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Where we stand is a compilation of controversial people and topics being debated by the media and politicians.
National Healthcare Reform: We believe that the rapid and sustained rise in the cost of healthcare roughly coincides with the advent of government funded healthcare programs for the poor and elderly. Additionally, due to government regulations and taxes, corporations offered healthcare insurance coverage in lieu of salary increases to employees. When the burden of payment for healthcare shifted from the individual to a third party, a large measure of competition among healthcare providers was eliminated from the market. Also, consumer restraint became a thing of the past; studies have shown that almost a tenfold increase in doctor visits per year result from removing the payment obligation from the healthcare consumer to a third party, which invariably increases the cost to the payer and results in high premiums. Healthcare-related litigation has also played a role in the rapid rise in costs. Any effective measure to reform the U.S. healthcare system must include tort reform, as well as market driven solutions. In other words, we recommend less government involvement not more.
War on Terror: Immediately after 9/11/2001, one would be hard-pressed to find an American who did not want to retaliate on the perpetrators of the heinous acts that killed almost 3,000 Americans on our land. The invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq can be debated with both sides having points of merit. But the war in Afghanistan was supported by over 90% of America; it should be fought to win. Our brave men and women in the armed forces have done a tremendous job there, but this war should not be fought from Washington DC. To be sure, the Global War on Terror is a war, not a criminal proceeding, and it should be fought as such. The enemy in this war is not easily identifiable and the war does not have a defined “front”. This is precisely why the protectors of our constitution and the brave men and women who sacrifice their lives for our safety and freedom, must use any means available to keep America safe. The prior administration was successful in keeping America safe since 9/11/2001. We hope the current administration can match that record.
Corporate Bailouts: Just as the political left insists that there be a separation of church and state, we believe that government has no place in Corporate America other than for necessary safety and anti-trust regulation. Besides, the U.S. Government is currently insolvent and can ill afford to accumulate more debt. The U.S. Government does a few things well, but its track record over time is generally poor. Whenever government has inserted itself into a sector of the economy in a major way, it has caused more harm than good. We need to look no further than the mortgage industry, the healthcare industry, the so-called War on Poverty and the public education system to predict the havoc that can be wreaked on corporations once government becomes a “partner”. The free market works in mysterious, allbeit efficient ways. Attrition is a natural process of the free market and it ensures the efficiency and constant evolution of Corporate America. Government "fixes" have just prolonged and worsened inevitible recessions in the past. Just as a fever naturally fights off an infection in the body, a recession is necessary to correct, or reset an economy falsely grown on debt.
Bowl Championship Series (BCS): The national outcry for a college football playoff at the FBS level theoretically makes sense. Nothing would be as compelling for college football fans as a true national championship game. However, upon closer examination, a NCAA playoff for major college football would result in the NCAA controlling the revenues generated for such a playoff. Moreover, the politically correct NCAA would be better able to extort the cooperation of its member institutions when it comes to things like the use of “offensive” mascots, and untold other aspects of the fan-friendly sport of college football. Based on the history of the NCAA and its inequitable distribution of sanctions, politically motivated crusades, and its lack of common sense reasoning, we believe that a system that precludes the NCAA’s involvement would be best for major college football. The BCS is far from a perfect system, but it has been enhanced several times since its first iteration as the Bowl Coalition. If the next iteration of the BCS involves adding a “plus one” game, to match the top two teams available after the bowls have been played, it is a giant step in the right direction.
War on Poverty: This is not really a war, but a giant income redistribution program initiated by the Johnson Administration in the 1960s. Taking a page from Franklin Roosevelt’s “Social Experiments Gone Horribly Wrong” playbook, Lyndon Johnson thought it was a good idea to confiscate more money from productive Americans to give to less productive or nonproductive Americans. Although an altruistic goal such as eliminating poverty is one that most people can easily support, the unintended consequences of creating a larger and permanent underclass, destroying the American Black Family, and removing the incentive to achieve the “American Dream” by paying people to stay poor, cannot and should not be supported. The poverty rates have not fallen since the program was enacted over several trillion dollars ago. This “war” has lasted almost half a century with no end in sight, no exit strategy, and an ever mounting body count. Charitable giving has also decreased over time in real dollars, since the declaration of this war. Although helping those who cannot help themselves is what Americans do best, we believe that the federal government delivers the help in the least efficient and most destructive way.
