The Totalitarian State Of The Union

“We are a country of laws, not of men.” - George Washington

Those immortal words still manage to provide an insight into what Washington saw as the lasting legacy of the revolution he had just helped to bring about. That men were subservient to law. All men. None were above it, not even himself.

Those laws seem a little less clear these days with the recent glut of horror stories coming out of almost every airport in America. The line between freedom and safety has been blurred so much as to leave the country in stunned shock at what many see as state sponsored sexual assault. In fact, there are several lawsuits being filed currently alleging just that.

With the newly implemented backscatter x-ray machines that literally see through clothing to the less than gentle and certainly invasive pat downs being done by TSA screeners all across the country, freedom has been degraded to the point of making the simple act of flying anywhere a Bataan grope march of humiliation.


Let's hearken back to that outdated and obscure document we call the bill of rights and read what it says about one of our most basic rights:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

That's pretty clear don't you think? The phrase "...shall not be violated..." has no gray area. It doesn't say or imply that the government can usurp that right when it deems it necessary or in times of crisis. It says simply, No warrant...no search. End of story. I would guess that most of the people who have already been through the naked scanner or the "pat down" would deem that an "unreasonable search" considering the areas that are checked. Men's groins are groped as well as women's breasts.

One irate air traveler declared flatly, "You touch my junk and I'll have you arrested." He finally declined the naked scanner and the pat down and chose to leave the airport to avoid what he felt was a humiliating and completely pointless search of his person. The government is currently charging him with failure to obey a lawful TSA request and his punishment could include a fine of over ten thousand dollars and/or imprisonment. Bear in mind that he left the airport to avoid the search and decided to travel in another way. The TSA asserts that this is still a violation and he will be prosecuted. Now, if you choose not to fly you still have to have the search performed. In Khrushchev's wildest dreams he could never have imagined the police state that we have denigrated to.

There is also a video on YouTube that has gone viral of a 3 year old girl screaming, "Stop touching me!" as a TSA agent pats her down. The video was taken by her father who just happens to be a reporter. These are not isolated incidents either. Each new day of air travel brings more accounts very similar to the previous examples. Let's examine a statement by the Deputy Director of the TSA,

" No one wants to have their 4th amendment rights violated when they board an airplane but that's what we're gonna have to do."

In that one line he acknowledges that the new security measures violate a basic civil right but we as air travelers have no other option. . It's for safety, right? The words of Benjamin Franklin come to mind in this instance, "They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. "

Surely if there was another way that didn't violate the constitution they would have implemented it by now. Well, in actual point of fact there is another way. Ask Israel's El Al Air how many times they've had to deal with a hijacking on one of their planes and they'll tell you just once in their entire history. They've not had an incident on a plane for more than 30 years and they don't subject passengers to unreasonable search unless they have a credible reason to do so. They rely solely on human intelligence to keep their planes safe. What most on the left would term "profiling" or what most law enforcement officers would call simple police work. It's more commonly referred to as "gut instinct" and it's helped law enforcement officers do their job for hundreds of years.

A fine example of gut instinct being the key factor in keeping the public safe is the case of the millennium bomber. In December of 1999, upon arriving on a ferry from Canada, al-Qaida operative Ahmed Ressam was arrested with a trunk full of explosives. His plan: to blow up Los Angeles International Airport. He was in possession of a legal Canadian passport, acquired with false information. NBC's Lisa Myers interviewed the alert agent responsible for foiling the plot and reports,

' “His story didn’t make sense to me,” said customs inspector Diana Dean. Now retired, Dean was working the border that night. On a hunch something wasn’t quite right, she questioned Ressam and asked him to pop his trunk. Inside were big bags of white powder that were first thought to be drugs.

But that night, drug tests came back negative. When investigators looked further, they found timers and realized the powder was explosives.

Dean said, “My heart dropped right into my toes when I realized what it was.”

She says no one had told her anything about being on alert for terrorists.

“I don’t recall any specific threats," she added. "I don’t recall anybody saying watch for terrorists.”

Customs officials confirm that no alert had gone out to the field."

Despite White House and 9/11 commission officials claiming that enhanced information and more focus on terrorism saved LAX from a horrific catastrophe it is the work of one very smart Border agent and one very nervous terrorist that averted this crisis.

Perhaps the most telling example of the need for human intelligence being the basic tenet of security is the story of Jose Melendez-Perez, a Puerto-Rican born United States Customs and Border Protection Inspector at Orlando International Airport who became a key figure for the 9/11 Commission when he refused entry to an alleged terrorist prior to the 20th hijacker. Thus there were only four hijackers onboard Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania, and possibly because of the shorthanded muscle on that team, the passengers were able to overcome the terrorists.

A Saudi national, Mohammed al Qahtani, landed in Orlando on a Virgin Atlantic flight. Since the Qahtani's forms were not properly filled out, he was moved to a secondary interview, conducted by Perez. The Saudi did not have a return ticket or a hotel. He had $2,800 in cash and no credit cards. Questions to where he would stay and where he would go were evasive. Besides being quite hostile, Qahtani also made contradictory statements regarding his plans.

Perez advised his superiors to have him sent back. As, according to his testimony, he sent Qahtani back out of the United States, the man allegedly turned around to him and said "something to the effect of 'I'll be back.'"

Both of the examples cited here were successful due solely to the training and innate intelligence of the agents involved. Both used their training and instincts to determine that something wasn't quite right and denied entrance to men who wanted to visit tragedy on American citizens. Neither relied on x-rays or pat downs to come to their conclusions. It is often argued that Melendez-Perez may have in fact saved the White House or the Capital building from devastation as it was determined that one of those two would be the final target for that horrible day. The people who owe their very lives to Melendez-Perez now ignore and dismiss his training as "profiling" and decide instead to subject every American to treatment that might seem common in a communist country but goes against the grain of every lesson learned from the American Revolution.

With the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday fast approaching, the airlines will soon be faced with the usual staggering numbers of travelers they accommodate every year and airports across the country will become the scene of what's being called "Opt Out Day". In an exercise of civil disobedience, thousands of passengers will simply decline the x-ray scanner and force the TSA agents to do endless pat-downs. I say, more power to them.

I'm reminded of another quote from Ben Franklin,

"Disobedience to a tyrant is obedience to God."

The good old days...

Since I'm stuck at home sick with a respiratory infection, I thought I'd spend a little time writing. I was going to write a note about the media coverage of last week's election but after reading my notes I realized that it's not any different from the other dozen notes I've written about media bias. The only real difference was the overtly confrontational nature from the panel at MSNBC towards Michele Bachmann and their obvious lack of objectivity as the night wore on. As the returns came in, the panel seemed less like journalists and more like the character Glum from the "Gulliver's Travels" cartoon. Remember him? Always the sad sack who would pronounce, "We're doomed. We'll never make it." One wonders if the impending sale of NBC to Comcast will shake up the blatant partisanship of MSNBC.

One interesting point during MSNBC's coverage of the election was something that didn't happen all night. Not once during the entire coverage did anyone on the panel utter the word "Teabaggers" to describe the movement that played such a pivotal role in the Republican rout. I asked myself why that would be since both Olbermann and Maddow, and to a lesser degree Chris Mathews, made it a habit of using that word freely during their regular broadcasts. Was it a directive from on high? Was it a pact between the three? Was it the knowledge that their future bosses at Comcast might be watching? Who knows. Either way, it was a grim joy to see the defeat of the Democrats played out on the faces of the unholy trinity. Revenge may be a dish best served cold but it's even better when it's being filmed.

That is old news now and not nearly as surprising nor newsworthy as I first thought it would be. The media is biased. That's been clear for years and I find it hard to add anything more to it. What I really wanted to write about was related to our present situation but on more of a historical tangent. Oh hell, why not just say it.

I miss Bill Clinton.

There, I said it. Moreover, I'm not ashamed of it either. I did vote for him twice after all. Some of you already know that I was once a Democrat although I held some moderately conservative beliefs. I was raised a Kennedy Democrat. John F., not Teddy. Most of my immediate family are still Democrats to this day. I try not to get into too many political discussions during family get-togethers but it's a well known fact I lean to the right. I grew up believing that Democrats were the party of the little guy and I thought that was an admirable thing. I never questioned those beliefs and apart from voting for Reagan in his second term, I voted Democrat regularly. Hell, I even voted for Michael Dukakis. That was more of a protest vote than anything else. The senior Bush was head of the CIA at one time and that just had a creepy feeling in my mind. I voted for Reagan for two reasons; first, I was in the army at the time and he was wagging his finger at the Russians nearly every day on TV and second, I liked having someone who was the Commander of the military who wasn't afraid to flex his military muscle when it was needed. I still like to say that at one time, many years ago, Ronald Reagan was my boss.

