The Patriotism Gap

Washington Times

A new survey shows that Americans, on average, are growing more patriotic. Among some predominantly liberal groups, however, patriotism is on the decline, and the gap between the left and the American public is widening. The two sides of the chasm reflect two distinct views of the United States.

The USA Today/Gallup poll conducted in mid-June shows that 32 percent of Americans describe themselves as "extremely patriotic," the highest number in the reported data, up from 19 percent in 1999. The 2010 total represents an 8 point increase since the January 2002 survey, which was the first after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The most patriotic groups of Americans are Republicans at 52 percent, conservatives at 48 percent and those over age 65 at 40 percent. The least patriotic are Democrats (20 percent), liberals (19 percent) and those aged 18 to 29 (22 percent).

The most patriotic groups have seen double-digit increases in "extremely" patriotic sentiment since 2005, while the least patriotic groups have flat-lined or declined. When it comes to those with less patriotic fervor, among Democrats the percentages in the "somewhat" or "not especially" patriotic categories rose from 33 percent in 2005 to 37 percent, while among Republicans the number declined from 15 percent to 9 percent, with the "not especially" group being less than 0.5 percent.

The study notes that it is "particularly intriguing" that 42 percent of Democrats are satisfied with the direction the country is heading while a mere 7 percent of the more patriotic Republicans agree. This 34 percent difference mirrors the 32 point patriotism gap between the two major parties. But feelings of patriotism should not be confused with a sense of complacency. Patriotism scores declined in the early 1990s after the end of the Cold War when the country seemed more secure and the future was less in doubt.

The recent resurgence of patriotic sentiment is better viewed as a measure of concern over the direction the country is taking. As with the Minutemen in 1775, today's patriots are responding to a call to action. Among some quarters on the left, the expression "patriot" is synonymous with the Tea Party movement, which they consider reactionary and racist. This may explain in part why liberals are less willing to describe themselves as patriotic.

The patriotism issue broadly parallels the battle lines of the culture war. Those brought up in an educational system in which the United States is portrayed negatively - as the country of slavery and segregation, of unjust wars, environmental pollution, evil capitalism and all manner of oppression - have no particular reason to be patriotic. To these people, Michelle Obama's position rang true when she said in February 2008 that, "for the first time in [her] adult lifetime" she was "really proud of [her] country." There was no reason to be proud of America before the Obama ascendance. Likewise, candidate Barack Obama's promise to "fundamentally transform" the United States was an exciting message to those who viewed America as a morally bankrupt, internationally despised country with a despicable history.

To those who hold a competing image of the United States - as a shining city on a hill, as the font of freedom, as a country of faith, hope and charity, as the product of a divine plan, as the defender of democracy and the last best hope of mankind - this vision needs no fundamental transformation. The rising tide of patriotism is a response to the assault on these American ideals, a defense of the dream of the first new nation founded in liberty. Patriotic Americans are not yet ready to give up the fight.

© Copyright 2010 The Washington Times, LLC

Robocop's Comment:

So what they are saying is that the Left is becoming more un-American?

The Declaration of Independence is Unconstitutional

Human Events

While there is plenty of talk and rhetoric proclaiming all that is "Constitutional" or "Unconstitutional", when we examine and recognize that document which more than any other represents the soul of America, we find that document is: The Declaration of Independence.

With the simple preface, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness", the novel idea of constructing government solely as best servant to the People and their God given privileges was born.

Because of the Declaration, and specifically this prefatory clause, the United States has developed a whole philosophy of thought called "American Exceptionalism".

This philosophy is what makes us special, different from any other nation on earth, and dare I say...

Better!

To the chagrin, of our current Commander in Chief, better is not better at all. In fact, better, a.k.a. American Exceptionalism, in the mind of our exalted leader, is arrogance.

To think, that we individuals might strive for excellence, driven by nothing other than our own will and the Providential opportunity with which we are presented is obscene to those like Obama who embrace a Statist ideology.

At his core, the Statist is a parasite who requires a subjugated public to advance himself. Unlike the rugged individualist who advances by grit and determination, the Statist assembles his power through propaganda that pits those rugged individualists in society who have achieved, against the sloth groups who have been convinced that achievement is an accidental occurrence falling upon those who have been "lucky".

Out of this thinking is bred a whole line of thought that has undermined our Founders vision for America and has convinced our populace that the Constitution is a "living, breathing" document which must be tempered by the populist mood of the age.

And of what character is this mood which is now arbiter and driver of public policy in America?

Schizophrenic, ignorant, sanctimonious, and dishonest are adjectives which come to mind.

It would seem, if we could apply contemporary American views and compare them to the theme of the foundational clause upon which our whole government has been built we ought to be able to find a congruence of understanding.

Let's try:

We hold these truths to be self-evident,

These truths are unarguable, anyone from any walk of life, regardless of background, social or economic class, educated or uneducated would agree on undeniable fundamental truths. What are fundamental truths? Do all our inhabitants agree about them?

that all men are created equal,

declaring us all subject to the same unarguable truths, the same rule, and the same law. No individual or group would be afforded any more or any less in the eyes of our law; ergo, it is not by accident that Lady Justice adorns a blindfold when ascertaining weights on a balance scale.

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

That separation of Church and State thing kind of falls apart right here. Unalienable meaning that they cannot be taken away, and that we are endowed by our Creator—God, specifying exactly who endowed us with our Rights. It is not a stretch to infer government's only role here is to protect what God has provided. Do all American's believe this? Is this the contemporary understanding of "Constitutional"?

that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

While the Founders were content to allow us to use our imagination in interpreting what unalienable rights we were endowed with, they wrote down a couple to make sure we got onto the right track. Our most important rights were listed, and it is not by accident that Life was put first.

The order of rights was listed in a prioritized manner exalting Life the supreme right, and should any Right conflict with another, the latter would yield to the former.

If a mother felt pregnancy was in some way threatening to her Liberty, her baby's right to Life was, in the scheme of things, of such priority that mom's Liberty could be impinged for the duration of the child's term. Using the word "was" instead of "is" might seem offensive, however, in today's culture, do we respect this distinction? Is abortion today viewed as greater right than is Life?

Has Roe vs. Wade established a women's right to end her pregnancy at any point before a child's birth, for any reason? Have we not heard Senators and Representatives state that the "right to choose" is a Constitutional right?

Politicians love to invoke all that is "Constitutional" or "Unconstitutional" in support of their views or positions, but if we cannot even agree on the most fundamental right from our most fundamental document, how on earth can we intellectually interpret whether or not Arizona can or cannot ask someone who has broken a law if he/she is in this country legally or not?

Today the United States recognizes Constitutionality of the Constitution, based not at all upon the words of the document, but upon the urges and inclinations of those who have seized power by appealing to the largest voting bloc.

There is no such thing as a Constitutional right which cannot be readily overturned, and in the contemporary interpretation, our Declaration of Independence is...

Unconstitutional.

Honoring America's Founding Principles

Town Hall

Must America’s founding principles be changed to meet the challenges of our age? Are we defined by a place and a people or by the shared principles we embrace and preserve?

In his farewell address, George Washington warned, “Toward the preservation of your government…it is requisite…that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its principles.” Celebrating our Declaration of Independence involves honoring our founding principles.

Thomas Jefferson affirmed, "What is necessary to make us a happy and prosperous people? A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. Were we directed from Washington when to sow, and when to reap, we should soon want bread. I own, I am not a friend to a very energetic government. It is always oppressive. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretense of taking care of them, they must become happy."

America stands for equal opportunity, not equal results. We prosper because citizens are free to create value instead of becoming burdens. But when President Obama works to “remake America” and tells Joe the Plumber of his desire to “spread the wealth around,” we wonder whether the property rights affirmed in our Bill of Rights are truly secure.

Benjamin Franklin warned, “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety.” Espousing noble goals, liberals want to restrict peanuts on airplanes, determine what foods you can eat, and how much gas your car can use. Excessive regulations limit your liberty, choke our businesses, and explode the cost of government. Encourage safety, but value freedom even more.

John Adams asserted, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” George Washington added, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who would labor to subvert these great pillars…. Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.”

The separation of church and state in our Constitution is not there to protect Americans from religion but to protect Americans from the government. The First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” The intent was established in the U.S. Congressional Records in the summer of 1789 where it was stated that no one denomination of the Christian faith was to have precedence. “In God we trust,” but we want no one denomination defining who God is. Instead of zoning God out of our public life, our Founding Fathers celebrated faith’s value. They wanted freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

Benjamin Franklin criticized England’s welfare entitlements of his time, “There is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent…. You offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty.” Franklin preferred “responsible” caring: "I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it…. Repeal that law (taxes), and you will soon see a change in their manners. Labor…will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them."

