at all.  Our Declaration of Independence says that are given to us all by God, and therefore cannot be removed by governments.  We have permitted our Politicians to divide and conquor us; but we can take back our rights and our dignity by refusing to go along with their stupid nostrums.  We must elect government officials who respect our rights.  We have to act responsibly and intelligently – it we don’t we end up with even more government rules.  If a person of one color treats you badly because of your skin color, don’t make the mistake of assuming that all people of that color will do the same thing.  People act as individuals, not as members of a group.  Treat them that way.

Our freedom to start new businesses; to enjoy central heating and air conditioning; to continue to enjoy personal financial liberty, and to continued employement are in danger – all because of oppressive new government regulations.  You may be surprised to know that a molecule essential to all plant and animal life on earth is now considered by the Obama EPA as dangerous.  

The Environmental Protection Agency has now officially made an “endangerment finding” on CO2.  This permits the Obama Administration to take command and control of this molecule by means of Clean Air Act regulations.  EPH Chief Lisa Jackson says that the regulations would only apply to 10,000 facilities in the U.S. that discharge 25,000 tons of CO2 or more per year.  These are utility and refining companies along with some manufacturing facilities.  It’s important to note that the limit of 25,000 tons is completely arbitrary because the Clean Air Act regulations state that an “endangerment finding” requires regulation of any facility that discharges more than 250 tons – not the 25,000 Ms. Jackson announced.  As a result, all human activity; public and personal will come under the control of the federal government.  This is not overstatement.  Consider that energy is required for virtually all human activity: the temperature of our home and workplace, how we are permitted to get to work, where we work; whether we can own an outboard motor, ski, travel; the food in our grocery store and the clothes on our back will all come under federal scrutiny. 

How will it be implemented?

This means that many farms, hospitals, schools, hotels, churches and small businesses will be required to implement “best available control technology” to avoid federal fines.  The number of facilities covered would be over 40,000 – there are 300 today – and facilities requiring EPA construction permits would rise from 14,000 to 6.1 million; these numbers come from the EPA itself.  Further they say that this is “an unprecedented increase” and says it will create years of delay that will “impede economic growth by precluding any type of source – whether it emits GHGs [greenhouse gasses] or not – from construction or modifying for years after its business plan contemplates.” (Emphasis mine) No mention on how this would impact Mr. Obama’s plan to increase employment. 

The ostensible reason to control the emission of CO2 is to “save the earth.”  That is; the earth is warming critically because of Carbon dioxide which humanity is creating at unsustainable levels and governments of the world must immediately slow then reverse the amount of CO2 produced by humanity.  This is not only a hallucination, it is a lie.  Revelations during the past week prove the theory is a lie, and I will be posting on the subject shortly. 

I have posted before on the subject, but it is important to note that CO2 comprises just 0.04% of the atmosphere, and it is absolutely essential for photosynthesis that makes plant life possible on earth.  Most plants take one molecule of water, combine it with one molecule of Carbon dioxide with energy from sunlight, and make 6 molecules of sugar and 6 molecules of Oxygen.  The sugar is made into sugar fibers like cellulose and hemicelluloses that make up the structure of plant.  (We perceive these sugar fibers as the limbs and trunk of trees.  We grind them up and make paper out of them!)  The oxygen migrates back out of the membrane of the plant and flows into the air making animal life possible.  Thus, plants require Carbon dioxide exhaled from humans and animals to exist; and all animal life including humans require Oxygen exhaled from plants to exist.  Plants thrive on the waste of animal life; people thrive on the waste of plant life.  All life on earth requires this essential exchange.  Now the government has claimed the right to control one of the universal chemical exchanges essential to life on earth.  Just wait until the bureaucrats get their fingers on this one. 

The motives are clear

Hubris alone can explain why a government would declare a small, simple molecule essential for all plant and animal life on earth an “endangerment.”  The declaration has nothing to do with protecting the atmosphere – a molecule essential to our life cannot be considered a danger!  It’s prevalence in the atmosphere is largely unchanged throughout history and as a result, it cannot be a contributor to so-called “global warming.”  There is no correlation between the increase of carbon in the atmosphere through the use of fossil fuels and any warming of earth’s temperatures; and if fact we have been in a cooling period for the past 10 years. 

