Government Incentives for Bad Habits

Our U.S. government spends close to a trillion dollars a year providing cash, food, housing, medical care and services to the poor and near-poor people. Of that amount, about $11 billion is spent on food and federal and state programs. Where has this publically funded generosity led? An epidemic of obesity. Home-mortgage foreclosures. Complaints of victimhood. Budget deficits. Failing public schools. Financial irresponsibility. Poor parenting. Crime. Rampant drug use. Disrespect for life. These are my top 10 reason for eliminating the trillion dollars of subsidies and eliminating the word 'poor.' By Gosh, this is still America isn't it?

A TERRIBLE BURDEN

If not now, when? A terrible burden has been laid upon Democrats. They should be uneasy now that they wear the crown of governance symbolizing their duty to protect religious freedom guaranteed in our Constitution. Many years ago the Democrats of Main Street surrendered the National Democratic Party to the elites espousing liberalism and socialism. Today’s Main Street Democrats are merely sheep in the elites’ flock. It is the fate of all sheep someday to be led to the slaughter. Look out!
I appeal to Main Street Democrats to restore the nation. Independents and Republicans are as nothing to the elitist Obama administration which has moved to ruling by Executive Order and Decree instead of legislation. Only Main Street Democrats have any chance to stop the stripping away of civil rights and Constitutional guarantees from Americans.
It was no accident that on January 20th Obama issued a new diktat compelling religious institutions to submit to rules that grossly violate their basic principles and beliefs. All religious institutions, read Catholic and Evangelical, must bow to the Federal Government and make birth control, abortion pills, contraception and sterilization available, at no cost, to all employees through their medical plans. Dogma that opposes these actions, be damned. To the Obama administration, separation of church and state works in only one direction. Churches are not to influence the state or public policy, no matter what their beliefs, but the state can influence, ‘nudge’ in the words of Obama’s advisor, Cass Sunstein, the churches to do the bidding of the government.
It surely was no coincidence that Obama had Kathleen Sebelius, his Heath and Human Services Secretary, issue this order only 2 days before the massive Right to Life Rally held in Washington on January 22. In the old days, we called this behavior ‘a poke in the eye’ or ‘the finger.’ It was also timed to rebuke the Supreme Court for ruling unanimously earlier in the week, in Hosanna-Tabot, that religious institutions have the right to control their own affairs. In our nation now ruled by Executive Order, the Supreme Court needed to be put in its place.
America has moved from being people “... endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...”as stated in the Declaration of Independence, and a Congress that “shall make no law prohibiting the free exercise thereof ( religion)” in the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, to being ordered by a simple Presidential diktat. Obama gives church institutions a year to implement his diktat not so they can have input to the government’s ruling, but so that they have time to bring their dogma and beliefs into agreement with his rule. “This is part of a pattern in the United States that has degenerated from the recognition of religion as good and salutary in our society to religion being subjected to punitive discrimination." Thus reads a statement signed by Bishops Kevin J. Farrell of Dallas and Kevin W. Vann of Fort Worth and Dallas.
Who is to blame? We are. The gradual surrender of ‘inalienable rights’ to the government has taken many years. There is no escaping the fact that every American has been complicit in this surrender. As Americans, we have watched the government slowly convert local charitable programs to government bureaucratic fiefdoms. Local governments have surrendered to federal funding for most local projects. Social and charitable organizations are addicted to federal grants. Main Street Democrats have bowed to their elite, liberal brethren allowing them to firmly seize control of the Democratic party.
Churches have acquiesced to government funding of social programs as if no strings were attached. For years Bishops have been called ‘Democrats in cassocks’ for getting on the ‘social justice’ bandwagon to solve every inequity through government even though it means they fudge a little on their beliefs. Now in a shock of clarity, Bishop David A. Zubik of Pittsburgh, writes a column titled "To Hell With You," expressing dismay at Obama’s attitude toward Catholics even after all the bishops had done to appease Obama and liberalism.
Since Independents, Republicans, Catholics, the Tea Party, churches, local governments and social groups have been marginalized by the Obama administration, we must call upon Main Street Democrats to start at the local level and reassert the founding principles of our American Republic, to take back their party from the elites of liberalism. Am I calling for the revolt of the sheep? Well we know for sure that leadership will not come from the top.
Every right taken away will take generations to restore. January 20th, the Obama administration took away the right of Catholics to religious freedom. Evangelical rights are eroding. So far, mainline Protestants still have rights, Jews have rights, Muslims have rights, Scientologists have rights and Atheists have rights, but surely, you say, the government would never extinguish these rights. Really? When the last ‘right’ is gone, who will turn out the light on our Constitution? Think on what Rev. Niemoller wrote: “ First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak out because I was Protestant. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
Main Street Democrats, as followers, as sheep, you have a terrible burden. If not a revolt now, when?