Rush Limbaugh: Much can be said about Mr. Limbaugh. In fact, much has been said about him; he is polarizing, he is a fear monger, he is a hate monger, he is a right wing extremist, he is a liar. The political left has an infinite number of labels they can attach to Mr. Limbaugh. What will not be said about him in the mainstream media, so we will say it, is that he is charitable - he has raised and has personally given several million dollars to some of the most worthy charities in America. He is patriotic – Rush Limbaugh could have retired to a most comfortable living long ago but he continues to educate the masses via the airwaves in the hopes of returning America to its pinnacle of greatness. Rush is a brilliant educator – sitting in a classroom listening to lectures is one way to learn, but that doesn’t work for most people. Mr. Limbaugh has created a way to deliver information in a most compelling format (which explains his twenty million loyal students), using irreverent humor, actual sound bytes from his subjects, and cutting edge foresight which keeps his students a step ahead of the daily news. Americans in general, have short memories, but knowing history always helps when charting a course for the future. Rush teaches history, the kind of history that rarely gets taught in our government education system. We believe that the much maligned, Rush Limbaugh is a true American hero. Sure the Left will remind us that Mr. Limbaugh never served in the military but that’s a distraction tactic, many American heroes never served in the military. The fact that Rush raises more money for the families of fallen Marines and Soldiers than all Democrat politicians combined, more than makes up for any contribution he could have made on the battlefield. One would be hard-pressed to find a more ardent supporter of America’s military men and women than Rush Limbaugh. We believe in the U.S. Constitution as the backbone of our society, and so does Rush. We believe that the U.S. Constitution is a brilliantly written, static document that can be applied to virtually any situation that arises, and so does Rush. Finally, we believe that the entire planet has benefited like never before in history from a capitalist, free and democratic America and we should stop at nothing to keep it that way, and so does Rush.
Global Climate Change: The Earth’s climate has changed enough over time for us to know that it will change again in the future. The Earth’s atmosphere has contained far more carbon at times than it contains currently, and life was sustained. To believe that man has a larger influence over the Earth’s climate than the Sun or the Earth’s rotation, axis tilt, etc. illustrates the arrogance of man. We believe that the Hysteria surrounding this issue was created to justify the largest money and power grab by the political Left in history. The so-called consensus of scientists who support the man made global warming theory is really a consensus of scientists who see a never ending supply of government grants to study the topic. The science is far from “settled”, as Al Gore would have you believe. In fact there is a rapidly growing number of real scientists who oppose the belief that man is responsible for any change in climate. The study of Sun spot formations more accurately shows a correlation between Sun spot activity and the Earth’s change in temperature. An examination of precipitation level changes due to predominant wind currents shows a closer correlation to surface temperatures. The unprecedented world power grab, which the current administration supports, will result in the price of fuel, food, utilities, durable goods, and just about everything else under the sun to increase out of control. The “Cap and Trade” system of confiscating money from corporations due to their carbon emissions is a complete joke. If Democrats were serious about controlling carbon output, they would drastically change their own behaviors.
Republican Party: In the not too distant past, there were two separate and distinct political parties in America. This system served the American political process fairly well. The country can generally be divided into three groups; the Left, the Right, and the Middle. The Republican Party used to represent the Right while the Democrats represented the Left, and they would both fight over the Middle. After the post-Watergate veer to the left into an impending identity crisis, Ronald Reagan took control of the party and steered it back to the right and the party benefited greatly. Under George H.W. Bush, another drift to the left resulted in an unlikely Clinton presidency. Currently, the Democrats have solidified their place with the Left, but the Republican Party has been oscillating among all three. Due to its current identity crisis, the Republican Party is in danger of fading into obscurity, ala the Whigs. During its heyday, the Republican Party was winning elections as the party of conservative values; the party of the Constitution. When the Democrats opposed equal protection of American Blacks under the law, it was the Republican Party that fought to win for Black Americans. It was also the Republican Party that fought to preserve the private sector of our economy on a number of occasions. It is the Republican Party that has largely been responsible for the peaks in America’s economic cycles (Robert L. Bartley, The Seven Fat Years, Free Press). The Republican Party is but a shadow of what it once was when it stood for core principles, and did not try to please everyone. When the Republicans return to their roots of creating an economic atmosphere where every American can prosper, and protect the very values and traditions that made America great, they will once again be a formidable force in American politics.