The American economy has served for over 200 years as the greatest anti-poverty program in human history because it encouraged work and discouraged idleness more than any other. America did this by guaranteeing its citizens the freedom to acquire property without being hindered by excessive regulations or redistribution policies. American “caring” shouldn’t be defined by the number of people “helped” by government but by how many no longer need it. Welfare’s purpose should be to eliminate, as far as possible, the need for its own existence.

No government check can match being touched and helped by local charities staffed by volunteers who care. When good works cease to be voluntary and “giving” through taxes becomes compulsory, charity gives way to confiscation and freedom to servitude.

Finally, George Washington reminded all in his first address to Congress, “To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace.” America, in order to defend its freedom and way of life, must continue to invest adequate resource to remain strong, progressive, and technologically sophisticated to match the enemies of our age. When politicians suggested limiting our standing army to 5,000 by law, Washington asked for an amendment to limit the size of the enemy to 3,000 troops.

Property rights, earned reward, individual responsibility, religious freedom, limited government, a strong military, and “we the people” empowered to turn liberty into our own version of the American Dream are what our Founding Fathers left as a legacy. In November, you’ll have the opportunity to define true north for the future of this great country. Pick your values compass wisely. Our future depends on it.

Tea Partiers of the World, Unite!

by Nick Rizzuto

In the winter of 1847, The Communist League met in London to sketch out a platform for the international communist movement. Previously, the communist movement was made up of disparate factions of various national, ethnic, and even religious flavors. What emerged from this congress of communist revolutionaries was a united movement. Following the meeting in London, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels took up the task of forging the preeminent radical polemic of the international socialist, the Communist Manifesto. Their movement thenceforth, and to the detriment of civilization, moved forward as a united international juggernaut. The communist’s drive to organize themselves into an ideological powerhouse was not the first of its kind, but one that profoundly influenced much of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Multi-national political movements are indeed an old concept. It should strike us as curious then that there has never been, as far as I can tell, an international movement focused on the tenets of individual liberty. Perhaps this is owed, in part, to the fact that those who advocate for liberty tend to be individualists, preferring self-sufficiency and individual effort to the collective mobilization that is inherent in large movements. Whatever the reason, it appears that while other, more destructive movements have risen to the international stage, the liberty movement has lagged in its ability to organize in such a way.

While there have indeed been revolutions inspired by the ideas of liberty they more often than not were limited to national stages and were of varying levels of success. The American Revolution, which acts as the primary inspiration for our current Tea Party movement, is the clearest example of the success of these ideas, but there have also been revolutions, similarly inspired, that failed to achieve the ends of they had set out to achieve. The French Revolution, for example, was inspired in large part by the same philosophy as the American, but it fell victim to revolutionary excesses and violence. Post-revolutionary France fell into a state of bedlam until the rise of the dictatorial Napoleon put the final nail in the coffin of their revolution.

While international organization might have been deficient for the liberty movement historically, it appears that that is on the verge of changing. For the first time, there appears to be a growing international liberty movement, springing forth from the roots of our current American civic reawakening.

In recent months, inspired by what they are observing here in the states, Tea Party organizations have begun to rise in up the furthest corners of the world. While these organizations might have different concerns, ones that are specific to their particular nations, it is clear that each has formed around the same concepts: limited governance and individual liberty.

Ironically it was England, who in the 18th century was at the unpleasant end of a Tea Party, which was the first outside of the US to hold a Tea Party rally, launching their national movement in February of this year. In addition, Tea Party organizations have popped up in Ireland, the Netherlands, Australia, and Japan. Most recently, we have learned that Israel is planning on staging its first Tea Party in Tel-Aviv.

This nascent international movement owes its rise to several factors: First, the financial collapse has sent ripples throughout the economies of most western nations. In doing so, many people have begun to question the ability of governments to effectively control their economies. Ideas like central banking, heavily regulated industries, and progressive taxation appear more and more to be the cause of our current crisis rather than the solution.

Second, modern communication has allowed us to transmit news and ideas in a way that is historically unprecedented. Our ability to network with one another has been a key to the national Tea Parties and is central to the growth of the international movement a well.

Finally, the international Tea Parties are most certainly a reaction to the international progressivism that has been the dominant force in politics for several decades now. Western nations have given in to the temptation of establishing generous welfare states that have caused the slow decay of society from within. The results of these policies can be seen all over Europe including states that are in what might be considered to be long economic dormancies, as well as those that are in danger of full collapse, as in the case in Greece.

Cumulatively, these factors have made the landscape ripe for a movement that rejects the precept that big governments are prepared to take on the burdens they currently shoulder.

An international liberty movement is an idea whose time has come. As a matter of fact, it is one that’s long overdue. We are truly living in interesting times.



Copyright © 2010 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

'Liberal' Is Worse Than Any Curse Word Now

Fox News

Washington politicians, here's the message of semi-Super Tuesday: If you've embraced a liberal agenda of big government and huge spending -- you'll find yourself in trouble.

Yesterday's elections showed that there is only one real dirty word this campaign cycle: liberal -- not incumbent. The focus on incumbents is just a liberal media dodge to ignore the fact that it is their ideology is being repudiated. For the next five months you'll hear the leftist media and Democrats try to deflect the wins of conservatives and Tea Party candidates like Rand Paul as merely a vote against Washington. While that's partly true, it's the big Washington abuse of power -- the core of liberalism -- that's the problem, not just the fact that these candidates happen to be in office and reside in the Beltway.

Those in Washington who were fiscally reckless and supported the stimulus, TARP and the creation of a costly new entitlement with the healthcare bill are casualties of the wave. From Specter to Bob Bennett (the Republican who lost two weeks ago thanks to his support for TARP) we saw last night what we saw in the fall in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Virginia. If you've embraced a liberal agenda of big government and huge spending -- you'll find yourself in trouble.

That is why the Tea Party movement is successful and much more than the initial charges that it was merely "manufactured outrage." They could not flourish if it wasn't for the lurch to the left by Democrats, and to some degree George Bush and some Republicans. That's why President Obama was not and is not going to be helpful to candidates in his party going forward - because the backlash is against him.

Hope For The Young

Tea Party Tour Brings Out Array of Activism

Fox News

From a former Delta flight attendant to the mother of a fallen Iraq Navy SEAL, the activists and organizers aboard the Tea Party Express each seem to represent a slice of America. But who are these people who drop everything to spend weeks on the road on a bus talking about the Constitution and turning '60s-style activism on its head?

TUPELO, Miss. -- From a former Delta flight attendant to the mother of a fallen Iraq Navy SEAL, the activists and organizers aboard the Tea Party Express each seem to represent a slice of America.

Travelers on the tour, a three-bus caravan barnstorming the country in protest of the Washington establishment, claim to be brought together by common principles: small government, less spending and a fierce defense of individual freedom.

But a lot of Americans hold those values. So who are these people who drop everything to spend weeks on the road on a bus talking about the Constitution and turning '60s-style activism on its head?

Some are folksy, some are strictly business. Everyday Americans make up the bulk of those on board and at the rallies, but there's also a strong organizing factor that makes the cross-country tour, which is on its third run and starting to carry some political heft, what it is.

By some appearances, the highly coordinated rallies and pulse of the 42-city national bus tour have all the markings of a political campaign.

Staff members work 18-hour days, seven days a week, and the chief strategist behind the group, Sal Russo, is a longtime Republican consultant from California who began his political career as a personal aide to Ronald Reagan.

Russo, who is head of the Sacramento-based political action committee, Our Country Deserves Better, which is funding the bus tour, has 40 years of political consulting under his belt. In the mid-1980s, Russo joined forces with former Reagan campaign director Ed Rollins to start a political consulting firm, which took on clients like former Republican vice presidential nominee Jack Kemp.

"It has all the intensity of a campaign, but more like an old-fashioned one," Russo said of his group as the bus rolled along a stretch of highway en route from Arkansas to Mississippi. "We don't have a high-paid staff."

"The Tea Partiers remind me very much of the Reagan crowds of 1966," he added. "But this is a movement, not a party."

The Tea Party Express set off on its first national tour last August to protest the tax-and-spend policies of Congress and to cement its message with the thousands of other Tea Party factions that had formed around the country, said Joe Wierzbicki, one of the group's founding members.

The second bus tour launched in October, largely as an effort to debunk rumors that the Tea Party movement was nothing more than a passing fad.

This time around, Wierzbicki said, the purpose of the "Just Vote Them Out" tour is more exact: "To start putting together the campaigns that will change who's in office in 2010."

He added. "And health care has created the perfect storm for that."

At the tour's weekend stop in Little Rock, Ark., Tea Partiers targeted Arkansas Democratic Sen. Blanche Lincoln in large part over her support for the health care legislation.

