The End of an Affair

This post is self-serving and offers little value to you. I just figured it was worth telling this story, since we all know what a tool I am for television.

This morning I called my cable company, Charter Communications, and asked them to discontinue my service on Monday. Currently I have the expanded cable package with DVR and HD channels, which comes out to $99 a month with tax. Unfortunately Athens is too far from Atlanta, where the networks broadcast their local affiliates, and I am unable to pick up any over-the-air channels. So starting Monday I will be completely in the dark (no internet, either).

I've been sitting on this decision for a month or so ever since a couple of co-workers told me they didn't have cable. This was pretty shocking to me, as television is such an integral part of my daily routine. I keep up with about 15 scripted shows at a time, then throw in a few reality shows, game shows, and let's not forget over a hundred baseball games a year. In the instance that nothing is on, a bit of channel surfing will certainly come across something that catches my interest, and the cycle repeats.

Maybe getting older has made me a cane-swinging, big-eared, grumpy old man, but I am sick to my stomach of all these "celebrities" on any given channel. These guys who wear eyeliner and girls who were on a reality show in 2003 who now get hired onto well-respected scripted shows because...they're "famous" supposedly. People who I have no reason to know exist, yet somehow I do. Take Billy Ray Cyrus for instance. Why the hell is he on TV? He had a joke of a hit and haircut, and now he's forced himself on his daughter's TV show, and somehow is a judge of a country version of American Idol. What?

But it's not just Mtv and Nashville Star and all that paparazzi garbage. It's in sports, too. All these "personalities" on ESPN. Just show me the damn highlights of the games. You watch Monday Night Football or the College World Series and the commentators are talking about what it would mean if this team beats the other team when there's still more than half the game to be played. The tired goofy-old-man schtick from Lee Corso and the biased, hypocritical joyless Herbstreit having an influence over how teams place in bowl games. John Kruk saying last week, in all seriousness, that Tim Hudson's win over the Mariners shouldn't count because they're a bad team.

I'll miss the Braves and SEC football conveniently beamed into my home, and watching 24 and the other shows as they air. But really can it be that bad? I'll get to hear Skip and Pete call the Braves games on radio, watch so many shows and movies with Netflix that I've never had the time for, and I'll get to read more books that educate me on how far our government has deviated from the vision of the Founding Fathers.

I know how cheesy this is, but it's not too late to make a change in your life for the better. A good friend of mine has similarly recognized that an element in his life just isn't best for him, and is making a huge decision by leaving his really good corporate job to find something that fits him better. Yeah, we're in our mid-twenties, but that doesn't mean everything is set in stone.

Obama is a mack daddy

More "men of the cloth" doing God's work. Or not:

The Court Gets Something Right

The U.S. Supreme Court just handed down a 5-4 landmark decision today, holding that the Second Amendment actually means what it says. They actually had the nerve to declare that the phrase "the right to bear arms shall not be infringed" should be interpreted to mean that "the right to bear arms shall not be infringed." This is quite shocking.

Liberals contend that the Second Amendment is "outdated" and "no longer relevant" because the founders only intended it to apply to the creation of state militias. I guess that's why Thomas Jefferson wrote this in 1764: "Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man"

...this in 1785: "A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives a moderate exercise to the Body, it gives boldness, enterprise, and independence to the mind . . . Let your gun therefore be the constant companion of your walks."

...and this in 1824: "The constitutions of most of our States assert that all power is inherent in the people; that... it is their right and duty to be at all times armed."

Walken Wednesdays

Battery Nonsense

Stealing this from www.campaignforliberty.com since I'm not able to write it any better.

This comes to us by way of Yahoo News. It begins:

PHOENIX - John McCain hopes to solve the country’s energy crisis with cold hard cash.

The presumed Republican nominee is proposing a $300 million government prize to whoever can develop an automobile battery that far surpasses existing technology. The bounty would equate to $1 for every man, woman and child in the country, “a small price to pay for helping to break the back of our oil dependency,” McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery Monday at Fresno State University in California.

McCain said such a device should deliver power at 30 percent of current costs and have “the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.”

