Goodies

Some goodies that I’ve found interesting, enlightening, and maybe a bit scary in the last few days worth of news.

First up, Jesse Helms.

He died recently, and our condolences and sympathy go out to his family and friends, of which he apparently had many. People who met him invariably found him courtly and affable, the quintessential gentleman, regardless of whether they agreed with him or not.

“If you took a poll of the pages and the people who work in the Capitol about who was the most popular member, I expect Jesse Helms would have won, which would surprise an awful lot of people in the press and people out in America who thought of Jesse Helms as a fierce individual,” (Senate Minority Leader Mitch) McConnell (R-Ky.) told the Senate Monday.

In the Wall Street Journal, John Fund said of Helms:

If Ronald Reagan was the sunny and optimistic face of modern conservatism, the uncompromisingly defiant exemplar of it was Jesse Helms.

Senator Helms was a man of character and consistancy, with few equals alive in our time. Mr. Fund ends with this:

Jesse Helms was a major influence on American conservatism, but his career provides a blueprint for anyone who represents an embattled minority viewpoint. You can, with persistence and unflinching determination, change the political odds in your favor.

We see liberal and socialist causes operating today based on the methods Senator Helms pioneered and championed for many years.

But the socialists who disagreed with him in nearly every way except method have besmirched his record by use of a myopic focus on several incorrect and inexcusable stands and a refusal to see Senator Helms’ rationale and larger worldview and philosophy.

The Day of Connecticut claims he was against civil rights progress. I, too, would be against much of what they consider to be progress.

I have referenced Booker T. Washington previously. The gist of his philosophy was that rather than trying to erase the effects of slavery by raising the black American above his comparable white American we ought to focus on erasing every wall or seperation or limiter between any race, allowing all to equally participate so much as they desire in the American Dream. Currently, American policy is racist, purportedly in favor of the black American, but by attempting to ease the way of the black American, they are damning the average black American to a life of desperation as by policy they are not allowed to compete in the marketplace of merit, only the bazaar of skin color.

I do not know enough of Senator Helms’ view on integration, and from reading the current crop of articles framing his life, I do not think I would agree with much of what he believed on the issue. At the same time, it is conceivable that the ideas of Booker T. Washington would be vilified with much the same hatred as has been directed to Senator Helms.

San Francisco’s Alternative Online Daily, BeyondChron.com, “The Voice of the Rest”, makes their view very, very clear: “Jesse Helms: Just A Dead Southen Bigot” (written by “a radical southern Italian atheist queer with a website”, Tommi Avicolli Mecca).

The Washington Post rises no higher than the “radical southern Italian atheist queer with a website”, and, in face, cannot even come with anything original. The Post re-posts an article they wrote 7 years ago: “Jesse Helms: White Racist“.

The National Review calls him a Patriot. One wonders if this were a according to a definition Obama would posit.

Speaking of Obama (that was a segue worth of Michael Medved), even the pro-socialist media are starting see that he cannot possibly support the massive amount of money and government largesse he has promised to each and every Harry Hardluck and Sally Sobstory and Liberal Petproject to be found.

The LA Times adds up the cost of Obama’s agenda:

“I don’t think it all adds up,” Isabel Sawhill, an official in President Clinton’s Office of Management and Budget, said of Obama’s spending plans.

The Houston Chronicle points out that laundry-lists are often tossed once the person is elected:

In more than a year of campaigning, Democratic Illinois Sen. Barack Obama has made a long list of promises for new federal programs costing tens of billions of dollars, many of them aimed at protecting people from the pain of a souring economy.

But if he wins the presidency, Obama will be hard-pressed to keep his blueprint intact.

The Houston Chronicle goes on to point out a distinct and significant difference between John McCain and Barak Hussein Obama:

Obama has said he would:

• strengthen the nation’s bridges and dams ($6 billion a year)
• help make men better fathers ($50 million a year)
• aid Iraqis displaced by the war ($2 billion in one-time spending)
• extend health insurance to more people (part of a $65-billion-a-year health plan)
• develop cleaner energy sources ($15 billion a year)
• curb home foreclosures ($10 billion in one-time spending)
• and add $18 billion a year to education spending.

It is a far different blueprint than McCain is offering. He has proposed relatively little new spending, arguing that tax cuts and private business are more effective means of solving problems.