The money raised by the Tea Party Express is hardly loose change. Russo's PAC raked in more than $4.5 million since forming in 2008 to help John McCain's presidential campaign -- some of it from corporate executives and high-end donors like actor Chuck Norris. Russo said the Tea Party bus tour will cost close to $1 million by the time it concludes in Washington on April 15, tax day -- a hefty sum he claims was entirely paid for by "ordinary folks" donating to his PAC.

Roughly 15 staff members, four entertainers and a dozen speakers ride in the red, gold and blue buses that have meandered across the country. A colorful map of the 50 states is painted on each side with the group's mission statement printed clearly: "Stop the out of control spending! No government run healthcare! Stop raising our taxes!"

Some organizers have given up their regular lives to work full-time for the Tea Party Express -- like Tiffiny Ruegner, a massage therapist and single mother from Sacramento, Calif., who lost 90 percent of her clientele last summer after the economy crashed.

"You have all these people who are in different situations in life," said Wierzbicki. "Some of them are married with kids and they have to leave their families for extended periods of time and it's difficult for them."

Debbie Lee, from Phoenix, took to the road after she lost part of her family.

In 2006, Lee was celebrating her birthday with friends when she learned that her son, Marc, was the first Navy SEAL to be killed in Iraq. Now, four years later, Lee is a familiar face at Tea Party rallies, speaking before crowds about the sacrifices of military families.

She says her son's death inspired her to join the movement, which she described as a place for people "who have never before attended political rallies."

The everyday logistics aboard the Tea Party Express don't always run smoothly, a sign that the movement's not quite as polished as its critics would make it out to be. Working toilets, an adequate food supply and scheduling dilemmas are sometimes problems for the over-stretched staff.

"The toilet's clogged -- again!" snapped bus driver Raymond March in the middle of one recent leg.

But Russo said the movement, like others before it, is only for believers.

"You can't do this kind of thing unless you believe in the cause," he said. "Everybody who's involved in this feels passionately about what we're doing. It's not about the money and it's not about the hours."

Black Tea Party Activists Called 'Traitors'

Fox News

ALBANY, N.Y. – They've been called Oreos, traitors and Uncle Toms, and are used to having to defend their values. Now black conservatives are really taking heat for their involvement in the mostly white tea party movement — and for having the audacity to oppose the policies of the nation's first black president.

"I've been told I hate myself. I've been called an Uncle Tom. I've been told I'm a spook at the door," said Timothy F. Johnson, chairman of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a group of black conservatives who support free market principles and limited government.

"Black Republicans find themselves always having to prove who they are. Because the assumption is the Republican Party is for whites and the Democratic Party is for blacks," he said.

Johnson and other black conservatives say they were drawn to the tea party movement because of what they consider its commonsense fiscal values of controlled spending, less taxes and smaller government. The fact that they're black — or that most tea partiers are white — should have nothing to do with it, they say.

"You have to be honest and true to yourself. What am I supposed to do, vote Democratic just to be popular? Just to fit in?" asked Clifton Bazar, a 45-year-old New Jersey freelance photographer and conservative blogger.
related links

Opponents have branded the tea party as a group of racists hiding behind economic concerns — and reports that some tea partiers were lobbing racist slurs at black congressmen during last month's heated health care vote give them ammunition.

But these black conservatives don't consider racism representative of the movement as a whole — or race a reason to support it.

Angela McGlowan, a black congressional candidate from Mississippi, said her tea party involvement is "not about a black or white issue."

"It's not even about Republican or Democrat, from my standpoint," she told The Associated Press. "All of us are taxed too much."

Still, she's in the minority. As a nascent grassroots movement with no registration or formal structure, there are no racial demographics available for the tea party movement; it's believed to include only a small number of blacks and Hispanics.

Some black conservatives credit President Barack Obama's election — and their distaste for his policies — with inspiring them and motivating dozens of black Republicans to plan political runs in November.

For black candidates like McGlowan, tea party events are a way to reach out to voters of all races with her conservative message.

"I'm so proud to be a part of this movement! I want to tell you that a lot of people underestimate you guys," the former national political commentator for Fox News told the cheering crowd at a tea party rally in Nashville, Tenn., in February.

Tea party voters represent a new model for these black conservatives — away from the black, liberal Democratic base located primarily in cities, and toward a black and white conservative base that extends into the suburbs.

Black voters have overwhelmingly backed Democratic candidates, support that has only grown in recent years. In 2004, presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry won 88 percent of the black vote; four years later, 95 percent of black voters cast ballots for Obama.

Black conservatives don't want to have to apologize for their divergent views.

"I've gotten the statement, 'How can you not support the brother?'" said David Webb, an organizer of New York City's Tea Party 365, Inc. movement and a conservative radio personality.

Since Obama's election, Webb said some black conservatives have even resorted to hiding their political views.

"I know of people who would play the (liberal) role publicly, but have their private opinions," he said. "They don't agree with the policy but they have to work, live and exist in the community ... Why can't we speak openly and honestly if we disagree?"

Among the 37 black Republicans running for U.S. House and Senate seats in November is Charles Lollar of Maryland's 5th District.

A tea party supporter running against House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., Lollar says he's finding support in unexpected places.

The 38-year-old U.S. Marine Corps reservist recently walked into a bar in southern Maryland decorated with a Confederate flag. It gave his wife Rosha pause.

"I said, 'You know what, honey? Many, many of our Southern citizens came together under that flag for the purpose of keeping their family and their state together,'" Lollar recalled. "The flag is not what you're to fear. It's the stupidity behind the flag that is a problem. I don't think we'll find that in here. Let's go ahead in."

Once inside, they were treated to a pig roast, a motorcycle rally — and presented with $5,000 in contributions for his campaign.

McGlowan, one of three GOP candidates in north Mississippi's 1st District primary, seeks a seat held since 2008 by The National Republican Congressional Committee has supported Alan Nunnelee, chairman of the state Senate Appropriations Committee, who is also pursuing tea party voters.

McGlowan believes the tea party movement has been unfairly portrayed as monolithically white, male and middle-aged, though she acknowledged blacks and Hispanics are a minority at most events.

Racist protest signs at some tea party rallies and recent reports by U.S. Reps. John Lewis, D-Ga., and Barney Frank, D-Mass., that tea partiers shouted racial and anti-gay slurs at them have raised allegations of racism in the tea party movement.

Black members of the movement say it is not inherently racist, and some question the reported slurs. "You would think — something that offensive — you would think someone got video of it," Bazar, the conservative blogger, said.

"Just because you have one nut case, it doesn't automatically equate that you've got an organization that espouses (racism) as a sane belief," Johnson said.

Hilary Shelton, director of the Washington bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, suggested a bit of caution.

"I'm sure the reason that (black conservatives) are involved is that from an ideological perspective, they agree," said Shelton. "But when those kinds of things happen, it is very important to be careful of the company that you keep."

The 5 Craziest Attacks on Tea Parties

FoxNews

In case there are any residual doubts of how bad the tea partiers have been treated, here are the Top 5 ways the left and the media have abused a grassroots movement. The coverage has been so hateful and so biased, it was almost impossible to narrow the list.

5) Protesters are Anti-Government
The media and the left portray tea parties as “anti-government” because it undermines a patriotic grassroots movement. Tea partiers aren’t anti-government, they are anti-big government. That’s just not the story journalists tell. The “anti-government” theme is strong, cropping up in more than two dozen stories in The Washington Post and New York Times combined. Very few of them mentioned the word “big” in reference to government.

Instead, it’s NPR’s Liz Halloran claiming tea parties have been boosted by “restive Republicans who have found refuge in the year-old anti-tax, anti-government uprising.” Frank Rich of The New York Times compared tea partiers with Andrew Joseph Stack, the man who flew a plane into an IRS building. “Stack was a lone madman, and it would be both glib and inaccurate to call him a card-carrying Tea Partier or a ‘Tea Party terrorist.’ But he did leave behind a manifesto whose frothing anti-government, anti-tax rage overlaps with some of those marching under the Tea Party banner.”

Then there’s former CNN correspondent Susan Roesgen, who became the story when she reported from the Chicago Tea Party on April 15 last year. Roesgen rudely interrupted one of the protesters and slammed the event for being “anti-government.” After she bullied her interview subject, Roesgen concluded that “you get the general tenor of this” tea party. “Anti-government, anti-CNN since this is highly promoted by the right-wing conservative network Fox and since I can't really hear much more and I think this is not really family viewing.”

CNN is more family friendly now. Roesgen no longer works at the network.

4) Tea Partiers Are Stupid
Calling conservatives stupid is typical left-wing strategy. The left labeled Reagan stupid or senile. George W. Bush was consistently portrayed as stupid by detractors in the left and the media. It only makes sense that tea partiers get the same treatment.

