ATTENTION BARACK OBAMA AND MSM

Europe doesn't decide who our President is and if the polls are showing Barack with a slight lead over McCain, then Barack is in real trouble because polls traditionally under represent Republicans... You cannot propagandize Americans to vote for Barack. There are still too many intelligent people who actually realize that "Change" is a slogan, not a position.

"Big Oil" is NOT the enemy

Democrats are always going on and on about how "Big Oil" is making too much profit and they want to tax their "windfall profits". What they don't tell you is that almost all of that profit goes to 401k plans, or pension plans NOT to corporate big wigs, and whenever the government taxes a business, it is actually taxing you. All businesses pass on their taxes in one form or another. Either they raise their prices or they don't hire as many people, or they lay people off....

Educate yourself and find out the truth about "Big Oil" before the Democrats find another way to tax you.

http://energytomorrow. org/media/resources/r_527. pdf

Ignorance is the Democrats' best friend. Don't be ignorant.

Educating Barack Obama

Barack Obama says that Republicans will try to scare voters by telling them "he is black". First of all, I don't think that Republicans have to tell anyone that Barack is black, unless they are blind, but let me educate you Mr. Obama on the Republican party.

It was the Republican party that formed in order to end slavery. While the Democrats pushed to have slavery expanded to more states, Republicans fought to stop them. It was the Republican party that passed the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments giving blacks their freedom and the right to vote. Only 19 of the 82 Democrats in Congress voted for the 13th Amendment, all of the Republicans voted for it. And while 94% of the Republicans voted in support of the 14th Amendment, not one single Democrat voted for it or for the 15th Amendment. - It is public record, look it up.

It was a Democrat court that ruled that Dred Scott was property rather than a person (while adopting a 'Constitution is a living document' view). It was Democrats who started Jim Crow laws and literacy tests to prevent blacks from voting. It was also the Democrats who formed the Ku Klux Klan to intimidate Republicans, especially Blacks who chose to be Republicans. Blacks were threatened with death if they voted Republican but the KKK didn't just attack blacks. Any Republican was a target.

You look at any public records and you will find that the majority of Republicans throughout history supported civil rights while the majority of Democrats didn't. Look at the party platforms from the civil war on and you will see one party standing up for blacks, and that was the Republican party. The Democrat party has always and still does look down on blacks.

Democrats push affirmative action because they do not think that blacks are capable of the same intelligence as whites. They push for welfare because it destroys the black family and keeps them in poverty. Blacks have voted with the Democrats since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This act wouldn't have been passed without the Republicans because southern Democrats were not supporting it, but the Democrats were given the credit for the passage and since then 80% plus of blacks have voted Democrat and how has poverty been fixed? How has their education been improved? How are blacks better off then they were back then? They aren't.

Democrats still see people as property, thus their militant stance on abortion, including partial-birth abortion and born-alive babies. Especially considering that 90% of Planned Parenthood operations are in impoverished black communities. If they can't keep you from procreating, then they will offer you the chance to destroy your own children after conception.

They still see blacks as incapable of taking care of themselves without the help of white people (thus they try to get them addicted to welfare benefits). You want to see racism, look at your own party. While you ridicule and mock blacks who have joined the Republican party as "Uncle Tom's", it is you and others like you who have attacked the abolitionists in favor of the slave holder. No, Mr. Obama, Republicans aren't going to try to scare people because you are black, but it should scare people that you are so ignorant.

Time To Clean House in Congress

If you were born in the late 1960's or later, then you better start paying attention. Congress is taking our hardworking money to placate the older generation, because our generations don't vote enough. They are spending our money and our future with no thought to where it will leave us when they are gone.

John Stossel takes on this spending spree in his article The Entitlement Mess.

Investor Business Daily Takes on Dems and Nationalization of Oil Companies Idea

Anytime the Democrats talk about Nationalizing anything, they are talking about forcibly taking over someone else's business. That means less freedom for you and me and more control for the government...Investor's Business Daily takes on one of these nationalization ideas --- The nationalization of oil

Nationalize This!
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Thursday, June 19, 2008 4:20 PM PT

Energy Independence: "We can't drill our way out of the problem," goes the Democratic mantra on oil. So what would Democrats do? Some in the party have the worst possible answer: "Nationalize the oil industry.

In the kind of "oops!" moments politicians have when they say something they wish they hadn't, two House Democrats have recently suggested nationalizing the U.S. oil industry.

READ THE REST at:
http://www. ibdeditorials. com/IBDArticles. aspx?id=298769322101019

TROUBLING TRENDS COMING TO AMERICA

I have noticed a plethora of stories from Canada and Northern Ireland and other western societies where the mere criticism of the homosexual lifestyle is prosecuted in a court of law. What troubles me most is that there is a push for a hates crime law that would punish the exact same criticisms in the United States. No longer would you be able to voice your opinions, no matter how politically incorrect, without fear of imprisonment. This is happening all over the world in western societies overtaken by liberals who think their way of thinking is the only legitimate way to think.

I don’t agree with many of the liberal viewpoints. I don’t agree that abortion should be a woman’s right. Having carried two children, I know without a doubt in my mind that my children were separate human beings with a different blood type than my own, different colored eyes, different personalities and they were children as soon as they began to form, even when I saw them only as a little beating heart on the ultrasound at six weeks gestational age. Will I be punished some day for voicing an opposing opinion to the liberal mantra that abortion is a woman’s God-given right?

I don’t agree that global warming or climate change is a major threat to human civilization. Rather I believe that its hard-core followers are a very serious threat to human freedom. These people believe that humans are a menace to the Earth. While many of the global warming alarmists warn of catastrophic damage to the Earth, they fly around the world in their private jets, and stay in their huge mansions, drive their caravans of SUV’s all while demanding that we give up more of our freedoms to save the planet. Have you any doubt that they would keep their own freedoms while dictating that you must limit yours? Will I one day become a criminal for being a natural skeptic?

I don’t agree with Nazi skinheads who dream of an Aryan super-race like their hero Adolph Hitler, but I would much rather allow them to voice their opinions in a peaceful manner, knowing that all opinions are protected by law, even those that are abhorrent to most people, than worry that one day my own opinions may be banned and/or punishable as crimes.

What I want to know is how many of our freedoms do we have to lose before Americans put a stop to it? Will we wake up one day and find that we are no longer allowed to have our own opinions? That our choice of food, our choice of car, our choice of energy to heat/cool our home, our choice of home, our choice of doctor is no longer ours to make, but rather dictated to us by a government that has decided that we cannot make our own decisions in the best interest of the planet and/or country? It isn’t too far away. Too many Americans sit back and let our government siphon off our freedoms one at a time without realizing that at some point we will have no more freedom.

Do you think that Venezuelans ever thought that they would lose their freedoms? That one day their government would confiscate the private oil businesses for the government? That Hugo Chavez would take over the radio/television stations when they didn’t spout his socialist mantra?

Nobody ever thinks that they will lose their freedom until it is too late. We have got to start paying attention in this country because we are headed down a slippery slope that our forefathers would roll over in their graves to know we have allowed. We have less freedom today than they had when they decided to separate from England. They rebelled when the British government collected taxes worth two weeks of their pay, and today we let our government confiscate four and a half months pay without blinking an eye. We are still the freest nation on Earth, but tell me, if Americans allow their government to take their freedoms, where do we go to find them again?

DO YOU LOVE YOUR FREEDOM?

