Attacks on Senator Ted Cruz

The people attacking Ted Cruz are foolish. The simple matter of fact is he is simply bringing attention to an issue that the American people are very concerned about, Obamacare. Obamacare is a disaster that will continue to have negative ramifications and may cause the collapse of the most powerful economy in the world.

You might expect democrats and the left to be on the attack because they are the ones responsible for voting for this destructive law, but republicans seem more animated about Ted Cruz than the democrats. In all honesty, there are probably many democrats that are silently praying this train wreck is stopped since it is an albatross around their necks in the next election. Democrats will not campaign on Obamacare because unlike in the 2012 presidential election, when it was still relatively unknown how this law would impact the average voter, today we see the millions of negative stories associated with Obamacare. So for Senator Chuck Schumer to say there was an election already on the merits of Obamacare that is disingenuous. No democrat will campaign on this unless they are in a safe leftist district. So why the republican ire?

The simple answer is that Ted Cruz is upsetting the leadership apple cart. He is forcing the republicans to take a principled stand. And if there is anything the current republican leadership is afraid of is a principled stand. The GOP leadership is all about power just like the democrats. That is also why they demonize the Tea Party. The GOP should be very careful how they treat the Tea Party. They are the reason that the GOP holds the majority in the house and could be the reason they gain the senate. But it may not work out that way in 2014 with the current crop of GOP incumbents.

So the GOP should remember that if their strategy is to win in 2014 they better stop insulting the base of the voters in the GOP. Attacking Senator Cruz is the same as attacking conservatives and Tea Party patriots. The GOP does that at their own peril. The conservative and Tea Party voters are principled and will put primary challengers in place or stay home in 2014. Some things are worth fighting for. Defunding Obamacare is one of those things…

 

The Pope is Right and Wrong

The Pope recently chided the world for the worshiping of “the God of money.”  The under tone of the comments were a criticism of capitalism. The Pope was right that worshiping money for the sake of money is to have an empty life. But the Pope was wrong when he said “"We don't want this globalised economic system which does us so much harm. Men and women have to be at the centre (of an economic system) as God wants, not money.” "The world has become an idolator of this god called money," he said. This argument is too simple and could easily be heard by any two bit dictator of the world rousing the people’s ire.

The greatest way to end poverty is to unleash the human desire to take care of one’s self through the creation of products and services to be used by fellow humans. Capitalism is the answer to the world’s woes. To say that the worker is the where we need to focus is wrong. We need to nurture the free exchange of goods and services by individual and every size business. When we nurture business we create jobs. When we create jobs we need workers. To say you support workers but demonize the people that create work is a circular argument that ends the same, no work or workers.

Money is not evil. The pursuit of money is not evil. Money is simply the mechanism used to exchange goods and services in a market. The more money you make the better off your circumstances. The Pope needs money to travel. Nothing is free. So the idea that the pursuit of money is the problem in the world is a really disingenuous argument to create envy among the people. The Pope seems to want to blame capitalism and the pursuit of money as the reason for poverty in the world. The reason for poverty in the world is government control of the economies of the poorest nations. Show me a poor country and I will show you a corrupt government. Socialist, communist, and dictatorships are the cause of poverty. Any attempt to control people and markets smothers the economy.

There are greedy people in the world and they are usually found in those corrupt governments. There are some captains of industry that are greedy but in America most contribute to the many charities and causes that help the less fortunate. It is their choice to do so and that is the way it should be. To take their hard earned money under the guise of “fairness” is the real greed. That is what corrupt governments do.

The Pope needs to be a promoter of capitalism around the world if he really wants to help the workers of the world. To stoke the fire of envy in the world is below the dignity of his position. The Catholic Church has a history of keeping property in the ownership of the Church. One of the many reasons Priests were forbidden to marry has roots in keeping property in the “family.” In the 9^th century priests that were married willed property to their wives and in 1123 celibacy was made was made official. Was that dictate out of greed? Why not share the accumulated property of the church? Why not sell the Vatican and its furnishings to give to the poor?

