Presidential Failure = America's Success

I am already tired of hearing the faux gracious, PC-induced non-starter about how we conservatives hope Mr. Barrack Hussein Obama is a successful president. I for one will make it public that I do not wish him success because a) I only have to go back not one full presidential term to find a counterpoint to that argument -- all the liberals who were imposing obstacles, ill-will and outright hatred towards any policy, initiative or doctrine of the Bush administration even as far as it meant bringing about their wanton desire for failure in the Iraq war, which would serve the benefit of NO ONE except terrorists and rogue states and b) it wouldn't be the first time a presidency failed and our country and Democracy at large prevailed. Jimmy Carter is still tinkering with Middle East Peace and he's starting to resemble the Stephen Root character in Office Space, the guy who is obsessed with his red Swingline stapler all the while no longer employed by Initech, yet still showing up for work each day.

Here are some things I particularly hope Mr. Obama fails to do as president:

1. Expanding the legality of baby killing into the 3rd, 4th and possibly 5th trimester of life. I believe Casey Anthony is hoping the NARAL agenda is put at the front of the line for executive rubber stamping before her trial comes to term so instead of an insanity defense she can claim she was having a late term abortion when she killed Caylee.
   
2. Putting an end to our 1st Amendment right to Free Speech a la the Fairness Doctrine - at this post the president has already made his feelings public that you are not in his political favor if you listen to Rush Limbaugh. A slippery slope indeed, mein freunds. Who else am I not allowed to read, hear or watch, Mr. President? What's that?! Reruns of The Smurfs is on the Obama approved list at the Library of Congress? That's cool because I can't locate a transcript of a speech our new president made 15 weeks ago about lobbyists in his administration. The card catalog says, "Permanently checked out to Incinerator"
   
3. Circumvent our nearly perfect political system of checks and balances with judicial appointments, unchallenged and ill-conceived Executive Orders and the same style of corrupt ChicaGomorrah "machine politics" that should have been investigated, condemned and dismantled sixty years ago which, in so doing, might have effectively aborted his political career as well.
   
4. Undermining our nation's intelligence and military organizations that have kept U.S. citizens within our borders safe from another terrorist attack these past 7 years. His Gitmo policy is a foreshadowing of what to expect.
5. Giving tax rebates to non-tax payers.
   

I need the economy to succeed as much as any of us do but not at my own personal expense. If it can't succeed without resulting in our nation compounding the error of already enormous international debt in the face of a trade deficit and /or an astronomical tax burden on me, my children, their unborn progeny and the rest of the endangered species known as the middle class; if it can't "succeed" without bringing about an end to free markets then it hasn't succeeded.

And let's be clear that a check in the mail from the U.S. Treasury Department, particularly to a person who doesn't PAY taxes in the first place is NOT a "tax cut". And the reason this is a bad idea is the same reason it's a bad idea to give indigent panhandlers money at the freeway off ramp. Aside from stopping traffic, it won't change their situation and they are likely to spend it on something frivolous. To really stimulate an economic recovery we need to put gas in the tank of that enormous engine, the U.S. Economy. We need businesses, small to large, sole proprietorships to the largest corporations to have the fuel they need to work and grow. The Federal government can deliver that in the form of real tax cuts, an action requiring far less legislation to create, far less oversight to ensure proper handling and an almost immediate and direct impact in the places it is most needed.

Funding for a Museum of Organized Crime in Las Vegas is not going to help any of us except if you work for a company that makes life size wax figures of Al Capone and Meyer Lansky. And before you have anyone tell you this isn't part of the current stimulus package keep in mind that the arbiter of that monstrous boondoggle, BHO said this, "In a package of this magnitude, will there end up being certain projects that potentially don't meet that criteria of helping on health care, energy, or education? Certainly."

If this last point resonates with you then

- Go here to look up your U.S. Congressman's web page where you can easily send an email telling him or her you don't support this stimulus package in it's current form:
https://writerep.house.gov/writerep/welcome.shtml

- Go here to look up both of your U.S. Senators to do the same:
http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Writing the President would be a waste of time. His most recent displays of arrogance and petulance tells me he's not listening to the American public.

On the Eve of A-boma-nauguration

In a swirl of world and national events such as an ongoing battle in Gaza, a not so surprising end to the Caylee Anthony missing person's case and yet even more job cuts at major corporations including Microsoft, I have noticed one defining and unnerving characteristic of the first weeks of 2009. You guessed it: the giddy, cloying excitement around empty-shirt / emptier head B.H. Obama entering office and taking up residence in the White House.

