Growing Up From Oz

There is a famous quote attributed to Winston Churchill, “"If you're not liberal when you're young, you have no heart. If you're not conservative when you're older, you have no brain." Churchill never uttered those words, but even so, they do make a point.

I remember thinking thoughts and voicing opinions as a high school and college student that now seem utterly naive and ill-informed. I grew up in the Nixon and Vietnam War years. I remember the shooting of the demonstrators in Ohio and weeping after seeing the assassination of Bobbie Kennedy as it happened. I listened to the Beatles and dreamed of playing in my own four-piece group singing songs of peace and freedom while sticking to the man. Now I am the man. What happened?

What happened is I grew up. There is a great Zits cartoon strip where Jeremy receives his first paycheck and notices all of the costly deductions removing a stiff percentage of his hard-earned wages and transferring them to the government. Oh, the humanity! The father opines, “We just witnessed the birth of a Republican.”

Michael Savage, the less than cordial talk show host, started his intellectual life as what can be best described as a long-haired, socialist liberal elite in New York. He moved to Berkeley and discovered that he, in spite of his intellect, did not fit the politically correct affirmative action protocols for success in the east bay. His backlash is still causing reactions of horror in the liberal ranks. He called liberalism a mental disorder. Well…yes and no. It is an emotional rather than a mental state which is why so many young people start out that way and slowly, over the growth cycle develop conservative tendencies. The, “I’m my parents!” scream of realization is commonplace for a reason.

David Horowitz, once a 1960’s radical and an avowed communist, is now a conservative. This link will take you to a page detailing his biography. One of the most shocking revelations for the liberal left is that John Lennon, the ex-Beatle and the writer of the mantra, Imagine, had become conservative prior to his murder. This link discusses that controversy.

The examples are legion; covering nearly every aspect of the life I used to believe was right and proper over 40 years ago. Is it not interesting that today’s media finds this ever-growing fact of life such a non-story? Interesting yes, surprising no, that is because in order to grow every organism must encounter a certain amount of stress. An athlete develops additional strength by pushing against ever increasing weights. It is the same with our emotional development. If we grow in a well-insulated and protective environment where we never find our comfort zone challenged by new and conflicting ideas and realities, we never mature. So it is with the progressive pundits of MSNBC, CBS, TBN and the rest of the alphabet soup media. In many cases new employees who challenge the liberal orthodoxy are removed as quickly as any weed. It is the same in the realm of academia. One would have to be existing with blinders on not to have seen the stories, quashed as rapidly as they are published, mind you, of students chastised and even failed because they challenged a professor’s anti-American opinions.

Both the worlds of the main stream media and tenured academia have gone to great lengths to eliminate any taint of opposition to their youthful opinions. I say youthful as a term of immaturity because in those arenas there has been no debate, no contrary information allowed in the discussion, and this is why it seems that these areas, which tend to dovetail with the elite in Washington, are so far removed from our reality. A person like Chris Matthews and Ed Shultz can say the outlandish things they say and get away with being so utterly wrong because those with whom they live, work and socialize hold those wrong opinions to be sacrosanct. There is a very close comparison to the interactions of a media empire and a Buddhist monastery in that both have a dogma that may not have any bearing in reality, but has total sway within their group.

Media, Academia, and Politics, these three arenas have the ability to shelter their elite from the stresses of life and consequentially prevent their emotional maturity. So in essence, people like Matt Lauer, Chris Matthews, Ed Shultz, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and Barrack Obama could honestly be called emotional infants, and almost every single tenured Ivy League professor could be added onto that list. It is good to care about things with all your heart when you are a kid, but eventually the ruby slippers have to be put away and an adult has to go to work.

In Praise of Sarah Palin

This article was written for the Canada Free Press a couple of years ago. I have updated it for this blog.

For the life of me I cannot see any logical reason for the intense hatred the left has for Sarah Palin. It is apparent to any critical thinker that those condemning her character, her intellect and even her morality has never seen her in person, much less spent enough time with her to form a reasonable opinion of her character. In spite of this, they still they manage to place her into the same category as a Simon Legree or worse.

