My Beauty Best Teacher

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?.

As a conservative who fights for liberty and freedom, I have been unhappy with the attacks of our civil liberties that have dramatically escalated in the recent years since President Obama and the liberal Democrats have gained more political power. These left-wing groups pretend to care about civil liberties- but unlike under Bush when the conversations were hypothetical (what if we waterboard more than one person, what if the Patriot Act is abused, etc), under Obama the attacks on civil liberties are real and dangerous. Since yesterday was the anniversary of the Bill of Rights (the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution came into effect on December 15, 1789), via Cato let's get a quick update on how these amendments are being violated.

To see all of the links, check out the full article at Today Is Bill of Rights Day:

The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” Government officials, however, have insisted that they can gag recipients of “national security letters” and censor broadcast ads in the name of campaign finance reform.

The Second Amendment says the people have the right “to keep and bear arms.” Government officials, however, make it difficult to keep a gun in the home and make it a crime for a citizen to carry a gun for self-protection.

The Third Amendment says soldiers may not be quartered in our homes without the consent of the owners. This safeguard is one of the few that is in fine shape — so we can pause here for a laugh.

The Fourth Amendment says the people have the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures. Government officials, however, insist that they can conduct commando-style raids on our homes and treat airline travelers like prison inmates by conducting virtual strip searches.

The Fifth Amendment says that private property shall not be taken “for public use without just compensation.” Government officials, however, insist that they can use eminent domain to take away our property and give it to other private parties who covet it.

The Sixth Amendment says that in criminal prosecutions, the person accused is guaranteed a right to trial by jury. Government officials, however, insist that they can punish people who want to have a trial—“throwing the book” at those who refuse to plead guilty—which explains why 95 percent of the criminal cases never go to trial.

The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial in civil cases where the controversy “shall exceed twenty dollars.” Government officials, however, insist that they can impose draconian fines on people without jury trials.

The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments. Government officials, however, insist that a life sentence for a nonviolent drug offense is not cruel.

The Ninth Amendment says that the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights should not be construed to deny or disparage others “retained by the people.” Government officials, however, insist that they will decide for themselves what rights, if any, will be retained by the people.

The Tenth Amendment says that the powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states, or to the people. Government officials, however, insist that they will decide for themselves what powers they possess, and have extended federal control over health care, crime, education, and other matters the Constitution reserves to the states and the people.

It’s a disturbing snapshot, to be sure, but not one the Framers of the Constitution would have found altogether surprising. They would sometimes refer to written constitutions as mere “parchment barriers,” or what we call “paper tigers.” They nevertheless concluded that having a written constitution was better than having nothing at all.

The key point is this: A free society does not just “happen.” It has to be deliberately created and deliberately maintained. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. To remind our fellow citizens of their responsibility in that regard, the Cato Institute has distributed more than five million copies of our pocket Constitution. At this time of year, it’ll make a great stocking stuffer. Let’s enjoy the holidays but let’s also resolve to be more vigilant about defending our Constitution.

When putting together a list of the best Presidents in the history of our nation, that list would likely include Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, James Madison, Grover Cleveland, and Ronald Reagan. To that list I would like to also include Calvin Coolidge.

Most polls rank Coolidge somewhere in the middle, but this is because most people rank greatness by the number of actions that Presidents make and the number of policies that they as executives force on the nation that are usually contrary to our Constitution. For example, most lists put FDR at the top of the list, but he pushed through unconstitutional policies, dropped our nation into another Great Depression, didn't respond early enough to the rising fascism in the world, and then did the only thing I'll give him great credit for and won WWII. Oh, some great Presidents had to respond to crisis forced on them by others (like Lincoln), but most other so-called 'great' Presidents simply used the office of the President to jam policies on people that moved power and freedom away from them to the government and supervised a nation in crisis.

The best Presidents are those who did very little, ran the executive office smoothly and without problems or corruption, and conformed to the Constitution as closely as possible. Jefferson was President for two terms, and other then the Louisiana Purchase, his administration happily has little to note other than peace and prosperity. James Madison had to respond to the War of 1812, yes- but other than that, peace and prosperity. Calvin Coolidge was like this too- nothing to note during his time in office other than nothing to note- peoples lives were protected, the nation was prosperous, and property was well protected.

Here are some of the reasons that Calvin Coolidge should make the list of one of our greatest Presidents:

1. Coolidge was (for the most part) an opponent of government regulations. “I am in favor of reducing, rather than expanding, government bureaus which seek to regulate and control the business activities of the people,” he explained in the same State of the Union address. During his time in office, he attempted to allow private development of Muscle Shoals, made conservative appointments to federal offices over the objections of liberal Democrats and Progressive Republicans, was opposed to a veterans' bonus, and blocked and to the proposed McNary-Haugen farm legislation.
2. Coolidge criticized the left for its money-spending habits, stating, “Nothing is easier than spending the public money. It doesn’t appear to belong to anyone.” His policies led to a booming economy and increased tax revenues, but Coolidge knew that these additional 'revenues' wasn't the government's money- it was the peoples. So instead of bowing to progressives and liberals and using the surplus funds to create new programs, he put in place tax cuts. His tax cuts targeted largely the wealthy (he believed that the rich would invest their extra funds in ways that would increase production and therefore jobs and wealth at home, and also that American trade would expand abroad which would benefit the domestic economy and help stabilize the world economically and politically), but taxes were also cut on all taxpayers as well, the gift tax was repealed, and the death tax cut in half. These tax cuts led to increasing economic growth in America (and more tax revenues).
3. Coolidge believed that the role of the government was to step out of the way and allow the market and business to prosper. “The business of America is business,” Coolidge famously declared. But unlike many Republicans and almost all liberals, he did not believe the business of government was to control and direct and subsidize business- he believed in the free market and that removing regulations would encourage business more so than subsidies and targeted tax code help.

