Constitution Day - Considering the greatest of all reflections on human nature

What is it that we celebrate today, Constitution Day, but the efforts of our Founding Fathers, 225 years ago, to harness the pursuit of power, and force it to serve the pursuit of happiness?

It is simply the greatest achievement in history, to date, to enable men to live in liberty, with one another, while disagreeing with each other, under the protection of the Rule of Law.

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

It's worth noting that our Founding Generation found the efforts of the Framers of the Constitution... wanting. They very nearly refused to ratify the document, not because it wasn't an elegant solution to harnessing power, but because they felt it didn't go far enough in securing our Individual Rights. But, in the end, they took a risk, that politicians could be trusted to provide the lacking Bill of Rights afterwards, and though they almost reneged, James Madison insisted that their word be kept, and though he disliked the idea of a Bill of Rights, he submitted a series of amendments which, after vigorous debate, became the original Ten Amendments to the Constitution that we know of as the Bill of Rights, amended to the Constitution for the purpose of restraining the power which the Constitution harnessed into the hands of men:

"Begun and held at the City of New York, on Wednesday, the 4th of March, 1789.
The conventions of a number of the states having, at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added; and as extending the ground of public confidence in the government will best insure the beneficent ends of its institution;--"

Madison didn't dislike the idea of a Bill of Rights because he didn't want to secure our Rights, but because he feared that any list of Rights, in the hands of politicians, would serve as snares and loopholes to all our Rights, limiting them to only those words written upon parchment. But in the process of writing his amendments, he hit upon the ideas that would become our 9th and 10th Amendments, reserving all those Rights and Powers not listed, to the people and those powers not listed, to the states.

And now we are engaged in an elections, an election, "testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure." If you have not considered what rests at the core of our Constitution, the balancing of powers against powers, forcing ambition to serve liberty... not an easy task. As Madison put it in Federalist #51:

"But the great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack..Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

Coming into this election, forget about the personalities of Obama & Romney, and look at what they propose... look especially hard at what Obama's administration and his Regulatory Czars are proposing. Consider whether or not a federal agency that can arbitrarily decree that Americans must purchase no less than four gallons of gasoline; consider whether or not that power is balanced against anything at all, so as to serve your liberty - or to extinguish it.

Our Constitution was devised so as to put Government at the service of your ability to live your own life. Is it still serving that function, or imperiling it? That's a question you'd better consider, and  cast your vote upon, because it will determine the direction of this government turns towards, or forever away from, enabling you, your children and your children's children, to live their own lives - or not.

DOTUS Obama 2012: Making Carter 1979 look fierce - An utter and complete disgrace

The DOTUS (Disgrace of the United States of America) had the temerity to say of Mitt Romney that he

"seems to have a tendency to shoot first and aim later."

An amazing thing to say, from the person who has shown himself to aim, but not shoot (recall the almost Iranian revolution), and his habit of shooting without ever aiming (his abandonment of Egyptian President Mubarek and losing Egypt as an ally of America), and his preference to simply hand the gun over to others to shoot for him (putting our military under the command of NATO, to overthrow Libyan President Khadaffy), and far beyond a mere slip of the lip, his actions, inaction's and failure to act, has resulted in a dead United States Ambassador and three other personnel.

I don't have too much to say myself, this administration in particular and the Democrat party in general, they are an utter and complete disgrace. Your memory doesn't even have to be tested. Recall Hillary Clinton, after the unjustifiable and ill-advised lending our military personal to NATO to overthrow our tame monster in Libya, chortled about the death of Kadaffy:

"We came, we saw, he died! (hahaha!)"

Aside from the complete lack of common sense, which kept the Obama administration for even suspecting that it might not be a good idea in a nation of savages, that if you overthrow their brutal leader, who at least kept them under control and kept the even more brutal Al Queda at bay, that disaster was very likely going to follow. But even worse than that lack of forethought, it appears that they had ample warning of the violence to come,

"But according to the Independent, she had no reason to be puzzled. Quoting senior diplomatic sources, the paper reports, “the US State Department had credible information 48 hours before mobs charged the consulate in Benghazi, and the embassy in Cairo, that American missions may be targeted.” Nonetheless, “no warnings were given for diplomats to go on high alert and ‘lockdown,’ under which movement is severely restricted.” "

Hillary Clinton on the disaster in Libya, the death of a U.S. Ambassador and three personnel, had the friggin' gall to ask

"Today many Americans are asking, indeed I asked myself, 'How could this happen? How could this happen in a country we helped liberate? In a city we helped save from destruction?'" Clinton asked. "

The Russian's perhaps summed this up best,

"Aleksei K. Pushkov, the head of Russia’s parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote via Twitter: “Under Qaddafi they didn’t kill diplomats. Obama and Clinton are in shock? What did they expect – ‘Democracy?’ Even bigger surprises await them in Syria.”"

Which is particularly fitting, given that the DNC Convention, in a tribute to American Veterans, displayed in 50 foot tall screens across the stage and to the nation, Russian warships! In a salute to US vets!

 And let's not forget about DNC Convention chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, blatantly lying to your own convention and the entire nation with:

"In the opinion of the chair, two-thirds have voted in the affirmative"

But as almost comical the immorality and incompetence of our DOTUS Obama, and seemingly the entire Democrat party are, it goes far beyond being embarrassing, their actions are having real consequences, ones that are spreading destruction and destabilization around the world.


The entire Democrat party is an utter and complete disgrace.

The 9/11 Copybook Heading

There's no doubt that we will remember 9/11 for quite some time to come, but what we remember and why, is far less certain.

More than remembering where I was 11 years ago, I remember how we got there. By denying the reality of what we faced in the World Trade Center bombing, the hijacking of airliners and cruise ships, the bombing of our interests around the world and of the USS Cole, by refusing to deal with evil as is required, evil strolled up and gave us a hug on 9/11, 11 years ago.

Have we learned the lesson? I don't even need to turn on the News to know that the answer is: Not even close.

The cost has been, and no doubt will again be, the likes of 9/11, as the Gods of the Copybook Headings limp up to explain it once more... reasoning with those who are unreasonable, giving measured responses in reply to savagery, enables the evil to harm the good. Remember this 9/11, that 'measured responses' are why those who attacked us on 9/11, 11 years ago, were still alive and able to attack us - the fruition of a decade worth of 'measured responses'.

Leftists deny the existence of Evil, and 'Conservatives' deny the necessity of dealing with evil as the evil that they are. Fearing that Just retribution brings us 'down to their level', they insist on 'reasonable' and 'measured' responses, blind to the fact that such measures extend a hand up to evil, which it will use to reach up and hammer you in the face - the face they never could have reached without the aid of those 'measured responses'.

Conservatives like O'Reilly are the reason why I'm uncomfortable calling myself a Conservative. For conversations sake, I use the term as a shorthand, half-step towards the more accurate term, Classical Liberal. And I have a holy hell full of spite for the ProRegressive Leftists who have made it necessary to tack 'Classical' onto that.

If the policy of the interviewee in this video, Leonard Peikoff, had been followed back in 2001, I believe we'd have been done worrying about Iran & the Middle East a decade ago. Instead, we followed the lead of dunderheads like O'Reilly, whose 'measured responses' have drawn the conflict out, strengthened Iran and put us in the position we are in today.

A proper foreign policy is "Mind your own business & we'll mind ours. Mess with us or ours, and we'll destroy you. Period."

Anything less, reasoning with those who are unreasonable, giving measured responses in reply to savagery, etc., are concessions and only serve to enable those who wish us harm. The history of the last couple decades is that of those who wish us harm, understanding this truth, and understanding that we don't understand it, and using it to play us to their benefit.

