Bob Beckel is an idiot.

I heard Bob Beck on Fox just a few minutes ago (YouTube embed when available), he says that Republicans got their chance and couldn’t govern and that they cause the economic crisis. Further he says that we must give President Obama a chance, since he has only been President for a month.  Well, I call B.S. on this and I will tell you why.

While it is true that we got our chance to govern and in some ways failed, we were not responsible for this economic crisis, not as a party.  

The Republican Party is against the bailouts, against the original TARP, against stimulus, against high risk loans to individuals who show no means of being capable to make payment, against the tax payer insuring those very same loans once default.  Heck the Democrats have been saying that on the T.V. for year’s right??  I say why fight it, they have painted us as obstructionist, fine they own it.   

The problem with Beckel’s concept of how this happened and who is to blame, is the fact that he lives only in the present, the past is just a waste of time for him.  For the last two years the Federal Government has been, ideologically, under the control of the Democratic Party in both the House and the Senate along with a pre-occupied and marginalized Republican President.   President Bush, for all his greatness as Commander and Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces, completely gave up the reigns to domestic policies to the moderates and communist/socialist left.  Due to this we had the first Auto-Bailout, back when approx $30 Billion was still a lot of money. We also saw the first Bank bailout, the TARP, the next mini loan to Auto, Stimulus.  All that equates to a 21.36% drop in the Dow since Election day, with precipitous falls coinciding with the passage of the stimulus and the Treasury Sect. Tim Geithner’s answer deficient presser.

Look here Bob Beckel, you guys have talked down the economy for six years now.  Reap it.

Us conservatives who live within our means will be ok.  We will keep our wits and put communist/socialist leftists and the useful idiots, such as yourself, back in the minor leagues come 2010.  Freedom is incompatible with the ideology of the left.  

I encourage all conservatives to re-read Goldwater’s thoughts on negotiation with communists in The Conscience of Conservative.  The communist only enters negotiation when it is strategically beneficial to them, giving away only what they never really wanted in the first place.  Since they do not negotiate in the sunlight, our goal should be total victory over their ideology.  Part of that is calling out the useful idiots, who repeat the big lie ad infinitum.

Bob Beckel, you’re an idiot, straight from the mold.  This isn’t something you inherited…this is something you created with your rhetoric.  I hope you are happy.

(Crack Dealer)

So I am a crack dealer, and I like you. In fact go ahead and have this rock..for free, really it’s on me. I know you are thinking that this crap could kill you, but it wouldn’t make much sense to have you die. You are a valued customer, so trust me, I would never give you more crack than you could handle. Now you come back when you want some more ok??

(First time user/eventual crackhead)

Wow, this crack makes me feel alive, I feel like I can do anything…Yes.We.Can!!

A few months down the road…

(eventual crackhead)

Man I remember that time I tried crack…I felt so good while I was high…I need more.

(Crack Dealer)

I hear ya…I can hook you up…you know cause I really do like you..this time though I have to charge you…just business, you know.

(eventual crackhead)

Well I really don’t have the cash for that right now…

(Crack Dealer)

That’s ok man, I will let you put it on credit, once you are feeling good again you will be able to pay me back….::evil grin::

(eventual crackhead)

Thanks man….if you every need me for anything you just let me know, I will be your guy.

(Crack Dealer)

Oh I know…::that evil grin again, wierd::

A few years pass by and everybody in town is craked out…the Crack Dealer is the only shmuck in town with any money and also the only guy with crack. There remains a large contingent of people who just never liked crack, but they are continually demonized and blamed for the joblessness and low benefits that the crackheads need to survive.

(Crack Dealer..sensing the chance at complete domination)

Crackheads, there was a time when you had no crack, and I provided it for you. There were days when you needed crack but couldn’t afford your rock, but I had your back. Soon we can achieve our goal, and crack will come out of the water faucets, free to all. But, in order for that to happen you must protect me from the non crackheads amongst us. You must vote for me to be your Crack Dealer forever. You know that they will take your crack away, don’t you. Besides, you owe me. And I will collect what is owed!!

So goes the story in Venezuela. Chaves has been giving them Socialism in peicemeal, single rocks at a time, always sure to avoid overdose. Now he has achieved his next step towards a socialist dictatorship, the end of term limits for all government officials.