It is socialism that Obama proposes. He is a socialist of the common order. Perhaps it is inexperience, perhaps it is that he honestly thinks this is the correct way, perhaps he hungers for the reality of the power that many ascribe to him in him nearly messianic coming.

And finally, some local goodness. My governor, Rod Blagojevich hears it from the media. The allegations against him are more serious than those for which former governor George Ryan was just sent to prison. And Obama is mentioned:

From the BloggingBlagoBlog.

Duh!?! And Other Interesting Stuff

First, the Duh!

Gay men get HIV, and they’re getting it faster. 12% faster, says a new CDC report.

And of course, to remind those hotheads whose brains have boiled out: HIV is the disease the US Government released in Africa to desimate the black population.

The rest of us know it’s transmitted by homosexual relations between men. And that it’s not bias or bigotry that caused it, but pride, willful ignorance, and the natural result of an unnatural act.

Now the Interesting Stuff

Investor’s Business Daily reports that an architect the the Canadian socialized health-care system, that one we hear is so incredible and worthy of emulation from the leftist socialist running for POTUS, has had a change of heart:

“We thought we could resolve the system’s problems by rationing services or injecting massive amounts of new money into it,” says (Claude) Castonguay. But now he prescribes a radical overhaul: “We are proposing to give a greater role to the private sector so that people can exercise freedom of choice.”

Counteracting the tales of woe and terror which are peppering the debate south of our northern border, the IBD tells a tale of truth which ought to give those considering the proposed socialized utopia pause:

Sick with ovarian cancer, Sylvia de Vires, an Ontario woman afflicted with a 13-inch, fluid-filled tumor weighing 40 pounds, was unable to get timely care in Canada. She crossed the American border to Pontiac, Mich., where a surgeon removed the tumor, estimating she could not have lived longer than a few weeks more.

Because she’s a woman, and it’s her ovaries, it’s a real tear-jerker.

No, the point is that the capitalistic, profit-based system provides better care to a greater number of people with two primary reasons:

1. The costs cause people to evaluate themselves whether they really need that procedure, freeing the system from a glut of unnecessary and frivolous procedures.
2. Those same costs entice more skilled labor and research and development into medical/technological advances, enhancing quality and quantity of available care.

Read more at IBD.

Republican ‘”Obama”, Only With History And Substance’ Jindal takes the hard line

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, who has actually accomplished things in his life, was outraged over the Supreme Court’s liberal judges finding the death penalty is not applicable or valid for use in extreme cases of child rape, so he signed a bill allowing chemical castration in certain specific cases of rape and sexual abuse.

Sponsored by Democrat Senator Nick Gautreaux of Meaux, LA, arguments surrounding the bill were mostly on scope and effect, rather than validity and right.

It sounds like, unlike the members state houses in many of the states, the members of the Louisiana State House are a group who actually have backbones connected to their brains.

McCain? Obama? What’s a small government conservative to do?

For those of you who aren’t interested in politics, let me give you three reasons why you should care enough to vote in the general election for president:

1. Human life is at stake. If you believe that the unborn are human being made in teh image of God, then you should care about who will be appoint new supreme court justices who may offer hope of overturning Roe v. Wade.

2. Morality and knowledge are at stake. The two candidates have very different views on education. One will give us the same old system, the other supports a major change in the system that could improve the education AND virtue of millions of kids.

3. Our country as a place of free and self-governing citizens is threatened. Will we go down the road of reliance and dependency on the government — living in an ongoin state of adolescent irresponsibility? Or will we fight against this trend?

Of course these issues will not be quite this extreme or solely decided by this election BUT these are issues in politics and they are very real divides and problems. I admit up front that this is a long note. I hope most of you will still read it because it has what I deem to be important things in it (otherwise I wouldn’t have taken the time to write it).

I don’t know if anyone else has experienced this (although I’m guess many of you have) but the idea of having to choose between McCain and Obama in the fall leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth. McCain has passed policies that absolutely drive me up the wall. They are infuriating. But Obama’s promise of Progressivism is even worse. Where will the nanny state end, where will dependency upon the federal government in every arena stop, if Obama is elected and begins instituting huge spending increases? Not to mention his show-stopper support of abortion. So I come back to the title of this piece, “What is a small government conservative to do?”

