In the wake of the senate vote Saturday night, it's a fair question to ask.  The People are against the Democrats' health care bill be the widest margins ever: 38% to 56% according to a Rasmussen poll released today.  There has never been a majority in favor of it and the more people find out about it the less we like it.

Yet the Democrats seem not to care in the slightest.  Their idea, communicated back in January, is "We counted in November and we won."  They imply they are free to do whatever they want.  In a parliamentary democracy that may work:  The voters typically endorse a party and it's platform which it then enacts.  In this country, however, the Constitution limits what any party may do.  We also have a tradition of compromise and bipartisanship often lacking in parliamentary systems like Italy and Israel where smaller, ideological parties struggle to form and maintain majorities.

It should be clear to the American people by now that the Democrats have changed the game and have an agenda that has nothing to do with creating jobs, fixing the economy, or fighting the war on terror.  The things Americans thought they were voting for have taken a back seat to a so-called "Stimulus" bill, health care legislation, cap-and-trade and any number of initiatives designed primarily to ensure they never get voted out of office.  read more »

More ink is being spilled--mostly metaphorically--over the reference to Psalm 109:8.  As I wrote in my last post, the left is horrified and points to the rest of the Psalm as evidence of evil intent.  But I've heard even honest Christians decry the use of the scriptural reference--most prominently David R. Stokes on Townhall who calls it "a joke too far."

The battle for the soul of America is deadly serious business and I for one don't mind a little levity in it.  What concerns me more is the justification Stokes and others use for not referring to the psalm:

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— 2for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. (1 Tim 2:1-2)

Using that reference as justification shows precious little understanding of our Constitutional republic.  1  Tim 2:1-3 was used for centuries in Christian countries as justification for the people to support the king.  For his part, the king was answerable to God for his treatment of his subjects.  This theory was "the divine right of kings."

That verse is wholly inappropriate in this country.  In 1776 we declared that the king had broken his pact with God by over-taxing his American subjects and that therefore we had the right to rebel and to declare our independence.  read more »

There are some (I think) humorous emails and bumper stickers going around referencing Psalm 109:8:

May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership.

Good for a chuckle--especially when considering the Constitutional line of succession--unless you're a committed leftist.  The Huffington Post reports on this "latest...thinly-veiled..death threats."  I wrote about this on September 18: only Republican presidents get shot.  Curiously, the National Archives piece I looked up refers to Lincoln and McKinley being "shot"; only Kennedy was "assassinated."  Be that as it may, they all died of their wounds.

In the late 1980s my wife was working in the county library system in Maryland.  One day a young man offered the observation that President Reagan "deserved" to be shot because he was taking away "our welfare rights."  You see, the left thinks in those terms.  The idea that conservatives would do the same is another case of the myopic mirror-imaging that the left engages in.

When do conservatives commit physical, political violence?  Discounting the Revolution itself one could start with the Whiskey Rebellion against taxes under Washington and include John Brown's Raid against Harper's Ferry in 1859.  After that?  Don't think so.  Let me know if you can think of any.  read more »

It was inevitable.  Politico reported last week that Florida lawyer Frederic O’Neal registered a party in Florida back in August.  The report notes

The Tea Party will become one of 32 minor political parties certified by the state, including also the Real Food Party of the United States of America, the Prohibition Party, and the Florida Socialist Workers Party. Its website is not live.

No attempt to marginalize the new party there.  CBS News picked up the story and wrote

Even though the conservative lost in that race, "tea partiers" and other conservatives "remain convinced they're on the right side of history," CBSNews.com's Charles Cooper wrote. "And in writing down their morning-after election analyses... they also delivered a hard-edged message to the Republican establishment: Get behind us or get out of the way."

"...that race" of course refers to NY-23, the only race conservatives lost that day.  Tea Party activists campaigned for Doug Hoffman toward the end and may have been the force that took his candidacy from dead last to almost first.  I wrote about that on Nov 5.  read more »

This is really just too good to pass up.  FoxNews  quotes a Washington Post article yesterday:

In the wake of last summer's deadly Metro crash in Washington, D.C., the Obama administration reportedly plans to propose that subway and light-rail systems across the country fall under federal oversight.