This is the kind of proposal that usually plays well politically because first, he sounds like a man with a plan. He is going to “solve the energy crisis!” (For more about men with plans, watch the brief video The Road to Serfdom. Second, the plan won’t cost much - only one dollar! Who can disagree with spending a mere dollar to solve the energy crisis? If you argue, you risk being branded a “cheapskate.” And third, it almost sounds like a “free market” solution, because he is offering an incentive - and one that sounds pretty big. After all, $300 million is a lot of money, right?

What is important is what the article does not say: The free market already provides ample incentive for innovation and development. Any individual or company that perfected such a device would reap far more than $300 million in profits from the free market, as customers would line up to buy the new product. Last year Toyota had a profit of close to $14 Billion dollars. After the success of their Prius, you can be certain that their engineers are already hard at work on such a battery - not because they want to win a $300 million prize from the government, but because they want to increase their profits.

And what if Toyota were to invent such a battery? Should the government award a foreign firm the prize for something they’re working on already? And even though it would “only” cost one dollar per American, who gave the government the right to confiscate our earnings for ill conceived ideas that are already being tended to by the free market? Finally, the last time I checked, the current national debt was 9,370,288,314,000.78. So who are they going to borrow the prize money from?

Worst 2 Movies of the Past Year

Why only the worst 2, you ask? Because I've only seen 4 new movies in the last 12 months and really, really hated 2 of them. It's also no surprise that my picks for the two worst were chosen unanimously by critics as the 2 best of 2007. This has been happening year after year since American Beauty: the films I can't stand usually end up winning all of the awards. Go figure. Maybe Ryan can help me out more with my analysis here because he is far more knowledgeable about these things.

2nd Worst Movie of the Year: No Country for Old Men

I'm pretty sure this won best picture at the Grammies or Oscars or Golden Globes or whatever. Of course this would happen because this movie is terrible. Ryan and I have had this discussion before - what starts out as a relatively exciting cat and mouse Western between the protaganist and a deranged hit man ends without any resolution or plot twists. The bad guy kills people. Keeps killing people. And keeps killing people. And Tommy Lee Jones tells us about his dreams. That's about it. Why the writers thought it should take 2 and a half hours to demonstrate all of this is beyond me. This would have made for a great simple action/horror flick had it not been all artsy and serious, particularly in the final 30 minutes.

And I can hear you now. "But come on Patrick, it's 'different.' Don't you see? The good guy doesn't always win. The police can't always catch the bad guys!!" Yes they can. It's just that old, grizzled Sheriffs in rural Texas who are sick of their jobs can't. Send in the FBI or something and you'd have this guy by the end of the week. Problem solved.

Worst Movie of the Year: There Will Be Blood

I watched this one at home last Saturday night and actually had to cut it off in the middle so I could watch SNL. That's how uninterested I was in this movie. I know what you're thinking: "How can you rip this American masterpiece (oh yeah, that's what the critics are calling it)?!? Daniel Day Lewis puts in his most riveting performance to date!! " I will agree that Lewis is great at what he does, but just because you have A-list stars doesn't necessarily make it a good movie.

The plot is basically the same as No Country: there's this bad guy. Yep, he's bad alright...150 minutes later: Yep, he's still bad. Trust us, he's a bad guy...Okay, that's it. Thanks for your $7. No resolution. No plot twists. No surprises. No irony. Just a random ending that puts us in no better of a position than 2 hours earlier. I could have put "spoiler alert" at the beginning of this paragraph, but then I realized it's impossible to "spoil" this movie, because nothing really happens.

And that seems to be the new trend these days: Be "creative" by filming long movies about death and destruction and then just start rolling the credits about 3 hours later, at some random point, regardless of what scene we're in, because then it will look "ambitious" and "different." But just because you set out to make a masterpiece doesn't automatically make it one. Just because the Beatles tried to do something different and weird on Sargeant Pepper doesn't necessarily make it their best album.

Now many of you will say I'm an ignoramus because I don't "understand" and can't truly "appreciate" what these 2 films are about. But who's the real ignoramus here? Someone who simply didn't care for these movies because they seemed like a waste of time or someone who gives blind, unwarranted praise just because a couple of directors merely know how to throw together artsy, grainy, low-fi production techniques, overly-dramatic musical scores that don't fit with what's going on, and A-list performers? You tell me.