 As a historical reference, Mr. Legree was the brutal slave owner and taskmaster in Harriet Beecher’s book, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Those condemning Mrs. Palin for simply existing should try reading something other than eastern philosophy.

What did Mrs. Palin do that made her number one on the liberals’ enemies list? Let’s see, for one thing, she does outshine so-called progressive women like Mrs. Obama, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi and Maureen Dowd by a huge margin. Physical appearance is a factor. I cannot think of a single woman occupying the left hand of the aisle that wouldn’t require a paper bag over her head. So, what about decorum, the ability to present oneself in debate?

No contest again. Back during the last presidential election’s debates she wiped the stage with Biden. The good senior senator thought he had himself an easy target and instead found himself on the wrong end of a knowledgeable verbal pit bull, complete with a sense of humor.

For the Chris Matthews out there, that means being able to see the funny side of things.

Yes, I can see where being able to mop the floor with a Biden would set some liberals on edge. People like Sarah Palin, especially one on the junior portion of the ticket are supposed to lie down and take whatever drubbing is dealt them without complaint, especially if that drubbing comes from an old liberal that has been gorging at the public trough for as long as Biden has.

What about accomplishments? What has Sarah done to generate such enmity? From the level of vitriol the left throws out whenever just her name is mentioned she must have committed some pretty heinous crimes. At least they must have been worse than those committed by Bill Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Barney Frank, Sandy Berger, Robert Torricelli, James McGreevey, Eliot Spitzer, Dan Rostenkowski, and so on and so on, every one of them a Democrat. This link will open a page describing all of these liberal scandals and more. Yet somehow Sarah Palin is worse than all of them combined. Why?

The following is taken from a blog entitled “Unbalanced Libra”. Here’s the link,  It is comprehensive enough to be pasted in without comment:

“Firstly, there is no government closer to the people than at the municipal level. Palin spent eight years in city government, winning a seat on the Wasilla City Council in 1992 mostly thanks to her opposition to tax increases. She went on to serve two council terms from 1992 to 1996. She was elected mayor of the fast-growing Anchorage suburb in 1996 and again in 1999. Mayor Palin had a record of reducing property tax levels, increasing municipal services and attracting new industry to her town. During her tenure in Wasilla, she was elected chair of Alaska’s conference of mayors.

“Next for Sarah Palin was service as chair of the Alaska Conservation Committee, a board which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry. In this appointive position she began to gain what would become extensive and valuable knowledge and experience in the area of one of America’s most pressing issues - energy. It was in this job where Palin first really demonstrated the toughness, political courage and maverick spirit that would years later so impress presidential candidate John McCain.

“She resigned in January 2004 as head of the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission after complaining to the office of Governor Frank Murkowski and to state Attorney General Gregg Renkes about ethical violations by another commissioner, Randy Ruedrich, who was also Republican state chairman.

“State law barred Palin from speaking out publicly about ethical violations and corruption. However, she was vindicated later in 2004 when Ruedrich, who’d been reconfirmed as state chairman, agreed to pay a $12,000 fine for breaking state ethics laws. She became a hero in the eyes of the public and the press, and the bane of Republican leaders.

“In 2005, she continued to take on the Republican establishment by joining Eric Croft, a Democrat, in lodging an ethics complaint against Renkes, who was not only attorney general but also a long-time adviser and campaign manager for Murkowski. The governor reprimanded Renkes and said the case was closed. It wasn’t. Renkes resigned a few weeks later, and Palin was again hailed as a hero.

“In 2006, Palin ran for governor and was elected in a landslide. According to Fred Barnes: With her emphasis on ethics and openness in government, “It turned out Palin caught the temper of the times perfectly,” wrote Tom Kizzia of the Anchorage Daily News. She was also lucky. News broke of an FBI investigation of corruption by legislators between the primary and general elections. So far, three legislators have been indicted.

“In the roughly three years since she quit as the state’s chief regulator of the oil industry, Palin has crushed the Republican hierarchy (virtually all male) and nearly every other foe or critic. Political analysts in Alaska refer to the “body count” of Palin’s rivals.

