Playing politics with politics, is a threat to all concerned

The line that "If you don't vote for Candidate X, THEN YOU’RE VOTING FOR CANDIDATE Y!!!”, is neither a good argument, nor a laughing matter, and treating it as one, or the other, or both, is not a responsible approach to one of your most fundamental civic responsibilities.

There are a couple things at play here, that need to be considered. First being, what is it that you think that you are doing when voting - are you voting for a candidate, or are you voting to influence who will hold power in a political office? The distinction being made there is one that makes a difference. If you subscribe to the former, then it's pretty likely that you've made the above statement, either in seriousness, or by mocking those who do, or in whining that those who do are 'browbeating' you, in order to make excuses for how you intend to vote. Either approach is a dead end that is harmful to the entire body politic.

If you're exasperated with how someone says they intend to vote, don't tell them what you think about candidates X, Y & Z - they'll just tell you what they think about what you think. Instead, ask them about how they think their vote will affect the results of the election - that at least might give you something to talk about.

Such as... it is important to remember that the ultimate aim of what all of the candidates and voters are participating in, is a means of determining who the occupant of a seat of political power will be, and how the powers of that office are likely to be employed by them upon We The People - that is what your foremost concern as a voter should be. The candidate you favor - if you should be so lucky as to have one you can - is and should be a secondary matter in that choice, and a distant one at that.

The electoral process begins in the primaries, and if you are a member of, or align with, a particular political party, then that party's primary election is your opportunity to examine the candidates, to make your opinion known about their fitness, and about what direction the party should go, and to support what best represents your political ideals. If you chose to participate in that party and in their primary, then by choosing to vote for one of that party's slate of candidates, you tacitly agree to support the winner - whether they were your choice or not. If you are a member of that political party, and you participate in their primary election, and your candidate loses, and you find yourself wholly unable to support the winner, then the principled thing to do would be to resign from that party. If you continue on as a member or supporter of that political party, while vocally denouncing the winner of its primary election and those who support them, then you, above all people, are in no position to prattle on about 'Principles!' of any kind, as you've already demonstrated your disregard for the fundamentals of being principled, and apparently lack the integrity which such a concept requires.

Where the primary election was about your preferences as a voter, the general election is about your responsibilities as a citizen.

If you do support a candidate that has a credible chance of winning the election, and you have no serious objections to the other credible candidates running in the campaign, all is well and good, vote for who you support.

But if there is no candidate running in the general election whose ideals and positions you can wholeheartedly support, or if the candidate you do prefer has little or no chance of winning the election, then it is your responsibility as a citizen to remember that the general election is not about either the candidates or your feelings for them, but about how the powers of that office are likely to be used by the winner of the election, and to vote accordingly.

That is not a case of choosing the lesser evil, it is a matter of opposing the greater one!

If Candidate Y (Hillary, Claire, etc) supports an agenda that is a clear threat to your political ideals and values, and they have a credible chance of being elected, then your own personal preferences, both those for Candidate X, and against Candidate Z (Trump, Hawley, etc), are no longer valid considerations in how you will cast your vote! Political maturity demands that you coolly and clearly take stock of the situation, and that you judge which candidate poses the greater threat to what you consider to be of political importance, and that you then cast your vote so as to ensure that the candidate which poses the greater threat your polity, is defeated in the general election.

If you fail to hold what will result from the election as your main concern, then you are putting your ego and vanity above that of your community, and you will be manipulated by the froth of personalities and identity politics, and your contribution to that miasma can only harm your community, and worsen the political climate for all.

If you as a voter choose to allow yourself to be driven by your personal feelings for candidates, rather than by what your judgment tells you about how that office will be utilized by the winner of that election, then your vote will be futile in every meaningful way, as it can and will accomplish nothing more than to flatter your own personal vanity and sense of self importance. Such a vote of 'Principle!' reflects no principles at all, it is the act of a politically immature child, and all such voters, for the good of the community (which is the ultimate point of politics), should strongly consider refraining from dabbling in politics for the foreseeable future, because playing politics with politics, is a threat to all concerned.

Think less about your personal feelings about candidates, and more about what your vote is, and what it will mean, and act accordingly.

If you're saying: "I am done!", I've gotta ask: "What, are you 10 yrs old?"

"I am done." I've heard that so often lately, and from all corners, especially after the Missouri Primary election yesterday, where, IMHO, the worst candidate won. But what does this damned 'I am done' mean? Do those who mutter it, understand the highly unflattering things it says about themselves?

Of course I get the emotional knock that seeing your, and even the two other decent candidates in a race, losing to who you - probably rightly - consider to be an unworthy candidate. It is frustrating.

But leaving pure emotional impact aside, if the comment "I am done" reflects a serious judgment, I've got to ask, in all seriousness,

"What, are you ten years old?"

There are things worth fighting for, but don't make a damn fool of yourself by pretending that you know for certain what the outcome - positive or negative - will be. We don't know the outcome, we can't know the outcome, and any sense that we are assured of an outcome, is vanity, naivete, massive self conceit and folly!

If you are thoughtfully moaning that 'America is done for!', do you realize what that says about you?

There is only one thing that made America possible, and which then actually made America, and that is caring about what is right and True, realizing that it doesn't exist in a vacuum, but as an integrated whole, and that the truth can be known and is worth knowing, and worth adhering to it - not because it guarantees a beneficial reward, but because it is right and true, and in and of itself that is all the justification or reward necessary.

If you are whining about America being lost, and tearfully asking

'How do we come back from this?!'

, the answer - if you are actually interested in it - is a simple one:

When we again become a people who strive to be a nation of moral, self governing individuals, capable of living lives worth living in society with others, under the Rule of Law - not to achieve order, but to seek Justice (and wise enough to know that order will follow from that, secondarily)

, then, and only then, will we be a nation of Americans again.

The secret sauce in that, is no one needs to wait for the nation to be restored to being America again, in order to experience that profound and exceptional satisfaction of being Americans themselves, now - and indeed if you only seek it for that (an assurance of 'success!'), you've probably already barred yourself from it - you do it, live it and teach it, in whatever way that you are capable of, what it means to be an American, as best you can, to whoever you can, because it is right and a reward in and of itself.

If you want to feel sorry for how tough you have it, and how bad things are, tell it to people like Sam Adams, who struggled, often alone, for nearly 30 years before his fellow countrymen became Americans and made their Declaration of Independence... and then fought through years of revolutionary civil war, a failed constitution, and then, finally, after much disagreement, they established and ratified the Constitution of the United States of America (which, btw, Sam wasn't all that hot for, at first).

He had something to whine about. You? Not so much.

If you can't realize this in moments of contemplation, then rest assured that you've lost nothing - as you never had any part of that great value to begin with, and so can feel no real sense of loss for what you never had or were a part of.

Move along.

I don't know if our, my, America will 'win' out again in the popular sense, but I do know this, if we do, eventually it will be lost again - that's the reality of human life and the nature of being human. But here's a more important reality: Success isn't the justification for attempting to succeed, and if you think it is, you are a fool. Failure, loss, eventually, is far more likely and assured, but again: guaranteed results are not the point... realizing and striving for the best, as best you are able, is.

As the line goes from George Washington's favorite play, Cato, goes:

"’Tis not in mortals to command success,
But we’ll do more, Sempronius; we’ll deserve it."

If you think that guarantees are possible or what you should be striving for... you've already failed. It's hard to pin down where this notion came upon us, that succeeding as Americans is rooted in what others think and do (though I'd readily point to at least the last 150 years of 'educational reform') but know this, what you embody and teach to your kids, friends and co-workers, is what has the only chance of making America great again. It is up to you - that's what the meaning of IS is - don't puss out and pass the buck by whining about how unlikely it is that America can be restored. Shut the hell up already, you don't have a Crystal Ball, and it wouldn't matter if you did.

All that is, or ever will be, in your power to bring about, is what you do, inspire or teach others to do, and that, in and of itself, is admirable and sufficient. If you think you are capable of 'changing' the nation by any other means, you're not only a fool, but a danger to what you supposedly revere.

Or, in a word: "PFFFFTTTTTTTT!!!"

Identifying the Transgender Bathroom Issue: Flushing the West down the toilet

With all the media overload that's been put on the 'Transgender bathroom' issue, it might be worthwhile to look at it from a somewhat different perspective, one that goes in somewhere just below the froth of the spin-cycle. Unfortunately, there aren’t many of the typical articles floating around that are worth reading - mainly because most of them seem to think that the transgender issue, is about the transgendered, and if there's one thing that this latest drive towards 'toleration’ is not about, it's those afflicted with transgenderism.

