My Beauty Best Teacher

A Conservative Teacher officially endorses Mitt Romney in the Michigan Republican Presidential Primary of Michigan and encourages all of his family and friends and colleagues to vote for him next Tuesday, February 28. Do not sit at home hoping that change will come to our nation and that hope will be restored- go vote for Mitt Romney in the primary and assure it.

After spending a year following the campaign, after watching all of the campaign commercials, after researching all of the candidates, after recently hearing them all speak in person, after shaking the hands of Romney and Santorum, and after spending a lot of time thinking about what kind of candidate our Founding Fathers would have wanted as President, I have decided that the best candidate that there is from either party to be the next President of the United States is Mitt Romney.

As Rick Santorum said about Mitt Romney in 2008- “this is the guy who is really conservative and we can trust him.” He is conservative in that he believes in and attempts to put in place policies that follow the founding principles of our nation- limited government, individual liberty, free enterprise, and national security. And we can trust him as a person- he does not back down from his views, he is a decent guy who has spent time volunteering and giving back, he says what he means and means what he says, he stays on his message even without a teleprompter because he believes in his message, and he has a firm handshake.

Oh, I know some of his positions and views and statements are nuanced and guarded, filled with technical details and complicated arguments, and that this at times has made him sound like a technocrat or a cold robot- but I think that it is time for our nation to go back to electing competent, articulate, and measured people to the President and ignore all the candidates with thin resumes who simply preach hope and change.

Our nation can no longer afford to have as President someone who governs based on rhetoric and gimmicks- we need someone able and competent who will issue executive orders, make judicial appointments, act as commander-in-chief, hire the proper administrators, and budget appropriately. Being President is not about being a symbol, or making a statement, or doing the will of some sort of heavenly being- being President is about doing a job, and doing a good job of it, and Mitt Romney is the best one to put at that desk to push papers around, make decisions, talk with people, and do the real work of being President.

Conservatives want a magical being to be the White House who will throw conservative pixie dust around and say pretty conservative things; liberals want a magician in the White House who will dazzle them with tricks and gimmicks and pithy sayings- but real patriots should want someone in the White House who will return our nation back to its first principles and do the right things through competent hard work based on a lifetime of experience in managing and being an executive, and that man is Mitt Romney.

As I wrote in my post Elect a 'Clerk' For President in 2012 and Restore Founding Father's Vision of Executive Branch?:

...The President of the United States should be clerk, and nothing more. Conservatives and Tea Party people should not be looking for the President to be a 'king' who commands us to go forth and do his bidding, they should not be looking for the President to be the source of ideas about how government should run, and they should not be looking for the President to be an outsider who will shake up Washington.

The office, as designed by our Founding Fathers and illustrated in Article II of the Constitution, is an office that empowers the President of the United States to execute the laws passed by Congress in the most efficient manner, act as Commander-in-Chief of our military, act as the dignified ceremonial chief of state, handle foreign policy with other nations, and discharge effectively the various other duties of the office. A true conservative or someone who wants our nation to return to its Founding Principles should be pushing for the person who is best able to act as a clerk, a manager, and a CEO for America Inc…

… Look, I know this isn't exciting to you guys- you all want a President who will blow your socks off, light up the system, ride in on a horse of hope and change and remake the world. You want a king to rule you and control other people who you disagree with. You wish that someone who will go into the White House and then start just shutting down executive departments, slashing spending on programs, and ignoring the Judicial and Legislative Branches to bring you closer to our Founding Fathers. The problem is, that isn't how our Founding Fathers designed the office of the President and it is not how our Founding Fathers would have wanted the system to work…

I know- you want to go to the polls on Tuesday and feel like with one vote you will once again restore America back to its founding principles and with one magical check mark or bubbling in you will have fixed all of our nation’s problems. There are candidates out there who are basically telling you that.

But the truth of the matter is that the damage that President Barack Obama did to our nation is not going to be fixed by one President, or even two, and so we should not indulge in these sort of fantasies but rather go about electing someone as our next President who is willing to do the hard and solid and thankless work of stopping the decline that Obama has ushered in and perhaps- and I personally think this is a small possibility- putting in place a culture that will push further down the road for the real changes our nation needs to once more have hope for the future. And Mitt Romney is that guy- he is a hard worker, an able administrator, and a positive person, and just the kind of person who you should vote for on Tuesday.

Many of you conservatives and tea party supporters who read this post will think that we need a President who will be a source of conservative ideas and that Romney isn’t- my reply to you is that our system, as designed by our Founding Fathers which you all pretend to honor, clearly makes the legislative branch the source of ideas and legislation and merely makes the executive branch a clerk and executive. Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul would all be great legislators- even President Obama would have made a fine liberal Democrat Senator- but we are electing a President in 2012, not a legislator-turned-king, and the best executive in the race is clearly beyond a shadow-of-a-doubt Mitt Romney.

As Governor of a liberal Democrat state with an overwhelmingly liberal Democrat Congress, Mitt Romney was able to hold the moderate line on a range of issues and push for conservative policies as well and only let slip through an occasional liberal policy (like Romneycare)- imagine what he would be able to do as President of the United States with a Republican Congress animated by conservative tea party values. To make this image come true all you need to do is vote for Romney in the primary elections.

The image of stronger property rights, more protection and support for life, a recovering and prosperous economy, freedom and liberty embraced, and class warfare ended is a lot more welcoming to me than an image of President Barack Obama destroying a far-right wing GOP nominee and then ignoring the GOP Congress and issuing executive orders and making arbitrary policy decisions, and the only way we can avoid this image is by voting for Romney in the primary elections.

Over the past year, Mitt Romney has been challenged from the right and left and has beaten them all, emerging time and again as the front-runner. This was an important process and has forced him to be better- but at a certain point the primary needs to end and the race for the President needs to begin, and that point is now. Romney has responded to Perry, Huntsman, Bachman, Gingrich, Cain, Daniels, and now Santorum, fending off their attacks from the right and the left, and he is now a fine candidate to support. Let go of your anger and fear and embrace the good side of the force- Mitt Romney is the candidate who we can win back America with.

As President, Mitt Romney will leave America better than he finds it, he will work to reduce the intergenerational theft that is robbing our grandchildren of their future, he will work on repairing the destroyed foundations of our nation’s social safety nets, he will continue to keep our military proud and strong, and he will stop the incredible and amazing decline in our nation that has taken place over the past 4 years.

Mitt Romney says that America’s best days are ahead- with him as President and with a Republican Congress dominated by conservatives and tea partiers and with a Democratic minority party that regains its sanity, I think he could be right. He needs your vote though- go to the polls on Tuesday, February 28 and vote for Mitt Romney for Presidential nominee for the Republican Party.