I have a question for you. Do you love your freedom? How much do you love it? Are you a non-smoker? Did you support the ban on smoking in public places and private businesses? Then you don’t love freedom enough. Do you like junk food/fast food? What if the government decided to make the decision that you couldn’t eat junk food anymore because it causes obesity and raises insurance rates? Would you support that?
You see the problem with supporting taking away someone else’s freedom is that eventually they come for your freedoms. The freedoms that you enjoy having could be assaulted by some do-gooder who thinks they know better than you what is good for you. This isn’t fantasy, this is reality. Already there have been politicians pushing to ban or raise taxes on junk food and fast food in the name of stopping obesity. They have passed a law telling you what kind of light bulb you have to use starting in 2012. Thought that was something you got to decide for your family? Not anymore.
Want to be able to afford gasoline? Then you are going to have to buy a hybrid car because Congress refuses to pursue our own sources of energy until we find a viable source of alternative energy. In the 1990’s a large coal field was located in Utah and so Clinton made it a National Park to prevent mining. Anwar in Alaska has billions of barrels of oil, but Congress refuses to let us drill for it because it could harm the Caribou, even though supporters of drilling only want to use 12,000 acres of the 19.2 million acres. The Alaskan people support drilling there, but Congress refuses to allow it.
Congress treats us like we are little children who need their guidance, when our Constitution tells us that they work for us rather than rule over us. The burning question here is who is better able to determine what is better for you and your family? Is it a big bureaucratic Congress in Washington or you? If you believe it is you, then you better start paying attention to what is going on in America, because the power to choose for yourself and your family is being eroded by an overly aggressive Congress and liberal judicial activists who are pushing socialist policies regardless of Constitutional restraints and legal precedents against it.
If a politician is promising you national healthcare, then you have to start asking “How do they plan on paying for that?” The government doesn’t have any of its own money, the only money they have is our tax dollars and when they promise new programs, they are promising to raise your taxes in order to pay for them. Do some research into how socialized medicine has worked in Canada and Britain. Do you really want to have to pull your own teeth because you can’t get into a dentist for 18 months? Do you really want the government having access to your most personal health information and having the power to determine whether you get that lifesaving medicine or operation? I sure don’t.
When your politician promises to bring money home for your state, do you realize that they are stealing that money from your fellow Americans? You earn your money and they want to take it and give it to someone who didn’t earn it.
Ethanol is not a viable substitute to oil. Without government subsidies, it would cost even more than gasoline, and they have taken fields that had been used for growing food, and have turned them into fields for ethanol production. This has reduced the food supply, which has driven food prices up. Environmental policies are causing starvation in third world countries who cannot afford the skyrocketing food prices.
How about security? You want your family to be safe, here in America, right? Well the Supreme Court just ruled that terrorists caught fighting our soldiers or planning terrorist attacks are afforded Constitutional rights as if they were American citizens. In other words, they are allowed to come to our mainland and take the government to court for their detainment. This is something that has never been afforded enemy soldiers in the entire history of our country. Your politicians determine who gets on the court and they are actively trying to pack the court with liberals who have no regard for our laws or our Constitution. These judges are the same judges that ruled that a state could steal your property and sell it to a development company if it meant more revenue for the state.
This is such an important issue to the future of this country. If Barack Obama becomes President, he has promised to legalize abortion even in the third term when the baby is viable. He has promised to pull our troops out of Iraq before we have secured Iraq, which will risk Iraq’s government being overthrown by radical Muslims. If that were to happen, Iraq could end up becoming another enemy to America. He has promised to appoint more judges like the ones who ruled on the side of terrorists.
Obama has promised to disarm America, even though that would make us more vulnerable to attacks and less able to defend against them. He wants to get rid of our missile defense systems, even though it is the threat of those very systems that ended the Cold War. He has promised to sit down with dictators and sworn enemies of America. We have seen this sort of naiveté before in the form of Jimmy Carter, who still embarrasses our country with his coddling of terrorists.
Barack is not only like Jimmy Carter in his position on terrorists, but also in his energy policies, economic policies and social policies. If you don’t remember the 70’s, there was an oil embargo, gasoline rations, a misery index, the overthrow of a friendly regime in Iran by a radical Muslim and all because of Carter. There was the Iranian hostage crisis, and multiple high jackings. Carter got on television and told the American people that America’s best days were behind her. He asked American’s to drive slower to conserve gas and turn their heaters down. He wasn’t smart enough to realize that his liberal policies, approved by a willing Democrat Congress caused the economic malaise in the first place.
Barack has associated himself with an anti-America, anti-white pastor for the past twenty years. He has allowed a former terrorist who tried to bomb Congress to hold a fundraiser for him. He has associated with anti-American, anti-white, anti-Semites like Louis Farrakhan and the New Black Panther party.
I am not a big fan of John McCain. I don’t think that he is much smarter than Barack when it comes to the economy or energy, but I do believe that he loves this country and will not intentionally do something to undermine its security (aside from the amnesty plan, which we can continue to stop if we keep calling Congress to let them know they put their jobs at risk if they support it).
I am hopeful that Americans will start wielding their power and call their representatives to stop them whenever they try to steal our freedoms. If they ignore us, then we need to vote them out of office.
Tell Congress to stop attacking oil companies when they know that Congress has investigated them multiple times for price gouging and found them innocent. Do you think it is a good idea for Congress to confiscate the oil company profits to spend as they please? What if that was your business? What if you have stocks in oil companies in your 401k and by stealing the profits, they are stealing your retirement money. What if you worked for an oil company and by taking the profits, they put you out of a job. These actions have consequences and they are not given the right to steal a business’s profits in the Constitution of the United States. If you don’t like the price of gas, call your Senator/Congressman and tell them to start drilling for our own resources.
Don’t fall for their schemes of demonizing the rich or “Big Oil” or “Big Business”. They want to pit Americans against other Americans and make you angry at a group for having more than you so you will allow them to push socialist policies without the voters realizing it.
If you want to be rich then work hard, save your money instead of spending it on things you don’t need and pay off your debt. Don’t waste your time hating people who have more than you. In America you are not rich or poor based on your heritage, but based on what you do with the opportunities given you here. Don’t buy the tax cuts for the rich mantra. In liberal terms, anyone who works for a living is rich. Why should you get to keep your own hard-earned money when Congress could spend it to payback political cronies?
What would you do if you got a 40% increase in pay? Well that is about how much of your money is taken from you in taxes. Are you getting your money’s worth? I’m not and I am sick of Congress telling Americans that they don’t pay enough in taxes. They force their liberal policies on the rest of us and cause us to suffer financially and then they vote themselves another raise. They say they will put money in a trust fund, but they will do exactly what they have done with Social Security. They will spend money that should be in a bank drawing interest and then bankrupt the trust fund for future generations. If you are my age or younger, you are likely never going to see your social security contributions. If you do, then you are probably going to leave your own children with a huge national debt. We owe our children more than that.
If you care about their future, you have to start taking a stand for freedom. Start defending the Constitution from politicians who ignore its restrictions and the laws of this land to pursue a political agenda totally in contradiction to the freedoms this country was founded on. It is your duty to defend those freedoms at home, while our soldiers defend them abroad. We owe it to our children to leave them more freedoms than we had, not fewer.

WHY I AM A CONSERVATIVE

True conservative politicians actually seek to limit their own power. They do not seek to tell me whether I can smoke or not, what kind of food I can eat, what kind of light bulb I can use, what beliefs I can have, what kind of doctor I can see. They do not force me to wear a seatbelt, or a helmet. They do not seek to take my tax dollars to fund things such as art that disparages my religion or abortions, which violate my religious and moral beliefs. They do not seek to make Americans slaves to the dictates of government, but rather to make government a slave to the dictates of her people.