Now wait, you say, these Transgender edicts and laws and demonstrations... they're all about the well intentioned concerns and efforts to make life easier for those unfortunate few afflicted with gender dysphoria... aren't they? Oh Hell no. You don't comfort the sick by inflaming their illness, nor do you afflict the healthy by forcing them to accommodate the delusions of the mentally unhealthy. What's worse, you don't impose restrictive behaviors upon all, which flatter one set of the mentally unhealthy, while enabling a more dangerously mentally ill set, the hetero sexual predator, with legal red carpet access to their prey in the most secluded and vulnerable condition - while at the same time preventing those who would defend them, from even identifying or acting upon the obvious threat. As you might be aware, identifying the obvious in that way, is... frowned upon. Why do you suppose that is?

There is one post on the issue though, by Heather MacDonald , that I can recommend, because rather than being too distracted by the transgender issues and laws themselves, she turns to some of the more fundamental issues involved. She identifies, lays fault and blame upon, the willingness of people to simply chuckle at the 'laughable' statements that have been flowing steadily out of Academia, for decades and decades. Because as she notes,

"One take-away from the transgender-bathroom wars is that the public ignores arcane academic theory at its peril. For two decades, a growing constellation of gender-studies, queer-studies, and women’s-studies departments have been beavering away at propositions that would strike many people outside academia as surprising — such as that biological sex and “gender” are mere ideological constructs imposed by a Eurocentric, heteronormative power structure. Even though skeptical journalists have regularly dived into the murky swamp of academic theory and returned bearing nuggets of impenetrable jargon and even stranger ideas, the public and most politicians have shrugged off such academic abominations, if they have taken note at all. (Senator Marco Rubio’s deplorable jab at “philosophy majors” during his presidential run demonstrated how clueless your typical politician is about the real problems in academia.)"

She's absolutely right, in that '...the public ignores arcane academic theory at its peril', but is simply noting that going to get that same public to look at these 'arcane' theories with any deeper interest? Sure, she notes how disastrous public policies have eventually followed from those who've been indoctrinated with these theories, yyyearsss down the line - as today’s issues stemmed from those theories two decades ago - but is that enough? I mean, seriously, can you imagine anything more worthy of being thought of as irrelevant by and to the public at large, than silly, unrealistic, academic theories about 'heteronormative power structures', and 'patriarchal hegemony's'? Why should they care about them? Yes, we should care, but unless people understand how to get the 'what', 'why' and 'how' of it, no one who's ignored them in the past, is going to take note of them in the future.

Isn't there something about those inane theories that should have stood out then, now and tomorrow, to alert people that they should be noted, refuted, denounced and derided as the clear and present dangers that they are to everyone from the most casual observer, to the parents of, and the students themselves, that are being subjected to them?

I believe that the answer to that is yes, there is a 'Tell' that any observer can easily identify and call them out on.

And the secret Identity Is...
There was, and still are, real, real time consequences, to the pernicious ideas of arcane wacademic theories, but it requires looking past the appearances and spin of things, it requires your not being distracted by those features that are meant to catch your attention and distract you from their real target, and thankfully in this latest issue, they've put that secret target right up front and center in their boilerplate - even though that secret is also their Achilles' heel.

To see it, ask yourself this one question:

• What do you mean by 'identify'?

At first it would seem puzzling that there is such confusion over these issues, as the words 'Identify', or plain old 'Identity' have some fairly cut & dry definitions. For instance: Identity:

i·den·ti·ty - ˌīˈden(t)ədē/ - noun - 1. the fact of being who or what a person or thing is.

, and Identify:

i·den·ti·fy - īˈden(t)əˌfī/ - verb - 1. establish or indicate who or what (someone or something) is.
synonyms: recognize, single out, pick out, spot, point out, pinpoint, put one's finger on, put a name to, name, know..."

Or IOW, to be able to identify something is to be able to distinguish one thing from another, and so become able to think more clearly about it - it is in fact one of the fundamental features of thinking itself. Now ask yourself, is that what you suppose these professors, activists and politicians are intent on doing, or avoiding doing? Is carefully Identifying what's what, what they are after? Do they themselves seem more able to identify the fundamentals of what they are yammering about - what men and women are - or do they seem astonishingly confused by the question? Look at this video, and forget about the transgender distraction for the moment, and just focus on the spectacle of the students unwillingness to identify the obvious fact that a white man identifying as a Chinese woman is and should be immediately ridiculous, but it isn't until the 5'9" man identifies as being 6'5", that finally causes some of these students to hesitate - what kind of 'education' are they receiving? What sort of education is it, whose ideas demand that you deny what you can clearly identify as being true?

The fact that they can't clearly identify or explain the positions they want you to comply with, has got to have you questioning their commitment to identifying what is real and true - doesn't it? Don't they seem more interested in passionately playing let's pretend that our positions - not reasons, but assertions - make us better than you are? It takes very little to rephrase their own statements, to identify what they intentionally evade, and to show them to be self refuting.

• Can it be true, that at that intellectual pinnacle of Western Civilization, the University, that understanding what Western Civilization is, and was made possible by, is unimportant to the Education of the best and brightest who will lead Western Civilization?
• Can it be true, that a course on English Literature, has no need to study those authors and poets which founded English Literature, and were so formative to our Culture - as is being proposed at Yale today, as it has been put into practice at UCLA several years ago?
• Can it be true, that learning good habits, virtues, morals and manners, aren't important to the reality of millions of people with differing interests and values living peaceably and civilly together in society?
• Can it be true, that socialism hasn't consistently led to disaster and destruction for those who've turned to it to make their lives better?
• Can it be true, that killing living, breathing children, is not murder?
• Can it be true, that telling lies is ok?

IOW, their "Tell" is that their reams of posturing verbiage is not meant to better reveal what is true, but to obscure the identity of what it is that they are claiming to support, they 'darken council with words without understanding'. Their 'Tell' is that their self important language of 'let’s pretend' and 'lets admire ourselves for our pretense!', consistently obscures your ability to be able to identify what it IS that they are talking about, making wise action unknowable, and unwise results probable.

Their "Tell" is to avoid identifying what they claim to be speaking about, their "Tell" is to make contradictory statements and demand that you let them get away with them, their "Tell" is to demand that, like Orwell's '1984', that we not only nod, but embrace the idea that 2+2=5, which is not simply inane, it is dangerous. And those agitating for norms and laws based upon these "Tells" are uninterested in identifying that obvious fact.

The one thing that they do seem to be interested in doing, is identifying just how much more, at this moment in time, that they can get away with, how much more they can remove from your ability to identify, and so to think clearly about, and to understand and stand up for in the world around you. No, this sudden cultural push is not about men or women 'identifying' as women or men, neither is it about being kind or tolerant towards the mentally ill, or 'fighting back!' against those who'd bully the dysphoric few, those serve as pretexts for, not the purposes of, the transgender agitators. The agitators are not being agitated up in order to help those few men or women who identify as being the opposite sex, but to take advantage of our best and brightest who have been 'educated' to the point of being unable to even identify what a man or a woman is.

And why? How well can a people who are unable or unwilling to identify what a Man or a Woman is, be counted upon to identify what an Individual Right is, or be counted upon to recognize when one is being wronged? Might that not present certain political opportunities for those whose passionate ambition is to use the power of the state to change how we all live (and even use the bathroom), for the greater good? Might that not present opportunities for those who long to live our lives for us... for us?

That, not transgenderism, is the identity of the serious issue facing us, in this and most other popular issues and causes. In much the same way that a 'Memorial Day Sale!' has far less to do with Memorial Day, than with increasing a stores' sales; the Transgender Laws, edicts and popular press, have less to do with 'the plight of the Transgendered', than with transforming and multiplying our laws into ever more versatile tools for imposing power upon the public at large, as justified on the basis of inflamed passions, rather than upon identifiable reasons – because that’s where the Power lies.

If you are unable to identify the essentials of an issue, then you become prey to any convenient pretexts serving not so hidden agendas. Just as identifying ‘undocumented workers’ or 'Dreamers', was not about identifying those who are in the country illegally, just as ObamaCare wasn't about Health care, but about govt gaining massive political power in every aspect of our lives; just as free contraception wasn't about contraception, but a means to distract us from infringing upon individual rights of choice and property; and just as gun laws and registration aren't about reducing gun violence, but as distractions from the aim of eventually eliminating even the expectation of self defense; it is because the ability to identify such fundamental distinctions, are vital to understanding and standing up for your individual rights, that they are being undermined and evaded, and it is why saying what is, and is not true, is frowned upon by those who benefit from that distinction remaining unclear.

