Raw, pure, hardcore, violent government waste

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The insanity of cap and trade

In his iconic 1964 "A Time For Choosing" speech, describing the potential demise of America, Ronald Reagan said, "History will record with the greatest astonishment that those with the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening."

What we see today is worse even than that. If the leftist government in Washington succeeds in passing it's Waxman-Markey "cap and trade" legislation to "fight global warming," prosperity and free enterprise as we have known them for centuries will be gone. And it won't be because those of us with the most to lose did the least to prevent it, it'll be because those of us with the most to lose legislated it intentionally.

The Wall Street Journal describes Congress' "cap and trade bill" as the single largest tax increase in the history of the United States (counting another strike against President Barack Obama's "not any tax" campaign promise).

Facing difficulty jamming the 900-page proposal (which almost nobody has read) through the House of Representatives, today the potentates in Congress bribed a few members with a 300-page amendment (which almost nobody has read). With the promise of a few sweetening handouts (which almost nobody has read), Waxman-Markey passed on a 219-212 vote.

Even Mr. Obama's hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, says the bill (supported by the Obama Administration) is far too radical. Careful analysis of cap and trade shows that, 25 years from now, it will cost a family of four as much as $6,800 a year. (For those keeping score at home, $6,800 is a lot.)

For a moment, consider what government is capping and trading: Carbon emissions. Everything we do emits carbon! Driving cars, turning on light switches, riding buses, Twittering, cooking, washing laundry, operating electric shavers, even breathing. What insanity has so enveloped Washington that it thinks it can morally tax all that? And what stupidity has struck it that it thinks doing so won't be an economic disaster?

Government twits won't advertise that they intend to tax every second of every day of our lives, at least not at first. But when the income tax was established in 1913, it was 1 percent. The beta version of this tax will be its most affordable version.

All this to stop "global warming" -- the left's most bizarre concoction since its insistence that the ice age was coming. Now that the man-made global warming hysteria has been rejected by everyone with a brain (and by many countries that tried and failed to change the weather by fiat, and then realized they were wasting their time and harming their citizens), leftists in the American government are hoping to enact the most idiotic, restrictive, expensive "anti-global-warming" plan yet.

Yes, it's embarrassing. But more than that, it'll do far more damage to America than all the carbon emissions in all the history of the world.

They will try to destroy this man

Sarah Palin's reputation has been (unfairly) damaged by her opponents. Bobby Jindal is too young, and he has to run for re-election in 2011 (he can't very well run for president a few months later). Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich are yesterday's news. Jon Huntsman and Tim Pawlenty suffer a severe name-recognition deficit.

So now that Mark Sanford's personal flaws have trumped any hope he might have harbored for the Big Chair, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour has moved to the front of the line of Republican candidates to challenge President Barack Obama in 2012.

A normal American can look at Hurricane Katrina and see Mr. Barbour's effectiveness as an administrator: We heard much about the suffering of Louisianans during that time. Our knowledge of Mississippians' plight is far less robust.

This could be because Mr. Barbour is a competent governor (compared to Louisiana's Kathleen Blanco) who had an adequate response plan in place and intelligent officials running the show. Or, it could be that the thousand-mile-wide storm decided to spare Mississippians. How lucky.

Columnist Robert Novack described Democrats' thirst to beat Barbour in October, 2003. Even back then, Democrats knew what they were facing: Let this man win the governorship, they reasoned, and we might see him again further down the line.

They could not beat him then, and he was elected governor of Mississippi. (He beat an incumbent Democrat who had received the endorsement of the National Rifle Association.) And now we have the very real possibility that Democrats will have to face him again.

The casual observer might think of Mrs. Palin as the frontrunner for the GOP nomination. But the astute observer, I think, will see that Mr. Barbour is the man Democrats will have to beat.

As much as I detest the never-ending campaign that started in early 2005, and as much as I promised myself I would not be a party to it, I feel confident in betting on this much: In the coming months, we will see many news stories disparaging Haley Barbour's character. His accomplishments will be besmirched. His successes downplayed. His failures distorted, warped and magnified. We will see ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, NPR and CNN -- not to mention the Democratic National Committee -- go to tremendous lengths to destroy this man.

Gov. Sanford's long weekend

The humorous notion of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford trekking through the woods naked has been replaced by the sad reality of a man cheating on his family. To his discredit, Mr. Sanford has had an extramarital affair for about a year, he said today. To his credit, he stood in front of the world and came clean to his constituents (his wife already knew about the affair), admitted guilt, begged for forgiveness in time — and then took questions.

