The Election Is Over, But The Spin Is Just Beginning

"The difference between a welfare state and a totalitarian state is a matter of time." — Ayn Rand

Last night I received an e-mail alert from the New York Times stating “Scott Walker, the embattled Republican governor of Wisconsin, narrowly survived a recall vote on Tuesday, defeating a union-led effort to remove him from office for pushing laws to restrict the collective bargaining rights of state workers.”

What caught my eye was the use of the adverb “Narrowly” in the lead statement of the NYT. I had just finished watching the Wisconsin recall election coverage and at the time I turned it off Walker was ahead by 10 points with 88% of the ballots counted and his opponent Tom Barrett had just given his concession speech. (Walker’s final margin of victory was 7%, pretty much as the polls predicted).

When I opened the link to the Times article I saw a different report on the election than the lead stated. In the article it stated that Walker “soundly defeated Barrett. How interesting that the Times headline writer thinks 7 points is a “narrow” margin. But, this is just the beginning of the spin the progressives will put on the election rather than looking at the plain and simple truth — the voters are feed up with large government union pensions and benefit programs.

In a related, but little reported, election the voters in California’s San Jose and San Diego Counties overwhelmingly approved measures to cut retirement benefits for city workers. In San Diego, 67 percent voted in favor of Proposition B while 33 percent were opposed. The margin in San Jose was even wider, with 71 percent in favor of Measure B and 29 percent opposed

Fox News Reported:

“San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed called the vote a victory for fiscal reform.

"The voters get it, they understand what needs to be done," he said in an interview.

Supporters had a straightforward pitch: Pensions for city workers are unaffordable and more generous than many private companies offer, forcing libraries to slash hours and potholes to go unfilled.

"We believe people are tired of having services cut back because of big pensions," San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican who is being forced from office by term limits, said recently.

Shrinking tax revenues during the recession are also responsible for service cuts, but pensions are an easy target. San Diego's payments to the city's retirement fund soared from $43 million in 1999 to $231.2 million this year, equal to 20 percent of the city's general fund budget, which pays for day-to-day operations.

As the pension payments grew, San Diego's 1.3 million residents saw roads deteriorate and libraries and recreation centers cut hours. For a while, some fire stations had to share engines and trucks. The city has cut its workforce 14 percent to 10,100 employees since Sanders took office in 2005.

San Jose's pension payments jumped from $73 million in 2001 to $245 million this year, equal to 27 percent of its general fund budget. Voters there approved construction bonds at the beginning of the last decade, but four new libraries and a police station have never opened because the city cannot afford to operate them. The city of 960,000 cut its workforce 27 percent to 5,400 over the last 10 years.

Opponents, led by public employee unions, say the measures deprive workers of benefits they were counting on when they got hired. Some workers decided against potentially more lucrative jobs with private companies, figuring their retirement was relatively safe.

"This is part of a broader effort to attack workers and to make their lives miserable," San Diego Councilman Todd Gloria said during a debate on the San Diego measure.

Thom Reilly, former manager of Clark County, Nev., and now a professor of social work at San Diego State University, said opponents face a difficult task. He expects the California measures may spawn similar efforts elsewhere if they pass.

"The ones who are actually paying the taxes will never see these benefits in their lifetimes, so there's not a lot of sympathy in the public," he said.”

The "it's gonna be a late night in Madison" notion was virtually over by the end of Happy Hour — which no doubt did cause some very late nights instead in Washington and Chicago. With little or no happiness at all. And naturally there were also the comparisons to the vibes of the night Scott Brown took down the Kennedy seat in 2009

The real story is: what happened this spring in Wisconsin was not a recall election at all. Pure and simple, it was a mulligan. A childish do-over. Moreover, it was a battle of government union members and their families against pretty much everyone else. And when that really crystallized in the minds of the voters, the unions' cause was doomed. The name Tom Barrett is irrelevant here. The biggest losers last night — and there were many — were big labor generally and public service unions specifically, and it’s about time.

Succinctly put, the petty, protected, pampered lefty government and teachers unions — still indignant over Scott Walker's 2010 win — simply threw a 75 million dollar tantrum as a third do over on that same election. And the unions' reward from the citizens of Wisconsin for a year and a half of hell was a resounding "go to hell" of epic proportions. And if anyone doubts that there is a God — and that He has a sense of humor — the Wisconsin State Motto is, yep, "Forward."

You can't make this stuff up.

Making stuff up, however, is what the entire leftist media-Democratic Party complex is doing today, blaming everything and everyone from the Citizens United decision, voter fraud, a bogus robo-call, George Bush — and probably even Brett Favre. MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell even pretended the election did not happen, focusing on Mitt Romney's job creation record in Massachusetts instead. It's all very funny. And satisfying.

Now the losers:

Big Labor: Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell didn't want to admit it on Fox, but big labor was absolutely the huge loser last night and in fact, they have been losing ever since Walker took office. It was the behavior of the unions in the Madison riots that really started the general public's focusing in on just how much these "public servants" are now making in salaries, pensions and health care, and how damned entitled they feel to all of this. That is what started all of this mess. The public was also tuned in to the unseemly nature of public sector unions per se and their relationship with politicians they get elected. And perhaps most devastating of all is the fact that some government unions in Wisconsin have lost over half of their own membership during this protracted battle. And oh by the way, public sector unions started in Wisconsin —in 1959.

Democratic Party: It goes without saying that if big labor loses, the Democratic Party loses. Actually, we have Wisconsin to thank that this now goes without saying. The past 21 months have been a highly visible object lesson for all to see. Moreover, the Democrats have lost much of their built in fund raising via the union mechanism thanks to some of Walker's reforms.

MSM and their exit polling: As 9pm EDT rolled around last night, all media outlets were buzzing with word that the exit polls were 50-50 and Ed Schultz was settling in "for a long night." He had no idea at the time. These exit polls excited the same fantasies that these same media outlets had been feeding that "the race was tightening" in the final week. Actually, it was not tightening at all. One thing the exit polls showed was that almost everybody who voted had long made up their minds. And why not? You're either on the public sector gravy train or you’re not. What's to decide? ow this escaped the geniuses in the media is another story. But they lost last night in a big way.

Obama: This one is a no brainer, and was pretty much obvious when he decided to avoid Wisconsin this week like yellow in the game Twister. But it goes deeper than that. His failure to do more than send a last minute Twitter message in support of Barrett has to infuriate the unions, who have in the past done so much to get Obama and other Democrats elected. Looking ahead to November, their coffers are depleted, and enthusiasm for giving money to Obama, manning phone banks, and canvassing drives has to diminish not just in Wisconsin but beyond.

GOP Establishment: Setting Reince Preibus aside for a second, the GOP Establishment took a bit of a whipping last night — because Walker is exactly the kind of Republican the establishment constantly warns us is poison for the party. Preibus gets a lot of grief because he is RNC Chair and they normally deserve it. But Preibus was key to Walker's first win as well as Senator Johnston's defeat of Russ Feingold in 2010. We can only hope that now Preibus will have more influence in the halls of the RNC offices inside the Beltway.

GOP Consultants / Conventional Wisdom See above, but the consultant class deserves their own space in the biggest loser category. They have cost us many elections over the decades, and last night was a huge blow to their entire foundational template. This may be Walker's biggest gift of all to conservatives.

Bipartisanship / No Labels Crowd: The stunning vitriol and passion in this election, along with the results of the recent Pew Research findings, have dealt the notion of "getting along" and bipartisanship a huge blow. Actually, reality is the problem with bipartisanship. This is a nation divided on the role of government and government unions and all of the attendant spending and control in our lives. Many of us knew that already. Those that didn't surely should now, after seeing the last 21 months unfold in Madison and after perusing the Pew results as well.

Julia: The entire nanny state government dependency mindset — as demonstrated by the Obama 2012 cartoon character Julia — took a big whipping last night as well. The folks who pay for all of the government union members and for all of the Julias had a collective awakening and said enough is enough. If there's another installment of Julia, and I suspect there will not be, she would be very unhappy watching MSNBC in last night's episode.