True Progressivism

by Don Boudreaux

According to today's Wall Street Journal, Barack Obama alleges that "Globalization and technology and automation all weaken the position of workers." If this presidential wannabe is correct, then some of the world's most prosperous workers must be the people in that newly discovered tribe in Brazil -- persons with absolutely no contact with the global economy or with modern technology.

Less extreme cases, of course, include persons not so cut off from the world as these Brazilian tribes. Sub-Saharan Africans should be more prosperous than eastern Europeans, who, in turn, should be more prosperous than Americans and western Europeans.

Of course, if the facts don't follow this pattern, then I guess that Sen. Obama will soon publicly apologize for either misspeaking or admit that his thesis is flawed.

What is Free Trade?

By Don Boudreaux

Question:

What is free trade?

Answer:

Free trade is an institutional environment in which adult buyers and sellers are free to deal with each other without regard to their nationalities, physical locations, religious affiliations, or any other criteria that officious third-parties would elevate into significance but that the buyers and sellers themselves find irrelevant (or at least sufficiently insignificant so as not to affect their desires to trade with each other).

Walken Wednesdays

You Got Listserved 6/17/08

This email was sent out on the largest listserv of university staff...for all to see. It's regarding the raises we recently received. This person sends out multiple pointless listserv emails every day, so I wonder what gives her boss the idea that she hasn't earned a big raise.

I'm not understanding all that I'm reading from my letter about
my raise but I think I do understand that if I were any good at
my job, I would have gotten somewhere close to the 2.5 pool.
Since I only got 1.2 I guess I realize I suck worse than I thought
and need to look elsewhere. With that in mind, I'm just wondering
if many of the other departments on campus use Macs? I think here
in the COE we are a particularly Mac-y bunch but I wonder elsewhere
if y'all are all PC or what? Dear Lord, I hate interviewing. Trying to
convince somebody I don't suck and why and how I'll only improve
with age like fine wine and cheese. I wonder why I feel moldy today. :)

What I’m Reading This Summer

While I’m (supposed to be) spending most of these summer months studying for the Georgia Bar, I have also found time to come across a few good reads. And no, I'm talking about A Walk Across America or some Maya Angelou nonsense. I'm talking about real page-turners with substance. I have composed this short reading list for anyone interested.

1. In Defense of Global Capitalism by Johan Norberg.

Anyone familiar with socialist politics knows of Naomi Klein, a left-wing Canadian author who argues that free-market capitalism is somehow responsible for all of the ills the world faces today. The only small problem is that her "novels" are entirely devoid of facts. Instead of substantiating claims that free enterprise in fact lowers living standards, she merely strings together terms that already have really negative perceptions and attempts to portray them as "capitalist": Iraq, oil, war, Bush, insurgency, Enron, shock & awe, Katrina, dirty water, Halliburton, greed, Bush, oil, etc. At no point does she actually demonstrate how economic freedom hurts the middle class or the poor. In no way is she able to prove that people under capitalism are worse off than before. And yet Klien's fiction is pervasive on college campuses.

Norberg, a young Swedish economist and former socialist, authors Defense as a response to Klien's irratic rantings. Norberg presents his arguments in a both eloquent and fact-laden form. Virtually every sentence contains citations to respectable, non-partisan sources lending credence to Norberg's claims. He successfully illustrates how the adoption of free enterprise has brought millions out of poverty in China, made the environment cleaner in Latin America, put more food on the table in Russia, and raised health and living standards in nearly every corner of the globe. Norberg serves as this generation's Adam Smith, and In Defense is his Wealth of Nations. I would recommend this short treatise to any 18-year old heading off to college this coming fall.

2. Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt.

This classic, first published in the 1940s following the Second World War, will have a profound impact on how you view economics. If you're new to conservative or libertarian economic philosophy, this book is a fantastic starting point for education on fundamental issues. Even if you've been a conservative for a long time, it still serves as a great foundation to come back to.