That is all between Mr. Sanford and his family, and then between he and South Carolinians. Today I only wish to reaffirm what I've said previously about the governor leaving the office and turning off his phone for a time: Mr. Sanford flew clear out of the hemisphere, and nobody even got their eye put out.

There is a clear difference between the political class of Americans and the normal class of Americans, and it was demonstrated in coverage of the governor's absence. Sanford's political opponents (in both parties), his state's separately elected lieutenant governor, media members, cable news contributors (including Mike Huckabee, who is largely sympathetic to many of Sanford's causes) and other members of the political/ruling class denounced the governor in near unanimous fashion for leaving the state and calling his office only infrequently.

"There has to be a line of command," insisted Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer, discussing his appall at Sanford's temporary hiatus.

What Mr. Bauer ought to know is that the line of command is quite clear: In the governor's absence, the lieutenant governor has authority to act during emergencies. Had the earth quaked and a giant fissure opened in the middle of Charleston, Mr. Bauer would have had legal authority to call up the National Guard and state police to assist, and to request federal aid from Washington.

Furthermore, if we examine the fears put forth by Mr. Sanford's critics, the end result is pretty clear. Suppose, in Mr. Sanford's absence, the earth quaked mightily and opened a giant fissure in Charleston. Even if the succession provision were absent from the state's constitution, Mr. Bauer would still call the National Guard, and the National Guard would still listen (unless both he and the guard's commander are indefensibly stupid).

The indignation from Sanford's opponents was rife, but South Carolinians seemed less so. For all the coverage of Sanford's time away, I have found only one comment from a constituent. It was in the Wall Street Journal, from a retired woman named Sarah Porter. She was strikingly unconcerned that Mr. Sanford was not there to hold her hand.

"Maybe he just wanted to be alone," she said. (She was guessing wrong, but her tone is of an entirely different chord from that by those in government.)

Bauer, the lieutenant governor, says : "Not to be able to get in touch with a person who is responsible for 4.5 million people is a concern."

Porter, the normal human being, knows that there are 4.5 million people in South Carolina and almost all of them know how to be responsible for themselves.

Racism and Republicans

I've long heard descriptions of the Republican Party as racist. It's always been a source of confusion — which in turn leads to frustration, and ultimately rage — for me, but always before I've tried to internalize that anger.

I don't really know why I decided to externalize that feeling this time. Maybe it was just another straw, and finally it was one too many. In any case, I will not allow a column by commentator Leonard Pitts to go unanswered. Not this time. Not again.

He's hardly alone, of course. Leftists and Democrats have called Republicans "racists" for decades. Even some people I count as good friends have accused me of being a racist, just because I'm a Republican. And they have accused the Republican Party of institutional racism, without an ounce of evidence to back it up. But today I'm not going to take it without response.

In their efforts to win elections by piecing together near-unanimous conglomerations of minority groups, the Democratic Party has championed the notion that everyone is a member of an oppressed minority, and everyone deserves some "extra" consideration from "the system." In doing so, Democrats have fought for inner-city unemployment, illiteracy, imprisonment and perpetual poverty. Teachers' unions, which have forever found a patron in Democrats, do more harm in urban schools — where a vast majority of students are black — than they have done in any other part of the country.

Democrats have insisted that violent criminals are just "misunderstood" and ought to be released back into their homes, where they can continue to prey (as they have done for decades) on members of the very communities where they came from. In all too many cases, the victims of crime are black or Hispanic. Indefensible levels of taxes, regulations, government waste and central control of peoples' lives have obstructed economic development — more so in the mostly-black communities of inner cities than in the country at large.

With that record of human destruction, the only thing Democrats can do to win votes is call Republicans racists.

Yet there is only one major political party in America that was founded because no other would abolish slavery.

There is only one major political party in America that championed the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act — and long before that, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

A president from only one major political party in America has sent the U.S. Army into an American city to enforce school desegregation at gunpoint.

There is only one major political party in America that seeks to treat all Americans as equal individuals under the law, rather than categorizing millions of human beings into narrowly defined groups that must compete against each other and can achieve success only at the expense of another.

That is the Republican Party.

On the other hand, there is only one major political party in America that has championed slavery. There is only one major political party in America that has seceded from the Union, has taken its states to war against its countrymen, has shot bullets at fellow Americans, and has assassinated a president, for the right to own another human being, just because that other human being was of a different race.

There is only one major political party in America that proudly claims among its members a United States senator who was once a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Indeed, when Klansman David Duke ran for governor of Louisiana claiming to be a Republican, Republican President George Bush campaigned against him. Duke's opponent was known criminal Edwin Edwards, a former governor. The slogan of that campaign was: "Vote for the crook, it's important."