Domestic policy results are a mix of both Congress and the President, and so Obama supporters can attempt to say that the reason why domestic policies have failed so badly over the past years is because of the Congress (House under Democratic control 2007-2011, Senate under Democratic control 2007 to today). But the results of foreign policy decisions are almost always the result of actions made purely the President, so these results can not be blamed on former President Bush (2001-2009) or the Republicans in Congress (House 2011+). President Barack Obama is responsible for foreign policy actions of the last several years.

And the latest news from Egypt is that Obama messed up badly and in so doing has led to the people of Egypt being less free, less prosperous, and private property rights being less protected. Via the New York Times:

Egyptian authorities confirmed Saturday that a political coalition dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, the 84-year-old group that virtually invented political Islam, had won about 47 percent of the seats in the first Parliament elected since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak. An alliance of ultraconservative Islamists won the next largest share of seats, about 25 percent....

...Parliament the authority to choose the 100 members of a constitutional assembly, so it may shape Egypt for decades to come, although the military council has sometimes tried to influence that process...

...The Brotherhood has said it intends to respect personal liberties and will focus on economic and social issues, gradually nudging the culture toward its conservative values. By contrast, the ultraconservatives, known as Salafis, put a higher priority on legislation on Islamic moral issues, like the consumption of alcohol, women’s dress and the contents of popular culture.

Among the remaining roughly 30 percent of parliamentary seats, the next largest share was won by the Wafd Party, a liberal party recognized under Mr. Mubarak and with roots dating to Egypt’s colonial period.

It was trailed by a coalition known as the Egyptian Bloc. It included the Free Egyptians, a business-friendly liberal party founded by a Coptic Christian businessman, Naguib Sawiris, and favored by many members of the country’s Coptic Christian minority, about 10 percent of the public. The Egyptian Bloc also included the liberal Social Democratic Party, which leans further to the left on economic issues.

A coalition of parties founded by the young leaders of the revolt that unseated Mr. Mubarak won only a few percent of the seats, as did a handful of offshoots of the former governing party....

There is no way to spin this. Mubarak gave a speech where he said that he would transition power over to groups that were business-friendly, were supportive to liberty and freedom, and would not be radically-intolerant Muslim, and President Obama went on TV and gave a major speech demanding that "Mubarak must go now."

"An orderly transition must be meaningful, it must peaceful, and it must begin now," Obama declared in his address, and he got his wish- Egypt has now gone from being a moderately bad regime to putting in place a coalition of radicals that support terror and the destruction of Israel- and it happened in under a year. He got his meaningful change for the worse pretty quickly- and it was all on him, the blame was exclusively on Obama, and the results of his actions were bad for millions of Egyptians and America.

Obama said that he turned on Mubarak in order to support the young leaders of revolutionaries in Egypt- the group that won the least from this revolution. The group that got the most out of the Egyptian revolution was the groups that we supported the LEAST- the radical Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamists.

Obama messed this policy decision up. Hold him responsible.

My stances on this issue are also on the record- see my posts Obama is Picking Worst of Bad Options in Egypt: Is Obama Getting Advice from Jimmy Carter? and Obama's Egypt Policy Was a Failure?.

Liberals, including those who have seized control of the modern-day Democratic Party, often talk fondly about China and its economic model. But what they fail to recognize about the economic model employed by China is  that it is inherently unsustainable because of its current methods of energy generation. Oh, I know many watermelons (people who pretend to care about the environment just to advance their statist communist desires) like to talk about China's wind power, nuclear power, solar power, or hydro-electric power, but in reality, the majority of China's energy production comes from coal.

Energy production from coal production does not have to be environmentally damaging or harmful to those who work in the industry. In nations like the United States, where there are clear property rights and freedom of labor, workers are treated better, the environment is better protected, and businesses are free to produce as much coal safely as possible in order to maximize profits. For example, there are only about 30 people killed per year in coal mining in the United States, and the United States has embraced clean coal technology which does a much better job of controlling emissions. The United States has made the difficult transition from energy generation to sustainable energy generation, and only needs to continue and expand its efforts in oil drilling, coal mining, and nuclear technology in order to become the cleanest and safest energy producer in the world.

Sadly, environmentalists in America have a different agenda. In their noble desire to make the world a better place, they are putting in place policies in America which force it and other nations to obtain energy from nations around the world that are producing energy in destructive, deadly ways. Rather than encouraging the expansion of safe, natural, and efficient methods of energy generation such as oil, coal, and nuclear, they are forcing America and nations that could be buying energy from America to turn to nations like China for energy generation and resources. And the end result of these environmentalists policies is a world that is less safe, less secure, and were more people die.

China currently generates around two thirds of its electricity from coal-fired power stations, and is the process of dramatically expanding its coal-fired capacity in recent years with the introduction of 562 new coal-fired plants- in fact, an average of two new plants were being opened every week. China uses this coal-production to satisfy its own energy needs and also export energy to other nations.

To sustain it economic growth and growing energy needs through coal power, China is paying a heavy price. Thousands of people die every year in coal pits, premature deaths due to indoor air pollution is at 420,000 per year, deaths due to outdoor air pollution is estimated at around 300,000 deaths per year, and rural populations in particular are suffering from a range of diseases related to coal production, including arsenic poisoning, skeletal fluorosis (over 10 million people afflicted in China), esophageal and lung cancers, and selenium poisoning. A report by the World Bank in cooperation with the Chinese government found that about 750,000 people die prematurely in China each year from air pollution.

China's economic model, which people like the head of the SEIU say should be the future of the United States, is unsustainable and killing its own people. It's model emphasizes state control of people and businesses and the de-humanizing of both. It is a model which stands in marked contrast to the economic model of the historical United States, a model which emphasizes little state control, more liberty given to people to make free economic choices, and strong individual and business property rights, and is a model that embraces the humanity of life. We can see the difference in the two models when we look at China's coal mining industry and electric power generation, and see the difference in the contrasting visions.

Elections have consequences- in the coming elections for US President, Senator, Representative, or even at the local level, ask yourself whether the candidate you support has a vision of the future that pushes for more state control over people's lives or less state control. Those who push for more state control will boast of the economic growth in nations like China- while ignoring the enormous cost in terms of human life and damage to the environment. Those who push for less state control over people's lives will point to the United States, which in contrast to those with state control have much better records on life, liberty, and wealth creation- although not perfect, because man is not perfect.

And for readers of my blog around the world, this applies to you as well- although China's economy is growing, there is a real cost to humanity for their growth, and in the end its statist economy will collapse like the Soviet Union's did. Only economic models that give more power to people and more freedom to individuals and more rights to businesses and corporations and individuals are successful in creating wealth in a sustainable manner while protecting life and liberty. You have a real choice to make in your nation too- state control for short term unequally distributed wealth, or less state control for longer term more equal distribution of life, liberty, and property.