The hubris is all about a malevolent desire on the part of these elitist utopians to deprive Americans of the freedom to engage in commerce – which relies on energy production; to live private lives in our home keeping it cool and warm; to live where we want to live; to operate automobiles.  It will control where businesses are permitted to operate; the price of food produced shipped, cooled, and cooked with the use of energy.  It is the beginning of the end of private enterprise because permission to operate all aspects of business – and as a consequence, private life – will be controlled by federal bureaucrats bringing about Marx’s goal of nationalizing the means of production.

By focusing on the feeling, the promise; we are rendered incapable of thinking rationally about the thing itself.  Seduction of every kind consists of redirecting our thoughts from analyzing the cost-benefit ratio of a given action to the benefit only.  The mind dwells on that unexperienced, ordinarily forbidden, elusive, utopian, unattainable, unsustainable state of being.  The tempter never encourages you to think about venereal diseases when tempting you with illicit sex; he encourages you to block out images of the loss of innocence; the betrayal of the wife, husband and children; the opprobrium of the community which holds you in high esteem. 

Temptation in commercial life 

I will not suggest that people who want to tempt us are the devil in disguise, but I do want to point out that the process of political and economic seduction is the same.  It understands human nature, and exploits it. This same process is applied in every aspect of human life.  Retail stores are designed to display, and arrange in such a way to overcome your reticence to purchase something you want.  In grocery stores, the items most frequently purchased are placed in the back of the store so you have to walk by other items in order to be tempted to purchase them; their labels screaming about their benefits.  In automobile showrooms the lighting is critical in order to highlight the colors and curves of the cars; their very design is calculated to make you want to purchase them even if you don’t need a new car.  You desire something, and that desire overcomes your reticence.  It’s all by design. 

When autocrats, military generals, monarchs, and warlords controlled every aspect of the lives of their subjects, they didn’t have to concern themselves with deceit – they just used raw power.  Individuals weren’t important enough to consider at all.  Following the rise and spread of Christianity with its central doctrine of the infinite value of the individual requiring the death of God’s Only Begotten Son to effect redemption, democracy had the chance to rise.  Prior to the invention of the individual of the individual, rule by the people – democracy – could not be conceived.  In democracies, leaders can no longer rely on brute force.  Subtlety, deceit, propaganda, and proficiency in the art of lying have become the tools for leaders who envision a culture different than the one envisioned by their citizens. 

Political and economic temptations 

In democratic countries over the last 200 years those who wish to “organize” humanity; to create efficiencies in how citizens live their lives; to coercively force the implementation of their vision of “the good life” denying the citizens the opportunity to determine for themselves what constitutes the good life must engage in seduction, deceit, and  temptation; not raw power.  The power is still the goal of such people, but they just cannot be seen as seeking to take it away from the citizens, so a different narrative must be created.  This is the means by which freedoms are lost; and we are losing them at an incredibly accelerated rate. 

Benefits vs. costs 

The power can be transferred from the people to the elite so long as the focus is on the benefit – the promise, the utopian end, the previously unattainable, the seductive; not the actual cost of attaining it.  This sleight of hand becomes the narrative.  Coercive utopians have a seemingly endless supply of diversionary seductions, lies, and temptations to fool the citizens into approving the unattainable promise without consideration of the cost.  “Universal health care,” “more equitable distribution of wealth,” “saving the planet,” and other nostrums come immediately to mind. 

“Universal health care” 

Throughout history citizens survived without universal health care.  People used to know that eating correctly and in moderation was more healthful, but when they needed the services of the medical community, they saw a physician and paid for the service of the prescription or herb.  The idea that every citizen (and non-citizen) must have access to professional medical oversight whether they can afford to pay for it or not, is nothing more than a utopian dream.  It is the seduction.  Scant attention is paid to the cost. 

The price is that healthy people who deny themselves the pleasures of smoking, drugs, alcohol, risky sex, and irresponsible behaviors of all sorts must pay for the excesses of people who do not deny themselves these things.  If the desire is to create a situation where a few of the powerful in the culture control the behaviors of all the citizens, the focus cannot be on the actual cost of universal health care – it must be focused instead on the benefit. So we hear arguments that we are already paying for it because people go to the emergency room where treatments are government mandated; arguments accusing us of a lack of morality if we would keep the money we earned rather than seeking to have faceless bureaucrats give it away to others; arguments that this program will save us all money, and the like.  