As sad as this is for the people of Venezuela, we have our own crack dealer here at home. President Obama and the Democratic party at large will be employing the same strategies in our country that Hugo has employed in Venezuela. The first bit of crack is already out the door, waiting the final signature of President Obama. All on credit. The Fairness Doctrine is next in the hopper of egregious offenses to the Republic. They have given the people socialism as peicemeal, next they will silence the opposition. Then they will come for our weapons. Then they will insist upon chains, for our own safety.

I am not yet a crackhead, nor do I intend to become one. I don’t intend on taking money via the stimulus, other than those things which I cannot deny. I encourage everyone else to deny, as much as possible, the money that may flow your way via the stimulus. Don’t take the crack rocks. Not even the T.V. converter coupons.

We need to wake up before we all wake up with white ashy lips, crack pipe in hand and chains on our ankles.

I hope that some of the Governors of the States would also fight accepting the Stimulus funds.

This may be our last chance to beat back the wrongheaded ideology of socialism.

I propose a 60% / 40% split between tax cuts and infrastructure projects repsectively.

The 40% that would go to infrastructure we would require language insuring fastrack approval of all valid projects, which would go to a private contractor within any given state.  The contractor who receives the contract will be chosen by the States Legislature with consent of the Governor.  The State will have an open bid process where the local citizens can see the business and their profiles, allowing them to influence their State legislatures in the desire they choose.  The work would have to take no longer 2 years, unless they continue without money from the federal economic stimulus plan.

The 60% percent that would go to taxes would be a progressive tax cut across the board.  Now I know what you are thinking, this is a good progressive thing.  We would lower all of the tax rates, drop income tax rates by 25% and the corp 10% and so forth (I would need a good mathematician to work this out for me, but it’s the idea I am selling, not a detailed plan…works for Geithner..).  In addition the tax bracket of he income tax would be slightly progressive in nature cut the lower incomes at a higher rate then the higher incomes, clause out the small business reporting as income, this would create wealth at all levels and still satisfy the idea of equality.  Now I know that this won’t win us bipartisan support, but it will show that we tried, and it is not as destructive as other options and can be changed later.

I believe these two things would jumpstart the economy and create private wealth to everyone in the nation no matter the income level.  This could be used to bring targeted, timely, and temporary stimulus to our nation.  We are 7 months into the recession (can’t cite this right now, heard it today somewhere) and the fact is that we may start out of this slump naturally pretty soon.  Even with today’s jitters in the market I still think we are near the bottom and the signs of growth are just over the horizon.

This plan would more than likely speed up a healthy economy, and I think it will also have the capability of saving our sick economy.  Then again, I ain’t no economist, just a simpleton who has had to deal with some tight budgets.  What do I know?

A good subtitle would be “In Which I gush about House Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA)“.

I read a nice tidbit about Rep. Cantor that I got via The New Ledger h/t Erick Erickson.  The Ambinder article is about Rep. Cantor’s counter to the DCCC’s assualt on, private citizen, Rush Limbaugh.  

Rep. Cantor is calling the President’s and his party’s bluff.  The people voted for hope, they were promised “Bipartisianship”, they are getting “Bipartisianship™“.   So Rep. Cantor, well let’s quote from the article:

will soon issue a statement contending that Obama’s promise to “put an end to petty politics” is “threatened” as the White House and their allies “are making political threats rather than crafting a bipartisan economic stimulus plan.”

This is an expected play at some point in any new administration.  Pit the President and his Party against themselves.  Can you say Comprehensive Immigration Reform™?  What is so great about this is that it is so soon.  

Rep. Cantor didn’t just stop there, although that was great in and of itself.  Whip Cantor called for President Obam to “immediately disavow” liberal interest groups like Americans United for Change*, who work regularly with the White House and the Congressional Democrats, who have created commercials targeting Republicans.

Here is the video set to target Sen. Murkowski

Now each of the videos is exactly the same except the endings differ depending on who is being targeted.  They also have a national version that pretty much just blame all Republicans and the Bush Admin…even in victory…classless, but I digress.  Where was I, oh yes, Rep. Cantor.

