Class warfare?

The popular media, statists, intelligentsia, and all other people with a collectivist mentality will push that there is a class warfare in this country. They are correct that there is class warfare in full swing today, but their definition of the antagonists is absolutely incorrect.
Through the indoctrination of children in the public education system, college students in the public universities, and dishonest reporting in the media, we have all been led to believe that the "class war" is all about the wealthy versus the poor. When the entire world was agriculturally based and wealth was a fixed quantity, this may have been true. The owners of the land had a distinct advantage. With the onset of the industrialized world where wealth continues to be created, as opposed to being acquired, this is no longer true. Any individual, in a free society that guarantees individual liberty, has the ability the create wealth through ingenuity and sweat. Thomas Edison, one of the most prolific creators of wealth in history, once said "Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration". This man, along with many others throughout history have shown that wealth can be created and is not a static quantity. Therefore, as long as there is a level playing field, equality of opportunity, any individual can elevate their own financial status.
The class war in which we are currently engaged is the political elite versus everyone else. The American people have finally started to awaken to this phenomenon that started one hundred years ago. The collectivists have been slowly usurping this country and establishing their positions of power since Woodrow Wilson was president. While the collectivist elite (more commonly referred to as career politicians) has been slowly acquiring power, the rest of us have been trying to live the American Dream and provide for ourselves and our family. In the 30's and again in the 60's, the collectivist elites made huge strides in establishing themselves as the ruling class by creating large numbers of people fully dependent on the government. A large portion of them originally understood that this is not the promise that America holds, but you can't bite the hand that feeds you.
The elitist class now openly states that we are essentially not smart enough to understand what is good for us. The media keeps us distracted with stories about celebrities behaving badly, and the legal system has devolved into judgement of popular will as opposed to Rule of Law. Most people don't even understand what Rule of Law entails or even the difference between natural rights and government handouts. But there is a growing number of us who do and are speaking up.
Throughout the history of the world, liberty has been secured for the many by the few. It is now time that the few do it again. This country has been usurped by would-be monarchs that promise equality of results instead of equality of opportunity. Those of us that are standing up for individual sovereignty are not racists or any other vilifying term that the "ruling class" or media choose to pin on us. We are Americans who still understand that this is the land of opportunity and all we want government to do is to protect our individual liberty and leave us alone to live our own lives. We all need to be allowed to succeed or fail on our own merits. Liberty must be secured in this generation or there will be none for future generations.

Wake up and smell the feces

On a radio station in northern California Tuesday morning, there was a county assessor lamenting about banks that are entering into revised mortgage agreements with customers while continuing to pursue foreclosure. The result in some cases is that houses are being foreclosed within days of arriving at a revised mortgage agreement. In classic latte liberal form, this overcompensated government employee was pointing out how evil the banks are. By the way, he should have been on the clock, which means that the taxpayers are paying for him to do radio interviews. Classic progressive fecal matter intended to skew your emotions so that you feel sorry for the poor mortgagee.
While this is a classic case of "the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing" on the part of the bank, claiming malicious intent is dishonest and libelous. What this typical government hack fails to recognize is that government programs have encouraged the banks to put themselves into positions of being over-leveraged and providing mortgages to people who couldn't afford them. They never mention that sixty percent of the mortgages "redone" through the federal assistance program last year are already in arrears/foreclosure again. That was money well spent.
The Austrian school economists have been highlighting the risks inherent in government intervention in the housing market (Fannie, Freddie, CRA, etc.) for years and now that the chickens are coming home to roost, is it really the banks that are evil.
Whether there was malicious intent in the banks or even the government is beside the point now. The real question is how do we get through this. We need to allow failure to happen and flush the system. People and businesses fail all the time and the self-reliant learn from it and move on with a revised perspective on how to handle the next issue.
It is time to stand up and let your government officials at all levels know that allowing rewards to be individualized while socializing all risks is destructive and misguided. Forcing people to accept the risk along with the potential of reward will go a long way to correcting what is wrong with this country.