Coolidge’s tax cuts and deregulations resulted in a budget surplus and the economically booming “Roaring Twenties,” which came to an end during the progressive regulatory administration of his successor President Herbert Hoover. Coolidge said after leaving the White House, "Perhaps one of the most important accomplishments of my administration has been minding my own business"- but this is the very thing that I love about Coolidge, that as President he minded his own business, operated the machinery of the White House with cool and competent handling, and minded his own business as President. No crisis, no television appearances, no major policy changes, no crazy plans, no wild new ideas- simply doing his job, doing it well, and leaving when he was done with the nation in a better place than it was before.

President Calvin Coolidge may be the first U.S. president appeared to also appear in a "talkie" -- a movie with sound.In this four-minute clip (viewable on YouTube), Coolidge says that he wants to

"cut down public expense. I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves. I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom. Until we can re-establish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty."

Before we go to the polls in 2012 to pick nominees for political parties and for President, I just want everyone to re-examine Calvin Coolidge and his Presidency and decide for themselves what exactly makes a President great.

UPDATE: The Calvin Coolidge Memorial Foundation contacted and reminded me of another reason why Coolidge is possibly one of the better Presidents that we've ever had- his views on education. Coolidge believed strongly in education and he often commented on the subject throughout the course of his political career, believing in the importance of having an educated citizenry and impressing on young people the importance of lifelong learning. Here is one of his quotes from a newspaper column in 1930:

"While it is easy to waste money on education, it is the one thing which we cannot afford to curtail. The true ideal would seem to be a system that supplies those in the lower grades with certain basic information and those in the upper grades with the power to think… The school is not the end but only the beginning of an education. Yet its place cannot be filled in any other way. The best thing the millions of our youth can do to assure their future success is to work faithfully at their studies. That opportunity for improvement and discipline will never return.”

For your next vacation, take a trip to Plymouth Notch, VT to see the President Calvin Coolidge State Historic Site for yourself and experience the world in which President Coolidge was born and raised.

For good books about President Calvin Coolidge, check out Silent Cal's Almanack: The Homespun Wit and Wisdom of Vermont's Calvin Coolidge, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression, or Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge, The.

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!

Representative Ron Paul (R-TX) is a good Representative to the United States Congress and is a good advocate for libertarian views on public policy positions- but he should in no way be considered for the office of the President of the United States of America. This means that he should not be encouraged or supported in any effort to do so through support in straw polls, campaign donations, or nice comments online, and that he should not fan any sort of flames for a Paul Presidency by running. He should drop out of the race for the Presidential nomination of the Republican Party and not even hint or flirt about running for President again.

Ron Paul has no executive experience, and our next President of the United States should have executive experience. This does not mean that Paul doesn't have good ideas- he does have a lot of good ideas- but the proper place for a guy with lots of good ideas in our political system is in our legislative branch, not our executive branch. The President of the United States is essentially a clerk in our system, organizing and leading all the various agencies and departments and satisfying other important roles like chief of state and commander-in-chief. Even in his ability as commander-in-chief though the President is not really a man of ideas and new policies- he is the chief executive officer in charge of our military, providing direction and guidance and leadership but not really driving policies. The main job of the office is simply to oversee the whole process as something like a CEO of our government- and Ron Paul has never done this in any governmental unit, not as Director or Secretary of any agency, not as Governor, and hasn't even had any sort of leadership roles within his party that might prepare him to these tasks. He is simply unqualified to be an executive- much as our President today was, and we see the results of it now.

The President of the United States is expected to be a great communicator, decision maker, leader, and manager; all roles that Ron Paul may be good at, but are not the main reasons why his supporters like him. He can communicate- but is not renowned as a speaker or communicator, and this is something that a President must be able to do very well. President Reagan was a great communicator- President Obama, especially in the absence of his teleprompter and prepared speeches, is not (although he is a great speaker of prepared speeches), and that's why he makes a bad President and why Ron Paul would to.

The President of the United States must be a manager, presiding over the nation's day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year operations. He has to be able to oversee the vast operations of the massive government bureaucracy so that there is no corruption and misuse of funds and missions; and yet he has to be detached enough from the process to be able to see the big picture and provide clear direction and leadership to the operations of the state. Even Ron Paul supporters would be hard pressed to argue that their guy would be great at this aspect of the job- the day-to-day management of the vast enterprise of USA Inc- and yet this is a major aspect of the job of President.

Ron Paul, drop out of the race. Your supporters need to begin to look elsewhere for the next person that will lead our nation, a person who has the skills and competence and demonstrated executive experience to run the vast operations that is America. Your supporters need to begin to evaluate whether the other candidates for the job have the right skills, vision, dedication, and background to successful be a clerk, a CEO, and a manager for our nation, and thereby fill the void that is in the executive branch right now. No longer can (or should) our nation accept incompetence and inexperience masquerading as passion and ideology in the White House- no, we demand a real grown-up in this august office, one who can move the machinery of state and slowly fade back into the background while people with ideas pass laws out of the legislative branch that direct our executive and tell him which way to move the levers of the state.

Ron Paul, be a legislator, and a great one at that; but drop out of the race to be the chief executive of our nation, because it is not the right office for you, and your supporters are needed in helping choose the right person for this job.

To see other posts regarding my thoughts on Ron Paul, check out Ron Paul is Not the Future of the GOP or Abandon the Libertarian Party and 'Tea Party' and other Third Parties- Vote GOP You Fools.

