Saturday, November 8, 2008

Candidates The American People Deserve

So the euphoria didn't last long at all. The ultra-libs and their flock of lobotomized sheep got what they think they wanted but apparently are suffering some sort of post-election buyer's remorse. Maybe it's just the habit of being on the attack for so long. They're in disbelief and thus still being ratcheted up, they are in need of a new target for annihilation. But wait, who's left to vilify? They have the White House, Congress and many federal judgeships will be falling right in line with new appointees as well. So who's left?
When at a loss for someone new all are led by the media back to yesterday's news; they just go back to beat some more on the same punching bags.

And of course the media can only stop talking about how Sarah Palin lost the election for John McCain long enough to speculate momentarily about the pedigree and breed of the White House mutt.

I said all the way at the bottom of this blog and long before then during the Primaries that J. McC was not my man. He's a career politician fraught with non-conservative views and a history of making compromises. As such he appeared to be a middle-of-the-road Republican and BOsama was allowed by the media to spin and co-opt his way to that same piece of idealogical real estate thus enabling the shinier and more turgid product to captivate the casual voters' attention. A transcript of the 2nd debate with the names of the respondents blacked out would leave many of us challenged to connect the right candidate to their statements. Only one may have been telling the truth but both sounded the same and again, the casual voter more interested in the duplicity and power politics of Wisteria Lane wouldn't bother ferreting out the truth from the spin before election day.

J McC had all but lost in the Republican Primaries, running on fumes. Somehow though he was left as the last GOP man standing -- perhaps only to be the fall guy for his party.
By the time the general election campaign was in full swing he was already fading fast, failing to catch a page 2 headline while the media was feeling tingly sensations, lining up early for "concert tickets" and allowing their girlish infatuations to overpower their reason and responsibility. (Did you say "Fairness Doctrine?!?"- Apparently there's a 90/10 clause in there somewhere.)

John was not doing a lot of simple little things to even tread water, let alone keeping the enemies of Democracy from treading on him. He would have had to have dropped out of the race as the Republican nominee before October if it hadn't been for Sarah Palin. Speculate as you will about the appropriateness of the individual but the point was made, the Republican's campaign was in dire need of a sincere conservative. And you can't argue with the data. The money and polls shot up considerably in the ensuing days of the VP announcement because conservatives like me had reasons to believe and to fight. There was finally a name on the ticket that represented conservative values.

But there are other names. I want those names made public; the names of the handlers and spin doctors who were sabotaging Sarah before the campaign was even over - purportedly out of self-preservation for their own insignificant quasi-political careers but then possibly and equally as likely in conspiracy against Sarah Palin. To start with, if Nicole Wallace (no, not the serial killer character on L&O: Criminal Intent but how ironic for possessing a similar lack of morality) gets a job on one of the network TV panels of bobble head pundits she needs to be branded and barred from working on the campaign of any true conservative for the rest of her insignificant life. In the fading days of an election year the pundits themselves are often short lived because the media eats their own dead and the public's appetite for political discussion in this country is all too evidently anorexic. So her new chosen career is justice in itself. I accuse Nicole Wallace with a degree of certainty because many believe she was the anonymous source or at least one of them and her post-election comments appear as sincere as the victor's promise of bi-partisanship with his selection of Rahmbo as his Chief of Staff.

In this way I want conservatives to hold all of these spin doctors accountable. Like Senators talking about deadlines for wars to end and timetables for troop withdrawals, these campaign professionals have given aide and comfort to the enemy.

J McC lost the presidential election before the primaries even ended. He would have no chance against Hillary. When the game changed to B.O. there were some clear opportunities (Pt. III, page 209) but he failed to capitalize on any of them. Apparently winning the election wasn't important enough for him to put everything on the line.

Sarah Palin didn't damage McCain's career - a retired Senator-on-active-duty writing a final chapter or perhaps an epilogue to his own story. My concern is conversely that McCain's campaign weasels, in launching Palin's national career have subsequently taken steps to damage her future prospects.

