If I hear one more talking head with a liberal bent tell me what the Republicans need to do to win an election I think I'll scream. Their careful, insightful analysis always ends with one conclusion:
Republicans need to be more liberal to win in the future.
Well there's a shocker. Now why didn't I think of that?
Is it just me or does the idea of making yourself more like the other guy seem like a really stupid thing to do? Beyond the fact that I doubt the media's true motives in trying to ascertain what might be a winning strategy for a party they openly despise, it just seems pointless to blur the lines between liberal and conservative in order to gain power. Know what happens when you do that? You wind up with Olympia Snowe...or Jim Jeffords...or Arlen Specter. You get what we on the right lovingly call R.I.N.O.'s--Republican In Name Only. Those members who, if they don't jump ship outright like Jeffords and Specter, vote almost overwhelmingly with the Democrats like Snowe and Susan Collins. Or the kind of Republican who, after seeing the political winds shifting, decides to embrace the other side to show how moderate and non-partisan they are.
Case in point--Lindsey Graham.
Graham, in a recent town hall meeting, said he didn't want the Republican party to be the party of "the angry white guy". Graham has spent the last year since his election in "08 making his constituents regret sending him back to the Senate. He voted for Sonia Sotomayor to be confirmed by the Senate despite having "serious hesitation as to her judicial fidelity regarding matters of race and the 2nd amendment". He was so spineless that he couldn't bring himself to cast a no vote for fear of looking like...a conservative. He voted for amnesty during the heated immigration battle near the end of Bush' final term. He partnered with John Kerry on climate change legislation that would raise taxes on every American who uses any kind of energy...which means every one of them. He talks incessantly of reaching across the aisle to the President to forge a coalition that will make America better. Better than what? Cuba? Venezuela?
He stands as a testament to what happens when you stop listening to the people and start worrying about keeping your power firmly in place.
Oddly enough, nowhere in the hallowed halls of ABC, NBC or CBS will you ever hear a pundit say that liberals need to be more hawkish on national defense or more fiscally sane when it comes to our skyrocketing national debt. You'll never hear them tell Barney Frank to tone down the rhetoric about how evil business is but they've got advice to spare for every conservative in D.C. who has a problem with government run health care.
Another case in point is a race in upstate New York that under ordinary circumstances would not rise to the level of national attention. Congressional District 23 has captured the eye of much of the nation partly because it was a seat vacated due to an Obama appointment but mostly because there are 3 challengers to the seat. A democrat a Republican...and a Conservative.
You read that right. As if it doesn't say enough about the fracturing of the Republican party, it gets worse. The RNC is currently running ads against...the conservative, Doug Johnson in favor of Dede Scozzafava, a moderate assemblywoman. I use the term "moderate" here because the RNC chose it for her. She's anything but moderate. She's embraced the Obama party line and has accepted an endorsement from ACORN. Yes...the same ACORN that has no trouble giving tax advice to pimps and hookers. She favors abortion rights and gay marriage and taxes like a liberal.
I wish I was joking here, I really do. I wish I could say that this is all just a dream starring John Podesta and James Carville, but it's not.
Instead of targeting the Democrat, lawyer Bill Owens, the RNC chose to target a conservative because he represents a serious threat to their choice. Johnson has won the backing of some fairly heavy hitters on the right despite his soft spoken demeanor and because of his staunchly conservative views. Names like Sarah Palin, Fred Thompson, Rush Limbaugh and the right leaning Club For Growth.
Newt Gingrich, when queried about why he has decided to back Scozzafava said, “Our best chance to put responsible and principled leaders in Washington starts here, with Dede Scozzafava.”
Really Newt? Our best chance? Calling Scozzafava a "moderate" is a kindness she doesn't really deserve. She's a liberal in a conservative district who's savvy enough to know how to get elected. Have no doubt she will show her true colors once there.
Gingrich said of his endorsement,
"My number one interest is to build a Republican majority. If your interest is taking power back from the Left, and your interest is winning the necessary elections, then there are times when you have to put together a coalition that has disagreement within it." In other words, "Ok, so she's more liberal than Bill Clinton but at least she might vote with the party once in awhile."
So Newt, what you're telling me is that I should sacrifice my principles just to get an (R) in office, consequences be damned?
I don't think so. I used to admire Gingrich for his clear delineation of what conservatism was. Now I think he's succumbed to the idiocy that strikes all power players in or out of D.C.
