My Beauty Best Teacher

I know pointing out media bias is like shooting fish in a bottle, but I was reading this AP story about the protesters at the RNC, and saw that some were described as "peace activists" while others were described as "Republican Party activists". If anyone knows Alan Rybak, a real estate agent from Lakeville, Minn., please ask him if he is a paid full-time activist for the Republican Party. If not, then on what basis is he a "Republican Party activist." Because he holds up a sign that says "Support our Troops"? Did the author of this article, Amy Forliti, do some research and uncover his voting record as Republican? If voting for Republicans makes you an 'activist', how come the "peace activist" wasn't described as a "Democratic Party activist"? I know, I know- like shooting fish in a bottle.

UPDATE: Atlas Shrugs is doing yeoman's work on covering the protests. I agree with their assessment- The AP's pictures only the the police reacting to subdue the crowd, and not the crowd's sickening anti-social and criminal behavior. The slant is sick.

Ory Okolloh talks about becoming an activist at TED:

Pierre Claver Mbonimpa "...is a Burundian human rights activist often hailed as the only person willing to stand up for the rights of Hutu, Tutsi, and Batwa in a time of ruthless civil dispute. He served on the police force of Burundi until December of 1994, when he was imprisoned for two years due to false accusations. Upon his release, he founded the Burundian Association for the Protection of Human Rights and Detained Persons. Despite government threats, Mbonimpa continues to campaign courageously against torture and to expose the mistreatment of detainees in holding cells in rural Burundi. He has addressed the plight of 9,000 prisoners awaiting trial in the country’s overcrowded prisons and organized events at which police and military representatives have had to face questions from human rights activists and victims. Mbonimpa has fearlessly denounced the harassment and imprisonment of members of civil society. He is a recipient of the 2007 Martin Ennals Award..."Oslo Freedom Forum

Michigan Democratic House Speaker Andy Dillon is facing a recall due to his leadership in drastically raising taxes in Michigan in the middle of a recession. There are several people out there working to recall him. Dillon has several people working against those who recall him. Yesterday, one activist working to recall Dillon had the air let out of her tires and her car was broken in to, and today, another activist working to recall Dillon had her tires slashed.

I hear often that we have to fear Republicans, that we have to fear conservatives, and that we have to fear the right- that they will engage in intimidation tactics. But the evidence is overwhelming that it is the Democratas, that it is liberals, that it is the left that we have to fear- if you disagree with them, they will black list you, they will slash your tires, and someday, they may do worse.

Via Committee for Justice Blog :

CFJ has learned from a reliable source that Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, reportedly on President Obama’s Supreme Court short list, boarded a flight from Detroit to Washington, DC last night. If Granholm is coming to DC for an announcement of her nomination to the Court, we’ll know as soon as this morning. If she’s coming to DC to interview for the job, it serves as confirmation that she is on the short list. In either case, it’s worth taking a look at her record, including the scandals that have plagued her.

CFJ says that for SCOTUS, Granholm's role in the economic disaster that is Michigan really is not going to be that important. Although she has been incompetent and mismanaged the state into the worst in the nation every year of her administration, that kind of resume is actually something the Obama team looks favorably on. And her opposition to traditional marriage and support of abortion are just policy differences- the kind that Obama says don't really matter, and that we should all just be nice about and agree with him since they aren't worth much (that's the point of his Notre Dame speech, right?). And her lack of experience in anything judicial isn't going to hurt her either- the Obama team favors putting people with no experience over those with experience- then Obama doesn't feel bad being so inexperienced at his job.

The real scandals that CFJ points to that might knock her off the list (allowing someone with a cleaner record of no experience and empathy to become an activist liberal Supreme Court judge)are her tax problems (Obama doesn't want to look bad by appointing yet another tax cheat) and her record while acting as Corporation Counsel for Wayne County. As CFJ mentions, after Granholm's time in that office, the FBI and state auditors have been busy for years, cleaning up the corruption of her administration, including the awarding of no-bid and grossly-expensive contracts to her husband's businesses by Wayne County.

Check out the full post here.

In Pambazuka:

What constitutes an intellectual in the South African context?’ asks Leslie Dikeni in this week’s Pambazuka News, ‘Who is an intellectual and who isn’t?’ In an extract from a new book of essays, ‘The Poverty of Ideas’, Dikeni separates the ‘real intellectuals’ from a new breed of ‘pseudo-intellectuals’ that have emerged in recent years: The ‘celebrity intellectual’, the ‘commercial intellectual’, the ‘policy analyst’ and the ‘new gender activist’...[continue reading]

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.