I’ll be the first to admit I have had mixed feelings on this. For a long time I was sure (and told a number of people) that I would vote for a third party this fall to “discipline” the powers that be in the Republican party for putting forward a big government conservative like McCain. I thought it would be ok to let Obama win because myself and many others chose to support a real conservative candidate. If Obama won I think ti would galvanize the country and the Republican party four years down the road. But I have changed my mind and I will tell you why.

First, let me tell you some of the things I detest about McCain’s policies. We can start with the infamous McCain-Feingold campaign finance law. Not only was this a direct violation of the first amendment and our ability as Americans to express our political opinions freely by putting our money where our mouth is, it’s just a bad policy. It has increased the incumbency rates by making it more difficult for new candidates to raise money to challenge the incumbent. If that’s not a bad policy, I don’t know what is. Furthermore, it has led to increasing complexity in how campaigns are financed. There are now back door mechanisms and roundabout ways for groups to contribute money and express their opinions. But this is only an imperfect substitute for a free arena of public and political discourse. You know what else bothers me about McCain? If you guessed environmentalism, you would be correct.

Now I don’t want to make this a debate about global warming but about the policy McCain advocates. He position is that the US should reduce carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. Ok, is that a good idea? Will reducing our carbon emissions by that much effect the global carbon emissions? Let’s assume that China continues to grow (and pollute) over this time period. Not only that, let’s also assume that a number of other countries begin industrializing over this time period. I think it would be fair, in fact extremely generous, to say that if McCain’s 60% reduction goal was met, we would only decrease the world carbon emissions by 5-10%. Now, what effect will that have on the rate of global warming? Considering scientists can barely even measure the increase in temperatures now, I’m guessing not much at all.

So we’ve looked at the potential benefits (with regard to global warming) what about the costs? How will this reduction in carbon emissions come about? Well, best case scenario they come about gradually. We offer carbon tax credits that can be bought and sold by different companies in different industries. So the most valuable production will be allowed to continue (albeit at a higher cost) and the less valuable (though still valuable enough to exist) industries and companies will be driven out of business. Will there be innovation to reduce emissions? You bet. Will there be less emissions? You bet again. But economically we will be worse off. And not just us, but other countries that benefit from our production and consumption will be worse off. Because if we have less production, and thereby wealth, domestically, it follows we will buy fewer goods from foreign countries. Anyway, I think carbon tax credits are a bad idea because the costs far outweigh any benefits I have seen thus far. And carbon tax credits are the best idea they are considering. There are many many worse ones.

So, given these positions, why would I decide to support McCain? Well I’ll tell you. It’s the classic compromise position but I think it’s reasonable. THE STAKES ARE TOO HIGH! Sure, I would love to vote libertarian and stick it to the Republicans. I would like to see people see the consequences of their actions and ideas – though it affects us all, those people who are well off and/or intelligent will be ok, it’s the poorer people and the less educated and intelligent who will be taken advantage of. And the problem extends beyond that; most middle class and upper middle class will be hit hard by the policies proposed by Obama and company.

But back to my first statement, I think that libertarian vote would be irresponsible. Can I choose to, in a sense, tacitly support abortion and allow it to continue? A vote for someone other than McCain supports Obama. Indirect of course, but clearly acknowledged. Ask anyone whether their voting libertarian instead of republican helps Obama and they will admit that it does. What about the judges the next president will appoint to the Supreme Court? For you history buffs out there (Mark Perkins) just think about the influence the Supreme Court has had over the past century. Those are pretty high stakes. Think about how difficult it is to cut government spending once it is in place, and how hard it is to remove bureaucrats and new layers of regulation and red tape. Those are pretty high stakes.

And McCain isn’t all bad. In fact, my writing this piece was spurred by reading a full page section in the Wall Street Journal comparing the two candidates on Taxes, Education, Social Issues, Diplomacy, Iraq, Energy, Health Care, and Housing. There are some important differences between the candidates. Allow me to highlight just a few for you.