There is never any assessment of the arguments that are made in favor of such a scheme; there is no accountability for the utopians who make these arguments.  It would be an easy thing, and would save $billions if the government simply rescinded the requirement that hospital emergency rooms treat anyone regardless of their ability to pay.  Hospitals may choose to continue some aspect of such a program voluntarily because they think it is in their best public interest not to be seen rejecting injured and very ill patients.  It could also be in the public interest if physicians who performed such services for free could deduct 200% of the actual cost helping them save high taxes on other, paid services.  This could help the physician to end up with lowered gross income, but increased net income without laundering his money through the federal government.  But such analysis is never considered by those who want to organize humanity to complete their personal vision of how we ought to live; control is the goal - not universal health care. 

“Saving the earth” 

The same arguments can be made about “saving the earth.”  Remember that in previous incarnations, this argument was built around the idea of a “coming ice age.”  When that proved not to be seductive enough, the argument was changed to “global warming” and the calamities that could be avoided if only we would give the utopians the power they seek.  Lately – since we have been in a cooling period for 10 years – the argument has been “climate change,” or the presumptuous “saving the earth.”  

Again, no analysis will be made of the truth of the claims or the possibility of achieving the promise; nor will there be any analysis of the cost to produce the utopian end.  To the degree “analysis” of the cost is announced, it will – as usual – be a lie. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior, and the past performance of those who want to organize humanity making it fit their vision of what constitutes the good indicates that lying about the cost and the benefit will be widespread. 

Since there is always “global cooling” and “global warming” occurring (the earth is never static) they have found a way to create a constant panic and are now referring to the problem as “climate change” and the answer is “saving the earth.”  The use of this phrase permits them to cry wolf at all times rather than only periodically. 

Distribution of economic goods is a perennial issue.  Thomas Sowell has written extensively on the subject for many years, and points out that we are all troubled by the differences between the extremely rich and the truly poor.  The difficulty with solving the problem, however, can create other problems.  

“Economic justice”

There is the socialist/communist method of dealing with economic disparity. Three central arguments of Karl Marx were that to equalize the economic benefits of a culture nationalization of the means of production so no one could benefit more than anyone else must be done; abolishment of private property must occur so no one could accumulate more than anyone else; and a graduated income tax must be implemented to punish those who managed to accumulate more than others, with the money to be redistributed to those who have less.  All socialist/communist schemes are based on envy; divide the citizens, and deny the opportunity for true charity and generosity. 

A quick glance at the results of this scheme for redistribution, leveling, and organizing people into a utopian mold should chill anyone’s ardor for it.  The seduction is in the promise of a state of being that is unattainable: equal distribution encourages sloth and requires theft.  It requires knowledge about the conditions of individuals that no one can possibly know.  It treats all as equally deserving because as members of the race they merit the reward.  It ignores manners, diligence, determination, sloth, laziness, bigotry, and criminality.  All deserve because they are humans.  The extreme result is seen in the administrations of Stalin, Pol Pot, Castro, Mao Zedong, and others resulting in 100 million deaths of citizens not in times of war in order to “spread the money around.”  Some think that’s a good thing.  Walter Duranty, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the New York Times excused Stalin’s murder of 13 million Kulaks after covering it up for years by saying, “If you’re going to make an omelet, you have to crack a few eggs.”

The more moderate result is seen in the high unemployment, lack of creativity, declining vigor, lowered birth rates, and inflation of the European socialist states like England, France, and others with the result that radical Islam is rising to conquer these states without ever firing a shot.  So we are left with the option of rewarding people for their productivity resulting in unequal distribution of wealth.  

By focusing on the utopian promise we fail to consider the cost of attaining it.  Calculating the cost is considered negative, defeatist; the “party of ‘no.’” Tumult, death, and squalor are created by promises of improvement unaccompanied by rational consideration of the cost.  Billions of dollars are spent attempting to create the perfect argument that will seduce a sufficient number of citizens to engage in the forbidden activity before they realize what diseases it spawns.  Worldwide disasters, calamities of all sort, economic collapse, immediacy, moral sentiment guilt trips; all accompanied by generous lying are being used to convince people to support things that are not in their own or anyone else’s interest. 

“Social justice”

We constantly hear the phrase “social justice;” “I’ve given my life to social justice for everyone!”  People applaud, and have no idea what the speaker is talking about.  “Social justice” means absolutely nothing to the hearer, but it sounds great.  “Social justice” to the speaker may mean they plan to suspend free speech and collectivize farming in the U.S. – it is an empty term into which the speaker stuffs whatever meaning he chooses.  