I know some people on a personal level who are oscillating (almost at a frequency that would shatter glass) between their Bush hatred and their Obama joy. It's as if the mixed emotion they are feeling is, on one hand, the regret over losing the thing that has defined them for the past 5-6-8 years, knowing inevitably that it will but not wanting it to go away forever and, on the other hand, the impatience over wanting to run downstairs on Tuesday morning and find that present under the secularist’s holiday tree, namely a big eared Baby New Year. Some of the hatred has been transferred to another villain of conservative politics, Sarah Palin. I believe that has more to do with people who have an addiction needing a substitute addiction just as the entryways to an AA or NA meeting or often marked by a throng of chain smokers. The logic behind feeling the need to vilify the Governor of Alaska is unprecedented, even in the annals of Inuit history but logic doesn't seem to be the trait that will define 2009.

So this gives me pause. Would I feel what the liberal masses are now feeling had the 2008 election turned out differently?

Now I only have the past as any accurate indication of how I might feel right now. (As of last Tuesday I just logged a whole extra year of "past" behind me so I have plenty of personal experience from which to draw my conclusions.)

I start by reflecting back to the 2000 election. You remember, that following morning that was much like watching Jennifer Anniston, Mark Wahlberg and the tranny groupie in Rock Star. We all woke up and didn't quite know how to feel, in this case because they were still counting votes in Florida. There was hardly any time for an emotional build-up to the inauguration in January '01. Between the vote counting limbo and the moving trucks hauling away White House furniture to Arkansas amidst Clinton pardons for Hugh Rodham's and Roger Clinton's coke snorting buddies, no one really had time to speculate about the Bush cabinet positions let alone the breed of dog, four legged or otherwise that our new president-elect would select to pee on the rugs Bill Clinton had previously stained with his debauchery.

So I have to fast forward four years to 2004. What did I feel that morning when John Kerry's face did the impossible and actually grew longer? What was the feeling I experienced? It was mild relief. Not because I was disappointed in Bush. He had yet to tarnish his presidential legacy as a conservative. No. I felt relief because the election was over without the protracted drama of the previous presidential election that many of us half-expected. More so though because there wasn't going to be some dramatic and wholesale change to the Executive Branch while a good friend of mine was still serving his first tour in Iraq and while the economy was tracking and trending upward. Most of all though, I knew that the man that would be occupying the White House for another four years was just a man, fallible. That he filled a role in a system of government that was not designed to change the world overnight. More importantly this governmental body was not there to be the end-all, be-all of my daily existence. Quite the contrary. Maybe the federal government would even shrink a little now, at least from our collective consciousness now that the two headed monster of partisan politics wasn't terrorizing our TV screens anymore. It didn't shrink though and that's another factor in my mild­ and even fleeting feeling of relief. I knew that government, at least in the period of my entire adult life has never fully lived up to any promise it or any of the individuals serving it have ever made, at least not completely or all at once. That's not a bad thing. That's just the compromise that is built into our American Democracy. That's all part of the great experiment. There's a certain perfectness in it's inherent imperfections.

You see, I believe that the success of Democracy is that the system prevails regardless of the power of personalities in all the various posts. In spite of any heroic figure or lack thereof it trudges on to serve us. That’s by design. That design is further confirmed as the framers' original intent in our first President’s action in which he rejected the suggestion that he be made king without a term limit.

I look around now and it's not just the agenda-driven extremist liberals who are barely able to contain their preemptive celebrations for a man who quite frankly has done nothing to serve any of our needs in his past and hasn’t done so yet in his latest temporary job. School children to octogenarian weathermen alike are all caught up in the excitement while trying not to pee themselves. Everything is tinged with a glow of it. The annual award shows for the self-congratulatory performers can't ignore it for a moment. Every joke and every acceptance speech has to make mention of what has happened in this election. The talking heads of TV news both local and national are almost beyond giddy. Their smiles crease their faces wider than that of Heath Ledger's Joker. Hollywood is already casting the bio-pic and the title role is predictably looking to be played by Will Smith. (All the while I am still waiting for Oliver Stone’s cinematic masterpiece about the Clintons. I guess that will have to wait for them to truly exit the White House once and for all.)

Violent criminals, unemployed vagrants and illegal aliens are professing to the media how proud they are now to be living in America. Bedtime fairy tales have been published into children’s books in time to hit the bookshelves. QVC is selling all manner of commemorative. The website eVite has canned theme pages for those of you who have been so overcome with raw emotion that you haven’t had the time to put together your Inauguration Parties yet. Classes are canceled on college campuses. Children are being brainwash . . . er, asked to participate in school events their teachers and principals have designed to make this fun and memorable. Yeah! That’s the reason they are doing it. Of course.

