I hope to win a million dollars one day. I hope to have rippling abs one day. I hope my daughter will grow up in a country where she is free to enjoy the fruits of her labor without excessive government interference. We've all had more than 100 days of being filled with hope (longer if you count the election process) by President Obama. We've got so much hope we don't even know what to do with it. If America still had a free market the price of hope would have drastically collapsed as a result of the excess supply of hope. So why is it that in this new hopeful era of hope I'm not a millionaire? Why do I not have that illusive six pack yet? I've been hoping for both for years now. Maybe, and please stop reading if this sounds too crazy, maybe hope isn't enough. Maybe hope, alone, is as meaningless in the real world as it must be after having been written twelve times in one paragraph. 

 

Senator McCain, long time whipping boy of disenchanted conservatives, may have just single handedly saved the Republican Party. Let’s face it; three weeks ago we were on the ropes. The Republican Party was facing its sharpest fall from grace since the great depression. A mere four years ago we were cheering the success of our embattled standard barer, President Bush, and reviling in yet another Congressional majority. Then within two years it all seemed to fall apart. We lost both houses in 2006 and by August of 2008 we were secretly preparing our “we’ll get ‘em next time speeches” as we looked at the specter of an unrestrained Obama presidency.

We were suffering from a lack of inspiration. We felt little reason to unite as the party leadership continued to try (unsuccessfully) to co-opt issues that should stay in the realm of far left wackos, like global warming. Stalwart conservatives were voting against Obama more than we were for McCain and if there is one lesson we should learn from the 2004 Kerry campaign it’s that you can’t win by voting against someone. You have to be for someone or something.

Senator McCain made history when he picked Sarah Palin as his Vice President, but not for the superficial reasons you are likely to hear on the news. Yes she may be the first woman Vice-President or even President, but McCain’s running mate is much more. Finally we have someone to vote for. Sarah Palin is a rock solid conservative able to inspire us and communicate those beliefs with a grace seldom seen. John McCain made history, because the selection of Sarah Palin will prove to be a turning point in our history. We will one day look back and see 2008 as the year conservatism and traditional American beliefs were resurrected from the doldrums of socialism.

As we conservatives fall deeper in love with Sarah Palin, John McCain might be remembered more for playing cupid than any of his other laudable accomplishments. This got me thinking about some of the other Republicans out there. The old guard, which so often infuriated the party base, is beginning to be replaced by a younger generation who came of age mentally and politically as Ronald Reagan was leaving office. Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal, Mitt Romney and Tim Pawlenty are just a few of the new faces of the Republican Party. However, unlike the Rockefeller and “new tone” Republicans they are inheriting the party from, they have shown no need to get along with Democrats and don’t seem to care what the elitist media think of them. They wear their beliefs on their sleeves and aren’t afraid to defend them.

Even if the McCain-Palin ticket doesn’t prove to be a recipe for success this year we have good reason to hold our heads high and soldier on. I know this sounds like the “we’ll get ‘em next time speeches” I mentioned earlier, but it’s not. Republicans lost big in 1964 and 1976, but out of the ashes of defeat millions of Americans found a voice and kindred spirit in Ronald Reagan and ushered in a revolution in America just as important as the one which preceded it 200 years earlier. No one can tell for sure which if any of the afore mentioned people will be the next Reagan or if that’s even possible. My vote’s with Palin, but if they stay true to their beliefs and we support them, collectively this new generation of Republicans just may prove to be the most dynamic and important in our nation’s history. We shouldn’t let the irony that the elder statesman we so often deride as a RHINO (I’m as guilty as anyone else) is the one ushering in this new generation. We should also reward him with the presidency.

With so many hailing the rise of China and America’s demise as a superpower we don’t need internationalist liberals or weak kneed Republicans running this country. We need a moose shooting, dog sledding, beauty queen who self identifies as a bulldog wearing lipstick. Now where can we find one of them…  

 

Special interest groups are at their heart a way for individuals with few means to control a debate to band together and influence politicians and public opinion from a narrow, perhaps myopic point of view. Typically the most successful interest groups thrive by convincing Washington to redistribute wealth. This process was at its most striking during the Medicare reform debate when groups like AARP were able to convince a Congress and Executive branch controlled by ostensibly “small government” conservatives that the answer to our problems was massive government expansion.