For those who are interested in reading more about China and its coal production methods and coal-powered economy, I suggest you check out an article called China’s Dark Power.

President Obama, like most liberals and the party it controls (the once-proud Democratic Party), doesn't like the fact that you make decisions regarding your life- he wants to make them. And now that he has the power of trillions in taxpayer money and thousands of employees, he has the means to tell you how to live your own life. And so he has decided that he doesn't like big stores that thrive by providing goods and services to people in efficient and low-cost ways; rather, he likes small stores and so is going to go around the nation and pay for his administration to fly around the nation making speeches ordering you to not shop for great deals and save money at the big stores, but rather to shop at smaller stores, because he wants you to.

Liberals, being the elitists they are, don't really like Black Friday- as E.D. Kain describes it, these liberals reject Black Friday and the larger consumerism that accompanies this season (regrettably) for two reasons

...first, a sense that such overt consumerism is the hallmark of capitalism and that capitalism is somehow morally insufficient; and second, a distaste for the aesthetic of Black Friday – all those plebes rushing about buying things like so much chattel- these denizens of midnight Walmart sales are just icky...

It is the second thing that I believe really strikes me as the case, because most liberals think they are so much smarter than the rest of us and look down their noses at us, wanting to govern and manage us because they don't understand liberty, freedom, private property rights, capitalism, religion, morality, civic mindedness, charity, and all the other hallmarks of the conservative heartland of America. Because they don't understand these concepts, they reject them, pretending that they don't really exist, and that instead everyone who believes in them must be stupid or dumb, and so they wave around their Ivy League diploma's and listen to their pretentious public television or radio, use big words, scold everyone for not having proper grammar, and make fun of all the 'average people' scurrying about on Black Friday getting good deals and saving money and making our economy go around.

You see, you won't catch Barack Obama or other liberals out on Black Friday- he'll be joining the other Occupy Wall Street protesters in boycotting it, because they have enough money not to need deals, they have enough time to spend hours looking for a great deal, and they generally are not thrifty and efficient spenders enough to care about saving money as a family and getting the best deal.

Robert Frank is a great example of the sort of liberal who forms the intellectual backbone of modern day liberalism, the sort that dominates the Democratic Party today. He had time and money to go out and get several degrees in math and statistics, taking time off from his studies to work in government and give lectures, before he settled into an Ivy League school to lecture other elitists and write columns for snooty New York Times and write books with Ben Bernanke. For most of his life he has written and talked about how wealth and prosperity for all has somehow made the poor in America even more poor, and he sees no hypocrisy in doing so as he has flown around the world, eaten in nice restaurants, and lived in a nice house.

In this week's New York Times article How to End the Black Friday Madness, lectures those whom he sees as beneath him with a contempt just hidden (unlike the contempt that I hold him in that I am not hiding). He writes:

ADAM SMITH’S most enthusiastic modern disciples insist that the recipe for economic progress is to push government aside and let unfettered markets work their magic. His invisible hand theory does provide a tidy account of how market incentives can generate enormous wealth. But as Charles Darwin saw so clearly, unbridled competition doesn’t always promote the common good....
....In recent years, large retail chains have been competing to be the first to open their doors on Black Friday. The race is driven by the theory that stores with the earliest start time capture the most buyers and make the most sales. For many years, stores opened at a reasonable hour. Then, some started opening at 5 a.m., prompting complaints from employees about having to go to sleep early on Thanksgiving and miss out on time with their families. But retailers ignored those complaints, because their earlier start time proved so successful in luring customers away from rival outlets...

Frank, being an educated liberal, employs here the usual judgement of other people, feeling that he somehow gets to decide what is a 'reasonable hour' for stores to open, even though he does not run any sort of stores and has never served as a manager of any sort of store at any level his whole life.

From this place of supreme unwisdom and experience, guided by a piece of paper saying that he knows something, he has decided to play God and decide when people should start shopping. He then ignores the overtime that these employees are paid and has no knowledge of the many people hired just for this day- people who are not regular employees but who are given a paycheck on this day purely because the hours are not regular- and with this lack of knowledge of what is going on he has decided that it isn't becoming of employees to go in to work at a job that they choose to be at. Don't worry workers- with a guy like Frank on your side, he'll push for less jobs and less overtime and less hours, and in so doing make you more poor. He's like all other liberals, and the Liberal-in-Chief President Obama, in his utter failure to understand economics, math, statistics, people, or anything else about this world.

Frank believes that if we were all to empower him with the ability to control the world, the collective will would be better served by him controlling when we shop and how much items sell for and all the other sorts of personal decisions made by private individuals that he doesn't understand or know about.

I've never been a big fan of Black Friday, but if the liberals and Obama and Robert Frank are against it, I think that I need to change my tune, and do a little bit of online shopping tonight!

Stick it in Frank and Obama's eye- buy something tonight! Here are a couple suggestions...
Shop Amazon's New Kindle Fire
Shop Amazon's Holiday Toy List
Shop Amazon's Gift Cards - Perfect Anytime
Shop Amazon's Christmas Corner - Holiday decor, tableware, and entertainment

UPDATE: Welcome readers from The Village Voice! Take a look around and learn something!

The real counter-culture today is not to be found on the left, with the Occupy Wall Street people or in the liberal and progressive blogs on the internet. After all, counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of people who run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day. They aren't 'fringe groups' or 'subgroups'- rather, the counterculture are those people who are the manifestations of the zeitgeist of the day. And the group that best rejects the old way of doing things, the traditional ways of doing things, and offers new and different solutions to the problems facing society today are those people who love freedom and liberty and property rights. Ladies and gentlemen, the new counterculture is the Tea Party, and if you were hip and cool you'd join it.

The 'establishment' of today is not the restrictive, conservative white-picket fence war hero's of the '50's- rather, today the 'establishment' are those very hippies who rose to power and influence reacting against the 'establishment' of that time. Today, those in power and authority are those war-dodging self-righteous selfish drug-using types who now spend their days lecturing others around about being more friendly to the environment or to make peace not war or other meaningless garbage, while they live way beyond their means piling up debt on their children and grandchildren. These so-called 'progressives' control the modern-day Democratic Party and tint the Republican Party as well. Look around you- the entertainers on TV, the comics in the clubs, the celebrities in movies, the musicians- the culture of the day is that of the left, the establishment of politics and the media is that of the liberals, and even “The Man” is a lefty tyrant.

