Illegitimacy: Gun to America's Head

Were it not enough that the mainstream media glorifies casual sex without consequences, to make things even better your elected government is doing its part by indoctrinating your children into a similar mindset via the public school system. Your tax dollars are going to the effort of creating arguably society's largest source of its problems: illegitimacy and single motherhood.

Even liberals are starting to notice how devastating single motherhood is to our society. Though they maddeningly refer to as divorcees and widowers as "single mothers" to try to "class up" the term (much like they want to call the US Military a successful government program), the true issue are those who are unable to keep from getting pregnant until marriage. Social science has shown that the most accurate indicator of a person living in poverty or in crime is whether or not they were illegitimate. The very liberal Progressive Policy Institute, in a study that lasted ten years, demonstrated that the children of single mothers constitute: 90% of adolescent runaways, 85% of pre-graduation substance abuse, 60% of rapists, 70% of murderers, 65% of high school drop-outs, and 65% of teen pregnancies. And this study ended ten years ago- there are a lot more illegitimate children now. One in four children today are born without fathers.

Consider this: when you control for illegitimacy in prison populations, the population proportion difference of race vanishes (for those of you who went to public school, that means there are as many white people as black people).

This epidemic has been caused by three major factors- welfare, media glorification, and public "education".

Welfare making the illegitimacy problem worse has been so often talked about I don't feel the need to go into it in huge detail here, and the other two factors aren't talked about as much in any case. But, just so its covered: whoever came up with the idea that paying people to do something wouldn't cause them to do more of it was probably "educated" in a public school.

Media glorification is probably the smallest contributing factor of the three, but by no means is it a small matter in and of itself. Americans have been conditioned to believe that two classes of people must be held above all others as selfless and put-upon victims: single mothers, and public school teachers.

How often have you read a news report about some public policy proposal and the reporter mentions "the effect on single mothers"? How often have you seen single mothers introduced to speak at political events? Kerry, Obama, and Bush all had single mothers speak at an event meant to promote an inane policy proposal of theirs. There are events for single mothers, they're mentioned in just about every liberal plea to expand welfare, called the "victims" of Bush's tax cuts about four thousand times a day in the New York Times. The question is: why? Why are we told to respect these women? Why are they allowed to speak at presidential events? Why am I sure that I'm going to be hated just for saying this in a public forum? It's taboo, and it's lunacy.

These women are not victims. A dictionary will tell you the definition of "victim" is "a person who suffers from a destructive or injurious action or agency". In other words, by choosing not to keep their legs together before marriage or, failing that, not put their child up for adoption; they are the ones victimizing. There is an entirely volitional act involved with becoming a mother (just ask a public school kindergartner). They are consigning their children to being second-class citizens from the get-go (remember, highest indicator of poverty is not being raised by parents who are married).

No, we should not hate single mothers, nor revile them. But it is absurd that they should be so respected, when their primary contribution to society appears to be raising criminals. I believe it is far more heinous to condemn their children while kowtowing to the women who ruined their life. I don't hate single mothers, I simply care more for the children. And about not getting mugged.

My proposal: double the income tax on unwed mothers. You want less of them? Stop subsidizing them, and create something other than an incentive.

Then stop glorifying them. We had that case a couple years ago where a bunch of high-school girls formed a "pregnancy pact", and each got pregnant on purpose. They're 15. One of them's "lover" was a homeless man, who managed to woo her with rides in his shopping cart. This is a travesty. Far be it from those morons who think children are as smart as their parents, minors tend to be pretty dumb and impressionable. If you throw propaganda their way, they will believe it. This is why we have liberals, who are generally devoid of any actual facts, just slogans.

Which leads me to the final contributing factor and my third solution to the illegitimacy problem: public schools. I'm not sure how anyone can continue to think "sex education" is helping the situation at all. Not only are you allowing the government to talk to your impressionable child about morality- which sounds like madness to me- it's been thoroughly proven to encourage kids to have sex. Don't believe me? What was the rate of STDs and teen pregnancies in the early 60's? Ok, now fast-forward to today, after fourty-odd years of the liberal's policies on sex education. What's the rate now? Causing 10 girls to practice safe sex doesn't help if 10,00 more girls are having sex. The "they're going to have sex anyway" argument I would assume is fairly idiotic, because the societal problems associated with sex did not reach epidemic proportions until (1) welfare and (2) sexual education.