What's fascinating is just how extremely out of favor Hazlitt's views were at the time he wrote Economics and how they remained that way when he published its final edition in the 1970s. In just over 200 pages, the book concisely covers a host of topics, ranging from the broken window fallacy, the function of prices, the role of profits, the destructive nature of inflation and subsidies, and the virtues of saving. What is equally amazing is how true Hazlitt's points remain today in the face of ever-increasing calls for new government mandates, price controls, subsidies, and trade barriers. In this way, Hazlitt's treatise serves not only as an economics lesson, but as a history lesson, educating readers that we're doomed to repeat the malaise of the past if we don't right course.

3. Automatic Wealth For Grads by Michael Masterson.

I recently watched Obama give a commencement address advising recent grads to forestall making money at six-figure corporate jobs and instead to actually "help society" by volunteering for community groups. But we all know that the only real way to help society is to go out and make as much money as possible, which is why I've recommended this next selection.

A departure from the ideological titles, Automatic Wealth is a great read for those of us just now entering the job market. The book discusses investing in real estate or equities and boosting your annual income. At the heart of Masterson's advice is saving 15% of gross income per year, which, at a respectable rate of return, would make it impossible to not be a millionaire upon retirement. To many recent grads, saving 15% will seem like an impossible feat, but Masterson specifically spells out ways this goal can be achieved on an annual income as little as $30,000. I think recent grads would be far better served receiving this book at their commencements instead of tired, old class-warfare rhetorics from politicians.

4. How the West Grew Rich: The Economic Transformation of the Industrial World by Nathan Rosenberg and L.E. Birdzell, Jr.

Many academics in the humanities departments throughout the country argue that Western Europe and America unfairly became rich because we colonized the Third World, enslaved millions, or because white people are just somehow naturally "smarter."

Rosenberg, a history professor at Standford, and Birdzell, an attorney and legal scholar, emphatically refute such arguments. They demonstrate how the vast majority of the West's growth came after slavery and colonization were abolished. Instead, they point to the existence of legal institutions and cultural norms that have long been favorable to growth, voluntary exchange, and capital formation, including the common law legal system, the lack of centralized authority during the medieval period, the Protestant Work Ethic, and a reliance on markets to coordinate production.

In closing, I think most of ya'll can tell I've already read these books. And the truth is, I have, numerous times, cover to cover. But that shouldn't stop you from doing the same. For my money, these titles should sit right next to that worn-out copy of The Lords of Discipline.

The "Reverend" Al Sharpton Makes Scratch

If you've ever wondered how men of the cloth such as Al Sharpton make their money, here's your answer.

Ireland Rejects EU Treaty by Wide Margin

By Hilary White

DUBLIN, June 13, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Irish voters have voted "No", by 53.4 per cent to 46.6 per cent, to their country ratifying the European Union's Lisbon Treaty, the document that was to replace the European Constitution defeated by French and Dutch referenda in 2005. Ireland was the only one of the 27 EU member states obliged by law to hold a referendum on the Treaty.

The European commission president, José Manuel Barroso, said he believed the Treaty was still "alive," despite the resounding defeat in Ireland. This, however, was immediately contradicted by Luxembourg's Prime Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker - the longest serving leader in the EU - who said the Irish vote meant the Treaty could not enter into force in January 2009 as planned. Under the EU rules, the Treaty required unanimous consent of all member states. Barroso said EU leaders would consider their response at a summit in Luxembourg next week.

The French Prime Minister, Francois Fillon, said, "If the Irish people decide to reject the treaty of Lisbon, naturally, there will be no treaty of Lisbon."

The head of the European Union's current presidency is now demanding an explanation for the Irish people's democratically obtained rejection of the Treaty. "I will invite the Irish Prime Minister to explain the reasons for the rejection of the treaty by the Irish people," said Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa.

EU leaders have vowed that, despite the vote, the concept of a reformed European Union constitution will go forward. Barroso said today that the Treaty must go forward with the ratification process. France's Europe Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet said the EU must discuss a "legal arrangement" with Ireland.

The Treaty's defenders said the 300 page document was merely a way of streamlining "EU governance" and re-working the system of national votes to more closely reflect the various positions of the member states.

