The main purpose of this blog is to initiate debate on a number of issues Gamecock has been unable to address over the past two weeks due to an increase in legal work in my day job. I want to get some ideas out there and get reactions and input from my fellow bloggers. I provide links and my propositions and/or questions on several issues, that I have not seen addressed on specific points, after the immediate introductory remarks below.

Introductory remarks

(Some may want to skip these semi-biographical and explanatory remarks and go immediately to the issues section below):

I have never done a blog like this before for several reasons. I am shamelessly into self promotion (I am a lifelong free market capitalist, self-employed entrepreneur) and have been pursuing a goal of a second career (writing) since 2003 that would pay all my bills by 2013. I am progressing nicely. And it is hard to use a potpourri semi-open thread to advance same in the way one can market a regular column.

But, I am also an issues/substance/ideas guy and also crave input on many issues, and simply must clear the palate now given how busy my day job legal carer has gotten lately thanks to re-fis and investor business law.

Why call this set of issues “Susannahs”?

I name this intended ongoing series (Other column DeVine-Gamecock categories: “Foghorn Leghorns” that call out the drive-bys for their fog and planting the truth with legs on the ground) and “Cockstradamas” forecasts) after TMR frontpager and regular Redstate blogger since Gamecock discovered her, Susannah as a tribute to her good will, hard work, insightfulness and since she likes open threads. (I have never done an open thread because I am a serial, hit-and-run thread-jacker and have never called threadjack on my columns. I am very tolerant).

Moreover, I also share a major characteristic with Susannah. She is a former? democrat that appears to have had a conservative epiphany. Now to the

Issues (aka Susannahs):

1) Federal and State (NC) cigarette tax hikes break Obama’s promise that the bottom 95% of taxpayers would not have taxes raised

These taxes make one of the main affordable pleasures of the poor and lower income essentially a luxury item. These folks are already unable to take vacations and afford many things most of us take for granted. Now they are being targeted to fund government subsidies for middle class and corporate welfare.

The Charlotte Observer has been on a mission for years to make smoking tobacco illegal but recently published an editorial opposing blue laws that restrict sales of bottles of spirits on Sunday because they “limit personal freedom.” Yet, they support President Obama’s Big Brother government that massively limit liberty 24/7, seven days a week.

2) Ever heard of “iPS” (”induced pluripotent stem cells”)?

We must make iPS a household word. Of all unlikely columnists, Kathleen Parker wrote a monumental column on the subject recently that reinforces my long advanced contention that the purpose of the proponents of ECS (Embryonic stem cell research) is the legitimization of abortion and not saving lives given that iPS produces pluripotent (able to become any other type of stem cell) stem cells from adult skin cells.

iPS makes ECS obsolete.

Moreover, to-date, only adult stem cells have produced any useful treatments for disease, after decades of research.

3) Teachable moment via School system layoffs of non-teachers

I have long contended that education budgets are bloated due to the salaries of administrative personnel. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg School System (CMS) recently announced recession related layoffs of 500+ employees, none of whom are classroom teachers.

We have a chance to provide proof that these paper pushers are not necessary.

4) Newt shamelessly echos Hillary’s unpatriotic Blame America First exoneration of Mexican Drug gang violence

Just saw Newt on O’Reilly. Had already planned column against Hillary’s cloaked attack on the Second Amendment by blaming American gun laws for border violence by Mexican drug gangs.

Just for the record I recently announced that I lean toward ending the drug war in the US and have found the William F. Buckley libertarian argument more persuasive after so long a war. But that does not translate into making it a point of foreign policy to blame the source of the guns and drug users for murder by the gun users.

4) The new American Frontier that will determine America’s fate

Two quotes.

First quote:

Geithner on MTP:

Geithner said Washington alone was equipped to salvage the economy.

“The market will not solve this. And the great risk for us is we do too little, not that we do too much,” he said.

TIME and the market are the ONLY things that can solve the economic crisis. Yes, given the debt the government and We the People ran up the past 25, but especially the past 10 years, we were going to be in for a hard time until people could save enough money to risk money again. But Obama is making Hoover/FDR mistakes that prolonged the Great Depression by causing investors to go on strike, in addition to much more draconian “mistakes) (they intend them to use the crisis as an opportunity to impose their leftist vision, i.e. government directed economy - see tyranny) with their breach of NAFTA re Mexican trucks; tax hikes; massive deficit spending; and takeovers of private businesses.

The Americans that created the Shining City on the Hill carved it out of a rough, no bailout frontier. If we are to preserve it, we will have to be very strong.

Second quote:

[Mark] Levin quotes Ronald Reagan: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.”

Rush asked Levin on his show Monday, (paraphrase) “Why, if the yearning of the human heart is for God given liberty, do people tend toward socialism/statism”?

My answer: Sin

Yes, man yearns for that liberty, but as CS Lewis and Whittaker Chambers, especially points out in “Witness”, the tendency toward tyranny began in the Garden of Eden when the serpent offered Adam and Eve the apple so “Ye shall be as Gods.”

Man rejected God as his director and chose to be his own God.

more later

Discuss

Mike DeVine’s Charlotte Observer, Examiner.com and Minority Report columns

“One man with courage makes a majority.” - Andrew Jackson

Originally published by Mike DeVine, Legal Editor for The Minority Report