If Not For Liberals

If not for liberals, Americans would not be fighting over what to do about tens of millions of illegal aliens in this country.  It is liberals who make life in America comfortable for illegals because they are the great enablers.  They enable the illegals to take advantage of free schools, free healthcare, free public assistance, unearned income tax “rebates” and other freebies at the expense of American taxpayers, because being charitable with taxpayer money proves how special and compassionate liberals are.  They enable illegals by shunning the laws and intimidating law enforcement such that illegals, who are supposedly cowering in the shadows, have no fear of publicly protesting or appearing on TV to advocate for “rights” that we never agreed to.  Everything, even our ballots, must be offered in Spanish, according to the liberals.  “But CW,” the liberals will say, “What about the employers who give them jobs?  They’re not all liberals.”  Employers contribute to the problem, no doubt; but employers want illegals because they’ll work cheap, and illegals work cheap because they are subsidized by taxpayers due to the efforts of liberals.  Take away the freebies and suddenly the illegals must make the same wages as Americans to live and take care of their families, reducing their willingness to settle for the lowest paying jobs and their attractiveness to employers.  If not for liberals the unnatural incentive to come here would not exist, we would enforce our laws and our illegal immigration problem would be easily managed.

If not for liberals college students today would not begin their adult lives saddled with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.  The vast majority of our colleges and universities are run by liberals.  Under their oversight administrative expenses have exploded as have “educator” salaries and benefits (because, after all, administrators and educators are mostly liberals).  Liberals figured out how to get “the government” (i.e. taxpayers) into the funding loop, and with an unlimited supply of funding in the form of student loans they continue to raise tuition every year and find new and creative ways to funnel money to their liberal comrades.  Just ask Hillary Clinton and other leftwing elites who command hundreds of thousands of dollars to give speeches to poor, pliable college kids where they explain to them how they are victims of the system.  They are preparing the environment for the next step of the plan in which angry students demand that their debt be transferred onto the backs of taxpayers.  Then the cycle will be complete, with the Left having near total control over the lucrative money machine we ignorantly call “education” (indoctrination would be more accurate).

If not for liberals the U.S. would not be speeding towards bankruptcy because so much of our money is spent on welfare.  This is a two-pronged enablement for which liberals deserve bonus credit.  First, by encouraging the “sexual revolution” and eliminating the stigma against unwed motherhood they enabled the disastrous explosion of single-parent households and created the conditions whereby so many are struggling to make ends meet.  They then compounded their misdeeds by throwing open the pantry and treasury doors to reward this disastrous behavior, ensuring that it will continue and grow until the money runs out and, in all likelihood, civil war ensues (Don’t believe me?  Look at the riots in Greece when they tried to make very modest “austerity” cuts).  The fact is, the money ran out long ago, and the powers that be are staving off civil war through more and more debt.  If not for liberals we could correct these mistakes, but anyone who dares to suggest that there’s anything wrong with single-parent households is immediately attacked as “mean” and “out of touch” by the liberals, and any Republican who suggests cutting back the welfare trough is fought with venom by liberal Democrats because this is the constituency that keeps them in power.

If not for liberals, we would still have high-quality, affordable healthcare in this country, because whenever there is ongoing demand for a product and no problematic obstacle to creating an adequate supply, the free market does a great job of meeting people’s needs.  But enter the liberals, and suddenly the market must contend with over-regulation, out-of-control lawsuits, unnecessary restrictions on access to insurance providers, unnecessary requirements that increase the cost of insurance, and freeloaders out the wazoo (Medicaid spending ALONE was nearly $500 BILLION dollars in 2014), all of which results in an overtaxed system that drives costs higher and higher to keep its balance, as well as a system that’s been made ripe for fraud, waste and greed.  Conservatives have long been screaming for a return to free market principles to restore the market’s natural ability to provide high quality healthcare at the best price, only to be demonized by liberals because this means their constituents will have to pay their own way.  So if you didn’t like the $36,000 bill you just got for your outpatient hernia surgery and you can’t sleep for fear of losing your insurance, thank a liberal.  Oh and don’t worry about that bill.  You only have to pay a $5,000 deductible.