There is only one major political party in America that filibustered — for days on end — passage of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act.

There is only one major political party in America that has, in the last 25 years at least, nominated to the Supreme Court a judge who claims members of one race are inherently smarter than members of another race.

That is the Democratic Party.

The Republican Party is far from infallible. And the Democratic Party is far from worthless. But from all my years of watching politics and studying history, I've learned this much: If one party is guilty of institutional racism, it is the Democratic Party; and if one party deserves praise for championing the equality of all human beings, it is the Republican Party.

The columnist Mr. Pitts can continue to insist that the GOP has a "race problem." He can also stand between Bob Barker and Taylor Swift, and write that Swift is way too old.

Gov. Sanford's long, perhaps naked, hike

Tuesday morning, a Google search of "Appalachian Trail" revealed some 1.2 million hits. The top result was a news story about South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford skipping out of his state for a few days to visit the trail over the weekend.

The second hit (I'm assuming this is a coincidence) was a feature story about Naked Hiking Day.

Whether or not Mr. Sanford wore clothes on his outing afield is his own business. Today I discuss the reactions from other South Carolina state officials, past and present.

Evidently, Sanford sneaked out for multiple days without telling the lieutenant governor (a separately elected position in that state, and in this case a political rival), legislators, his security detail, or even his wife, precisely where he was going. He turned off his cell phones and only infrequently called back to check in.

Staff members were aware of Sanford's intentions and of his vague destination. But they were unable to pinpoint exact geocoordinates of his location, nor were they able to speak to him on the hour every hour.

Some, including Bob McAlister, who served as chief of staff for a previous governor of that state, have argued that Sanford's actions were egregiously irresponsible and unprofessional. "From a professional standpoint, this can't happen," McAlister said. "It's very disconcerting."

State Sen. Jake Knotts shares Sanford's party but also has long been a rival to the governor (from what I've read, Sanford is far more popular with his constituents than he is with his coworkers in the state capitol). Knotts also has insisted on near-continuous connectivity with the governor.

"As the head of our state, in the unfortunate event of a state of emergency or homeland security situation, Governor Sanford should be available at all times," Knotts said. "I want to know immediately who is running the executive branch in the governor’s absence."

To an extent, this smacks of the universal criticism that politicians can lately expect from their political rivals; such actions have, unfortunately, become standard operating procedure in many political circles.

But I think it belies a reality far more disconcerting that the one worrying Messrs. Knotts and McAlister. That is the point I wish to address here, and it has absolutely nothing to do with my continued fondness for Mr. Sanford.

In his absence from South Carolina, there have been no hurricanes, riots or floods. (And if there had, the state's Constitution grants the lieutenant governor authority to act in the governor's absence during emergencies. The National Guard can be duly called out, and requests for federal aid can be expeditiously made, even if the governor is in Timbuktu and has sworn a vow of silence.) Neither the hordes, nor the Yankees, have invaded. The state's police forces, its cities' fire departments, it's highways and bridges, they have all remained. Wal-Marts did not close down. Attorneys continue to litigate, doctors to heal, factories to produce, loggers to chop.

Despite Mr. Knox's demand to "know immediately who is running the executive branch," I have seen no reporting of private citizens sharing the same concerns. The lives of South Carolinians are entirely unaffected.

A governor is not the president of the United States — he has neither the responsibility nor the authority to handle foreign relations matters that do not rest. A governor (or senator, or other potentate of almost all description) can walk away for a few days and most people won't even notice if they don't see it on TV.

For all the attention paid to Mr. Sanford's (four days and counting) vacation, the world has not stopped. We don't need a guardian to remain in the governor's mansion, or even a phone call away, on call for every second of every day. Knox and McAlister seem to think that because the governor is on vacation, the rest of us will forget to wash our hands after we go to the bathroom, or to buckle up when we get in the car. They're wrong. We can survive just fine on our own.

Many news reports of Mr. Sanford's outing have used descriptors like "bizarre" to tell this story of a man who has a stressful job and wants a few days away. I have a theory on that: Mr. Sanford is a committed conservative who resisted the idiotic "economic stimulus" plan passed by the federal government earlier this year. He will command a tremendous and growing amount of respect in coming years as more people realize that the stimulus was a sham and a trillion dollars was wasted. My sense is, those who call his trip "bizarre" are trying desperately to paint him as an oddball.

Maybe he is. Maybe on Sunday he wandered the Appalachian Trail in full naked glory, with all the other oddballs. That doesn't matter that much, in the long run.

