Civilians of this country should not let the sacrifices that military families make go to waste. Just like a soldier in combat or an EOD tech getting ready to defuse an IED, protect your homes, your families, and your constitution from the corrupt politicians in Washington that aim to take your freedom away. What will the fight for freedom mean abroad, if there is no fight at home?

Make your representatives fight for you and fight against them until they do.

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Come January, everyone who gets Social Security and is in the Medicare program will receive a SMALLER check each month than they do this year. Medicare premiums are being increased and will thus take a bigger bite out of each monthly check. But since Social Security payments are tied directly to inflation — of which there isn’t any this year – there will be no COLA increase in Social Security benefit amounts for 2010. Net result: We’re all gonna get less money per month to live on. And if they pass that health care reform bill, we are promised even fewer health care benefits via our now more expensive Medicare insurance plans. I can hardly wait.

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Media Discovering that Obama Balloon a Hoax By Monte Kuligowski – Oct 24, 2009

It was a tremendous run in voyeurism while it lasted. It was big and shiny and puffed up and filled with hot air. It rose quickly and soared high and far. It was larger than life. But it couldn’t stay afloat forever. The Obama image was put together with duct tape and glue. It was a complete fabrication. It is now deflating and heading to earth. Soon it will be discovered that it was empty — that the entire image was a fraud. The image was that of a post-partisan, post-racial, post-divisive, really nice guy. But it is becoming clear that those adjectives don’t really apply to the man found hiding in the attic. In keeping with the Heene saga what remains is for a teary-eyed David Axelrod to tell reporters that they should have seen the signs all along. If not for the Obama mania, the soaring rhetoric, the messianic frenzy, the tingling legs, the false hope, the thronging, the fainting, the gushing, the emotionalism, the fawning, the hype, the rapture, the delusion, etc., the news reporters would have noticed. They should have noticed that the man didn’t come out of Middle America, but out of the crooked streets of Chicago-machine politics. They should have noticed his associates were not exactly normal Americans. They should have noticed it wasn’t guilt by association, but guilt by associating. They should have noticed that remaining in Jeremiah Wright’s racist, divisive, anti-American church for 20 years was simply not reasonable. They should have noticed the countless, wonderful black churches across America that have nothing to do with “black liberation theology” and vile divisiveness. They should have found out what “community organizing” really meant. They should have connected the dots from Saul Alinsky to ACORN to Obama. They should have noticed the scandalous amount of money Obama funneled to ACORN during the campaign. They should have noticed the unprecedented voter registration fraud during the election. They should have noticed a whole lot of things which revealed a controlling and destructive profile; but they were blinded by their own predetermined idea that Obama was the perfect candidate. Many downcast conservatives thought “mainstream” journalists would never notice the past and present signs. But Obama’s Hugo-Chavez-style treatment of Fox News has opened eyes in a way Sean Hannity could never have dreamed of. It was too dictatorial for even the mainstream media to ignore. Mr. Obama’s brass knuckles attempt to ban Fox News from the White House Press Pool just might be the single factor that tips the scales toward honest journalistic investigation of the One.

This innovation does not operate in a vacuum – the ramifications of the progression spread virally into other seemingly unrelated sectors, affecting paradigms across our socio-eco-political spectrum. Not all of these sectors innovate with the same velocity as industry. Some, like our political infrastructure, pride itself on its self-stagnation. Distortions begin to arise as the new meets the old.

******************************

When the Framers of the Constitution crafted our political structure, they did so carefully and with a well-founded purpose. As most know, while the United States is called a “democracy”, we are actually far from it. Instead of our citizens having a direct role in the public policy of our country, we relinquish our sovereignty to representatives who represent our self interest. High school history told us that pure democracy wasn’t implemented because it would be an unwieldy and inefficient governing mechanism mostly because technology had not progressed to the point that individual representation was possible. Many now point to the internet as a means to now provide our own individual representation to the government. The truth is, however, that while the Framers knew that direct democracy wouldn’t be effective in that era, they saw greater perils from pure democracy than mere logistics.

“It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.” – Alexander Hamilton

The danger, as Plato so deftly highlighted in his Republic, is the onset of mob rule. Direct democracy is an incubator for injustice. Within pure democracy the individual is dangerously vulnerable to the will of the majority. Indeed, James Madison and many other Framers worried about a “leveling impulse”, in which economic prosperity was taken from the successful and redistributed to the masses – legally, of course, due to the direct composition of the government by the populace. As a result, a constitutional republic, centered in representation instead of direct democracy, was designed by the Framers for our use. As such, the elected representatives act in their constituent’s interest, but not as a proxy – they are a self-insulated ruling body that independently makes choices for constituents within the rules and boundaries of a constitution.