If not for liberals we would be a nation united rather than a nation divided.  Liberals preach that we should “celebrate our differences,” when instead we should celebrate what we share in common.  Liberals claim to want unity, yet never miss an opportunity to turn isolated incidents of racism into an indictment of the entire white race, and they do so with the help and leadership of our current president.  Yet just as the transcendence of racism requires that we judge people as individuals, so too must we judge those who make mistakes as individuals.  When have you heard a liberal say that?  Never.  Fueling the anger and division is helpful to the advancement of liberalism; reason and perspective, not so much.

If not for liberals the world would not be in a fearful quandary over Islamic extremism right now, because liberals are the enablers of terrorists.  It’s liberals who support weak borders and tell us we must not profile, because profiling is discriminatory.  Someone needs to educate liberals on the fact that “discrimination” is not always a negative word.  Of course we should be discriminating when we try to identify the terrorists among us.  That’s instinctive.  That’s common sense.  But liberals are always telling us that we must ignore our instincts and common sense.  It’s liberals who fought on the side of Muslims when they wanted to build a giant mosque near the site of 9-11, because the more outrageous and offensive something is to average Americans the more special they believe themselves to be by supporting it, and their specialness means everything to them.  Certainly it means more than the security and prosperity of this nation.  Liberals make it impossible for societies to embrace policies of tolerance, because liberals are too special to be merely tolerant.  Only blind appeasement and irrational reverence will do for the average liberal, which is why they refuse to acknowledge the truth about Islam and they sneer and denounce Republicans who want appropriate precautions before we allow thousands of Muslim refugees into our homeland.

There is much debate these days about “existential threats,” and what poses the greatest threat to this nation.  Some say it’s ISIS.  Some say it’s Iran.  Some say it’s Russia, or North Korea or China.  Some say it’s “climate change” (LOL).  I shake my head when I hear this talk, because the biggest threat we face, bar none, is the mental disease known as liberalism.  Liberalism is the enemy within – the great enabler – and it lives safe among us, protected by the very system that it seeks to destroy.

~CW

Reject Paul Ryan as Speaker

The big news this morning is that Paul Ryan is granting us the enormous favor of running for speaker, providing he gets to call the shots.  The image of House members and political junkies waiting breathlessly for his decision is amusing when you consider that electing Ryan would pretty much make the contentious ouster of Boehner completely meaningless.  If anyone from the Freedom Caucus sector of the House wants Ryan as Speaker that is bizarre, and if moderates are cheering Ryan on in the hope for unity they are tone deaf. 

I used to have great respect for Paul Ryan until I started paying closer attention to the things he was saying.  The more I learn to observe and read between the lines of our politicians the more I understand that there are basically three types of people running the branches of our government.  First there the Obama types whose mission is to abuse and misuse their power to take from and control the people that the government is supposed to serve.  Next there are people like Ted Cruz whose mission is to defend us against tyrants like Obama by upholding, restoring and enforcing the Constitution, which was designed by our fore fathers for the express purpose of limiting the reach of government.  Then there are those who see their roles as peacemakers between the tyrants and the constitutionalists.  That third category is where Paul Ryan falls.

Like many republicans, I believe Paul Ryan probably came to Congress with reasonably noble intentions and he’s probably a nice man; but noble intentions have a funny way of getting sidetracked when people focus on math instead of on principles.  Ryan, known for his encyclopedic knowledge of the national budget, concerns himself with making the numbers work as if the principles that form the basis of this nation don’t matter as long as you can balance the budget.  This is the greatest of ironies, because restoring the government to its limits under the Constitution would naturally resolve our spending problems.  Maybe Mr. Ryan doesn’t want to be out of a job.

My lightbulb moment with respect to Ryan came when he began talking about “means testing” as a way to save Social Security and Medicare.  As I made the case in a prior post (“Means Testing and Marxism,” March 2013), means testing equates to classic Marxism:  “From each according to his ability; to each according to his need.”  I have challenged readers before, and will do so again now, to explain to me how means testing is any different than Marxism when it comes to the final result.  The only difference is that wealth transfer was the undisguised objective of Marx, whereas for Ryan it is the consequence of the misguided goal of saving socialism in America.  In addition we know now that Mr. Ryan is cozy with the amnesty crowd and hasn't stood up against raising the debt ceiling. 