UPDATE: It is amusing to get emails from so-called 'conservatives' and 'libertarians' who want Ron Paul to rule our nation as a king and use his position as executive to jam down his legislative policy on the serfs of our nation. Read Hamilton and Madison and go back and look at the Presidencies of Washington and Jefferson and Madison- they were merely clerks in our system, good managers, and good executives. So you better examine your motives for wanting Ron Paul to be President before you start emailing me- some of you are no better than Obama supporters in that you want a king to rule over us, the only difference is that the king you want is from Texas and talks a good game about libertarian and conservative values.

UPDATE II: My argument is based in part on my reading and understanding of professor Richard Neustadt's book Presidential Power, in which he examined the decision-making process at the highest levels of government. He argued that the President is actually rather weak in the U.S. government, being unable to effect significant change without the approval of the Congress, and that in practice the President must rely on a combination of personal persuasion, professional reputation "inside the Beltway", and public prestige to get things done. These very skills are ones that Paul seems to be lacking in, and thus he would make a poor President. Oh, I know he promises hope and change and speaks a good game, but we've already got a Democratic version of that in the White House, and we can see how badly it is working out, so why would we want a Libertarian or GOP version of hope-and-change-and-rhetoric?


UPDATE III: Please be sure to read my more updated post on this topic called Elect a 'Clerk' For President in 2012 and Restore Founding Father's Vision of Executive Branch? where I argue that our Founding Fathers and modern-day libertarians and Tea Partiers should be supporting a clerk, a manager, and a CEO for America Inc, and not a right-wing version of hope-and-change (like Ron Paul). Be sure to read it here!

The following is the complete text of a Statement from Senator Barack Obama on the topic of Foreign Policy and Defense, delivered on Wednesday, April 13, 2005, regarding the so-called 'nuclear option' that was just invoked by now-President Barack Obama's Democratic allies in the US Senate with his support. President Barack Obama's own words condemn him and his own parties actions, and in the strongest possible sense convict him of utter hypocrisy. Here is the statement:

Mr. President, I rise today to urge my colleagues to think about the implications the nuclear option would have on this chamber and this country. I urge you to think not just about winning every debate, but about protecting free and democratic debate.

During my Senate campaign, I had the privilege and the opportunity to meet Americans from all walks of life and both ends of the political spectrum. They told me about their lives, about their hopes, about the issues that mattered to them, and they also told me what they think about Washington.

Because you've all heard it yourselves, I know it won't surprise many of you to learn that a lot of people don't think much gets done around here about the issues they care most about. They think the atmosphere has become too partisan, the arguments have become too nasty, and the political agendas have become too petty.

And while I haven't been here too long, I've noticed that partisan debate is sharp, and dissent is not always well-received. Honest differences of opinion and principled compromise often seem to be the victim of a determination to score points against one's opponents.

But the American people sent us here to be their voice. They understand that those voices can at times become loud and argumentative, but they also hope that we can disagree without being disagreeable. And at the end of the day, they expect both parties to work together to get the people's business done.

What they don't expect is for one party - be it Republican or Democrat - to change the rules in the middle of the game so that they can make all the decisions while the other party is told to sit down and keep quiet. The American people want less partisanship in this town, but everyone in this chamber knows that if the majority chooses to end the filibuster - if they choose to change the rules and put an end to democratic debate - then the fighting and the bitterness and the gridlock will only get worse.

I understand that Republicans are getting a lot of pressure to do this from factions outside the chamber. But we need to rise above an "ends justify the means" mentality because we're here to answer to the people - all of the people - not just the ones wearing our party label.

The fact is that both parties have worked together to confirm 95% of this President's judicial nominees. The Senate has accepted 205 of his 214 selections. In fact, we just confirmed another one judge this week by a vote of 95-0. Overall, this is a better record than any President's had in the last 25 years. For a President who received 51% of the vote and a Senate chamber made up of 55% of the President's party, I'd say that confirming 95% of your judicial nominations is a record I'd be pretty happy with.

Again, I urge my Republican colleagues not to go through with changing these rules. In the long run, this is not a good result for either party. One day Democrats will be in the majority again, and this rule change will be no fairer to a Republican minority than it is to a Democratic minority.

Mr. President, I sense that talk of the nuclear option is more about power than about fairness. I believe some of my colleagues propose this rules change because they can get away with it rather than because they know it's good for our democracy.

Right now, we're faced with rising gas prices, skyrocketing tuition costs, a record number of uninsured Americans, and some of the most serious national security threats we've ever had, all while our bravest young men and women are risking their lives halfway around the world to keep us safe.

These are challenges we all want to meet and problems we all want to solve, even if we don't all agree how to do it. But if the right of free and open debate is taken away from the minority party and the millions of Americans who asked us to be their voice, I fear that the already partisan atmosphere of Washington will be poisoned to the point where no one will be able to agree on anything. That doesn't serve anyone's best interests, and it certainly isn't what the patriots who founded this democracy had in mind.

We owe the people who sent us here more than that. We owe them much more. Thank you.

Democrats routinely blasted GOP's efforts to invoke the nuclear option, which they considered but never implemented. I mean, come on- in 2005 Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said the thought of eliminating the filibuster is just another sign of the "arrogance of power of this Republican administration" (source)- but today he did something that not even the GOP was arrogant enough to do and showed that although the GOP might be bad, the Democrats are far far far worse when in power.

I expect the influential liberal website MoveOn.org, who was instrumental in the elections of Barack Obama in 2008 and Democrats for years before and after, to immediatily condemn this action and demand that all of their members contact their Senators to oppose this action, like they demanded their members to do in 2005! They won't though, because MoveOn.org is as rotten to the core as the entire Democratic Party.

