Out With The Old...

There is a new media, in case you haven’t heard, and they’re offering facts you won’t get from the “traditional” media. Here are some facts and opinion you won’t get from taxpayer funded NPR or any of the alphabet networks, let alone The New York Times or Washington Post.

From Breitbart.com:

[…] “When the unemployment rate increases, the media tells us that's a good thing. When the economy shrinks from 4.1 to 1.5%, the media still call it "the recovery." When an idiot in Missouri says something stupid about rape and abortion, the media launches into a week-long narrative accusing Republicans of being soft on rape.

Meanwhile, Obama supports infanticide. Romney opposes abortion except in cases of rape, incest and when the mother's life is at risk. Yesterday CNN released a poll showing 62% of the American people agree with Romney and only 32% with Obama.”

And from Red State:

"They cannot help themselves. But why are they doing it?

They are doing it for the exact same reason Joe Biden is claiming the GOP will put black people back in chains and why Barack Obama would rather talk about uteri than jobs? They all know Barack Obama is losing this thing.

Hysteria creeps into campaigns when the campaigns know they are losing. When George H. W. Bush saw the election slipping away in 1992, he took to referring to Bill Clinton and Al Gore as Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. The invective went up as his poll numbers went down."

Thanks to The Conservative Lady for bringing these two articles to my attention.

As always, thank you for investing your time in my offering of opinion and information.

Oh, Those Mysterious Mormons

There was uproar from the left in 2008 when Barack Obama's religion and church were called into question.

Claims that there should be no religious test came out like mosquitoes on a balmy summer night by the lake. The only reason the “Mainstream Media” ever finally spoke about Trinity United Church of Christ was because there was so much pressure put on them by Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Fox News Channel, and other “extreme right-wingers” on talk radio and a cable channel that, according to President Obama himself, was “out to get him.”

And I don’t believe any of the major media outlets ever did an exposé on Black Liberation Theology. A Google search offers a brief piece by NPR that mostly defends Wright and his beliefs, and an American Thinker piece that goes more in depth, but nothing from any “major” news source on the first page of results.

Yet here we are, less than one week before the Republican National Convention, and ABC has run segments during their prime time news show and NBC apparently ran an hour-long special… about Mormonism.


But the MSM is not biased.


Honestly, I have no issue with fair and equal treatment. But that’s not at all what is going on this election cycle, and this is one glaring example. I plan to discuss this issue more in the coming weeks, because the way I see it my silence might as well be an endorsement of the media’s spin on the issues.


The ABC segment I have seen (part 1 of 2) had ominous music playing in the background. Remember, this is ABC Nightly News. There should be no music, and there should be no bias. This is supposed to be news, not opinion like what we know we are getting when we turn on Hannity or Maddow’s show.

As Diane Sawyer introduced her segment, she said Mitt Romney's nomination next week will be “A profound and historic moment for the Mormon faith…” and then she closed that sentence by describing Mormonism, “Which is still a mystery to a lot of people.” That statement alone is media bias. She should just have just kept her mouth shut and run the piece, but instead she interjected her leading statement, which to the unsuspecting mind is truth and therefore must be considered.

Multiple times during the segment the words “controversial” and “secret” were used. It came across as a fair and decent piece, except for the messaging of the narrator, and it even appears the Church offered some information willingly.

Here is the clip; decide for yourself:

The “mainstream media” would not discuss Jeremiah Wright saying “God Damn America.” They didn’t want to talk about how Jeremiah Wright told his congregation the United States government developed the AIDS virus “as a means of genocide against people of color.” They simply would not touch it. The only time President Obama’s religion was ever significantly discussed during the 2008 campaign was when Obama held a press conference and threw Wright under the bus for political expediency.

And anyone who tried to discuss Black Liberation Theology? Racist. No more discussion, they were racist and that was that. They were trying to present Obama as “other” instead of accepting him for what he was.

Well what he was, then, was a candidate for the most important office in America and truly the most important office in the world. Yet we were not given any insight about him, from the people who are charged with the duty of offering us as much information as possible about our government and the people asking to represent us.