Encourage your friends and family

Do you really want to affect change in the American political landscape? Get your family and friends to vote in the November election. The sad reality of the situation over the last 30 years is that less than 62% of eligible voters actually vote in the Presidential elections and less than 40% vote in the "mid-term" elections in between. That means that no matter what the talking heads on television would like you to believe, nobody, and I mean nobody, has been elected to national office by a "majority of the people". That means that even President Obama, who the media pundits will tell you won by an "overwhelming" majority only got an actual 35% of the vote.
This is the reason that we see the offal that currently occupies public office. Not only do we have a significant majority of elected officials in Washington who have never actually held a real job, by that I mean a job that actually results in the creation of wealth, but most of them are elected by less than one third of the electorate. The only way to stop this travesty is to get the voter turnout above 75%.
Over and above the turnout, stop letting other people make your decisions for you. Do your own investigation of the candidates and arrive at your own choice. Yes, it is time consuming, but it is much easier now with the internet. There are literally millions of resources available to determine which candidate will uphold your views and, you can only hope, will uphold those views once they are in office.
When making your determination on candidate selection, make sure that you are viewing it from a "what is the proper role of government" perspective. Be aware that a large number of candidates, particularly the career politicians, view the proper role of the government as controlling all aspects of your life. The only significant difference in the two major parties is which social direction that control will swing.
Personally, I have voted in every election since the day I turned 18. I can't honestly say that I always did the appropriate amount of research in my candidate selection, particularly when I was younger, but I am getting better at it. Yes, it consumes a large amount of time doing actual candidate research, especially separating the wheat from the chaff, but it is worth every moment if I can vote for someone that actually believes in the original structure of the government. It takes even more effort to shake the brain-washing of the public education system about how great the "nanny state" is.
Get your family and friends to vote in November and let's turn this government back into one that is actually "of the people, by the people, for the people" instead of "of some of the people, by the political elite, for their own re-election interests". And finally, remember, if you don't vote, you have also waived your right to complain about the government.

Response to editorial

Here is my response to Dana Milbank (via email) on his editorial in The Washington Post on July 17th;

You are missing the entire point of the billboard and Mr. Sowell's piece. All you have to do is read The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek and he explains that collectivism in it's many forms leads to totalitarianism. The propagation of the socialist doctrines of the early twentieth century led to (and naturally lead to) Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Mao, etc. Maybe President Obama isn't the totalitarian dictator yet, but he is definitely blazing the trail. He has a cabinet full of people that think that Chairman Mao was a great philosopher, which is completely ridiculous. As my grandfather and father always told me, "judge a man by his actions, not by his words".

In judging President Obama by his actions, let's see what we get;

1) Nationalization of two of the big three American automakers. One still under government control, one sold to the administration's favorite bidder. In the process of that take-over, robbing legitimate investors of their capital. - destruction of capitalism as outlined in many socialist writings.

2) Nationalization of health care. Even though the health care industry is currently invaded by government over-regulation. - elimination of individual choice as outlined in socialist manifestos

3) Vilification of Arizona for trying to maintain their own (and the rest of the nation's) sovereignty - the self-diefication of the federal government and it's leadership as warned about during the Constitutional ratification debates

4) Divisive rhetoric attempting to turn all "minorities" against the Tea Party - as perfectly described in The Road to Serfdom, it is much easier to unite the masses (in its most derogatory definition) against a particular group than for a particular agenda. The Jews in pre-WWII Germany, the kulak in Communist Russia, now people who believe in individual sovereignty as the basis for civil society.

5) Grand-standing instead of actually doing something while Deepwater Horizon spewed oil into the Gulf. As a real leader, he should have been coordinating honest offers of assistance from all quarters. Instead he is setting the stage for the destruction of the heart of industrialized advancement. All part of the destruction of capitalism.

As a result of President Obama's actions, I would say that the only legitimate criticism of the billboard is that it is missing pictures of Mussolini, Mao, Chavez, Peron, and Castro. The twentieth century is full of examples all over the world of the catastrophic consequences of collectivism in any of its forms, yet we now have a president who is kicking in the afterburners to get us to our own catastrophe as quickly as possible. He sees it as his opportunity to put his personal stamp on history, and as many commentators and world leaders have noted, it's really all about him. The most narcissistic individual to ever hold the office.

As for you and your editorial brethren at the Washington Post, you should all quit fawning over the chosen one and provide your readers with actual critical assessment of the current president instead of kissing his feet. Wait a minute, that means that you are setting yourselves up to be his equivalent of Pravda. I guess that you have already accepted the end game and are now trying to insure that you have a sweet position within the new totalitarian regime.....