They do not create laws out of whole cloth from the bench, but realize that a contract is legal and binding to its meaning at the time it was signed. Our Constitution is a legal contract between the American people and their government. If a judge can interpret the Constitution any way he wants to, then it makes the Constitution worthless. Liberal judges do this on a regular basis of late, oftentimes overriding the will of the people to create a new right that never existed at the signing of the Constitution. Original intent is not code word for racism, it is exactly what it sounds like. A contract must be preserved to mean exactly what it intended to mean when it was signed, otherwise you have committed a breach of contract. When a conservative swears to uphold the Constitution of the United States, they actually mean it.

True conservatives are committed to preserving our freedoms. They do not seek to give the government free reign over our lives. They trust individuals to make important decisions for themselves rather than to have them dictated to them. They realize that when Americans are left to their own devises with little government interference, they are more productive, more inventive and more creative.

Conservatives realize that a one-size fits all government solution from Washington D.C. will not work for all of the states. What is good for North/South Dakota, may not be the same thing that is good for New York. Rather than force the states to follow one dictate, they believe allowing states to compete for business and people generates some of the biggest and brightest ideas for economic growth. This also gives Americans more choices of where to live based on multiple factors such as taxes, job market, housing market etc.

Real conservatives are compassionate. They don’t want people to be suffering but they realize a mammoth bureacracy in Washington D.C. is ill equipped to handle cases effectively or efficiently. Hardworking Americans already pay 40% – 45% of their income in taxes. A lot of that money is wasted in Washington D.C, by both parties. Conservatives understand that Americans work hard for their money, and they are more capable of deciding how to use it then a government corrupted by money and power. It is immoral to steal money from the people who earned it to give it to someone as political payback in pork spending and/or earmarks. Charity should be a personal thing, something you do because you personally want to help someone. Charity should be church function too. Today, charity is a federal function that has become a behemoth treating people like numbers rather than individuals, and corrupted by fraud and waste. We pay more to manage federal social programs than it would cost to cut a check for a decent salary to each and every recipient.

Conservatives believe that the foundation for a strong society is the family. They seek to strengthen that foundation instead of tearing it down. They want to encourage marriage and adoption and personal responsibility. They want fathers and mothers to be responsible, they want children to have both parents if at all possible. They want to give women as much information as possible before they make the permanent decision to abort their child. They want to prevent a child from having an abortion forced on her by an adult who had no business having sex with her in the first place. They want parents to be able to discipline their children in the way that they see fit. They want parents to be able to share their religious culture with their children without having it undermined in the public school system.

Conservatives believe in true debate. They don’t seek to silence the opposition, they seek to have a debate on the issues. They don’t resort to name calling (racist, fascist, homophobe, zealot) in order to win a debate.

Conservatives are not racists. They believe every man or woman has the same potential for greatness and see the individual not the skin color. Conservatives don’t care about gender, they care about ability. No one should be rewarded or punished because of their skin color or their gender. What matters is do they have the ability to do the job?

Conservatives believe in the sanctity of life and defend the unborn with the same zeal that they used to end slavery. Abortion is an abomination. Planned Parenthood largely targets lower income minorities. Their hero, Margaret Sanger, advocated targeting the poor and minorities because she saw them as unfit to pass on their blood lines. The death penalty is another story. Some conservatives believe in protecting all life, others like myself, believe that there are some crimes so heinous that the death penalty is called for.

Conservatives love their country. They don’t think everything is perfect with the government, but they don’t disparage the country because the person in the White House is not from their party. Conservatives also love and respect our troops. Whatever you may think of their mission, our troops put their lives on the line whenever they are called to do so. That deserves respect not denigration.

Conservatives do not expect the government to solve their problems. Conservatives know that the best person to solve your problems is you. The government more often than not creates more problems when they try to solve one. For instance, social security. Money collected in Washington for Social Security gets spent faster than it is collected, and now the Social Security system is in deep trouble but there aren’t very many politicians willing to tackle the problem. My generation will more than likely never see our Social Security contributions. Whenever someone comes up with a new idea for allowing people to save for retirement a different way, they are accused of throwing old people down the stairs. Instead of tired old rehashed political rhetoric, conservatives would like solutions.
Conservatives think logically rather than emotionally, and that doesn’t mean that we don’t have any feelings, but rather we remove the emotion from an argument to see the facts. If someone tells me an idea is good because it will help a lot of people. That may sound good and make me feel good, but is it true? Affirmative action for instance. Affirmative action is supposed to give minorities in disadvantaged areas the opportunity to attend college by giving them extra points because of their race. Sounds good that we are going to help poor black people get to college and better their lives, but if that person had a sub-par education up to that point, getting them into college isn’t going to help them to be able to get through college. If you don’t fix the first, the second is meaningless. Secondly, students who are successful in getting through school have their achievements minimized because they got in through affirmative action. Clarence Thomas is an example of having his substantial achievements ridiculed because of affirmative action. Lastly, it tells minorities that they are not able to compete fairly with white students. Now, I am seeing that affirmative action is actually a racist policy rather than a good thing…get the picture?

Conservatives either love God or respect those who do. They don’t seek to force people to keep their religion hidden in the privacy of their homes. Our founding fathers repeatedly referred to God, Providence, or the Creator in speeches and writings. They said public prayers and referenced God in our founding documents. Freedom of religion is NOT freedom from religion. Freedom allows the free expression of religious beliefs by any member of society, including politicians. The only thing prohibited in the Constitution is for the Federal government to declare a national religion. Merely believing in God or mentioning God does not force you to be a member of a religion.

Conservatives welcome immigrants from all across the globe. We are proud that so many people want to come and live in our country; however, we also believe that people who come here should follow our laws, learn our language and love our country. We don’t want drug dealers, rapists, murderers or terrorists sneaking across our borders. We don’t want illegal immigrants coming to America to exploit our welfare system and make hardworking Americans pay for their food and their medical care. We also don’t want illegal immigrants to be exploited by smugglers, or unscrupulous employers. We are willing to welcome you here with open arms, but we want your loyalty to be to the United States of America, not your home country and we want you to respect our laws. We want to know that your intentions are good. That you want to make a better life for your family, not come and be a drain on our social programs. Every other country asks the same thing, but somehow in our country you are racist to ask these things.

Conservatives are not perfect and they don’t expect others to be, but that doesn’t mean that they minimize serious moral frailities. “Everyone else does it” is not an excuse. A person’s past is not as important as their present. If they don’t let their mistakes mold them into a better person, then their frailities will be magnified under the political microscope. If you make a serious moral mistake while you are in office, the conservatives will ask you to step down. They only judge your character based on current behavior, but they will not stand by you if you violate your most sacred trusts. They will forgive you, and they will be there to help you, but they will not protect your political office for you. Character matters to conservatives.

My final reason for being a Conservative is that Conservatives have a core set of principles that they stick to. They may change their mind on minor things, but on the main things: less government, sanctity of life, family values, freedom of relgion, original intent etc., those values will always stay the same. True conservatives will not change their minds on these issues because of money, fame or power and if they do, they were never a true conservative.