And the cost has been, and will be, the likes of 9/11, as once again, as the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more:

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Please, try to remember 9/11 as the lesson we won't have to learn once more.

Reality will not be denied, and Evil will not be turned aside because you choose to turn away from it. Deny that, and the Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return. Please. Just face the facts and learn the lesson so we don't have to learn it once more.

DNC: Give us those reins of Govt that you all belong to!

DNC: Give us those reins of Govt that you all belong to!
Well I've got to say thank you to the DNC for finally clearing up a question that has baffled me for years. I've asked people of the leftist persuasion, over and over again, in every way I could think of, how they could support not only a political party, but a philosophy, that is intent on ensuring that you will have only a secondary role in living your own life. How could people possibly support them without seeing that their lives would no longer be their own?

The DNC has finally given me an answer to this troubling question of mine. What was the answer from the DNC?

"So? What's the problem with that? You do belong to the government. Really."

And please, leftists, those of you bristling at how I worded that... hold your objections for a few more lines, and then see if you really want to argue the point.

The video introduced at the beginning of the DNC, was written, prepared, edited, reviewed by the local Democratic committee, and then approved of by the Democratic National Committee, as being representative of their views and recorded in voice over by the Democratic Mayor of Charlotte. It states:

"We do believe that we can use government in a good way. Government is the only thing we all belong to."

That was a planned, scripted, edited and approved of statement that was selected to acquaint the American people with the Democrat Party and to convey 'Who they are', and it was considered entirely uncontroversial by democrats, large and small. It only received some attention (aka thrown under the bus) as Americans caught wind of it the next day:

Embarrassed Obama campaign staffers were compelled to disavow the video after Mitt Romney gave the one and only true American response, via Twitter: “We don’t belong to government, the government belongs to us.”

“The video in question was produced and paid for by the host committee of the city of Charlotte,” sniffed an anonymous Obama for America official, quoted at Buzzfeed. “It’s neither an OFA nor a DNC video, despite what the Romney campaign is claiming. It’s time for them to find a new target for their faux outrage.”

Wow.

Do you think they just allow any old group to plop down an intro video to be played to the entire convention, not to mention going out through every network news-feed to the entire nation, at the kick off their convention, without careful review? As if they say "Eh, nah, we don't need to review or approve it, just put whatever you want out there, no biggee"? Really?

But in case you really do think that some rogue elements somehow hoodwinked the Public Relations people and the opinion police of those whose opinions do actually matter in the DNC, to the chagrin and offendedness of the party members... have a listen to those attendees to the DNC 2012 convention, as they gave their reactions to the statement. A questioner asks them:

• One of the themes put forth tonight at the convention was "We all belong to the Government.", 'How does it feel to be owned by the government?'

This reply is the least enthusiastic of the conventioneer's replies:

"I think regardless of where you grow up, and regardless of where you live, you're gonna be owned by someone at some point, so I think the American government so far has been a fair government, so I don't necessarily hate that I'm owned by them at this point"

, what is that? Pre-Emptive enslavement? This one is much more representative,

"It feels like one big, happy family, to work, to belong to the government, it feel that way because we're more safer, we should feel that government can help us, can take care of us...."

, as is this,

"It feels great. I support that."

, and this,

"I absolutely agree with that."

It is truly stunning, a view I would have thought more at home in the USSR, Mao's China, or even 1920's Germany, than from key members of one of the two major political parties in the United States of America. I suspect that the Founding Fathers response to the Democrat's claim that "The Government is the only thing we all belong to.", would be something like "We didn't build THAT!" But the Obamacrats reply seems to be that "This is just a feature that comes free with entitlements and a $16 trillion dollar debt - get used to it."

And no, leftie spinsters, they are not looking at "The Government is the only thing we all belong to" in the way that people choose to belong to a club - look at the replies of the people who were questioned in the video! They see themselves as actually belonging to the state, and they see that as not only a good thing, but as a given. And in one dark sense, I suppose that is correct, for when you go so far into debt, $16 trillion dollars worth... there is a sense that your life really does belong to another... but that's nothing to be pleased about.

And yet they are pleased.

I can't tell you how deeply that horrifies me. These are less people who are looking to elect a president, than who are looking to give their lives over to a leader. That's bad news. Bad news for Liberty, bad news for the rule of law, bad news for even the pretence of living your own life.

The Power to choose for you
There is an embarrassment of riches coming out of this convention, and I almost hate to pile on the evidence, but... I'll get over it. One jewel in particular lends its shine to the 'We belong!' theme above. When the DNC moved to reinsert language in the Democrat Platform, referencing God and of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, to forestall a firestorm that someone belatedly realized 'might' follow their having been taken out, it caused a firestorm all it's own.

The details are as the L.A. Times puts it:

"Four years ago, the Democrats included the word God in their official platform, writing, "“We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of working people, and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.” That line was originally omitted from the 2012 document and reinserted Wednesday night. “As an ordained United Methodist minister, I am here to attest and affirm that our faith and belief in God is central to the American story, and informs the values we've expressed in our party's platform,” Strickland said in introducing the amendments. “In addition, President Obama recognizes Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, and our party's platform should as well.""

, and seeking to fix that, it fell to DNC Convention chairman, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, to dispense with the formality of a voice vote of delegates, in compliance with the script on his teleprompter. As the hapless mayor goes about reading the teleprompter script, the cognitive dissonance he experiences between reading "Two-thirds majority" from the teleprompter, and the 50-50 split his lying ears were presenting him with, is just too much for him. He valiantly tries reading "In the opinion of the..." and stops. The break between what the teleprompter tells him is real, and the reality plainly on display before him - and to the nation via T.V. - is just too great.

He tries it again. But again it is clearly at least a 50-50 split, with maybe even a tad more vocal voice to the nay side. His face is priceless. "This can't be!" his expression says, and he stammers a moment, looks about for help, finds none, and then tries it again, but he's still not getting the response his script tells him he should be getting. A lady standing on the platform near him can be heard saying "you gotta let them do what their gonna do", which seemingly snaps him out of it, he knows he can't allow that to happen, so he once again repeats the 'All those in favor, all opposed" line, but this time, though still clearly getting the same 50-50 split, he follows the teleprompters orders to follow the script, and says "In the opinion of the chair, two-thirds have voted in the affirmative", and simply disregards the irate boos of those who know he is lying; lying to them and to the nation.

Ladies and Gentlemen: This is what Democracy looks like! And it always has. Demagogues,and power brokers who manage to get put into power by "The will of the People!", do to the people, whatever it is that they think would be best, in their opinion, to done unto them, or as Rousseau put it, with such ignorant people ,

"This means nothing less than that he will be forced to be free"

That is what the true meaning of "We do believe that we can use government in a good way" is!

If you have any lingering doubts, look at the people in the video loudly voicing their "Nay!" votes. They are angry. And they almost seem surprised. But they aren't. They know that this is, and always was, a sham.

I'm certainly not surprised.

It is the logical end result of believing that Reality is what you wish it to be, that 'Man is the measure of all things', that Rights come from the state. Ladies and Gents, if that is your premise, then of course those people who you have put into power over you, are going to measure out whatever measure of reality they feel you are capable of managing, in the role they have determined would be best for you to play, for them. For the greater good. Of course.

But what I wasn't prepared for, was the fact that so many people not only have realized the implications of this train of thought, but who are not revolted by it... that is so incredibly disturbing and as an American (as defined by ideas rather than birth) disheartening.