In Energy policy: while McCain supports a 60% decrease in carbon emissions by 2050, Obama supports an 80% reduction. While McCain favors incentives (which unfortunately probably means subsidies) for nuclear power (which, by the way, I think will be increasingly important in the future), Obama supports subsidies for solar and wind energy and is against nuclear energy. I don’t know how many of you know this, but right now solar and wind energy are terribly inefficient ways of creating energy. That’s not to say they won’t be better in the future, but right now they are just not feasible on a large scale and throwing taxpayer money at them won’t change that anytime soon. It’s better to let the market handle that because they will look for the most cost effective and profitable methods, rather than the purely “research” or “scientific” methods. Furthermore, and you environmentalists will love this (Mark), it has been observed that giant wind turbines actually disrupt the environment. Wind and weather patterns and the migration of different types of birds have been damaged through existing wind turbines.

In Healthcare, Obama supports socialized medicine (a.k.a. bad medicine you have to wait months to receive) while McCain supports somewhat socialized medicine (a.k.a. you can still get good medicine from time to time, but it’s going to cost you big bucks) Actually, his position isn’t quite that bad. The estimates for his program are $7-10 billion while for Obama’s they are about $110 billion. A sizable difference if you ask me.

In Education McCain favors greater school choice and allowing parents to put their education taxes towards private or charter school tuition (although you don’t pay tuition at charter schools as far as I know; I have a feeling the writer just wasn’t aware of that). Obama’s position is to throw more money at the problem. He wants to spend money for pre-school programs ($10 billion), K-12 ($8 billion), and college ($10 billion a year). I don’t think I have to tell you that throwing money at the problem will not fix it and won’t even alleviate it. If you have questions about that, please ask.

Of course in Social Issues McCain opposes abortion while Obama supports it. If you believe that the unborn are humans created in the image of God, this should be a HUGE issue for you. The policy of abortion amounts to little less than institutionalized and government sanctioned murder. McCain thinks civil unions and same-sex marriages should be left to the states to determine whether they should be legal or not. Obama agrees, except he wants some states to have to acknowledge and uphold the civil unions created in other states. And McCain supports abstinence only education while Obama favors a “comprehensive” sex education program.

In Iraq, everyone knows that McCain thinks we should stay while Obama wants to cut and run. This is another one of those high stakes issues. While the war is a thorny issue, I think the surge has been very successful in that it has reduced the amount of daily violence in Iraq dramatically and has established relative order and peace. And furthermore there are some encouraging signs that Iraqis are continuing to try and improve their own conditions. The war has not been a success yet and I’m not arguing whether it was a good idea to go in or not, but cutting and running would cause a lot of damage. What is going to happen to all the people there when the American soldiers leave in the next year? Mass death. There will probably be sectarian conflict if not outright civil war, Iran will try to get in there and destabilize things as much as possible, etc. I think it would be morally reprehensible to leave Iraq at the drop of a hat.

As far as taxes go, McCain is in favor of lowering corporate taxes while Obama favors increasing the capital gains tax. For those of you who aren’t very familiar with the corporate world and the tax structure, here’s a 101 crash course:

Right now we tax business three times in this country. We tax the amount they pay their employees. This is what we commonly refer to as the income tax (don’t think I’m patronizing here because I’m not. It’s easiest to speak and understand things in the simplest terms) So employers (business) have to pay part of the social security taxes for every employee. Furthermore, they have to pay their employees more because they know their employees won’t be able to keep everything in their salaries (because of the income tax). Now, the capital gains tax is the tax stockholders and investors have to pay whenever they make money from buying and selling stocks. And as you probably know, companies raise their capital through selling their stock. The capital gains tax makes it more expensive for investors and stockholders to invest in corporations because any returns they may make will be reduced by the tax. Finally we tax business again through the corporate income tax. This means we tax the profits a business makes at some percentage. Right now it’s at 35%. So we triple tax business through the income tax, the capital gains tax, and the corporate income tax. Let’s just say we could increase the dynamism of the market and the incentives to produce wealth dramatically by reducing these taxes. (For those of you that are anti-wealth, we can talk about that later)

Well I think that’s it. I’ve mixed a lot of my opinion in with the positions, but of course, that’s bound to happen since I’m telling you why I’ve changed my mind and decided to support McCain. So what should you do? Well, first of all vote this fall for McCain. But we all know that our individual votes don’t really make a whole lot of difference so…….. Tell all your friends to vote for McCain. If you run into someone who says they are going to vote libertarian, explain to them why they shouldn’t; and if you have friends who are voting for Obama…. Tell them why they shouldn’t. Remember, don’t underestimate the power of suggestion and conviction. As human beings we often look to our friends and peers to see what they think and that can have enormous impact into what we think and do. So don’t be afraid to talk people about these things (albeit in a humble and non-overbearing way). Oh, and by the way, this goes for talking about morality and Christianity too. Maybe I’ll write some notes later on those more controversial, yet more important subjects.