There is no reason why, in the freest and most affluent nation in history people should want for the basic necessities of life. However, those needs, medicine for example, must to be balanced against the basic immorality of redistributing wealth. The problem with most special interest groups is that instead of steering the debate in a traditional free market direction they focus on solving the problems of one group by taking from another. The Medicare reform debate demonstrated this perfectly. By expanding coverage on such a massive scale it does not address the disease (that of increasing prices due to increasing government influence). It simply covers up the symptom, specifically the under covered elderly. In the end this does not eradicate the problem. It simply shifts the burden.

James Madison described this phenomenon in Federalist 10. Instead of special interest groups he used the term faction, but the intent was the same. He described a faction as “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” [1] Therein lies the fundamental mischief (as Madison would describe it) of special interest groups. They do not advocate the sort of free market reforms that would cure the disease. They advocate for socializing the symptom.

A real and lasting solution to expensive medicine would be based largely on diminishing the forces that raise drug prices, not by shifting the costs. These solutions would be expanding patent protections, limiting tort liabilities of companies, breaking up potential monopolies and expanding free trade agreements with other countries. In a less direct sense restructuring our tax and regulatory structures, which often provide disincentives to individual savings would have a positive effect on individual purchasing power which would reduce the relative cost of all goods including drugs.

Unfortunately, positive free market changes are much harder to implement than redistributive social programs and harkening back to Madison’s definition of factions we see why this is so. Typically we focus on the first sentence of his definition that a faction is “a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole”, but the important distinction is the second part: that they “are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adversed to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” Thus AARP and its peers on both sides of the aisle have a significant negative influence any debate where economics is the driving factor, because seek short term gains for a few by increasing long term burdens on the whole.

 

This is a question that usually makes me cringe in disgust. It disgusts me so much, because the people who usually ask it already have an answer in their heads and it always comes back to being our fault. These people are of course Hollywood “elites” like Michael Moore or liberal Democrats like Barbra Boxer or run of the mill race baiters like Jesse Jackson. They always come to the conclusion that we are the racists, we are the imperialists and we are the greedy ones. They never find fault with the communists who killed more than 100 million people in the 20^th century or the African warlords who kill thousands whose only crimes were belonging to different tribes or the terrorists who kill 3000 of our fellow Americans, because we don’t believe in Islam.

These are, of course, completely absurd allegations against us. When these “Americans” are presented with facts and logical arguments they devolve into tirades on President Bush and conspiracy theories. However, that still leaves the question “why do they hate us?” Well I’m here to tell you that both Conservatives and Liberals are responsible for us being hated around the world, but for very different reasons.

Conservatives make America a target for hatred, because they promote free trade, democracy and capitalism. This makes many hate us, because they represent freedom and freedom is the antidote to the mental and cultural sickness that infects muslim, communist and other totalitarian nations. Conservatives make America a target for hatred, because they choose to defend this country at home and abroad and because they wince at the idea of supporting terrorists like the Palestinians. So to the conservatives that continually make others hate us I say keep up the good work.

Now on to the left. They make us a target for hatred, because they fill ours and other cultures with depravity and lies. Hollywood continually pumps out movies that graphically depict sex, exploitation of women and evil American companies who kill indiscriminately for the bottom line. Movies like Fahrenheit 911, Platoon and Apocalypse Now depict American soldiers as blood thirsty killers who delight in raping and pillaging. The liberal establishment media interview Cindy Sheehan and falsely report stories like the looting of the Baghdad museum while vigilantly reporting the death toll in Iraq.