The Change that remains the same
Despite claims of Progress and moving Forward!, this is not a new argument. In Plato's Republic, Thrasymacus, the father of "Might makes Right!", made that very point, very clearly and very early on, that

"Listen, then, he said; I proclaim that justice is nothing else than, the interest of the stronger. "

, and neither Plato's gyrations through the Republic to make Justice out to be those ideas that the enlightened ones say it is, or to be those things that an individual dictator desires, or to be the views of the mob, er, democracy, clamoring that Justice is whatever the majority say it is - it is all the of the same kind, and the ultimate meaning of it is that

'You all belong to us, give thanks to us as we proceed to do good unto you.'

That IS the meaning of "We do believe that we can use government in a good way. Government is the only thing we all belong to.""

It was its meaning 2,500 years ago, and it is its meaning today.

It is the meaning behind the Obama administration's HHS saying that "You will pay for birth control", and behind the meaning of "under my plan of cap and trade system... electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket", it is in the nature of the assumption that a crazed mass murderer 'must be!' a Tea Partier, while a Muslim Terrorist in the Army is simply a work place shooting. It is the meaning of the POTUS having effectively nationalized GM, installed not one, but two CEO's, stomped upon the claims of bondholders, mandated the sale of privately owned businesses (remember the GM dealerships the Obama administration stole and spread around to friends?).

This all comes from discarding what is real and true, for what you wish were real and true - that is the ultimate meaning and result of 'man is the measure of all things', or as Barack Obama put it:

...Falsani: Do you believe in sin?
Obama: Yes.
Falsani: What is sin?
Obama: Being out of alignment with my values.

Have you ever found a pithier summary of the narcissistic core of today’s “progressive” Left-liberal ideology? I’m not sure I have...

When you make man the measure of all things, you can no longer turn to reality for a standard to measure their judgment against. That gives absolute power to men, and absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

There is no Progress in Regress
What I wish I could point out to all those who are buying into this, is that far from moving our society forward, this is moving us all as backwards in time as it is possible to go. It took some 2,500 years, from defining the question of whether it was Just for people to belong to the state, or not, back in ancient Athens, to some 200 years ago, to reach the ultimate response and refutation of that idea, in our Founding Father's era. The Declaration of Independence sums it up well:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

The long line of thought that runs from Socrates, through Thucydides, Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Aquinas, Locke, reached its high water mark in history with a nation founded upon the idea that Individuals had the right to live their own lives, and governments were instituted to preserve their liberty to do just that.

That was true Progress.

But you cannot make progress by reversing that development. You cannot make progress by diminishing the power of the individual in favor of increasing the power of the state over them. Yet that is what the left is intent upon doing.

Harry Reid says that Obama has saved jobs, and 'invested' in America, but that is Not government's role, or even within its ability to do so, and when it takes the power upon itself to attempt it, it takes our money and gives it to those who they want to, they do not do so as a venture capitalist would, with a cautious eye to returning a profit on your investment, with an eye towards the betterment of investor, business owner, and customers alike. Instead, Govt behaves as only a Crony Capitalist would dare venture to, with an eye to bestowing favors, enhancing political power, and gaining favor in the voters eye, which is the bane of our nation's Capital, and of the  remaining capital in our wallets.

Michelle Obama said last night that Barack knows the importance of the hard thing to do... while saying that a strong part of his 'signature achievement' is enabling (aka: Govt.forcing insurance providers to do good) 'kids' to live on their parents insurance to 26 years of age? That's the hard thing to do? And also 'enabling' (ditto) that woman should get free recreational sex pills in their insurance package, even if it goes against not only your own choice in the matter, but even against your religious beliefs - that's the hard thing to do? Using power to flatter your pet preferences without regard to the opinion and rights of those who disagree? That's hard?

Michelle Obama said that 'Being president doesn't change who you are, it reveals who you are' which is something I entirely agree with. And in the 'You didn't build that!' world of Barack Obama, he is an Empty Chair for the 100+ year old, stale, musty, ideas of Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. And those Wilsonian ideals which were posing as moving Forward! over a century ago, they are in fact are examples of sliding us backwards towards a world of crowns and scepters, of Rulers and the ruled.

In pulling us back from the brink of that ProRegressive nightmare a century ago, President Coolidge saw things quite differently from our current POTUS. Coolidge said,

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.

In the development of its institutions America can fairly claim that it has remained true to the principles which were declared 150 years ago. In all the essentials we have achieved an equality which was never possessed by any other people. Even in the less important matter of material possessions we have secured a wider and wider distribution of wealth. The rights of the individual are held sacred and protected by constitutional guaranties, which even the Government itself is bound not to violate. If there is any one thing among us that is established beyond question, it is self government; the right of the people to rule. If there is any failure in respect to any of these principles, it is because there is a failure on the part of individuals to observe them.

What this means is that:

• You can't move Forward! by denying Individuals the Right to live their own lives and while empowering bureaucrats to live your life for you.
• You cannot move Forward! by moving away from a nation of laws, and towards a nation where those in power administer executive orders to benefit their crony capitalist friends.
• You cannot move Forward! by regressing back to a time where Individual Rights are unrecognized by law, giving power to those who flatter the collective desires of the majority at the expense of the rights of individuals.

That is not Progress, that is Regress, and regress most ancient and foul, which is precisely what it means to say that "We can use government in a good way. Government is the only thing we all belong to."

It is because the leftist views you as something which belongs to them, that they are also able to view your 'rights' as conditional benefits which they give to you... on condition of your good behavior. When they say that 'We can use government in a good way', you can easily see what they mean by looking to the friendly neighborhood regulatory agency nearest you, and if you don't know where to look, look in your food, in your house, in your school, in your vehicle, in your job, in your education, in your bank, in your investments, in your entertainment, in your phone, in your internet... they are most certainly there, making, and preventing, choices beyond measure. Get the picture? Making those choices for you, is the means of conditioning your 'good' behavior.

Jonah Goldberg uses a quote to open his new book 'The Tyranny of Cliches: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas', from George Orwell's review of Bertrand Russell's book on the wonders of 'Power!', that fits here,

 "...we have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men."

, which I agree with, and so, yet once again, I'll restate the most obvious point of all, that Karl Marx said:

"the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property."

It doesn't matter if you are a Marxist, or Socialist or Communist, or a Progressive, or on the Left or the RINO Right, if the sum of your ideas boil down to that same fundamental principle, then despite what you call yourself, it will look the same in the end. Because as you lose your say over, your control over, your ownership over, what you typically think of as being yours, such as your food, home, education, car, job, bank, investments, entertainment, phone, internet... you progressively lose your right to live your own life, and you will soon find that others are living it for you.

And once that happens, you will have lost your liberty, and you will belong to those who do possess and control those things which those who once lived their own lives, once owned and controlled, themselves. What it is that you call that political system doesn't matter, what does matter, is that under the power of that government, you will not have the liberty to live your own life. Those who you belong to, will determine how to live your life for you.

As a dear friend of mine, one that I grew up with, and who unfortunately died about a century and a half ago, Frederich Bastiat, said 160 years ago,.

