Archive
Boehner’s Bogus Bravado
John Boehner, Speaker of the House
In what will surely leave a sour taste in many conservatives’ mouths for some time, Speaker John Boehner has removed several conservative Republicans from leadership positions in the House of Representatives. The story, revealed on December 4th, made mention of a secret list of guidelines and criteria for reappointing Republicans to their chairs. Kansas Republican Tim Huelskamp acknowledged the revelation and existence of this secret list on Tuesday.
So far, the House leadership (Boehner, Cantor, and McCarthy) have been mum about the list, its origins, and why it was necessarily to determine which Republicans are no longer welcomed as leaders of committees. Those leaders attempted to explain the removals were merely normal, procedural, actions. Other angered Republicans expressed their disillusionment with the ridiculous nature of the secrecy and privileged nature of knowledge of the chair removals: Representative Jim Jordan (OH) said this kind of behavior was not good for the party; and Senator Jim DeMint (SC) went so far as to say conservatives “Lost the battle in Washington for now”. The conservative, Club for Growth is calling for the release of the list of criteria used by Boehner to replace the chairs.
Jeb Hensarling, who is the incoming chair of the House Financial Services Committee, claimed ignorance of the entire mess. He just happens to move into a newly opened spot, and knows nothing about the vacated position? Even if Hensarling did have an inkling of a political payback, he is now wise to the game, and he is keeping his mouth tightly closed.
It is interesting that a number of blogs and news sources actually refer to the fiasco, as a purging of conservatives from leadership positions in Washington. I find parallels to 20th century leaders. Feeling threatened, those same leaders - even though their supporters were successful, and showed themselves as loyal adherents of the party orthodoxy – were eliminated as chairmen from leadership positions. Minimizing or eliminating any threats to any top dog (in this case, top-dog Boehner) will occur.
The rise of the Tea Party, and the re-ascendancy of conservative values, have worried the progressives in the United States, and now we see how much the Republican establishment is uneasy too. While a nameless Congressional aide confirms that the removals from the chairs were payback, what does it say about a Republican leadership who would rather snipe and in-fight, than take on progressives in the White House and Senate? It seems like familiarity really does breed contempt. Apparently Boehner would rather stock committees with his sycophants and yes-men, than appoint responsibly spending conservatives, voted into the House by their constituents, to chairs of fiscal committees.
The years of conservative criticism that Boehner was nothing more than an ineffective, establishment shill, seem to finally have the evidence anyone would ever require to confirm their belief. Boehner’s frequent crying episodes, and his tough-guy-only-to-cave-to-Democrat-demands acts have grown very thin. Boehner has done little, if anything, to curb Obama’s runaway debts and deficits, or to counter progressives’ deceitful claims about Republicans, or even hold the Senate responsible for tabling so much that the House has passed and sent to the body. Boehner’s media presence is lacking, his laid back nature is contrary to what is needed right now, and his frequent bouts of one-sided “compromise” are antithetical to conservatives’ belief that there is one way to conduct politics: competently, fiscally responsibly, and at the direction of their constituents, not special interests.
How do you deal with a politician like John Boehner? Do you call his Congressional office, and leave a strongly-worded message? Do you scowl and swear whenever you see Boehner’s mug on the television screen? Do you buy an overly-tanned voodoo doll and some stick pins? Of course not. You hit him where he has shown he has soft spots. You make him worry about the people that he has shown he fears. Conservatives must take every opportunity to hold his feet not only to the fire, but in the fire. It is clear that Boehner may need to be primaried to send a message to him. If so, do it, and get him to debate, to explain his frequent collapses to the Democrats and his wishy-washy support of fiscal responsibility. Whatever it takes, Boehner ought to be run out of town on a rail.
Thank You, Andrew
Requiescat in pace, Andrew
Conservatives today, collectively awoke and received a gut-punch, with the news of Andrew Breitbart’s passing. He apparently had collapsed in Los Angeles, was now fighting the good fight in the Heavens. The effect he had on politics in the United States, still hasn’t been fully realized, and after the depressing losses in recent elections, I give him full credit for reinvigorating the GOP’s base. He took the full force of the media, and whatever barbs the unhinged left threw at him, and the man never so much as blinked. He was the person I thank most, for destroying the myth that the mainstream media was this huge, unassailable machine, who were above all consequences of their truth-bending.
