The Necessary Civil War

"[They are] lemmings with suicide vests…They have to be more than just a lemming. Because jumping to your death is not enough."

"I was correct in my analysis, and I'd say a lot of those folks were not correct in theirs."

"Barack Obama set the trap. Some congressional Republicans walked into it. As a result, the president is stronger, the GOP is weaker, and Obamacare is marginally more popular. ...  It's time Republicans remembered that bad tactics produce bad outcomes."

"If anybody should be kicked out, it's probably those Republicans—and not Speaker Boehner—who are unwilling to keep the promises they made to American people."

As you've probably figured out, these are recent quotes by politicians.  All of them are Republicans talking about...other Republicans.

No matter your political views, if you've been paying any attention at all you know that there have been some epic battles in Washington lately. While some have been between Republicans and Democrats, the worst have been within the Republican party between the establishment politicians who shy away from rocking the boat and the rabble-rousers known as the Tea Party caucus.

The emergence of the Tea Party movement began during Bush's final years in office, as voters and pundits began to frown on his push for taxpayer bailouts of big banks and the auto industry, a nearly trillion-dollar stimulus package in the form of government spending, and encouraging lawmakers to pass yet another amnesty for another 12 million illegal aliens.

The movement gained momentum during the run-up to the 2008 general election, fueled by a segment of the Republican electorate furious that the party could find no better representative than John McCain to run against the Democrats' rock-star candidate, Senator Barack Obama.  Predictably, McCain was handily beaten on Election Day despite an inexperienced but conservative Sarah Palin balancing out the ticket.

Facing at least two years of one-party Democrat rule, conservative voters had reached the end of their rope.  They were sick of watching both parties spend our tax dollars like drunken sailors and growing the scope and reach of the federal government while ignoring fundamental Constitutional responsibilities to ensure the rule of law and to keep our borders secure.

Stories of angry conservative voters venting their anger at their representatives at town hall meetings started emerging.  New faces began to appear on the political landscape.  Men and women that shared the sentiment that the Republican party had lost its way and needed an overhaul.  America was introduced to Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, Michelle Bachmann, Mike Lee, Chris Christie, and others.

The successes started piling up immediately.  In a nasty Wisconsin fight, newly-elected Gov. Scott Walker beat back the powerful teachers' union in order to restore some fiscal sanity to his state's public education programs and prevailed in a subsequent recall election.  Chris Christie was elected to govern liberal New Jersey, where he also claimed victory against unions there.  In Texas, former Solicitor General Ted Cruz faced the state's not-unpopular David Dewhurst in a primary election to the U.S. Senate and rode his message to victory, easily beating his Democrat opponent and running on Tea Party principles of smaller, Constitutional federal government, less spending, and a strong free market (note the lack of anything even remotely related to race or ethnicity).

The establishmentarians took notice.  Some Republicans cautiously began shifting their positions to align with the Tea Party while others bet that the status quo and going-along-to-get-along would look better to voters...many of whom had been disgusted with Congress for many years for its ineptitude in moving the country in the right direction.

The 2012 general election proved to be another disaster.  The Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, lost the election in spectacular fashion.  It would be another four years of Obama, with Republicans holding on to a slim majority in the House.  It seems the lessons of 2008 and 2010 had not yet been learned.

In September of this year, the government was running out of money to operate and was quickly approaching the limit of its authority to borrow money.  This was the fight that the Tea Party had been salivating over for years.  It would use these two critical items to extract concessions on Obamacare from the Democrats during negotiations.  Since Republicans controlled the House, from which spending bills originate, they would craft bills that granted the necessary continuing budget resolution and a temporary increase to the debt limit while removing any funding for Obamacare.

The president would have none of it.  He indicated that there would be no negotiations on the continuing resolution or the debt ceiling.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared the House bill dead on arrival in the Senate, as he would do with every single bill floated by Republicans.

As days went by, Democrats stuck to thier guns and refused negotiations with Republicans and cracks began to appear in the Republican resolve.  Ted Cruz stood before the Senate pleading his case for 21 hours straight in a futile attempt to garner enough support to force negotiations.  The Democrats held firm as more and more Republicans waved white flags, ready to acquiesce to all of Obama's demands. 

The deadline for the continuing resolution came and went, and the government "shut down" (about 13% of it, anyway).  As barricades went up at national parks and monuments across the country, the Democrats kept pounding away by ensuring the mainstream media carried the narrative that Republicans were responsible.  The ignorant public bought it just like Dems counted on them doing.

More Republicans folded like dollar store card tables.  Hoping to be seen as trying to restore normalcy, they, too, scrambled for every camera and microphone they could find in order to blast the Tea Party strategy.  More bills were floated with fewer and fewer Republican demands, until more than two weeks after the shutdown, the Democrats claimed victory while the Republicans walked away with their asses in their hands, and without a single concession.

The Great Republican Implosion of 2013 will go down in history as one of the greatest political embarrassments of all time.

