Bipartisanship, That Sly Serpent

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a
more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic
Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote
the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to
ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this
Constitution for the United States of America."

Ah, yes... the preamble to the United States Constitution. The words are burned into our collective mind. The sense of freedom they inspire are a birthright to any American. But what is freedom? What does it mean to be an American?
Freedom, at its most basic level, is your ability for you to be you, completely and individually. Leadership does not grow from an aggregate; leadership can only grow from the watering-can of individualism. The founders, who wrote the pristine document which frames our nation, were individuals. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who led a people to claim their right to be free and equal Americans, was an individual. Mohandas Gandhi, who freed an entire nation from the chains of tyranny, was an individual. Few are the examples, but great is their impact.
Why are the examples so few? In a word... courage. It takes courage to be an individual; to stand up for what you believe in. Can you imagine the obstacles the founders of this nation had to overcome or the persecution Dr. King had to endure? Place yourselves in the Mahatma's sandals, with an entire nation to lead to freedom; could you overcome, endure, and lead?
Considering the enormous weight these men had on their shoulders, is it any wonder that America is a little miffed at the weakness shown by the leaders we have elected? No, it is no wonder at all. And how, pray tell, does this weakness manifest itself? In a word... bipartisanship. Bipartisanship is “reaching across the aisle”. Excuse me, but I did not vote for someone so he could reach across the aisle, I voted for someone so he could defend the principles he spoke so eloquently about in the campaign. Bipartisanship, as far as I see it, is the spaghetti-spined, weak-willed defense of ones elected post.
Imagine if General Washington were bipartisan. Imagine if he had run up the white flag and gone over to see General Howe in Boston in February of 1776 and offered a “fair” and “impartial” resolution to this unseemly war. We would not be sitting here, reading this in a separate and free nation.
Imagine if Dr. King had pulled back from his beliefs in and equitable treatment of all Americans. American blacks would still be drinking from separate water fountains and riding in the back of the bus.
Imagine if Gandhi had negotiated with the tyrants in an evenhanded attempt to be fair. India would not currently be recognized as the largest democracy in the world.
Ridiculous notions all.
When I elect a representative, I expect him to represent my ideals, my desires, and my vision. I expect him to lead. I expect him to be an individual.
Individualism is the mother of greatness and greatness can only occur among free people. This is the substance of American exceptionalism; this is the essence of freedom.

Freedom and the Greatness of Small Business

The word “great” has many meanings. It could mean large in size, number, or extent; of major significance; remarkable or out of the ordinary; or it could be used to describe a person who has achieved unparalleled distinction and honor in a specific field. It is a term so commonly used that its power has been diminished and its meaning, jaded. This is why I hesitate to use it to describe something as immensely powerful, as enormously influential, and as empyreal as American Small Business.
If you have ever read the essay “I, Pencil” by Leonard E. Read, then you already know the miracles uninhibited creativity can bring. What Mr. Read is describing is the organizational power of free men which drives our technological world. One can scarcely open his eyes without fixing them on something brought to you by small business. Your carpets and ceiling tiles, your door hinges and the oil to quiet them, and even that little piece of plastic on the end of your shoe lace – all brought to you, in some way, through the industriousness of small business.
In a multitude of time and through a multitude of ways, small business has made your life better, and in some instances, possible. Even the big businesses we see every day could not function if not supported by small businesses; indeed, most of them were small businesses at one time. Have you ever heard of Walton's five and dime? I'll bet you have; we call it Wal-Mart now. Do you think General Electric started off as a giant, multinational company? Of course not.
Small business is big. As of 2005, there were roughly 25.8 million businesses in the U.S. while only 17,000 of those can be considered big businesses. Small business employs half of all private sector employees and produces 13 to 14 times as many patents per employee than large companies. Productive is a good word to describe them. Essential is another.
The driving force behind small business is freedom. Without it, creativity loses its potency and all that we take for granted begins to fade. How do you squelch creative force? How do you stop the production lines? How do you remove our freedom? You tax it.
Obama told us in the campaign that he would cut taxes for 95% of families and small businesses. However, he has also said that he would do nothing while President Bush's tax relief expires. Now, I'm no mathematician, but when I pay a higher percentage of my income to the government in the form of taxes, I call that a tax increase! We simply cannot let that happen. There is too much at stake. Our economy is driven by small business and small business is driven by freedom.
It was Benjamin Franklin who said, “They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security.” How right he was. I am not complaining about the money, I can always go make more money. I am complaining about government intrusions upon my liberty. It is my intention to stand up and fight; not only to keep the liberty we have now, but to take back that which we have lost.
Patrick Henry said it best when he spoke these words; "If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained - we must fight!"
Indeed Mr. Henry, you did - and we shall!