You don’t hear about Mormons teens doing drive-bys and shooting up neighborhoods. You don’t hear about gangs in predominately LDS neighborhoods. Mormons are respectful, decent people who live in tight knit communities. They take care of one another. Their churches are huge networking resources for them, as well as houses of worship where they gain strength and resolve. That is what a church should be.

Mormon neighborhoods here in Arizona remind me of the neighborhood I grew up in. Nicely maintained yards, nice vehicles, people dressed nicely when they are out about town shopping. People smile at each other and say hello. I don’t go to church, but everything I see makes me believe that The Church of Latter Day Saints would be a wonderful place to worship and make friends.

Can we say exactly the same things about the South side of Chicago?

Recently we were told by President Obama that "Chicago is an example of what makes this country great," so I don’t think I am out of line asking about the neighborhood Obama calls his home outside Washington D.C.

Crime is rampant in Chicago, especially on the South Side where Wright’s former church is located. Single parent homes… mostly mothers with multiple children, often from multiple fathers, are prevalent. I don’t know the circumstances behind all these situations, so I do not intend to judge any individual case. But when we are told by our President that a place is an example of America's greatness, I would kind of think he might be offering me better than the South Side of Chicago.

We are expected to treat President Obama as if he is no different than any of the rest of us, because that is the right thing to do. I do not see President Obama as un-American. I do believe he holds a set of values that are very different than mine, but I do not think those values make him a bad man. I have studied enough Marxism, specifically his theory called “scientific socialism,” to understand that Obama’s belief system are very close to that Marxism. It is a fact; I am not racist simply because I present facts, regardless of whatever the media and Democrat Party say.

In whatever short time ABC has devoted to Mormonism thus far, they have tried to persuade some number of people that there is something “controversial” and “secret” about the life Mitt Romney chooses for himself. Perhaps they are trying to paint Romney as “other.”

Now… the man who worshiped for 20 years in a house where the preacher said “God Damn America” and asserted that the United States government created the AIDS virus “"to maintain affluence at the expense of the Third World"?” Don’t question that.

But question the rich white guy, because the people of his faith believe something different than whatever “traditional” Christianity says must be true, and at some point in their past they had a family structure that was non-traditional.

Hey… gay people have non-traditional family structures don’t they? And isn’t it true that gay people are good and decent people, and that everyone should accept them? I know I accept gay people, and believe in many cases gay couples can provide good and loving homes to children.

Oh, and the gay issue is today, in this day and age, not over 100 years ago. Mormons have made changes in their own culture to become a more acceptable part of society over the last 120 years or so… but you would not necessarily know that if you paid attention to ABC Nightly News.

So why exactly is it we are being told that Mormons are “controversial” and “secret” and a “mystery?”


You think the media isn’t biased? Think again.


A closing note – I wrote the majority of this post before I saw today’s news. It seems today (8/24/2012) during a stump speech in Michigan, Mitt Romney made a crack about how nobody asks to see his birth certificate. He was in his home state; the state of his birth. This is all MSNBC is talking about tonight, it was the main on Huffington Post for a while, and even Fox News discussed it.

My personal opinion is that since Romney has continuously dismissed the “birther” concept, and President Obama himself has even made jokes about his own birth certificate, it should be no big deal… but that’s not good enough.

Conservatives need to be better than all of that. We clearly can see that the Democrat Party is not going to be respectful, so we must be. I believe one of the keys to political success in this election cycle is taking the high road. For all the accusations made by Obama and all his surrogates lately about Romney being responsible for cancer deaths, a tax cheating felon, a dog abuser, leading some “war on women,” et cetera… we need to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that we are the respectful and decent people we know ourselves to be. The high road is ours for the taking, because to quote Socrates, “When the debate is lost, slander becomes the tool of the loser.”

As always, I thank you for your time and I appreciate any feedback.

Mitt Romney In His Own Words, Sans Media Bias

I am committed to capping federal spending below 20% of GDP and reducing nondefense discretionary spending by 5%. This will surely result in much wailing and gnashing of teeth in Washington. But a failure of leadership has created our debt crisis, and ducking responsibility will only cripple the economy and smother opportunity for our children and grandchildren."