The vast majority of the issues trumpeted in our headlines, are but useful pretexts for channeling the passionate grievances of a popular few - or many – so as to enable legislators, bureaucrats, media and educators, to exercise ever more power over the public at large; and how better to revel in that power, than to tell an entire people that the normal expectations and behaviors which they have long held, are no longer to be respected? That what they feel is Right, is Wrong. That their personal opinions and habits are to be forced to give way, not because a clearer understanding and delineation of Right and Wrong has been reached, but to make way for a mostly undefined and indefinable claim of some, against all?

And again, why? How many things are more infuriating, than feeling that you can't speak up, and must accept what is 'politically correct' at work, in a restaurant, at an event, family dinner or when trying to relax?

Contrary to popular belief, and as any bully can tell you, tyranny doesn't really need laws to tyrannize you, it only needs to be feared by you.

In a time such as ours, where ‘Political Correctness’ can result in the ruination of lives, careers and associations, then legally 'toothless' pronouncements such as Obama’s bathroom edict do not need to be enforced everywhere, or even anywhere, at all - it only needs to be asserted, and clamored after by mobs who are visibly ready to shout down or even violently attack, those who gainsay it. Not everywhere, only somewhere, publicly, in order for its threat to be felt everywhere. And so it is that corporations feel pressure to make statements and policies about it, people are afraid to speak out about it, or to be condemned about their own observations and beliefs about it, even though 'it' has no legal leg to stand on. This is the ultimate in spinning executive action ‘under color of authority’, knowing it will be bolstered by the fear of a threat from unseen forces, it is an abuse of Power all its own, that will cloud your ability to identify, to distinguish, to think, inducing anger on all sides of the issue (AKA Community Organizing).

The stupefying power of power
And once again, why? A useful quote to keep in mind, is one from Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

"“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. … The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other...."

What Bonhoeffer (in 1920's-1930's Germany) was observing, and what people like Saul Alinsky are adept at exploiting [see inset], is the stupefying power that power has, when exerted over people. It's not so much that the people are stupid, but that intelligent people find themselves unable to identify or act upon what the actual issue is, and so their actions become indistinguishable from someone acting stupidly. As Power is imposed upon their lives in ways that they are powerless to prevent... unless a person very consciously attends to it, identifies the nature of what is happening to them, then there is going to be slippage between their thought, and that which is thought about, and that slippage expresses itself as both cracks and pressure release valves. People become stupefied as that place where idea and reality should have been firmly connected in their minds, has instead been forced aside, and now anything, usually in the form of meaningless catchwords and popular sentiments, will pass easily through their thoughts and possibly into poorly thought out actions, and more likely than not, leaving a persistent anger in its wake.

Because more power is ever the desire of the powerful, and because heated passions are the time tested means to swaying popular opinion, that is what is repeatedly used to turn We The People to their latest purposes. Whatever momentary mask such causes might wear, from gay marriage, to Christians baking wedding cakes, Seals, Whales, AIDS, Global Warming, Acid Rain, Global Cooling, DDT, etc., it is their emotional appeal and the agitation which they induce, and together with the lack of clear identification which they make difficult, at best, which serves as a means to better gain and impose power upon society 'for the greater good', and for the benefit of those seeking or maintaining power over them.

Given all of that, the issue of the day, which just happens to be Transgenderism today, becomes more clearly identifiable as but a means to an end, and it's the tomorrows of their ends, that we should all be deeply troubled by. Worse, the true identity of the problems facing us, is that every time we let a ridiculous statement go by unchallenged and unchecked, to posture about as if it is a true and meaningful thought, we give those empty words the power of an actual point, and that point will be turned against us - that is its point. To fail to identify these issues as such, is what started us down the path to where we are today - is this where you wanted to be? What will be the tomorrows that follow from this today?

The real trouble with the Transgender issue, is what you and I fear to clearly identify it as, either by inducing an unwillingness in you to identify that which is as being what it actually is, or through requiring you to not say or act on what you know to be true. Such unchecked power is a clear and present danger in all of its forms - not only legislatively, but intellectually, socially and culturally - as it forcibly separates your thoughts from your actions, which effectively flushes the West down the toilet. Who needs an army to invade us, when we'll so willingly eliminate ourselves?

IOW, while you're busy bickering about Hillary/Bernie and Trump, what made their candidacies possible is slipping past you, unidentified, and growing ever more powerful over every aspect of your life.

Is that the America you want to identify as?

It's time to vote - Why? The Primary reason for Voting

It's time for a number of states to vote again, and so it's time to ask the question that few seem to give much thought to - Why Vote?

If any of the following reasons, are the fundamental reasons for who you're voting for, then you're voting for the fundamentally wrong reasons:

• Voting for your political party - wrong!
• Voting for who you think can win 'the' election (primary or general) - wrong!
• Voting for who you think is the most [intelligent or principled or effective or conservative or ___] candidate - wrong!

Nope. No. Huh-uh, wrong, all wrong. Sorry, but although those may be factors, when taken as reasons for voting, they are amongst the key reasons for why we are in the mess that we're in today.

So why should we vote?

For that one reason which does not change from election to election, from year to year or from crisis to crisis, for that reason that does not change as candidates come and go, or even as political parties rise up and fade away - it doesn't even matter if we're talking about a popular vote or the voting by delegates. Through it all there is one thing that is constant and remains the same, and that is that the office which the candidate is being elected to, is there to serve a defined purpose for your (Ward, Assembly, City, County, State, Nation), and the fulfillment of that purpose, in as most favorable a fashion as is possible, is why you cast your vote.

That's it. Candidates are merely a means to that end.

If you're voting for any other reason, then every vote you cast is miscast, and can, in some sense, even be a harmful one. It can also be harmful if you fail to distinguish between the purpose of a primary (and oh my is there ever a lot more to say about those, in an upcoming post), and that of the general election.

• In the Primary election, you cast your vote in order to fill that office with the candidate that is, in your judgment, best able to fulfill its purposes, and will most responsibly utilize the powers of that office.

• In the General election, you are voting on how that office, and its powers, will be occupied and utilized.

If that difference isn't clear, in the General election, you are no longer dealing with your personal wish lists, but with reality; not your preferences for it, but the actuality that will follow from the results of that election. In the general election, it is incumbent upon you, as a citizen,  to give full and careful consideration to the matter of who that office will be occupied by,  as a result of that election, rather than as another means of giving vent to your personal feelings about the options remaining for you to choose from.

And given that the purpose which that office fulfills, is the reason for your voting, then in all elections,  you should be looking at what that office's purpose is, and at the powers it entails,  and only then at how well, or ill, a particular candidate might be able to fulfill it. Since for most of us the most recent election just passed, or held today, or coming up soon, is a primary election for determining your political party's candidate in the general election for President of the United States of America, lets start with the oath of office that the winner of the general election will take, and the oath of office, says:

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

, which, it seems to me, means that in order to judge whether a candidate is a good candidate for executing the duties of the office, they, and you, ought to be familiar with what the duties of that office are, right? And to do that... you might want to bone up on the rest of Article 2, beginning with Section 1, Clause 1... not to mention the rest of the constitution too, of course.

Spoiler Alert: The Constitution doesn't say anything about health care insurance, student loans, making America great again, who can marry who, building fences, minimum wage, or much else about what is being talked about in this election cycle. No, it pretty much sticks to limiting govt to its defined powers (see Article 1, Section 8 (clauses 1-18), the roles of the Commander in Chief, and defending the constitution by passing no laws that violate its laws or infringe upon our individual rights, especially those noted in the Bill of Rights.

Just sayin'.

Although if you'd like to broaden that view somewhat beyond the oath of office, you could do worse than following the admonition that Congress used to issue to territories that were petitioning to be admitted to the union as states, that they should order themselves so that they,

"... when formed, shall be republican, and not repugnant to the constitution of the United States, and the principles of the Declaration of Independence..."

Meaning that, in considering whether or not the office of the President of the United States will be faithfully executed, shouldn't a part of your consideration involve taking into account how that candidate might further those principles, or be repugnant to them? And what is your responsibility in the matter?

And what if none of the available candidates shows an understanding and commitment to the principles of the Declaration and the Constitution... or to the Rule of Law, or towards Liberty itself? What then? Do you stay home? Vote for a negligible candidate? Write in someone else's name?

In the Primary, where selecting the candidate that is, in your judgment, the best for executing the duties, responsibilities and powers of that office... you could make a case for those options, but what about in the actual election, where it is not about your preferences, but about the actuality of how that office will be occupied? Can you then legitimately consider staying home? Voting for a negligible candidate? Writing in someones name?