Put yourself in the place of a poor Muslim farmer. You live a very traditional life and the “honor” of your daughters is paramount in your conscious. Is it any wonder that they hate us when Larry Flint and Courtney Love are more recognizable symbols of America than Abraham Lincoln? I abhor the sexist and racist beliefs in Middle East countries, but if Hollywood and the rest of pop culture want them to stop hating us they should clean up their act. Start making more It’s a Wonderful Life’s and less Natural Born Killers. Glorify people like Will Smith instead of Jenna Jamison.

If the media wants to do their part they should begin reporting on all of the good things we are doing in Iraq. Tell everyone about the schools and hospitals being built. Trumpet the new found freedoms of a once oppressed people and the prosperity that will follow. The Islamic terrorists and warlords hate us because of the good things we do. There is nothing we can do about that, except kill them. The average muslim trying to eek out a living for his family hates us because of what he sees on TV and in the movies. There is something we can do to bring him around. We must call for more family oriented culture. Frankly I don’t care if it makes us any more friends, but at the very least we’ll improve our own society.  

 

            We Americans take many of our freedoms for granted. Lawsuits and taxes are out of control. We expect a litany of government programs and never learn American history. All that would be bad enough, however we also choose to completely bastardize our most cherished freedom. Many, mostly on the left, have cajoled and berated us into believing that the 1^st amendment is our license to do and say whatever we want. Nothing could be farther from the truth. In its simple eloquence it reads:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Originally the first amendment had two purposes. It was meant to prevent the banning of a religion and to allow citizens to criticize the government. It was not meant to allow flag burning, pornography and shock jocks. And it was most certainly not designed to take God out of our pledge, money or public life.

First let’s examine the religion clause and the founders’ intent. Today we are led to believe it means God and Christianity have no place in public life. Court cases suing for the removal of “One nation under God” from our pledge have reached the Supreme Court. Prayer has been forbidden in schools and some even tried to stop President Bush from invoking God during his 2004 inaugural address. Talk to most disaffected liberals and you will hear the new term “Jesus Land” used to insult the red states. The reason liberals litigate these travesties upon us can be found in a book called The Naked Communist. Published in 1958, it described a number of ways to subvert America. Removing religion from the public square was seen as a way to tear down the morals that helped make this country great.

Proponents of a Godless America love to point out that most of the Founders were not Christians, but Deists and that they wanted an atheist society, because they hated how the king used the church to withhold their rights. But what did the Founders actually think of religion and government? George Washington declared the first Thanksgiving as a way to give thanks to God for the bounty of freedom he bestowed on us. Thomas Jefferson (liberals favorite deist) wrote that all people are “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights” in what is now a little known document, the Declaration of Independence. John Adams wrote that:

“If we do not acknowledge that our rights come from God then where do they come from? The government? I’m not comfortable with that, because what the government gives it can take away. By removing God we slowly erode the foundation of our nation’s spirit.”

The remaining part of the first amendment is generally referred to as the “free speech” clause. Most people take this to mean we can and should say whatever we want whenever we want. Again this is far from what the Founders had in mind. You see our Founding Fathers lived in a very different time. It was a time when people took personal responsibility for their actions. They never imagined people would use “free speech” to burn our flag, display a feces laden statue of the Virgin Mary or broadcast sex acts on the radio during times when children could be listening.

How could we have allowed our national conscience to degrade so far as to punish the Boy Scouts for believing in God but reward Bono for swearing on live TV? However, nothing, absolutely nothing has bastardized free speech as much as did the anti-American protests after we invaded Iraq. While our young men and women were dying to bring democracy to an abused people, Susan Sarandon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Alec Baldwin, the Dixie Chicks, Sean Penn and a litany of others were waging a verbal war on our Commander-in-Chief. Even if they were well intentioned (and I do not believe they were), the primary consequence of their vitriol was to weaken the national moral and embolden the terrorists. That leads directly to the death of our soldiers. I had no problem with any protests before the war. Say what you want before the fighting starts, but once we engage the enemy shut up. Vietnam proved without a doubt that a vastly more militarily powerful nation can lose a war if there is enough dissent at home.