Read more here

An Open Letter To Chris Rock

In this clip, comedian Chris Rock discusses on CBS This Morning how he wishes the presidential election were "more fair." He also talks about how he wishes both sides “could only spend the exact same amount of money and let the best man win.”

Mr. Rock, I almost want to agree with you. You say you want it to be about the best man, and I like that spirit. But then you say you want to make sure both sides are guaranteed equal money, and that does not sit well with me at all.

You see, Mr. Rock, that does not sit well with me because in 2008 President Obama out-raised John McCain by a landslide, and I didn't hear one peep from you about that. Whatever you said then, if anything, and whatever you have said since President Obama got elected, you have never discussed how President Obama spent so much more money than John McCain that it seemed "unfair" to you.

Mr. Rock, what I want is the best man to win. The man with the best economic plan, the best vision for the future of America, the strongest leader, and the best value system are at the beginning of my selection process. A lot goes into deciding for whom I should vote, as should be the case for every American.

Mr. Rock, I look at Mitt Romney’s record as a successful businessman and he wins the economic prowess debate hands down. I mean, President Obama keeps trying to take credit for saving General Motors, but nobody talks about the fact that TARP was organized and initiated under… wait for it…. George W. Bush’s tenure. But we know… have cake, eat it too… as long as it is good for Obama, that’s how Obama is spinning the story of what that transition was really all about - because nobody was really paying attention back then. They all had thrills running up their legs:

Regarding vision for America, I admit Romney could be scary to me since he was the creator of ‘Romneycare” and all, but there is also a benefit to his experience there. He will have a greater understanding of how to dismantle “Obamacare” effectively. Plus, there are some changes needed to the current system and Romney can take an effective leadership role in that process. Given Obama’s track record on leadership when he had both Chambers of Congress at his complete disposal, I’d say Romney wins leadership too. After all, he did troubleshoot and revive the Salt Lake City Olympics. Hmmm… a troubleshooter executive in Salt Lake… a troubleshooter executive for government and “Obamacare”…. Mr. Rock, do you see a pattern here? Or do you just see a rich white guy who needs to disclose his tax records? The media’s messaging has been rather effective so far, I must say.

I will talk just quickly about value system, Mr. Rock, because I think this is self-explanatory:

Barack Obama began his political career in the home of William Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn. They are the former unrepentant domestic terrorists who were part of the “Weather Underground” back in the 1960’s. Those nice people bombed federal buildings and the homes of Judges and government officials.

Now I believe in redemption, Mr. Rock. You see Mr. Rock, I am a recovered addict, so I have to believe that if you repent you shall be forgiven, because it has been true for me. But Ayers and Dohrn will not repent. Have not and will not, ever. And not only that, Mr. Rock, but President Obama – back when he was outspending John McCain in 2008 – lied to us and told us all he had no idea who Ayers and Dohrn were. Of course now we know that is not at all true, but your friends in the media wouldn’t discuss that, and everyone called people like Breitbart, Rush, Sean and Glenn and.. well, people like me… a racist for discussing how Obama “palled around with terrorists.” The “palling around” is a cute way to say it, thanks to Sarah Palin for that one… but truth is truth, and Obama knew Ayers and Dohrn very well.

That lie, about his association with Ayers and Dohrn, combined with the history of those to people and their unwillingness to repent, is a line that I cannot cross. Those are people who were bent on destroying America in a violent fashion… kinda like what you say about Tea Party people, except in the case of Ayers and Dohrn it is really true, not just propaganda created by the government’s “Department of Homeland Security.” Government for ALL the people, Janet, not just the people you agree with. And that goes for you too, Mr. Attorney General Holder, but I digress.

And that’s not to even mention Reverend Wright and the way Obama treated that man. Regardless Wright’s politics with which I vehemently disagree, Obama took the man who married him to his wife, and was “part of the family,” and threw directly under the bus for political expediency.

There’s your value system, Mr. Rock.