Stop Fixing Our Economy!

The government cannot fix this economy. There is no magic program, no grand idea, no bailout that will make everything OK. The only thing government can do that will help, is nothing. If freedom built the American economy, why would less freedom help when it is in trouble? Considering government is the cause of the economic dilemma we are facing, why would anyone think the government can provide a solution? When I say government is the cause, I'm not just talking about Freddy and Fannie, I'm not just talking about CAFE standards for the auto industry, and I'm not just talking about oppressive taxation. I'm talking about the insane notion that anyone can spend themselves into prosperity.
Imagine you make $1000 per week and spend $1200 per week. Obviously, you cannot sustain that without eventually going bankrupt. So, you sit down one Sunday afternoon and decide to do something about your economic situation. You think and think and finally come up with a brilliant solution. You will go to the bank and borrow $10,000. With the extra money, you can sustain yourself for an additional 50 weeks. Fantastic! You can also hire someone to clean your home, and someone else to tend your garden. Problem solved, right?
You would have to be completely insane to think that would solve your problem. The best scenario is that you have merely put off the problem. The worst, and more likely, scenario is that you have compounded the problem and ensured your eventual bankruptcy.
That is what our government is currently doing. When the government spends money, it is only compounding the problem. It does not create anything, by its very nature it cannot create anything. What the government gets, it gets because you and I have created something. Every time the government does something to fix the problem, it does so with either our money or with borrowed money. When spending doesn't work, the politicians spend more. When that doesn't work, they spend even more. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different result. If you want a different outcome, you have to change your plan.
The American people are the solution to this problem. If Obama came out tomorrow and said he is going to change his plan and cut corporate and capital gains taxes, American business would respond immediately with new investments and the economy would begin to recover. The only real solution the government can offer is to get out of the way and let Americans do what Americans do.
Every time Capitalism is tried, it succeeds. When Reagan took over in 1981, interest rates were staggeringly high. Unemployment was also high and not surprisingly, so were taxes. When you want something to stop happening, tax it and it will stop. Prosperity was taxed and prosperity stopped happening. So Reagan cut taxes and so began the longest period of peacetime prosperity ever in American history.
The government desperately needs to stop doing things. It needs to get out of the way and let Americans do things. Government spending and regulation stifles growth; give us back our freedom and we will flourish.

Government Enacted, Taxpayer Subsidized Failure

Some parents pay their kids to get good grades. A’s will get, say, $10 and B’s will get $5. I doubt anyone pays for C’s and D’s and I am quite positive no one pays for F’s. An “F” means you failed. That’s OK if you can use it as a motivator to learn, grow, and achieve; but imagine a world where parents paid their kids to fail. There would be nothing but failure.

That is essentially what a bailout is. A bailout is the taxpayer subsidizing corporate failure. Unfortunately, that’s not the whole story.

Now imagine if parents and teachers conspired to give kids all the wrong answers thus causing the failure; then blaming the kid for failing; punishing the kid for failing; then paying the kid for the “F”. What would happen? Not only would the kid be on drugs in an attempt to medicate the confusion away, but he or she would inevitably get worse in school, be completely unable to pass and ultimately be forced to rely on his or her unreliable parents and teachers.

That is what is happening in our markets today. The parents and teachers are the government and the kids are the industries involved. Let me explain starting with the mortgage industry…

Right now the federal government is forcing banks to give loans to people regardless of their ability to pay. People who have a difficult time paying their bills, for whatever reason, also have a difficult time saving money. As a result, there are a substantial number of houses that are 100% (or more) financed. When housing prices dropped, the houses were over-funded and the credit markets froze. (Sure, there are better explanations out there, but you get the general point.) What does the government do? They step in, blame corporate greed, blame Wall Street, and throw your money at it.

Next we have the auto industry. The federal government is forcing auto manufacturers to meet a ridiculous set of fuel efficiency standards called the CAFE standards (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) which forces auto manufacturers to prematurely re-tool their factories in an effort to meet the impossible standards set by the government at a cost of millions of dollars. Now, not surprisingly, they are going broke. What does the government do? They step in, blame corporate greed, blame Wall Street, and throw your money at it.