Now, as pleasing as this result is, this is not an indication that Mitt Romney can necessarily come rolling into Wisconsin and win. While Walker,his Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch and several State Senators won last night, surveys indicate that even in this environment Romney would have lost. Besides, rarely has Romney shown the cojones on any issue that Walker has shown consistently.

Which brings us to the contrast with the Brown win in 09. The Walker win is even sweeter and more significant. Scott Brown campaigned on tea party principles, and while avoiding the term celebrated those principles in his victory speech. But he has not always voted that way — and will run against Indian Princess Warren as a moderate.

Scott Walker meanwhile campaigned outwardly as a tea party type in 2010, governed that way absolutely — campaigned again as a tea party candidate this year — and won an even bigger victory. Now, in his speech last night, Walker said that "he's committed to working together" and is determined to "put this election behind us." Of course he was sounding the obligatory good winner attitude, as he should have. We all know better. The liberals, their unions, their President, their media — all have to be defeated because there is no working with them. The word compromise only refers to conservatives.

Remember, the left was perfectly fine with money in politics when they thought Barack Obama was going to raise $1 billion with which he would bludgeon the GOP. Now that it is not happening, money in politics is again evil. It is no coincidence that the left seized on this talking point even before the polls closed. They think it sells well. But it doesn’t. Remember in 2010, they tried to claim the Chamber of Commerce was spending foreign money to help the GOP? Lot of good it did them then.

These are also the same people who once told us the Wisconsin recall was a harbinger of GOP overreach and voter retaliation would ensue. Suddenly, the recall means nothing according to these same people. The Chairwoman of the Democratic Party once called last night a “dry run” for the general election.

I maintain that special elections mean very little to general elections. The flawed exit polls were flawed because people who vote in recall elections vote in different ways from general elections. There was a massive union vote in Wisconsin last night. We can conclude that Scott Walker winning big with a big union turnout means even private sector union members hate public sector unions. But we should be careful not to over conclude things based on Wisconsin.

Republicans around the country should take note of that. While I maintain recalls and special elections are not really good indicators of anything beyond the dynamics of those races, there are a few things Wisconsin tells us that do bode ill for President Obama and that are easy to conclude.

The first thing we can conclude is that defense of public sector unions is now a non-starter even in the birthplace of American progressive politics. Union voters voted for Scott Walker. Republicans have a new battle tested issue that sells well even in blue states.

The second thing we can conclude is that the same winning coalition of disaffected independent voters, tea party activists, and Republicans held together in Wisconsin to keep Scott Walker. More importantly, and perhaps most importantly, the demographic shift that saw the Democrats lose their hold over the rustbelt in 2010 has continued to the Democrats’ disadvantage. Couple that shift away from the Democrats with the Republicans’ new found strengths in Appalachia and the Democrats who like to claim Republicans cannot win in New England will have an even harder time winning in the heartland. Both in North Carolina with gay marriage and in Wisconsin with the recall, a real silent majority stood up to be counted and heard.

For all the Democrats’ talk about their growing strength in the west, it is still going to take several decades for them to make up the votes lost in the rust belt and Appalachia. Wisconsin’s recall election shows that the demographic trends against the Democrats are starting to lock in, including losing blue collar white voters and even a number of private sector union workers. Scott Walker won by a larger margin last night than Barack Obama did against John McCain nationally. Nonetheless, some in the media would have you believe Walker only barely got by.

The third thing we can conclude from Wisconsin is that the Republican Party’s use of technology in its Get Out The Vote efforts really paid off. We should be thanking the Democrats for giving us an opportunity for a live test of our new GOTV tools and ground game. Scott Walker’s thumping of Tom Barrett showed the GOP, in a blue state, has the ability to pinpoint voters and get their voters to the polls. 2012 will be the first truly technology driven Presidential campaign, run on iPads and iPhones. The Democrats handed the GOP a marvelous gift of a recall that went on and on and on. By the time everyone got to the gubernatorial recall, the GOP had its GOTV tweaked perfectly.

It exceeded expectations.

The fourth thing we can conclude from Wisconsin is that Barack Obama is extremely nervous. He would not campaign for Tom Barrett. Only on Election Day did he tweet out his support for Barrett in 140 characters. Barack Obama has batted 1000 in seeing those candidates with whom he campaigns for statewide office go down in flames. Despite their bold prognostications that Wisconsin does not matter and all is well and Obama was just too busy, the Democrats know that they poured in a lot of resources only to lose Wisconsin while giving the GOP multiple recall votes to get their GOTV right. It should speak volumes to Democrats everywhere that Bill Clinton was happy to go campaign for Tom Barrett in a state Barack Obama’s campaign considers a swing state, but Barack Obama was not willing to get tied to a loss there.

The fifth thing we can conclude is that exit polling does not work well for recall elections. Consider that voters were evenly split going into the polls on whether they supported Scott Walker’s reforms or not. Likewise, roughly two-thirds of voters either were or were related to union members, which was a bit higher than in 2010. The presuppositions were therefore that this would be close. It’s not so much that the exit polling was wrong, as it was that the presuppositions that went into formulating the exits and, more importantly, into interpreting the exit polling was wrong. The presuppositions the media makes headed into November desperately need to be recalibrated. The media is still operating on FDR Coalition presuppositions in their formulation of and analysis of exit polling data.

The sixth thing we can conclude from Wisconsin is that Barack Obama is still the favorite there, but, while I hate to be repetitive, the Democrats’ continued recall efforts have made the state much more competitive for the GOP in that state.

Here’s one thing I don’t think we can easily conclude, but I would take away from Wisconsin. Anger does not win elections. In November, the GOP should be happy warriors, not angry. Let the left be angry. One of the things the left did in Wisconsin that has not been well reported is send mailers to voters documenting their neighbors’ voting history. Think about that. A leftwing group sent mail pieces to voters trying to shame them into voting by revealing how much or how little they choose to participate in the democratic process. How many voters turned out to vote mad as hell at the left for stooping to this level?

Lastly, I hope the GOP in Washington, which is often afraid of its own shadow is watching this. In Wisconsin, the Republican Governor was willing to pick a fight on a core Democrat issue, stick to his guns, and go through a recall process. And he won. Sometimes, Messrs. Boehner and McConnell, you don’t have to compromise. You can stick to your guns and still win. Perhaps with the overwhelming votes against the public sector unions on San Diego and San Jose counties and the defeat of Prop 29 governor Moonbeam will begin to get the message that Californian are getting ticked off at big government.

Julia’s Road to Serfdom

“A claim for equality of material position can be met only by a government with totalitarian powers. — Fredrich August von Hayek

In the feudal system there was the aristocracy (masterminds) and the rest of the people (serfs). The serfs owned nothing and all was controlled by the aristocracy who were aligned with the king. The aristocracies were those who supported the king with their treasure — a treasure built on the backs of the serfs.

If you were a serf, as most people were, you owned nothing. You had little or no control over your life or family. You had no say in how the aristocracy ran things and if you railed against them you would be punished to the extent of losing your status on the land and even your life.

You worked the land designated to you by the feudal lord or in the shops or factories owned by him. You were given a place to live and a stipend from the feudal lord in the form of monetary remuneration or a few bushels of grain from your farming efforts. In essence you had no inalienable rights to life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness. Of course there were the “good” kings of Plato and the kind and humane lords, but they were still the lords and masterminds that men like John Locke, Montesquieu, and Bastiat wrote about.

This changed in the Western World with the formation of the United States and its Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Men like Madison, Hamilton, Jefferson, Adams, and Mason knew that such a system was wrong and immoral. It was against nature and God’s law of nature. Men should not be serfs beholding to the masterminds — they should be equal in the eyes of the law and have equal rights with every other man or woman. They should not be beholden to any other man or government for their life, liberty or property.

In 1944 the Nobel Prize winning economist Friedrich August Hayek wrote a book entitled The Road to Serfdom. Hayek, was an economist and philosopher best known for his defense of classical liberalism. In 1974, Hayek shared the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (with his political rival, Gunnar Myrdal) for his "pioneering work in the theory of money and economic fluctuations and.penetrating analysis of the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena." He considered the efficient allocation of capital to be the most important factor leading to sustainable and optimal GDP growth, and warned of harms from monetary authority manipulation of interest rates. Interest rates should be set naturally by equilibrium between consumption of goods or capital stock.