This is the means by which deceit is used to bring about change the utopian would never announce publically.  They have to keep their designs completely hidden because the people would never elect them, or approve of their administration if they knew the truth about what the utopian’s plans really are. 

Conclusion 

When you take a moment and think clearly about various proposals and realistically consider the cost; whether the benefit is possible or even desirable; and other ways to achieve a better life for most people, you will see the tempter’s fangs and drool behind the mask of seduction. 

Taking the time to consider what is being proposed is crucial if we are to avoid outcomes that destroy the life we really want.  Rushing to make changes is universally a terrible choice.  It is a technique used by utopians to keep people from having sufficient time to consider what is being proposed.  We hear that the world will end if we don’t do this now; like taking over 17% of the U.S. economy by means of controlling every aspect of healthcare – it has to be done immediately; but it won’t take any effect until 2013!  Why the rush?  You know the answer. 

The so-called “Cap and Trade” scheme to end CO2 emissions for example, has to be done right now.  We are told variously that we have only a few years left to save the earth, or more recently, only months!  First we must consider that there is no correlation between the amount CO2 in the atmosphere and climate change; second we must consider that human activity amounts to only a fraction of the total CO2 in the atmosphere.  

The science is too difficult for us to understand, takes too much time; so we are in the process of being brainwashed into believing a lie.  And if we do, we shall all be damned.  The CO2 levels are only a propaganda tool; global climate change is only a propaganda tool.  The desire is to control everything that is produced and shipped.  This would give the government control over how warm you keep your home, how far you can drive, whether or not you can own a car, the kinds of work available in the U.S. – everything.  Every light bulb, every delivery truck, every TV, every computer – all of it will be regulated and controlled by bureaucrats in the government.  The latest estimates are that this scheme will cost the average household an addition $1800 per year, and the government can raise that amount easily by tightening the regulation on the use of energy.  Between healthcare and energy, the government is poised to nationalize about 25% of the U.S. economy besides what they already control, and through control of the use of energy they will control all commercial enterprise and private enterprise will cease to exist in the U.S.

The tempter comes and suggests that we can stop global annihilation, or misery, or destitution, or inequality if you will only eat of the tree.  The message is seductive, but the fruit is poison.  If you eat it you will surely die.  When thinking about a benefit, first consider it’s cost.

• Mr. Obama never supported a single payer system
• Mr. Obama supported a single payer system

• Medicare is a system in trouble and is broken; that’s why we need to change health care
• Medicare is an example of something we got right.  Our success with Medicare should give us confidence about the role of government in health care

• His health care plan will not pay for abortions
• His health care plan will cover reproductive care; it’s essential care so it is at the center and heart of the plan I propose

• His plan for health care does not have ‘death panels,’ he is angered by such suggestions
• He has stated to the New York Times, “Well, I think that there is going to have to be a conversation that is guided by doctors, scientists, ethicists. And then there is going to have to be a very difficult democratic conversation that takes place.”

• His plan for health care will absolutely not eliminate private health insurance; he doesn’t want to do that
• His plan for health care will eliminate private health insurance, but it may take 20 years

• The public option is absolutely central to his health care plan
• The public option is only a sliver of the plan, a small part of the overall plan
• The public option is again an absolutely central part of his plan

• He doesn’t want bureaucrats and bean counters involved in America’s health care
• His plan creates more than 30 new councils, boards, and bureaucracies that will decide which treatments will be paid for, and penalties for doctors not using them

• He says that government can run the complex health care system
• He admits that the government cannot run the simple Postal System

• He insists that his plan will not provide health care for illegals in the country
• He insists that his plan will cover 47 million uninsured which includes 15-20 million illegals

• AARP is endorsing his health care plan
• AARP is not endorsing his health care plan

 Mr. Obama in fact, does tell lies

• His stimulus plan must be enacted immediately for the economy to be saved.  His plan would create or save at least 3 million jobs.  If we don’t do this, the 6.5% unemployment could rise to 8%.  Shovel-ready projects are ready to go, all they need is the funding, and jobs are on the way.
• His stimulus plan has produced 9.5% unemployment and more than a half million new claims for unemployment every month with more than 14 million Americans out of work, and tens of millions more working part time, beneath their training, or having given up altogether.

