Responsible Exceptionalism

This just in: Republican Party fiscal conservatives identified as "Economic 5th Columnists" by Obama Administration!

2011-01-31T18:02:00.000-08:00

In my dreams. However, for any of our nearly sixty million fellow Americans receiving some form of Social Security, be they elderly, widowed, orphaned or disabled fellow citizens, they'd better watch out for what many fiscal conservatives within the Republican Party have up their sleeves. Not quite Derringers, but close, economically speaking.

In short, they, particularly newly elected Sen. Patrick Twoomey, R-PA, want the nation to pay off its debts to China before it pays what the nation owes Social Security recepients. As a pensioner receiving SSDI, I take this very personally, and will do so much more the next time I walk into my local Wal-Mart or other big-box store ... or even a nice arts/crafts/gifts shop the next time my wife and I visit the Maine coast. Lots of "DownEast" souveniers, T-shirts, you name 'em ... they're made in guess where, China. Heck, since confession's good for the soul, I'm even wearing threads made over there.

Let's face it, there's no way to escape China's overwhelming presence in our daily lives. Or for that matter, any sweatshop our financial bigwigs have sold our manufacturing souls to in order to turn over a fast buck. I realize there's a place and time for outsourcing. Sometimes it can't be avoided. As a small businessman/crafter, I might have to investigate the option. But there's a hell of a huge difference between your average small one-man, basement shop woodcrafter and Wal-Mart, Target and the rest.

While it's understandable that these pols are wary of the Big Bad Wolf, (er dragon) outside the door, but we're not exactly living in anything less than a brick house, relatively speaking. Well, at least so far.
So why panic to pay off Beijing at the risk of putting so many of our seniors, disabled people and orphans into permanent economic peril of defaulting on their mortgages, rents, other personal debts or finding themselves living permanently in foster homes because would-be adoptive parents can't taken them on after they've had to bring their own parents back into their households.

Hey, after all, New Gingrich wants to see us return to the good ol' days when kids were indeed warehoused in orphanages. Utah's new Tea Party Senator Mike Lee wants a return to the days when child labor laws are really a thing of the past and kids will be standing in factories like their grandparents and great grandparents used to. They'll have to to help families all "pitch in together."

Or, perhaps the wealthy (and you've GOT to be wealthy just to run for the Senate or House as a Republican...moreso than a Democrat) pachyderms want us to imitate the Chinese family system where at least one family member if not more, is off at the local factory or big box store, slaving for crap non-union wages (OF COURSE!)

Or, better still ... they can (politically) just go straight to hell. Today's so-called "conservatives" ... especially the "fiscally-oriented" sub-species is by far more interested in making sure the books are balanced first, foremost and to be damned sure well, last most, regardless of who is hurt and how badly.

They want their books balanced with the thought in mind that if the government's books are balanced to the last penny, that'll be less taken out of their wallets; notwithstanding the harsher costs to the less fortunate in the very same society they're able to squeeze every damn penny out of to line their wallets.

I forgot to mention something, many of today's "fiscal conservatives" in the GOP, and some of their conservative "Blue Dog" Democratic lapdogs, love to look back at Ronald Reagan as their hero. But I wonder, "what would Reagan do" when given the chance to honor the government's committment to its citizens or placate the old boyos of Beijing's Tianament Square. In 1982, legislation, which Reagan signed into law, had to be passed to keep Social Security solvent for decades to come:

"The changes in this legislation will allow Social Security to age as gracefully as all of us hope to do ourselves, without becoming an overwhelming burden on generations still to come. . . . Our elderly need no longer fear that the checks they depend on will be stopped or reduced. These amendments protect them. Americans of middle age need no longer worry whether their career-long investment will pay off. These amendments guarantee it. And younger people can feel confident that Social Security will still be around when they need it to cushion their retirement." - April 20, 1982"

That sure doesn't sound like today's more craven and hollow Reaganites who are ready to toss our Social Security under a Chinese tank if need be.

Forget not Richard "Tricky Dicky" Nixon, Liberalism's "most favored" bad boy (almost for all time until George W. Bush came along, notwithstanding his pledge to protect SSA in his 2001 inaugural address -- "We will reform Social Security and Medicare, sparing our children from struggles we have the power to prevent." ) Most honest liberals when they look back at Nixon's domestic record will admit he was by far more progressive and protective of the less fortunate than today's bunch of rogue elephants suffering from political dementia and moral anemia. And though Nixon "opened the door to China" ... he never would've sold his nation out so cheaply as today's GOP. In September, 1969 Nixon said:

"This Nation must not break faith with those Americans who have a right to expect that Social Security payments will protect them and their families. . . . In the 34 years since the Social Security program was first established, it has become a central part of life for a growing number of Americans. . . . Almost all Americans have a stake in the soundness of the Social Security system."

"W's" father, President George H.W. Bush made damn sure SSA wouldn't take a beating, even though in sticking to his committment to preserving it made it impossible for him to keep his campaign promise of 1988, "No new taxes."

"And there's one thing I hope we will all be able to agree on. It's about our commitments. I'm talking about Social Security. To every American out there on Social Security, to every American supporting that system today, and to everyone counting on it when they retire, we made a promise to you, and we are going to keep it." - January 31, 1990"

Today's GOP newcomers and "balance the books at all costs" so-called "fiscally conservative" breed occupying (far too many seats) in both the House and Senate need to re-examine their plans, but not through the advice of any pollster they're paying far too much money to tell them what they want to hear. I'll save them a lot of money and hopefully a lot of people a lot of money and heartbreak if these greenshaded pols will stop and heed first the words of this influential man in the history of Social Security:

"We put those payroll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral and political right to collect their pensions . . . With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program. President Franklin Roosevelt, as quoted by historial Arthur Schlesinger, Jr." *

If this idea develops any legs, this will be the day that the fiscal conservatives began laying the seeds for a combined 9/11 and Pearl Harbor for our elderly and weakest to suffer through and quite possibly never recover from. If I were the Chinese, and watching the moral spinelessness of these kinds of political "leaders," I'd be biding my time till 2012, lining up lobbyists and taking full advantage of the Citizens United decision of the bought n' paid for "conservative wing" of our Supreme Court.

Don't worry, I'm not giving away any secrets: Besides, the Chinese already have their handpicked 5th Columnists, such as the Koch Brothers and their Rightist puppets, all working hard on their behalf, using all the tricks I've mentioned above, not to mention perhaps a lot more plays that'll knock us for a loop.

On the other hand, it's time for the rest of us to say, "Dammit, enough!" and start showing some constructively directed anger, courage and political muscle of our own. If we wind up on the streets, living with our adult children, placed back in institutions due to disabilities and our children wind up in orphanages, at least we can say we went down fighting.

* Color emphasis, mine. (Italics already supplied.)

Beck's ballistic tirade against Chris "Balloonhead" Matthews ought to be Fox New Channel's golden excuse to rip up its most unfair and unhinged bigmouth's contract once and for all.

2011-01-29T21:42:00.000-08:00

There's no point in my giving any point-by-point "take" on this beaut of a meltdown. Beck supplies it all. But since he brought up the "Ivy League sneer" to trash MSNBC's Chris Matthews for criticising Michelle Bachmann, Minnesota's Welfare Queen, ($250K in FARM SUBSIDIES for her late father-in-law's farm), over her comments about the Founding Fathers and slavery, allow me to step in with a personal story/angle just to demonstrate how balloonheaded Beck's diatribe was for a man "earning" $30M a year. Actually, this was Zepplin-sized, even by Beck's "standards."

First; Matthews graduated from the College of the Holy Cross... a Catholic college in Worcester, MA. He later studied economics at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill.) Should I give Beck a half-credit since UNC is regarded as one of the Public Ivies, which also include University of Virginia, and UMass/Amherst? Hmmm, I'll bet he'd really get off a good snicker n' sneer at UMass/Amherst, a real progressive school chock full of wooly-headed liberal progressives.

Give it a rest, Beck. And for once, earn your outrageous compensation, salary or right wing agit-prop obscene profiteering from your grossly irresponsible and horrendously huge ego and mouth by doing one thing, and one thing only: JUST SHUT UP and listen or at least read up on what you're trying to say or pretend you have something to yak about.

I have more "Ivy League" credits than Chris Matthews. Heck, I even have more than one of my brothers who's a tenured college professor. What's more unique about my "Ivy League" education is that I received it on the college's dime when I worked for Mount Holyoke College (MHC) and I was trying to earn some necessary credits to become ready for a teaching internship which I would've completed had it not been for the reluctance of my then-boss to allow her employees to conduct outside unpaid internships. This was in 1990 when my wife and I had a fourth child on the way and with no certain teaching job prospects surely lined up, I was unable to fulfill a dream I had started in 1970. Without any health care ... well, I don't have to explain that in greater detail, unless Beck's actually reading this. In this case, I'll have to pull a tutorial.

By the way, one of the courses I took was in American Economic History and my thesis was about Charles Beard's views that the American Constitution was created as an economic document. Hmmm, Glenn, no supra religiosity declaring America a "Christian nation" or any of that other fluff n' puff nonsense you and your Glenn Beck University love to dish out.

Okay, I didn't graduate from MHC, and MHC was not an "Ivy League" school in the strict sense primarily because it belonged to the "Seven Sisters," the women's equal to the once all-male Ivy League. MHC was founded by Mary Lyon as the first (and few remaining all womens' colleges.) Uh oh, now I'm really going to be in Beckand my former conservative colleagues' doghouse for taking free credits from a progressive women's college in the liberal northeastern part of the nation, and not just any liberal northeastern part; but Massachusetts. "Free"? Like hell: I earned them by working for the Library.

Since there was not even the beginnings of a national health care system like what we have now with the Affordable Health Care Act of 2010, I would've had to be the biggest balloonhead along with that other liberal progressive Ivy Leaguer from the Northeast, Chris Matthews to quit my job and take a chance at landing a teaching job. Remember, this new law is the baby Beck & Co. want to smother in its crib.

Hmmm, do I have a lot to learn! Or do I? Maybe I do. After all, I've got to learn why I'm collecting roughly around $12K on SSDI (which I know Beck would love to scalp right out of the ballooning Fed'l deficit, etc.) while this ranter and raver is pulling down $30+Million a year for doing his best to imitate Herr Doktor Joseph Goebbels who mastered the BIG LIE by telling whatever lie he wanted to have the Germans believe by repeating it over and over and over till the people got around to figuring, "Hey, if Dr. Goebbels keeps having to repeat this stuff, maybe it is true and we'd better get with it."

Such is how it's going with the repeated attacks on Social Security. Remember the big"Ponzi scheme" that's ready to burst like a big balloon?

Well, it looks like I'll have to muster up all my Ivy League education to put Mr. Beck's collection of lies for no other reason than to protect the little I have qualified for, and am damn grateful to receive, just to keep the roof over the head of my family before Glenn and all his plutocratic pals who recently got away with plundering the nation's till in the great GOP Tax Extortion Bill of 2010 will get their greedy paws on Social Security. Don't think for a second that they won't because they've been pushing for this moment for the past seven decades and they won't stop now, notwithstanding all their sweet talk about not tossing Nana under the bus. Not my generation of Nanas and not theirs', but the next, and next and next. Future Nana's of the world, you're on your own. They'll give you a voucher in January and kindly advise you not to leave more year at the end of what that voucher says it has.

What's my disability? Bipolar and ADHD, ("in spades" as one doc put it) which I take meds for, when I could afford to prior to losing my health insurance when my wife's job was outsourced last year. It took me months to get back "on line" but at least I'm there and life goes on. I'm one of the lucky ones.

The health-care-killing Beck has the same disabilities, refuses to take meds, and it shows through his hate-filled diatribes and he makes all those millions advocating all his anti-progressive rants against some of the most basic mom/pop n' apple pie parts of the progressive's record of civic accomplishments. Now it'd be easy to say, "You tell me who's crazier ... the guy playing it straight and not out to destroy the lives of so many people struggling to get by and keep their homes, or the man whose mind just POPPED due to his own overwhelming egotism on steroids?

Maybe I'm crazier for going public. Maybe I'm crazier for even comparing myself to that ... personality ... (and I'm being as charitable as I can, here.) But if I have to be this "crazy" to expose the insanity of such a despicable creation of big media getting paid so much to show such little intellect, never mind compassion, when one takes into consideration of what nine tenths of his income can do for many towns trying to balance their budgets, keep from having lay off workers, or privatizing them out to the lowest bidding private contractors, avoid cutting library hours and just repairing seasonal-caused road damage ... then I'll proudly wear the label "crazy."

If Fox, Beck, Limbaugh, Savage, Bachmann, the GOP, Palin and Romney represent what's left of conservatism, then I'm glad to be rid of it and out from it, save for pointing out where it's heading off its own cliff like Thelma and Louise. And if it's all that's left of a once proud political philosophy carefully crafted and explained by the likes of Russell Kirk, Peter Viereck, Wm. F. Buckley, Jr., M. Stanton Evans and George Nash ... then the once proud ideology of past has indeed been tossed under the bus with all the Nanas, orphans, the disabled on SSA/SSDI, "balloonheads" and anybody else with a working mind who's had enough.

BTW, there's a happy ending coming: All those Nanas, "balloonheads" the rest of those "progressives" Beck and his crowd love to hate, all managed to keep rolling to the other side of the bus. And say, didn't I see today's "conservative" versions of Thelma and Louise, Michelle and Sara at the front of the bus as it flew off the cliff? Only in my crazy dreams.

Sigh.

"Guns are marvelous tools," saith National Catholic Register's Jimmy Akins.

2011-01-14T15:15:00.000-08:00

Mr. Akins, would you care to say that to the victims of last Saturday's massacre? Granted, Cong. Gabrielle Giffords owns guns, but in the wake of her attempted assassination, do you or any sane person care to believe she'd go so far as to use the word "marvelous"?

Akins, whose opinion on gun ownership, which he explained last summer in a column for National Catholic Register, has a unique take as to who should be able to own guns. Safe to say, his is far more elastic than mine:

"Guns are marvelous tools. That’s why we fight wars with them. On a smaller scale, we also defend ourselves with them, we hunt with them, obtain food with them, control dangerous predators like bears and mountain lions with them, control animal populations like deer that would otherwise suffer unless culled, signal the start of sporting events with them, and use them in marksmanship competitions."

Dear reader, you can betcha that Mrs. Palin couldn't have put it any better.

Just a few hours ago in Massachusetts' Hampden Superior Court, former Pelham, MA, police chief Edward Fleury acquitted of committing involuntary manslaughter in the accidental shooting death of an 8 year old boy, Christopher Bizilj of Connecticut, which occured at a shooting range in nearby Westfield, MA.

What was eight year-old Christopher shooting pumpkins with? A mini-Uzi. Some "marvelous" tool.

You read that correctly: An Uzi, mini or otherwise, one does have to wonder what such a "marvelous" tool was doing in the hands of somebody that young. I'll leave the facts of the story in my link with one of my local television stations, WWLP, Channel 22. To be fair to Fleury, there were many mitigating circumstances working in his behalf, beginning with Christopher's father, a physician no less, who allowed his son to use this gun.

When I was a probation/parole officer in central Florida three decades ago, a class of new officers was taken to a nearby bastille of a state prison for a class to familiarize ourselves with firearms should we found one in a probationer/parolee's home. (No way on earth should any peace officer, and that's what I as an unarmed officer of the court, should ever pick up a gun in a felon's home. Yes, it doesn't belong there to begin with, but if they have one gun, it's not worth betting a bullet lodged in your head to find out if he has more. You walk, drive and call ... but way out of sight. Nobody in law enforcement is paid to play "Dirty Harry.")

During the range-firing session, each of us got to use a .38 revolver and a shotgun. I've never forgotten the "kick" from the .38, much less that from the shotgun, which gave me a "reminder" on my shoulder to mull on its power over the weekend. Almost 30 years later, when I heard of this horrible accident, I the sensation I had just from the revolver's and shotgun's kickbacks came instantly to mind. The more I learned about the circumstances of this boy's death, the more sickened and saddened I became just thinking "who on earth would let an eight-year old handle an Uzi, no matter how "mini" it was?"

I wonder what Jimmy Akins would be thinking about these "marvelous tools" if he was there when the kickback of the Uzi forced control out of Christopher's hands thus leading the accidental additional discharge of the bullet through his head from under his chin?

Getting back to Akins' views about felons and people with mental being allowed to be licensed to own and/or use firearms ... this too stretches one's capacity for comprehension as well.

"Of course," Akins wants to reassure us, "we are not talking about all people without exception."

Reassured yet? Citing recent Supreme Court decisions (prior to and during last year) ". . . lawmakers can reasonably bar felons and the mentally ill from owning guns. (Personally, I would change “felons” to “violent criminals,” due to the absurd extent to which federal law has started classifying things as felonies; I’d also shore up “mentally ill” to make sure that only those who pose a danger to themselves or others are intended, due to the tendencies to classify everything under the sun as a mental illness, but those are other issues.) The question is: Should ordinary, law-abiding, mentally stable individuals be allowed to own guns?" (Emphasis mine.)

How much "shoring up" has the State of Arizona provided in its lawbooks regarding who and who cannot own, much less discharge, any firearms in that state?

And shouldn't the Commonwealth of Massachusetts have shored up its laws to make sure eight year old boys can't fire, never mind pick up, any gun ... much less a semi-automatic?

I'm not a felon, but I have a history of mental illness with bipolar depression, ADHD "in spades," as one doc put it and a few other aggravating conditions ... which despite what a lot of experts might tell us, some of these "issues" don't fade in time. This is especially so concerning bipolar disorder. There's no way in hell should a person with my conditions, no matter how well "under control" I have it, should ever own a firearm. The only time I'd grant an exception to a person with mental illnesses to discharge a weapon would be to save another life under very, rare and dire circumstances.

These "marvelous tools" in the hands of children, people with mental or criminal histories make for more miseries and heartbreaks to come, Mr. Akins.

They're not "marvelous" then ... they're potentially mortal as recent history and untold numbers of personal tragedies of family squabbles and out of control parties ending in bloodshed. And by the way, the city where Fleury was tried, Springfield, MA -- also hometown of Smith & Wesson, watched 2011 come in with a bang no thanks to the use of one these "marvelous tools" on New Year's Eve.

Responsible exceptionalism: What's that all about?

2011-01-12T23:22:00.000-08:00

I think I've run my course as a "conservative" writer. So why don't I just change the title of my blog to "Responsible Exceptionalism"? I believe in American Exceptionalism, but not for the same reasons the Lady Swashbuckler does. She takes it to its most illogical extreme and in her unique way of handling things, she sure as hell finds a way to blow a Prudhomme Bay-bound tanker through it in no time flat.

We Americans are exceptionally good at being mavericks, aren't we. And what vision we have to be able to see Vladimir Putin's Siberian back yard from our back yards, too. You betcha.

