Monday, July 9, 2012

Republican Elitism Exposed

Well, I wrote this earlier today and had problems posting it.  So I re-wrote it for you here:

Thank you Romney supporters for finally making the point that I have been trying to get through the heads of middle and lower-class conservatives for a long time now.

At a fundraising event supporting Mitt Romney, supporters talked to a L.A. Times reporter.  Here's what I found interesting.  First, two of the people quoted in the article refused to give their names to the reporter.  One of the two said that it was because he feared that it would harm his business if he did.  I wonder why?  Could it be that people know what Romney is about and don't want to give their money to a person who supports a corporate puppet candidate?

The other supporter was even more fun.  I can't paraphrase what she said because it's actually too good:

"We've got the message," she added. "But my college kid, the baby sitters, the nails ladies -- everybody who's got the right to vote -- they don't understand what's going on. I just think if you're lower income -- one, you're not as educated, two, they don't understand how it works, they don't understand how the systems work, they don't understand the impact."

 Let me highlight the best part for you again -
"I just think if you're lower income -- one, you're not as educated, two, they don't understand how it works, they don't understand how the systems work"
First, let me point out the anacoluthon in her statement.  In case she reads this, that means that the syntax of her sentence changed mid-sentence.  She began by using the pronoun "you" and finished with "they."  That is a grammatical lesson from one "lower income" person who is "not as educated" to a rich, elitist, Romney supporter.  

So, according to the rich elite, because someone is low income they are obviously less educated.  Well...let's look at a list of people who weren't very well educated:

  • Abraham Lincoln - one year of formal schooling
  • Amadeo Peter Giannini - founder of Bank of America and high school dropout
  • Andrew Jackson - President, General, Attorney, Judge, Congressman - no formal education
  • Ansel Adams - world-famous photographer and high school dropout
  • Barry Diller - founder of Fox Broadcasting Company
  • Charles Culpepper - owner and CEO of Coca Cola and high school dropout
  • Dave Thomas - billionaire founder of Wendy's and high school dropout
  • Frank Lloyd Wright - never attended high school
  • Henry Ford - did not attend college
  • Michael Dell - founder of Dell Computers dropped out of college
  • Rush Limbaugh - millionaire media personality dropped out of college
  • Steve Jobs - Apple founder and college dropout
  • Bill Gates - Microsoft founder and college dropout
  • Walt Disney - no explanation needed - high school dropout

This is just a sample of the list.  So if these people aren't lower income how can they not be well educated?  The answer is because this woman's ideas are asinine.  The sad thing is that she in not in the minority when it comes to the Republican mindset.  These people actually believe that because we make less money than they do, that we are not as intelligent.

So, because these people have money, they must be more intelligent and we should just be putting the people that they like in office.  Never mind the fact that those people will likely work to make their rich friends richer and keep us ignorant poor people in our places.

But, what about the fact that over half of the recent college graduates are unemployed, you ask?  Well they don't count because they are poor.  According to this person's theory their education probably wasn't very good otherwise they should be rich like her.

The point is that there is a predominant elitist attitude in the Republican party.  They work very hard at convincing the middle and lower-classes that they are trying to protect their freedom and create jobs by giving themselves huge tax breaks.  How exactly does their paying less taxes result in me making more money or my neighbor getting a new job?  The theory is that these rich people will not just take the money to the bank, but use it to create new jobs.

Let's look at what Warren Buffet, one of the most well-respected and richest businessmen in the world, has to say about that:

"to those who argue that higher rates hurt job creation, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000. You know what’s happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation."


So, to recap, Republican supporters show their elitism even though their arguments make no sense and they are contradicted by someone who has reached the pinnacle of the business world.  Yet so many middle and lower-class people will still vote for Romney swearing that he will make things better for them.  Don't worry, if he manages to win, the upper class will thank you for your support by dropping off your pink slip on the way to the bank.



