Mr. Brown Goes to Town

With the election of Scott Brown as a senator from Massachusetts many have tried to draw lessons for Democrats nationally while some insist there is no lesson nationally. I see some very important lesson for liberal Democrats, especially President Obama. Here they are:

· You cannot govern from left of Massachusetts without consequences. Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts are just the beginning. We are not France or Denmark. We are right of center and you are not just out in left field, you, Mr. President, are not in the ball park.

· President Obama, you recently said, “The same thing that swept Scott Brown into office swept me into office. People are angry and frustrated.” You are right. Bush and the Republicans spent outrageous amounts of money. Many of the states that voted for McCain sent Democrats to Congress, just to try something new. Now you have done Republican sins times ten. What did you expect?

· Picking a fight with Fox News was stupid. It beats all the other cable news channels combined every night while your precious Air America dissolved in bankruptcy this week. Where do you think most people heard about Scott Brown?

· Your elitist hubris offends voters. Making fun of Mr. Bown’s truck reminds us of how you bemoaned how the common plebes “bitterly cling to their guns and religion.” Making fun of and attacking citizens protesting your policies is not a strategy any president has ever employed. Hate us if you will but we still get to vote.

· Million, billion, trillion; it matters which one you use. Mr. Brown was sent to Congress largely to keep you straight on that. We cannot afford Obamacare, Cap and Tax or any of the other socialist crap you keep trying to stuff down our throats. And while you’re at it, why don’t you, just for a change of pace, propose something that at least 50 percent of the country supports?

· I know it did not occur to you to use ACORN in Massachusetts like you did in Minnesota but if you let them anywhere near the 2010 census, we will call for your impeachment.

· Mr. President, you lied about earmarks, putting lobbyists and tax cheats in the government, and open-door meetings on TV. Didn’t you think we would notice? If your policies were so wonderful, why do you have to bribe lawmakers to vote for them. Mr. Brown was sent to stop this crap or at least keep it from passing. Would you have actually signed the Cornhusker kickback into law?

· Very high in the polls in Massachusetts was the incompetence this administration has used in fighting terrorists. Shutting down New York for your date night was bad enough, but shutting it down for a show trial of terrorists who already confessed does not play well outside of Tehran. The way you coddle terrorists has got sales of “Depends” disposable underwear sky rocking in the Middle East (some of those terrorist leaders are quite old and making them laugh so hard at your ludicrous policies gives them bladder-control problems) but can you not find a better way to stimulate the economy.

· And while we’re at it, it’s the economy , stupid. Trying to spend our way to prosperity is stupider. Try tax cuts. It’s so simple even Sarah Palin could to it!

· Stick a fork in you legislative agenda; you’re done! Enough government intrusion; enough socialism. Go play golf in Hawaii or tour the balconies of Europe where they love you. You might be surprised how much the economy at home recovers while you are gone.

· Most of all, get to know Scott Brown. Love him or hate him, come November we have about fifty more like him coming to a Congress near you.

Haiti and Denmark: Lessons in Destroying a Nation

When Oprah Winfrey was in Denmark to help the Olympic bid for Chicago, she took the opportunity to create an exposé of this socialist utopia. She was absolutely giddy to discover how wonderful Denmark was with free education, free healthcare and free sunshine. She aired her special this week just as Haiti had its terrible earthquake. For liberals such as Oprah and her good friend President Obama Denmark may be their dream for America but Haiti would be the reality.

In a socialist utopia the idea is to redistribute the wealth so that there are no poor. No country in Europe has undertaken such radical wealth redistribution such as the Danes. Free education through college and free medicine are among the reasons they have been rated the happiest people on earth. They are held up as health conscious and environmentally conscious; nearly all adult Danes ride bicycles on a daily basis with children and groceries in toe, according to Winfrey. It makes you want to just bring all that happy socialism here, does it not?

Now with all due respect to Oprah, it’s time for the truth. Denmark does have an advantage over other socialistic experiments such as the USSR and Cuba. It introduced socialism without violence; it just ignored its own constitution and slowly implemented it one law at a time. Sound familiar? There are no poor living on the streets because the government pays 90 percent of your salary when you get laid off or fired. But there are no rich there either. Taxes take 70 percent of the Danes’ income, preventing people like Oprah from every becoming wealthy.

But the high taxes pay back in the form of great social services. The Danes think so, which accounts for the high rating of contentment. But this mindset is set more in cultural thinking than reality. The Danish lifespan has not increased since 1970 and now rates near the bottom in the European Union. Like all universal health care systems, it rations care and people die regularly waiting for needed operations. Many blame this on drinking and smoking; Danes smoke at almost twice the rate as Americans. Oprah’s claim that Danes are health and environmentally conscious seems ridiculous. How could all the smoke be good for either their health or environment? It owes more to the fact that the government forces them out of cars with 90 percent sales tax, 180 percent registration fee, annual car taxes, fuel taxes and green taxes. Trust me, they are not riding bicycles in subzero weather because they want to.

