Rants and Raves

There has been a haunting chain of events taking place as our new President chooses the people who will rule this country, and I wonder just exactly what any of us can do to stop it. Certainly, these events began long before our current leader’s time, and have continued for generations, but never before has such a level of corruption been so transparent. And so unanswered.   

We now have multiple officials being placed in the highest offices in our nation despite not having paid their fair share of tax contributions for excessisve amonuts of time. There are even more officials who have openly recieved appalling amounts of money from various corporations and foreign countries in exchange for political favors that may or may not be harmful to the American people, all without any sort of reprimand or recourse. We have “former” terrorists teaching in our schools, proclaiming the righeousness of past bombings on American soil, and being given the highest level of credibility from the same highly corrupt institutions who will instantly terminate anyone who might speak of God in their classroom or refuse to teach “soft” science (global warming, for instance) as hard fact despite the growing number of opposing scientific viewpoints. 

What have we come to in this country when we no longer allow our young scholars to openly debate both sides of these important issues? What do we tell our veterans who fought and bled for us, losing friends and family alike to the enemies of freedom when we demonize them without justification for performing their duties to the best of their abilities? And there should be no doubts as to who those enemies are when they have openly declared their opposition to allowing any Americans to continue to breath as long as cold blood runs through their veins. What can Christian parents tell their children when the school teaches them morals that are exactly opposite of those they learn at home? Or when they aren’t allowed to pray or even speak God’s name for fear of some thin-skinned God-hater taking offense?

All of the American offenders would be the worst sort of criminals if they didn’t have the endless resources to avoid any kind of scrutiny or investigation. All of the foreign enemies would be as good as dead as they plot against our citizens and successfully kill our soldiers if they didn’t have so many friends in high places to smooth things over for them. In both cases, the media, (if we can even call them so anymore) gives passes freely as they sympathize with every anti-American agenda. And why not? Those criminals make them money, and give them opportunities for fame; who wouldn’t betray their country for that?   

I wouldn’t, for one. And there are millions of people like me who wouldn’t either. Millions of us are disgusted with the place that these people have brought us to, but we feel helpless in our tiny abilites to make a difference. Are any of us perfect? No. Absolutely not. But to all people who would listen, I have a message that needs to be heard loud and clear. For conservatives and liberals, Christians and atheists, freedom lovers and terrorists, democracies and dictators, the message is the same: 

Absolute power corrupts, absolutely. Hatred blinds, no matter its percieved justification. Lies only breed more lies until no one can trust anyone. We have gone too far, and it is time for a massive correction. We must turn from our ways or be destroyed by our own addictions. We must stop! I can say it no other way. 

I was always confused by the expression “History repeats itself” until I looked around and started comparing our “unprecedented” times to the same ones we experienced not so long before. We have been here before, and countless nations have been here before us. The actions have always been similar, if not identical, and the results have always been the same. When a cancer grows unchecked, or even fed to the exclusion of the rest of the body, it will grow to obstruct every healthy thing until nothing is left but the cancer. 

God help us all if we cannot, or will not, listen to His reason.   

As difficult as it sometimes is, I decided to watch Chris Matthews for a few minutes today, asking his panel of “top journalists” about how history will remember president Bush. Of course, the usual suspects were once again marched out in the debate, blaming Bush for everything from Katrina to acquiring a reputation for indecisiveness. I couldn’t help but chuckle at the overly obvious, extremely overplayed attempt to once again pin these issues on Bush, and here’s why:

 Regarding the whole Katrina issue, the response to the hurricane gave residents ample time to evacuate, as they were mandated to do. How exactly is it Bush’s fault that so many people decided to stick around anyway to pillage the place while everyone else was gone? And who, I might ask, was responsible for forcibly disarming the only citizens left who were trying to protect themselves and their property from the looters? It certainly wasn’t Bush. How is it that ordering an immediate rescue response, which removed more than 30,000 stubborn residents despite being shot at for their effort, was anything short of fulfilling his responsibility?

Sure, FEMA royally screwed up the distribution of supplies being sent in, but I still fail to see where Bush played a role in their debacle. It kind of reminds me of the whole oil conspiracy supposedly being the reason for sending troops into Iraq. If you want to swallow thinly veiled propaganda whole and call it a nutritious meal, be my guest, but don’t try to sell me the crap. Newsflash: if Bush wanted to control the middle-eastern oil supply, the Iraqi takeover would have lasted about a month at best. Not to mention that the Bush family net worth would be a heck of a lot more than it is today. What a bunch of unsubstantiated garbage.