This nation as we know it is in grave danger, perhaps irretrievably so, and we need a warrior, not a compromiser.  I beseech the members of the Freedom Caucus to stand firm and make the ouster of Boehner lead to something meaningful.  Say “NO” to Paul Ryan.

 ~CW

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Socialism is Theft. Any Questions?

Socialism.

As a word, I’m sure it sounds fairly innocuous to the mindless robots that seem to make up most of the world’s population these days.  After all, the base part of the word is “social,” and heck, who doesn’t like being social?  And if you look at the official definition of socialism in the Merriam Webster’s Dictionary, you still won’t find anything that sounds all that sinister to a mindless robot: 

Socialism:  “A way of organizing a society in which major industries are owned and controlled by the government rather than by individual people and companies.”

Or:

1.  “Any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods;”

2.  “A system of society or group living in which there is no private property;”

3.  “A stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done;”

See?  It’s just another economic theory.  Just another “system.”   The definitions don’t talk about how “the government” comes into possession of the means of production, or how what was once private property magically becomes public property.  It ignores that whole ugly process as if it doesn’t exist, but we know the truth, don’t we?  In order for industries to be owned and controlled by “the government” or for private property to cease to exist the industries and the private property must first be forcibly taken from the people who once owned them.  In other words, they must be stolen.  That’s the ugly truth about socialism that gets conveniently glossed over.  That’s why someone like Bernie Sanders can openly declare that he’s a socialist and not be viciously rejected by people who presumably would acknowledge that theft is immoral.  The robots hear “socialism” and they’ve been programmed, thanks to public education run by the Left, to think of it as just another morally equivalent economic alternative to free market capitalism. 

It’s no such thing.

In a sane world where personal rights are respected, anyone who openly advocates socialism as a societal “system” should be – at a minimum – arrested and confined behind bars for a very long time, because there is no difference between advocating socialism and suborning THEFT.  Pray tell me what is the difference between proposing “free” (i.e. with money forcibly taken from taxpayers) healthcare, college and daycare and simply calling outright for people to steal from those who have something they want?  There’s zero difference, which is why socialism is THEFT - period.

The news accounts of the thousands of thieves-in-waiting who are filling the seats at Bernie Sanders’ rallies and salivating at the prospect of having government as their gang leader should sicken anyone who values economic freedom and wants to preserve it for their children.  Make no mistake - the socialists at the Sanders rallies are no better than the smash and grab gangs we see on the news who take what they want with complete disregard for the people they steal from.  The only difference, by and large, is the color of their skin and the absence of hoodies.  How do these people face themselves in the mirror at night?  What went wrong in their upbringing that they are lining up for their chance to steal from their neighbors and fellow citizens, all the while patting themselves on their backs for their virtuousness?  More importantly, why are we tolerating this blatant threat to our property rights? 

It’s not helpful that we have the usual wonks who get out their calculators (sound familiar, Wall Street Journal?) and turn this issue into a matter of dollars and cents rather than right versus wrong.  They answer the socialists with calculations of how much their socialism is going to cost.  LOL.  Since when are thieves persuaded by their victims’ arguments of how much the thieving will cost them?  Oh, and did I mention that socialists are liars too?  They will always insist that everyone is better off if we give the socialists the power to steal.  As I’ve said in the past ad nauseam, the minute free people respond to the socialists/thieves by debating the cost of the proposed theft, the free people have lost.  Period, end of story.  This is an issue of rights, and it doesn’t matter if it costs ten cents or ten trillion dollars.  We are the U.S. of A., and people are supposed to have rights to their property, a principle that is entirely lost on socialists and wonks with calculators.

Bernie Sanders is openly and unapologetically running on a platform of outright THEFT, and he and his supporters should be in jail; but I will say this for Bernie:  at least he is an honest thief.   And don’t be fooled by those who dismiss Bernie Sanders’ chances because he’s a proud socialist/thief.  Virtually every member of the Democrat Party is a socialist by word and deed, regardless of what label they give themselves.  Obama had the same goals as Sanders, but unlike Bernie he wasn’t so honest about his plans and his cunning approach helped him significantly advance the agenda of the thieves in his capacity as gang leader.  Hillary Clinton is just another thief in a pink pantsuit.  For that matter, there are a number of Republicans who fit in that ugly shoe as well.