Hayek is considered to be a major economist and political philosopher of the twentieth century. Along with his mentor Ludwig von Mises, he was an important contributor to the Austrian school of economic thought. Hayek's account of how changing prices communicate information which enable individuals to coordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics. He also contributed to the fields of systems thinking, jurisprudence, neuroscience and the history of ideas.

Hayek served in World War I and said that his experience in the war and his desire to help avoid the mistakes that had led to the war led him to his career. Hayek lived in Austria, Great Britain, the United States and Germany, and became a British subject in 1938. He spent most of his academic life at the London School of Economics (LSE), the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg.

In 1984, he was appointed as a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour by Queen Elizabeth II on the advice of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher for his "services to the study of economics." He also received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 from president George H. W. Bush. In 2011, his article The Use of Knowledge in Society was selected as one of the top 20 articles published in the American Economic Review during its first 100 years. He died in 1992.

For years The Road to Serfdom was widely read by students of economics, but little known by the general public. At the Conservative Party Conference of 1966 Margaret Thatcher criticized the high-tax policies of the Labour Government as being steps "not only towards Socialism, but towards Communism.” It was at this conference she rose and held Hayek’s book above her head and shouted out to assembled Conservative Party politicians that this is the road map we should be following in Great Britain. This outburst pushed Thatcher to the leadership of the party and eventually to the position of Prime Minister.

Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom was written between 1940–1943, in which he "warned of the danger of tyranny that inevitably results from government control of economic decision-making through central planning," and in which he argues that the abandonment of individualism, classical liberalism, and freedom inevitably leads to socialist or fascist oppression and tyranny and the serfdom of the individual. Significantly, Hayek challenged the general view among British academics that fascism was a capitalist reaction against socialism, instead arguing that fascism and socialism had common roots in central economic planning and the power of the state over the individual.

The Road to Serfdom is among the most influential and popular expositions of market libertarianism and remains a popular and influential work in contemporary discourse, selling over two million copies, and remaining a best-seller.

The Road to Serfdom was to be the popular edition of the second volume of Hayek’s treatise entitled “The Abuse and Decline of Reason,” and the title was inspired by the writings of the 19th century French classical liberal thinker Alexis de Tocqueville on the “road to servitude.” The book was first published in Britain by Routledge in March 1944, during World War II, and was quite popular, leading Hayek to call it “that unobtainable book,” also due in part to wartime paper rationing. It was published in the United States by the University of Chicago Press in September 1944 and achieved great popularity. At the arrangement of editor Max Eastman, the American magazine Reader's Digest published an abridged version in April 1945, enabling The Road to Serfdom to reach a wider popular audience beyond academics.

The Road to Serfdom has had a significant impact on twentieth century conservative and libertarian economic and political discourse and is often cited today by commentators. It is one on the most downloaded books from the Internet as more and more Americans are becoming familiar with the writings of men like Hayek, von Misses, Hazlitt, and Bastiat.

In the video shown below you can substitute the word Masterminds for Planners.

The Road to Serfdom in 5 minutes

You can watch this video on YouTube by clicking here.

"Barack Obama has a new composite girlfriend, and her name is Julia. Her story is told in an interactive feature titled 'The Life of Julia' on the Obama campaign website. As a toddler, she's in a head-start program. Skip ahead to 17, and she's enrolled at a Race to the Top high school. Her 20s are very active: She gets surgery and free birth control through ObamaCare regulations, files a lawsuit under the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and pays off her student loans at a low interest rate. We get updates at age 31, 37 and 42 — and then the narrative skips ahead 23 years when she enrolls in Medicare. Two years later, she's on Social Security, at which point she can die at any time. Nothing happens to Julia between 42 and 65. That period includes the typical peak earning years — the time at which, assuming Julia is gainfully employed, she will be paying the biggest price for 'Obama's' generosity. The most shocking bit of the Obama story is that Julia apparently never marries. She simply 'decides' to have a baby, and Obama uses other people's money to help her take care of it. In 1999 Lionel Tiger coined the word 'bureaugamy' to refer to the relationship between officially impoverished mothers of illegitimate children and the government. 'The Life of Julia' is an insidious attack on the institution of the family, an endorsement of bureaugamy even for middle-class women."

In this cartoon slide show the Obama-Biden team takes the viewer through the life of Julia from the cradle to the grave. It begins when Julia is three-years old and is enrolled in a Head Start program to help get her ready for school.

At Age 17 Julia takes the SAT and is on track to start her college applications. Her high school is part of the Race to the Top program, implemented by President Obama. Of course after trillions of dollars have been spent by the federal on education our test scores have remained flat.

At age 18 Under President Obama: As she prepares for her first semester of college, Julia and her family qualify for President Obama's American Opportunity Tax Credit—worth up to $10,000 over four years. Julia is also one of millions of students who receive a Pell Grant to help put a college education within reach. Of course no mention is made of the thousands of dollars in student loans that will be like a millstone around Julia’s neck for her overpriced degree.

At age 22 during college, Julia undergoes surgery. It is thankfully covered by her insurance due to a provision in health care reform that lets her stay on her parents' coverage until she turns 26. Of course if ObamaCare is overturned this will never happen. No mention is made of the free birth control Julia will receive so she can enjoy a life of free sex without consequences.

At age 27 for the past four years, Julia has worked full-time as a web designer. Thanks to ObamaCare, her health insurance is required to cover birth control and preventive care, letting Julia focus on her work rather than worry about her health and having babies

At age 37 Julia's son Zachary starts kindergarten. The public schools in their neighborhood have better facilities and great teachers because of President Obama's investments in education and programs like Race to the Top.

At age 42 Julia starts her own web business. She qualifies for a Small Business Administration loan, giving her the money she needs to invest in her business. President Obama's tax cuts for small businesses like Julia's help her to get started. She's able to hire employees, creating new jobs in her town and helping to grow the local economy.

At age 65 Julia enrolls in Medicare, helping her to afford preventive care and the prescription drugs she needs. Of course by the time Julia 65 Medicare will be bankrupt and government health care will be rationed.

At age 67 Julia retires. After years of contributing to Social Security, she receives monthly benefits that help her retire comfortably, without worrying that she'll run out of savings. This allows her to volunteer at a community garden.

As you can see by this scenario Julia will in essence be a ward of the state and nothing better than a modern day serf dependent on he government for her life, liberty and pursuit of happiness.

There is an alternative scenario for Julia, called A Better Life for Julia, proposed by conservatives at the Heritage Foundation. It goes something like this:

At Age 3 Julia will be happy three-year old unburdened by the federal government. She will not be $50,000 in debt the day she is born, and her parents will have access to private preschool providers of their choice.

At age 17 with conservative reforms Julia isn’t stuck with a one size-fits-all Common Core national standards and was able, because of robust school choice, to attend a school with a curriculum tailored to her unique needs and future career goals.

At age 18 Julia will be able to go to an innovative college that controls costs and fits her budget, qualifications, and career goals thanks to reforms that encourage savings for college instead of driving students into debt.

At Age 22 during her college, Julia undergoes surgery. After the repeal of ObamaCare she, and her family, are eligible for tax credits to purchase a health insurance plan they choose and own that fits their needs. They are also protected by a new Medicare safety net that allows states to pursue high-quality, innovative care if she needs it.

At age 23 Julia will be able to choose a job that rewards her performance without government interference, even if she wants to help build the Keystone Pipeline or airplanes in South Carolina. She will live in a Right to Work state, and not be forced to pay union dues, unless she desires to do so.

At age 27 Julia takes a job as an administrator at a Catholic school. After the repeal of ObamaCare Julia and her colleagues are free to choose a health care plan that meets their needs and matches their values, rather than the school facing fines for keeping health coverage consistent with its religious teaching.

At age 31 when Julia becomes a mother, she will not be tethered to a government or employer health care plan, so she can choose the coverage best suited for her maternity, her child’s pediatric years and her growing family needs.

