Minneapolis and the tragedy of the situation

“No Americans should fear enmity and harm from those sworn to protect us. The death of George Floyd must not be in vain: Our shock and outrage must grow into collective determination to extinguish forever such racist abuse.” – Mitt Romney

Once again RINO Romney has a half a thought… it was a start but it ended there.

First, I want to start by saying what happened to George Floyd is reprehensible. The officers involved should prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

So, let me say this as respectfully as I can, as long as human beings roam the planet there will continue to be racists of all colors. Racism can not be eliminated completely through “collective determination” simply because it can never be completely eliminated due to the “human factor”. That said, as a society we can continue to work on the cultural issues that fuel racism and cut it off any place we find it has been institutionalized.

But first we must focus, on the perpetrators and the facts around each situation, then address the root cause of each. The knee jerk and divisive reactions we regularly see compliments of the media and lousy politicians, constantly sets our society and any gains we have made back.

The media rationalization of the “protestors” behavior only emboldens the troublemakers. Also, I think we all know that all of these people are not local protestors but rather some are political operatives sent there to cause chaos. They don’t care about George Floyd, they only care about furthering their own agenda.

All cops are not bad so when a precinct is burned down let’s not pretend it is some how justified. Why does Target deserves to be looted? Why do local businesses deserve to be burned? How does destroying your own neighborhood, local businesses, people’s personal property or your community fix the problem?

Please don’t talk to me about pent up anger… if you are pissed at a friend and you go kick his ass, despite your pent up anger, you will be arrested and put in jail. Memorial services, candle light vigils and peaceful protests are every Americans right and should not be interfered with as long as they don’t infringe on the rights of others or the community as a whole.

Society must hold all players in these dramas accountable for their actions. The 4 cops should have been arrested the minute that video was validated and held while the DA decided on the appropriate charges. That alone would have taken some of the emotions down a notch or two. When these incidents occur we must move swiftly to defuse them.

But back to my original point, fixing these problems has more to due with holding the perpetrators responsible for their actions in a swift and decisive manner rather than allowing them to be used as politial fodder to be used to drive unrest. Perpetrators of this behavior should be made examples of, so it is understood it will not be tolerated. If this is really about George Floyd and justice, everything else must to stop so we can focus on that.

My prayers are with the Floyd family and all my friends in the Twin Cities, this is so hard to watch happen to a place where I spent 28 happy years of my life.

America, we are teetering on the brink. It is time to heal our country before it is lost and our freedoms with it. Let’s not let the politicians win. God bless America and help us before it’s too late.

You are an American, embrace it!

You are an American, embrace it! You have freedom here like no other country in the world. Yes, we are not perfect, but what country is? We are the most caring and giving nation in history despite our flaws. Love your country! Recognize that only in America do you have the freedom to be individuals, to protest anything you want and to choose your own path. If you disagree, then why are so many people still trying to get here anyway they can? It is time for the citizens of this great nation to work together to restore us to our former glory. Stop acting like petulant children, finding fault with each other and bickering like spoiled siblings. The media has everyone whipped into a frenzy about things that really don’t matter like gay marriage, confederate flags, a fake “war” on women and over exaggerated claims of serial police brutality. When I say they don’t matter I mean in the context of the real problems facing our country – unemployment, spiraling out of control debt, a crumbling infrastructure and unsecured borders. Social issues should and can be resolved at the state level. They are not the business of the federal government. I support individual rights and would not take away someone else’s because their beliefs don’t agree with mine unless they are harming someone. While these issue should not be ignored it is time to prioritize our agenda to ensure the survival of our nation as well as the liberties and freedom that have made us great. Be proud of your country, resolve to help restore our greatness and enjoy another 239 years of freedom for our children’s sake. As Ronald Reagan said, “If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth.” God Bless America and a happy 4th to you and yours! 

 

Open Letter about Political Posts on FB and Twitter

I am growing weary of all the political BS flowing through my Facebook and Twitter pages. I don’t want to offend my friends or anyone else with what I say next but sometimes the truth is hard. Most people (not all) are uninformed, don’t get half of what they hear on the news and are too lazy to research things they don’t understand. Instead, most just settle for sound bites and base their opinions on what they are being fed by the media.

“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”  – Thomas Jefferson; June 6, 1807

Many others are driven by a single issue or interest or just so caught up in their own lives they are oblivious to what is happening around them. I am offended that things are posted as factual that are clearly designed with sensationalism in mind. False and misleading posts undermine your position regardless of which side you support. We seem to have lost the ability to have factual debates and instead seem to prefer emotional, fact less or lie filled diatribes. Our discussions have been reduced to calculated sound bites designed to manipulate or incite overreaction. Clearly, we have lost our way. Our country is in the worst shape in our history.