Earlier I asked, “Why are we tolerating this blatant threat to our property rights?”  The answer is that we’ve been programmed to accept theft in the guise of social policy for close to a century now, and those who understand what’s going on also understand that there is no political solution to this problem.  That’s right, read between the lines.  That’s one reason that the socialists/thieves are laser-focused on dismantling our Second Amendment rights and disarming the citizenry.  The other reason is that socialism thrives when they can divide a population with wedge issues, but that’s an essay for another day.

~CW

Tipping the Scales of Justice

The wise and brilliant Thomas Sowell once wondered why we need to use precious and costly court time and resources to hear the family and friends of murder victims testify about the impact of their losses.  Paraphrasing his question from my memory of his post from many years ago, Sowell’s question went something like this:   “Can’t we just assume that the loved ones of those who’ve been murdered are angry and sad about their loss?” 

I agreed with him then and still do.  Cold as it may sound, courts are not supposed to be a forum for victim venting, but more importantly, this habit we’ve adopted of devoting part of a trial to impact statements tarnishes what is supposed to be blind and impartial justice.  Does the murderer who kills a homeless man with no one to mourn his loss deserve any less justice than the murderer who kills a father of four?  Does the child with no one to testify because his own parents murdered him deserve less justice than the murdered child whose parents are devastated by their terrible loss?  Some people will be missed more than others, but all people deserve the same impartial justice, likewise for the perpetrators.

What reminded me of Sowell’s post from so long ago were reports from the James Holmes (Colorado theater shooter) murder trial where, over the past few days, the loved ones of his many victims have been testifying about their deceased and injured loved ones.  One Fox News reporter informed viewers that: “The judge told the jurors over and over again that they need to put their emotions to the side and use reasoned, moral judgement in deciding the proper sentence for Holmes…”  Doesn’t it seem counter intuitive to incorporate hours and hours of emotional testimony from devastated loved ones and then ask the jury to disregard their emotions and use “reasoned, moral judgment?”  Why not create a separate forum for the loved ones of the victims of convicted criminals to address the perpetrators, one that does not involve all of those people necessary for conducting a trial and does not require jurors to listen to emotional testimony which they are then expected to disregard?

Just food for thought…

~CW 

Everything I Know about Liberalism I learned in Grade School

In 2005 Michael Savage wrote a bestselling book entitled “Liberalism is a Mental Disorder.”  A lot of people probably dismissed it as right-wing hyperbole, just a bit of mean-spirited name calling to attract attention for the book; but anyone who’s listened to Savage even once understands that there was no facetious intent in the title whatsoever.  He was dead serious and furthermore, he was dead right. 

Though I have never read the book, the title struck home with me because it finally answered the question that conservatives have been asking each other for as long as I can remember:  Why?

Why do liberals do the things they do?  Why do they hate the U.S. but love Cuba?  Why do they encourage behaviors that create dependency?  Why do they deprive themselves of critical water for the sake of an inconsequential fish? Why were they outraged by accusations of sexist jokes by Clarence Thomas but unmoved by allegations of rape and molestation against Bill Clinton?   The inconsistencies and self-destructive positions have left us scratching our heads for decades, but it all makes sense when you understand that liberalism is a mental disorder.  Then the question becomes, what is the nature of this disorder and how did they get it?  I don’t know what Mr. Savage ascribed it to in his book but I have my own theory and to understand it we need to go back to grade school.

There is probably not a day that goes by when I don’t witness the misbehaviors of liberals and I am transported back in time to my grade school days where memories of similar behaviors by long lost classmates evoke disturbing parallels.  As I watched the recent riots in Baltimore and Ferguson, for instance, I remembered the senseless - albeit less viciously destructive - vandalism that was the plague of every school when I was growing up.  It seems the ability to destroy what others have built gives some children a sense of power and that mentality carries through to adulthood.

I recall the physical and psychological bullying that went on in school.  Now I see leftists hang Sarah Palin in effigy, I see shop owners chased out of business when they won’t bend to the Left’s will, I see leftwing news editors posting the home addresses of law-abiding gun owners in their newspapers to intimidate them, and I see a supposedly good-hearted liberal (Joy Behar) taunting conservative Sharron Angle with the words, “Come here, bitch! Come to New York and do it!" on national TV.  Yet it is conservatives, we are always told, who are the bullies.  As a student I watched with dismay as the teachers and administrators - all liberals - ignored bullying while giving phony lip-service to how “bullying won’t be tolerated;” And as an adult it’s Déjà vu all over again as the leftwing media pays no attention whatsoever to an endless parade of liberal bullying even while they wring their hands and wrinkle their brows over bullying in our schools. 