By leading so many discontented conservatives and republicans to his Big sites, he showed us that we weren’t just lone, disgruntled people, but that there were plenty of others in the nation. And most importantly, rather than just reveal us to one another, he brought an entire nation of liked-minded people together. In my mind that will be Andrew’s legacy – that the left’s strategy of “divide and conquer” still wasn’t working, and that the right was still there, plugging along, but in serious need of a leader.
By being the fearless and tireless leader – the person who was most needed at the most perfect moments – the debt owed to you, Andrew, will never be able to be repaid.
Thank you.
More Reservations About Rick…
I had not intended to write another post, surely not another so soon, about Rick Santorum, and I felt as though I covered my concerns about him in a previous post. It turns out, over the span of the last week or so, he has done things that again made my ears perk up, and forced me to do research, confirming that I had heard the things I had actually heard. Again, my worries seem to have been proven true, and the things I thought (and hoped) had to be media stretching the truth, were confirmed…
Rick Santorum rejects church and state separation? Say it ain't so...
Most Recent Missteps
On a recent Sunday morning media shows, gearing up for a double primary today, in Michigan and Arizona, Rick Santorum knew he had to try to rebound from his poor performance in the last debate in Arizona. If I were him, I think I would have stressed the reasons I was the fitter candidate, and why my decision-making skills were the best among the candidates. However, Santorum seems to have given his opponents on the right and the left plenty to think about. In a time when people balked at the notion that the President has given an order to American religious groups, that they must provide contraceptives to employees, Rick Santorum said President Kennedy’s remarks about the separation of church and state made him “want to throw-up”. My main concern is that if a leader can give a directive from a secular stance, to religious groups (and we all think that is an overreach), then why would it be better that a religious-oriented leader give a directive to secular groups? This seems to be what Santorum is endorsing when he rejects Kennedy’s assurances to Baptist leaders in the 1960 election. While I would not go as far as Chris Matthews, and call Santorum a “theocrat,” I do worry that either playing to more religious voters, or dragging this election to a more social-issue oriented election, is tantamount to throwing away the biggest electoral-weapon the GOP has – the ECONOMY! They should be taking the economy, and how Obama has thrown away money, time after time, and ride that horse to death. Rely on winning back the Senate, and making it more conservative, to then legislate more socially conservative issues to send to the Republican president.
The second concern that I have with recent Santorum remarks, is that he was against the open-primary system. While he was in Minnesota, he criticized permitting Democrats to vote in open, Republican, primaries. The CNN article below, mentions that there was a good chance his criticism was a result of Mitt Romney’s winning the New Hampshire primary. Santorum went so far as to suggest that anyone voting against their party affiliation, should just go ahead and switch parties.
“We want the activists of the party, the people who make up the backbone of the Republican Party to have a say in who our nominee is as opposed to a bunch of people who don’t even identify themselves as Republicans picking our nominee,” Santorum told voters on the call held January 29. “I don’t like that. I believe that states should only allow Republicans to vote in Republican primaries.” (via CNN)
Once he began to show some life in a close Michigan race, and various liberal sources began to throw around the idea of a leftwing version of Rush Limbaugh’s “Operation Chaos,” he suddenly changed his attitude. He then began to support robo-calls to try to get all the support from whatever places that he could – even those Democrats that he crititized in Minnesota. This is unfortunate, and it puts me in mind of the “Father of Flip-Flopping,” John Kerry. (Now do not send me comments – I am NOT calling Rick Santorum, John Kerry – but Kerry is so inextricably bound to the “flip-flop,” whenever I see it, I think of him, so sue me…) What I am suggesting is that it is possible that other voters make the same connection, and it turns them completely off.
I fear that losing Arizona and Michigan on the 28th may force Santorum into a more desperate position, and I wonder what different issues he may begin to adopt and endorse, to try to salvage his campaign. While I do hope he stays active in the race (no matter the outcome), and afterward keeps conservative social issues in the news, I do not think that now is the time for doing so.
My Reservations About Rick…
GOP presidential candidate, Rick Santorum
So, according to the talking heads, Rick Santorum is the newest GOP front runner, and is therefore unstoppable (like the others were in their turns at the top). If he is going to successfully run against Mitt Romney, and displace the projected GOP nominee, and then go on to face Obama in the general election, people need to give him a closer look, instead of just making him their “Not-Mitt” pick. Now, I get a strange feeling from the guy, especially when he claims to be the only conservative candidate left with a shot in the primary (Newt claimed the same thing at one time). I would never vote for (or not vote for) a candidate because of a feeling, and I would not ask anyone else to do so either. So, I did a little research, and from what I have read, Santorum’s claimed conservancy is shaky at best.
