Spooky Dude is at it Again

“The law can be an instrument of equalization only as it takes from some persons and gives to other persons. When the law does this, it is an instrument of plunder.” — Frederic Bastiat, The Law

In his treatise on the law Frederic Bastiat wrote:

“This question of legal plunder must be settled once and for all, and there are only three ways to settle it:

1. 1. The few plunder the many.
2. 2. Everybody plunders everybody.
3. 3. Nobody plunders anybody.
4. We must make our choice among limited plunder, universal plunder, and no plunder. The law can follow only one of these three.

WIBC News in Indiana reports that Planned Parenthood of Indiana returns to business as usual as a federal court ruling restores state funding:

“Planned Parenthood clinics in Indiana are back to business as usual, following Friday's court order requiring the state to honor its contracts with the group.

Two HIV specialists laid off last Tuesday after funding ran dry are back on the job. And Planned Parenthood has shelved plans to limit clinic hours, as it did last week.

"We had contingency plans going into this preliminary injunction request because we didn't know how we would fare," Planned Parenthood of Indiana president Betty Cockrum says. "Those will remain in place, and, happily, on the back burner."

Planned Parenthood sued to block a new state law banning state funding for groups which perform abortions. Federal Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled late Friday that federal Medicaid rules prohibit the state from picking and choosing among family-planning providers.

The agency which administers Medicaid had already advised Indiana's Family and Social Services Administration it couldn't restrict funding, but FSSA officials say without a court order, they would have no choice but to follow the law, even if it jeopardized some or all of the state's federal Medicaid dollars.

Attorney General Greg Zoeller contends Planned Parenthood had no right to go to court because the state has not yet exhausted its administrative appeals of the agency ruling. A spokesman says the state will appeal Pratt's ruling.

Cockrum says it's the first time all year Planned Parenthood has been able to pause for breath. The organization fought successfully against Sixth District Congressman Mike Pence's attempt to push a defunding law through Congress, then unsuccessfully against the parallel measure at the statehouse.”

According to a report in Yahoo News:

“This is a positive step in what likely will be a long legal battle," said Ken Falk, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana. "We are encouraged by the judge's ruling, but know our work is not yet done."

Planned Parenthood said the judge's ruling noted that public interest "tilts in favor" of granting the injunction because federal officials threatened partial or total withdrawal of all Medicaid dollars to the state, a loss of as much as $5 million if the law was enforced.

"If dogma trumps pragmatism and neither side budges, Indiana's most vulnerable citizens could end up paying the price as the collateral damage of a partisan battle," the judge said in the opinion quoted by Planned Parenthood.”

This is yet another example where the law is being used to plunder the people of Indiana. The Indiana legislature, acting in behalf of the voters that elected them cut of state funding for Planned Parenthood’s abortion mills. Because of the coercive power of the law, acting on the basis of the loss of Medicaid funding, Federal Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled late Friday that federal Medicaid rules prohibit the state from picking and choosing among family-planning providers.

Planned Parenthood argues that these federal Medicaid dollars do not go to fund abortions, as the federal laws prohibits under the Hyde Amendment. But herein lays the issue of merging of federal and state dollars with private contributions, something called opportunity costs. Suppose I get $100 dollars from the federal government, $100 dollars from the state government and $200 dollars from private sources to run my business. I offer a selection of family planning and health care services allowed under the law, but my abortion services do not get enough from the private donors to support the number of abortions I offer. This means I would have to curtail the abortion part of my business by laying-off staff that does the abortions. So what do I do? Simple, I mix all of the dollars into one pot and subsidize my overhead with the federal and state dollars thus allowing my private funds to continue with the federal and state prohibited abortions and claim that no federal or state dollars are going for abortions. This is called opportunity costs. In essence I am running an abortion business with virtually no overhead by using the people’s money to run my business. This is also called plunder.

Federal Judge Tanya Walton Pratt just abused her power under Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution and spit in the face of the Tenth Amendment by using the coercive power of federal dollars to enforce the tyranny of the federal government on the people of Indiana. The Tenth Amendment states:

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

And Article III, Section 2 states:

“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 all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls; to all Cases of admiralty and maritime Jurisdiction; to Controversies to which the United States shall be a Party; to Controversies between two or more States; between a State and Citizens of another State; between Citizens of different States; between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects.”

Where is it stated in the Constitution that the federal government has the authority to intervene in an issue of state funding of a private business? In the past seven decades activists federal judges have been exerting more and more plunder on our lives, Bastiat warned us of this 160 years ago. Economist Walter Williams writes in his forward to the revised translation of Bastiat’s The Law:

If Bastiat were alive today, he would be disappointed with our failure to keep the law within its proper domain. Over the course of a century and a half, we have created more than 50,000 laws. Most of them permit the state to initiate violence against those who have not initiated violence against others. These laws range from anti-smoking laws for private establishments and Social Security “contributions” to licensure laws and minimum wage laws. In each case, the person who resolutely demands and defends his God-given right to be left alone can ultimately suffer death at the hands of our government Bastiat explains the call for laws that restrict peaceable, voluntary exchange and punish the desire to be left alone by saying that socialists want to play God. Socialists look upon people as raw material to be formed into social combinations. To them — the elite —“the relationship between persons and the legislator appears to be the same as the relationship between the clay and the potter.” And for people who have this vision, Bastiat displays the only anger I find in The Law when he lashes out at do-gooders and would-be rulers of mankind, “Ah, you miserable creatures! You who think that you are so great! You who judge humanity to be so small! You who wish to reform everything! Why don’t you reform yourselves? That task would be sufficient enough.”

The progressive left, who believe plunder in the name of the greater good, want to take total control of the federal judiciary system. They believe what they can’t accomplish though our democratic republican form of government they can bring about through the courts. Now they have the financial support of George Soros — the spooky dude — to do just that. Fox News reports that billionaire George Soros is trying to stack the courts:

“Billionaire George Soros spends tens of millions each year supporting a range of liberal social and political causes, from drug legalization to immigration reform to gay marriage to abolishing the death penalty.

But a less well-known Soros priority -- replacing elections for judges with selection-by-committee -- now has critics accusing him of trying to stack the courts.

Most non-federal judges around the country are selected by voters in elections. But some states use a process called “merit selection” in which a committee – often made up of lawyers – appoints judges to the bench instead.

Soros has spent several million dollars in the past decade in an attempt to get more states to scrap elections and adopt the merit method. Supporters say it would allow judges to focus on interpreting the law rather than on raising campaign funds and winning elections.

“Merit selection would end the money race and get judges out of the fundraising business,” Lynn Marks, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts -- a group that has received money from Soros’ Open Society Institute -- told FoxNews.com.

But critics say that if judges are picked by committee -- often, a committee of lawyers -- that will give left-wing judges the upper hand.

“The left can’t get their agenda through the legislatures anymore … so they think they can get their agenda through by taking over the courts,” attorney Colleen Pero, author of a new report titled "Hijacking Justice," told FoxNews.com.

Pero’s report found that Soros, through his Open Society Institute fund, has given $45 million over the last decade to “a campaign to reshape the judiciary.” But that number is hotly contested by Justice at Stake, the group that got the most Soros money.”

