It's an Elephant's Job

Vote Republican in 2020 to get the United States' economy back on track.

(cartoon political ad circa 1928)

The Demonization Machine

Conservative talk radio and Republican PACs have sabotaged the last two U.S. presidential elections and as a result gave us a President Barack Obama in both of them - the most liberal, divisive and constitutionally destructive president in U.S. history. A number of these radio shows continually bashed McCain and Romney during those two primaries and damaged their reputations so much that they could not recover for the general election, and many talk show hosts are again in the process of sabotaging the 2016 election. The PACs (political action committees) are just as bad and if they had held their fire and their tens of millions of dollars during the primaries of the 2008 and 2012 elections we may never have had Obamacare, and Libya, and ISIS, just to name a few. As for radio, I am speaking particularly of Glenn Beck and Mark Levin who are doing the kneecapping and who have very large audiences, but it is certainly not limited to just them.

What the intraparty destruction of other candidates does is make some Republicans and Independents so hate or fear the other candidate that once their guy or gal loses and it comes down to the general election, they just can't see themselves voting for the Republican candidate because they have been painted as so flawed and so evil that they don't vote or vote for a third-party candidate in protest. What we then end up with is a liberal Democrat president in the last two presidential elections. That alone should have been enough to motivate Republicans and conservative independents to vote for the Republican nominee, but as I say, the Republican nominee was seen as damaged goods by such a wide majority of Republican voters (due to the Demonization Machine) that they didn't feel like they wanted to have to vote for the lesser of two evils yet again and so didn't. The result of this is Obamacare, a lower standard of living, a lawless president with a weak foreign policy, etc, etc.

Of course the candidates in this 2016 election year are no better. It is ugly the tactics they use to destroy the other guy. Citizenship has been brought up, accusations of lies and financial mismanagement, character assassination, mocking.

What happens after all of this is that the supporters of each candidate get on Twitter and Facebook and double down on the trash talk. Twitter is the place where ridiculous claims about the candidates go to fester and metastasize into viral slander and unsupported lies.

So whether it is Donald Trump, or Ted Cruz, or Marco Rubio who ends up as the Republican nominee for President, the dirty fight leading up to the nomination is already souring voters in regards to the other candidates. Beck says he won't vote for Trump if he is nominated. What if a couple million of his listeners follow suit? Levin is clearly pro-Cruz and quite anti-Rubio and anti-everyone else. If the nominee is someone other than Ted Cruz will his support for that nominee be like it was when the fight had settled on a Romney nomination after months of kneecapping? Tepid at best? Will his listeners again not bother to vote because they have been schooled in all that is wrong with the nominee?

An Obama presidency would never have occurred if Republicans and independents had held their noses and voted for the "lesser of two evils" because the U.S. certainly has had the GREATER of two evils for the last seven years. The lesson to be learned is first, that there is no perfect candidate. The second lesson is that talk radio hosts (and PACs) have a huge impact on their listeners and ought to consider their culpability when it comes to that influence. Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh seem to have had the right tone in 2016. Though one knows who they might favor to be the nominee they don't bring the weight of their influence like a hammer onto the candidates, saving the brunt of their attacks for the Democrat challengers.

Unfortunately, the same thing seems to be happening this time around, but we may just be lucky that the present Democrat candidates will cause the same sort of voter apathy in 2016 which will help the Republican candidate win in November. But if a Republican wins in November it won't be because the Demonization Machine isn't well-oiled, because indeed it is operating as well as ever.

Roar: The New Conservative Woman Speaks Out - A Book Review

by Scottie Nell Hughes

Scottie Nell Hughes is a smart, ambitious, successful, and caring conservative woman. She is a loving wife and mother as well as a daughter with a large amount of respect for her parents and her larger family who we are introduced to in the book to some extent. This book’s target audience is supposed to be conservative women, but the wisdom here is applicable to people in general, not just women, and not just conservatives. She talks about parenting issues, so parents will benefit. She talks about career and employment and what she says would benefit job hunters or people working their way up the career ladder. But books aren’t always about the benefits you can take away from them. There are some engaging and inspiring stories here.