Pro-democracy groups in Ireland warned, however, that the same dangers to democracy and national sovereignty exist with this revised version of the rejected EU Constitution as were in the original. Ratification of the Treaty, they maintained, would threaten the democratic principles upon which the Irish polity rests, including citizenship.

Anthony Coughlan of the National Platform EU Research and Information Centre, wrote that the Lisbon Treaty ratification would create a new super-state "in the constitutional form of a supranational European federation" making citizens of ratifying countries primarily into citizens of that super-state, "owing obedience to its laws and loyalty to its authority," in contrast to their current honorary EU 'citizenship'.

Pro-life advocates argued that this would threaten the Irish constitutional protection for the unborn, given the almost universal acceptance and promotion of abortion at the EU level. Certain EU bodies have also lobbied hard for pressure to be put on countries that retain their legal protections for natural marriage.

Coughlan wrote that the reforms of the Lisbon Treaty would grant the EU a "legal personality" and corporate existence fundamentally different from its current make-up. It would, he said, "for the first time, [be] separate from and superior to its member states". It would reduce sovereign nations like Ireland, Britain and Germany, to the status of subordinate states comparable to the relationship between the state of Texas and the US Federal government.
"Politically and legally, this is the core element of an EU constitution," which, Coughlan said, is the least-discussed aspect of the Treaty. Coughlan is a Senior Lecturer Emeritus in Social Policy at Trinity College Dublin and Secretary of the National Platform.

Party leaders in Ireland are re-thinking their positions on the Treaty after the vote. All three major parties had supported a Yes vote for ratification. Party leaders in Dublin are said to be stunned at the size of the margin against their position. In the two constituencies of county Donegal, two thirds of voters said no to Lisbon. The biggest no vote was in Dublin South West, which saw a 65.1% majority.

In Britain, Tory opposition leader, David Cameron, whose party supported a referendum in Britain, said it is time to abandon the ratification of the Treaty. The Labour party, which pushed the ratification of the Treaty through Parliament without a public vote, contrary to their 2005 campaign promise, is now facing plummeting opinion polls. Prime Minister Gordon Brown refused to allow a vote, claiming that the Lisbon Treaty was substantially different from the previous document. This, however was widely refuted by legal experts, and even some prominent EU politicians, who said the differences between the two documents were negligible.

The Treaty would give the EU more law-making powers, Coughlan added, and would transfer more powers to the EU from national states, national parliaments and citizens. The non-elected Commissions have a monopoly on proposing EU laws. Laws would be made primarily by an irremovable "oligarchy," of 27 legislating politicians who constitute the Council of Ministers, who would make laws for 450 million Europeans.

Weight would be given to nations by population, which would reduce the relative voting weight and influence of small and middle-sized states, such as Ireland, Poland and Malta, the three EU countries maintaining legal protections for the unborn

An Old Newness- By Thomas Sowell

Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow

The Hoover Institution

Stanford University

Stanford, California 94305

By Thomas SowellTuesday, April 29, 2008

Many years ago, a great hitter named Paul Waner was nearing the end of his long career. He entered a ballgame with 2,999 hits -- one hit away from the landmark total of 3,000, which so many hitters want to reach, but which relatively few actually do reach.

Waner hit a ball that the fielder did not handle cleanly but the official scorer called it a hit, making it Waner's 3,000th. Paul Waner then sent word to the official scorer that he did not want that questionable hit to be the one that put him over the top.

The official scorer reversed himself and called it an error. Later Paul Waner got a clean hit for number 3,000.

What reminded me of this is the great fervor that many seem to feel over the prospect of the first black President of the United States.

No doubt it is only a matter of time before there is a black president, just as it was only a matter of time before Paul Waner got his 3,000th hit. The issue is whether we want to reach that landmark so badly that we are willing to overlook how questionably that landmark is reached.

Paul Waner had too much pride to accept a scratch hit. Choosing a President of the United States is a lot more momentous than a baseball record. We the voters need to have far more concern about who we put in that office that holds the destiny of a nation and of generations yet unborn.

There is no reason why someone as arrogant, foolishly clever and ultimately dangerous as Barack Obama should become president -- especially not at a time when the threat of international terrorists with nuclear weapons looms over 300 million Americans.