Lest I forget, there's the Professor of Beck University and his merry co-horts of historical revisionism. Now, please don't take exception with my triumphalism, but I like to believe I'm a fairly devout Catholic Christian. Yet somehow I've never been able to buy into the notion that our Founding Fathers were all so dedicated to promoting Christianity while framing the Declaration and Constitution. They were hoping to God everything would work out because American exceptionalism or constructing a Godly nation on a hill was less on their minds than more down-to-earth-existential thoughts. Meaning? Meaning how they could get out of Philadelphia as soon as their horses and buggies could haul 'em before the Brits arrived, or post-revolutionary remnants of Shays Rebellion who wanted to be sure they were finally going to get a fair shake.

Last but not least, there's the BIG GUY down in West Palm Beach, Florida; land of no state income taxes, lousy public schools and a horrendously complicated property tax schema concocted to bring in some revenue to local towns without raising the spectre of more Bolshevist taxes. It's kind of hard to take seriously the conservative American flag-waving, Old Glory toga-like body wrapping of this Caesar who seeks the outright failure of our elected President, the real Caesar, Barack H. Obama, and dares to foist himself off as some great patriot.

Such conservatism and its misuse of the term American exceptionalism is a mite too much to absorb without half a case of Tums. It certainly doesn't portend too well to make a case for itself as being anywhere close to resembling a form of "responsible conservatism." So, since my brand of really responsible conservatism is too out of the mainstream of the outstream, I might as well face facts and surrender to the ugly reality of the day.

Therefore, I've "re-branded" this blog as "Responsible Exceptionalism."

What the hell has become of the "conservative" movement? It's been hijacked by ideological buccaneers, esp. a Lady Swashbuckler.

2011-01-12T15:40:00.000-08:00

This past year, with all the turmoil, caused by the heated election campaigns, which, in turn, were fueled in large part by the passage of The National Health Care Reform Act, (Obamacare) -- I've been wondering . . . what the hell am I doing in that crowd?

Today's "conservative" movement isn't at all what the movement used to be. Admittedly, everything changes to a certain extent. Now the old and once increasingly respectable movement has been captured by out of control roguish ideologues...okay, politicians and pundits who best resemble outright buccaneers and these pirates have simply jammed their rudders to the starboard, and damned be the consequences of their actions.

Complain about their roguish manners and bloodthirsty rhetoric, the leading lady swashbuckler herself will trot out the old "blood libel" for good measure. (As if she knew or was properly advised what the term meant in the first place.) At first I thought she was a freshingly amusing character, but the Lady Swashbuckler from the nether regions of the far north, has gone farther than most pols calling themselves conservative to destroy all the hard work the late Wm. F. Buckley, Jr. put into making conservatism a respectable way of approaching life and governance.

Notice which came first. People who lack the self-control ... which is what conservatism is all about if nothing else--save for turning it into mental straitjacket of sorts--have no business running the governmental affairs of a small backwoods town, much less a very strategic and extremely large state, or for that matter, the nation. The privilege to govern comes only after you've earned the public's trust to assume the office and carry out your duties to the end of your terms; not when it best suits you to pull up anchor and sail to other port o' calls to plunder.

What the hell did I see in that person? What scares me more is what the hell don't people see in her? And they continue putting their blinders on because, as I mentioned above, she's "freshingly amusing." Many politicians, conservatives, liberals and moderates alike have earned that distinction. But few have exhibited such lack of self-control and managed to get away with it as much as the Lady Swashbuckler has. Ah, but will I head back if she's finally shown for what she is: truly a fraud? Not a chance--because the rest of the "conservative movement" as it stands today are nearly as radically irresponsible as Lady Swashbuckler.

When the lady sneezes about "death panels," they not only click their heels and rush to get her a tissue and make-up kit (get her lots o' rouge, guys) ... they also flush their heads of all facts concerning what's really been going about these so-called "death panels" and for how long and who's been the biggest developer/practitioners of them: the private sector and fiscally conservative politicians.

"Oh noooo, we don't want to hear that," they squeal like Mr. Bill.

Well, Sluggo Barrett will this sad story in brief ... they way they like it. Any piece of legislation longer than a page is a bit troubling for some of our new stalwart conservative "leaders."

For years and years, people with unusual diseases requiring new and admittedly expensive experimental meds and treatments have been told "No dice, too expensive!" The same insurance companies didn't think their premiums were too expensive, ah, but we know that's another story. Right? Hey, it's not grand theft, the insured could've read the policies especially the fine print where insurance lawyers are paid hefty salaries to bury such arcane restrictions about "pre-existing conditions," which can practicably be reinvented to suit their whims. Oh, do you need new glasses after reading this? Well, even if you became a success in any profession, save the law, or medicine, thus requring a lot of midnight oil burning sessions, your friendly health insurers might blame you for causing whatever it is requirng special glasses just to find your way out the door without a cane and/or insuree's best friend ... which of course, they won't pay for those either. AND WHY?

Keeping their Wall Street investors happy. I only used a relatively less life threatening eye condition. What if this involved a kidney transplant or continued dialysis treatment?

If you're a resident of Arizona, you might as well invest first in funeral insurance. After all, the state legislature's got to be "fiscally accountable to save all those citizens' hard earned tax dollars." Right? Isn't that the conservative way today ? Why bother with spending money to treat crazies; the average citizen knows best what to do with his money. (His money? Once you pay your taxes it's like paying your tithes, a lawyer told me once; "Remember," he added, "posession's 9/10ths of the law.") We can't keep playing "give back" when it comes to taxes anymore than we can with money we give to God. We have to trust that the money will be well spent.

Jan Brewer has taken a lot of heat for her having to discontinue funds for dialysis treatments, and two people died as a result. But nobody, nobody can point an accusing finger at her for having tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to restore millions of dollars for mental health coverage. Hmmm, didn't something bad, really bad, occur in AZ due to the actions of a sick deranged young man?

Maybe I'm blood libeling the Arizona legislature. I'm so unfair; after all, they were only protecting the taxpayers' dollars. What about the taxpayers themselves? Or does their money count for more?

Well! And what will the already existing governmental and private-sector death panels have shown in the name of "transparency, and accountability at the end of the day," each day to ensure that compassionate conservatism, i.e. making sure the taxpayers every dollar, quarter, dime n' penny ... and of course, the stockholders' (usually management which makes itself the majority stockholders) shares, dividends, and most importantly bonuses, are well taken care of.

So much for respecting terms like "moral absolutes." If in the name of "protecting taxpayers' 'hard earned dollars'" and "maintaining competitive profitability" -- non-judicial death sentences can be handed down and companies can get away with manslaughter via grand theft ... why do today's "fiscal conservatives" even bother to disgrace the word "morality" by speaking of it? How could I forget, that code of the buccaneers, "honor among thieves?" Guess even putting this in cyber-print will get me in trouble with the "Blood Libel Police."

So be it. Why call myself a conservative anymore since I'm viewed as a "Bolshevik" by some people close to me for having the temerity to call for "confiscatory" estate taxes ... although no mention was given to the confiscation from millions of middle class working people in the form of taxes to contribute to the future financial security of trust fund babies for years to come.

Sadly, what used to be the conservatism of Bill Buckley's hard work is all being flushed down the drains of Palm Beach, Palm Springs, Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and Sweetland, Texas. Let's be thankful the Lord blessed him by preventing him from living long enough to see all his work so easily and shabbily cast aside. Buckley and his generation didn't have anything against wealth. Certainly not Buckley or Russell Kirk. Bare-knuckled and shameless greed, that was different. Honor, moral absolutes and a respect for what the Founding Fathers/Framers wanted, and not just the packaged stuff Lady Swashbuckler, e/a and her fellow pirates trying to fluff off nowadays, were paramount to him. So did proper demeanor and fair play. And boy is that old stuff to today's tacky bunch.

Today's "conservative" movement seems to just favor mean men and women with the loudest bullhorns and highest ratings.

As if the unhinged haven't already had more than the say they believe they deserve in the wake of the Tuscon Massacre, here comes Westboro Baptist Church

2011-01-11T14:03:00.000-08:00

Yes, you read the headline correctly. The most hate-filled "christian church" in the United States, perhaps the entire planet, Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, KS, is going to picket the funerals of the people murdered by Jared Lee Loughner.

Additionally, sales of Glocks have jumped considerably in Arizona.

Looks like the inmates are running the asylum out there.

Now's the time for prayer, not quick-grabs for instant solutions to shooting massacres.

2011-01-11T08:54:00.000-08:00

The script is by now all too familiar: A madman goes into a crowded area, perhaps looking to kill a popular politician, celebrity, etc., or simply "get even" with his boss and co-workers he perceived to have done him "wrong" or he's simply unhinged due to being overly stressed out for other reasons and decides to "act out" willy nilly against the world. The results aren't willy nilly. They're often fatal.

Does it make a difference at this point if the weapon is a firearm or a machete? How do people defend themselves against such weapons in the hands of a determined killer? Oh, gotta have more gun control. Time to start registering machetes! We could do all that quite simply. Well, quite simply vz. working on the causes of these horrible crimes against humanity.

At the risk of appearing terribly "out of touch," naive, or whatever to skeptics, cynics, atheists and agnostics... would it hurt in the least to try R E L I G I O N?

That's right: religion. A system of beliefs predicated on the simple basis that there is a Higher Being, a Creator, to whom we are all answerable to at a certain point in time; our physical end-time, so to speak, our physical death. Our souls don't die and this is crucial to remember. We have to learn that we won't get out of here alive and there will be a judgment for how we lived those lives and that concepts such as right/wrong make a difference. Sooner or later, we'll wind up in either Heaven or hell. As a Catholic, I believe in (and thank Him for) Purgatory. Nobody gets out of here spotlessly unless they're on their deathbeds, make a confession or say the "sinner's" prayer or some atonement in a state of grace. For the rest of us whose "number" or "moment" can come at any instant, such as it did for those gunned down by that sick man in Arizona, sudden death can render the fate of many individual souls quite harshly if not for purgatory for those who believe in Him, especially Christians who've neglected their faith in His Son and scoffed at the Holy Spirit. That's THE biggie in Christ's eyes.

God in His infinite mercy and love, created Purgatory. I realize it may not be easy to quickly pinpoint in the Bible, but I can point to my Catechism ... and I can defend it on some very homespun commonsense grounds.

Alas, the "systems" of man aren't so forgiving, nor are they adequate to forming us so that we don't have as many mentally unbalanced people walking around with guns, no less.

I believe it's a sign of society instability to promote a greater gun culture. It wasn't THE GUN that stopped the massacre: it was two brave people who stopped the assailant via physical means. And it sure as hell wasn't THE GUN that could've solved any grieviance the assailant had against Congresswoman Gifford.

Nor will it be a regimen of meds and counseling therapy that'll stop this kind of carnage from completely happening again. It will be a combination of all of the above ... but mostly prayer.

Oh boring prayer, how dull the suggestion that'll save a wreck like this nation.

Any better solutions on top of the legal and therapeutic?

El Rushbo, who makes Joe McCarthy look like a piker, becomes unhinged in wake of Tuscon massacre.

2011-01-10T16:33:00.000-08:00

As if Megyn Kelly's Louis Reynauld's impersonation style impersonation of a reporter wasn't bad enough, make room for the Big Dawg of 'em all in Rightwingworld. Rush Limbaugh, aka "El Rushbo" – his own self-designated nickname, hath sat behind his microphone, his ever golden microphone, no less, to proclaim his (hardly) infallible "wisdom."

He stepped into the Kelly-Dupnik debate and did he ever step deeply into it. While he was at it, he should've brought along a mucking shovel. I didn't hear Limbaugh's show today but I was alerted to its content through this article "Rush Bails Water In Wake Of Arizona Shooting" by Howard Fineman in today's Huffington Post.

Yet, in fairness to El Rushbo, I decided to link the diatribe (which is putting it charitably) by Limbaugh on his show. (See above) For years I grew up hearing all the horror stories about the late “Tailgunner Joe” McCarthy, (R-WI) who terrorized liberals, communists and communist sympathizers alike and gave the conservative a mean-spirited look it had just begun to shake loose of during the Reagan years when along came Rush Limbaugh during the early Nineties.

Joe McCarthy was a piker when it came to demonstrating the kind of power Limbaugh has at his disposal, especially in the wake of the infamous Citizens United decision which gave corporations a flashing neon green light to spend as much as they want without anybody being able to find out who's paying for what and why. Limbaugh's worried that he'll be shut down. He need not fret with this decision because he can just sign on with some big company, perhaps even take out a W-2 form from the Koch Brothers and he'd be back in business just by buying a yacht and anchoring it in some tax-haven where he could re-establish his excellence in bullying and be untouchable.

If he's in a little country where's there's a coup going on, I have one piece of advice if he's thinking he can seek comfort in his own nation's military (if need be) and good offices of the diplomatic corps: “Keep moving; you've got more than enough resources; perhaps even to buy this coup leader off.”

He should've stuck with sports. He's not a conservative; he's a self-styled rightist radical, and that's all he'll ever be.

Limbaugh's rumblings on abortion and its effects on the Democrats.

2011-01-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

Notice the difference between conservatism and Rightwingworld-ism. One's based on the idea that all people need to be treated with respect and dignity as fitting their place in a loving God's eyes and heart...not to mention His intention of creating us in His image.

Today's Rightwingworld-ism is a highly glossed and slick repackaging of the same old 19th century Spencerian Dog-Eat-Dog variety of the most misunderstood theory in mankind's history: evolution. That's never stopped anybody on all points of the ideological spectrum from using Darwin's theory to suit his/her own ends. Some folks, from Herbert Spencer to Adolph Hitler and Margaret Sanger never met a means to meet their ends that they didn't like.

Limbaugh recently added his spin to an article by The Atlantic's Ronald Brownstein concerning abortion, the Democrats and "white flight" insofar as they're going to do the Democrats in over time.
I believe abortion will do the Democrats in and race has nothing to do with it. We've lost 50,000,000 (count all those zeroes) wouldv'e-been American citizens. I'm not a numbers-cruncher, but you don't have to be one to simply imagine the impact that stupendous loss of people has taken out on our social safety net. That means fewer people are paying into the systems and with our economy in a very unsure way, not to mention our political geography no thanks to propagandists like Limbaugh, Beck, O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter et al -- plus their errand boys and girls in Congress, (especially the House as of last week) ... spreading the lie about social security going, or already having arrived at the "broke" stage ... the social safety net is going to really get whacked, and hard.

The truth about social security is that it's NOT broke. The GOP, feeding off their boiler-room claque of liars and damned good liars, is spreading the half-truth about SS going broke. Well, of course it could go broke if there aren't enough people paying into it. But doesn't it seem strange that so many Baby Boomers (the generation that supposedly "benefitted the most" from the legalization of abortion in 1973) are also coincidently the ones wringing or throwing up their hands in total angst after hearing about the "bankruptcy of SS" without hearing the full story? The problem isn't un-fixable, but it's going to take a lot of time, and yes, a whole 'lotta ol' fashioned loving.

That's right: Want to make sure your parents, grandparents and eventually yourselves (if you're still in that age for family-building) from the prospects of long-term poverty in your old age, or dismal futures if your children should be orphaned or you become disabled ... Make Love & War on Poverty. There's no point in going off into discussions about "gay families," and other sociological innovations of the last 20 or so years. They're going to get old, too. Only in the past, they only had to worry about themselves and they had plenty of cash, beaucoup of it. Now that they're getting married and having kids, well, they're going to have to wake up and see what they could be losing. I'm a social conservative, but also a realistic one in Massachusetts where it all started. If that's what they want, they'd better "lissen up" and realize there are many, many tight-minded more-than-merely-fiscally-conservative folks out there.

These are economic Darwinists, Spencerians, remember...the "dog eat dogs" variety?

Yes, I'll agree that abortion has killed off a disproportionate number of Black children. It's genocide, plain n' simple. But there's also something else to consider: with 50million dead children, of all colors, we have to consider what all this will mean if we don't put an end to this slaughter.

Limbaugh's take, I find is horrendously hypocritical. It's not even fully accurate. Last week on his website "El Rushbo" put up a sonographic picture of a baby in utero and slapped a Democratic Donkey symbol on it for partisan shock value. Old trick. And he points out the money that's gone to Planned Parenthood. Old news, however awful. What he's not saying is that prior to Roe, PPF was the darling of the white Republicans of the northeast who used it as a rather genteel way of keeping welfare costs at a minimum. Well, you'll never hear people in polite company actually come right out and say, "This will help keep welfare costs and black population figures down, not to mention the trailer trash crowd."

Hell's bells, the GOP knew all along that it was poor whites who dominated the welfare rolls years back as they do now. But it was carefully repackaging itself during the Nixon years while the Democrats, incredibly enough ... the party of the poor and down n' outers, went the other way in its full embrace of the very legal operation that would not only leave the blood of an estimated 50M people on their hands, but also work as a dagger against all the good social progress they 'd achieved through SS, Unemployment Insurance, and Medicare. Presidents from FDR to LBJ never intended these programs to be handouts; but that's not what so many historical revisionists working on behalf of the Right today are saying. After all, when you don't really know the internal makeup and tenor of the character of the generation of workers you're writing about, it's easy to paint a wholly different picture of them and their leaders at the time. What's even more unconscionable is that they don't give a damn in the first place.

Just put out the talking points out against the New Deal and whip up a lot of "horror stories" (much akin to the same old slop used by FDR's harshest critics of New Deal legislation/programs and voila...more anti-government red-meat rhetoric coming forth out of the blowhard mouths of Fox' "experts" ... Beck, Hannity, O'Reilly and Coulter. (Yes, Ann's never fallen completely out of grace on Fox' cable "news" shows. And of course, there's Rush.)

This combination of the half-truths told about SS plus the recent tax cuts being funded by all working Americans, that benefit the wealthy more than any single class, especially concerning estate tax windfalls and the paring down of SS payroll taxes portends a nightmarish situation for people on SS, SSDI and Medicare (as, admittedly I am, on the latter two) because if this gamble of an agreement between President Obama and Congress turns around to bite him; it won't just be Obama, or even myself ... but millions of others like myself now, but moreso in the future who may someday need to apply for disability and Medicare.

It's not welfare; you have to pay into it and qualify for it. That some prisoners get it doesn't ... or more importantly ... shouldn't give any damn ammo to the programs' sharpest critics. It's not wealth redistribution, either. The next time you hear Limbaugh & Co. bellyache about "wealth redistribution," ask them when the last time they bitched about the whopper estate tax giveaway to the Queen of the Ozarks, Helen Walton and her heirs ... who'll never have to work for that money that'll be paid for by the working people of this country ... the vast overwhelming 97 percent of the people the late Leona Helmsley called "little people" who pay taxes.

I was recently and brusquely chastised by a relative for my views about inheritance taxes. "That's Bolshevik confiscatory politics." Dang, then call me a Bolshie.

Since this relative made it known that church-attendance isn't exactly high on the old priority list, I guess it wouldn't have made much difference to remind this individual about that old saying "To whom much is given, much is expected in return." Or the fact that Jesus spoke more about money and what it does to people than on any other subject. Imagine if he had today's Pharisees and Sadduccees to deal with in the Domestic Axis of Economic Terror between the Shysters on Wall Street, Capitol Hill Conivers and their Tax-Finagling Friends on K-Street.