The Democrats reveal their utter contempt for the American people- they didn't discuss this option, they didn't talk about it beforehand, they just suddenly invoked the nuclear option when no one was looking, proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that if you give this party an inch, they'll put us under a tyranny.

UPDATE: This is a response to the story now running on www.memeorandum.com regarding Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid triggering a rarely used procedural option informally called the “nuclear option” to change the Senate rules. Reid triggered this option because he was upset that McConnell wanted to force the Democrats to vote on the original version of President Obama’s jobs package, which apparently is so radioactive and bad that even Senate Democrats don't want to vote on it and will do anything, I mean ANYTHING, rather than vote on it. That's how bad President Obama is and how badly a job he is doing as chief executive of our nation.

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 my post NYT's Douthat is Wrong: Realigning Elections Exist and One is Coming I countered an argument that was advanced by the New York Times Ross Douthat where he claimed that Harvard Professor V.O. Key's theory on realigning elections was wrong. Douthat thought that 2008 was supposed to the be realigning election, and now that we can all see that it was not, he has become disillusioned with the theory that Key advanced in his iconic essay “A Theory of Critical Elections” and now thinks that elections that change America's direction are no longer possible. But he is wrong.

In my post Why 2008 Was Not a Historic or Realigning Election (written in 2009) I addressed Key's theory of realigning elections and looked back on the election of 2008 and looked forward to 2012. Here is some of what I wrote:

The theory of realigning elections (sometimes called key elections, critical elections, or historic elections)is that sometimes there is a dramatic change in the political system that you can observe in one election or a couple elections in a row. Usually it coincides with the coming to power of a new coalition of voters or the movement of a large or important bloc of voters to a new coalition, these realigning elections occur when voters decidedly break in a new direction on a particularly important issues, when a new party leader emerges who takes the party in a new direction, when the regional and demographic bases of power of the two parties switches, or when there is a new rules of the political system (ie, expansion of suffrage). Because political parties in America tend to be rather stable coalitions, a sudden realignment by a voting group tends to have a longer-lasting and dramatic effect. These realigning elections seem to occur once a generation (every 30-40 years). V. O. Key, Jr. is the professor who pioneered the study of these elections....

...Based on the 30-40 years estimate, the next 'realigning election' is due 2012-2020. Many though, because Barack Obama is black, want to say to say that the 2008 election (Democrat Barack Obama beats Republican John McCain) was a historic election, an unprecedented election, or a realigning election. Does it fit the model though?...

...If Obama had run as a liberal- running on a liberal platform and advocating liberal issues and highlighting his sharp policy differences from the past- then 2008 would have been a realigning election.

But let's go back to (2008). Watch the campaign commercials that Obama ran. Obama did not run as a liberal. He did not run on a platform that advocated stimulus packages, massive spending, large amounts of debt, pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan, nationalized healthcare, raising taxes, cap-and-tax, or government-take-overs of companies. Obama ran as a moderate. He ran as a new and different candidate, one who would not be liberal or conservative, but would reach across the aisle and be a post-partisan President. He talked about tax cuts and strong defense and ending corruption.

Obama ran as a moderate- on a moderate platform- and McCain was a moderate, and the gains in Congress for Democrats were mostly from moderate Blue Dogs, and the polls show the election map as being essentially the same as 1996-2004, so 2008 was not a historic, realigning, critical, key, or unprecedented election...

...2012 will probably be the historic election that we are all looking for. Obama will be running as a liberal and will be seeking a mandate and approval for his policies- which this time around will be clearly liberal and far left. Voting blocs will have to move to vote for him, the map will have to change, and our nation will indeed embrace change with an Obama victory in 2012, setting the stage for likely Democrat control of government for 30-40 years and a shift in our nation farther to the left. If Obama loses, he will lose to a conservative candidate (the GOP is not going with another moderate- Romney, Pawleny, Palin, Huckabee, etc are all conservatives) running on a conservative platform, and it will mark a return to power for conservative Republicans and a move back to the right for our nation.

My theory that 2012 will be a real realigning election continues to receive support. Forbes Ralph Benko wrote an article last week called The Constitutional Populist Realignment Of 2012 that speaks to my theory:

...There are two theories. Progressives believe that the answer lies in government job creation (stimulus, bailouts, “shovel-ready” public works). Supply-siders believe that the answer lies exclusively in human action, entrepreneurs and businesspeople, and that the government needs to get its boot off our necks...

...Constitutional populists, like the Tea Party Patriots, demand a return to free market principles to create jobs. Top notch populists such as Victor Davis Hanson, writing in National Review, anticipate bidding an unsentimental farewell to “A Tottering Technocracy.”...

...Being a republic(an) isn’t for the fainthearted. The sainted Jefferson once wrote “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” One can imagine the outrage which this violation of Civility by Jefferson would have provoked at the Huffington Post (if they deemed him conservative). Compared to Jefferson or Paine Rick Perry thus far has proved himself to be a model of rhetorical restraint.

Will 2012 go down as the year of Constitutional Populist Realignment in which the American political rank and file decisively reins in the elites? A populist realignment, sweeping both the White House and the Senate into conservative populist hands would be epochal and is by no means out of the question.

The populists’ paladin should expect ridicule at the hands of the smug, failed, modern day royalists. The prize is big and the scorn worth bearing. That’s the way to the White House: jobs through free markets. As our Founders knew, as we now rediscover, as Perry, Bachmann, and Paul, among others are agitating for: jobs need real, rather than funny, money. Onward to gold.