These representatives, of course, are accountable to their constituents through the election process, and attempt to please voters out of their own sense of self-preservation. In the past, a politician accomplished this (among other ways) through campaign promises and the ability to convince voters that their interest was in capable hands hands.

Today, much has changed.

**********************************
Politicians, hostage to frequent elections, exhibit vote-seeking behavior in every day activities. Pork-filled bills, bridges to nowhere, and fake southern twangs are all manifestations of political vote-seeking. By obtaining their district wasteful government funds, creating jobs out of nothing to decrease unemployment, and by seeming more like an “every man”, politicians attain more votes and secure their re-election.

With the advent of the telephone, real-time polling of constituents became a realistic means of ensuring voter satisfaction (and therefore re-election). Through the internet, the breadth and scale of polls has continued to increase. The danger increases proportionally, as vote-seeking indicators become more accurate and discernable.

Politicians now use polls to fine-tune their platforms and message to obtain the maximized amount of votes during election season. In essence, this is nothing more than recycled mob rule. The ability to carefully monitor the mood shifts of the American people has resulted in the distortion of the original intent of our political structure. The autonomous, enlightened representative is gone, replaced by the puppet proxy.

Additionally, voters have begun to realize that they can vote themselves money through entitlement programs such as universal healthcare, welfare, Medicare, and others. This is reflected in the polls they answer, and resultantly in the platforms of their elected leaders. Madison’s fear of the “leveling impulse” was on point. As Alexis de Tocqueville said, “”When (Americans) discover that they can vote themselves money from the public till, the experiment will be over.”

It is clear that technology and the original intent of the constitutional republic will not coexist effectively, and the combination is at the very least problematic. Several solutions have been presented, though none of them are particularly good. Outlawing polls unreasonably restricts free speech. Limiting political terms is promising – by removing the need for re-elections, vote-seeking behavior should also dissolve. But this results in a perpetual stream of rookie politicians.

Perhaps what we need is a more responsible citizenry that values more than pure reflection of their desires in a politician. Of course, if that was realistic, perhaps the Framers would not have had to guard the nation against the collective intelligence of its people.

The Rationalist is a graduate of The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, where he majored in Information Systems Technology and Economics. He is currently studying law at George Washington University. He invites you to follow him on Twitter (@the_rationalist).

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Besides, no one on the left or in the media would ever read a book on conservatism. It will be hard enough to get them to read a paragraph. For the record:

A conservative believes in limited Constitutional government as close to home as possible, the enduring worth of traditional values, and a strong national defense.

Media reports about the death of conservatism worry me not at all for one simple reason: a principled conservative (PC) never abandons his principles.

Principled liberals, on the other hand, often do. Ronald Reagan comes to mind. So do John Dos Passos, Whittaker Chambers, David Horowitz, the founding fathers of neo-conservatism, and thousands of less prominent Americans “mugged by reality.”

Indeed, there is a whole literature of conversion from the left, even the very hard left, to the principled right. For inspiration, I would recommend Chambers’ Witness or Horowitz’s Radical Son. There is no comparable literature on the left.

To test this theory, ask a roomful of PCs for whom they cast their first ballot. Depending on age, you will inevitably hear “Kennedy,” “Johnson,” “McGovern,” “Carter,” “Clinton.”

As for myself, I was a dedicated “pre-teen for JFK.” I abandoned the Kennedys only when Teddy abandoned my former neighbor, Mary Jo Kopechne.

One hears a good deal about a split between “social conservatives” and “fiscal conservatives.” This is largely a fiction.

The social conservatives of my experience, almost to a person, are fiscal conservatives. They understand that a too powerful central government is as much a threat to their wallets as it is to their values.

There is another untitled sub-class of PC that lives a less than conservative lifestyle-Rush Limbaugh comes to mind-but who support social values because they understand that a strong family is the single greatest bulwark against socialism.

If there is a threat to conservative ascendancy within the Republican Party, it comes from neo-Whigs, who are often confused with neo-cons.

These are the alleged “social liberals/ fiscal conservatives.” Like their 19th century predecessors, neo-Whigs mostly just want to see stuff get built and get their own palms greased in the process.