PLAYING GAMES WITH MILITARY FUNDING

I have had it with these politicians who voted to send our troops to war, and then try to tack on Amnesty for illegal immigrants or other domestic pork spending to the War Funding bill so they can accuse the President and those who oppose the bill of betraying the troops. Our men and women are over there because Congress sent them there, they are putting their lives on the line everyday, for what? So they can have the Senate play games with their funding in order to score political points? They deserve better than that and to add insult to injury the Senate pulled this stunt between Armed Forces Day and Memorial Day. Two holidays celebrating the sacrifices of our troops. I'd like to take everyone of those idiots out to the woodshed for a good old fashioned thrashing. Please call your Senator and tell them to strip the amnesty and other domestic spending out of the supplemental appropriations spending bill. We need grassroots activism right now and there needs to be a backlash for these morons.

VICTIMHOOD

When I was sixteen, I got a job at a local campground where a lot of other teenagers from my high school were working (mostly guys). I was often left in charge of the campground store, the food bar and once even the front desk. On one occasion I was left in charge of all three at the same time, while the guys who worked there were invited to go swimming in the campground pool (during work hours).

Once when I was in charge of the store, one of the guys who worked there came in looking for some screws. As I turned to look on the corkboard for the screws he needed, he flicked my butt. What I didn’t know was that the boss’ wife saw him do it.

A little later, my boss called me (and only me) down into the basement and spent 30 minutes yelling at me and telling me that he should fire me for my behavior. I wasn’t given a chance to defend myself and out of sheer frustration and anger, I broke down into tears. I couldn’t believe that I was being treated this way and the guy who actually did the flicking, didn’t get a talking to at all.

I could have spent my entire life convinced that all men were sexist pigs who treated women like dirt and that I would never get any where because I am a woman, but I didn’t. I knew that he was the exception rather than the rule. I quit working for him and found a different job. The benefits of capitalism – if you don’t like your job go find one that you do like.

A friend of mine had everything going against her. She was one of five children. Her parents were divorced when she was a teenager, her mom got custody but worked nights so there was no discipline and no boundaries. They lived on welfare and occasional child support payments. My friend experimented with drugs, dropped out of school and found herself pregnant at the age of 16. According to statistics, she was statistically likely to continue the cycle of welfare dependence – but she didn’t want to live that way.

She took her baby with her when she went to her GED classes. She worked a full time shift and shared babysitting duties with her mom at the same time she was taking her classes. When her mom kicked her out because she was threatened with losing her welfare benefits, my friend struggled to make ends meet, but continued to work because she wanted something better for her child.

She met her husband at work and they married but continued to struggle financially, even though she had worked herself up to manager, she was putting in long hours for very little pay. She decided to look into going to college and she and her husband bought a run-down mobile home on contract for deed. She struggled through college while working off and on when necessary. She and her husband only had one car and had to work their schedules around the use of that car.

She finished school with honors and found a job. After a few years out of school, she and her husband were able to buy a house. She went from being destined to be on welfare to paying more than her fair share in taxes because she was determined to make something out of her life.

I tell you this because she has a brother who is only one year younger than her. He was raised in the same circumstances, but he is a perpetual victim. He has lived off of the charity of family and friends. He has a daughter that he was prepared to sign away his rights for, until they told him they wouldn’t waive his back child support. He won a legal settlement through tragic circumstances(near a half a million dollars). When he got the settlement he bought a brand new car, a used mobile home and quit his job. He did not send any of that money to pay back child support or put any away for his daughter’s education. Less than a year after he received the settlement, the government confiscated the $3000 he had left in his account for back child support. Shortly after that, he got his girlfriend pregnant, a girl who was a high risk pregnancy, but he refused to get a job because they would take his money for child support. His girlfriend worked through her entire pregnancy while he stayed at home.

After the baby was born, he chose to stay at home and take care of the baby. The government suspended his drivers license and warned him that they would issue a warrrant for his arrest if he didn’t pay his back child support, but he refused to get a job and a few months later, the cops showed up to arrest him. He doesn’t take any responsibility for it, he blames everything on the government, or his ex-girlfriend, or his parents and even his daughter. He expects to get rich by waiting around for it to happen without even realizing the irony of that since he already had nearly a half a million dollars that he blew through in less than a year.

Here is my point. If you don’t like your circumstances, then change them. If you aren’t making enough money, then go back to school and get a degree. A person with an Associates Degree will make on average $8000 more a year than someone with a high school diploma. With a bachelor’s degree, they will make $23300 more a year than a person with a high school diploma. The more advanced the degree, the more money you make in comparison.

It doesn’t matter what race you are, it doesn’t matter what gender you are, it doesn’t matter where you live in this country or your circumstances of birth. If you desire a better life, you can make it happen. I am not saying that it will be easy, but everything worth anything is worth working for. Immigrants who move to America from communist or socialist countries often find themselves starting a business. It is because they recognize what many of us who have always lived here don’t. That America is a land of opportunities. That you could have been born to the poorest family in the country and if you work hard and set goals, you can become rich.

Yes, things happen that aren’t fair. Sometimes the government gets in your way, sometimes things happen that get in the way of your goals, but like a beautiful porcelain sculpture, sometimes you have to go through the fire to become a more solid person.

I am tired of hearing about how women don’t have an equal chance with men in the business world. They absolutely do, but we often take time out of our careers to raise children and that should not give us an advantage over a man who doesn’t take any time off.

I am tired of hearing about how this country is still racist. Of course there are still people out there who are racists (and they aren’t all white), but the large majority of Americans are not racist. The people who keep telling you that you can’t get anywhere because of your skin color or your race, need you to be a victim for their own power. This country was founded in 1776. Less than a hundred years later, over 600,000 Americans died in the Civil War (more than all our other wars combined) to end the question of slavery forever. The same party who argued against freeing slave in the 1800’s are the one’s arguing that blacks can’t live without welfare, that they can’t get in to college unless we make special rules for them with affirmative action. Affirmative action is just a way for Democrats to deligitimize the accomplishments of blacks and other minorities.

You don’t have to be a victim. You don’t have to sit around for the rest of your life blaming the fact that you aren’t successful on everyone and everything around you. You can buck statistics, you can buck expectations and you can succeed. All you have to do is believe in yourself, be willing to work hard and you can be successful. God Bless America.

WHAT ARE WE COMING TO?

What are we coming to when the people who protest against murdering children just inches from being born by stabbing them in the back of the head and sucking out their brains are called extremists, but the people who perform and/or support this gruesome procedure are main stream?

What are we coming to when the people who serve their country, leave their family behind for months at a time, and sometimes sacrifice their lives in defense of freedom are spit on, called murderers and rapists while those doing the name-calling are called patriots.

What are we coming to when it is okay to slaughter our unborn children, elderly and sometimes physically disabled (i.e. Terri Schiavo) but the death penalty for murderers is considered cruel and inhuman?

What are we coming to when the man sitting at a library computer looking at child porn is protected by the library, but the librarian who turns him in to the police is fired?

What are we coming to when morality is mocked in movies, on the news, in society in general and prostitutes who sleep with politicians are offered music, movie, and book deals?

What are we coming to when we work four months out of the year just to pay our taxes?

It’s like I’m in the twilight zone. Things that are immoral are seen as good, things that are good are mocked and treated with disdain. God forbid Christianity be anywhere in government, after all thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not bear false witness, honor your mother and father… those are things to fear….

God help us all.

GAS PRICES

The Democrats are at it again, parading Oil executives in front of their committee to chastize them for making profits and for the price of gas. If Democrats really cared about rising gas prices, then why would they propose a 50 cent increase on the gas tax? Exactly, they wouldn’t. The rising cost of oil is due to their environmental regulations on American businesses.