So what then is the new counter culture? As I wrote back in The New Counter Culture: Liberty, it is those people who love life, liberty, and the protection of property who are the new counterculture- rejecting the 'mainstream' big government progressive and liberal policies of the major parties and embracing the soaring rhetoric of the Bible and the Declaration of Independence to challenge the status quo and express the ethos of the times. The new rebels are the old rebels once again; those who fight against tyranny and oppression again and take back our nation, and they are to be found in the gatherings and celebrations of the Tea Party's, conservatives, and (to a lesser extent) the Republicans.

The real change in our society, the real difference makers, are those people who are out there at Tea Party's across the nation. Those who are going to shake the world and make a difference are not Harvard-educated community organizers committed to spending money they don't have on social re-engineering schemes while they urinate on themselves and shout about being the '99%'- rather, the counter-culture and cool group of today are those entrepreneurs who are standing up at town halls and yelling 'freedom'. They are the '1%' who are fighting for change and a return to the values that once made our nation great, and that is why their movement is so vibrant and intellectually alive, because they capture the spirit of the day and the direction our nation should go more so than the old hippy establishment culture that is the status quo now.

The Weekly Standard echo's some of these thoughts of mine in its latest article The Reactionary Left, by Matthew Continetti. Here are some of the best parts of it:

...The very notion of a backward-looking left is laughable. Since its inception during the French Revolution, the left has been the party of progress, riding the wave of history to that distant shore where man will cast off the chains of society and live a truly authentic, free, and “natural” life. It’s been the conservatives who have looked in the other direction, tapping the lefties on the shoulder and reminding them that faith and tradition are important guides to human action and shouldn’t be cast off lightly. In contemporary America the equation has been reversed: Tea Party populists support drastic measures to revitalize the American government and economy, while left-wing class warriors want nothing more than to maintain the broken structures of the welfare state....

...What happened to the American left’s utopianism, its sense of adventure, its fearless derring-do? Today’s liberals say conservatives are radicals who want to overturn the American political tradition (as liberals understand it). What remains of the liberal confidence in progress seems to be restricted to the culture, where Americans continue to perform occasional experiments of living. But even the cultural left seems withered, exhausted, ready to go to that big Oneida community in the sky. So what’s a Rousseau to do? Ruminate on his glory days, and pretend that Occupy Wall Street is something more than it is....

...The wistful left reaches back farther when it mimics the class politics of the 1930s. The “99 percent” versus the “1 percent,” Warren Buffett’s secretary versus Warren Buffett, Obama’s attacks on nameless “millionaires and billionaires” are echoes of the rhetoric of Huey Long, Father Coughlin, and Franklin Roosevelt. What is puzzling is that the strategy of division and resentment has not had a good track record. To be sure, it worked for FDR. But Roosevelt had 25 percent unemployment, a minuscule federal government, and a sunny disposition. Since LBJ, the spokesmen for American liberalism have been dour and passive and condescending. Their populism has lacked bite because it is a pose. The public has seen through their attempt to rehash the old formula for what it is: “the shield and slogan of the cunning who will rule in the name of equality,” as Martin Diamond once put it.

The longing for the culture of the ’60s, the economy of the ’50s, and the politics of the ’30s is evidence of the left’s failure. No longer able to inspire with a utopian vision of the future, the left has been forced to return to its past. The left’s failure, then, is the right’s victory, because a return to the past is what we’ve been calling for all along....

Check out the whole thing, it's pretty good. Also be sure to check out this article by James Hudnall over at Big Hollywood, which covers some of the same ideas.

UPDATE: Welcome readers of the Right Wing News! Thanks for checking out this post- look around while you are here, I'm sure you'll enjoy other posts that've I've written!

Juan Williams was on Sean Hannity today discussing President Obama's economic and domestic policies, and when push came to shove and facts and figures and data and evidence was cited, he fell back on the same argument that liberals and progressives always fall back on when the results of their policies prove to be harmful to poor people, minorities, and the groups in society that need the most help- he fell back on the argument that for all of the government's faults, at least it was taking wealth from rich people and redistributing it as charity to poor people.

Liberals and progressives, who have seized the old Democratic Party and are now running it as a communist organization, believe that one of the primary roles of the new United States of America is to use the power of the state to distribute charity to those who need it. But their actions and beliefs are in fact resulting in less money and wealth going to the people who need it in society because the government is THE SINGLE WORST charitable organization in the world, having considerable overhead, being motivated by politics and not need, and full of corruption and graft.

CATO, in a report that, although dated, still gets to the heart of the matter, said:

Private charities have been more successful than government welfare for several reasons. First, private charities are able to individualize their approach to the circumstances of poor people in ways that governments can never do. Government regulations must be designed to treat all similarly situated recipients alike. Glenn C. Loury of Boston University explains the difference between welfare and private charities on that point. "Because citizens have due process rights which cannot be fully abrogated . . . public judgments must be made in a manner that can be defended after the fact, sometimes even in court." The result is that most government programs rely on the simple provision of cash or other goods and services without any attempt to differentiate between the needs of recipients.

Take, for example, the case of a poor person who has a job offer. But she can't get to the job because her car battery is dead. A government welfare program can do nothing but tell her to wait two weeks until her welfare check arrives. Of course, by that time the job will be gone. A private charity can simply go out and buy a car battery (or even jump-start the dead battery).

The sheer size of government programs works against individualization. As one welfare case worker lamented, "With 125 cases it's hard to remember that they're all human beings. Sometimes they're just a number." Bureaucracy is a major factor in government welfare programs. For example, a report on welfare in Illinois found procedures requiring "nine forms to process an address change, at least six forms to add or delete a member of a household, and a minimum of six forms to report a change in earnings or employment." All that for just one program.

In her excellent book Tyranny of Kindness, Theresa Funiciello, a former welfare mother, describes the dehumanizing world of the government welfare system--a system in which regulations and bureaucracy rule all else. It is a system in which illiterate homeless people with mental illnesses are handed 17-page forms to fill out, women nine months pregnant are told to verify their pregnancies, a woman who was raped is told she is ineligible for benefits because she can't list the baby's father on the required form. It is a world totally unable to adjust to the slightest deviation from the bureaucratic norm.

In addition to being better able to target individual needs, private charities are much better able to target assistance to those who really need help. Because eligibility requirements for government welfare programs are arbitrary and cannot be changed to fit individual circumstances, many people in genuine need do not receive assistance, while benefits often go to people who do not really need them. More than 40 percent of all families living below the poverty level receive no government assistance. Yet more than half of the families receiving means-tested benefits are not poor. Thus, a student may receive food stamps, while a homeless man with no mailing address goes without. Private charities are not bound by such bureaucratic restrictions.