At age 37 when Julia’s son Zachary starts kindergarten she will have the freedom to choose her son’s school. He will not be stuck in a broke system and will have a brighter future.

At age 42 Julia starts her own business. With a flatter tax system, reduced barriers to investment, and more transparent regulations, Julia can focus on growing her business and hiring others.

At age 65 Julia gets the freedom to choose a health care plan that best fits Julia, whether that’s Medicare’s fee for service plan or a private health plan. And new protections ensure that she cannot be bankrupted by medical bills.

At age 67 Julia retires with a healthy nest egg because of the reformed tax code incentivized her to save, and she opted for a personal retirement savings account. A stronger Social Security program is still in place to provide true insurance protection and supplement her income if she needs it.

While the Heritage Foundation’s plan for Julia is not the best, it is a step in the right direction and far better than the Obama Plan.

Hayek said:

“Even the striving for equality by means of a directed economy can result only in an officially enforced inequality - an authoritarian determination of the status of each individual in the new hierarchical order.”

He also stated:

“Perhaps the fact that we have seen millions voting themselves into complete dependence on a tyrant has made our generation understand that to choose one's government is not necessarily to secure freedom.”

Both of these statements are relative to where we are today. No doubt millions will vote for the Obama-Biden plan this November with the belief that more government largess will be beneficial to their lives without giving thought to what it will do to their freedom. Equality of results is not the same as equality of opportunity — something our founders bequeath to us.

For almost 100 years we have been living in a nation dominated by the planning of our betters — the masterminds. Every plan they devise fails and their response is that they need more money and time to make their progressive schemes work. They never do.

Obama’s Julia will live in serfdom for the rest of her life. The serfdom may not be as harsh and cruel as the serfdom of yesteryear, but it will still be serfdom. The more she depends on government the more power government will have over her life. Yes she may think she has security but she must remember that what government gives it can take away.

The Animal Farm of Social Justice

"An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation." — John Marshall

After months of talk about the nation's runaway debt, lawmakers managed to agree on a plan that, at most, will cut spending by a mere 5%. Is it any wonder federal spending is out of control? According to IBD's analysis of available budget numbers, the deal's $2.4 trillion in 10-year cuts amounts to a mere 5% trim off total projected federal spending during that time. It's like a 400-pound man boasting that he plans to drop 20 pounds over a decade, while his doctors warn about the risks of losing weight so fast. Even calling these 'cuts' is a bit of a stretch, since spending will continue to increase, just at a slightly slower pace. By 2021, federal spending would still equal 22% of the nation's economy, above the post-World War II average of 20%. Not really a cut, is it? Plus, in the short term, these 'deep,' 'sharp,' 'slashing' cuts would still leave the federal government spending roughly 4% more in 2012 than it did in 2010, and 20% more than it did in 2008. Shorn of all the hyperbole, what this agreement really demonstrates is why it's so hard to get federal spending under control. Both sides routinely use budget gimmicks to exaggerate spending cuts, while armies of special interests swarm Washington to make sure their pet programs don't get touched. All the while, spending marches upward. And reporters too dumb, lazy or biased to understand how budgets work keep falling for this nonsense." — Investor's Business Daily.

A recent celebratory video showed a mildly content Obama applauding Congress for "compromising" by agreeing to raise the debt ceiling through the next election cycle in exchange for long-term spending cuts, but he went on to reiterate the need for the wealthy to chip in more than they have because "that's only fair."   Yes, the American people have twice rebuked his attempts to legislate tax hikes for the wealthy within the last year, and a multitude of economists have warned of the danger of any such legislation, and yet he still he clings to the notion with uncanny resolve.

Apparently, losing consecutive battles and his troops' morale will not deter him from fighting his war to increase taxes upon the rich.  But in preparation for the renewed offensives against the wealthy that Obama will undoubtedly launch in the coming months, perhaps we should just focus on simple facts to prove that raising taxes will yield utterly destructive economic results.

The left very rarely deviates from their standard talking points about the moral imperative of taxing the wealthy; like how the rich make "enough money" or that they "need to pay their fair share." But when they do, the argument usually goes something like this: taxing the rich more will yield more revenue for the federal coffers, and more money in the coffers means economic growth.  But this, their best argument of any substance, is little more than a dreadfully flawed assumption that does not take current global contexts into account.

In his monthly market forecast, Markus Schomer, Chief Economist for Pinebridge Investments, lets us in on some grim facts, assuring us that "spending cuts and tax increases will both hamper growth."  And he suggests that employing both of these tactics at once, which is the "balanced" approach Obama suggested two weeks ago in the White House, would likely result in the toxic economic scenario we've seen play out in the UK, "where drastic spending cuts and tax increases have pushed domestic demand back into recession."  A more proper solution, he describes, might be to achieve "credible long-term deficit reduction through spending caps and entitlement reform, but refrain from damaging domestic demand any further."

In 1948 George Orwell wrote his famous novel 1984 about a about a society ruled by an oligarchical dictatorship. For years I heard that this novel predicted a dictatorship of the right, when in fact it has turned out to be more descriptive of the left’s socialism and communism.

Orwell was a Fabian Socialist when he went to Spain to cover the Spanish Civil War in 1936. He became so disillusioned with Republican Left that he eschewed his Fabian beliefs for social democracy and in 1943 wrote his famous allegorical book, Animal Farm. The novel was not published for two years because the liberal Bloomsbury establishment did not want to offend the new Labor Party majority in London or Stalinist allies in Moscow.  After WWII, Orwell defended his fable, saying that his intention was to illustrate how easily otherwise intelligent people could be "misled by propaganda in a democracy” — in other words turned into useful idiots.

Political ideology in America has devolved to forms that would make Orwell cringe today: socialists (née Marxists) and democratic socialists (née Keynesians).  The former views government as an all-purpose solution and the latter views government as a "stimulator," a kind of economic and social Wizard of Oz.  The two are more alike than they are different.  The fatal flaw of both is the chronic inability of voters and their elected representatives to distinguish between wants and needs.  Elections are now confused with democracy, and the majority seldom votes for the common good — or their own best interests. 

Neither debt nor deficits are national security crises.  Both are just two symptoms of civic decline, a bloodless coup in slow motion.  The end may come slowly or catastrophically, but collapse seems inevitable.  And the solution isn't Democrats or Republicans; both parties are now "democratic" in name only.  Neither major party represents the will nor the best interests of the people.

Before the turn of the 21^st century, Francis Fukuyama wrote a provocative essay for National Interest where he argued that the fall of the Soviet Union represented the "end of (authoritarian) history" as we knew it and a triumph of "liberal democracy."  Fukuyama didn't have much to say about the advent of totalitarian Islamism or the spread of virulent socialism in the West.  Indeed, Frank might have been more candid had he called the 20^th century a triumph of "social," not liberal, democracy.  Fascists and old-school Communists may be gone, but socialism has metastasized in every Western democracy under the tutelage of "progressives."

Socialism, with the able assistance of Islamism, is now poised to do to Europe, the British Commonwealth, and America what Nazis, Fascists, and Communists could not.  The threat from social democrats may be more subtle than the naked aggression of Islamists, but the endgame might be the same.  The illusions of socialism and the worst instincts of democracy are now joined in a death spiral.

The fatal flaws of social democracy include but are not limited to promises that cannot possibly be kept; outlays that might always exceed income; the necessity for Orwellian mendacity; the absence of all moral hazards; and ultimately, a terminal erosion of the electoral process and democracy itself.

Social democracy is a kind of piñata politics, a system where special interests seek like-minded politicians who will cater to a host of creative dependencies.  Few distinctions are made between real needs and simple greed, or as Bastiat stated; “everyone plunders everyone”. Once established, most federal programs quickly outlive their usefulness.  Results become immaterial.

Once funded, the legislature might be lobbied by bureaucrats from within and beneficiaries from without.  Social democracy is a perpetual motion machine where the prime function of government is spare parts — spare parts for itself.  Mission statements for most social agencies are adorned with adjectival admonitions like "better" or "improved," yet few if any measures of effectiveness are ever established or enforced.  The "wars" on poverty, illiteracy, drugs, and terrorism and their associated federal departments are all examples of dismal, yet expensive failures.  The only function that most federal agencies do well is write checks — checks against funds which must be borrowed from folks that may not have our best interests at heart — like China.