Starting in the 70’s, when environmentalism became more important than domestic drilling, we became more dependent on foreign oil and we were forced to start rationing oil when in 1973 an international oil embargo was imposed on Western society. When foreign countries decided to stop exporting oil to Western countries, the price of oil skyrocketed (high demand, low supply).

We didn’t learn much from the 70’s. To this day, Democrats (and some Republicans) have blocked domestic oil drilling repeatedly while our domestic demand for oil has continued to rise. It isn’t that the oil companies are running up the prices, it is that the environmentalist liberals are running up the prices by keeping our supplies low and preventing new oil refineries from being built & domestic oil drilling.

Every business in America is there to make a profit. Most of us own stocks in oil companies through our 401K plans. And almost all of these oil companies own subsidiaries non-related to oil production that they make profits from. As stockholders, if they didn’t make a profit, we could sue them. Yet whenever a business does well, they are attacked by Democrats. It doesn’t matter to them that by driving their stock prices down, they are hurting middle class Americans who are investing for their retirement in those stocks. It doesn’t matter to them that when they hurt a business they also hurt the men and women who work for that business.

Drilling for oil can be dangerous. I know it is extremely hard work and most workers are highly compensated for that hard work. Demonizing oil companies is just Congress’ way of diverting attention from their destructive policies and blaming the results on a innocent business. They can’t have Americans realizing that Congress are the ones that are ruining the economy by their regulations on businesses, their corporate taxes that make us less competitive with foreign companies, their environmental policies, their outrageous taxes on individuals, and their unchecked pork barrel spending.

Wake up America - Congress doesn’t fix anything. They are the ones who create our problems. Stop asking for their help and start telling them to butt out.

JOHN MCCAIN

Just when I am about to convince myself to vote for McCain, he opens his mouth. I know the man was tortured in Vietnam, but I don’t know how he can consider water boarding to be anywhere in the realm of the kind of torture the Viet-Cong used on him. As President of the United States, your primary responsibility is to protect American citizens, yet if a terrorist knew where a nuclear bomb was planted and we needed that information to save thousands, possibly millions of Americans, John McCain would not use whatever means necessary to secure that information because he is worried about what the rest of the world would think of us. That is dereliction of duty in my book.

John McCain wants to shut down Guantanamo Bay and bring the terrorists to the mainland. He wants to shut down the military installation - that allows the Muslim prisoners to pray three times a day, and feeds them honey-glazed chicken and lemon-baked fish - because the rest of the world seems to think we torture prisoners there. I am sick of our domestic policies being decided based on what the rest of the world thinks of us. Obviously the terrorists who are not part of a regular army, who behead their captives and are not opposed to using women and children as human shields do not fall under the regulations of the Geneva convention (and do not follow Geneva convention either).

It is the responsibility of our political leaders to protect this country. That is their primary duty. Liberals appear to feel more compassion for the terrorists caught in the act of trying to kill (or successfully killing) our soldiers than they do for our soldiers. The same soldiers that they (Democrats and Republicans) sent to this war in the first place. McCain appears to be more with them than against them. He may have suffered a lot for this country, but he apparently is more concerned about what Europe thinks of him than he is about keeping this country secure. His ego is so big, that I have yet to see him make any kind of outreach to conservatives.

McCain may very well win this election with the Democrat contest becoming more and more divisive, even with a lot of conservatives sitting out the election. I don’t think there is one conservative issue that McCain hasn’t compromised in his Senate seat. He is pro-life but supports embryonic stem-cell research. He is pro-guns but supported putting the government in charge of private gun shows and enabling the government to deny permits without cause. He is pro-victory in Iraq, but wants to close Gitmo and move the terrorists to the mainland where they will be tried in public courts instead of military tribunals even though trying them will compromise our intelligence. He is pro-tax cuts but called the Bush tax cuts "tax cuts for the rich" (a liberal mantra). He is pro-free speech but sponsored the campaign finance laws that were supposed to remove the influence of money in campaigns. Instead these laws quash free speech during political campaigns and allow billionaire-socialists like George Soros to have more influence than they ever had before.

I keep hearing so-called conservatives telling me that I should support John McCain because he is better than the other choices. But when I hear our candidate giving speeches that sound more like Jack Murtha and Ted Kennedy than like Ronald Reagan, I start to feel very leery about giving control of our party to such a person. To me it is a bit more than holding my nose and voting for McCain. It is more like swallowing a bucket of excrement while trying to keep a smile on my face. So far, I just can’t convince myself that the end result will be worth the misery.

MY EPIPHANY

While out on my walk this evening, it dawned on me why liberals hate our troops. I could never understand how anyone could treat our troops the way that liberals do, until tonight. It suddenly hit me that they cannot comprehend someone loving this country enough to be willing to risk their life for it. I don't know how you can live in this country and come to such a warped view of it. This country, by far, offers more opportunities for personal success than any of the dicatorships that liberals adore. That is why an Asian man can move here with no more than $50 in his pocket and 20 years later own his own business. It is why you can be on food stamps one year and five years later be in the middle class. Opportunity is here for anyone willing to work for their success. Not that our country is perfect, but I am so proud to be an American. I am so proud that we have men and women who sign up to serve our country, knowing that they could be sent into harms way. I am so proud that our country comes to the aid of other countries when they are devastated by earthquakes, typhoons, hurricanes, mudslides, tornadoes or floods. I am so proud that our country has found cures for some of the worst diseases. I am proud that our country addressed the issues of slavery, women's suffrage, and civil rights in a relatively short time frame. I get chills when I hear our national anthem, & I love to see our flag blowing in the breeze. These are symbols of our people, not our government. If we don't like our government, we can vote them out. We don't have to suffer through a monarchy or a dictatorship, we get to choose our representatives. Our founding fathers were brilliant and I believe divinely guided in the formation of our Republic. So now I understand liberals hatred of our military, but I am still at a loss to understand why they don't just leave the country and find one that they like better (like Cuba or Venezuela) instead of trying to screw ours up. I have a feeling that they wouldn't like being thrown in jail for protesting the government or being murdered for criticizing El Presidente - but hey - lets gripe about the country that lets us protest and block traffic and make up enormous lies about its leaders without any serious repurcussions. Yeah - America is the bad guy in the world. Keeping dangerous terrorists caught killing and maiming our military in Guantanmo Bay - HORRIBLE, but jailing or murdering gays, journalists & political rivals in Cuba - WHO CARES because Castro has national healthcare. Confiscating private businesses in Venezuela so you can steal their profits - BRILLIANT. Freeing women in Afghanistan so they can vote, go to school and walk around without a male relative without fear of being stoned - BRUTAL. Ridding Iraq of a barbarous dictator who made it a habit to rape and torture people, in front of their families, who used poisonous gas (which is a weapon of mass destruction) to murder his own people because they rebelled against him - SHAMEFUL. Inviting the midget dictator of Tehran to one of our Universities while he is supplying weapons to insurgents in Iraq - GENIUS. I am beginning to believe that liberalism IS a mental disorder, because it certainly doesn't make logical sense.

AMERICAN LEFTISTS

Has anyone else noticed how these leftist anti-war protesters always use violence (such as the bomb they threw in a military recruiting center in Time Square)? Being a logical being, it makes me wonder who they are really working for.

Leftists always do the thing they are protesting against. For instance, they burn down homes because they aren't built with "green" materials. Isn't smoke from a fire bad for the environment too, or burning trees and grass?