On to the real meat of this note though. I miss Bill Clinton. A lot. Despite his failings as a man he was one hell of a good leader for this country. He represented a new style that matched the attitude of the nation. We were quickly approaching the new millennium and he was well suited to the task of leading us into it. He was given an economy that was just beginning to roar back into life, job growth was good, people were making money and his ability to connect with the common man was uncanny. Who can forget, "I feel your pain."?

While his moral compass may have been stuck pointing south, to his crotch, his leadership was spot on. When he lost the house in '94 he realized quickly that things would have to change in order to govern effectively. He rose to the challenge and made quick work of forming new partnerships in the Congress. While he is still credited for signing welfare reform into law, it's hardly mentioned that it passed his desk 3 times before he actually signed it. It was a sweeping reform and wildly successful and it showed his willingness to reach across the proverbial aisle. He was a keen political animal, the likes of which we weren't quite used to. He was smart, likable and always on the lookout for his next moment of glory. He also represented a new era in politics. He was the first politician that we stopped putting on a pedestal. We recognized him as a man. Flawed and imperfect but with a good heart. He loved his country and it showed.

He took what appeared to be a crushing defeat and turned it into a chance to showcase his astounding adaptability and his expert political gamesmanship. His ability to triangulate became the stuff of legend. He was able to bring all sides to the table and forge an outcome that left most feeling like they won the day.

So why the wistful remembrance about a man I find so reprehensible today? Quite honestly I wish I saw the same traits in our current President. What I've seen so far from Obama is more of the same rhetoric that led him to the defeat he just suffered. His post election statements and his subsequent interview on 60 minutes were both filled with laments about how he didn't get his message out clearly enough. How he should have done a better job at convincing his opposition that his way was the best way. His arrogance will simply not let him believe that the American people might not agree with him. Bill Clinton wanted approval more than anything else. Maybe his childhood played a role in his need to be liked but whatever the case, it served him well in the aftermath of the 94 midterm. He played it beautifully, masterfully and with such ease you hardly noticed that he had just had his political head handed to him.

If Obama has any political instincts at all, he will learn an important lesson that Bill Clinton already knows. You either listen and learn or you become a weak footnote in history.

Can you say Jimmy Carter?

The Week In Review

My, oh my where do we begin? Let's start by saying that this is not like any other weekly review I've written up to this point. While I will try to hide my obvious jubilation over the election results, I will also attempt to relay some astounding facts that both surround and hide inside the aforementioned results. Those of you with a conservative lean are at a minimum pleased with the election I suspect but for me this was more than an election. This was a realignment of both the Republican and Democrat parties. This was the loudest shout the American people have uttered in more than a hundred years. It was a reaffirmation of the power of both the people and their most sacred duty...their vote. This election represents, in a much broader sense, the true might and majesty of what our country stands for. The peaceful exercise of the modern transfer of power.

Forgive me if I wax rhapsodic about the greatness of this country. No other country allows it's people such freedom, such an absolute role in it's future, it's persona and it's character. In a scant 160 years, we went from a country at war with itself for the determination of slavery, to electing a black man President. That alone, speaks volumes about the role this country plays in the world as a model for the real gift of Democracy. It is the individual, or a collection of them, that shape the face this nation shows the world.

Having said that, it is obvious that while the country may have the sense of enlightenment needed to elect a black man President, it is not above telling that same man that his choice of a course for the nation is wrong and must be altered. Despite the mainstream media belief that any criticism of a black man is veiled racism, it is impossible to believe that the results of our last election are only about race. They must be about the ideology of the party in power and the direction we must go moving forward. If the independents or moderates that essentially flung Obama into the White House to begin with abandoned him two years later, one can only surmise that they were, in actual point of fact, unhappy with who they thought he was. He ran as a centrist to attract that sacred middle that all politicians seek to woo during an election season but wound up taking a radical left turn after his inauguration. Two years of health care reform, bailouts, stimulus, rising unemployment and the incessant meddling in the business of America which is business after all, finally boiled over, leaving the Democrat party burned and disfigured beyond it's ability to comprehend.

With the help of the Tea Party, that sacred middle sent what amounted to a cacophony of disdain and displeasure throughout the entire Liberal establishment. Now, that's not what you'll hear from almost everyone on the left. There are so many records tucked inside this election and I suspect that if you don't watch Fox news, you'd never have heard about them. I will try to list just a few firsts or at least the record moments in this election:

Tim Scott won his race in South Carolina on the GOP ticket. What is the amazing fact here? Tim Scott is black and the fist black GOP member from South Carolina since reconstruction. Yes, you read that correctly.

Col. Allen West, whose YouTube videos of his inspirational speeches went viral, won his race in Florida. West is also black and the first black GOP member in Florida since the 1870's.

The state House in Alabama flipped to Republican control for the first time since 1865.

There were a total of 688 State level congressional seats won by Republicans out of a possible 1,000 up for election. That's fully 2/3 of ALL available seats.

The US House changed hands in a stunning upset to the tune of 66 seats. For perspective, the Republican Revolution of 1994 was a gain of only 54 seats, enough to wrest control of the House at the time. If that was a "revolution" what was this? A bloodless coup? A tsunami?

No Democrat running for a state level congressional seat, either House or Senate had been elected who wasn't an incumbent. Let that little tidbit sink in for a moment. Only those who were already entrenched could retain their seats. No New Democrats got elected. Just breathe slowly and savor the delicious aroma of the meaning of the word "mandate".

Now, did you hear those facts from any of the mainstream media outlets? Did Chris Mathews weep with joy at the election of a black man in Florida? Do you think he felt a thrill go up his leg? Do you think Keith Olbermann will pick one of the two previous Republicans I just mentioned as a role model for black Americans or will he name them his Worst Person?

Another truly astounding fact of this election is the newly developed ability of conservatives to mobilize and organize. Those two actions were relegated solely to the left for so many years that conservatives looked silly and weak in comparison. This election showed how strong the right can be when it is properly motivated. The assault on freedom represented by the gargantuan Health Care law and it's impending death knell for individual choice in decisions based on our lives seemed to be the proper motivation. The rise and subsequent denigration of the Tea Party by every sector of leftist ideology proved to be the final nail in the coffin for the left. Despite being called stupid, violent, extreme, racist and the ever popular "Tea Baggers", a thinly veiled insult and a graphic sexual term, the Tea Party managed what no other movement in the past had been able to do. It woke up a sleeping giant by metaphorically holding up the Constitution in one hand and the Health Care Law in the other. It asked the American people which document was more important? Which was really indicative of what the country stood for? Do we stand for freedom from oppressive Government or do we sit quietly while that same Government attempts to behead the dreams of our founding fathers? The answer seems clear to most people, unless you have a journalism degree from Columbia. Those people seem to think that stupidity and anger ruled the day.

Let's compare two recent elections and then ask a very important question. In 2008, the American people spoke loudly and Barack Obama was propelled to immortality. The left declared this a moment worthy of remembrance and praise for a country that still smacked sorely of racial divisions hundreds of years old. They declared it a mandate for a more moderate America that would heal itself and the world all at once. Obama won that election by a 52% - 47% margin over John McCain. While that does mean that he won a technical majority of the American People, it was hardly earth shattering in that he only won by 7 percentage points. Hardly what one could reasonably call a mandate by any any definition of the word. The only true historic part of that election was that a black man won. While that is an admirable goal, especially from a country with such an ugly past in matters of race, that remains the sole moment of regard worth noting.

In 2010, the number of Republican gains is staggering by comparison. The margin of victory in the US House is the largest since 1938. A 66 seat pickup is the stuff of political dreams in the modern era. It is, quite frankly, a political analyst's wet dream. When you couple that with gains in the US Senate, gubernatorial gains and the enormous gains in the State Houses across the country,what one word comes close to describing it?

Mandate. A conservative mandate of such Herculean proportions that surely even the President would be humbled by it's size.

If you were talking about any other President, I would agree but not our current President. He still seems convinced that he either didn't get his message out clearly enough or he was just so smart that none of us mere mortals could comprehend his brilliance. His "conciliatory" speech the day after the election smacked of self delusion and a verbal doubling down of more of the same policies that had just been rejected. He didn't see it as a rejection at all. He still seems to think he just needs to better explain why his Statist policies are such a good thing for the country. He doesn't understand that wasting nearly two tears trying to "reform" the best health care system in the world while the economy sank deeper and deeper into recession might give most of the country the impression that all he cared about was his agenda, not the millions of unemployed and the millions more being systematically hurt by the downward spiral. Had he expended half the energy in rescuing the economy that he spent destroying one-sixth of it, this election would have had much different consequences.

In a nutshell, his Keynesian economic beliefs and his burgeoning "ideologue" persona, his entrenched, unshakable belief that he knows best, eventually dragged him and the entire Democrat party into an abyss of mediocrity. It exposed the modern Democrat party as a big government party that holds faith in the State above faith in the people. It places it's ideals for humanity above the desires of it's people.

That, of course, is my opinion but I suspect that it's shared by at least 66 Republicans. Regardless of what you may have heard, there are jobs being created...for Republicans all across the country.