Soros and his Open Society organization has funded numerous media outlets including NPR, Media Matters and MoveOn.org, in order to control the public dialog and dictate his left-wing progressive agenda in this country. With the rise of the conservative media and blogs the people of this country have been fighting back against Soros’ efforts. Now “spooky dude”, seeing that his money is not garnering he results he wants is focusing on our judicial system to achieve the plunder the desires. The progressive left has learned that what they cannot accomplish at the polls they can get in the courts. There are more than enough bone-headed lawyers and law professors out there that will fit his mold. All he needs is the change in the law and his money to permanently transform America.

Soros is also funding liberal groups seeking top election posts in battleground states. The Washington Times reports:

A small tax-exempt political group with ties to wealthy liberals like billionaire financier George Soros has quietly helped elect 11 reform-minded progressive Democrats as secretaries of state to oversee the election process in battleground states and keep Republican “political operatives from deciding who can vote and how those votes are counted.”

Known as the Secretary of State Project (SOSP), the organization was formed by liberal activists in 2006 to put Democrats in charge of state election offices, where key decisions often are made in close races on which ballots are counted and which are not.

The group’s website said it wants to stop Republicans from “manipulating” election results.

“Any serious commitment to wresting control of the country from the Republican Party must include removing their political operatives from deciding who can vote and whose votes will count,” the group said on its website, accusing some Republican secretaries of state of making “partisan decisions.”

SOSP has sought donations by describing the contributions as a “modest political investment” to elect “clean candidates” to the secretary of state posts.”

In a 2008 poll conducted by Helium online 27% percent of those responding to the poll stated that the United States would not exist 100 years from today. That’s 1 in 4 of those responding to this unscientific poll who believe we will not be the nation our founders envisioned. Thirty years ago I am sure this would not have been the result. More and more Americans are becoming less optimistic about the future of our Republic and our ability to live free lives and preserve our right to property.

As Ronald Reagan stated at his speech in front of the Statue of Liberty on September 1, 1980:

“But restoring the American dream requires more than restoring a sound, productive economy, vitally important as that is. It requires a return to spiritual and moral values. Values so deeply held by those who came here to build a new life. We need to restore those values in our daily life, in our neighborhoods, and in our government’s dealings with other nations of the world”

Or as Benjamin Franklin said outside of Independence Hall when the Constitutional Convention of 1787 ended when Mrs. Powel of Philadelphia asked him, "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" With no hesitation whatsoever, Franklin responded, "A republic, if you can keep it." If George Soros has his way we will have a monarchy of the progressive Left.

Tyranny Comes in All Forms

"Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression." — James Madison

Two recently related instances demonstrate what happens when Madison’s warning is not heeded. The London Mail reported today that a 77-year old veteran in Macedonia, Ohio is being has been ordered by his local home owners association to remove an American flag he has flying in front of his house. The Mail reports:

“A retired U.S. Army chaplain is being threatened with legal action for flying the American flag in his front yard, the Daily Mail reports.

Fred Quigley, 77, of Macedonia, Ohio, a minister who served active duty during the Vietnam War, has been told by the homeowners’ association that his flag violates the property rules.

The association has offered to fly the flag at the entrance of the building development, but Quigley refused the offer.

“If they can dictate to me that I cannot fly an American flag in America, then, to me, the country is lost,” Mr. Quigley told the paper.

Quigley's lawyer Gerald Patronite said the association has no right to stop his client.

According to the Mail, Joseph Migliorini, the representative for the homeowners’ association and former mayor of Macedonia, which is between Cleveland and Akron, said he plans to take Quigley to court if the flagpole is not removed.

Migliorini said: “We just want the rules and regulations followed. “

Members of the local American Legion post joined Quigley last week in a flag-raising ceremony in protest at the association's policy.

Quigley said that he's been given until Monday to remove the flag, or legal action will be taken by the association.

"As a minister and a chaplain, I have fought for people," Quigley said. "Now I fight for myself."

Many of us have homes where here is some sort of a home owners association. These HOAs are for the purpose of maintaining the property values in the HOAs jurisdiction. When you buy a home in a development where there is an HOA you agree to something called a Covenant of Conditions and Restrictions (CC&R) that stipulates all sorts of thing you cannot do and shall do with your property. Things like maintaining the landscaping around the house, painting your house with approved color schemes, not parking cars on the street overnight and taking your trash cans in within 24 hours after the rubbish collection. These CC&Rs have been upheld by our courts and are legal and binding on the signatories.

HOAs have boards of directors that are elected by the owners of the homes in the association every year. Most of us pay little attention to who is elected as we don’t want to be bothered with delving into the background of those who wish a seat on the board. It’s akin to how many Americans vote for their school board members, county commissioners, judges and state legislators. We either don’t vote for them or go down the list and pick the incumbent or someone who appeals to us according to their stated profession, i.e., school teacher or businessman for school board member. Most of the time this works out, but there are times when we ask ourselves why we voted for someone when a controversial issue arises.

In the case of the HOAs many times people pursue positions on these boards because they are on a power trip and have nothing else to do with their lives. It looks to me like this former mayor of Macedonia was on a power trip to continue his bureaucratic career. He no doubt drives the neighbor looking for possible violation to the CC&Rs so he can execute his police powers and see that the residents conform to his agenda. Common sense and neighborly decency be damned. As James Madison stated; “Wherever the real power in a Government lies, there is the danger of oppression."

I have a lighted flag on my house flying 24/7 and my neighbor has one on a 20-foot flag pole that he either lights or raises on weekends. I see nothing wrong withthis  display of patriotism and love of county. I hope Mr. Quigley wins his suit and former mayor Migliorini has to eat some humble pie.

The second example of the government overstepping its bounds and the following cover-up is even more egregious. Fox News reports that a dying woman undergoes additional TSA security screening prior to boarding her flight:

“An elderly woman in the late-stages of leukemia was forced to undergo 45 minutes of additional screenings last Saturday when she tried to board a flight out of Northwest Florida Regional Airport, her daughter told FoxNews.com

Lena Reppert, 95, was to say her final goodbyes to her daughter before she made what would most likely be her last flight to her native Michigan. After eight years of battling leukemia, doctors say she doesn’t have much time to live.

“She said she wanted to be closer to her grave,” Jean Weber, her daughter, told FoxNews.com. “I knew it would probably be the last time I ever see her.”

But when Reppert made it to the check-in line, Transportation Security Association agents singled her out because she was in a wheelchair. Wheelchairs require other security measures to be employed since they don’t go through metal detectors.

“So they brought my mom to the side, and two agents just started patting her,” Reppert said. “Eventually they found something that appeared to be hard and they said could be a concealed weapon.”

She said two female agents wheeled her mom into a private room where they performed a more thorough inspection, and found that Reppert was wearing a Depend adult diaper.

“It was hard because the underwear was bunched up,” Weber said, adding that she was not in the room as her mother was patted.

After 45 minutes, the mother and daughter were given two options: either don't fly, or lose the Depend. The women chose the latter.

“I ran with her to the bathroom and stripped her down,” Weber recalled. “I got back to the line and just started bawling.”

Weber said the emotional toll was too much. From perhaps seeing her mother for what could be the last time, to having to see her mother go through all the security measures, “I just cried and said, ‘Please can you let her through, she’s just so sick,” she said.

The TSA said in a statement to Fox News that at "no instance" would an officer ask a passenger to remove an adult diaper. The TSA would not disclose further information about this particular passenger, but said all protocols were followed.