They protest war because it is violent (or so they say that is their reason) but throw bombs at military recruiting centers (or human feces), and root for Al Qaeda and the Taliban even though Al Qaeda purposefully use children, women and mentally retarded people to fight their war. They cut off the heads of their captives and slaughter anyone who dares to protest their actions. But somehow our military is worse than they are.

They celebrate countries like Cuba and Venezuela where the kinds of protests leftists participate in here would get them killed or imprisoned, but they criticize the country that allows them to spout their stupidity with no more punishment than looking ignorant on TV.

They protest when Americans use their pocketbooks to punish leftist propaganda (this is blacklisting), yet seek repeatedly to silence conservative voices. There is a reason that The View has four liberals to one conservative. Leftists cannot let conservatives have equal time. With four women supporting a liberal view, they are making it appear like the conservative view is outside the "main stream" and they are hoping their audience is susceptible to the subtle propaganda of numbers (in other words we'll go with whoever we think has the popular ideas).

In news stories (both print and television) reporters represent the liberal view as the correct view, while using emotive words like far-right, neo-conservative, extremist, fascist, or right-wing to describe conservative views. A Republican who bucks his party is a "Maverick". A Democrat who bucks his party is ridiculed and marginalized by the media (ex. Zell Miller). Conservatives are never given equal time and equal opportunity to argue different sides of an issue. The assumption is nearly always that the liberal viewpoint is correct and they try to convince the viewer that because they have more people supporting the liberal viewpoint than they do supporting the conservative viewpoint, the liberal viewpoint must be correct. They assume that we all want to be on the side of the majority.

In Hollywood, you need only watch the Oscars or the Academy Awards to see that the liberal viewpoint dominates the movie industry. Year after year they put out propaganda films like Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11, Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, or George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck. These movies are rolled out in the hopes of convincing politically illiterate Americans to join them in their leftist views.

When a conservative viewpoint is displayed in a movie (such as Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ), the director has to fund the movie himself because no leftist producer or movie studio will touch it. Indeed, the movie was viciously attacked in the media as being anti-semitic (anything Christian is by default anti-Jewish according to the media, despite the fact that Christians are the biggest supporters of Israel). Its okay for liberals to prevent conservatives from making movies, or from expressing their views, but liberals want carte blanche to spout whatever idiocy they wish to spew out without paying a price for it in their wallet.

Global warming is another example. Al Gore has said that the issue is decided science and therefore anyone who disagrees is an extremist and should not be given a microphone to argue the facts. He associates global warming opponents to people who still believe the earth is flat. Of course, Al Gore is becoming extremely wealthy flying all over the world in private jets (hey aren't those bad for the environment?) talking about global warming and then selling carbon credits to the convenient idiots who buy into his hype.

I say "What are you afraid of"? Why is it so hard for you to argue ideas without trying to marginalize your opponent? I relish having equal footing to argue ideas with liberals. Why do they feel conservatives should just be silenced? Why not prove that your ideas are better by arguing fairly? Could it be that you don't really believe your own ideas are valid? Could it be that you are afraid people will like conservatism over liberalism? Well, infinitus est numerus stultorum (infinite is the number of fools)…but conservatives will not join them.

REASONS YOU SHOULD NOT VOTE

I have put together a list to help you decide whether you should vote in this election or not. It is your responsibility to be knowledgable before you cast your ballot for a particular candidate. If you don't want to take the time to become informed, then please, let those of us who love our country (and want to see it thrive for us and our children), choose for you.

If you cannot name the President of the United States, don't vote.

If you cannot name the Vice President of the United States, don't vote.

If you cannot name one legislative accomplishment your candidate made, don't vote.

If you don't know the difference between the Republican party and the Democrat party (outside of the media cliches which are highly inaccurate) then don't vote.

If you don't know the difference between liberals and conservatives, don't vote.

If you don't have a rudimentary understanding of how our economy works, don't vote.

If you hate America – don't vote (and please leave the country while you're at it)

If you are supporting a candidate because of how they look, how they talk, or the color of their skin, or their gender – please just stay home.

If you don't know anything about American history, don't vote.

If you are not interested in politics enough to pay attention daily, don't vote. I don't want a doctor who isn't interested in medicine, or a pilot who isn't interested in flying. I want people who care enough to educate themselves in those positions, and I want people who care enough to educate themselves to be the ones who vote.

If you can't locate Iraq on a map or a globe, don't vote.

If you have no idea which countries are the enemies of the United States, don't vote.

If you can't recite the Pledge of Allegiance – don't vote.

If you don't know what the Bill of Rights are, then don't vote.

If you have never read the Constitution of the United States, don't vote.

If you don't know what the Emancipation Proclamation is, don't vote.

If you don't know what the Declaration of Independence is, don't vote.

If you don't know why we celebrate July 4th every year, don't vote.

This is just a small list of reasons people should not vote. I am sure, given more time, I could come up with more reasons. You could start by finding out the answers to these questions to prepare yourself to be a responsible voter.

THE REAL CIVIL LIBERTIES AT RISK

This whole war on terror has been hard to fight with liberals screaming that our civil liberties are being taken away because the government wants warrantless wiretaps to listen to terrorists who call into our country, or because the government wants to keep the terrorist in Gitmo instead of on U.S. soil where they will autmomatically be treated like common everyday criminals instead of terrorists.

Every person sitting in Guantanamo Bay has been caught killing or trying to kill our soldiers and other Americans, so forgive me if I don't give a second thought to how they are treated. I could care less if we hung them upside down by their toes, and fed them to pigs for no other reason than that they are murderous thugs. The truth is they are treated much better than they ought to be treated because we have become such a politically correct country, but I'm not writing this to talk about the terrorists, I am writing this to talk about the real civil liberties that we are losing.

Did you know that in 2012, you will no longer be able to choose the kind of light bulb that you would like to use? Thats right, incadescent light bulbs were outlawed by Congress in the name of environmentalism. We will be forced to use the compact fluorescent lights which already cost $3.00 - $10.00 a piece. Once there is a monopoly, they will cost even more. But that isn't all, these bulbs contain Mercury at levels that are dangerous. So dangerous, that if one breaks over a carpeted area, they recommend that we cut out that area of carpet (not vacuum it). We can't throw these things in the regular trash, because they are bio-hazards. Thanks to our Congress who is focused on pushing the global warming hoax onto the rest of us, we have lost the right to decide if we can light our house with a bulb that uses more energy but is safe or a bulb that uses less energy but is poisonous to plants, animals and people.

Funny how liberals are always attacking the rich, but the trial lawyers keep getting richer with all of the liberal meddling in our lives. Take tobacco. Trial lawyers were able to sue tobacco companies for people who have gotten cancer from smoking, even though cigarettes started warning people that they were dangerous for your health in 1966. If you continued to smoke after that, you should have to take some personal responsibility for that.

Trial lawyers have been suing the government on behalf of terrorists, and other unlawful combatants, and they will sue over broken mercury lightbulbs. Former Democratic candidate, John Edwards, a trial lawyer, made his fortune off of suing doctors claiming that botched deliveries caused cerebral palsy. Because these were jury trials, and John Edwards used emotional arguments, often his clients won their cases, even though it is very rare for the kind of brain-damage needed to cause cerebral palsy to be caused by a doctor. Indeed, most studies seem to indicate a genetic link, but it doesn't matter now. John Edwards got his money and there is nothing the doctors and insurance companies can do to get it back. He and others like him are a part of the reason our medical bills are so high. When docotrs have to buy massive malpractice insurance policies to protect themselves from greedy lawyers, the cost is passed down to us.