What matters is, for a few days an elected official did not insist on "fixing" something, did not seek a new rule to enact or a new tax to levy. He spent a few days not regulating, not managing, not enforcing. Or to put it another way, he spent a few days not trying "to improve peoples' lives."

And people's lives continued just fine.

Note to Barbie: It's a job, not a title

Barbara Boxer, who is an elected representative of Californians in the U.S. Senate, surely embarrassed herself this week when she dressed down Army Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh for calling her "ma'am."



Obviously, little miss Barbie doesn't understand protocol: "Ma'am" is a title of respect. But she showed a far more important and more unflattering side of herself. She thinks her office is a "title," instead of an office of service.

The last time Americans had a government that insisted so fiercely on titles was in the 1770s — and we shot at them until they left. When an elected official starts feeling this self-important, they need to get out of the business.

Speaking out for freedom

It is a wonderful thing to see history.

I vaguely remember watching the news when the Berlin Wall fell, though I was far too young to grasp the event's significance. I more clearly remember the Persian Gulf War. The toppling of that massive Saddam Hussein statue.

Now we can watch the angry uprising of people who want to be free, against a vile government that thinks they ought not. I've previously praised Americans who rallied against our government, who had to endure a blustery, windy day to do so. The folks in Iran right now deserve far more honor: They're getting shot at.

We don't yet know if these events will reach the historical significance as those listed above. But they are beautiful to see.

Peggy Noonan made an interesting observation in her most recent column. Americans instinctively love freedom. When there is a conflict anywhere in the world, we naturally stand with the oppressed, with the ones seeking freedom. She writes:

'If you don't understand who the American people are for, put down this newspaper or get up from your computer, walk into the street and grab the first non-insane-looking person you meet. Say, "Did you see the demonstrations in Iran? It's the ayatollahs versus the reformers. Who do you want to win?" You won't just get "the reformers," you'll get the perplexed-puppy look, a tilt of the head and a wondering stare: You have to ask?'

When some of his political opponents chide President Barack Obama for failing to favor the Iranian people vociferously enough, Obama has an explanation with at least some validity. "The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those forces inside Iran who would love nothing better than to make this an argument about the United States."

We seem uninclined to rout by force the Ayatollah's government, and if we are not going to do so then the Iranian people must seize their freedom on their own — at least, any help offered from the outside must be more covert than overt.

Ultimately, U.S. activity in this regard ought to be whatever activity is most helpful to Iranians, and there are competing ideas on what will be most helpful.

But I suspect Obama has caught himself in a dilemma largely of his own making.

From the beginning, he has observed the framework that diplomacy is the only way to deal with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs, that this evil government currently in place in Tehran is the only entity that can be dealt with because it's the one making the decisions.

Obama has since operated in a way that takes great care to avoid offending Ahmadinejad. In public appearances, speeches, greetings, Obama has rarely criticized or contradicted that government. The exception is his mention of Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust — but that Holocaust denial isn't nearly as evil as Ahmadinejad's repeated promises to melt Israel as soon as he gets a chance.

The larger point is, Obama knows Iran is one of our most important enemies, and he knows he needs to prevent them from getting nuclear weapons. He has chosen to go about dealing with Iran via diplomacy, kind talk, listening. I think that has influenced his quieted reaction to the Iranian peoples' rallies for freedom.

I fear the harsh realities we see in Iran right now prove that — no matter how many kind overtures anyone makes — the government in Iran is only evil. It will only continue to do as it pleases, until someone throws it out. Attempting to negotiate the hatred away from the Ayatollahs will be no more effective than it was to negotiate the evil out of Hitler.

To the extent that he thinks speaking out forcefully will only hurt the cause of the freedom-seekers in Iran, Obama ought to hold his tongue. But to the extent that he is reserving himself to protect the prospect of more normalized relations with the Ayatollah government, he ought to give it up and call evil by name.

An interesting Senate race

The 2010 election is already getting interesting (especially if you're a Republican).

Tonight I read a piece that pertained mostly to the U.S. Senate seat up for contesting that year — the one held now by Michael Bennett, who was appointed to replace Ken Salazar when Salazar became Secretary of the Interior.

From my early research (I've really only done about 4 minutes' worth, which you can see yourself below), my favorite candidate is 32-year-old Ryan Frazier, a city council member in Aurora.

Another 32-year-old, state Senate Minority Leader Josh Penry, is considering a run for governor. We are, it seems, living in the day of the young.

For your viewing pleasure, a speech from Mr. Frazier:

'Everyone guessed wrong'

Vice President Joe Biden says "everyone guessed wrong" about the effects the massive spending bill passed earlier this year would have.