What can be done?

Slurping my cornflakes in artificial milk this morning, I realized I have no answer to the question, “What can be done?” I share the blame for the present condition of governance in America, having not noted until retirement either the political landscape or the politicians that enrich themselves in office. I thought about ‘our’ Barney Frank, a crooked gay, long-serving Representative now retiring not in disgrace, but in anticipation of marrying his long-time companion. What can be done?

Victor Davis Hanson penned the answers yesterday, but can they be implemented given the status quo? Americans with a great number of freedoms and rights ( we again fell a few notches on the Free Countries list in 2011), exercise few of our concomitant responsibilities. Victor worries that our country could be lost in a generation of these responsibilities cannot be reclaimed:

1. Respect for the law
2. A tough-minded education
3. Collective thrift
4. Private investment
5. Common codes of behavior and civility

No citizen should be exempted from these ‘rules’ but our Obama administration ( and previous administrations have been complicit) flouts these rules and encourages people to do so too.

1. Cold-blooded murderers rarely are executed even though given the death penalty.
2. The pouring of money into the ignorance pit, known as government schools, has not raised the level of or interest in learning for decades.
3. Virtually no one saves or sacrifices from their paychecks.
4. Virtually no one actively invests money for their retirement; instead they count on social security as their sole support when the time comes.
5. Name-calling and indecent dress partner with the never-ending search for insulted feelings which delight lawyers who reap financial benefits.

What can be done, for example, to overturn an illegal, judicial Roe v. Wade decision. If the major premise that human life begins at conception cannot be accepted, how can logical or common sense extrapolations follow?

The Road to Obama

Alexis de Tocqueville praised and evaluated America in 1831. But he was most afraid of tyranny setting in. He said that once all outstanding classes had been eliminated, all disparities banished, the societies of the future would be defenseless against all forms of oppression.

Tocqueville was a convinced adherent of representative government, as distinguished from the choice by the whole populace. His belief in political dualism is a pertinent reminder today of the happy reconciliation of local self-rule while national government. Centralization certainly might mean efficiency, but it was not conducive to liberty.

His best advice: Let the laws continue to be national, but let the administration of those laws be decentralized. If citizens could be encouraged and locally trained, to take a larger share of their own communal government and its affairs, the results would be, not a loss of unity, but a tremendous increase in energy, satisfaction and stability. In fact, let everything be done to encourage and bolster the individual and the small local groups against the crushing weight, and the annihilating philosophy, of a superior State.

With his fears of the mob, however, poor Tocqueville did not allow for the ingenuity of the designing few and the potential indifference of the many. Obviously, the 1830’s are history. Reality is President Obama and his ‘superior State’ choosing sides - denouncing the Tea Party ( a majority? ) and praising Occupy Wall Street ( a minority?). Reality is Obama’s present, populist approach to political campaigning. Reality is Obama announcing that all students must remain in high school until 18 or graduation. The only way this system can ‘succeed’ is for teachers (and schools) to cheat, warehouse or tutor, meaning more taxpayer money poured down the pit of ignorance.

One hundred eighty years on, 2012 the tyranny of the left-wing, liberal, minority thrives. Always hibernating when not flourishing, its 20% never dies. An added twist, however, to the present ruling classes’ oppression and suppression of our liberties ( and share the wealth appeal of socialism), is its continuous propagandizing of class warfare and inequality, rich vs. poor. Obama’s tyranny is in itself a lie and betrayal of the principles upon which our great nation was founded. It’s a slap in poor Tocqueville’s thin, tubercular face, a genuine insult to truths he unearthed in his visit to America.