Liberals in Congress are of the belief that government should be benevolent. In other words, we are too stupid to figure things out ourselves so we should let the government do it for us. Some of them have been pushing for taxes on junk food to fight obesity, others would like to force car makers to make more fuel efficient cars - which makes the cars more dangerous because the frames are weaker to make the car lighter, thus another avenue of revenue for trial lawyers. They don't want us to get tax cuts - always claiming the tax cuts only benefit the rich, while never defining who the rich are. The reason they don't like tax cuts is because it allows you to decide how to spend your money instead of allowing the government to decide. They would much rather use tax deductions to reward certain behaviors that they deem correct(for buying fuel-efficient cars, for building an environmentally friendly house). They also prefer to spend the money themselves. They have passed campaign finance laws that virtually silences free speech 60 days before an election. All of these things are creeping into our lives and slowly eroding the freedoms given to us by God and enumerated in the Constituion of the United States. When liberals are more worried about sparing the rights of terrorists while eagerly taking away our rights, I have to wonder.... whose side are they on anyway??

THIS IS NOT A WAR ABOUT OIL

Ok, I just watched Shooter which was a half-way decent movie until the end when the Senator proclaims that this war is about oil not weapons of mass destruction. I am so tired of this argument. First of all, lets start with 9/11, a day that over 3000 of our countrymen and women were killed. Those of you who believe the government knew about it and didn't do anything to stop them need to show me some facts. President Bush had only been in office for 8 months and during that entire time, his cabinet appointments were held up over and over again by the Democrats in Congress who were bitter about his win over Al Gore. While there were generic memos about Al Qaeda's desires to fly planes into buildings, there was never any specific information that would allow them to stop the attacks. If there was any evidence whatsoever that President Bush knew about the attacks and failed to act, the Democrats would impeach him right now. Secondly, we do know that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, he used them on his own people and you can find pictures of the men, women and children he slaughtered on the internet. In 2002, France, Germany, England, and the United States all claimed to have intelligence of his persistence in seeking weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons. Even the United Nations agreed. After 9/11 happened, had President Bush failed to act on that intelligence and Saddam Hussein was able to acquire a nuclear bomb and use it against Israel, or our base in Ramstein, Germany or against any of our allies, who would everyone point the finger at? President Bush. If I had been President of the United States and I was told that our enemy was actively seeking to acquire weapons to kill Americans and our allies, and this enemy had a proven track record of using the weapons he acquired, I would have made the same decision as President Bush did. His most important duty is to protect Americans. The only thing I would have done differently is I would have fought the war to win it as quickly as possible, if that meant using every weapon at my disposal and sending 10 times the number of troops, because I want our enemies to be afraid to make the United States mad.

Now to the oil. If we went to war about oil, why didn't we take Iraq's oil? We buy oil from them, but we didn't just take it from them. Why go to war so we can buy 11.3 million barrels of oil from Iraq when we have an estimated 4-11 billion barrels of oil sitting in Anwar that the environmentalists won't let us drill for?? We have other oil reserves in the Everglades, the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of California that we aren't allowed to use. We haven't built an oil refinery in this country since 1976 just 2 years after the end of the oil embargoes. Just to compare, we get 56.2 million barrels of oil from Saudi Arabia, 53.8 million from Mexico, 46.2 from Canada. We buy 223.5 million barrels of oil each year from other countries. Iraq's oil is just a blip on the screen of the oil that we use (about 5%). Hardly worth the cost of war.

It is fine to be suspicious of the government. I wish people were more suspicious when the politicians are promising national healthcare and universal pre-k. Everything the government does takes money, and that money comes from us, the more they spend, the more we get taxed, but I am getting really sick of hearing people act like our country is some war-mongering, world-domination seeking foe of freedom that seeks to steal oil, land, and anything else from other countries. In WWI and WWII the United States occupied but did not conquer other countries. We could have taken Japan, but we didn't. We could have conquered Afghanistan, but we didn't. We could have bombed Iraq into oblivion, killed most of the people and called Iraq a territory of the United States, but we didn't. I am damn glad that I live in this country. I am damn proud of this country and our soldiers and I just want people to start using their brains to analyze some of this B.S. that is out there. Hitler was able to dominate an entire country by feeding off people's fears of conspiracies. It led to the slaughter of millions of Jews and the extermination of gays, the mentally ill and the physically handicapped, the loss of religion, the loss of the right to defend yourself, the loss of the right to raise your own children. If people don't learn to use their brains and logically dissect an argument to see if it is valid, then it won't take much for someone to walk us right over a cliff just like a bunch of sheep. If there ever is an anti-Christ, he won't have much of a challenge.

CHARISMA SHOULD NOT BE EVERYTHING

I recently watched a clip of Hannity & Colmes, where they asked voters supporting Barack Obama to name one thing that Barack had accomplished. Though some tried, none could name anything that Barack really accomplished as a Senator. They kept saying they liked his personality. They liked his optimism. Somebody send me his mailing list because I just figured out who the people in this country are that are giving out their credit cards to strangers over the phone. I could sell these people the London Bridge. For God's sake, Hitler was charismatic. Don't you think you ought to know some of his positions before you cast a vote for the man? Personality counts, but it shouldn’t be everything.

MCCAIN NEEDS TO SHOW SOME LOVE - A LOT OF IT

John McCain's supporters aren't going to convince conservatives to vote for McCain by calling them names and telling them what they HAVE to do. If you think he can win without conservatives, you are out of your mind. He wouldn't even be where he was at now if he hadn't won in states where independents and democrats crossed over to vote for him, while Duncan Hunter, Fred Thompson, Tom Tancredo, Ron Paul, & Mike Huckabee split the conservative vote. McCain has to move right NOT left, because most of his positions are left of center already. He has to convince his base to vote for him, and demeaning them and talking down to them isn't going to do that. That goes for his supporters too. If you can't show some respect to those of us who have honest principled issues with him, then you are not going to change our minds. John McCain's win isn't an indication that conservatism is dead, it is an indication that a liberal can win our nomination by splitting the conservative votes. Here are the number of actual votes each candidate got according to CNN:

Rudy Guiliani - 537,789
Mike Huckabee - 2,347,746
Duncan Hunter - 7,879
John McCain - 4,816,946
Ron Paul - 533,547
Mitt Romney - 4,012,981
Fred Thompson - 142,820

By my calculations, assuming that those who voted for John McCain and Giuliani are moderate to liberal that is a total of 5,354,735 moderates and liberals. Assuming that those tending to be conservative voted for the other candidates (less Ron Paul - for those of you who argue he isn't conservative) that makes a total of 6,511,426 who lean conservative. If you added on Ron Paul's votes, that makes 7,044,973 leaning conservative. If McCain only lost the ones who voted for Romney, and he lost almost all of the democrats who crossed over, he would be in big trouble. Republicans didn't move left, they just got screwed because they split their votes. If you consider the remaining states to vote, they lean more conservative i.e South Dakota, Louisiana (with their new conservative governor), and Kansas, I think that indicates that McCain better start showing some love. He has nine months to convince us that he won't screw us over the way he has screwed our party over time after time. I am not sure he can do it. He keeps saying that he can work with Democrats. We don't doubt that, but can he work with Republicans?

TAXES

If you want to stop a behavior, tax it. If you want a behavior to continue, subsidize it. So why do we tax people for being productive members of society and subsidize the unemployed?

IN REPLY TO JODY

This is in reply to Jody, who commented on my Jennifer Flowers blog.