In today's segment of "Meet your Overlords," we meet alleged former US Communist party member and current WMD Policy Czar Gary Samore. His technical title is "Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for Arms Control and Weapons of Mass Destruction, Proliferation, and Terrorism," most people know him as the guy that is working to destroy all the United States weapons of mass destruction unilaterally as a show of good faith.

Unlike other Obama czars (Aneesh Chopra, Technology Czar, I'm looking at you), he is an expert on the science, technology and policy issues related to weapons of mass destruction, having worked on these issues as a policy advisor for various nonproliferation institutes for the last 10 years and before that working in the Department of State and National Security Council. There is no doubting his resume, as he has headed up the attempts to make sure that Iran and North Korea do not aquire nuclear weapons.

Obama may have met Mr. Samore at Harvard, where he was a teaching fellow in the late '70's, or met him in the course of his work for the Department of State or NSC, or met him through the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, where Mr. Samore was serving as VP recently. This Foundation is a major grant-making private foundation based in Chicago, and has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978, some of which I imagine went to various causes community activist Obama raised money for during his time with ACORN. It appears that this group is a liberal group, so one might imagine that Mr. Samore also shares a liberal world view.

Like most of Obama's czars, we really don't know much about him or what he does, since he is operating beyond the power of law and was never confirmed by the Senate. If you know anything else about him, please email me and I'll update this segment of "Meet your Overlords".

NOTE to NEW READERS: New readers, please feel free to also check out some of my recent good posts like Obama is a Caudillo, The Inside Deal: Obama's Economic Program, Employment-Population Ratio Drops to 58.5%, Earth Day: Is it just one big Communist Plot?, Gifted Programs in Schools Training Future Liberals, or Obama On Inner and Outer Circles of Leadership. Also feel free to link to blog-curhatanku.blogspot.com on your blog, and bookmark conservativeteacher.blogspot.com so you can become a regular reader of the battles of a conservative teacher's attempt to advance the principles of liberty and freedom.

Gary Peters is one of the least independent Congressman in Congress, and votes with his party 96% of the time. He does not work with Republicans, he isn't a voice of moderation, and he is not independent. According to his voting record, he is a liberal Democrat who votes the party line almost every time- a reliable vote for the Pelosi/Waxman wing of the Democratic Party.

Recently, The Oakland Press, the local newspaper in the area, wrote the following editorial called "Peters has done some independent thinking", and this prompted me to do some research:

Rep. Gary Peters, D-Bloomfield Township, is not in a very enviable position as a Congressmen. He’s a Democrat from a district that has historically voted Republican. The exact Democrat-Republican split is not known, but it is safe to say that he was elected because of strong support from independent voters. As his first Congressional year ends, we are not going to judge or rate him on his work.

However, The Oakland Press believes you should give credit where credit is due.At times during his very critical and harsh first year in office, Peters has shown that he can break away from the “party-line” and thus think and act independently. Let’s give him credit and kudos for some independent thinking.

This is garbage. According to OpenCongress.org, a non-partisan website set up to track the votes and news about US Congressman, Gary Peters has voted the Democratic Party line 96% of the time, including important votes in favor of the Democratic party line on healthcare, cap-and-tax, stimulus, government-takeovers, and national security. That means that 96 times out of a 100, he has voted Democrat, and only voted with the Republicans 4 times.

The facts- a 96% party line votes- demonstrate that this editorial is pure garbage and that Peters is not an independent voice in Congress or someone who breaks the party line, and I question who wrote it or approved it without doing a little research first.

An 'independent thinker' who 'breaks the party line' votes with the party line 96% of the time? I wonder if The Oakland Press is going to start writing glowing editorials of how independent of a voter Thaddeus McCotter (R, MI-11, 92% party line) is? Or Candice Miller (R, MI-10, 87% party line)? Or Vern Ehlers (R, MI-3, 85% party line)? The only Congressman from Michigan who are less independent and who vote less with the party line are fellow Democrats Sandar Levin (99% party line) and John Dingell (98% party line).

Congressman Peters has sponsored 8 pieces of legislation while in office. They are not 'independent' pieces of legislation that demonstrate his willingness 'to break from the party'. One is to increase taxes (HR 1527). The rest are minor bills requesting tax breaks for favored constituencies or resolutions recognizing various things. Is this what The Oakland Press was raving about? Crossing the aisle to express a sense of Congress for a civil rights activist? Wow.

The Oakland Press ignored his 96% party line vote and his vote on major issues, which is a reliable liberal Democratic vote in favor of bills that even harm his district, and wrote a garbage of an editorial.

Congressman Gary Peters is a solid left-wing liberal, and come 2010, you remember that and vote accordingly.