 As far as indecisiveness goes, no American president makes decisions as big as an Iraqi war or ordering a structured relief effort without first consulting their cabinet members. That’s what the cabinet is there for. They advise the president. If Obama had acted in exactly the same way, these same cronies would be clapping their hands and pointing out how deeply he thinks and how masterfully he handled the situation. Then, when things went sour, they would point their fingers at anyone but Obama, and say “Look there, he’s the one who dared to foil our great leader’s plans!” Good Lord, aren’t these people getting just a little sick and tired of trying to make the guy look like a cross between Abraham Lincoln (who, by the way, would be rolling in his grave if he heard anyone comparing him to a socialist liberal) and the return of the Messiah?

You want to see undecisiveness? What did Clinton do when the same terrorists attacked the U.S.S. Cole? Nothing. “Defend the country? Nah, that’s too expensive. Let’s raise taxes and cut the military instead. That’ll show ‘em. Can somebody please send in the new intern?” And that’s the guy they keep raving about as a great American president. Give me a break.

Will there ever come a time when the media realizes exactly how ridiculous they look right now as they struggle so hard to achieve their political goals? Perhaps it will, but I fear that it will be far too late to help with today’s problems. And as far as the government goes, Bush included, we now live in a system that is created “of the politicians, by the politicians, and for the politicians.” And until America wakes up and smells the coffee, there is absolutely nothing that will change that. Sorry, founding fathers, and please excuse us, constitution and bill of rights, we’re just too busy right now to pay much attention.

What is goverment? What purpose does it serve? Why should I have to pay a hefty percentage of my income to support it? These are all valid questions that our founding fathers considered heavily as they drafted the United States of America’s Constitution that was intended to direct the growth and progression of the governement. 

Government is mainly necessary for two reasons: We need protection from those who wish to conquer or destroy us, and we need protection from ourselves as there are always those who would disrupt the lives of their neighbors for malicous resons.

The U.S. military currentlly performs a fantastic job of protecting Americans from outside harm or malicious influence, and has maintained superiority throughout the world for a very long time. The downside to this, which has glaringly become apparent in the media and throughout a number of peace organizations, is that many Americans can no longer see a reason for war, and will go to great lengths to make their opinions known, even to the extreme of inflicting harm on the U.S. military.  Sadly, if these efforts were to prove themselves to be extremely effective, those same people who inflicted harm on their protectors would very quickly discover the kinds of things they were being sheltered from.

Protection from ourselves is derived mainly through the enforcement and passage of laws that require us to act in ways that, for the most part, respect our fellow Americans as well as the outside world. While these laws are never perfect, nor the systems that create and enforce them, they are our most effective tool with which we can fight the corruption and anarchy that sometimes topples entire infrastructures in less regulated countries. 

So here’s the question: Why does the government require us to pay so much more of our incomes toward every little program they can think up? There are multitudes of charities, not-for-profit aid organizations, and plain old decent people to help reduce things like poverty and addiction as it runs rife through the population. Why is it that government must try it’s ever-failing hand at these things as well?

There are things that the government is very good at, and things that it should simply leave to the citizens. Protection is absolutely essential, and must always be at the highest of priority levels. Nearly every other pursuit, however, has been proven time and again to be handled 10 times more efficiently by private organizations.

The bottom line here is that we the people are watching as trillions of our dollars are squandered away in perhaps the most inefficient manner possible, and we are doing nothing about it. It’s time to wake up, America. It’s time to reform the system before it collapses from decay and falls to crush us all. 

I began this post as a comment in response to the comments on Polianiac  but the rant took me away and it quickly became a post of its own. Check out Polianiac’s blog to get caught up with the debate, and feel free to respond here or there. This response was to Jason’s comment, which I am unsure if I can repost here, so I will simply begin. 

I think we are all tired of both Clinton and Bush. Clinton was president during a great economy. Great. It had absolutely nothing to do with him, but if people want to credit him for it then fine. We can argue economic policy and cite the leading experts until we’re blue in the face, but the fact is that none of them can agree in those areas because there are too many political statements to be made. Clinton cut military jobs, raised taxes, increased the size of government programs, and generally annoyed the crap out of me with his playboy approach at the presidency. But that’s just me.