• Mr. Obama opposes gay marriage
• Mr. Obama opposes the Defense of Marriage Act which preserves traditional marriage, and says he would have voted against Proposition 9 in California

• Mr. Obama says he would never take away guns if he’s elected, though he had voted in favor of every gun control bill during his time in the Senate
• Mr. Obama said the 2^nd Amendment is a personal right under the Constitution to own guns
• Mr. Obama says the Washington D.C. law banning private ownership of guns at home is constitutional

• Rev. Wright is Mr. Obama’s spiritual mentor; he attended Rev. Wright’s church every Sunday for 20 years, gave money to the church, and had Rev. Wright conduct his marriage ceremony.  He said the issues Rev. Wright spoke about in the church were part of his “liberation Theology” mission.
• Mr. Obama said, “I don’t think my church is particularly controversial.”
• “I could never disown Rev. Wright any more than I could disown the black community.”
• “Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church?  Yes.”
• Finally, Mr. Obama says of Rev. Wright, “I am outraged by the comments that were made and saddened by the spectacle that we saw yesterday.”

• Mr. Obama says of convicted fraud Tony Rezko, I bought a lot from him, and there is no connection to Mr. Rezko at all he is one of thousands of donors to my campaign
• Mr. Obama took $250,000 from Tony Rezko, and had worked together since 1990

• Mr. Obama will raise taxes only on those making more than $250,000 a year, and 95% of Americans will get a tax cut.  “If you’re making less than $250,000 a year you will not see one cent in tax increases.”
• Yeah right

• Mr. Obama will not release the interrogation photos
• Mr. Obama will release the interrogation photos

• He will stop Predator Drone attacks in Pakistan immediately
• He continues and increases Predator Drone attacks in Pakistan

• He will never sign legislation containing any earmarks
• He signs legislation with thousands of earmarks

• He will have all legislation posted on the Internet for 5 days so Americans can read before he signs it
• He has never waited 5 days prior to signing any legislation

• He will have no lobbyists working in the White House
• He has more lobbyists working in the White House than any previous president

• His uncle helped liberate Auschwitz
• His uncle was never near Auschwitz

• The world came together to perform the Berlin airlift
• America and Britain alone flew the Berlin airlift

• Muslims are responsible for the Renaissance
• Muslims had nothing to do with the Renaissance, and today are attempting to destroy everything it produced

• He didn’t know Bill Ayers – he’s just a guy who lives in the same neighborhood
• He began fundraising for the presidency in Bill Ayers’ home; together they had already steered $150 million of the Annenburg Challenge to radical groups trying to revolutionize America

• He will go through the federal budget line by line to cut waste and fraud
• He proposes and passes legislation loaded with pork and increases the deficit by $7 trillion

I don’t even know what to say 

• He promises to increase the “flow of credit” in order to help the economy
• He promises regulation to stop speculation, and constantly denounces speculators

• Getting Osama bin Laden is priority number one
• Getting Osama bin Laden is no longer essential

• Troops in Iraq are “dying in vain.”  (2002)
• Troops in Iraq “did not die in vain.”  (2009)

• He is against renditions for captured terrorists and will stop them immediately
• He continues renditions

• He will not support military tribunals
• He will continue to support military tribunals

• He announces that he and a few others others, “…are God’s partners in matters of life and death.”  That explains a lot

• 10,000 died in a Kansas tornado
• 12 died in the Kansas tornado

• He denounces the Cambridge police as racist, and makes judgments while he admits he doesn’t know the facts of the case; apparently doesn’t need to know them

• He opposes offshore drilling – around U.S. shores.  Major supporter George Soros’ hedge fund, Soros Fund Management LLC in New York purchased 5.8 million special shares of Preferred Stock in Petrobas – a Brazilian government-controlled oil company.  Four days after this purchase Obama approved a $2 billion loan to Petrobas to fund drilling off the Brazilian shore

• Mr. Obama suggests that doctors remove the tonsils of children without any medical reason – they do it just to get paid
• Mr. Obama suggests that doctors make $30,000 to $50,000 for amputating a foot resulting from non-treatment of diabetes.  Doctors are paid $708 for amputating a foot

• Mr. Obama says, “We are out of money,” then proposes a $780 billion ‘stimulus’ bill, and a $1.5 trillion health care takeover.”

• In Oregon he said, “I’ve now been in 57 states, I think; I have one left to go.  One left to go, Alaska and Hawaii I was not allowed to go to; my staff would not justify it.”