I am all for celebrating our Democratic system of government. I am a bit of a traditionalist though, saving my revelry for American Independence Day, Veterans & Memorial Days. I guess I am also traditional, preferring to wait for time to pass before declaring something a historical event. And then I think that when a Republican president is elected nothing of this scale ever happens. I guess that’s because Republicans still have to show up for work the next morning. But to provide further context about how this inaugural sets a high water mark in the flood waters washing over our nation, even when our first “black” president, Bill Clinton was elected there wasn’t this much hoopla. I imagine he and Hillary are stewing about that now as well.

Our nation’s capital is being closed down in order to turn the streets into a Saint Vitus’ Dance floor at a time when no one can say with any certainty whether or not our economy has bottomed out yet. But by all means, let’s party!

Yesterday I heard something and it wasn't the context as much as the style or the phrasing that hit me like a bolt. The thing itself wasn't important but it made a number of other pieces lock into place like a series of gears.

I recall having many conversations over the years with friends and colleagues. We discussed being astonished by certain historical events. How did certain people rise to power and subsequently exercise such tyrannical rule over their own people? Why didn't these people of this country or that country rise up and stop the tyrants? "Perhaps," one of us always playing the devils advocate, "it was happening so slowly and subtly that when the right people noticed it was too late." Perhaps." And maybe when that right moment occurred when the tyrant would turn his head, revealing the horned silhouette but then it was too late or maybe nobody was even paying attention. And the false assurance and feeling of superiority that came from the unspoken, "it could never happen here in this country." But that argument is just so much sophomoric twattle.


People are always paying attention when these events occur. The tyrants don't amass their power while sitting in a cave. And although there's a guy with an AK-47, a satellite phone, various degrees of facial hair and a turban who'd like to disagree; it's tough to argue his case in the face of so much history to the contrary. These tyrants also don't do it by some slight of hand or while putting the masses into some Svengali trance. If that were the case David Copperfield and Cris Angel would control the WORLD and not just the lives of vacuous super-models.

When I think about these tragic chapters in world history I hear crowds cheering back towards the men standing at a podium. I hear speeches. The tyrrants are all long on speeches before taking any action. And although Castro led a guerilla-style revolutionary movement in the spirit and practice of Mao out of jungles and foothills, the most notorious of tyrants the civilized world has ever seen spent his politically formative years as a community organizer of sorts. He worked within the political system of his country. Then he wrote an autobiography that also encapsulated the formation of his political thought process. He then gave speeches, locally in bars and private gatherings but soon to ever increasing crowds in large public forums, exploiting his country’s economic hardships to “connect” with his people in emotionally charged pleas for change. The excitement built and he moved quickly upward through the levels of his own government before his one party wrested total control of that country’s executive and legislative powers. And then this individual systematically dismantled his country's government in a series of actions that would reverberate throughout the world and echo down the halls of history. That man was Adolph Hitler . . . at which point Paul Harvey would say, ". . . and that's the rest of the story."

Is Obama Hitler? The comparison is oft made (Google it and see) but that's not my point. Is it naive and foolish to have a historical blind spot and extol such high virtue on one man in our system of representative government? Would it be a little like characterizing a mere elected official as some sort of a Superman, or as the German's say, Übermensch?

If this remains American Democracy-business-as-usual I will know for sure because little of true consequence will occur in the coming months and years. Many of you celebrants now resemble a Tween on a double espresso, fast-talking with your Tweeny friends about the differences between Twilight the book and Twilight the movie. I will know for sure that our democratic system is still in effect when your seemingly girlish, adrenaline induced jitteriness begins to fade, the voices (including Matthews' and Olberman's) come down a full octave and you start showing signs of disappointment even before Barrack-a-topia in 3:D leaves the D.C. Inaugural Multiplex and lands in the discount bin of your local, nearly bankrupt video store.

Then we can all get back to worshiping the one true God and not false idols. Or in the case of you devout atheists {oxymoron alert} ,you can turn your worship on to a true secular visionary like Steve Jobs. Hey, even I can get behind that kind of hero worship. The guy actually built something so many people in the world find useful and even necessary to their daily lives, all the while creating jobs and real wealth.

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.

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.

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.

Election Day Flash Cards

Be Prepared When You Go To The Polls

EMANCIPATOR


EQUIVACTOR
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DISTRIBUTOR



"REDISTIBUTOR"

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MARX

MARXIST?

Nearly Four Score Years Ago

If we forget our history or fail to even learn it in the first place; if we fail to learn the lessons of our history we are all too likely to repeat it.