Bush kept the country safe after 9-11. For that, I give him great credit in addition to my thanks and admiration. At least he had what it took to take action when we were attacked instead of simply ignoring it like Clinton did. If Clinton had possessed the gumption to break away from the party for a few minutes and act like an American president, the war would have began under his watch instead of Bush. Would it have begun in Iraq? Who knows? The intelligence said that Iraq was a good place to start, but Al Qa’ida infests so many countries like a plague that it could have began in a number of locations.  

Liberals love to say that the wars we are fighting are for nothing, or that Bush sent the troops in for the oil because he’s a huge oil tycoon, blah blah blah, I saw it all on the Communist News Network. Say what you will, but until you have read the intelligence reports(that even Obama wants to send troops into Afghanistan for) and sat in the chair to make the decision of how best to defend against terrorists who hide in camps scattered around the world, training young boys to hate Americans to the death, the whole load of crap is just more rhetoric to be tossed about and scattered to the wind.

The fact is that it is anyone’s right as free Americans do say the things they wish to say and either back them up or spin the facts so that they look like something akin to real proof. That right is continually preserved by the blood and the backbones of the very soldiers who are the targets for their scorn, and if you ask those fighting men and women who they voted for, the vast majority never sided with Barack Obama, contrary to the so-called media pollsters that sat and waited around for enough Barack supporters to filter through to justify turning the cameras on.

But Bush didn’t stick to the principles that I voted him in for. By the end of his latest term, he has chosen to bow to the socialists as though the New Deal was something that actually helped the country instead of prolonging the great depression. What I think we are all looking for is a politician who can stick to a set of principles for a change. Our ideas of what those principles are might vary greatly, but the best leaders in history have been those who didn’t care about being popular. They only wanted to make the right decisions for America and preserve the Republic for which they stood. Personally, I would rather vote for a left wing politician who stands clear on issues and has good reasons to back them up than for a right wing politician who regurgitates the same old wishy-washy euphemisms, rhetoric, and red herrings that everyone else in Washington loves to confuse their voters with.

And, yes, I am a right wing conservative and a Christian to boot. I believe that the courage and values in an American president were rarely so clear as they were in Ronald Reagan, who defiantly spit in the face of dictators and communists that starved their people while their bellies burst from their own gluttony. Reagan stood for what was moral and just, and to the birds with the constant dissenters who could never be happy or reach agreement about an issue. Reagan was respected. He was feared by his enemies. And it was his values and policies that got the country booming like it never has before, after the failed socialist experiment that Carter put us through.

If ever a presidential candidate arises with those same clear principles and attitude, who is willing to back statements with real facts, and strives to speak clearly so that Americans understand the reasoning behind them, I believe that we can arise from our current state of affairs and become again the great nation that is quickly fading in the murkiness. Until then, we are stuck with what we are stuck with, and it is our own citizens who put us there because “he’s a powerful speaker” or “I have to side with my race or gender.” Maybe someday, we’ll realize that there is significantly more to a leader than looks and words.

What is it about Israel that the Media seems to hate so much? Israel has endured rocket attacks and the stealing of her land with rarely a blink as her women and children became prime targets for terrorist attacks. Hamas openly insults Israel on an hourly basis, declaring jihad on a national level and placing civilian homes and schoolbuses in their croshairs to make a statement. For years, Israeli civilians have lost life and limb at their hands, and yet the mainstream media doesn’t see fit to tell anyone about it. 

When Israel is finally provoked enough to respond and the bombs begin to fall, the media puts front page focus on the number of civilians killed and the overwhelming attack against the helpless terrorists. Every story tells of the tragedies in Palestine and the Gaza strip, showing endless pictures and footage of young boys and their mothers fleeing in the streets. Where were those cameras when Israel’s women and children were maimed and killed? Where was the media’s interest in attrocities against the Jews? 

Hamas is an organization with no respect for human life outside of their insiders and their religion. Apparently, it is exactly these kinds of people that the mainstream media sympathizes with most, taking extra efforts to portray their struggle against the world as something that has been more than justified and long overdue. 

