These Truths

Christmas has passed but the war against it rages on. Those tireless secularists will not be happy until no one is offended except, of course, those they wish to “call out”. What a happy world we can look forward to in their tolerant hands. No disagreements. Harmony and justice. Fairness in all things. No bruised feelings. Universal high self esteem. No rich. No poor. No competition. Guaranteed income. Litigation enforced respect. A world at peace without bullies in schools. No religion, too. Imagine. It’s easy if you try. A life lived in accordance with pop music lyrics.

How long will it be before “Christ” will be taken of Christmas? Literally. It is not a good sign that the moral values that formed our tolerant nation may no longer be attributed to their teacher.

Why oppose the mention of Christ at Christmas? Does it really amount to an unconstitutional “establishment” of religion to recognize and celebrate the religious heritage that informed our national political and legal values? After all, they didn’t just pop out of thin air. And who are those many who are said to be offended by the mention of Christ? No one is insisting that they must believe in him. One suspects that their demands are the remnants of the unresolved petulance of youth, the immature impulse to defy authority in order to assert ones self. If so, it is a most harmful act of self indulgence, for it suggests a transfer of moral authority from a divine being to men, an idea pleasing to every tyrant wannabe but fundamentally at odds with the evolution of modern citizen- empowering, societal theory since the Magna Carta.

To those who offer their offendedness with pride and seek to change our nation from one that derives its gifts of individual liberty and citizen sovereignty from a Creator to one that relies on the beneficence of, say, Mr. Obama, or, for that matter, Mr. Bush,  I say this: although unwilling, you are none-the-less the lucky beneficiaries of a moral philosophy that allows even your most self destructive impulses. No matter what our personal religious beliefs may be, and we respect all that respect our constitution, we should all be grateful for the teachings of Christ from which our notions of tolerance, individual liberty and citizen sovereignty arise. Yesterday was the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Day.  It might be useful to remember who he claimed as his moral teacher, leader and superior as he called our nation to live up to its high, Judeo-Christian inspired ideals.

Paul Krugman, New York Times Columnist and prominent spokesman for the left, wrote this on January 16: “We are a deeply divided nation and likely to remain one for a long time.” This divide, he says, “isn’t really about which policies work best; it’s about … divergent beliefs over what constitutes justice.”  And this: “One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state… morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate. The other side believes that people have the right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft.”  Well.

What is true is that, because Mr. Krugman believes this hateful nonsense, it is certain that he will continue to feel morally superior to and despise conservatives. Of course, at the same time, he would like everyone, but particularly conservatives, to be more civil.

I am a conservative who once was a liberal. I did not become conservative because my values changed but because of these two things: First, liberalism has shifted sharply to the left toward socialism and now includes a hatred of our nation that I cannot accept. Second, when I honestly assess the results of liberal programs that I supported to help minorities and the poor, I see, for the most part, worsening conditions after spending trillions of dollars and  millions of hours of volunteer labor over a period of 50 years.

Poverty rates remain the same as when the war on poverty began. The education gap has worsened. Out of wed lock birth rates have gone from 17% to over 80% of all black children. The black family is imperiled. Incarceration rates and unemployment rates of young black males are horrific. For those reasons and more, and not because I am a selfish and hateful capitalist “red in tooth and claw”, I have concluded that we must do things differently if we are to solve our problems and help all people to have equal opportunities and the tools to take advantage of them.

I have also concluded that our elected representatives, Democrat and Republican alike, have spent us into a debt that will now make the future less bright and hopeful for everyone. Nothing seems to restrain them. Republicans are moderately better at suggesting fiscal sanity but both parties want what they want and have acted as if  both can have it. Ultimately, we citizens are sovereign and therefore responsible, and that is why we must first put our fiscal house in order by electing fiscally conservative representatives and then engaging in a political discussion that presumes that all of us seek just and moral solutions to our nation’s challenges.

Liberals too often presume moral superiority, and this is what we conservatives mean, in part, when we call them “elites”. It is sarcasm, of course, because we believe that their Krugmanian view of themselves is pompous. What’s more, we believe that their self love prevents them from seeing the failure of their well-intend programs to help the needy. The belief by leftists that conservatives care less for their fellow citizens than do they is the ultimate insult and the real reason for both their hateful incivility towards us and our consequent disrespect of them.