Try that sort of education with other issues on kids. "Don't kill people- but if you do, make sure to pick up your brass afterwards!" "Don't steal- but if you do, make sure it's only candy or something cheap." Sex education apparently doesn't cover the negative effects of promiscuity enough. Far be it from me to be surprised that the government isn't doing something effectively, but this is also the fault of parents as well, allowing strangers to teach their children their morals.

(As a quick aside, another misunderstanding of today: the job of parents is not to make them like you. The job of a parent is to make sure they grow up into something other than a degenerate/criminal/Democrat.)

The solution to the taxpayer-sponsored indoctrination of our children was mentioned in my last column, which would be abolishing government-run education entirely or at least give vouchers. Failing that, most certainly abolish sex-ed, since its track record has been something less than stellar. Failing that, then parents should realize the cute little children are impressionable morons and take their duties as parents more responsibly.

Public Education: Government Making Your Child More Stupid (and Making You Pay For It)

As the nation is in conflict over giving the government control over a sixth of the nation's economy and a rather important part of our lives, perhaps we should recall what happened when we gave them control of another important part of our lives: education.

Now, almost everyone makes jokes about how stupid high-schoolers are, and have probably heard such from me- but let's consider the subject seriously. We'll forget for a moment that the primary purpose of public education was to indoctrinate children (as John Dewey himself said so often, or liberal icon Woodrow Wilson put it: "Our problem is not merely to help the students to adjust themselves to world life...[but] to make them as unlike their fathers as we can.") You see, the greatest source of resistance to "progressive", state-enlarging and authoritarian change is the nuclear family, since it instills morals that the state might not agree with. Thus we have liberals constantly trying to bring us government-run pre-school, so that they might ruin our children earlier.

But putting that issue aside, I think with an impending expansion of government control over us it might be useful to remember how effective our government has been in the past with other large programs. We could look at the post office, which is notoriously inefficient and wastes millions of tax dollars simply because it's illegal to compete with it (a nice fascist touch). We could look at welfare, which has created an epidemic of illegitimacy (which happens to be the single worst problem our society has, giving rise to a cornucopia of other problems). We could take a look at Social Security (broke), Medicaid (fraud-ridden and inefficient), or public transportation (an utter waste of money). But I think the simplest option would be the public school system.

I can think of nothing more inefficient than public schools. Last year the federal government spent almost $100 billion on education- which, I should also note, is interesting since the Constitution quite clearly states that education is in the purview of the states, and not the federal government. When you add how much the states and local governments spend, you get almost $900 billion (an estimate of the Census Bureau). What does almost $900 billion (and remember that's just per YEAR) in taxdollars by our children?

Stupidity! When you look at the standardized international test scores for all nations, American students actually do worse the longer they spend in public school. The tests are for fourth, eighth, and twelfth grade. Our fourth graders rank almost at the top in science, math, and reading comp- the science scores only beaten by South Koreans and the Japanese. Once in 8th grade, American scores drop dramatically, averaging in the 60th percentile in science. At twelfth grade, once our students have had the full benefits of public education, they're only beating Lithuania and South Africa in science comprehension, and few countries in math or reading either.

Consider that the courts in New York- where they are ranked 6th in the nation for spending more money per student- ruled that graduates of New York City schools were unfit to sit on a jury.

Simply put, public schools- well, they don't really do anything useful. Half of all people who work at public schools are not even teachers- they're part of the endless bureaucratic machine that always accompanies government institutions. At private schools, 80% of employees on average are teachers.

Also, thanks largely in part to the teacher's unions (who, remember, represent teachers, not children) the teachers that ARE teaching our children are incompetent- to say the least. You can find many hilarious stories about teachers failing tests meant for eighth graders, and needing the standards lowered in order to continue teaching. In Godless, Coulter relates a story in which a teacher fails repeatedly at a test with questions so simple it's mind-boggling. Eventually he paid a homeless man with a history of mental illness to take the test for him- and drew suspicion to himself because the homeless man did so well.