Nothing’s new

The (1929) Depression proved to be the “…unhappy confirmation of the heartless verities of supply and demand.”

But the New Deal failed in its central aim of restoring economic prosperity nationally and in the states, especially Washington state, called the soviet state of America ( for its progressive and soviet sympathies).

Who is the blame? Washington D.C. political policies or the irrationality of the public? After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, fear-driven irrationality was abundant.

Between 1941 and 1946, the government expended $378 billion and the federal debt increased fivefold to $260 billion for war production and financing. These war actions effectively wiped out unemployment; virtually every able-bodied adult was at work – but at what expense to future generations?

Fast forward to 2012 and the state of our Union. Spending and debt have NEVER decreased even though government cannot literally create jobs ( WWII inspired them).

Our Alinsky President tonight will NOT talk about anything new. He will not acknowledge the truism of the free market, a neutral ( and sometimes cruel) exchange for the buying and selling of goods and services ( if not abused by immoral greed). Spreading the wealth through government intervention will be his mantra. The only self-interest evident tonight will be Obama’s own re-election.

America’s path to perdition has been paved with debt since FDR’s first metaphorical footprint ( life for him being confined to a wheelchair). Our leader, Obama will stride ( head up and away from reality) down our decline.

Destructive Populism

Of whom was the writer below speaking? The Tea Party? Occupy Wall Street? Radicals, socialists, right-wing conservatives, libertarians who? Answer, any disliked minority or perceived, destructive minority.

In 1885, in Washington State, this comment appeared in the Tacoma Ledger asking if American citizens would allow “an army of leprous, prosperity-sucking, progress-blasting Asiatics to befoul our thoroughfares, degrade the city, repel immigration, drive out our people, break up our homes, take employment from our countrymen, corrupt the morals of our youth, establish opium joints, buy or steal the babe of poverty or slave, and taint with their brothers the lives of our young men?”

Therefore, in 1886, the Chinese encountered violence or expulsion. The legendary time when men and women worked together in frontier towns with a sense of community was disappearing. Labor and business – the lower element and the better element, began to view themselves and each other from different perspectives. Again, does any of this sound familiar today?

Forces responsible for the anti-Chinese movement created the People’s Party, the 1st reformist organization in the Northwest; even though dissociated from socialists, anarchists and other extremists, party members nevertheless fought the business men.
Change the names but not the animus, and surely there’s relevance to our current political and cultural climate.

Playing God?

The path of conservatism is like an artery carrying the lifeblood of a country. The red line is a continuum of success. Yet liberals somehow create or allow a cause, a stoppage, a bubble if you will, to form in the line. Consequently, the patient ( our country) will ultimately die. Liberalism ( socialism,communism, progressivism ) never sustains the lifeblood of a nation on its path to greater prosperity. Why does this liberal behavior predictably and consistently repeat failure after failure over time? The perversity of human nature to usurp the role of personal freedom and play God?

Three Strike Outs

Three strikes and I'm out of credulity. #1. A casino in Ohio supposedly will provide 2000 jobs at the cost of $400 million dollars. That's $200,000 per job. #2. I heard that a 'certain' non-profit cannot only survive with federal funding. #3. A representative of a major league sports team spoke about the "key components to what they're doing here." Yes, it's not worth my knowing the facts of life because my credulity is tested beyond endurance.

Six Greatest

Six Greatest
Ataturk… 31
Mao Zedong … 30
FDR … 30
Stalin … 29
Lenin … 28
Ho Chi Minh … 27

The top six great rulers of the last century. So says, Arnold M. Ludwig concluding his 18 year study contained in his 2002 book, “King of the Mountain.”

Political genius, said Bismark, consisted of hearing the distant hoofbeat of the horse of history and then leaping to catch the passing horseman by the coattail.

Thomas Carlyle, was advocate of the great-man theory of history.

William James subscribed to the view that the “mutations of societies from generation to generation are in the main due directly or indirectly to the examples of individuals whose genius was so adapted to the “receptivities of the moment, or whose accidental position of authority was so critical that they became ferments, initiators of movement, setters of precedent or fashion, centers of corruption, or destroyers of other persons whose gifts, had they had free play, would have led society in another direction.”