“While every person and item must be screened before entering the secure boarding area, TSA works with passengers to resolve security alarms in a respectful and sensitive manner," the statement read. "We have reviewed the circumstances involving this screening and determined that our officers acted professionally and according to proper procedure.”

Reppert eventually made her flight by two minutes, her daughter said, but the departure was bitter sweet.

“It was tough to say goodbye after all of that,” Weber said. “But she’s at peace, and she’s a good Christian woman. They’ll be waiting for her up there in Heaven.”

After going through the TSA security lines many times I am inclined to believe Mrs. Reppert’s daughter rather than the mid-level TSA bureaucrat trying to cover his derriere. How humiliating for this dying woman to be subjected to this type treatment in our name. This is not the first time incidents such as these have happened. Almost on a weekly basis there are similar reports of groping, patting and feeling all in the name of national security. Most all of these incidents are reported by white, Caucasian women or parents of young children seeing their toddler being treated as a potential terrorist as he or she is virtually sexually abused by the TSA agent.

If this were a middle eastern looking male or woman in a burga being patted down or a TSA agent peeking under the burga every Islamic organization would be raising all sorts of hell in the MSM. They would claim racial profiling, racism and discrimination. It would be a violation of their First Amendment rights as a violation of tenants of their Islamic religion.

But, who speaks for a dying 95-year old Caucasian, Christian woman? What Congressman will take up her cause and demand an investigation of the TSA. Where is the Justice Department and ACLU? This is just another example of low-level government employees exercising dictatorial authority just because they can.

Can a Woman Be Elected President?

"Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain." — Frederic Bastiat — the Law

The Republicans are drawing all of the focus from the MSM and pundits regarding the upcoming presidential election in 2012. This is natural as the Democrats have their candidate — Barack Obama. There will be no challenge to him from any serious Democrat candidate and it will be Obama for better or worse. This leaves the out party — the Republicans — as the main player on the political stage. Obama will run on his record and the Republicans will run on their credibility, personalities and the candidate with the best shot at defeating Obama.

The MinnPost.com reports on a June 23, 2011 Florida poll conducted by Public Policy Polling that while Romney leads with 27%, but Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin (who is not an announced candidate) each get 17%:

“A PPP poll in Florida released today shows Mitt Romney still reigns in the Republican presidential race, but Michele Bachmann is on the rise, tied with Sarah Palin for second.

The poll of Republican primary voters in Florida show:

• Romney, 27%
• Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann, 17%
• Herman Cain, 10%
• Newt Gingrich, 8%
• Ron Paul, 7%
• Tim Pawlenty, 4%
• Jon Huntsman, 2%

The good news for Pawlenty: he's not last. The bad news: Huntsman hadn't entered the race yet when the poll was taken.

The pollsters note that Bachmann's rise is big news:

Beyond Romney's continued strength the big stories here are the rise of Michele Bachmann and the collapse of Newt Gingrich. Bachmann's 17% standing represents a 10 point gain from PPP's last Florida poll in late March, when she stood at only 7%. Her strength comes from leading the field with 'very conservative' voters at 21%, followed by Palin at 20%, and Romney at 18%.

The poll says that if you take Palin out of the race in the Florida poll, Bachmann looks good:

…..”the overall standings in a Palin less field [are] 29% for Romney, 22% for Bachmann, 14% for Cain, and 10% for Gingrich.””

The analysis given in PPP poll states:

“If you take Palin out of the mix, Bachmann picks up 37% of her supporters to 20% for Romney, 14% for Cain, and 13% for Gingrich. That leaves the overall standings in a Palin less field at 29% for Romney, 22% for Bachmann, 14% for Cain, and 10% for Gingrich. GOP polls PPP will release in Montana and Oregon over the course of the next few days will also provide evidence that Bachmann has stepped into the role as top alternative to Romney for GOP voters.”

While we are a long way from the Iowa Caucus and New Hampshire and South Carolina primaries and an even longer way from November 2012 there seems to be a developing trend that a conservative woman could be the Republican presidential nominee in 2012.

The Des Moines Register reports that Romney and Bachmann lead the pack in the latest Iowa poll:

“Romney, a former Massachusetts governor and business executive, claims 23 percent, and Bachmann, a Minnesota congresswoman and evangelical conservative, garners 22 percent. Neither has done heavy lifting in Iowa.

The rest of the Republican field is at least 12 points behind them.

Cain, a retired Georgia business executive, is the top choice for 10 percent of potential caucus-goers.”

When Barack Obama was elected the first black (actually black and white) President it was considered a milestone for a nation that has a long history of virulent racism. Whether you agreed with his politics or not, you could surely see the sense of pride that most voters were colorblind when they made their selection for Chief Executive in 2008. Yes, I know that about 98% of blacks voted for Obama, but, considering the history of subservience to whites, I don't think any fair-minded person could have expected less.

Now that we have shown how open-minded we are about race relations, maybe it's time to do the same with gender relations. Hillary Clinton came close in 2008, but no woman has yet to be nominated for president by a major political party. Two women have had a chance to be vice president, but it wasn't enough to push the head of the ticket across the finish line. It wouldn't be accurate to say that women have been subservient in this country, but I'm certain it can be said that they don't have the same image as men when it comes to leadership. Perhaps that's why, with more than half the population made up of the "fairer sex," women have not been able to reach that pinnacle of political power on Pennsylvania Avenue.

There's an interesting dynamic at play here. Before Obama's election, few blacks had been taken seriously as presidential timber. However, once that hurdle had been achieved, several others are being considered for the top job. It reminds me of the story about trained fleas. An experiment was conducted in which fleas were caught and placed in an open jar. Now, fleas are quite capable of jumping great distances for their size, hence, as long as the jar was open they were having no trouble jumping out. Then a lid was place on the jar. For a period of time one could hear the sound of fleas trying to jump out, but hitting the lid and retreating. Soon, the sound stopped and the fleas were jumping just below the level of the lid, so as not to hit against it. When the lid was removed the "trained" fleas no longer tried to jump high enough to get out. Fleas, like dogs and humans are subject to Pavlov’s theory.

People are often like fleas in that they don't try to succeed past a point where they have been trained to stop. Feminists have coined the phrase "glass ceiling" indicating an unreachable barrier that keeps women and minorities from reaching the upper rungs of the corporate ladder.

It's my contention that women will continue to face perceptual roadblocks in the presidential area of politics until one of them becomes the role model for others to follow. Currently, Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann (neither wear pants suits ala Hillary) have popular support for 2012. My choice is Palin because she has demonstrated her executive ability as Governor of Alaska and was the most exciting candidate in the election of 2008.

Although she hasn't decided if she'll run next year, we constantly hear that she has too much baggage. What baggage? Anyone who knows anything about her record in Alaska would have to admit that she exhibited all the traits that make up the building blocks of leadership. Her rise to prominence is well-known and doesn't need to be restated in its entirety here. Suffice to say that she took on a corrupt system within her own political party and rose to the governorship after throwing the bums out of office. Certainly, a résumé like that should be viewed as the perfect recipe for a country in need of a moral renaissance. Aha, therein is the problem! How many in this country want to return to the days when politicians weren't sending their nude photos on the Internet, fathering children with their housemaids, or having sex with interns in the Oval Office?