Private charity also has a better record of actually delivering aid to recipients. Surprisingly little of the money being spent on federal and state social welfare programs actually reaches recipients. In 1965, 70 cents of every dollar spent by the government to fight poverty went directly to poor people. Today, 70 cents of every dollar goes, not to poor people, but to government bureaucrats and others who serve the poor. Few private charities have the bureaucratic overhead and inefficiency of government programs.

Democratic policies are increasingly being defended on 'charitable' grounds, from healthcare policies to economic policies to environmental policies, but the truth of the matter is that government is a poor method of distributing charity. Instead of relying on government and its horrible charitable giving, all of these programs should be ended and the money spent on them should be returned to citizens. Even if a small percentage of this money was given in charity, then it would be more successful than government programs, and as long as there are a lot of conservative Republicans around, we can be sure that a good percentage of money will be donated and not a small percentage (according to studies, liberals don't donate to charity- they feel superior by taking money from you and giving that to charity).

Although I am no expert in this, I have always felt that the 1930's were an interesting time period in our nation. The Victorian age had come to a bloody conclusion with World War One, and a whole generation of people were now being raised in a society that saw their parents as failures- their attempts to repress their sexual urges, their attempts to stick to the old ways, their attempts to put in place world peace, their attempts to build multinational nations- all had led to one of the most bloody and brutal and worthless wars of all time. Technology was changing fast- cars and telephones and radio and motion picture- and the children of the 1910's and 1920's thought that they had everything figured out- they thought that where other generations had failed due to their reliance on religion, traditional values, free markets, republicanism, and limited government, they would succeed by figuring out a third way of doing things, a practical way of doing things, a way of doing things that used the power of government to make society a better place to live. This new generation, horrified by WWI and mocking their parents lack of technology skills, had it all figured out, and ushered in an era of fascism and communism and World War Two.

In my post 1930's Are Root of All That is Wrong I cataloged all of the laws that were passed in the 1930's in America that are with us today- such as the Unemployment Compensation Tax (MI, 1936), Oil and Gas Severance Tax (MI, 1929), Social Security Act (USA, 1935), Fair Labor Standards Act (USA, 1938), Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act (USA, 1930), Hoover Tax Hike (USA, 1932), National Labor Relations Act (USA, 1935), Private Schools, Act 302 of 1921 (MI, 1921), Roosevelt moves traditional Thanksgiving Day (1939), Regulating Firearms, Act 373 (MI, 1927), US moves off gold standard (1933), Reapportionment Act (USA, 1929), etc. Looking through that list and thinking of how much America was changed by one generation, by one President, by one party, by one decade (mostly), I was always stunned, and wondered how people had let that come to pass.

As it turns out, the Republican Party of 1936 had put together a platform to oppose a lot of these fascist ideas, but people loved their hope and change and returned FDR to the White House instead, and so the Great Depression dragged on for another decade. Via Conservative Hideout, let's take a walk back in history and see just exactly what the GOP was offering as an alternative back then to the high taxes, high regulation, crony capitalism, fascist third way system that FDR was pushing our nation into. Here is a good chunk of the 1936 Republican Party Platform:

1936 Republican Party PlatformAmerica is in peril. The welfare of American men and women and the future of our youth are at stake. We dedicate ourselves to the preservation of their political liberty, their individual opportunity and their character as free citizens, which today for the first time are threatened by Government itself.

For three long years the New Deal Administration has dishonored American traditions and flagrantly betrayed the pledges upon which the Democratic Party sought and received public support. The powers of Congress have been usurped by the President... the rights and liberties of American citizens have been violated... regulated monopoly has displaced free enterprise.... it has intimidated witnesses and interfered with the right of petition... it has been guilty of frightful waste and extravagance, using public funds for partisan political purposes... it has promoted investigations to harass and intimidate American citizens, at the same time denying investigations into its own improper expenditures... it has created a vast multitude of new offices, filled them with its favorites, set up a centralized bureaucracy, and sent out swarms of inspectors to harass our people.... it has bred fear and hesitation in commerce and industry, thus discouraging new enterprises, preventing employment and prolonging the depression.... appeals to passion and class prejudice have replaced reason and tolerance.

To a free people, these actions are insufferable. This campaign cannot be waged on the traditional differences between the Republican and Democratic parties. The responsibility of this election transcends all previous political divisions. We invite all Americans, irrespective of party, to join us in defense of American institutions. We pledge ourselves:

...To preserve the American system of free enterprise, private competition, and equality of opportunity, and to seek its constant betterment in the interests of all.

The only permanent solution of the unemployment problem is the absorption of the unemployed by industry and agriculture. To that end, we advocate: Removal of restrictions on production. Abandonment of all New Deal policies that raise production costs, increase the cost of living, and thereby restrict buying, reduce volume and prevent reemployment. Encouragement instead of hindrance to legitimate business. Withdrawal of government from competition with private payrolls. Elimination of unnecessary and hampering regulations. Adoption of such other policies as will furnish a chance for individual enterprise, industrial expansion, and the restoration of jobs.

Society has an obligation to promote the security of the people, by affording some measure of protection against involuntary unemployment and dependency in old age. The New Deal policies, while purporting to provide social security, have, in fact, endangered it. We propose a system of old age security, based upon the following principles: 1. We approve a pay-as-you-go policy, which requires of each generation the support of the aged and the determination of what is just and adequate, 2. Every American citizen over sixty-five should receive the supplementary payment necessary to provide a minimum income sufficient to protect him or her from want. 3. Each state and territory, upon complying with simple and general minimum standards, should receive from the federal government a graduated contribution in proportion to its own, up to a fixed maximum....

...Nearly sixty percent of all imports into the United States are now free of duty. The other forty percent of imports compete directly with the product of our industry. We would keep on the free list all products not grown or produced in the United States in commercial quantities. As to all commodities that commercially compete with our farms, our forests, our mines, our fisheries, our oil wells, our labor and our industries, sufficient protection should be maintained at all times to defend the American farmer and the American wage earner from the destructive competition emanating from the subsidies of foreign governments and the imports from low-wage and depreciated-currency countries....

...We recognize the existence of a field within which governmental regulation is desirable and salutary. The authority to regulate should be vested in an independent tribunal acting under clear and specific laws establishing definite standards. Their determinations on law and facts should be subject to review by the Courts. We favor Federal regulation, within the Constitution, of the marketing of securities to protect investors. We favor also Federal regulation of the interstate activities of public utilities...

...We pledge ourselves to the merit system, virtually destroyed by New Deal spoilsmen. It should be restored, improved and extended. We will provide such conditions as offer an attractive permanent career in government service to young men and women of ability, irrespective of party affiliations.