The liberal or progressive proposal for solving the deficit/debt dilemma is "more of the same": tax and spend.  The strategy is aptly defined as "leading from behind."  Four in ten spending dollars must be borrowed today to keep America afloat.  Paul Krugman tells us we must spend now, cut later.  Later, unfortunately, never comes and never has.

The proper Orwellian state requires a language of euphemisms. Discretionary and non-discretionary spending are two of the best. The latter term is designed to protect sacred cows — as if any spending is ever "mandatory." Taxes are never taxes; words like "investments," investments that never pay, mask the pain. Keynesian deficit spending masquerades as "stimulus." If a stimulus package doesn't work, clearly it wasn't big enough. A corruption of language is necessary for any successful fraud. Deceit is a standard kit for grifters and social democrats.

The most egregious deception turns rhetoric and logic on their heads. Those who argue that spending should not exceed income are libeled as immature, radical, insensitive, and dangerous. Those who would end the spending bender are labeled as right-wing "nuts." Somehow a balanced budget threatens the future, full faith, and credit of America. In the bizarre world of social democracy, all facts and logic are subverted by compulsive spending and fiscal deficit disorders. Blaming the thrifty for impending default is a little like blaming fire on the alarm.

There are no moral hazards in the world of social democrats.  Indeed, government is not required to produce goods, nor does it necessarily deliver services.  In spite of decades of Keynesian stimulus, government at all levels has become a net consumer, not a creator of wealth.  And most programs and departments are vampires, they cannot be killed.  Failure always looms, yet there are no penalties for poor performance.  No-fault politics is a value that crosses party lines.  Of 15 cabinet departments, six have been in default for decades.  All are immune to reform or the axe.

Consider just three: Defense, Welfare, and Education.  America has waged a host of wars since WWII.  Few have been unambiguous successes.  Indeed, among four ongoing wars in the Muslim world, the word "victory" is the most notable casualty.  At home, two cabinet departments now service the welfare state.  Even progressives argue that misguided federal largess has created a host of pathologies and dependencies that never existed before the advent of the "nanny" state.  And American education is a domestic and international joke.  The technology sector, that is supposed to be America's economic salvation, must go abroad to India and China to find qualified employees.

Walter Williams writes in Capitalism Magazine:

“Blacks and Hispanics, especially blacks, are the most politically loyal people in the nation. It's often preached and taken as gospel that the only way black people can progress is through racial politics and government programs, but how true is that? Let's look at it.

In 1940, poverty among black families was 87 percent and fell to 47 percent by 1960. Would someone tell me what anti-poverty program or civil-rights legislation accounted for this economic advance that exceeded any other 20-year interval? A significant chunk of that progress occurred through migration from rural areas in the South to big Northern cities. Between 1960 and 1980, black poverty fell roughly 17 percent and fell one percent during the '70s. Might this have been a continuation of a trend starting much earlier, or was it a miracle of the civil-rights movement or President Johnson's War on Poverty?

Dr. Thomas Sowell's research points out that in various skilled trades, the incomes of blacks relative to whites more than doubled between 1936 and 1959. What's more, the rise of blacks in professional and other high-level occupations was greater during the five years preceding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than the five years afterward.

In 1940, 86 percent of black children were born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate among blacks was about 15 percent. Today, 31 percent of black children are born inside marriage, and the illegitimacy rate hovers around 70 percent.”

In the 18th century, the founding fathers restricted the voting franchise to the landed gentry — those who had a stake in the society. The idea was to restrict governance to the successful and accomplished citizens. If nothing else, successful and enterprising men were thought to serve as role models. No one anticipated a 20th-century oligarchy of venal lawyer/politicians without term limits.

It was John Adams who wrote in 1776 that no good could come from enfranchising more Americans:

“Depend upon it, Sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters; there will be no end to it. New claims will arise; women will demand the vote; lads from 12 to 21 will think their rights not enough attended to; and every man who has not a farthing, will demand an equal voice with any other, in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks to one common level.”

Like the wise men of 5th-century Athens, early American political philosophers were aware that even a representative republic could be hijacked -- where cupidity and self-interest could thrive at the expense of the common good. It's no accident that the word "democracy" does not appear in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution.

The original vision of an entrepreneurial, capitalist republic has devolved now to a social democratic nightmare where government programs actually suffocate initiative and enterprise. Literal, and figurative, industry is now vilified from the Oval Office. At the local level, especially in urban areas, social democrats thrive in dysfunctional, one-party towns. These urban blights cannot afford incompetence, even; it must be subsidized.

Fifty percent of the population pays no income taxes, but they do have the vote. This constituency has no skin in the game except, maybe, to collect a government check. There's no incentive for fiscal prudence when deadbeats can be bought with other people's money.

Today we have an oligarchy comprised of the political elite, the left wing media, the wealthy in the entertainment industry and the corporate internationalist like George Soros and Jeffrey Immelt. These are the people, like the pigs in Animal Farm have learned to walk on two legs and believe that all pigs are equal, but some pigs are more equal.

The American crisis was not created by reformers or conservatives. It was created by a bovine electorate and a porcine federal government — a horrible model that actually cultivates social pathologies for political purposes. More than four out of ten dollars spent by Washington must be borrowed to finance what now amounts to an American "Animal Farm." Indeed, George! The pigs have taken over again. Napoleon and Squealer are back!

D-Day Remembered

“Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you…….. Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessings of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.” — Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, June 6, 1944

67 Years ago the largest amphibious invasion in the history of the world took place on the coast of France at place called Normandy. The purpose of this invasion was to land an allied army in France with the objective to make the final push into Germany and defeat the Nazi war machine.

When some American, British, Canadian and French troops landed on the morning of June 6, 1944 Europe had been at war for 1,740 days and America for 912 days. Millions had already died at the hands of the Nazis as they occupied all of Europe and a large part of the Soviet Union.

The assault was conducted in two phases: an airborne assault landing of 24,000 British, American, Canadian and Free French airborne troops shortly after midnight, and an amphibious landing of Allied infantry and armored divisions on the coast of France commencing at 6:30 AM. There were also decoy operations mounted under the codenames Operation Glimmer and Operation Taxable to distract the German forces from the real landing areas.

The operation was the largest amphibious invasion in world history, with over 160,000 troops landing on 6 June 1944. 195,700 Allied naval and merchant navy personnel in over 5,000 ships were involved. The invasion required the transport of soldiers and material from the United Kingdom by troop-laden aircraft and ships, the assault landings, air support, naval interdiction of the English Channel and naval fire-support. The landings took place along a 50-mile stretch of the Normandy coast divided into five sectors: Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.

Most of us have learned about the invasion of Normandy through book and films like “The Longest Day” and “Saving Private Ryan.” We have heard of the heroic actions of the 1^st and 29^th infantry divisions on Omaha Beach. We have seen reports and films of the American 82^nd and 101^st airborne divisions as they parachuted behind the German lines on the Cotentin Peninsula and the 6^th British Airborne Division at the Orne River.

The planning for the Normandy invasion began shortly after the entry of the United States into WWII. The first thing President Roosevelt and General George C. Marshal had to do was select an Army officer who would oversee the planning and execution of the cross channel invasion. For this task they selected a relatively unknown colonel who at the times was working in war plans at the Pentagon — Dwight D. Eisenhower. Recognizing a talent for planning, a deep understanding of logistics and the ability to lead diverse teams Marshal picked Eisenhower to be the commander of the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), the organization that would plan, coordinate and execute all allied military operations in Europe.

It was Eisenhower’s responsibility to develop a plan for the invasion of France and bring our allies with diverse objectives to together for a unified propose, in essence he was more politician and manager than battlefield general. He was more strategic than tactical.