I was disgusted.  How could this happen?  How could Republicans have pissed away such a golden opportunity?  How could they have allowed the narrative that it was their fault to go unchallenged?  After all, it was Obama and the Democrats that steadfastly refused to negotiate.  13 separate proposals to end the standoff were drawn up by Republicans that were all shot down by Democrats.  The president refused to have his signature legislation, which is still unpopular with the majority of Americans, impeded in any way.  And Republicans caved.  The battle was senselessly lost.

But, the war goes on.  It's a war for the future of our nation.  Republicans MUST be the party of  Constitutional governance, fiscal responsibility and the Rule of Law...nobody else is going to do it!  Our country simply cannot continue on its current path.  Every taxpayer in America owes nearly $150,000 for his share of the national debt.  That's absolutely insane, and with recent census data showing that there are more people dependent on welfare than are in the workforce, the trajectory is only getting worse, and in a hurry.

Make no mistake, this Republican civil war is an absolute necessity.  We can only hope that it is over soon and the party emerges with strong Tea Party principles as its platform.  I think the only way that can happen is to reverse the trend of ignorance and apathy among the electorate.  Democrats desperately need people to be ignorant in order to advance their agenda, and they use their friends in the media to make sure they control what people hear. 

In addition to Tea Party principles, the Republican civil war absolutely must produce a better messaging strategy, and it needs to identify someone that can deliver that message in a way that resonates with voters.

Without a Republican party makeover that changes hearts and minds of voters, the next American Civil War will be fought not with rhetoric, bills and political capital, but with guns, tanks, and bombs.  I hope that isn't necessary, but if you think we needed hope and change before, we REALLY need it now.

Government Isn't the Answer

On Friday December 14, a mentally defective young man started his day by shooting his mother repeatedly and heading to an elementary school in Connecticut where he forced his way inside and massacred 20 young children and six adults before taking his own life.

Their little bodies weren't even cold before politicians, cable news hosts, Hollywierdos and others began calling for more gun control, gun bans, and even confiscation of guns from law-abiding citizens.  They couldn't wait to use the blood of innocents to promote their political agendas and loudly proclaim their ignorance in front of the nearest camera, microphone or Twitter account.

It absolutely baffles me when this is the typical response to some deranged or mentally ill wacko going on a shooting spree.  Guns are never the root cause for murder.  And they never will be, no matter how hard people wish they were, or how many ignorant people think they are.

I've been on this Earth for over 40 years, and many things have changed in that time.  However, one thing that has changed relatively little is government.  Aside from a sustained, consistent effort to expand its powers and consequently, spend more of our money, government hasn't really changed a whole lot.  We get idiots in office, then we get some good people, then more idiots, and on and on.  Each push their agenda and do their thing.  The pendulum is perpetually swinging back and forth.

The things that have changed over that time began at home.  Every parent I know proudly proclaims that they are determined to make sure their kids have it better than they had it.  While their intentions are good, many times their definition of "better" translates to "easier".  "Easier" results in kids not learning life lessons early enough, and leads them to believe that it's normal that someone else will make sure they get what they want and need while protecting them from all things bad.

Society, too, has changed.  When I was a kid, I ran the neighborhood unsupervised all evening, doing stuff kids do.  We built rickety ill-designed ramps with scrap wood and jumped our bikes off them without a helmet.  Sometimes we crashed, but we dusted ourselves off, learned from it, and made appropriate adjustments.  Now, kids aren't allowed out of their parents' sight because the perception is that the world is a darker place than it once was...never mind that crime data shows otherwise.  News has always been about sensationalism, and with the dawn of the 24-hour news cycle it seem all we hear about is murder and tragedy.  We hear about it a lot more, but it isn't happening a lot more.  In fact, according to FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data, the violent crime rate is lower nationally than it has been since 1973, and continues trending downward.

So many things prevalent in society today were unthinkable 30 years ago.  Back then, we had Space Invaders, Donkey Kong, Duck Hunter, and pinball games.  Today we have Grand Theft Auto which glamorizes assault, rape and murder...we have Ghost Recon and Call of Duty, featuring all the blood, guts and gore imaginable.  When I was a kid, my parents were uncomfortable with me being exposed to the humor of Statler and Waldorf, the two grumpy old guys in the box seats from the Muppet Show.  Now, kids can flip on the TV and see a transvestite space alien hitting on an underage boy on American Dad, and the never-ending sexual perversion including babies and animals being depicted on Family Guy.

In schools, leftists and militant athiests have ensured kids won't be hearing a peep about Christianity, God, or moral values, but kids can head on down to the library and pick up a copy of Heather Has Two Mommies for their summer reading list. If they're in San Francisco during the right time of year, they will likely run into gay men fellating each other on the street as their friends walk around wearing nothing but leather bondage gear during the Folsom Street Fair.  Meanwhile, back at school, we're adjusting expectations by race and everyone is being told they are special.  They're taught that fairness is when government confiscates the wealth of the earners and gives it to the takers.  The wars in Korea, Vietnam and the Middle East are used in history class as examples of America being a big part of what's wrong with the world.