Leaving aside whatever strange stroking that might give to your own ego and vanity, ask yourself this: Will such a 'vote' contribute anything towards how the principles of the Declaration, the Constitution, and our liberty, might be employed, or abused, through that office, or to the benefits or damages that will result because of who succeeds in entering the office?

I'm gonna go out on a limb and say... no. Not at all, and you're blowing smoke up your own butt if you think it does.

Why do I say that?

Well, if this were a card game, or maybe a game of monopoly, and you noticed that one or more of your fellow players were cheating, you could, in good conscience, leave the game and refuse to play along, right? Why? Because you can leave the game!

You cannot, however, short of leaving the country, leave 'the game' of a Presidential election, or its effects on you, on your fellows, or on your position and responsibilities as a citizen. You are encompassed by it. You cannot opt out, while remaining within the nation's geographical boundaries. Pretending as if you can, is not only a sophistic pretense more worthy of petulant children than responsible adults, but worse, it cannot fail to aid that office holder who will do the most damage to the nation through that office... which you made no meaningful effort to oppose their being elected to.

Oh, sorry, what's that? Are you saying:

• 'At least I'm not helping XXX candidate!' I'd never violate my principles to do that!'?

Are you not listening?

#1, you do not, Should NOT, ever, in any meaningful way, VOTE FOR a Candidate! Not for any Candidate!

We should only elect candidates for the purposes of executing the duties of that office as effectively as possible, in order to fulfill its purpose as defined by our laws. Yes, the office will be filled by a person, but they aren't the purpose of your vote, it is - candidates are but a necessary means to that end.

Note: Casting your vote for that candidate which you judge will best execute the duties of that office, or bring about the least harm through it, is not the same as voting for a candidate - it involves putting your focus on the office, rather than on the officeholder.

Voting primarily for a candidate, or a party, or even a pet litmus issue, is a short cut to disaster. Why?

Because Voting for a candidate, immediately and necessarily means that rather than focusing primarily upon the purposes of the office and the principles and policies best suited to executing its duties, your focus would instead be upon personalities - both theirs and yours. And if you let yourself get sucked into voting for candidates, becoming personally invested in them, then you are prone to being blinded by your passions for them, and you will almost inevitably be sucked into defending that individual person or party, or issue, rather than upon the purposes of that office, and the quality of the principles and policies which the officeholder will support, and - see if this sounds familiar this year - you will be drawn into petty disagreements and arguments and fights that have very little, if anything to do with those purposes which your vote is intended to serve, such as, oh, I dunno, things like "... you know what they say about small hands...", or "...their face annoys me...", or "... he's a little liar...", etc., comes readily to mind for some reason.

And if you focus upon the candidates personally, then you might even wind up saying incredibly poorly thought out statements such as: "I'll NEVER vote for ___! They're a ____ Scumbag! Hashtag #NeverTrump, #NeverCruz, #NeverKasich", even at the cost of putting a potentially worse candidate (hello Hillary or Bernie) in that office, who very may well be committed to horrendously more destructive purposes, principles and policies those candidates you are so upset at, which would that office, and its powers, upon the entire nation.

Choosing not to vote, or casting your vote in a manner that can have no impact on who the winner will actually be, are actions that make it more likely that the greater evil will win - that is what it means to choose the lesser of two evils.

Never choose the lesser of two evils! Don't Do That! Don't be that guy!

Instead, being mindful of the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, and the Liberty of We The People which our laws derive their just powers from, and being mindful of the Power which the resulting holder of that office will have over all of those, and all of us, due to their being elected to that office, you must cast your vote where it will best advance, or most thwart the greatest threat, to them.  Nothing less can provide any service to any of them, at all!

Being Principled doesn't mean being destructive
If one of the candidates poses a more immanent threat to our liberty than the other, then it is your duty as a member of the republic (not of a Party, but of the Republic) to oppose them with as much power as you have available - and assuming that you stand for the Rule of Law over mob violence, that means voting, and it also means that staying home or writing in a useless name as a 'protest vote', can and will do nothing to thwart the greater threat to our republic, and there is no excuse for that.

Please, don't give me any crap about your being too 'principled' to vote for XYZ candidate, if they, and not your guy, win your primary! Hogwash!

Principles by their very nature require you to be mindful of the bigger picture, focusing on the whole, and not obsessing myopically on a particular part. By failing to take into account the primary purpose of your actions - you are not demonstrating that you have a sound conception of what principles even are, let alone what they are for. That is Not making a principled stand, and that is Not making a stand for Liberty - it is deserting it in its greatest hour of need (and probably because of your feelings for a candidate... am I right?).

Principles are not ends in themselves.

Principles are not substitutes for thinking.

Principles are guides for thinking well, they are a means to, not the ends of, principled thought.

Principles are what virtue and experience have shown to be reliable guides to wiser thought and actions - what do you suppose qualifies as 'wiser' thinking? Thinking that primarily strokes your ego and polishes your vanity, doesn't, I'd hope, qualify, does it? Principled thinking - what was once commonly known as Prudence, practical wisdom, means guiding your thoughts along principled paths, towards sound, long-range actions, ensuring that the best outcomes are most likely to be achieved. But if you are aiming your thoughts and actions at no further point than the guides to those actions, such shortsightedness cannot be wise, and they cannot be described as acting in a principled manner.

To focus upon you guides themselves, as if they were your ends, is but another form of the ends justifying the means - and isn't that what a principled person most recoils from?!

Employing Prudence in the voting booth, requires focusing upon the long-range intentions and effects which the office being voted upon will be turned towards; what will be brought about through that office, is what your choice in the voting booth should reflect and be striving towards. It is not about stroking your own vanity, but about giving as much aid as you're able to give, to, in the case of either the primary or general election for the President of the United States of America, the preservation of the constitution and our republic for which it stands; if you don't understand that that is the wisest course of action to aim towards, or that you'd prefer to allow your own shortsighted pride to take precedence over such considerations, then you are, politically speaking, no matter how many doctoral degrees you might have behind your name, an uneducated rube.

Are you voting for a candidate who is knowingly, avowedly, serving Socialist, Communist, Marxist and/or 'Progressive' aims?
If so, then you are voting in direct opposition to our Constitution and to the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and it is a self evident fact that you and I have little at all in common philosophically or politically; that you are in pursuit of regressing our nation, friends and family, towards a land that will be ruled over by those who are primarily in pursuit of power, and that you would prefer to give them power over your own choices, than to suffer making them yourself, that you would rather be ruled over, than to rule over your own life; that you are willing to subject others to that same fate, because you fear having responsibility for your own life. You, like some of my friends and family, may very well be a nice person in most respects, but, IMHO, the state of your political thought is a putrid wasteland. You are voting for regress, you are avowedly pro-regressive, and advancing towards what is evil - may God have mercy on your soul.

Are you still abstaining from voting because you refuse to choose the lesser of two evils?
You should Never, EVER vote for the lesser of two evils. You should either cast your vote in service to that which is the greater Good (qualitatively speaking, not in the quantitative or utilitarian sense), or in opposition to the worst evil - that is all. If you are unsure why, take a few moments to think about the meaning and implications of the word 'evil'.

Will your vote aid the best, or thwart the worst, use of the office of the President Of The United States? Or not?

Worst of all, refusing to vote for either, means deserting the field and letting that greater evil advance unopposed - deliberate passivity in the face of evil, is evil. Choosing not to vote, is choosing the lesser of two evils. Choosing to cast your vote for an avowed leftist, rather than a flawed or even foul candidate from the right (and if you find the two comparable, you need to examine your premises), is choosing the greater of two evils.

If there is not someone in the race representative of what you can comfortably vote for - one which will best serve the office's purposes through appropriate principles and policies - then you must cast your vote for that candidate that will best serve as opposition to the Greater Evil - not for the person, not for the candidate, not for the party, but with an awareness of those ideas and policies they will be brought to that office if you don't oppose them - meaning once again, though from a slightly different perspective, that you Do Not choose the lesser of two evils, instead you consciously, with full awareness and consideration for how that office will be employed, you use your vote to pit the lesser evil, against the greater evil, but you should never, ever, cast your vote for an evil.

Anything less, is so much less than zero.

What if you held an election... and no one paid attention to the winner?

What if you held an election... and no one paid attention to the winner?

Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder told Dana Loesch on her radio program today, that there are disturbing signs that the GOP dominated legislature is considering doing just that, and only YOU can stop them.