Let us be clear: attack ads will not create jobs or help struggling families but will only serve to undermine our nation’s desire for bipartisanship. Instead of thinking about winning at any cost, we should all be thinking about creating the jobs Americans need

Rep. Cantor was chanelling Bill Clinton in this quote…but I give him a pass on that for two reasons.  First, He is right.  If Obama employs a permanent campaign philosophy with us we will insure extreme discomfort as often as possible.  Second, this is the absolute reality of what is happening.  The Obama Adminstration and the Democratic Party in and out of Congress are engaging in incitement because they now can’t provide Hope™, none the less Change™.

I say everybody with a spare buck or two should drop a couple off right here, you know, just to show your appreciation.  Or don’t…and wave good bye slowly to the idea of the Republic.  Yep I said it.  We are at a tipping point in our nation.  The statist, socialists have a firm grasp on the reigns of power and if they go unchecked we are screwed. Bad.  Add to that the economic peril that we are in and quips about Weimar don’t seem so dang funny anymore.  

It’s time to stand up and fight, part of that is being their for our leaders like Rep Eric Cantor.  Cantor is as conservative as you can get, and this strategery sounds just right to me.  Go Donate now. You don’t have to donate a lot…I just gave $10…that is what my budget would allow right now.  Some of you can do more, some of you can’t give any money.  Those who can do more, I hope you do.  Those who can’t give money, you should be writing to the editors of you local papers and the national papers.  Write your congress men if you live in one of the targeted States, write the DCCC and let them know that you will never vote for them if they continue this partisan, machine politics where the opposition is silenced.

In sum, Thank you Rep. Cantor!!!!

In a 22 months the midterm elections will be upon us.  The way I see it this gives us 18 months to walk the walk before 6 months of intense campaigning begins.  I think we should start floating ideas via our leaders in Congress.  Each idea will invariably fail becuase we simply don’t have the numbers to get them past…but that doesn’t matter right now, as it would have other benefits regardless.   The ideas will get exposure from friendly media, the ideas will show us as more than obstructionists, the ideas will be setting the agenda for 2010 if we are able to capture the majority.  

Now these are just a couple rough ideas that I have, I am sure they can be improved upon.

* I would like to limit the amount of legislation that can come forward in any given year.  This would be a hard limit that could only be bypassed in emergency situations, which would be voted on and would require a 75% majority to justify exceptions to the rule.

* Tax Reform, We must get away from the progressive tax system.  10% across the board, including Corp/Capital Gains/Sales/Payroll (I am not an economist, I will defer to others on the actual rate and whether is should be across the entire spectrum)

* Open all available assets up for energy.  Oil, check..Natural Gas, check…Nuclear, check….Wind, check…Hydro-Electric, check…..all of it.  In coordination with this I would want to see the Dept. of Energy to take a step back and act as a simple mediator for the individual States.  The States should choose which Energy product will best meet their States need and infrastructure.  The Federal Gov’t dictating/mandating what product to use and where will not work.

Anyhow those are my three quick ideas.  Let me see yours.

One last note, no matter what ideas we present it won’t matter unless our leaders on the hill act on them.  If they simple win the majority and then cave….well Obama will be a two term President.  Your choice guys.

Recently Mbecker wrote an excellent diary thanking President Bush for the Man that he is.  One of the points was President Bush’s character displayed by his continued meetings with the families of those who gave their life in defense of freedom.  Unfortunately, one of the comments stirred some commotion down in the thread which resulted in a banning.

I am not writting this to in order to get that RedState member re-instated.  I am merely relating Bird’s explanation and apology so that his character doesn’t get the same treatment that the left gave to our President.  Below is the text of Birdmojo’s explanation of his comment and overall conflict with the war in Iraq.  I hope this gives you a bit more insight about Birdmojo and why he responds the way he does used to.

(I suppose that there may a discussion revolving around whether I was coving up for my sarcasm or whether I was sincere. Here’s an essay that I’d be happy to make into a diary if I am re-instated. If nothing else, perhaps seeing my take on the war could help resolve the question of whether my post was sarcasm and I’m lying by saying it wasn’t or whether my post was sincere and misread as sarcasm.)

9/11 blew me away. I was working 3-11PM at a tech support job at the time. I had a friend call me up from a sound sleep (my sleep hours were messed up) and he told me to turn on the television.