It turns out, much to the perplexity of Congressional Democrats and the Obama Administration, dumping a half-billion (borrowed) dollars into unnecessary construction projects isn't a good way to ease a recession caused by excessive debt.

While the pro-"stimulus" crowd was demanding the corpulent bill's immediate passage, they warned: If we don't spend all this money, unemployment could top 8 percent!

Well, the bill was passed. The money is being dumped into ... wherever it's being dumped into. And unemployment is pushing 9.5 percent.

The thing is, not "everyone guessed wrong." In fact, there were several people at the time who weren't guessing at all: They were using common sense, and they said the "stimulus" wouldn't work.

Thieves and Fools, Part VI

This post is the sixth installment of an ongoing series, entitled : If you think your health care is my responsibility, you are a thief. If you think our health care system would be better if the government would intervene, you're a fool.

Today I share my own personal (admittedly far from comprehensive) experience with nationalized health care, as it is applied in Canada.

Part 1: A defense of the free market system

When I was quite young, one of my cousins was born with dramatic heart and lung defects. Any life she could have would require heroic, drastic, imaginative, amazing health care methods. It wasn't gonna be cheap.

My aunt and uncle reviewed all their options, including immigrating to Canada, where health care is "free." Quickly, they realized moving to Canada was out. Bureaucracy, quotas and federal budgets made the Canadian health care system worse than incompetent. My cousin needed the best care available in the world, and that was available only in the United States.

Eventually, my cousin received a heart- and double-lung transplant, which was performed by a surgeon living in the Los Angeles area. We were told her doctors were the best on the planet — after researching that, I believe it.

I was also told that my aunt's and uncles' credit was wrecked by the ordeal. Bake sales and raffles and an assortment of other various fundraisers helped pay for expenses, and the insurance company they subscribed to surely took a beating. And still, my aunt and uncle's credit was wrecked. But my cousin got the doctoring that she needed, and her life (and quality of life) was dramatically improved because of it. It's a real-live "only in America" story.

Part 2: An indictment of the command-structure system

Fast forward to my college days. One of my friends was talking about the virtues of the Canadian "free" health care system.

My friend described an acquaintance (we'll call him Terrance, for expedience)'s experience in Canada. Terrance was being visited by his American friend (Phillip), when Phillip caught a cold.

"Let's go to the doctor!" Terrance urged. Phillip, of course, thought Terrance was insane. A doctor, just for a cold? That'd be a profound waste of money.

But Terrance explained to Phillip: "In Canada, visits to the doctor don't cost anything! They're free, and everyone has a right to go!"

Part 3: Conclusions

Free enterprise plays a heavy role in this story. My cousin's doctors — the best in the world — received hefty fees for their work. And they worked in the United States, one of the few places on the planet where their own free enterprise was legal. Because they stood to make a ton of money, they continued to practice medicine right here.

And my aunt and uncle were willing to wreck their credit, and to ask their friends and neighbors for help, because it was for their daughter. Most of us aren't willing to go to such dramatic lengths for strangers, but we will do so for our own — that's only human nature. We pay for something what we think it's worth.

The events described in Parts 1 and 2 are entirely truthful, although some names are made up. And they seem unrelated, but one undoubtedly affects the other.

When a visit to the doctor is a "right" the doctor has an obligation to treat each patient that comes before him (regardless of the patient's ability to pay him, or of the patient's real need to see a doctor).

When Phillip caught his cold, there was nothing a doctor could do for him that a mother with a can of chicken soup couldn't. But the doctor had to spend 20 minutes of his day seeing that patient, anyway, and telling him to go eat the soup. That means someone else — someone with a real need to see a doctor, someone who stood to benefit from a doctor's expertise — had to wait, possibly for so long that, by the time the doctor arrived to see them, it was too late.

Visits to the doctor's office are not "free." They cost the doctor's fee (whoever pays it) and they cost the doctor's time. Doctors are not unlimited, and their time is not unlimited either.

When government steps in and "guarantees" that all people can go to the doctor at any time, they really only guarantee that the doctor is unavailable when we really need them.

Leftists, not liberals

Lots of conservative commentary describes its ideological opponents as "liberals." A great deal of the time, that term is improperly applied. "Liberal" implies a love of freedom or liberty -- that's where the word comes from. All too often, those on the American left have no desire to advance freedom and would greatly prefer restrictions on it.

True, honorable liberalism is the ideal that a broad discussion of all possibilities will lead the participants to select the left-leaning alternative. Angry, hateful, violent leftism is the ideal that the left-leaning alternative is the only moral choice to be made, and all other options must be stamped out by force (because, so often, people choose the non-left-leaning alternative). Far too frequently, those on the American left fall in the camp of leftists, not liberals.