The prize is big indeed and the scorn is worth bearing, but the way there is clear- in the primary you must be active in both the Republican and Democratic parties in advancing solid conservative constitutional libertarians who believe in our Founding Principles, and in the general election you must vote for whomever of whatever party better fits that label better and get your friends and family and coworkers to do the same. Let's dream big, my friends, and dream about taking back our nation, one election at a time, over a generation or two, and then perhaps America will once again be the great nation of freedom and liberty and prosperity that it once was.

UPDATE I: Thank you all so much for visiting my blog! Please be sure to look around at some of my other posts- click on the archives and look around from past months or simply do a search of your favorite topic and see what comes up! Bookmark me or email this page to your friends- it does no good if the message stops with you, you have to spread the word of A Conservative Teacher.

Also, I'd love to start posting to my blog wherever I am, and to do that I need a smartphone- sadly, my salary was cut by over 20% over the next 4 years with our latest contract, so I really can't afford one now... unless you donate some money to me by clicking on the 'donate' button on the top right of my blog. I would really appreciate it! Thanks for visiting!

Educate Yourself! Buy and read...

Via Memeorandum I read an article by Ross Douthat, writing for the New York Times, called Waiting For A Landslide, in which he discusses V. O. Key's essay “A Theory of Critical Elections.” In his article Douthat claims that:

...One reason American policy-making has become “less stable, less effective, and less predictable” — in the words of the downgrade that Standard & Poor’s handed to the United States on Friday night — is the enduring influence of V. O. Key’s theory, and the seductive dream of realignment that it conjured up.

This dream has hovered over national leaders from Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. But it has loomed larger in the last decade, as our politics have grown more polarized and our country has suffered through a series of dislocations and disasters. Events like 9/11 and the Great Recession have persuaded partisans on both sides that a dramatic realignment is imminent; the breadth of the ideological divide has convinced them that it’s necessary...

...The dream of realignment has become the enemy of such compromises....

...In reality, the next election may be no more transformative than 2008 turned out to be.

Douthat sadly makes two mistakes in his article- one, he rejects the theory that Key put forth, and two, he thinks that Obama's election in 2008 was any sort of a transformative election.

Let's all take a moment to go down memory lane and read what I wrote in 2009 regarding realigning elections in my post Why 2008 Was Not a Historic or Realigning Election:

The theory of realigning elections (sometimes called key elections, critical elections, or historic elections)is that sometimes there is a dramatic change in the political system that you can observe in one election or a couple elections in a row. Usually it coincides with the coming to power of a new coalition of voters or the movement of a large or important bloc of voters to a new coalition, these realigning elections occur when voters decidedly break in a new direction on a particularly important issues, when a new party leader emerges who takes the party in a new direction, when the regional and demographic bases of power of the two parties switches, or when there is a new rules of the political system (ie, expansion of suffrage). Because political parties in America tend to be rather stable coalitions, a sudden realignment by a voting group tends to have a longer-lasting and dramatic effect. These realigning elections seem to occur once a generation (every 30-40 years). V. O. Key, Jr. is the professor who pioneered the study of these elections.

Most experts agree that the following where clearly realigning elections- 1800 (Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson wins over Federalist John Adams), 1828 (Democrat Andrew Jackson wins over Democratic-Republican John Q. Adams), 1860 (Republican Abraham Lincoln wins over others), 1896 (Republican William McKinley wins over Democrat William Jennings Bryan), 1932 (Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt wins over Republican Herbert Hoover), 1968 (Republican Richard Nixon beats Democrat Hubert Humphrey), and 1980 (Republican Ronald Reagan beats Democrat Jimmy Carter). In each election, patterns in politics were broken and new patterns were put in place that lasted many years and large blocs of voters moved from one party to another. Based on the 30-40 years estimate, the next 'realigning election' is due 2012-2020.

Many though, because Barack Obama is black, want to say to say that the 2008 election (Democrat Barack Obama beats Republican John McCain) was a historic election, an unprecedented election, or a realigning election. Does it fit the model though?

There is support for the argument that it was a realigning election. There was an important issue that a candidate could have advanced a different view on (the War in Iraq), there were some realignments of geographical areas (surprisingly strong Democratic gains in the Northeast), and there was a change in the number of voters who declared themselves to belong to a particular party (dramatic rise in the number of voters who declared themselves to be Democrats). If Obama had run as a liberal- running on a liberal platform and advocating liberal issues and highlighting his sharp policy differences from the past- then 2008 would have been a realigning election.

But let's go back to last year. Watch the campaign commercials that Obama ran. Obama did not run as a liberal. He did not run on a platform that advocated stimulus packages, massive spending, large amounts of debt, pulling out of Iraq and Afghanistan, nationalized healthcare, raising taxes, cap-and-tax, or government-take-overs of companies. Obama ran as a moderate. He ran as a new and different candidate, one who would not be liberal or conservative, but would reach across the aisle and be a post-partisan President. He talked about tax cuts and strong defense and ending corruption.

Obama ran as a moderate- on a moderate platform- and McCain was a moderate, and the gains in Congress for Democrats were mostly from moderate Blue Dogs, and the polls show the election map as being essentially the same as 1996-2004, so 2008 was not a historic, realigning, critical, key, or unprecedented election.

Obama's victory in 2008 is closer in its character to 1976 (Carter over Ford) or 1964 (LBJ over Goldwater) in that it represented simply dissatisfaction with the proposed candidate. The later unpopularity of Carter and LBJ did set the stage for the historic realigning elections that followed.