Many people seem to regard elections as occasions for venting emotions, like cheering for your favorite team or choosing a Homecoming Queen.

The three leading candidates for their party's nomination are being discussed in terms of their demographics -- race, sex and age -- as if that is what the job is about.

One of the painful aspects of studying great catastrophes of the past is discovering how many times people were preoccupied with trivialities when they were teetering on the edge of doom. The demographics of the presidency are far less important than the momentous weight of responsibility that office carries.

Just the power to nominate federal judges to trial courts and appellate courts across the country, including the Supreme Court, can have an enormous impact for decades to come. There is no point feeling outraged by things done by federal judges, if you vote on t he basis of emotion for those who appoint them.

Barack Obama has already indicated that he wants judges who make social policy instead of just applying the law. He has already tried to stop young violent criminals from being tried as adults.

Although Senator Obama has presented himself as the candidate of new things -- using the mantra of "change" endlessly -- the cold fact is that virtually everything he says about domestic policy is straight out of the 1960s and virtually everything he says about foreign policy is straight out of the 1930s.

Protecting criminals, attacking business, increasing government spending, promoting a sense of envy and grievance, raising taxes on people who are productive and subsidizing those who are not -- all this is a re-run of the 1960s.

We paid a terrible price for such 1960s notions in the years that followed, in the form of soaring crime rates, double-digit inflation and double-digit unemployment. During the 1960s, ghett oes across the countries were ravaged by riots from which many have not fully recovered to this day.

The violence and destruction were concentrated not where there was the greatest poverty or injustice but where there were the most liberal politicians, promoting grievances and hamstringing the police.

Internationally, the approach that Senator Obama proposes -- including the media magic of meetings between heads of state -- was tried during the 1930s. That approach, in the name of peace, is what led to the most catastrophic war in human history.

Everything seems new to those too young to remember the old and too ignorant of history to have heard about it.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute and author of Basic Economics: A Citizen's Guide to the Economy.

Ante Up

The BC Annual Fund drive ends June 30th. If you have not already sent your donation, you need to do so. Every gift counts! I challenge each of you, with the exception of Michael, to contribute at least $50. You can make your check payable to Benedictine Military School and mail it to:
Benedictine Military School
Annual Fund
6502 Seawright Dr.
Savannah, GA 31406
Be sure to include a note with your name and graduation year so that you can be credited for your donation.

NO EXCUSES!

Walken Wednesdays

Pinching pennies at the gas pump? Let's elect Obama!

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSWAT00963020080609

Any rational person can see the danger of Obama's "let's punish the rich" tax policies.

Would implenting a "windfall tax" on big oil company profits increase, or decrease energy prices?

On Capturing Pigs

I hate mass emails, but I have pasted for you one I received today. Below is a great analogy to remember while listening to the upcoming presidential debates.

A chemistry professor was recently teaching in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab the Prof noticed one young man (exchange student) who kept rubbing his back, and stretching as if his back hurt.

The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist government In the midst of his story he looked at the professor and asked a strange question. He asked, 'Do you know how to catch wild pigs?'

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said this was no joke. 'You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence.
They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side. The pigs, who are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat, you slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn. They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity.
The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening to America The government keeps pushing us toward socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. While we continually lose our freedoms - just a little at a time.

One should always remember: There is no such thing as a free lunch! Also, a politician will never provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself.

In this 'very important' election year, listen closely to what the candidates are promising you!
Just maybe you will be able to tell who is about to slam the gate on America.

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take away everything you have. - Thomas Jefferson

The Radical Takeover of the Democrat Party

I have become too busy to write long treatises on Conservative vs. Liberal conflicts. So, I will from time to time copy and past great articles that are much more better than yours truly.

This article is from www.lifesitenews.com

I suggest everyone sign up for the Life Site News daily email. Most of the articles cover Canadian stuff. But, they report much on U.S. and European happenings as well.


By Dale O'Leary

June 6, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) -

The Democrat party is in the midst of a great battle and while the pundits recognize that something is going on, none of them seem willing or able to explain the nature of the conflict. At root, the battle is a battle between Liberals and Radicals.