In the case of the tea parties, some of the biggest offenders were also some of the biggest mouths on the left. Last August, former Air America host MSNBC regular Janeane Garofalo let the venom fly during an appearance at the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 21. Garofalo called tea partiers “functionally retarded adults.”

Bill Maher deployed the same strategy in February of this year during HBO's “Real Time” calling tea partiers “cultists. “The teabaggers, they're not a movement. They're a cult, and I'm going to prove it. You know someone has fallen into a cult if you see these signs: One. Cults have their own vocabulary. Now, I don't speak sh**kicker, but I know that in their world, freedom means guns, diplomacy means weakness, elitist means reader, and socialist means black.” In Maher’s world, stupid means anyone who is conservative.

3) Protesters are Nazis
Nazis are the ultimate villains both for the horror they brought to the world through conquest and their use of industrialized genocide. But while the left went crazy when Lyndon LaRouche fans carried Obama/Hitler posters to protests, they were quick to use the slander for their own devices.

Take MSNBC’s relatively obscure host Dylan Ratigan. In February, the host of “The Dylan Ratigan Show” began the program by doing what his network always does – attacking conservatives. “The Tea Party has a bit of an integrity problem, as everybody from birthers, to open racists, to outright Nazis are actually on the team. And no one involved, including its leadership, seems to mind that fact.”

Ratigan learned from the best, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who called the tea parties “Astroturf” before she went on to link them to Nazis. “They're carrying swastikas and symbols like that to a town meeting on healthcare.” Later she backed off her complete attack and tried to latch onto tea party popularity claiming, “but, you know, we share some of the views of the Tea Partiers.” Sure…

2) Homophobic Slurs
To most ordinary Americans in early 2009, the term “teabagging” meant using a tea bag to make actual tea. Then entire world learned the term had an overt, oral sex connotation, thanks to the media and left-wing pundits.

Nowhere was the use of the term more pronounced than MSNBC. The day before the big tea party event last April, MSNBC's David Shuster made numerous sexual puns during a “Countdown” appearance. “It's going to be teabagging day for the right-wing and they're going nuts for it. Thousands of them whipped out the festivities early this past weekend, and while the parties are officially toothless, the teabaggers are full-throated about their goals,” he told viewers. He later used his Twitter account to attack “teabaggers” and their “teabag leader.”
Shuster lost out to fellow MSNBC host Rachel Maddow for most adolescent behavior. Maddow’s and then Air America radio contributor Ana Marie Cox used the word “teabag” at least 51 times in a in a 13-minute long segment of bad “teabag” puns.

It wasn’t just MSNBC. Journalists at numerous outlets used the derisive term. But CNN anchor Anderson Cooper went even farther during the April 15 “Anderson Cooper 360” program. CNN’s senior political analyst David Gergen said Republicans were “searching for their voice” after two electoral losses, Cooper followed up by saying, “It’s hard to talk when you’re tea-bagging.” The irony of this attack is that it allows lefties and the media to feel smart and act juvenile at the same time.

1) Calling them “racist”
Playing the race card has become the left’s favorite move. It trumps everything else and is virtually impossible to defend against. Naturally, with an African-American president, crying “racism” has become a routine occurrence. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews is just one of the milder examples of someone who injects race into everything except commercials.

Whether it’s Colbert King of The Washington Post or loose cannon former comedienne Garofalo, racism is the left’s preference in attempts to undermine the tea parties.

Former funny lady Garofalo bashed the attendees at last year’s tax day tea parties by using several different attacks. The “Countdown” guest called party-goers “a bunch of teabagging rednecks,” adding “this is about hating a black man in the White House. This is racism straight up.”

At least she didn’t invoke the KKK, or talk about tea partiers wearing sheets. But she didn’t have to because Rep. James E. Clyburn, D-S.C., did it for her. Clyburn showed up in a column by The Post’s Colbert King that claimed “Today's Tea Party adherents are George Wallace legacies.” “It reminds me of that period in our history right after Reconstruction,” Clyburn said, “when South Carolina had a black governor and the political gains were lost because of vigilantism, the rise of the Ku Klux Klan.”

He wasn’t alone. In February, “Countdown” host Keith Olbermann focused on suggestions there should be civics literacy testing for registered voters made at the recent Tea Party convention, which Olbermann referred to as the “Tea Klux Klan.”

Maddow had her own Klan spin. “And as you could hear, the tea party convention crowd erupted in cheers at the suggestion, although, to be fair, it was sort of hard to tell exactly what the sounds coming from the crowd meant. They were sort of a little bit muffled by, you know, the white hoods,” she mocked.

Dan Gainor is The Boone Pickens Fellow and the Media Research Center’s Vice President for Business and Culture. His column appears each week on The Fox Forum. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.

5 Ways Liberals Misjudge the American People

by John Hawkins

One of the reasons liberals tend to do such an incredibly poor job of governing is that they fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the American people. Given that liberals also fundamentally misunderstand Christianity, the Constitution, economics, and human nature, I guess it's no big surprise that they don't get the American people either. Come to think of it, I guess it's pretty much par for the course. I mean, let's face it, without conservatives around to help keep them in check, liberals would utterly destroy everything that is good about America and most of them would be baffled about what they were doing wrong right up until the end. But enough about the Left's general lack of common sense -- let's talk about how they misjudge the American people.

They believe the American people want liberal policies. When you're a conservative, it's almost impossible to filter out liberal views. Your kids are exposed to liberalism at school, Hollywood forces liberal ideas down your throat when you watch TV, the local paper leans left -- you just can't get away from it. On the other hand, if you're a liberal, you really don't have to hear what conservatives think. This can lead to the sort of groupthink that once inspired film critic Pauline Kael to exclaim,

"I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where (Nixon voters) are I don't know. They're outside my ken."

Now, some liberals know better -- which is why every Democratic President runs as a centrist even though they immediately intend to veer way off to the left the moment they're elected.

However, the belief that liberalism is genuinely popular with the American people is still pervasive. For example, on a daily basis, you can hear the netroots claiming that Obama's approval rating is slipping because he's not getting enough of his legislation passed. This ignores the fact that Obama's legislative agenda is having trouble getting passed because it's about as popular as strychnine milkshakes in our center-right country.

Liberals believe that many Americans don't know what's in their own best interests. Liberals tend to falsely believe that they're better, smarter, and more caring than the average person. This often leads them to make rather glib and far reaching assumptions about the "best" way for OTHER people to live.

Why would anyone need a SUV or a gun? You don't REALLY need those things. Also, liberals know what your salary should be, how your children should be taught, and what words you should be allowed to use without hurting anyone else's feelings. Oh, you want to pick your own lightbulb? Nonsense: You might do it wrong! Let liberals tell you which one you need.

There's just something about liberalism that turns most of its practitioners, no matter how dumb or incompetent they may be, into finger wagging professors who want to lecture the rest of the country about how to live their lives. See the man running the show at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for a real world example of how that works.

Liberals believe that the American people want to be treated like children. Sure, there are always going to be losers who want the government to do everything for them, but bottom feeders who want to be taken care of by the government have never represented the majority of the American people. If they ever do, liberals will undoubtedly be happy about it, but the rest of us won't because it'll mean the end of America as a great nation.

However, for the moment at least, a large percentage of Americans not only don't want the government's help, we would be pleased if the government didn't even know we existed. In essence, we want the government to defend the country, maintain the roads, enforce the law and leave us alone as much as possible. This, by necessity, puts us at loggerheads with liberals who are obsessed with controlling as much of people's lives as possible.

Liberals believe that most conservatives are evil. The problem with pegging people who merely disagree with you as greedy, evil, malevolent racists is that it tends to lead to kneejerk disagreement with everything they believe. That's why people go to such great lengths to compare their political opposites to Nazis -- because the thinking goes, the Nazis are bad and if they're like Nazis, no matter what they're saying, then it must be bad. Incidentally, the Nazis were socialists, animal rights activists, advocates of bigger government, supporters of the social welfare state, and supporters of unions -- just like liberals -- but that's neither here nor there.

The problem with believing that conservatism is evil, besides the fact that it's not true, is that it leads even well-intentioned liberals to disregard conservative ideas. That's especially relevant because if you look through American history, you'll find ideologies are much more malleable than people might think. For example, at times in our history, liberalism has looked favorably upon tax cuts, Christianity, and patriotism as opposed to fighting against all those things while pretending to do otherwise. Put another way, if liberals were to examine conservative ideas with an open mind, they might learn something.

Liberals believe they can lie to the American people without consequence. Saying that politicians lie is like noting that rats like cheese. Without question, politicians from both parties are guilty of lying.

However, in the political realm, liberals lie much, much more often than conservatives. Why? There are two reasons for it. Conservatives tend to believe liberals are stupid, but liberals tend to think conservatives are evil. Is it wrong to lie about someone who's dumb? Yes. Ok, now would it be wrong to lie to stop Hitler? Ehr -- probably not. Because so many liberals view conservatives as evil, in their culture it's considered acceptable for them to lie about the Right. Very, very seldom will you ever hear a liberal criticize another liberal for lying about a conservative even though it's an every day thing in the liberal media.