I am not trying to bash the Catholic Church. I was raised catholic and we had family friends that were priests. But the Pope needs to nurture the spirit of the human condition which is fed through freedom, the dignity of work and the ability to be compassionate. The most compassionate people are those that have succeeded through a capitalist economy. The Pope needs to support capitalism and the pursuit of a better life for all and that requires money…

 

Real Poverty is Coming…

The Census Bureau recently released a report on poverty and the reporting on it in the media was predictable. The mantra was the “rich get richer”, “the gap between the rich and poor widens”, etc… Instead of an analysis of the cause of poverty, and how we could all be headed to real poverty, we heard the typical emotional arguments about the unfairness of some people doing better than others. Here is my analysis.

Let’s start with the definition of poverty: “state of being poor: the state of not having enough money to take care of basic needs such as food, clothing, and housing.” In most of the world this definition applies but in America, most people in poverty have plenty to eat, drink, and have a place to live, have a TV, cable, iPods, computers, cell phones, and a car. So how can this be poverty as compared to the rest of the world? This is not poverty this is income redistribution and an effort to foster class envy. It is also unsustainable, and if not corrected could be the beginning of the end of our way of life as we know it.

The democrats are notorious for stoking envy but the republicans are not exempt. The reason the opportunity class is shrinking is because the federal government is taking the wealth through taxation. The median income is down to around $50,000 per year, the lowest it’s been in a very long time.  Every dollar the federal government takes from the productive people to give to people in “poverty” the less money is available to be put to productive use in the economy. The people in poverty are getting what would be equal in value to a productive person bringing home $38,000 in wages. Is this poverty? We need to bring back real poverty so people have an incentive to climb out of it. We should feed people who can’t feed themselves and provide a basic roof over their heads but everything else must go.

Who defines poverty? The government and that is the problem. The government has a self-interest to increase its tentacles to ensure its survival and growth. It needs to be stopped or we will all be in poverty. Before you say, poverty doesn’t seem that bad, the poverty we will all encounter will not be what we see today. It will include a collapse of the financial system, food shortages and absolute chaos which will generate more calls for a government “solution” which is exactly what we don’t need. We need to collapse the central government.

The generations of people in poverty are mostly people that have failed out of the education system, depended on government for their subsistence for generations, are disproportionately black and minority, and are the most vulnerable to a struggling economy. They are squeezed out by the educated in society which are mostly white. That is where the dishonesty and racial politics rears its ugly head.

Poverty is the result of poor choices not race or some other demographic. Most people in poverty failed out of school, had children out of wedlock and in their teenage years, and have an attitude that someone else is to blame. Every one of the causes of poverty is subsidized by the central government for political reasons. The public education system is broken; the government undermines family, and the culture, and pays the poor for bad choices. Until we call it what it is we will continue to have the poor.

If we don’t reduce the power of the central government we will all become poor but not the poor we see today. We have a choice to make and little time to make it. What we need is a return to self-reliance and the greatness we achieved through freedom and free markets. The federal government is subsidizing the cause of poverty and it must be stopped by returning to our founding principles…  

Blame the Federal Government not the Rich

We are working less because the federal government is squeezing out the private sector. The “rich” are to blame according to the President and his party, but it is he and his party that are destroying the opportunity class and our future economic recovery. There is a full court press by this President to blame the rich and many will believe him but will never see a recovery until they accept the truth. The truth is that the only “plan” he has is to destroy the rich by taking away their incentive to produce through higher taxes and increased regulation.

If you believe the federal government is the answer, you are a significant part of the problem. Until we cut federal spending and intrusion into our lives we will continue on this path of misery. The federal government does not care about the individual. It is a leach that can only survive by sucking the blood of its host, the American economy. It does that by limiting freedom and stealing the wealth of the producers.

We can’t wait another 3 years to fix this and turn our country around. The 2014 election cycle needs to change the leadership in the house and senate. It is not republicans that will turn us around. It will be constitutional conservatives that happen to be republicans who are the leaders we need. We also need to follow the advice and guidance of Mark Levin.