Hegel subscribed to the “world-historical” hero who “actualizes his age,” an expression of the “spirit” or “soul” of his times.

Sidney Hook advocated the “event-making” man, as opposed to the eventful man, who brings about momentous happenings not just by what he does but also by what he is.

Ludwig believes greatness belongs to the “political catalyst,” the “facilitator/inhibitor of historical events.” At the top of the page are his top 6 Political Greats. His determination was based upon the 7 pillars of political greatness: dominance, contrariness, presence, change agent, vanity, courage, and wary unease ( a variation on ADD personality).

What do you think? Personally, I don’t care – they are/were all successful nutcakes responsible for more sadness than glee in the human condition.

BUT Bismark had it right when it comes to President Obama; he’s riding high now.

Feast or Famine Under Obama

Remember the ‘man who never was’, a deception practiced on the Germans by the British before the invasion of Sicily in WWII? Well, in 2012, one third of Americans are like a man ( or woman) who never was able to say no.
33% of adults and 17 % of children are obese. At the same time, more people receive food stamps ( designed to feed the needy ‘poor’) than any time in history. Obama’s administration blames this fact on their inheritance of a critical economic recession and its impact on Americans’ pocketbooks. The reality is rampant food stamp fraud ( the use of Debit cards) where in Ohio 17,000 cards were issued at least 10 times and then sold to merchants for pennies on the dollar; in one case re-issued 50 times.
Why didn’t our Big Brother’s spies ferret out this fraud? Why has this cheating finally come to light? Why are so many Americans obese ( the poor? ) if not because of either free food via food stamps or simply too much yummy food available for consumption? Feast or famine? Would a rational or irrational individual ever choose famine over a feast? Glaring contradiction is the hallmark of this Presidency. Obama and Michele live like African potentates; we their ignored subjects who have more than enough bread ( and circus entertainments) grow fat and surfeit.
History will record Obama our leader as the ‘man who never knew’ how to sacrifice; his typical subject also will be remembered as the man ( and woman) who never was able to say no. Why should he or she? Worse days might be ahead.

Why Rulers Rule

Rulers rule because they are biologically hard-wired to mimic their ancestor, the mountain gorilla. This theory is expounded by Arnold M. Ludwig in his landmark 18 yrs.of research on 1900 leaders over the last century, culminating in his 2002 book, "King of the Mountain." 1. Naturally, all nations have rulers, need rulers. 2. Males predominately rule. 3. No special form of talent is necessary. 4. They need not be sane. 5. They do not learn from mistakes even if they come to power forcibly. 6. They risk their lives to hold on to their power and position. 7. AND, those rulers who attain legendary status ( good or evil) have conquered, warred, and forcibly transformed their societies. Will Barack Obama achieve Political Greatness Status (PGS ) or just -like a loser silver-backed male gorilla - beat his chest as a symbol of his rule, a sound and fury signifying nothing but his temporary position as top ape? -

Piss on the Taliban

In 2 years during WWII, Firestone’s former tire plant in Akron rolled out 25,000 antiaircraft guns.

Henry Kaiser’s ship yards in WWII built a ship in 4 days from prefabricated sections.

Germany lost 350,000 men in the retreat toward Warsaw in WWII in 1944.

1,500,000 people were killed by Nazis at Majdanek extermination camp during WWII.

250,000 Poles died during the Polish uprising in WWII.

820,000 pairs of shoes were found at Majdanek’s German extermination camp after WWII.

11,448 Germans suspected in the plot to kill Hitler were executed in WWII.

The U.S. sunk more than 600 Japanese ships in WWII.

1,200,000 Japanese were rendered homeless by the firebombing of Tokyo in WWII.

!0,000 people a day were exterminated at Auschwitz in WWII.

More than 800 ships took part in landing in southern France for D-Day in WWII.

74 SS soldiers were tried for the massacre of American POW’s at Malmedy and sentenced to death in WWII. None, eventually, were executed.

On D-day of WWII, one GI told a surrendering German to start running, shot him and then signaled a tank to run over him.

4 American soldiers urinate on dead enemy Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in 2011.

Numbers don’t lie; rather they teach. All week, Jan., 2012, politicians and the media report that the last item, a silly prank, is comparable to any of the above wonders or atrocities. Are they nuts?