"Whatever it takes to get power. Then, whatever it takes to keep it. Principles, morals and voters be damned."
On this day, I am officially an independent conservative. I will wear the moniker of Republican no longer.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Sunday, October 25, 2009
The Week In Review
This week in review is going to be a bit different. I'm breaking away from my usual dissection of the weeks events to talk about a few that I think are perhaps more important than poll numbers and who's the new communist in Obama's group of advisers, although we did learn of two new ones.
Instead I thought I might pose a simple question and expand from there.
Here it is:
Of the original ten amendments to the Constitution, which would you say is the most important?
The answer has always been easy for me personally but think for a moment before you answer for yourself. There are critical issues of freedom and liberty locked inside each one and choosing only one might be a tad on the difficult side at first. There are issues of search and seizure, fair trials, gun ownership, religious freedom etc. that appeal to each individual in a very personal way. One's own life experiences may make one more important than an another or perhaps being a hunter or a clergyman may inform that decision. I have several friends who are lawyers who might say that bit about a fair and speedy trial is the key to a polite and civilized, free society.
One has always stood out more plainly and grandly than all the others for me, for many years. I regard it with reverence and sanctity. I've written and spoken on it at length on many occasions, much to the annoyance of those who have been made to suffer through it. I love it for it's beauty it's simplicity, and it's strength. It is the iron upon which all the rest were built and there is a reason it was placed highest in order. So there would be no doubt as to the foundation of what constitutes freedom and liberty. It's tucked neatly between two other rights but it stands out as my favorite.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Freedom of speech and of the press to me is the keystone of freedom, even above the right to bear arms. While it's true that the framers intended to put freedom of religion, speech and assembly first, due largely to the horrors they had suffered under King George, it does nothing to diminish their importance in my mind. Leaving aside the history lesson that we're all familiar with, let's instead take a look at the right I consider to be the most important.
The right to free speech was arguably the most contentious of all of the original ten. The "Alien and Sedition Acts", signed into law by John Adams in 1798 was, on it's face, designed to prevent alien powers from interfering with a fledgling government and was intended to prevent such powers from speaking ill of the government. Thomas Jefferson allowed them to expire or repealed them in 1802. One, the "Alien Enemies Act" is still in force today and is meant to be used in times of war. This was the first attempt at silencing speech and drove a wedge between Adams and Jefferson that lasted for many years. Jefferson argued that the acts were designed to silence criticism of Adams and should never have been enacted at all. In the early years of the republic, speech was an important thing to the founders. They learned the hard way the consequences of not being allowed to speak out against what they perceived as a tyrannical king bent on forcing the colonies to submit to his mad whims.
Throughout the years, the burning of the American flag came to symbolize the ultimate in political speech. Agree or disagree with the idea, it is a form of expression of displeasure with the government that is protected. There have been battles over whether or not money can be construed as "speech" in todays modern society. It's logical to assume that in the media age, it takes money to get a message across any of the varied medium available today. The advent of the Internet has allowed the free flow and exchange of ideas but without the gravitas of the traditional media outlets. Remember, just because you read something online doesn't make it true.
Walter Cronkite once said, "Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy." Never has that been more true than today. You may argue the motives and the end effects but the recent attacks on speech send a chill up my spine. I call them attacks just as I would call burning or censoring library books in our schools attacks on free speech.
In the last few months, I've read article after article about those in government and on the periphery who seem to want to "level the playing field" where talk radio is concerned.
I personally despise that term. It presupposes that one concept should be lowered to allow a weaker concept to flourish. Too bad we can't level the playing field in baseball...then the Yankees wouldn't be such a threat come October. The idea of "leveling the playing field" is foreign to our republic insomuch as we applaud those who aspire to greatness.
But I digress...
Mark Lloyd wants to level the playing field in radio, the "Net Neutrality" rules are meant to level the playing field online. Both ideas are nothing more that a "fairness doctrine" meant to weaken what the market has determined is successful and replace it with an opposing viewpoint...that doesn't sell advertising. There's a reason that Al Franken ran for the senate...his radio show on Air America had no audience to speak of.
The website that the White House put up to rat on your neighbors about health care springs immediately to mind as well. That was a gem that the Pillsbury Spokesboy, Robert Gibbs had a hard time explaining. For being the smartest press secretary ever, this guy can really be a dunce sometimes.