Now, this isn't to say all teachers are incompetent- I had many great teachers, after all- but I could also think of quite a few that I knew most of the class was smarter than. Also some who simply did not need to be around children (there are so many reports of sexual molestation by teachers it makes jokes about Catholic priests seem silly), or were lazy, or just completely incorrect. A degree in education is often considered to be one of the easiest to get- which I find relatively easy to believe inasmuch as teachers don't bother actually knowing anything they teach- unless what they're teaching is factually incorrect, in which case they'll be sure that they "know" it.

But the single most important defect in public schools, in my opinion, is the fact that they teach barely anything on how our government works, and then maybe for only a year. And there are almost no classes on economic theory in most public schools. They even routinely teach complete lies to students as a subtle indoctrination attempt- fascism is "right wing", that there's any doubt of the Rosenburgs' guilt, or of Sacco and Vanzetti's. Also that "McCarthyism" existed or that Gorbachev won the Cold War for us, or what Watergate really was, or global warming, or the more fun examples such as that teacher a few years back being taped as saying America was a terrorist nation. Then of course there are the endless lawsuits about schools' suppressing Christianity but forcing impressionable 12-year old students to pretend to be Islamic for the course of two weeks (dressing similarly, observing the Five Pillars of Muslim faith, and playing a "jihad board game"- yes, that actually happened in- where else- California at a tax-payer-funded school).

I can personally recall instances that revealed how great our public schools were. For example, everyone's heard the fun bit about Christmas being banned in schools, where saying the word "Christmas" is punishable by watching a Clooney movie. But I WAS forced by threat of grade reduction to color something that celebrated Kwanzaa- which is a holiday invented by an FBI stooge. Or where I was told that if I went near a biology teacher (I had asked him if he wanted to help sponsor a debate between intelligent design and evoluion one time) I'd have a restraining order put on me. Or the amazing moment in my AP US History class that I was the only one to know which two presidents had been impeached- none of my liberal classmates could remember that the second one was Clinton. I was...astounded to say the least. And they called me stupid.

I could probably rant on and on about how effective our public schools are, but by now I'm sure I've gotten across my point. Privatizing schools or even school vouchers are certainly helpful solutions to schools that churn out illiterates who should not be allowed near a voting booth. So would the ability to fire bad teachers. So would having teachers who knew something of history- really, the issue is that they have no competition, so nothing bothering improves. The liberal solution- throwing money at it- certainly does not work, D.C. spend the most per student and has the worst schools (primarily since a lot of that money goes to bureaucrats- vice principals in New York city make over $100 thousand a year- a superintendent $300,000). For managing schools that probably do more harm than good.

Just remember how much the government is ruining our children and wasting your money on something that everyone takes for granted now when you think about nationalizing health care- and they've had over a century to work on this.

The True Conservative (Part I)

Though I've been meaning to write an article similar to this for some time, it's seemed as if I was having trouble thinking of exactly how to phrase or write it. So now I'll simply do what I do best- just write, and let it flow out as it should.

In my conversations, discussions, and arguments of all things political, I have found that there seems to be a consensus on what "conservatism" is that is highly inaccurate among liberals, and even moderately inaccurate among moderates and "conservatives" themselves. Inasmuch as I have grown weary of people accusing me of holding views that I do not have, I thought it would be prudent to spell out what "conservatism" is, as I understand it.

As many wiser men before I have said, the best way to understand something is to understand its history. I'll attempt to be brief here, but it will make the rest of this column easier to understand. Modern American "conservatism", is not really in fact conservative. Yes, it is technically more conservative than modern "liberalism", however today's conservatism is really American classical liberalism- the idea that every man is a free individual, born with inalienable rights. Also inherent is the idea that the government is set up in service of the people, there to insure their basic liberty and empowering them to better themselves through their own actions. In a sense, we "conservatives" are really the liberals.

But what does that make liberals? Modern American liberalism is nearly identical, and indeed the (somewhat) evolved form of the American Progressives (you might have sometimes heard a liberal refer to himself as a "progressive", this is completely accurate- moreso than the term "liberal" would be). Progressives grounded their policy views in the beliefs that the government was meant to provide for every citizen, and every citizen was bound to one another in order to create a more perfect society. Social responsibility. In a word, socialism.