I was floored. I couldn’t believe that this had happened. Half of me stared in disbelief while the other half went down a checklist of the people who might have done this. The Russians? Nah. They’re preoccupied. China? Nah, not their style. Terrorists? Yeah, probably terrorists. I kept trying to get to news websites but they were down. I knew about sites like “instapundit” and he did a good job of posting links to sites that weren’t down… and I got information that way.

Half of me hoped that the American response wouldn’t include nukes, the other half of me hoped it would. Neutron bombs were cleanish, right? Drop them, they kill everybody, then you don’t have to do a whole lot of cleanup, right? That’ll make it okay on the neighbors of whomever we nuke and allow them to move into the now-vacant real estate.

Half of me wished that Clinton was still president. Half of me was glad that this had happened with a Republican in office.

As the weeks passed and the red faded from my eyes, I realized that, yeah, I was probably glad that we didn’t nuke two or three countries. That probably would have been a bit much… but what do we do? Well, Afghanistan was a gimme. Of course we had to go in there… and I was surprised that the Americans sat down to talk with the Taliban first… remember that? “Give us bin Laden.” We didn’t go in there with guns blazing, we didn’t go all Jack Bauer… we sat down to talk. And, of course, the Taliban were lying. Every thing they said was a lie to buy time and to hope/pray that the UN and the rest of the world would talk us down. Well, we went in… but we didn’t go in guns blazing. Every measure was made to protect civilians. Sure, we’d drop daisy cutters on the fighters in the mountains (remember reading about that? I read an article that quoted some British soldiers as saying “oh my god, the yanks are using nukes!”)… but in, say, Kabul, the Americans were downright acting against their own best interests.

Half of me still wanted blood, though.

When Iraq came up, I supported it whole-heartedly. I pointed out that the UN wasn’t certain that Saddam got rid of his weapons. When my lefty friends talked about how that wasn’t sufficient, I went through mailing lists and found quotes from them where they had defended Clinton’s bombing of Iraq against the isolationist Republicans using, wouldn’t you know it, UN reports saying that Saddam had not demonstrated that he had gotten rid of his weapons. I argued that Saddam was a monster, I argued that any country that had Official Secret Police *REQUIRED* intervention by anyone with the strength to do something. Well, that was the argument from half of me. The other half knew that if someone punched you in a bar and knocked you flat, you had dang well stand up pretty quickly and punch *SOMEBODY* out. Maybe the right person, maybe not. The important thing was to send the message to everyone else in the bar.

Iraq fell in, what? A time period better measured in days than weeks? Certainly better in weeks than in months. I watched Baghdad Bob and cackled at his audacity. Before you knew it, the Saddam Statue was being toppled and Iraqis were hitting Saddam posters with the soles of their shoes. See? I pointed out to my lefty friends. SEE???

A short while after that, Saddam was captured… and after that the mission was accomplished.

Half of me thought we should just leave a note on Saddam’s throne that read, in English and Arabic, “We don’t care who sits here. Sunni, Shiite, Baathist, Kurd, Iraqi, Iranian, or Israeli. Don’t make us come back.”

The other half of me thought that, well… we toppled Iraq, we should help it stand back up. These people were oppressed by Saddam for so long that they had forgotten how to be a free people. We needed to Kipling up. Help them back on their feet. Make them a beacon to the rest of the Middle East.

Well… let’s just say that a lot has happened since then. The whole “Weapons of Mass Destruction” thing didn’t pan out the way I thought it would. I honestly thought that he still had them, or (at the very least!) that he had a way to quickly make them again and get back to where he needed to be though, technically, he may have been following the letter of the law by not having the weapons, I thought that the components would be found in amounts that would allow me to point and say “see? He could have had weapons in days, if not hours!” For a while, I jumped on every report that mentioned stuff like proof that they had been smuggled into Syria or proof that they had been dumped in the desert or that a stockpile of mustard gas shells had been found… then I just went back to pointing out that, hey, nobody could have known that the WMDs weren’t there. Not even the UN was able to confirm it. Even Saddam was surprised that he didn’t have them.

But I was ticked at having been wrong.

