Almost 234 years ago some very brave men met in Philadelphia. Led by Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, they declared our nation’s independence. The Father of our Country, George Washington, formed a small citizen army. They were undertrained, underequiped and underfunded. But they made up for their deficiencies with spirited patriotism, ruggedness and grit. With little food and without adequate clothing or shelter, they endured harsh winters in their campaign for freedom and independence. Against daunting odds they defeated the strongest, best trained and best equiped military force in the world at that time. Many paid the ultimate sacrifice as they suffered bitter defeats and setbacks but they persevered. It would have been fitting if Al Michaels had been around to proclaim, “Do you believe in miracles?!”

   Since then the brave men and women, who have served in our military, have worked, fought and died to protect the liberties and freedoms which were won by Washington’s courageous citizen soldiers. Their bodies have littered many battlefields such as Queenston Heights, Gettysburg, San Juan Hill, Belleau Wood, Omaha Beach, Iwo Jima, Inchon, Khe Sahn, Baghdad and the mountains of Afghanistan.

   The World War II generation has been touted as the greatest ever. That may or may not be true but they did endure great hardships, and they accomplished great things. The Great Depression, the Dust Bowl,  Pearl Harbor and a brutal two-front worldwide war could not break their spirit nor weaken their resolve. On the warfront and the homefront they fought and labored to not only preserve liberty and freedom here at home but to also stop tyrants with mighty war machines from taking over the world. Sacrifice and honor were the trademarks of this remarkable generation of Americans.

   Today, there are too many Americans who have been raised in an atmosphere of privilege. As parents and grandparents, we have spoiled them, pampered them and have uplifted their self esteem to the point that many believe that they’re the center of the universe. Too many think that the human condition and history didn’t start until the day they were born. They take liberty and freedom for granted, and they are too willing to give it up. They feel entitled to the point that they think someone else (the government, their parents etc.) should be responsible for their sustenance, their college education, their housing, their healthcare and anything else they might need or desire in this life. Many deadbeat slackers are jobless by choice and are still living with their parents well into their 30’s. I’m afraid that generations X and Y would not have the backbone, the resolve, the work ethic nor the ruggedness to take on anything nearly as daunting as World War II. They wouldn’t be willing to bow their necks and hunker down to accept the challenge. And sadly, us Baby Boomers aren’t much better. We may be worse because we created this mess.

   It is the present environment of entitlement, which has been years in the making, that has given rise to Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and their ilk. Many are looking for a handout of some kind. Few will accept responsibility for their actions. They’re more concerned about themselves and are less concerned about their country. This great nation is on the verge of becoming a socialist “nanny state” of lazy video game playing, TV watching, drug using, basement dwelling, couch potato slackers, and countries like China, India and Brazil will pass us by.

   The Tea Party movement, the raucous town hall meetings and the groundswell of rejuvenated conservatives have provided me with a dim ray of hope. I pray that we can turn this situation around before it’s too late. Too many brave people have fought, sacrificed and died for this great Republic for us to let it be tossed away like yesterday’s newspaper. I am praying that the American people will come through in the clutch this time like so many have in our glorious history.

I don’t mean a real gun or even a toy gun. I mean a HAND gun. POW! POW!

Cross posted at Mike LaChance.

Many have read a version of the following statement from “moderates,” defined here as people who want to seem high-minded and objective by staying “above the fray.”

“I’m a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal.”

The goal in this essay is to demonstrate the illogicality of such an oxymoron. For ultimately fiscal conservatism will be impossible, if you support social liberalism.

How does one define “social liberalism” anyway? Since I do not want to be accused of setting up strawmen to knock down, in good faith I offer the following examples of social liberalism: antagonism toward racial profiling, protecting children, and (contradictorily) killing unborn children.

Liberal political scientist Benjamin Barber, an emeritus professor at Rutgers, offers an explanation for one aspect of political correctness:

“On the belief that while classes of people and categories of action may be statistically correlated with certain kinds of behavior, those correlations do not warrant encroaching on the liberty and rights of individuals. No one is to be prejudged in their behavior or motives simply because they belong to a certain class or category.”

See:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/benjamin-r-barber/forgiving-political-corre_b_369419.html

On the surface, no Conservative will argue with this. But consider the “failed attack” by the infamous Shoe Bomber (Richard Reid). One of the most expensive aspects of Barber’s purist attitude has been occurring for years in our airports: because of political correctness, profiling for possible suspects has not been allowed. The result is that 9-year old little girls from Cincinnati, as well as 90-year old grandmothers from Pittsburgh, are stopped, scanned, sniffed, debriefed, de-shoed, and delayed because social liberalism says not to use stereotypes…ever, even though Richard Reid and his ilk do not fit the profile of a 9-year old girl from Ohio.

Americans have been led to think, therefore, that such high-mindedness is the price one pays for safety. And what exactly is that price? It is not just an annoying, exasperated feeling while standing in line. Roughly 50 million people per month pass through American airports per month. If we place the very modest price of $10.00 on the head of every passenger for their lost time (obviously the time of many travelers is worth much more!), it means that half a billion dollars are lost every month to the American economy, $6 Billion per year, $60 billion since Mr. Shoe Bomber’s antics.

And we say and believe that his attack failed! This estimate obviously does not take into account the tax dollars spent for all the increased surveillance and the equipment: and I will openly admit, the waddling and possibly illiterate T.S.A. guards I have seen do not make me feel safer. They make me feel less wealthy, knowing that as government employees they have better benefits and pensions than I ever will!

Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby offered this opinion in an essay from August 23, 2006:

“No sensible person imagines that ethnic or religious profiling alone can stop every terrorist plot. But it is illogical and potentially suicidal not to take account of the fact that so far every suicide-terrorist plotting to take down an American plane has been a radical Muslim man. It is not racism or bigotry to argue that the prevention of Islamist terrorism necessitates a special focus on Muslim travelers, just as it is not racism or bigotry when police trying to prevent a Mafia killing pay closer attention to Italians.”

Profiling will not eliminate airport security, but one wonders, if political correctness were tossed aside, could not the loss in time and efficiency be greatly reduced?

Social liberalism has led to an attitude of allowing government intervention to protect us from ourselves, from cars, from saturated fat, from incorrect sneezing, from almost any situation which can generate a bureaucracy. OHSA in the Department of Labor is now approaching $2 Billion for its budget. And of course, we must protect the children: much spending is done in the name of helping children.

But where are the limits? One small personal example: when my wife was a principal of a grade school, the board wanted to install new playground equipment. She was given a 27-page booklet from the FedGov on playground safety. It seems that the FedGov’s bureaucrats had mandated that a playground slide had to have “9 inches of mulch at the bottom,” otherwise…lawsuits were possible for not following Federal guidelines. Now who decided that “9 inches of mulch” had to be used, and how? Bureaucrats! You can imagine them in lab coats and holding clipboards, while they put crash-dummies on the slide to discover the proper depth of mulch to protect the delicate derrieres of American 9-year old children.

“Your tax dollars at work!” “Where are the limits?” Obviously none exist.

Probably most Americans do not realize that their government is involved in such minutiae: child safety taken to manic extremes is one of the unintended consequences of social liberalism.

Although not all welfare goes to children, they are the main reason often given by politicians for supporting the welfare state. And of course over the last c. 80 years, governments have taken over from the churches, private charities, families, and private individuals the care for the poor or the temporarily indigent: which tradition would be more efficient in dealing with poverty, more caring, and more likely to prevent it from increasing?

The Heritage Foundation offers the following horrifying information for the “social liberal-fiscal conservative” to contemplate:

“Since the beginning of the War on Poverty, government has spent $15.9 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars) on means-tested welfare. In comparison, the cost of all other wars in U.S. history was $6.4 trillion (in inflation-adjusted 2008 dollars).”