However, the Progressives had a different point of view than the communists- while the communists wanted to apply their ideas to the entire world ("Workers of the world, unite!"), the Progressives had a more nationalistic view, and merely wanted to apply socialist principles to strengthen the nation. Their policies meant to further this goal included nationalizing industries, extinguishing (or at least marginalizing) religion, militarizing the citizenry, and eugenics. There is another word for this, and indeed they (before 1940) showed much affection for its European cousin: "Fascism."

Now, since most of the people reading this went to public school, they're probably under the mistaken impression that fascism is a "conservative" or "right-wing" thing, but nothing could be further from the truth. I guarantee you that no American conservative would ever agree with expanding the government and nationalizing the economy- as a matter of fact, we're strenuously protesting it with our new, Progressive president. It is in fact, exactly how the Nazis termed it- it's what "Nazi" stands for, the "National Socialists". The Progressives on this side of the ocean were praising Mussolini and even Hitler for fascism's supposed successful strides, up until the point we went to war with them and "fascism" became a dirty word, quickly regulated to being merely an epithet for whomever liberals don't like, devoid of any real political meaning.

In any case, I can (and probably eventually will) go into a more in-depth reasoning for why it is so; but suffice to say that modern liberalism in America is really 1920's-30's era Progressivism. "Conservatives" are actually classical liberals. That is to say, some of them are.

Here's where it might become rather uncomfortable for my "conservative" friends, because I do not believe that there are many true conservatives left. We are not represented by any political party in this country. True conservatives support the classical ideals of American liberalism- the original, strict interpretation of the Constitution and the Framer's intents with writing such a thing. We take into account the overwhelming Christian influence in their lives, and their having just won their freedom from a tyranny. We truly believe that the federal government was delegated certain powers, as it says: The powers of the Federal Government are few and specific, the powers of the States many and ambiguous.

Any true conservative (from this point, I will refer to "true conservatives" as "classical liberals") can see that the federal government has overstepped its boundaries in an indescribable way, and has far too much control over both its citizens and its States. We can tell you that 98% of government programs are not only wasteful but completely unconstitutional, the Federal Government is in an egregious violation of its rights and powers according to the Constitution.

Classical liberals believe that the plan the Constitution laid out was a pretty solid one: simply enough, the only jobs of the Federal Government are: foreign affairs, war, international trade, and maintaining a common national currency. Nowhere would any possible part of the Constitution support the Federal Government's programs on welfare, education, regulation of the domestic economy- the list could go on and on (it CERTAINLY wouldn't provide for "bailouts" using our hard-earned money to save incompetent companies). Foreign affairs, war, and international trade, and maintaining a common national currency. That's it. That's the Federal Government's job. Everything else was clearly delegated to the States- and the States can pretty much do what they want within their borders, subject to the will of its voters. They can make state religions (as many used to), ban or legalize gay marriage, the likes with flag-burning amendments, polygamy, whatnot- that's within the States' rights.

Here's where most "modern conservatives" and classical liberals (TRUE conservatives) like myself part company. A lot of modern conservatives want to use the Federal Government to expand their own beliefs- for example, a marriage amendment to the Constitution. I believe that this is wrong in its entirety. I believe that any unnecessary expansion of the Federal Government (when such an issue can be resolved easily within the state, as has been done) is unconstitutional in a most extreme sense. No, I do not believe homosexual marriage is either moral or legally prudent- but that's for the citizens of a State to decide. Inasmuch as their marriage laws should have no bearing on the citizens of another State, if a state were to legalize homosexual marriage, the Federal Government should not have the power to decide that the State is not allowed to govern its own affairs. Conservatives who promote the idea of a federal Marriage Amendment are no less fascistic than the militant homosexual lobbies promoting the opposite.

The problem, as Jonah Goldberg put it, is that "we are all fascists now."

I will conclude my observations about what a true conservative is in the next column- try not to berate me that this one is unfinished inasmuch as it's clearly titled "Part I".

"The Watchmen" Review: 0/5 Stars

It has some stylish, comic-book action. That's about the only plus.

This is categorically my new least favorite movie, and anyone with any knowledge of history whatsoever might understand why. Though allow me to first state; even if you have zero understanding of history (I suppose I could merely insert "if you're a liberal" here) it's still a pretty mediocre movie- it drags out certain things much longer than necessary, and it's far too long- and I'm one who typically prefers longer movies. The rampant nudity and one full-out pornographic scene is entirely unnecessary and detracts a lot from the film, and you get absolutely nothing from the rest of the film as a whole.