It is hard for me to adequately express the depth of my contempt for the Krugmanian division of our citizens into “morally superior” and “morally inferior” categories. It is people like him who are destroying our nation and it should not go unsaid that Mr. Krugman is considered “mainstream” by the left ,and is much heralded, and quoted by the elected leadership of the Democrat Party. Elitist and hateful sentiments like those expressed by Krugman are uttered every day by elected Democrat leaders on the floors of the Senate and House, from the mouths of President Obama’s administrators and, sadly, even from Mr. Obama himself.

Finally, Mr. Krugman concludes his vile, divisive writing by paying homage to “the rule of law” and with a pronouncement that; “leaders of both parties – or Obama alone if necessary – declare that both violence and any language hinting at the acceptability of violence are out of bounds.” Gosh. I thought that everyone had said that already.

The real problem is that Mr. Krugman and his “morally superior” ilk believe that us morally inferior conservatives are just “mouthing the words”. His pulpit pounding for “the rule of law” while simultaneously supporting the open violation of national laws with which he does not agree, like immigration, proves only his faint and situational allegiance to the principle. In the end, Mr. Krugman, and people like him, only believe in themselves. Because, after all, they are morally superior.

Last Thursday evening our President gave a wonderful speech; principled, fair, and empathetic and laying to rest the notion that the sad events in Tucson had been caused by anyone’s “extremist” political words. The First Lady was beautiful and kind. I was very proud of our First Family. Every day is a new day, and while I am somewhat skeptical of Mr. Obama’s commitment to continuing civility because of his past hyper-partisan words and actions, it is my hope that this is a new beginning for our political discourse. President Obama is the President of all of us, even those who did not vote for him. He is obligated to respect us all and he, more than anyone else, sets the tone of our discourse.

Political hatred exists openly at the very top of the Democrat Party leadership of our country. The President, Vice President, Speaker, Majority Leader, Secretary of State, other cabinet members and many Obama “Tzars” have repeatedly slandered and belittled their fellow citizens who are conservative. I can think of no time in our nation’s history when such disrespectful and hostile insults directed at a large segment of our population were uttered so brazenly, frequently and uniformly by the highest levels of the elected leadership of a political party. If the left truly wishes to have a civil dialog with those who have different ideas, they might consider electing leaders who do not engage in such rhetoric.

It is interesting to note that when the left lashes out at the right they are able to provide very few examples of “hate speech” from elected Republican leaders. The best they can do is to blame “talk radio” or “Fox News”. In their most recent assault, the left has mentioned only two Republican politicians, neither of whom won their recent race for office.

It is believed by many of us on the right that anger, vilification, and opportunism are the “default” behaviors of the left. We believe this because of the reflexively nasty and accusatory attacks by them against the right that follow immediately upon each tragic national event. A clear example is the immediate statement of Secretary Clinton, made in Abu Dhabi,  comparing the mentally ill Tucson shooter to blood-thirsty, Muslim terrorists. “You have your extremists and we have ours,” she said. “Let us work together,” she continued, “to eliminate the causes of the extremism everywhere.” (These are paraphrases, not direct quotes.)

There is, of course, no similarity in either cause or conduct between Muslim terrorists and the mentally ill Tucson shooter, and no thoughtful person, especially one in a position of national and international leadership, should make such an irrational statement of moral equivalency. What’s more, making such a statement on Arab soil, before the investigation had even begun and contrary to the views now expressed by our President was both unprofessional and harmful to our nation. Mrs. Clinton is not stupid. Therefore, one cannot but conclude that her remarks were thoughtless, the product of impulse not reason, and that in turn suggests that her “default” is hatred of the right coupled with an irresistible instinct for political opportunism.

Why is the left so angry, so unhappy according to all studies? It has been said that the reason is this simple: when they look at their fellow citizens, and at our nation, they do not like what they see. If that is correct and continues, their anger will always be the prism through which they see the world.

I have said many times and I will say it again: What should unite us is not shared political opinion.  (The most important diversity in our nation is not skin color but ideas.) What should unite us is a shared belief in our founding national principles, and a shared faith that if we honor and abide those principles, we will preserve our liberty and provide the greatest degree of opportunity for the most people over time. What concerns me most are the many signs that the left, up to and including our President, do not feel that our founding principles have continuing relevance and, therefore, they do not feel restrained by them. If that is true, then our beloved country is truly in peril. Political discourse will get more, not less, contentious because the great majority of us revere our founding principles and believe that they, not the rule of any man, protect our liberty.