Also, because the Left controls the mainstream media, they can often get away with lies no conservative ever could. Put another way, conservatives tend to be more honest because they have to be while liberals are used to having the mainstream media cover up, ignore, and explain away their lies.

The problem with that is that over time, the MSM has become less powerful and the new media has filled the gap. For example, when a cranky Harry Reid claimed at the health care summit that no one has talked about reconciliation, a video was quickly put out proving him wrong. Now that same video is in circulation, in the new media, proving that Harry Reid is a shameless liar with no personal integrity. The mainstream media is no longer the only gatekeeper for the news and it's allowing Americans to see through the lies of the Left faster than ever. That's why Barack Obama, who sometimes has trouble keeping his story straight from day-to-day, has dropped so far, so fast.



Copyright © 2010 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

For Your Entertainment

Chicago Defies the Second Amendment

by Steve Chapman

Since the Supreme Court upheld the individual right to own guns last summer, one municipality after another with handgun bans has faced reality. Washington, D.C., which lost the case, changed its law. Morton Grove, Ill., repealed its ban. So did neighboring Wilmette. Likewise for Evanston. Last week, Winnetka followed suit.

Then there is Chicago, which is being sued for violating the Second Amendment but refuses to confront the possibility that what the Supreme Court said may apply on this side of the Appalachians.

When it comes to firearms, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is no slave to rationality. "Does this lead to everyone having a gun in our society?" he demanded after the ruling came down. "Then why don't we do away with the court system and go back to the Old West, where you have a gun and I have a gun and we'll settle it in the streets?"

From listening to him, you might assume that the only places in North America that don't have firefights on a daily basis are cities that outlaw handguns. You might also assume that Chicago is an oasis of concord, rather than the site of 443 homicides last year.

So it's no surprise that Daley refuses to make the slightest change in the handgun ordinance, preferring to fight the lawsuits filed by the National Rifle Association. He is not impressed that 1) the law almost certainly violates the Constitution, which elected officials are supposed to uphold, and 2) it will cost taxpayers a lot of money to fight lawsuits the city is bound to lose.

The Chicago ban dates back to 1983 -- a time when no one had to worry about the forgotten Second Amendment. The ordinance prohibited the possession of all handguns (except those acquired before the law took effect).

It had no obvious benefits: Homicides climbed in the ensuing years and by 1992 were 41 percent higher than before. But the policy rested undisturbed until last summer, when the Supreme Court ruled that Washington's complete ban on handguns violated the individual right to use arms for self-defense in the home.

If that logic applies to the D.C. statute, it very likely applies to Chicago's law. The city, however, notes that the nation's capital is a federal enclave, and that the court did not say that states must respect the Second Amendment. That's true. The court's ruling also did not say that China is in Asia, which doesn't make it part of South America.

Once upon a time, the Bill of Rights restricted only what the federal government could do: States were free to restrict free speech, conduct unreasonable searches and impose cruel and unusual punishments. But nowadays, the court says that because of the 14th Amendment, passed after the Civil War, states must respect virtually all the rights set out in the Constitution.

There is no reason to think the justices would exempt the Second Amendment from that rule. Ronald Rotunda, a constitutional scholar at Chapman University law school, thinks the Chicago ban has no more than a one in five chance of surviving court review.

That might be worth the gamble except for all the money the city is asking to be relieved of. The losing side would not only have to cover the costs of its own lawyers but also pay the winning attorneys. In the D.C. case, the amount has not been settled, but the lawyers who handled the suit asked the court for nearly $3.6 million, while Washington offered some $800,000. So if Daley insists on fighting all the way to the Supreme Court, the total tab will probably run into multiple millions.

The city says this is not necessarily money that can be saved, since even a revised ordinance could face a court challenge. But sensible changes might deter opponents from pursuing a lawsuit, and if not, at least the new version would stand a good chance of being upheld. Judging from its lawsuit, the NRA is aiming only at eliminating the city's total ban on handguns -- which is what the Supreme Court will almost surely demand anyway.

Daley's recalcitrance may be viscerally satisfying to him and some others, but it doesn't change the choice the city faces. It can change the law now or it can change it later. Later will be a lot more expensive.

Robocop's Comment:

This is classic Libtard hypocrisy. They applaud when the court embarks on judicial legislation. Yet, when the courts actually do their actual job of interpreting the Constitution, they throw a tantrum. By the way, the homicide rate in the "old west" was much lower than "civilized" areas with gun control like New York. Perhaps this is also a classic example of Libtard memory loss.

Playing Games at Gitmo

By Michelle Malkin

The human-rights crowd is right: Life is hard for a Guantanamo Bay detainee. The deprivation is unspeakable. According to the facility’s “cultural adviser,” their brains have not been “stimulated” enough. So this Thanksgiving, America is drawing up plans to provide the 250 or so suspected jihadists at the “notoriously Spartan” detention camp with basic sustenance including, as reported by the Miami Herald, movie nights, art classes, English-language lessons, and “Game Boy-like” electronic devices.

Next up: Wii Fit, Guitar Hero, Sudoku, People magazine, and macrame. Anything less would be uncivilized.

On a deadly serious note, the detainees aren’t the only ones playing games at Gitmo. Some top legal advisers and supporters of Barack Obama, whose name detainees chanted on election night, are now rethinking the president-elect’s absolutist campaign position on shutting the center down and flooding our mainland courts with every last enemy combatant designee. Yes, reality bites. And Democrats must now grapple with the very real possibility that an Obama administration could potentially release a Gitmo denizen who would turn around and commit mass terrorist acts on American soil or abroad.

Nothing clarifies the mind like a jihadi boomerang. Never before have an administration and its followers matured so quickly in office — and they haven’t even taken office yet.

While Obama paid lip service to the “Close the Gitmo gulag!” agenda on 60 Minutes over the weekend, his kitchen cabinet is proceeding more pragmatically. Believe it or not, the Obama crowd is now contemplating a preventive detention law and an alternative judicial system for the most sensitive national security cases involving the most highly classified information — information that has no place being aired in the civilian courts for public consumption.

Listen to relentless Bush critic David Cole, who told the New York Times last week: “You can’t be a purist and say there’s never any circumstance in which a democratic society can preventively detain someone.” Added Ben Wittes of the Brookings Institution: “I’m afraid of people getting released in the name of human rights and doing terrible things.”

Moreover, Obama transition team members have suggested to The Wall Street Journal that despite his campaign season CIA-bashing, “Obama may decide he wants to keep the road open in certain cases for the CIA to use techniques not approved by the military, but with much greater oversight.”

Next thing you know, they’ll start arguing that the world has been fooled by years of sob-story propaganda about the Gitmo detainees — funded by Kuwaiti government-subsidized lawyers who cast them all as innocent potato farmers and schmucks dazed and confused on battlefields.

Next thing you know, they’ll rediscover the facts that detainees have systematically lied and exaggerated stories about mistreatment at Gitmo, and that interrogators and military personnel have bent over backward to accommodate their personal and religious needs and wants.

Next thing you know, they’ll start reminding us that dozens of former Gitmo detainees have been released and recaptured on the battlefield while committing acts of terrorism.

Funny, when President Bush and his homeland-security team realized these very realities seven years ago, they were branded terrorists and hounded relentlessly by Congress, the media and the left. When Attorney General Michael Mukasey eloquently defended the administration’s counterterrorism policies at the Federalist Society before he collapsed, he was heckled as a “tyrant.” And when I wrote my second book expounding on this very thesis, I was labeled a racist and fascist whose ideas exploring the proper balance between security and civil liberties had no place in public discourse.

Now, at long last, some liberals have realized that the sacred goal of “regaining America’s moral stature in the world,” as Obama put it, may be less important than ensuring that al-Qaeda killers don’t strike on American ground again.

Viva la Hope and Change!

Cautiousness You Can't Believe In

By George Neumayr

Like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton ran on the mantra of "change," but many of his plans for it ran aground not long into his presidency. Now Obama seeks to enact the radical changes Clinton couldn't.

His recruitment of Clinton-era leftists isn't "governing from the middle," but an attempt to implement the thwarted radicalism of Clinton's first two years in office. It suits the ideological purposes of the media to push "the middle" gradually leftward and cast the return of experienced Clinton-era hands as a measure of Obama's caution and moderation.

But this is circumspection at the service of radicalism. Obama is not choosing experience over radical change, but choosing experience for the sake of it. What the Daschles and Holders couldn't accomplish in the 1990s they will try again now. The passage of time hasn't made their positions any less radical.