Political cartoons by David Horsey



Friday, July 6, 2012

Class Act Award: Will.I.Am


Today I feel like being positive.  I spend a lot of time pointing out negative things in politics and people, and it begins to wear on a person after a while.  So today, I’m going to focus on something positive – rap. 
No, not really.  I’m talking about a rapper:  Will.I.Am.  Over the last couple of years, it seems that every time I hear about him, it is because he has done or said something good.  Before writing this, I decided to look a little deeper into the Black Eyed Peas front man to see if my initial impression was correct.  With a little searching, this is what I found:

Will.I.Am and Prince Charles

Will.I.Am paid more than $350,000 to help two families who were facing foreclosure pay off their homes.
I think the thing I love most in this video is Will.I.Am's face during the announcement.  This isn't a man who is basking in the glory of what he is doing.  It almost looks like he would rather not have the attention at all.  He's doing it because he actually wants to do the right thing for these people.


I found very little that could be considered negative about him.  The only real criticism I found was that some people were upset that he tweeted while carrying the Olympic torch.  If that’s the worst thing anyone can say about a guy who has helped countless people with his own money then I would have to say he’s a great person.  He seems to be a generous guy who has fun with the opportunities that fame and fortune has brought him.  You can see this in his appearance on the Graham Norton Show (incidentally, Miriam Margolyes is now one of my favorite people ever...she cracked me up).

With the kind of money musicians make and the environment in which they live, it would be very easy to get caught up in trouble and set a bad example.  The fact that Will.I.Am lives in that world, but is able to set such a great example for his fans deserves a round of applause. 

In stark contrast to the Douchebag Businessman Award that I handed out recently, Will.I.Am has inspired me to create a new award:

So congratulations to Will.I.Am - the inspiration for, and first recipient of, the Class Act Award.


Check out Will.I.Am's new song This Is Love featuring Eva Simons:

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Douchebag Businessman Award: Chick-fil-A (Updated)

Updated Below on July 23, 2012

Call me behind the times, but apparently, I missed this one. An investigation into the charitable donations from Chick-Fil-A show that they company donated approximately $2 million to groups with an anti-gay agenda in 2010.

Fortunately, my family doesn’t eat at Chick-Fil-A because my wife can’t stand the smell of their food. She worked for another company that was right next to a Chick-Fil-A and was forced to smell the grease and chicken for eight hours a day. There have been countless times that I have suggested we eat there simply to watch her gag. Fortunately, I can only remember actually eating there once in the last four or five years. Now I regret every penny of that meal.


I live in the heartland of America. I am surrounded by ignorance, discrimination, and hate at every turn. I work very hard to teach my child how to hear the hate and discrimination and turn it into a lesson on tolerance. She understands that some people just have hate in their hearts and are afraid of anything that they don’t understand. I take her to church and we have read a children’s story bible from cover to cover. She understands now that God taught us how to love, not hate. It amazes me that a child with such a basic and pure understanding of God and the Bible can grasp that concept when so many people who claim to be Christians cannot.


I’m not going to re-write my articles about gay marriage and homophobia. If you haven’t read them already, give them a read.


I can tell you that my family will not support Chick-Fil-A’s homophobic agenda in the future. I hope anyone who learns about this follows the example and refuses to patronize an organization that is founded on hate.


A blogger that I follow has occasionally done a “Douchebag of the Day” on his blog. I loved the idea, but I didn’t want to completely steal his idea, just the basic concept. Since a lot of my disdain is reserved for companies and business executives, here is my version.


Congratulations Truett Cathy…you have the honor of becoming our first recipient of the Douchebag Businessman Award.

Truett Cathy - Founder of Chick-fil-A

Update July 23, 2012:

Finally realizing that their anti-gay agenda was totally exposed, Dan Cathy, President of Chick-fil-A, came out and openly admitted that the company has an anti-gay agenda.  When asked about the company's agenda against gay-marriage he stated,

"'Well, guilty as charged,' adding:


'We are very much supportive of the family — the biblical definition of the family unit....We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives.'"
In a wonderful show of support for the LGBT community, Chick-fil-A has been experiencing backlash.  They have had calls for boycotts by average people as well as celebrities.  The mayor of Boston has vowed to make Chick-fil-A's expansion in the city very difficult until they change their practices.  Facebook pages have started in opposition to the company (see below for links).  Finally, in another major blow, the Jim Henson Company, renowned for the Muppets, has cut ties with Chick-fil-A.  The statement read:

The Jim Henson Company has celebrated and embraced diversity and inclusiveness for over fifty years and we have notified Chick-Fil-A that we do not wish to partner with them on any future endeavors. Lisa Henson, our CEO is personally a strong supporter of gay marriage and has directed us to donate the payment we received from Chick-Fil-A to GLAAD. (http://www.glaad.org/)

In a pathetic attempt to calm the storm that the Cathy's have created, the company issued the following statement on its Facebook page:

The Chick-fil-A culture and service tradition in our restaurants is to treat every person with honor, dignity and respect – regardless of their belief, race, creed, sexual orientation or gender. We will continue this tradition in the over 1,600 Restaurants run by independent Owner/Operators. Going forward, our intent is to leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.