Jody, you state that you are a conservative woman who is sick of white men running our country and are curious to see what a woman could do. You also stated that your main difference with Hillary is her pro-choice stance, and you don't see that changing, so she would probably help working women with children.

First of all, conservatism is a core set of principles of which the pro-life stance is only one of them. The other stances are less federal government, less taxation, free-markets, and abiding by the Constitution.

You stated that Hillary could help working moms. Let me state that it isn't the government's job to take care of working moms or make their lives easier. You chose to have children, and it is your responsibility to make the sacrifices necessary to raise them. Where in the Constitution is Hillary given the right to take care of working moms?? How exactly do you expect Hillary to do this? Anything the Federal government does costs money. That money comes from working moms and dads. The more she spends, the more we are taxed. I don't know about you, but I earned that money and I want to be able to choose where I spend it. They already steal my money for social security even though I probably will never get to see a social security check because the system is going bankrupt.

Secondly, I don't vote based on sex, or race, EVER. I don't care what sex you are or what race you are. I care about where you stand on the issues. Hillary wants universal health care. That sounds nice, but all you have to do is look at Canada or England to see the problems you get with universal health care. Canadians are coming to the U.S. for treatment because the waiting lines are so long that in some cases they will die before they can get treatment. In England, people are pulling out their own teeth because it takes too long to get into a dentist. But guess what, there are still dentists and doctors in private practice, but only the rich can afford to go to them. Personally, I don't want the government involved in whether I get to live or not.

Next, you state that nothing is getting done about abortions. Well, nothing will get done until we are able to get judges on the Supreme Court who will reverse Roe v. Wade. Hillary will ensure that any justices she puts on the Supreme Court will be pro-choice and that means Roe v. Wade will continue for the conceivable future if she becomes President. That isn't all though. She believes that the Constitution is a "living, breathing document". What this means is that she believes the meaning of the Constitution can be changed at will by judges. That should scare you more than anything, because the Constitution is a contract with the American people, and if it can be changed without our permission, what is there to guarantee our freedoms? She will appoint judges on the lower courts who agree with her. These judges have overturned law after law that the people have voted for because the judge's political views differed. It is supposed to be "we the people" not "we the judges".

My main concern is that you say that you are conservative, yet you want the federal government to ride in like Robin Hood and save the day. Conservatives believe that if the government helps people, it should be at the local level where they are closest to the people they are helping, not some federal bureaucracy in Washington D.C. You also see people in groups of race and sex. Conservatives don't usually look at people in groups. They look at each individual.

I don't oppose Hillary because she is a woman. I oppose Hillary because she is a socialist who believes people are too stupid to take care of themselves. She promises one thing after another and each one of these things, if it doesn't already exist (and they don't), are going to make my taxes go up even higher. As it is, the average American pays everything they earn from January to April in taxes. Do you honestly want to pay more? Or do you think it is okay for the government to continue to take my money from my family and give it to someone else?

I can't believe any truly conservative woman would consider voting for Hillary. She is the total opposite of conservatism. And my memory serves me well enough to remember how her husband pardoned terrorists, his brother and political donors on his way out, and then their people trashed the White House and took some of the furniture.

EMOTIONAL TIES

The easiest way to know when your freedom is being stolen? When the proponents for the thievery of your freedom try to get you emotionally involved. For instance, when they talk about how people can't make their bills making minimum wage, or how many people are living without health insurance (without telling you that most of them are young kids who don't care that they make minimum wage or that they don't have health insurance). This typically results in decisions that give more power to the politicians and take power away from the people, but we all feel better for having helped the poor. Stop selling your freedom for feel good political decisions. Stop and think things out logically. Use the internet and do some research. Universal health care puts the government in control of life or death decisions related to your life or your loved ones lives - does that sound logical to let the government have that much control?? All because some people don't have health insurance? How about being forced to buy health insurance even when you don't want it. I'm sure the insurance companies love it, but where in the Constitution do the politicians have the right to usurp our own decision-making power over our own lives??? These politicians are out of control, and worse yet people have learned nothing from Hitler's reign. If we should have learned anything from Hitler, it should be 1) there are always evil people in this world and we have to be prepared to defend against them and 2) if we don't think logically, we can be misled because of our emotions. Hitler fed off the Great Depression's despair and poverty by finding a scapegoat that the entire German population could blame for it - the Jews. Before they knew what was happening, Hitler was using the public schools to propagandize the German children, he was removing Christianity and replacing it with pagan rituals, and thousands of Germans were participating in the slaughter of men, women and children all based on their illogical emotional hatred of a people blamed for something they had nothing to do with. Wake up America. Stop being led around by your emotions and start using your brains.

FRED IS OUT - AMERICA IS THE LOSER

America is the loser now that Fred has dropped out of the race. We continue to vote for politicians who pollute and dilute the meaning of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Many of you will act surprised when you find one day that the government has confiscated your land or your business. I won't be surprised. I see it coming. Our freedoms are being erroded daily and the American people are closing their eyes to it. You will have to open you eyes some day, God willing you will do it before it is to late. God help us all.

AMERICA WILL ALWAYS NEED LEADERS

When I was in high school, I hated history. It was the most boring subject in school, possibly because history teachers tend to focus more on dates than on details. About 12 years ago I started researching my family tree as a hobby. After a while, I found myself wanting to understand history better. I ended up learning more about politics too because so much of our history is related to political decisions made by our forebears.

A good friend of mine is a direct descendant of Patrick Henry. He is famous for the following line during the months leading up to the American Revolution: "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" Think about that. Here we had 13 American colonies, no standing army, and they were planning on going up against the greatest military on the face of the earth. Their chances of actually winning independence were slim. Indeed, fiery words like these could be considered treasonous to the British and may have been punishable by death had the British won the war or captured Patrick Henry. But he stood up in a room full of his peers and said that if he couldn't live free, he would rather not live at all. How many of us would be willing to make that choice in defense of freedom? Most Americans don't even realize how much of our freedom has been consumed by our own government since we declared independence in 1776. We are taxed at a far greater rate now than we were when our forefathers decided they had had enough of British tyranny. Our right to practice our religion has been trampled on by secularists who insist that you cannot have any religion outside of secular humanism or atheism and many Christians have allowed them to do it. Some Christians assume that if they just practice their religion quietly, everything will be okay. Well, evangelical Christians could change the direction of the government, if they bothered to educate themselves and vote, but far too many sit out of the elections.

I don't think Americans realize just how miraculous the creation of our nation was and how much responsibility we have to take for its future. We have to be always on our guard against people who would trade our sovereignty for global governance, who would seek to expand government at the expense of our freedoms, who would weaken our country in order to be more popular with the socialist governments in Europe (and try to appease Europe's intense jealousy of our success). I say stand up and be a man, stand up and be a woman. Defend your country from people who seek to enslave you with laws that tell you what kind of light bulb you can use, that tell you who your doctor will be and when you can see a doctor. You don't have to risk your life to stand up for your country. You can defend it by voting - but you have to educate yourself. You cannot rely on the media to tell you what is going on. These are the same people who would not call Al Qaeda "the enemy" even after 9/11. With the internet you can find both sides of any issue and make a decision. If a politician promises to spend more money on more projects, just remember that money comes from your taxes and new spending means new taxes. Don't let them tell you that they will tax the rich. The rich always find a way to pass it down to the middle class. The real question is, who can spend your money better? You or the government? Now do your civic and moral duty and get informed and participate in your caucuses and your primaries. Make a difference for your country. Be a Patrick Henry for our time.