Shucks, I forgot to ask this relative, but maybe I'll ask Rush ... if repealing the Bush Era tax cuts to make way for the Obama Era sell out isn't confiscatory, what is? And how is it that the same bleeding hearts for Queen Helen Walton and the House of Bentonville, et al, who complained about how "costly" it'd be in terms of adding to the national deficit, a whopping $14B to pay for $250.00 single time lost-COLA replacement checks, can turn around and justify a mere $800B wealth redistributionist scheme to "stimulate" our nation's already super-duper über über wealthy's buying power. Well, what and were are they buying and doing with their extra goodies? But hey, Grandma could've used that extra $250 just to heat her apartment, never mind buy some extra stocking stuffers for her grandchildren. But what would that do for the economy? In this age of trickle down economics, perhaps the example of Grandma's plight might not be as eye -catching as my "ripple out effect." I'm not going to bother explaining this: Even kids running lemonade stands can figure it out.

If you've earned a good income, you should do what you can legally and morally to protect as much as you can from unnecessary taxation. But this is a far, far cry from the wholesale giveaway that theüber über wealthy received last month. How many more trips to Sotheby's or breakfast at Tiffanys do they need to feel fufilled? At least they could buy an American-bred thoroughbred and hire an All-American syndicate to take care of the bangtail. How many bank accounts will they need to open in the Caymans or Switzerland. With a friend like former Senator Phil Gramm over there, no problems in sight. The transfers only have to be legal. The problem is; the money's over there and not stimulating a damn thing here.

So the next part of the plan is to further squeeze SS, or as Grover Norquist said about government, kill it by draining it. So he can line his wallets and his pals' wallets: Plain and simple. And it's been like this every since FDR signed the SS Act into law; notwithstanding the enormous benefits its accrued to so many citizens.

And here's one question I have for so many of my fellow baby boomers who got elected to Congress recently, especially the Tea Partiers... (maybe Kool Aiders is more accurate.) How many of you were the dependent children of American service men and women, and civilian public servants and received free government health care? How many of you got to travel overseas and "see the world" like the Navy posters used to say? And now you're pulling the damn drawbridges up behind you when you're bellyaching about Obamacare, whilst you say nothing about the real reason why government ... in addition to the schemes of tightwads like Norquist & Co. ... is facing shortfalls...abortion. It's the old "Hey, I've got mine, I'm the one who's bless'd n' highly favored ... Sorry mac," story all over again.

Shame. Just remember, as a good evangelical and successful businessman told me several times, "You'll never see any armored car follow a hearse." He should've added as a further warning: They won't find any aristocracies they can buy into in Heaven. But there's another place where there's plenty for the payin'.

Fox News Channel's Megyn Kelly proved there's more brass to this story than the assailant's shell casings.

2011-01-10T12:33:00.000-08:00

Chief Counsel for the Right Wing's prosecution team, its "Dream Team" of Fox News Channel anchor/reporter/inquisitioner--Megyn Kelly *questioned, not interviewed, but questioned Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik Sunday. Hmmm, I were her, I'd be on Ruper Murdoch's rug begging him on all fours to find some way to have this little "debate" or Q & A time with Sheriff Dupnik scrubbed, scoured ... whatever it takes to be banned, destroyed, etc. forthwith for all times ... if she wants to ever get a job with a credible news organization once the day ever comes that she leaves FNC. *(From Huffington Post)

Murdoch would be doing them both a favor if he managed to scrub it himself. But he can't scrub what's already been published, i.e., the written transcript in the Huffington Post earlier today. Arianna's stable hands won't bother trying to get this hoss back. Mmm, no way.

Blithely to Kelly, shamelessly to most observers, she merely said she was "questioning" the Sheriff about some facts vs. opinions he was offering ... less than 24 hours after a wildly horrific and confusing crime occured ... and tossed in the D-word bomb as only a FNC "reporter" can. When does an interview become a political inquisition? I'll tell you because I'm guilty of this Cardinal Sin of reporting myself. It's when the reporter adds a few partisan "qualifiers" to phrase or parse his/her "best shots" in order to get the most "gotcha" bang for the paper's buck. Okay, I'm betraying my age and "media source" biases here. I'm a newspaper guy...and one who's been tossed out of at least one interviewee's home and another's office just for playing Jack Webb with a reporter's notebook.

Ms. Kelly, J.D., didn't just take the time to "question" the Sheriff. Not when she had the priceless info (by FNC standards) that the Sheriff was a D-d-d-emo-crat. Not to skewer the man politically, ideologically and professionally would've surely landed her on Rupert's carpet for dereliction of duty. And what would her pals, Glenn, Sean, Bill, Ann and Rush have been left thinking about her if she didn't hog-tie the lawman; (psssst, essentially do their dirty work for them?)

Ms. Kelly flashed her spurs and dug in for the "questioning" much like Torquemada would seek to help a misguided heretic see the errors of his ways before the prime time auto-da-fe.

The poor woman seemed flabberghasted to think "vitriol" would've led to Saturday's massacre. After all, she being a lawyer, knows that to even slightly admit that such an aggravating factor might have originated from FNC would also let all of Fox's cats scamperin' out of their wet paper bags ... especially the ones practically meowing this old line "Fair n' balanced" instead of the truth, phony n' baloney. So acting like a female inquisitor instead of a reporter for a self-proclaimed "fair and balanced" "news channel," she bared her claws and went digging right after the Sheriff's professed heresy of alleging vitriol. (Besides, when it comes to spin, how dare Sheriff Dupnik challenge Fox' monopoly when it comes to offering anything but really fair and balanced views, much less news?
He didn't budge. Seems his spurs, made of sturdier metal, were dug in deeper. Regarding the expectedly more comprehensive round-up of the facts about the alleged assailant, Jared Loughner, and performing his duties in a competent manner:

"Dupnik said that he did not yet have any such evidence, but that the investigation had only just begun," according to the Huffington Post's Jack Mirkinson, who added ... and Arianna's reporter saved his best for last, indeedy he did ... Kelly -- referring to Dupnik's press conference Saturday, where he lashed out at the vitriol on the airwaves that he believed may have contributed to the massacre --
" ... said she was wondering if it was the right time for Dupnik to be, in her words, 'injecting speculative opinion' about the case. He replied that he thought that the issue had to be raised. 'Free speech is free speech but it's not without consequences,' he said.* But Kelly pressed him further. 'With respect, sheriff, I know that you're a Democrat and you ran for office as a Democrat, and I just want to press you on that a little. I'm sure some of our viewers are asking themselves why you are putting a political spin on this when they may be asking why you the sheriff aren't just focused on the facts, on uncovering the facts,' she said." * Emphasis mine (spb)

In other words, how dare you question our racket. Yet even for an anchoress ... reporter ... inqusititoress ... whatever-or-ess ... working for Fox and shilling for the Right Wing's latest incarnation of Goebbel's propaganda ministry, the very idea she's outraged that a locally elected (worse yet--Democratic!) law enforcement officer would be putting a "spin" on things...that's like Casablanca's Inspector Louis Reynauld sniffing "Gambling in Casablanca!"

Well, I'm going to have the fun of saying in so many words, "Your winnings, Inspector" with this parting remark,

Ms. Kelly, that takes a lot of brass. Coincidently as much as that 30pc clip used up by that Glock semi-automatic.

Amazing how the Right has it wrong when a sheriff calls it out.

2011-01-09T15:08:00.000-08:00

An article by the Huffington Post's Amanda Terkel should tell us all where and why contemporary conservative "commentary" has morphed into contemptible bile.

Since many conservatives, and religious conservatives in particular, are self-professed Christians, allow me to share some very wise and prayerful words from St. Francis of Assisi:

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Pray for all the victims, the nation and the victimizer. If some of my fellow conservative bloggers, writers, pundits, etc., have any problems with this, let them consult Jesus Christ who said,

"Forgive us our trespassers as we forgive those who trespass against us ... "

And may God Bless America for such honest lawmen like Pima County's Sheriff Clarence Dupnik.

Nice going, Michael Fitzpatrick: Yet, can ye swear ye recently done your country, commonwealth, district constituents, party and alma mater proud?

2011-01-07T16:23:00.000-08:00

The 112th Congress has gotten off to a memorable start for the House of Representatives now dominated by the Republican-Tea Party House of Representatives for its hallow, albeit pompous, display of respect for the Constitution, not to also mention its trampling of all vestiges of civic fairness and spitting in the face of so many people in this nation needing affordable decent health care.

Before I go much further, let me state right out I don't support scuttling Obamacare completely, only concerning abortion, notwithstanding the executive order the President signed shortly after the major bill was passed and also signed rapidly into law by him. Had it not been for the two-timer Bart Stupak whose "holding out" charade was a scam from the beginning, prolifers might've forced the President to swallow his pride a lot harder than he did when he signed that order, which even to her credit, the pro-abortion Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) told the press it had no real legs to begin with. (Nor would she have wanted it to.) If only some of our "prolife Democrats" been more forthcoming as Rep. Wasserman-Schultz we could've possibly left Stupak by himself and formulated a better strategy.

And I do applaud Rep. Fitzpatrick for his consistent Pro-Life stance. But this man, as the rest of this post will show, has a lot of learning to do and it's time we started culling the political pool across the country for more serious-minded and competent politicians to carry our cause. Bomb throwers we need not. I hope for his sake, Fitzpatrick can turn his career around, or simply rise higher than where he is now, if he survives a legal challenge to his recent, well, hmmmm... I'll leave it at this, (a saying Fitzpatrick is well familiar with: "Tolle legge" which translates into English, "take up and read."
Indeed: Michael Fitzpatrick, who returns to Congress to represent Pennsylvania's 8th District (Buck's County) appears to have already forgotten the tenor of the public's disgust with the politics as usual, i.e. fundraising, fundraising, fundraising and more fundraising. What was he doing when he should've been taking his oath of office along with 433 other members of Congress? Why no less than his office was awkwardly forced to embarrassingly admit he was at a social gathering instead of the real ceremony, thus raising his right arm and taking the oath of office with a fellow veteran, Pete Sessions (R-TX) who happened to have do-dropped-in on the Pennsylvanian's combination of a family get-together and fundraiser on official Capitol grounds. Of course, Fitzpatrick's office wouldn't come out and call it a "fundraiser." Big No No. Big HUGE No No.

What do you know? A lawyer gets elected to congress, fumbles his own swearing-in, and spends lots of egg-on-face moments trying to parse his way out of ... well, to be charitable... a -- "misunderstanding."

As the story goes, Sessions ran into him and said "No problemo, pal, we'll just take the oath while it's on CSPAN." Okay, those probably weren't the real words, but neither was Sessions and Fitzpatrick's raised right arms and repetitions of the oath while watching the real swearing-in going on, real acts of taking the oath of office.

Am I being rough on these two gents? Hardly. After all, Sessions has been in Congress for some time, (first elected in 1997) and Fitzpatrick already had one previous term under his belt representing the same district (05-07). There are plenty of color-coated lights indicating roll call votes and all sorts of aides, interns, pages and non-official folks walking the halls of Congress who, if asked, could have told the two quite unofficial "congressmen" that the Clerk had called for all 435 to show up in time to raise their right hands. Yes, men supposedly don't have a good reputation for asking for directions, but these two men know their way to the House Chamber, not to mention some of the short-cuts and ways to shave time in order to meet a roll-call.

It's one thing to miss a roll call; it's quite another to miss your swearing-in, which makes what happened last November truly official. Apparently that didn't dawn on Sessions and Fitzpatrick. In sharp contrast to Sessions, (cf. Abramoff tie), the latter of the two seems less inclined to shave the finer points of ethical discretion, and he had his family with him so I'm all the more perplexed as to why he didn't haul Clan Fitzpatrick to The Full House for his grand moment as the reconquering hero of Levittown? Sure beats swearing in ever so vicariously during a fundraiser. Kind of tacky to say the least, too.

Fitzpatrick, surprisingly enough, knows better when it comes to official attendance and faux attendance. He only has to look at his Church's teachings on Mass attendance if he has any questions. (Perhaps also Pennsylvania's laws concerning lawyers admitted to the bar. Don't they have to be physically in attendance before a judge for their swearing in?)

Well, when it comes to Mass, any regular Mass-attending Catholic, with so little formation as that necessary only for receiving one's First Communion, can tell you that watching Mass on television doesn't cut it for meeting one's Sunday and/or Holy Days obligations. Even the folks working the cameras for Mother Angelica's EWTN would be more than happy to provide such information, not to mention Fitzpatrick's local ordinary or parish priest, not to mention some of the priests who taught him and I at our alma mater, Biscayne College outside of Miami.

Okay, maybe I'm being a tad bit harsh, after all, things were much more liberal after I left, although the Augustinians who taught me (Class of '74) also taught Fitzpatrick, Class of '85.

Geez, I hated being last in line for dinner at our old cafeteria. No matter how hard they worked to keep the food warm n' tasty, naturally, being last always carried the risk that you didn't get the best. But I'd much rather be caught last in line for college chow than being the last in terms of Congressional Seniority. Undoubtedly, your new constituents will feel likewise; especially the incumbent you beat.

Time for a new "wall of separation" to protect the Constitution from "Constitutionalists"

2011-01-04T13:48:00.000-08:00

Down through the years, I've always enjoyed reading Cal Thomas's books and columns. He's clear, concise and fair. Now and then he drops a bomb. (In fairness to him, I'll admit to far more instances of "incontinent ordinance" during the past 30 years I've been writing about politics.)

His most recent column, "Constitutionalists vs. 'Interpretationists,'" falls--pun unintended--under the "bomb" catagory. Thomas rightly criticized Ezra Stein, a "Washington Post staff writer" for saying on MSNBC ". . . The issue with the Constitution is that the text is confusing because it was wr itten more than a hundred years ago and what people believe it says differs from person to person."

Unquestionably Klein was enormously careless in his choice of words. The Constitution is two centuries old to begin with and it's really not that hard to understand. Certainly not harder, like, y'know the mangled mess of what used to be even plain conversational English we've come to endure thanks to the digitalization of what used to be our common language. Never mind all the clatter about trying to make it our national "official language;" let's save it from the geeks.

Let's also save the Constitution from careless Post/MSNBC pundits and the current crop of Republicans and Tea Partiers set to take control of the House of Representatives tomorrow. One other thing, let's add Cal Thomas' enthusiasm for the latest conservative "innovation" to "... require that any new legislation to be justified by constitutional language."

Excuse me: Don't we already have a House Judiciary Committee? Don't we have a Hill perpetually chock full of lawyers and law students who are paid or assisgned (as interns) to ferret out any glaring constitutional problems so whatever laws passed won't be slapped down by the Supreme Court? Why add another layer of government if the idea is to slim government down? Okay, that's probably assuming today's conservatives are even taking their own schemes with tongue and cheek.

We can't assume anything with today's more aggressive and bare-fanged bunch of conservatives. Oddly so many of them call themselves Tea Partiers whilst resembling the Gothic tribes who eventually overtook the Roman Empire from within. Make sure the tea is served in paper cups, please.

Klein does have a point, however: How glued must we be in the 21st Century to every jot and tittle put into the document by our Founding Fathers two centuries ago? I'll be the first to admit that there is an enormous amount of flexibility already existing in the Constitution for us to change our government without having to fear the effects of some obstructionist group forever standing by to toss a cup of sugar in the crankcase of our governing and legal system.

"Where is that in the Bible?" If you are a Catholic, Byzantine Orthodox Christian, or mainstream denominational Protestant not bound by Sola Scriptura/Sola Fide rule of thumb...chances are you've been hit with that question or will be. I have a simple and friendly solution: As a Catholic, I'll point out that we believe the Church is the bulwark and pillar of truth. Why? Well, the Bible, which is the product of Church Tradition, is actually 300+years older than the first full authorized Bible, the Vulgate culled and rewritten by St. Jerome in Bethlehem, appropriately enough. People of good will can debate the finer points surrounding my attempt to draw an analogous parallel to Catholic Tradition and the formation of our national Constitution, but in my own, and admittedly not so humble opinion, sometimes history is the safest path to take...especially when history is more factually based.

How Protestants and Catholics come to their varying differences in theological perspectives depends on how their faith and religious formation has played out in their lives. That's not to say historical events and economics don't play a role. Indeed, Jesus lived in very historical times and he also spoke about economics and the way we handle money insofar as it reveals our personal and (social character as well) to a much larger degree than we'd care to admit.

As an American I can say that we, too, have "Tradition" preceding the Constitution which was formed by some terribly rattled members of the monied classes -- and they represented the most scrupulous ones! -- who met in Philadelphia...only after Dan'l Shay's rebellion was crushed at the Springfield, MA, armory which Shays tried to capture. Why did Shays rebel? He represented so many hard-pressed farmers in western Massachusetts, Hampshire County, to be precise, whose farms and homes were being foreclosed thanks to the greed of the banking interests who were protected by their pals in the Massachusetts "General Court," (what we still call our Legislature.)

Those wealthy gentlemen were justifiably frightened for their very lives and livelihoods. Thus, the Constitution was indeed a miracle given how fast it was produced, notwithstanding the abilities of the men to cast aside all their regional and amoral "principles" such as the upholding of slavery as a property right. However miraculous the formation of this document proved to be, it is nothing but an economic document written to proscribe what the government can do to people; but not entirely so. That's explained in the Preamble.

Anytime today's Constitutionalists want to doubt this, all they have to do is pick up a copy of Charles A. Beard's "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution" at Amazon.com . In fact, if I ever get around to scanning a paper I wrote on this for an American Economics History class I took under Prof. Fred Mosley at Mount Holyoke College 20 years ago, I'll pass along some of my other "findings." (Especially for anyone working for Glenn Beck's pal David Barton at the so-called "Glenn Beck University.")

Psssst, you won't find Beard's classic listed anywhere.

It's not surprising that so many folks in the Tea Party (A WHOLLY OWNED AND CONTRIVED "MOVEMENT" STARTED BY REPUBLICANS) ... have glomed on to this "constitutionalist" mindset, as if by putting any piece of liberal or any legislation to the "Show me in the ... " argumentative test, will somehow produce converts to this cheap and penny-pinching new civic religion and save us from the mortal sins of so much past governmental profligacy.

Profligacy? Wasn't that one of the Bush era's greatest mortal sins besides lying to get into a war to finish off what Poppy and Dick (Cheney) left unfinished? Forgive the sarcasm, but given the fact that the actually stated reason, weapons of mass destruction were never found, and they could've pulled back from invading Iraq; it does leave a lot of unanswered questions. To his credit, President George W. Bush is now asking himself similar questions and also regretting the big GOP trough session on Capitol Hill despite all the promises they held out when they took the House and Senate back in '94. Remember all those "term limitation" promises? Some of those promisers are still holding the same seats they captured that year.

This new faith of "Constitution Only" belief in a non-living Constitution will need a hell of a lot of faith by its members to keep up because when they want to get pieces of legislation that'll help their district (and we all know how important that is for people running for reelection every two years.)