Such is the case at Oregon State University, where last week it was reported that The Liberty, a conservative-leaning newspaper, was restricted in its circulation methods. For years, The Liberty had used a dozen distribution racks across the OSU campus; now university administrators have demanded that almost all of the racks be disposed of.

Policy-makers at Oregon State are not interested in "diversity," an entity that so many people have insisted universities have an inherent interest in. They're interested in restricting speech-making by their students.

This is fascism, not liberalism. It's totalitarianism at its worst. It's the silencing of ideas and thoughts. It's Thought Police, and every administrator who signed off on the decision ought to be thrown out on their cans.

As near as I could tell, Oregon State's official newspaper, The Barometer, was fairly non-partisan. But whether or not this hushing of The Liberty is based on ideology is irrelevant. It's a hushing -- that in and of itself is a vile, criminal, evil thing.

Universities have gained a stereotype as left-leaning institutions; most of the time, this stereotype is entirely warranted. But that does not make them liberal. If they were liberal, they would embrace openness and discussion, they would encourage the free flow of ideas and thoughts, they would champion liberty of thought and word.

Instead, in way too many cases, they act as anti-liberals. They act as militant leftists, who think their point of view is the only one that can be correct, and everyone who disagrees need not enjoy the same rights to free speech and due process as they claim for themselves.

For as long as this behavior is tolerated, freedom and real liberalism are in danger.

Thieves and Fools, Part V

This post is the fifth installment of an ongoing series, entitled : If you think your health care is my responsibility, you are a thief. If you think our health care system would be better if the government would intervene, you're a fool.

Whenever President Obama and his ilk make promises about Americans being able to keep their doctors and health care plans if they want to, we ought to expect he's fudging things a bit. In just a few months, the president has managed to spend almost the entirety of his administration breaking the oaths he swore when he was convincing citizens to elect him.

When asking for votes, he said he would publish all legislation on the White House Web site for five days of public scrutiny before considering signing it. After elected and safely in office, Obama signed the "economic stimulus bill," the single largest spending measure in Congress' history, multiple days short of that goal.

When asking for votes, he said 99 percent of Americans, everyone but the filthiest rich, would see a net tax cut, and would never see a single cent in tax increases on sales taxes, income taxes, personal property taxes, etc. His words: "I can make a firm pledge ... Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." After elected and safely in office, Obama signed an enormous increase on tobacco taxes, nearly doubling the tax on a pack of cigarettes.

Today, Bloomberg News reported on a health care reform plan under construction in the House of Representatives. Details remain sketchy because the would-be health care Nazis are playing things close to the vest; the more people hear about the socialization of the health care industry, the less people will like it. What is clear is that Obama's "not any of your taxes" pledge will again be cast aside. Six hundred billion dollars (at least) in tax increases will accompany the House Democrats' proposal.

Now Obama is campaigning for support for dramatic nationalization of our health care system and he is promising non-nationalization. "When you hear people saying socialized medicine, understand, I don't know anybody in Washington who is proposing that," he said.

The president did not tell the truth about taxes last summer, and he is not telling the truth about socialized medicine -- or keeping a doctor or a health care plan you like -- this summer. Hopefully enough Americans realize this before it's too late.

Thieves and Fools, Part IV

This post is the fourth installment of an ongoing series, entitled : If you think your health care is my responsibility, you are a thief. If you think our health care system would be better if the government would intervene, you're a fool.

The other day I saw a headline proclaiming "Democrats will seek universal mental health, dental care."

At the time I thought: What about people with false teeth?

It sounds goofy, but it raises a significant question. If a "universal health care" plan is adopted providing "free" medical care to all Americans, how do we define "medical care"? What should be included?

Not everyone needs dental care. Some are blessed with fine enough dental health that they need not see a dentist regularly. Others were not blessed with such dental health, and their teeth have fallen out and been replaced by synthetics. "Universal dental care" would charge those in both camps (via taxes) for services that they did not want, need, or pay for when it was their choice.

Many of us get along fine without the services of a psychiatrist. Most don't visit chiropractors regularly. Acupuncture, massage therapy, orthopedics, orthodontics, and a host of other specialties today fall under the realm of ... specialties. Should they be included in the "public option" health care system leftists wish to adopt?

What about alternative medicines? Medical marijuana? Dietary supplements? Nutrition specialists? Personal trainers? Memberships to a fitness center? Hot tubs? Should these be classified as "health-necessary"? Isn't owning a hot tub a right?

Of course the answer is no.