Keep the Dream Alive

We must keep the dream of America under God alive. Martin Luther King along with writers and poets consistently expressed this idea: “God, give us (honorable) men!” in a sonnet by Josiah Gilbert Holland, America as “God’s Crucible, “ ( Israel Zangwill),
a place were a “just God … presides over the destinies of nations” ( Patrick Henry), where the 2nd of our two main characteristics according to John Buchan ( the first being that ordinary man believes in himself and his ability to govern his country), is the Christians’ fundamental belief in the worth of every human soul, where Francis Scott Key’s star- spangled banner flew over a “Heaven-rescued land,” where His “Power made us a nation,” and where Samuel Francis Smith” in America sang to thee, “Our Father’s God,” … “author of liberty,” where “God shed His grace” for Katherine Lee Bates, where Julia Ward Howe saw a country “link thy ways to those of God,” where James Russell Lowell saw Freedom “God’s express design,” “where God’s peace is shed,” for Katherine Janeway Conger, and where, regarding our Ship of State, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow confirmed, “We know what Master laid thy keel.”

God and God’s country have been inextricably intertwined throughout our history. Yet the present Obama administration and his supporters want to ‘totally transform’ America. What does this mean? Does it mean that we cannot as Harry Golden said, only in America go to a public library – and just for the asking – have made available “the sum total of all of human thought and experience; at no cost whatever?” Does it cease to mean that “America lives in the heart of every man everywhere who wishes to find a region where he will be free to work out his destiny as he chooses?” as expressed in a speech by Woodrow Wilson in Chicago? Does it mean that we live in a country where no longer the “President’s taking off his hat to them ( the common people) not they to him - ” according to Walt Whitman? Does it mean that we all are not Americans,, no Republican, no Democrat, “That their country is greater than party?” a view from James Gillespie Blaine on an Independence Day?

A full-fledged American ( according to Struthers Burt) practices “sober discussion, a deep contemplation.” “Circumstances are forcing him into deep, straight, independent form of thinking. “ “Pseudo-patriotism, Burt says, “may be the last refuge of a scoundrel.” “Real patriotism… will be… the last, and only possible, refuge of the intelligent and far-visioned citizen, but also his sword, his rallying cry, and the emblem of his advance.” America needs full-fledged citizens now.

America is still in the uplifting lines of Henry Van Dyke who called America home, “the blessed Land of Room Enough beyond the ocean bars, / Where the air is full of sunlight and the flag is full of stars. Better yet, let’s let Teddy Roosevelt offer his challenge to a “new nation, based on a mighty continent, of boundless possibilities. No other nation in the world has such resources. NO other nation has ever been so favored. If we dare to rise level to the opportunities offered us, our destiny will be vast beyond the power of imagination. We must master this destiny; and make it our own; and we can thus make it our own only if we, as a vigorous and separate nation, develop a great and wonderful nationality, distinctively different from any other nationality, of either the present or the past. For such a nation all of us can well afford to give up all other allegiances, and high of heart to stand, a mighty and united people, facing a future of glorious promise.”

American, beautiful under God, where Freedom rings with opportunity for all – penned about pledged to by optimists throughout our history. Until now. Can we let the dream die?

Keep the Dream Alive Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die For when dreams go
Life is a broken-winged bird Life is a barren field
That cannot fly. Frozen with snow.
Langston Hughes
“Dreams”

“I am Christmas carols, … the Golden Rule, … I am America as long ago as I can remember and as far ahead as I can dream.” ( George Mendoza).

NOT OBAMA

God, Give us Men!

God, give us men! A time like this demands,
Strong minds, great hearts, true faith and ready hands;
Men whom the lust of office does not kill;
Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy;
Men who possess opinions and a will;
Men who have honor; men who will not lie;
Men who can stand before a demagogue
And damn his treacherous flatteries without winking!
Tall men, sun-crowned, who live above the fog
In public duty and in private thinking;
For while the rabble, with their thumb-worn creeds,
Their large professions and their little deeds,
Mingle in selfish strife, lo! Freedom weeps,
Wrong rules the land and waiting Justice sleeps.
Josiah Gilbert Holland

When was the above sonnet composed you ask? (mid 19th century by an English poet). Does it matter when the perfect, appropriate sentiment still rings true as we being 2012? EXCEPT that a women also fight for Freedom. Myself, for example, secure in my wallow, unafraid of freak-accusations or fuddy-duddy dismissals. God has given us men and women, here and now never to be tainted by outside influences once their philosophical, cultural, moral, economic and political principles have been grounded. Justice means equality, Justice is founded in fact. Justice means merited reward and punishment. Justice thwarts the delusions of liberals.