Private? Public? Public-private? Private-public? Court decreed? Who cares as long as they and/or their pals get to a do at least a little of the deal.

When neo-Whigs run for office, they run on the ticket most likely to get them elected. Arlen Spector could not even be coy about this when he switched parties in April.

Said the Washington Post, “He bluntly admitted that his decision was tied to his belief that he could not win reelection as a Republican next year.”

In our part of the world, neo-Whigs tend to be Republicans on the Kansas side and Democrats on the Missouri side.

The Republican neo-Whigs pretend to care a little bit about lower taxes, gun rights, and family values. The Democrat neo-Whigs meanwhile pretend to care a little bit about gay rights, global warming, and labor unions.

When the power equation shifts, Republican neo-Whigs will inevitably make noises, as Spector did, about the party moving too far to the right. “I’m not leaving the party,” they say, “the party is leaving me.”

Those were exactly the words, by the way, of current neo-Whig Democratic Kansas governor Mark Parkinson. As Kansas state Republican Party chairman in 2002, he said of candidate gubernatorial Kathleen Sebelius:

“I would say that any Republican who supports Kathleen Sebelius for governor is either insincere or uninformed. She is a left-wing liberal Democrat and no Republican in good conscience can support her.”

Parkinson supported George Bush in 2004. When Governor Sebelius offered Parkinson a spot on her highly favored 2006 ticket as lieutenant governor, the party, he noticed, had unexpectedly lurched to the right and left him behind.

Neo-Whigs have, and have always had, a disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth. While others have been busying themselves with abortion, illegal immigration, judicial activism, stem cell research, crime, school prayer, the second amendment, pornography, property rights, taxes and other such distractions, they have been out doing deals.

Neo-Whig donations typically go to the candidate with the best chance of winning, unless that candidate is sufficiently principled that he or she threatens their deals.

Some principles upset the neo-Whigs more than other. Their noisy hostility to embryonic stem cell opponents, for instance, has nothing to do with science or ethics and everything to do with their fear of losing potential bio-science deals.

Although tolerable on Main Street, when neo-Whigs reach critical mass, as they have on Wall Street, their collective amorality imperils our commercial republic.

In the long-run, democratic capitalism works only in a moral environment in which the law is minimal, equitable, and reliable.

Only a principled conservatism has been able to provide that environment over time. It will do so in the future as well. So stay strong and keep those pitchforks sharpened!

The Rationalist. Buried in this CNN article regarding Colin Powell’s thoughts on the race controversy surrounding Professor Henry Gates is a very interesting comment on his ideas about the future of the Republican party.

“If the party is going to succeed in the future, the advice I’m giving to my Republican friends is you’ve got to find some way to reach out and draw moderates and independents more toward the right so that we can build a party that will win.”

Indeed, that’s the million dollar question:  How do you attract the swing vote?  The significance of this is understated by Powell.  During the 2008 election, President Obama clearly didn’t win by turning southern evangelists into liberals.  Rather, it was the acquisition of the two to three percent of the country that was ideologically split between the two parties.

What, then, is the best way to capture the moderate vote, while also maintaining the strength of the strong far-right base of conservatism?  At first blush, it seems like the best way would to be to have a platform that both conservatives and moderates can stand behind.  Regrettably, this is usually near impossible.

It’s hard to sell a moderate stance on social issues to hard-right conservatives, just as it is difficult to sell a fiscally conservative platform to moderates who don’t mind a little government regulation and intervention.  Both Republican front runners in the 2008 nomination race had issues reconciling the different wings of conservatism.  Mitt Romney, typically a fiscal hawk, was largely shunned by the evangelistic voting-base due to his comparably liberal social values.  Similarly, John McCain’s “Maverick” persona was never perceived as being conservative enough; he ended up moving more towards the right in the primary race, resulting in the alientation of conservative leaning centrists.  Barack Obama, conversely, attempted to move more towards the center, gladly picking up the votes abandoned by McCain’s appeasement of the far right base.

If, in fact, there is a dichotomy between moderate and hard-right political ideologies, how does one unite the two voting blocks?  For the answer, one must only look into the recent past.  David Axelrod and Barack Obama present us with the answers.