            Now as much as their near treasonous speech makes my blood boil, I could not support the government suppressing them. But they need to be stopped. So how can we stop them while remaining inside the confines of the constitution? Personal responsibility. We the people must take it upon ourselves to stop buying the CDs or watching the movies of these people. After all, if we can’t band together to defend our troops during war, how will we ever be able to defend the Boy Scouts from those who wish to remove their right to worship God.

            This is why our most cherished right has become inverted. Our lack of personal responsibility, our failure to hold public figures accountable has led to this situation where the Ten Commandments are banned from courtrooms, but disparaging our military is the “New Patriotic” chic.       

As many conservatives like myself move into this election uninspired by Senator McCain I think it is important that before we abandon the Republican Party for third party candidates we look back at one of the most devastating elections in our country's history. In many ways it's 1976 all over again. Our country is weary from fighting a war that, while morally beyond reproach, has been under constant attack from fellow citizens inside the walls of our shinning city on a hill (fortunately we're winning this time). The economy has hit a rough patch. We are not in a recession...yet, but our economy is under significant pressure. Democrats are poised to capture the Whitehouse and maintain control of Congress. Gas prices are out of control. Islamofacism is waiting to explode in Iran. Environmentalist wackos are constantly berating us with end of the world tomfoolery and to top it all off our hard earned dollars are worth less and less every day. These headlines can be found daily in our newspapers and evening news programs, but the situation is so similar to the precipice that was 1976 reporters could just recycle 32 year old news stories and no one would be the wiser. However, it is today's election that bares the most striking similarity to our nation's bicentennial. Ronald Reagan energized the conservative base in a way not seen since Teddy Roosevelt. Reagan was poised to alter the balance of power in the party and change the entire tone of American politics. Republicans all over the nation were inspired by his message of smaller government and free market solutions, but after a bitter primary season the establishment prevailed and Gerald Ford was narrowly nominated. The timing couldn't be worse for a major rift in the Grand Old Party, because the Democrats were running the most liberal, dare I say socialist candidate ever. And that is saying a lot with a party that can boast FDR and Johnson as members. Jimmy Carter was a disaster waiting to happen. His solution to these major problems was to prostrate America on the world stage in hopes that being liked would garner favor. He advocated more taxes, stricter government regulations and such insane policies as abdicating control of the Panama Canal, eliminating vital military programs and turning a blind eye to the Shah's quandary. Do these policies sound familiar? If you've been following this election at all they should. They are strikingly similar to the policies of Barrack Hussein Obama. He has been very clear that he wants to raise our taxes at a time when the economy needs more, not less capital. He wants to negotiate with terrorist enemies who "W" has on the ropes and he wants to decrease the supply of fossil fuels through tougher regulation at a time when only more supply will ease our pain at the pump. Without a doubt, however, the scariest thing is that in 1976 Carter won handily. America elected the architect of the "misery index" and prophet of the great malaise, because the conservative base of the Republican Party was bitter and unenthused with the party's candidate. It is not my intention to belittle Gerald Ford. He was a good man and in my estimation an undervalued president. But he was no Ronald Reagan. Few people are or ever will be and we have to except that in most elections we will have to make compromises. John McCain drives me nuts when he says he would sooner drill in the Grand Canyon than in ANWAR. His efforts towards illegal immigration leave much to be desired and his cavorting with liberals borders on treason with respect to Republican politics, but we must consider the alternative. With President Obama America loses on all accounts. The economy, the war, traditional values, Supreme Court Justices, taxes, gas prices, terrorism; the list goes on and on. With McCain we will no doubt lose on some key issues but does anyone doubt he will prosecute the war to the best of his abilities? Do we envision our troops returning victorious with him or with Obama? He won't advocate raising taxes and with McCain we at least have a shot at another Scalia or Thomas on the Supreme Court. He's no Ronald Reagan, but the choice is a no brainer. The stage is set, with the candidacy of John McCain, for a tragic repeat of the election of 1976 unless the conservative base in this party turns out in November. It is imperative that we understand no one ever gets their way all the time in our system. If we wish to stave off a second Carter term we must realize that all or nothing politics always results in getting nothing.