I then focused on the burgeoning democracy. Remember those purple fingers? Man, I was proud of those. But the Iraqis kept fighting. They kept bombing. Police stations! These were people who were blowing up car bombs in front of POLICE STATIONS. I began to really resent the Iraqis. How could we have freed them from Saddam and have them blowing up car bombs in front of police stations in response? I began to wonder if staying in Iraq wasn’t a mistake. The cultural differences were far, far too much… we should have left a note in Saddam’s chair after all. These people were going to be killing each other whether or not our soldiers were there, why keep our soldiers in harm’s way?

But I kept reading reports from the soldiers who were there who kept saying “I believe in what we’re doing over there.” The soldiers who argued otherwise? They tended to be nuts like Jesse MacBeth. The soldiers who were on the ground and fighting… they wrote back saying that they believed in the Iraqi people. So I figured then, and figure now, that the soldiers know more about what’s going on than I do.

It still galls me to have been wrong about the WMDs and twice as much to have been wrong about how the Iraqi people would have responded to Saddam being gone. Half of me thinks “If I had known then what I knew now, I would have argued against the Iraq war, rather than for it.” The other half of me thinks that that’s wasted effort and, looking back, nobody knew that Iraq didn’t have WMDs, not the UN, not even Saddam.

As much as my being “wrong”, if you want to call it that, about the war galls me, Bush has met with the parents of the soldiers who died in Iraq. I merely defended Bush’s decision but *HE* is the guy who made it. As awful as I feel looking and seeing no WMDs, imagine what Bush feels when he thinks about it. As awful and resentful of the Iraqi people as I feel, imagine what Bush feels when he thinks about it. I guess part of me sort of assumed that he slowed down or even stopped meeting with parents after the Cindy Sheehan thing, but it looks like he didn’t. Even after being wrong about the WMDs and wrong about how the Iraqis would respond, Bush has the humility and strength to meet with the parents of the soldiers who fall in Iraq… these same soldiers who, surely, were writing home and saying stuff like “I believe in this mission” to their parents.

Bush sits down with the parents and looks them in the eye. That’s amazing.

Wow.

That’s mind-boggling.

That’s the essay I suppose I should have written rather than the comment that I left. Neil and Streiff probably think that it couldn’t have been written by the real birdmojo as it doesn’t mention “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” once.

And, I suppose, I should look at how the general response to my post was an automatic assumption of sarcasm rather than an automatic assumption that I meant the whole “amazing, wow, mind-boggling” thing (which, I assure you, I did). I don’t talk about the whole Iraq war because I have so many internal conflicts about supporting it in the first place (you know when people were shouting “NEOCON!!!” so much in 2003 and 2004? I knew that they were shouting at the Fiscal Conservatives who weren’t really Social Conservatives but believed in a vigorous Foreign Policy which is to say… I knew that when someone said “neocon”, they were talking about someone just like me). The main lesson I’ve learned from the Iraq War is to not automatically assume that the isolationists/non-interventionists are automatically wrong but I temper that with the whole “you didn’t and couldn’t have known” thing.

Anyhow, the post that got me blammed was *NOT* sarcastic, though I see now how it could have been interpreted as being so.

Birdmojo has never denied that he is not a registered republican.  Birdmojo was in fact closer to the classical liberal than the modern libertarian.  I knew Birdmojo (Jay) briefly while I live in Colorado, I know that his personal moral compass is true.  I know that I could agree with him 95% of the time, even if I didn’t agree with his way of getting his point across.  I know that his wit will be missed, at least by me.  I hope Birdmojo is not remembered as the guy who took President Bush’s commitment to character lightly, because that would be the absolute opposite of the truth.

Hopefully this will not be my last post, but if it is at least it will have been done for the right reason.  Truth.

Well, it is my first RedState birthday, and as it seems to be sort of a tradition ’round these parts, I decided to write a diary to celebrate. I came to RedState near the end of the primary flame wars, it was all but decided that McCain would be the nominee and any hope for a TrueConsevative™ entering the White House were pretty low. Despite this, the attitude and spirit of the site was high, everyone was ready to fight for their vision and, in part, the greater vision of the Republican Party. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how deep you dislike of McCain went, we lost the battle for 2008, but as I said this was just a battle, the war rages on.

There are so many people who I would like to thank, if I miss anyone I am truly sorry.  