I think they wrote that incorrectly...I'm pretty sure what they meant to say was that the culture and tradition in their restaurants was to treat every person with honor dignity and respect - at least until they have your money.  At which time they will take a percentage of your money and donate it to organizations that will fight to make you a second-class citizen.  But, we still want your money so please don't let that stop you from purchasing our food.

What a fantastic outpouring of support for the LGBT community.  This kind of support gives me hope that I'm not alone in my thinking that we should never discriminate against a group of people who are simply trying to live their lives, love their families, and enjoy the freedom that we all cherish. 

I encourage you to show support for the websites who are speaking out against this ridiculous company.  Please remember that, although I love debate and argument on my articles, these pages are not necessarily out there asking for debate.  Please visit them, like their pages, and support them.  If you can't support them please carry on with your life and leave them alone. 

Chick Filled Hate

One Million Against Chick-fil-A




I noticed that many of the links in the original post were broken.  I believe that I have fixed them all.  Please let me know if you find any still broken.  Thanks!

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Today's Music Ain't Got the Same Soul


So tonight, I’m putting together a playlist of romantic/love songs.  I’ve been meaning to do this for a long time for those nights that my wife and I actually get to step away from being parents and become lovers again.  I have a basic idea of what I wanted on the playlist, but I wanted more.  So I did some online searches to bring some music to life that I might have never heard, or I might not have remembered. 

While I’m searching, I come across this list.  It was from a website called Simply Romantic Ideas.  The list was titled Top Romantic Songs.  The person who wrote the list categorized the songs.  One of the categories was “classic.”  This is where I expected to find the kind of songs I was looking for:  Night and Day, All the Way, At Last, etc.  These are some of the great songs of all time.  While there were some songs that I agree could be classics on the list, here are some songs that made the “classic” list:
  • Celine Dion – My Heart Will Go On
  • Backstreet Boys – I Need You Tonight
  • Ricky Martin – Private Emotion
  • 98 Degrees – I Do (Cherish You)
  • N’Sync – This I Promise You
There was not one Sinatra song.  Louis Armstrong made the list with What a Wonderful World, but are you freaking kidding me?  It’s no wonder our young men today have no idea how to swoon a woman.  If this is the example that they have of what romance is, then I feel for young women.
I’m not saying that these songs are bad, so don’t panic if you like some of the songs on this list.  What I’m saying is that these people have no concept of what makes a song a classic anymore.  Would any of the young men be moved to dance under the stars to the sound of this music?  I doubt it.  The people that comprise a list of classic romance should read more like:
  • Frank Sinatra
  • Louis Armstrong
  • Ray Charles
  • Aaron Neville
  • The Temptations
There are countless more.  I listen to Sinatra radio on Pandora pretty routinely.  My one-year-old daughter loves it.  She even dances to some of the songs.  My nine-year-old on the other hand, takes a different view.  She says she can’t stand Sinatra.  When I ask her why she explains that the music is too slow.  She has grown up in a world full of faster love songs that have nothing to say.  Instead of Etta James singing I’d Rather Go Blind to lament a lost love we have Justin Bieber singing Baby.  Where did the soul go in our music?  I even saw a “top ten unique voices list” that didn’t even mention Louis Armstrong or Aaron Neville.  Seriously?  Those may be two of the most unique voices ever! 

Don’t go thinking I hate any and all modern music.  There is plenty of new music that I love.  I just feel that we are losing a lot of the soul that used to be poured into music.  Even the songs that have that soul aren’t being played for the younger audience.  They are bombarded with Disney and Nickelodeon pop singers at such a young age that they can’t imagine anything else.  Then they finally hear a great classic, but think it originated on Glee. 

