Conservatism Lives!

I believe that the American value system on which our country was founded is superior to that of every other nation in the world. That isn’t a very popular thing to say these days. Many of my own friends cringe at the thought of that statement. They are quick to point out our national sins and mistakes. I don’t discount those sins. They are real. Some of my friends might even call a statement like that arrogant. Some might ask what gives me the right to make that claim. Simple. I believe in absolute truth. I believe that there are certain “facts” or “truths” that exist as reality whether you believe them or not. They exist whether people who do believe in them make mistakes or not.

I recently started re-reading an old, but classic book by C.S. Lewis called The Screwtape Letters. For those of you not familiar, it is a series of letters written by a higher level demon named Screwtape to a lower level demon named Wormwood instructing him on how best to “manage” the humans to which he is “assigned” in order to keep them away from God. The first, and possibly most important lesson Screwtape attempts to impart to his trainee is that the single most effective thing they can do is to skew the humans’ idea of, or even better, their very belief in the existence of actual truth.

Your man has been accustomed, ever since he was a boy, to have a dozen incompatible philosophies dancing about together inside his head. He doesn’t think of doctrines primarily as ‘true’ or ‘false’, but as ‘academic’ or ‘practical’, ‘outworn’ or ‘contemporary’, ‘conventional’ or ‘ruthless’. Don’t waste time trying to make him think that [your philosophy] is true! Make him think it is strong, or stark, or courageous-that it is the philosophy of the future.

Believe it or not, that book was published in 1942. Perhaps the world hasn’t changed as much as we think it has. Lewis was confronting the same moral battle that rages today about what is and is not true, or for that matter if truth even exists. Interestingly, our founding fathers chose to draft our Declaration of Independence with the words:

“We hold these truths to be self evident…”

They recognized the existence of absolute truth:

“…that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

They structured our government around those Rights as best they could:

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”

They chose to build our nation on the foundation of those truths even if we failed to live up to those standards before the ink was even dry (that all men are created equal, for example) or even still struggle to do so today. Have we made mistakes? Of course we have. Have we failed to live up to our own moral underpinnings? Absolutely. But that doesn’t change the simple truth, that those underpinnings are morally superior to any other in the world.

As a nation, we value life. Even when we go to war, we go to great pains to reduce the number of innocent or non-combatant lives that are lost in the process. All the while our enemies make a point of targeting civilians. We value liberty. Individual freedom is a cornerstone of our society while in much of the rest of the world, people know only the freedoms granted to them by tyrannical dictators or brutal governmental regimes. We are the land of opportunity. Our foundation upon truth, makes our value system superior. We are as Ronald Reagan said, “a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere”.

I saw Billy Mays as a downloadable Mii for the Wii yesterday. It really struck me as an odd thing. Here stood a tiny cartoon caricature of a man who has become famous for nothing more than selling things on TV. Things. Plural. If its “new”, “revolutionary”, or “not available in stores”, there’s a pretty good chance Billy Mays is pushing it in an infomercial. In a sense, Billy Mays is our modern day version of the snake oil salesman. The thing is, no one seems to mind. We’re used to it. We have become accustomed to being “sold”. We assume that most people we encounter have some sort of hidden agenda. Sarcasm is a standard method of communication. Consequently, sincerity is in short supply these days.

Like any resource, scarcity increases demand and therefore value. Politics is certainly no exception. One thing Obama definitely had going for him during the campaign and even since, is that he comes across as a man of deep sincerity. That’s appealing. Plain and simple. The problem is that the seduction of sincerity obscures the honest evaluation of the message.

To put it simply, sincerity is not an adequate evaluation of a man’s ideas or ideals. Hitler was sincere. Mao was sincere. Even Osama Bin laden is sincere. Unfortunately, in our sincerity starved society, sincerity seems to be enough to convince most people that its presence alone grants merit. That is a foolish, and dangerous place to find ourselves. 