Extravagance

I am a cautious spender. What counts for conservative extravagance? Not just feeding the birds year round. When arctic cold descends and flurries fall, I feel compassion for our feathered friends. So, calling forth a rush of extravagance, I crumbled 2 tortillas into small pieces and flung them onto my two feeding stations for the welfare birds. Sparrows, juncos, blue jays, cardinals, house finches, not much elitism here. Cost? 10 cents a tortilla and the sacrifice of two luncheon meals. I like caring for those under the watchful eye of God. I hope I also am on his radar screen.

Great writing of yesteryear

“Frost had turned the willow leaves to gold and sent them skittering and tacking like fairy boats upon the quiet stream. The aspens, which last week shone of hammered gold, stand naked and modest, their brilliant shrouds, flung carelessly at their feet,”

“Outside my fences, the hunters ( it’s deer season) are in a frenzy. One car impales the next with lurching headlights.”

“I have a flashlight whose beam saves walking. Beating the gloom with a club of light, I wake the killdeer from their sleep, send the starlings clattering from the limby pine tops. Heifers ring the pines, clustered beneath in groups for warmth and company, the kindly branches protecting their backs from the early morning frost. A few push blinking to their feet, stretching their sway-baked best as though their front feet are about to walk off and leave the rest of the body behind.”

Who writes with such artistry about the natural word as a cattleman in Oregon in the late 1960’s? How long did the author ‘stick it out’ on his 6000 acres of Yamsi.

Who tells the reader about a past world, when sirloin steak sold for $1.50 a lb. When it took 900 tons of hay , approximately 25,000 bales, costing $22,500 to feet 500 cattle over a winter. When 18,000 different brands marked Oregon herds. When great meals consisted of steak, baked beans, cherry pie and beer?

Thankfully, Dayton O. Hyde is still alive at 86. And in testament to his 17 books, his mastery of description and depth of feelings for the land, I add a few more sentences from his 1971 seminal work, “Yamsi.”

“First, a spotted skunk, a species which hasn’t been seen here for thirty years, then, wet and bedraggled, a big raccoon probes for snails along the march, stands on his hind legs to peer at me above the hummocks, eyes glowing like red coals. Heavy with fawn, a doe comes mincing down off the forested hillsides and across the meadow, headed for salt. …The quiet, windless ponds are rippled now with the spreading V of a swimming muskrat, now with a flock of cinnamon teal that came guiding in on a beam of floating moonlight, and are determined to spend the rest of the night. … It is not a very safe place, for already a great horned owl has floated out of nowhere to perch on a cathedral spire of a dead jackpine right above their heads, His hoots are answered from afar from another male.” … “Fearful of frightening her ( a calving heifer), I sit in the darkness, shivering, miserable, waiting for instincts to make a mother of her, trying to hear the low bawl of motherhood, the wet licking sounds above the froggy chorus”…. “The calf is rough-haired with her licking a cowlick standing in a whorl on his ribs and another on his shoulder. He stands trembling, trying to suck his mother’s shoulder. Stupid heifer!”

Want to read more? His book Yamsi is available at Amazon, Alibris and libraries.

Why isn’t Big Brother watching me?

LETTER TO EDITOR

It has been revealed that the Department of Homeland Security has for 18 months been monitoring blogs, public forums and social networks on line through its “Social Networking/Media Capability” Program . I checked the five page list and I was not listed. Early in the Obama administration he asked citizens to report ‘fishy people’ who did not support him. I, along with million of other Americans, self reported myself to the government. In embarrassment they shut it down. Now they are back with the new program. So I wish to say I am still giving my shoutouts to liberty-loving American, up in arms to replace President Obama with a better friend of America in the White House. There. I’ve said it. Yet somehow I’ve escaped since last November having not appeared on their five page list of suspects. Are my fellow Americans aware of this invasion of privacy and free speech? No Jihad sites are on the list but several anti-jihad are. Do I smell ‘political correctness’? I wanted to be listed proudly with the anti-jihad and patriotic American who oppose the Obama administration road to socialism.