““The landscape is littered with the bodies of those who crossed Sarah,” says pollster Dave Dittman, who worked for her gubernatorial campaign. It includes Ruedrich, Renkes, Murkowski, gubernatorial contenders John Binkley and Andrew Halcro, the three big oil companies in Alaska, and a section of the Daily News called “Voice of the Times,” which was highly critical of Palin and is now defunct.

“As governor, Sarah Palin’s list of accomplishments lengthened rapidly. She used her line-item veto to cut $268 million from Alaska’s state budget.

“She stood up to some of Alaska’s most entrenched interests, including three big oil companies (BP, ConocoPhilips, and ExxonMobil) who hold the lease rights to much of Alaska’s oil and gas wealth:

“Once in office, Palin took an aggressive stance toward the oil companies. Her nickname from high-school basketball, “Sarah Barracuda,” was resurrected in the press. Early in her term, she shocked oil lobbyists when she was so bold as to not show up when Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson came to Juneau to meet with her. Palin, after scrapping Murkowski’s deal, would not give Big Oil the terms they wanted, yet insisted that the companies still had an obligation under their lease to deliver gas to whatever pipeline Alaska built. She invited the oil companies to place open bids to build a pipeline, but they refused. A bid by TransCanada, North America’s largest pipeline builder, was approved by the legislature in August.

“Palin also raised taxes on oil companies after Murkowski’s previous tax regime produced falling revenues in 2007, despite skyrocketing oil prices. Alaska now has some of the highest resource taxes in the world. Alaska’s oil tax revenues are expected to be about $10 billion in 2008, twice those of previous year. BP says about half its oil revenues now go to taxes, when royalty payments to the state are included. Recently, Palin approved gas tax relief for Alaskans, and paid every resident $1,200 to help ease their fuel-price burden.

“Some other Palin accomplishments include supporting and signing an ethics bill passed by the Alaska legislature and creating the Alaska Health Strategies Planning Council to find innovative solutions to effectively provide access to, and help reduce the costs of, healthcare.

“As governor, Palin was commander of her state’s National Guard. Not content to merely sit on the title, she traveled to Kuwait to learn about her troops’ mission there. On the return trip to Alaska, she stopped in Germany to visit wounded soldiers in the hospital, an activity that Barack Obama did not see fit to engage in during his own overseas venture, blaming the Pentagon for his snubbing of the wounded.

“More accomplishments: Gov. Palin signed a resolution in opposition to the FAA’s plan to increase taxes on aviation fuel, impose user fees and slash airport funding. Also, before Palin became governor, her predecessor Frank Murkowski had purchased a Westwind Two business jet for the governor’s use at a $2.5 million price tag, despite the objections from the state legislature and the public. Her first order of business after taking office was to put the jet up for sale.

“Palin did keep the governor’s state-owned Chevy Suburban, but she got rid of the driver, saying it was wasteful for the state to pay someone to drive her around, since she was perfectly capable of driving herself. The governor’s gourmet chef also got changed from a full-time to a seasonal-only basis because Palin considered it a luxury she didn’t think Alaskans should be paying for. Her political enemies called all this “superficial pandering.”

“Alaska is the only one of America’s states which borders on two foreign countries. Sarah Palin is chief executive of our most important energy state, one which lies only a few miles from Russian territory. She has negotiated sensitive agreements on fishing rights and other matters to keep the peace up there. She’s also worked on important trade deals with other countries. She has received foreign heads of state and had discussions with them.”

Some attempt to label Mrs. Palin as a quitter because she left her term as Governor unfinished. What those same labelers leave unsaid is that their unrelenting frivolous lawsuits were costing the State of Alaska hundreds of thousands of dollars to defend its Governor. Another bit of trivia the liberal is uncomfortable in detailing in this is that Alaska law forced its under siege Governor to allow the taxpayers to foot that bill. They only way Sarah could ease that burden was to retire. Would any innocent liberal Governor do the same? That is highly doubtful.

As you can see, accomplishment is the least of Mrs. Palin’s problems. Quite frankly she has a bigger wealth of accomplishment than Obama and his entire cabinet combined. There will probably be screams of outrage from the left on that one, but honestly, based on what this woman has done in the face of intense opposition from both sides of the aisle, Barack Hussein Obama is a rank amateur compared to her All Star performance.