Force of Personality

Even during his presidential campaign, a time in which political platforms change with the state currently stumping in, President Obama was certainly liberal enough to worry most moderates.  But when it counted, he easily managed to capture the swing votes and secure the election.  It’s arguable that this was largely due to his majestic stagecraft and oratory skills, evidenced most blatantly by his DNC convention acceptance speech, pictured here.  His presentation and sense of grandeur resonated favorably with people, even if they did not like or support some of his policies.  In effect, even those who didn’t agree with all of his proposed policies felt that Obama was the right man for the job.  This feeling perpetuates today.  Over half the nation disapproves of his economic, healthcare, and spending plans and their resultant bolstering of  government expansion, but over half of the nation still approve of him as president.  Barack Obama has continued to prove that people don’t necessarily have to agree with you to vote for you.  This is highlighted by the swing vote, where the voter feels that they are attempting to choose between “the lesser of two evils”.

Political Fatigue

Just as Obama exploited “Bush Fatigue”, in which the majority of the populace were exhausted with the policies of George W. Bush, it’s possible that a Republican candidate might be able to capture moderates in the same manner.  After the national debt has been expanded by trillions of dollars and inflation has resulted from the stimulus bill, moderates may be willing to swing to a conservative candidate, who despite not being a true centrist is simply something different.  This generally takes time, but eventually more citizens will begin to associate Obama with his policies, rather than his appealing personality.  Obviously, this won’t hurt his perception by the far left, but it is likely to impact his approval rating by centrists.

In all likelihood, for a Republican to capture the swing vote, he or she must embody the same showmanship of Obama, and benefit from his political excesses. Some likely candidates to compete are Mitt Romney, Bobby Jindal, and Sarah Palin.  Each one of them has some innate talent on the stage, but all will need serious improvement to contest Obama in that arena.  The political fatigue is certainly beginning already, although Obama still has plenty of time to maneuver to improve his position.  Without both elements, another four years of Mr. Obama is likely.

Author’s Note:  Interestingly, the crux of these two factors is whether the swing vote associates an individual’s policy with the candidate/president themselves.  In “Political Fatigue”, voters had securely linked Bush with negative policy and wars, opening the door to a candidate who they largely judged on personality.  In “Force of Personality”, people resonated with Obama personally, even if they were against or ambivalent to his policies, which highlighted the disassociation.

The Rationalist is a graduate of The United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, where he majored in Information Systems Technology and Economics. He is currently studying law at George Washington University. He invites you to follow him on Twitter (@the_rationalist).

By Dr. Brian Russell
On Tuesday, the world, and probably you, saw what may have been the grandest memorial service ever held for an entertainer, at least in modern times. Michael Jackson‘s public memorial service, held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, drew roughly 30,000 people (combined inside and outside of the venue), and was remarkably well-controlled from a security standpoint (although that security came at an estimated cost of $4 million to the City of Los Angeles). Numerous “A-list” entertainers performed and paid their respects to Jackson, but his 11-year-old daughter stole the show when she tearfully told the world how much she loved “Daddy.” It seemed as if, at some level, she understood the controversy surrounding her father’s relationships with children and was defending him when she said that he had been the best father anyone could ever want. (By the way, I know this isn’t scientific, but to me, she bears enough resemblance to Jackson that I think he probably was her daddy in both the parenting sense and the biological sense, but I could be wrong. And, given that she apparently wanted to speak in front of that many people, I predict that, of the three children, she’s the most likely to follow in Jackson’s footsteps professionally.) The other two children, ages 12 and seven, didn’t speak, and that was fine. Memorials are really for the living, and that’s true especially when the survivors include children. When deciding whether to even have children attend such an event, I think it’s important to consider whether they will get something out of it that’s worth going through an emotional experience that’s difficult for adults. It looked to me like the daughter probably did, and I imagine that her older brother probably did too. It’s more questionable with respect to the seven-year-old, as kids that young often don’t even fully grasp the concept, particularly the finality, of death, but I won’t second-guess the family’s decision to include him, particularly because he was able to share the experience with his two older siblings (or half-siblings, or adopted siblings, or whatever) and with Jackson’s nieces and nephews in addition to what appeared to be a loving, supportive group of adult relatives. I think that public outpouring of support probably helped Jackson’s mother’s custody case, particularly if she demonstrates continuity in the children’s care by hiring the nanny who, until recently, worked for Jackson and served as the children’s primary “mother figure.” I’ve been asked about the process that will unfold if the court appoints someone like me to evaluate the situation and render an expert opinion, and a good outline of what that process might look like can be found in the archives here, in a post dated March 1, 2007. Stay tuned. (Also, on the drug front, Diprivan, the surgical-strength sedative that reportedly was found in Jackson’s home, is used in veterinary medicine as well as in human medicine, and given the menagerie of animals residing at Jackson’s “Neverland” home over the years, it’s conceivable that the drug could have been procured ostensibly for veterinary use. I think that’s less likely than the all-too-familiar “Hollywood health care” scenario, which I’ve also written about in the cases of Jackson and other celebrities whose deaths involved prescription drugs, but it’s conceivable.)