You might think I’m talking about the fact that most of the country’s major newspapers are either bankrupt or heading there fast. You might think I’m talking about the fact that a growing number of people admit to getting most of their news from shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and yes those are both Comedy Central productions. (I’ll even admit to watching Colbert on a regular basis. Let’s face it. There are few things quite as good as his “Better Know a District” segments. That is, of course, unless he’s interviewing someone from the Brady Campaign.)

No. I’m not talking about outdated business models for news networks or our increasing propensity to want some satire with our news. I am talking about the elimination of the free press entirely. According to ABC News, the Obama White House has decided to create their own news division and report on themselves while not allowing “outside” news agencies to do so. (I especially like the little White House News logo.) The first such incident revolves around a relatively trivial matter of a college basketball team visiting the White House. So you might say, “who cares?” But seriously, the entire point of  “freedom of the press” clause of the first amendment of the Constitution is to provide the citizens with a supposedly unbiased (insert MSNBC and or Chris Matthews and or Keith Olbermann joke here) source of information about our government and elected officials. In short, it is a stop guard designed to attempt to keep them honest. The moment we allow our government to “report” on itself and shut out our press, regardless of how biased we believe that press to be, journalism is truly dead and our freedom won’t be far behind.

We conservatives are oft heard referring to the threat of incrementalization– what is commonly known as “the slippery slope”. For instance, if it makes sense to help the poor and unfortunate by forcing their employers to pay them eight dollars an hour, why not nine? Why not fifteen? Why not fifty, with full medical benefits, child care, and a brand new Prius for them to drive to work? Or in another common example: if it is incumbent upon the government to grant marital benefits to homosexuals, then why not to vegesexuals? Or people who want to marry their pet marmosets? Why should they be excluded? And don’t try to suggest such people don’t exist. We all know they do, and if it’s OK to marginalize them now, it won’t be once we begin to slide down the– say it with me– “slippery slope”.

What I am beginning to wonder, however, is if the slippery slope has already come and gone, probably sometime during the Clinton years. What if there was a cliff at the bottom of that slope, and we’re already off it, falling, speeding toward terminal velocity, beyond any hope whatsoever of going back? Pretty hopeless, eh? I’d sure like to think otherwise– I’m a generally optimistic guy– but I think it may indeed be too late. Here’s my evidence.

The other day, I heard a very well-known conservative talk show host (not Rush Limbaugh, thankfully, but one of his fill-ins) agree with a caller on the following point: the Democrats won the last election because people no longer cast their votes on ideas and issues, they cast their votes based on which candidate their favorite comedians, singers and actors say is cool. Therefore (this caller claimed) we should embrace this new reality and send out our own army of comedians, singers and actors, intent on making conservative candidates cool enough for these dolts to vote for.

The host, woefully, agreed whole-heartedly.

I don’t need to tell you what is wrong with this, but there are probably a few others who don’t see the point, which is this: for the first time in the history of planet earth, people are making their most important life decisions– decisions about their leaders, about their spirituality, about what to stick in their mouths, heads and hearts– without depending on critical thinking, a study of the issues, or conversations with people of different perspectives. For the first time in history, these weighty decisions are being made based on peer pressure, cool-factor, fictional representations, and the opinions of people paid to pretend to be other people (actors). This is bad enough. What’s worse is that our own leaders are not suggesting that we fight this tide of intellectual laziness, but that we embrace it.

Take, for example, the recent announcement that supreme court justice Souter is planning to retire. Conversation immediately turned to who Obama might choose as his replacement. One would assume the conversations might have centered around any potential candidate’s legal and intellectual qualifications. Perhaps there might have been some in-depth analyses of the candidates’ experience, record, writings, education, etc. In short, one would have expected that the main issues would revolve around said candidate’s ability to actually perform the duties required by the highest court in the land. Alas, this was not the case. What, instead, has been the meat of the discussion about Justice Souter’s replacement? Whether this person will be a woman. Or a black. Or maybe a hispanic.