The film's setting is a world in which Nixon is in his fifth term, the Soviet Union still exists, costumed heroes run about with vigilante justice, and the world is still under the threat of nuclear annihilation. To wit, it's absurd. The undercurrent of leitmotifs bring back everything the left was saying before and during Ronald Reagan's presidency: "detente" and "containment" (and in many cases, appeasement) are the best we can hope for, there's no moral difference between the Soviet Union and the USA, moralistic values are useless in the Cold War, etc etc.

The whole film is some liberal's fantasy world in which Nixon is some evil man who is practically dictator of America (let's see, which party were the candidates who ran or tried to run for more than two terms from again...ah yes, Democrats!) and thinks that losing the East Coast after launching a preemptive nuclear strike against the USSR is acceptable, the only thing keeping the Soviet Union in check is some superhuman, all-powerful being (most assuredly not God)...again, etc.

The entire time I was trying to figure out- even given Hollywood liberals' constant interjection of their inane politics into movies- how any of it had any possible contemporary relevance. The final answer: there was none.

At the risk of giving away the ending (meaning: spoiler alert, skip this paragraph if you plan on seeing this awful movie); the bad guy who kills millions in order to cause the USA and USSR together is portrayed as an actual good guy due to his all-knowing, "brilliant" scheme in order to create world peace by only losing a few million (American) civilians.

At this point, anyone in the audience should be thinking: "Hey wait, didn't we win the Cold War? Wasn't it done by a man who didn't need to sacrifice millions of Americans in order to cause peace?"

Yes, but liberals refuse to recognize this, and must subject Americans to wasting nine dollars a ticket in order to try to rewrite their concoctions of how history should have been- even though reality is demonstrably better. This movie would have been inane in the 70's- it's completely ridiculous after the Soviet Empire has already been defeated.

Almost throughout the entire movie; I was thinking: "Yeah...or..."

Reagan did precisely the opposite of what the film described: he unequivocally stated the obvious fact that the Soviet Union was an evil empire, detente does not work; and perhaps we should try to win- as opposed to his predecessors' policies of detente (which they came up with while wearing woman's underwear). His policies of bleeding the Soviet Union on many fronts, beating them in the arms race, and walking away from the negotiations table in Iceland after refusing to abandon Star Wars demonstrably caused the Soviet Union's collapse. Contemporary liberals were hysterical, saying Reagan would "blow the world up"- instead, he won. Without blowing anyone up, without firing a shot. He proved liberals had been wrong for fifty years straight- so of course they must use films to pretend as if his very policies this movie maligned were completely inconsequential. The only thing this film left out was the "dark night of fascism under Joe McCarthy."

As a final slight, they had to put a comment about Reagan being an "absurdity" in the very end of the film. This, simply enough, was breathtakingly infuriating. They slighted the man who caused the movie to be completely idiotic. He won the Cold War, so liberals will thank him for it by mocking him at the end of a movie about the Cold War being ended by means of a horrific lie- the very reason the movie had no contemporary value whatsoever was mocked by Hollywood know-nothings.

I left the theater so angry I was shaking, this being the main reason: my generation decides to get a lot of their historical data from movies. Now of course this movie's not going to cause people to believe the Soviet Union still exists, but the young idiots my age will come away without any actual knowledge apart from the film- based on how well public schools tend to do with things like history; they might actually think that detente was the only possible policy. Then of course, they will come away with the oft-repeated idea that Reagan was just some doddering fool who happened to be in office when the Soviet Union collapsed; as opposed to reality: Reagan's policies were the reason it collapsed. He was strong, he made Americans believe that they should win against godless, tyrannical mass murderers, he made liberals cry about "offending" the Soviet Union, he completely changed policies regarding the Evil Empire, and he won. There was a reason he won in the largest electoral landslide in history; carrying 49 states.

He is the greatest men in the past century, if not in American history- and liberal blowhards will forever hate him for proving them wrong. A man of this greatness does not deserve to be maligned by Hollywood know-nothings in girly-girl, eye-poking attacks called "movies."

I merely can hope that this nonsense will be refuted by more people than me.