This post will end on that note but I still want to dissect the election from the media's reaction. There is so much information to be disseminated in this election that I find it a necessity to tackle the issues separately. This is both for you the reader, I don't wish to bore you but also for myself. I do have a tendency to ramble. You must believe me when I say that for all the information contained in this post about the election from the standpoint of results and reasons for it's outcome, what lies ahead in the media's perception of it is equally as astounding.

The Guardians Of Hypocrisy

Rush Limbaugh says often that you can tell what liberals are up to by what they accuse you of. If they accuse you of being in the pocket of special interests, they're trying to deflect criticism of the use of Union donations. If they accuse you of taking advantage of campaign finance laws, they're really hoping all those baskets of cash from the Chinese aren't noticed. If they accuse you of low moral character in a public official, they're really trying to prop up a President who got a "Lewinsky" in the Oval Office.

More recently, they've been howling about the negative campaign ads that they see from the Republican party and the influence of money from Political Action Committees (PACS) who don't have to report where that money comes from. These claims are the kind that will make you shoot soda from your nose when you hear them if you know the real truth. The truth is this: totaling up the money spent by Democrats, left leaning PACS and the Unions, we come to 1.1 billion dollars. The amount from Republicans and right leaning PACS comes to 600 million dollars. That's just over half what's been spent from the left. The hypocrisy is so thick you could cut it with a knife. A dull knife. A dull, rusty, 200 year old knife.

As far as negative campaign ads go, both sides have their fair share but from what I've seen, the left has far and away the most negative and incendiary ads to date. Alan Grayson (D) Florida, used an excerpted portion of a speech, given by his opponent Dan Webster (R) at a church, to give the impression that Webster thinks women should, "...submit to me", calling him Taliban Dan. You've no doubt heard the backlash of the "Aqua Buddha" ad from the Kentucky Senate race that wound up bringing Rand Paul up in the polls by nearly 7 points. And while not technically an ad, Joy Behar's comments on The View about Sharon Angle being a "bitch who was going to hell", it's still well within the framework of hypocrisy for the purposes of our discussion on the subject. Angle sent Behar flowers and a thank you card the next day. It seems donations flooded into Angle's campaign coffers after Behar's nasty remarks and the polls tilted in Angle's favor too. Kind of a reverse double whammy. Not a peep from the left about those ugly comments.

Another trend in the media and in the upper echelon of Democrat leadership is that the impending losses by the left are due to fear and scare tactics by right wing radio and Fox News. It can't be because the American people are tired of promises and committees and action plans by the current administration, it's because Americans are ill informed and not thinking clearly. Nearly everyone on the left, from the President on down, has tried to make the case that Americans simply don't know a good thing when they see it. When Obama was elected, the media applauded Americans for their intelligence and enlightened sensibilities. A scant 2 years later, Americans are stupid and running on racism and hatred.

To use one of Obama's favorite metaphors, American's are removing him from the driver's seat and telling him to let THEM drive. In Obama's world, he's in the driver's seat and everyone else is in the back. He has the country in a rear facing child seat so they can't see what's going on up ahead and only the Democrat leadership is allowed in the front.

To take this analogy to it's proper place would be to say that Obama should have stopped miles ago and asked for directions because he's gotten us hopelessly lost and we're dangerously low on gas.

The Insanity Of Political Correctness

The Insanity Of Political Correctness
or
How Liberals Killed 13 and Wounded 32 At Fort Hood
(Opinion)

I am, at heart, a simple man with a knack for identifying a solution to a problem quickly. This is due in large part to my chosen profession as a field service technician. It's my job to discover a fault, a reason for that fault and the most logical solution to that fault. It's part of my nature really. It might be a character quirk that compels me to analyze a problem as quickly as possible but whatever the reason I tend to see things in black and white to make the diagnosis of a problem as easy a process as I can. I try to keep the process as uncluttered as possible to minimize potential incorrect conclusions. Since I deal with the public, it is incumbent upon me to get their equipment in working order in a timely fashion both for their satisfaction and to contribute to the company's reputation. Since I recently celebrated my 15th year in the business, I'd have to assume I'm fairly good at it by now.

Why am I talking about what I do for a living? To be honest, how I approach my job is very similar to how I approach life. If, for instance, I see a story on the news about an accidental shooting in a home, I don't immediately think about less guns. I think about better control of guns at home. Trigger locks, gun safes and the like spring to mind, not reducing the freedom of the individual.

Another example that will no doubt raise the ire of some and the acknowledgment of others is the aftermath of 9/11. When I learned that all 19 hijackers were Muslim men, I immediately saw the solution to the problem of future hijackings. Extra airport screenings, better background checks and a more stringent visa policy with stricter enforcement came to mind.

Trouble is, according to the loony left that makes me a bigot and a fear monger. They'd prefer extra screenings on old women and young children just to "make it fair". We musn't give the appearance of bigotry against Muslims. We must punish everyone for the actions of a radical few.

In other words, we must ignore the obvious for the sake of political correctness. Those of you who have read me before know how much I abhor political correctness. It's dishonest and serves no useful purpose other than to quell thought and speech. It's main goal is to make sure that everyone thinks the same thing. That everyone feels the same thing and says the same thing. I find it detestable and more than that, I find it dangerous. Why do liberals, in their infinite wisdom, screech to the heavens about diversity and then ask me to think like everyone else? Why do they ask me to celebrate the differences in our culture and then tell me to put my differences aside? Why must I leave behind what seems like common sense so a few overly sensitive whiners can feel good about themselves?

In a recent post I related the recent firing of Juan Williams by NPR for comments he made on The O'Reilly Factor. I'll reprint the relevant parts here to provide better context for what I'm about to say.

"In the area of news, Juan Williams, political analyst for National Public Radio and part time Fox News contributor, was fired from his NPR post for comments he made on The O'Reilly Factor concerning his trepidation about people "dressed in muslim garb" in airports saying, "they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

For those remarks he was summarily dismissed via phone call by his immediate superior. He was told the decision was final and that it had come from above her. The person above her is Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR. Schiller later made the comment that Juan's remarks were inconsistent with NPR's journalistic standards and that he should discuss his comments with "his psychiatrist or publicist" hinting that Williams must have been mentally disturbed to say what he did or seeking a juicy sound bite that might garner him some attention in the press. Suffice to say the bulk of the attention has been focused on the ham handed firing and the not so subtle hypocrisy of Schiller's statement about NPR's journalistic standards.

The only standards NPR is currently ascribing to have more to do with political correctness and the obvious notion that Williams had gone off the reservation of liberal group think and must be tamped down. NPR's Nina Totenberg once said of Jesse Helms,

"I think he ought to be worried about the -- about what's going on in the good Lord's mind because if there's retributive justice he'll get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will get it."

That statement, apparently, is perfectly in line with NPR's high journalistic standards."

As you can imagine, within a few days the entire liberal community was up in arms about his comments. They decried his statement as insensitive, bigoted and ignorant. Now I suppose I could agree with them if I suspended my belief in free speech and free expression. In our modern culture however, free speech isn't exactly free. It's only free when liberals agree with you. When they don't agree, it's hateful and bigoted and anyone caught saying bad things must be punished.

While I could go on for hours about the injustice and overall stupidity of political correctness, it really is peripheral to I'm about to say. What I have to say is far more critical and far more dangerous.

What I'm really trying to say is that liberals are responsible for the massacre at Fort Hood where 13 soldiers were killed and 32 were injured. Personally, I could leave it there and feel quite content that my message has been properly conveyed. Liberals killed 13 and wounded 32. The solution to the problem is no more difficult than that. There's very little gray area in finding the answer. Political correctness allowed a Muslim extremist with the goal of murdering Americans to remain within arms reach of the unsuspecting public. Liberals promote and insist on political correctness. Simple.

A+B=C. You don't have to be Einstein to get that one right the first time.

Nidal Hassan had made comments prior to the shooting that not only hinted but broadcast his intent to kill Americans. The radical Imam he corresponded with was already a suspect on the terror watch list. The government had this information in advance. His superiors failed to do what was necessary for fear of being branded bigots and intolerant of his religious beliefs. That fear stemmed from the pervasive and destructive effects of political correctness. He was allowed to remain at his post with no recrimination for his radical views. Political correctness kills people. End of story.

Is that extreme or extremely honest? Liberals shriek about not singling out Muslims in our society because that infringes on their religious freedom. It seems the only time most liberals give a damn about religious freedom is where Muslims are concerned. Taking the extra time to single out Muslims in airports is profiling and profiling is wrong. Even if it means that some innocent citizens might die as a result. A few dead Americans are a small price to pay on the altar of political correctness.

The government asks us to be vigilant and aware of our surroundings to help them prevent another terrorist attack. What, pray tell, am I supposed to be vigilant for? Gangs of old ladies with C-4 in their knitting bags? A gaggle of children with anthrax in their sippee cups? No, they want me to be vigilant for Muslim extremists who might wish to inflict mass damage on the general public. They just don't say it. They dance around it and make nice for the liberals who might possibly be offended. The latest batch of terror alerts in Europe aren't about motorcycle gangs or lunatic Green Peace malcontents. Those alerts are about Muslim extremists who wish to kill Americans.