Is it true that young blacks commit crimes because they have been told by leftist politicians that America is a racist nation?  Is it true that poor people commit crimes because they have been told by leftist politicians that America’s wealthy capitalists have made their money on their backs? What are the negative societal consequences that result from leftists saying that conservatives are homophobes, sexists, and xenophobes? Could any of these rhetorical flourishes be misunderstood by those with underlying mental problems? When leftist politicians attacked our nation’s military and government regarding the VietNam War, did they cause the violent acts of the Weather Underground, SDS, and others? Were their words responsible for the deaths of the policemen and civilians and the hundreds of millions of dollars property damage that followed?

The first amendment to our constitution protects free speech, and most especially political speech. The left is unbending in its defense of somewhat less constitutionally protected artistic speech; violent political movies, rap music that glorifies the killing of police and the rape of women, and, of course, any movie that depicts business as corrupt. They have argued vociferously that those words and images do not cause violence but simply mirror society. It is clarifying indeed that the only speech the left seeks to chill as causally related to violence is political speech critical of their policies and their intentions.

The left has displayed little interest in insisting on civil speech from themselves or their supporters. Small wonder that the great majority of Americans surveyed yesterday find the attempt to pin the tragedy of Tucson on right, talk radio and Sara Palin to be unpersuasive.

The use of this terrible event by the left and their supporters for political advantage is disgusting, hateful, divisive, exploitive and the epitome of hypocrisy. Some leftists, Senator Bernie Sanders and MoveOn.Org for example, have even used it as a political fundraising opportunity!

As for the media’s handling of this matter, their willingness to publish leftist propaganda disguised as “news” stories that begin with these words; “Some people say”, precisely because there are no facts to support them, are either willing accomplices or ignorant dupes in the left’s war on (Strike that!) fight against (strike that!), attack on (strike that!), life-threatening blow against (Strike that!) terminal displeasure with (that’s better!) free political speech.

The left has only a situational affection for the first amendment. They demand their freedom while chilling that of their opponents. Sadly, that also seems to be the case for many in the media. It would be good for news people to remember that those who would chill an individual’s right to speech would not hesitate to restrict the media as well.  For the good of the country, of course. And the little people clinging to God and guns.

Yes, it would be very nice if our political discourse were more civil but leftists are hardly worthy advocates of the principle, and their remedy, chilling, restricting, or banning speech, is unconstitutional. This is important stuff. Our liberty is at stake.

Speaking of hate speech, what is the deal with the left and Sara Palin? Talk about blind rage! Using their logic regarding homosexuals: that those who oppose their agenda are really “afraid of them” (Thus the term “Homophobia”), can we conclude that the left’s hatred of Sara arises from their “fear” of her? Saraphobia? Whadaya s’pose they’re scared of? An attractive, non man-hating feminist, religious, non ivy league educated, conservative woman who loves her husband, hunts, is willing to use fossil fuels until economical alternatives are perfected, and has birthed more than two children? Horrors! You leftists don’t want to vote for her? Fine. She wouldn’t be my first choice either, but your need to hate her says a great deal more about your shortcomings than any Sara may have.

Our Founding Fathers knew well the inability of humans to resist temptations to power, wealth and influence. Closer to tyranny than are we, they had experienced the dictatorial rule of those who felt they were entitled to stand in judgement, to coercively take the property of others, to favor those who supported them over those who did not, and to dictate religious conformance with a state designated faith. Our wise founders well understood that the weakness of humans to resist these temptations was a part of our nature and would not soon, and perhaps never, be cleansed from us. Because they understood these things, they concluded that our individual liberty would be in perpetual jeopardy if our rights continued to be dependent on the good nature of men, particularly those who claimed to have God’s ear.

And so it is that our Declaration of Independence asserts that our right to individual liberty is a direct endowment from a Creator, inalienable by earthly governors. What is the alternative? That our rights come from secular, human benefactors? Who among us, right or left, does not believe that we are doing what is smart, right and good?

Our unity should not be founded on unity of agreement on issues but upon agreement with American principles enshrined in our founding documents. A society of liberated individuals necessarily does not agree with one another and any political force that insists on agreement as a sign of good citizenship, compassion, goodness or progress invites the rule of man to be reestablished.