2012 will probably be the historic election that we are all looking for. Obama will be running as a liberal and will be seeking a mandate and approval for his policies- which this time around will be clearly liberal and far left. Voting blocs will have to move to vote for him, the map will have to change, and our nation will indeed embrace change with an Obama victory in 2012, setting the stage for likely Democrat control of government for 30-40 years and a shift in our nation farther to the left. If Obama loses, he will lose to a conservative candidate (the GOP is not going with another moderate- Romney, Pawleny, Palin, Huckabee, etc are all conservatives) running on a conservative platform, and it will mark a return to power for conservative Republicans and a move back to the right for our nation.

The recent data from 2009 supports my argument. Read Charles Krauthammer's article The Myth of '08, Demolished to see that the evidence is that 2012 will be re-aligning- areas that once consistently voted Democrat (like New Jersey) will switch and even moderate Republican candidates will be defeated by conservatives. The elections in 2010, in which Republicans will likely make big gains, will further vindicate my theory that 2008 was nothing more than just another ho-hum election and not the unprecedented, historic, realigning election that many on the left want it to be.

Let me continue to suggest that 2012 will probably be the historic election that we are all looking for- a conservative Perry or running-as-a-conservative Romney will win the election, Republicans will hold the House and take back the Senate, and the party that wins will continue to increasingly reflect the realigning ideals of the Tea Party. Historic indeed.

UPDATE: Today via RealClearPolitics I read an article by Salena Zito, who is a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review editorial page columnist, that also gets at this idea that 2012 is going to be a real 'change election':

Another wave is coming, Washington – and “the ‘ins’ may be thrown out, and the ‘outs’ may be thrown in,” according to Michael Genovese, Loyola University political-science professor.

Genovese thinks the economic and political turbulence of the past 12 years are “eerily similar” to the Panic of 1893 and the unsettling election cycles of 1884 to 1896. Both eras feature fantastic wealth created for a privileged few, fiercely competitive and highly partisan elections, an ineffectual and seemingly corrupt government, and an angry, disillusioned electorate. And both have had populist movements – the Progressives of the late 1800s, the Tea Party of today – born of economic dislocation that has pressured the status quo, Genovese said.

While people call the 2008 presidential contest a “change election,” it was merely a small part of the unsettling of the country, rooted in economic uncertainty that has crippled the middle class. If Barack Obama’s election truly was the “change” the nation sought, then solid-Democrat New Jersey would not have rebuked his policies less than a year later by electing Republican Chris Christie as governor. Nor would Virginia have given Republican Bob McDonnell a landslide victory that same year. And Republican Scott Brown had no political rationale to run for Teddy Kennedy’s U.S. Senate seat in Massachusetts, let alone to win it – but he did.

Despite all of the warnings, the White House was blindsided when Republicans took back the U.S. House in historical numbers in 2010. Last week, New York voters in a Democrat-stronghold district reminded President Obama that nothing is safe, not even in Brooklyn: Republican Bob Turner comfortably won the House seat that text-happy Democrat Anthony Weiner was forced to give up.

Economics drives politics, Loyola’s Genovese says, adding: “If the past is a prelude, another angry election is on the way."

Not all national debt is the same. The total or gross national debt is the sum of the "debt held by the public" and "intragovernmental" debt. As of February 2011, the "debt held by the public" was $9.6 trillion and the "intragovernmental debt" was $4.6 trillion, for a total of $14.2 trillion.

Intragovernmental debt represents U.S. Treasury securities that are bought and held in accounts which are administered by the United States Government, and includes such accounts as the 'Federal Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund', 'Federal Employee Retirement Funds,' 'Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund,' and many others. The debt held by the public represents all federal securities held by institutions or individuals outside the United States Government, such as foreign nations that buy US securities, individuals who buy US securities, or banks/institutions that buy US securities. The debt held by the public represents in many ways a better measure of the amount of debt that the United States government owes to the outside world, and so let's take a look at the recent growth of this debt:

This picture shows the growth of the amount of debt held by the public from 1971 to today, with projections into the future. The source of the original graph was the Congressional Budget Office. I then went ahead and color-coded the graph to represent which political parties were in control of our national government at the time.

The conclusion that I have reached is that the party that controls Congress matters a lot more than the party that controls the Presidency in determining the amount of debt that our nation owes to the public. Under Republican Presidents, the debt went up and down by small amounts. Under Democrat Presidents, the debt decreased by a large amount and exploded by a large amount. But when you look at the party in control of Congress you see the largest changes in the amount of debt. Democrat control of Congress has been responsible for the most increases in the debt, while Republican control of Congress was responsible for the largest decreases and stability.

Based on this data, I suggest that next election you pay more attention to who you are voting for in Congress- we need to make sure that Republicans are in control of both the House and Senate by strong and sizable majorities. It is of lesser importance who controls the White House, although I would venture to guess that a Clinton Democrat is different enough than a radical Obama Democrat that in this upcoming election it does matter who is President, and it needs to be anyone other than Obama (a moderate Democrat or a Republican).

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.

Last week I received several excited text messages all saying "Ron Paul is in!" That's right- Representative Ron Paul is running once again for President, and although I have supported his House campaigns in the past and personally think that he makes many good points, I have to say that I am annoyed that he is running for President again. My friends who are excited that he is in the race will vote for him in the primary, and in so doing will work to elect candidates who are farther away from libertarian positions. Ron Paul entering the race is yet another example of the stupid political strategies that 'libertarians' employ.

The Volokh Conspiracy agrees with me:

In a recent post, co-blogger David Bernstein urges libertarians to abandon the Libertarian Party and work within the two major parties. He points out that there are several serious libertarian-leaning candidates for the 2012 Republican nomination, which gives libertarians an important opportunity to increase their influence within the GOP. Ron Paul’s announcement of his candidacy for the Republican nomination today underscores David’s point. In my view, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, who announced his candidacy last month, is both more libertarian than Paul and a stronger candidate, a point I intend to elaborate in more detail in future posts. Mitch Daniels, who has not yet declared his candidacy, is also probably superior to Paul for similar reasons.