First and foremost I would like to thank Erick in particular and the Directors in general, I came here from Politico so I fully appreciate the very existence of this site (anyone who was a member of Politico should understand this).  You guy’s have done a great thing for Republicans and Conservatives by allowing us to have a fairly unfiltered voice to some of the top echelons of the Republican Party.  Thank you very much for that.

Next i would like to thank E Pluribus Unum.  Without your diaries on Fred, Kirk, and conservatism in general, I may have never been able to understand and verbalize the very philosophy that I am a part of.  Thank you for the discussions, critiques, and encouragements.  Congratulations on your promotion to the status of FP contributor, it is truly deserved.

Gamecock…well what can I say brotha, you have challenged me in my thoughts and I love you for it.  Your writing style is so very unique.  I am so pleased that you found your way to our party and have taken up the banner of Reagan.  You unapologetically defend and promote the ideas that make our country great, I thank you for that.

Achance, thanks for trying to impart some knowledge to me, especially on the nuts and bolts.  Your experience invaluable and I hope to continue learning from you.  Although we may disagree on Gov. Palin on some points I appreciate you being frank and honest about what you know as fact and what you expect due to circumstance, that delineation shows character that many who dislike Gov. Palin simply lack.

Mbecker and Moe Lane thanks for the lessons in sarcasm (really that a compliment…;^)).  The two of you have helped me cut through the BS of trolls like a hot knife through butter…which I can then put on my big bucket of popcorn…;^)

Jaded, you remind me each day what it means to be a patriot.

PaRep…give me your luch money…now!!!

Neil, thanks for keeping the site up and running.

Birdmojo…I know you are still reading so let me just say, send me your email aaronbg.gardner@gmail.com …if I am ever in town we will have to close down Jose’s, thanks for all the great conversations.

Speciallist…love the pictures, you make each day speacial!!

Last but not least, AceinTX.  Thanks you so much for all the effort in exposing the fifth colunm within our party.  Never let up.  Conservatism will rise again and those b4stards will rue the day!!!

Ok I know that I have forgotten a buch of others who I should thank, but I have a 9 month old and haven’t slept through the night since her birth…so I apologize if I missed you, trust me though…your are all loved.

So, happy birthday to me….cake is in the kitchen and beer is on the deck, thanks for the education!!

I honestly don’t know where to begin with this diary…so I suppose I will just begin at the beginning.

 Some 200 plus years ago our forefathers took it upon themselves to set about to create a new nation.  A nation of free men.  A nation that governed from the bottom up rather than a nation that ruled from the top down.  
 
Upon declaring their indepence from the tyranny and totalitarian rule of King George they fought on the battlefields and in the debating halls.  They came up with a system of government which derived it’s power from the people.  They took caution to ensure that the powers of the government would be separated not only in the three branches of the Federal Government but also between the Federal Government and the State Governments which comprised the whole.  
 
It seems as though immediately after codifying these rules of government, which were meant to establish liberty and freedom for all, some began to usurp those same rules.  

Although the names of these groups has changed over the years the political philosophies have held steady in their basic nature, power belongs to me and not to thee. Today these ideals are held primarily by the Democratic party and, to a marginally lesser extent, by those whom we refer to as Rinos, or big government Republicans.

Today it seems as though we really only have one monolithic goverment with various aparati beneath that claim to be soveriegn governments of the States.  This may seem like a rather pessimistic view of our current situation, but I will provide a few examples of what I mean, so as not to come off as a melodramatic.

First, I will bring up Education in America.  Education, to me, is area of government that is best left to those who are closest to it and affected the most by it.  I was reading today an article about the coming budget battle that will take place in the Vermont Legislature. Gov. Jim Douglas, in his inaugural speech, chose to single out Education Reform as one of the many ways to wrangle in the budget shortfalls that Vermont will be facing. The article was good but it made me realize that there was really not a whole lot that the state on it’s own could do, at least without causing more trouble down the road. Here is a small excerpt from the the article:

We can’t ignore the fact that from FY 2006 through FY 2010 there has been a 23 percent increase in what we spend for our K-12 school system - yet we are educating 4,300 fewer students. We can’t ignore the fact that in the past decade we have added 3,500 positions to our schools, yet we are educating 10,000 fewer students. As the governor pointed out, for every three students we lose, we add a staff position, which, obviously, is an unsustainable trend.