My contribution to the solution for this problem will be to include a few songs from the great artists I've mentioned that you can share with your children.  Young men – this is what it means to love a woman.  Young women – don’t accept a man who doesn’t make you feel the way the people in these songs feel.  Enjoy!


Monday, July 2, 2012

Response: SB 1070


I was asked for my opinion on the SB 1070 law.  Great topic…I thought it deserved its own blog entry.  The question was asked:

“SB1070 - what do you think about it/ Do you believe the American people in the sovereign state of Arizona have a right if the police legally stop someone they can request they show citizenship since they are being over ran by illegal aliens that are smuggling drugs, killing locals, stealing, and etc.? What is racist about admitting that Mexicans come from Mexico? If they are legal aliens they should have no problem with being asked. Just like if I am not drunk I don't worry about taking a sobriety test.”

Thank you for asking.

I covered some of this in my Entitlement…Part 3:  Immigration Post.  Here are some excerpts from that post:

If you’ve read my previous posts on entitlement, you know how I feel about people feeling that they have rights that others don’t. This applies, in part, to immigration as well. I hear a lot of people use the fact that an alien is unregistered as an excuse for them having no rights. Let me respond to this with a huge, resounding, “YOU DON”T KNOW WHAT YOU’RE TALKING ABOUT.” It would appear that those of you who say this have never actually read the Constitution. Let me enlighten you…section one of the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States says:

“No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws”

There is not a lot of ambiguity there. The founding fathers wrote this amendment and used the term “citizen” in it five times. They specifically chose not to use the term citizen in this sentence for a reason. They knew that everyone needed protection of the law in the United States. They did not make any exceptions for immigration status, country of origin, or color of skin.

So what are your other arguments? The economic burden? I won’t argue that point with you because I don’t disagree. I do believe that there is an economic burden with unregistered aliens. It’s the same problem I have with anyone working off the books and not paying taxes. There’s just nothing we can do about it at this time. Of course, that healthcare reform so many of you are complaining about will help when they are all required to carry insurance. This will ease the burden on our healthcare system and reduce the cost of healthcare for the rest of us. But that’s another blog entirely.

So the other argument is crime. Let’s look at the actual impact of immigration on crime (which is really an impossible statistic to measure.) To do this, we need to look at the overall crime rate. The FBI reports on the cities with the highest crime rate relative to the national rate to create a list of the most dangerous cities. They have only released the preliminary report for 2011 so we will use the data from 2010 and earlier. Based on an analysis Onboard Informatics did of the last seven years of data the most dangerous cities are:

1. St. Louis (34)
2. Atlanta (7)
3. Birmingham Alabama (tie) (31)
3. Orlando (tie) (5)
5. Detroit (16)
6. Memphis (22)
7. Miami (5)
8. Baltimore (19)
9. Kansas City, Missouri (34)
10. Minneapolis (tie) (18)
10. Cleveland (tie) (26)

Look over that list again. See the numbers in parentheses? Those are the rankings for the estimated number of illegal immigrants in the states. Do you see a glaring and obvious problem with the crime argument yet? Only three of the top 11 dangerous cities are even in the top 10 states for illegal immigrant population. Arizona’s not even on the list! I’m not a statistician, but I have done some statistics study in my educational career, but I don’t even need to use my meager skills to say, with confidence, that there is not a relationship with the overall rate of crime and the number of illegal immigrants in a state. Before you ask – these statistics took into consideration incidents of property crime, such burglary and motor vehicle theft, as well as violent crime, like murder and robbery. So pretty much all areas of criminal activity were with the exception of financial crimes, but that would only make Wall Street number one and Washington D.C. number two on the list.

The fact that people are so upset over this issue is just another facet of the entitlement diamond that so many American’s (meaning U.S. citizens) have been wearing lately. We live in a country with the 12th highest per capita GDP in the world. Our poverty level is higher than the per capita GDP of over 120 nations. Do we really expect that people will not want to come to our country to try to form a life for their family? What would you do if you lived in Mexico, only miles from a land where the per capita GDP was three times your country’s? When you had to feed your family or watch them starve, I’m betting you would run across that border…rules be damned. Am I saying that illegal immigration is okay? No. I don’t agree with it…I don’t like it. However, if we want to live in a country as well off as the United States, then we had damn well better get used to it.