John Morley, prominent British politician and thinker of the late 19th century once wrote, "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."
The White House's recent attempts to marginalize Fox News and to call it "not a news organization" is another example of the assault on speech. Again, agree or disagree with Fox News, you cannot deny that they disseminate information for a vast number of viewers and listeners every day. Since the inception of the idea of a press pool, the shared responsibility of all the major news networks, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and FNC, never has the White House sought to exclude a member of the press from interviewing a member of the cabinet.
That is, not until last week when the White House decided that since they had determined that FNC is not a news outlet and should be excluded from interviewing the "Pay Czar" Kenneth Feinberg concerning his decision to cut the pay of the top execs at companies that took bailout money. President Obama sent out his pit bulls, David Axelrod, Anita Dunn and Rahm Immanuel to the Sunday shows to decry the unfair treatment the president had been subjected to at the hands of FNC. Rahm Immanuel even went so far as to issue a tacit yet understood warning to the other networks not to treat FNC as a news outlet, lest they suffer the same fate. Right after hearing Anita Dunn talk about the lack of journalistic fidelity of FNC, we learned that Mao Tse Tung was her favorite political philosopher.
Maosketeer Anita reporting for duty!
In the 70's and 80's the press used to act like a watchdog over government, skeptical of those in power and always asking the tough questions., Now they act like lapdogs cowering at the feet of power for a taste of the scraps after dinner. To their chagrin, the White House lost the short battle with FNC as the bureau chiefs decided that if FNC was excluded, then none of them would interview Feinberg. Perhaps they see the writing on the wall after all.
These attempts will fail in the end but the thought of seeing the government trying to silence speech fills me with such mistrust and disgust that at times all I can do is ask myself where my republic scampered off too. It was here last night when I went to sleep but it seems to have gotten misplaced when I wasn't looking.
I find the words of Jefferson comforting when all else seems to spin out of control.
"He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors."
There are days when I'm not sure which one I am.
Which one are you?
Instead I thought I might pose a simple question and expand from there.
Here it is:
Of the original ten amendments to the Constitution, which would you say is the most important?
The answer has always been easy for me personally but think for a moment before you answer for yourself. There are critical issues of freedom and liberty locked inside each one and choosing only one might be a tad on the difficult side at first. There are issues of search and seizure, fair trials, gun ownership, religious freedom etc. that appeal to each individual in a very personal way. One's own life experiences may make one more important than an another or perhaps being a hunter or a clergyman may inform that decision. I have several friends who are lawyers who might say that bit about a fair and speedy trial is the key to a polite and civilized, free society.
One has always stood out more plainly and grandly than all the others for me, for many years. I regard it with reverence and sanctity. I've written and spoken on it at length on many occasions, much to the annoyance of those who have been made to suffer through it. I love it for it's beauty it's simplicity, and it's strength. It is the iron upon which all the rest were built and there is a reason it was placed highest in order. So there would be no doubt as to the foundation of what constitutes freedom and liberty. It's tucked neatly between two other rights but it stands out as my favorite.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Freedom of speech and of the press to me is the keystone of freedom, even above the right to bear arms. While it's true that the framers intended to put freedom of religion, speech and assembly first, due largely to the horrors they had suffered under King George, it does nothing to diminish their importance in my mind. Leaving aside the history lesson that we're all familiar with, let's instead take a look at the right I consider to be the most important.
The right to free speech was arguably the most contentious of all of the original ten. The "Alien and Sedition Acts", signed into law by John Adams in 1798 was, on it's face, designed to prevent alien powers from interfering with a fledgling government and was intended to prevent such powers from speaking ill of the government. Thomas Jefferson allowed them to expire or repealed them in 1802. One, the "Alien Enemies Act" is still in force today and is meant to be used in times of war. This was the first attempt at silencing speech and drove a wedge between Adams and Jefferson that lasted for many years. Jefferson argued that the acts were designed to silence criticism of Adams and should never have been enacted at all. In the early years of the republic, speech was an important thing to the founders. They learned the hard way the consequences of not being allowed to speak out against what they perceived as a tyrannical king bent on forcing the colonies to submit to his mad whims.