Mr. Rock, we have a little problem, you and I. Our problem is that you don't believe that what I say are my values really are my values, because like so many other celebrities and misinformed media people, you have pointed your finger at me and called me racist. with no proof whatsoever. Simply because I believe in smaller government and more individual liberty, you have told the world that in your opinion, I make all my decision based upon the color of the skin color of others.

Well Mr. Rock, if this is the case and you really don't believe I can make a decision without skin color having an effect, then in return, I shall believe the same of you. After all, you are all about equality, true? Well, now I shall hold an opinion equal to that which you hold about me. That seems fair enough, doesn’t it? And remember, we’re all about fairness in Barack Obama’s America.

Therefore, and in conclusion, Mr. Rock, I do not believe you when you say you want the best man to win. I believe you want “equal” spending so that President Barack Obama can win re-election simply because he is the Black man, and for no reason other than the color of his skin. And because of this, Mr. Rock, I find it shameful that your voice is given credit in the discussion of politics… yet sadly there are just enough uninformed people who think you know something about some things that you just might get your wish, and Barack Obama might just be reelected.

Bias

I've never heard the song by "Pink" but I know the word stupid, because my Mom taught me never to use it about another person.

Apparently, the mother of some (producer/director/person in charge of bias) at CNN didn't teach him/her the same.



Of course, the excuse will be that "they didn't know that song was lined up with the Palin piece about Chick-fil-A.

Yeah, right. Just like those guys on the Jimmy Fallon didn't know Michele Bachmann was walking out on stage when they busted into "Lyin' Ass Bitch.

On an unrelated yet somewhat related note, Katie Couric did a really nice interview with NASCAR driver Danica Patrick.

In the Wake of the Aurora Shooting

My thoughts and prayers are with the families and friends of those killed and injured in Aurora, Colorado. I can’t begin to imagine their pain.

A horrific crime was perpetrated against innocent Americans in the wee hours Friday morning, as “alleged” criminal James Holmes went into a midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises theater in Aurora, Colorado. Dressed as The Joker, the 24-year old unemployed student Holmes reportedly set off smoke bombs, and then proceeded to shoot up theater number 9, killing 12 people and injuring dozens more.

However, in typical liberal fashion, Bill Moyers of PBS fame has placed blame for this crime not with the man who actually carried out this horrific act. Instead, in typical liberal fashion, Moyers deflected responsibility of this horrific act upon those with whom he disagrees.

NRA President Wayne LaPierre, the NRA itself, responsible firearm owners, and American history - including slavery - are apparently responsible for the dead and injured in Colorado, not James Holmes.

Yes that’s right… this new 21st century definition of racism, again, has come out to play. Slavery was abolished in the middle of the 19th century, yet today is still a card being played by the left to somehow deflect blame away from those truly accountable and place it upon those liberals see more fit to ‘deserve’ said blame.

It doesn’t appear Moyers rant is available as an embedded video, so I’ll link to it here. You can read the transcript here, at a website called “The Moderate Voice.” To read the transcript is beneficial, because through vocal inflection alone Moyers has the ability to persuade. That’s what opinion media-types do.

By mentioning that LaPierre gave speeches just before both events transpired, Moyers begins his rant by creating a false link between the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech and this recent crime in Aurora. He quickly turns and calls this “just coincidental and unfortunate” but the theme is created and the tone is set, and Moyers is ready to move on to more important things.

Important to Moyers, apparently, is being sure to lay out the fact that there are an estimated 300 million guns in America, and of course most of them are owned by the most evil of evil beings: men. With those 300 million guns came an approximate 30K deaths and an approximate 300K gun-related assaults (Moyers offers no citation, but I’ll take his word). Moyers also says there is an estimated cost of approximately $100 billion per year; yet again no sources are cited. Again, I’ll take his word.

There are approximately the same number of automobiles in America (250K), and approximately 30K fatalities per year as a result of the use of those vehicles. Should we outlaw cars and trucks? After all, the use of a firearm is predominately with the intent to harm or kill, whereas vehicles are used for transportation and almost never as a weapon. So firearms are doing what they’re designed to do, and cars are killing people when they’re only supposed to take people from point A to point B. Doesn’t this essentially make vehicles more deadly?