While I know historically-speaking that the Bible was "closed" 1,700 years ago, it lives in my heart and in the hearts of billions of other Christians because of its divine origins. The United States is blessed because of the faith and actions of faithful individual Christians and other non-Christians not only in God, but also in the generally accepted principles from which this nation has been guided by and remains so. If it's a "Christian nation," it's only so because of demographics. The miracle of Philadelphia in 1787 was God working silently after the members took time to pray ... and given the background of that meeting, they sure needed to, even though He is not mentioned in the original part of the document. He is part of the Bill of Rights, but here, too, is God's silent workings through the graces he gave men like James Madison to come up with the First Amendment. It was not meant to be a Great Wall of China to protect us from religious influences, (save for exceptional pushiness on the part of one denomination) but mostly to protect the various churches from governmental intervention. Jefferson's arguments with religion in public affairs was largely due to his antipathy of the overbearing Anglican Church establishment in Virginia. Had he lived in Massachusetts, or Connecticut, (cf. Danbury Baptist letter) he would've railed just as strongly against the Puritans/Congregationalists as he did against the Anglicans in Virginia. Indeed, sometimes the Lord works in quiet unexpected ways through unexpected people.

As a Catholic, I'm especially attuned to people misusing Jefferson's "Wall" analogy in their attempts to draw their lines against what they view to be an ever encroaching foreign power/church -- or simply to ban a nativity creche from being displayed. Such sillyness. What next? Telling churches they can't put up outdoor nativity displays because they might offend somebody's religious sensibilities so much that he or she could be distracted into causing an accident? Nobody's tried that very often when it comes to billboards featuring buxomy women hawking beer, etc.

C'mon! That's like taking a baseball bat to turn soil over for a flower patch. When Madison wrote the First Amendment, he had in mind the Anglicans who were looking for a bishop in order to kept their Apostolic line of Succession intact. That was rendered asundered thanks to the Tudors and finally William III. Catholics were such a small presence and were no threat to the new Republic then, and during the time of the Know-Nothing Riots of Boston, Bible Riots of Philadelphia and conscription riots in Manhattan in 1863.

All Americans of faith, regardless of what their faiths or denominations happen to be, stand at risk to lose their civil liberties if we don't take the time to understand all of the constitutional, historical and scriptural tenents. The results will be astonishingly pleasant.
Let's get real here: will they want to submit every single piece of paper to this newly concocted constitutionalist magisterium that'll resemble the French Revolution's Directory of Public Safety/Security more than anything else?

Time to start building that wall to protect the Constitution from faux constitutional experts, faux "universities," and especially their flacks on Faux News Channel.

Remember when conservatives were the loyalists and liberals were suspect?

2010-12-21T10:22:00.000-08:00

NB: This is a very painful blog entry to write but it must be written: I interned at the National Journalism Center, a conservative school for reporters and would-be columnists interested in pursuing careers in political journalism. It's a very good school and training center and I'm proud to say I'm an "alum." Thus, it's all the more painful for me to write this post because the conservative movement I belonged to at first has been so malignantly hijacked or subverted that a Bill Buckley, Kirk Russell or the NJC's founder and my mentor Stan Evans would probably wonder what happened.

Any form of "economic fiscal conservatism" that works towards the subversion of our economic working and manufacturing base and physical endangerment of all workers here for the sheer grabbing of profits that can be had for relatively little effort in "finance capitalism" and works towards the setting up and perpetuation of a system whereby the jobs of Americans are deliberately outsourced overseas to people making what we used to make for peon incomes ... is TREASON.

Sometimes outsourcing is necessary and justifiable. To what extent can we justify it when to do so shows little more than utter contempt for all working people in this country ... and of course, the people overseas who are exploited to make all these cheaper goods for us to consume.

It's all part of well-planned strategy. Get the masses to buy cheaper goods made overseas, get some of their jobs sent over in order to hold the fear that they could be next if they don't cave in during bargaining time, if they get to even bargain at all thanks to so much union busting. After the masses have been duly conditioned, they'll come around to accept the wonders of this Cheap Brave New World, one for which they'd damned well better be brave ... because it's going to be a reverse time machine trip back into the 19th century, perhaps 18th, if the bosses and bankers can get away with it ... all in the name of "remaining competitive." But with whom, and more importantly when the issue comes down to deciding if it's really work sticking it to our own workers so badly as our managerial class has gotten away with in the past three decades: WHY?

I never thought the day would come when I'd have to compose a headline such as the one above, much less share this observation below:

The once respectable Conservative Movement has been hijacked by economic traitors ... and not just those to their class ... but their country. The recent attempts by Jon Kyle (R-AZ) and Tom Coburn (R-OK) to squash the so-called "First responders bill" in order to protect a loophole in the tax code allowing for companies to continue outsourcing American jobs overseas should tell us all we need to know and where and how far the conservatives have gone. Take a look at Danny Yadron's blog posting Washington Wire, about this in today's Wall Street Journal.

After reading this, you'll probably be reaching for a clothes pin for your nose, aspirin or both.

Patriotism be damnned: It's all about the money. And just as it was with Benedict Arnold, ever so concerned about maintaining his lifestyle (and especially that of his trophy bride), just as it is with these two Republicans for stabbing the first responders at the World Trade Center on 9/11. Kyle even had the nerve to sniff the whole matter off by believing the responders did all their heartbreaking/backbreaking work out of the "goodness of their hearts." How touching for Kyle who also pouted recently about Majority Leader Harry Reid's decision to get the START Treaty ratified before Christmas, even if it meant working past the Holiday right up to New Year's Eve. These unpatriotic loads only make a little under 200 "big ones" as Tony Soprano would put it, so it's about time some of them did some heavy lifting (minus the usual prepackaged stacks of paper made to look like the opposition's spending or heath care reform bills.)

Excuse me for being so presuptuously cynical and rude to suggest by asking if all that paper had any permament ink on those sheets.

I could go on and on and on listing the numerous ways and means the Republicans, Conservadems and many other fiscal conservatives who've conned so many people who view themselves as fiscally conservative, not having the slightest clue as to what the inner ruling ideological mafia controlling the shots as to the direction of what's left of American conservatism, have pulled and have plans to pull.

Who are all those "so many people" I referred to above: People on Social Security, Medicare recipients, the disabled, children, and so forth. If you can't produce, you're expendable. That's the message these people want to have so many of us who aren't rich buy into.

Adding to these senatorial economic traitors, let's not forget their enabling Goebbelses in the radio pulpits, starting with Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh. At least Limbaugh's philosophically and consistently honest about where he came from, and wants to remain. I have less argument with a man who pulls no punches even if I disagree with some of his statements than I do poseurs such as Beck and Hannity and sometimes O'Reilly who all tout their middle class backgrounds but who have also zoomed well past their roots to the point where they really don't know the people they purport to "represent." But they have just enough memory left to still render them exceeedingly dangerous to the mental and economic well-being and health of so many middle class workers and voters.

Messrs. Beck, Hannity and O'Reilly have long forgotten what it's like to be middle class to the point where their expanded craniums preclude them from ever getting the kind of warmhearted tribute long earned by the late Speaker Thomas "Tip" O'Neill of North Cambridge, MA ... a working class blue collar neighborhood where he grew up in and died in a mile or so north of Harvard University: He never grew out of his hat size.

But the new Goebbels ... these new big-mouth'd enablers and sympathizers for the let's drop all pretenses and screw over the middle class conservative power clique we see all too often today are baring their economic fangs for the country's voters to see.

Better look now before they manage to sew up the media so tightly that even the fangs will be difficult to catch before they sink in.

By then it'll be too late and we'll be living in the Banana Republic of Dog Eat Dog States of America; guided by ersatz "middle class Christian values." Who'll the Tea Partiers give their constant whine "We want our country back" to then?

Wake up America ... you just voted in TREASON; ECONOMIC TREASON, PLAIN AND SIMPLE.

Don't allow yourself to be sold the cheapest bidder when it comes to your labors! This especially holds for the workers of Wal-Mart, whose owners, union-busting owners ... La Famiglia Walton of Bentonville, Arkansas, will reap $32B in estate tax goodies thanks to the recent tax legislation passed and signed by President Obama. Gawd that stinks higher than roadkill laying in some hillbilly's highway ... and even Obama would agree to this. La Famiglia Walton, working way above Tony Soprano's level of "big ones" won't smell thing in their limos.

I've heard some fiscal conservatives reply, well, they save the poor money, so they can't be all that bad. Really? When they're pickpocketing the poor through the pushing down of wages, paying for union busting firms and making sure the American way is safe for the wealthy, but out of reach for the rest? Thanks but no thanks for the generosity of La Famiglia Walton. They never give without getting or TAKING it back.

Who knows, maybe on the "Day of the Rapture," when the trumpets blow, etc., President Obama's old pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, ("God damn America!") won't appear so wrong after all. At least he gave us a heads' up.

Prevent a pseudo "conservative" Tea Party tempest/tantrum in a teapot: It's time for responsible adults to vote as if their full freedoms mattered.

2010-11-02T08:06:00.000-07:00

Before you start into this, and because it's a busy election day and this is a long piece, let me start off with just one key plea:

Vote as if your right to determine how free and sovereign you want your life to be actually matters; not the big corporations, not the fear-mongering xenophobes or people too apathetic and squeamish to even bother listening to in the first place. Vote for your rights to live as a fully free human being in what is now, still a free nation for everybody. It might not be that way for long if the purveyors of fear get their way in today's elections across the country.

Finally, the long march of inanity, momentary insanity and beaucoup displays of banality has reached its legal (albeit temporary) end with today's mid-term elections. Let me back up and call them glorified and ultra-outrageously expensive tawdry versions of the proverbial high school popularity contests to determine the prom royalty and class presidents, etc. Lots of cat-fighting, name calling and innuendoes tossed around, not to mention the occasional resort to macho-style "settling" of certain tense situations. But I'll let the "conservative" Libertarian/Tea Party candidate Rand Paul answer to his future constituents for his campaign team (God forbid that he wins.)

How does one wrap up this "campaign" year? It was anything but a "campaign" in normal respects. The national Republican Party, so desperate to keep President Obama from serving two terms, even if it means grinding the nation's economy and governmental machinery down to a standstill (just to prove they can do) it by saying "no" a thousand times over has yet to demonstrate during the past several years even before Obama was elected in '08, it could run anything larger than a one-car political parade (or funeral dirge) is now positioned to wreck even further damage on the nation's political fabric just by its growing embrace of two items that should be of interest to all Americans.

Let's begin with the nonsensical call to repeal the 17th Amendment allowing citizens to vote directly for their Senators. As if the candidates couldn't be more bought, packaged and sold like mere commodities today with all the money flowing into the political system (no thanks to the Supreme Court's infamous "Citizens" decision, allowing businesses to be treated on par with human beings as "citizens" insofar as political activity is concerned) ... now the let's- turn-the clock-back-stick-with-the-Constitution-as-the-Framers-only-intended-or-chisled-into-marble crowd want to let the money bag boyos really call the shots by flooding their hand-picked U.S.-Senators, thus more or less guaranteeing whatever they want to favor their "causes" -- thus ensuring that their pockets are more fully lined than they already are -- want to simply pluck one more ability for the people to protect themselves against a new house of lords that'll be even less responsive to the public than Britain's was at her height of power.

The last I checked, the Bible said man was made in "the image of God," not corporations. Ah, but in this newly revived "Christian America," even the Bible is getting a newly revised, authorized and standardized version (no) thanks to the "let's restore God n' capitalism to America to make it a more Christian nation." Guaranteed, they'll be stocked in a certain Arkansas-based mega-retail chain and that chain's employees will no doubt be encouraged to buy this sacrilege. It'll be interesting to see how many passages that now call for greater social and economic justice will be left on the editorial cutting floor; perhaps after the new big-shots (of American business, politics and economics as they pertain to 'ligion, or the "religion biznez") have left this reordering of Scripture in the hands of Glenn Beck and his minions? Well, if they want to work 12 hour days, with no paid time for their half-hour lunches, and unpaid 15 minute breaks, no allowances for any union representation whatsoever, and of course, no benefits period outside of what they couldn't get their hand-picked/bought pols to prevent from staying on the books, and of course, zilch for any health/disability and retirement systems ... let them have at it for as long as they can stand it until the lack of social justice brings about social unrest.

If these people have their way, there'll be no more social security, no more medicare/medicaid, and of course, any public health care systems. In short, if you've got the bucks, no problem. If you don't, call your church. That might be fruitless, too. After all, the most libertarian of libertarians of this bunch of "live free (for me/us) or you can literally suffer/and-or die for all I/we care" bunch want to eliminate tax breaks for churches and other non-profits. "Hey, if megachurches can be profitable, the rest of you'd better get in line." And, no, I will not apologize to the Granite State, of New Hampshire, (that's so appropriately nicknamed) for correctly re-interpreting its (un)Holy Writ of a motto.

If China's Chamber of Commerce was behind the writing of this foolish notion, supposedly drawn up in the guise of "protecting states' rights" I wouldn't be in the least bit surprised. Not in the least. As for the "States' Rights," nonsense, let them read Lincoln's Gettysburg Address a few times, and maybe, maybe just a spark of commonsense will prevail and pull them back from this antiquated insanity, (especially in an age of nuclear weapons.) Which reminds me of one more thing about this "return to what the Framers' wanted" view towards Constitutional issues. I'm not for importing European laws, or laws from any other patch on the globe. Nor am I in favor of stretching the Constitution for purely ideological purposes such as Justice Blackmun did when he wrote the blackest decision in American legal jurisprudence on behalf of "Roe" who (then) sought a legal abortion in "Roe v. Wade," handed down in 1973, now said to be responsible for an estimated 50 million dead would-be fellow human beings -- American citizens, in fact. Even Norma McCorvey, "Roe" turned and became a stalwart anti-abortion critic of "Roe," but her reverse findings couldn't outweigh Blackmun's stretch of the "right to privacy" to mean a woman could kill her own future offspring in her womb. If it's (properly) held to be illegal and treasonous to plot a conspiracy against the government from the privacy of your bedroom, how then can anybody allow for "privacy" to allow the legal killing of so many future citizens!

We have it within the confines of our present Constitutional boundaries set forth by the Framers to change this and create scores of other legal remedies to legitimate issues as well. But we're not hearing this seldom spoken or written observation that should be as plain as a white sheet of paper. No, we're hearing, "No, if the Framers didn't mention it, we can't touch it." With all due respect to many fellow conservatives, if we applied that line of thought, we might as well expect our appellate lawyers addressing the Supreme Court to arrive in knickers, breeches, fluffed blouses, cutaway coats and tri-cornered hats, (and don't forget the powdered wigs, too.)

Further baffling to this writer is the amount of would-be voters who've followed Beck and bought into any of the nonsense he took from the late W. Cleo Skousen, especially when it comes to states rights and anti-progressive phooey. Not all "progressive" laws are good, as legalized abortion decisions and laws reflect this reality. However, I'd like to know just how far Beck would go before even he said "enough." How many fair labor practices would like to see ditched? Glenn, do you have a framed picture of that famous photo of the little girl working in a textile factory in your office? Why not? Why not some photos of people slaving away in a big box store, or removing time off for even religious holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving? Job safety laws? Hey, what's a finger or an arm or two? We have private charity to take care of those situations. Have a mental disability. Man, you're really out of luck, we don't do mental miracles," Glenn would no doubt saith. (No kidding, since it's public knowledge he refuses to take meds for his own issues.) But why should millions of other suffer only because they don't have an enabling employer (Fox) that gives him a pulpit to reach millions of people daily and pull in $30 million a year; not too shabby for a self-described "dirtbag."

Let the Knights of Columbus take care of the Catholics and the LDS will take care of your folks and other churches, synagogues, mosques and temples will handle theirs. I goofed: How are these great institutions going to do all these wonderful things you want taken from the government to help the poor and get it out of doing anything that smacks of promoting social justice if your Free Enterprise Über Alles pals have bought all branches and levels of government entire lock, stock and porkbarrels?

How on earth -- it could only happen on terra firma(!) -- could anybody in his or her right mind expect to reduce or even eliminate influence of elitism if we take away the right of the voters to select their choice for one of the most important constitutional positions? So, by following the "logic" of the Tea Partiers and State's Rights advocates (neo-secessionist), by taking away one more voting right for all of us, we' restoring more government "back to the people."

Now that they've laid out plans to deny you more opportunities to enjoy your present-day ultimate franchise as a free citizen, the next plan these shadowy folks have in mind is to start stripping the rights of citizenship of innocent people who are already citizens by planning to take away citizenship of children born to parents who came to this country illegally in order to make a better life for their children. Say "Good bye" to the 14th Amendment.

"B-b-but, wait a minute, why should their kids be treated on the same level as mine? It's not fair!"

If they're born on this side of the Rio Grande or an unmarked border passing through a library's lobby in upper Vermont and Quebec, they're as American as Barack Obama or George Washington. Excuse me; George was born in British America. (What do hath our Birther friends to say about that?) If we start stripping away the rights to people whose predecessors have already received automatic citizenship by virtue of the fact they were born here, where will this end? Who'll lose his rights next? And on what grounds? If we can change the Constitution for what's really a cheap excuse to cut down on northwards Mexican immigration, sooner or later it'll be another ethnic or even a religious body whose children will get stiffed in an American maternity ward, or worse, have it done ex post facto. Oh, we don't do that nowadays. Well now, what's to say that's not in some "let's return to the Framer's intentions" file awaiting the right moment to hand off to some reliably demagogic shock jock and pliant pol to push into law?

We'd better watch out for parents born to Catholics and make sure they're turned back before their birth certificates are filed and a local priest has baptized them. Who knows what problems they might present down the line? After all, wouldn't these offspring of Catholic parents from Europe or Latin America represent a church-and-sovereign-state's potential power and/or rights to control the moral formation of said children? This could pose dual loyalty problems. It won't stop there because even native born Catholics and Catholic converts (those folks will be watched very closely) if nonsense like this ever becomes law) could represent potential Fifth Column threats to national security.

Ridiculous? Right now it is. But ask anybody who's studied the history of Catholics in England, Ireland, Jews in Spain, Germany, and French Protestant Hugenots. They won 't be laughing so hard.

With apologies to the late Pastor Martin Niemoller, "First, they told me that in my best interests, so that I'd have the 'freedom' to live in a 'freer' local state that I didn't need to vote for a Senator to represent me in Washington, DC.; So I shrugged and lamentedly somewhat acquiesed. Then I was told by some of my neighbors that a family from Mexico and another predominately Catholic country in Europe were facing troubles from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It seems that INS agents took the Mexican family in for questioning and likely deportation because their children were born here after they arrived some thirty years ago. And it didn't help their kids any that they were successful lawyers, no less, and one doctor who discovered a cure for an incurable skin disease. They were all rounded up and put on a southbound bus, property confiscated, licenses stripped. And the Catholics from Europe, they were turned in by one of their own who'd left his church to join a megachurch and didn't quite feel right that there were people living next to him (although they never broke a law and their kids were stellar public servants and one even earned the Medal of Honor) whose religious views could possibly represent a direct threat to American security even though their spiritual leader, Pope Benedict 17th came out against all nations possessing stockpiles of nuclear weapons."

"Ah," sighed I, "'tis seems I couldn't escape my apathy when one day INS agents knocked on my door and told me I had to leave and move to Belmullet, a little town at the edge of the world in northwest County Mayo, Ireland. Marie Keane and one of her sisters, left then-British controlled Ireland, shortly before the end of the 19th century for all the brightness that a future life in the United States had to offer."