If I had to point out the characteristic trait that differentiates socialism from the science of economics, I should find it here. Socialism includes a countless number of sects. Each one has its own utopia, and we may well say that they are so far from agreement that they wage bitter war upon one another. Between M. Blanc's organized social workshops and M. Proudhon's anarchy, between Fourier's association and M. Cabet's communism, there is certainly all the difference between night and day. What, then, is the common denominator to which all forms of socialism are reducible, and what is the bond that unites them against natural society, or society as planned by Providence? There is none except this: They do not want natural society. What they do want is an artificial society, which has come forth full-grown from the brain of its inventor. It is true that each one desires to play Jupiter to this Minerva; it is true that each one fondly caresses his own invention and dreams of his own social order. But what they have in common is their refusal to recognize in mankind either the motive force that impels men toward the good or the self-healing power that delivers them from evil. They quarrel over who will mold the human clay, but they agree that there is human clay to mold. Mankind is not in their eyes a living and harmonious being endowed by God Himself with the power to progress and to survive, but an inert mass that has been waiting for them to give it feeling and life; human nature is not a subject to be studied, but matter on which to perform experiments.

ProRegressives like to think they're 'New!' & 'Forward!' in their 'thinking', but Bastiat had them pegged 150 yrs ago - "They quarrel over who will mold the human clay, but they agree that there is human clay to mold...." Leftists, Marxists, Socialists, Progressives, Statists, have no forward thinking because they are blind to the past - they aren't progressive but ProRegressive, and they are taking us back to the darkest of dark ages, while calling it progress.

Which I suppose it is, for some - at least for those who would rule over you... because, you know, you belong to them.

Here's your choice this November: Defeat Barack Obama and those who share his ideals, or prepare to have their idea of 'good' done unto you.

Our ECOTUS (Empty Chair Of The United States) shares more than a chair with Karl Marx

Our ECOTUS (Empty Chair Of The United States) shares more with Karl Marx than an admiration for empty chairs, Obama & his Regulatory Czar, Cass Sunstein, share with Karl a desire to do away with private property rights (gradually of course, progressively, don't scare people!, for goodness sake, just start by spreading the wealth around, then requiring govt to approve of private property, etc), isn't that great!

Why is that great? Well, because, as Karl said in chp 2 of his Communist Manifesto:

"In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. "

See if you can pick out any instances of History Rhyming in these fun facts from Karl's summary of the steps to Utopia:

"We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionising the mode of production.

These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.

Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.
2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.
3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.
6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.
7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.
8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c."

Isn't that great!

By moving gradually, progressively, step by step, the enlightened ones will move "to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State", and it's working pretty well, isn't it?

Not sure? Really? Here, let's count down the steps to our all facing an empty chair:

#10 Dept of Education? Common Core Curriculum? Race To The Top?
#9 Have you ever heard of Sustainability? The Farm Bill? Govt directed Smart Grid? Agenda 21?
#8 EEOC? And what did Obama mean by that " 'we need a civilian national security force" comment? Hmmm.
#7 GM? NLRB? EPA?
#6 FCC? Net Neutrality? Dept of Transportation? FAA? And let's not forget TSA. Remember, baby steps.
#5 The Fed, TARP, Consumer Financial Protection Agency (Yep, that's Fauxchahontas herself, Elizabeth Warren)
#4 If you're finding some reassurance in this, try thinking of emigrants as those with offshore bank accounts, and rebels as... well, have a cup of TEA and think it over.
#3 Death Tax?
#2 Hellooo IRS? The agency charged wtih providing the means of 'Spreading the wealth around'? The Enforcement Agency for the ObamaoCare bill?

... and rounding out the #1 spot, the neatest trick of all... (drumroll please...!)

#1 Regulatory Agencies. These are the means of abolishing private property (and Individual Rights) for various 'Greater Good!' causes. See above for reference.

As these steps are gradually tightened up, locked down and put into place, and as you may find that you are progressively unable to live your own life any longer, and as you may want to go complain to someone about it... you know what you'll be facing in your quest for Justice?

Yep. An Empty Chair.

Now that's moving Forward!

The Unprincipled vote for a 3rd party... or even not voting at all

A quick rant to my Friends. With all due respect (and for some there is much respect due) to those intending to sit out this coming presidential election, or voting 3rd party , out of 'principle' or in an effort to 'vote my conscience', those positions are not principled or conscientious, and I'll go so far as to say that they are in fact Unprincipled and Unconscionable.

There is more to being principled than ticking off items on a checklist of do's and don'ts... as if principles could operate in isolation and without regard to their wider purpose and context - Principles are an aid to thought, not a substitute for it! - to attempt to be principled, without being Prudent, is to be unprincipled (more on that to follow in next post) To make a choice that looks no further than your comfort zone in the ballot box, is in reality simply a more pleasant way for you to spend your time voting (or not), an easy escape from dealing with the principle purpose of your principles - and to neglect that wider, long-term perspective, is in fact being UnPrincipled, and there is no 'act of conscience' in taking the easy way out of anything.

If you are looking at the ballot as a choice between someone you think is worth voting for, and someone who isn't, and voting that way - that is not being principled. Elections are not about casting your vote, or even electing a representative - those are only means to an end. The end is to preserve and protect our Rights and the rule of law - elections, representatives, even the Constitution itself, are only means to that end.

And if we've allowed the times to become so sorry that we can't, in good conscience vote for someone (or party), because you don't think that they'll further those ends, then you must use your vote as a means of obstructing the candidate you think will do the most harm to your rights and the rule of law.

As foul as I personally find Romney's politics to be, there is no comparison between his big govt inclinations and Obama's intentional malice to our Individual Rights, Property Rights, the Constitution and the Rule of Law. That must be acted against, and the most effective means of doing so is not to be found in sitting out the election, or wasting, and I do mean wasting, your vote on some 3rd party candidate that has no chance of obstructing Obama's pursuit of a second term.

'You mean vote for the lesser of two evils?'

NO!!!

You don't vote for the lesser of two evils - ever! - when you can't vote for someone, you vote against the worst of the most likely evils, using the most effective weapon at hand for stopping the greater evil - the candidate most likely to be able to defeat them. That ain't gonna be a third party candidate - not yet - and sitting the election out damn sure isn't going to do a thing to slow Obama's plans.

The fact is that Romney/Ryan is simply the most effective tool available to thwart the greater danger to our nation, which a second Obama administration poses.

Electing Romney isn't going to solve anything, IMHO, but electing him in place of Obama buys us time, time we can use to try and revamp the GOP, or maybe replace it or maybe even work to scrap the two-party system (which are all short term solutions, but a start).

But we need time, and we as much of our Rights as we can manage to hold on to, to do that.

We won't buy ourselves any time by doing anything that would enable Obama to stay put. And to stand by and allow that, even enable that, without doing everything you could to prevent it, would be deeply, deeply, unprincipled and unconscionable.

Taking an about face on Todd Akin without changing direction - Fight!

1st - the GOP has been despicable on the matter of Todd Akin.
2nd -  Todd Akin has blown it, and I don't mean his Jaco comment.

The GOP, the current and former senators, and all others who've called for Akin to withdraw, saying that because of his 'misstatements' he is unacceptable, are themselves unacceptable.  I won't bother going more into what I went over yesterday. Their pandering to politically correct airs, is nauseating.

Akin won an election. He was right about staying in, he won an election - you don't just allow that to be overturned over for campaign turmoils. But that nomination comes with a responsibility, an awesome responsibility, that when you attacked - when those who entrusted their vote to you are attacked through you - then you fight back and fight back loud and clear leaving no confusion over who is taking their responsibility seriously, you stand up strong, face the fire and provide the active leadership needed to prevail.

That has not been the case, and yesterday was the day to prove it. Yesterday is gone.

Akin's response has been so lax, so passive, and what he has done is so inept, that my confidence in him has dissipated - not because of his words, but because of his actions.

First, what he should not have done. He should not have issued an apology that was little better than genuflecting to political correctness, the very same tones of political correctness that were used to transform a minor verbal blunder into a national firestorm (in the eyes of the media and establishment).