Of course, the main point of the book is that she wants conservative women to find their “roar” – to speak out for their ideals and to become more active in bringing about their desires for a better community.

Ms. Hughes highlights the problems with the Obama administration including the incredible debt, the burgeoning welfare class, and the sub-par employment picture in the United States.

One area that she talks about with heartfelt conviction is a woman’s right to self-defense. She delves into the ever-present and ever-expanding efforts to control guns from a uniquely female point of view.

"For the woman walking to her car down a dark alleyway or the mother of two who keeps a .38 snub in her dresser drawer, a firearm can serve (and has served) as a last line of defense between her and a criminal who does not care about law and order. If we’re going to talk about a War on Women, we should address the real war on women: the disarming of women. Guns are tools. Firearms do not only help the nefarious; they help the law abiding. They serve as an equalizer."

Ms. Hughes also discusses women’s roles in society such as in front line combat (which she is against), the workplace, at home, and regarding “reproductive rights,” birth control, and abortion. She doesn’t mince words and takes a firm stand on all of the issues she presents, all to be expected in a book titled “Roar.”

Romney/Ryan 2012

The choice yesterday by Governor Mitt Romney of conservative Congressman Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential candidate is a brilliant one and it's a winning ticket for the Republicans in 2012, not to mention everyone else. This choice shows that Mitt Romney is concerned about America's stagnant economy and will help to unleash businesses to grow. A successful businessman and a budget knowledgeable Washington politician are the right cure for what ails the flagging economy.

Did you know that Paul Ryan is just 42 years old but has been in Congress for more than 12 years? He is also chairman of the House Budget Committee.

Both of these men are for less government, something important to many Americans, including the Tea Party who will probably embrace the choice of Mr. Ryan. Less government and less ambition for what government should do will equal lower taxes for everyone, solidify America's credit rating again, and strengthen the economy. An unleashed business sector will increase revenues to the government, reducing borrowing and improving the U.S. debt and deficit positions. Salaries and job growth will rise because companies will be selling more products. The stock market will rise because companies will be doing better.

Additionally, both of these men care about smart healthcare reform and will work to repeal and/or neuter the costly and invasive Obamacare.

It is indeed time for America to come back. Romney and Ryan will lead this country toward a better 21st century and do it from the front, not from behind.

Ameritopia – The Unmaking of America - A Book Review

Get a copy from Amazon.

Ameritopia – The Unmaking of America

by Mark R. Levin

Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster

Last week saw the release of Mark Levin's new book, Ameritopia – The Unmaking of America. Mr. Levin has been marketing his book on his popular radio show for months and now that it has been released he has made his show an almost non-stop infomercial for the book. He did the same thing with his last book Liberty and Tyranny, which in my view was a better, more ground-breaking book. What has been proven by radio hosts Mr. Levin, Howard Stern, Glenn Beck and others with a book to sell is that using their microphone and their particular soap box, there is no better tool for selling books than a large radio audience. Unfortunately, Mr. Levin takes great advantage of this fact and rather than mentioning it just a few times and then moving on, his tomes become the centerpieces of his radio show for weeks.

All this said, I am a steadfast fan of Levin's radio show, but I cannot wait until he gets past being an unrepentant shill for his book.

As with his last book, Levin introduces a new term which he uses throughout the book, and ineffectively on his radio show, to describe the people who want to control our lives. Where liberal elite, radical egalitarian, elitist, and even Illuminati might be good enough terms to fill the bill, Levin repurposes mastermind, a term which is used by Napoleon Hill and his followers as a group of people serving as a larger sort of braintrust. Two heads are better than one. Levin's use of the term sort of parallels the use of the term in the sense of the evil James Bond anatgonist or of say, Osama bin Laden, but it doesn't work in the political philosophy sense in which he uses it and it is unnecessary in describing the political elite that want to control us.