"Luckily, I didn't wind up in a concentration camp like Niemoller, but Belmullet's not exactly hopping, either, nor is Ireland my 'mother country,' notwithstanding what my birth and/or baptismal certificates are saying in plain black n' white."

This is for Glenn Beck; that's if he has time to read it while counting all his dubiously "earned " lucre ... all $32M of it last year.

2010-10-27T16:33:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Beck,

Since you're an expert on Social Justice, and it's one of your favorite topics to harp on, take a look at this column in today's Huffington Post by Notre Dame Professor Donald P. Kommers, "Catholic Social Thought and the 2010 Election."

That's if you're not too busy reading over the copy you're probably prepping for your favorite puppet politician, Sarah Palin's "talking points" for tomorrow. Please pay close attention to the two meatiest paragraphs right in the middle ... especially the paragraph which begins with a discussion about the four key principles of Catholic Social Teaching and the following paragraph which ends with ...

"In a well-ordered society, therefore, shaped by the principles of human dignity and solidarity, every human being is entitled, as a matter of right, to all the goods and services needed to live in decency and self-respect."

Okay, I realize in your mindset there's not going to be any room for those programs designed to ensure these rights because if you and your Tea Partier pals get the reins of government (inasmuch as I can't fathom what Speaker Pelosi's done to Congress) ... there won't be a dime to even pay for a single sheet of paper coming off any social agency's copier machine, even with a firing notice, no less that you'd probably enjoy reading. But, take a look at what you're opposed to and see if you have second thoughts. Especially if you have any old Crucifixes, y'know, the crosses with the sorrowful Jesus hanging on them in deep pain for all our sins, including the economic variety caused by selfishness ... and let's see if you have any second thoughts after that.

But if you do, don't be like your traveling pointer palsy on the road and say you'll get back to me. Nope. Just drop down to St. Patrick's Cathedral and enter a confessional.

The verbal flogging, walkouts, firings and counter-cross-counter accusations will continue until (real) adults retake the media and take hold of the reins.

2010-10-21T11:51:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, Juan Williams was fired by NPR for openly stating on Fox News Channel that he felt "nervous" seeing Muslims in airports. Given what happened on September 11th, 2001, his apprehensions are perfectly understandable. And I'll bet most non-Muslims working for NPR would probably say the same thing following that atrocity. It wasn't an incident, an attack in an on-going war between the West and radical Islam, it was an atrocity. Naturally, Williams didn't want to be a victim of the next atrocity al Qaeda might have plans to pull off, perhaps using airplanes again. Notice the use of "might have plans" in the previous statement? One must be very careful these days.

Oh come on, America. C'mon! We know damn well they have plans because they told us. Give Williams' doubting Tommies a pallet's worth of tissue paper boxes!

Williams has built an outstanding resume and track record few people in American history can even come close to matching. His opinions have long been sought after from a wide range of media outlets from the decidedly more liberal NPR where he used to work, until earlier this week, to the premier conservative outlet, Fox News Channel. Unfortunately, for Williams, it was his connection with Fox and that supposedly "bigoted" admission about seeing Muslims in airports that he uttered on Fox which did him in. He was fired without a chance to defend himself: period.

If NPR's going to play that game why should it stop there and not clean house on some of its other "commentators" and radio-game show participants, particularly "Wait! Wait! Don't Tell Me..." which regularly lampoons people from all parts of society; but primarily with a liberal twist to their humorous remarks? Even I don't mind the fact that there's a "liberal" alternative to the growing number of right-wing talk and news shows hosted by some of the most bigoted people on the face of the earth, with Glenn Beck as their bandleader -- but at least the ("directly") taxpayer-supported network doesn't use any blatantly dishonest slogans such as Fox's "fair and balanced" hogwash.

There is no such thing in the world as a "fair and balanced" news outlet. Nor can FNC say it's hands are completely clean insofar as who's getting what from Uncle Sam. Doesn't Fox get tax breaks for hiring the disabled? Doesn't Fox get tax write offs for worn out equipment, and a host of other goodies it can use to reduce its tax liabilities? Doesn't Fox benefit from the good offices of the Pentagon when a war or combat mission breaks out and our servicemen and women are put in harm's way to not only defend themselves but also weaponless reporters? Come, come, now. Let's lower the volume down a bit?

What happened to Juan Williams was wrong; plain and simple. What's continuting is more of the same old hogwash tossed back n' forth. Only the volume's been turned up more as if we need that on top of all the other (deliberately) ramped up noises of this past uncivilized midterm campaign season, which hasn't even reached its final seven-day countdown period.

Can't you wait? For the Election Night returns, or the return of adults in our major networks' boardrooms and editorial offices? I'll gladly pick the latter. It's more urgently important.

"Phelps Family Values" versus what used to be normal social expectations of civility.

2010-10-07T08:46:00.000-07:00

The Rev'd Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church (Topeka, KS) just "won" in his battle to crudely flaunt his take on the First Amendment simply by getting his day in court, and not just any court, but the highest court in the land so his daughter could defend the church's indefensible practice of crudely targeting and openly protesting military funerals to say it's good that our veterans died because this nation is cursed for embracing homosexuality, etc. As if dying in combat isn't sufficient enough for Phelps' sick supporters, some have even gone so far to wish death to women by breast cancer.

Apparently when it comes to proof-texting this little house of bigotry on the plains must do a wonderful job of sailing right past Jesus Sermon on the Mount, especially where the Lord reminds us "Blessed are those who mourn ...."

The official case which brought Phelps and his unmerry band of woefully misguided (think missiles if you want as well) "christian soldiers of the sidewalks" was brought by Albert Snyder of Maryland who brought the suit on behalf of his slain son Matthew, who died a HEROE'S death in Iraq, (as opposed to the anti-hero's antics of the still very much alive Phelps.) I'm running on short time here and the case is a little more complicated than the standard Phelps' Family Values treatment Snyder's son was accorded. Hence, I'll refer you to a story in this morning's Christian Science Monitor.

Said Sean Summers, Snyder's attorney, (York, PA) ... “Snyder had one (and only one) opportunity to bury his son and that occasion has been tarnished forever,” in his petition urging the high court to take up the case. “Snyder deserved better. Matthew deserved better. A civilized society deserved better.”

I have some bad news for the Snyder family and all of their fellow Americans, save for the Phelps family, its church and supporting cast of characters, not to mention the usual First Amendment Absolutists R Us crowd ... what used to be as civilized isn't any more. Save for a divine miracle from the far more loving and merciful God the father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit that I know and worship ... Phelps has won and the horse-racing gates -- for every political food-fight junkie who can't get enough confrontational "in-your-face" politikin' to his or her liking -- will be wide open for every nag with a jockey dumb enough to ride these untamed beasts ("movements") on to some "victory" or another.

In another way of looking at it, for once the proponents of "there are no absolutes" and any kind of moral, social and political relativism out there for the imagining and taking ... will get their just desserts.

Ah, but what about all those little old ladies and some young ones too, accompanied by men all saying their Rosaries in hopes of forestalling abortions outside the many abortuaries across the land. Yes, unfortunately, there have been some loose-cannon Judases in the prolife ranks who've used the cover of these peaceful rallies and daily vigils to go out and commit some horrible murders for the purpose of "saving lives" -- but the vast majority of the vigil participants have been very peaceful and observe the safety zones set up as "no man's lands" in between the offices and streets, etc. Margery Phelps on CSPAN this a.m. said her outfit does likewise ... but there's a huge difference in the VITRIOLon display, and the loudness accompanying Westboro's m.o.

What else can we expect from Phelps' attorney/daughter? Comparing people praying the Rosary to save a life while she, her father and their ilk celebrate death and wish death upon others. I don't even know of any pro-abortion rights supporters who'd go as far as the Phelps' family does to "justify" its unspeakably obscene positions on life and death, especially deaths in combat, those deaths that'll forever go down in the records of time as ones we can safely point to as displays of "no greater love" shed on behalf of their fellow citizens. Sadly, the term "citizens" also applies to Phelps' brood and people who willingly follow him. And to think that one of my nephews almost lost his life just weeks before coming home from Afghansitan when a Taliban suicidal bomber jumped under his Humvee ... so that Phelps could "demonstrate his rights."

I'm going to demonstrate my rights and urge everybody else to as well in a way that'll drown out the rancorous hatred spewed by the Phelps' of this world. Don't go after them publicly except in writing or some other peaceful manner and constructive way. As any soldier will recommend, always get the advantage of the "high ground" first. We achieve that by prayer. Prayer will radiate your genuine beliefs and who you are as as fellow citizen far greater than shouting or taking matters in your own hands. (Tempting, I understand. Believe me.)

Doctors recommend "light therapy" for diseased tissue for good reasons. People suffering from depression should never go without sufficient amounts of light. Nations, especially this one filled with millions of self-proclaimed Constitutional experts saying this is a "Christian nation" or should be, can step off their soap boxes and take a far more sober, humble and definitely more effective step by simply illuminating the Cross of Christ they hold dear. How? Very simply: Pray. Said Mother Teresa,

"If we do not radiate the light of Christ around us, the sense of the darkness that prevails in the world will increase."

It's not enough for so many of our experts in religion and politics to talk on so long about whether or not we're a "Christian nation." Nor is it enough for the rest of us to even get caught up in the swirl of the debate and so-called "culture wars."

And it's "not more than enough" to think that more self-identified or even just Baptized, Confirmed and spiritually formed "Christian Americans" couldn't spend more time with ther Maker asking for his help instead of going through the usual steps of vainly shaking their fists at judges, educators, "the elite," politicians, Hollywood, clerics we don't agree with ... our favorite lists of "usual suspects" that can be stretched out from Berkeley, California to Cambridge, MA. This is because the problems we face can be just as quickly be addressed individually as they can be physically simply by striking our hearts in remorseful reminders for our own sins as well.

Pray for the others, Phelps, the Snyder families and all those affected directly by this unnecessary imbroglio, the lawyers, Supreme Court, media, our respective clerics who are trying to help us make sense of it all, the press, and of course, the nation as a whole.

Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation" doesn't look so bad after all.

2010-10-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

I might as well do some back-tracking before I step into deeper muck: by giving Thomas Jefferson's "wall of separation of church and state" a positive plug, spin, etc., I'm not exactly going all out for this little line which has caused so much confusion, not to mention inspire a lot of unnecessary knee-jerk reactions and counter reactions the moment the slightest pressure it brought to bear on the public's sentiment or tender eyes by either sides on the church vs. caesar battles of the "culture war."

Or, is it the church versus secularism (working under caesar's mask.) There might be more to the latter than most people are willing to grant. Largely that's because while the vast majority can identify the long-time ogre in this battle, the government, and especially our modern day Imperial Revenue Service. But where do the bureaucrats their ideas from for the inspiration necessary to gird their loins in preparation to do battle with roughly 5,000 years of Judeo-Christian Tradition?

Maybe it's the schmalz factor. I'm all for patiotic displays, don't get me wrong. I'm not for schmalzy renditions of them, especially if they're carefully scripted and packaged so as to produce tear-jerking quite emotions followed by the more vocal kind and the usual chest thumping in between the "God Bless America" and USA USA USA mantra-like chants. Oh, wouldn't it be fascinating to know how many of the biggest hawks happen to be the least ones who'll be affected if and when the US goes to war? These are often the loudest defenders of the Founders and Framers' Christianity, (thus making this a "Christian nation," if not "Bible Christian nation") ... unlike the real original McCoys who pledged their entire lives, property and sacred honor to their desire for independence in '76 and to save their fortunes in '87. (That's right folks, the framing of the U.S. Constitution reflected God's grace in granting the young nation the miracle that our Framers didn't carry on like the usual "Arab Unity Conferences" ... think of that scene in Damascus at the end of Lawrence of Arabia ... and that our Constitution was nothing more or less than an economic document designed to preserve order and the fortunes of our wealthiest new Americans in the wake of Daniel Shays' short-lived rebellion. Shays was anything but a schmalzy guy. Nor were the rest of his fellow farmers in Hampshire County, MA who were being squeezed by Boston merchants, judges, lawyers and politicians. ('Tis an old but undying complaint that sounds more than vaguely familiar today to a lot of people in western Massachusetts.)

It's this schmalzy treatment of American politics (sure, it's always been with us, and some of our historical myths do contain valuable truths worth emulating. Who knows what trouble Nixon and Clinton would've avoided by paying more attention to the message of Parson Weems' story about George Washington and the Cherry Tree?) that's getting under my skin. Let's not forget that a lot of blood has flowed long before the first hypocritcal politicians who had no skin of their own or their sons' skin to lose got on their soap boxes. And more will follow in the future, perhaps far too unnecessarily so, if we don't watch out for men like this David Barton of Wallbuilders. By all means, do pay Barton's website a visit. It's most enlightening, but per haps moreso than Barton himself intended. It's chock full of pro of texting and abounding in historical ironies. Methinks there's just a little too much going on below the radar screen to leave me feeling terribly comfortable about his relationship with former FL House of Representatives House Speaker, Marco Rubio (Republican/Tea Party) the likely winner of this years Senatorial race in Florida along with Congressman Kendrick Meeks, and Governor Charlie Crist (I) formerly a Republican.

Actually, for the sake of my (Catholic) Christian faith and co-religionists, it's nice to know that Jefferson wasn't in the least bit concerned over the (big elephant in the room for most early American Protestants, i.e. "popery" and Catholicism) ... thus all the silly laws passed by one Protestant denomination to keep another it suspected of holding on to "below the surface papist beliefs" from dominating the the state(s). Thankfully Jefferson's friend, James Madison had the foresight and brains to see who the real threat was to civility amongst America's varying religious factions: fellow Protestants who were also deathly fearful of an Anglican archbishop and for good reasons since he could only be consecrated by yet another Anglican archbishop who answered to none other than Parliament and King George III.

Now I've got one remaining question for the Catholic Rubio: why does he feel that he needs the spokesman for America's past religious squabblers to be in his corner?!

First public school cafeterias, now public libraries; are churches next to outsource employees? Why the hell not? Part Two

2010-09-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

For roughly 15 combined years, I worked as a circulation assistant for two college libraries (at UMass/Amherst and Mount Holyoke College, respectively.) Yesterday, when I read in the New York Times about Library Systems and Services, (L.S.S.I.) - a private firm which even the Federal government contracts er, outsources its library services to, I couldn't help wondering to what depths will all our towns and states, including our national government now guided by Capt'n. Hope and Change at the helm, will go to save a buck or two.

The deeper I dug into the story, it became clearer I had more digging to do.

In this age of cost-conscious bureacrats and politicians all stumbling over each other to prove who's the most accountable of them all when it comes to missing the dollars for the pennies they're bragging about saving us (in the end after all, but they won't admit it), it hardly warms the cockles of this former library employee's heart to read some of the following comments quoted in this story, which centered on Santa Clarita, a California community's experience with this brave new venture in Budgetary Tarletonism.

Yes, watch out for the budgetary saber. It's very sharp and cuts a wide swath. No more razor-knives; the sabers are back in style. Lest I forget to remind everyone, just like the original, expect no mercy for the wounded from his green visor'd 21st Century fiscal accountability acolytes.

Doesn't it give you goosebumps to know the recession truly is receding and a business is growing by leapin' library shelf ranges? According to the Times' David Streitfeld ". . . . A private company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country’s fifth-largest library system."

If the privatization part could be left to just the overtaking of costs, investing savings into ways of bringing back more newer readers and reattracting lost patrons, without killing jobs . . . well, I suppose (rather naively) it might not be such a bad idea after all. Especially not if I owned stock in such an enterprise that's growing as rapidly as the collection of books to be checked in at the end of every college semester. That book box always seemed two sizes two small in May and December.

Oh yes, good thing I mentioned "December" and it reminded me of those cold mornings, but nothing quite as frigid as what the office of this CEO (glad to know he's sensibly taken this traditional businesslike title instead of blaspheming the older and more dignified "Head Librarian" given his rather Scrooge-like attitude.) Not sounding for a moment he's expecting any haunting spectre of Marley's ghost, laden down with the chains of good old greed n' guilt, Frank A. Pezzanite, LS & S' CEO dropped this heavy Victorian block-sized lock on all the floors where good English literature is stocked. (In the bidnez world of literature, books are products and products are stocked on shelves. But literature is never placed on shelves. I learned that from working part time at a chain book store for a while while I was also employed at MHC.)

“There’s this American flag, apple pie thing about libraries ... ” saith the top shelver who also has his saber ever ready for the first opportunity to show he means business. (A-hem, indeed.) Streitfelt pointed right at his primary target: employees. That's right. People. Particularly "unionized" people representing "overhead," all for a million bucks. Okay, a million's a million; but how does any boss replace years of experience?

Dumb question, Barrett. That's right. I've forgotten that some or our more "up-to-date" (read: contemporary VERY pro-bottom-line-oriented library-biz-chiefs) tend to get a little faint of head n' heart around people with considerable years of earned experience under their belt. Hell, but when stockholders want a happy story to go with their ever higher dividends, why should it matter how many experienced people you have on your staffs that you have to carry, much as if they were just old and heavy folios? After all, you can always get ever-eager-newbies fresh out of library schools. So what if it takes 'em decades to master the art of acquiring necessary grants for your reference departments? After all, profits, profits, profits will make up what any lost grants won't bring in. Right?

The smart people who knew how to make libraries the kind of "unfriendly take over" targets for LSSI and chief honchos like Pezzanite are saddled with those high priests of a byegone age and faith in the necessary task of pursuing truth for truth's sake alone--if you take their word for it. Said Pezzanite,

“Somehow they have been put in the category of a sacred organization.” And if it's impossible to believe this (cough, er uh, umm, gentleman) could've found an even nastier way to gethis message across, well, was I in for another of "life's learning experience(s):"

Again, this quite-faux librarian speaketh, “A lot of libraries are atrocious . . . Their policies are all about job security. That’s why the profession is nervous about us. You can go to a library for 35 years and never have to do anything and then have your retirement. We’re not running our company that way. You come to us, you’re going to have to work.”

Now he's gone from Scrooge to Simon, as in Legree. He must've been terribly inspired by that old ad for the United Negro College Fund, the one where the slaves are whipped by a snarling redneck over seer who's yelling, "Put yer backs into it . . . " That's right, work till you drop, or retire first if you're lucky enough not to be laid off first by the plantation for "cost savings" and as far as how you'll get by in your old age? Pezzanite will be crowing about the golden handshake or umbrella he'll get for his Tarletonite saber-slashing and whipping tactics, but he'll also be crowing "Hey, I've got mine Jack/Jill, you're on your own." He just puts a different spin to it:

“Pensions crushed General Motors, and it is crushing the governments in California," Pezzanite opined further. According to the Times, "While the company says it rehires many of the municipal librarians, they must be content with a 401(k) retirement fund and no pension." Just like the Lunch Ladies, (see Part One) no more county pension, you're on your own, folks.