That being said, I do think something should be done about it. I’m actually a proponent of building a huge wall at the Mexican border. I think it would help reduce the illegal immigration into the United States, and put a lot of people to work for a while at a time when people are begging for jobs. You like that idea, don’t you? Here’s the rub…it has to be paid for. It is an expensive concept. The money will have to come from somewhere. In our society, somewhere means taxpayers. So if you want the problem solved, you will have to pony up the dough. I also believe that, since the border states are the ones that will be benefiting from the wall, they should be shouldering the vast majority of the cost. Don’t ask for the government to fix a problem for you if you aren’t willing to pay for the fix. But put this proposal in front of the people of Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and California and see how quickly their sense of entitlement starts them screaming about raised taxes…
Finally, to the Supreme Court Ruling on Arizona’s immigration law. I have three things to say…well done, shame on you, and well done. First, well done on striking down most of the garbage in those laws. Article VI of the Constitution, known as the Supremacy Clause, places the laws and treaties of the federal government over the state laws. In this case, the federal government has been the established source of laws, policies, and procedures regarding immigration and deportation. A state cannot interfere with the execution of the federal government’s authority in this area. Basically, Arizona can’t just get pissed about how immigration is being handled and decide to take care of it themselves. As the Opinion of the Court describes, it takes a lot of training for a federal immigration agent to be able to determine who is eligible to be detained for deportation proceedings. (Yes, I did read the Opinion of the Court – I don’t rely on political analysts to tell me about these decisions). Some people are detained while some are simply issued a notice to appear. A state cannot override this protocol by making a law that they can detain anyone they suspect is an illegal immigrant. This leads to the next problem.

Racial profiling. It is a fact. It can be a problem. Most of us don’t know what that feels like. That’s because the majority of us have never been profiled based on the color of our skin. Unfortunately, many people have. The one part of this law that was not stricken down was the piece that allows officers to verify citizenship for anyone they have a suspicion is here illegally, providing that they have already stopped them for another reason. This law should really read, “Officers can detain any Hispanic so that they can verify their citizenship.” Let’s be honest…officers will look for any reason to stop someone and question them. There is always a reason to stop someone – speeding, a rolling stop, a burned out tail light, jaywalking, suspicious activity, etc. They can now ask people to prove their citizenship. Let’s say that you are a Hispanic person who was born in the U.S. You are a citizen, but you are walking (because you don’t like driving), and you are stopped for jaywalking. While you are issued a warning or a ticket, the officer looks at you and asks you to prove your citizenship. You don’t have your ID because you don’t need it and you don’t have immigration papers because you are a natural born citizen. What happens next? They can’t legally detain you. Fortunately, the Supreme Court issued guidelines along with their ruling that officers can’t detain people for longer than it would reasonably take to handle the original reason for being stopped.

But, why did the officer ask you to prove that you are a citizen? You weren’t committing any action that would lead him to believe that you were in the country illegally. So he just based it on the color of your skin and your appearance. You know, we used to do something similar to people. We looked at them and told them that they didn’t have the same freedoms as the rest of us because they were black. They were harassed and segregated from the rest of us. It took a long long time for us to get over our stupidity concerning civil rights. Oh, wait. We haven’t. We are now just disguising it as immigration policy. The great thing about the ruling is that the Supreme Court specifically said that the only reason they didn’t strike down this part of the legislation was that it had not yet been enforced. They said they couldn’t determine that this is what would happen, but that it would be left open to legal challenges if it did happen. That is a bright, shining star in the future of living without this kind of discrimination and profiling. They left the door open for us to get there; we just have to walk through.