Collectivism in its most basic form

Yesterday, the NAACP issued what can only be referred to as a reprimand to the Tea Party for being racist. Welcome to collectivism at its most basic form. The whole premise of collectivism is to eliminate individual sovereignty and insure that all actions are for the good of the collective. Race is the easiest way to define the collective as you can typically glance at an individual and have a good idea if they are part of your particular collective. My hat is off to the members of the black community who have not hesitated to renounce this NAACP statement. The NAACP will now pillory you as either an "Uncle Tom" or "not black enough".
This is nothing more than a lame ploy by the libtards to insure that they are viewed as the only ones looking out for your particular collective. Notice that Michelle Obama was present at the announcement, this should be the first clue that the whole thing was orchestrated by the Democrats and the White House. The Tea Party scares them as it is focused in the individual sovereignty and self-determination that this country was founded upon. There is nothing more reprehensible to me than the willingness with which people play the race card instead of engaging in open and honest debate about policies. Apparently, according to the NAACP and the White House, the color of your skin (as long as it is not white) excuses the content of your character.
I guess that since I disagree with Obama's policies, I am a racist. Since I disagree with Nancy Pelosi's policies, that makes me a misogynist and since I would gladly invite King Samir Shabazz to come into any of the Rocky Mountain states with the intent to "Kill crackers and their babies", I guess that makes me violent as well.
Full disclosure: I am a white Anglo-Saxon protestant male with a wife of Spanish and Cherokee descent. I have a friend in the National Guard (on his way back to Iraq again), a friend who is Jewish, a friend who is Mormon, and a black uncle who treats my aunt like the phenomenal individual that she is. This is what America is all about, the ability to choose your friends and life partners based on the content of their character. At the end of the day, our race, color and creed do not make us who we are, our actions do. This is the America MLK was longing for in his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Asking for a Redress of Grievances

Once again, the money-grubbing politicians are after your hard earned money. We have all gotten great deals on internet sites purchasing whatever it is that we need and here we go with another attempt at taxing those transactions specifically. Open Congress (www.opencongress.org) has as the lead article on their web site this morning that Rep. Delahunt (D-MA) has introduced the "Main Street Fairness Act" to tax internet transactions. This is nothing more than a lame attempt to put in tariff legislation aimed at protecting brick and mortar retailers. While I am all for supporting my local and regional businesses, I am also for saving a buck when I can.
This legislation is a clear violation of Article I, Section 9 of The Constitution; "No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State". Now I understand that most of our so-called representatives are not interested in The Constitution, nor do I believe that most of them have even read it.
I think it is time for the states to stand up and assert their rights under the 10th Amendment and use the only language that the progressive/liberal establishment understands. It is time for the state attorneys general to file a lawsuit against Fedzilla (thanks for the term Ted) with a list of grievances similar to what was included in The Declaration of Independence;

1. Failure to maintain limited government as outlined in Article I,Section 8
2. Failure to abide by Article I, Section 9, particularly the ex post facto clause and the one mentioned above
3. Failure to protect sovereignty as stated in Article I, Section 8; repel invasions. The influx of illegal immigrants from the south is an invasion.
4. Failure to provide for uniform rules of naturalization per Article I, Section 8
5. Failure to leave decisions of a personal nature, that do not interfere with any other persons' liberty, to the individual per the 9th Amendment.
6. Clear violation of states' rights as outlined in the 10th Amendment through financial coercion and unfunded mandates.
7. Clear violation of the Supremacy clause as outlined in Article VI; it makes The Constitution the supreme law of the land, not whatever whims move the federal governement
8. Clear violation of the Oaths clause in Article VI by peppering judicial appointees with questions about their political stance rather than their position on the supremacy of the Constitution (and most recently allowing a confirmation hearing to continue with refusal to answer questions)

I'm sure if I thought about it a little longer, I could come up with a dozen others. We are currently at the point in this country where we need to start actively pursuing a serious redress of grievances from Fedzilla. The dictatorial attitude and condescending tone so common from the politicians has run its course and we are done.

I have posted this on my ResistNet blog as well.

Obama vs. McChrystal

In how many different ways can the war in Afghanistan be turned into a SNAFU and opportunity for the most narcissistic president in US history to genuflect? First and foremost, this goes out to all politicians regardless of party affiliation, if you are going to deploy the US military, it needs to be under the order to achieve unconditional surrender of the enemy. This requires that the congress officially declare war and provide funding above board for a good, old fashioned, ass kicking.
As for General McChrystal, he is responsible for the lives of thousands of American soldiers, including my brother, while trying to eliminate the Taliban from the worst geographic location for military maneuvers on the planet. If he expresses frustration, as he did during his time with the reporter from The Rolling Stone, then so be it. He is the military leader in a quagmire that is shaping up to be significantly worse than Vietnam. By the way, if you've read the article, the comments aren't nearly as bad as they could have been. The reporter appears to have painted a reasonably accurate picture of the diplomatic infighting as he could.
As for the tongue-lashing that the General is bound to receive from Dear Leader today, I have only one comment "Stand your ground, General". You took an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic and this president has shown his complete disdain for the document.
This president has proven himself to be a megalomaniac intent on showing that he is "the chosen one". His obvious disdain for the American soldier is evidenced by his refusal to attend the ceremony at The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on Memorial Day, choosing instead to vacation with his family in Chicago. While his lame attempt at showing some amount of respect got rained out (what a weenie), Marines charged with standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown never leave their post, even during a hurricane.
Chairman Maobama is all about the photo op, taxpayer funded dates with his wife, and has taken more vacations in his first year than most presidents take during an entire term. Hope his golf game is improving because he plays a lot of it.