Robert Eugene Simmons Jr. writes in American Thinker “Why Palin Can Win:

“One of the most talked about subjects in politics is whether or not Sarah Palin will run for the presidency. It's frankly anyone's guess which direction she will go with her decision and when she will make the decision. However, if Palin doesn't run it will be a disaster for the Republican Party and quite possibly the country.

Aside from the fact that there isn't another libertarian-conservative in the race, at least not another one who isn't an international isolationist, if Palin doesn't run, it will represent an enormous victory for the Republican beltway establishment and the big players in the left-wing-dominated media. Furthermore, the leftist media will learn a fool-proof means to destroy any political opponent in a manner that will likely result in another four years of Obama.

In watching the coverage of the announced candidates, the alarm bells should be clanging violently. The fact that the leftist media hasn't really gone after the other Republican politicians in the race should be a violent warning to all conservatives and libertarians out there. It's totally out of character for the leftist media to not bring up Newt Gingrich's infidelity every ten minutes, or to have squads of reporters interviewing every foster child of Michele Bachmann that can be found to try to dig up some dirt. The rigorous inspection that has been visited upon Sarah Palin hasn't even started on the remainder of the Republican field. However, that doesn't mean the media has tacked suddenly to the center; far from it.”

I suspect that all decent people want to go back to a time when their children had better role models than Weiner, Schwarzenegger, and Clinton. The culture shift in the last few decades is more than mildly alarming; it is downright frightening! Every aspect of our lives has eroded. From education to entertainment to politics; we have seen a value system that was once the envy of the world, slowly, insidiously corrupted by a philosophical framework that is inimical to any concept of a great nation. Today, we have a country whose people have almost given up on the idea that morality has value.

What has all this to do with Sarah Palin? She's a threat to those who have become addicted to the titillation of a callous and uninhibited lifestyle, free from compunction or responsibility. She represents the wholesome values and patriotic spirit that have been all but lost in the violent maelstrom of social and political engineering that has distorted our sense of right and wrong. No flea is she; Sarah's the iconoclast that breaks glass ceilings and shatters the lids on jars.

Simmons continues:

“Throughout the last two years the media has embarked on a vitriolic, obsessed campaign to destroy Sarah Palin, not just as a politician but also as a person. They manipulated the legal system to try to bankrupt her while in office; they hacked her personal email and forced the release of her official email. When all of that produced nothing consequential, they simply made up the stories they wished and put them out to be in every headline for two weeks until they have the majority believing their deceits. As an example, ask any ten people you know who said, "I can see Russia from my house," and probably most of them will incorrectly name Sarah Palin rather than the comedian Tina Fey who actually said it. To the media, facts are unimportant so long as the story forwards the agenda.

If Sarah Palin doesn't run for president, the operatives in the media and Beltway establishment will have learned a fool-proof method of destroying any political opponent. If they are allowed to successfully paint a politician as stupid without any facts, merely because they disagree with the "aristocracy," America will be left with a choice of RINOs or progressive socialists. If that happens then the transformation of America from a libertarian culture to one of socialism and government dependence may very well be irreparable.

Assuming that Sarah Palin doesn't run the campaign will go sort of like this: the media will talk up the largest RINO they can find in an attempt to split the Republican Party from within. However, the real dirt will be kept securely under wraps. As the Republican primary nears its close, the research effort will go into full force. They will send squads of lawyers to go into every tiny detail of the candidate's personal and professional life. They will examine every detail of the life of the nominee from the day of their birth. The researchers will talk to every ex-boyfriend or girlfriend, every business partner, and any employees they can find.

After the primary is over, they will start to dump the juiciest tidbits in carefully edited and scripted special stories. National interviews will be granted to jilted lovers and business acquaintances that felt wronged by the candidate, or perhaps could be persuaded to feel wronged with a little interview stipend. The candidate will be mocked for their lack of intelligence and any microscopic mispronunciation or slip of the tongue will result in a weeklong national news cycle about why that candidate is too stupid to be president. The candidate will not have time to counter the perception and, combined with the media adoration of Obama, likely Obama would get another four years.”

Simmons concludes his case for Palin by stating:

“By contrast, if Sarah Palin runs, the media has already shot all of their ammo. They have done everything they can possibly do to destroy her but she has learned how to counter them via Facebook, Twitter, and streaming video. The accusations against Palin and her children have been flying in for two years and have failed to destroy her. All they have left is to repeat the old tired line of "Palin is an idiot." Of course it wouldn't take more than a debate or two, nationally televised with live video, to dispel that myth with everyone that can possibly be persuaded. The problem with the media is that all they have left to shoot are lies which can't stand in the light of day, and even all the plausible lies have been spent by Palin's opponents. If Palin wins the primary, the leftist media will be left to incoherent rage watched by fewer and fewer Americans.

With a properly run campaign, Palin will be able to easily counter the media perpetuated perception of stupidity with all except those that are so ideologically or emotionally committed as to be unpersuadable. Furthermore, on the issues Palin will be able to bring all guns blazing against Obama rather than being handicapped by prior records of endorsing government-mandated healthcare or global warming hysteria. On the issues, Palin's conservatism combined with her small-government libertarianism will make a stark contrast to Obama who will now be forced to defend his policies rather than run on emotion ad-hominem attacks and catchy phrases.

When the political calculus is done, it is clear that Palin is the only real conservative with libertarian leanings that can possibly be elected in the country. Although there are other conservatives with promise such as Bachmann, Cain, and West, they have not been subjected to the vetting that Sarah Palin has and there should be no doubt that the media will do everything they possibly can to destroy them should they win the nomination.”

Simmons is obviously a fan of Sarah Palin, as I am, but I also favor Michelle Bachmann. I see the major, if only differences, between Bachmann and Palin are their speech patterns, accents, name recognition and the way they have been attacked by the MSM and Left. As Simmons points out Palin has had about everything but he kitchen sink thrown at her and is still popular among men and women. Bachmann has yet to get this treatment, although she certainly will as she becomes more of a threat to the Left. Here is a sample from ThinkProgress, the George Soros funded left-wing attack dog:

“November 2004 EdWatch National Education Conference, Bachmann said the “normalization” of homosexuality would lead to “desensitization”: “Very effective way to do this with a bunch of second graders, is take a picture of ‘The Lion King’ for instance, and a teacher might say, ‘Do you know that the music for this movie was written by a gay man?’ The message is: I’m better at what I do, because I’m gay.”

And there are plenty more, just Google her name.

Both are constitutional and social conservatives who are supported by the Tea Party. Palin was a governor and VP Candidate with broad name recognition and over 3 million Facebook fans. On the other hand Bachmann is a three term Congresswoman from a deep blue state, Minnesota, and a former tax litigator. Bachmann was selected by House Speaker John Boehner for a position on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, giving her a new role as overseer of the CIA, the National Security Agency and the rest of the U.S. intelligence community. Bachmann, Her name recognition, if you take the number of Facebook fans as a bench mark, is one tenth of Palins with just over 300,000 fans.

Of course all of this will change in the next year as the primary season approaches and the abusive and obscene rhetoric from the left heats up. The more she becomes a real threat to the left, the more they will the mud at her.

I would support either Palin or Bachmann for president for several reasons. First; I believe a conservative woman can be a good leader. Remember Margaret Thatcher and Golda Meir? Second; I agree with most, if not all of their positions on national and international issues— they have both proved themselves to be constitutional, fiscal, and social conservatives. Third; I think they are both tough enough to lead this nation and take on those who want to do us ill. Fourth; they both believe in the exceptionalism of the United States and our founding principles. And, fifth; they are good looking and don’t wear pants suits. It will be far better for our nation to be led by a strong conservative woman like Palin or Bachmann than a wimpy, indecisive male like Barack Obama or Mitt Romney.