“According to President Obama’s budget projections, federal and state welfare spending will total $10.3 trillion over the next 10 years (FY 2009 to FY 2018). This spending will equal $250,000 for each person currently living in poverty in the U.S., or $1 million for a poor family of four.”

(My emphasis above)

See: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Welfare/sr0067.cfm

In theory of course, that wipes out poverty! But we know it will not! Social liberalism does not stop poverty: if welfare-state bureaucracies actually lessened poverty, they would put themselves out of work. It is to the bureaucrats’ advantage to fertilize poverty!

However, human fertilization is something of which social liberals are usually skeptical. And here we touch upon abortion: I am aware that purely moral arguments are enough to argue against killing unborn children. The point here, however, is our “social liberal-fiscal conservative” will claim that abortion should be allowed, that it actually saves money for society, and that anyway, should not a true conservative keep government away from telling people what they can do with their bodies?

In a study called Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out-of-Wedlock Births by Lott and Whitley, the authors examine the costs to society of Roe vs. Wade over time. One finds the following conclusion on p.18:

“The higher estimated increases in murder imply that legalizing abortion raised the number of murders in 1998 by 1,230 and raised total annual victimization costs from all crime by at least $4.5 billion.”

See: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=lepp_papers

Note that $4.5 Billion is for one year only. Probably a good number of RedState readers are already acquainted with demographic researcher Dennis Howard’s estimate that since Roe vs. Wade the U.S. economy has lost $37 Trillion dollars due to the loss of population. While you can debate how productive the aborted babies would have been, how many might have become criminals, welfare mothers, etc., one must ultimately assume that most people, even from the lower classes, are honest and want to succeed. So even if Howard is wildly off by 90%, that would still mean nearly a loss of $4 Trillion, which would come in handy right now to save the U.S. partially from bankruptcy! The cost to enforce anti-abortion laws would hardly affect such a sum.

Legal abortion, of course, was only part of the wider so-called Sexual Revolution 40 years ago, spawning the additional expenses of higher divorce rates (“no-fault divorce” also being part of a “socially liberal” agenda), higher illegitimacy rates, rises in STD’s and AIDS, etc. (I recall leftist columnist Ellen Goodman in the early 1980’s insisting that a crash program to cure AIDS was absolutely essential, not just for curing the afflicted, but to preserve the Sexual Revolution, i.e. to let people have casual sex with no consequences.)

I could continue into vaguer territory: what are the economic consequences of a society where mediocrity is extolled in a quest for fairness, where schools cancel awards ceremonies for fear of offending somebody, or, worse, where everyone is given an award, thus making the achievements of true winners meaningless? In the cartoon-movie The Incredibles, which shows a society where superheroes have been shut down by lawyers for the destruction and extra-constitutionality involved when the “supers” battle villains, one of the characters opines: “If everyone is super, then no one is.”

What is the cost of that kind of social liberalism/political correctness? How many future Bach’s, Curie’s, Edison’s, Einstein’s, Galileo’s, Michelangelo’s, Mother Teresa’s, Schoenberg’s, or Wright’s (Orville, Wilbur, as well as Frank Lloyd) are being stifled and stunted in our increasingly hostile-to-excellence society, or worse, are now part of hospital waste?

“I’m a fiscal conservative, but a social liberal.”

Let that not be the epitaph for America’s future.

(Cross-posted at Southeastern Ohio’s ONLY CPAC credentialed blog, Athens Runaway!)

According to the venerable Youngstown Vindicator , anti-tobacco lobbying groups are suggesting an unoriginal idea to help fill Ohio’s Strickland-induced budget crisis: raise taxes on tobacco by $1.

This tax increase, according to the American Lung Association, would raise $299.7 million in revenue.  Surprisingly, the poll paid for by the American Lung Association, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids found that 64% of 808 Ohio voters supported raising the sin tax from $1.25 to $2.25.

Right now, Ohio has the 25th highest cigarette sin tax, and is just under the national average of $1.34.

Now, obviously smoking is bad for your health, and it’s an unhealthy habit, but people are in charge of their bodies, not the government.  That’s basic conservatism right there—the individual knows what is better for him or her than the government.