Re-Introducing Relativism

David Limbaugh, the less bombastic, more correct brother of that dynamic duo (oh to be a fly on the wall during their childhood), has written an article regarding Barak Hussein Obama’s “reintroduction” to the American populace.

First with Gore, we joked about Gore Version 2.0 and 3.5, etc.

Then with Kerry, we just joked.

And now Obama. Following in the footsteps of the grand masters of moral ambiguity, personal power-gathering, and political pandering, he is trying to reinstroduce himself because apparently, we don’t really know the “real” Obama.

Who as been that messianic, sainted, robed and haloed bright and shining light illuminating all the brightest corners of our unexamined American experience? His evil twin?

The one with ties to Chicago-corrupt political machines and liberal terrorist friends and racist anti-Christ preachers, that must’ve been his evil twin. For sure.

So he is trying to set the record straight, reintroducing us to the “real” him, the “real” Obama. One question: Why do they think this ploy will be even potentially effective? Because of relativism.

In the enlightened eyes of relativist philosophy, there is no unambiguous absolute truth. Everything is subject to perception, and that perception, to our addled minds, must be truth.

(Writing that just now caused some flashing lights in my head: Relativism is born of our own despotic egos trying to rationalize an incredibly over-wrought sense of our own self-importance. If we do not bow to some supreme truth, we believe our own thoughts to be our own ultimate truth. And if our own thoughts are necessarily subject to our own biased perceptions, we must find some way of convincing ourselves that our biased perception can still be considered actual truth. Ergo: relativism, the belief that my limited perception of a small part of truth can somehow rise to the same level as that absolute truth.)

So, if perception is everything to relativists, Obama should be expected to try and reinvent himself.

Unfortunately for him, truth always prevails.

Throughout this election we have seen and we will continue to see ugly skeletons crawling out of Obama’s closets. McCain steadfastly refuses to capitalize on these and I do not believe he has been the source of any of their “outings”, but Obama cannot hide that he is a liberal and divisive and corrupt as they come. The truth will keep finding a way out and he will be stuck in perpetual damage-control mode trying to cover over those pernicious things we call facts.

David Limbaugh: It’s Only About Winning

Obama The Corrupt

If you live somewhere besides Chicago, you probably thought political machines were things of the past. With the fall of political operator Tony Rezko, friend and business dealing buddy of Barak Hussein Obama, the truth is once again brought to light: the dirtiest of politics are still being played and are still the keys to real power in Chicago and Illinois.

And Barak Hussein Obama is a fish in the waters of Chicago and Illinois. It’s where he cut his political teeth, where he learned his trade, and it is how he operates.

Dennis Byrne, writing in the Chicago Tribune today fears an Obama presidency for precisely this reason:

More than his racist minister chums, his starkly liberal voting record, his pandering to the get-out-of-Iraq-right-now zealots, what really bothers me about Barack Obama is his association with politics as practiced in Chicago and Illinois.
This is not a crime, of course, but the fact that he is someone who got his start and was propelled to stardom after an internship in the incubator of perhaps the nation’s most corrupt state gives me, at least, pause. It seems that everywhere you turn here, especially if it is toward the federal courthouse, some politician or political insider is being found guilty of some or another form of corruption

The Wall Street Journal reports that Obama is popular in Europe, which tells is volumes. And their comments show us how similar to his state-side supporters his Europeans fans are:

“Belgians are rooting for Obama because, let’s face it, the guy knows what he’s talking about, especially compared to Bush,” says Stéphane Mangnay, a 34-year-old house husband in Villers-la-Ville.

I would rephrase that claim: “He knows how to talk” is about all I can agree with.