While reading Ameritopia, it will be noticed that there is probably more quoted text in this book than there is original text by the author. That said, the quotes are generally enlightening and germane to the subject matter at hand.

In the first chapter of the book, Levin lays the groundwork for his thesis by saying: “Equality, as understood by the American Founders, is the natural right of every individual to live freely under self-government, to acquire and retain the property he creates through his own labor, and to be treated impartially before a just law. Moreover, equality should not be confused with perfection, for man is also imperfect, making his application of equality, even in the most just society, imperfect. Otherwise, inequality is the natural state of man in the sense that each individual is born unique in all his human characteristics.” This statement about equality is one that Occupy Wall Streeters and liberals in general will disagree with.

The author suggests that in the utopian worldview, an individual is just a cog in the wheel of society. This runs counter to what America is all about and, what Levin argues every utopian society offers, that is a loss of individualism, not to mention freedom.

Speaking of labor, property, and freedom Levin says: “...the individual's right to live freely and safely and pursue happiness includes the right to benefit from the fruits of his own labor. As the individual's time on Earth is finite, so, too, is his labor. The illegitimate denial or diminution of his labor—that is, the involuntary deprivation of the private property he accumulates from his intellectual and/or physical efforts—is a form of servitude and, hence, immoral.”

Throughout Ameritopia, Mr. Levin looks at utopian societies as envisioned by political philosophers of the past, starting with Plato from two thousand years ago. He finds that: “Utopianism requires power to be concentrated in a central authority with maximum latitude to transform and control.”

For example, Levin looks at Plato's Republic and de-idealizes his Ideal City. “But in the City, the individual is indentured to the state. Justice is synonymous with the well-being of the City. The classes exist to work as a harmonious collective to ensure order. Dissent, independence, and change are considered destructive. Ironically, it is unlikely Socrates would have survived long in Plato's City, given its totalitarian complexion.”

In his look at Thomas More's Utopia, published in 1516, Levin calls it “...a tyrannical society, destructive of individual sovereignty and free will, with many of the attributes of a communist state.”

The author next turns his critical eye toward Thomas Hobbe's Leviathan, written in 1651. He applies some slippery slope logic to Hobbes' utopian government, saying: “Indeed, is not an all-powerful Sovereign, which is Hobbes' answer, a great and more certain threat to the individual?” And having concluded that Hobbes' model government is sure to be despotic, Levin says, “Hobbes creates a false choice between polar opposites. Either they live in anarchy or live under despotism.” I disagree with Levin here concerning the quoted Hobbes material. He takes Hobbes Sovereign to its ultimate logical extreme, which would not always or often be the case. But Levin is correct that the civil society always needs to worry about who it invests its power in.

Levin then moves on to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' Communist Manifesto, written in 1846. Levin publishes a damning quote from the anti-humanistic treatise which those authors seem proud to expound: “In this sense the theory of Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.”

First of all, “Abolition of private property” is a phrase, not a sentence. But be that as it may, Levin handily evicerates the Communist utopia calling them “totalitarian regimes” where the people have no “individual liberties and rights”. I think it may be easily said that there is no single document which has resulted in more dead humans than the Communist Manifesto.

Levin then looks at some of the people who had a positive influence on the Founding Fathers. John Locke was one of those, a thinker who had a great deal of influence on the nascent country. Levin points out that Locke believed “that the wealth created and possessed by one individual does not prevent another individual from creating and possessing wealth.” This is a popular belief among conservatives in the U.S. today, and is something that is forbidden in the various utopias.

One of the thinkers that Levin reviews and talks about often on his radio show is Alexis de Tocqueville. In regards to the tyranny of government Levin mentions this: “De Tocqueville then made the profound observation that this dreary existence is accepted by the people, for they go through the motions of electing their guardians, deluding themselves that they and their fellow citizens remain free for they participate in self-government. However, as the administrative state grows, the vote is less effective and the individual is increasingly disenfranchised.”