My advice, therefore to concerned citizens is ‘throw caution to the wind,’ by expressing your opinions wherever needed because as far as I know, it’s still a free country.

Ron Paul-Freedom Fighter

Do the Math. The Dept. of Agriculture announced that in the interest of cost cutting measures ( ho, ho, ho), it will close 259 offices, labs or facilities to save $150 million. The budget, however, of the DofA is $145 billion. The math tells us that about $613 million dollars per operation will be saved. Wow! Was each each operation ever worth over a ½ million dollars? What fraction of $145 billion is $150 million? ( .10%?) You do the math and be scandalized that our Obama administration can hoodwink the public once again.

Romney may have won Iowa and New Hampshire, may win the nomination for President, but when Ron Paul says legalize prostitution and heroin, when his libertarian message resonates with young people and old people like me who figure the only learning curve for drunks, drug addicts and insane politicians should be the gutter – I’m ready to back a freedom fighter in the White House.

Ron Paul can confront foreign policy decisions on the job. Obama, however, has not and will never embrace conservative thinking.

Lenin and God

Lenin wrote “Every religious idea, every idea of God-even flirting with the idea of God – is unutterable vileness of the most dangerous kind, contagion of the most abominable kind. Millions of sins, filthy deeds, acts of violence, and physical contagion are far less dangerous than the subtle , spiritual idea of a God.”

Communists were Leninists; therefore, every means justified the end of Christians’ belief in God. What American could not hate this evil? Unfortunately, too many, past and present. And rather than stand against the Devil and his deceptions in the world, patrons of political correctness sit idly by and sponsor a silly ‘national stalking awareness month’, January, 2012.

Our Father, deliver us from evil, Amen.

Communists and Liberals

Reading "Tortured for Christ," by Romanian Christian Richard Wurmbrand, published in 1967 after his survival at the hands of the Russian Communists, I wonder, were his torturers just part of a "herd of independent minds"? Recently, I heard this phrase from a conservative referring to elite liberals (especially from academia)who differ not a whit from each other in conformity to accepted doctrine. Ironically, they resemble the evil Communists for whom any inflicted suffering is justified in the name of the cause. Incidentally, Wurmbrand founded "The Voice of the Martyrs," to spread the message of the persecuted Christian church around the world.

So back to 'the herd' in search of truth. They do not pursue her. Each liberal (and sympathetic atheist, progressive, anti-Christian, etc,) simply spouts the monotonous party line, usually in elegant, erudite language and think they are being 'so independent'. In contrast to a reality check, I dipped into a few pages of E.L. Docterow. Prickly facts ignored or not sought out, do not impede the stampede of these liberal conformists who preach freedom of speech and thought but demand adherence to their ideas and ideals, always attempting to impose them through rules or regulations on those of us who appreciate truth.

So, sad and upsetting as it is to read about torture and death at the hands of the Devil called Communism, we cannot abandon hope. Only in Hell, then would we reside.

What?

I almost long for the 18th century when beef was 8 cents a pound. 10,000 lbs. of flour represented only a 4 day food supply at a fort on the frontier. Then - fortunately or unfortunately - every American knew right from wrong but never considered blurring their boundaries.

What's 49 billion?

What's 49 billion dollars a year over 10 years when it comes to cuts in the military budget? Virtually nothing. What's the meaning of "surgical not just weapons and manpower," words from our President about the reduction in military spending? Gobbledygook. What's 8% unemployment? In reality 10%. What's the use of knowing the terms: racism, national debt, recess appointments, Friday afternoon news, dumping, signing statements, revolving doors, lobbyists, earmarks, renditions, Guantanamo, tribunals, predator drones and the Patriot Act? Each fact decried by candidate Obama but embraced by President Obama even embraced and extended. Truly the two-faced polititian!