Next, the heart=strings are pulled with this classic:

“Toys are regulated with greater care and safety concerns than guns,”

The purpose of a firearm is not entertainment of a child; it is the harm or killing of a live being. There is a reason it is called a weapon. There is zero ambiguity here. The very idea of comparing the regulation of these two entities is beyond stupid. Guns, within their own physical existence, are probably statistically safer than toys. That is the only way a reasonable comparison might be made between toys and firearms.

It is the criminal and irresponsible use, maintenance, and / or ownership of firearms that causes problems. Harm or death is never brought by a weapon itself. To say otherwise reeks of ignorance, period.

Moyers next discusses violence being “[…] Our alter ego, wired into our stone-aged brains, so intrinsic its toxic eruptions no longer shock, except momentarily when we hear of a mass shooting like this latest in Colorado.”

Yet Mr. Moyers fails pathetically here to discuss how liberal Hollywood has, over time, eroded and semblance of morals and values in American culture. Hollywood produces violent images at a rate that is incomprehensible, if not irresponsible. Yet we conservatives understand that responsibility demands a few things from us as individuals in order to maintain our free society; teaching children that what they see on TV is not real unless it is literally a news show, and that cable boxes and game consoles have rating systems that allow adults to lock children out of that which is not for their consumption.

It’s kind of like food, Mayor Bloomberg and Mrs. Obama, but I digress.

It is easier for liberals to blame the NRA and guns, make fun of Ward and June, Wally and The Beav, while mocking conservatives who “want to take us back to the days of white picket fences,” rather than address the sickness that is Hollywood and its leading role in the destruction of any moral compass left in our society.

The very company that produced “The Dark Knight Rises” also had a trailer for a not-yet-released movie called “Gangster Squad” playing in theaters nationwide. That trailer just happens to depict, according to Deadline Hollywood, “an upcoming [pic] set in 1949 about a ruthless Mafia Godfather who runs Los Angeles. One of the scenes in the trailer that’s been playing all morning [today] shows a gangster with a machine gun shooting up people in a movie theater from behind the big screen.”

While we’re at it, may we also discuss violence and moral decay as embodied and embellished by rap music? You’ll never hear The Beatles, Pearl Jam, or any country artist discussing how cool it is to participate in a drive-by shooting, or how they like to call a woman “bitch” and treat her as a lesser being. Yet there is an entire subculture in entertainment that makes a very bounteous income from presenting exactly that lifestyle and behavior as not only acceptable, but glamorous.

But our President is Black, and he hangs with entertainment people. Watch what you say… and please, ignore his White half. Obama's White ancestors (his mother and grandparents) were the Marxist loving Socialists (read his book if you don’t believe me), and those words are now code for something that means I’m a racist.

And now would be a bad time for Moyers to disparage Hollywood, while we’re in the midst of the Hollywood presidency, with the American-Idol-in-Chief whining and dining with Hollywood liberal elites and scooping up the cash as fast as he can.

Remember, as our President once said,

“it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy toward people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Thanks for being the president of all Americans, Mr. Obama. But I digress.


And in no way do I associate our President with any acts of violence. Let me be clear.


Ah, slavery. Apparently, according to Moyers, America “began with the forced subjugation into slavery of millions of Africans and the reliance on arms against Native Americans for its westward expansion.” No need to remember that we have long since become a civilized nation, when there’s racism to be used to promote an agenda. That, and the fact that were it not for firearms America might never have even been created. America was created in the defense of individual liberties and freedom of man from an oppressive government. You know, the kind of government that believes it can take away from you your very right to defend yourself.

Next, the Gabby Giffords reference. After that criminal act by Jared Loughner, Moyers says, “In Arizona last year, just days after the Gabby Giffords shooting, sales of the weapon used in the slaughter – a 9 millimeter Glock semi-automatic pistol – doubled.”

Yes, Mr. Moyers, that criminal act may indeed have lead many Arizonans to purchase firearms. And given the nature of the political discussion at the time, it made perfect sense. After all, completely innocent bystanders like Sarah Palin were being accused of murder by pundits and politicians on the left, so who knew what a Democrat president and Democrat controlled Congress might try. Americans believe in their rights, and one of those is the right to defend oneself.