And then he did nothing else. Except, that he then issued the apology that he should have given in the first place.

And then he did nothing else. Except for saying in interview with Dana Loesch "Ah shucks, this new fangled new media stuff really caught us by surprise" (except for 'fangled' and 'shucks' I think that's a quote).

What should he have done?

He should have clarified what did, and did not happen. He should have and the sense and initiative to say something like:

"My message is that rapists should be punished and life should be defended. Period. This so-called incident deserves no more of this campaigns attention. I've issued my apology, if you'd like to hear it again, go to my campaign site... and please leave a donation while your at it - we'd be thankful for contributions from people with spines.

We're facing a formidable democrat senator in Claire McCaskill, who has used Missouri's Senate seat to undermine the health and safety of all Missourians, men and women alike, who voted to take away their right to make their own choices in regards to their health care. Who used her vote to help in closing down a major portion of our states economy and energy concerns with Coal and coal fired energy plants.

Claire McCaskill is busy using every trick in the book to keep her power and leave my fellow Missourians powerless, and I'm devoting my energy and my campaign towards ending that in 72 days. Join me!"

I'm a simple programmer, a student of life, a blogger. If I can see that, if I can come up with that, why the hell can't the man we elected to represent us in the Senate campaign, do better?! AND WITHOUT HESITATION!!!!

There is a passage from Julius Caesar that has been plaguing me:

"The enemy increaseth every day.
We, at the height, are ready to decline.
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves
Or lose our ventures."

, and it has been plaguing me all the more because it comes from the mouth of Brutus, but it is true all the same, and Todd Akin's inaction has become a far greater danger in this election than his misstatements. If he won't fight now, if he didn't see the importance of doing that yesterday... why should we have any confidence that he is going to pick up the fight and fight effectively tomorrow?

Todd Akin said several times yesterday that he was running to the sound of the gunfire. Well Mr. Akin, when running to the sound of the guns, it would be wise to bring your own gun, loaded and cocked and eagerly seeking out enemy targets (not your own POTUS ticket) to fire upon.

Yesterday was Todd Akin's chance to do that, and he needed to come out shooting, he needed to come out and assert his position and lead the charge. But what he brought was only more olive branches and a folksy "Wow, hasn't this been sumthin'?". I'm seething.

He had his chance to do that yesterday. He didn't run to the sound of the gunfire, he did a drive by of the mess hall & PX and kept driving on without ever coming in sight of the front lines.

And now the lines are collapsing all around us.

Mr. Akin, we would support you if you would just fight, but you will not. And we elected you to do just that. And you do not.

That's a dilemma that must be resolved. Now.

I supported Todd Akin to be our senator, and to do that he's got to defeat Claire McCaskill, but he has failed to act. It seems that I will have to take an about face on my support for Todd Akin, but who will take over the fight? Because THAT is the direction we must charge, not a backwards pandering to the sensibilities of political correctness, as the GOP establishment is seeking to cringe in, but forward into the fight.

Someone. Please. FIGHT!

MO GOP: What Price Principles? Just one gaffe... and we'll give your change back!

Congressmen Todd Akin, who just won the Republican primary for Senate from Missouri, is going to make an announcement this morning, regarding whether he's going to remain in the senate race... or withdraw.

Why? Because of a comment. Actually because of a portion of a comment. A Gaffe. Who is calling for him to do this? The 3rd place rival he defeated in the primary, and nearly every GOP operative and functionary in Missouri, campaign contributors in and out of state, as well as various and sundry Republican Senators, nationwide. Even former Cosmopolitan centerfold guy, Sen. Scott Brown from MA, has put his two cents in on the propriety of Akin's remaining in office.

What was this comment?

He wondered, stumbling for a few words in the midst of a reply about abortion in cases of rape, he said

"Well you know, people always want to make that as one of those things, how do ya, how do you slice that particularly tough sort of ethical question, it seems to me... well first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really where... if it's a legitimate rape, uh, the female body has ways to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume, maybe that didn't work or something, I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not on attacking the child."

Was it a WTF?! moment? Yes it was.

Was it a stupid thing to say? Yup. Did he apologize for it? Yes indeedy he did. He issued a statement with all the popular PC proper words about empathy & such, and that he was sorry, which personally I think was a bit of a pander to the godz of political correctness - always an error - if I wrote his press release, I'd have said something like:

But foolish as his comment was, did he say anything that revealed any nefarious dealings or hidden agenda? No. Did he say anything that suggested that he didn't believe the conservative positions and principles he campaigned upon to win the nomination for Republican Senator from the state of Missouri? No. Did he make the statement as part of a well considered position paper? Nope. He made the verbal blunder, in trying to stitch together two statements regarding abortion and allowing the fact that rape was an awful crime and  someone should be punished for it, preferably the rapist.

This doesn't go against the positions he ran on, or against his public or private feelings on the matter, he's held this view, campaigned on this view, and was elected over his rivals for the nomination because of, or in spite of, this view.

Yet political players far and wide now wish to overturn the legitimate winner of a primary election; party players and powers that be, wish to disenfranchise all republican voters of Missouri, in order for these power players to put who they would like to see him replaced with. These are the same people who didn't want Akin to run for the Senate, the same people who didn't support him during the election, the same people who did their best to undermine him in order to get a less conservative candidate to run... face it: Democrat Senator Claire McCaskill was more interested in a Conservative winning the Missouri Senate primary, than the MO GOP was! And yet, after the people of Missouri, who knowingly voted for the more conservative candidate - are very likely going to have their votes overturned, by party players who didn't approve of their votes to begin with.

On the pretext of a politically sensitive gaffe, the candidate nominated in a statewide election, is potentially going to be removed from the race, and replaced by someone the GOP would have preferred to have been (s)elected in the first place.

So convenient and such a nice precedent... what could possibly go wrong with that?

Realize, he broke no law, revealed no lie, exposed no subterfuge. He was not accused of rape by former associates or fans (Juanita Broaddrick, Paula Jones, Kathleen Wiley, etc), he didn't lie about having sexual relations with an intern in the oval office, he didn't leave a woman to die in his car submerged in a pond, he didn't tweet photos of his privates to random women across the Twittersphere, he didn't molest a young boy... he didn't even call anyone a bad name.

He said something stupid, recognized it and immediately apologized for it.

And for that... he is being hounded to withdraw his name from the race.

A statewide vote is being nullified, not because of outrage and widespread demands from the people, but to soothe the sensibilities of party apparatchiks and to enable them to override an election they didn't approve of, and to avoid possible embarrassment to Mitt Romney's campaign & the Republican National Convention. And just maybe perhaps because members of the GOP, would very much like to kneel and prostrate themselves at the feet of the media lords of political correctness, and fervently declare to them, while kissing their ring, that they will never let it be said that they hold the will of the people or their own principles and convictions, to be of equal or greater value than a single tenet of political correctness or the current winds of popular opinion.

Whether or not Todd Akin withdraws, I'd just like to say to the MO GOP - you disgust me. You are an abomination and an affront to the Republic.

Have a nice day.

A comment on the 'Real Trojan Horse'

I want to reply to a comment that an Anonymous teacher just made to a post of mine from earlier this year,  "The Real Educational Trojan Horse: Deleting Western Civilization 101". This teacher is obvously someone who cares about the students they are teaching, but I think they missed what my post was about - it wasn't about teachers failing to teach, but about the failed materials which they are forced to try and teach from.