What Is The Value Of A College Education Today?

“They will come to learn in the end, at their own expense, that it is better to endure competition for rich customers than to be invested with monopoly over impoverished customers.” — Frederic Bastiat

The other night Glenn Beck had a full hour program dedicated to the cost and value of a college education today. In studio he had about fifty guests, all of college age, who were either in college or recently graduated. Most of the guests he interviewed were very discouraged over the prospects of obtaining employment after graduation and were disappointed with the tools that they had gotten during their years in college.

While watching the program and listening to the plight of Glenn Beck’s guests heard a common theme of young people that had been sold a bill of goods by society and the colleges that the only way to succeed in life was by spending thousands of dollars for a college education that did not live up to their expectations of instant success and prosperity after graduation. They felt a sense of entitlement due to the money and time they spent pursuing that college diploma. They believed hey were owed something by society.

I am not anti‑education by any stretch of the imagination. Benjamin Franklin went and got his education as an apprentice. There is such a thing as getting an education other than through the gates of a university that are charging our youth (and their hapless parents) $100,000 to $150,000 to $250,000 just to be able to have a certificate that doesn’t necessarily mean anything to them. There are all ways and means to get an “education”. Learning is not the sole domain of the universities and colleges just ask Newton or Einstein. Most of our founding fathers were not university educated and they did a pretty good job at devising a system of government that the world had never nor yet to see.

I believe there are two reasons to pursue an education beyond K-12. One is to pursue a career in academia and the other is to learn a trade. Colleges and universities don’t like the word “trade” as they feel that is insulting to their self-importance, but trade is what it is. If the word trade makes you uncomfortable you may substitute the word “profession”, but remember you are not a professional until recognized by peers as being one. The title professional does not come with the diploma, it earned through hard work, experience and recognition by the public and peers.

So what are the trades I am talking about? Well, just about every form of human endeavor from doctors, lawyers, engineers, surveyors and airline pilots to plumbers, carpenters, helicopter mechanics and journalists. All of these trades require some degree of advanced education, which can be obtained in colleges and in many other ways. But no matter how this advanced learning is obtained internship, apprenticeship and mentoring are the most important. You may note that I neglected business from my list because business, while a preferred major by many college students does not require a college degree. It requires entrepreneurship, risk and capital, all of which come after one decides what business he or she wants to pursue.

Let’s take the example of the doctor. First the potential doctor is required to attend pre-med undergraduate school where they learn things like chemistry, anatomy medical history, English, Latin, physiology and other things. Then they go to medical school where they learn more anatomy, more chemistry, how drugs work on the body and hey get to cut up dead people. Once they graduate medical school the intern for long hours and little pay at a hospital where they work under the tutelage of professional nurses and doctors for several years learning trade. Once their internship is completed they will act as a resident doctor in a hospital with patient responsibility until such time they decide to open their own medical practice and hang their shingle out to the public. In this scenario I have made a case for the “book learning” aspect of a doctors education and I realize that colleges play an important role her, but how many high school graduates go on to become doctors.

Now let’s take the case of the engineer, specifically the civil engineer, something I know a great deal about. A high school graduates enters into a college to study civil engineering so he or she can build roads, dams, bridges or water systems our civilization need. They learn advanced mathematics, physics, chemistry, geology, statics, CADS, hydrology and hydraulics. All of these subjects can be learned through other sources and studies. They are not the sole property of the colleges. There are many for profit schools that offer these subjects where a student can learn while working at another job and it will not cost him or her fifty or sixty thousand dollars.

Once the student graduates he or she will get a job with a civil engineering firm where they will in essence become an apprentice working under the tutelage of professional and experienced engineers. Once they have enough qualifying experience they will be able to take the state licensing exams and if they learned well, had good mentoring and worked hard they will pass the exam and the state will issue them registration stating they have exhibited that they have the minimum qualifications to practice their profession and will not endanger the safety of the public. During my 55 years of working in the field of civil engineering I knew many great engineers that did not have a formal college degree, but had learned their profession through other means of study and apprenticeship along with very good mentoring.

The second reason for a college education is to enter the realm of academia. People who chose this path will forever be the teachers and not the doers. They will be the ones who will live in the secluded world of academia and play the game of publishing unreadable dialogs and theoretical treatises on subjects they have no life experience in. Some will be enlightened scholarly works while many others will be regurgitations of the same, old tired doctrines they have been indoctrinated in. These will be the people who will spend the rest of their lives living in the world of tenure. They will be the ones seeking government grants to support their positions and departments. They will be the consultants to government and the ones who will advocate more government interference in our lives.

Many high school graduates enter college today not having the slightest idea of what they want to do with their lives. They would be better served by taking a few years working at McDonalds and gaining some life experience so they could figure out what they had a passion for. Yes I said passion. Passion plus personal entrepreneurship plus finding a good mentor equals success in your chosen profession, trade, business and life. No one knows this better than I.

At the risk of sounding supercilious and to illustrate my point I will tell some of my personal story of education, mentoring, imagination, entrepreneurship and passion. Between on sophomore and junior years in high school I got a summer job as a surveyor’s assistant. It was a good job where I worked outdoors and got to travel around the city quite a bit. I liked the work and was fascinated by the technology and mathematics of the profession. Upon graduation I went to work full time for a civil engineering and land surveying firm. I did not go to college as I had no money or scholarship. This did not bother me as most of my friends did not go on to college. This was 1954 and college was not for everyone.

I worked for a supervisor who would become my mentor for three years. He not only taught me land surveying bit also taught me of life and what it took to succeed. I worked for this mentor as an apprentice surveyor for three years all the while attending night school for science and advanced mathematics. Eventually I was offered a position as a crew chief at another firm with higher pay and more opportunity. I accepted this offer and worked for this firm for five years gaining knowledge from my more senior co-workers and experience by doing the work.

After five years with this firm my wife and I decided to relocate to Southern California where I took a position as an engineering technician with the California Division of Highways where I was involved in the design, surveying and construction of freeways. During my tenure with the division of highways I attended night school where I took courses in civil engineering and photogrammetry. I also completed a two year correspondence course in highway engineering and land surveying while I was doing the actual work in the field.

I was able to advance to the position of supervisor with the division of highways (now Caltrans), bought a home and had three children. I also took and passed the surveyors California licensing exam and was qualified as a professional land surveyor. Life was good, but I wanted more. I wanted to my own land surveying and civil engineering business.

I used to mow my backyard lawn and to relieve the boredom I imagine owning my own business. I would even imagine what my clients and office would look like and they type of work I would be doing. I wanted to do big projects.

Finally after 10 years with the division of highways the opportunity came along to go into partnership with two other civil engineers, an opportunity I readily took. After ten years of building his business to 100 employees the great recession of 1981 hit our business hard and we had to downsize to an unsustainable size. But, another opportunity popped up in front of me and hat was to merge our business with another similar firm suffering the same effects of the recession. By pooling our clients, projects and resources we believed we could not only survive the recession, but flourish, which we ultimately did. I had more partners to share the load and wealth with, but we also had more to offer our clients. At the time of the merger, in 1982, and the time I retired in 2007 we had grown to 850 employees with offices throughout the western United States.