This should seem utterly preposterous to our leaders– a superficial mockery of what the office of Supreme Court justice stands for– and yet it apparently doesn’t. These ridiculously meaningless and insignificant considerations are debated with utter seriousness by the “watchdog” media. No Republican leader, so far as I know, has said “Wait a minute. Shouldn’t we actually be discussing this person’s legal qualifications a bit more than their gender or the color of their skin? I thought judging people on those details was wrong and racist?” No GOP leader is saying that because if they did they’d instantly be called wrong and racist. That, however, is no excuse.

This, unfortunately, is the reality of the post-Obama-election-age. The country’s first MTV president has finally firmly established the fact that a slim majority of Americans now vote for a presidential candidate based entirely on what the TV tells them. And I’m not even talking about the news media. I am talking about singers and actors, about fictional representations of the world as seen through the lens of programs ranging from The Daily Show and Saturday Night Live to Family Guy and Gossip Girl. We conservatives get sidetracked complaining about the “liberal media”, but the sad reality is that Americans aren’t getting their political views from NBC News, CNN, and the Washington Post. They are getting them from Brian Griffin (the dog on Family Guy, for you uninitiates), Sheryl Crow, and Tina Fey. They are abandoning their most important decisions to fictional characters, from Stephen Colbert to Matt Damon (and yes, he is a fictional character; all of his lines are written by moveon.org and George Soros). Most Americans believe– subconsciously, if not overtly– that Sarah Palin is a character played by Tina Fey. They have no more idea of what Ms. Palin has actually said than they do the words of the actual consitution of the United States.

For the first time in history, average Americans now judge entire populations of people — specifically conservatives and Christians — based entirely on their fictional representation, rather than on actual observations of any specific conservatives or Christians. Try this: ask any liberal what a conservative and/or Christian is like. They will give you some variation of the popular stereotype, i.e. they are anti-science, bigoted, homophobic, hate-filled, brainless, hayseeds and rednecks. Nod wisely, and then, as innocently as possible, ask them this: do you know conservatives and Christians like that? Can you name names? Prediction: the liberal will hem and haw a moment, and then blurt out the name of Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck. You may choose to remind them that they probably don’t know those people (and likely have never even listened to their shows), but such a reminder would be pointless and will probably just get you fired, ostracized, and called a bitch by some gay gossip columnist. In short, it really isn’t worth the effort, because your liberal friend is utterly convinced that the representation he/she has seen on TV is true and accurate, even if they don’t personally know anyone like that.

I think the people that propose that we conservatives embrace the “popularity contest” mentality of the post-Obama age recognize the truth of what I am proposing. They know that we are over the cliff– there’s no turning back. It is no longer possible to appeal to the masses based on logic, experience and debate. Thus, these leaders tell us, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

The problem is, conservatism will never be “cool”. Conservatism relies on a moral, intellectually honest, logic-based worldview. It cannot be tranformed into something that is merely shallow, hip, and rooted in instant emotional gratification. Even if we wanted to, we cannot promote conservatism in the same way that Democrats can hype liberalism. It’d be like trying to hawk broccoli at a baseball game: “GET yer nuTRICious BROCK-leee! Steamed FRESH and HOT! GOOD and good FOR ya…” It’d be funny, but nobody’d be buying it. If we can’t convince people to eat their veggies by getting them to actually care about what’s good for them, then there is no hope whatsover. In the same way, if we cannot convince the country to vote conservative based on what is best for themselves and the country, there is no way we will get them to vote conservative based on how yummy it is. Liberalism may be an abject failure in terms of effectiveness and intellectual soundness, but its got the market cornered on yumminess, and that’s pretty much all anybody cares about anymore.

This is why I fear that the argument for the “slippery slope” is now officially moot. That argument only works when there is time to stop the slide. I fear that that time is now past. Take a look around. The slope is history. We’re off the cliff now, falling into the abyss. All that’s left now, I suppose, is to enjoy the ride.

Wheee.

Promotional Shot of AF1 Buzzing the NYC Skyline

I am reminded of the scene from the movie Close Encounters when the Air Force general presents a picture to a crowd of agitated citizens and says “This… is a UFO.”  They all begin to babble excitedly, and then the General pulls the photo back and tells them the truth: it’s actually a photo of a pie plate thrown into the air by his son.  I like that scene.  It cracks me up a little.