This year, even in the midst of the GOP electoral losses, Missourians were very clear in their dislike of ObamaCare:

From BallotPedia:

Missouri Health Care Exchange Question, Proposition E (2012)
The following are unofficial election results:
Missouri Proposition E

Result	Votes	Percentage
Yes	1,567,816	61.8%
No	970,924	38.2%

The Missouri Health Care Exchange Question was on the November 6, 2012 ballot in the state of Missouri as a legislatively-referred constitutional amendment. The measure would prohibit the establishment, creation, or operation of a health insurance exchange unless it is created by a legislative act, a ballot initiative, or veto referendum. According to the text of the bill, the proposal is aimed at prohibiting the establishment of a health care exchange by the Missouri Governor.[1]
The bill's formal title in the 2012 state legislative session was Senate Bill 464.


The ballot summary of the measure, according to the Missouri Secretary of State:[2]
Shall Missouri Law be amended to prohibit the Governor or any state agency, from establishing or operating state-based health insurance exchanges unless authorized by a vote of the people or by the legislature?
No direct costs or savings for state and local governmental entities are expected from this proposal. Indirect costs or savings related to enforcement actions, missed federal funding, avoided implementation costs, and other issues are unknown.

And yet, our Lt. Governor, Peter Kinder, is reporting that our GOP dominated legislature, is getting wobbly at the thought of standing up to ObamaCare, even though their constituents, you and me, clearly expressed our support and expectation for their doing just that!

Kinder is urging the "...Legislature to refuse health insurance exchanges, Medicaid expansion..." and reminds us that, no matter what you might hear, or be lobbied by the Insurance companies to believe, the state is under no obligation to act:

“Setting up a health insurance exchange is a direct violation of the Healthcare Freedom Act, passed by 71 percent of Missouri voters in 2010, which forbids Obamacare’s individual and employer mandates. This month, Missouri voters again revealed their reluctance to embrace Obamacare’s implementation by easily passing Proposition E, which prohibits the establishment of health exchanges without a vote of the people or their representatives.

“These exchanges will cost states between $10 million and $100 million per year, and will set up state officials to take the blame when Obamacare increases insurance premiums and denies care to the sick. There is no compelling reason for Missouri to implement this unpopular, expensive and intrusive federal power grab. I urge the General Assembly to reaffirm Missourians’ opposition to Obamacare by refusing to create a health exchange or expand Medicaid.”

On top of that, it was just two years ago that Missourians first declared their resounding opposition to ObamaCare, when in we stood against the Obama Express, and passed Prop C

Shall the Missouri Statutes be amended to:
Deny the government authority to penalize citizens for refusing to purchase private health insurance or infringe upon the right to offer or accept direct payment for lawful healthcare services?
Modify laws regarding the liquidation of certain domestic insurance companies?

Proposition C

Result	Votes	Percentage
Yes	669,847	71.1%
No	272,723	28.9%

What if you held an election... and no one paid attention to the winner?

What if? Well, as Dana pointed out, our newspaper media and Gov. Nixon, are planning to demonstrate what that would mean - that they can scoff at We The People, without a care in the world. For if you can hold an election, and your elected officials feel under no obligation to take your electoral wishes into consideration, and their fellow travelers in the News Media, decide to aide and abet their doing just that, then... you've got a voice that no one can hear.

That my friends is the tyrants favorite tune, music to their ears: ♫  ♪ ♬ The Sound of Silence ♬♪♫

But it stands to reason that their dreams of turning a deaf ear to your vote, again, will be exponentially more difficult to realize, if We The People make damn sure that they can't avoid hearing our voices as we melt the wires of their phones, faxes, emails, twitters and also by word of mouth: Call your friends and family too!

You'd better get real loud and real clear, now, because there's something else that happens if you can hold an election where no one pays attention to the winner - it's as good as a declaration of taxation without representation, isn't it? I don't know about you, but I don't want to see what might follow if we allow that to stand.

We're hearing reports that at least one State Representative, David Sater (David.Sater@house.mo.gov) has responded that he will listen and stand with the vote of the people, please, make sure that he doesn't stand alone!

Here is a link to the phone and fax numbers for the MO Legislature:

Here are the phone numbers for the Senate
http://www.senate.mo.gov/12info/senalpha.htm

And courtesy of some of my friends,

Action Item:
Call or email each Republican senator. Time is very short as they will be discussing this Friday and Saturday. Tell them the people of Missouri don’t want them to set up an Obamacare exchange any more than they want the governor to. The sentiment behind the Prop E vote applies to them, too!
(Here are the senators for whom we have public contact information. Some of the new senators don’t have published information yet.)

Dan Brown Rolla Dan.Brown@senate.mo.gov 573-751-5713 R
Mike Cunningham R
Tom Dempsey St Charles tom.dempsey@senate.mo.gov 573-751-1141 R
Bob Dixon Springfield bob.dixon@senate.mo.gov 573-751-2583 R
Edgar Emery Lamar R
Michael Kehoe Jefferson city 573-751-2076 R
Will Kraus Lees summit Will.Kraus@mail.senate.mo.gov 573-751-1464 R
Brad Lager Savannah brad.lager@senate.mo.gov 573-751-1415 R
John Lamping St Louis 573-751-2514 R
Douglas Libla Poplar Bluff
Brian Munzlinger Williamstown 573-751-7885 R
Brian Nieves Washington Brian.Nieves@senate.mo.gov 573-751-3678 R
Michael Parson Bolivar mparson@senate.mo.gov 573-751-8793 R
David Pearce Warrensburg david.pearce@senate.mo.gov 573-751-2272 R
Ron Richard Joplin 573-751-2173 R
Gary Romine Farmington R
Scott Rupp Wentzville 573-751-1282 R
David Sater David.Sater@house.mo.gov R
Robert Schaaf St Joseph rob.schaaf@senate.mo.gov R
Kurt Schaefer Columbia kurt.schaefer@mail.senate.mo.gov 573-751-3931 R
Eric Schmitt St Louis eschmitt@senate.mo.gov R
Ryan Silvey Kansas city Ryan.Silvey@house.mo.gov R
Wayne Wallingford Wayne.Wallingford@house.mo.gov R
Jay Wasson Nixa jay.wasson@senate.mo.gov 573-751-1503 R

Here is a link to all the current phone and fax numbers for the State Senate
Here are the phone numbers for the Senate and links to all the Senators websites. If you don’t know what district you are in there is a place to put in your zip code to find out.
http://www.senate.mo.gov/12info/senalpha.htm

Conservatives: Don't try to become more 'modern', become more Timeless instead

What with all the campaign autopsies that have been floated around since last Tuesday's election, all the thinkers rethinking what went wrong and how to fix conservatism, it's set one of George Carlin's old comedy routines running around through my head on continuous loop, the bit on words that don't go together,

"...the term Jumbo Shrimp has always amazed me. What is a Jumbo Shrimp? I mean, it's like Military Intelligence - the words don't go together, man... "

That's what I especially hear when I hear that according to numerous rethinkers upon the state of conservatism, that in order to save conservatism, conservatism needs to be modernized, conservatism needs to get with the times.

Conservatism + Modernize. See what I mean? Just like Jumbo Shrimp.

Unfortunately, while George Carlin was trying to be funny, these folks are dead serious. They say, with a straight face, that in order to 'modernize' conservatism it will require 'bold' 'new' 'thinking' in regards to conservatism's positions on college 'educated' youth, Latinos and supporters of gay marriage.

My immediate reaction, other than laughter, is that

• 'bold' thinking is not to be found in chasing after the presumed hot button issues of popular opinion.
• 'New' thinking is not found in reasserting the need to pander to decades old issues (and I don't mean 'decades old' as in Old, but as in what's merely fashionable, a passing fad).
• 'Thinking' is not what results from crunching numbers and electing to follow the higher tallies.

In addition to those obvious points, there's also the fact that to the extent that you try to put a new face on an old philosophy in order to better appeal to the appetites of one particular group or another, it cannot be done without severing its principles, wrenching it out of its orbit, and transforming the entire project into an unseemly fraud.

That's not to say that conservatism doesn't need to reexamine its conclusions on these, and other issues, to strive to see more clearly how its stated conclusions compare with the truths that its philosophy brings to light - that should be the constant effort of all of those who claim to believe in it. But to advise adopting the conclusions of others, for the sake of winning popularity contests, that is hardly a conservative thing to do.

Do that and you will have no conservatism left to conserve.

Sooo... is it me that's not modern enough in my thinking? Or is it they who are tediously ancient in theirs? What about you?