I agree with Levin and de Tocqueville that the result of elections sometimes seems to result in little change, but voting is all we have when we want change in a representative republic. Revolution in a democracy can be as simple as voting the bums out. And as Levin often espouses on his radio show, it is imperative that if we want to effect change we must vote, not sit at home.

Mr. Levin's brief look at the liberal/statist Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt was instructive to me and I am sure will be to others as well, considering the whitewash these guys are given in the public school system. Of Wilson, Levin points out: “In short, for Wilson, rights are awarded or denied the individual as determined by the government.” And of Roosevelt Levin opines, “Roosevelt repositioned the utopians as enlightened, modern, and futuristic, and, conversely, presented the advocates of civil society and constitutionalism as obstructing individual and societal progress.”

Roosevelt's New Deal increased the scope and reach of the federal government in ways unprecedented since the ratification of the Constitution, some would say in breach of it. And in speaking of Roosevelt's “Second Bill of Rights” Levin says: “There is little space between Roosevelt's premise and the distorted historical views of Marx and Engels.” He goes on to point out how closely Roosevelt's “Second Bill of Rights” mirrors the Soviet Union's 1936 constitution.

Levin argues that America is already well on its way to being Ameritopia, the utopia that statists, liberals, and progressives want it to be. The federal government has burgeoned to an uncontrollable size. Taxing, spending and debt are irresponsible and immoral. Regulations and bureaucracy are leviathans unto themselves, intruding into every corner of our lives in spite of the Constitution, and entitlements burden and provide foundation for the growing utopia.

Levin says that the Constitution “...secures for posterity the individual's sovereignty...” Little wonder then that utopians attack the Constitution as much as they do. Levin states that it is still not too late to preserve the American republic.

Ameritopia is a cogent argument against utopianism. The reader will learn much of political philosophy. It is a fine historical essay as well. It's not an easy read by any means, especially considering all the middle English usage in the quotations, but you can grasp it if you soldier on.

But as far as fighting liberalism, progressivism, socialism, and Marxism, Liberty and Tyranny is the better book and it will have the longer lasting value.

Mark Levin's radio show can be found here.

Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny can be found here.

Mark Levin's Ameritopia can be found here.

2012 Presidential Primary Update

Things are looking good in the Republican primary race for the 2012 presidential election. After an ornery second debate on Fox News last week, Governor Tim Pawlenty has left the race and Governor Rick Perry of Texas has entered it. Pawlently placed third in the Iowa straw poll, which Michele Bachmann won by a small margin over Congressman Ron Paul.

After an errant Tweet by a staffer, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey has once again reaffirmed that he is not going to enter the race, much to columnist Ann Coulter's dismay.

Governor Sarah Palin remains cagey about her plans as far as running for president in 2012. To date, she has not denied or affirmed. But to all appearances she is certainly acting as if she could jump in at any moment.

Real estate developer and reality show Don, Donald Trump is still threatening to throw his hat in for 2012, but I think he will be content with Governor Perry's candidacy and will choose to stay out. However, if Mr. Trump doesn't like the eventual primary choice, then don't rule out an independent run for president from Trump. And though he believes he would pull voters from Obama in the general election, he would also split the conservative vote. It would probably be a disaster for the Republicans and lead to Obama's reelection.

Rick Santorum and Herman Cain are both still in the race, and they are both great conservatives, but neither appears to have the traction that Bachmann, Romney, or Perry have. I believe they will be the next candidates out of the race along with Newt Gingrich. Newt would be a smart and effective president and get the country's economy turned around, but he can't get conservatives to coalesce around him, much less the independents and Democrats he'd need for the general election.

Ron Paul's ideas resonate with blue collar Republicans, and young voters like no Republican since Ronald Reagan. However, he does not appeal to the broad base of conservatives or Republicans due to his drastic foreign policy and social ideas. He will likely stay in the race as long as he can to take advantage of the extremely visible platform that his ideas have as a presidential candidate.