Whatever one’s opinion of specific candidates, I emphatically agree with David’s general point that the Libertarian Party is a poor vehicle for promoting libertarianism, and that libertarian activists should concentrate their time and money elsewhere....

...Libertarians therefore have some valuable political assets. But in order to maximize our impact, we must focus our efforts effectively. And that means learning the lesson that the LP is a poor vehicle for libertarianism. It is much more effective to pursue some combination of major party politics and advocacy efforts that operate outside the party system entirely....

The Volokh Conspiracy has been pounding this point for a while, demonstrating over the years that voting for the 'Libertarian Party' has consistently helped elect candidates who are farthest from libertarian ideas, and support for libertarians-running-as-Republicans has only resulted in Bob Doles and John McCains.

I've also been pounding this point for a while, pointing out where libertarians voting for a 'Libertarian' over a conservative/libertarian Republican has been crucial in helping elect socialists, communists, and fascists.

Here in Michigan, a solid conservative Republican Rocky Raczkowski expressed many ideas and policies that libertarians could get around, but the libertarians still ran two candidates against him, one an official Libertarian and another an independent. Too late they realized the error of their ways, and in the last week of the race both dropped out to endorse Rocky, but many people had already voted absentee or didn't know about them dropping out and endorsing Rocky, and they received enough votes that together they helped Democrat Gary Peters get elected, a man whose policies and views and ideas are considerably opposed to libertarians. See my post Libertarian Candidate Drops out of MI-9th Race and Endorses GOP Candidate Rocky- Dem Congressman Peters Calls All Libertarians 'Fringe'.

Back in 2008, I wrote a post on how Michigan Supreme Court Judge Cliff Taylor, who was a libertarian's dream version of a candidate, lost because he was a Republican and the Libertarians sucked off enough votes that he was defeated by a leftist activist judge who has continually issued decisions that attack human freedom and liberty. Taylor lost 39% to 49% to Dianne Hathaway... but a motivated and organized and active Libertarian base gave 11% to a no-chance-of-winning candidate named Robert Roddis who was not any more demonstratively libertarian that Taylor- if that 11% would have been given to the proper candidate, libertarians would have been much more happy with the result.

In Poor Foolish Libertarian Voters Now Realize the Error of Their Ways I wrote:

Once, I was a libertarian. I even voted Libertarian. And then I grew up and realized that we have a two party system, and by voting Libertarian, I was only helping make sure that people who were far from libertarian were elected into office. After that, I became a reliable Republican vote, realizing that they were indeed the lesser of two evils, and that I'd rather have a libertarian-leaning Republican than an anti-libertarian Democrat.

Many libertarians supported Obama last election, claiming that he was an independent and a moderate, and that he would be much preferred over the invading and free-speech breaking George Bush. Idiots. Now they lament.

Foolish libertarians. Why did you support Obama? Why did you fail to support McCain, which is in function the same thing as supporting Obama? Why did you vote third-party in Minnesota, thereby putting in office that joker Al Franken? Libertarians, by not voting for a conservative Republican, installed a super-liberal Franken, who has been the crucial vote on a range of anti-libertarian issues.

Liberals and Democrats can't help how they vote- they don't know any better. But conservatives, libertarians, and 'independents' should know better by now- we have a two party system, and if you aren't part of the solution and voting Republican, you are part of the problem. Save your sad stories and articles about dashed dreams, because they just remind me that you are stupid and foolish. Vote Republican next time.

The important thing that my libertarian friends and those who excitedly texted me that Ron Paul was entering the race need to remember is that we have a two party system. Ron Paul realized this long ago, but not to the extent that he needed to- he has always been an outsider in the party and views the rest of the GOP with hostility. The GOP is a big tent, and it is important for libertarians to find their way into this tent and be active in the primary, and then make the real-life calculation in the general, and vote Republican.

You see, Libertarians need to begin to become solid and reliable Republican voters and shape the future of our party, and Ron Paul is not that future. Think about, my dear 'independent' or 'tea party' or 'libertarian' readers, and do what is best for yourself and your nation by waking up and start voting Republican. I'm getting annoyed with your help getting liberals, socialist, fascists, and leftists elected into office.

UPDATE: Libertarians and tea partiers and other conservative-leaning third parties can comment and argue and debate all they want, but the truth of the matter is that by disagreeing with me and not voting Republican in the general election, they have once more helped put a Democrat in office and move our nation farter away from what they believe in. In the special election for Congress in New York's 26th Congressional District, 36% voted for Republican nominee Jane Corwin (a lite-conservative/libertarian) and 13% for Tea Party candidate Jack Davis (a strong conservative/libertarian), which means that the election will be won by Democrat Kathy Hochul with 42%, an anti-conservaive/libertarian. Her win will move more political power to other anti-conservative and anti-libertrian and anti-tea partiers, and it is all thanks to the them. I'm moving beyond annoyed by libertarians and conservatives helping to empower those who would take away my liberty and freedom- I'm getting pissed at them.

Wise up, it's a two party system, with one party being the Democratic Party (since 1828) and the other being the Republican Party (since 1854). Any discussion of Whigs or Tea Parties is the kind of stupid thinking that leads to liberal and socialist Democrats taking away your life, liberty, and property while you engage in some sort of stupid history lesson. In the primary, work like heck to get libertarian and tea party Republicans elected, but in the general elections, start voting Republican, as they are closer (if only a little) to libertarian and tea party views, and the lesser of two evils is still less evil than the greater of two evils.