So what's the good of pursuing truth - political or moral - when the big 'O' in the White House rejects or abuses it? You tell me and my friendly conservative voices crying in the wilderness.

No hypocrisy, please

HYPOCRISY derives from a Greek word meaning "to hide behind a mask." What better definition of a liberal? NOTHING they say or do reflects reality; NOTHING can be trusted to be the truth. Their alleged complaint against Christians, however, is that they are 'hypocrites' who do not follow the teachings of Christ in daily living. (Saying one thing and living another). OH REALLY? AU CONTRAIRE! Do Christians sometimes fall short of Christian teachings? Yes, if we define Christian teaching to start with the 10 commandments. But how should we apply the Decalogue to daily rights and duties?

Skeptics like Emerson, Nietzsche, and Shaw pointed out that Christians do not practice what they preach. Even a deep, meaningful declaration from Pascal that "only God Himself can fill" a ""God-shaped void," means little if we don't unmask our Christian beliefs into the light of daily living.

So what's my point? My complaint? My suggestion if I were running on an anti-hypocritical platform for saving America is a study of the practical applications of Christian teaching - the 10 commandments. For example we could begin with subsidies, grants and giveaways from the government as the solutions to problems and setbacks in life. Remember Job. Ask yourself who is responsible for your actions day by day, year by year as a way to fill the void until the end time. No I'm not an extreme Evangelical. No I'm not a Biblical literalist. No I'm not an unequivocal libertarian.

Yes, I believe no mask should separate ideology from living; no hypocrisy dictate politics and culture. Fellow Americans, we need personal re-examinations and the pursuit of truth.

My Red Bowl

New Year 2012 is bowl time. Not football, but time to retire my red bowl. Quarterback to numerous breakfast cereals over the years, it is now not down and out but sent up and out to the 'pasture' of memories. To clarify, my red, plastic cereal bowl from the 1970's of child-raising and lowered income is finally consigned to its proper place (heaven forbid the dust bin) in an upper room of my home. There reside old, vintage, antique or now useless items of memorabilia. Past toys, a butter churn, a collage of favorite animals, pictures, auction acquisitions, a velvet cape, childhood photos and doll, dishes, clothes, a cow bell, dog license tags, aged books, etc.., you get the picture of a collection. My red bowl NOW joins the crowd. Clean and ever-ready after years of washing and microwaving, resting on an antique drop front desk ( minus the drop front), my red bowl rests, upstairs in our home on Heath Lane as history. No remorse or withdrawal symptoms will accompany my decision. Happy were the days of its usefulness.

Freedom in Choices

Fourteen million of our school children receive free lunches - about 21%. In Tennessee it is 37%. Poverty in America or poor choices? If one were to act smart as opposed to stupid would he or she be a different person? If a man were not born a man, would he not have to have been born a woman? Just asking - because flashes of the self-evident seem to be lacking in today's culture. Also, wisdom often comes from those condemned to a early death. John Richard Jefferies an English writer and nature lover, dead at thirty eight from tuberculosis, said: "The hours when the mind is absorbed by beauty, are the only hours when we really live, so that the longer we can stay among these things, so much the more is snatched from inevitable Time. This is the real life, and all else is illusion, or mere endurance."

Of course Jefferies referred to nature's wonders as the reason to live, not to Truth which the poet John Keats, another young victim of consumption, said exchanges with beauty as the only things one needs to know. How to relate these observations to our false epidemics of poverty and obesity? Truth is beautiful when we find it; beauty is living with the truth.

1. People are poor via poor choices. 2. People become fat by consuming too many calories. AND 3. (just to throw in a bit of impish perversity) personal responsibility is as lovely a poem as a tree.

No War Horse

No, I won't view the new film, "War Horse." If lies from liberals who claim the tea party "occupies the fringe of American politics" (new Republic editor) and Obama is imposing "passive austerity", according to Paul Krugman, do not inflict enough pain to deter me, the truths about the "unspeakable bestiality of war and the nobility of wordless beasts" (movie critic Joe Morgenstern)certainly clinch my decision.

Time surely tells us that nobility of service evidenced by God's silent beasts (horses ridden, worked or starved to death) acts as a sad counterpoint to man's inhumanity to man and his inhumaneness to animals.

Happy New Year, 2012.