Why is this happening? To a large extent, it’s the result of federal and state mandates. Unfunded mandates. School boards are not hiring additional people because they want the challenge of getting their budgets passed. They hire because they are being told to hire to fill a need.

Now, I am new to Vermont, so I can’t really argue for or against the need for these new positions. Although, I direct your attention to the bolded text. The Federal Government has taken upon itself a wholly unconstitutional ability to mandate to a State, and further the local community, how many positions should be created and thus filled and funded. The Democrat or Rino would read this and see a responsibility for the Federal Government to provide funding for this mandate. Well, needless to say, I am no Rino, and certainly no God forsaken Democrat.

The problem to me is obvious, we need to get rid of the Federal mandate. The only question that remains is how the hell are we gonna do that? Honestly, I don’t know and this was my catalyst for writing this diary.

Before I get too far let me offer up another example of the usurpation of which I speak. Equal Opportunity Employment and Affirmative Action. I am neither a bigot nor a racist, but I have no love for a policy instituted by the Federal Government, and mandated for implementation at all levels of both the private and public sector. Now, I am not going to even attempt to provide links to data sets or give anecdotal evidence that these policies are harmful to the Republic and by most interpertations go far beyond the Constitutional limits on the Federal Government, to me they are, well lets just say “self evident”.

Again, I am drawn back to the question, how the hell are we gonna do it? Again, I don’t know.

The only plausible answer to me is that it will take the majority of Americans becoming so entrenched in the misery of totalitarian government that they finally wake up and say “NO MORE!!!”

The saying goes that, “all politics is local”, this is true in that grassroots are needed to secure any political power.  I applaud Erick Erickson for creating The RedState StrikeForce of which I am a proud member. But, I am coming to the conclusion that we must be prepared to take our local issues and make them national. We must be willing to band together a coalition of pissed off conservatives, federalists, and libertarians to march to the steps of Congress, pitchfork and torches in hand, in order to change the landscape at the top in the hopes of returning to a Federal Government properly limited to the confines set forth in the plain reading of the Constitution, emanations and penumbras not withstanding.

A cultural, political, and philosophical insurrection is what it took to drag us to this point, maybe that is the only way to get back.

I hope that it doesn’t come to violence in the streets before our collective voices will be heard, but I fear that it may be too late.

If I have crossed the line in any way in what I wrote above feel free to replace it with a cute video of a cat jumping headlong into a mirror, it will pretty much convey the same feelings I am having about our current situation.

Yes Pecan. The profits from the sale of this new flavor will, of course, go to a “nonpartisan” group as briefly noted in the linked article:

The proceeds for the ice cream will go to Common Cause, liberally leaning and described as “a nonpartisan, nonprofit advocacy organization founded as a vehicle for citizens to make their voices heard in the political process.”

Now this is all well and good and I don’t really care that Ben and Jerry’s did this, but I believe that we here at RedState could have offered a plethora of names that would have been soooo much more clever and appropriate. The description of this new flavor is here but I will also quote so you don’t have to go to there page:

“YES PECAN!” An Inspirational Blend! Amber Waves of Buttery Ice Cream With Roasted Non-Partisan Pecans.

I think we could do better…Speciallist I expect you to have a great comment, maybe even two….;^)

Ok RedStaters, mark your calendars for Jan 5th 2009 at 1 PM Est.  Americans for Tax Reform will be hosting The RNC Chairman’s Candidate Debate live.  They will also be taking questions, which you can submit on the day of the debate.   There will also be a twitterfeed for the debate so those on twitter can follow (sorry don’t have a link for that yet).

I encourage all to participate and make your voice heard.  Most of us don’t get to vote on the RNC Chair, but at least we can voice our discontent with the current RNC Chair and urge the others to chart a new path that will reflect where we want to party to go.  Whether you are a moderate who wants to expand the tent or a conservative who wants to return to first principles, this is your chance to let the candidates know and get their responses on record.

I hope you all take part.

From Brietbart via Drudge

Apparently the Perry County Commission decided they needed a paid day of in order to celebrate Barack Obama’s presidential win. Granted, electing a black man is historic but he hasn’t even governed anything yet, not to mention succeeded at governing.

The employees of the county will get a day off and the taxpayers of the county won’t. Well I guess all I can say is you get the gov’t you deserve…even at the county level.