The New Deal Administration has been characterized by shameful waste, and general financial irresponsibility. It has piled deficit upon deficit. It threatens national bankruptcy and the destruction through inflation of insurance policies and savings bank deposits. We pledge ourselves to: Stop the folly of uncontrolled spending. Balance the budget—not by increasing taxes but by cutting expenditures, drastically and immediately. Revise the federal tax system and coordinate it with state and local tax systems. Use the taxing power for raising revenue and not for punitive or political purposes.

We advocate a sound currency to be preserved at all hazards. The first requisite to a sound and stable currency is a balanced budget. We oppose further devaluation of the dollar. We will restore to the Congress the authority lodged with it by the Constitution to coin money and regulate the value thereof by repealing all the laws delegating this authority to the Executive....

...We assume the obligations and duties imposed upon Government by modern conditions. We affirm our unalterable conviction that, in the future as in the past, the fate of the nation will depend, not so much on the wisdom and power of government, as on the character and virtue, self-reliance, industry and thrift of the people and on their willingness to meet the responsibilities essential to the preservation of a free society.

In several earlier posts I have been critical of Obamacare because it attacks life, liberty, and property and because it represents the growing tyranny of the federal government. But somehow I missed an important reason why we should oppose giving the national government more control over our healthcare system- power should not be concentrated in the hands of government and government officials because when this happens it increases by considerable amounts the chances that this power will be used in a corrupt manner. And we're seeing that under President Barack Obama (Democrat) and a Congress that was run by Nancy Pelosi (Democrat), legislation like Obamacare was passed into law that is now leading to considerable amounts of corruption in our system.

Corruption takes makes many forms, but in this case, we have to consider whether or not Democrats, led by President Obama and Democrats in Congress, passed legislation that allows and encourages more corruption in our nation and also whether or not these same Democrats continue to be encouraging and supporting of corruption. Corruption is seen usually in several ways- trading in influence, patronage, cronyism, electoral fraud, and kickbacks.

It was my suspicion several months ago that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was a corrupt piece of legislation designed to transfer property and choice from those who have it to those who want it. There would be those who would not want to be part of this process who would then ask for waivers, and it was my suspicion that these waivers would be given out based on political considerations- in other words, they would be given to groups that support the Democratic Party, Obama in particular, or to companies who had access and connections to those Democratic party officials who were making the decisions on the waivers, likely because of their campaign donations. So I started to do some research on the issue- as I stated, the research was by no means an exhaustive list of evidence but did end up being some pretty fair anecdotal evidence that those who are receiving waivers from Obamacare are those who donated large amounts of money to Barack Obama. Check out the post for my little bit of research on this issue. Usually where there is lots of smoke there is a fire, and it turns out the smoke I saw is now being seen by others.

The Daily Caller is reporting that:

Of the 204 new Obamacare waivers President Barack Obama’s administration approved in April, 38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district. That’s in addition to the 27 new waivers for health care or drug companies and the 31 new union waivers Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services approved.

Pelosi’s district secured almost 20 percent of the latest issuance of waivers nationwide, and the companies that won them didn’t have much in common with companies throughout the rest of the country that have received Obamacare waivers. Other common waiver recipients were labor union chapters, large corporations, financial firms and local governments.

This is not shocking news to me- Nancy Pelosi was the Speaker of the House and Barack Obama is still our President, and both are Democrats, and of course the kick-backs will be going primarily to areas that supported them, whether they be in Pelosi's district or union allies or local government units that vote overwhelmingly Democrat.

I think Mona Charen from RealClearPolitics really understands the nature of Obamacare- it is designed to move us away from a nation built on equality and laws to a nation built on power and men:

....There are rumblings of suspicion that HHS has shown favoritism -- labor unions have received some 26 percent of waivers while comprising only 12 percent of workers. As Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee remarked, "What does it say about the feasibility of the health care law when the administration needs to exempt over 1,000 health plans from its own law?"

A few wags have suggested that the HHS grant the rest of the country a waiver and be done with it. But the implications of what Professor Richard Epstein has called "government by waiver" aren't funny. As Congress has ceded more and more power to regulatory agencies, the opportunities for abuse of power multiply. Writing in National Affairs, Epstein notes that among the companies and entities that successfully sought waivers from Obamacare's provisions were PepsiCo, Foot Locker, the Pew Charitable Trusts, many local chapters of the Teamsters, the United Food and Commercial Workers union, and numerous public-employee unions.

But, asks Epstein, "(W)hat about employers who do not have the resources to navigate the waiver process? What about those lacking the political connections to make their concerns heard in Washington? And what happens when the one-year waivers run out? Will they be renewed? Under what conditions? And what rights will insurers have to waive then in order to avoid going out of business?"

The world of Obamacare is no place for the little guy.

The danger of waiver power is that it will be used differentially, giving one private entity a competitive advantage over another. The company denied a waiver can bring suit -- but litigation is expensive and slow....

....Because there are so few avenues of recourse when we live under a government by waiver, we are forced, as Epstein warns, to trust in the good judgment of bureaucrats and elected officials: "The fate of our rights and liberties is left to the wisdom and discretion of individuals; we are therefore governed by men, not by laws."

In Marbury v. Madison, Justice Marshall wrote: "The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right." It will also cease to deserve that "high appellation" if we submit to the unreviewable discretion of agencies.

There really are two visions of the future of America being pushed for by the two parties in our nation- one vision pushes for a nation built on laws (although you might disagree with some of those laws) and another vision pushes for a nation built on the rule of powerful men (although you might agree with some of the rules these men establish). It's a tough choice for many- side with the strongman who promises a better future, or side with the lawman who promises a nation built on law. Many will be seduced, and our nation will be less because of it.

Over the last two weeks in Libya, important events were occurring. There was an important revolt against a ruling power, a revolt that was inspired by events in nearby nations and that was driven by forces including a desire for more liberty, a desire for better protection of property from takings by the government, and a desire for more protections of life. Of course there are other forces swirling around too in Libya- the whole life, liberty, and property line also needs to have added to it tribal, religious, and other overtones- but the idea is that there is an important revolution occurring in Libya today.

Opposing the revolutionaries are those who like the status quo in Libya, those who are part of the tyrannical government system, those whose livelihoods are based on the looting of their fellow citizens, those who feel that elites and overlords and government agents should control what people do in their lives, and those who abuse human lives with cruel and unjust judicial systems. These people have important skin in the game too- if the tables are turned on them, they die and their way of life dies, and so they are going to fight tooth and nail and to the last bloody body to keep their unearned gains.

