The FedEx guy brought me a box of goodies today. Can’t wait to find some new homes for the signs and bumper stickers. The shirts, already have a nice home 
After watching the debate on Monday night, I can’t help but wonder where we as a nation are headed. On stage we had 4 pro-war candidates and 1 peace candidate. If you listen to all of the candidates speak about our military and about Iran, save Paul, you can hear the war drums blaring in the background as they without hesitation say that we need to spend more money on our military and we need to intervene with Iran. When Ron Paul mentioned that maybe we should apply the Golden Rule to our foreign policy, the crowd overwhelmingly began to boo.
All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.
Matthew 7:1
Why would that be such a bad idea?
I work with a lady that is, I guess the best way to say it is very involved with her church. Yet she endorses and advocates war after war in the middle east. How can being Christian and having such a pro-war attitude go hand-in-hand? Casualties cannot be discriminated during war. Countless innocent women and children are killed during war, and when a war is unjust, I just don’t see how someone can be such an advocate of the war and at the same time pretend to be such a Christian person.
I hear people all the time griping about the people in Washington never being able to come together to get things done. But most people have a hard time realizing that this is by design. Compromise is what we see too much of in Washington—people not sticking to their convictions. The left want social benefits and (with exception of Obama) less war, the right wants war and less social benefits. So what always happens is compromise. The left drops their convictions on less war in order to get the right to drop it’s convictions on less social benefits. So we end up with both parties agreeing to vote on spending measures that appease each other’s wants while turning a blind eye on everything else.
The Constitution, with its system of checks and balances, not only allows for gridlock, it practically guarantees some degree of it. The Founders knew that gridlock can be a very good thing. If nothing can be agreed upon in Washington, harm to the country is limited.
Ron Paul
I’m so excited and can’t wait to watch the results of the Iowa Caucus come in tonight! I’m just hoping there isn’t any fraud with counting the votes. Go Ron Paul!
For those of you who don’t believe that your calls and e-mails to Members of Congress work, let me assure you that they do. Members “freak out” when they receive more than half a dozen calls on any issue.
Rep Justin Amash
I don’t know anyone other than myself personally that take the time to call their representatives and urge them to vote one way or another on legislation that is coming up. And if you think about it, there’s 300 million Americans, and yet we’re all so “busy” that we can’t even make sure that we keep our elected officials in check. Not caring enough to make those calls or emails is going to bite us in the butt. It’s actually already in process with the most likely passage of the NDAA which includes provisions that allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens, yes that could be your or I, without charge or trial.
If you follow politics at all, and have studied history, especially the GOP, you’ll notice that the party today hardly resembles the principles that the party was based on in the past. That’s ultimately because during the Wilsonian era of the party, the party lost it’s core convictions, it’s priciples, and it’s way…completely. The conservatives today, debating fiscal conservatism, values, etc., are not Conservatives at all. They are Neoconservatives. All of that said with one exception, Ron Paul.
Here is a brief summary of the general understanding of what neocons believe:
- They agree with Trotsky on permanent revolution, violent as well as intellectual.
- They are for redrawing the map of the Middle East and are willing to use force to do so.
- They believe in preemptive war to achieve desired ends.
- They accept the notion that the ends justify the means–that hardball politics is a moral necessity.
- They express no opposition to the welfare state.
- They are not bashful about an American empire; instead they strongly endorse it.
- They believe lying is necessary for the state to survive.
- They believe a powerful federal government is a benefit.
- They believe pertinent facts about how a society should be run should be held by the elite and withheld from those who do not have the courage to deal with it.
- They believe neutrality in foreign affairs is ill advised.
- They hold Leo Strauss in high esteem.
- They believe imperialism, if progressive in nature, is appropriate.
- Using American might to force American ideals on others is acceptable. Force should not be limited to the defense of our country.
- 9/11 resulted from the lack of foreign entanglements, not from too many.
- They dislike and despise libertarians (therefore, the same applies to all strict constitutionalists.)
- They endorse attacks on civil liberties, such as those found in the Patriot Act, as being necessary.
- They unconditionally support Israel and have a close alliance with the Likud Party.
I don’t post jokes often, but during our political talk at work, a co-worker told me this and I found it quite funny.
Q: An Irishman, a Portuguese, and a Greek go into a bar and have a round of drinks. Who pays?
A: The German.
First off, SPLOST stands for Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax. It’s an additional tax that’s added to the sales tax that voters vote on. The proposed tax always comes with a project list that it would support. E-SPLOST is an educational SPLOST, and T-SPLOST is a transportation SPLOST.
I’m against both of the taxes that are coming up for vote/renewal for different reasons.
I’m against the E-SPLOST because of the way our county operates it’s budget and has managed the previous E-SPLOST. I’m sure many will vote ‘yes’ on this for the sole reason that it has to do with funding going to education. But before one votes to give them another check to spend as they see fit, they need to look at the prior projects that E-SPLOST has provided. It’s almost a running joke around everyone in the entire county how they just can’t seem to ever have enough schools built. I don’t even know the number of schools we have now, because every time you turn around, another $20-30M school is being built. We’re to the point that we’re neglecting the older schools to give way for a future project-that project being to tear down and replace the neglected school rather than go the cheaper route and maintain the school. I went to the school that I’m talking about, and even though it’s been over 10 years ago, there is no way that it would be to the point that it is unsafe for the children if they had not ignored maintenance for so long. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that one of the contractors for all of these new schools has some ties to those that propose these sort of taxes on the voters.
I like to see people standing up for what they believe in, but, it would be nice if they would educate themselves on what it is that they should really be standing up against first.
Not everyone that is protesting is protesting for the wrong reasons. But seeing what some are there for, and their demands, alot of them are. If the movement was protesting the root of all of the problems in this country, our monetary policy, then it could potentially bring about the change that we need. The movement needs to focus on the end of the Federal Reserve, because the Fed is the facilitator of all things that are starving the middle class, and killing our country. It’s ability to print money out of thin air, allows our leaders to lead us into never-ending wars by pretending that deficits don’t matter. It allows the markets to make investments that it would not otherwise make by forcing artificially low interest rates which lead to bubbles that eventually burst, i.e. housing market. The Fed is the problem, plain and simple.
The Tea Party gets alot of attacks from people that don’t understand what the movement stands for, especially from the Left. It’s pretty easy to understand though, those that were sent to Washington from the Tea Party, were sent with the message that the people are sick and tired of all the wasteful spending that is driving up our national debt with these unfathomable yearly deficits. This book is definitely worth reading if you are unsure what the Tea Party is really about, or if you find yourself being one of those people that blindly attack the movement.
Insist on yourself; never imitate… Every great man is unique.
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© Copyright 2007-2012 Shane Holden
All Rights Reserved.