For his task Eisenhower selected:

• Deputy Supreme Allied Commander: Air Chief Marshal Arthur Tedder
• Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery (21st Army Group)
• Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley (12th Army Group)
• Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers (6th Army Group)
• Air Forces Commander: Air Marshal Trafford Leigh-Mallory
• Naval Forces Commander: Admiral Bertram Ramsay

On the night of June 4^th, after two years of planning a buildup this leadership team met to decide whether or not to give the “go” signal for the troops who were already on the ships ready to set sail for their cross channel journey. The weather was terrible. It had been raining for two days and the seas were high. These conditions would ground the airborne toops and planes that would be needed to support the invasion. The high seas would weaken many of the troops with sea sickness. Eisenhower and his staff were well aware of this and he delayed the invasion for 24 hours.

Based on a briefing by his chief meteorologist, Commander Arnold Stagg of the RAF, Eisenhower would have to make the final decision. Stagg had a six-man team of meteorologists working for him, a team that never agreed on anything. The Telegraph reported in a recent article:

“The allies narrowly avoided postponing D-Day by a fortnight to a date when the weathermen would have given the go-ahead and the result would have been utter defeat in storm-tossed seas. No detailed account of the forecasts has been given in the media before.

Previous accounts relied on the interpretation of James Stagg, a Meteorological Office man seconded to the RAF. But he merely reported to Eisenhower the analyses of three two-man teams of forecasters from the Met Office, the United States military and the Royal Navy.

Only the Navy men, Lawrence Hogben and Geoffrey Wolfe, survive. Dr Hogben said: "We six never agreed about anything except that Stagg was not a good meteorologist and that he was a bit of a glory hound." The six worked for months before D-Day, perfecting forecasting techniques many of which are still in use.

"I don't think people realize how close run it was," Dr Hogben said. "Not much would have to have changed for D-Day to have been a failure, and a failure caused by the weather."

Mr Wolfe, 92, agreed: "It was bad enough when they landed on June 6, but it could have been a disaster."

Each team produced forecasts and Stagg tried to achieve consensus before reporting to Eisenhower.”

During the afternoon of June 5^th Eisenhower called another meeting of his deputies and based on a revised weather report delivered by Stagg he decided to go forward with the invasion. This was no doubt the largest and most far reaching decision ever made by a general or politician. He had just taken total responsibility for the success or failure of the invasion. There would be no spinning or political cover if the invasion failed. It would be Eisenhower’s failure and his alone.

Eisenhower is known to have said; “plans are nothing; planning is everything.” He knew that once he set the invasion in motion he no longer had control of any part of it. The success now depended on the actions of the men in the boats and the paratroopers in the transport planes, men who had been training for this moment for two years. Eisenhower is quoted as stating; “Leadership is the art of getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it.”

Many of these troopers had never seen combat before. In fact the entire 101^st airborne division had never parachuted into a combat operation before D-Day. They were well trained, highly motivated and ready to go. There were men in the boats, who would be landing on the beaches under heavy enemy fire who had never seen combat. The ultimate success of the D-Day invasion now rested on their shoulders.

General Erwin Rommel had been preparing the defenses along the French Coast for two years. He had crack, battle hardened troops stationed there. He had armor divisions including SS panzer units. Many of these soldiers had fought in North Africa, Sicily and Russia. He had lined the coast with protected artillery, bunkers, pill boxes, steel barriers. His guns were sighted well to provide murderous crossfire on any troops landing on the beaches. He had flooded the fields behind the beaches to drown the paratroopers. He had cut down thousands trees to plant in the fields to thwart glider landings. He had made the French Coast into something Hitler called “Fortress Europe (festung Europa).”

The landings went better than expected with causalities less than predicted, especially for the airborne troops. Within hours the invasion forces had overrun Rommel’s defenses, with the exception of Omaha Beach where the men of the 1^st and 29^th divisions had landed. The heights above Omaha Beach were defended by the battle tested 352^nd panzer grenadier division that had recently been moved to France from Russia.

The U.S. forces on Omaha Beach took a traffic beating from the murderous fire directed at them from the heights above the beach. They were pinned down for several hours and the causalities were mounting. Omar Bradley was getting very concerned as to the ability of the GIs to get off the beach. They had no tanks, like the other beaches had and they had to rely on ineffective artillery fire from the cruisers and destroyers off shore. In fact one destroyer got in so close that the captain risked grounding the ship so he could bring his guns to bear of targets he could see through the smoke. It looked like Rommel’s defenses would repel the men of the 1^st and 29^th divisions.

Two years of Rommel’s work and a crack German division held up the U.S. soldiers on Omaha Beach for five hours. By noon the troopers of the 1^st and 29^th had reached the heights behind Omaha Beach and were routing the Germans.

The late Stephen Ambrose attributed the success of the American troops to the characteristic imitative and ability to adapt of the American character. To paraphrase Ambrose, The German troops were products of the Hitler Youth were they were indoctrinated with Nazi ideology and trained to obediently follow orders while the Americans were products of the Boy Scouts.

Without the initiative and willingness to sacrifice for the ideals of liberty and their fellow man the invasion of Normandy would have failed. These men, often called members of the “Greatest Generation” were products of the great depression. Many had never been within 10 miles of their homes. They were not raised in the luxuries and entitlements we have today. Many had no more than an eighth grade education. But, they had one common belief and that was freedom and liberty.

We call people like Ed “Doc” Pepping, Bob Janes and Bob Noody, Bill True and Don Malarkey members of the greatest generation, and they were great. But, in talking with them, as I have, they will tell you they were not great, they were just doing their duty for the country and their fellow soldiers. They were men called upon by history for a purpose, the purpose of freeing the world from a vicious, evil tyranny. They fought with honor, great courage and valor. Let us not forget the words of Ronal Reagan as he honored those brave men.

But, let us not forget that there is another group of Americans who qualify for the honorific of “Greatest Generation” They are the men and women serving today in the Army, Marines, Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard of his nation. They are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are rescuing people at sea and protecting our coasts. They are the first ones in to deliver aid to stricken people. They protect this nation 24/7 and do it with pride and honor.

So on this 67^th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy let us remember the sacrifice of those who fought and died there, but let us not forget the same sacrifices being made by our military servicemen today.

Conservatives will have to back Romney

“The Democrats are more radically liberal and irresponsible than they have been at any time since 1933. The damage they will do to every aspect of federal action over the next two, four or six years will be substantial—perhaps grave. For me, defeating that danger is the highest priority. After the election, beating up backsliding Republicans will be a task I will return to with relish.” — Tony Blankley

We are still eight months from the Iowa caucuses and seventeen months from the next general election. The media is playing the “what if game” with possible and potential candidates for the Republican Party’s next presidential candidate. This is what the media and political junkies do. It’s their way of earning a living.

Before we continue let’s take a look at pervious years and see the candidates that were running for the GOP nomination. If you are old enough to remember some of these candidates you might get a chuckle or two out of the list. The eventual nominees are shown in bold type. [Source: Eric Erickson of Red States]

In 1964 we had:

Hiram Fong of Hawaii

Barry Goldwater of Arizona

Walter Henry Judd of Maryland

Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. of Massachusetts

Nelson Rockefeller of New York

George Romney of Michigan

William Scranton of Pennsylvania

Margaret Chase Smith of Maine

Harold Stassen of Minnesota

In 1968 we had:

Frank Carlson of Kansas

Clifford Case of New Jersey

John Lindsay of New York

Richard Nixon, then of New York

Ronald Reagan of California

Jim Rhodes of Ohio

George Romney of Michigan

Nelson Rockefeller of New York

Winthrop Rockefeller of Arkansas

Harold Stassen of Minnesota

John Volpe of Massachusetts

In 1980 we had:

John Anderson of Illinois

Howard Baker of Tennessee

George H. W. Bush of Texas

John Connally of Texas

Phil Crane of Illinois

Bob Dole of Kansas

Larry Pressler of South Dakota

Ronald Reagan of California

Harold Stassen of Pennsylvania

Lowell Weicker of Connecticut

In 1988 we had:

George H. W. Bush of Texas

Bob Dole of Kansas

Pierre S. du Pont, IV of Delaware

Alexander Haig of Pennsylvania

Jack Kemp of New York

Paul Laxalt of Nevada

Harold Stassen of Minnesota

Pat Robertson of Virginia

In 1996 we had:

Lamar Alexander of Tennessee

Pat Buchanan of Virginia

Bob Dole of Kansas

Robert K. Dornan of California

Steve Forbes of New York

Phil Gramm of Texas

Alan Keyes of Maryland

Richard Lugar of Indiana

Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania

Morry Taylor of Ohio

Pete Wilson of California

In 2000, we had:

Lamar Alexander of Tennessee

Gary Bauer of Kentucky

Pat Buchanan of Virginia

George W. Bush of Texas

Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina

Steve Forbes of New York

Orrin Hatch of Utah

John Kasich of Ohio

Alan Keyes of Maryland

John McCain of Arizona

Dan Qualye of Indiana

Bob Smith of New Hampshire

In 2008, we had:

Sam Brownback of Kansas

Mike Huckabee of Arkansas

Jim Gilmore of Virginia

Rudy Giuliani of New York

Duncan Hunter of California

Alan Keyes of Maryland

John McCain of Arizona

Mitt Romney of Massachusetts

Ron Paul of Texas

Tom Tancredo of Colorado

Fred Thompson of Tennessee

Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin

This year so far we have:

Michele Bachmann of Minnesota

Herman Cain of Georgia

Newt Gingrich of Georgia

Jon Huntsman of Utah

Gary Johnson of New Mexico

Ron Paul of Texas

Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota

Mitt Romney of Massachusetts

Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania

Some of them dropped out before the primaries, some after, and some garnered votes at the convention without doing much. But looking at the field, 2012 doesn’t seem more or less weak than most of the others.

Right now the front runner in all of the polls, even though he has not officially announced his candidacy is Mitt Romney. The candidate that seems to be drawing most of the attention from the media and a favorite of the Tea Parties is Herman Cain. No doubt the smartest of all the candidates is Newt Gingrich, but the ex-Speaker of the House has done irreparable damage to his candidacy in the past week with his remarks on Meet the Press two Sundays ago regarding Paul Ryan and his plans to reform Medicare.

All of the other candidates are ranging in the 8%-10% range in the polls with 87% of potential GOP voters saying they do not know who they will vote for.

As a conservative I like Herman Cane and I wish him well. I like his style and I like what he has to say, but I also know it is doubtful he can raise the money it will take to beat Obama in the general election — and the smart GOP donors know this.

Last week Romney spent one day in Las Vegas at a fund raiser and he walked away with over $10 million in donations. This is what will be needed to take on Obama in the 2012 general election. Obama plans to raise $1 billion dollars. And he probably will.

Romney is a business man and a former governor. He was tested in 2008 and most of his skeletons are out of the closet. The only real issue he has is his signing the Romney Care bill in Massachusetts. He can deal with his in a simple manner by stating he will sign, if passed, the repeal of ObamaCare the big issue with the Tea Party.

Romney is a slick, good looking candidate who no doubt will be able to handle Obama in debates, especially on the economy and job creation. As a former Republican governor blue state he will be able to play on that experience and claim he was able to get partisan side to work with each other.

I realize many of my conservative friends do not much care for Romney — neither do I, but I believe the stakes are too high to play long ball in 2012. If the GOP, with the support of the Tea Parties, take back the Senate and elect a Republican president in 2012 we will move the ball well down the field. The pressure from a conservative House and Senate will drive the legislation and all we really need from the president is his pen. This is why we need Obama out and a Republican in.

I am not the biggest fan of Romney, but when I look over the field of GOP candidates I do not see any of them rising to the top except Romney. I know the Tea Party folks will not be happy with this, but I remind them that before you can do anything you need to get elected. I Republican controlled House and Senate with a Republican in the oval office is the goal for 2012. Romney is smart enough to know, if elected he has he conservatives to answer to.

We have another year to watch the field thin out and someone rise to the top. I just hope it is someone that can capture the votes of the independents and not a lack luster John McCain. If it is true that America is a center-right nation than we need a center right candidate in 2012. We need a candidate that can generate some passion in the voters — especially the Tea Party voters.

I could be wrong, but this is the way I see the 2012 election shaping up today.

Return to Manzanar

"When we are dealing with the Caucasian race we have methods that will test the loyalty of them. But when we deal with the Japanese, we are on an entirely different field." — California Attorney General Earl Warren and latter Governor and Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

The following is an excerpt from an article I have published on my web site. You can access a full printable PDF version of the article by clicking here or an HTML version by clicking here.

The most abhorrent act since the end of slavery in the United States was the relocation of thousands of Japanese-Americans to War Relocation Centers during the Second World War. These relocation centers were located in California, Arizona, Arkansas, Utah, Colorado, Idaho and Wyoming with one of the largest and most well-known was the center at Manzanar in the Owens Valley of California.

Approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States were relocated to 26 camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 The internment of Japanese Americans was applied unequally throughout the United States. Japanese Americans who lived on the West Coast of the United States were all interned, while in Hawaii, where more than 150,000 Japanese Americans composed over one-third of the territory's population, 1,200 to 1,800 Japanese Americans were interned. Of those interned, 62% were American citizens.

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt authorized the internment with Executive Order 9066, issued February 19, 1942, which allowed local military commanders to designate "military areas" as "exclusion zones," from which "any or all persons may be excluded." This power was used to declare that all people of Japanese ancestry were excluded from the entire Pacific coast, including all of California and most of Oregon and Washington, except for those in internment camps. In 1944, the Supreme Court (Korematsu v. United States) upheld the constitutionality of the exclusion orders, while noting that the provisions that singled out people of Japanese ancestry were a separate issue outside the scope of the proceedings. The United States Census Bureau assisted the internment efforts by providing confidential neighborhood information on Japanese Americans. The Bureau's role was denied for decades but was finally proven in 2007.

In the aftermath of Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, Manzanar was transformed from a sleepy abandoned orchard to a mile-square, prison-like camp, one of 10 across the country. Over 10,000 people of Japanese ancestry, two-thirds of them American citizens, were brought there to live, most for the duration of World War II. In that time, they overcame primitive conditions and their own internal divisions, and, together with the War Relocation Authority (WRA) staff charged with overseeing them, they created a livable wartime city.

In 1905, John Shepherd sold his 1,300-acre George's Creek ranch to Charles Chaffey, brother of Southern California irrigation developer George Chaffey, for $25,000. The Chaffeys planned to turn Shepherd's and other properties nearby into an apple-growing subdivision modeled after the irrigated citrus colonies George had launched east of Los Angeles. Doing business as the Owens Valley Improvement Company, the Chaffeys and their investors called their venture the Manzanar Irrigated Farms. A town built in the center would be Manzanar, Spanish for "apple orchard."

Manzanar's orchards fell into neglect after 1934, but many kept producing, and each fall, local residents harvested their fruit for pies and preserves. Cattle grazed contentedly in the former hay fields, and teenagers raced their jalopies after dark in the deserted orchard rows. Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, shattered that calm in the Owens Valley and across America. War hysteria soon enveloped Pacific coastal cities, but in the Owens Valley, isolated from the coast by the Sierra Nevada, few residents felt in danger. As calls for the removal of all ethnic Japanese from coastal areas grew louder, President. Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 on February 19, 1942. Eight days later, military officials appeared in the Owens Valley and selected the orchards and former town site at Manzanar as the location of the first "processing center" for "evacuated" Japanese. Manzanar's isolation, agricultural potential, and access to water and power sources met the military's requirements. But its landowner, Los Angeles, vehemently protested locating the camp within 1 mile of its aqueduct, which was considered a defense installation. Assured of military protection, Los Angeles agreed to a lease of 6,000 acres for the camp.

The Manzanar Relocation Center, established as the Owens Valley Reception Center, was first run by the U.S. Army's Wartime Civilian Control Administration (WCCA). It later became the first relocation center to be operated by the War Relocation Authority (WRA). The center was located at the former farm and orchard community of Manzanar. Founded in 1910, the town was abandoned when the city of Los Angeles purchased the land in the late 1920s for its water rights. The Los Angeles aqueduct, which carries Owens Valley water to Los Angeles, is a mile east of Manzanar. Begun in March of 1942, the relocation center was built by Los Angeles contractor Griffith and Company. Construction proceeded 10 hours a day 7 days a week; major construction was completed within six weeks. On March 21 the first 82 Japanese Americans made the 220-mile trip by bus from Los Angeles. More volunteers soon followed to help build the relocation center: over the next few days 146 more Japanese Americans arrived in 140 cars and trucks under military escort. Another 500 Japanese Americans, mostly older men, arrived from Los Angeles by train. By mid-April, up to 1,000 Japanese Americans were arriving at Manzanar a day and by mid-May Manzanar had a population of over 7,000. By July Manzanar's population was nearly 10,000. Over 90 percent of the evacuees were from the Los Angeles area; others were from Stockton, California, and Bainbridge Island, Washington.