Clarification time: Not every library's personnel makeup and situation calls for a union. Also, not every unionized employee is some featherbedding loafer just awaiting his or her retirement after three decades of service. Library employees work like hell to help their patrons and for this businessman to spit out these "talking points" that read like the drivel coming from many anti-labor campaigns originating from the Republican National Headquarters, American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Cato Institute, and the daily scripts of Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck ... this is one "teachable"or "life's learning experience" this conservative blogger is more than willing to give to him.

I wonder how many book boxes he emptied on hot sultry afternoons, or when the snow and rain were flying horizontally and straight into his face; how many oppressively humid dorms did he have to go hunting through to find left over books and how many students did he have to stop and risk facing what could've become an ugly confrontation when the kid was caught stealing, red-handed no less? How many books with the more complicated and older Cutter classification system did he have to shelve; and not always under the most optimal lighting situation? How many students did he have blow up in his face when politely suggest that she or he get back to work and a professor with all the protection of tenure was standing by giving the erring student moral support saying, "Well now, we're all equals"?

I know from experience there's a lot of academics who live their lives as if in another and very sheltered realm; butquite frankly, I couldn't begin to pick a point on the globe outside of Wall Street where Mr. Pezzanite could call home. Well, maybe the Republican clubhouse on Capitol Hill.

Okay, I've ripped into Pezzanite a bit, after all, he must have some humanity in him: "If an employee does a good job, we like to give them a $5 gift certificate to Borders Books or Mrs. Fields." Somebody should remind this man that even most magazines right off the racks cost more than five bucks. I won't go into the cost of academic periodicals. His employees would have to hold a bake sale to make up the difference between his five dollar gift and the average price of an academic journal.

And, again, according to Norman Oder's LJ Insider Blog (today) featured on the Library Journal website, the L.S.S.I. bizness looks I should've rented a payloader to dig into this upon first reading about it in the Times.

What's next? Well, I mentioned the Church. On second, third, fourth and fifth thoughts ... no thanks, I sure as hell don't put anything into writing much less think about it any more. Besides, why give the wrong people more wrong notions to play around with; and even worse, make a killing in the process of killing careers in order to line their pockets? Haven't we enough Tarletons to deal with? Ask the college town Lunch Ladies for starters . . .

First public school cafeterias, now public libraries; are churches next to outsource employees? Why the hell not? Part One

2010-09-28T07:18:00.000-07:00

A couple of years ago, a small band of stalward public school employees in a supposedly, well, self-reputedly, "progressive," (i.e. self-styled "open-minded") and liberal college town in New England found themselves the victim of a budgetary squeeze out thanks to the town's elected school committee's decision to fully privatize their cafeteria services.

For several years, the women, nicknamed "lunch ladies" were gradually "outsourced" in that they still worked as town employees, and received decent, but not outrageous benefits in proportion to their jobs. They had the assurance of better health care, personal days and pay schedules (so they could stretch their pay year 'round like teachers.) But these women and their respective department were hardly "budget busters" when starting salaries for green teachers roughly averages in the low $50K range. I'm not referring to the environmentally friendly kind, (though it's probably safe to say they received a thorough vetting on that point of interest.)

A proposed property tax increase was defeated by the voters, and this threw the school committee, primarily made up of professional educators who work at the local university and other (very internationally prestigious) private colleges, into a foul mood, and in a moment of a royal snit with the voters, and brought forth by the kind of arrogance peculiar to college towns, especially in the northeast, they decided to cashier all the "lunch ladies," most of whom were not even making $15 bucks an hour, tops into the tender mercies of the new private firm the town decided to contract out its food services to; notwithstanding the fact that this experiment in "cost savings" bombed for at least two years running before.

C'mon Barrett, they had to prepare all sorts of different lunches and dinners to meet the standards of today's other raging delight for educators, "multiculturalism." Trouble is, most of the kids didn't give a rip so long as it tasted good, filled them up and didn't cost too much. At least this time the inmates were really ahead of the top bosses in charge of the asylum. The Lunch Ladies did what they could in a brand new kitchen sans a sufficient ventilation system and no windows. Oh, and yes, this new kitchen was the product of heavy politickin' where the school cmte and officials used the students to finagle an override of a rejection of a property tax on this school expansion at the hands of the voters. So much for the value of teaching civics in northeastern liberal collegetowns anymore.

The Lunch Ladies are going to lose their health insurance in a couple of days and will have to depend on their state's insurance plan since the company the school cmte couldn't wait to fob over their former and hardest working/lowest paid employees to all so they could save one or two teaching jobs, perhaps a Russian language teacher or dance class instructor.

What I really think sealed the Ladies' fate was their getting a union into the dispute. ("How could they do that in a town where a special curriculum promoting 'social justice' values is constantly worked on?")

Keep working, you have a long way to go.

When local advocates, (especially one woman who had no kids in the school system!) questioned why these august solons of the committee couldn't budge and give the Ladies a break (before they reached the partial two year compromise which runs out on this week) ... well, guess who got the blame? The people. From now on, every time I see that part in "Amazing Grace" where William Wilberforce challenges Banastre Tarleton about the slave trade and produces a long petition sheet on behalf of the people, I'll remember this committee in the form of "Bloody Ban" sneering at "the people" ... hear people said he hissed "the peeeeeeple" with his nose downturned.)

As it turns out, this fantasyland of a "liberal" and "progressive, open-and-liberal-minded" collegetown, with its public schools committed to promoting "social justice," isn't the only fiscally-minded Banastre Tarleton at work in the once unsoiled fields of toil for learning. Tarletonism is spreading into public libraries. The dedication of slavers never subsides, does it?

"Happy Days Are Here Again," and didn't you know the Great Recession's been over since Summer '09?

2010-09-20T15:49:00.000-07:00

Mr. Obama is touting the end of the "Great Recession." Too bad for him his constituents aren't buying this latest wonderful news. He said he was "having so much fun."

If this is "fun," what's his idea of having a "bad day" at the office?

At least "Bubba" Clinton wouldn't have given such a ear-to-ear grin upon getting his ears boxed by the first questioner. He would've answered the question the best he could and may God have had mercy on the poor staffer who left him wide open. And if Hillary was left that vulnerable? He or she would be counting the numbers of endangered species of flora on Kodiak Island, minus the bear gun.

'Tis such behavior isn't part of the present Chief Executive's style. In the meantime, no wonder the little guy wearing the golf jacket from Iran is gaining stature at the expense of a sitting U.S. President.

Geesh, I sure as hell miss BIG stick and strong backboned imperialism and imperial presidents. They knew how to be Presidential.

Christine O'Donnell a "conservative"? By what, or better still, whose, standards?

2010-09-18T11:26:00.000-07:00

Russell Kirk must be spinning in his grave; his speed of gyrations perhaps matched only by William F. Buckley, Jr.'s and Fr. Richard Neuhaus'.

Christine O'Donnell is anything but a conservative, but she is a wonderfully repackaged imitation of what the Religious Right and desperate for any bright face calling herself a conservative who could upset a longtime veteran Mike Castle, in Delaware's Republican Senatorial Primary last week.

Maybe in (at least one instance alone) it might not be too much of a stretch to say she (and her handlers in the "repackaging bidnez" became big time bunglers. My father, seldome one to dabble in proof-texting to make his point, used to say whenever he'd read about political corruption, "What doth it gain a man if he loses his soul"? Same question holds true for one very ambitious and self-described Catholic O'Donnell.

I'll give her the benefit of the doubt, but having left the Catholic pen for the pasture on the other side of the fence for a while and made my way back, I'm pretty familiar with much of the Evangelical world's lingua franca, especially insofar as politics is concerned. (Having also campaigned for then-President Carter's reelection in Orange County, FL back in 1980, I became quite familiar with many of the key catch-all phrases the religious right likes to employ.) Also, having interned with the National Journalism Center in Washington, DC three years later, I really got an insider's glance into that world where the line between polilitikin' n' preachin' took a grayin'.

I can't say for sure what she really is because I have a feeling she even doesn't know. This begs another question: If a woman posititioning herself to become a member of the most exclusive legislative body in the
world is incapable of knowing if she's a Protestant or Catholic, what else will she be so clueless about?

Or, if a woman who's done little else but politikin' for most of her adult life, in and outside of Washington, D.C. .... by what rights has she to claim any moral authority to saying a vote for her changes things? Saying this isn't enough: " . . .   "Some have accused us of being just an aging crowd of former Reagan staffers and homeschoolers ... " Well, I'm not all that up on the homeschooling part, but let's face it, there are two revolving doors in Washington and they're used by most of the "usual suspects" who never leave. And they never will: they like the power, the glitz of their jobs and the possibilities that holding these jobs and listing them on their resumes will do for them. Accomplishments? Well, they'd be nice, but having their resumes festooned with (whatever BIG TITLE'd job) ... that's the name of the game.

In a story by HuffPost's Amanda Terkel about O'Donnell's recent appearance at a "Values Summit" held by the Heritage Foundation, the GOP nominee spoke of (her type of) conservatives as the "chosen people" and lamented a past long gone.

In O'Donnell's case, she'd better start hoping fewer stories about her past will surface lest she become a "frozen chosen" candidate.

True to form, Brits haven't lost their touch when it comes to behaving stupidly on religious matters.

2010-09-15T11:56:00.000-07:00

Just as I suspected recently, Britiain's anti-Catholic bigots will be having a glorious feast whilst foaming at the mouth, straining at the bits and stomping their hoofs to get their messages of hatred out against the Anti-Christ, the "Beast," (as Ian Paisley once called John Paul II during the last papal visit during the Eighties.) By now this should be all ho-hum stuff, but when it comes to demonstrating just how ugly and hypocritical Brits can be when it comes to religion, just the mere whisperings of a possible visit by any Roman pontiff is bound to rattle all the rabid hate-filled dogs cages.

They must be terribly bored over there, especially without Gordon Brown, their former Prime Fumbler who once made sure Ian Paisley would have a seat in the House of Lords and Omaha Beach was recrhristened Obama Beach when he met with our President Obama during ceremonies to remember those who lost their lives on D-Day. June 6th, 1944. (I wonder how many subsequent American and other Allied lives were lost due to British obstinate stupidity on the first day after they successfully held off a Nazi effort to retake the famed "Pegasus bridge" taken by British special airborne troops during the invasion's earliest hours? Oh, do tell, how did they almost botch things afterwards?

Well, the Brits have this thing with tea and even if the Nazis are ripe for the taking and other nations are relying on British Tommies to do their jobs, British Brass allows them to stop in order to drink their tea on their ... .

Bigots like Paisley get rewarded with a Lordship by a (thankfully now former) PM who thought one of his own Labourite members, a little old granny who complained about too many foreigners coming into the country, was a bigot for saying so. Lord Ian Paisley, now that's worth a few thoughts. And if the ugliness of His Lordship wasn't so notorious, it'd be worth a few laughs.

Paisley is in good company with another paragon of British symbols of militancy with a snarl, bigotry and meanspiritedness; Sir Banastre ("Bloody Ban") Tarlelton' who's butchery of American colonists during the Revolutionary War and slavish devotion to representing the profits his ilk pulled, whipped, chained and squeezed out at their lucrative corner of the "peculiar institution," (keeping up the "family tradition," right?) Might as well face it, consistent inconsistency has always been a British staple for the rest of us to consistently count on, especially when the issues touch on matters of, racism, oppression and religious bigotry.

After all, don't they still sing, "Rule Britainnia, Across the Ocean Waves, . . . England's sons will n'er be slaves?" And wasn't that song written around the time when Britain won the world's first real world war, the Seven Years/French & Indian Wars (the latter accidently started by our own George Washington, in 1753, outside of modern Pittsburgh? Indeed, the one and the same song; sung in Brit taverns wherever good red uiniformed Lobsterbacks would hang out all the while their slavers' ships were taking Africans out of their homelands, packing them tightly in ships and selling them off to American slavers, some of the worst, if THE throughout the entire British Empire, prior to 1783?

Since the Pope will first be stopping off in Scotland, I hope he has enough wiggle room in his schedule to visit Culloden, and better yet, invite, as one brother cleric to another, Ian to meet him on the same battlefield where the English finished off Catholic attempts to regain the throne through Prince Charles ("Bonnie Charlie") Stuart.

Yes, old chaps, indeed. And to think that a Bavarian Pope has them up in arms? 'Tis the pity.

For some quiet meditation bound to give any self-respecting lover of religious liberty, no matter where he or she chooses to honor th' Lord, just imagine that magical moment when Benedict steps down from his plane, and the band stikes up no less than . . .

"The White Cockade"

This time Benedict is really walking into that "lonesome valley," that once scepter'd isle.

2010-09-10T11:57:00.000-07:00

What an interesting sight it'll be when Pope Benedict XVI walks off his plane in England next week during a state, as well as missionary visit to a land that was once one of the most reliably Catholic parts of the pre-reformation world. He's visiting England at the invitation of Queen Elizabeth II, the temporal, or earthly "head" of the Church of England. That's a stretch of theological fiction, since no earthly head of state may claim to be the head of God's church, that he founded, and the Anglicans claim direct lineage to; especially if that earthly head of state happens to be of the female persuasion.

However, for the sake of diplomatic comity, the Pope and Queen will indeed treat each other as equals for state-related reasons alone. Even the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, won't utter an impolitic peep. Any spiritual leader of a self-described "branch of the ancient catholic church" isn't about to risk incuring the wrath of a monarch who's enjoying quite a comeback in popularity ... especially when that branch has been hemorraghing members to the point where Catholics out number Anglicans both as baptized members but also practicing members of their respective homes of worship. Her invitation to the one head of state (no matter whom he College of Cardinals elect) is enough of a sizeable hint for Williams and any of his successors (if any the way it's shrinking so fast these days) to miss. In fairness to Abp. Williams, it's only right to say he's a friend of Joseph Ratzinger, the Bavarian who became Pope Benedict XVI.

This also makes for another interesting insight, however minor: The unelected British Head of State, Her Royal Britannic Majestic, Elizabeth Regina, II, the Queen of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, Canada, Austrailia, New Zealand and the Commonwealth of Nations (the old British Empire, which now lists South Africa again as one of its members) worked as a mechanic and driver of Britain's "equal" to our Jeeps during World War II, while Joseph Ratzinger, was forced into joining the Hitler Youth, then drafted into an AA-battery protecting the BMW plant outside of Munich and finally a die-hard Nazi regiment of Austrians which he bravely escaped during the final weeks of the war. What stories or memories they might want to share. Unlike Elizabeth, Benedict XVI's reign wasn't inherited or pre-ordained; after all, he succeeded a Polish pope who came from even more humble beginnings.

The Pope is visiting at the Queens invitation and he'll also be taking in a visit to Cardinal John Henry Newman's Birmingham Oratory where the famous Victorian era convert to Catholicism will be beatified. He'll be visiting sexual abuse victims and no doubt, Muslim leaders, of which no doubt, there'll be plenty of who are interested to see where he wants to take the Catholic Church in England to. After all, there's no other growing Church in the realm.

I'll bet it's not the Muslims who'll be alarmed at Benedict's visit. When it comes to promoting family unity, etc., Rome and the Mosque have a lot more in common than Rome than Lambelth Palace across the river from Parliament -- the administrative heart of Anglicanism.

It's not going to be a pleasant visit, but I'll tackle that during another hour shortly. Some topics require a little resting up first.

Here's a good old fashioned American fun-filled tradition and solution to this Koran-burning nonsense.

2010-09-07T15:23:00.000-07:00

A sub-group of the Taliban have invaded the United States; perhaps imitating the Body Snatchers of yore and took over a small non-denominational Christian church, the so-called "Dove World Outreach Center" near Gainesville, FL, pastored by the Rev'd Terry Jones.

What? - That doesn't make sense. Of course it doesn't. Nor does leading his flock in staging a Koran-burning publicity stunt meant to protest what happened nine years ago in lower Manhattan, the Pentagon and western Pennsylvania. Burning the Scripture that's as holy to Muslims as the Bible and Torah are to Christians and Jews, respectively, could never atone for the the nearly three thousand victims of the four plane crashes led by 19 spiritually/mentally inbalanced youths who were willing to die at Osama bin Laden's behest for Allah. By the way, the 9/11 attacks were a direct violation against the Koran which condemns the killing of innocent civilians, especially women and children.

Yes, many terrible things have been done by some very terrible people thinking they were going to win Allah's blessings and see him in heaven. Those 19 young men, some of them practically kids, were conned; plain and simple. And there have been many other suicide bombers who've killed many, many more Americans, our Allies and Israelis ... not to mention the untold numbers of Arab/Afghani/Pakistani Muslims throughout the wide geographical swath of area between the Holy Land and the streets of Mumbai. I have a nephew who was just a week or so away from completing his mission in Afghanistan when his Humvee was struck by an Afghani suicide bomber who succeeded in killing more than 20 Muslims, but only injured the Americans.

So many Americans and non-Americans, Christians and non-Christians, Muslims and non-Muslims have been affected by what's happened since those planes crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and that Pennsylvania field. Burning copies of the Koran will only increase the odds that there'll be more 9/11s for civilians. But I wouldn't even dare place a bet against the likelihood of a direct massive assault by the Taliban or one of its more diabolical allies if this preacher goes ahead with this insane stunt.

If Abu Gharib helped to create massive resentment thus leading to more deaths by "insurgents" ... what does this backwoods preacher man think will come out of instantaneous (thanks to cells and YouTube) filming of just one copy of the Koran being put to the flames? Will this minister and his deacons then muster up the courage to face a parent, spouse or child of a lost warrior or civilian "collateral" victim?

Here's my "fun-filled tradition and solution" to this craziness: Time for Gainesville's Bravest and other local fire companies to pitch in and put an end to the rev's flaming foolishness ... A FIREMAN'S MUSTER!

And if the Rev'd so much as reaches for a lighter or matchbox while he's got a Koran in hand, well gang, "Praise the Lord and Hose the Rev!"

Obama's $50B infrastructure bill's the right train: Will "'Party of No" say "No" to the jobs it promises?

2010-09-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

It's Labor Day, September 6, 2010. While reading about the President's recent initiative to get our railroads back into shape befitting the greatest nation in world history, I couldn't help also thinking back to the years I spent as a boy growing up in Wiesbaden, Germany. I had a lot of enjoyment going down to the city's main train station, a very large (well, by our disgracefully shrunken post-war standards anyway) terminus with 12 tracks fitting under six glass sheds. The war wasn't even over by 20 years, but you'd never know they lost it by the conditions of their railroads, and yes, Autobahn and newly rebuilt airports.

American, British and French taxpayers' dollars, pounds and francs went into supporting Germany's "Economic Miracle" thanks to the Marshal Program, Berlin Airlift and other programs designed to fight starvation and get Germany back in the running. Nowadays I'll hear the snipers bellyaching, "Oh there goes more of my taxdollars ..." Yet, many of the same snipers are seldom heard when it comes to acknowledging the value the Allies got back in return for the money we spent.

After all, during the years 1962-65, my father, an American Air Force officer was stationed at Wiesbaden's Lindsey Kaserne, then the Air Force's European Headquarters . . . not an "Ivan" for the Soviet Air Force. It was never a "sure thing" that Germany would stay "with the west" after she lost in 1945.

By the way, many of the same kind of short-sighted, green-shade crowd that bellyached at Harry Truman for spending money in Germany and Europe after the war are the same kinds of skin-flints opposing Barack Obama in his efforts to revitalize our sad-sack'd railways, highways and runways.