During my time with the new and larger firm I had the opportunity to do projects in Germany, Turkey, Sri Lanka, Central America and Venezuela. My wife and I raised three children, all attending private school, and looked after my parents until they died. My wife and I traveled the world with numerous trips to the United Kingdom and Europe taking he children with us most of the time.

All the time I kept learning and advancing my knowledge of engineering, land surveying, project management and business. I never lost my passion for my profession and never grudgingly went to work. I did all of this without a formal college education. If I could tell young people today I would convey to them that passion for what you do, imagination and personal entrepreneurship far outweighs an expensive college education.

From grade school through high school parents and children have been sold a bill of goods that a college education is the only road to success. The colleges and universities have been implicit in this fraud. We have a president and some left-wing governors like Jerry Brown of California, harping that every child deserves and is entitled to a college education. The Department of Education promotes student loans for expensive college educations that many students will take years, if ever, to pay back. It’s time to teach our children that passion for a dream and entrepreneurship outweighs the fraud perpetrated by many of our colleges and universities.

America in Denial

“Let the pulpit resound with the doctrine and sentiments of religious liberty. Let us hear of the dignity of man’s nature, and the noble rank he holds among the works of God.” — John Adams

While watch a TV show former senator and Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum was being interview. He made a comment that caught my ear when he said he was talking with a professor of American History at Washburn College. According to Santorum the professor told him that he gave a 40 question history and citizenship test to all of his incoming students and the average for correct answers 40% with only 15% achieving a passing grade of 70% or above. I have written on this issue before and I find it appalling that only 15% of college freshmen can score above 70% on a simple history or citizenship test.

Tonight I heard on the Sean Hannity show the Maryland Superintendent of Public Education has mandated that all K-12 schools in Maryland have to teach environmental science and that all high school seniors High school seniors in Maryland will have to be “literate” on environmental matters to graduate from now on.

This is a defining moment for education in Maryland,” Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley said. “By approving this environmental graduation requirement, the Board of Education is ensuring that our young people graduate with a keen understanding of and connection to the natural world. Only through exposure to nature and education about our fragile ecosystem can we create the next generation of stewards. ”

“This is a momentous day not only for Maryland but for educators across the country who are watching what Maryland does, and hoping to increase outdoor learning in their states,” Don Baugh, director of the environmental advocacy group No Child Left Inside Coalition (NCLI), which pushed for the vote, said in a release. “Governor O’Malley and Dr. Grasmick deserve our profound gratitude. For years they have put Maryland at the forefront of the environmental education movement.”

The Washington Post reports on what the requirement means: “Under the graduation requirement, public schools will be required to infuse core subjects with lessons on conservation, smart growth and other environmental topics. School systems will be able to shape their programs, but they must align with state standards.”

“With today’s vote school districts must now move beyond standard science courses that provide minimal focus on the environment,” NCLI added in its release. “The Maryland State Department of Education has established two workgroups to begin revising and aligning Maryland environmental literacy standards, and developing guidelines to provide school systems with guidance and support for implementation.”

According to the Post, 48 other states are considering similar requirements.

“The No Child Left Inside Act would increase environmental education opportunities for students across the country,” Congressman John Sarbanes of Maryland, author of the bill, said. “Such opportunities are essential to grow the next generation of scientists, promote environmental stewardship, and encourage Americans to live healthier lifestyles.”

According to the Baltimore Sun Maryland ranks last in personal freedom:

“Maryland has earned yet another dubious distinction: The lowest-ranked state for personal freedom in the country.

A recent study, "Freedom in the 50 states," from the market-oriented Mercatus Center at George Mason University faults Maryland's strict gun control laws, extensive automobile regulations, tight gambling laws, burdensome home-schooling laws and high drug arrest rates for our state's low ranking.

Maryland -- nicknamed "The Free State" -- is also ranked 28th in economic freedom and 43rd in overall freedom.

The study faults Maryland for "severe" labor regulation, high health insurance coverage mandates, eminent domain abuse and smoking bans.

And the state has been getting consistently less free since 2007, the study states.

Which are the freest states in the country? New Hampshire (which famously refuses to enact a seatbelt law) and South Dakota (which has low taxes and government spending).”

(Actually the George Mason University study Ranks Maryland at #43 and California at #49 with New Hampshire at #1 and South Dakota at #2.)

Under the graduation requirement, public schools will be required to infuse core subjects with lessons on conservation, smart growth and other environmental topics. School systems will be able to shape their programs, but they must align with state standards.

So what we have are high school graduates who can’t pass a simple history and citizenship test, but will be able to tell you all about global warming and how man has wrecked the planet, something right up the lefty greens alley.

As someone who graduated high school in he mid 50s and has extensively travels the United States and the world I believe I know something about the land of my birth, the United States of America. This was once a great nation offering everyone freedom and the opportunity to succeed (or fail). What happened to us? How did we lose our optimism and confidence? How did we turn into a nation of the recipient class envious of those who have worked hard to achieve success? How did we become a people dedicated to class warfare?

Steve McCann has a good article in American Thinker where he, as an immigrant, lays out some good points on what has happened to us since the end of the Second World War. Mr. McCann writes:

“Many of us who immigrated to the United States from either war-ravaged or totalitarian countries, where freedom was either unknown or the quintessence of daydreams, find ourselves baffled by a trait common to the majority of Americans: the belief, consciously or subconsciously, that the worst cannot happen here. That somehow the demoralizing images and disturbing experiences of those elsewhere are confined to those poor souls and will never find their way to American shores.

While this characteristic is found across all political and economic strata, it is particularly rampant among the current ruling class in the United States, who by their control of the culture and education, have ingrained that sort of thinking into the psyche of the vast majority of Americans.

Is this mindset a by-product of 66 years of unprecedented peace and prosperity? Is there something unique in the American character that revels in denial? Is there over-confidence that Americans can accomplish anything? Is this outlook the end-product of a lack of education and appreciation of how the success of the United States is extraordinary and of the fact that since modern man took his first tentative step on the plains of Africa 200,000 years ago until the present less than 9% of all humanity has ever experienced true freedom?

Overwhelming peace and prosperity, over the past many decades, has sown the seeds that will lead to rapid erosion in the American way of life. As the United States has not experienced a major national catastrophe in over 146 years, coupled with no significant economic hardships since 1940, the view across the landscape as far as the mind's eye chooses to see is of never-ending affluence and freedom from strife.

With this perspective in mind, it is easy to believe, as human nature would choose to do, that there will always be an unlimited source of wealth and with that wealth the country should be obligated to see to it that no citizen, as a factor of residency, suffers any hardship. It is a belief easily exploited by the Left as a means of obtaining sufficient votes to acquire and retain power. But this conviction is also the foundation of American socialist dogma for those who revel in the self-importance and superiority that attaches itself to this errant philosophy.

It is of little personal sacrifice to espouse Marxist/socialist theory while doing so in a comfortable environment provided by the entrepreneurship and wealth creation of others. But the key to this mindset is the deep-seated belief that there is no end to the prosperity the United States creates, regardless of the increasingly heavy hand of government It is only a matter of allocation, and more importantly to the Left, the authority over society that predetermined re-distribution brings about.