My first concern is that Santorum was a legislator. Now, I realize this sounds this minor, but I think the mindset of a man with a legislative background is different from a man with an executive background. The legislator wants to build consensus, and reach compromise. I would rather have a candidate who has lead something, via governorship or as a business executive. Rick Perry would have perfectly fulfilled my idea of a candidate with leadership skills and was someone who understands that building a consensus takes time you may not have. I offer the current president, as example of a person who looks to build a coalition of yes-men and enablers (his cabinet/czars/advisers), and seems to be awkward and stiff when pushed to make a decision, which frequently turns out to be problematic.
Another concern I have is the things Rick supported while he was in the United States Congress. Bills and programs that do not seem too “conservative” to me. For example, legislation like “No Child Left Behind”, which not only grew educational and federal government bureaucracies, but mandated testing and tracking of school children, was something supported by Santorum. Just within the last month, it was given a waiver in ten states. While in the Senate, Santorum sponsored the “GAS Act”, which would have created a new, Federal Trade Commission-run “Competitive Pricing Task Force” to study energy pricing, and levy fines if the seller was determined to be fixing their prices after a release of strategic petroleum reserves by the president. Thankfully, the bill went nowhere, and the chance for bureaucratic growth was stymied. In my mind, all this legislative double-talk would have done nothing more than increase the size of government bureaucracy for (ultimately) arbitrary reasons.
Santorum has also shown a few lapses in judgment. He supported George W. Bush’s failed judicial nominee, Harriet Miers, saying that the fact she had never been a judge before did not matter. A closer, more critical review of her (and increasing criticism by democrats and others), led him to retract his support. He voted for a Chuck Schumer-sponsored bill that restricted abortion protesters from blocking or impeding access to abortion clinics. While I do not think those choices are in and of themselves bad, for a politician like Santorum, that has espoused so many conservative beliefs and voted so conservatively for so long – it really makes his rare, occasional departure from those conservative ideals unexpected and seem radical to me. Despite all this, I would still see myself as able to hold my nose and vote for him.
Arlen Specter (D), now unemployed
Unfortunately, I still have not mentioned what I consider to be the worst of his transgressions. He has bragged about working with Barbra Boxer, and he even bragged about the number of earmarks he has supported. In the worst behavior Santorum exhibited, he supported Arlen Specter in the 2004 Senate race against conservative Republican, Pat Toomey. Ironically, some of the same supporters who donated to Santorum, found themselves at odds with his support (of Specter), because the donators supported the more conservative Toomey instead. Again, that may not seem too bad when considered only on that fact. However, as we know, Arlen Specter continued to veer increasingly-leftward in his politics after winning a narrow race against Toomey, and Specter ended up switching party allegiances, becoming a Democrat, and then losing his election following that switch. The worst part of the whole mess, was that it was Specter who cast the crucial 60th vote for Obamacare. Here is Specter, bragging about both his switch and vote. As we have found this last week, now the Obamacare fiasco has been used to try to force religious agencies/employers to cover things completely contrary to the tenets of their faith. While it may be unfair to blame Santorum for all the fallout from his support for Specter, he certainly does not have clean hands in the ongoing messes either.
The Romney Paradox
Plan B
Plan B. from Texasorbusted’s Blog
Excerpt: “What’s disturbing about Romney is that for some reason the MSM and the Left seem to prefer Mitt over the rest of the GOP field. One possibility for their sanguinity is that the MSM and Democrats might be holding back a possible October Surprise to harm Romney.”
My Rights Are More Important Than Your Rights
The Bill of Rights, along with the Declaration of Independence, are two of the nation's most sacred documents.
Right? I mean, we hear politicians in Washington claim that one’s rights are more important than some other, and they proceed to attempt to weigh the rights of one group over another constantly, depending (it seems) on how many votes that the bureaucrats need, and how much monetary support those with the “more important” rights can give. The special interests claim as well, that they have earned some special consideration – usually based in a perceived wrong or slight. This is all too typical, despite the fact that the Founding Fathers and the documents that they left this great country describes exactly the opposite. “…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights…” goes the wonderful line of the Declaration of Independence, flies into the face of the special-interest rights-givers in Washington. The claim seems to be, that somehow, these stingy-rights-givers now know better than the Creator, which people deserve certain rights, and when those rights may be invoked.