What’s next? I’ll tell you. Health care is about to be taken over by the feds and run with the same degree of efficiency as every other government-clogged industry. They will call it “fair” and “the right thing to do”, after all; there are millions of people in this country who currently have no health insurance. Frankly, I would rather have no health insurance than Socialism’s brand of health insurance. Check with England, Canada, and Cuba to find out just how wonderful government health care is. I did check and it’s nothing but long lines and diminished quality; not something you want in a hospital. Not to mention the enormous burden placed on the taxpayer by the bloated agency that will no doubt be created.

We must avoid this at all cost. We must act! If we speak out with a loud and unified voice they will have no choice but to listen. If they don’t listen the first time, we will keep pushing and pushing until they do listen. If they refuse to listen, we have the power to fire them and take their place. Let us not stop until they comply or until they are in the soup-lines and we are running the show.

The Immovable Force

Remember how important it was that we get the $700 billion bailout in the hands of Hank Paulson RIGHT NOW? Congress made it sound like something that had to happen immediately... or else. Or else what? The “or else” sounded dire, like it was the demise of America. Well, good ole Hank has yet to use the money to buy up these bad mortgages and indeed, has changed his mind about it all together.

“Over these past weeks we have continued to examine the relative benefits of purchasing illiquid mortgage-related assets,” Paulson said. “Our assessment at this time is that this is not the most effective way to use TARP[Troubled Asset Relief Program] funds.”

Not the most effective way? That was the purpose of the money; that's why you said you needed it. I smell a rat and now I have some questions.

Why was all of America told this?

Was it a lie?

Were we swindled?

Was the entire thing fabricated to do damage to the Bush Administration just before the election?

I'm not sure what it was, but I can tell you what it wasn't... it wasn't an emergency. Were we duped? You bet we were. We were told that we NEEDED to bail out the mortgage industry. We were told that we NEEDED to bail out AIG. Now we are being told that we NEED to bail out the Big Three. How are they justifying it? They say “These businesses are too big to fail.” That is a lie; if they were too big to fail, they wouldn't fail! There is no such thing as a company that is too big to fail.

Well, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

I find it interesting that the liberals hate some companies because they are too big (Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Pfizer, etc) and throw billions at others because they are too big (AIG, Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac, GM, and any airline they can get their hands on). How do they decide which they are going to love and which they are going to hate? I think I found the magic formula.

If your company has a solid business model and makes a good profit while providing a valuable product or service, the liberals are going to hate you. If your business is fraught with government regulation, greedy unions, and questionable business practices that provide an opening for government interference, the liberals will love you and send you billions of taxpayer dollars.

Why is this? Because they are Socialists. They are Marxists. They are bent on destroying free-market capitalism. Nationalizing entire industries is one of the ways they plan to do it. They started a long time ago and will not stop until they either succeed or hit an immovable force coming the other way. What is that immovable force? YOU ARE! American resolve has never met it's match. We have had some pretty rough enemies but none are as destructive as the one we face today. There is battle going on for our very freedom, if we don't stand up and fight, we will become slaves of the state. We have already defeated slavery once in this country, let's not go back there again. We can win this fight and together, we will.

Follow this blog for some very exciting updates in the near future.

Conservative Indolence

I don't blame liberals for liberalism any more than I blame gravity for breaking a dropped glass. Liberalism is what they do; it is what they are. Sure, I get frustrated when they do liberal things. I rail when they siphon off half of my paycheck. I fume when they accuse others of the very things they have been doing (bad economics, racism, greed, etc...). I seethe when they steal elections and then perform their victory dance in the street. The problem with all of this; the frustration, railing, fuming, and seething; is that it actually accomplishes nothing. The source of the problem, and the focus of my blame, is conservatives... or should I say, conservative indolence.

Sulking on the couch while you watch "Hannity and Colmes" every evening is hardly going to repair the damage. Action is what is required. Thomas Jefferson once said, "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent". People of good conscience... that would be you; the average, hard-working, law-abiding American citizen. You have to stand up. You have to speak out. You have to ACT!

You have more power than you think you do. You create huge corporations; you employ America; you produce miracle drugs; you built the Hoover Dam, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge; you have secured freedom for millions around the world; you wrote the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution and then fought to defend them. You are an American. This is your country. Washington is powerless without you.

This great nation of ours is now in jeopardy. Will we allow a group of liberal elitists take over our private businesses, our private land, and our private lives; or are we going to fight? Liberty was not won with peace and love and bi-partisanship and that is not how it will be saved. Don't let them talk over you; don't let them label you; and most importantly, don't let them win. Now, let's go out there and get our country back.