All the Presiden't asking for is $50B. But that's Fifty Billion that'll make its way directly back into the private sector which I'll explain further along. I've been tough on Barack Obama for several years, but on this issue, he's got my full support.

I could be wrong, but many decades ago William F. Buckley, Jr. aptly called the Republican Party the "Stupid Party." It hasn't improved its IQ when it comes to learning some basic facts of macro-economics. The GOP would rather that the country's highways, railways and airways resemble that of a crumbling empire's last years, (think of the United Kingdom, formerly Great Britain, formerly the British Empire during the Seventies, which should give you a pretty good picture of how bad things are.) Well, we could even accept Arianna Huffington's gloomy predictions if we really want to hang crape.

Does this seem to bother the GOP led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, (R-KY), House M inority Leader John Boehner, (R-OH, Dayton), Rush Limbaugh and the many other "movement conservatives" living off of the fat of contemporary talking points that've been so efficiently packaged and tailored to fit today's love affair with political expediencey? Far from it! These people are more interested in getting back into the seats of power than they are in seeing the nation move forward and prosperity spread throughout all classes.

As usual, the Republicans don't give a damn for anybody but their rich pals or their pals who know how to play the game in Washington. (Well, at least they're more honest about it philosophically-speaking, viz at least one northeastern liberal Democratic pol who stiffed his own state out of half a million dollars in excise taxes by registering his $70M foreign-built luxury yacht in an adjacent state while he anchored it in Nantucket which he still represents.)

Back to Washington: What was that game? Oh, yes - "Poweropoly. " (It has a close cousin: "Posture-opoly."

If the Republicans who'll ever conveniently wave the very blood-soak'd shirt of abortion, which has killed 50 million would-be Americans since 1973 when it's convenient to wave that bloody shirt, all of a sudden "discovered" that standing up for the unborn won't help them, they'll keep on sacrificing more children to the abortion mills that were subsidized by the American taxpayers during Republican administrations as well as the Democrats' tenures. In the meantime, both parties are having a fit trying to figure out how Social Security/Medicaid and Medicare can be made solvent again.

They could start by encouraging a rise in the national birthrates. That's a "no-go" because it's "too politically loaded, i.e., dicey and politically incorrect since it'll upset many women." Let's see how happy those women will be some 20-30 years from now when their safetynets have been gutted because even desperate stop-gap spending "solutions" are not there to be found.

The GOP's elite, which looked down its noses at Rush Limbaugh's call for the Obama Administration to fall on its face, should be held just as culpable (remember that old fashioned word before it "transistioned" into the more "politically chic" but outrageously pompously-sounding gobbledygook buzzword "accountable") for all the stock portfolios and retirement accounts that'll go down the tubes if the present administration does fall flat. Don't count on watching this Dies Irae ("Day of Judgment") unfold if the Republican's p.r. boiler-room boyos have the final say in how the debacle it helped to bring about, does indeed happen.

It's not for a lack of effort, (although one might wonder how hard it is to keep saying "No" so often.)

Here's how their planned derailment of this job-creation bill's going to unfold: Get in front of the cameras and say NO. NO to this idea, NO to that idea, NO to anything that could possibly lead to helping the nation rebound, only because it happens to make Obama's crew look good. The same party that loves to paint the Democrats as "progressives" and "socialists" and still by some, "reds," and still loves to wrap itself in Old Glory (whilst turning a blind eye to tax scams that award companies taking their factories to Mexico or overseas where labor's cheaper than they could dream of finding here in the good ol' USA, USA, USA.)

Why isn't anybody up in arms about the way our national initials are so often disgraced by the basest people for the basest reasons so often?!

Their next step is to get help from the zillionaires on radio and television, scare taxpayers and smear the daylights out of the unions and anybody willing to cooperate with the Administration with this program (which is much, much better in the long run than the Stimulus that they whined against taking (all the way to their state treasuries and ribbon cutting ceremonies on television, i.e. free air time) because it really will create many, many private sector jobs.

Oh, oh ... that spells trouble for the GOP because Obama will be doing what they fear the most, taking their bread n' butter issue away in the fastest manner. Indeed, government doesn't manufacture the rails, the trains, cars, planes, the trucks, bulldozers. Somebody has to and they need the money to do it.

This information should be s l o w l y and c a r e f u l l y given to Michael Steele and his die hard Republicans, Sarah & Marilyn's Tea Partiers, Beckites, Limbaughers and the other Foxes used to getting away spewing out the "guvmint don't create jobs" mantra with impunity. Keep smelling salts on hand, too.

Does this mean that government spending will actually help to create jobs in the private sector? Well now! There goes another "talking point" down the political porceilain altar. Not just any "talking point," but a whole paragraph's worth of them. Writing from personal experience, I used to be the supply clerk for the Clerk's Office of the U.S. District Court in Boston back in the mid-Seventies. Not one of the pens n' pencils I purchased had "Made by the U.S. Judiciary Branch." A lot of t hem had Bic n' Ticonderoga No. 2 printed on them, respectively. Back in those days, I supposet our pens n' pencils were made here. Even if they're made elsewhere, they still have to be sent to and handled and delivered here by private sector employees.

Take that Mrs. Palin, Michael Steele, and Glenn Beck, et al.

You can (mentally) buy a lot of other private sector jobs from this "paragraph's worth of real prosperity-creation talking points" when towns come alive again because houses will be built, stores will reopen, and so forth. That won't put smiles on a lot of the Poweropoly folks faces, either because they know who made it possible for those towns to all of a sudden come to life again.

Republicans would love to keep on scamming the nation with their claim to be the home w here conservatives can always find the back door open and light left on. Not so when they're making appeasing every social issues special interest group they never cared for in the past until they decided vote-gathering was more important than being the party that would proudly say GOP stood for Guarantor of Principles. Nowadays it's only concerned about the relationship between principle and interest rates. I have no interest in supporting the Democrats' views on many controversial social issues, but at least they stick with thos principles; however wrong I believe (some in particular) to be.

The Republicans even seem willing to risk the likelihood of a massive economic collapse and all that entails in the long run, to enduring four more years of Barack Obama. Have they forgotten that we have a republican-respresentative form of government loaded with checks and balances they can use -- without necessarily resorting to adding a heavily sugared cup's worth of tea in the economy's gas tank while deluding themselves and any sane person that by doing so we can survive Barack Obama?

This isn't the hallmark of a responsible, read adult, conservative group of leaders. This is a bunch of ideologues who'd prefer risking what comes after economic collapse: Mob Rule. If they think the folks who want to get this economic train back on track and moving forward are the wrong conductors, to borrow from Ronald Reagan in 1984: "They haven't seen anything, yet."

That's one trainwreck I pray none of us, from Barack Obama to the bag ladies hanging outside Anytown, USA's homeless shelters will never see.

Mosque ado about nothing: Nativist nonsense used to distract voters from real economic terrors.

2010-08-30T13:42:00.000-07:00

Forgive the flippancy of my title, but the more I read about this proposed Mosque, and get the general drift of the arguments for and against it . . . not to mention take stock of the "usual suspects" venting their spleens over the proposed so-called "9/11 Mosque," the more I'm tempted to reach for the history books. American religious history books to be exact. Alright, I'll narrow this down to something even more specifically tailored to parallel this ugly dispute: Nativists and their scurrilous campaigns to drive every "papist" and sign of "popery" from American soil.

Somewhere there's bound to be an anti-Muslim equivalent to Protestantism's John Jay. This is the one Founding Father who stood out like a sore thumb in comparison to the other Fathers who worked hard to make sure the new nation wouldn't suffer the same kind of repetitious pattern of religious wars between Catholic vs. Protestants and Protestants vs. Protestants. Jay, a descendant of French Hugenots, can be partially forgiven for harboring a grudge against Catholicism given France's horrific track record in its persecution of French Protestants. After all, there are plenty of Irish Catholics, myself included, still wondering why so many Irish Catholics were systematically butchered or starved to death by His and/or Her Britannic Governments during the years it dominated all of Ireland.

Likewise, there'll be centuries to pass before future American non-Muslims and Muslims can finally come to grips with September 11th. If anybody's thinking this is possible, with or without a controversy brewing over a proposed Mosque to be built in a converted building a couple of blocks away from the crime scene, it'd be in their best interests to rapidly disabuse themselves of such illusory fantasies.

Are we to be like John Jay who wanted Catholics barred from holding elective office because they belonged to a faith governed and shepherded by a hiearchy based in a foreign state, (then the Papal States, nowadays the Vatican City State?) What sweet justice, Jay would now be looking at a Supreme Court dominated by six Catholics, including the Chief Justice John Roberts. Jay had less to worry about in carrying out his vendetta against Catholics. We didn't and won't come up with any separate quasi-judicial system based on religious grounds.Muslims, especially those who believe strongly in Sharia, are less likely to back off on their plans to build a Mosque/Interfaith prayer building just a handful of blocks away from the original Trade Center.

Notwithstanding the shadowy figures behind this thumb in your face move by a handful of Muslims, the whole issue truly is a Mosque Ado About Nothing. Now here's a slam dunk if there was any to claim.

What do I base my claim on? It's this simple. It's the same claim Catholics successfully used to defend their First Amendment Rights when the Bible Riots were going on in Philadelphia during the 1830s and the Know-Nothings were having their dance under the flickering flames of the Ursuline Convent they burnt in Boston's Charlestown section a decade later. It's the same Amendment Catholics have cited ever since we came to this country.

People who oppose this Mosque aren't bigots per se as NYC's Mayor Michael Bloomberg rushed to say. Most of them have been manipulated into believing something inherently evil will come out of its opening. Nonsense. That place will be monitored closer than the Capitol, Supreme Court and White House put together.

The timing of this Mosque is curious and so is the pinning of the religious label of "Muslim" on the President. How many times does a Baptized Christian have to say he's a Christian? Moreover, I can understand his bemused frustration with the whole thing. How many self-described "Bible Christian" Protestants still believe Catholics aren't fully Christian, although the Catholic Sacrament of Baptism clearly follows to the very letter what Jesus told Nicodemus in the Bible about the need to be baptized in both the Water and Spirit? "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he ca nnot enter into the kingdom of God," (Jn. 3:5 KJV) In many "Bible Christian" churches, even the Baptist denomination, baptisms are considered ordinances, not sacraments.

Look, folks, the way to beat President Obama and his party is through taking the narrow (albeit less exciting) gate of dollars and cents, economic insecurity or simply the want and desparate need of jobs, jobs, and more jobs. Just as we can find many issues to quibble about concerning his handling on foreign policy and other non-economic issues. this particular administration's biggest weakness is the near moribund economic situation, notwithstanding all the promises of hopeful changes he promised during his campaign.

Demagogues, especially the multimillionaire big mouths dominating the more plebian-geared radio shock-jock world know they can talk till their blue in their faces about "family values" in hopes of "taking our nation back," but if you pull them out of their glass-encased booths, and bluntly ask them what will be dominating the minds of parents when they step into that voting booth, "red meat" social issues ... or real fears of losing the roof over their kids heads and winding up in a motel as their next place of residence?

Next question for these big talkers? When are you going to grow up and help these parents by giving them real facts and issues, not (party-or-lobbyist-vetted) "talking points" or playing up the bigotry-fed, plug ugly Nativist drivel that's not helping anybody but a small cadre of well-greased ideologically motivated rabble-rousers? What's it going to take, another round of Bible riots, burnt convents or scenes like those depicted by Martin Scorces's "Gangs of New York"?

Maybe the neo-nativist nay-sayers of today's shock-jock'd political "culture" have come to the conclusion they dare not share with the rest of the nation, even their millions and millions of ever-so-dedicated followers: They don't have a clue to how to get this economy back up and running any more than the administration they love to trash for their selfish reasons. Selfish?

Surely it's selfish: When ideologues who stand to gain millions in radio revenues by publicly expressing hopes that the economy will tank under the Obama Administration, they can only be looking out for themselves; not for the millions of people owning stocks traded on Wall Street who initially stand to lose the most at first. Then, it'll be the employees, then the smaller stores and businesses they patronized and so forth.

If local fears can help create economic tropical depressions -- recessions -- the shock jock plug uglies behind their mikes do wonders to help these recessions along the way to becoming the next economic Katrina they hope to land on President Obama's front door in hopes of creating their ideas of change.

Just take a look at that drivel put out by Freedom Works in my previous post, especially the paragraph about jobs ... or the disappearence of them as they've been blown away by so-called "free trade."

Oh, but we've got to get all worked up over that mosque while much ado about what's truly sapping our national strength isn't being done because it doesn't fit into today's plug uglies' "agenda."

Beware: poseur "conservatives" like Glenn Beck are lupine creatures in Tory drag.

2010-08-29T19:27:00.000-07:00

First of all, Glenn Beck is NOT a conservative. He's even gone on record as having said so. He'd rather be lumped in with the Libertarians. He's "transistioned" himself in yet one more example of this man's constant repackaging efforts to keep on amassing profits on top of profits while also proving what H.L. Mencken said about nobody going " ... broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

How does Beck get away with riding on "conservative" credentials when he clearly identifies with the libertarian side of the line dividing sane from insane political ideas? A lazy Fourth Estate. If the press did its homework, far more reporters, especially our more conservative ones, would've laid bare this fraud years ago before he gained such a powerful pulpit at Fox News, not to mention his Thirty Million pieces-plus a year for trashing the President as a "racist," and smearing the Catholic Church through his remarks about Social Justice -- among other intolerables that normally would've landed him on the street and someplace else for his other issues -- for which he has no right to hide behind, even though he admits to them, but strangely refuses to take any medicine for.

Beck's backed off on his comments about President Obama. He had no choice besides the fact he greatly insulted most Americans, not just Blacks with such an incredibly disrespectful remark. (Would a genuine conservative say such a thing about anybody, much less the leader of his country and the free world who is also the child of a white mother and black father?) However, as Father James Martin, SJ noted for the Huffington Post this past weekend, Beck's new thing is pushing his brand of theology. Ah yes, let's call it "Beckist-Libertarian Theology."

Ridiculous? Of course, but so are a lot of things Beck's glom'd on to and managed to "fuse" them into some mysterious "plan" ... who knows! Lately it's for God, as if we should pay any attention to a man who hasn't the slightest clue about his former church's position on the very thing he loves to bash the most; a position this certain church that's 2,000 years old has long been an expert on. Could that be the Catholic Church that the apostate Beck left to become a Mormon? He claimed he converted to Mormonism during a down time in his life (which one) and just in the nick of time before his meteroric rise to where he is now. Many sincere Christians claim there are no coincidences; but in Beck's case, respectfully demur. With this man, timing's everything.

The public -- especially people who buy the products made by some of his sponsors and FNC should be asking themselves, "Who cares!" Once the answers start coming, ideally that should shut him up for good.

Sigh, I'm being delusional because I'm making the mistake of overestimating the political IQs of many hoodwinked Tea Partiers who, alas, are growing in numerical strength (at least.) It's a safe bet that most of the people who attended Beck's rally yesterday are unaware of the position taken by Freedom Works, the powers behind the screen for the Tea Party, about trading with China. Let me back up a bit and suggest that they look this passage over: Warning, if you're a former factory employee who just lost his job to some place in China, Mexico or even Vietnam(!) you'll just love this high octane economic libertarianism:

"Free trade benefits America, but there remains strong political opposition to our freedom. Companies that aren't competitive will seek protection from the government. Other opponents of trade are simply against capitalism."

"The problem is that the benefits of trade are shared a cross the economy, but the benefits of protectionism are highly visible. For example, if an uncompetitive fact ory closes, we can see directly the unfortunate human and financial cost. Yet, at the same time, trade is elsewhere creating more jobs in growing industries-- a process that isn't visible in the local newspapers."

"Americans are the most productive and innovative people in the world. Yet, the United States has only 5% of the world's population. We cannot afford to close our borders to the world's markets and goods." (Emphasis, mine.)

Beijing couldn't have put it any better. However, they have an American friend who penned "Made in China: Free trade helps all," by MHLittle. Mr. Little's title speaks volumes to his small grasp on the effects of such economic devolution that'd certainly bring tears of joy to the likes of Herbert Spencer,* but it does little to assauge the disconcerting situations faced by many folks who can't find any cheery economic news in their local papers to be excited about because the factories they used to work in are now in places far outside of commuting distance, if not entirely out of both country and hemisphere!

*Take a good look at some of the topics on this page. I'd call this a double-jeopardy link for Mr. Beck & Co. if they want to defend the likes of Economic Darwinism.

So Beck wants to throw his lot in with the Libertarians, whom the late-Russell Kirk called "Chirping Sectaries," -- that's fine so long as he tells his audience what Libertarianism is really all about: SELFISHNESS. It's that simple once you get around to breaking down the essence of what libertarianism is all about. Just as fading Puritanism begat Congregationalism, which begat Unitarianism which began Unitarian-Universalism, so hath Liberalism begat Libertarianism which began Libertinism.

In his essay on these "Chirping Sectaries" of whom Beck seems to be America's biggest "SPOX" in Foxspeak, Kirk said in his closing paragraphs:

"In a time requiring long views and self-denial, alliance with a faction founded upon doctrinaire selfishness would be absurd-and practically damaging. It is not merely that cooperation with a t iny chirping sect would be valueless politically; more, such an ass ociation would tend to discredit the conservatives, giving aid and comfort to the collectivist adversaries of ordered freedom."

Kirk penned those words long ago, much longer before classical conservatism was infected by a growing sense of "I've got mine, tough luck for you, bud" attitude. And men like Beck were all too happy to take advantage of it; regardless of the cost to him, his soul and those whose lives he doesn't give a damn about if they're turned upsided own and inside out by the economic forces he has no problems with and/or the backers of his extravanganzas that feed his ego and ratings which in turn feed his already fattened bank accounts.

I believe in government's civilizing role and duties . . . however, . . .

2010-08-26T07:33:00.000-07:00

What do I mean by "however"? Let's begin with the $300 Philadelphia is charging its kitchen-table, homebased tycoons with this Blogger's Business Privilege License that I mentioned in my previous post. Let's extend that to its logical ends of ridiculousness by visiting Multnomah County, Oregon where its solons went after a handful of young girls for operating a lemonade stand without first shelling out $120 to obtain a county health inspectors' permit.

The character played by Mel Gibson in The Patriot wasn't kidding when he voiced his concern that with independence from Great Britain, we'd risk replacing one tyrant with many more.

How sadly true. And the people paying the biggest burdens for this constant flogging of entreprenurially-minded individuals from all walks of life are not the proverbial favorites of conservative politicians and pundits, the Federal Government. Ronald Reagan had it upside down when he complained about the overly intrusive national government when compared to what most of us have to deal with on a day-to-day basis are the state and local municipalities and all their taxes, permits, fees, licenses, etc. Washington does play its sinful part by enacting unfunded mandates which states and local government, sans their own state currencies, have to pay. much like the poor sap who's stuck paying for the drinking tab of the heaviest drinker.