Let the debate continue. Let all voices be heard. Demand honesty and truthfulness, not just of those with whom you disagree but also of yourselves and those you support. Reject personal attacks and propaganda. Be skeptical of all who seek power and influence. Do not hate those with whom you disagree. Do not accuse them of being stupid, indecent or uncaring.  Greed does not know political parties, nor does self-righteousness, pride or prejudice.

And we must also demand these things of ourselves, each other and especially of those who seek positions of governance: complete agreement with our Founding Principles, acknowledgement of the supremacy of the rule of law, and an unwavering commitment to the idea that, acting in a manner consistent with our Constitution and laws, the people are sovereign.

Finally, rejoice in the wonder of America, where liberty is not dependent on the kindness of those with whom one most strenuously disagrees but upon an endowment from God given to every human being. It is upon our founding principles that we can and should find agreement as co-sovereigns of the last best hope of humankind. Upon these principles we can find our common purpose and our common passion, and upon which we can disagree on important matters with gratefulness and mutual respect. Those who find it necessary to break with our founding principles in order to impose their will are our common enemies, for surely it is they who will bring about the death of liberty.

A Democrat member of the House declared: “F___ Obama!” and TV Talk Show Host Keith Olberman said the Obama was: ” G__ Damn wrong!”. What is all the fuss about? It’s about a bipartisan agreement entered into between Obama and Republican legislators regarding taxes and unemployment benefits.  Remember just a few weeks ago when Democrats ‘yearned’ for bipartisanship?  Does this profane attack by Democrats on the President of their own party indicate that they really didn’t mean it? Imagine that.

The truth is that saying no is how individual liberty is preserved. It is the individual, the minority, that is protected by our laws and legislative rules; protected against the tyranny of the majority. How easily that bedrock American principle is forgotten by those who attain power.

Those who ‘yearn’ for us to think with one mind and speak with one voice and who demonize those who object and protest do so either because they misunderstand America’s governing principles or because they wish to ignore those principles in order to impose their will without having to consider the opinions of others.

A good friend, and frequent intelligent critic, argues that it is not the left but “greed” that will bring America down. I agree about greed, but he means the “greed” of individuals whereas it has always been the greed of the state that has destroyed societies by taking money away from the people and spending it, and more, on the state’s desires. The hope for a selfless and enlightened state is as old as humankind. It is, our Founding Fathers knew, an honorable impulse but naive.

Yes, it is true that protecting individual liberty allows for greed, if by that we mean that some can accumulate more wealth than others, and that capitalism is based on incentivizing individual wealth creation through individual effort. But it is also true that the liberty capitalism of America has produced wealth beyond imagination and the result has been good for nearly everyone. Poverty here is wealth most everywhere else on earth and our earned fortune has allowed the American people to be the most generous givers on earth to those in need everywere.

None-the-less, the left despises liberty capitalism because of the ‘unfairness’ they believe it produces. They think it is immoral for some to have too much more than others. They believe that those who have too much more are evil, that they must have taken advantage of someone in order to accumulate their wealth. They believe that some amount of wealth is morally enough. They believe that it is right for a state run by them to decide what is too much more and enough and to correct immoral unfairness by force. (When the state says that those on the left are getting too much, the left then believes that the state is both wrong and dictatorial, from which one can only conclude that it is ultimately only themselves that the left believes in.)

The left would deprive citizens of their liberty and substitute its morality, and its judgements because they believe they are better, smarter, more sophisticated, and more just than the people; self-appointed enlightened despots. Nothing could be more contradictory to American’s values, even if they were what they believe they are, which they are not.

It is our laws that protect individual liberty. It is our constitutional restraint of  the power of government, its greed, the forceable imposition of its will against the minority, and its effort to silence those who oppose it that preserves our liberty.  To the left, silencing even the craziest among them is proof government oppression but suppression of speech of those on the right, say Hannity, Limbaugh or O’reilly, is necessary so that the people are not misled.

Those who work in our government are our servants, not our masters. They must respect us, our intelligences, our wills, our moralities and our purposes. Doing good in America is simple; follow our constitution, defend liberty, believe in the vision statement of our Declaration, listen to and respect the people as individuals, not groups. To do so, we believe, produces good. Not always and not for everyone every time, but consistently, over time, while preserving human dignity and encouraging and developing good character. In so far as those on the left believe that our constitution and our laws are inconveniences and impediments to imposing their idea of what is good, and there are far too many of them that do, then it is their greed for power, their ego, and their self-reverence that risks the future of our great nation.