It's war. It's an ugly prospect but turning away and pretending it's not true will only leave us vulnerable to a repeat of 9/11. As George W. Bush once said. "The government has to be perfect every time to avoid another terrorist attack. The terrorists only have to be perfect once to pull it off."

I'll use this analogy and maybe it'll convert someone who can't quite grasp why Americans are afraid of Muslims.

Let's say that people dressed in clown suits are robbing banks and killing people. They look like every other clown you've ever seen so you can't tell the good clowns from the bad ones. If you're standing in a bank and a clown walks in, do you get nervous? Do you watch his every move, prepared to snap into action should the need arise? If you said yes, you're a normal human who deals with fear and reality in a healthy and rational way. If you said no, you're a liar...and most likely, a liberal.

Now, the next time you hear someone practicing political correctness don't just shake your head and walk away. Tell them how dangerous it is. Tell them how it killed 13 soldiers. Tell them how easy it is to forget what happened to 3,000 innocent people whose only crime was going to work.

The week in review.

It's been awhile since I've done one of these so bear with me. To say that this has been a tumultuous week in politics and news would be putting it mildly to say the least.

In politics, Harry Reid said in an interview on The Ed Show on MSNBC that, "...but for me we'd be in a worldwide depression." Tall words from a small man in the fight of his life for reelection to the Senate. I find the irony somewhat sweet that the second most powerful Democrat in the country makes a wild claim about saving the world from megalithic disaster while the most powerful Democrat in the country would like to think that honor belongs to him. As usual, no outrage from the media about Reid's claim. They're too busy trying to find something new and potentially more outrageous about Christine O'Donnell. In fact, Ed Schultz never even batted an eye when Reid made that statement.

Elsewhere in politics, there's an ugly voting scandal brewing in Troy, New York. Dozens of fraudulent absentee ballots, cast for the Working Families Party, were discovered to contain forged signatures and false information. Brendan J. Lyons, senior writer for the Times Union of Albany writes,

"Documents at the county Board of Elections show the fraudulent ballots were handled by or prepared on behalf of various elected officials and leaders and operatives for the Democratic and Working Families parties. A Troy housing authority employee, Anthony Defiglio, who sources said oversees vacant properties for the Troy Housing Authority, also handled many of the fraudulent ballots, according to public records and interviews with voters who said they were duped. "

Now, before you go thinking the system is rigged on all sides, the county board of elections is run by, say it with me, Democrats. It would appear those responsible were dimwitted enough to lick the envelopes they used to send in the fake ballots. DNA testing is currently underway on the ballots and DNA samples have been collected from both the board of elections and the Troy city council. It's kind of a cross between the movie "Primary Colors" and the TRU TV show, Forensic Files. The outcome will be interesting at best.

Another interesting tidbit to be exposed this week was the list of the largest contributors in this years election cycle. And the largest is... drum roll please. The unions.

Wait. What? I thought the chamber of commerce was the largest. What with all that foreign money they have. Nope, it seems the Chamber didn't even make the top 5. The Baltimore Sun reports, "The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is now the biggest outside spender of the 2010 elections, thanks to an 11th-hour effort to boost Democrats that has vaulted the public-sector union ahead of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and a flock of new Republican groups in campaign spending.

The 1.6 million-member AFSCME is spending a total of $87.5 million on the elections after tapping into a $16 million emergency account to help fortify the Democrats' hold on Congress. Last week, AFSCME dug deeper, taking out a $2 million loan to fund its push. The group is spending money on television advertisements, phone calls, campaign mailings and other political efforts, helped by a Supreme Court decision that loosened restrictions on campaign spending. "

In common parlance, that means corporations as a person... bad, unions as a person good. I know the obvious argument from the left is that donations from corporations may contain tainted money from dark, mysterious forces that might not have our best interests at heart. On the other hand, union money comes from the salaries derived from taxpayers and in turn confiscated by the unions in the form of union dues. In simpler terms, even those of us outside the union are giving money to political candidates with which we have nothing in common. As Alanis Morrisette would say, "Isn't it ironic?"

Is it any wonder that the only sector to have shown explosive growth of jobs in this flailing economy has been the public sector? Watching President Obama grow the size of government so rapidly over the last 22 months, it almost seemed like he didn't have a clue what he was doing. It all begins to make sense now.

In the area of news, Juan Williams, political analyst for National Public Radio and part time Fox News contributor, was fired from his NPR post for comments he made on The O'Reilly Factor concerning his trepidation about people "dressed in muslim garb" in airports saying, "they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

For those remarks he was summarily dismissed via phone call by his immediate superior. He was told the decision was final and that it had come from above her. The person above her is Vivian Schiller, CEO of NPR. Schiller later made the comment that Juan's remarks were inconsistent with NPR's journalistic standards and that he should discuss his comments with "his psychiatrist or publicist" hinting that Williams must have been mentally disturbed to say what he did or seeking a juicy sound bite that might garner him some attention in the press. Suffice to say the bulk of the attention has been focused on the ham handed firing and the not so subtle hypocrisy of Schiller's statement about NPR's journalistic standards.

The only standards NPR is currently ascribing to have more to do with political correctness and the obvious notion that Williams had gone off the reservation of liberal group think and must be tamped down. NPR's Nina Totenberg once said of Jesse Helms,

"I think he ought to be worried about the -- about what's going on in the good Lord's mind because if there's retributive justice he'll get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will get it."

That statement, apparently, is perfectly in line with NPR's high journalistic standards. I will expand on this story and add a bit more of my own opinion at a later time. On a happier note, Fox News has offered Williams a contract and an expanded role on the network offering the other side of the ideological spectrum. It seems only fitting for a network who's tag line is "Fair & Balanced". That's more balance than you'll see on MSNBC at least. Remember Ed Schultz?

On a related note, George Soros has donated 1.8 million dollars to NPR to expand their reporting of local politics. Who thinks that money will be used for honest, fair reporting? Soros has after all, collapsed 4 economies in his lifetime and has been the largest single contributor to Democrat/liberal candidates since record keeping began. I wouldn't hold my breath hoping for anything that resembles true journalism coming out of NPR from this point forward.

Well, a little over a week to go until the midterms and it's getting tense out there in the heartland. Rhetoric is currently being ratcheted up, campaign cash on both sides is being flung around like candy from pinata and the climate is one of exuberance on the right and guarded. if irrational, confidence on the left. I must say though through it all, that this is perhaps the most contentious and important midterm election that I can recall. I can't wait until November 2nd. I'm planning on staying up all night to watch the returns in California. I've even made my own little congressional scorecard so I can keep up with how wide a margin the Republicans win by. For a political geek like myself, this is the NFC Championship game and the winner determines who goes to the big dance in 2012.

Let the games begin!

Nudging our way to Utopia

This missive has been months in the planning stages. I sought to coalesce my thoughts before I put them into a tangible format but that proved pointless as the subject and it's ultimate goals were ever changing and shifting. When the health care law was still an idea, I read about a man who would eventually have incredible control over it and every other government program, regulation and law that is currently in play in the country. I was simply doing my own independent research about the people who were shaping the legislation as it made it's way through congress. I wanted to know who those people were and if they might have a personal agenda that would come into play. I read about Dr. Ezekiel Immanuel (special advisor to the President), John Holdren (science Czar), Kathleen Sibelius (Dept. HHS) and one other person who would play a pivotal role in the health care bill's application and enforcement. His name was unknown to me but he is a brilliant academic and a prolific author. Of all the people involved in the process of writing and shaping the bill, he seemed to be more of a dark figure in the background than a prominent player.

Cass Sunstein is a legal scholar and the current head of the Office of Information and Regulatory affairs (OIRA). This position puts him in place to make decisions on budgetary items regarding the cost of a government run health care plan. Let's leave aside his radical views on animal rights, he actually believes that animals have a right to sue for grievances, and delve deeper into his thoughts on how government plays a role in our lives. He has written in the past his belief in the celebration of tax day this way,

"In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?... Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. … There is no liberty without dependency."

This line of thinking presupposes that every thing we have is the result of a generous gift from government. The money in our pockets, the cars we drive and the very lives we lead are all extensions of the government. Now, I may not be a thinker at any level near Mr. Sunstein's but the idea that I owe my very existence to the government scares me more than just a little. This is just a taste of the philosophy he believes and we've barely scratched the surface so far. Let's hear Mr. Sunstein in his own words on the subject of "life years", a controversial idea in which he proposes that some humans are inherently more valuable simply because of their age,

"I urge that the government should indeed focus on life-years rather than lives. A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people."