Anonymous, this post was not directed towards the teachers, but towards what, how & why it is, that what teachers are having to teach, is being taught at all. Let me put it this way, you mentioned something at the end of your comment, which I believe is absolutely critical, you said:

"Whatever the case may be, when I see them 5, 10, 15 years after the seventh grade, I ask how they are, what they are doing for school/work and most especially....are they remembering the things I tried to instill in them. Being polite, caring, friendly, respectful, responsible....... Thank you."

, which is something that marks You as being a TEACHER, and I thank you for that.

But here's my point, how does something like this:

"The Ancient Greeks believed in many Gods. Zeus was the king of the Gods and was believed to have ruled the world from their home on Mt. Olympus.
Review questions:
1. The king of the Gods was ____ and he lived on ______________."

, help you to teach what you know are to be the most important lessons to be taught? How does being quizzed on a meaningless name and place or date, help to teach that?

How is any child possibly going to pick up an inclination towards, a passion for, a resolve to be, someone who is 'polite, caring, friendly, respectful, responsible', from filling in the blankety-blank space with the most likely word from the sentence above?

What you speak of, teaching a student to be polite, caring, friendly, respectful, responsible, that is the stuff of an actual Education, and it will not, it Cannot, come from this desiccated gray textbook pap peddled as 'educational materials'; any child that does manage learn such things at school, does so not because of the what, how & why's of their particular school district policies, but because some Teacher who actually cares for their students and their responsibility to them, managed to Teach, in spite of the what, how & why's of their school district policies.

The entire point of Homer, was to teach. To teach how to live and why, and through imaginative plot and action, the Iliad teaches that above all; it teaches how 'God like Achilles' was brought face to face, by the staying hand of reason, with the uselessness of his glory, brought to the realization that great and fearsome as he was, if blustering Agamemnon could take from him who he loved, then he had nothing; and that his last nod to that glory cost him the life of his dearest friend Patroclus, and then he had less than nothing left, but rage at life itself.

And of 'man-killing Hector', who loved his wife and his dearest son, and knew himself and they were soon to be lost, and yet he had to do what must be done nonetheless.

And Priam, a king and a father, who lost several sons and his dearest son Hector, to Achilles, had to bend his knee to the man who killed them, in order to retrieve his body and bury him properly, before the loss of all he had spent his life in building. And to 'Godlike' Achilles, that and all else broke in on him at that moment, quenched his rage, and brought back his humanity to him, his own loss, and the importance of repaying the sorrow of the old king with decency and respect and generosity because that was truly all that mattered and was worthy of glory.

Homer, despite the teaching of some fools, did not glorify war, the Iliad reads far more like something written from the Vietnam era, than a gung-ho WWII movie, it teaches - if its story is allowed to be fully communicated, rather than chopped into freeze dried spoonful’s - the importance of "being polite, caring, friendly, respectful, responsible", and what the world is like with and without those lessons being learned (BTW, this is one of the better books, certainly of any modern book, on The Iliad that I've read: "The War That Killed Achilles").

The fact that Teachers such as yourself are deprived of the best materials ever conceived for your purposes, and instead must find some way to manage to teach such things Despite the materials, purposes and motives of their 'curriculum', which is the real Trojan Horse, and an epic tragedy all its own.

Claire McCaskill - Extremist of Extremism

Claire McCaskill has apparently decided on her campaign strategy - declare conservative Congressmen Todd Akin, to be an 'extremist'. Leaving aside what that says about her fellow Missourians who just elected Todd Akin to be the Republican candidate for Senator, what is it that ClaireBear considers to be so extreme about Todd Akin?

According to a San Francisco Chronical report,

"Todd Akin is out of the mainstream," McCaskill said as she kicked off her campaign with a news conference at a Kansas City sheet metal fabricator. A sign touting her as "a senator on our side" was propped on a raised forklift."

Wouldn't you consider "a senator on our side" to be on the side of Missourians?

Missouri is a major coal state ... if Claire is 'on our side', would you expect that side to be on, or against, Missouri's ability to mine and operate Coal Powered power plants? Not the case. She has sided with the Obama Administration and the EPA, in imposing controls that are effectively shutting down a major portion of the Missouri economy. And attempted to deny it.

Claire's response to that situation has been,

" There's so much the government should do and can do, and then there's some stuff the government shouldn't do," she says. "I'm trying to find that balance right now."

For Claire McCaskill, one of the 'nations richest lawmakers', she thinks finding 'balance' between the livelihoods of the people of your state, and the policies of the EPA, is that the same as being 'on our side'? Personally, I find that to be extremely misleading and dishonest, and extremely detrimental to jobs and budgets in Missouri, don't you?

Claire says,

"We're going to prove to Missourians that Todd Akin is out of touch with their problems, out of touch with the pain that they feel, and out of touch with the views that they hold dear,"

Apparently, according to Claire, the fact that Akin believes that the government is not above the law, makes him an extremist. Is that an idea that you find to be extreme?

Or the fact that he believes that those in government are not themselves above the laws they create. Does that sound extreme to you?

Granted, it may be uncomfortable for politicians such as Claire McCaskill, who came to expect being able to ignore the tax laws, as she did when choosing to avoid paying taxes on her private airplane, that they helped write for you to live under... but... does that make Akin extreme... or Claire?

Claire is for the health care laws, which the vast majority of Missourians have shown themselves again and again to be opposed to, and which you will have to live under... though she will not, if she can remain in the senate, that is... does that make Akin an extremist, or Claire?

My recently former employer recently sent me an email, expressing their regret that they will have to cut back on the health care that they can offer to their hundreds of employees. They were announcing rising costs and lowered services, because of the new ObamaoCare laws soon beginning to go into effect, not only require that those policies and services be reduced, but that your ability to match their employees contributions to their own health savings accounts, etc, be reduced and restricted. They diplomatically communicated that they feared further changes will be coming soon which might imperil their ability to offer the quality of care package that they have always sought to extend to their employees,

"...Employee sponsored health care is changing. We have begun to see small aspects of that change in our current plan and will see a bit more in the plan that will take effect September 1. Most of the current change involves mandatory benefits, and you should have received information on these changes from our current provider. In addition, some of you may maintain separate flexible medical spending accounts. Please be aware that as of January 1, 2013, the new health law limits contributions to such accounts to $2,500 annually from the current $5,000. The most fundamental changes to employee sponsored health care is scheduled to take effect in 2014 which may greatly affect our renewal in September of 2013. While it is too early and difficult to predict what our renewal bids will look like a year from now, our intent and desire will be to continue offering employees of (company name) the choice of private health care delivery assuming it is economically feasible to do so...."

That came about as a direct result of the policies that Claire McCaskill championed for Obama, while she occupied one of Missouri's Senate seats.

Remember, Claire is the one who said that Tarp and the auto bailout were 'wildly successful' policies, and expected ObamaoCare to be same, for the same reasons.

I think that's extreme... don't you?

I think the result of Claire McCaskills policies have helped impose an extreme hardship upon us all, don't you?

I think Claire McCaskill's attempt to impugn Todd Akin as an 'extremist' for expecting government, and those serving in it, to follow the law, is itself an extremist position.

Don't you?

Nancy Pelosi famously said

"But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy.”

Can you find any real difference between what Pelosi said there, and what Claire McCaskill said about ObamaoCare here,

"I understand that parts of it are not popular, but I don’t think most Missourians understand whats all in it because it hasn’t gone into effect yet,” McCaskill said in an interview. “I think if they give it a chance, they might be surprised how much they like it.”"

Claire McCaskill is every bit as extreme as is Nancy Pelosi, Claire's problem is that her constituents, Missourians, are nowhere near as extreme as Pelosi's in San Francisco, so Claire has to try and pretend to be what she is not, a moderate, by calling her opponents 'Extreme', in order to divert attention away from her own beliefs and policies.