Today, I get to be like that Air Force General.

A week or so ago, citizens of New York City were understandably thrown into a momentary panic when a large jetliner was seen buzzing the city.  The jetliner in question was not, however, being operated by terrorists (technically).  It was, in fact, Air Force One, the official plane of the President of the United States.  So what was it doing swooping ominously over the New York skyline, unannounced and apparently so secretly that President Obama himself said he didn’t know about it?  Well, according to the official administration explanation, they were taking promotional pictures of it.

Here is a sample of one of the pictures taken during that shoot.

Looks pretty good, doesn’t it?  I mean, that’s obviously the New York skyline behind it, majestic and bustling, lit with the new sun of a bright spring day.  And there, of course, is the great jet itself, swooping grandly along the coast, angling gently toward JFK airport.

Or not.

No, it isn’t a pie plate thrown into the air by my son.  It’s a composite I made in Photoshop.  It took me about twenty minutes, and that includes doing a quick online image search to find usable pictures of both Air Force One and the New York City skyline (post 9-11, of course).  Granted, I am a graphic artist.  This is what I do for a living.  It was kind of fun, but not much of a challenge, really.

Which brings me to my question: If the administration’s explanation of that bizarre, unannounced flight over New York is true, then it seems like a rather preposterous length to go to get a photo that, arguably, might actually look better when faked in Photoshop.  Fishy?  Or just incomprehensibly inept?

Frankly, I think this is just a fabulous, blinding example of why the government is so shamelessly awful at running things.  So someone decides that a cool PR shot of the President’s jet over NYC would be cool.  What’s the most obvious way to get that shot?  Well, you send that mofo up, dammit, along with a contingent of fighters with photographers in the copilot’s seats.  So it costs $328,000 or so.  That’s nothing to an organization that measures its budget in the trillions, right?  Does it even occur to someone to consider a cheaper (and saner) alternative?  Pfft.  Why would it?

Granted, I’m not the cheapest graphic artist out there, but I’d have been happy to help the government out in this endeavor.  They could have kept AF1 on the ground, saved the population of New York from nearly losing their breakfasts, and in the end gotten some arguably better promo shots.  I could have even airbrushed the jet up a bit, just like they do with the supermodels on the SI swimsuit edition– taken off a few of those extra pounds here and there, maybe given it a sexy, thinning highlight along its fuselage.

I wouldn’t have charged $328,000.  Heck, I’d have done it for a measly $250,000.  After all, it’d be government work, right?

For those of you who haven’t been watching C-Span (and who does, really??), Captain Planet (aka Al Gore) has been in Washington pushing for a “cap and trade”. During the hearings, John Dingell had the momentary clarity of mind to point out that “nobody in this country realizes that cap and trade is a tax…and it’s a great big one.” Hold on to your wallets people, Captain Planet has a new friend in the White House and they aim to extract even more cash from you than you realize.

Recently, the Obama team has released records of “torture” methods used by the Bush administration on terrorist militants. While the Obama team has chosen not to release any of the life-saving information obtained via said torture methods, they have made a rather serious and damning proclamation about the dangers posed by such actions. America’s use of torture on terrorist detainees, the administration claims, will function as a recruiting tool within the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

Unfortunately, they seem to have a valid point, as evidenced by the release of a recent surveillance document. The following is a transcript of a covertly recorded conversation between an Iraqi teenager and a terrorist recruiter. It may well change your position on the current torture debate.

—–  (transmission begins with the sound of a closing door) —–

“So you are considering a career as an Al Qaeda terrorist, yes?”

“Well… I guess so.”

“You have reservations. This is perfectly natural. Tell me, what is the nature of your apprehension?”

“I don’t know. I mean, what if I get caught? You know? I mean, the Americans… they’re the most powerful military in the world. I hear they torture their prisoners for information. I just… I just don’t know if I could face something like that. I mean, it isn’t all just fun and bombs, you know?”

“You hear correctly, my young friend. The Americans do torture captured terrorist militants. I have a brother in Gitmo. I had two friends who were at Abu Graib. You probably know them. Muhammad and Muhammad.”