Gone will be the days when we honor the elderly in our society for their past contributions if Mr. Sunstein has his way. All that matters to him are future contributions. I wonder if he could be so callous, so unfeeling if it were his own mother or father suffering needlessly because a government bureaucrat decided that a life extending treatment has been deemed "not in the best interest of the collective". One other vital bit of information about Professor Sunstein is his admiration for noted philosopher, Peter Singer, a bio-ethicist. Singer, a far left-wing animal rights activist, has said that a border collie has more intrinsic value to the collective than does a child with developmental disabilities.

It's the "final solution" without the ugly connotation of fascism.

Of all the appointees to have taken residence in our current President's cabinet, this man is without a doubt the most powerful. His very job is to tweak regulations so as to more effectively control costs our ultimate outcomes of an associated program. The very real problem of his appointment is the ideological baggage he carries into the office. A man who believes that animals have rights might "tweak" regulations for hunters that would eventually make hunting a thing of the past. Now, before you call me an alarmist or even worse - paranoid, listen first to more background on this man.

Of all the books written by Sunstein, the one I find has the darkest undertones is a book written with economist Richard Thaler called "Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness"

I'll give you a peek into the ideas behind the book by using Sunstein's own words,

"People often make poor choices – and look back at them with bafflement! We do this because as human beings, we all are susceptible to a wide array of routine biases that can lead to an equally wide array of embarrassing blunders in education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, happiness, and even the planet itself."

The upshot of the book is that we can be nudged into making the right choices in life if the right people are in charge of "altering the choice structure" to prevent us from making mistakes. What does Sunstein mean by "altering the choice structure"? I'll give you a few examples that should make it all clear. Recently, a war on trans-fat has been fought by the FDA against restaurants that have menus that offer, shall we say, less than healthy foods. The Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, said in recent months that he would like to see salt removed from prepared foods in restaurants and would even like to see salt shakers removed from their tables. This is the basic idea behind altering the choice structure. If we remove the salt, no one will have high blood pressure, right? Wrong. We are still able to purchase salt at our local grocery store and season to our overworked heart's content. How long until that choice is removed?

Still another example of having choices removed is in the Women, Infants & Children (WIC) program offered by the government. On the surface the program is a good one offering financial assistance to low income families with pregnant women and young children. It promotes healthy eating by only allowing participants to purchase certain foods like fresh fruits, vegetables and juices that contain mostly fruit and little additives. I happen to think the program is an admirable one and when used properly does provide healthy alternatives to the usual fast food and junk food that children are often given as a substitute for a healthy meal. Days ago however, the program's administrator removed potatoes as an acceptable vegetable. Why, you might ask, would the noble and life sustaining potato be cut from the list and made to hang out behind the gym with the "bad" foods? It seems potatoes can be fried. They can also be covered in sour cream and butter and doused with unhealthy levels of salt. Imagine for a moment a world without potatoes. No mashed, baked or golden fried heaven ever again.

That's Sunstein's dream of the nudge. Altering the choice structure in such a way that we end up as bland automatons devoid of the ability to think for ourselves. Unable to discern what we need from what we want. Ask yourself how long Sunstein would allow us to eat meat when he holds the view that animals have rights? How long before an entire industry disappears in a puff of well meaning smoke?

Could a man who holds such radical views about animal rights and the benevolence of the government truly not allow his own personal agenda to influence how he does his job? Can he be trusted to do what is best for safeguarding the freedoms of the American people or will he instead use his position to "nudge" the country to the perfection he believes is attainable.

Stay tuned for part two of Cass Sunstein when we explore his views on the first amendment and freedom in general.

Calling it like they see it.

"...part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we're hard-wired not to always think clearly when we're scared,"

President Obama during a Democrat fundraiser in Boston.


Democrats aren’t running on the administration’s accomplishments like health-care and financial-regulatory overhaul and the stimulus because “it’s just too hard to explain,” Biden said.

Interview with Joe Biden, Bloomberg.com

" Once we know that people are human and have some Homer Simpson in them, then there's a lot that can be done to manipulate them."

Cass Sunstein, OIRA appointee. (Obama's regulatory czar)


“Elections are not the time to educate people. You win the election, then you educate people afterwards.”

Howard Dean in an NPR interview

Above are a few short examples of recent statements made by high ranking Democrat officials that seem to speak to the apparent low intelligence of the American electorate. In numerous interviews, both in print and on television, there are more and more prominent people on the left that display a thinly veiled disdain for the average person. It's one thing to hear the political punditry routinely call anyone in politics with a conservative bent either stupid or lacking in the necessary "gravitas", to use a term used to describe George W. Bush, to be a leader. It's quite another to listen and watch as more and more of the left describes the American people that way. Day after day, we hear more stories centered around the belief that Americans aren't quite smart enough to understand all the good that's being done on their behalf by the President and his Congress. We don't understand the Health Care law, TARP, the stimulus, financial reform or the multitude of other things that have been foisted upon us.

It's actually quite a departure from the Clinton era when Democrats worried that they "weren't getting their message out" when attempting to explain their numerous defeats at the ballot box and through legislation. It appears now that they're getting their message out, we're just too dumb to get it. We're not from ivy league schools or haven't been to the right dinner parties to truly comprehend the brilliance on display before our very eyes. Unaccustomed, as we are, to the heights of the ivory tower that most liberals reside in, we just go about our lives blind to the stunning intellectual elite that seek only to help us live better lives. Not only is ignorance bliss, it's the American way.

The unabashed arrogance on display by the power structure of the left is at times breathtaking in it's openness and shocking in it's belief that the only smart people in the country vote Democrat. If you believe the left, most of America, left to it's own devices, would simply fall apart if not for the pointy-headed professorial types that currently infest the government.

This kind of downward glance from the left isn't exactly new or all that surprising when one takes into account the more recent exertion of Progressive ideals in the Democrat party. In just a few years, Progressives have managed to co-opt the Democrat party and bring the concepts of social and economic justice to the fore in American politics. Early 20th century Progressives were firm believers and vocal proponents of segregation, eugenics and the concept of disallowing certain groups from polluting the genetic storehouse in an effort to breed a smarter electorate. Since those early Progressives weren't able to implement their own "final solution" one must assume the modern electorate isn't as smart as they'd first hoped. The vast majority of those early Progressives came from intelligentsia so it fits that they would try to weed the weak of mind out of the Utopian garden they envisioned for their brave new world.

The modern Democrat party is almost indistinguishable from the early Progressives in their approach to the very people who send them to Washington DC. They mock them, talk down to them and use them as a battering ram to fulfill their ultimate dream of Utopia on Earth. President Obama has made countless references to the American people as of low intelligence, weak minded and afraid to make his vision of the future a reality. This upcoming midterm election will be a tsunami of rejection that will wash many of those elites out of the comfortable posts they have enjoyed and used to their own personal advantage and enrichment.

It's normal for a liberal to think they're smarter than a group of people, it's suicide to articulate those thoughts in an attempt to calm the poor frightened masses who want only to fire up the X-Box, order a pizza and let someone smarter take care of dispensing freedom to the poor unwashed heathens.

Those who can...

Unless you've been living under a rock the last two years, you've no doubt seen the level of political discourse sink deeper and deeper into an abyss of name calling, insults and personal attacks from politicians and pundits alike. It seems there is no one left who can be objective any longer. The right has shown their dissatisfaction with the GOP by creating a movement that seeks to hold it's hierarchy accountable to it's base. The left, driven primarily by the President, has opted for using dark conspiracies about foreign money in American politics as a way to scare it's base into staying engaged throughout the election cycle. Whatever the outcome on November 2nd, it has been a most interesting election cycle.

While some would argue that this election is a referendum of Obama's policies and (lack of) results in rescuing our flailing economy from the precipice it appears to be teetering on, in my own view, it seems the only likely answer. In the run up to the 2008 Presidential election, Obama's message was one of "Hope & Change". It energized his base with dreams of equality and a new direction in American politics. Leaving aside the obvious reality that neither happened quite like it was promised, our upcoming election is absolutely a referendum on Obama and the ruling class on both sides. The anti-incumbent sentiment on the right is as strong as it's ever been and probably more than a little frightening to the upper echelon in charge of it's future.

A large majority of the left feels betrayed by Obama for his apparent lack of being "left wing" enough. The radical left of the Democrat party sees him now as just another politician skilled at being long on promises and woefully short on results. He didn't go far enough to change the way the country is run and for that he will be punished. More than likely this punishment will be evident in relatively low turnout results in November. Just as conservatives did in 2006. Awash in scandal after scandal and both obvious and subtle signs of extreme corruption, conservative voters decided to sit out the election in 2006 as a way to flex what little muscle they had in the electoral process. The message was loud and clear if only briefly. By 2008 the substance of that message had been lost and conservatives were faced with the choice of Obama or McCain. For many conservatives, it was a choice of the lesser of two progressives. Both had visions of spending our way to solvency and government intervention in the private sector as a way to shore up the economy. It can be flatly stated now after months of economic malaise, that neither was right.