The Liberty Amendments, the newest book from Mark Levin has the answer. We need to activate the state legislatures to stop the out of control bureaucracy in DC. There is no one in the federal government that can be counted on to put themselves out of business. We need to do it in the states if we are to survive.

This road will be difficult but the road we are on will be devastating. Stop blaming the rich and understand that the federal government is to blame. It is time to take back control and fix this country. It is up to us and the states. Stop investing any hope in people that are living off the federal largesse. They will protect their largesse with the fury of a cornered animal. We need to start acting like the cornered animal we are…

Remembering and Reminding…

Today is the 12^th year to the day of the attack on America by Islamic terrorists. That day is etched in the minds of most Americans, and almost everyone can tell you where they were, and how they felt that day. Most of us (including me) knew somebody who was a victim of the attack. We spend this day remembering the people who died and the people that heroically saved countless others from death.

But where are the reminders? The national media is very reluctant to show the towers on that day as they were struck and later crumbled to the ground. Every time I see those towers get struck by the planes and every time I see the towers crumble I am reminded of the importance of never forgetting there are still terrorists out there determined to kill us. Islamic terrorists hate what America stands for and would like nothing more than repeating the kind of attack that happened on 9/11/2001.

Why do we rarely see the images of this day? Why if they do show the footage is it done so rarely? It should be played over and over as a reminder of why we remember. Islam is a danger to this country and it is politically incorrect to say so. But every American knows that it is Islam that is at the root of the evil that happened that day. It is not a small radical sect of Islam, but rather a very large and organized group as seen in every Middle Eastern country currently in flames. Until Islam goes through a reformation or the people who defend Islam as a religion of “peace” speak out and condemn these terrorists, then Americans will remain suspicious and on guard against Islam.

In order to remember, remind, and survive, we must embrace the truth of the matter, view the images, and call the perpetrators for who they are and represent. That is the only way our future can be secured. We can’t put our heads in the sand on what this religion professes to accomplish. Sharia law and Islam are not compatible with a constitutional republic. That is a fact the way the religion is currently practiced.

Today we honor our fallen and our heroes. Today we remind our fellow Americans about who and why this was done to us. Today we remember to stay diligent and honest about what we need to do to remain free and keep our enemies at bay. Today we profess the truth in honor of those who were taken so brutally from us for simply being American…

The Federal Disconnect

The federal government is ruining the economy, undermining liberty and privacy, and now considering a military move to “punish’ Syria for using chemical weapons. Even when there is evidence that both sides in the civil war in Syria have chemical weapons, we are blaming one side over the other without knowing who actually used the weapon.

The American people have no interest in another war in another nation that hates our guts. When are we going to learn? What is it with Senator McCain, Graham, and now speaker Boehner, that they feel obligated to taking action? They are representatives of the people and only 9% support any action in Syria. Why the urgency? What is our interest? How will a couple of American missile strikes “punish” anyone for using chemical weapons? Needless to say, both of the factions in Syria are our enemies.

We have lost the connection of our representative republic. The Constitution is being trampled at every turn and no one in the government is listening to the people they are representing. The circumstances we find ourselves in are the exact reason the founders created a limited federal government.

It is time to reinstate our federal limits. Mark Levin’s new book the Liberty Amendments is correct in suggesting there is no way we can count on the federal behemoth to reform itself.  We must take control and reinforce the US Constitution by adding amendments that will codify any ambiguity of the founder’s intent. Like a balanced budget, limits on federal spending and printing money, term limits, and a number of other limits needed to get us back on a path of constitutional republic values.

The federal government has been too large for too long and the time is now to rein it in. These representatives will not vote for anything that will limit their power. They have been consumed by the self-indulgent importance in the “club” they have created in Washington DC. They need to be reminded who they work for and what their role is.

We need to reconnect in the political process to awaken the federal government to a renewed constitutional republic…