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” – Abraham Lincoln

I keep seeing pro-democrat or pro republican/conservative posts asking for likes or shares, extolling their respective virtues. News flash – they both suck! How about firing ALL of them as both parties have become jokes! By the way, when you look past the rhetoric it is hard to tell them apart. Let’s start over in 2016 and replace them all with leaders that will put government back in its place… which is out of our daily lives, period! The federal government was intended for defense, infrastructure and managing foreign affairs not deciding issues of marriage, diet or healthcare. Let the states govern (per the 10th Amendment) to the needs of their constituents. We need to start over with leaders who will follow the constitutional roles for each branch of government. It will take years to unwind the massive bureaucracy that is in place but that and a strong economy with jobs to make people self sufficient are required for the country to survive. Unfortunately, our country is overrun with people who want the government to take care of them rather than an opportunity to take care of themselves. Today, 44% of the country’s federal income supports entitlements. On top of that our infrastructure is crumbling and we keep handing out foreign aid, often to our enemies while borrowing money at a rate that is unsustainable.

“Nothing is so well calculated to produce a death-like torpor (lethargy) in the country as an extended system of taxation and a great national debt.” – William Cobbett; Feb. 10,1804

There is no such thing as “social justice” or “free stuff” – everything the government hands out has to be paid for by someone. Even in socialist countries there is a class system with “haves” and “have nots”. It is just in those places there are more “have nots” and less even less “haves” with little opportunity to change status.

Finally, if you want to participate in the conversation, please do it in a meaningful way. Be thoughtful rather than a bomb thrower. Research the things that fire you up. Don’t trust a single source for your news or facts. Fox News, CNN, NBC, MSNBC and the rest all have an agenda. Use all of these resources as well as the international press to study the issues and form your opinions. If we stay on the current path we will destroy ourselves as Lincoln suggested. We need common sense and an informed public to fix the problems we face. I still believe most Americans want a strong country, a strong economy and a shot at the American Dream. It is time to get informed, think for yourself and align your positions with your values not a political party.

Paul Harvey, 1965: describes America in 2015

This speech was broadcast by legendary ABC Radio commentator Paul Harvey on April 3, 1965:

If I were the Devil . . . I mean, if I were the Prince of Darkness, I would of course, want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. I would have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree, so I should set about however necessary to take over the United States. I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.” “Do as you please.” To the young, I would whisper, “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is “square”. In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be extreme in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct. And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: “Our Father, which art in Washington” . . .

If I were the devil, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull an uninteresting. I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies and vice versa. And then, if I were the devil, I’d get organized. I’d infiltrate unions and urge more loafing and less work, because idle hands usually work for me. I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. And I’d tranquilize the rest with pills. If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine yound intellects but neglect to discipline emotions . . . let those run wild. I would designate an athiest to front for me before the highest courts in the land and I would get preachers to say “she’s right.” With flattery and promises of power, I could get the courts to rule what I construe as against God and in favor of pornography, and thus, I would evict God from the courthouse, and then from the school house, and then from the houses of Congress and then, in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and I would deify science because that way men would become smart enough to create super weapons but not wise enough to control them.

If I were Satan, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg, and the symbol of Christmas, a bottle. If I were the devil, I would take from those who have and I would give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And then, my police state would force everybody back to work. Then, I could separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines, and objectors in slave camps. In other words, if I were Satan, I’d just keep on doing what he’s doing.

Paul Harvey, Good Day.

Hollywood Gun Hypocrisy

Love this remake of a recent anti -gun ad by a bunch of Hollywood hypocrites. Guns are less of a problem than the people who glorify murder and violence through movies, TV, video games and music. However we dont like to talk about the country’s morale deacay, its easier to blame it on the guns. What should really gall us is the fact that the very group making a fortune off this culture of violence are the ones lecturing us. Our 2nd Amendment right to bear arms is being threatened by the very same people who would use the 1st Amendment for freedom of speech to defend their right to produce a violent, drug and sex filled movie. They are all a bunch of shameless hypocrites!! Maybe it’s time consider whose “art” we want to support in the future. After all if they won’t support our rights maybe it’s time to quit “supporting” theirs.

Wake up, America! Reject the Progressive Left!