Obama: Taxation Without Forethought (Part One)

Everyone's heard the campaign rhetoric- Obama will raise taxes only on the rich, that he will cut taxes for 95% of Americans. Couple of points on this.

First off, it is impossible to cut the taxes of 95% of Americans. According to the IRS, 35% of Americans pay no federal income taxes to begin with, with the top 2% of earners already paying 40% of the load. A phrase often used on Obama's campaign trail was "tax relief"- most certainly not the same thing as a tax cut. A "tax cut" is the action of lowering taxes. "Tax relief" is a Democrat's euphemism for expanding welfare. If we needed another obvious indication of Obama's intent to "spread the wealth" in a socialistic manner (besides his direct quote "I intend to spread the wealth around" in the now-famed "Joe the Plumber" incident), that would be the best candidate. How this expanded welfare is going to be paid for; with the government already toeing the line for a $1.2 trillion dollar deficit this year, is rather ambiguous. Merely raising the taxes on the already unfairly-taxes 2% would most certainly not cover this, so it is impossible to believe he will not raise taxes on the same middle-class worker he swore to serve.

Even assuming he managed to keep this promise (anyone remember the "Read my lips" line from Bush(41)?), his massive spending plan would surely eat up even more of our tax dollars. Though he has included what he calls "tax cuts" in the new update to his bailout package ($350 billion of it) in order to entice Republicans to support it, we conservatives must look beyond just the phrase "tax cut" to see what it entails. He basically wants to give a $500 tax rebate to every American, and typically I have no issue with the government giving us our money back.

However, there are two main flaws with this. One can be shown by looking at the 2008 "stimulus package" in which Bush gave a $600 tax rebate to Americans. The idea was to put money in consumer pockets, so they'd have more to spend and thus boost the economy from the demand-side of things. However, research shows that only 6% of it was used to buy new things- everyone else either saved it or used it to pay off debts. Consumers look ahead- only a permanent, fixed tax cut would give them the confidence to start buying more. This check would go the exact same way as the last, doing nothing to stimulate the economy and being a complete waste of taxpayer dollars.

The second, glaring issue with this is he wants to give this tax rebate to ALL Americans- including the ones who don't pay taxes already. Taxpayers would actually be losing money on this proposal, as their hard-earned dollars they are promised back would go to those who don't pay any taxes whatsoever. And again, the rebates would not inspire any consumer confidence, merely be used to pay off debt and saved.

If Democrats insist on focusing on the demand-side of economic stimulus, they might as well try something that works: cutting taxes across the board. Reagen did it, worked wonders.

A better policy would be to look at the "low end" of economics by looking at employment. Again, conservatives have mostly lost the message that Reagen clarified: lowering business taxes an regulation helps the little guy as well as the "big guy". In free markets, when one fails; the other typically does as well (today is a good example of that, as well as the great depression and any other free-market recession in the past hundred years).

A common argument today is that the current failure is due to the "deregulation" of the markets. Au contraire! Allow me to quote at length Walter E. Williams:

"The Federal Register, which lists new regulations, annually averaged 72,844 pages between 1977 and 1980. During the Reagan years, the average fell to 54,335. During the Bush I years, they rose to 59,527, to 71,590 during the Clinton years and rose to a record of 75,526 during the Bush II years. Employees in government regulatory agencies grew from 146,139 in 1980 to 238,351 in 2007, a 63 percent increase. In the banking and finance industries, regulatory spending between 1980 and 2007 almost tripled, rising from $725 million to $2.07 billion. So here's my question: What are we to make of congressmen, talking heads and news media people who tell us the financial meltdown is a result of deregulation and free markets? Are they ignorant, stupid or venal? "

As has been proven time again through history, and is applicable today; is the rule of thumb that more regulation and more taxes means more cost to doing business. You increase the cost of doing business, companies have less money to hire new people or pay more to their employees, thus hurting the little guy at least as much as said company, if not more.

Inasmuch as this has dragged on more than I'd expected, I'll give outline the rest of the issues with Obama's proposed tax policies at a later date.

I'm Pro-Choice, Too!