“Muhammad’s boys? Yeah sure. My older brother went to school with them. We all used to play cops and suiciders in the back yard.”

“Indeed. The point is, all of them have witnessed and experienced the great Satan’s torture techniques.”

“And lived to tell of them?”

(indistinct; possibly a snicker) “You could put it that way. Let me show you a picture. This was just released by the new American President. It is a ‘candid’ photo of what torture looks like at the hands of the Americans.”

(gasps) “What are they doing to that man?”

“They are grabbing his face. This is what they call a ‘face grab’.”

“Let me guess: this was right before they cut his face off with an electric knife?”

“You would think so, right? I mean, that only makes sense. Alas, no.”

“Did they force him to eat broken glass, maybe?”

“Not a single shard.”

“Then they gouged out his eyes. With a spoon, right? They popped out his eyes and made him look at himself as they urinated on him. Is that it?”

“No, no, and no.”

(Horrified) “Then what? Oh, Allah, what did they do to him?”

“Nothing. After the face grab, he went to the commissary and had a nice rice pilaf and coffee. Weak coffee, I understand. The Americans try, they really do, but they just don’t know how to brew the bean. It’s surprising, really.”

“That’s it?”

“That is it.”

“But surely they were merely teasing him. Surely the next day… I mean, what about Abu Graib? The things I have heard—”

“Are mostly camel fodder. Do you want to know what really happened at Abu Graib?”

“I’m not sure I do. I… I have nightmares…”

(noise of a drawer opening, closing. A pause.) “What is this? A fraternity party at Mosul U?”

“It is from an American newspaper story. This…” (suppressed laughter) “This is a picture of the ‘cruelty’ committed at Abu Graib.”

“…this?”

“Yes.”

“Are those ladies’ panties?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“You are yanking my chain.”

“I yank no chains. This is what they call torture. There are Americans for whom this would be a sort of secret fantasy. And not a few of our own countrymen. Am I right? Huh? Yes?”

(Sheepish laughter) “Maybe. Yes. Ah-hah ha!”

(Mocking voice) “Oh no! A dog is barking at me! A leashed dog! I might get dog spit on my nice prison jumpsuit! Oh my goodness gracious! Dear me, there are ladies underpants on my head! Oh what will they do next? A lap-dance? Please, no!”

(Both laughing.)

“All right, all right, I get the point. But that can’t be all they do. I mean, the Americans, they’re as wily as the devil. They play terrible, godless games with their prisoners. I have heard how they can get inside a man’s very own mind, make him afraid, play on his deepest terrors. They have technology that makes nightmares come true, that brings a man’s secret horrors to life.”

“Alas, this is true. My brother, Muhammad, in Gitmo. He has experienced this.”

“He has? What? Tell me! What was his greatest fear?”

(Long, meaningful pause.) “Caterpillars.”

(Ten seconds of silence.)

“Caterpillars?”

“Well, that’s what he told them. They asked him what he was most afraid of, and it was the first thing that came into his head. He considered telling them he was terrified of hot fudge sundaes, but he thought even they wouldn’t believe that. So he said caterpillars.”

“Ooookay. So what did they do? Bio-engineer some sort giant carnivorous caterpillar and drop him off in a forest full of them with only a chicken bone for a weapon?”

“You’d think so, no? I mean, that would have been pretty cool. Scary, yes. But cool.”

“Dead cool.”

“No.”

“Then what? Tell me!”

“They put him in a room with one.”

“One what? One caterpillar?”

“Yes.”

“A regular caterpillar? No genetically enhanced fangs? No poison barbs?”

“Not so much as an electric stinger.”

(laughing again) “You are yanking my chain! Come on, admit it!”

“I tell you, I yank no chains. This is what the Americans do. And you know what? You know what is the most amusing thing of all? They feel bad for it.”

“No!”

“They do! They really do! They berate themselves for it. They conduct big crying fits on their Sunday morning talking shows, telling each other how horrible they are, how they must apologize and beg our forgiveness before we get really mad and do something equally bad to them! Like, oh I don’t know, spilling hot chocolate on them or something.”