We Can Do Better

Washington City Paper writer, Mike DeBonis who features a column known as 'Loose Lips' reports this week on the Washington Teachers' Union upcoming 2010 election. Nathan Saunders', WTU General V.P's campaign for the Washington Teachers Union (WTU) top slot as union president is spotlighted in this article. DeBonis speculates in his coverage that 'yours truly' will run on Saunders' slate. While this has yet to be confirmed, DeBonis mischaracterizes me as a 'special ed. aide' and I plan to request a retraction of this inaccurate statement. Debonis credits The Washington Teacher blog as a reliable source of information, however, I disagree with his choice of adjectives used to describe the spirit and purpose of this blog. Had DeBonis taken the time to consult with me, perhaps he would not have missed the mark on my position and would have more accurately depicted The Washington Teacher blog. Be that as it may, here's 'Loose Lips' column in its entirety.

Update: I received an email from DeBonis today making the correction to his earlier release and have noted the corrections here. I am only including excerpts of his article. Please read the Washington City Paper to see the article in its entirety. Here's the article link (click on underlined words):

Battling for the Top Spot at the Washington Teachers' Union

Rancor in the WTU ranks threatens to explode in upcoming election

By Mike DeBonis
Posted: February 17, 2010

"News flash: It’s campaign season, and there’s a big-time election coming. The fate of our city is at stake—it’s a race that stands to impact big-time issues: education reform, relations with the city workforce, ongoing financial pressures. No, LL does not speak of the mayoral race. What’s he’s talking about here is the presidency of the Washington Teachers’ Union.

An internecine battle that’s been brewing for the better part of three years is threatening to explode this spring, as WTU President George Parker runs for a third term as chief of the high-profile union. His only declared opposition thus far is Nathan Saunders, who has spent both of Parker’s terms as general vice president, a post that, in recent years, Saunders has used to assail Parkers’ leadership at near every turn.

If you thought relations between the mayor and D.C. Council are bad, they’ve got nothing on the rancor within the WTU executive ranks. As Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has embarked on her mission to overhaul the D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) in no small part by improving the quality of teaching, Saunders has repeatedly sought to undercut Parker.....“I’m of the ilk that a union represents its members’ interest, not as a communications funnel for management’s interest,” he says by way of slamming Parker......

Teachers have been working without a contract since October 2007, and since Rhee made it plain early on that she planned to make big-time changes in contractual terms a cornerstone of her tenure, negotiations repeatedly broke down to the point that a third-party mediator—former Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke—was brought in last year to seal a deal. In recent weeks, both Parker and Rhee have said that they are very close to reaching an agreement—statements that have Saunders and others wondering: What are they waiting for?........

Elizabeth Davis, a longtime WTU activist who ran unsuccessfully against Parker and Saunders back in 2004, says that without a contract in place, “It gives the impression to members that you have a chief negotiator who can’t negotiate a good deal for teachers.”

In 2008, Parker badly misread his constituency when word of a two-tier “red and green” teacher-compensation system leaked. Teachers who were willing to give up their job security—the work rules typically referred to as “tenure”—could see their pay rise by 50 percent or more, an amount unheard of in the teaching realm. But if Parker thought that teachers would jump at the chance for a massive raise, he was wrong.

In an unforgettable moment, Parker polled thousands of teachers assembled at the Washington Convention Center for an August 2008 “Welcome Back” event. With Rhee behind him on the dais, he asked teachers to raise their hands if they liked the red-and-green proposal; the teachers, with boos and hisses, made it clear that they weren’t down with the tiers, all but killing the proposal. .......

Saunders says he’s in the process of putting together a slate. He says he’s looking for “teachers that embody a certain amount of values…equality, freedom, fairness, integrity, responsibility, and security.” Rumors have it that Saunders has tapped Candi Peterson, a firebrand social worker who runs a blog, the Washington Teacher, that is a reliable source of anti-Rhee invective and rabble-rousing. Saunders declines to knock down the rumors: “I want Candi Peterson in a significant role. We haven’t come to terms on that.” .........

The mechanics of a union election don’t much resemble those of a council or mayoral race. The politicking is done mostly via mailers and signs posted in teacher lounges. Candidates can make the rounds to the 140-plus DCPS facilities, but pressing flesh with time-strapped teachers can be a tall order........Saunders says he hopes to have a victory wrapped up as early as possible—hopefully before too late in the summer, because he has other ambitions. “I want the WTU to play a significant role in the mayoral election,” he says. “By prolonging this into September, we aren’t a factor in the Fenty election, and if we aren’t a factor, then we’re guaranteed Rhee again.” .........

Posted by The Washington Teacher, featuring Candi Peterson, blogger in residence, article written by Mike DeBonis, Wash. City Paper, photograph taken by Darrow Montgomery.

This quote was inspired by an activist friend in the labor movement....