With all of that said, it is very easy to fall into the trap of hate. Our economy is struggling so we want to find someone that is causing the problems. We still have crime so we want someone to be responsible. Who can we blame? It’s no longer okay to blame the Irish, the Italians, or African-Americans. So who is next on the list? How about the fastest growing racial demographic in the country: Hispanics. A number of them are even here illegally so let’s use that as a mask for our anger and fear. Then we can just say that we are being patriotic. We can even make it a political argument because someone hasn’t solved all of the problems that have existed for decades within four years. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d much rather accept people as they are, welcome them to our nation, and increase diversity so that my children can live in a more intelligent, diverse, and prosperous country at my age. Like the man said, “I have a dream…”

To specifically answer the questions you asked:

Question:  Do you believe the American people in the sovereign state of Arizona have a right if the police legally stop someone they can request they show citizenship since they are being over ran by illegal aliens that are smuggling drugs, killing locals, stealing, and etc.?
Answer:  No.  I don’t believe that this is a law that will do much of anything other than encourage racial profiling by police.  The U.S. is not a place that requires me to carry any form of identification at all times.  If an Hispanic natural-born citizen is walking down the street and is stopped for something like jay walking, there should be no requirement for that person to present proof of citizenship.  The color of his skin should not dictate any of his rights in our country. 

Question:  What is racist about admitting that Mexicans come from Mexico?
Answer:  Nothing at all.  The only issue I have at all is that some people are called Mexican that are, in fact, born in the U.S.  Some Hispanics who aren’t born in the U.S. aren’t from Mexico.  I have friends whose have been called Mexican, but whose families are from the Dominican Republic.  It would be equivalent to a proud U.S. citizen being called a Canadian simply because we speak English and are from North America.  So, no, I don’t see any problem with that as long as care is taken for the term to be used correctly, and without intent to discriminate.

Question (after a fashion):  If they are legal aliens they should have no problem with being asked. Just like if I am not drunk I don't worry about taking a sobriety test.
Answer:  I’ll respond to this by going into the second statement.  I have no problem taking a sobriety test if the officer has every reason to suspect that I am drunk.  The problem here lies with the reason to suspect.  A person’s skin color is not a reason to suspect someone is an illegal alien.  I have the same problem with this that I have with sobriety checkpoints.  If the police have no real reason to suspect that I am operating a vehicle under the influence, why am I being asked to provide proof that I am not?  In my opinion, this is contrary to the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure.  So do I give up my Fourth Amendment rights for some security (on the roads or in Arizona)?  No.  A very wise man, Benjamin Franklin, once said, “Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety.”  When the government takes away the rights of one group of people, they take away the rights of all people. 

The Pot and the Kettle

It’s kind of funny.  As I’m writing this, I realize that, this blog didn’t start out as a conservative-bashing forum.  I also didn’t previously identify myself as a Democrat or liberal.  While I still won’t declare myself as a Democrat, I do now proudly proclaim myself liberal.  I have backed into this position over the last few years of listening to Republicans and conservatives spout nonsense that they say is in my best interest.  The scary thing is that I live in the “heartland of America.”  This is code for conservative hell.  I am basically behind enemy lines.  Maybe I should change the name of this blog…just a thought.  This post is a discussion of some of the hypocrisies that have driven me to this point.

I’ll start with the thing we are all so very sick of hearing about:  healthcare reform.  I’m not talking about whether it’s good or not, I’m more concerned with the outrage that all of the conservatives have about it.  You may have heard in passing that Republicans were the first group to suggest many of the reforms that the current law has implemented.  This is a fact that conservatives have glossed over every time I have heard it mentioned.  What everyone is talking about is the Health Equity and Access Reform Today Act of 1993 (HEART Act).  This bill looks very similar to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).  In fact, a look at the areas covered in the two bills leave only a handful of differences.  The most notable differences include the fact that the PPACA included the expansion of Medicaid, eliminated lifetime limits on coverage, and extended coverage for children up to the age of 26.  What is did include was an individual mandate.  What I find most interesting is that the HEART Act was sponsored by a Republican, Senator John H. Chafee.  I’ll go one step further – it had 20 co-sponsors.  Of those 20, 18 were Republicans!  Notable names on the list include Arlen Specter (when he was Republican), Orrin Hatch, Dick Lugar, and Bob Dole.  So this party, which is screaming that the United States as we know it has ended because of the PPACA, is actually responsible for the first proposal of the majority of the PPACA’s provisions.  Did you know this?  I mean really understand.  Think about it before you cast that vote in November.  The same people telling you that they will “protect your freedoms” are actually the ones to originally propose the very legislation about which you are complaining.