But the Left is not alone in its acceptance of never-ending peace and prosperity. Many on the Right also subscribe to this mindset as they, in order to also acquire political power, do not point out the folly of this state of mind and what the Left preaches; but instead choose to proceed on a slower, but ultimately the same track in placating and abetting this belief that has become so ingrained in the American psyche.

The United States is unique among nations because of its founding principles, geography and mix of cultures and races. Those factors enabled the country to overcome a myriad of tribulations in its early years and develop an atmosphere conducive to an overwhelming barrage of creativity, ingenuity and individual advancement. But those days are rapidly receding into the pages of history as the oppressive hand of government, now encroached into the day-to-day lives of all Americans, has nearly made that nation a relic of the past. Yet among many there is still the belief that regardless of this ever growing intrusion and forced wealth re-distribution America can still accomplish anything at anytime against all odds or competitors.

As long as those in the ruling class, abetted by a majority of the public, continue in their present state of mind, then the ongoing immature and childish game of political one-upmanship, name calling and winning at all costs mentality on the Left and obsession with civility and moderation on the Right will persist as both sides naively believe there are no negative consequences in doing so. The end result, however, is to obfuscate the true depth of the country's problems, while genuine solutions to the nation's dilemmas become impossible to achieve.

The American populace is no longer taught the basics of the founding of the United States and how it was able to achieve the peace and prosperity that is the hallmark of the present day. Nor are they aware that the annals of history are littered with the refuse of once invincible cultures whose citizenry never thought the worst would ever happen to them. All succumbed to greed, complacency and hubris; traits which have also begun to dominate American society.

While some Americans are waking up to the potential economic and security disasters that loom over the horizon, the vast majority are not. There still exists, deep in the recesses of the American mindset, the entrenched thought that none of this will really happen. That somehow, because this is the United States, there will be an easy and painless way to offset the potential problems -- that is if these dilemmas really are genuine.

Those of us who have first-hand experience from other nations of what the worst can be, say with great assurance that it can happen in the United States and it will unless Americans, and in particular the governing class, awaken from their self-induced stupor and honestly face that reality. Until that happens the country will continue its headlong dash toward disaster when it may well be too late to resolve the problems without massive suffering and a greatly diminished country.”

I could not agree with Mr. McCann more. While he identifies the issue of America’s denial I would like to offer, what I believe are the reasons, our education system, our entertainment industry and our social our love affair with social justice.

In 1976 Presidential candidate Jimmy Carter promised to create a Department of Education, and was is endorsed by the National Education Association. This is first time that the NEA has endorsed a presidential candidate in more than a century of existence. After his election in 1978 Carter got Congress, after much opposition, to narrowly pass legislation to split off a new Department of Education from the existing Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. The NEA and the American Federation of Teachers provided powerful lobbying support for the creation of the new department. The Department of Education began operations in 1980 with 6,400 employees.

Once this happened to floodgates were opened for total control of our public education system from Washington and its takeover by the teachers unions. Once this happened the local control of our public schools began to vanish. The control came in two forms, one through legislation and the other through the coercion of federal dollars.

Local school districts, always in need of more money for more things, were easily coerced by money from Washington. Every time they took a dime’s worth of federal money they got a dollars’ worth of federal intervention. This money dictated curriculum, testing, reporting and diversity. Subjects were no taught in Montana schools dictated by elites in Washington that perhaps the people of Montana did not want to teach on their schools. History text books were rewritten to no longer emphasize or founders and the constitution. All references to God were removed and the civil rights era became more important than the Federalist Papers. Saving the rainforest replaced building the transcontinental railway. The plight of the Native Americans replaced the great migrations to open the west and racial justice became the reasons for the Civil War.

We were educating a generation of children that were learning very little of the reasons for the United States, how it came about and the culture of its people. This generation went on to teach the generation that is teaching our children today. And with each succeeding generation the history and reasons for the United States became more watered down until today we have school districts teaching the overthrow of the United States and separation of its lands.

While this was going the teachers unions were gaining more power and collecting more dues money to support progressive politician who would do their bidding. It was no longer about educating our children with our history and values it was about power and control. As these unions were taken over by elite academics willing to experiment with our children’s minds and enforce their left-wing progressive agenda our schools became factories of indoctrination, not places where critical thinking was the goal. Graduation rates dropped, especially in urban school districts where today, in some cities like Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia is less than 60%. It’s no wonder the history professor at Washburn College had such appalling passing rates on his history and citizenship test.

The next, and perhaps most influential reason, is our entertainment industry. In the 1950s and 1960s we had movies and TV shows promoting family and American values. TV was becoming more and more influential as its programming entered the homes across America on a nightly basis.

There were shows like Father Knows Best, Leave it to Beaver and My Three Sons where the father of the house was a problem solver, bread winner and leader of the house. He was not a dufus, comedic character as portrayed in today’s sitcoms and TV shows. There were shows about pioneers and adventurers like Little House on the Prairie, Wagon Train and Bonanza, who risked body and treasure to build this nation. Little House on the Prairie also had an intact family with the father as the leader of the family. There were shows about law, justice, honor and integrity like Gun Smoke, Davy Crockett and Paladin where the good guts wore white hats and the bad guys wore the black ones. There were wholesome comedy and variety shows like The Show of Shows, the Texaco Star Theater, the Carroll Burnett Show and the Red Skelton Show where comedy was based on our everyday lives, such as buying a hat, a family vacation or a first date. They were not loaded with vulgarity, soft core pornography, homosexuality or anti-American rhetoric.

Somewhere in the 1970s this all changed. When the movie Mash came out it portrayed the heroic military doctors, nurses and medical technicians as comedic characters. When the TV show of the same name came out it was more of the same with an anti-war, left-wing agenda added. It did not take long for films like Platoon and Apocalypse to begin portraying the American soldier as a drug induced psychopathic killers. This is the stuff two generations have grown up with. Can you wonder why America is in denial of its roots and founding principles? Even simplistic children’s programs like Sesame Street took on a new agenda. Instead of teaching pre-kindergarteners the alphabet they began preaching progressive left-wing gender agenda.

Social Justice has become the watch word of the progressive left. Not justice for all, but social justice. In the parlance of the progressive left social justice means affirmative action, diversity, lack of personal accountability and shared wealth. Class warfare has replaced personal responsibility and entrepreneurship. Need and demand has replaced the ability to earn the money to pay for something — if he has it I want it. Frederic Bastiat writes in The Law:

“See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.”

With such an accurate description of legalized plunder, we cannot deny the conclusion that most government activities, including ours, are legalized plunder, or for the sake of social justice, legalized theft.

Herein lies Bastiat’s famous distinction between illegal and legal plunder, which is at the center of his analysis in The Law. The purpose of government, he says, is precisely to secure individuals in their rights to life, liberty, and property. Without such security men are reduced to a primitive life of fear and self-defense, with every neighbor a potential enemy ready to plunder what another has produced. If a government is strictly limited to protecting men’s rights, then peace prevails, and men can go about working to improve their lives, associating with their neighbors in a division of labor and exchange.

But government can also be turned against those whom it is meant to protect in their property. There can arise legal plunder, in which the powers of government are used by various individuals and groups to prevent rivals from competing, to restrict the domestic and foreign trading opportunities of other consumers in the society, and therefore to steal the wealth of one’s neighbors. This, Bastiat argues, is the origin and basis of protectionism, regulation, and redistributive taxation.