I find Claire McCaskill's effort to hide her own misdeeds and policies, by calling her opponent extreme, to be an extremely dishonest and cowardly line of attack, and one that depends upon her fellow Missourians being too lazy and stupid to understand the nature of her attacks, hoping to avoid the truth of her own extremely damaging positions by painting her opponent as an 'extremist'.

Claire McCaskill is an extremist of extremism, and I am extremely looking forward to her being removed from the senate this November - along with her buddy Obama.

Do you expect to live your own life? It's a simple question.

Do you expect to live your own life? It's a simple question. The answer to which determines whether or not you are an American, or are Anti-American

Too harsh? Too bad. Answer the question. Do you expect to be able to live your own life? Don't worry, there remains plenty of room within a 'yes' answer for us to find innumerable areas to disagree upon, but upon this one question, all further communication depends.

Do you expect to be able to live your own life?

If yes, then welcome to the club, the club which is populated with a subset of those living in America, who are actually Americans.

Now, if you do expect to be able to live your own life, doesn't that require that you be at liberty to make your own choices in and for your own life? Do you believe that you are able, capable, entitled, to make other choices for other people, to live their lives... while still expecting to be free to live your own life?

Is such a view compatible with equal Rights for all?
Is such a view compatible with equality under the law?

Have you considered this? Seriously, have you? Have you considered what it means to want to force others to comply with your wishes, while somehow being left free from their desire to force you to comply with their wishes?

It is all well and good to want to see that every American has their health care needs met. Who doesn't, it is a laudable sentiment. One which, according to the left, a majority of Americans agree with. Answer me this - is there any reason why you and your majority, can't associate together, to provide low cost health care to those in need of it?

Is there some level of efficiency which you feel 200+ new governmental bureaucracies, are going to bring to providing your service, that you, focused upon your cause, couldn't provide yourself?

What is it?

You don't want to answer that, do you? What is it that the govt brings to the issue, other than the ability to compel, force, everyone else to conform to your wishes?

Do you really expect to be free to deprive others of their freedom? How long do you expect to remain one of the privileged 'others' and separate from the imposed upon 'we'?

Another question: Do you have such a low opinion of your fellow Americans, that you believe that the vast majority of them would not be favorable to your project, and would not contribute some measure of time, effort and money, towards your efforts to aid your fellow Americans?

Think of the unprecedented outpouring of donations to help victims of worldwide disasters in Japan, Indonesia, Haiti, Katrina, 911... why would you think your fellow American would be so stingy to your efforts to help those in need right here, in your neighborhood?

What does that say about your allegedly 'good intentions'?

One last question, a rhetorical one borrowed from Thomas Sowell, how is it that you believe me greedy, mean spirited, etc, in wanting to remain free to make my own decisions and spend my money myself... and yet you don't find it greedy, mean spirited, etc, for you to want to take my money from me and deprive me of my liberty to make my own decisions about living my own life?

I would dearly love an answer to these questions.

My Primary Sense

Ok, here are my two cents for tomorrow's Missouri Primary, for what it's worth.

Governor: Bill Randles
I have seen no one else better express the essentials of what government can, should, and should not do, and the importance and meaning of Individual Rights and the role of the Law in protecting them, than Bill Randles. Click on his link, hear him out yourself.

United States Senator: Todd Akin
While I do have issues on many of Mr. Akin's previous positions and votes, I don't question his understanding of the need to bring govt back under the control of the Constitution, or of his having the character to take a position he believes to be in the right, even when it might appear expedient to do otherwise.

I have no particular objections to Sarah Stealman, her ability, character or understanding of conservative positions, but I do question her ability to forcefully convey that understanding in a campaign with Claire McCaskill, and so in the primary, my vote goes to who I've seen drive those positions home quite ably, and that's Todd Akin.

Brunner... I find to be someone ready, willing and able to say what he thinks will be politically viable (see my post here). I've had enough of that.

United States House Representative Mo District 2: Randy Jotte
I'm admittedly not going on a lot of information here, regarding Jotte, but Ann Wagner is a long time GOP operative, and while she has done much that was good, her dismissal of our concerns over Aerotropolis, confirms to me that she will not be standing against the expansion of govt, but will instead merely divert it into GOP friendly avenues.

That's got to stop.

Jotte I know little about, other than his being a doctor and raising a family indicates the intelligence and character needed for the position, and having no issue with his stated conservative positions - that'll get my X.

Attorney General: Ed Martin
He's been an outspoken opponent of every aspect of Obamacare from the beginning.

Secretary of State: Shane Schoeller
Scott Rupp may have long standing conservative credentials, but with his efforts to turn Prop C from a State Constitutional Amendment, into a meaningless (but easier done) statute, and some of the statements I know him to have made regarding centralizing education, such as with Race To The Top, in order to score Federal budget money $$$... no thanks - see for yourself:

Neighboring district races:
United States House Representative MO District 1: Martin Baker
I personally know Martin to be a solid conservative who has time and time again stepped up and put in his time and effort at the grassroots level to bring government under control, and I've no doubt he'll do the same in Congress.

Missouri State Assembly Representative MO District 70: Tyler Holyfield
Tyler is someone I learned of through a friend of one of my sons, but he wins my support with this:

Property Rights
You have the right to property and to protect that property. I believe in this ideal and will do everything I can to protect your property.
“The Right of property is the guardian of every other Right, and to deprive the people of this, is in fact to deprive them of their liberty”

That's a viewpoint we desperately need in our government
Dokes is another longtime GOP operative who too often sides with the establishment, especially in regards to centralized govt control of Education.

Precinct Committeemen!
A little mentioned but extremely important position regarding what and who have a chance to become issues and be voted upon. If you want to see the GOP remade from the ground up, these are some of the people ready, willing and able to see that done!

Missouri River: Lloyd Sloan
Hadley Township: Jackie Coleman
Wildhorse: Anne Gassel
Queeny: Lee Presser
Maryland Heights: Margaret Walker
Missouri River: Annette Read
Jefferson Township: Frieda Keough

Critical Thinking in action: The Sikh temple shooter was a white male, ergo: it's all Conservatives & Rep. Bachman's fault!

We've had another example this weekend, of people who were most likely unarmed, being shot by someone who had no regard for an individuals rights - not their right to life, nor their right to think or worship differently, or of any other right or regard for the laws protecting them; all were brushed aside to satisfy one persons appetite to kill, the appetite to force his way upon others, even to the point of murdering them.

Curiously, this self evident information has been absent from the media and conversation I've had the displeasure to observe raging about, once again.

The fact is that the one bit of relevant information that was possible to be known, before any of the other facts were discovered, was this - that a person with no regard for individual rights, took the lives of others, because he wanted to and thought he could.

Which is why, I suppose, it has not been reported, or even hinted at, in any of the initial reports by the media, or in the initial responses from the Twitterverse or Blogosphere. What were their initial assumptions? Apparently their thought process went something like this:

1. The gunman was a White, middle aged, bald guy.
2. Michelle Bachman recently spoke about dangers from Islamist radicals.
3. Therefore, the gunman was a Conservative whose actions were caused by Bachman's 'fear mongering'

Though not a valid example of a syllogism, it is a very disturbing, and common, example of what might be called a Sillyogasm - feelings asserted at random in order to reach a desired climax. I won't bother with the reams of logical fallacies involved there, but instead focus in a bit on what it tells us about the thought process that must have been used, in order to assemble them into something that they actually thought was actually a thought.