Throughout the years, the burning of the American flag came to symbolize the ultimate in political speech. Agree or disagree with the idea, it is a form of expression of displeasure with the government that is protected. There have been battles over whether or not money can be construed as "speech" in todays modern society. It's logical to assume that in the media age, it takes money to get a message across any of the varied medium available today. The advent of the Internet has allowed the free flow and exchange of ideas but without the gravitas of the traditional media outlets. Remember, just because you read something online doesn't make it true.
Walter Cronkite once said, "Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy." Never has that been more true than today. You may argue the motives and the end effects but the recent attacks on speech send a chill up my spine. I call them attacks just as I would call burning or censoring library books in our schools attacks on free speech.
In the last few months, I've read article after article about those in government and on the periphery who seem to want to "level the playing field" where talk radio is concerned.
I personally despise that term. It presupposes that one concept should be lowered to allow a weaker concept to flourish. Too bad we can't level the playing field in baseball...then the Yankees wouldn't be such a threat come October. The idea of "leveling the playing field" is foreign to our republic insomuch as we applaud those who aspire to greatness.
But I digress...
Mark Lloyd wants to level the playing field in radio, the "Net Neutrality" rules are meant to level the playing field online. Both ideas are nothing more that a "fairness doctrine" meant to weaken what the market has determined is successful and replace it with an opposing viewpoint...that doesn't sell advertising. There's a reason that Al Franken ran for the senate...his radio show on Air America had no audience to speak of.
The website that the White House put up to rat on your neighbors about health care springs immediately to mind as well. That was a gem that the Pillsbury Spokesboy, Robert Gibbs had a hard time explaining. For being the smartest press secretary ever, this guy can really be a dunce sometimes.
John Morley, prominent British politician and thinker of the late 19th century once wrote, "You have not converted a man because you have silenced him."
The White House's recent attempts to marginalize Fox News and to call it "not a news organization" is another example of the assault on speech. Again, agree or disagree with Fox News, you cannot deny that they disseminate information for a vast number of viewers and listeners every day. Since the inception of the idea of a press pool, the shared responsibility of all the major news networks, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN and FNC, never has the White House sought to exclude a member of the press from interviewing a member of the cabinet.
That is, not until last week when the White House decided that since they had determined that FNC is not a news outlet and should be excluded from interviewing the "Pay Czar" Kenneth Feinberg concerning his decision to cut the pay of the top execs at companies that took bailout money. President Obama sent out his pit bulls, David Axelrod, Anita Dunn and Rahm Immanuel to the Sunday shows to decry the unfair treatment the president had been subjected to at the hands of FNC. Rahm Immanuel even went so far as to issue a tacit yet understood warning to the other networks not to treat FNC as a news outlet, lest they suffer the same fate. Right after hearing Anita Dunn talk about the lack of journalistic fidelity of FNC, we learned that Mao Tse Tung was her favorite political philosopher.
Maosketeer Anita reporting for duty!
In the 70's and 80's the press used to act like a watchdog over government, skeptical of those in power and always asking the tough questions., Now they act like lapdogs cowering at the feet of power for a taste of the scraps after dinner. To their chagrin, the White House lost the short battle with FNC as the bureau chiefs decided that if FNC was excluded, then none of them would interview Feinberg. Perhaps they see the writing on the wall after all.
These attempts will fail in the end but the thought of seeing the government trying to silence speech fills me with such mistrust and disgust that at times all I can do is ask myself where my republic scampered off too. It was here last night when I went to sleep but it seems to have gotten misplaced when I wasn't looking.
I find the words of Jefferson comforting when all else seems to spin out of control.
"He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors."
There are days when I'm not sure which one I am.
Which one are you?
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Behavior Modification
I decided to forgo my usual weekly rant about the news to expand on something that got me thinking recently. I hope you'll indulge me.
I had an interesting exchange with a friend the other day that left me wondering about the concept of behavior modification and it's place in modern society in America. His point was that conservatives tend to want to dictate behavior in the bedroom and to a degree, he was correct. Not so much these days but in the late 70's and early 80's the conservative movement had trouble accepting alternative lifestyles. Change in the conservative movement comes slowly and at a great price when it comes at all. I will not attempt to downplay the faults and shortsightedness of the movement here. My only goal is to show the correlation between how conservatives try to dictate behavior and how liberals try to do it.