So here is my estimation as to why she is so hated by the left. She is an accomplished, well-spoken housewife and mother; faithful to her God, husband, her children and to her constituents. She has a proven record of honesty and self-sacrifice for the good of those who elected her. No wonder the left considers her such an incredible danger. She would be someone who could sit in the oval office with the complete confidence of the majority of Americans behind her, regardless of party. She had to be stopped at all costs because her record is truly unassailable outside of the realm of the lies the liberals live in.

To sum it all up, Sarah Palin’s character rests upon a rock-solid foundation of achievement.

The Kenyan Transcript

It doesn’t take the Obama administration long to pull a cover up. Just a few days after my column asking whether or not Should Obama Step Down, the transcript of the Kenyan Parliament for March 25^th, 2010 was scrubbed from the Kenyan Parliament site. Was there collusion between Washington and Kenya?  If you think anyone is going to truthfully answer that question you are dumber than the liberals think you are.

I had some folks question the veracity of my column because they could not find the proof. Liberals and those who are beginning to mature out of liberalism are quick to jump on any appearance of falsehood from those they have automatically distrusted for so long. Think of this, please; when push came to shove in the records department, who offered up proof and who vacillated? I’ll give you a hint, Democrat versus Republican, vacillation versus honesty. The Democrat wins the liar battle over 75% of the time. Sure, the GOP is chock full of liars, but the wily donkey is a master at that craft where the elephant is a mere apprentice.

In searching for the lost transcript I came across a number of forums where it was being discussed. The liberals in those forums either refused to believe the assertion or discounted it outright. A few even went so far as to consider the US Constitution invalid where “social progress” was concerned. That will give you some insight into the liberal frame of mind. We have people in our country who march for “world peace”, stand candlelight vigils outside of prisons where a torturer of children is being executed, loudly decry the supposed disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples and all the while they calmly consider the eventual dissolution of the only country where any opinion can truly be uninhibited as right and proper because they disagree with the document that gives them that right.

Remember, Obama’s buddy and mentor, Bill Ayers at one time calmly discussed the killing of millions to solidify his world view. He has never recanted that idea, which means in his mind…and in Obama’s, it is still valid. The stifling of a computer archive is nothing compared to that.

Well, as one person wisely said, “Once a document is put out into the web it is there forever”.  I found the file and I have given a copy of the PDF to Canada Free Press so if anyone wants it they can simply ask.

The liberals love to equate conservatives with Nazis, but who tends to do the computer age’s version of book burning?

When it comes time to vote, vote for freedom of thought. Vote conservative.

A Conservative Manifesto

Since the shellacking the liberals received at the hands of both the GOP and the Tea Party last November, the media has been bulging with stories, articles and columns regarding the potential electoral disaster facing the Democrats in the upcoming 2012 election cycle. Even the Las Vegas Sun, a liberal rag in my home town,  has carried a column by the New York Times offering a serious warning to the Democrat establishment that they ignore the Tea Party at their own peril. The one overriding point missing from all of these and practically every other piece written by the Mainstream Media since the days of George Bush Senior is, just what a conservative is.

From MSNBC on, every liberal elite outlet sniffs with distain at the very mention of the word “conservative”. They sip their overpriced chardonnay as they nibble truffle-enhanced Pâté de foie gras while declaring in their upper class accents that conservatism is out of step with everyday America. It is not surprising that even now these pseudo intellectuals consider the elections in the Democrat strongholds of Virginia, New Jersey and Massachusetts to be aberrations. The likes of Wolf Blitzer, Chris Matthews, Andrea Mitchell, Lawrence O’Donnel and Norah O’Donnell will never get it. Miss O’Donnell even went so far as to verbally attack a young girl for being in line at a Sarah Palin book signing. You can check this link if it is still active: http://friskaliberal.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/msnbc-attacks-young-girl-at-sarah-palin-book-signing/  

The left is falling apart. Their anger and hatred, and frankly, their fear of a conservative ascendancy have boiled over. Many consider the Tea Party Movement to be the chief villain in this drama.