By this point, there’s not a single person alive who doesn’t know that smoking is unhealthy, and it’s not like people are forced to smoke—they choose to, for whatever reason.

Also, an increase in the smoking sin tax would disproportionately affect Ohio’s impoverished, who aren’t exactly being helped already by the games that champion of the poor Ted Strickland has played and plays with the state’s tobacco education budget.

Anyway, not only are smoking bans and excise taxes the domain of nanny-state do-gooders, they have a bad habit of being backed up with lies and fraud.

In December, it was revealed that the forces behind the Ohio restaurant and bar smoking ban illegally used felons to gather signatures .  On top of that, the Ohio Secretary of State somehow approved the petition to put the smoking ban initiative on the ballot before they received the petitions.

However, according to the Ohio Grocers’ Association , it’s not as simple as the nanny-staters say.

Tom Jackson, President and CEO of the OGA says that “any economist will tell you that it is impossible for a buck increase on a pack of cigarettes to generate $299 million in Ohio.”

Other states’ attempts to fill budgetary holes by soaking the poor aren’t encouraging, either.  In New Jersey, the state actually lost $15 million by increasing the sin tax by 12.5 cents.  In Maryland, another liberal state that did this, analysts saw a marked increase in black-market cigarette sales, which meant that retailers and small businesses took a big financial hit.

In short, smoking sucks.  Don’t start it—and if you’re already a smoker, stop it.  You’ll save money in the short-, medium-, and long-run.  However, it’s not the government’s job to tell us what behaviors are good and which are bad.

Honestly thought I sent this up yesterday.
Would have been nice if I hit “publish” instead of “save”, yes ? 

—————–

“It’s for the children.”

The AFP writer has already determined that the science is settled over one test by an agenda-driven group.

The most likely human exposure to TSNAs is through either inhalation of dust or the contact of skin with carpet or clothes — making third-hand smoke particularly dangerous to infants and toddlers.

http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/thirdhand-smoke-also-bad-for-you-study-20100209-npqc.html

“Smoking outside is better than smoking indoors but nicotine residues will stick to a smoker’s skin and clothing,” said Lara Gundel, a co-author of the study.

“Those residues follow a smoker back inside and get spread everywhere. The biggest risk is to young children,” she said.

================

I’ll be damned if a few leftist, do-gooder, ‘we-know-what’s-best-for-you’, maniacs get to decide what you can do with a fully legal product in the privacy of your own home and vehicle.

Cass Sunstein and his merry band of Marxist assistants to Obama are ‘nudging’ your individual freedoms, liberties and Rights straight out from under you.

This ‘third-hand-smoke’ garbage is a perfect example………. It starts with a ’study’ of a legal thing that some folks don’t like being legal……. The study gets done by an agenda-driven entity, usually financed by a taxpayer-funded government grant.  Then, since there’s almost never any challenge to any of the results and ’scientific’ publicity…… because the results are always written as “it’s for the children”, something gets put to Congress about banning or regulating whatever the study was about.

Problem right now is this current administration is bypassing Congress every chance they get…..and I’m betting before November, Congress will be completely irrelevant, because Cass Sunstein and the rest of the Czars will have regulated everything away……. including the funding aspect of The House…… yes I’m serious.  This administration couldn’t care less about The Constitution or any Right of the individual.

And by the way……. I don’t smoke……. unless I’m on fire.  

Fourth-hand smoke…… That’s when someone who doesn’t smoke (like me), takes a carton of Marlboro’s and shoves ‘em down the throat of some leftist-agenda-driven ’scientist’, then lights ‘em through the bastage’s nose and offers “hope” that the Statist freak of nature likes the “change” they just experienced.

Kenny Solomon
DC Works For Us
www.dcworksforus.com

Kudos to Streiff and his diary http://www.redstate.com/streiff/2010/02/10/michelle-obama-and-the-cellulite-peril

I have a different take on things (Gee, what a surprise, I’m looking ‘big-picture’ again.).