Leaving aside the old maxim of how to boil a frog, I'll simply say that at minimum, conservatives are more open and up front in how they dictate behavior. Laws were passed, generations ago banning sodomy and the like as a misguided attempt to "regulate" homosexuality. Most have been overturned as unconstitutional or just written off the books as grossly incompetent and rightly so. I find no fault with how an individual defines his or her own relationship. Being agnostic, I tend to view same sex relationships from a Darwinian point of view: Natures only goal is to propagate the species. Barring this, the species dies. I don't place a religious or even a spiritual premium on the subject. I look at it only from the standpoint of whether or not the species will survive based on it's behavior. I won't attempt to argue the right or wrong of it, my only thought is to give the reader an insight into my own thought process.
Having said all that, let's now take a look at how liberals have played the behavior modification game throughout the last 20 or 30 years.
Starting in the 70's, we all heard about the awful trend of tuna fisherman snaring dolphins inadvertently and the poor creatures being destroyed as a result. Soon, the cries of "Dolphin safe tuna!" were everywhere. You were considered beastly if you chose to eat tuna that didn't have a "dolphin safe" label on the can. Several tuna companies were forced to change how the fish was caught, how the product was packaged and sold and ultimately, how much it cost the consumer.
A small price to pay for safer waters for our friendly cousins, the dolphins.
Also in the 70's came the advent of the the 1.5 gallon per flush toilet. Remember that one? We were about to run out of water so the government, in it's infinite wisdom, swooped in to save the day. No more toilets in residences would be more than 1.5 gallons to conserve water. The only trouble was, you had to flush twice to get the job done. I know many of you are cringing at this particular topic but it's illustrative of what was to come.
By the end of the 70's, the behavior modification game was just finding it's legs in society and was expanding into more areas with the help of groups like The Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, The Wilderness Society and the National Wildlife Federation. These groups, spurred by the popularity of the first "Earth Day" celebration in 1970, began to see the value of tapping into the national psyche by promoting what appeared to be a harmless agenda of an "Earth-centric ideology" that everyone could agree with. They would quickly become more radicalized and spawn even more radical groups like Greenpeace, PETA and ELF with ELF earning the title of a domestic terrorist organization for it's penchant for destruction and it's reign of terror in California.
By the end of the 80's, environmental groups had played a major role in pushing policy through Washington DC and changing the way Americans ate, drove, worked and played. Dolphin safe tuna and low usage flush toilets were only the beginning for the now radical, environmental "new left" that sought to impose their ideology and agenda on an entire nation. By the end of the 80's the concept of conservation went far beyond just using less and saving more. It blossomed into regulating how farmers used their own lands to grow and sell crops and livestock. They told us how hot or cold our houses should be, what we could use to bring our groceries home: paper or plastic?, they told us what kind of mileage we should get in our vehicles, what kind of cleaners and solvents we could use, what kind of appliances we should buy and now...what kind of light bulbs I can use.
While many environmental groups did great works ridding the country of lead and mercury in consumer products and enabling clean air and water acts through Congress, they inevitably went too far after enjoying success. "If we can dictate ten things, then we can dictate a hundred." must have been the philosophy.
My only real point, after all this, is only this: While conservatives may indeed sought to regulate behavior in the bedroom, liberals have sought to regulate my behavior in every other room of my house covertly, secretly by employing a strategy of subterfuge to distract me while they seek to impose even stronger regulations. I will submit that the Congess' latest ploy is Cap and Trade, also called Cap and Tax because that is precisely what it will do. It will add a multitude of taxes on every energy source we Americans rely on to go about our day. Call it behavior modification that benefits the likes of Al Gore and George Soros, both heavily invested in the concept of carbon credits and it's resulting industry.
Socialized Medicine, lovingly referred to as a "Public Option" by liberals, seeks to modify behavior in ways most of us can't even imagine yet. Talk of higher taxes on sugary drinks like some juices and sodas can only be the start of what will eventually lead to taxing anything that may be detrimental to my health. Like riding a motorcycle or sky-diving.
I know I may sound paranoid but it's inevitable that the heavy hand of government must surely lay the smacketh down on me should I decide to eat a twinkie.
I had an interesting exchange with a friend the other day that left me wondering about the concept of behavior modification and it's place in modern society in America. His point was that conservatives tend to want to dictate behavior in the bedroom and to a degree, he was correct. Not so much these days but in the late 70's and early 80's the conservative movement had trouble accepting alternative lifestyles. Change in the conservative movement comes slowly and at a great price when it comes at all. I will not attempt to downplay the faults and shortsightedness of the movement here. My only goal is to show the correlation between how conservatives try to dictate behavior and how liberals try to do it.