One sad part of all this is that far too many in the GOP leadership also don’t get it. All too often I hear the same dismissive tones coming from Republican leadership with regard to the Tea Party movement as I do from the Democrats, and not only that, just like the Democrats many so-called leaders within the GOP actively work to remove their own colleagues from office if that colleague will not work with them in corruption. How do I know this? I was one of those targeted for being “too honest”; check out my profile. During the past election cycle we had the Republicans for Reid, a group formed simply because Sharon Angle did the unforgivable by trouncing their anointed candidate, past state party chair Sue Lowden. Now the good Assemblywoman is a household name and not necessarily in a good way. That is how sad things have gotten.

What today’s conservatives need is a manifesto, a list of those characteristics and policies that define what a conservative is. Simply being against taxes is not enough. I know of too many in my own party who use that simplistic measurement and then blithely vote to continue stealing from the taxpayer by raising fees for no other cause than their own enrichment.

The first item in this new Conservative Manifesto should be Constitutional Honesty. Right now the liberal elite are outraged over a correct decision by the Supreme Court to remove the McCain-Feingold stricture on corporations being able to donate to political races and an even more recent decision to give corporations the same free speech rights as individuals. Unfortunately, enough Republicans are also outraged to be worrisome. Whether you chose to accept it or not, corporations are made up of people. Simply because they band together they should not have to give up their civil rights.

The Constitution was written by men (advised by a number of very strong women) who knew first hand what it felt like to live under the very type of system the liberal elite would love to see enacted in this country. Again, whether or not they like it, the constitution gives us the right to own any type of firearm we choose. Nowhere does it limit that choice. If you don’t like it, use the established route to change the Constitution. If that is thought to be too much trouble, too bad.

That document gives us the right to voice nonviolent opinion, worship wherever we choose, even if it is in a school or city hall, disagree with the President, even if he is a mulatto, and to prosper in our business, even if we become wealthy doing so. What it does not do is allow us to lie, cheat and steal our way to wealth or power, and that is where the real conservatives are separated from the phonies. NeoCon is another term for phony. Bush Jr was a neocon just like Daddy Bush. Reagan was a true conservative. A NeoCon believes corruption is good as long as their frat brothers are involved. A true conservative will blow the whistle because it is the right thing to do.

The second item is US Sovereignty. If you want to send a liberal right off the deep end, suggest that the United States of America adopt the same type of rules considered a matter of course by most countries (several of which the liberal considers far more enlightened than the US); a national language and mandatory expulsion of illegal aliens. Sweden does this and because they are socialist they are completely accepted by the mushy-brained set. (Mushy-Brained means liberal. The terms are interchangeable)

Let US sovereignty even be mentioned by a US representative and that poor sap is being hung in media effigy that day. By the way, were you aware that Mexico is currently constructing a wall on its southern border? Where is the liberal outrage?

We have a right to secure borders just as our southern neighbor does, and we have a right to our own language, US English. Legal citizens of the US have the right to expect to be treated better than lawbreakers. Citizens of this country are the ones paying the bills and as the bill-payer they deserve to have the first place in the line. Of course, this attitude is considered to be hateful and racist by the liberal elite. The attitude of the true conservative toward them should be this, if you don’t like it; leave. If you want to stay, obey the law. By the way, the US has never shot someone attempting to leave our country legally.

Third is the sanctity of innocent life. Science today has reached the point where any honest biologist would have to admit that an unborn child in the womb of a human mother is an identifiably separate human life. Sure, it may be entirely dependant upon the mother for continued existence and growth, but that in no way invalidates the growing life’s individuality. This is simple, proven science and yet it is another unbending hot button for the liberal. The news is replete with stories of protesters crowding together outside the gate of a prison holding candlelight vigils on the eve of the execution of a convicted murderer. There is no consideration with these people as to how vile the committed crime may have been. These 10 watt intellects are filled with compassion for the perceived victim of the state over and above any innocent life. However, this group has nothing to say about the thousands executed by Islamic states. They could not care any less about the millions executed by every communist dictator since Lenin, nor do they breathe a single syllable of regret for any of the children murdered by the assorted Middle Eastern suicide-killers. What is the greatest hypocrisy of all, you ask? They celebrate every time an unborn child is murdered by a physician while that physician is busy violating his or her Hippocratic Oath. To quote Wilkow, “Hypocrisy is like flatulence, you never notice your own.”