A sign of the ease with which Obama practices stealth radicalism is that he can even take positions to the left of those early Clinton-era positions and still retain the media's halo of moderation.

Notice that at change.gov legislation Clinton passed -- legislation that was considered outrageous at the time -- is deemed insufficiently liberal in Obama's eyes. Take Clinton's job-killing Family and Medical Leave Act. It is just not good enough for Obama: "The FMLA covers only certain people who work for employers with 50 or more employees. Barack Obama and Joe Biden will expand the FMLA to cover businesses with 25 or more employees, and to cover more purposes including allowing: leave for workers who provide elder care; 24 hours of leave each year for parents to participate in their children's academic activities at school; leave for workers who care for individuals who reside in their home for 6 months or more; and leave for employees to address domestic violence and sexual assault."

Expansion of past liberal legislation, not modification of it, is the theme of the web page for the most part, whether it's Clinton's minimum-wage hikes (which Obama thinks should be turned into a "living wage") or "hate crimes" legislation: "Obama and Biden will strengthen federal hate crimes legislation, expand hate crimes protection by passing the Matthew Shepard Act, and reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice's Criminal Section."

That an incoming president has a special section devoted to the "LGBT [Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender] Community" isn't exactly a sign of governing from the middle either. Obama hints at his support for gay marriage on the page by including the word "full" in front of same-sex civil unions: he favors not just civil unions but "full civil unions." Or, as his wife put it during the campaign, "robust" civil unions. Whenever Obama arrives at that nebulous destination point to which he referred in his victory speech, euphemisms like "full civil unions" will apparently no longer be necessary.

The Clinton-era retreads Obama is selecting wanted these purer liberal positions in the first place and will have another crack at advancing them. They are eager to sweep away the very compromises, such as the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy in the military and Defense of Marriage Act, that political resistance forced them to craft reluctantly. This prior experience, and the bogus media-decreed establishment respectability that comes with it, will make their task all the easier. An Eric Holder or Tom Daschle are far more effective conduits for radicalism than any fresh face championed by Daily Kos.

Obama likes to present his positions in the form of triangulation -- he is just offering a reasonable third way. But he invariably places the third position to the left of the first liberal one, or at best restates it (as in the case of tax hikes, in which he used tax rates under Clinton to argue for the moderation of his plan; he wasn't raising taxes, he said, but "restoring" previous tax rates).

His decision to clear the bench of old Clinton hands in Washington fits this game plan perfectly. Still ringing in their ears is the Fleetwood Mac-performed inaugural them of "yesterday's gone." While they couldn't accomplish that in two years or two terms, they now have a chance to get "there" with Obama.

Bush's Legacy: European Socialism

by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann

The results of the G-20 economic summit amount to nothing less than the seamless integration of the United States into the European economy. In one month of legislation and one diplomatic meeting, the United States has unilaterally abdicated all the gains for the concept of free markets won by the Reagan administration and surrendered, in toto, to the Western European model of socialism, stagnation and excessive government regulation. Sovereignty is out the window. Without a vote, we are suddenly members of the European Union. Given the dismal record of those nations at creating jobs and sustaining growth, merger with the Europeans is like a partnership with death.

At the G-20 meeting, Bush agreed to subject the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and our other regulatory agencies to the supervision of a global entity that would critique its regulatory standards and demand changes if it felt they were necessary. Bush agreed to create a College of Supervisors.

According to The Washington Post, it would "examine the books of major financial institutions that operate across national borders so regulators could begin to have a more complete picture of banks' operations."

Their scrutiny would extend to hedge funds and to various "exotic" financial instruments. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), a European-dominated operation, would conduct "regular vigorous reviews" of American financial institutions and practices. The European-dominated College of Supervisors would also weigh in on issues like executive compensation and investment practices.

There is nothing wrong with the substance of this regulation. Experience is showing it is needed. But it is very wrong to delegate these powers to unelected, international institutions with no political accountability.

We have a Securities and Exchange Commission appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, both of whom are elected by the American people. It is with the SEC, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve that financial accountability must take place.

The European Union achieved this massive subrogation of American sovereignty the way it usually does, by negotiation, gradual bureaucratic encroachment, and without asking the voters if they approve. What's more, Bush appears to have gone down without a fight, saving his debating time for arguing against the protectionism that France's Nicolas Sarkozy was pushing. By giving Bush a seeming victory on a moratorium against protectionism for one year, Sarkozy was able to slip over his massive scheme for taking over the supervision of the U.S. economy.

All kinds of political agendas are advancing under the cover of response to the global financial crisis. Where Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism by regulating it, Bush, to say nothing of Obama, has given the government control over our major financial and insurance institutions. And it isn't even our government! The power has now been transferred to the international community, led by the socialists in the European Union.

Will Obama govern from the left? He doesn't have to. George W. Bush has done all the heavy lifting for him. It was under Bush that the government basically took over as the chief stockholder of our financial institutions and under Bush that we ceded our financial controls to the European Union. In doing so, he has done nothing to preserve what differentiates the vibrant American economy from those dying economies in Europe. Why have 80 percent of the jobs that have been created since 1980 in the industrialized world been created in the United States? How has America managed to retain its leading 24 percent share of global manufacturing even in the face of the Chinese surge? How has the U.S. GDP risen so high that it essentially equals that of the European Union, which has 50 percent more population? It has done so by an absence of stifling regulation, a liberation of capital to flow to innovative businesses, low taxes, and by a low level of unionization that has given business the flexibility to grow and prosper. Europe, stagnated by taxation and regulation, has grown by a pittance while we have roared ahead. But now Bush -- not Obama -- Bush has given that all up and caved in to European socialists.

The Bush legacy? European socialism. Who needs enemies with friends like Bush?

A recipe already doomed for disaster

By Merrill Matthews.

President-elect Barack Obama says his plan to ensure universal health-insurance coverage will lower family premiums by about $2,500 a year by the end of his first term - a roughly 20 percent reduction in the $12,000 cost of an average comprehensive family health-insurance policy.

While most health economists agree there is waste in the system - perhaps as much as 30 percent - the question is where is it and how to remove it? The Obama team suggests at least three areas for savings:

-- Computerizing medical records would save $77 billion.

-- Reducing administrative costs would cut out $46 billion.

-- Improving prevention and chronic disease programs would reduce spending by $81 billion.

How did Mr. Obama come up with those figures? Is he inflating those numbers (rather than his tires)?

The New York Times published a story recently outlining how some of his advisers reached these conclusions. Let's just say the process wasn't what you'd call academically rigorous. And it's certainly not the kind of hard numbers one would want to build a health care reform campaign around - unless no one is willing to exercise the audacity of inquiry.

Take Mr. Obama's $77 billion savings on computerizing medical records. The campaign pulled this figure from a study by the well-respected RAND Corp., which says that widespread (90 percent) adoption of health information technology would cost perhaps $8 billion a year to implement, but "annual savings from efficiency alone could be $77 billion or more." But the study goes on to say, "Because process changes and related benefits take time to develop, net savings are initially low at the start of the 15-year period, but then rise steeply." In other words, no help early on.

And now the Congressional Budget Office has raised questions about whether aggressive efforts to adopt health information technology would create any significant savings.

Of course, the fact is doctors and hospitals are increasingly computerizing their medical practices on their own - or at least mine are - without threats from the government.

Even shakier is Mr. Obama's hope of saving $46 billion in administrative costs. Government-run health care proponents claim that Medicare has a 2 percent administrative cost, while private health insurers spend 20 percent or 25 percent - or more. Both numbers are wrong.

As the Council for Affordable Health Insurance showed in a study by a Milliman actuary, that 2 percent is simply the cost of processing Medicare claims. The figure doesn't capture rent on the buildings, management, monitoring for fraud, etc. - all the things that private insurers must include in administrative costs. Medicare's real administrative costs are nearly three times the official figure, while the administrative costs of large groups in the private sector, which can maximize economies of scale, are only a little higher than Medicare's.

Finally, with regard to prevention and chronic disease, about 75 percent of our health care dollars go toward such diseases as obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer and others. Since many - though clearly not all - of the chronic diseases can be a result of lifestyle choices, getting people to change their behavior could significantly reduce total health care spending and improve quality of life.

But how do we do that in a free society? Many employers and insurers are taking a carrot approach, exchanging premium reductions or other perks when employees participate in certain measures or programs. The government, by contrast, tends to use a stick - and a pretty big one at that. Former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, for example, proposed requiring everyone to get preventive care and an annual physical.

To be sure, we can and should improve in the area of prevention and chronic care management, which could both improve health and save money. But be very skeptical of any proposal that claims it can save $80 billion a year. People just aren't that fond of tofu.

What Mr. Obama's plan really lacks - and why it will certainly fail - is a way to get the economic incentives aligned correctly so that consumers have a reason to be value-conscious shoppers in the health care marketplace. Instead, he distorts incentives even more than they are by imposing more mandates, regulations and price controls.