Kids don't have a positive male role model, such as a dad or another family member, around as much as they did 30 years ago.  The nuclear family, once thought to be idyllic, is no longer the majority in our society and indeed, is no longer even a goal for most people.  Kids are growing up with single mothers, and they might see their dad once a week for a day or two if even that.  Many have never even met their fathers.  And there is no longer a social stigma where single parenthood or absent fathers are concerned.

I'm not saying that playing Call of Duty caused this tragedy, and I'm not saying that prayer in schools would have prevented it.  I'm also not saying it was caused by a kid reading a book about lesbians or that single helicopter parents are to blame.

What I'm saying is that sometimes, the sum is greater than its parts.  Some parts of our society are better today than they once were.  Some are worse, such as the political correctness that we're all forced to deal with these days. Merry Christmas, anyone?  Other parts, that taught our kids about the realities of life...about personal responsibility, individual accountability, success and failure, the value of life...are not there at all like they once were.

Gun ownership has increased steadily over the last 30 years.  Today the ratio of guns to people is approaching one-to-one, according to estimates.  Yet, as I previously mentioned, the violent crime rate is decreasing.  But as Rush Limbaugh noted on his show today, we have a lot of "low-information" people in this country (formerly known as morons and idiots).  They applied about three nanoseconds of thought to the tragedy that happened last Friday in Connecticut and decided it was the fault of inanimate objects - guns.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein of San Francisco has already authored a gun control bill for debate when Congress convenes again after the holidays.

The same government that thinks it is smarter than we are is blaming an inanimate object for the actions of a mentally ill person. 

There is no better proof that government isn't the answer.

Government stepping in to restrict the rights, freedoms and liberties of people that didn't do anything wrong isn't the answer.  It's not the answer to what happened in Connecticut, Colorado, or anywhere else a psycho picked up a gun and went on a shooting spree.

We the People are the answer.

If you have children, raise them to be right.  If you don't know how to do that, find out.  Ask your relatives, your friends, the church if you go, or any number of available resources for parents.  Teach them the value of life.  Teach them right from wrong...teach them to be responsible and accountable for their actions.  Teach them to be independent...to dig deep when the going gets tough, rather than blaming others and looking to government for solutions.  Teach them boundaries, and teach them kindness and respect for others.  Don't allow video games or TV to be their babysitter for hours, days, months, years on end.  Be a parent.

If your child is mentally ill, don't just do what you can for them and hope for the best, as this man's mother apparently did.  It's your responsibility as a parent - and a member of society - to ensure they get the help and attention they need so they don't hurt others when they act out.  If you aren't fully prepared to dedicate your entire life to your child, then you need to give them up to someone that would do ANYTHING to dedicate their lives to a child they can't have themselves.

The American way isn't to look to government for the solutions to our problems.  More often than not, government isn't the answer.

Thank God for the Government

Once again, the government has mercifully swooped in to save us from ourselves.

The proaction demonstrated by the Dallas City Council yesterday in passing an enhancement of the ban on public smoking was impressive. They moved swiftly in unilaterally deciding what was in the best interest of The People. The issue was clear and they somehow already knew what The People wanted even without putting the issue to a vote, so they skipped that time-wasting exercise and took action.

After all, this IS a public health issue. It is becoming more and more obvious that We The Sheeple are woefully inept at caring for ourselves or our health on our own, so we are very lucky to have our government acting quickly and decisively on issues like these. The move by the council is the equivalent of the knight in shining armor, coming to the rescue of us and those poor, helpless employees of bars, pool halls, restaurants and other public venues who clearly have no choice but to work there and endure all the nasty horrible smoke.

This is a wonderful development for those who don't smoke and don't want to be around it. Before the government stepped in, nonsmokers had no choice but to go eat, drink and be merry at establishments full of smokers and the product of their nasty habit. And let's not forget about those dumb business owners, who are undoubtedly singing and dancing with joy in the wake of the government's decision to assume the responsibility of helping run their businesses. They were obviously failing miserably at doing so on their own.

Last but not least, those nasty smokers are having to face the fact that, although buying, possessing, and smoking cigarettes is perfectly legal, the tax dollars that the sale of cigarettes generates, isn't really wanted or needed. They're having to understand that they are a lower class of people whose behavior must be dictated by the government and that they have no choice in the matter.

Personally, I'm thrilled to be freed from the responsibility to choose whether or not to work in a bar that allows smoking, or whether to patronize establishments that allow smoking. After all, it was evidently too great a burden for nonsmokers to have those choices and act accordingly.

I look forward to living in a nirvana where worries like these are a thing of the past, and the government shoulders all of the burdens of choice and responsibility on my behalf.