Again, while I realize the importance of the popular vote in elections, the deeper issue which the vote serves, the purpose of governing, is not to do what is popular, but to do what is proper and right. It is not the job of politicians to do what they know to be wrong, in order to gain popularity and power, but to do what is right and communicate that in a way that promotes the popularity of those ideas.

If you are losing elections, it isn't your philosophy that's the problem (assuming that it is true in the first place), but your politicians and their poor and ill-informed understanding of it and their ridiculous attempts to make it seem (!) 'relevant'. Hello RNC, Romney, McCain, Dole, Bush, Ford....

Conservative vs. Liberal? Hardly
First, what is it that Conservatives are seeking to conserve? If they are being true to themselves, and to our Founding Fathers, then they should realize that they are supposed to be conserving the Classical Liberal philosophy which our nation was formed from and founded upon - preserving and extending the Liberty of its citizens.

Who are the opponents of Conservatives, Liberals? Hardly. What masquerades under the label 'Liberal', meaning to promote the greatest liberty, is not found in a party that desires to use govt regulation to control everything from your Dr's prescriptions to the size of your Big Gulp. The proper label, as Hillary Clinton pointed out when running for President, is the term 'Progressive'... which I find difficult to not amend to ProRegressive I'll make clear in a moment.

The entire ProRegressive project has been predicated upon the idea that the ideas and principles of our Founders era, are outmoded, suitable only for a pre-technological and agrarian few but not for the modern technological many; that the way of 'progress' is to be found through the rejection of what is True across time in favor of what pragmatically seems to work... for the moment... and may change (or be changed) in the next moment).

It has been the goal of the ProRegressive movement, to transform the Constitution and the principles which animate it, into a figurehead for an all powerful administrative state that will replace those pesky Natural Rights, with Govt Promises and Privileges.

Are you seriously going to tell me that the way to 'save' conservatism, is through the embrace of its fiercest enemy and the rejection of that which makes it timeless and worthy of conserving? Because their 'new' ideas, which amount to nothing more than taking away your Rights which are yours by nature of being human, and giving you govt IOU's for one privilege or another, that is supposedly a modern idea?

Ladies and Gents, that, putting powerful politicians in charge of your life, is not progress, it is regress. A century ago, President Coolidge framed that point nicely:

We are too prone to overlook another conclusion. Governments do not make ideals, but ideals make governments. This is both historically and logically true. Of course the government can help to sustain ideals and can create institutions through which they can be the better observed, but their source by their very nature is in the people. The people have to bear their own responsibilities. There is no method by which that burden can be shifted to the government. It is not the enactment, but the observance of laws, that creates the character of a nation.

About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.

For you who are seeking this 'modernization', just what is it, please, tell me, what is it that you are seeking to conserve? Your own power? Perhaps? Was your self-esteem damaged in the last election?

Poor dears.

Timelessness over Modernistic
Oh, I hear you, trust me, I can just hear you saying,

'There you go talking about what some dude said a CENTURY ago! What does that have to do with me? With us? Here! Today!'

A fair question, and no doubt followed up with... what about the 'educated' youth who want free this and that? Or of those Latinos who want special privileges? Or those gays who want to marry? Don't we realistically have to pander and appeal to them? Don't we need a slick new marketing tool that'll convince them that we 'care' about them?

Let me ask you this: Do you really think that you, assuming that you believe a tenth of what you claim to want to conserve, do you really think that you, are going to pander to them, more convincingly than those other guys across the aisle? Do you really think the people who want that sort of thing, are going to buy Pander-Lite, when they can get the real thing from the party of FDR, LBJ, Clinton & Obama? Is there something you find that's particularly modern about being stupid?

How about considering this instead: If you keep asking a question, over and over and over again, and have tried several of the different answers which that question leads to, and they have all failed (as happened with Ford, Bush 41, Dole, McCain, Romney), how about considering the possibility that you are asking the wrong question?

Rather than asking how conservatives can pretty themselves up and trick... oh, excuse me, appeal, appeal is of course what you meant to say, yeah, that's the ticket, appeal to supporters of the young or the old or the Latinos or the gays, how about asking them if they'd really like their choices to depend upon what favors the current crop of politicians in Washington D.C. are willing to grant to (or withhold from) them... or whether they might rather be secure in their own power to make those decisions about their own lives for themselves?

How about those 'educated youth' consider and reflect upon how govt has already helped to increase the cost of education beyond their reach, and get back to me on just how much more they really want govt to help them out?

For those who what govt to mandate marriage laws, gay or otherwise, how about first considering just who it is it that marries people? There are a few options of course, Churches, Justices of the Peace, Ship Captains... but I don't recall Congress being one of those typically involved in marrying people, do you? What place does govt have in marriage? Marriage is tough enough as it is, do you really want Govt involved in it? Do you really want an ever growing thousands of pages of statutes, codes and regulations describing and defining who it is that can get married?

Personally, I'd hate to see happen to the term "Marriage", what has happened to the word "Gay", there are any number of Christmas Carols that cannot be sung today without adolescents smirking when it comes time to sing the word. That kind of modernization I think we can do without. And traditionally, churches have defined Marriage as between a Man and a Woman... or as with Mormon's of a century ago, and Muslims of the modern day, a Man and Women. And of course while the modern Muslims demand stoning to death any same sex dalliance of any kind, still, if you can find a church that is willing to marry you, why should the govt have a say in the matter? Aren't you for a separation of church and state? Do you really want to change that?

Or are you one of those that say that you want the 'respect' of being able to say that you are 'married'? Have you looked at the level of respect that congress has in this nation today? Do you seriously believe, that govt, whose own level of respect is at all time lows, is going to succeed in requiring others to give your associations their respect?

Really? Government + Respect. I'm hearing George Carlin talking about Jumbo Shrimp again... how about you?

Or is it that you want the legal standing of married people in regards to insurance, inheritance, etc? Then what you want is not something proceeding from the pulpit, but more of a civil union, such as can be performed by a Justices of the peace and Ship Captains; contractual obligations that unite two people in a legal union.

So aren't you really saying that you want people to be able to form contracts and associations as they see fit, without the interference of others? Aren't you really saying that even if a majority of the people want to deprive you of your Rights - that you have a Natural Right to oppose them? And that Govt should uphold your Individual Rights, even if a majority of the people wish it were otherwise? Aren't you really saying that you want to make sure that no majority, moral or otherwise, can band together and deny you your liberty to make your own contracts and associate with who you please?

Welcome to another one of the timeless truths which make a Republican form of government (where Rights are upheld by law no matter the wishes of the majority), superior to that of a Democracy (where the majority decides what is, and isn't, 'right'), which is why our Founders defined, in our Constitution, that this nation would be a Republic,

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence."

Our Founders, those who you claim to be conserving, believed that the government has no business dictating or altering the terms of a contract freely entered into by adults, they saw to it that no state shall... pass any....

"... Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts,"

That my friend, is as conservative (in the Classical Liberal sense) as it gets, and was just as True 200 years ago, as it is today, timeless, rather than merely modern. What benefit would 'modernizing' that bring to anyone?

Well... what about appealing to 'Latinos'?

So... you think conservatives should start trying to appeal to 'Latinos'. How? Do you really want me to start trilling my L's like Obama and all of the other ridiculous News Anchors? Will that make me 'Latino friendly'? Is pronouncing particular words, or buying burritos in areas I might not normally venture, really going to make lllLLLah-teen-OHhs, my friends? Is that going to show how much I respect 'them'? Is it going to make 'them' like 'me'?

No way Jose.

How about this, how about if you (Latino, Irish, Canadian, etc.) would like to live your own life, without interfering with the lives of others doing the same, how about we restrain govt, and anyone else who might want to overpower you, from interfering in your living of your own life? How about we see to it that the Law takes no notice of your race or wealth or accent; but only of the truth and justice of your position?

On top of that, study after study has found that Latinos tend to be far more conservative, than leftist - it isn't Conservatism that has kept Latinos from voting on the Right side of the aisle, but idiot politicians paying more attention to rolling their L's, than to making clear how conservatism protects the rights of Latinos and everyone else in this nation together.

How about that as a 'conservative' policy towards lllLLLah-teen-OHhs, gays, the young, the old, the rich the poor and everyone else?

Because that is the only genuinely New political ideal that has been developed over the last several thousand years, ideas that were first tested out by the Founding Fathers of this nation. All the other available options, whether statist, marxist, socialist, racist, they are anything but 'new' or the means of making 'progress'; they are not new and they make no forward progress, they are instead the oldest ideas in game of political power. There is nothing older than those who seek to attain and hold power, by using it to play favors with those who (at the moment) can help them keep their hold on power, at the expense of every other 'little' person out there.