We probably can cut health insurance by $2,500 a year, as Mr. Obama suggests, but only by giving consumers, not bureaucrats, more control over their health care dollars.

Country First, No Surrender

by Guy Benson

The election is over, and the results aren't pretty for Republicans. Barack Obama won the presidency by a fairly comfortable margin, Democrats expanded their majority in the House, and the GOP is hanging onto the filibuster by a hair in the Senate. Now that the rallies have died down, the attack ads have been pulled off the air, and Americans are facing a new political reality, it may be instructive for those who supported the McCain-Palin ticket to revisit a slogan with which they're quite familiar: "Country First."

Throughout the general election season, this catchphrase adorned thousands of McCain rally signs, stump speech podiums, and election banners. It summed up, in two simple words, the essence of McCain's candidacy—the Republican ticket would put the nation's interests above all else, including partisan consideration and personal ambitions. Many of the 57 million citizens who pulled the lever for McCain have at some point waved a placard featuring this motto, and countless more have chanted it at campaign stops. Now that the votes have been cast and the people have spoken, what does "country first" mean for those who are disappointed with the results of November 4th? The Republican post-election manifestation of this noble creed should take several forms.

First, it should mean respecting the President of the United States, and the office he holds. The Left has attacked, defamed, belittled, and mocked the current president for the better part of eight years. They often carp about America's standing in the world without suspecting for an instant that their ceaseless efforts to tear down their own country's leader may well have contributed to the negative perception abroad. The Right should prove itself to be better than that by affording the new president the respect he deserves. Conservatives should do so not merely to foster a smug sense of superiority, but because it's the right thing to do. We face a dangerous and hostile world, rife with regimes and organizations that would like nothing better than to see the United States unravel. A modicum of national unity and solidarity could go a long way to put the country in the best position to confront these challenges.

President Bush's harshest critics vowed to move overseas after his election, and renewed the same silly pledge four years later. Disappointingly, precious few followed through on their immature threats, opting instead to undermine the sitting commander in chief at every turn. Many seemed to take a bit too much pleasure in American economic and military setbacks over the last eight years, so long as they could be laid at the feet of the man they so despised. When Katrina hit, prompting a woefully inadequate federal response, the near-joy with which the Left pilloried the Bush administration seemed to outstrip any real concern for the actual victims. Conservatives ought not fall into this political trap. Actively rooting against a presidency to the point of hoping for widespread suffering leading up to the next election is shamefully political and, indeed, unpatriotic.

Furthermore, the GOP cannot simply become the Grand Obstructionist Party. Knee-jerk opposition and partisan gridlock marked the Tom Daschle era in the US Senate from 2002 to 2004. What did these tactics earn them? A slew of lost seats, and a one-way plane ticket back to South Dakota for minority leader Daschle. Sen. John Thune successfully challenged Daschle, in part, by employing the rallying cry of "Stop the Obstruction" against a Democratic leader who orchestrated filibusters to thwart everything from Republican-sponsored legislation to a long roster of judicial appointments. The public viewed the Democrats as a party that had cornered the market on complaining and obstructing while proposing few proactive remedies. Sound familiar 2008 Republicans? With the roles now reversed, Republicans cannot simply be the party of "No!" over the next few years, as tempting as it may be. Not only do they lack the power or numbers to stop everything they'd like to, voters will continue to be unimpressed with a party whose main aim appears to be blocking and frustrating their political opposition.

On the other hand, a final—and crucial—element of embracing a "Country First" mentality is adhering to another McCain slogan, "No Surrender." It demonstrates neither good will nor patriotic fervor to simply lay down political arms and capitulate on essential values and principles. Granted, considering its weakened state, the Republican apparatus in Congress will be forced to pick its spots carefully to avoid the aforementioned obstructionist image, but when a cause is deemed worth fighting for, conservatives ought to battle to the political death.

A few examples come to mind. The possible attempt by the Left to silence talk radio through the Orwellian "Fairness" Doctrine is an abomination to the First Amendment and worthy of vigorous opposition. Card check, otherwise known by its misleading "Employee Free Choice Act" moniker, also merits a fight. Denying workers a private ballot on which to decide of whether or not to unionize represents an appalling transfer of power and intimidation tools to union bosses. Finally, the Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), which Obama once cited as a top priority, must be stopped. Pro-life and pro-choice Americans can agree that some reasonable restrictions on abortion are acceptable. Bans on partial birth abortions and parental notification laws, for example, are widely supported by Americans of all stripes. FOCA would wipe away virtually all democratically-implemented checks on unfettered abortion, and would introduce taxpayer funded abortion. This must not be tolerated, and should be resisted every step of the way.

In his election night victory speech, President-elect Obama quoted Abraham Lincoln's words, "We are not enemies, but friends...though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection." Obama then pledged to listen to the voices of the tens of millions who opposed him, explaining that he needs their help and promising to be their president, too. These Americans should heed his call for unity and give him the benefit of the doubt until he gives them reason to believe otherwise. They should also remind him of this promise, and make sure that their voices are heard loudly, clearly, and respectfully for the next four years.

Keep Right

By Jonah Goldberg

By now you’ve probably heard: The GOP is becoming too regional, too white, too old to compete at a national level. Democrats look like a merging of the cast of Rent and Up With People, while Republicans look like diehard fans of Matlock and Murder, She Wrote.

Fine, fine. The GOP needs to win over more Hispanics, young people, suburban women. That sounds perfectly plausible. But what does “win over” mean?

To listen to many pundits and analysts, it means Republicans must become Democrats. The GOP has become too socially conservative, and if it wants to win the support of mainstream voters, it will need to become more socially liberal. To be “economically conservative but socially liberal” is the beginning of wisdom for this school of thought.

Or, put another way, if only the party could be more like former New Jersey Gov. and Bush EPA administrator Christine Todd Whitman, these voices have been saying for years, the GOP would truly become the majority party. Remember the Alan Alda character on NBC’s blessedly defunct West Wing? We were told that his pro-choice stance on abortion would make the Republican Party vastly more competitive in places like California and New York.

The problem is that Alda’s TV character is only marginally more fictional than Christine Todd Whitman. Economically conservative social liberals are the “jackalopes of American politics,” in the words of the National Review Institute’s Kate O’Beirne. The press keeps telling us they exist out there in huge numbers, but when you go looking for them, they refuse to emerge from the bushes.

In fairness, many people do describe themselves this way. Most of the time we simply call them “Democrats.” Those who call themselves Republicans should more properly be called “confused.”

This is not to say that one can’t be a moderate on this issue or that and be a Republican. But the idea that social liberalism and economic conservatism can coexist easily is not well supported by the evidence. For example, in Congress and in state legislatures, the more pro-life you are, the more likely you are to be a free-market, low-tax conservative. The more pro-choice you are, the more likely it is that you will be remarkably generous with other people’s money.

Former Sen. Phil Gramm, the best deregulator of the last 20 years, was adamantly pro-life. Sen. John Sununu, who just lost a brutal campaign in New Hampshire, is a champion of economic liberty and social conservatism. Even Ron Paul, the arch-libertarian congressman from Texas, almost surely would lose his seat if he weren’t ardently pro-life.

One objection is that “economic conservatism” and “fiscal conservatism” are different things. One can be socially liberal and fiscally conservative, in the sense that you’re only willing to constrain your statist do-goodery to the extent you’re able to pay for it. This is certainly an intellectually defensible position.

But politically, this is hard ground to defend. It turns out that people who buy into the logic of social liberalism, not just on abortion but racial and other issues as well, usually find themselves ill-equipped ideologically to say no to additional spending on causes they care about. They even find it difficult to stay Republicans, as we can see from recent example Colin Powell, who endorsed Barack Obama for president for largely ethereal reasons.

It should be noted that it’s also difficult to be fiscally conservative and socially conservative if you’ve jettisoned the conservative dogma of limited government. We saw this in spades as President Bush embraced “activist government” and ended up wildly increasing government spending over the last eight years.

And that should serve as a warning to those, on the right and left, who would like to see the GOP defenestrate millions of actual, living, breathing members of the party — e.g., social conservatives — in order to woo millions of largely nonexistent jackalopes. The GOP would simply cease to exist as a viable party without the support of social and religious conservatives. But not so the other way around. We’ve seen what happens in this country when the passionately religious abandon love for limited government and instead embrace social liberalism and government activism. The results have been good, as in the abolition movement. And the results have been more mixed, like during Prohibition and the Progressive Movement.

The religious right is much more likely to stop being “right” than stop being religious. And secular conservatives and libertarians who passionately believe in limited government should be very grateful indeed that most of today’s religious conservatives believe in it, too.