We have seen for nearly two months now, a group, first devoted to tackling the economic structure of the United States – since everybody knows it is inherently unfair, and is stacked against those just entering the job markets from college. Whatever happened to the promise they were given of six-figure salaries, generous retirement benefits (early, naturally), and four-day work weeks? Just go to college, experiment with everything you can get your hands on, and when you graduate, the world will be laid out in front of you, laid at your feet, like your own personal pearl. When this fictional Utopian world does not match the reality of graduates, there is understandable cognitive dissonance.
“Surely, there must be a way that these things can be made right!? This was not what was promised! This is unfair!” And, so, along come the politicians, always looking for the next batch of useful idiots. The politicians recycle the usual, “Yes, we understand – it is unfair what has happened to you – and darn it, if you vote for me, I am gonna do something about it for you!” And so the useful idiots, once again buying the hype, throw their support behind the over-promising, always under-delivering politician. Usually, we know how the drill goes from here – it is a sort of “rinse, lather, repeat” scenario, where the politician finds a scapegoat, and pins their own failing to deliver on promises on that poor goat. Before long, the goat is defeated in elections, and the next class of useful idiots are graduating from college, and the pearl is laid before them once again.
To bring us back from the scenario of Utopia and the new graduates’ pearls, I reiterate that the politicians have always been reluctant to even try to deliver on their promises. After all, there was always that poor scapegoat. Simply blame, excuse, and move on. Somewhere along the line though, it seems like the politicians, sensing a way both away from the goat, and a way to “lock-in” support, decided to change the dynamics of their relationship with their supporters. They seem to have found a permanent scapegoat – the so-called 1%, and other business owners, many of which(ironically enough), have been given promises by the same politicians.
America's worst mayor? Oakland's Jean Quan
Rights are somehow more noble when a movement makes a semi-cogent, nearly-pertinent point, right? We are told that this group or that, simply must be given some special considerations, because they have been wronged in the past. I do not buy that explanation for a second. Even if a person supports the “Occupy your-city-here” movement, it does not give excuse the behavior of its members. Forgetting the hundreds of violent crimes against people committed at the camps (all allegedly, of course, and being handled from within) – for the mayor of one of the largest cities in the country to turn a blind eye to wanton property destruction and violence, and the further threat of violence, is unforgivable. Various stores are shown with broken windows, and road blocks are piled and set afire. The protesters left one threat that, “We came unarmed – this time.” If Oakland’s Jean Quan stoops any further to cater to the violent protesters, she will be in the midst of the riots, handing the protesters rocks and bottles to throw at her own police force and at city businesses. Think this is mere hyperbole? She has already gone as far as posting her office phone number on Twitter, and asking the protesters to call her! Here is your new set of promises, occupiers!
This is madness. While certain media personalities talk of the end of the country and ripping apart of American ideals, I am less certain. Once these same Machiavellian politicians re-discover the power that they hold onto so tightly before the OWS movement began, and the first mayor in a city with a sizable OWS camp sends in the riot police, the rest of the mayors will follow. This first mayor will spark something that will quickly spread. I find it is amazing – for all of the politicians and mayors’ use of scapegoats, they show themselves to be little more than sheep.
Spend It Like You Stole It
The new omnibus jobs-infrastructure bill created and proposed by the president this month, promises to get Americans back to work and rebuild the crumbling infrastructure — all without needing any additional funding! By ending a few tax loopholes here, adding a little bump to certain income tax brackets there, it will pay for itself. Huzzah – the Commander in Chief has single-handedly rebuilt the nation and yet again, saved us from ourselves, just in the nick of time. Of course, the reason this whole measure was necessary in the first place were the filthy rich, who, saved and hid all their money, because they like to see the country struggle and fail (AKA the scary left’s boogeyman-narrative). Even if the millionaires and billionaires the Democrats love to hate, were that warped in their thinking, would you want to give any more money to this government? People like Warren Buffet and Mark Cuban’s protest that they would just love to pay more in taxes. The politicians love to use those investors’ claims to make a point that the government should take more from all of them. At least, that is what the democrats would love America to believe.
Pass this bill - it's all I've got!
Perhaps believing it to be a mesmerizing force, the president’s repeated chant of, “Pass this bill, pass this bill…” during his Congressional address fell on deaf ears, as Congress refused to act and quickly pass an irresponsible and un-read bill, unlike their predecessors. Obama will undoubtedly use this instance when he is on the campaign trail to tell his supporters, “Gee, I really tried guys, but those darned Republicans – they are playing politics and engaging in brinkmanship again…” His politics seem to grow more and more transparent and less realistic, as increasingly, his rhetoric grows more inflammatory and divisive. His track record as a leader and economic steward is already onion-paper thin.