On the other hand, Michele Bachmann is looking strong after her Iowa straw poll win despite the mainstream media bias against her and continuous, baseless liberal attacks. She looks poised and espouses a consistent recipe for dealing with the country's economic woes, as do most of the Republican candidates.

Presidential frontrunner, Governor Mitt Romney's poll numbers took a big hit this week due to the entrance in the presidential race of Governor Rick Perry. While Romney would make a fine president who would handle the U.S.'s economic woes much better than President Obama has, Governor Romney has some negative baggage that might make Perry more attractive to voters. We'll have to wait and see what kind of negatives come out on the Texas governor in the days ahead.

Is Ralph Nader running? LOL, jk.

Donald Trump, "Political" Opportunist

Donald and Melania Trump (by Boss Tweed)

I hate to admit it. I too was caught up in the Donald Trump possible-presidential-run media-hype, protocampaign tour as much as many other Republicans, conservatives, and independents are. He has compelling arguments. He is saying all the right things about China, OPEC, and Obama's spending. Trump's a successful, self-made "billionaire". He says he's conservative. He's a businessman and would do things as president that would benefit the American economy, and from the point of view of a CEO. I read "The Donald"'s first two books, the first one, The Art of the Deal, was a runaway bestseller and I enjoyed it very much. It was a motivating read. The second book, which may or may not have been called BlaBlaBla, wasn't nearly as interesting. Additionally, the real estate mogul and casino owner also has a successful show called "The Apprentice" and a commanding presence to boot. How many people can say they have a catch phrase? ("You're Fired") In short, he's a doer, not a socialist, community organizer looking to bring the U.S. down a notch.

But my thanks go out to radio talkshow host Mark Levin for opening my eyes to who this guy really is. Mark has been skeptical of Trump since his potential presidential run began. It started with questions about his financial contributions to politicians which were all over the map and seem to actually favor Democrats. Trump sloughed off this criticism as him just being loyal to friends and though he didn't say it, from how it looks it seems as if he is basically greasing the palms of everybody just in case in the future he ever needs to call in a favor from one of these politicians. I'm not saying he is doing this. I'm just saying it looks like that.


Here is the text of some of the recordings of Trump that Levin played on his show on Friday. You can hear them on Mark Levin's website and find them easily on YouTube. Go to the tape: "I'm impressed with Nancy Pelosi...but I'm surprised that she didn't try to have Bush impeached, which personally I think would have been a wonderful thing. He lied. He got us into the war with lies." "I think Obama will lead by consensus." "He's (Obama) done an amazing job." "Bush has been a disaster, he's been terrible...who could be worse?" "Bush has been so bad, so incompetent, so evil, I don't think any (Republican) could have won." And here's the pièce de résistance, something we conservatives say whenever we wake up in the morning, but in this case they are Donald Trump's words, "We must have universal health care."

Wow! What a true-blue conservative. Yep. What? You can't hear me through the dripping wet digital sarcasm that's slogging its sticky way through your broadband Internet connection? Sblorry.

 

But wait! Just when you thought we'd had enough fun for one day, Mr. Trump switches gears. Back to the tapes: "I used to say Jimmy Carter was the worst president in U.S. history, now I say it's Barack Obama." "Barack Obama is the worst president ever."

Donald Trump calls himself a conservative, and practically called himself a compassionate conservative (which was George W. Bush's label) the other day on Sean Hannity's television show. But many of Trump's views are downright liberal Democrat views. His venomous position on George W. Bush and the Iraq war is a liberal Democrat position. His view that America needs universal health care is a liberal Democrat position. His previous support for Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi is certainly not a conservative position. And a conservative would not financially support Chuck Schumer, Hillary Clinton, the Democratic National Committee, and the like.

While Donald Trump would be certainly be better to have in the office of President of the United States than Barack Obama, he would not be better than ANY of the other serious, and proven Republicans. He just happens to know how to play the media. His opportunistic "campaign" for president will end by his own hand when he sees the jig is up, when he doesn't need a ratings boost any more, or when skeptical Republicans dismiss him as the "fake, phoney, fraud" that he is.