And yet, the Washington Times reports that Europe may not be as enthusiastic regarding an actual Obama presidency as they apparently are regarding his candidacy:

“Once President Bush is out of the White House, there will be huge expectations in Europe that a new, rosy dawn of peace and love is appearing over the Atlantic,” said Reginald Dale, a Europe scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“They’re liable to be somewhat disappointed, because America is still going to look after its own interests, and then the fundamental interests may not have changed that much,” he said.

The article actually begins by noting that an oft-overlooked part of Mr. Bush’s presidency is the fact that European relations have been significantly improved over his second term:

(A)s Mr. Bush heads to the continent Monday for a weeklong goodbye tour, the little known fact is that his administration has done much to repair the trans-Atlantic relationship in his second term.

And then there is the sea-change of leadership and power change in key and leading European countries over the last few years, with heads of state coming into power with decidedly pro-America and pro-Western ideologies:

The French and German leaders who opposed Mr. Bush on Iraq have been replaced by more pro-American conservatives - Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, respectively. Silvio Berlusconi, an old Bush friend, is once again Italy’s prime minister. And in Britain, the Conservative Party is resurgent while Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has distanced himself from Mr. Bush, is fighting for his political life.

Returning to the Chicago Tribune Op-Ed article:

(I)f Obama’s affiliations with the likes of Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., Rev. Michael Pfleger and ex-revolutionary Bill Ayers are legitimate issues, so is his political apprenticeship in the bowels of a political process that has sent governors, aldermen and countless other public officials to the pen. Has Obama picked up any bad habits by hanging around with these gents? Is he susceptible to the pressures that the “guys back home” will undoubtedly bring? The conventional wisdom among the Chicago punditry is that Chicago and Illinois pols are smacking their lips at the thought of installing an associate in the Executive Mansion.

Obama Pro Post-Birth Abortion

A friend’s status on Facebook spotted by American Texan caught my attention.

Now that we know who the two main options are in the United States presidential election, we need to know where they stand. This election will be, for conservatives, very much a lesser of two evils election.

I’m not one who likes to use that phrase, and I did not believe the GW Bush was a lesser evil in his elections. But given two people with very obvious track records, we are now faced with such a choice: between liberal McCain and socialist/communist Obama.

This gives conservatives a distinct disadvantage in this election: Democrats and Liberals and old hippies and young communists in the college systems of America have their perfect candidate and will be excited and mobilized easily. We have a lesser of two evils and will be dragging out feet. Thank you Mr. Medved.

Obama is pro post-birth abortion

Search google for “Obama post-birth abortion” and you see the details.

Two Conservatives lay out the details: Obama has voted repeatedly and consistently against so-called “born alive infant protection” acts which state that any homo sapien who is outside of the mother and alive is afforded all the protections of any other normal human.

Even the extremely liberal Senator Boxer from California has stated that such provisions do nothing to limit the rights defined by Roe v Wade and supports such measures.

If the stated purpose of regular and common abortion is to protect the health of the woman, then Obama is pro-murder and infanticide, not just abortion. By voting “present” and “no” in such votes, he has stated rather clearly his intention to support all forms of killing the innocent and weak among us for no greater purpose than convenience.

He has said he’d support such provisions when they include language specifying they do not infringe on the “rights” defined in Roe v Wade, but such provisions have also been before him to vote, and he has again voted “present” and refused to support them.

He wants to have his cake and eat it too, he supports one position  verbally but in action and application he has made his true intent and heart known very clearly.

For more information see Laura Echevarria’s list of Obama quotes on abortion.

All Kinds Of Ugly

There are several things which caught my eye today, so consider this another installment of I, Pandora’s “Around The World”.

First, from the pen of Thomas Sowell comes an essay on race politics: “Mascot Politics“:

Years ago, when Jack Greenberg left the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to become a professor at Columbia University, he announced that he was going to make it a point to hire a black secretary at Columbia.

This would of course make whomever he hired be seen as a token black, rather than as someone selected on the basis of competence.

Would not it be so much better to just hire the best secretary? And if they were black, all the better. Even looking at that one individual from the ubiquitous perspective of identity politics, that one black secretary, having achieved their high success through their own hard work and having overcome all comers would have done provided a better and stronger role-model for thousands and millions of other than one hundred secretaries preferentially promoted due not to their ability, but to the color of their skin. Something, incidentally, they had nothing whatsoever to do with and therefore can claim no honor for.