But the consequences of legal plunder are not only the political legitimizing of theft and the breakdown of morality through the blurring of the distinction between right and wrong — however crucially important and dangerous these may be for the long-term stability and well-being of society. Such policies also, by necessity, reduce the prosperity of the society.

Why does legal plunder come about? Bastiat saw its origin in two sources. First, as we have just seen, some people see it as an easier means of acquiring wealth than through work and production. They use political power to redistribute from others what they are unwilling or unable to obtain from their neighbors through the voluntary exchanges of the marketplace. One basis for legal plunder, in other words, is the misguided spirit of theft. The second, and far more dangerous, source of legal plunder is the arrogant mentality of the social engineer. Through the ages, Bastiat showed, social and political philosophers have viewed the multitude of humanity as passive matter, similar to clay, waiting to be molded and shaped, arranged and moved about according to the design of an intellectually superior elite. With a timeless relevance, Bastiat points out that the political elite praises the ideal of democracy, under which “the people” select those who will hold political office. But once the electoral process is finished, those elected to high political office arrogate to themselves the planning, directing, and controlling of every aspect of social and economic life. The task of modern democracy, apparently, is to periodically appoint those who shall be our societal dictators.

After 66 years of peace America has turned into a state where plunder is accepted in the name of social justice where people feel entitled to the “good life” without seizing on the opportunities of freedom and property rights protected in our Constitution. Today we look to government for our rights and blindly take what the elites choose to give us. Even House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has said she wants to amend America‘s ’Sacred Documents‘ for ’ever-expanding freedom’ of jobs as Democrats line up to call for the federal government to hire the unemployed. Hire to do what?

We will not be able to reverse this trend until we, as a people, decide to return to constitutional government as defines by the written words in the Constitution and the writings of our founders. Also we need to return to God. Not the God of any organized religion, but the God of our founders who from all rights and morality stems.

Lemonade, Cookies and Obama’s Economy

"If the natural tendencies of mankind are so bad that it is not safe to permit people to be free, how is it that the tendencies of these organizers are always good? Do not the legislators and their appointed agents also belong to the human race? Or do they believe that they themselves are made of a finer clay than the rest of mankind?" — Frederic Bastiat (The Law)

We don't need to ask the wizards of the Ivy League why Obamanomics is not working. Everything we need to know can be explained with lemonade and cookies. Or more specifically, a couple of news items from the last few days involving lemonade and cookies pretty well demonstrates why the economy is doing well in a few select places while being in the tank overall. Two little anecdotes define conservative versus liberal economic thinking, not to mention the inevitable failure of the Obama regime.

First, in Bethesda, Maryland parents were fined 500 dollars when their kids had the temerity to run an "un-authorized" lemonade (and other cold drinks) stand. In fact, the venture was in part a fundraising effort to boot. Talk about making lemons out of lemonade. Now if you're scoring at home, this stunning tale makes it Bureaucrats 1 Entrepreneurs 0 in blue-state Maryland.

Meanwhile, in Texas, Governor Rick Perry signed into law SB 81, making it legal for kids and grandmas to bake cookies and cupcakes for sale at home. Before this law was signed, it was not technically against an ordinance. Now it's Entrepreneurs 1 Bureaucrats 0 in red-state Texas.

Gosh with these divergent thought processes, I wonder which state might have performed better over the past few years with respect to private sector job creation. The answer of course is Texas.

And it's not because of a couple of drink stand jobs here or home baking jobs there will result from the ordinances and laws. It's about the entire notion of the role of government intervention in our economy. In Texas, and all over red-state America, the idea is that government's role in the economy is merely to foster an environment where businesses can prosper. This is a good thing of course, allowing businesses to create jobs and economic opportunities for the owners and employees and investors through the production of attractive goods and services for consumers. This win-win-win equation explains the engine that has fueled the economy of our nation for decades. This is Milton Friedman's compassion theory in practice. He would no doubt like SB 81.

In blue-state America, the notion is that government must manage every aspect of business to make sure rules are followed and that no one is taken advantage of by anyone at any time. It's the idea that highly educated central planners can create a better economy by empowering armies of unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats who will interpret and enforce all of these wonderful ivory tower edicts from the smartest among us. As Friedman would ask sarcastically, just who "would be these angels" that could deem fairness from on high?

The answer of course would be those same some unnamed and unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats in faraway government buildings.

The bureaucratic mindset regarding lemonade in blue-state Maryland stands as a microcosm of the Obama administration. The Bethesda authorities' penalizing of the kids' drink stand is simply a micro-version of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)'s attempt to prevent Boeing from opening up their massive Dreamliner plant in North Charleston, SC. It's also much like the EPA running Shell Oil out of Alaskan waters after Shell had invested four billion dollars in exploration in those waters. These are the same battles as the Maryland lemonade stand, just on a scale of billions of dollars. It's the idea that central planners and government statists know what's best for our economy and our population. It's the thinking that the cumulative decisions made by free peoples and free enterprises acting in their own best interests cannot be trusted without bureaucratic supervision.

This is chilling the business climate everywhere. Entrepreneurs are on strike, à la Atlas Shrugged, and for the same reasons.

People in business are very sensitive to the government-knows-best mindset too. They can practically smell it. Many started their own businesses for the express purpose of being independent and having control of their own destinies. In short, liberty is often the entrepreneur's main motivation. Accumulating money is of course part of that, because property is a necessary ingredient in the liberty equation. People motivated by independence are obviously going to avoid situations that invite government interference. Under the Obama administration, running a business now invites just that.

Which is the whole issue with Boeing and the NLRB. Boeing has experienced difficult labor regulations in Washington State, costing it billions of dollars and no telling how much customer goodwill in past years. (One of the angriest customers ironically was ultra-lib Richard Branson of Virgin Air, ticked off that Boeing missed delivery deadlines due to union strikes.) Boeing was doing what any sensible business must do, which is to channel future investments into areas where those problems would not arise again. To do otherwise would be to commit economic suicide.

Not interested in suicide, Boeing went to Charleston. Keep in mind that this decision was made before Obama, Reid, and Pelosi came to power and was not only sensible but perfectly legal. There was no thought given to the idea that in America there would soon be the central planning mindset of the new regime. It was beyond thinking that this move would be challenged retroactively as illegal. Welcome to "hope and change."

Is it any wonder businesses have their money "on the sidelines" now? Of course not. To take a chance now would be business malpractice. You don't have to understand complex labor law in Washington or the science of environmental law in Alaska to get this. It's simple common sense. The best economic lessons always are, since economics is nothing more than human nature in action.

Part of Milton Friedman's fame comes from the famous "pencil" example, where he describes a five-cent pencil is literally the result of cooperation and products from multiple continents by people who can't stand each other — or understand each other. And yet, the marketplace weaves them together through a series of self-interested decisions to produce a pencil for a nickel. It demonstrates that this miracle could only happen in the marketplace. A government-mandated system requiring products from multiple continents would no doubt produce pencils costing thousands of dollars. The market thus not only forges products and prices that central planning cannot, but the collateral benefit is cooperation from people who otherwise would not cooperate.

To understand why our economy is not in recovery and cannot possibly get there under this administration, it's even simpler than Friedman's pencil. Just compare the government view of lemonade stands in Maryland versus the government view of homemade cookie kitchens in Texas. Have some cookies and lemonade. It's all you have to know. It's so simple, even an Ivy Leaguer can do it.