It was the true radicals, those of our Founding Father's era, who looked that ancient evil in the face and said 'No more'.

It took decades to work the kinks out, but those new ideas - the idea that govt derives its just powers from the consent of the governed, the idea that those holding the reigns of power in government must themselves obey its own laws, transforming that people into a nation of laws, and not of men, restraining itself from violating the individual rights of any of its people... that is the most brand spanking new idea on the political power scene, and all the others are out to get, and end, it, as they have been from the very beginning.

IMHO, That is a political philosophy worth conserving. How about you people who'd like to change that, drop the pretense of wanting to conserve anything at all, and just declare yourselves to be the ProRegressives you are? Because that is what you are if you are seeking to somehow 'modernize' conservatism. You are for, Pro, Regressing our system of government to a time where pesky things like Individual Rights and objective Laws didn't interfere with the power of those in power to, in Thrasymachus' words, do what they'd like for the 'advantage of the stronger'. that is what you are after, isn't? You want to lure the votes of the young, the old, the gay and the Latino, so that their uninformed consent will make you stronger? Or as IEP summarizes it:

1. Justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger (338c)
2. Justice is obedience to laws (339b)
3. Justice is nothing but the advantage of another (343c).

Just come out and say that you'd like to use the power of your organization to influence the ultimate organization, govt, to shower flattery and favors upon whichever group you feel will help you get whatever power it is that you want? How about you just come out and say that you are after Power for powers sake, and drop the pretense of wanting to secure anyone's liberty to live their own lives in pursuit of their own chosen happiness?

Oh... yeah... it doesn't work that way either, does it? If you come out and say that you want the power to tell people what to do with their own lives, people tend to not vote for them. So you have to pretend to before them, before you can be against them, is that it?

Well I'll let you get back to trying to fooling all of the people all of the time, and I'll just get back to doing my best to recover what is true; and to doing my best to conserve the only political philosophy ever created for the purpose of securing the liberty of its people to live their own lives, and the Constitution formed from those ideas, so that people can clearly see, just who it is that wants to give their fellows the liberty to live their own lives, and who it is that wants to grasp the reigns, and more importantly the whip, of power, so that they can gain power over everyone else, and use the power of govt to dictate how to live their lives for them.

Let me put the starting point of my position plainly. If what I believe is not true in any time and place, then it has no claim to truth, or to my interest. If what I believe excludes, or includes, anyone, on the basis of their age, race, wealth, gender, accent, origin, etc, then it has no claim to truth, or to my interest. And while admittedly conservatism requires an Educated people to prosper and prevail, a people 'educated' to the idea that nothing is right and nothing is wrong, have declared themselves to have no grasp of what is true, or any claim to my interest.

The way forward will not to be found by making ourselves more 'modern', but more timeless. I wish to conserve liberty, not to transform it into something less than zero. How about you?

Not the end of history, but the midst of it. Carry on.

Last night, right about the time this picture was taken with some friends, I sent a Tweet:

"Ladies & Gents, I have a prediction. In about 6 hours, the sun'll come up. Get a grip. We've got interesting times coming. Rise to it. ;-) "

One of the replies I received was that,

... yes, the sun would rise, with UV rays that'll give us skin cancer & kill us all!

ROFLMAO!

Oh, come on people! Get a grip! If the day to day of life is that difficult for you, it's probably because you live your life mired in the present, where each ripple feels like being buffeted by storm surge waves. Get some perspective. Read some history.

An after election scotch with Scott (off camera), Letitia (the knee), moi,
JD, Chris & Dana (snapped by Jen)

Consider what it must have been like to hold onto conservative thoughts while living through re-election after re-election after re-election under FDR.

Or even worse, imagine what it must have been like to have beaten back the beast with Harding/Coolidge, only to see the country turn towards the ProRegressive Hoover, with the inkling of the disaster that'd follow.

Or even worse than that, to have actually lived as a free man at the turn of the 20th century, only to see it traded away for treats under Teddy Roosevelt, and then locked in with constitutional amendments under Wilson; imagine seeing your once free nation suddenly turning to locking up thousands of your fellow Americans for the crime of disagreeing with the policies of the Wilson Administration.

That would be tough.

And yet still, the sun would rise again, and life would simply go on, completely careless of your pain. That's just the way it works.

Do I need to extend that back any further? To the Civil War? The wrenching anguish of deciding upon revolution in 1776? The horrifying struggles to survive Jamestown? The loss of Roanoke? Caesar overthrowing the Republic of Rome? The fall of Rome? Hellooo...?

And you think the sun is going to pause in its course, and life is going to wait for you to get your head together, because Barack Obama was re-elected POTUS?

Go stand in the corner, and don't you dare make a noise or come out until you've recovered, or I'll draw a circle for you to put your nose in.

Seriously.

Grow up.

The election's over. Deal with it. The sun came up this morning, as I predicted it would last night, and I'm pretty confident that it is going to continue to do so.

The Real Miracle
It took thousands of years to reach the miracle that was, is and are, the ideas America was founded upon. The fact that that understanding has been largely lost over the last century, is far less impressive than the fact that they were found, and instituted and stood out in this world for over a century.

We are not at the end of history, but in the midst of it. Yes, the pendulum has swung away from center, but the good news is that it will, eventually, swing back, but it will do so at history's pace, not yours. If you want to encourage its pace, learn the ideas that first animated America, and spread them. Nothing less will change history's course.

25 years ago today, I changed my life when Carol married me and made me a part of hers. 25 years, three kids and a life worth living later, I've learned not to mistake the distractions of the daily events, for what is really real. If you expect me to pretend that the re-election of the living lie that is Barack Obama and his policies, that that fiction is supposed to distract me from the reality of living my life... then I'm laughing at your superior intelligence.

Understand, I'm not being a Pollyanna here, I'm not predicting smooth sailing. In fact I'm doubling down on the doom and gloom that I've seen coming for years. Bad times are coming. But they always were, and always will be.

I just refuse to grant that any significance in my life.

What was true yesterday, is still true today, as is the need to stand by it. And the need to do your best to spread the understanding of it.

As to Romney's call to end political bickering:

Up Yours. Viva la Gridlock!

New Tone.

;-)

People have asked me

'Didn't you expect Romney to win?'

No. I hoped he would, absolutely. But I understood that hope very rarely brings change, on it's own.

Elections do not cause change, they register it.

I, who have been focused on the state of Education, and have a pretty good grasp of history, have never expected to 'win' in less than 50 years. Sooo... no, I'm not surprised, and I didn't expect the task at hand to change even if Romney won (in fact, I told friends early on yesterday, that if he won, I thought that our task would be just getting started) - such a win might have made things less difficult, but I never expected it to change or improve things.

So, with that, I have the same optimism I had before the election, and which I had several years before the rest of the world realized it was time for a Tea Party; that being, that if everything goes swimmingly our way, without a single hitch or swerve, it would take 50 years to restore the full ideas of America to the minds of Americans, which is the only change that has a hope of changing things for the good.

Yesterday was a swerve.

Oh well. As Gagdad Bob put it: "S.N.A.F.U." Exactly. Carry on.

The task at hand has not changed, and still remains. Nothing has changed from yesterday.

Forward.

Slave or American - how would you ask it? How will you Vote?

The time has come around again to ask an old question anew. I'd been prodding leftists for a while when I first asked this question a couple years ago, in the comments at One Cosmos, in January of 2010, and I've repeated it in many places and many times since. I've still yet to receive any worthy response to it... nothing other than confusion or anger. One of the regulars commenter's there, Hoarhey, suggested I make it a permanent post, which I did (down on the sidebar... Right side, natch), and what with tomorrow being election day, it is about high time to raise it again, because this is the question that it all comes down to.

To be a house slave... or to be an American. But I'm not asking you that question.

Though that is the choice you are making when you go (or don't go) to the polls. Will you cast your vote with the party/candidate that has a realistic chance of unseating the opposition, or will you choose to throw your vote out of harms way to fan your own vanity under the guise of 'being principled'?

Obama or Romney? Casting your vote for anyone else is casting it away from the fight, and for Obama.

McCaskill or Akin? Any other vote is a vote for Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader.

To be a house slave... or to be an American - That is your choice tomorrow... but it's still not the question I'm asking you... give me a moment more.

What, you think I'm being too dramatic? Why? Have you ever bothered to think about what makes the life one's living, one lived as a slave or in liberty? Do you really think that only the presence of a whip determines the correct answer?