“No way!”

“Yes way. They are so riddled with guilt that they give us Korans and prayer rugs—while we are in their custody! They give us lawyers to defend us. It’s true! It would be funny if it wasn’t so totally pathetic. But still, I mean come on, it is pretty funny, is it not?”

“They do know what we do to their people when we catch them, right?”

“Are you kidding? We send them videos! We broadcast the beheadings like spectator sports! We drag their bodies around the streets like piñatas and send them the pieces that are left! It doesn’t matter!”

“Impossible. It must be a trick.”

“Shh!” (Long pause, then whispering) “Do you hear that?”

“What?”

“Stalking… footsteps… coming for you… look out! It’s a… paper tiger!”

(both laughing)

(Falsetto voice) “Meow, meow! Do you have a lawyer! Meow! Are you comfortable? Do you need a new Koran? Meow, meow! Tell me where the bomb is or I’ll… I’ll take away your dessert! I may even grab your face a little! I may stick you in a room with a fuzzy bug! Mee-OW!!”

(growing serious) “That’s all well and good, but what about…”

“Yes, tell me. Get it all out. What is your last worry?”

“Well… what about… waterboarding?”

“I see. You have heard of this. Do you know what it is?”

(pause) “I’ve heard… things. Even the Americans are terrified to talk about it.”

“This is true. And that should tell you everything you need to know about them.”

“But what is it? Do they stick you in a box and fill the box with water until you drown?”

“No. But that’s a pretty good one. Try again.”

“Do they… do they nail you to a board and force you to drink so much water that your stomach explodes?”

“Allah akbar, boy, where do you get this stuff? Heavens no.”

“Well, what is it then? I have to know!”

“You say you have older brothers, yes?”

“Yes.”

“Did you ever go to the pool with them?”

“Ugh, yes. They used to tease me. They’d dunk me under the water and then let me up and laugh at me, and then do it again and again. My mother would get so mad at them. Once, I got so much water in my nose that a little bit came out my mouth. It tasted really gross and I had to go sit by the side of the pool for a few minutes. My mom gave me some Fritos and Kool-aid. I hated those guys.”

“Welcome to the resistance, my young friend. Muhammad here will suit you up and get you your machine gun. You have to grow your own beard.”

“Yes sir!”

“And son?”

“Yes sir?”

“If you purposely get yourself caught by the Americans just to go to Gitmo and have Harry Potter audiobooks played at you, I will come there and cut off your head myself.”

(grinning) “You totally would, too. Meow!!”

—– (laughter. Tape ends) —–

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how people like me fit into today’s political society. My conclusion is that increasingly…we don’t. I describe myself as a “hard core conservative”, or sometimes as a “capitalist through and through”, and occasionally even as “a right wing nut job” (I suppose that means that Homeland Security is now watching me), but what I’ve found more and more is that those words don’t even mean the same thing to me as they do to most other people. What’s more, the very way in which I process information and reach conclusions seems to be increasingly at odds with those around me. (I know, that probably sounds like something from the diary of a mad man, but I think its more like something from the thoughts of a man without a country.) I talk about the ideas of freedom, liberty, and wealth creation as ideals that improve the greater good. Most people’s eyes just gloss over and they stare at me like I’m from another planet or speaking some language they don’t understand.

You see, I believe in America. I believe that in spite of our flaws, that the foundational principles on which our nation was built are among the purest and most honorable of any nation. Our fundamental commitment to the principles of natural law and the basic rights of men, and most importantly our commitment to individual freedom and liberty have been unique in the world and created the greatest good for the most number of people of any political or economic system ever devised. However, I find fewer and fewer people with any interest in defending those principles. Most people I talk to are far more interested in imposing their subjective view of “fairness” on society at large than they are in defending the very freedom and liberty that allows them to even entertain such ideas. Today, the common consciousness seems more focused on “social justice” and equality of outcome than it is on equality of opportunity and individual achievement and responsibility.