Moyers next makes a lame attempt to equivocate regarding The Second Amendment’s Militia clause. This is something liberals constantly fall back on, in the effort to take away from original intent. As James Madison once said, “Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”

That, friends, is original intent… not this “Well, we don’t have government sponsored militias anymore” argument I’ve heard from the likes of Chris Matthews and other drum-beaters of the left.

In a sad closing effort, Moyers tries to put weapons in the hands of radical Islamic terrorists, in the effort to once again pull the strings of bleeding hearts across America. The infamous American jihadist Adam Gahahn was once recorded (and can be seen on YouTube) discussing the ease with which a person may purchase a firearm in America.

Firearms are readily available in Arab and predominately Muslim nations in the Middle East too, although through very different means. Those firearms are not a topic for such discussions by the likes of Moyers, and I for one wonder why. Perhaps it is because those firearms were in the hands of the rebels, which led to the overthrow of tyrannical dictators? Of course, we don’t want to discuss the fact that the Muslim Brotherhood is the likely benefactor of such upheaval, because President Obama early and often spoke out in favor of this al Qaeda born fundamentalist movement. Again, I digress.

Even perhaps the most famous pacifist, Mahatma Gandhi, understood the importance of a person’s right to defend himself. In his autobiography he stated, “Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the act of depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.” It doesn’t get much clearer than that.

There can and should be reasonable discussions about how easily attainable firearms may be. If weapons can be had by criminals through the same means as law-abiding citizens, that is a problem. All indications are that James Holmes obtained his weapons of choice legally.

I am reasonable enough to understand that there are some weapons that need not be manufactured and sold to the general public. However, I would always argue on behalf of the public being able to have those weapons, over the complete restriction of such. If there is one thing that always must be understood, it is that The Bill of Rights was created for very specific reasons, with a very specific purpose; those are our most important rights as given by our Creator, and they must be protected across the nation under any and all circumstances.

In closing, more strict laws are not the answer. According to cnsnews.com:

Currently in Aurora, Colorado, where the shooting took place, it is already unlawful to carry a concealed "dangerous weapon," discharge firearms, unless by law enforcement on duty or on shooting range, and have loaded firearm in motor vehicle.

However, had one law abiding citizen “broken the law” and carried a firearm into that theater, some might have been spared. But as always, it is not the responsible firearm owners who cause the problems.

Happy Independence Day

In the late 1700’s, independence from a tyrannical and oppressive British government was gained in a new land. Freedom from an oppressive, state instituted religion was one of the most important reasons so many men, women, and children gave their lives. Today people enjoy the freedom to choose their own faith (or complete absence thereof, should they so choose) than in any time in history. This is true not just in America, but largely around the world. For this and this alone, America should be celebrated as the best social and governmental experiment in history.

Yet there’s so much more to celebrate about America.

Taxation without representation was one of the other motivating factors that pushed the colonies to wage war for their independence. It is fascinating today how taxes are as much a part of the discussion in America as ever in my lifetime, certainly… and perhaps as much as ever since our nation’s founding. We are definitely being taxed today more than ever in my adult lifetime, yet those taxes are not solving our most important problem; our debts to other nations.

Instead, our government is imposing itself upon a large portion of our economy, about which it knows nothing and can really no nothing to help. That, and it did so through every illegitimate parliamentary measure available… all the while lying to the public and not calling its imposition what it really is; a tax.

Our government will now spend more than ever before on the medical “care” of its people, under the guise of caring for those “most in need.” We already care for those truly in need. Now, thanks to government, those who are low income earners without the ability to insure themselves will certainly be able to receive insurance, alright – by the mandate of federal law, and a “penalty” for non-compliance. It’s called a tax, people.

And for those who already have insurance? No worries… like I will, you’ll just keep the insurance you have. However, if your insurance is provided by your employer, as is mine, you’d best look out when costs get too high for him to continue to offer that benefit. My employer is already griping about how much our premiums have gone up since Obamacare… excuse me, “The Affordable Care Act,” became a national discussion. Employers will soon be dropping insurance benefits like the L.A. Kings scored goals in the Stanley Cup Finals this year… early and often.