Today, when I see gaudy gay pride parades, “environmentalists” protesting to save the Delta smelt or Dennis Rodman flying his entourage to North Korea to show us he can make nice with tyrants, I remember my school days when some kids would do just about anything for attention. 

When I hear liberals like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton loudly proclaiming that they “accept full responsibility” for failures occurring on their watch but then they subsequently bristle at any suggestion of actually accepting blame or consequences, I am reminded of school kids who were quick to embrace the more rewarding aspects of adulthood (dressing, smoking, swearing, sex, etc.) but disinclined to accept the responsibilities that go with it.  Children often know how to say things to sound like adults, but rarely do they know how to actually be the adults.

When Barbara Streisand swooned to Oprah about how “swell” Bill Clinton was and when record millions of Democrats converged on D.C. for the privilege of witnessing the coronation of the “first black president,” I recalled my school days when elections rewarded personal popularity and outer image over substance and achievement.

When I recall the cruel peer pressure in grade school and the punishment of non-conforming kids who were labeled “geeks” and “nerds,”  I am immediately reminded of today’s battle over “climate change,” and how scientists and others who won’t conform to the Left’s agenda are ridiculed and stigmatized as “deniers.” 

I remember how some kids would receive poor grades, and rather than take an honest assessment of their own failures, would declare that their teachers “hate them.”  Fast forward to the adult world where liberals blame their failures and bad behaviors on racism, homophobia, sexism or partisanship.

I recall how in grade school teachers had to continually monitor the halls, the cafeteria and the playground because too many kids still lacked the maturity to be trusted to follow the rules.  Now I see that the rules still don’t apply to liberals like Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton.

In school I remember being puzzled by the kids who were mean and rejecting to many of their classmates but who would anxiously raise their hands to give smiling, text-book perfect answers on how to ‘make the world a better place.’  The teacher would pat their little heads and give them their gold stars, after which these same kids would go to recess and resume their mean-girl (or mean-boy) ways, oblivious to the gross contradiction.  Fast forward to adulthood, and I see the very same behavior acted out over and over by the Left, who are always given the presumption of being kindly, big-hearted, open-minded supporters of free speech despite the reality of their behaviors.  Actress Julia Roberts sneeringly quipped that, “Republican comes in the dictionary just after reptile and just above repugnant,” and yet a drooling reporter from The Washington Post tells us, “…there's just something about Roberts's infectious enthusiasm and spirit that defies dislike.”   Isn’t that special?  Martin Bashir called Sarah Palin "America's resident dunce" and a "world-class idiot" and suggested she should have to eat feces because she had the audacity to compare saddling our children with massive debt to slavery, but if you ask him why he’s a liberal he will tell you it’s because he believes in free speech and conservatives are mean.  Oh, and we should see no irony in kindhearted, feminist-supporter Ed Schultz calling Laura Ingraham a “right-wing slut,” or in how much his insult amused those righteously liberal ladies of “The View.”  The inability to see the disconnect between what they say and what they do is a trait some liberals just never outgrow.

Back in school we rebelled against our parents, dismissing their experience and advice in the mistaken belief that defiance equals independence; but when we played with matches and were burned, had sex and became pregnant or drove recklessly and hurt others, we learned the value of their experience and guidance.  Now, conservatives are the adults and liberals are the rebellious children who balk at the traditions and rules that evolved from generations of experience and hard-learned lessons.  Like children, they insist on being burned before they will believe that playing with fire is dangerous, only now we all get to feel the pain.      

Liberalism is the absence of mental maturity.  It requires that one’s ego be gratified at any cost.  A century ago the disease of liberalism had difficulty spreading because there were natural deterrents in the form of logical consequences to liberal behaviors and because Americans believed in their rights and wouldn’t allow those consequences to spill over onto them.  Over time, however, little by little, liberals have managed to change that, and the disease has spread like any other disease that thrives when it learns how to get past the body’s natural defenses.  The cure is the same as it is for the spoiled child who has become a brat.  You stop spoiling him and make him suffer the consequences of his actions as nature intended.  The question is, are we too late to stop the epidemic?