Among the more notable phrases marking an extremely left-wing person is for them to say that they’re “pro-abortion.” Inasmuch as the left is typically denouncing Republicans’ devious use of code words to try to reinstate slavery or introduce fascism to America, it is the left who never really say what they mean. You’ll never hear an abortion advocate say that they’re “for abortion”- after all, nobody is “for abortion;” there are only people who are “pro-choice.” But it’s those conniving Republicans you have to watch out for, they’re attempting incite lynchings with tax cuts (Representative Chuck Rangel (a Democratic Congressman from New York): “It’s not ‘spic’ or ‘nigger’ anymore. They [Republicans] say, ‘let’s cut taxes.’”)

As an aside, ought racism, fascism, or bigotry be self-evident in an argument? If it were, merely reciting the proposal itself would be able to explain its fallacy, why always the “Bigot!” or “Nazi!” or “Homophobic!” warning label? You’d think if Republicans actually had all of this hatred for minorities it would occasionally bubble over into the public discourse, yet you never hear any direct quotes belying what evil racists Republicans allegedly are. To paraphrase Ann Coulter, the only way to be sure to avoid any “code words” and appear to be what we are not, conservatives must be consciously, stultifyingly boring.

In any case, from the same crowd we get the idiotic “tax cuts equals slavery” formulation, we get the “pro-choice” wording. “Pro-choice” only refers to abortion, of course, with them there is no “pro-choice” tax hikes or “pro-choice” gun control or “pro-choice” school prayers. The only issue with which we must be concerned about the individual’s right to choose is on abortion.

So, tell you what: I’m “pro-choice” on gun control, allowing taxpayer money to be spent to pay for art therapy for the homeless, taxes in general, torture, the death penalty…you get the picture…

Allow me to continue commenting on the state of abortion affairs in America: I had to admit it was outright surprising to see how many young Christians were campaigning for a man who has easily the most pro-abortion records among presidential candidates to date. Any Christians agree that a baby is a “punishment” you should be allowed to kill in order to avoid consequences? No Christians out there campaigning for him even seemed to want to comment on his positions about abortions, only about the “change” he would bring about (apparently by selecting a nearly all-Clinton/Bush staff- yes, I know he’s the one in charge but does that not rankle with anyone?).

Another comment on his policy, and another paraphrase (I don’t have the internet available at the time of writing this), this time by renowned economist Thomas Sowell: “Americans are reacting to the economic trouble by cutting back their budgets, buying cheaper and buying less. Only does the government believe that having less money can be solved by spending more.” Obama’s plan to add another $755 billion on top of the last $700 bil is going to tank us faster than almost anything else that could be done. To be fair, I was extremely irritated with Bush completely ignoring Congress’ (correct) decision to not bail out the automakers and giving them the money himself- more than they’d even asked for. When the auto industry collapses under the weight of its union-responsible cost of production, allow me to be the first to blame the Bush administration (probably second or two hundredth by this juncture, but I don’t defend people of my party if they do stupid, non-conservative things. Ignore the repetition there.).

Why the “bailout” policy has suddenly become so popular I have no idea. Perhaps its caused by the people believing the government should be doing something, primarily because they’re unaware that markets fluctuate regularly and pretty predictably (this recession predicted time and again by conservative economists wary of Fannie and Freddy, and the government-mandated loans to people who couldn’t afford them). But I do have a pretty clear idea of is the effect of government intervention in free markets throughout history- heavier the intervention, the faster the market tanks.

Contrary to the op-ed section of the New York Times, FDR’s New Deal actually prolonged and greatly increased the severity of the Great Depression. Economic historians know this, and yet people today are all praising Obama’s “new New Deal”.

The unemployment did not tank when the stock market did in 1929- it climbed steeply after the effects of FDR’s government-intervention policy took hold, the unemployment hitting double digits in the early ‘30’s and hitting its peak in 1935. The “job creation” programs that Obama wishes to emulate would cost the taxpayer something along the lines of $285,000 per worker. The biggest flaw with such programs is that the jobs are intended to build public works- that’s great and all, but no consumer-buyable product is being created. Instead of cutting taxes on businesses to stimulate private industry employment, which has lasting effects on those employed because it enables them to have a job doing something that continually needs manufacture and servicing, thus creating long-range job security; the government wants to take millions away from the private sector in order to build dams, roads, etc. etc.- temporary jobs that will not stimulate the economy, as taxpayers will have to shell out even more in order to accommodate public works programs. Extremely telling are the words of Henry Morgenthau JR, FDR's Secretary of treasury:

"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot."