The Democrat led Congress is back and what they will do as they wind down tells us all we need to know about them. They have not passed a budget for our country, the first time Congress has not passed a budget in decades, but there is no talk of a budget bill. Seems the party of yes just can’t bring itself to say no to any spending at all. Will there be a full discussion of how to get our economy back on track and to put people back to work? Nope.

The Democrats who lead Congress will instead attempt to pass legislation to allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in our military and other legislation, the “Dream Act”, that will give in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants while denying them to legal citizens.

Is this really what the people want? No, of course it is not, but what the people want is pretty low  on the social-engineering, fanatic’s priority list. What a dying man says is assumed to be truthful in the law. What a dying Congress addresses as it’s last acts show the true leftist, radical soul of the Democrat Party.

Al Gore, Nobel Prize winner and Oscar winner, too, says that he made a “mistake” when he declared that Ethenol made from corn should receive billions of dollars of federal support to assist in the war against global warming. He now says that the benefits of corn Ethenol are “trivial”.  How did Mr. Gore, celebrated genius of the environment make such a serious “mistake”? Did he miscalculate the benefits or misunderstand the true costs or was it something less scientific? Here is what he said: “One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for President.” Ah, politics. Mr. Gore wanted to be President so we spent billions to buy him votes in Iowa. Makes one wonder, doesn’t it, what political or other motivations, greed for example, might be behind his environmental pronouncements.

Well, now that the cat is out of the bag and the cat having been let out by Mr. Clean himself, surely we will stop funding corn based Ethenol immediately. Nope. Here is what Al says about that: ”It’s hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going.” He should know. His companies are reaping millions of dollars of subsidies from our government to advance other Goredian “solutions” to global warming. He obtained those millions by lobbying his former pals in Congress. Another Al, Al Nobel, must be rolling over in his grave.

Is the United States a Christian nation? Yes, it has been up to now, much to the benefit of all other religions. Our country was initially populated by several divergent waves of protestant european immigrants who had been discriminated against in England and on the continent. They came to these shores seeking the freedom to worship without being subject to a government dictated faith. Their demand for religious freedom was enshrined in our Declaration of Independence that makes clear that our liberty is an endowment of a Creator given directly to individuals without channeling it through the State. This Christian concept of freedom of individual interpretation of religious teaching free from governmental control is what informed the First Amendment to our Constitution. Because we are a Christian nation, no one must believe, even in Christianity.

If, on the contrary, we were, say, an Islamic Nation, our freedom to worship, and our freedom not to worship, would depend on the mood of the government which would be, in accordance with the Koran, a theocracy led by Mullahs.  It would be useful for the Left to remember this important distinction between the religions as they continue to assault tolerant Christianity but remain silent on Islam tyranny. Our liberty depends on it.

Black Friday. Why black? Because for many businesses whether or not they make a profit for the year begins today. They have worked the first eleven months of the year to pay their employees, their overhead, and taxes.

President Obama spent time yesterday calling servicemen and women stationed around the world and he spoke of their sacrifice in his Thanksgiving message. It was right and good for him to do so. It seems clear that Mr. Obama has gained respect for our military since he took office. The fact that he has done so against the will of many of those in his own party is to his credit.

As I have made abundantly clear in my previous posts, I do not support Mr. Obama’s agenda nor his tactics but that does not and should not mean that we need conclude that he is a bad person. The left, motivated by anger as much as philosophy, finds it necessary to demonize all with whom they find political disagreement. It is wrong, and indeed un-American, to do so.

Mr. Obama has powerful socialist leanings and a default disrespect for our country’s history. He, like far too many on the left, focuses on America’s failures and not enough on her successes. Their denial and anger lead them to conclusions that many of us believe will harm and not help. But these can be honorable disagreements if
they are advanced openly and honestly so that we the people can direct our own future. Where I disagree with Mr. Obama, and any Republicans who act similarly, is his willingness to deceive us because he believes that we do not know what is good for us. No politician has that right.

Last night I watched a rerun on TV of the evening at the White House when Mr. Obama presented the Gershwin Prize to Paul McCartney. Our President openly displayed his love for his wife and children and a pure joy in hearing Mr. McCartney’s music. His decency and values in this regard were impossible to miss and so welcome in this day and age of decaying families with absent
fathers. Thank you, Mr. President.