(While I’m here, there’s an update on the serial killer who was on the loose in South Carolina over the 4th of July weekend — the suspect is dead, killed in a shootout with police responding to a tip from a concerned citizen. Props to the tipster!)

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Put Power Tactics to Good Use

Saul Alinsky‘s book on Power Tactics is filled with ways to organize, conquer, and succeed in community organizing. Put these in your PDA, text or email them to your phone, write them on your hand, and get ready to party likes its 1773 until our demands are met. The information is very valuable and while it was originally meant for left-wing extremists, the tactics are reversible and can be used against the Left. Karl Rove stated that the Obama’s are big fans of the book and its tactics. Here is a chance to give the left a dose of its own medicine.

Rules for Power Tactics:

1. Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.
2. Never go outside the experience of your people.
3. Whenever possible, go outside of the experience of the enemy.
4. Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
5. Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon.
6. A good tactic is one that your people enjoy.
7. A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag.
8. Keep the pressure on with different tactics and actions, and utilize all events of the period for your purpose.
9. The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.
10. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.
11. If you push a negative hard and deep enough, it will break through into its counterside.
12. The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative.
13. Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.

Rules to test whether power tactics are ethical:

1. One’s concern with the ethics of means and ends varies inversely with one’s personal interest in the issue.
2. The judgment of the ethics of means is dependent upon the political position of those sitting in judgment.
3. In war the end justifies almost any means.
4. Judgment must be made in the context of the times in which the action occurred and not from any other chronological vantage point.
5. Concern with ethics increases with the number of means available and vice versa.
6. The less important the end to be desired, the more one can afford to engage in ethical evaluations of means.
7. Generally, success or failure is a mighty determinant of ethics.
8. The morality of means depends upon whether the means is being employed at a time of imminent defeat or imminent victory.
9. Any effective means is automatically judged by the opposition to be unethical.
10. You do what you can with what you have and clothe it in moral garments.
11. Goals must be phrased in general terms like “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” “Of the Common Welfare,” “Pursuit of Happiness,” or “Bread and Peace.”

I personally congratulate all the liberals who mastered Rule number 5. Not only did they come up with a clever sexually charged label for the hard working Tea Party Protesters, they also failed to read the entire list and ask themselves whether or not they were being ethical. Good job liberals.

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The phrase “memory of an elephant” has taken an ironic turn over the last few years for the Republican party. While some are singing funeral dirges for the GOP, a better diagnosis would be amnesia. Whether it’s a temporary or permanent illness depends on what the party does next.

Attempting to find the key to a Republican resurrection, some forgetful moderates in the party have added their voices to the liberal and mainstream media who suggest that the GOP’s too conservative. “Our tent must be larger!” they cry. “The tent must move left!”

Meanwhile, the conservative voters–who remember quite well–are motivated, mobilized and making their own tent. Some savvy politicos scramble enter, and a few conservative politicians actually belong there, but many still don’t get it. The solution isn’t to move the tent left. The solution is to bring the tent back to the people. Can’t find the people? Here’s a hint: they’re right where the party left them.

Party leaders seem a bit perplexed. They see the grassroots’ outrage, and try to speak for the movement without understanding it. They interpret the anger as issue-driven, and miss the context. The GOP has forgotten the most important thing of all: its roots.

Our party—and our nation—exist because liberty was threatened. The most shining moments in Republican history are those when we championed liberty. The most shameful, when we forget its importance. Patrick Henry once said, “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches the jewel.” We should revere the right, and protect it above all things.

While they don’t agree on everything, even some things they feel passionately about, a huge number of American citizens are demanding their liberty. Positions on regulations, taxes, the redistribution of wealth, religious freedom, states rights, guns, social issues, education, judicial concerns aren’t unrelated issues. They’re the groans of people straining under a too-big and too-involved government. They’re the protests against a national government that usurps rights from both the states and the individuals. It’s about liberty, and it always has been.

The tent is plenty big—big enough to hold a whole herd of elephants. Just bring it back where it belongs–we’ll have the tent poles ready.

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