There have been whispers in the press of a "new normal" for unemployment hovering around 8%-9%. If one ignores the media's cries of recession under Bush because of a 5.5% unemployment rate, then their idea that a "new normal" is a recovery should have us all singing kum ba ya any day now. The press has also been quite forgiving of late as to Obama's failures both perceived and real. The mantra of, "He's doing the best he can, why do they berate him so?", have been met with a healthy dose of derision. The New York Times should have a pair of pom poms on the front cover for all the cheerleading they do for this administration.

"Gimme an O!"

In a recent impromptu debate on fiscal policy, Obama said despite the recession and the possibility of higher taxes in 2011, the rich would still "buy their big screen TV's" and that the middle and lower classes needed the tax break to go buy their own big screen TV's. What Mr. Obama fails to recognize is that those evil rich people who don't deserve a tax break don't just buy big screen TV's. They own companies that produce parts for said TV's, they own businesses that deliver them, track them and stock their stores with them. If an extreme tax hike does come down the pike, those companies will be less inclined to expand their businesses thereby shrinking the number of big screen TV's available to the rest of us. For his apparent lack of understanding of a free market economy, Mr. Obama was called an "economic illiterate" and a "jackass" by Rush Limbaugh. Harsh words to be sure but these are harsh times. The poverty rate is at an record high, the number of Americans on food stamps is at an all time high. Heated rhetoric or not, Limbaugh's characterization of Obama as an "economic illiterate" is accurate.

There's an old saying that tells us "Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach." It's the simple idea that there are thinkers and doers in our society and it's usually the doers that shape change and ultimately the progress of humankind. Steven Dutch, professor of applied sciences at the University of Wisconsin, Green Bay relates a story that illustrates this point perfectly. He writes,

When NASA convened a commission to analyze the 1986 Challenger disaster, one of the panelists was physicist Richard Feynman, about as "ivory tower" as they come (in terms of his academic degree. In his personal style, Feynman was the antithesis of "ivory tower"). During a discussion of the hypothesis that launching under cold conditions might have caused the seals in the solid fuel booster to become stiff, many of the panelists agreed it might be a good idea, but it would be hard to test. Feynman took a sample of the seal material, dunked it in a glass of ice water, and showed that the seal became stiffer.

This is the root of the problems Mr. Obama is facing. He's a thinker, a theoretician and not well versed in real world solutions. To quote Ray Stanz from the movie Ghostbusters,

"You've never been out of college. I've worked in the private sector. They expect results."

Such is the reality Obama is currently fighting so hard to ignore. He went from college into public service with no real, practical experience with regards to basic economics and business growth.
We expect results Mr. President. Not platitudes or promises. Not bumper stickers or catch phrases. We want results. We demand action that produces those results. I think one of the reasons that Bush has recently pulled dead even with Obama in poll numbers as to who could run the government better is because Bush was perceived as a doer. A man who saw a problem and took the best course of action to solve it. He didn't wring his hands after 9/11. He took action. He didn't convene a commission on debt reduction, he cut taxes. While many of his decisions were extremely unpopular, he was viewed as a man of action.

I think that's what America needs right now more than anything else. A man of action. Not a pointy headed elitist with a penchant for thinking a small problem into a big one.

Bring on November and let's see what the American people really think.

The dream dies to resounding applause.

This missive, unlike most of the others I've written, is quite the bitter pill for me to swallow. It signals a realization I was dreading to admit was happening. Some of you would call me a patriot, some would say a nationalist and still others would characterize me a jingoist. Whatever the moniker I am eventually attached to, I am saddened by recent events to the point of losing hope that we, as a nation, will ever be able to realign ourselves with a common belief in right and wrong. A common understanding of what is good for our nation and what is not. Not since a civil war that threatened to tear our nation to pieces has the level of divisiveness been as high. Once again we are thrust into a chaos that could easily set our country ablaze with hate and distrust.

What follows is how I interpreted two very different events that may or may not be defining moments in our history. I watched as these two events unfolded, unrelated on their surface but in my mind they seemed connected in a nebulous way as if tied by slender, almost invisible threads I will relate the first as dispassionately as I can.

If you haven't already heard the flap and furor surrounding the proposed mosque and Islamic center mere blocks from ground zero, then you may want to stop reading now. I'm not too sure you'll see the odd little connection that I saw. Like many who opposed it's construction, I questioned the motives of the Imam who became it's most visible spokesman. I questioned his reasons and his ability to understand any objections that might arise. It was an openly provocative site that was chosen from an openly provocative religious leader who had said that America was "complicit" with the evil behind 9/11. Adding to that, saying that Osama Bin Laden was "made in America" leaves a reasonable person to ask: Why there? Why now? I would never seek to deny anyone seeking religious freedom the right to do so. What I would ask is for a little sensitivity to the location, the radical offshoot of the religion responsible for the carnage and his previous statements to be clarified, if not apologized for.

My objection stems from a simple concept: This is hallowed ground. This is a moment from our past that will live forever in the minds of everyone who still feels proud to call themselves an American.

Those who support the building of this structure site anti-religious bias, small minded thinking and a general hatred for Islam as the reason for the uproar. Let's leave aside the fact that people from both sides of the political aisle both support and object the mosques construction. Both Harry Reid and former governor George Pataki are against it. Conversely, Nancy Pelosi and Orrin Hatch support it. Suffice to say that there's more than enough argument to go around for both sides.

Fast forward a few weeks and we come to the looming rally, sponsored by Glenn Beck, called "Restoring Honor". As beck explained, the rally was meant to provide a renewed focus on our ability as a people to recognize those traits that first made this country a beacon of hope and freedom across the world: Honor, Duty, Sacrifice, Spirituality and the marvelous appreciation for innovation that made us a powerhouse in the fields of medicine, technology and business. The date chosen for his rally was August 28, 2010. His original choice for a date was 9/12 but that fell on a Sunday and Beck, a devoutly religious man, found the idea of asking Americans to ignore the sabbath distasteful and counterintuitive to his ultimate message : Without a firm grasp on religion as our foundation, we are doomed to fail in the promise of our founders.
His next choice for a date, owing to preparation time, security concerns and allowance by the parks service for the event, fell on 8/28. This also happened to be the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream speech".

When the left learned about the date he had ultimately chosen, they cried foul and said that Beck, a man with questionable motives, would sully the King name and ruin the date forever. While Beck is always outspoken and provocative, he promised that the rally would be about restoring honor and not be a political event designed to foment disharmony. To his credit, he lived up to that promise with only a few mild but passing mentions of politics. The event was uplifting, with the feel of an old fashioned tent revival with the concept of living up to our founders desires for the nation they gave us as the spiritual connection for all to be enjoyed.

The right, by and large, said a man (Imam Rauf) with questionable motives and a penchant for saying hateful things should be denied his rights based on dishonoring the memory of an historic event. His beliefs are anathema to what the event stood for.

The left, by and large, said a man (Glenn Beck) with questionable motives and a penchant for saying hateful things should have his rights denied based on dishonoring the memory of an historic event. His beliefs are anathema to what the event stood for.

Neither side saw the hypocrisy of their own statements. Neither side could understand the reasons for all the objections. Neither side has any credibility left in my humble opinion.

In all this, the left has used it's standard tactic of calling anyone who disagrees with them haters, fear mongers and outright stupid for not being enlightened enough. To their credit, the right has at minimum agreed with the Imam's right to build his mosque but simply asked for compassion and understanding in his choice for the site and the date for ground breaking: 9/11/2011. Ten years to the date of that horrible tragedy. I didn't hear anyone on the left agree that Beck should have his rally, it is his right as an American citizen to gather for a peaceful demonstration. He demonstrated compassion and a reverence for King's message and legacy.

When we can no longer agree to apply our first amendment rights equally across the spectrum of political ideology, then King's dream has truly died. Content of character no longer matters. All that matters now is the belief that: what I want is right, what you want is wrong, therefore you must be squashed and made irrelevant.

The saddest part of this tragedy lies just below the surface of all this. King's dream officially died when a black man was president.

The Equality Principle

In recent days, I've watched as Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream gets dashed to pieces on the rocks of political correctness. I've watched as the media that covered the historic events he took place in and inspired, bravely turned a blind eye towards the destruction of that dream. While it's true that I was very young at the time the civil rights struggle was finally seeing it's goal of equality being met, I've spent the years reading about it and trying to come to grips with why it took so long to happen. Why so many deaths, threats and so much hate could stop the inevitable and the just ends to the struggle. King's death in 1968 was merely the tipping point at which the country could take no more. People of all races and nationalities could see what we could not. I will forgo my urge to point out that most of the detractors to the Civil Rights Act were Democrats like Robert Byrd, former Kleagle for the Ku Klux Klan, and Albert Gore Sr. and simply say that despite the hardships it was a mighty victory for all mankind. No other country had ever fought itself to make all men free and equal.