Today two hundred million Americans live individual lives, they make decisions for themselves based on personal preferences and circumstances, they review options and choose their own futures, based on what is available, what they can afford, and what they prefer.

When I have a backache, I don't rush out and see a chiropractor and expect someone else to pay for it. I drink a glass of whiskey. (I don't expect someone else to pay for that, either.) Other people will choose to drink a glass of whiskey, or to take a Tylenol, or to go to a chiropractor. Some go sit in their hot tub -- it all depends on the individual's circumstances and preferences. These folks also don't (and shouldn't) expect someone else to pay for it. Because when someone else starts paying, someone else starts making the choices.

The central ideal here is that health care is a quite personal, individual responsibility. America is a big place with lots of cultures, lots of points of view, lots of people thinking their own choices a are the best. The key is: They are all right. Tylenol, the hot tub, the chiropractor, and whiskey, they all work!

Each person is quite capable of making the best choice for himself, and in many cases a person in Arizona will select differently from a person in Maine. In many cases a 24-year-old single man will make a different choice different from that made by a 49-year-old mother of four. Despite all assurances to the contrary, any government sponsored "universal health care" program will kill that individuality.

Surrendering the high ground

Under an "odd news" link I found an Associated Press story about the semi-humorous upcoming "bring your gun to church day" being planned by Pastor Ken Pagano of the New Bethel Church in Louisville, Ky. Pagano says he scheduled the event, a week before Independence Day, as a celebration of the nation's founding and of the Second Amendment. The AP provided a broad discussion of the separation of church and gun — in the context of last week's murder of Dr. George Tiller, an abortion provider who was shot in the head while ushering at his own house of worship.

Pagano said the church will require visitors to unload their pieces, that the event will celebrate liberty and heritage. The raffling-off of a handgun will raise money for charity.

"Firearms can be evil and they can be useful," Pagano said.

The AP, oddly, quotes Pastor John Phillips, who was shot while preaching at his former church in Arkansas in the 1980s. Presumably unarmed during the sermon in which he was attacked, Phillips denounces New Bethel's event: "A church is designated as a safe haven ... It is unconscionable to me to think that a church would be a place that you would even want to bring a weapon."

Unfortunately, none of them — Pagano, Phillips or the AP — gets it. And we see one more incarnation of the gun laws/gun rights debate begun from an intellectually dishonest (or maybe just plain stupid) foundation.

Phillips declares churches as a safe haven yet, from my research, I found just one place on this earth at which Phillips has ever been shot: His church. It is possible that Phillips is so devoutly religious and peaceful that he would sooner accept his own murder than to fight back with violence; that sentiment is principled and noble, but not all men share it, and no man has the right to convey it upon another.

In this goofy, off-beat story, the AP insists on quoting a rare victim of a church-shooting incident: Phillips. Conspicuously, Tiller was unavailable for comment: He was dead, killed in his "designated safe haven." Had Tiller been armed at the time of his attack, it is possible that he would have survived it. He was unarmed, and he died last Sunday. The man who shot him was quite armed, and is still alive and unharmed.

Sadly, Pagano's actions are the most egregious because he is acting under the guise of celebrating gun rights, while he voluntarily surrenders the moral and intellectual high ground that gun rights supports should never surrender.

He says guns "can be evil" and he says that — for safety — his church is requiring parishioners to unload their weapons outside.

He's wrong on the first part: Guns are no more capable of evil than a can of soda pop. They can be used for evil, but evil is only achieved when a competent being makes a knowing choice to do undeserved and unnecessary harm to another. A gun is a hunk of metal, perfected by men to serve as a tool. That tool can be used for evil, but cannot itself be evil.

And he's near insane on the second part. His event mixes most of the ingredients for a tremendous tragedy. If some maniac — like the one who shot Phillips 20 years ago, or the one who shot Tiller last week — enters New Bethel Church with a gun and picks out targets, the entire congregation could be armed yet powerless. Even 200 people with guns are not very effective, if they have no bullets.

Lawmakers act with alleged "good intentions" when they pass statutes banning guns from schools, courthouses and bars. At school, our children shouldn't have to worry about someone carrying a gun! Courthouses are places of government business; we don't want anyone to fret about getting shot there! Bars are places of intoxication and wrong-mindedness, where men and women lose their cognition and common sense. We can't let drunks carry guns.

The real tragedy in these arguments is that anyone believes them. Some don't think self-defense is a right. But most do, and those who do, and still buy into the notion that schools should be "gun free zones" because kids "shouldn't have to worry about that," those people do far more harm than they will ever know.