Honest wish that I’m not the only one here at RS that’s seen this little ditty from Michelle’s husband……….

“It’s for the children”, Part 25,689,522.

(a.k.a.: POTUS and FLOTUS and COTUS*, Oh My !!!)

——————

For Immediate Release.

February 09, 2010.

Presidential Memorandum — Establishing A Task Force On Childhood Obesity.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/presidential-memorandum-establishing-a-task-force-childhood-obesity

Across our country, childhood obesity has reached epidemic rates and, as a result, our children may live shorter lives than their parents.

[snip]

Nearly one third of children in America are overweight or obese — a rate that has tripled in adolescents and more than doubled in younger children since 1980.   One third of all individuals born in the year 2000 or later will eventually suffer from diabetes over the course of their lifetime, while too many others will face chronic obesity-related health problems such as heart disease, high blood pressure, cancer, and asthma.

===============

Paragraph 1.

Epidemic rates……. Really ?   The same thing is still being said about H1N1.

Shorter lives….. I actually can see that, because the signer of the proclamation and his administration are actively attempting to enjoin an economic and societal collapse of The United States.

Paragraph 2.

“Nearly one-third of children in America are overweight or obese” ?!?

Mr. President:

With whatever respect remains due to you personally in the office you currently occupy: Bullcrap.  To quote someone who spoke absolute truth (but his timing wasn’t all that well-advised in a Congressional hall): “You lie“.

I’m in multiple schools every workday throughout the year.  Elementary, Middle and High Schools.  I see hundreds, if not thousands of kids at a time.

There is NO WAY even 1/3 of 1/3 of the kids I see every day are overweight or obese.  No way.

Mr. President, I offer to the world that your proclamation is nothing more than a ‘green light’ for Cass Sunstein to ‘nudge’ his and your Statist/Totalitarian dream a bit further into place.

Before anyone would ever know, Mr. Sunstein, who reports to nobody but you (and is apparently untouchable by Congress or anyone else), could tweak a current regulation here, add a sentence to another requirement there and blammo.  Something benign, normal and American is no longer allowed, with it’s manufacture, sales, purchase and usage banned, neigh illegal, punishable by tens of thousands of dollars in fines and years in a Federal prison/re-education camp.

Whaddya mean, ‘what do you mean’ ?

Are those water pumps in California back on yet ?  No ?  I didn’t think so.  http://www.redstate.com/representativetommcclintock/2010/02/05/turn-on-the-pumps I’ve noticed the produce shelves and the canned goods at all of the grocery stores here in South Florida still have all the items as normal, just not the quantity as before the water got clipped.  All over a 3-inch fish that does nothing other than make more 3-inch fishes and poop.

By the way, the quantity of some of those same items as imports are high.  Is that on purpose too ?  Should we have any concern at all about food products normally obtained from US sources now coming in from borderline dictatorial nation-states and even processed foods from those nations and of course China with their excellent quality control and care for preventing all food-borne illnesses and disease ?  No, none of those nations (especially China) would ever consider doing anything at all on purpose to our food supply here.  No, not in a million years, or in the fifty-gazillion-dollars we owe them that can pretty much never be repaid.

How close am I, Mr. President, hmmmmmmm ?

Have a nice day, Sir.

—————–

Hey, I got an idea for another example.  Let’s take our Dictator In Training Pants’ great admirer, The Mayor-For-Life of NY City, Michael Bloomberg.  Trans-fat.  Salt.  Sugar……. What’s next ?  Oh, I got a good guess…….. Tobacco.  I’ll bet he’s gonna try and ban it city-wide.  If he does it, forgetting everything else, the loss in tax revenue would kill an already almost dead NYC virtually overnight.

OK, I’ll say it…….. The current administration is fast becoming a clear and present danger to all free people and the American society as a whole.  They are already that to The Constitution and YOUR Rights.

But lest I forget……. “It’s for the children.”

Kenny Solomon
DC Works For Us
www.dcworksforus.com

=================

*COTUS - Children Of The United States.