U.S. Department of Justice officials, meanwhile, had rounded up hundreds of Japanese aliens with ties to Japanese cultural or political activities. Families left behind faced growing isolation and uncertainty about their own futures. Despite the reluctance of many in the military and government to undertake a project clearly in violation of citizen rights, plans for the "gradual and orderly removal" of more than 100,000 ethnic Japanese from Military Area No. 1, along the coast, went forward. Most were taken first to one of 16 assembly centers, usually in converted racetracks and fairgrounds. There they remained, some for up to six months, until the relocation centers were built. The Owens Valley Reception Center at Manzanar, however, was the first and only destination for most of the 10,000 people sent there.

Japanese Americans were by far the most widely affected group, as all persons with Japanese ancestry were removed from the West Coast and southern Arizona. As then California Attorney General Earl Warren put it, "When we are dealing with the Caucasian race we have methods that will test the loyalty of them. But when we deal with the Japanese, we are on an entirely different field." In Hawaii, where there were 140,000 Americans of Japanese Ancestry (constituting 37% of the population), only selected individuals of heightened perceived risk were interned.

Americans of Italian and German ancestry were also targeted by these restrictions, including internment. 11,000 people of German ancestry were interned, as were 3,000 people of Italian ancestry, along with some Jewish refugees. The Jewish refugees who were interned came from Germany, and the U.S. government didn't differentiate between ethnic Jews and ethnic Germans (Jewish was defined as religious practice). Some of the internees of European descent were interned only briefly, and others were held for several years beyond the end of the war. Like the Japanese internees, these smaller groups had American-born citizens in their numbers, especially among the children. A few members of ethnicities of other Axis countries were interned, but exact numbers are unknown. Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson was responsible for assisting relocated people with transport, food, shelter, and other accommodations.

Many notable liberal progressives such as Roosevelt, William Douglas, Chief Justice Hugo Black and Earl Warren supported the internment of these Japanese Americans as vital to the war effort. One dissenting voice was that of J. Edgar Hoover the director of the FBI. Hoover’s opposition stemmed not so much from a constitutional or civil rights position, but from a belief that the FBI could handle any security threat to the United States from citizens of foreign ancestry. He believed that the most likely spies had already been arrested by the FBI shortly after the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor.

It should be noted that not one case of espionage or treason was attributed to people of Japanese ancestry and the only real cases of treason or espionage were against Germans and Communists like Klaus Fuchs, Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs.

Executive Order No. 9066 came about as a result of great prejudice and wartime hysteria after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Even before the Japanese-Americans were relocated, their livelihood was seriously threatened when all accounts in American branches of Japanese banks were frozen. Then, religious and political leaders were arrested and often put into holding facilities or relocation camps without letting their families know what had happened to them.

The order to have all Japanese-Americans relocated had serious consequences for the Japanese-American community. Even children adopted by Caucasian parents were removed from their homes to be relocated. Sadly, most of those relocated were American citizens by birth. Many families wound up spending three years in facilities. Most lost or had to sell their homes at a great loss and close down numerous businesses. This was a boon for the banks and real estate speculators.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor many Caucasian Americans, who viewed the Japanese as competition, saw the Exclusionary Act as an opportunity get rid of their competition. “Japs not wanted” signs and posters were in abundance all along the west coast.

Thirty-six drab and depressingly identical barracks blocks, each with 300 or more occupants, functioned as both living and administrative units at Manzanar. Gradually their sameness gave way to unique identities, many formed by internees' prewar ties. Manzanar's 10,000 people came from dozens of communities in Southern California and elsewhere. As the exclusion orders emptied neighborhoods and towns, authorities generally moved their residents to the same camp and often assigned them housing together. At Manzanar, West Los Angeles residents lived in Block 22, while those from the San Fernando Valley occupied Block 28. Bainbridge Island, Washington, strawberry farmers in Block 3 were next to Terminal Island, California, fishermen in Blocks 9 and 10.

Special groups had their own living areas. Children of even partial Japanese heritage without parents or families-those in orphanages and foster care included-came under the mandatory evacuation order. All were brought to Manzanar, and a total of 101 children, together with staff, lived in the landscaped three-building Children's Village set in a firebreak near the pear orchard. Nearby, doctors and nurses had quarters at the hospital; other internee medical workers lived in Blocks 29 and 34 across the street. Often shunned by older Issei fearful of disease, medical personnel formed their own close-knit community. War Relocation Authority staff, including teachers, lived first in Block 7, enduring primitive barracks conditions with internees. By early 1943, the "Beverly Hills of Manzanar," as the WRA area was known to internees, was ready. The 22 well-built, gleaming white barracks were configured as dormitories or family apartments with kitchens and baths and housed nearly 300 staff and their families. Employees had their own mess hall, recreation club, and Victory Garden. Some, including children, socialized with their Nisei (or American-born, second-generation Japanese) counterparts at internee parties, baseball games, and weddings. But others clearly felt the invisible barrier that lay between them. At Project Director Ralph Merritt's insistence, the staff housing was inside the fenced internee living area, a symbolic gesture that, as he later wrote, "we are all in this together."

More essential than the luggage Japanese Americans carried into Manzanar was their response to sudden confinement: "shikata ga ni," or "it cannot be helped." Most chose to go on with life: they fell in love, succeeded in school, worked productively, had fun, and learned new skills. "The threads of normal life that were broken with the evacuation were slowly mending," wrote the Manzanar Free Press. To people accustomed to work and activity, the enforced idleness and boredom of early camp life were, for many, more difficult to bear than the primitive barracks and inedible food. It was no surprise, then, that from the beginning, internees took the camp's urgent needs into their own hands when they could, and those with skills and talents stepped forward to help make the best of a very bad situation. Volunteer teachers started nursery schools, gardeners planted lawns, restaurant chefs helped set up mess halls, and doctors and nurses organized a hospital.

Leisure-time activities gave morale a lift as well, and a WRA Community Activities section employed 150 internees who supervised arts and crafts, athletics, gardening, music, the Boy Scouts, and social events. Weekly Sunday night Concerts Under the Stars brought out 1,000 or more classical music lovers who gathered in the south firebreak and listened to selections from records played by internee Harry Ushyjima. Nearly 3,000 adults took Americanization classes and courses in English, history, science, and sewing during 1942, and while many internees turned to church-going, others "made the best of it" by distilling prohibited rice gin in their barracks. Devoted fishermen found the Sierra Nevada's nearby streams irresistible and regularly crawled under the barbed-wire fence with rods and reels in hand. More than any other activity, though, baseball brought the excitement, competition, and identity with America that many internees yearned for. When the Aces, Scorpions, Broncos, or Gophers played, anticipation built and thousands came to watch at the field near Block 19. "Softball governs," wrote the Manzanar Free Press, "150 teams rule supreme."

The decades-long effort to gain recognition for Manzanar led to designations as a California State Landmark, a National Historic Landmark, and, in 1992, a National Historic Site. Today a new, nonresident community includes National Park Service staff and nearly 90,000 visitors annually. Among them are many who once lived at Manzanar.

It was not until 1988 when President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, which apologized for the internment on behalf of the U.S. government. The legislation stated that government actions were based on "race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership", and beginning in 1990, the government paid $20,000 in reparations to the surviving internees.

We must remember the words of Benjamin Franklin when he said; “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

This post is an excerpt from a longer and more detailed article about Manzanar I have published on the Web. You can read the full PDF version of the article by clicking here or an HTML version by clicking here.

You can access a full gallery of photos from my visit to Manzanar by clicking here