What's this all about?  Two Metro trains crashed on June 22nd, killing nine people.  Here's an AP story on the crash.  The current Washington Post story quotes Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood as saying:

After the train crash, we were all sitting around here scratching our heads, saying, 'Hey, we've got to do something about this'," LaHood said. "And we discovered that there's not much we could do, because the law wouldn't allow us to do it.

What to do?  Pity the poor Transportation Secretary, hamstrung by the law.   Think, think, think.  I know!  Let's have federal oversight of all mass transit systems.  That's the ticket!  read more »

Ken Buck, the Weld County, Colorado District Attorney, is running for the US Senate seat that Michael Bennett was appointed to last year. Buck is quite a successful DA--crime is down 40% in Weld County--with a good sense of humor, common sense, and a down-to-earth demeanor.

I met him at a meet and greet session Friday Nov 15th at the El Paso County Republican Party headquarters. He answered every question plainly and directly, starting out with several of his own topics. The first was the problem of education which he said was made worse by federal government interference. The second was the housing problem--the Feds created the problem by trying to social engineer home ownership. His third topic was the horrific state of US energy policy. The Department of Energy is a failure, he said. We should drill everywhere and exploit the natural resources of Colorado and elsewhere.

The Federal government should stay out of social issues according to Buck; instead, they should concentrate on what they're supposed to do but haven't been doing a good job of: securing our borders, fighting our enemies and maintaining a sound currency. He is for a strong defense but said that we simply can't afford to be in the empire-building business. In Afghanistan, for example, he says our goals ought to be to prevent a terrorist haven, stop the opium trade, and promote stability in Central Asia. As a DA, he is definitely not in favor of giving terrorists the civilian prosecution or closing Gitmo.  read more »

There are four ideas coming from the left that spell death for liberty and democracy.  The first of these is "political correctness."

Political correctness is an attempt to control speech and ultimately thought by making it unacceptable to use certain words and phrases while at the same time promoting acceptable words and phrases.   It began as early as the first century AD when the Roman writer Tacitus famously followed the literary convention of the time and called a "spade" an implement for digging.  More recently, it's been around since the 1980s when conservative commentators started calling the left on it.  Lesson one: the true believers of the left never give up.

Recently it's gotten a whole lot worse.  There is no longer a "war on terror;" instead acts of terrorism are "man-made disasters."  Illegal aliens are simply undocumented.  The examples are legion.

At the same time, it is apparently just fine to refer to Tea Party protesters as "tea baggers" after some (fortunately) undefined homosexual practice and to label protesters at town hall meetings as "right-wing extremists."

What does all this political correctness get us?  The shooting at Ft Hood by a man identified as having terrorist connections and ambitions.  Although he was shot while in the act of shooting his defenseless fellow soldiers, the media continue to refer to him as "the alleged gunman."  His terrorist connections were first revealed in the British press; only three days later did the information begin to appear here.  read more »

Defeating the Totalitarian Lie by Hilmar von Campe, 2008. ISBN 978-0-9815091-9-8.

I had read about this book last fall when it was first released and, reading about it again recently, finally bought it and read it.  I am certainly glad I did.

von Campe was forced to join the Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth) as an adolescent.  Not a Nazi, he nevertheless fought what he believed was a patriotic war for Germany.  After the war he came to realize the enormity of the crimes perpetrated by the German people in the name of National Socialism--and how the National Socialist Party fooled the German people into going along with it.

He became--in his words--a true Christian and joined movements for peace and reconciliation.  He worked for them for over twenty years before becoming an entrepreneur and factory owner in Mexico; now he lives in the United States.   Reading his background, one could easily believe he became a "peacenik" or some kind of radical anti-war leftist of the Code Pink variety.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

And truth is his main theme.  He faced the brutal truth of his and his country's Nazi past.  He understands the truth of Marxist socialism as well and tells us how it is simply a variety of the same totalitarianism that motivated the Nazis.  The same for radical Islam.  All are equivalent forms of totalitarianism: what Mark Levin has called "statism;" the elevation of the state over the individual.

He believes that America today is moving in the direction of totalitarianism and he shows us how and why.  It is a sobering analysis.  What can overcome this march toward socialism?  According to von Campe: only truth, embodied in moral renewal, and our love of freedom.  read more »