~CW

Means Testing, Marxism and Chris Christie

Remember that old book, Animal Farm?  That glorious, little book which every American child reads in grade school and whose lessons are promptly forgotten by so many in adulthood?  Yes, that’s the one.  It’s a story about achieving communism through incrementalism.  Here’s how it works:  you begin with what seems like a noble purpose and you establish a set of rules.  Then slowly, over time, the powers that be begin to change the rules…one by one…, until one day people wake up and what they have no longer resembles the noble thing that they were sold, but that’s okay because most of them no longer remember what the noble thing was to begin with.  Anyway, it’s then too late, because the changes tipped the scales in someone’s favor, and someone isn’t about to give that up without a fight.

The history of Social Security in this nation is a case study in incrementalism.  When it first began in 1937 the payroll tax to fund Social Security was 2%, half being paid by the employee and half paid by the employer.  Over time the tax has been gradually increased to its current total of 12.4%.  That’s an increase in the tax rate of 520%.  But hold on.  The maximum earnings that could be taxed in 1937 were $3,000, which equals $48,900 in today’s dollars; however, instead of the maximum being $48,900 today the maximum has been gradually increased to $118,500, an increase of more than 142%.  Since its inception there have been gradual but expansive additions to the roster of people who qualify for Social Security; and over time there have been changes to the minimum age at which benefits are paid out.  Let’s not forget, also, that at the time it was enacted it was controversial to begin wtih, and it’s constitutionality was challenged in the SCOTUS much like Obamacare was.

With each decade, the realities of simple math and human nature that point to the program’s inevitable doom have prompted our ever-resourceful lawmakers to propose changing yet another rule.  They want to “fix” Social Security by “means-testing” people and withholding benefits from anyone who is above a certain means.  Means-testing has probably been quietly bandied about for quite some time among the busy little bees in our government because, let’s face it, it would mean the realization of the wet dreams of the socialists and Marxists.  Lately, though, certain philosophically-challenged Republicans have brought the proposal to the forefront of the public discussion on Social Security in what seems a misguided effort to appear to be bold, fiscal conservatives.  Paul Ryan started beating the drum for means-testing a few years back.  Now Chris Christie is jumping on the bandwagon in an apparent effort to salvage his fading presidential aspirations.  Right on cue NPR’s Mara Liasson called Christie “brave” when the subject was discussed on Special Report yesterday, so there you go.  It is now “brave” to propose withholding a promised benefit to someone who has fulfilled his end of the bargain.  Gee, give yourself a pat on the back, Governor Christie. 

For anyone who still doesn’t understand what’s wrong with means testing for Social Security retirement benefits here’s a quiz:  tell me what the difference is between means-testing and Marxism (“From each according to his ability; to each according to his need”), because I can’t tell the difference. 

“But CW,” some will argue, “The country is drowning in debt, yet we are giving Social Security benefits to millionaires and billionaires and the money could run out.” 

First let me ask:  Does anyone really believe that the Koch brothers or Bill Gates are going to waste their time filling out applications to receive Social Security?  Trust me it is not the “one percenters” who are draining the mythical trust fund.  Social Security revenue doesn’t keep up with expectations largely because the usual free-loaders have elbowed their way to the trough.  Consequently, means-testing will ultimately necessitate eliminating payments not just to the wealthy, but to the middle and upper-middle class, because that is the only way to keep up with the free-loaders.  Eventually it will be strictly a mechanism for transferring wealth from the earners to the non-earners, because we all know that no politician will ever suggest cutting off the free-loaders.  The last thing Republicans should do is to pave the way for legalized theft by “fixing” this mess via means-testing, and anyone who suggests doing so has surrendered any claim to being a conservative in my book. 

If you’re not sufficiently irritated yet, let’s go ahead and consider what happens when we adopt means-testing.  How will the government know if you’re too wealthy to receive benefits?  Well, you’re going to have to give them all of your financial information every year, right?  Tell them how much you have in the bank, how much you have in your retirement account, what your property is worth, etc., etc., etc.  So much for privacy.  I’m sure nothing bad will come from sharing this information with the government.