Fast forward to 2010 and it seems that all that Dr. King and his brave followers fought and died for has been subverted. Hijacked by a political party to justify fear-mongering and spread discontent amongst Americans. The struggle of the 60's has been morphed by Progressive ideology into meaning something vastly different. Equal rights has changed to equal results in modern times. Equal justice has become social justice, a darkly vague term that seeks to sound good but has unsavory connotations when expounded upon.

No government can guarantee equal results except through totalitarianism. Socialism is a fine idea on paper but when administered by men, weak and flawed as they are wont to be, it becomes the nightmare that was Stalinist Russia. It's often said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The same is true of the concept of equal results.

This is where the Progressives have led the civil rights movement to. A fictional utopia where everyone of all races can live together free of hatred and injustice. Sadly, this simply is not possible due in large part to the ultimate failings of the human condition.

Let me stray back to my point and provide a little background.

During the 2008 election, two men, King Samir Shabazz and Jerry Jackson, stood outside a Philadelphia polling place hurling racial epithets at white passersby. Both are members of the New Black Panther Party and Shabazz was clearly seen on video brandishing a nightstick while proclaiming, "You're about to be ruled by the black man, cracker."

Charges were filed with the civil rights commission and it seemed a slam dunk case on the surface. The video was clear and the charges justified. In 2009 however, the justice department abruptly dismissed the case much to the dismay of J. Christian Adams, lawyer for the DOJ.
He later claimed publicly that there was a clear mandate that the DOJ would not pursue black defendants in matters of civil rights violations.

If true it casts a cloud of doubt over the justice system that could have enormous repercussions throughout the entire Federal Government. Imagine it, the civil rights commission dismissing a clear violation based solely on skin color. The very antithesis of what it stands for. Civil rights are for all people, not just black people.

Some of Shabazz' previous comments on issues of race are widely available online, in his own words, he "hates white people" and thinks that blacks should "kill you some crackers" and they should "kill some of their babies". Hateful words from a hateful man, predisposed to violent confrontation and revolution, as opposed to King's message of peace and love for all mankind. Opposite ends of an ideological spectrum that spans a scant 50 years.

History has taken King's message of hope and turned it into a commodity, to be sold and traded like so much chattel. King's belief that one day his children would be judged by the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin has been perverted into a system of thinly veiled "payback" for so many years of abuse and injustice.

If the equality that King sought meant only to pay for an egregious sin with another sin, then that does more to set back the dream of civil rights for all than any stupid sign carried by some great fool at a Tea Party Rally. The perceived racism of the Tea Party and its recent denigration by the NAACP says less about the Tea Party than it does about their vocal and often, virulent, detractors.

I suppose in the end, equal rights truly means everyone acting like brutes who see hatred as a sport and use fear and intimidation as tools of the trade.

The Week In Review: Arizona cracks down, liberals crack up and political correctness just cracks.

My, my it certainly has been an interesting week has it not? The resulting media blitz surrounding Arizona's tough, new immigration law has brought the raving loonies out of the woodwork. Armed with emotion but with very few facts, even Al Sharpton has committed himself to righting the wrongs this new law will inevitably inflict on poor, unsuspecting immigrants.

Make that illegal immigrants. Let's not forget that one vital component of this discussion. It seems that many of the most vocal opponents to Arizona's right to self determination have lost sight of that annoying, uncomfortable word. Illegal. There's a nasty part to the truth of the argument from the left and the media as to the ultimate constitutional questions that arise when a state finally tires of promises and acts to serve it's citizens. Now, for those of you who will counter with the argument that while 70% of the people might want to legalize drinking and driving, it does not follow that it should be so. Remember that Obama proceeded with heatlthcare reform legislation and passed it with less than a 50% approval, it does not follow that it should have been passed. Talking point one has just been nullified.

In the interest of brevity, I will refrain from much of the hooplah and circus like atmosphere that permeates the evening news and save my own analysis of the state of things in Arizona for another time. For the time being at least, Obama has taken immigration reform off the table to let the anger from healthcare simmer down a bit. Besides, he's got an awful lot of Democrats to get elected in November. Harry Reid and Barbara Boxer in particular are in for nasty re-election fights despite the anointed one's personal campaigning for both.

In a brilliant strategical move, the Obama administration waited a full 8 days before making any sort of move about containing or even minimizing the oil spill from a rig that exploded on April 21st. Since last Thursday, almost every government agency has committed manpower or resources to examining, meeting, assessing, documenting and assigning blame as quickly as possible to avoid being thought of as not quite on the ball about the environmental and financial impact of the 5,000 barrel a day spill. Luckily, even Eric Holder at Justice has dispatched teams of lawyers to apparently question the oil and build a case for a lawsuit against it. Who knows. Maybe his guys were bored of talking nice-nice with terrorists and needed a little distraction.
The only real question that remains is...how long before we get a photo op with either the President or his wife wearing gloves, wiping the oil from a dying bird.

George Stepanopoulus asked the question, "Do you worry that this will be your 'Katrina'" I can answer that question George, the President is busy fomenting hatred and fear of anyone who makes too much money. Of course there's no danger that this will become another 'Katrina' type problem...because you and your fellow leftist robots in the media won't LET it become one. You'll rally around the "dear leader" and help to minimize his risk to the scandal. In fact, he's counting on it. Now be a good boy George and talk about how good things really are in America right now.

Elsewhere, the young scalawag who hacked into Sarah Palin's email account was found guilty of obstruction of justice and unauthorized access to a computer, but was acquitted on a charge of wire fraud Friday to the delight and the cheers of...well, no one really. I'm sure Mrs. Palin and her family were happy but you might not know about it if you're not on her Facebook fan list or you don't have access to The Drudge Report, sorry you folks in the Senate.

A topic close to the Arizona situation for just a moment. Have you notices how many Democrat politicians and media types are comparing it to (gasp) Nazism? Everywhere you turn there's someone talking about "showing your papers, please" in relation to their new immigration law. While it may sound innocuous, it does smack of using the fear of Fascism to denigrate a specific group of people, in this case, those who favor stronger immigration laws. For the record, Americans, whether naturalized or native, are required to carry certain forms of ID on their person to prove who they are. Even as a citizen, I am required to show my "papers" in so many situations throughout a single week and yet I've managed to remain out of a gulag. However, legal immigrants are required by law to carry their green cards or proof of immigration status on their person at all times. It's how we track them after all. We give them an official ID and all we ask is that they keep it handy to hold down on the confusion. The next time any of you are asked by a law enforcement official to show your license or proof of insurance and registration, just tell them that you have the ACLU on your side as you drive away. Let me know how that turns out for ya.

On happy note, it seems the tenets of political correctness are beginning to fray around the edges just a little. All the push back on the immigration issue has many Americans finally speaking their minds and being honest about the basis for the problem. This is a good sign. It's a sign that while you may want to call someone visually impaired because they cannot see, they are still blind. If you want to talk about immigration, you have to acknowledge that the problem is not with immigration, it's with illegal immigration. You also must admit that it's time for someone, including a state legislature, to finally DO something.

Offensensitivity

Have you ever taken the time to notice how offended most of the left is at any given time? I find it astounding how almost the entire population of leftists can spend their whole day, day in - day out, offended by so many things. Is their a list of things to be offended by that I just don't have access to? The many disparate groups that make up liberal America are so fractured at times that their complaints seem to overlap. I've often wondered what joy must be available to so many people who are so angry all the time. Maybe though, they're not really angry at all. Maybe it's just a way to feel like they're making a difference in this miserable world we live in. A world filled with injustice, inequality and "downright meanness" to quote Michele Obama.

For months the anger was directed at tea party protesters. Now this was a cause you could get behind - denigrating thousands of mostly peaceful, mostly polite people upset with their government and using a public space for redress of their grievances. Who wouldn't be offended by that? A bunch of white men complaining about a black president. It's just so sad that most of them don't know how racist they are. To a liberal, racism is just as bad today as it was during the 60's with no hope for any true racial healing except through the compassionate policies of the government. Dennis Miller once said, "You people who want the government to "fix" your life remember this--Government can't even pave f*cking roads in a timely fashion." True enough.

The latest object of liberal scorn is - the entire state of Arizona. It seems the Governor signed a law making racism the official state pastime. Well, not really but that's what most of the "lead with your heart not your brain" left would have you believe. What's really going on is a state has finally tired of waiting for the federal government to fulfill it's most important role - protecting the citizenry. Precious little reality has been exposed during the heated cries of civil rights violations and racism. It seems you can't have a discussion about curbing illegal immigration without some liberal namby pamby calling you a racist. It's just not possible in these days of political correctness and a rising tide of "social justice".

Now, before I continue, let me state that I have a vested interest in matters concerning immigration. My wife is Canadian so any outcome involving amnesty or any such thing has a direct effect on my life. We've followed the rules as best we can in search of her legal immigrant status. There is nothing so tedious, so infuriating as trying to navigate the choppy, confusing waters of legal immigration. At it's best it's an exercise in futility and at it's worst it's enough to make you want to claw your own eyes out with a spoon. Legal immigration is not an easy process at all which is why so many people choose to simply skip across the border and bypass it completely. There's a well defined process with rules and laws that you have to follow or risk losing your legal status.