Tragedy in Connecticut

The tragedy in Connecticut is just that an unbelievable tragedy. However, now is not the time to politicize gun control by exploiting it. Now should be a time for healing and support for those affected.

Those who continue to use every tragedy they can to drive home their point should stop and reflect. These people continue to ignore the two most important facts. First, the guns are simply the murder weapon, in the absence of guns crazy people will find another weapon to do their evil. It is an old adage but it still true; “Guns don’t kill people, People kill people.” Second, another old adage “Outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns.”

A few weeks ago when a Kansas City Chiefs player killed himself and his girlfriend, Bob Costas took the opportunity to editorialize on the Sunday Night Football that this was just another reason to step up gun control efforts. I thought at the time, “Really, this was a sick and mentally troubled person. If he didn’t have a gun he could have used any number of other ways to commit this horrible act.” People kill each other all around the world every day without guns. In fact the same day the Connecticut shootings occurred another crazy in China stabbed 22 people at a school.

Guns are not the problem, people are. If we want to slow down this increase in violence maybe we should be looking at our culture as a whole. Violent video games, movies, T.V. shows and music that glorifies violence, murder, rape and criminal behavior probably does more to negatively influence those that feel disenfranchised. This stimulus probably leads these individuals further down the path of destruction then access to a gun. The gun is just a tool to accomplish their objective and in its absence they would find something else.

In the end responsible gun owners should not have our second amendment rights taken away or reduced because of the reckless and deadly acts of a minute minority of the population. The government can not fix what happened in Connecticut with regulations. We need to address the root cause. This will take families, churches and people working to improve the moral fiber of our communities. In the end the problem is people, a gun is just a tool easily replaced with a knife, a club, poison, rope or any number of common items that can be made deadly in the wrong hands.

I will end with; my heart goes out to all those affected by this tragedy. It is an unthinkable crime committed against the most vulnerable among us by a clearly sick individual. Now is not the time for debate, now is the time for healing and reflection.

Why Libertarians must vote Romney

I will take a stab at this even though you probably won’t like my answer. Libertarianism is focused on civil liberty. I like many people feel strongly about my individual rights. The problem is that Libertarianism is more a political philosophy than a working model for government. Civil liberty is only one element of a government model. I am not sure about over the course of history but least in modern times there has never been a “Libertarian” country that I am aware of. 

America is a republic. Our republic is an attempt as evidenced by our founders to take the best of a variety of government models and merge them into one. We have elements of democracy and libertarianism that have been incorporated into our republic. The three branches of government combined with the Constitution were designed to protect our civil liberties. As we all know our republic and the civil liberties that Americans used to enjoy have been hijacked. Too much freedom in the eyes of most modern day politicians is bad because it takes away their control. 

So now for the answer to the question; why Libertarians should vote for Romney?  If you believe in all you espouse; you have to vote for Romney. 

 Here’s why – we need to buy time. Surely you do not believe that Romney is the militant that Obama is where it comes to government regulation or government control. He is also not a progressive socialist. It’s true that he (Romney) may turn out to be another new world order guy like the Bushes but he loves the country enough to not sell us out to Putin once he has “more flexibility”. 

Here are a few other things to consider: 

There will likely be one or two Supreme Court appointments in the next four years. Do you really want Obama making any of these appointments? Here is a scary thought – Eric Holder or Tony West as a nominee. 

Obama will push for further reduction of our nuclear capabilities to level the field and reduce our power internationally. I am pretty sure Romney won’t. 

Obama will sign us on to more U.N. treaties that will continue to erode our national sovereignty. Think – L.O.S.T. Treaty and the U.N. Small Arms Treaty for starters not to mention some form of international income tax. 

Romney will help us slow down, maybe even help us avoid economic collapse. Obama is intent on redistribution and economic destruction of individual wealth. At least we know that he is a capitalist. 

To quote Minnesotan Mitch Berg, “All the principle in the world does you no good if you are standing in soup line, if the government has confiscated your guns and branded you a terrorist for stockpiling food with the blessing of the Supreme Court. The vast majority of the people will sell the Rights of Man down the river for a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of booze or a bowl of gruel.” 

I like most people, I am tired of holding my nose and voting; but what choice do we have? The question remains when are we going to do something about the real problem? We can’t wait to get worked up once every 4 years and bitch about the choices. We need to change things at the local and state level starting Nov. 7th and work every day for the next 4 years to change our course.  It is time for all high minded, philosophical Libertarians to get involved on a daily basis and work for the change you desire. We must start taking our country and our liberty back from self-interested politicians. But first we have to buy time. Don’t waste your vote on a meaningless statement we need to slow down the progressives now. 