So it would seem that this (primarily) liberal fixation with promoting based on immutable characteristics will only continue to cheapen people.

It is a wonder the liberal in need of a secretary can get anything accomplished if they are willing to write-off potentially qualified candidates in favor of one conforming to an arbitrary stricture predetermined.

So then conservatives take of the world of bureaucracy by employing qualified secretaries regardless of their race and get so much more accomplished we’ll rule by fiat.

Next, the Czech President Klaus is ready to debate Gore on Global Warming.

Klaus, an economist, said he opposed the “climate alarmism” perpetuated by environmentalism trying to impose their ideals, comparing it to the decades of communist rule he experienced growing up in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia.
“Like their (communist) predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality,” he said.
“In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat - this time, in the name of the planet,” he added.
Klaus said a free market should be used to address environmental concerns and said he opposed as unrealistic regulations or greenhouse gas capping systems designed to reduce the impact of climate change.

McCain the hot air maverick should take note. The Global Warming issue is yet another attempt by Marxist/Communists to enslave the world in thrall to their totalitarian dystopia.

Memories of his old friends in Hanoi should be sufficient to change his mind, or else he is no man.

And finally, Germany adds to the lies by opening a memorial to the homosexual victims of the Holocaust.

Berlin mayor Klaus Wowereit, who is openly gay, hailed the grey, concrete memorial as a long overdue acknowledgment of the repression of homosexuals, 50,000 of whom were convicted by Nazi courts during Adolf Hitler’s 12-year dictatorship.

“The monument consecrated today is a reminder to us of the horrors of the past and draws our attention to the degree of discrimination that currently exists,” Wowereit said.

“Great efforts will still need to be undertaken before the sight of two men or women kissing here or in Moscow or elsewhere on the planet is accepted by society in general.”

How easy it is to overlook the insignificant fact that the Nazi party was started in gay bars and by pedophiles.

The brown shirts and the Nazi youth grew out of a German young-mens group known for rampant homosexuality, and many of the leaders of the Nazi party were known for their preference for young boys.

So then, who were all these homosexuals killed in the Holocaust?

They were the effeminate “girly-men” homosexuals. Butch’s and pedophiles were the leaders, worshiping an enhanced manhood and ushering an era of super-maleness and domination. They could not brook weakness, either racially or sexually.

All this and more in “The Pink Swastika” (you can read the book in it’s entirety at that link). It is well researched and documented and a necessary read in today’s culture.

Unfairness

“He will get the best care possible.” - Katie Couric about Kennedy’s cancer

I’m not saying Kennedy doesn’t deserve the best care possible; but here’s a question, why does he, more than anyone else, deserve the best care possible? Because he is a well-known senator?

I have a friend who is undergoing tests soon to see if she has a fast-moving terminal form of cancer. This friend is kind, caring, loyal, and very deserving of quality care.

Kennedy will get the best possible care because he will pay for it. Either with the superb insurance plans covering members of government which they vote for themselves, or because of the relatively limitless extent of his financial ability or those who will donate to his medical bills.

Katie Couric uses her “Notebook” session to point out that Kennedy has fought hard for making the same care that is available to him available to every American (legal or not). The problem with this is one perhaps best summed up by Thomas Sowell in his recent series of articles titled “Too “Complex”?” (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3): It’s economics that provide the true and lasting solutions, but economics doesn’t bleed, and politics follows blood.

This friend of mine is bright and sweet, she’s young and incredibly skilled. If anyone deserves a future, she does. She’s articulate and thoughtful, her life is well examined. She’s tenacious and self-reliant, taking high loads of classes at a tough school while working to pay the bills.

She’d be an preeminent poster child for any socialized medicine program.

With the socialized medicine Senator Kennedy has fought for being such a good thing, why have we not gone for it already? After all, it’s been tried elsewhere, it must have been successful, right?

Well, most readers know how successful it has been. Failure.

If socialized medicine, such as that promoted by Senators Kennedy and Clinton, were the reality in America, it would be hell.

As it is, my friend is able to fly to across the country on a few days notice, receive a biopsy, get the results back within a matter of hours, and have a reliable diagnosis presented to her.