Nevertheless, state legislatures play the same pass the tab game, which in turn gets passed all the way down to local businesses and ultimately, property-tax homeowners and renters. (Yep, they pay their landlord's property taxes, albeit in a hidden discrete way.) Three hundred dollars to have a blog? Girls having to cough up $120 for a permit before they can sell their first cup of lemonade for half o' buck?

The Republicans are right to defend the Bush era tax cuts and in principle, attack the Obama Administration's obsession with making the "rich," (e.g. those making over $250,000 a year ... before or after the "net" is reached Mr. President?) and what it's really saying to the vast majority of American business owners and owner-startup wannabes. Apparently Obama and Co.'s desire to redistribute our wealth to its "rightful owners" doesn't apply to him and his many friends in the very profitable non-profit sector, nor the higher echelons working within all levels of government. Just look at how much your local school superintendents are pulling down for salaries. ("Oh, but it's a competitive business attracting only the best minds for the kids.")

Please, however, don't presume that the good offices of our local government will take all its revenues and apply them to a big general fund. That $120 the county went after the girls for might've gone directly into the county's sewage funds, a slush fund of a different variety, but in some cases, not altogether any more pleasant to mull on. Nor will it go into a general fund that local educators can use "for the kids" to conduct their Safaris for the elusive superintendent of all superintendents for all times. And some towns, despite their appaent wealth of educators abound, cannot seem to keep a good man or woman in their towns to run the schools properly "for the kids."

People have enough uncertainty to deal with, but when government starts hitting up on kids . . . our enlightened ones running governments in all levels had best remembered that they don't have all the answers and perhaps it's best to learn from those who DO know how to make an economy grow: the leaders of Small Business, not neccessarily Wall Street or the big conglomerates. Because they NEED Small Business far more than they'll ever deign to admit. And BIG GOVERNMENT had best start learning from the kitchen table bloggers and kids selling lemonade.

Hiroshima: Sixty-five years later, and Japan still doesn't get it.

2010-08-07T19:23:00.000-07:00

What does it take to get a nation to admit it committed atrocities beyond comprehension, butchering people wholesale, and leaving others to take the blame for their actions that brought them to their knees?

Japan has yet to make a full official apology to the Chinese, Vietnamese, Manchurians, Fillipinos, Indonesians, Koreans, Taiwanese, Burmese, Thais, Cambodians, and I haven't even started with what they took out of our Allies and our own service men and women, beginning with the first bombs that fell on Pearl Harbor.

Its royal household takes mincy steps and parades around the locust bush of truths they'd give anything to avoid having to take the slightest responsibility for planting in the first place. Our own reincarnation of France's Bourbon King Louis XVI, Barack Obama has all but apologized to the Japanese by allowing his ambassador to represent us officially during the ceremonies marking this event. And to underscore his (unstated) remorse, he allowed former President Carter to represent us as well. Remember, this is the first president to ever bow to a Japanese emperor. Barack and M ichelle Obama have shown they've learned alot about the worse aspects of Bourbon "leadership" with all the trappings, etc., yet like the Bourbons they haven't learned the message of what their arrogance led to. But I'll leave off on this subject with a couple of quotations from a very astute observer of monarchial arrogance. John Adams, our Second President:

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence."

The Japanese, latter day WWII armchair strategists, Peace-At-Any-Price historical revisionists, and this present-day American presidency of Barack Obama keeps forgetting these stubborn realities of history. And Japan, in particular, keeps this advice, also from Adams at more than arms length:

"Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war." The Germans bore more than their share for World War I, they fully admitted their role in World War II, while Japan still whistles past the graveyards of many of its victims in the lands they sought to dominate and that nation's own citizenry. How many more hundreds of thousands if not millions would've died if we had to continue what President Truman promised "a rain of fire"? Thankfully, Emperor Hirohito, the father of today's Emperor Akihito, (to whom Obama gave a near 90 degree bow) decided after the bombing of Nagasaki enough was enough. Had Hirohito made a similar decision after his brother raped and butchered Nanking before they bombed Pearl Harbor, we wouldn't have had an anniversary ceremony yesterday.

Do we want pollsters to shape our tax policies?

2010-08-03T14:16:00.000-07:00

Citing a recent Pew Center report about the public’s perception about the Democrats’ drive to make sure the Bush era tax cuts expire soon, Boston Globe columnist Derrick Jackson, in today's paper penned "Repeal a tax cut nobody can afford" which calls the Republicans to task for holding on to these cuts saying such action will only retard future job gro wth. He also took swipes at former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) for his calls to keep the tax cuts and gutting the inheritance, estate or “death tax” and to back up his attacks on the GOP and Gingrich, Jackson relies on familiar turf, liberal think tanks and their poll findings.

How objective are the Pew figures? How were the questions put to the interviewees. Where these interviews conducted, what were the questions and whom did Pew’s pollsters interview? You don’t need a college education, much than that, to look ascertain the historical leanings of these polling companies columnists, “talking heads,” (on TV and radio) and politicians love to turn into “talking points” for the purpose of convincing majority of the (only significant portion of the public: the actual voters) to put pressure on their elected officials to take according to their desires.

Again, how reliable are these figures? Gingrich is a fiscal conservative, so he naturally favors his own figures. Likewise, Derrick Jackson is a liberal columnist for the Boston Globe and he’s following his familiar script only for “his side.” I have no problems with that. We have to expect this as part of the give and take in any political arena. However, it’s our civic responsibility, as reasonably concerned, and actively voting citizens, to put aside our past times and do our homework. It’s said that school never stops for the pros; should it stop for citizens?

If we can dig through the stats of our favorite athletes -- pampered adults playing children’s games for obscene salaries -- in ballparks and arenas paid for by federal, state and municipal taxpayers who’ve been either lulled, or outright cowed, into ignoring federal subsidies for luxury boxes (i.e., Yankee Stadium, which I’m sure isn’t the only building benefitting from this welfare), not to mention emotionally extorted by their favorite team owners who threaten to relocate if their pleasure palaces weren’t built according to their specifications.

“The failure of investment to respond to supply-side tax cuts greatly undermines the central premise underlying the policy,’’ the report said. “. . .economic performance was worse.’’ (quoted from Jackson’s column.)

Let’s stop here. I’m not saying this short one-line quotation is deliberately and disengenuously proof texted, indeed taken from another time and reworded to suit the present times. Jackson’s an honest writer and too clever to try this. In fairness to him, this is one of those serial tax issues that seems to come and go with the tidal flows depending on whose Moon, Democratic or Republican, is shining down on that tidal activity.

Never mind any “Oh, how could you say that(s) and doubt Jackson’s column and his sources?”Poll findings are exactly what the people funding these polls want the m to be.

When it comes to citing polls taken to gauge the impact of a tax policy upon the voters during an election cycle, it’s best to look at the uniforms of the poll-takers and know which team has the “last-at-bats” advantage. Who knows, maybe if the public does it’s homework, the team with the home-field (incumbency) advantage and biggest campaign war chests may yet find itself like the 2004 New York Yankees.

Here’s where Jackson calls out to his bullpen for help, and what does he use? “Proof” that even Republicans are willing to toss the tax cuts overboard in order to stay afloat. In Derrick Jackson's opinion:

“When a strong percentage of Republicans see through the fallacy of tax cuts, that is a sign that all the 2001 and 2003 cuts should expire eventually. First in line should be the wealthy. The liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities says that if the cuts for the top 2 percent of households are extended, they will add $1 trillion to deficits and debt over the next decade.

“Americans want that $1 trillion to go to work, by putting people to work,” Jackson concluded.

Regardless of where this “$1 trillion” comes from, why isn’t Jackson (or his like-minded supporters of the Obama Administration in the press) raising more Cain for all the money the public was supposed to have seen in the so-called “Stimulus” designed to put people back to work, lower the unemployment rates below ten percent and leave us with at least the satisfaction that we’ll be getting something to show for this expenditure other than “saved jobs” within the multi-leveled governmentocracy Obama’s expanding beyond reason.

I agree with critics of the GOP mantra saying “Government money never created a job.” If that criticism is limited to dead-end jobs like those needed for taking the Census, and programs with vague agendas or long-range goals, it’s time to take a “’Let’s look n’ see’ attitude.” When government grants go to medical funding, (save for embryonic stem cell-based research, which I vehemently oppose on moral grounds) the general tools necessary to perform any research have to be made, (preferably in this country, or at least ordered from a domestic warehousing firm.)

Nevertheless, it’s inarguable to say if the money goes to pay for American-made research tools -- it does “create jobs,” albeit those one must pray for a sudden end while holding his or her nose. Let’s take a more benign example: special machines designed to cure thyroid cancer. That company has to employ people, and those people have to have homes nearby, cars to drive, a nice place to stop and have a cup of coffee with friends and neighbors, etc. Government money doesn’t create any jobs? Try telling that to the 10,000 General Electric workers who lost their jobs at the former Pittsfield, MA factory. Maybe all those jobs weren’t related to a federal government contract, but maybe there was some state money going to fund something.

That’s positive government spending, and the states get their money from somewhere besides income and sales taxes. What would happen if the Government Printing Office decides to yank its contract with the Crane Paper Company in Dalton, MA, just outside of Pittsfield. Unfamiliar? That’s understandable because it keeps a reasonably low profile image and in addition to printing millions of high quality wedding invitations, etc., it manufactures the majority of the special paper necessary for the GPO to print that “mother’s milk of politics.”

If Crane lost its contract, who knows how many of its 1,300 employees would lose their jobs? It also takes orders from other nations, including Sweden so it’s not that it’d be completely shut down, but even say 100-200 jobs in a small and recovering local economy in a largely rural area that’s also home to the nearby Tanglewood complex owned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. What if a lot of our local colleges and universities also started losing their funding and had to cut back and start laying off people? Try and tell them government spending doesn’t create jobs when the very denial of it through budget cutting can very well lead to the killing of their jobs.

How about a history lesson? Don’t we always associate Boeing with the B-17, and Kaiser with Liberty Ships, and Bethlehem Steel with the Iowa-class battleships that helped us win WWII? What about the humble Jeep? Isn’t Chrysler still the chief manufacturer of our Abrams main battle tank today? Which made it possible to ensure that the Central and Union Pacific Railroads were able to meet in Utah. Could that’ve been the U.S. Army? Didn’t the government also plan and finance the railroad expansion drives to help move people westward? It had to use something.

Forget the talking points about government “not creating jobs.” Government won’t create and can’t create jobs if programs aren’t well planned out or pushed through with a sense of urgency to match the actual need. I agree with the Obama Administration about high-speed railways. Think of how many private sector jobs that’ll create. On the other hand, think of how many politicians who oppose the new president’s very existence in office so much that they’ll spite their noses and the economic hopes of their constituents because they’d rather be caught dead than to give the White House the slightest shred of credit for having any good ideas and programs.

That’s not conservatism, nor responsible leadership: It’s shortsighted demagoguery fueled by selfishness and cowardly fears of losing one’s seat in Congress or the Senate. Sometimes we have to say “yes” or at least more “maybes” than just giving out perfunctory “no’s.”

Try and tell people needing their unemployment checks (just to pay their mortgages and feed their children peanut butter n’ jelly sandwiches) that it won’t be possible because some people calling themselves “fiscal conservatives” are having a philosophical showdown with the President while in the meantime, the government is spending money wildly on projects favored and pushed through Congress via “earmarking” by the same parliamentary philosophes bickering over the propriety of extending unemployment benefits.

Government through its many layers of federal and state agencies can and does a wonderful job of creating private sector growth. Just think of how many disabled people are able to rejoin society because they benefitted from a government grant enabling them to start up small businesses. These enterprises then grow and prosper, but in the process, they order from other companies and that only helps to widen the ripple effects of every pebble dropped into the larger pond. These aren’t welfarist grants, going to naught because the recipients have to show something in return and work hard at organizing business plans, etc., just like any other business.

Now why would the government do this for the disabled, many if not most of whom are already receiving some form of Social Security or other government assistance – especially when there are others who aren’t disabled and willing to work? That doesn’t diminish the overall value of the program(s) because any program the government can initiate to help “the least among us” as well as the most powerful, goes a lot further to symbolize what the Founders said in the Declaration of Independence about our inalienable equality than a month’s worth of patriotic hoopla and speeches touting lower taxes with liberty. To people who can’t get around or whose medical condition at one time (or throughout their entire lives) has prevented them from more fully partaking in our economy, the prospects of lower taxes for the wealthy rings hollow, leaves a sour taste in their mouths and gives unwarranted credibility to the notion that all tax cuts for the wealthy deserve rolling back. Where’s their equal freedom to pursue the American Dream if truly selfish-minded politicians and behind-the-scenes policy makers undercut the very means these disabled people need to achieve economic independence?

I can’t help noticing an increasing “plantation/factory mill-mentality conservatism” mentality catching on with many “fiscally conservative” politicians and group-think manipulators. It’s fiscal conservatism’s reprehensible ugly side. I don’t have to go into its history; many of us have read stories about child labor in northern factories, sharecropper farms in Dixie and today’s robust union-busting efforts undertaken by companies to slash their labor costs -- and at any cost – just to keep their investors on Wall Street happy. Who benefits the most from this? Mexico, China, India and other cheap labor dumping grounds across the globe. Are unions infallible guardians of the American worker? Hardly, but, overall, their continued presence in our economy provides that necessary check against a return to the days when company owners could literally run roughshod over the very people who made their disgustingly lavish lifestyles possible. Without organized labor there would be no worker safety regulations, never mind better pay. The only difference between a black slave and a white Irishman or French Canadian was a few pennies an hour.

And just as slavery implicated the entire nation before 1865, this new “plantation/factory mill mentality conservatism” continues besmirching the reputation of American conservatism in general. Sad to say, this paragraph could stand alone, too, and could’ve been used many years ago and will again, and unless it’s checked once and for all, it’ll continue its lifespan. That, I’m afraid, would take total immersion in Luke’s Gospel for many contemporary “Free-Market-Plantation/Factory mentality conservatives.” (Good luck getting this included in the sermons of many Sunbelt megachurch pastor s and their respective Sunday School curriculum organizers. Good luck getting the Texas Board of Education to pull back from its recent “reforms” that practically enshrine Herbert Spencer’s Economic Darwinism whilst blocking what Charles Darwin really wrote.

When it comes to contemporary class-driven “soak-the-rich” mentality-driven tax notions held by the Globe’s Derrick Jackson and far too many members of the Democratic Party, particularly its very well-entrenched, well-paid, and powerful “elite” – I have little patience for this kind of blatant hypocrisy if it results in greater job losses for the people who stand to lose the most in the quickest fashion. All it takes is a company’s top accountant, CEO or CFO to say, “Well, that piece of legislation means we’ll just have to find another state to do business in.”

When a certain prominent northeastern liberal senator parked his fairly recently purchased his New Zealand 75-foot yacht in an adjoining state for the purpose of dodging state excise taxes and other related civic expenses, much ado was made about his demonstrably long faced-reaction and arrogant countenance. That was the easy stuff. But more importantly, was the fact that his own state legislature (comprised of many solons holding to his peculiar views about taxation as it applies to all citizens at all levels) practically killed off what had been several centuries-old boat-making and most likely many if not all the major ancillary service businesses dependent upon it.

What’s a millionaire politician to do with his expensive toy, which he tried to slough off as belonging to some company, presumably belonging to a sometime widow of his former colleague? In the northeast, especially New England, it doesn’t take long to find a friendlier port if that port’s state didn’t do what that senator’s state did. Why, the new port-o-storm’s state legislature did exactly the opposite and all of a sudden, it has what its older and larger neighbor to its immediate east doesn’t have . . . a once-vibrant industry that traced its roots to the first repairs performed on the Mayflower before she headed back to England.

Pride, hubris and hypocrisy always goeth before the fall (or career-scuttling) of any “public servant” who fails to see what his lack of sensitivity towards his constituents “accomplished” in their hearts and minds.

"Responsible ... What? ... Responsible conservatism, meaning as compare to ...? "

2010-08-02T15:14:00.000-07:00

Before I proceed any further, let me add that I, a very unknown conservative writer, was able to type in the words "Responsible Conservatism" into Blogger's screener to see if anybody else beat me to the punch and to my surprise, the title was mine for the taking.

This of course, could've led me into thinking, "Well, how fortunate, stars are lined up with me ... what a positive omen." On the other hand, and this weighed heavier on my mind: "I must be nuts" to stick my neck out attempting to write what I think are "responsible conservative positions" in this age of political, moral and social relativism. So be it, I'm "politically nuts."

However, when you live in western Massachusetts and you've taken many conservative, or even moderately conservative views on almost any given topics wherein you rub directly against the predominately accepted local "progressive" dogma and its local magisterium of the Five Colleges, Inc. (UMass/Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Hampshire and Smith Colleges) ... you quickly learn to be light on your philosophical and political feet.

There's a difference, however, in holding conservative beliefs because you really believe in the truths they contain, and of course, taking the politically expedient path to get ahead by trying to be the baddest writer with the fastest fingers and sharpest wit when it comes to spitting out the latest "talking points" pumped out by some "God-knows-who" slaving away in some political research/advocacy firm in Washington, DC, or Boston.

Hate to admit this, but many years ago, when I was starting to create a name for myself -- youthful ambition does damage one's formerly growing brain cells -- I allowed myself to take the easier latter path more often than I'd care to admit now.

Sadly, what's being pumped out from Washington and big news outlets across the country, particularly the loud and often brash talk shows, is packaged as "conservative, right wing" shock radio. There's some truth in that and while I agree with much of what these hosts and other conservative commentators are saying (depending on the subject matter ... they get no blank check from me anymore, none,) -- I can't help feeling somewhat repelled by the overt attempts to play on peoples' fears moreso than seeking to help them find what is good or even great about this country and motivate them to work from there.

Our nation isn't falling apart at the seams; wobbly, yes. But coming undone? Hardly. Why?

We have too much inside us as a nation, and a collection of by and large, what is best about all the other nations combined. Largely that's due to our Judeo-Christian beliefs and cultural heritage. If this were not so, we would've atomized this place decades, if not centuries ago, much like our European ancestors.

I choose to live and write from the perspective that while we have problems, we are guided (albeit personally "thus unofficially speaking") by a God who is all loving and forever working tirelessly to help us shed our fears. His son Jesus is constantly reminding us how useless fear is. Yet, sadly enough, many self-described conservatives play off of their fears and the fears of others to manipulate the voting public. (Liberals aren't innocent in this game, either. But they've got a l ong way to go if they want to catch up with some of the more seasoned irresponsibly uncharitable fear mongers within the so-called "right wing."

When I woke up this morning, starting a new blog, (on top of some others that bombed) was the last thing on my mind. As a retiree living on a disability pension, I'd hoped to spend most of my next year or so gearing up a specialty historical replication decorative birdhouse business. Then maybe, I can "coast a bi t." Sure. As a long-time lover of history, this was a natural development. Surprisingly, I didn't see it this way for years and perhaps that was due to pride. When you live in a town full of historical buildings it's a shame not to take advantage of so many "models of inspiration" surrounding your neighborhood.

What a metaphor to match Cardinal Newman's observation listed above. One of those buildings has taken nearly three centuries for somebody to really notice what can be done to pass time constructively, teach a little history and play St. Francis of Assissi.