• Mr. Obama denounces George W. Bush for rushing through legislation we call the “Patriot Act.”  Then Mr. Obama rushes through a $780 billion stimulus bill that has not stimulated, and gives the Congress two weeks to completely overhaul the nation’s health care delivery system

• “What is sin?” Mr. Obama is asked.  “Being out of alignment with my values,” he answers

• Mr. Obama says that the most important thing we can do to conserve energy is to properly inflate our tires

• Mr. Obama continuously opposed the “surge” of troops in Iraq.  It is a course that won’t work; adding troops will make it worse, and will increase violence.  January 2007 – November 2007   When the “surge turns the situation in Iraq around, Mr. Obama said on January 5, 2008, “I had no doubt, and I said when I opposed the surge, that given how wonderfully our troops perform, if we place 30,000 more troops in there, then we would see an improvement in the security situation and we would see a reduction in violence.”

Does the president know what he’s doing?  Does he make antithetical statements – sometimes even in the same speech because he thinks people will only hear the part they agree with, and thus everyone on both sides agree with him?  Is he a post-modern who through much practice is able to believe two contradictory things at the same time – that nothing is actually true?  That a thing is only true when stated, but can be untrue when a different statement is made?  Or does he not know what he’s doing?  He is so incapable as to be irretrievable?  He actually can’t remember what he said during previous moments?  That he actually thinks he is right when he says doctors make $50,000 for an amputation, that sin is a violation of his values, that 12,000 died in a Kansas hurricane, that there are actually 58, or 59, or 60 states in the U.S.?

Either way, the freedoms we built this country on are are in dire peril.  If Mr. Obama is smart and glib, but is of the opinion that Americans are so stupid that we don’t see his duplicity, our freedoms are in peril.  On the other hand, if Mr. Obama  is an affirmative action graduate of  Harvard but doesn’t really know squat, our freedoms are in peril.  In any event, Mr. Obama as a public speaker makes Mr. Bush look like Cicero.

Mr. Obama has never demonstrated he is capable of forming a coherent sentence without someone telling him what to say.  I wonder: if Mr. Obama is just a sock puppet, whose hand is in the sock?

•             Just take a scenic drive
•             Keep water skiing
•             Use your quad
•             Keep you pickup for work
•             Use your snowmobile
•             Keep using the family dune buggy
•             Afford a vacation
•             Watch NASCAR racing
•             Enjoy drag racing

I could go on, but you get the idea.  If you want to keep something, you want to “conserve” it.  To conserve is “to keep in a safe or sound state;” Webster says.  Conservatives are not just those who are pro-life, support the death penalty, and oppose gay marriage, but that’s the conclusion you could reach by listening to those who want to divide us so they conquer.  Conservatives are those who believe in free speech, freedom of religion, freedom from unreasonable searches, no criminal charges without Grand Juries, separation of powers in the federal government, civilian control of the military, a republican form of government, keeping the river and the air clean…we are all conservatives!

It is politicians and so-called ‘interest groups’ who profit by putting us into categories like “conservative” or “liberal.”  It helps them create constituencies, demonize others, raise money, get elected, stay elected, and institute their agenda.  Politicians of every stripe, and fund raisers on every side do this. 

My appeal to you is: get beyond the stereotype; refuse to permit others to categorize you; and quit defining yourself by the general category of “conservative” or “liberal.” 

All of us are willing to give up some things, and unwilling to give up others.  We are all willing to trade some things we hold for other things we do not.  Before you permit yourself to be captured by those who want to use you, always define what you what you want to keep, and define what you are willing to give away.  You cannot define yourself as a conservative – only as wanting to “conserve” certain things.  Likewise, you cannot define yourself as a liberal - only as willing to give away, or trade, or lose specific things your may never get back in favor of other things. 

Some people, of course, are very shortsighted and want something today and are willing to trade something very important for it only to later mourn the loss of what they can never reclaim.  Like Esau who was very hungry trading his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of lentils - the lentil soup seemed more important at the time; but what was lost could never be reclaimed.  It was gone forever.

As an exercise, take a bit of time to jot down a list of the things (perhaps some of them mentioned above) that you really want to keep; to conserve.  Then think about the things you are willing to lose forever and are willing to have them replaced with something else.  My guess is that you will find you want to “conserve” much more about country, government, economics, family, and culture than you previously considered.  Let’s keep the right to discuss what we want to keep and what we are willing to give away; that’s a conservative principle.  Now you think about that.