Leaving aside the old maxim of how to boil a frog, I'll simply say that at minimum, conservatives are more open and up front in how they dictate behavior. Laws were passed, generations ago banning sodomy and the like as a misguided attempt to "regulate" homosexuality. Most have been overturned as unconstitutional or just written off the books as grossly incompetent and rightly so. I find no fault with how an individual defines his or her own relationship. Being agnostic, I tend to view same sex relationships from a Darwinian point of view: Natures only goal is to propagate the species. Barring this, the species dies. I don't place a religious or even a spiritual premium on the subject. I look at it only from the standpoint of whether or not the species will survive based on it's behavior. I won't attempt to argue the right or wrong of it, my only thought is to give the reader an insight into my own thought process.
Having said all that, let's now take a look at how liberals have played the behavior modification game throughout the last 20 or 30 years.
Starting in the 70's, we all heard about the awful trend of tuna fisherman snaring dolphins inadvertently and the poor creatures being destroyed as a result. Soon, the cries of "Dolphin safe tuna!" were everywhere. You were considered beastly if you chose to eat tuna that didn't have a "dolphin safe" label on the can. Several tuna companies were forced to change how the fish was caught, how the product was packaged and sold and ultimately, how much it cost the consumer.
A small price to pay for safer waters for our friendly cousins, the dolphins.
Also in the 70's came the advent of the the 1.5 gallon per flush toilet. Remember that one? We were about to run out of water so the government, in it's infinite wisdom, swooped in to save the day. No more toilets in residences would be more than 1.5 gallons to conserve water. The only trouble was, you had to flush twice to get the job done. I know many of you are cringing at this particular topic but it's illustrative of what was to come.
By the end of the 70's, the behavior modification game was just finding it's legs in society and was expanding into more areas with the help of groups like The Sierra Club, National Audubon Society, The Wilderness Society and the National Wildlife Federation. These groups, spurred by the popularity of the first "Earth Day" celebration in 1970, began to see the value of tapping into the national psyche by promoting what appeared to be a harmless agenda of an "Earth-centric ideology" that everyone could agree with. They would quickly become more radicalized and spawn even more radical groups like Greenpeace, PETA and ELF with ELF earning the title of a domestic terrorist organization for it's penchant for destruction and it's reign of terror in California.
By the end of the 80's, environmental groups had played a major role in pushing policy through Washington DC and changing the way Americans ate, drove, worked and played. Dolphin safe tuna and low usage flush toilets were only the beginning for the now radical, environmental "new left" that sought to impose their ideology and agenda on an entire nation. By the end of the 80's the concept of conservation went far beyond just using less and saving more. It blossomed into regulating how farmers used their own lands to grow and sell crops and livestock. They told us how hot or cold our houses should be, what we could use to bring our groceries home: paper or plastic?, they told us what kind of mileage we should get in our vehicles, what kind of cleaners and solvents we could use, what kind of appliances we should buy and now...what kind of light bulbs I can use.
While many environmental groups did great works ridding the country of lead and mercury in consumer products and enabling clean air and water acts through Congress, they inevitably went too far after enjoying success. "If we can dictate ten things, then we can dictate a hundred." must have been the philosophy.
My only real point, after all this, is only this: While conservatives may indeed sought to regulate behavior in the bedroom, liberals have sought to regulate my behavior in every other room of my house covertly, secretly by employing a strategy of subterfuge to distract me while they seek to impose even stronger regulations. I will submit that the Congess' latest ploy is Cap and Trade, also called Cap and Tax because that is precisely what it will do. It will add a multitude of taxes on every energy source we Americans rely on to go about our day. Call it behavior modification that benefits the likes of Al Gore and George Soros, both heavily invested in the concept of carbon credits and it's resulting industry.
Socialized Medicine, lovingly referred to as a "Public Option" by liberals, seeks to modify behavior in ways most of us can't even imagine yet. Talk of higher taxes on sugary drinks like some juices and sodas can only be the start of what will eventually lead to taxing anything that may be detrimental to my health. Like riding a motorcycle or sky-diving.
I know I may sound paranoid but it's inevitable that the heavy hand of government must surely lay the smacketh down on me should I decide to eat a twinkie.
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