Ann Coulter writes, "Like Sarah Connor in The Terminator, Sarah Palin is destined to give birth to a new movement. That's why the Democrats are trying to kill her" many of us hope that like in the movie she outlasts the machine. I am at least pleased to see her firing back and staying in the mix - Palin Denounces Anonymous critics as 'cowardly'

I have to believe that there are enough of them out there who hear the call to public service and answer it like she has. The challenge is greater than ever. She's a text book example of what our national candidates have to endure just to be on the ballot. And hers was only a two month campaign.
True Americans need to be more respectful of this challenge because other than megalomaniacs with Daddy and abandonment issues, questionable citizenship and even more questionable campaign contributions, who in their right mind but the most courageous and patriotic will stand in the line of white-hot media fire while so-called compatriots crouch in the shadows of stage left holding daggers to their backs? Et tu, Wallace?

. . . I must go now to get ready for church. After all, in times of distress we simple minded conservatives tend to cling to our Bibles and our guns. From my observation in times of rare victory it appears that the Libs cling to their characteristic personal attacks and their traditional criticism of modern Democracy. In this case the CHANGE is just more of the same.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

An A-boma-Nation

I think it will only be a matter of months in to the year 2009 before all those visible, ardent and avid supporters start their denials. The voters that carried him into office will become the phantom electorate. Cars will bear the tell-tale signs for the vigilante -- adhesive still stuck to the bumpers where a campaign sticker once was. Nary a person will admit voting for him.

That's because I believe there will be a crisis that will get mishandled and people will lose freedom, financial independence or even life and limb and this A-boma-nation will be evident and easy to blame.

I believe the Founders are turning in their graves this morning.
Americans have given up their faith in Democracy if they entered into this covenant knowingly.
And if not then it means our education system has failed us by failing to make the voting public into a better informed and efficacious society.
As has the fourth estate. Or worse perhaps in the case of how the news media may have let us down. In their case perhaps their leftist leanings have amounted to a conspiracy against us. They cheered thinking they were on the sidelines, but they too are on the pitched field.

On November 4th 2008 free men knowingly or unwittingly and in either case naively volunteered with their votes to give up their freedoms and diminished the stature of their homeland, a democratic ideal that has been a beacon to the world past and present.

I hope I am wrong but I don't believe it will be that long before my theory is tested.

Saturday, November 1, 2008

Bad Reasons to Vote

We are surrounded by so much mythology and because it's so pervasive it tends to act on all of us somewhere between our conscious thoughts and an almost subconscious or Id-like emotional level. For instance, so many of us believe the myth about Washington the young boy chopping down a Cherry Tree and being confronted by his father about it. Many of us know this to be a myth created to generate a belief that George Washington was then and always would be an honest man of character. I'm not saying that he wasn't. I would guess that he was such a man. His war time heroism, his patriotism and his leadership are all well documented. These traits are not really in question. My point is we all are willing to accept the assertion of his honesty based on a false or at least an unverifiable story and the deeper meaning behind that story. The meaning behind that story is embedded in that thin layer between thought and belief.

So like an after-school special about the kid who's victimized by the bully to then later learn what makes this person into a bully (abusive parent, a bigger bully in his neighborhood) and by getting to know him on this personal and meaningful level he stops being bullied. So the Frankenstein monster just requires a little compassionate understanding of his plight and this is enough to make the bully stop his attacks. I've never seen this work quite that way in real life though. The bullies I knew are still bullies to this day.

Or there's this myth that if we don't have friends of different ethnicity or perhaps give a job to or vote for someone who is a minority that we are somehow a racist. First, everyone is racist on some level - accept that and move on. Deep down it's probably coded into our DNA.
Second and more importantly, the assertion is an assumption about our reasoning and thoughts for making certain decisions which can't possibly be known by those making the assertion and is therefore absurd. By that logic then 800 years ago all Tahitians must have been such extreme racists because they only hung with their own kind. They just must have been, otherwise why didn't the paddle they shorter distance to South America instead of taking the long haul to Hawaii? Point is the myth is embedded in people's thoughts without basis.

We get hard wired in these many ways to think, no, not think but believe this is the way the world works. Then we become confronted with a reality that's quite different than these mythological constructs and are left reconciling one with the other in confusion.