The problem with our “healthcare” system in an economic sense is that we know little to nothing about what costs really are, yet the government believes another level of bureaucracy between doctor and patient is the answer. What it really creates is another layer of people creating nothing of substance and providing no truly legitimate service, all the while taking an income through taxation from those who do indeed truly create products or provide legitimate and beneficial services.

Insurance is a need, but not the way it is organized and used today. Competition would be good for insurance. There was little, now there will be next to none. Oh, yeah.. they’ve said something about “pools” or something… but again, why does the government need to get in the middle of it, and why are they going to “penalize” those who can truly least afford to carry a policy that may or may not serve their need?

The answers to our problems are at the local level. More community outreach, less massive federal imposition. A true “community organizer” understands this more than a rabble-rouser turned politician ever could. Ask your pastor or someone who works in a soup kitchen. Those people are truly organizers within a community, and they’ll tell you the federal government is not the answer to helping those truly in need, because help comes most effectively from those closest to the needy.

Since its founding, America has been a good and noble nation in our efforts to protect the freedom of individuals worldwide, yet today we are becoming fiscally indebted to others at an alarming rate. At what expense? I don’t think we want to know, yet the proof is in the way China treats its people. Oh, and the Middle East. They’re real kind to their citizens, those Middle Eastern governments on whom we depend so much for our oil.

Obviously we don’t know the course history would have taken without the founding of America. However, one must certainly wonder if mankind would have ever seen things like the harnessing of electricity to create a candle-like device that gives us the ability to read at night, just by flicking a switch. Would the world have ever heard the left-handed Jimi Hendrix play The Star Spangled Banner on his strung-upside-down right-handed Fender Stratocaster, through stacks of Marshall Amplifiers, in Woodstock New York? And what would have come of South Vietnam had Americans not stood for the rights of good people, speaking of Hendrix and that era? I’d love to find out how many 60’s era hippies who protested that war own Kia or Hyundai vehicles.

Sure there were things wrong about that conflict, as has been the case with pretty much every war throughout history. But today a nation thrives thanks to American sacrifice.

Oh, and let’s not forget that Hitler guy. Hard to say what would have come of the world if not for America's existence, and our eternal belief in freedom at all costs.

If not for America… We will never know if man would have ever invented the assembly line. Apple, Microsoft, IBM. Baseball, The Dallas Cowboys and their Cheerleaders, and LeBron James thinking he’s the next MJ. Yeah, that’s not the case nor will it ever be, but thanks for your ego, King James.

Today thanks to the sacrifices made by so many who came before me, I can sit on my patio and enjoy this beautiful rainy Arizona day and speak freely about whatever I’d like.

I can freely and responsibly own the firearm in my home that provides me security from criminal invaders as well as personal protection should my government ever become oppressive. I have the right to a fair and speedy trial, by a jury of my peers, should I ever be accused, and if acquitted I’m never to be tried again. I have the right to cast a vote for the person of my choosing at elections local and national, as do all law-abiding Americans. It is interesting that some don’t believe it should be required … proof of citizenship in order to cast a vote. That one I don’t get.

Anyway… Our nation was founded on the premise of more freedom and less government intrusion. More freedom will allow Americans to find our way.

Our way away from dependence on oil is not through government secured loans that are handled irresponsibly. Government should not and cannot tax carbon based energy products in order to force submission by the people to government’s desired outcome. Entrepreneurs; scientific minds with the backing of individuals willing to take risks for the possibility of reward will be the solution to America's energy concerns. That’s been the case every other time an American has invented the next, most amazing thing the world never dreamed it would see.

Freedom. Our founders believed our rights come from God, not our government. What’s best about that discussion is that amongst our founders, even those who did not believe in God still understood the importance of Faith as a part of Man’s Law.

Today it is important that we remember that whatever government gives you can always be taken away. God’s gifts of freedom are undeniable, and eternal.

Today, I celebrate. Happy Birthday, America! I hope 236 years from now people are still saying the same.