Fifteen Questions For People Who Say the GOP Should Become More Moderate

by John Hawkins

After a second crushing defeat in a row, it's not surprising that there is a debate in the GOP about whether the party should move to the right or even further towards center.

Like many conservatives, I'm of the opinion that we should move back to the right and try to formulate some new ideas and messaging using conservative principles. However, some people disagree. For the people who do, I have some pertinent questions for which no convincing answers have yet been offered.

If you're going to argue that the party needs to move even further away from conservatism, especially on issues like fiscal conservatism and illegal immigration, I'd suggest that these are questions that need to be answered first.

#1) If both the GOP and the Democrats support bigger government, how does the country survive long term given the size of the debt we already have and the deficits we're running right now? In other words, how can running massive deficits possibly be sustainable over the long haul?

#2) If the GOP were to officially become a big government party, wouldn't there be a real danger of having a large third party spring up that would represent the considerable number (I'd say a majority, at least in the abstract) of Americans who do want smaller government and less spending?

#3) If the GOP becomes a big government party, how do you see us differentiating ourselves from the Democratic Party? Do we spend almost as much as they do, but not quite as much? Do we spend even more? Do we favor deficit spending, but just on different things? Isn't there a real danger that Democrats -- since their base tends to generally be OK with excessive spending -- could simply outbid us on anything we offered to the American people?

#4) Since the majority of the GOP's core supporters don't agree with "moderate" positions like big spending or amnesty, feel very strongly about it, and feel those positions harm the party politically, how can the party continue to hew to those positions over the long term without being permanently at odds with the people who should be their strongest supporters?

#5) Let's do the math on amnesty: there are roughly 12-20 million illegal immigrants, most of whom are Hispanics. Hispanics broke 70/30 for the Democrats in 2006 and 69/31 for the Dems in 2008 according to the latest exit poll data. If the split stayed at 70/30 and 12-20 million new illegals were made citizens, that would mean the Democrats would add another 4.8 to 8 million potential new voters as a result of amnesty. The top end of that scale is a larger margin than what Barack Obama won by in 2008.

Additionally, even if the GOP improved our numbers with Hispanics -- which we certainly need to do -- we've never come close to getting 50% of the Hispanic vote. With all that in mind, isn't amnesty political suicide for the GOP?

#6) Some people tend to assume that Hispanics vote almost entirely on the illegal immigration issue, but I would assert that there is very little objective evidence for that. George Bush and John McCain are the two biggest proponents of amnesty in the Republican Party and neither of them is particularly popular with Hispanics today. In fact, according to exit polls, against a candidate who was thought to be weak with Hispanics, John McCain only got 31% of the Hispanic vote. So, what objective evidence convinces you that Hispanics vote largely on illegal immigration and that if the GOP supports amnesty, it will get us over the 50% threshold with Hispanics?

#7) Given that the mainstream media overwhelmingly supports the Democrats, it's extremely important for the GOP to have the support of conservative talk radio hosts, magazines, and the RightRoots. Since the new media is overwhelmingly comprised of conservatives, how does a moderate GOP gain their genuine support over the long haul?

#8) Follow-up question to #7: If the GOP can't get the new media back enthusiastically on its side -- which is likely to be the case unless there are changes on spending and illegal immigration policies -- how does the GOP get the base fired up? In other words, if Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, etc., etc., are telling everyone who'll listen that the Republicans stink, how does the Republican Party work around that?

#9) Setting aside the conservative media, obviously the conservative movement is lacking energy and passion right now. Many people, myself included, would say that this has a lot to do with the position that the GOP has been taking on immigration and spending issues. How does the GOP get conservatives supporting the GOP again, instead of just opposing the Democrats, if the party continues to pursue big government policies and amnesty?

#10) If amnesty, big government, and deficit spending are winning issues for the Republican Party, why did we take such a huge beating in 2006 and 2008 despite pursuing those very policies?

#11) Over the last two elections, moderate Republicans haven't quite been wiped out, but percentage wise, they've suffered much higher losses than conservative Republicans. If moderate Republicans can't even win elections in moderate districts now, why would we want to adopt that losing philosophy across our whole party when conservatives are winning at a much, much higher clip across the country?

#12) As moderate columnist David Brooks has said,

There is not yet an effective Republican Leadership Council to nurture modernizing conservative ideas. There is no moderate Club for Growth, supporting centrist Republicans. The Public Interest, which used to publish an array of public policy ideas, has closed. Reformist Republican donors don't seem to exist. Any publication or think tank that headed in an explicitly reformist direction would be pummeled by its financial backers. National candidates who begin with reformist records -- Giuliani, Romney or McCain -- immediately tack right to be acceptable to the power base.

So, there are no moderate think tanks, no moderate donors, the new media is overwhelmingly conservative, the Republican base and activists are overwhelmingly conservative -- shouldn't that tell people something about whether the idea of a moderate GOP is workable?

#13) Follow-up question to #12: If a moderate Republican Party is workable, how do you make it work without the new media, think tanks, money, or an excited base on your side?

#14) John McCain was the most moderate candidate the GOP has run since Richard Nixon. In fact, he's the standard bearer of the "moderate Republican" wing of the party and yet the media trashed him, he had trouble raising money -- and other moderates, including prominent moderate Republicans like Colin Powell and Christopher Buckley, voted for Obama. In the end, McCain received almost 4 million less votes than Bush did in 2006. Doesn't that suggest that moderate Republican candidates may have trouble raising money, retaining moderates, and generating the enthusiasm from the Republican base that will be needed to win?

#15) When the Democratic Party was out of power, the party moved to the left, not to the center. They obstructed the GOP at every opportunity, put hard-core left-wingers in charge of everything, and ran an extremely liberal candidate in 2008. Granted, they also had moderate Democrats that they ran in states and districts that leaned red, but those people are almost completely locked out of power and their agenda is largely ignored. Since that strategy worked so well for the Democrats, doesn't it make more sense for the GOP to pursue the same strategy instead of continuing the move to the center that has done so much damage to the party over the last two elections?

Obama Announces Gun Ban Agenda Before The Final Vote Count Is In

Senator Barack Obama's presidential campaign slogan, "the audacity of hope," should have instead been "the audacity of deceit." After months of telling the American people that he supports the Second Amendment, and only hours after being declared the president-elect, the Obama transition team website announced an agenda taken straight from the anti-gun lobby--four initiatives designed to ban guns and drive law-abiding firearm manufacturers and dealers out of business:

"Making the expired federal assault weapons ban permanent." Perhaps no other firearm issue has been more dishonestly portrayed by gun prohibitionists. Notwithstanding their predictions that the ban's expiration in 2004 would bring about the end of civilization, for the last four years the nation's murder rate has been lower than anytime since the mid-1960s. Studies for Congress, the Congressional Research Service, the National Institute of Justice, the National Academy of Sciences, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have found no evidence that gun prohibition or gun control reduces crime. Guns that were affected by the ban are used in only a tiny fraction of violent crime-about 35 times as many people are murdered without any sort of firearm (knives, bare hands, etc.), as with "assault weapons." Obama says that "assault weapons" are machine guns that "belong on foreign battlefields," but that is a lie; the guns are only semi-automatic, and they are not used by a military force anywhere on the planet.

"Repeal the Tiahrt Amendment." The amendment--endorsed by the Fraternal Order of Police--prohibits the release of federal firearm tracing information to anyone other than a law enforcement agency conducting a bona fide criminal investigation. Anti-gun activists oppose the restriction, because it prevents them from obtaining tracing information and using it in frivolous lawsuits against law-abiding firearm manufacturers. Their lawsuits seek to obtain huge financial judgments against firearm manufacturers when a criminal uses a gun to inflict harm, even though the manufacturers have complied with all applicable laws.

"Closing the gun show loophole." There is no "loophole." Under federal law, a firearm dealer must conduct a background check on anyone to whom he sells a gun, regardless of where the sale takes place. A person who is not a dealer may sell a gun from his personal collection without conducting a check. Gun prohibitionists claim that many criminals obtain guns from gun shows, though the most recent federal survey of convicted felons put the figure at only 0.7 percent. They also claim that non-dealers should be required to conduct checks when selling guns at shows, but the legislation they support goes far beyond imposing that lone requirement. In fact, anti-gun members of Congress voted against that limited measure, holding out for a broader bill intended to drive shows out of business.
"Making guns in this country childproof." "Childproof" is a codeword for a variety of schemes designed to prevent the sale of firearms by imposing impossible or highly expensive design requirements, such as biometric shooter-identification systems. While no one opposes keeping children safe, the fact is that accidental firearm-related deaths among children have decreased 86 percent since 1975, even as the numbers of children and guns have risen dramatically. Today, the chances of a child being killed in a firearm accident are less than one in a million.

Robocop's Comment:

No wonder we are ransacking the gun stores. God help us.