An important note on this; abortion is currently legal. It may be horribly, morally wrong, but it is still legal. That being said, the entire pro-abortion stance is hypocritical on its face and the hypocrisy continues to its core. An innocent human life is taken in every case and that has to be admitted. A true conservative would agree. A true conservative defends innocent life, whether it be in the womb or not. Politics is not given a single place in this decision. If that defense costs a position of power, so be it. If it costs you money, too bad, what is right is right and any argument to the contrary is wrong on its face. Some prices are simply too high to pay.

Fourth is the economy. That’s right; a real conservative does not place money at the pinnacle, which is the NeoCon stance. A real conservative understands that certain principles are more important than the accumulation of wealth. With that being said, the economy holds a solid place within the top 5 because a real conservative also understands that in order to be a productive citizen, people need real jobs, not welfare. The liberal elite consider most employers to be the enemy, unless that employer happens to employ them or gives huge campaign contributions to avowed socialists like Obama, Pelosi or Reid. Common sense dictates that in order to stimulate an economy, the best thing a government can do is get out of the way and allow business to grow. The second best thing is to allow competition to be the rule within the marketplace. Of course there is a problem here; not one honest thinker can ever ascribe common sense to the liberal mind. History has more examples of the liberal experiment destroying an economy than it has of wars causing death. All right, some hyperbole there, but the point stands. Liberalism has never grown an economy…ever, and yet the mushy-brained continue to insist that their way will work…this time. I do hope you all know the definition of insanity.

Fifth on this list, is personal freedom. The liberal believes that such a right only applies to them and those groups they champion: terrorists, communists, Marxists, baby killers, mass murderers, traitors and so on. No, personal freedom belongs to every legal citizen within this country. It is not and should not be a right extended to anyone who belongs to or supports a group whose aim is to harm those citizens, nor should it be extended to those who have broken our immigration laws. For far too long our freedoms have been chipped away by Washington elites who believe they know better how to lead our lives than we do. Because of this belief we have become smothered by a blanket of laws that have no reason for existing other than to give careers to people incapable of competing in the free market. Every single one of the laws governing what kind of car you can drive, laws telling you to dress like a Star Wars Storm Trooper before you can ride a bike, laws telling you what kind of food you can eat, and so on into infinity, should be abolished in favor of one simple statute; if you do something stupid to yourself, you are responsible for any costs you incur. If your stupidity causes harm to someone else, you pay through the nose, regardless your position or power; if this causes some lawyers to get an honest job…again, too bad.

Sixth is intellectual honesty. The discussion of global warming has its place in the conservative doctrine just as do many other scientific and educational issues. A real conservative agrees with real science. We know that Darwinism, Creationism and Intelligent Design, as far as science is concerned, are all theories. If you call evolution a scientific fact, you are wrong. Evolution, the way it is taught, can no more be proven by science than the existence of God. If you disagree, show me the missing link. Science is not faith and faith is not science. A real conservative is able to live with both. Global warming has not only not been proven, but it has been revealed as false far too many times for the honest to ignore. Global temperatures have actually gone down since the high point in the early 1990’s and several highly reputable climatologists believe that the earth may be entering another cooling period similar to that which caused the mini ice age back in Napoleon’s day. But the validation of this theory could cost Al Gore money, and the liberal elite cannot let that happen. They even have the gall to call those who disabuse the global warming nonsense as “unpatriotic”. What they cannot do is dispute the educational and research records of the men and women brave enough to publish scientific truth.

Seventh is extremism. As currently defined, most Americans are not extremists; the liberal elite are excluded from that list, “most Americans” because by constitutional definition a liberal elitist cannot be a real American. Their own extremism makes true active citizenship impossible. The ongoing knock against the Tea Party Movement is that of extremism, and to continue the honesty, the movement has welcomed some extremists with open arms. The only extreme the true conservative should embrace is an extreme love and respect for the founding documents of this country, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United State of America, and for the ideals that brought those documents into being. That is what defines a real American.