I don't believe amnesty is a viable option to curtailing illegal immigration. How does granting citizenship to people who have broken the law prevent future abuses of the system? What kind of message does that send to the millions more who'd like to come in the US? The message it sends is that you can come over illegally and the Americans are so lazy they won't even bother to look for you and don't care if you never leave. (Insert racist label here)

This is the point where you liberals start calling me a racist who just hates people with brown skin. One problem with that label though...I have brown skin. Next insult please. I'm of Italian descent and my skin color has always been a bit darker than most. I grew up in Texas where if you're not white or black, you're Mexican. Notice I didn't say Hispanic there. No one ever asked if I was Hispanic when I was growing up, they asked if I spoke Spanish. Notes from school were sent home in Spanish. Every restaurant I worked at, I started washing dishes because having me out front might have looked bad.

Most people never even bothered to ask what nationality I was. They just made broad assumptions based on my skin color. I know a thing or two about racism too. I've been called "coconut" - brown on the outside, white on the inside, by both sides of the racial spectrum. That is until I started explaining that Italian was different than Mexican. It still happens to this day. I get stupid white people asking me if I speak English at least once a week. I get Hispanics looking for a friendly ally speaking to me in Spanish as if I have a big "I'm Mexican" sign on my back. The most memorable example happened in downtown Atlanta.

I was repairing a door at the Swissotel one sunny afternoon. I was in the parking garage on a ladder when a well dressed woman approached me carrying her bags. Exasperated at having to carry her own luggage, she walked up behind me and asked in a very snooty voice,

"Please tell me you speak English, I need a valet. These bags are killing me."

Instantly fired up, I shot back, in my best Harvard Professor voice,

"Why, yes. I do speak English. I also speak German, Latin and a smattering of Italian."

I turned away from her and continued my work, ignoring the disgusted snuffle she made.

Is that racism? Maybe not but it certainly smacked of bigotry. She made a broad assumption that,
a) I didn't speak English.
b) I must be a member of the staff. and
c) My skin color told her that I was a subordinate, there for her use.

Stupid white people indeed.

So all you lily white liberal do-gooders, you have no clue what real racism is. Racism to you is a rallying cry that you use to quell honest discussion and debate. Racism to you is a poster, a bumper sticker...a sound bite on the news.

Let's get back to Arizona for a few final minutes and look more closely at why they made the decision they did regarding illegal immigration.

Did you know that Arizona has the second highest incidence of kidnapping ...in the entire world? Ranchers are forced to let the drug cartels use their land on the border to cross or risk having their families or themselves killed. The same is true in Texas.
70% of Arizonans favor their new immigration law. That includes 30% Hispanic residents. There are upwards of 400,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona that tax the healthcare system, the ability for citizens to get jobs in this tough economy and the ability for law enforcement to hold down the damage from the drug trade.

Now we have weepy, white liberals in New York and DC telling Arizona that they don't have the right to protect their own borders. Obama called the law "misguided" and Al Sharpton is currently ramping up to march in Arizona. Big problem for Al is that when polled, 60%-70% of African Americans favor stricter immigration enforcement. Nasty statistic that eh? An Arizona rancher was killed recently by Mexican drug cartel members as an example of what happens to those who don't "play along". Dozens of law enforcement officers have been killed by the same cartels who don't want their business infringed upon. In the light of no federal help, what else was the state supposed to do? Continue allowing their citizens and police to be murdered so as not to upset the delicate balance of needing the Hispanic vote versus protecting the citizenry?
This is political gamesmanship at it's very lowest. Obama is using this issue as a means to an end. He cares not a whit about the plight of illegals, he cares about getting his party elected. That he even symbolically places the needs of those who have broken the law over the needs of law abiding citizens speaks volumes about what's really important to him.

I say Arizona has a right to protect it's citizens. Owing to the fact that I don't live there means my opinion doesn't really amount to a hill of beans on the grand scheme of things. Just as Obama's opinion means absolutely nothing in the final analysis.

All the rest of you do gooders out there,

"Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

An Agnostic looks at religion in modern times.

Agnostic (a-, without + gnōsis, knowledge) This is a literal translation of the word.

I am agnostic. There are several different meanings to the term but I am, what would most aptly be called, a pragmatic agnostic. It is "the view that there is no proof of either the existence or nonexistence of any deity, but since any deity that may exist appears unconcerned for the universe or the welfare of its inhabitants, the question is largely academic". I will say that I find very little in the way of "divinity" in everyday life apart from the overall randomness of it. Life's ability to be completely random but at the same time rigidly ordered never ceases to amaze me. I still believe that if Einstein had lived long enough, he would have boiled down the mysteries of life to one unifying and beautiful mathematical equation.

In simple terms, there may in fact be a God in the traditional sense of the word however, I think he views the Earth and it's inhabitants in much the same way that I view an anthill and it's inhabitants. While I may not have bestowed life on the anthill, I can certainly take it away with very little effort. What most religious people call miracles, I call the wonder and splendor of nature. Conversely, what is typically termed evil seems no more than the deviant behavior of just another animal with a diminished ability to reason. I believe in the theory of evolution but have not completely discounted the concept of intelligent design. I think the two can exist as equals and could, in all actuality, work together to further enhance the splendor of life. Could not God, in his infinite wisdom, have come up with evolution as a way to allow nature to decide which of his creations would survive and which would not? It seems plausible to me but I make no proclamations as to my theological knowledge.

If God exists, He gave me the intellect to question his very existence as a way for growth as a human. If He does not exist, then intellect and reasoning are simply evolutionary constructs. I do not claim to have the answers but I do admit that even as an agnostic, I have my own occasional crises of faith.

It's a common misconception that agnostics and/or atheists have no faith. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although I cannot speak for atheists, I can say that agnosticism requires faith of a different sort. Whereas Christians place faith in God and His son, I place faith in myself and those around me. I tend to see divinity in the people around me through philanthropy, charity and their own personal beliefs regarding religion. If believing in God makes you a decent human with compassion for your fellow man, I say more power to you. Keep on believing. I am somewhat comforted by the knowledge that many of those around me live their lives by religious tenets. On the other hand, I see evil in the horrific acts of men every day. I tend to attribute the brutality of man to the obvious weaknesses that all humans possess. Deviant behavior in modern times is no longer thought of as being influenced by Satan or some dark force preying on the weak of spirit but rather, it's now chalked up to chemical imbalances, brain defects or other genetic weirdness. It all comes down to the simple principle of free will.

If I choose to, I can buy a gun, load it and go shoot someone. Satan does not tempt me to do this nor does God prevent me from doing it. It is my own free will and my ability to reason (that killing is wrong) that prevents me from murdering someone. Free will is the closest thing to divinity that I see on a daily basis. It is, in my own opinion, the greatest of all the human attributes. The opposable thumb is nice and being able to harness fire is certainly handy when grilling out but without free will, we are all simply automatons with no chance of avoiding the inevitable "sameness" of life.

Having said all that, too much as I am beginning to suspect, I find the ever increasing crescendo of "separation of church and state" from many on the left to be a growing symptom of what is truly wrong with our country as it exists today. We have cut God from the public square as if He were a cancer to be excised. Christmas vacation is now called "winter break" in most schools. Books have been written by college professors that sought to downplay the role that religion played in the founding of this great nation. Removing the Ten Commandments from a courtroom is vastly different from attempting to remove Him from our history. I tend to place the latter in the "great crimes in history" category.

Let me clarify a point or two from that last paragraph before I continue. The current trend of removing God from the public square in all actuality is really removing Christianity. The progressive left has tolerance for nearly every religion on Earth apart from Christianity. The ACLU may well sue to have morning prayers in public schools stopped in a misguided effort to "defend the constitution" but will turn a blind eye towards Christian children adopting Muslim names as an exercise in "diversity". The nativity may not be displayed in the confines of any building that gets even a nickel from the federal government but a menorah is perfectly acceptable. I am uncertain if this behavior is the result of malice or guilt. Whatever the case may be, it must be stopped. Removing God from public view in these modern times is akin to the Romans driving Christianity underground after Jesus' crucifixion.

Our founding fathers were deeply religious men who felt called by God to change what they saw as a monarchy that sought to supplant His divinity with it's own. To believe that George Washington or Thomas Jefferson were atheists or "Deists" as as is more commonly associated with them, is to deny our own history. To deny it is to forget it and to forget it will allow yet another despot to trample on the liberties that those hallowed men fought and died to secure for us.

I believe there will be a "push back" from the Christian community as a whole that will rival the civil rights movement in it's ferocity and it's justification. Just as the Jews were persecuted for thousands of years, so too is Christianity suffering it's own modern persecution at the hands of "secular humanists" who seem hell bent on removing all things "Christian" from view.

Pun fully intended.