What prompted this question that I'm about to ask you, the first time, was an anonymous anninymouse comment, stating that essentially we conservatives were just being hysterical about ObamaCare, that we should all just relax and let Obama, Pelosi & Reid do their thing because

"The nation is fine. We have a good nation. We have a bright future. We have happy people. Can you not accept these things?"

Can I accept these things... with their definitions? No. Can you? Can you accept the rapidly increasing instances of reduced or lost rights to property, life, liberty and right to pursue our own idea of happiness... as issues we can 'just accept'? As infringements that are just harmless and meaningless trifles?

Hell no!

But I'm not asking you, directly, which you'd choose... instead I'm asking you how you'd explain the choice to someone else.

The question I posed to the aninnymouse, and which I offer up to you (and you could still be the first  to answer this question), is not a difficult one; it is not as if I'm asking for anyone to actually define what Rights are, or anything like that... I'm just going to pose the following scenario and then ask you to answer me one simple question... ready?

The Question

Here's the scenario:

Suppose there's a place nearby where people are actually enslaved, enslaved in the good old fashioned pre-civil war sense, and you, a righteous leftie, working in association with an underground railroad, have a chance for a brief private moment alone with a pampered well kept house slave, one of those 'cared-for-like-one-of-the-family' house slaves (you know, the sort ya'll lefties used to accuse Condi Rice of being?)... how would you interest this house slave in escaping with you, to make a break and escape to the sort of 'freedom' you propose for us today... how would you induce them them to make a break to live in a land where 'all is fine, good, bright futures and happy people' such as the left, offers us today..?

Hmm?

• Would you tell them that they'd be able to live their life as they chose (as long as that meant buying govt defined healthcontrol or risk fines and imprisonment)?
• Would you tell them they'd be able to keep their own money and plan their own future (as long as those plans included forking over 20%-80% of their earnings for 'necessary' services(don't worry what those might be, governocrats will decide) and the 'social security' of having govt plan their retirements)?
• Would you tell them they could own their own property (as long as govt didn't see a better use for it... as they did for Susette Kelo's home... it's such a nice vacant lot now, isn't it?)?
• Would you tell them they could perhaps build up a family business and pass it down to their kids (unless it were something that the govt decided to 'rescue', like a car dealership)?
• Would you tell them that they'd be able to raise their kids and give them a good education (as long as that meant in govt approved schools with govt approved teaching certificates and with an Obama govt safe school czar curriculum)?

Would you tell them... well... what would you tell them to make them want to leave their cushy house slave status, to make them consider leaving a comfortable house slave position where they're on such good and personable terms with their masters... what would you tell them to make them risk that cushy spot ... in order to exchange it for your leftie house slave status?... where they could have a nice DMV like relationship with their bureaucrat masters?

What would you tell them?

What will you tell the nation today as you cast your vote?

Do tell.

The American Answer

I know what I'd tell them, assuming I lived in a free nation, one with constitutionally protected liberties and secure property rights... I'd tell them 'Come with me if you want to live!'

But given that such a country, a free nation, with constitutionally protected liberties and secure property rights, no longer exists in the world today, there is only one thing to be said... there is no where to escape to... it is up to us, all of us, now, to restore that freedom and liberty and their security through Property Rights, to this nation, here and now! It's not such a hard fight, the foundation for it, our Constitution, already exists, we only have to remind those we've put in it's offices, of what it says, and what it means, and more importantly, and more urgently, we have to remind the citizens of this great nation, of what it says, of what it means, and why it is important to them and their children, why being a house slave, no matter how cushy the position, is nothing in comparison to living your own life, with liberty to pursue what you see as your own happiness.

Luckily for us we don't have to come up with all of the ideas and arguments for a nation based upon laws, rather than the whims of men - some folks already did a very thorough job of considering such issues before us. In fact, centuries worth of consideration upon such issues has already resulted in a thorough examination of the concepts of Individual Rights, of fixed and objective Law rooted in Natural Law, as opposed to the whims of Leviathan... and a revolution was already fought for them - and won. And even after our Founding Fathers initial attempt at a government based opon those theories alone proved to be ineffective, some of the greatest men in history got together at a convention in Philadelphia, and wrote the Constitution of the United States of America.

A Framework For Governing And Upholding Our Rights
But as fine a document as the Constitution was, after the entire nation debated that framework for governing and of how to implement them, they found it to be wanting... and they insisted that there be added to that constitution, a Bill of Rights, and after much further consideration, eventually settling on 10 amendments, in order to make it inconceivable that a Tyranny could ever arise in this land... at least not while that Bill of Rights stood firm and kept our government in check, by protecting:

1. Our Right to Free Speech and Freedom of Religion, and the Right to Petition our government and to Free Assembly,
2. Our Right to Bear Arms,
3. The Right to be secure from government intrusion in your home, and "that a man's house shall be his own castle",
4. That the "...right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated..."
5. The Right to due process of law, and that no private property will be taken for public use, without just compensation
6. The Right to a fair and speedy trial
7. The Right to trial by jury
8. The Right to be held without excessive bail or cruel or unusual punishment
Those people back then, people just like us, but much more aware of how a once loved government can quickly turn into Tyranny, they felt secure enough in these Rights, these 'parchment barriers', only because the vital concepts of Natural Law were enshrined in the Constitution through both the presence of
9. The Ninth Amendment, which was there to prevent those in power within the government from abusing or reducing the Rights of the people: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people",
10. and because it was doubly secured through the Tenth Amendment, which made it crystal clear, that "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Read your Rights as stated in these links, but more importantly, read through the material linked to beneath those amendments, they explain what those ideas meant, the arguments for and against them - understand what they mean! It is really not rocket science! Read the constitution, read how it was so carefully structured in order to be able to balance such issues of the Rights of the people against the needs of the state, how it was intended to balance the lust for power (which they knew to fear even in those they admired) of those in one branch of government, against the lust for power of those in the other branches of government, for as the quote attributed to George Washington says,

"Government is not reason, nor eloquence. It is force. And like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearsome master."

IOW, for those of you who think 'all is well'... Don't turn your back on it!

Read the reasoning behind the debates on each clause of the Constitution, here, start with the Preamble... scroll down, familiarize yourself with the ideas that went to it, before blindly dismissing what some of the finest minds in history had to say on the same issues, in principle, which we face today, do that, and you may help spare us from becoming House Slaves.

So Now What?

Assuming you understand its importance, and wish to protect it - what can you do about it?

Plenty.

Two years ago, the best I could tell you was

  ... to speak up, speak up in private, speak up in public, whenever someone snickers, as Pelosi did, at the idea the the Constitution should have any restraint upon their desire to wield power over us, if like her, they as "Are you serious?!" - answer Yes, and be able to explain why. Get involved locally, not just for U.S. Congressional and Senate races, but even more importantly, in your State and Local races, and in your Party politics. NOW!

But today there is something you can do, right now, today - cast your vote.

Cast your vote like a stone between the eyes of the greatest threat facing our liberty today. But when you cast it, make sure it will make an impact, make sure that you oppose the greater threat, with the candidate most likely to be able to keep the greater threat out of power. Anything less, lets them pass unhindered. Any vote for a weak 3rd party candidate, is a vote that misses the mark, a vote that slows the beast not one bit, it is a vote that turns from the fight and leaves the field to the most ruthless.

For President, that means casting your vote with Romney/Ryan... any other is shot in the air that will not phase the Obama and his regulators one whit.

For Senator, in Missouri, that means Todd Akin... any other is a vote that will keep Harry Reid secure as Majority Leader in the Senate.

You stand alone at the bridge - will you stand your ground?
You don't stand alone, but you must make your choice alone... do you see it clearly? It is an easy thing to do, but it is not a small choice, it is momentous and its effects will be long reaching... it is the sort of choice that stories are written and lived for... don't let the fact that you have no sound track trick you into believing that your part is insignificant. It is not, and those stories of grand adventures are told for the very reason of helping you decide how to proceed in 'small' matters such as your stepping into the voting booth. Long before there was Gandalf at the bridge facing down the Balrog, there was Horatius at the bridge facing down an army, and what was true in the 'fiction' of Tolkein's Lord of the Rings, was true in history 2,000 years ago, and it is just as true today - you must stand and make a choice, between what is right, and what is easy.

Will you stand your ground and declare to those who would trod your liberty underfoot, that "You shall not pass!"... or will you welcome them in with thanks for their gifts of baubles and chains for you?

The choice is yours.

Choose to fight and fight well... or settle in for having Govt live your life for you.

And pray you get a cushy job in the masters house. Far, far away from me.