Democrat Party: The party of Harry Truman, of John F. Kennedy, of Daniel Patrick Moynihan, has become the party of Nancy Pelosi, of Harry Reid, of Howard Dean and Barack Obama. The difference between the past titans of the Democrat Party and today’s party leaders is their love for America. Harry Truman, although not a conservative, never lost sight of the fact that America is a capitalist democracy worth protecting at all costs. President Truman made some very difficult decisions that could probably not be faced by most of today’s Democrats. President Kennedy knew the value of America’s productive class; he knew that by cutting taxes on the highest income earners, it would create more opportunities for the lower income earners in the way of job growth through capital investment. This is a lesson that is entirely lost on today’s Democrats. The Democrat Party today is charting a course for the furthest left end of the American political spectrum. Rather than defend the infinite good that America brings to the world, today’s Democrats show an embarrassment and distain toward America. The party has risen to power through mutually beneficial accords with the National Education Association, the American Bar Association, big labor unions, environmental lobbying groups and the majority of the national media. The party is well funded and poised for even greater control of the political landscape in the future if left unchallenged.
Saved Jobs: One reliable measure of a president’s job performance has been the number of new jobs created during his administration. Facing millions of lost jobs in the U.S. economy during his tenure, in addition to blaming Bush, President Obama and his administration have concocted a completely fabricated economic labor metric; the number of “jobs saved”. Many conservatives have expressed frustration over the complete lack of intellectual curiosity on behalf of the Whitehouse Press Corps in challenging such fallacious claims.
Instead of challenging this metric, conservatives should join in on the folly. The only way to bypass the Obama sycophants in the media, like Evan Thomas of Newsweek who recently labeled Obama “God”, conservatives appearing on cable and network news programs should begin boasting how President Bush saved over twenty, or better yet fifty, million jobs during his tenure in the wake of 9/11 and inquire why the Obama Administration has only been able to save 150,000.
Such a claim that President Bush saved jobs would immediately bring about a renaissance of media curiosity, awakening them from their intellectual slumber to assume the more skeptical role our nation witnessed from them during the discussion of terrorist attacks averted after 9/11--a metric we now know could actually be supported by classified memos.
Judicial Nominations: U.S. Constitution Article III, Section 1: “The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour”.
Increasingly Supreme Court Justices appointed to the federal bench have been permitted to remain as such despite rulings and opinions completely at odds with the U.S. Constitution. From the infamous Roe v. Wade and Kelo decisions, both of which have no foundation in the U.S. Constitution, and statements by Justice Breyer in favor of considering foreign law as precedent to rule on U.S. Constitutional cases before the court—a philosophy overtly prohibited in the U.S. Constitution in Article III, “…The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the Laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority…”—to Justice Sotomayor’s flawed opinion in Ricci vs DeStefano (The recent New Haven Firefighters discrimination case) all amount to judicial malpractice and misbehavior.
It is by no accident that the Lady Justice statue wears a blindfold symbolizing her blindness to all but the law. However, when a justice betrays their constitutional duties to “show empathy” or “bring their personal life experiences to bear in a case”, it also betrays Lady Justice’s legal standard of blindness. The Supreme Court Oath reflects such a standard, dictating judges provide equal justice before the law and the administration of justice without respect to persons, whether poor or rich:
"I, [NAME], do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and to the rich, and that I will faithfully and impartially discharge and perform all the duties incumbent upon me as [TITLE] under the Constitution and laws of the United States. So help me God."
The extra-constitutional judicial philosophy endorsed by President Obama and other leftists that a justice should rule more on empathy and personal experiences than the law produces political and social outcomes that not only fail to uphold the law but outright subvert it.
Members of the U.S. Senate should stop tolerating such judicial misbehavior and utilize every confirmation hearing to put each judicial nominee to the federal bench on notice that any behavior not in accordance their assigned and limited constitutional duties will be deemed “misbehaviour”, an act that will immediately invoke impeachment proceedings against them.
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