For it is those folks — the ones who believe in the Second Amendment, but think there are "common-sense," and "reasonable" exceptions — it is they who will allow for its destruction. It is those men who allow Second Amendment opponents to nibble away at their rights, assuming the likes of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin, Timothy McVeigh, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, et al will be bound by the same rules as John Q. American. Inanimate objects like guns are incapable of evil — but men, clearly, are not.

If a man is willing to violate the rules and the law to commit murder, it is foolish to think he will not violate the rules and the law to carry a gun into a "gun-free zone." Until gun rights owners stop leaving their intellectual and moral ammunition at home, the battle to defend our freedom will remain difficult to win.

The Longest Day

The Longest Day really does star everyone. And it really does have its moments of wit, of poignancy, of terror and of pride. It's quite lengthy but definitely worthy of a few hours' time.

I watched The Longest Day last weekend and I was reminded of my favorite scene — actually, it has moved up to take a place among my favorite scenes in any movie:

Just before the guns of the Allied armada took to fire, a series of officers address their pre-invasion troops. In the movie, the last to speak before the shooting match was a Frenchman who solemnly described the battles already undertaken in Africa and other parts of the world. Then, even more soberly, he said, "Today we fire at our homeland. This is the price of freedom."

Cut to motors turning gun turrets and adjusting for windage and elevation. And ... then ...

Explosions from the breeches of cannons, flames from the muzzles, incessant shelling on the beach, the likes of which no man had ever seen before.

A French civilian, living with his wife directly in the line of fire, is awakened by 16-inch gun shells landing in his back yard, by earth flying up and then down on him, by his entire house and property being shaken in the face of the destruction. Having lived under Nazi rule for years, the man (ignoring his wife, who insists on them seeking shelter) digs his French flag out of hiding, opens his window and starts waving the banner and singing at the top of his lungs.

* * *

My grandfather was in the Navy during World War II, aboard he destroyer escort USS Sanders. During one battle with the Japanese navy, a Kamikaze plane struck, sending shrapnel and probably flames showering into the air ... and then back down.

Grandpa carried tiny pieces of that metal in his forehead and his elbow for the next 40 years. And he made out better than a lot of guys.

Many times in my life I've heard that we're "lucky" to live in such a free, prosperous country as America. I've even furthered that notion myself (in my younger days) but have since realized its folly.

Yes, we live in the greatest, freest, wealthiest nation in the history of the world. But luck did not have a single thing to do with it.

Our nation is great and prosperous because it is free, and it is free — not because of some random stroke of chance — because great men and women before us made it so.

Grandpa and his generation destroyed the Nazi and Japanese empires. And they did it with courage, steel and the sacrifice of their own comfort, safety and (in many cases) future — not with the rabbit's foot in their pocket. Many generations before theirs did similar. Americans have won freedom in battle, not in a lottery.

* * *

The D-Day anniversary each year is the fashionable time for honoring the veterans who won World War II. The logistics of that invasion are mind-blowing, even when compared to today's world of unlimited communication. And the logistics pale in comparison to the profound courage from the individuals involved.

For your enjoyment, I've included a short clip from The Longest Day. (And for the uninitiated: John Wayne's character had suffered a leg injury, he was not simply insisting upon being chauffeured across the European Theater for his own luxury.)

Change: From private ownership to nothingness

There was some comment last week about how Chrysler made decisions about which automobile dealerships across the country would be closed, as part of the fat-trimming quasi-bankruptcy the company is undertaking.

The whole scenario is odd on face value because most car dealerships are independently owned — by private citizens, not the Chrysler corporation — and pose no real expense to the company. Also, fewer dealerships means (presumably) fewer cars sold.

Most egregious, of course, is the allegation that dealership owners have been selectively chosen, based on their political leanings. There is some evidence that suggests owners who donated money to President Barack Obama and other Democrats will continue with their dealerships — while Republican-donor dealers have been chosen for discontinuance.

That's a serious charge, no doubt. But I'm afraid that's the sort of thing one can expect when government gets into the car business. (It's what happens when government gets into every other business.)

That's a long introduction for the real purpose of this post, courtesy of Congressman Jerry Moran.

Naturally, with an allegation this severe, one cannot justly leap to conclusions without a careful review of the situation. But if Jerry is alleging corruption, it's a pretty safe bet that there's some corruption going on somewhere.

Thieves and Fools, Part III

This post is the third installment of an ongoing series, entitled : If you think your health care is my responsibility, you are a thief. If you think our health care system would be better if the government would intervene, you're a fool.

This video, from our good friends at Reason TV, shows the Virginia DMV at work proving government should never be put in charge of ... anything. As I've said before: If our government "gives" us a "universal health care system," people will die from it.