His claims of caring about Americans’ hardships might have once been taken at face value, and given the benefit of the doubt – but when you hear the National Labor Relations Board may prevent thousands of new jobs from an aircraft manufacturing plant in South Carolina, it belies that claim. The union in Washington state would rather risk moving the entire proposed being operation sent to another country, it seems, than to share in the company’s prosperity, domestically. “Workers of the world, unite”, indeed. The current three-member NLRB has been appointed by President Obama, with one member a recess appointment, after being threatened with a filibuster for his Senate hearing (see: Craig Becker).
The president’s claim to care about green energy and renewable resources have fallen by the wayside as well. Having already given a sweetheart loan to a friend who owned a solar panel company in California, whose operation he visited in 2010. The now infamous Solyndra boondoggle cost 1,100 workers their jobs. The employees showed up to work as usual one day, and found the plant closed to them. The company had sought investment from private sources, but were rebuffed when the burn rate of the company was shown to be completely untenable(and I picture the private investors reading Solyndra’s financials, and belly laughing at them). One-half of a billion dollars of taxpayer money is now gone, used for capital expenditures and other miscellaneous costs, at a company that had no chance of success. And this administration still sits on an additional $15 billion that they cannot wait to give away. How is this possible? Press Secretary Jay Carney explains, “That’s the way government works…” Perhaps that is the way your government works, but in the private sector (I like to think of it as “the real world”), where you are responsible for your own money, you also try to minimize losses by skipping investments in a company that is already belly-up.
As much as the last Congress and Democratic supporters harped to Americans about Cheney’s Halliburton ties, and how staffers were too close to business, that they would understand enough about business to prevent the wanton waste of the country’s funds. It seems that they focused on energy companies being an evil, and of providing “obscene profits”. Of course, I wonder if Halliburton was a big Democrat campaign contributor if they would still care as much? As the scandal grows, and more people are implicated in the fiasco, the Democrats’ next election prospects seem as dim as the Solyndra plant they threw so much away on.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Ceilings
"Come on - just give us in Washington a little more - just a taste of those sweet tax dollars, and we'll never ask again - PROMISE!"
So, I am sure we have all heard by now, the effect that the complete and catastrophic failure to raise the debt ceiling is going to cause: American debt default, Social Security checks may not be sent out, soldiers will not be paid, and quite possibly, the whole damned world may cease to exist. Democrats, in no real position to try to claim even an iota of financial responsibility, are now telling us that unless they are enabled to continue to spend as they have for the past two years, everyone’s life is going to get much, much tougher. It is a new spin on their old unspoken belief that they know better than Main Street, USA, how to run everything and spend tax dollars. Oh, no, silly taxpayer – it is not you who sees everyday, how valuable tax money could be used — it’s the politicians in Washington D.C. who know better. If you want to say something about it, well go ahead, and maybe we can get a pork-barrel project sent your way – with your Congressman’s name all over it, of course. The tax-and-spend-and-give-the-constituents-crumbs is a cycle which seems to have finally gotten so bad, that an entire political movement has risen up to try to bring it to a complete halt.
The excuses for why the government has so taken to tax dollars worse than ever before runs the gamut, from “It was the last guy’s fault we are running short now”, to the more dramatic, “It’s simple – if we do not get more money, the government (and all of its associated ‘freebies’ for people) are going to end.” Now, I have never been one easily swayed by threats and intimidation, and the dramatic, threatening tactics are just as wasted on children throwing fits in grocery stores aisles. Leading up to the current budget crisis/debt ceiling talks, it had always been my understanding of government that the legislative branch was supposed to prepare and pass a budget for the president’s signature. Except now, for the 800 and who-knows day, there has been no budget passed. The Senate happily plays whatever the president’s game is that week, and neglects the country’s most important business. They’ve done next to nothing to solve the current debt-ceiling fiasco, and seem perfectly content to allow six of its senators to cobble together a plan. This bi-partisan plan, the country’s financial savior as the left would have us believe, is long on hope, and short on actual details. I guess “hope” in D.C., is still recognized as some sort of political asset to be sold to the American people. The thing is, the people aren’t buying anymore. The president’s budget plan, when sent to the Senate was narrowly voted down, 97-0. Yes, that is right, not even the president’s own party would vote for his monstrosity.