So we move on the economy.  If I never hear the words spending or deficit again I could die a happy man.  I keep hearing conservatives (which I use interchangeably with Republicans for the purpose of this post) talk about how spending is out of control and we can’t keep running these kinds of deficits.  My response is usually related to the fact that our country runs on Keynesian economics.  For those of you who don’t know what this means, here is an overly basic run-down:  run deficits during a recession and surpluses during a boom.  What I don’t usually get into is the hypocrisy that exists when Republicans are in power versus the times that they are not in power.  While I’m sure I can go into multiple examples of this…I’ll stick with words from the elephant’s mouth.  In a meeting with the Secretary of the Treasury in 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney was warned that the extreme budget deficits of that time were threatening the economy.  According to former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, Cheney told him that “Reagan proved deficits don't matter.”  He continued by saying, “We won the midterms [congressional elections]. This is our due.”  Sooooo, they matter now?  Just not during the Reagan and Bush administrations?  Oh, I forgot, they earned that right by convincing the voters that they would actually work to improve their lives.  It’s their “due.”  

The last issue is the one something I have been hearing constantly since the Ron Paul bandwagon started to roll - The Constitution.  According to most of the conservatives I know, everything Obama has done since he took office has been unconstitutional…including the fact that he took office!  Try getting into a debate with a conservative about the merits of Obama’s term without his ethnic background or religion being questioned.  But, I digress…we will talk about the Constitutionality of Obama’s actions.  The healthcare debate doesn’t take much discussion.  It’s been before the Supreme Court, and the PPACA has been found Constitutional.  Unless anyone has the training and experience to refute the opinions of the five justices who determined that this was Constitutional (Including Justice Roberts – shocking), then all of your arguments are immediately moot. 

So let’s look at some other issues.  We’ll start with the mild uproar over the action in Libya.  People claimed that Obama’s decision to strike Libya without Congressional approval was unconstitutional.   This is a slightly more complicated matter.  First, the President is the Commander-in-Chief of the military.  Congress is granted sole authority to declare war.  How many conflicts have we been in that weren’t actually declared a war?  So they were pissed because he did it without their permission.  Get over it.  Complicating this further is the fact that we never sent troops into Libya.  The surgical strikes used in the action managed to rid the world of a tyrant without the cost of American soldiers.  Dare I mention – John McCain is even quoted as saying, “I think the administration deserves great credit…Obviously, I had different ideas on the tactical side, but the world is a better place.”

On the other side of the coin, we have the Patriot Act.  This legislation was passed in 2001 and signed into law by President Bush a month and a half after the 9/11 attacks.  Basically, it reduces the requirements necessary for law enforcement to gather intelligence on people in the United States.  Here are some scary provisions:

Ø  A search can be executed without a warrant if an FBI agent provides a National Security Letter – and a gag order is instituted on the ISP’s, banks, credit card companies, and phone companies who must turn over the information!
Ø  Section 215 of the act allows the government to obtain records by simply showing “relevance” to a terrorism of espionage investigation.  Notice that I didn’t say “probable cause” as is defined in the Fourth Amendment.
Ø  “John Doe” roving wiretaps can be issued which do not name a target, place, or facility to be monitored.  (Senator Rand Paul’s Letter of Opposition to the Patriot Act)

So do the people that are so worried about the constitutionality of the PPACA have anything to say?  I see days of uproar over a tax and healthcare issue, but the government can get a blank ticket to spy on anyone they want without a warrant?  However, we’re not hearing about this right now because it was championed by a conservative.  You had better believe that, if Obama had introduced this legislation, we would be hearing about how he was turning the U.S. into a police state where no one would have any freedom. 


This list could go on forever…conservatives want a smaller government, but they want to enforce their religious beliefs on the rest of us, etc.  But I’d like to get this posted so I’ll end with a thought.  One of our greatest founding fathers, George Washington, warned us to “guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism,” in his farewell address.  What would you consider an imposture?  A group pretending to be morally outraged by legislation that they proposed themselves originally?  The same group crying out that we can’t handle the deficits that two of their own administrations ran?  The very same group that claims that the President has been acting unconstitutionally while they have passed a law that defies the people their constitutional rights?  All of this is being done in an effort to convince the people that they are the true patriots of our country.  While we seem to have forgotten most of what Washington warned us about, I implore you to heed his advice.