What’s more, in a sound bite culture with an increasing lack of education about even the most basic of economic principles, our national short sightedness about the economic implications of social issues and the so called “solutions” that are gaining popular support is staggering to me. Our entire economic system is built on the principle of individuals making rational decisions. So the we now have a situation in which government interventions in the market (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac) forced irrational mortgage lending which in turn incented irrational mortgage borrowing ultimately resulting in a mortgage meltdown and the market is blamed? That isn’t “capitalism”, but that’s what people think of capitalism.

We point to our current economic woes such as our unemployment rate (8.1% in the most recent month reported, but averaging closer to 6% for the last 20 years) as evidence that “capitalism doesn’t work”. Meanwhile, the more socialist economies of the European Union have long had unemployment rates of almost 10%. Not to mention, their standard of living is much lower. Is no one thinking this through to its conclusion?

As for our elected officials, the differentiations between the parties seems to be quickly eroding as well. Sure, on some issues there are still significant differences that are unlikely to change any time soon (which is why I remain reluctantly attached to the Republicans most of the time), but both sides seems to have caught on to one particularly nasty truth; shifting the source of people’s freedom and rights from their maker to that of a centralized authority grants them increasing power in direct correlation to the amount of freedom and rights which they usurp. Our founding fathers understood this principle. It is, in fact, why we fought for independence in the first place.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

For those of you more recent to the site, I began blogging during the election under the name “Reluctant Republican” (a moniker I’ve kept since that time). That name wasn’t chosen randomly or lightly. The principles of freedom and liberty that I hold dear simply aren’t fully represented by either political party these days. While I believe in much of what George W. Bush did as President as it relates to foreign policy, I also acknowledge full well that he, just like the Democrats, seemed to feel that domestic problems were to be solved with giant piles of borrowed money (certainly a major assault on our national economic liberty). And now President Obama is making President Bush look like an amateur when it comes to spending money we don’t have. (As a side note; how arrogant do you have to be to reprimand business lenders for lending money they shouldn’t have or citizens for borrowing money they couldn’t afford all the while doing the same with the government on a scale that is almost incomprehensible?)

So where does someone like me go from here? Should I remain content to be represented by a political party which represents maybe only half of what I stand for? Should I go rogue and join the Constitution Party or some other third party that doesn’t have a snowball’s chance of ever getting elected to a major office just so I can feel better about myself? Neither of those options seem like good ones to me. It seems to me that the only option is to try to revitalize the Republican party from within, but I fear they’ve already gone too far down the road and can’t be turned back.

Well, I’m a bit late on this one, but it looks like the Obama administration is making strategic moves to clarify its position on drugs and particularly the use, if not legalization, of marijuana. Many a stoner had high hopes that an Obama administration would bring with it a much more lax stance on drug enforcement if not an outright legalization of marijuana use. In his book, “Dreams From My Father”, he admitted to having actually inhaled more than one illegal substance in his own youth when he said:

“I blew a few smoke rings, remembering those years.  Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it.  Not smack, though.  …”

(Nice to know he laid off the heroin.) Furthermore, the words of Obama seemed to offer even more hope when the Washington Times unearthed a  video from his 2004 Senate race in which he openly supports the “decriminalization” of marijuana use, but not the “legalization”. (Side note; only a liberal could with a straight face say that they support “decriminalizing” something, but not “legalizing” it). Nevertheless, in his much publicized online town hall meeting at the end of March, Obama firmly stated the he was not for the legalization of marijuana. (A statement that was later reiterated and strengthened by his press secretary Robert Gibbs).

Well take heart, potheads of America. While the president has “officially” denied that he supports your cause, last week he sent a clear message to stoners everywhere. That’s right, he hired actor Kal Penn to work for the White House Office of Public Liason. Oh, I’m sorry, you don’t recognize the name? Perhaps if I told you that he hired Kumar, of the Harold and Kumar stoner movie franchise it would ring a bell? (See the movie plot summaries here and here). Smoke ‘em  if you got ‘em, people. there’s a new liaison in town.