“The saddest epitaph which can be carved in memory of a vanished liberty is that it was lost because its possessors failed to stretch forth a saving hand while yet there was time.” Justice George Sutherland, Constitutional Defender 1938 

Wake Up, America! Restore the Republic by Rejecting Socialism and the Progressive Agenda!

The Jobs Spin

Watch this and then read below!

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/02/unemployment-rate-rises-to-7-percent-economy-add-171000-jobs/

A few thoughts that will make you question the government jobs spin:

First the stats on 11/02/08:
Officially unemployed = 10,563,275 Actual unemployed* = 13,558,658
Food Stamps Recipients = 32,659,311

Compared to the stats today:
Officially unemployed = 11,992,107 Actual unemployed* = 22,645,113
Food Stamps Recipients = 47,109,282* = includes those who have given up

So in summary we are being told that the percentage of unemployment based only on the official number is within 0.1% (7.9% vs. 7.8%) of where it was when Obama took office. There are 2 problems with this misrepresentation. First the number does not include those who have given up. Second, the economy is growing so slow and families have lost so much that people are retiring at a slower rate plus new graduates are entering the workforce faster than they can be absorbed. So forget the percentage 22 million people need work – twice as many as when Obama took office. Time for a new strategy!!

 

Wake up America! Restore the Republic, Reject Socialism

The Ad Romney Should be Running

If the Romney campaign wants to blow Obama out of the water the simplest way to do it might be to simply take these two videos, edit them together and run it over and over in prime time followed by a simple question: “What Does He Mean?”

Wake Up, America! 4 more years of this type of fundamental change and you will no longer recognize your country.

Restore the Republic! Reject Socialism while there is still time.

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” – Patrick Henry

Obama… the numbers don’t Lie!

So here are some stats to help you when you are discussing the election with your undecided friends. These are the facts and the numbers don’t lie. It doesn’t take a CPA to figure out if something doesn’t change quickly we are headed for an economic collapse. The tipping point is already on the horizon…

The Economy, Jobs & Taxes:

America’s Rank in Global Business Competitiveness: Before BO #1 Currently #7 (Source: US News & World Report)

Current National Debt – $16.2 Trillion   (Source: US Treasury)

New Debt Added Since Obama was elected – $5.5 Trillion  (Source: US Treasury)

Your share of the National Debt – $51,419 (Source: US Treasury)

Increase in your share since Obama took office – $17,554 (Source: US Treasury)

Federal Budget Deficits – 2 highest in history: 2009 – $1.416 Trillion & 2011 – $1.298 Trillion respectively (Source: CBO)

Proposed Tax Increases in Obama’s Proposed Budget – $1.9 Trillion (Source: OMB)

New Taxes Hidden in Obamacare – $810 Billion (Source: CBO)

Medicare cuts in Obamacare: $716 Billion (Source: CBO)

# of people Officially Unemployed: 12.014 Million (Source: US Labor Dept.)

# of people Unemployed, Underemployed or have given up – 22.728 Million (Source: US Labor Dept.)

The real Unemployment Rate: 14.7% (Source: US Labor Dept.)

# of people Unemployed More than 27 weeks: 5.0 Million (Source: US Labor Dept.)

Consecutive Months of Unemployment over 8% – 43 (Source: US Labor Dept.)

Pages of new Federal Regulations since Obama took office: 11,327 (Source: Federal Register)

Healthcare, Food, Gas & Education:

Avg. Increase in the cost of a family health plan since Obama took office: $3,065 or 24.2%  (Source: The Kaiser Foundation)

# of people on Food Stamps: 47,025,030 (Source: US Dept. of Agriculture)

Avg. increase in cost of Groceries for a family of 4: 5.15%  (Source: US Dept. of Agriculture)

Increase in the price of gas: 106%  up from $1.89 to $3.89 per gallon (Source: US Dept. of Transportation)

Avg. Increase for In-State Tuition since Obama took office: 25% (Source: The college Board)

So there you have it. The numbers speak for themselves. We can’t afford to keep spending at these levels and increasing taxes stunts growth while killing jobs. We saw the same trends during the Carter Administration. Reagan corrected the problem by managing down the size of government and cutting taxes to stimulate growth. We rode that wave all the way through the Clinton Administration. We can do it again but not with a president that is more interested in “redistribution” than growth and creating opportunity.

Wake up, America! Reject Socialism and Restore the Republic!

“If we can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people, under the pretence of taking care of them, they must become happy” – Thomas Jefferson