 

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In two recent separate posts, Scott and John of PowerLine highlight the hypocrisy of the left in our nation. To refresh your memory, I wrote this on the subject of the left's hypocrisy in my post Rand Paul to Obama Officials: You are pro-choice on abortion but not on toilets and lightbulbs?:

One word that he brings up several times and which I believe increasingly characterizes the liberal leftists who have seized control of the modern Democratic Party is hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have beliefs, opinions, virtues, feelings, qualities, or standards that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie. Hypocrisy is not simply failing to practice those virtues that one preaches- perhaps one advocates or preaches certain virtues but is unable to obtain those due to lack of self-control or strength or temperament- but rather, hypocrisy is play-acting or pretending to be something which you are not.

Let us be clear- a conservative cheating on his wife while preaching conservative values is wrong but is not a hypocrite, provided he recognized that he is weak and lacked strength or self-control. But a conservative who cheats on his wife but really doesn't think that it was wrong and yet then preaches conservative values, knowing that they are incompatible with his views, is a hypocrite.

Although the right and conservatives are not immune from hypocrisy, I believe it is found more so on the left and in liberals because increasingly they are the ones who are denying the truths of the situation and are employing double-speak to advocate for their political values. A good old-fashioned communist really believed in wealth-redistribution and the evils of capitalist pigs; a modern day liberal talks about 'spreading the wealth' and 'enhancing revenue on top earners'. A modern day liberal speaks of being pro-choice, but does not allow the baby to choose and doesn't support letting people choose their light-bulbs, toilets, or energy sources. A modern day liberal talks about and preaches being environmentally friendly, yet video after video demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that when liberals gather together, they trash the environment with their 'green concerts' or 'pro-union rallies'. Liberals tell us to do as they say but not as they do- but they see no problem in this because they truly do not believe in what they are saying so have no guilt or remorse about telling us to do things which they do not do. A liberal can give a press conference about how he has expanded energy production, all the time knowing that he has not and is actually working to lower energy production, because he believes that lying is okay because there is no real truths in the world. Of course examples can be found of conservatives being hypocrites, but the Democratic party today is increasingly a party filled with unbelievable hypocrisy.

Over at Powerlineblog, Scott wrote in his post Vindication:

In a biting column he titles "The first-person presidency," Victor Davis Hanson conveniently summarizes the national security positions asserted by then Senator Obama, with relevant quotations, and contrasts them with the positions he has taken as president. He then provides this convenient summary:

"Senator Obama opposed tribunals, renditions, Guantanamo, preventive detention, Predator-drone attacks, the Iraq War, wiretaps, and intercepts -- before President Obama either continued or expanded nearly all of them, in addition to embracing targeted assassinations, new body scanning and patdowns at airports, and a third preemptive war against an oil-exporting Arab Muslim nation -- this one including NATO efforts to kill the Qaddafi family. The only thing more surreal than Barack Obama's radical transformation is the sudden approval of it by the once hysterical Left. In Animal Farm and 1984 fashion, the world we knew in 2006 has simply been airbrushed away...."

John's post at Powerlingblog makes the connection between modern liberals and hypocrisy even more clear in his post Time to Celebrate?

No doubt, very few of those who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 anticipated that the high point of his administration would be the extra-judicial killing of a terrorist leader by a team of Navy SEALs. This, as our involvement in Iraq winds down on the Bush administration's timetable, the war in Afghanistan has been stepped up, and a third conflict in Libya has been commenced. But for the Democrats, any port in a storm: they are happy to celebrate victories wherever they can find them....

...One is, nevertheless, struck by the rapturous manner in which the liberal press has applauded Obama's role in the mission...

...All of this praise is due to the fact that Obama approved, rather than nixing, the killing of bin Laden. A good decision, to be sure. But is there a single person, anywhere, who doubts that George W. Bush would have made the same call? Or John McCain, if he had won in 2008? Of course not. The Democrats' jubilation results from the fact that their guy didn't wilt under pressure, but rather lived up to the standard that George W. Bush and John McCain easily met. For this, he is called "courageous" and "gutsy."

One wonders: if killing bin Laden was a courageous, gutsy decision by Barack Obama, where were the liberals when President Bush approved the killing of Zarqawi? Do you remember any of them praising that decision as courageous and "game changing?" No, neither do I. Or how about the apprehension of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? How many congratulations did that skillfully-executed operation draw from the Left? And how about Bush's decision to topple, and then capture, Saddam Hussein, one of America's bitterest enemies, whose forces tried to shoot down American airplanes and who attempted to assassinate a former American President? Was that a courageous and gutsy decision? We all know the answer to that question.

What we are currently witnessing is the strange spectacle of liberals trying to grab, for their guy, a mantle neither he nor they ever sought: cold-blooded assassin of anti-American terrorists. This has nothing to do with their true values and priorities, and everything to do with the fact that Obama's economic policies have put him in a deep hole as he seeks re-election next year...

America is a principled nation, founded on principles and inhabited by many with principles. And yet one of our major parties, the Democratic Party, has essentially abandoned any pretense of principles under the leadership of President Obama. The party is now about one thing- power, and maintaining power, by playing games with the American people, notably games of race and class division, all while still pretending to actually have real principles. Look, I know some of my readers are Democrats, and I increasingly wonder how they can defend this guy and support his presidency when it is increasingly becoming clear that he is above all else a hypocrite.

Obama is a deceiver who cares nothing for the values and beliefs of our nation but pretends to do so in order to get what he craves more than anything else- power and control over others.