"Who is the judge? The judge is God. Why is he God? Because he decides who wins or loses. Not my opponent. Who is your opponent? He does not exist. Why does he not exist? Because he is a mere dissenting voice of the truth I speak! " Courtesy of The Great Debaters. (Posted by The Washington Teacher).

All Africa reports on the work of tree planting activist Sakina Mati:

The tree-planting effort in the Sahel is an all-women activity. When we started, we left our lands un-cleared so that the tree stumps may grow. Then we clear the land. With each tree stump, we leave about 7 shoots on it to develop. Then with time, after two or three years, we thin the trees to reduce the density of the foliage. As time went on, the trees began to reduce the wind erosion. We then got firewood, fodder for our animals - and then the herbs started coming out.

More here
photo courtesy of All Africa

Usually I don't like to blog about messed up individuals that do messed up things- their isn't a whole lot to read into when a crazy person acts in a crazy way. But I do want to comment on the recent incident involving environmental activist James Lee, who was sadly shot and killed after taking over the Discovery Channel headquarters. Something about this incident bugged me, and I was unwilling to simply shrug it off as the usual 'crazy people doing crazy stuff means nothing'.  It took Richard Fernandez over at the Belmont Club though to articulate what I was thinking:

But one way to detect logical fallacies is to see what happens when you scale them up. Those harmless ideas when projected onto a horizon ten miles high and fifty miles wide are so awe-inspiringly crazy that either you say “what the f**k?” or “why not?” James Lee said “why not”.

Scale up all my harmless ideas about freedom, liberty, protection of life, protection of property, founding principles, etc, and imagine the world that you get. It isn't really that bad, is it? But scale up the harmless ideas of the liberal left- promoting birth control in Third World countries, abolishing all advanced combat systems, ridding the world of the Judaeo-Christian heritage, fighting Climate Change, building down the US economy, handing out subsidized housing, increasing the power of the state, etc- and you get James Lee. Here is what he wrote at a site believed to be affiliated with the suspect, Save the Planet, where he set forth his creed as the “sayings of Lee”. Some of his demands were

•All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infant.
•All programs promoting War and the technology behind those must cease.
•Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed.
•Immigration … Find solutions FOR these countries so they stop sending their breeding populations to the US.
•Find solutions for Global Warming
•Develop shows that will correct and dismantle the dangerous US world economy.
•You’re also going to find solutions for unemployment and housing.

These are simply scaled up versions of mainstream Leftwing notions. If you're going down that road, seeing what happened to James Lee should cause you to pause and reconsider.

This post could also read that Constitution Party members screwed themselves by not-voting or voting Constitution Party, and continues the attack on idiots who don't vote or vote third party that I started with my post Libertarians Screwed Themselves By Not Voting or Voting Libertarian. In that post, I pointed out that conservatives who didn't vote or voted for a third party candidate screwed themselves over when, by a narrow margin, they didn't help a strict constitutionalist judge (Cliff Taylor) get elected to the Michigan Supreme Court and instead helped up a loose liberal activist judge there (Hathaway).

I continually fail to see the logic behind libertarians, constitution party, or other conservative leaning people not voting for conservative candidates just because they have the word "Republican" in front of their name. Are you people voting third party morons, or just so devoted to the myth of third parties that you'd be willing to let Hitler win while you vote for Kurt von Schleicher (see my post von Schleicher).

Why this new attack on third party voters? I'm still fuming over What a Joke of a Nation we live in, where a person like Al Franken could be a Senator, especially in the manner that he might win. What really pisses me off is that today I heard on the radio the official vote count as of today, where Democrat Al "crack-smoking" Franken and Republican Norm Coleman are virtually tied at around 1,211,500 votes... and the Independence Party candidate has 437,000 votes, and the Libertarian Party candidate has 13,900 votes, and the Constitution Party candidate has 8,900 votes. If you were one of the 460,000 people who voted for one of these conservative or libertarian third party candidates in Minnesota Senate election instead of the moderately conservative or libertarian Coleman, you're a moron, because your vote helped put a hate filled socialist in office.

Look at the platforms, positions, resumes, and characters of the third party candidates and compare them to Coleman. Not much a difference. And by voting for the slight difference that they represent, you instead helped put a socialist political hack like Franken in office. To spite your nose, you blew up your whole country. Idiots. I'm sorry if I'm being mean to you Minnesotans who didn't vote for Senate or voted third party, but you're a child and didn't treat this election the way it needs to be treated- as a vote between a solid Republican and a threat to our nation.

"But, but, I like third parties, they're so cute, and if we all voted third parties, the world would change..." you whine. Fool. If all conservatives voted Republican, the world would change a lot quicker. This might sound like a Sith talking in absolutes, but if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Vote for conservative Republicans next time instead of voting third party or staying home.