It costs money, but with friends paying for her airline ticket, and her doctor asking a colleague for a favor, she can get her procedure done in time to participate in an international internship if the prognosis is good.

If there were socialized medicine here in the US, she would be shunted into a line, put on a waiting list, told to wait her turn.

In a system with little or no incentive either to self-regulate our medical needs or limit considered options to necessary procedures, there would be bloated numbers of people seeking medical help for slight and psychosomatic symptoms.

With the fast-moving nature of the cancer my friend may be suffering from, there is little chance she’d even make it in for an exam, let alone a biopsy, before she died.

May Senator Kennedy enjoy the benefits of a capitalistic medical system, and may his efforts to deny that benefit to the rest of us perish.

**Written by both American Texan and Matthew**

Kennedy Cancer

I do not believe God can generally be termed retributive to those of us He allows to continue on this earth. Instead, Grace and Mercy are His hallmarks as He seeks to draw us to Himself, giving us ample and sufficient evidence for His existence, glory, and purpose.

God in His sovereignty allowing Senator Kennedy is not an act of justice or punishment. It is another likely completely misunderstood example of God’s sovereignty working in our world to cause us either to draw near to Him or to condemn ourselves with the hardening of our own hearts.

I do not believe Senator Kennedy is a man of honor. I do not believe he is a man of courage. Nor of conviction, nor of morals.

But he is a man.

And in his humanity, I grieve for him, for his family, and for others who are hurt by this new struggle he is facing.

Now, if only Katie Couric were able to stop herself from being quite so thrilled at this opportunity for political grandstanding on behalf of this fixture of the Senate.

McCain On The Judiciary, More Reasons To Vote

I like this part of him, and for this reason we conservatives ought to do what we must to quell our gag reflexes and vote McCain into office.

In a speech on his philosophy and standards regarding the Supreme Court of the United States, John McCain specifically referenced Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr, and the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist as epitomes of those he’d choose.

He called them:

“jurists of the highest caliber who know their own minds, and know the law, and know the difference.”

What a concept: “know their minds, know the law, and know the difference”.

A liberal sees their mind as the law. If man is the chief end of himself, he is his own highest law. If that man is one of authority and power, his mind is the law of those he rules.

Whim and feeling have greater weight than principle and immutable law.

Rush Limbaugh, in a “Pearl of Wisdom” included in his latest Show Notes email explained the how the liberal ideal actual creates dystopia instead of the utopia they desire:

Liberals stand up for principles, but they never stand up for people. People always suffer when liberalism succeeds — and when people are suffering, I don’t think you can shout the warning too loud that it needs to stop.

With the whim and feeling of liberalism leading us by our noses, we cry “Foul!” when shown stories like this one from Indiana last night titled “Indiana’s primary turnout high, despite photo ID law“:

About 12 elderly Roman Catholic nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place because they didn’t have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow members of Saint Mary’s Convent in South Bend, even though they had been told earlier that they would need to get such an ID to vote.

“One came down this morning, and she was 98, and she said, `I don’t want to go do that,’” McGuire said. Some showed up with outdated passports. None of them drive.

Elsewhere across the pivotal state, voting appeared to run smoothly, despite the fears of some elections experts that the photo ID law could cause confusion at the polls.

The money line is at the end of a picture description in the sidebar of the story:

McGuire said most of the nuns were in their 80s or 90s, and the other nuns had spoken with them frequently about the need to get out to a Bureau of Motor Vehicle branch for their free ID.

A practical and normal person led, not by whim and feeling, but by a reasonable balance of justice and mercy would see those old ladies and think “they were warned, others offered to help, there was no fee, they knew better”.

Instead, with the leading title, we are coerced into thinking how mean and ugly those conservative leaders in the Indiana State House who had it out to get these poor old ladies who just wanted their voice to be heard *sob*.

Come on people, do we expect nothing from anybody or anything except the government?

People are capable. People have will and ability. People are free moral agents, with choice and consequence set before them.

The creeping liberal ideology seeks to devalue individuality by removing all force of will from individual people. By passing the place of moral agent from an individual to a group they steal all originality and identity.

And changing the government is not the only answer.

It is more important to work in individual people’s lives, showing them the increased labor of individuality is worth while for the increased liberty it provides.

Samuel Adams put it this way:

If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.