And then there is probably the most important group in Libya, that of the middle. Everyone always remembers the American revolutionaries and the British and Loyalist forces, but few ever think about the great percentage of people who sat out the opening rounds of the American Revolution and watched events before deciding which way to commit. There is a large number of people in Libya who are on the sidelines, watching- although they might agree with the revolutionaries, if the revolution is successful, they may not gain personally and they may have less wealth or power, or although they might agree with the established power, but they may live in an area where the revolution is doing well or may think that long term the revolution will be successful. There are a great number of people in Libya sitting on the sidelines- generals, political leaders, business leaders, and teachers- who are trying to figure out which way this whole thing is going to break so that they can be on the winning side.

The United States had the opportunity two weeks ago to put pressure on all three to achieve some sort of an outcome, and because of the incompetence of its primary political figure in charge of international events, the President, it has failed to do so and only now, several weeks later, is it finally making weak policy decisions on this important event.

This is an important event, you see- Libya is a significant oil producer, Libya has over 6 million people in it, Libya is in a strategic area of the world, and Libya has been a thorn in the side of the United States for years as an active supporter of worldwide terrorism. It is a nation that could be better- it could be a more reliable producer of cheaper oil for us, it could be a nation that has fewer human rights abuses and more political freedom and happiness for its own people, it is a nation that could serve as important source of stability and support in the region, or it could be simply removed from being a thorn in our side and stop supporting worldwide terrorism.

It isn't guaranteed, of course, that these positive events can and will happen- one must always weigh the possible positives of the future with the current situation- but as Libya was a 'bad' nation who wasn't our ally, it can't get much worse (this contrasts to my position on Egypt which was that it was a 'not totally bad nation who was our ally and could get worse').

When this revolution started up several weeks ago, there was every possibility for the United States to put pressure on all three factions working in Libya. Now, of course that pressure needed to be subtle and applied in the right manner by the right people, but I think my case has been laid out strongly that some action should have been taken in some way as soon as possible in this revolution in Libya.

All three factions- the revolutionaries, those in power, and the significant middle in between- could all have been acted on. The revolutionaries could have been provided with support- moral, international, actual arms and weapons, etc. Those in power could have been pressured through sanctions, embargoes, stern words, seizure of assets, or threats of more by moving military assets into the area, and this may have moderated its response and taken off of the table such actions as bombing civilians or hiring foreign mercenaries. And the moderates and those who hadn't decided which faction to support would have observed these reactions and made the call that the winning side and stronger horse to bet on in this revolution was the revolutionaries, thus swelling their ranks and leading them to quicker and less bloody victory.

But Democratic President Barack Obama did not act quickly, surely, or strongly. Other nations did- the British seized assets, the Chinese moved warships into the region, the French acted diplomatically- but not the world's greatest superpower and the one with the most capacity to act in a positive manner. Instead, Obama did nothing, he dithered, he went to basketball games and concerts, and he did not exercise the leadership that was so critical during this timer period.

His failures resulted in a longer, more drawn out, less sure conflict, one in which the moderates saw the President of the United States doing nothing and so decided to support the established powers, one in which the revolutionaries saw their morale drop due to lack of support, one in which the established powers in Libya believed that is was okay to use deadly force and hire international mercenaries to keep control.

The fact that Obama is acting now to issue weak international language condemning Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi does not improve my regard for him or his actions; it instead makes me regard him worse. If Obama was going to oppose Qaddafi, he should have opposed him- if Obama was going to support Qaddafi, he should have supported him- but instead it appears that the leader of the free world and commander-in-chief of the greatest military force ever was a confused, unprincipled, weak, inept, and incompetent moderate who is simply waiting on the sidelines trying to look good in the end rather than being a strong, principled, competent leader who takes action, even if that action is a strong no-action.

President Barack Obama must be removed from office sooner rather than later because he is not a good leader and is incompetent and his failures are leading to a world that is less free, less secure, and more dangerous to the living. He may be a fine father and a good person and a great community organizer, but it was and continues to be a mistake to have him as President of the United States.

UPDATE: Something about this subject must inspire deeper thoughts about the President and what sort of person should occupy that office, because Richard Fernandez over at Belmont Club has also penned a great editorial on this very subject titled The Root of All Evil- check it out!

On my drive home from work today I listened to an interview of Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (Democrat, Wisconsin) on the Ed Schultz Show (1310AM in Detroit). The good Congresswoman described what was happening in Wisconsin as an attack on the rights of workers that was beyond the pale of what is acceptable politically in America. She said that this was an attempt to silence workers at the bargaining table and make it so that they would be treated with disrespect at the bargaining table. Let's address both of these questions by asking two important questions.

What is a Right?
According to natural rights philosophy, on which our nation is based and built on, rights are claims that we as people have to certain things because those things have always existed and will always exist, no matter which state governs us. Even without states, in a state of nature, people would still have the right to live, the right to live in freedom, and the right to keep and own property. These rights could not be taken away by any government, although they could be violated, because government does not provide these rights or create them- rather, these rights are created by God and given to everyone since we are all made in God's image. Or in other words:

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...

Note that rights are clearly not privileges that are granted to certain groups in society by government. If that is the case, than these privileges could easily be taken away, in which case they were never a 'right' but rather a 'grant'. Clearly this is the situation in Wisconsin, where the government granted to certain groups in society certain grants of power which it now can no longer afford to give and so is taking those grants away. This situation is nothing at all similar to any sort of patriotic fight, but is instead just selfish and short-sighted angry grabbing after power that was once granted but now is being taken back.

Even when discussing rights, Congresswomen Baldwin had trouble because she knows on a deeper level that she doesn't know what she is talking about. She jerks back from any mention of where these 'worker' rights come from or how they are in reality 'rights' and not just privileges granted to politically favorable groups by government. She instead just repeats that they are rights and that these rights only belong to government-approved union workers and that everyone should stand with these favored groups and protect their rights. It is surprising that voters put her in office when she has clearly failed to study or think about these important issues, even though she went to college and law school where natural rights philosophy should have been taught. It appears all she learned from her law school was how to go about suing people and spin falsehoods.

Who does Labor sit down with at Bargaining Table?
Public labor unions like those in Wisconsin who would lose their special privileged rights that they had been given by Democratic governments of the past would be forced to sit down in the future with elected officials and taxpayers and determine what their future benefits would be. Congresswomen Baldwin and Ed Schultz both talked about the need for unions to negotiate with evil businesses who did not care about working conditions or workers pay because they were only after profits for their shareholders- but this is clearly not the case when public employee unions negotiate with elected officials and taxpayers, who are not driven by profits, who are responsible to voters if they mistreat workers, who would be liable to large lawsuits if they had poor working conditions, and who are put into office by citizens to represent citizens to hire those people to work for citizens. They are not 'hostile' any more than the average public would be 'hostile' to unions, and if the average voting public is 'hostile' to unions, that is an indication that unions have been 'hostile' to the interests of the average voting public.