Feel free to write your Congressmen and President, and tell them to butt out of the free market- would do us all a great service

"Candidate of Change" Promotes 60's Agenda

Every time a politician says that they want to change things, be cautious. When people promote him as something completely new- be downright frightened. There is an old saying that there is nothing new under the sun- and this goes triple for politics. Believe it or not, there are no new ideas.

One of the trademarks of the left is their preference of the planet’s state to actual human beings. I would argue that the planet’s been around for some time now, and to think we could destroy it is pretty arrogant- but no matter, that’s speculative and thus of no real value. I do wish they would have some argument for global warming other than saying “the debate is over!” and holding their hands over there ears and screaming like a two-year old when anyone tries to bring up all of the scientists against this idea. A recent Senate report on global warming had over 600 scientists (well-renowned, doctorate-holding climatologists, physicists, astrophysicists) saying that there is in fact, no global warming (and many even expressed concerns over “global cooling”, some believing that the next Little Ice Age may be upon us soon).

With temperatures hitting record lows across the country, and the hysteria over “the ice caps are melting!” now well-known to be debunked (for those of you who don’t, only the Arctic one is shrinking by a miniscule amount- the Antarctic is actually growing); the left’s desperation for people to believe them about global warming is becoming apparent for what it is: fear-mongering. You know, the same thing they accuse Republicans of doing about terrorism. Except that I can think of 3,000 reasons right off the top of my head from fall 2001 that terrorism is real, whereas global warming has not only killed no one, but is also- to be really generous- highly questionable.

In any case, the real issue of this column is about Obama’s plans for the coal industry. The San Francisco Chronicle revealed that earlier this year Senator Obama offered the following during the course of an interview: “If somebody wants to build a coal power plant they can, it's just that it will bankrupt them because they are going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted.” He has said outright that he plans to bankrupt the coal industry via cap-and-trade policies and heavy taxation; in order to help our environment. This would almost be understandable if coal these days actually hurt the environment.

When people think of “coal plant”, they generally think of grainy images in textbooks of smokestacks releasing noxious black clouds into the air stretching for miles. Rarely do they envision the truth of the coal industry today: state-of-the-art, modern facilities which emit 98% less noxious fumes than they did even twenty years ago. Apart from various environmentalist group studies (hardly unbiased) that put “coal-pollution deaths” at around 24,000 per year, the two fumes that are released by coal plants turn out to be ones that wouldn’t be harmful to humans if they were present ten times as heavy.

I find it dangerous and infuriating to have a president who knows so little about something he wants to effectively shut down. Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that coal plants do kill 24,000 people a year, on a national level. Okay. Now, what do you suppose will happen to states that are almost completely dependent on coal-powered electricity if Obama bankrupts the coal industry? West Virginia, Ohio, Wyoming, Colorado, etc. These states’ economies will come grinding to a screeching halt when none of their businesses have power. What about their hospitals? Is it not arguable that the power to hospitals saves more lives than the 24,000 coal fumes supposedly kill?

This exposes the fallacy of the argument anyway: cars kill many more people per year than coal ever has total- but people are aware cars are necessary and the benefits of transportation outweigh the risks. Why can they not see the same about coal power? Furthermore, what will you replace it with? Liberals will not let us build nuclear power either (though every other civilized country has it). Wind power? Texas has the most wind-power of all the states; guess how much their huge windmill fields generate?

Two percent.

Those hot, arid days when people need air conditioning the most in Texas (you know, the days when there isn’t any wind blowing), they use coal (34%), oil, natural gas. Those things that actually work. Imagine what would happen to West Virginia (95% coal-powered).

So, basically, Obama is saying that not only people’s standard of living, but their life, their financial security, and their health must all step aside in the name of the environmentalist lobby- even when that action would be disastrous for our country’s economy and healthcare, and standard of living as a whole.

Inasmuch as there is no alternative that is ready and able to replace coal (unless you count those they won’t allow us to build), especially in the aforementioned and other coal-dependent states, this is a completely irrational idea and we as citizens need to mobilize against it, as well as other eco-idiocies.