In her recent coming out video (coming out for POTUS candidate, that is), liberal Democrat Hillary Clinton promised to help us do more than “just get by,” but allowing most of us to just get by is exactly what the socialists want and hope to achieve by incrementally siphoning off anything over and above what they think we should have.  This is not a fight about keeping benefits.  It’s a fight about freedom, and holding politicians in our government accountable to the promises they make so that maybe one day they will cease making false promises.  Don’t hold your breath on that one.

~CW

Governor vs. Senator for POTUS…or…Why Krauthammer and Coulter are Wrong

With each new candidate that enters the race for POTUS it seems we must renew the debate over who is better qualified to be president, a former governor or a former senator.  I find myself increasingly annoyed listening to the arguments on both sides of this debate, but I am especially irked by the argument some are making that we should be wary of any first-term senator candidates because Obama was a first-term senator and look how that turned out.  Two of my favorite pundits, Charles Krauthammer and (sometimes) Ann Coulter, have both recently made that argument, much to my surprise and disappointment. 

There may be merit to the ‘inexperience’ argument and I wouldn’t dismiss the notion that leadership experience would be helpful to a president, but let’s get something clear once and for all:  Obama’s failure as POTUS was not a matter of his inexperience.  This ought to be evident by the fact that he has now been POTUS for six long years and despite that “experience” he is every bit as bad today as he was on day one, if not worse.  How can that be if experience makes one a better POTUS?  Fifty-plus years of “experience” didn’t help Fidel Castro, which ought to be a real head-scratcher to those who tout experience as the chief qualification for POTUS. 

Experience is helpful to a candidate who wants to do the right things but doesn’t yet know how. On the other hand, no amount of “experience” will make a candidate with the wrong ideas and the wrong motives, i.e., Barack Obama, become a good POTUS, so I find the comparison between him and conservative candidates nothing short of maddening.

Now let’s talk about the “experience advantage” of the governors.  It’s true that governors are given a unique opportunity to lead, and the history of their time in office ostensibly offers voters a sort of window into what their presidency might look like.  Be that as it may, however, the role of governor is quite different than the role of POTUS, or at least it should be.  Governors routinely deal with issues relating to education, transportation, healthcare, infrastructure, and other issues that, for better or worse, involve them in the day to day lives of their constituents.  The best governors, we are told, have learned the art of compromise (a.k.a. “reaching across the aisle”) and they know how to “take care” of their citizens.  The way I interpret this is that governors have learned the art of socialism.  I’m sure some would bristle at that description but it’s true.  Have you listened to former conservative, John Kasich, since he became governor of Ohio?  It seems his philosophies have evolved since he got that job, and not for the better.

Being that the federal government has no business, under the Constitution, of micromanaging education, transportation, healthcare, and so many other things that were meant to be left to the states, I am not necessarily impressed when a presidential candidate boasts of his “management experience” owing to his tenure as governor of this or that state.  In fact, I get a little scared.  I want a POTUS who protects my rights, not someone whose claim to fame is that he knows how to negotiate with the thieves on the other side of the aisle. 

Some conservatives in the pro-governor camp have invoked the legacy of Ronald Reagan to give weight to their side, but we should not allow our esteem for Reagan to let us forget that even Reagan gave us amnesty and arguably sowed the seeds to Obamacare (see “Ronald Reagan, EMTALA & the Roots of Obamacare”).  My point is not to diminish Reagan but to note that his greatest achievements as POTUS came when he followed his conservative instincts, not necessarily when he leaned on the compromise or nanny-state skills he became accustomed to using as governor.

History has thus far demonstrated that there is not necessarily a common denominator in candidates’ resumes that strongly suggests success or failure (I readily concede, however, that another community organizer is a slam-dunk bad idea).  Woodrow Wilson was a former governor, as were Clinton and George W. Bush.  LBJ and Nixon both served as vice president prior to their presidencies, so they could hardly be accused of inexperience, but we know how that turned out, if I may borrow a phrase from the pundits.  As far as I am concerned any “experience” points one earns as a governor is pretty much cancelled out by the ugly sausage-making they learn to immerse themselves in, and which they must unlearn in order to become a good POTUS.  That leaves us with name recognition, any actual achievements they can boast of, and the ideas and principles they bring to the table – same as anyone else.

~CW