When it comes down to it, when pushed and goaded by the fascist thug Ed Schultz, Congresswomen Baldwin fell back on class warfare and tried to argue that what had put her state in such financial trouble were not the generous salaries, pensions, and benefits that workers had bargained from the state over the last several years, but rather tax cuts to the rich or tax breaks to job creators that were given in the last month, and that her state should have just continued to pass the bill on to future generations and papered over the debt with trickery and shell games. After all, that's what she encourages the national government to do with her votes in Congress- she votes in favor of massive deficits that are passing huge debts and liabilities and obligations down on our children and grandchildren, and she does this all while pretending that she is not selfish and short-sighted and a tool to Big Labor.

For more information on natural rights philosophy, check out Two Treatises of Government and A Letter Concerning Toleration.

There is something very important happening in Tunisia. On January 14, a spontaneous popular uprising ousted President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali from power and ended his decades of autocratic rule. For the first time, many in this nation have the freedom to speak and the freedom to demand justice for those who have been unjustly killed by Ali's regime. Although the ending to this story is uncertain- exactly how far does this revolution go and what kind of retribution will fall on Ali's party- the story is very much one that is hopeful and to be celebrated by those people who love and support freedom, liberty, and protection of property.

But it isn't being celebrated by many in America. President Barack Obama (Democrat) issued a weak statement praising “the courage and dignity of the Tunisian people”, and then turned around and made a phone call in support of Egypt's autocratic dictator Hosni Mubarak. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton (Democrat) commented that the US was not “taking sides” in Tunisia, reinforcing that it is the policy of the (Democratic) administration not to support good in its battle with evil around the world.

It shouldn't come as a surprise though that Obama's (Democratic) administration is not being supportive or even very happy about the overthrow of an autocratic Middle-East dictator. Ali was 'our guy' a neo-liberal who ran a semi-modern nation and seemed to support us in our wars against extremism in the Middle-East, a description that also fits Mubarak and Egypt. Still, although he was 'our guy', his overthrow might lead to a 'better guy', and so the administration should have been able to react quickly and move decisively to support and praise the freedom movement in Tunisia.

But yet, Obama's (Democratic) administration isn't moving fast and quick and reacting to modern-day events in ways that would support the flowering of democracy and freedom and bring more life, liberty, and protection of property to more people of the world. Why?

Obama is stuck in the past- the past of his Harvard college years, the past of his term papers, the past of his Jerimiah Wright church, the past of his own rhetoric- and this uprising in Tunes, much like the uprising last year in Iran, wasn't expected or even smelled by his advisers and they lack the skill and intelligence and competence to change their policies on the fly. So they sit there, letting world events swirl around them, reacting to uprisings in ways that betray their lack of abilities and vision, and for that reason, voters should severely punish Obama and Democrats in Congress who supported him and his stuck-in-the-past policies.

The Middle-East has been opened to a revolution of freedom and liberty by the successful policies of Republicans and Bush, and Obama's administration has had these successes unfold and fall into his lap, where he has done nothing noteworthy to earn the Peace Prize that was awarded to him before his administration took its first steps. We demand more and better from our Presidents and his advisers- not lukewarm statements and bored non-interest, but real action and real policy and real support.

One wonders why Obama and his Democrats in Congress have been so reluctant to speak out against corrupt regimes that build their power by demonizing their enemies, speaking harshly against them, personally attacking them, criminalizing their political activities, transferring citizens wealth to favored constituents, confiscating the wealth of unfavored individuals, having no oversight to its actions, and in other ways acting as a corrupt and autocratic tyrannical regime that attacks the life, liberty, and property rights of its citizens. Perhaps Obama doesn't express his support for revolutions in Tunisia though because he and his cronies identify more with the autocrats and dictators who run them.

UPDATE: So it is now several days later, and Egypt and Yeman have both also broke out in revolutions, demanding an end to autocractic government and more democracy. Obama's response? No clue. As usual, Obama is reacting to events on the international stage rather than driving events, and doing so in a slow manner, demonstrating once again that he is imcompetent- he and his advisors don't know what they are talking about, don't know how to react to situations, don't do their homework, and don't understand what is going on- and that explains why we hear nothing about how the greatest nation in the world reacts to these revolutions around the world.

Featuring Candi Peterson, blogger in residence and candidate for WTU General Vice President

For many years, African Americans in the United States have been a solid Democratic constituency. It didn't used to be this way- the Republican Party fought and died to free the blacks in the south from slavery, and for generations thereafter pushed for more equality and freedom for blacks in America. Even the great Civil Rights legislation of the 1960's that Democrats signed into law was only done so with the strong support by the Republican party, who overcame the Democrats from the south who filibustered it. But in recent decades, African American support for the Democratic party has been so solid (90-95%) that the Democratic party has taken it for granted, and instead of improving the situation for this constituency, the results have been considerably worse. Look at the results- after voting solidly Democrat for decades and putting Democrats in control of cities, states, and national government, look at the results- African Americans have far higher rates of crime, far lower rates of educational attainment, lag in income, and suffer higher rates of poverty. African-Americans voted for 'change' in 2008, and all that gave them was more of the same- more of the taxpayer paid dependency, welfare, and anti-school choice that have caused African-Americans to lag behind every single ethnic group in a range of measurable categories for years. That's bad, and I think that voting Republican might change things.

So do others. Despite largely unsubstantiated allegations of racism in 'Tea Party' organizations, the Republican Party, and conservative groups, 2010 has witnessed more black Republican activism than ever before. Thirty-seven African Americans in 16 states have been in contention for seats in the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives this year. And unlike African-American Democratic candidates, the majority of the Republican candidates do not come from areas where African-Americans are the majority. They are just good candidates, running for office on a platform of liberty, freedom, and equality, and just happen to be black too.

This election, it is my hope that Americans of all colors, creeds, philosophies, ideologies, and parties will all unite and vote for the candidate who best represents the values and ideals and beliefs that made America great- an unshakable belief that America is exceptional, that governmental power should be limited to protecting life, liberty, and property, and that the ultimate goal of political power in America is to further the freedom and liberty of its people. Since there are very few Democrats who speak this message (are there any that do any more?), I guess that means you'll have to vote Republican.

Check out this great video (h/t to theblogprof) encouraging African-Americans to vote for candidates who all champion liberty, equality, and freedom. Unless you are a racist or someone who wants to keep blacks on the plantation, this should stir your soul and make you very proud to be part of the GOP:

For those who are interested, check out this book on this subject: Silence Makes the Loudest Sound: A Conversation between African Americans and the Republican Party