It is for exactly this reason that the mainstream media is quickly dwindling, with a percentage of trusting followers that is lower than Congress’ approval rating. The real mystery is how they can find so many anti-Americans  to cover their overly-biased stories from among the American population. Then again, it seems to be a liberal requirement to be exactly that. Anti-American. And there are certainly plenty of those to go around, none of whom seem to mind a little bending of the truth to accomplish an agenda.

The curse of the American liberal is that he is ashamed of his country nearly as much as he is ashamed of himself. I cannot and will not tolerate the mindless bumper sticker propaganda of liberals, enforcing their twisted versions of fairness on people who support them because they have been duped into the belief that it is for the greater good. Freedom is for the greater good. Free markets. Free people. Free spirits. 

Freedom is the arch-enemy of liberalism because it cannot be controlled by governments and laws, making it impossible for the soulless users of other people to profit from. Freedom is in the heart and the mind, and it is for freedom that this country was founded.

I, for one, will continue to stand for freedom as an American and as a conservative, and as a Christian. Before there ever was an America or an Israel, or even an Earth, there was God, and He gave us our freedom in a way that no liberal can outlaw, no matter who it offends or what laws it breaks. Freedom is our choice, but it is up to us, and only us, to choose to keep it.  

To my vast and heavily influential audience who religiously views this blog: Please accept my apoligies for a lack of recent posts; after recovering from some serious flu, let’s just say I’m making sure those pesky virus spreading birds don’t come back into my yard without undergoing a sterilization protocol!

Just a quick rant today about the absolute ignorance behind the global warming drama. Let’s see, where to begin… First of all, the planet has been on a steady plane of temperature levels for quite a few years now, as carbon output rises exponentially, with the exeption of the most recent year which is much colder overall than the planet has seen for a number of years.

The overall “warming” trend that Al Gore and his airheads are flying around the planet(in the most inefficient, fuel sucking airplane he could find) warning the citizens of the world about just took a turn. One single winter has dropped the overall trend enough for the earth to now be considered to be cooling instead of warming. The polar ice caps are fine, and the polar bear population has had record increases for the last 30 years, to the tune of about 500%.

There are now more than 31,000 scientists(and rapidly growing) who are willing to admit that there is no evidence to support global warming, nor can anyone be certain about the real causes of global temperature change due to the nearly limitless factors involved.  The science is not “solved” and there is no “concensus.” In science’s defense, there is rarely any kind of consensus on anything, but since Al Gore apparently speaks for the scientific community now, the issue needed to be addressed.

On the other hand, American global warming enthusiasts do seem to be coming to their senses and actually looking at the data- no, wait… they’re actually pushing the issue harder and buying up air time to protect the polar bear from impending extinction due to polar ice cap melting. Hmmm. Maybe no one told them that the ice caps normally melt down in the summer, and then re-freeze in the winter. Or the whole 500% population growth thing. Oh well, let em change the world; it’s for a good cause, right?  

keywords: government bailout, financial bailout, bailout plan, boycott 2008

Ever since the talk for a government bailout plan began, the idea was an absolute loser in polls of American voters. Nearly all conservatives, and even a great number of liberals, understand the simple concept that throwing money at this problem is only a very temporary solution. Financial bailout money doesn’t actually fix anything; it only makes the pain dissapear for a while.

Here’s an analogy to explain most people’s thoughts on the government bailout plan. If America were a battleship, the economic crisis would be a giant, gaping hole in it’s side, sucking in thousands of gallons of seawater per minute. Instead of having the hole patched up to minimize any damages, the captain and his officers are ordering buckets of water to be thrown over the side, downing endless martinis like frat boys during happy hour, and expecting the problem to simply go away in its natural time.

To make things even worse, those in command of this horrendous situation are now clamoring for more and more taxpayer money for their self-authorized bailout with the promise that this time it will actually work.  They have appointed Hank Paulson as the king of all things monetary and made him answerable to absolutely no one. Why? Because in a state of crisis, politicians can, and do, get away with far more than they could otherwise have. When the uproar becomes great enough for their idiotic actions to become common knowledge, they will use Paulson as their scapegoat, blaming all screw-ups on him, and then demand more money so that they can “do the right thing.”