Here's one that we're all brought up to believe as young American's from the first time we participate in a mock election in grade school: VOTING IS ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS WE CAN DO AS AN AMERICAN, therefore we are preserving our democratic freedom by voting. Conversely, IF YOU DON'T VOTE IT'S SOMEHOW A BAD THING. This is far more false than true if you are accepting it prima facie and without the basis behind the truth. Our founding fathers believed that individual voting rights were important but these needed to be coupled with an educated understanding of how their government works and with a fundamental set of personal beliefs and self-interests that were somehow related to the government's agenda.

For instance, a person without enough of an education to read the ballot should not vote because they may end up putting their mark next to the wrong candidate. (We didn't have picture ballots this year but I suppose in our polyglot society that will be coming soon too.) And a person who lives in Kentucky should not be voting for the politicians representing Floridians in the U.S. Senate and Congress (however I hear this happens anyway.) Well, at least Hawaiians are not voting for Boca Raton's dog catcher. The simple point is that an uneducated and purposeless vote should not even be cast.

JUST LIKE SOME PEOPLE SHOULD NOT DRIVE, SOME PEOPLE SHOULD NOT VOTE. Where one is a privilege, the other is a right but both are a RESPONSIBILITY.

And so here are some of the WORST reasons I've heard on TV and radio, read in news articles and even heard with my own ears of why people are voting in this year's presidential election:

1. "I've voted Republican my whole life. I run a flooring business and have built it up to 3-5 installs a day. Now I'm lucky if I do 2 or 3 a week. Something needs to change so I'm going to give this guy, Obama a try." -- So to be clear, the Office of the U.S. President doesn't have a probationary period like your Drivers License did when you were 15; it's not a "Test Drive" by the American people to see if it handles well. This is four full years. The only way you can call this a trial period is by comparing it to a Time Share Contract or a Gym Membership you can't get out of after you stop going.

2. "Sarah Palin is inexperienced and John McCain is old. I don't think he's going to last that long." Interesting juxtaposition to voter #1 in that now the other guy is only going to last about as long as a Test Drive and the Veep is going to have to take over in the Oval Office RIGHT AWAY. So the same battery of Secret Serviceman, Doctors, Chefs and various other Personal Assistants that have somehow kept all the other guys alive even after one was shot and another tried Spurlocking himself into liver failure by eating too many Big Macs, this same cadre of specialists are now going to fall down on the job.
I'm guessing a guy that (yes, younger and healthier at the time but still) a guy that survived five and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton POW camp can survive four years in the relative comfort of what amounts to an actual four star hotel, oh and another four star hotel with jet engines and wings. And even if he doesn't last the full term your argument is that B.O. with ZERO Executive experience is somehow better suited for the job. Oh, and let's not forget that FDR managed to last three terms and was reelected to his fourth, the whole time with POLIO.

3. "McCain's too much like Bush." Hmmmm. So I realize this one almost requires a minor degree in U.S. history but does that mean when Bush got the party nomination in 2000 and it was commonly discussed that McCain, who had just dropped out of the Republican primary race was a shoe in for VP on the Bush ticket, that they shared so much in common they just couldn't work together? I seem to recall McCain referring to a potential Bush administration in a Star Wars motif as the evil Empire. So yeah, those guys are practically identical twins. If Republican's wanted a third Bush term they'd all just write-in Dick Cheney on their ballots.

4. "Sarah Palin didn't go to Harvard or Yale or one of those Ivy League schools" (and this from a guy making six figures but only went to a state college) - Bush went to Yale and is considered one of the dumbest guys to ever run this country (and I am not necessarily arguing with that opinion). But there are a lot of U.S. Presidents who didn't go to an Ivy League school (and before you argue that point -- yes, Harvard was around before the United States was even a country and had its first President -- 140 years to be exact). Woodrow Wilson is the only President with a Ph.D. and allowed us to get sucked into a European war and gave us the (where is it now?) League of Nations. Ronald Reagan only had a Bachelors Degree from Eureka College, was a two term president that ended economic malaise and the Cold War. The issue of a President's educational pedigree is kind of a PUSH.