But at least all that free education is providing them with greater opportunities, right? Actually, the US has twice the percentage of college graduates as Denmark. People here choose what they wish to study and the free market rewards them. Denmark tells students what to study although applicants are allowed to make requests. People are increasingly requesting social studies and less math and science. Maybe the schools do a lousy job preparing scientist or maybe the stark right-and-wrong nature of math and science is too harsh for a socialist society. Maybe something a little less concrete, like global warming, will get more interest in “science.” Maybe they should host a world conference on the subject. Oh, wait, they did, just before being plunged into the coldest winter of the last 50 years. Oh, well.

Denmark does such a lousy job planning its economy, it relies heavily on Germany to provide what it does not (sort of like those Canadians we have). People who want to leave find the government continues to strip them of their wealth through taxation of pensions after they leave, even though they lose all rights to vote as an expatriate. Some have proposed laws requiring repayment of education expenses first which would create a new iron curtain. For those who stay, pensions are capped at inflation plus three percent. Savvy investors are taxed 100 percent beyond that. I bet they forgot to tell Oprah that.

For all this socialistic engineering Denmark is just Haiti in the making. Haiti is overrun with corruption. Denmark has allowed judges and politicians to say the constitution means whatever they want it to and are now selling judgments and votes in return for money and favors. Haiti takes most of the wealth of its people through criminal extortion and corruption. Denmark does it through taxation. Crime in Haiti is out of control, especially violent crime. Crime in Denmark since 1960 has gone up 700 percent, although the population has hardly changed. Violent crime has risen steeper. Both Haiti and Denmark invent nothing and export little. Neither has a military developed well enough to repel an invasion from a country like Iran and are, therefore, dependent on other nations for their own defense. Because the incentive to work in Haiti has been destroyed by criminals, few are employed and crushing poverty is spread equally. In Denmark less than 10 percent lived on the dole in 1970. Today it is eclipsing 20 percent. Counting that with government employees, about 40 percent of the population lives off the government. Destroying the work ethic through the welfare state means some good times for now but Haiti is coming to a Dane near you.

Now as the US goes off to rescue Haiti, let’s try to learn some lessons while we are there. Corruption destroys nations. It isn’t just about sex and I don’t care what the senators from Louisiana and Nebraska said, you can’t go around buying votes. You can’t keep taking from us, even if you think we are rich. High taxation is just legal extortion. Governments cannot spread the wealth around, just the poverty. And the constitution says what the founders meant. It was put there precisely to stop you from cramming universal healthcare down our throats. Go help the Haitians but then help us by getting out of our way, out of our lives and out of our pockets. Then go help the terrorists and I don’t mean with clean water, art therapy and tax-payer funded tours of New York!

Current American Politics For Dummies (But Conservatives Will Like It Too)

He was hailed as the great Messiah, ushering in the death conservatism as Democrat registrations soared in 2008. Both houses of Congress went Democrat in his honor as he rode in on the back of the Clintons. A year later some still argue which was the savior and which was the ass but just like Jesus, only a short time has passed since fawning praise has given way to cries for his execution, if only in a political sense. And while Jesus stood with grace and forgiving majesty as the previously palm-throwing crowd now called for Barabas, the fact that a near majority of Americans wish Bush were back has got be gulling to the man-child president Obama whose skin is thinner than his excuses for not turning the economy around. This week we now hear that the number of people who self identify as conservative has reached a 20-year high. What?! I thought that dragon had been slain? And how did Palin sell so many books before they were released in bookstores? And what do we make of the tea party movement? Whoever can make sense of this political landscape and articulate conservatism at least as well as Obama can say nothing while reading from a teleprompter, could emerge as the leader of a movement. Although I do not have that as my goal, I would like, nevertheless, to try. In this blog I explain the political landscape.

Everyone understands that the political landscape is divided between right, middle and left. Skin-heads and racists make up the extreme right but are considered whacko and have been rejected by the political main stream since the David Duke was ousted from the Republican Party in the 1980s. On the extreme left, you have socialists and communists. In recent years, the extreme left has found its way into power. Although it is every bit a minority as the racists, it has captured the imagination of some very rich people such as the Hollywood elite and the Billionaire George Sorros.

Under Ronald Reagan conservatism coalesced as economic conservatives (less government, less spending, lower taxes) and moral conservatives (traditional Judeo-Christian values such as pro-life, pro-family policies). This left the Democrats with everyone else. While it’s common to find gun-toting, Jesus-loving patriots who want lower taxes and to protect the unborn, how often to you find anti-war, men-hating, gay activists who belong to a teacher’s union, want to ban guns, protect abortion, raise taxes and think that the nation’s founders were evil white slave-owners. Ok, so MSNBC seems to find plenty of them but how many of them are there really. If they existed in any great number, don’t you think ACORN would try to register them to vote instead of going after dead people and cartoon characters?

Among the American political spectrum we have four categories of voters. First there are issues voters. They cling to a party because it coincides with their view on one or more issues important to them; abortion or taxes, for example. The second category is the no-matter-what voter. They will not budge on how they vote not matter what information they get. The third category is a mixture of the previous two. They vote based on an issue based on how they think a party feels about that issue regardless of what evidence is presented that the party does not coincide with their position. The fourth category is the rice-bowl voters. Filling their rice bowls, their very existence and livelihood, depends on the government. A voter can be in more than one category and these categories exist in both sides of the political spectrum but not in equal numbers. This is largely due to the difference between conservatism versus liberalism and the way politicians/office holders have packaged and presented them.