H/T to Drudge
Breitbart is reporting that Colmes is leaving Hannity and Colmes.

This begs the question…who will replace Colmes?

Promoted from the diaries by Erick

Lately there seems to be a lot of confusion as to what a Conservative is and is not. Some seem to think it has to do with abortion or taxes or national security. Well the truth is that conservatism is not about any given issue, rather conservatism is about principles.

Before we go any further I believe it would behoove us to go over a bit of terminology that is thrown about too often without people understanding thier meanings. the terms I am refering to are Issues, Policies, and Principles.

First let’s deal with Issues.

An Issue, for the purpose of Politics, is something that is a cause of dispute. Issues come and go, some last longer than others, but all issues are fleeting in the long term. Some issues we deal with today are abortion, international terrorism and slowing or failing markets.

Next we have Policies.

Policies are the constructs that we create to deal with any given issue. Policies of today include the ESCR Ban, GWOT, and TARP.

Last but not least we have Principles.

Principles are what guide us in the formation of Policy on any given Issue. All political groups have their set of principles that guide them, but not all principles are equal.

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I know this has nothing to do with politics and feel free to remove it if I am abusing my RedHot privileges, but this looks great!!

Today I recieved an email from RNC Chairman Mike Duncan encouraging me to reflect on why I am a Republican and to share my input. In order to do so they have put up a site called Republican for a Reason. I encourage all of us to participate on this site.

The site allows you to post 2000 character text posts on a variety of topics. Also it allows you to upload video post, for those of you with pretty faces…;^). Additionally users can rate posts on a scale of 1-5 stars. This, to me is the most important part of the site. This is an opportunity for conservatives to create a grassroots groundswell that cannot be ignored.

Already the site has some comments condemning evangelicals and conservatives in general, but there is hope as most of the 5 star comments appear to be in favor of conservatism.

So I am hoping that you will all take a gander, make your voice heard and give out some stars to the conservative posts. After all if we don’t take this opportunity to speak out now, we may be silenced for a long time to come.

H/T to Drudge for this link.

Apparently some are planning to promote a National holiday for Barack Obama. This is absolutely ridiculous. In my life span we have demoted Pres. Washington and Pres. Lincoln to being lumped in with all the other Presidents while promoting Martin Luther King above all others who fought for civil rights for all people, not just African Americans. Now, before he has issued one Executive Order, not to mention, even been inaugurated, there are some who are planning to promote him above all others. Shameful.

The point I was making was that the Journalists were attacked for trying to expose this. They were trying to be helpful and were met with violence. This should not be since The One was elected…we’re all supposed to be friends now. After further review, I probably should have let this one go in the trash heap.

60 Minutes Reporters Attacked in China

Shouldn’t China now understand that we only have their best intentions in mind? After all didn’t HOPECHANGEHOPE win on Tuesday Night?

In the aftermath of the utter failure of the McCain campaign, and the Republicans in general, to come with and understandable and comprehensive plan of how we will govern, I decided to look back on to the giants whose shoulders we should be standing. I will warn you right now that this is a very long diary and it is unequivocally conservative. It is my opinion that this should be the starting point for the road forward. I looked back to the Republican Party Platform for 1980. I went through the entire thing and subtract some and added some based on what I believe are still issues and what I believe needed to be updated. Surprisingly you will find that not much has change, but isn’t that always the way it comes out. Have at it.

Free Individuals in a Free Society

Properly informed, our people as individuals or acting through instruments of popular consultation can make the right decisions affecting personal or general welfare, free of pervasive and heavy-handed intrusion by the central government into the decision making process. This tenet is the genius of representative democracy.

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Cross posted at TMR here.

Recently I wrote about Self Governance and the Moral Standard. Today I would like to continue in the theme of Self Governance and how Economic Policy can either move our Nation toward or away from that goal.

First I need to define some terms for the purpose of this discussion. In my view there are only three basic views on economic policy, the first is the Free Market, the second is Keynesian Free Market, and the third is the Socialist Market. I am sure that many will call me naive or uneducated in the realm of economics, and I am fine with that. I don’t have a degree in economics and to be honest my knowledge of economics is limited, but, as will become apparent, that does not make what I say any less relevant.

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