5. "Sarah Palin is an idiot" see #4. Also refer to #3 about who you are voting for as President and then check yourself at the door if your statement is based on a) A Saturday Night Live skit, b) an interview edited by a biased and liberal media source or c) something you heard someone else say - and if that's the case then let them vote for you too. And by the way, you CAN actually do that just by handing them your voter registration card and teaching them to forge your signature. No photo ID is required in most states.
Finally, if your decision about which Presidential candidate for whom you should vote is based on the intelligence of his "relief pitcher" then read this article about Joe "the historically inaccurate Senator" Biden. In which case -- case closed. Oh, and if it's really just that Alaskan accent that's off-putting then you can kiss my cold, pale Wisconsin butt you provincial idiot.

6. "Maybe it's a good thing if we all pool our resources." (Don't even get me started on how successful this individual was the last time he decided to "pool his resources" with just one other person or that he got this idea from an actual communist.) This is not a matter of everyone putting your cash on the dash as you're about to pull in to the Taco Bell drive-thru at 2:00 a.m.!!! You are stating that you are willing to vote AGAINST one of the pillars of American society -- CAPITALISM. Save time on Tuesday and instead of standing in line to vote, go get your Passport so you can start your migration to China. Or perhaps the newly revitalized Russian brand of tyranny is your cup of potato vodka. Enjoy the bread lines. Just don't get nostalgic about voting in elections. That's only for Party Members with a larger pool of the resources than what you will ever have, comrade.

7. "I just don't like that guy." Reason you don't like that guy? None given, so I have to assume that there is no reason. If this is actually your rationale then this would be a clear case Not to Vote. It's not like you will be working alongside the President on your factory assembly line every day. This is not an election to determine Miss Congeniality. You don't have to like them to agree with their platform. Conversely this voter has made no real examination of the other candidate. If this person picked ponies at the races with the same alacrity they'd be broke quicker than Fannie Mae. Fortunately they are only gambling with their vote, something that didn't cost them anything, it only cost many American's their lives over the past 232 years.

8. "My taxes won't go up. I don't make that much money." So you pay taxes. You don't make a lot of money (in your own opinion) and you are going to trust a guy saying he's going to raise taxes when the guy who said "No new taxes," even had to raise taxes on the vast majority of wage earners. So if the guy who promised "no taxes" raised them what do you think will happen with the guy who's promising to raise them? Honestly, if you are that gullible then I have a petition you need to sign right away or McDonalds won't bring back the McRib.

9. "He's going negative in his campaign" - This one even being stated by the candidate himself; the same candidate whose own campaign has been propagating most of the above rhetoric. The statement itself is hypocritical by pointing it out.
But if you are really bothered by a little mudslinging in a National Election then move to Canada where it never gets so ugly because frankly, there's never really anything at stake in their elections except maybe who gets to throw out the first puck on the NHL's opening day.
Seriously, if you are bothered by the candidates making negative statements about each other then you should turn the sound off any time you are watching the news too (and cover up the screen scroll on the bottom and the right) because all "news" media and the ensuing commentary by the pundits is more negative than anything the candidates themselves are saying.
And by the way, this nonsense about "negative" campaigning is another myth created by the politically correct set to muzzle people making comments that challenge their assertions. And finally, if a little negative verbiage hurts your feelings this much then let me hazard a quick reminder that we are in a global war against Islamic Extremists. We have nut-jobs hurling things much more hurtful than words at us. Maybe we need a leader who can get down in the dirt and throw a few punches.

And FINALLY - #10. When the question was asked, "who are you voting for?" then "why?" there was honestly no tangible reason. This voter needs to be thankful her safety net was there with her because when quickly educated on how different the two candidates are on their abortion stance, an issue that is very important to this voter, in a light-bulb moment she cast her vote the other way.

In the case that you have already voted I would expect that you have some sort of conviction in your beliefs that prompted you to get out early so this probably doesn't apply to you. If not, please stop and think about WHY you are voting BEFORE you vote. If it really doesn't matter to you who's in the White House for the next four years (that's right, Carpet Installer Guy, it's a full four year term) then don't bother going and potentially canceling out someone's vote who has bothered to educate themselves on the issues and has at least enough of a belief that they are voting for the candidate that aligns with their own personal agenda.
Don't play Russian Roulette with your ballot just so you can get an "I Voted Today" sticker and feel good about yourself. The vote you fire off in your own blind ignorance could end up killing someone else's.