So what can real American voters do to get their voices to be heard by these drunken sailors? Our long term solution is to wait for the next election and vote their sorry, power-grubbing butts out into the street. But that doesn’t help us now. For now, the only say we have is to boycott every company that accepts our hard earned dollars. That means Bank of America, the big 3 automakers, and who knows how many vile, corrupted, poorly run excuses for capitalist enterprises.

The system has broken down and, as usual, it is up to the American people to fix it. Not the money grubbing drunks in Washington, nor the managers of these companies who seem to have slept through all of their business and economics courses. The American working class people seem to be the last breathing bodies with a whiff of sense, and we had better get moving before the glorious battleship becomes a paperweight on some communist dictator’s desk.

Boycott 2008 before it’s too late! 

How is it that in a society where free speech and freedom of the press are a constitutional right, we run into so many difficulties in what we can and can’t say? It seems as though any statement, no matter what it is, can be offensive to another person who can then sue the person who made it or bring criminal charges to bear. Is this truly the free land that our forefathers once envisioned when they drafted our constitution? I think not.

In the latest of constitutional offenses, Dictator Pelosi, the all-powerful Speaker of the House, is rallying her cronies in support of re-enstating the Fairness doctrine that Ronald Reagan abolished during his presidency. The fairness doctrine, simply put, specifically forces talk radio shows and other media to broadcast an equal amount of the already popular shows and government propaganda. This, she says, is to compensate for the lies that conservative talk radio show hosts are spreading about her and the legions of communist hatemongers.

Remember when the Nazis outlawed any books or reading material that didn’t agree with their political or societal goals? Remember how outraged America and the rest of the world became at the blatant display of oppression that the burnings represented? Well, it seems that they’ve modified the strategy enough to convince themselves that forcing their dogma down our throats isn’t really oppressive, and it’ll only cut the radio station’s profits by 50% since no one will be listening to them anyway.

Liberals already tried talk radio, and it failed. Miserably. Because socialist ideals are fantastic for peace rallies and democrat conventions, but they make absolutely no sense when the promoters of those policies are forced to actually justify their conclusions with reasonable facts. History has already shown us that when everybody makes the same wage, nobody wants to work harder than they’re forced to. Why should we have to pay higher taxes when you’ve destroyed the funds we’ve already given you? Since when is a larger, more controlling government better for the people? The idea of a government of the people, by the people, and for the people was to give Americans the protections of the government while limiting the restrictions. Read Common Sense for crying out loud!!

    After a mere moment or perhaps two of sifting through the public records (click here to see the c-span coverage ), it becomes glaringly apparent why so many of our banks and automakers are on the verge of collapse. And the most sickening thing about the whole mess is that the very same people who caused these problems are also the ones doing all of the investigating and questioning, galliantly storming through the halls of the White House in a powerfully indignant rage. “I demand to have answers!” They shout from their podiums, carefully poised like well-painted conquistadors for the multitudes of cameras flashing at their every move. Without a doubt, tomorrow’s headline-that only the politicians themselves will read-will once again proclaim their democratic greatness, all but assuring their place in history as great and almighty saviors, second only to the messiah himself, the Most Merciful Lord Barry, a.k.a. Barack, Obama.

But these same saviors, seemingly perfect in all their ways, have somehow effortlessly retained their snowy flawlessnes, shining brightly in the public eye so that no pesky blunders can be seen. When they forced these same banks to give out risky loans in the name of fairness, their true heroism was openly displayed for all to see. When they breathed sacred life into unions who in turn elevated wages to outpace the competition by miles upon endless miles, they were finally seen as the true servants of the people. And when they mandated automakers to produce more efficiet cars that would ravenously consume every working dollar while returning none at all, they were widely praised as the heralds of a glorious new age.

And what are the names of these all-seeing, all-knowing saviors of the world? Barney Frank. Chris Dodd. Franklin Raynes. The list goes on, and these same paid-off perpetrators are now sticking the American people with their bill. It’s a dine and dash on a global scale, and you can bet that these patrons took more than their fill before excusing themselves for a suddenly urgent meeting. When Enron cooks the books, people get indicted. People go to jail. When Fanny and Freddy cook theirs, they get bonuses that grossly outweigh their salaries and billions of our hard-earned dollars. We’re not even fully socialist yet and the corruption in Washington is creating a stink that’s killing jobs around the planet. Nice going guys. And don’t worry too much; we probably would have wasted the money anyway on frivolous things like food or electricity.