Conservatism is largely an intellectual pursuit; liberalism is largely an emotional pursuit. Category 1, the issues voters, overwhelms the political right and much of the middle. When Republicans went to Washington as the majority, promising the usual stuff, they drank the power Kool-aid, betrayed their voters and found themselves ousted by an angry electorate in 2008. Much of the new Democrat majority came from states that went for McCain. What was thought to be the death of conservatives was just issues voters doing what issues voters do, throwing out the bums. And if you are a pro-abortion Republican running against a pro-life Democrat in a right-leaning district, you are going to have a problem, even if you like lower taxes and Grandma’s apple pie. The converse it not true. Harry Reed comes from a conservative state but gets no grief on the national stage from liberals for his voting record as a pro-life, pro-gun rights Democrat. He got a pass on his recently revealed racist remarks concerning Obama made during the campaign because voters from categories two and three dominate the Democrat party. The same courtesy was not afforded Trent Lot for his comments during Strom Thurmond’s birthday party. An us-versus-them mentality evolves among these voters. They make excuses for the offenses of their own while vehemently attacking the other side for the same or similar offense. Bad behavior is often defended with “Well, Bush did the same thing”. That was the crux of circling the wagons around Clinton while subsequently engaging in Bush bashing, even long after Bush has left the public scene.

Recently the ueber-liberal Joy Bahar stated that she did not understand how Sarah Palin sold so many books considering most of her fans cannot read. The data show (there goes the truth messing up the left again) that among voters lacking a high-school diploma, they vote majority Democrat. Many of them are category two, no-matter-what voters that are not educated and refuse to be educated. Emotional speeches about nothing will get them excited but make sure you bus them to the polls. Their lack of commitment to education and improvement make them fickle voters. They may even fall for hoaxes about election day being on a Wednesday this year. Often they spill over into category three. They are usual poor and are appealed to through emotional campaigns like class warfare and minimum wage. Over taxation of the wealthy has caused a drag in the economy and the recent raise in minimum wage has inflated the unemployment. But these facts have no effect on them; their brains just do not process it. Many vote Democrat because they think it promotes minority rights. The Civil Rights act of the 1960s was passed in the face of most Democrats voting against it because an overwhelming number of Republicans (the minority at the time) voted for it. While we have seen the black family disintegrate under welfare and affirmative-action pats on the head that substitute for actual education, black voters continue to vote Democrat.

The fourth category makes up those that live off the government. Expanding the government and government programs is crucial to expanding liberal power. The health care bill coming out of the senate does not cover everyone, does not lower health care costs but does raise taxes. The president is still interested because it expands the number of rice-bowl voters. Professors also belong to this category but Obama also loves them because they provide hare-brained theories to try out on the American economy.

Into this political cauldron we have three new phenomena that provide the golden opportunity for a new conservative leader. First, the conservative voters have been largely abandoned. Only after 2008 have Republicans in Congress put their foot down and said “no” to all the liberal crap being jammed down our throat. But too often, even as the majority, they let the Democrats set the agenda, proposing only modifications to liberal bills. This political pull to the left is in response to the second new phenomena; the whacko far left has become issue oriented and rich. Obama, who ran as centrist, winked at the radical left as he collected their money. But he is now trying to govern from the left and has enraged the regular left, middle and right, giving rise to the third phenomenon, the tea-party movement.

To exploit this opportunity we need a leader with three key qualities. Quality one is genuineness. Campaign from the right and government from the right. If you are Christian, Jew or agnostic, be that. But be conservative and live conservative values the best you can. Category one voters are the only ones you can reach and they live on the right. And remember that independent voters are just conservative voters that do not want to be labeled. The political right and the right-leaning middle make a political voting majority. The left (including the press) will be vile and nasty so you need quality two. Have a spine. Remember, bipartisanship to a liberal means shut up and do it my way so stand up to them. Third, and most important, teach, preach and explain conservativism. You cannot let the left define you like Gingrich and Bush did. Reagan was always speaking to the people and not just from a teleprompter. Pushing the political landscape back to the right (where it wants to be naturally) will make it all the more difficult for Obama to get his socialist agenda through. This will save the country grief but also further anger his financial donors. If they get mad enough, maybe they will stop donating or maybe even move to France like they keep promising. Then the tea-party people can go back home and get back to living their lives, assured the country is safe and leave all the rally stuff to the out-of-power, whacko left. Don’t forget your ace in hole: Conservativism works and liberalism does not. Be true to us and we will be true to you, quietly voting you back into office election after election, regardless of what Katie Curic or Rosie O’Donnel say. And we can keep Joy Bahar scratching her head until her finger hits her brain or whatever is underneath that thick skull. Wow! Image if that stuff leaked out. Can you say "Clean up aisle 9"! I wonder if you would have to call the CDC or the EPA?