To put it mildly, their conclusion does not follow from their premises. Rather, their conclusion obviously preceded the premises, which were arbitrarily selected in order to inflame and advance a political agenda, in spite of the information which they did have available before they formed their conclusions (such as the fact that the point of Conservatism is to conserve the Individual Rights of all Americans, as they are secured through our Constitution), prior to their having any real information about the attack, for them to consider.

In other words, they stated their conclusion and guessed about which examples they could 'think of' that might be made to support it; in other words this is an example of what our schools teach as 'Critical Thinking' skills.

Seriously.

Have you ever cracked open even a grade school level 'science' textbook? The basis of the all important 'Critical Thinking' skills which our schools are so focused upon, such as how to formulate an hypothesis under the 'scientific method' (here's a good example of this), are typically actually taught in the classroom by exasperated teachers, in this manner:

Teacher (facing the blank stares of students who don't understand their 'Hypothesis' worksheet) - 'Just make a guess about what you think will happen. Write down why you guessed it. Then write down how you'll know you were right, and what would show you were wrong.'
Kids - 'What should we guess about?'
Teacher - 'Anything, anything at all.'
Kids - 'Like what?'
Teacher - '[slight pause while silently cursing the idiots who mandated that the 'Scientific Method' be taught out of the blue to kids with no solid knowledge to build upon] It's up to you, just pick something... 'which cookies people will like most'... whether 'flipping a coin will come up more often heads or tails'... just make a guess and support it.'

(Yes, this is an actual example from our recent experience with 6th grade science homework.) An hypothesis is typically described as

"An hypothesis is a statement or explanation that is suggested by knowledge or observation but has not, yet, been proved or disproved."

, but doing that, scientifically, requires first off, a foundation in knowledge of the phenomena being observed, an informed understanding of what is happening, and then a plan to test the soundness of that understanding. Do you see even the possibility of that in this actual classroom example above?

The lessons that are actually learned from these exercises have nothing to do with Science or 'Critical Thinking', what is learned from them, is that you should make guesses about what you feel is right, and then find 'evidence' to support it.

Want to test my 'hypothesis'? Look at the reactions in the Media, Blogosphere & Twitterverse!

If you haven't seen them yourself, you can find examples of this non-sense in the screen shots of actual comments that Ginny Kruta has provided in her post here, or in Doug Welch's sampling on Liberty News, such as those congratulating Michelle Bachman for the murders that were obviously committed due to her 'Christian hate speech', and that:

'It may be time for Fed Law Enforcement to look at those who may use speech to incite violence,, ie Michelle Bachman, Limbaugh Fox, Beck---"

Did these peoples immediate reactions touch, in any way, upon what could actually be known, beyond the simple fact that people, Sikhs, had been shot dead? No. As I already mentioned at the top of this post, the only relevant information that could be known, was never even raised, and I've seen no evidence that any of those concepts (Individual Rights, Conservatism, Constitution) have been understood or applied or 'factored in' to their thinking processes.

I see no indication of any actual thought having been given to these tragic and horrible circumstance, I see only the rantings of hysterical children demanding their ice cream, gun control and the elimination of uncomfortable thoughts. What I see in their 'thinking', is the collective mass reaching for the results that they wanted to assert, such as

• 'Guns are bad and Gun Control is needed!'
• 'Conservative whites are caused to kill muslims by Christian conservatives!' (tip: Sikh's are not muslims)
• 'hate speech' causes gun owners to kill!'

, which they immediately set about spewing out towards everyone they could manage to splatter with their thoughts.

Aside from the obvious idiocy of blaming anyone other than the shooter for the deaths caused by his shooting at them, the lack of actual thought displayed here is staggering. Their willingness to use words devoid of understanding, as little more than useful filler in padding out their assertions, is indicative of such a lack of education, that it could only have come from one place: our educational system.

In other words, what is expressed in these 'thoughts':

1. the presence of guns in the environment causes people to die and conservative speech causes conservatives to want to kill,
2. Conservatives own guns,
3. therefore, guns must be banned and conservatives must be shut-up.

, are an expression of 'Critical Thinking' which is critically devoid of anything remotely resembling informed and methodical thinking - which is exactly what IS taught AS 'critical thinking' in our schools, day in and day out. Only a daily immersion in a 'thinking method' for a period of 6, 12, 14, 16 years or more, could cause a person to not think, in such a deliberate manner, to not think about the essential concepts that are so critical to what it is you are attempting to think about. You either have to deliberately avoid thinking of them, or be so thought-impaired, that you simply habitually skip over, any consideration, of anything, that might divert your attention away from what it is you want.

What that used to be called, was being driven by appetite, which was once the very definition of being a child, and which school was, once upon a time, designed for the purpose of raising you above. Obviously, that is no longer the case.

In the rush to have their desired conclusions, there are simply no thoughts given to what conservatives are, only to what they want them to be, the possibility that banning these things (guns) or that speech (Conservative, Christian, etc) might conflict with what Rights are (specifically those defended by the 1st & 2nd Amendments) are simply brushed aside, if even that amount of effort can be granted them, not even what might constitute 'hate speech' is considered (which is apparently any thought that isn't in strict compliance with politically correct dogma), these are all entirely, and seemingly intentionally, left unconsidered, in their rush to promote and advance their preferred political agenda.

Because they want it. Appetite driven. Children.

This is nothing new. I'll spare you my typical references back to developments such as 'The Frankfurt School', Dewey, Hegel, Rousseau, etc, and just offer up this snippet from 1991, from "Jam Today at Last!", Richard Mitchell's skewering of the farce that is the teaching of 'Critical Thinking' skills in our schools,

"... So at last they came up with critical thinking, distinguished from mere thinking in that it was, well, critical, you know. They didn't put it this way, because they're not too good at figuring out what they mean, but they obviously did sense (aha! another substitute for thinking) that critical thinking ended up with something that was not in the "thinker" until after the thinking had been done, and the mere thinking was a way of declaring what was already in the thinker. And thus it was that they ended up, for awhile, trying to teach logic as though that were thinking. They did know, after all, that logic reached conclusions, which made it seem comfortably similar to Dewey's notion of thinking as "problem-solving activity."

It did not occur to them, apparently that logic was also uncomfortably like problem-solving in that it could reach only those conclusions already implicit in its givens, and the teaching of it was, in any case, no fun at all. As far as we know, logic is no part of the standard curriculum in any of the public schools.

The term "critical thinking" made the school people feel pretty good for awhile; it suggested a technical proficiency not unlike that of the sciences, and implied, in those who said they could teach it, an expertise for which schoolteachers have in general not been celebrated. But there was a problem; it was that word, critical, which the school people in the Affective Domain construe as meaning something very like hostile. You can hardly blame them; any truly critical consideration of what they do in the schools must end by being, at the least, not flattering. There is worse. If school children were brought into the habit of critical thinking, might they not become critical? Might they not, by logic alone, notice incoherence and in consistencies in their schooling? Might they nor begin to question some of the supposed social truths and goods which are preached to them as worthy and feelings? There is, after all, nothing more galling in any teacher's class than the smartass who makes sense..."

Whatever may be discovered in the coming days about the shooting in Wisconsin, my hypothesis is that what will be most relevant to the rest of us, is what will likely remain unconsidered:

• That this man had no regard for the rights of those he went to kill.
• That the people who were killed, had no ability to defend themselves.
• That the concepts of Individual Rights, careful and deliberate thinking in conjunction with logical method are not taught in our schools.

Does these premises follow from one another or lead to a conclusion? Is there something important left out?(there is). I'll leave that for you to think about, and only suggest that it is critical that you do so.