Whenever President Obama is asked about the environment, his budget, or his economic recovery plan, he always mentions the term “cap and trade” as a vital part of those plans. Consequently, it begs the question; what is he capping and what is he trading and perhaps more importantly, why? While the term has been getting some press, I don’t think most people have a clue what it means or what the implications of it are. So let’s start at the beginning. What does he want to “cap”? In short, greenhouse gas emissions. What does he want to “trade”? In short, the “right” to emit “greenhouse gasses” in the first place.

Now, the more important question; why? Well, for starters Obama has said that the program will raise anywhere from $300 to $650 billion depending on which speech you’re talking about or who you’re reading (Business Week says $646 billion, the Washington Times says $300 billion). This would be accomplished by the government creating a new licensing department in which licenses to emit greenhouse gasses were sold. In theory, by capping the number of licenses (or at least the amount of gasses permitted per license or some similar mechanism) the plan would have an immediate impact on overall emissions by more or less making it illegal to emit more than a given amount of greenhouse gasses. Now, if you A) believe in global warming and B) believe that it is man made (which is not as universally accepted as your liberal friends would have you believe as evidenced by over 700 scientists worldwide dissenting from a recent U.N. published report, authored by only 52 scientists by the way, claiming that global warming is man made), then I’m sure this sounds like a great plan. Especially since the government will be pulling in big bucks from everyone’s favorite villain; big business.

Let me ask some more basic questions here though. Exactly which businesses will be impacted the most, and exactly how are they going to be expected to pony up $300 to $650 billion dollars to purchase a previously unnecessary license just to keep operating? (Licenses which are also likely to reduce their ability to operate as is, as one of the stated goals of the licensing mechanism is to reduce greenhouse gas production from current levels.) It seems to me that the companies most likely to suffer from such a program would be the companies who traditionally emit the most greenhouse gasses; manufacturing and energy production companies.

We’ve already seen what happens to manufacturing companies in America when their costs increase; they leave. So with our unemployment rate skyrocketing why on earth would we pursue a course of action that will increase the basic cost of doing business for companies that provide employment in an economic sector that is already hurting? We cannot behave as if business in the United States exists in a vacuum. We exist in a global economy. If the U.S. government makes it too difficult or cumbersome or costly for companies to operate here at home; make no mistake, they WILL go somewhere more friendly. Businesses MUST earn a profit in order to survive. I’m sorry of that offends you, but its an economic reality. As long as product is moving and they have revenue, the best way to maintain profitability is to control costs. If costs are too high in one geographic area or country, you move. Its that simple.

As for the energy production companies who don’t really have the luxury of moving, does anyone expect them just to eat that cost? Absolutely they will not. They will increase prices like every company since the dawn of man when faced with an unavoidable increased cost of production. And who will be forced to pay those increased costs? That’s right. You and I. You think it was horrific when the price of gas spiked? Wait until your electric bill starts climbing, or your natural gas or heating oil bill. Let me be clear. President Obama’s plan to impose a “cap and trade” emissions plan on business is nothing short of a back door tax on every single American family. The sole purpose of which is to pursue an environmental agenda that lacks even the most basic consensus.

This is the kind of thing that makes me question President Obama’s basic judgment and connection to reality. Is he so tied to and blinded by his environmental agenda that he is incapable of recognizing the real burden that will be imposed on the average American family by implementing it? Or does he just not care?

The President says that this type of program is crucial to the development of new technologies that will make us “energy independent”. However, the cap and trade program can only achieve that goal by making current energy technologies so expensive that otherwise expensive alternatives are suddenly cost competitive. (Much like the enormous subsidies for ethanol). The net result of which is that the average cost for energy is artificially inflated by government intervention and the average consumer gets an instant cost of living increase. Our basic economy has been rocked to the core. The jobless rate is through the roof. Billions of dollars in wealth that was sitting in average Americans’ savings accounts and 401(k)’s has been eviscerated. And still, our President continues to shoehorn his environmental agenda into our faltering economy and force an already financially battered citizenry to pay more for basic necessities like energy. (See a full report from the George C. Marshall Institute here or read a summary from U.S. News and World Report here.) I just don’t get it. Do you?