The Senate’s “Gang of Six” plan would have the net effect of $3.75 trillion dollars in deficit reduction. When pressed for how the plan would actually work, the authors turned to the typical Washington explanation, “Trust us – it will really fix things.” Apparently, the easily-swayed-by-Senators President Obama was happy to sign on, anticipating a lower than expected cut to entitlements. Truth is, the plan does not seem to address any entitlement reforms at all. The earlier created, Mitch McConnell plan would have a $1.5 trillion deficit reduction effect. At this time, there is no point in even describing the McConnell plan, since the left is happy to support the useless G.O.6 plan, and the House of Representatives has passed “Cut, Cap, and Balance”.
"Sign something responsible from the House? Pfft, not on your life!"
So, where does this leave us? Moody’s, the company recognized as a trusted source of ratings for countries’ bonds, has threatened to downgrade the United States’ rating if nothing is done. The CCB plan, creates a deficit reduction of $6 trillion over ten years. Moody’s has said that to maintain a Aaa rating, the agency would need to see serious deficit reduction – their number? At least $4 trillion. Obama has gone on record as saying if the CCB plan somehow makes it through the Senate, he would veto it. So, I ask you readers – who’s fault would an “under funded” government be at that point? To think, all the years that the U.S. has enjoyed an Aaa bond rating. Of course, that was back when the Senate passed budgets as they are charged with doing.
Related Links:
President Obama threatens to veto the only viable plan for Moody’s
Conservatives Do It Better
One of the 20th century's foremost economists, and supporters of conservative ideals, Milton Friedman
What is “it” exactly? Well, at the risk of over-reaching and over-generalizing, I would say almost everything. In this post, I would like to cover just a couple of the things that I believe a conservative or where conservative ideals can compete better than any other. I believe that a conservative government can, and does, operate much more like a natural, hands-off government political system would, and without so much of the of waste. One of the main strengths that conservatism can count on, is its retrospection – looking backward to find the best path forward. It has the all the benefit of playing the Monday-morning quarterback, without so many of the problems that plague modern liberalism (waste, a disconnected government, failed central planning policies, etc.)
The ability to reflect on issues and programs that worked (or did not work), and then to increase or eliminate them one of the most attractive things about conservatism. Its bane, is any activity that chooses an action, then falls, either through laziness or sheer neglect, into the pits of repetition. An example? How about the U.S. government’s decades of collecting and either wasting or misappropriating Medicaid and Social Security funds? These types of programs are brought into being by well-meaning politicians (or, if you are the cynical type, vote-buying politicians), and they quickly become staffed with friends and associates of politicians. Within ten years, wastes burgeon, and the original purpose for the program is long forgotten. Then, year after year, the programs’ wasting budgets are explained away, and a Congress happily spending others’ money away, funds them anew. I would like to think a conservative government would be far more careful about money that is not theirs, and would audit any programs that try to claim huge increasing needs in their spending, without worthy rationale. A big, bloated government has never been proven to work better than a streamlined one, and never will. As the programs grow, the increase in personnel makes it easy for lazy and lackadaisical nepotists to blend in, and leech from the system without ever contributing much. We still feel the massive and ongoing repercussions from Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal” programs, and they’ve caused an unfunded entitlement fiasco that we now must figure a way to finance.
More appealing facets of conservatism, are its rejection of moral relativism, and its embracing of personal responsibility. While the left would love to have you believe, “If it feels good, do it”, is a wonderful way to live your life, it’s disingenuous and dangerous to embrace loose morality, without recognizing and understanding how personal responsibility goes hand in hand with it. People know enough not to yell, “FIRE!” in a crowded movie theater – why? Because there are serious ramifications if you do. However, leaving someone stay anonymous or skating on charges, via doctor-patient or attorney-client privilege, allows people to do many things that they may not otherwise do. Now, don’t think for a second I am going to advocate ending those important relationships, but I would like to see a more consistent judicial system to punishing people who break laws. A higher priced, better networked lawyer should not have the ability to more easily buy your freedom than a public defender. Either something is illegal and its law is enforced, or it is not, and it is ignored for all. Having a lawyer whine and explain away the reasons that a person committed their 87th offense, and letting that offender attend merely anger management and therapy (again), is folly in my opinion.
Are you happy with where you are, or would you risk it on a roll of the dice?
It is sad that with the technological ease and ability to look back, and cherry pick from things that have worked in the past, we as a country have so consistently rejected that, for the promises of politicians and snake oil salesmen, with their new programs and schemes, promising to deliver us the moon. ”A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush” is a hackneyed phrase, but it is true. We should be happy with what we have at the moment, and build upon that, but instead, we risk the whole thing for a bigger “sure thing” in the future.