Take the issue of rights. Conservatives believe that everyone has equal rights, no matter their sex or race or ethnic background or religion. Liberals also believe in equal rights, but they believe that equal rights should lead to statistically equal outcomes. Conservatives accept that giving people equality of opportunity and rights does not guarantee equality of results, but Liberals see inequality of results and assume that there has been some injustice. Therefore, Liberals push for affirmative action, quotas, and other artificial mechanisms, which they hope will create statistical equality. This inevitably replaces one injustice with another.

Radicals are not interested in equality of rights or even statistical equality of results. Radicals believe that all history is the history of class struggle: the rich oppressing the poor, those of European ancestry oppressing those of African ancestry, men oppressing women, heterosexuals oppressing gays, lesbians and transgendered, America oppressing developing nations. It is not enough for the oppressors to stop oppressing and offer equality of opportunity and rights, or even equality of results. According to the Radicals, the oppressors have enjoyed "privileges" that the oppressed have been denied. This privilege consists in belonging to the privileged oppressor class. So even if you personally have never engaged in a single act of racism, sexism, or homophobia, the fact that you are a white, heterosexual male means that you have benefited from being a member of the oppressor class and therefore you are guilty and you deserve to pay.

Justice for the Radicals is forcing oppressors to pay through humiliation, through the destruction of their institutions (like the Boy Scouts), and monetarily through reparations. According to the Radicals, America is an oppressor nation because it is rich and other nations are poor. For Radicals, the economy is a zero sum game. They don't understand that the American system created wealth. For them all wealth is stolen from the oppressed. Of course, in countries where Radicals have gained control and eliminated the rich, no wealth is created and everyone accept the ruling Radicals is poor (for example, Cuba).

For the Radicals, America is the great Satan, the incarnation of evil; therefore even if America engages in military activities to free other people from oppression, America is wrong and deserves to lose. On the other hand, for the Radicals, terrorists are oppressed and therefore their actions are justified.

Another issue on which Radicals and Liberals part ways is the question of tolerance. For the Conservative, tolerance means allowing other people to speak their minds even when you believe they are wrong. For Conservatives people have rights, but opinions have no rights. It is perfectly acceptable to criticize foolish and dangerous opinions and to believe that you are right and other people are wrong.

Liberals are also for tolerance, but they tend to fall into moral relativism. Liberals believe that not only are all people equal, all opinions are equal. They don't actually believe this, what they really believe is that moral relativism is the only truth, and anyone who believes that it is possible to make judgments is dogmatic, bigoted, or narrow minded.

Radicals, when they are not in power, vociferously defend their right to freedom of speech, and scream intolerance when, after they have been allowed to speak, someone criticizes their extreme statements. However, when in power Radicals shut down the speech of anyone who disagrees with them. If they don't have the outright power to censor, they send out goon squads to scream, bang pans, and threaten to riot in order to assure that no voice but their own is heard. We see this occurring in universities that used to be bastions of Liberalism, but have fallen under the control of the Radicals. While persons with extreme Radical views are hired and receive tenure, Liberals who question Radicalism are marginalized, and Conservatives are banned outright. Conservative speakers are denied the opportunity to speak - they are either not invited to speak or are shouted down when they try to speak.

Although to conservatives Hillary Clinton is an extreme Liberal, she is still a Liberal. On the other hand, Barack Obama has spent his life in the company of Radicals. Rev. Wright's Black Liberation Theology is the epitome of Radicalism, as is Fr. Pfleger's ideological distortion of Catholic social teaching. William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn are unrepentant Radicals.
Barack Obama claims to want to bring people together, but there is not a single example of his reaching out to Conservatives. On the other hand, in spite of the embarrassment they have caused him he has consistent refused to denounce the Radicals in his past, and frankly if he did it now we would have to assume that he was acting out of political expedience not from a real recognition of the danger to our democracy posed by his friends' Radical views.

In the 1960s Conservatives drew a hard line between themselves and the extremists of the Right - KKK, Neo-Nazi. Liberals, on the other hand, made common ground with Radicals. They now face the prospect of a Radical takeover of the Democratic party. The only way the Liberals can save their party and ultimately save America is to vote for John McCain.

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