In 1929 the Stock Market crashed. Arguably, one catalyst for this series of events was wild speculation by many including the general public. Many were allowed to trade on margin. This meant they didn't have the money necessary to pay for their losses when the stock values declined necessitating a margin call. Hmmm, a little like Mark to Market? A little like uncollateralized loans?

So a sitting president, a Republican who believed too much government intervention was not a good thing because it would make people dependent on the federal government, was reluctant to use legislative relief, was therefore inaccurately blamed for doing nothing during the crisis and thus became very unpopular by the end of his term, thus ushering in a 4 term dynasty of a Democrat and a Democratic controlled legislative body who expanded the government through social welfare programs as a means of moving the country out of The Depression. Sound familiar?

Perhaps not entirely. The Republican was still in office, raising taxes on the wealthiest and on businesses and approving public works projects. The public spending projects he started were expanded considerably by his Democratic rival though. Labor Unions grew in strength and number under this new president. Oddly the Socialist Party suffered. Perhaps it was the direct competition they were getting from the Democrats at the time. Social Security was also proposed and signed into law by this new president. Why wouldn't all the people love him? They were now all dependents of his sweeping, broad beneficence. Social Security was modeled after and designed to take the place of private company pension plans because after all unemployment had hit 25%. That 25% had no pensions to speak of at the time. Hey, I just had a thought. You know what else a lot of companies tend to provide their employees? Health insurance. Estimates put us at only 16% of the current population (not quite 25%) without health insurance, but hey, if the Federal government is going to provide everyone a pension plan (even though the plan is running out of money) why not provide health insurance now too? Now if I could just get my 'ole Uncle Sammy to take on the burden of my mortgage and pay for my kids to go to college I could stop relying on my employer all together. But I digress.

UCLA economists Harold L. Cole and Lee E. Ohanian argue that the "New Deal labor and industrial policies did not lift the economy out of the Depression as President Roosevelt and his economic planners had hoped," but that the "New Deal policies are an important contributing factor to the persistence of the Great Depression." They claim that the New Deal "cartelization policies are a key factor behind the weak recovery." They say that the "abandonment of these policies coincided with the strong economic recovery of the 1940s."^{[from Wikipedia]} Cole and Ohanian claimed that FDR's policies prolonged the Depression by 7 years.

Even more poignant is this quote from the same 2004 article. "Why the Great Depression lasted so long has always been a great mystery, and because we never really knew the reason, we have always worried whether we would have another 10- to 15-year economic slump," said Ohanian, vice chair of UCLA's Department of Economics. "We found that a relapse isn't likely unless lawmakers gum up a recovery with ill-conceived stimulus policies."

But we all know that the Great Depression ended as stated above (with the possible exception of the "Man on the Street" interviewees of Jay Leno fame). So if it wasn't FDR's policies then what did bring an end to this long dark era in the American and World economies? World War perhaps?

The country had been reeling from the human sacrifices of a complex, confusing and for the U.S. citizenry, a largely unpopular war in Europe before that aforementioned Republican president even took office. Like the not so Great Depression, the moniker of this war was also "The Great" War.
Regardless of who was to blame, American's felt they had sacrificed too much by way of blood and money. So America became quite isolationist. Easier still to go the way of isolationism when you are focused internally/nationally on your own economic recovery. It would be a little like, I don't know, feeling that spending billions of dollars in a region of the world so culturally and geographically removed from your own little cul-de-sac was almost the cause of not having the largess to pull yourself out of a completely separate economic crisis even though the weight and source of that dollar figure on the one end of that lever halfway around the globe would hardly budge the other side of the stick an inch.

So three score and a decade ago a psycho with peculiar facial hair and a little-man complex as well as a passionate but misplaced hatred of Jews rose to power, built a stockpile of weapons while his impoverished people suffered and then started a massive assault on his own little region of the world. Many other nations tried to negotiate an end to the unprovoked and unchecked aggression. The U.S. sat idly by on the sidelines. Eventually there was a World War, a holocaust and millions of people including a large number of innocent civilians died.
Wow, that's a mouthful! Let me clear my throat a second: Ahmened-e-gonna-get-a-nuke-and-blow-up-Isreal-jihad!! Meanwhile Russia and China would race to the region to secure much of the world's oil reserves for their own growing industrialization; to a region with a power vacuum now that America's new president has stayed true to his original word and withdrawn all U.S. troops from Iraq only months after taking office. Cough, cough. Achoo! Bless me. Bless us all.

Some see signs of a Biblical Apocalypse in the chain of events we have lining up before us. Some may be praying for that teleological end rather than bear witness to it all.

^^^