A Convention of States?

The Convention of States Project is pleased to announce that states are now beginning to pre-file applications to call a Convention of States for the purpose of limiting the power and jurisdiction of the federal government.

Virginia was the first state to call the Philadelphia Convention of 1787. Once again, the historic state is standing up to defend the rights of the American people. With several states soon to follow, Virginia recently claimed the title of first to pre-file an application to call a Convention of States.

Del. Scott Lingamfelter (R-31) is leading the effort in Virginia, along with Del. Jim LeMunyon (R-67) who has been deeply involved in the process. After meeting with COS Leader, Michael Farris, Del. Lingamfelter agreed to push the application through as the prime sponsor during Virginia’s 2014 legislative session.

“Legislators are concerned with what’s going on. They are excited to see what’s happening, and want to take part,” said Mark Wohlschlegel, COS Executive Director.

Four additional states are expected to follow Virginia’s lead and pre-file applications in anticipation of the upcoming 2014 legislative season.
http://conventionofstates.com/news/virginia-files-application-cos

This is something that may work, if a good majority of States will get involved.  I’m going to GUESS that the Progressive Liberals will be against this, claiming racism of course.

Capitalism: A Hate Story, Part I

The discussions the last few days around the “Occupy Wall Street” crowd has resulted in some interesting thoughts coming out on all sides. A few weeks ago (months ago?) Mr. Stella claimed that I must know that Capitalism is a failed enterprise because I refused to answer Noam Chomsky’s claim that capitalism would not survive for five minutes without government. A claim that tonight I call nonsense. And I will tell you why, Mr. Stella. It is because in the first place, what Chomsky refers to as capitalism in most of his “intelligent” discussions is actually nothing more than a convenient manipulation of the definition of capitalism in order to fit his argument.

Impeach Obama? No Way!

This article was originally published in March 2011

Who made them God?

Not so fast my friends. “No way” could quickly become “way” if a couple of House of Representative members have their way. A few short days ago, under orders from President Obama, the U.S. military engaged in combat actions in the country of Libya. The purpose of these actions were to impose a no fly zone over Libya under authority of UN Security Council Resolution 1970 (2011) of 26 February 2011. You can read the Resolution here:

http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/sc10200.doc.htm

It seems that this UN Resolution was the sole authority for President Obama to dispatch our armed forces into conflict with a foreign nation. But there is another U.S. law called the Constitution that limits the ability of the President to do this. There is also the War Powers Act of 1973, of which many claim gives the President the authority to take such actions. With that in mind, let’s investigate President Obama’s actions to determine if his actions are Impeachable.

Political Reality

This morning you wake up to the first in a two-part series. Which is ironic, because as you wake up to this article you are doing the exact opposite of what the majority of US citizens are doing. This part One is a bit longer than I would have preferred. But that was necessary. There are a ton of political realities that just screamed out to be highlighted. And before we can get to part two, we have to recognize and understand these political realities. Many of you may wish to deny what you read here today. But don’t waste your time trying. Instead, give some serious thought to what you are reading. Because while it may not be happening with the active readers that come to SUFA to exercise their brain each day, the reality is…….

Corporations Don’t Pay Taxes

People do! There have been extensive conversations over the last year around the different perspectives that each party operates on in terms of taxes. One of the major reasons that, when I did choose to be a part of a political party, I couldn’t support the Democratic party, was their outlook on economics. The ideas of wealth “trickling up”, consistent increases in regulation of the private markets, and redistributing wealth are all against the very core of what I believe, and in the case of trickling up wealth, against logical reason. In many of my arguments with those on the left, I have brought the subject of this article up, offering it as a reasonable assessment of where there is a fatal flaw in their plan. I never get a response after that. The subject gets quickly changed, or in forums I am simply never answered by that person at all. So I am going to present the argument again, and explore the concepts. I welcome any challenge to my thoughts, as I want to know if there are things I am missing…

OK, A Little Health Care

But not the real article I know that you are expecting. I am still reading through all the “changes” and “fixes” that have been done. Trying to re-evaluate and see if there is anything that I can find that I like about what has been passed. So my true evaluation of the bill is forthcoming, but could take a bit. 3000 pages is a lot of reading. What I am finding extremely frustrating is the consensus from those on the left that the passage of this monstrosity is a good thing. It is almost as though they have no concept of what is in the bill. I am failing to comprehend how on earth anyone could think that this is a good bill that we should be celebrating the passage of.  Strike that.  I absolutely understand why the politicians think it is a good thing. But I am talking about everyone else. It simply baffles the mind.

Charity and Sacrifice in a Free Society

With no time to write this evening I offer instead an article I read a while ago on the American Thinker website. We often talk of how the poor suffer in this country. And we obviously differ in our approaches as to how to deal with this situation. Those on the left tend to believe that it is government’s duty to prop up the weakest among us. Those on the right tend to believe in Charity. Black Flag believes government shouldn’t exist and that charity would suffice to solve the problem should the government no longer be in the way. While I don’t share BF’s desire to see zero government, I do share his belief that charity can take care of the issues that plague our poor. There is no need to for a government handout program, which is what welfare has become. I share the article and invite discussion around it because I believe that the article succinctly lays out the consequence of the altruism that today’s politicians bring to bear on the American public.

Laying Down “The Law”

I hope today finds everyone well. Don’t forget, only 16 more shopping days to get out there and get your favorite blogger a Christmas gift! Tonight I am going to be doing something a little bit different in terms of what I offer. This doesn’t fit quite into the category of philosophy or into the category of commentary. But I think it is a good, and important read. I want to offer a bit of wisdom written many years ago, and subsequently translated from French to English. The author is Frederic Bastiat. And the piece that I am going to discuss here is a work called “The Law.” This essay by Bastiat is a brilliant dissertation on, you guessed it, the law. It is available via Amazon and many other avenues. I humbly recommend that everyone pick it up and read it, twice if necessary, until you understand it well. It is short, only 54 pages, and at last check was only $7.95 at Amazon. Such a short book to read, but one with tremendous impact on those that take the time to read it.

Why I Don’t Care What the World Thinks

Tonight I am going to talk briefly about the speech that the President gave today at the United Nations. Then I am going to explain why he is dead wrong and bad for America. I listened to the speech because I wanted to hear what he was going to say to the world. As I have said in the recent past, I am past the point of believing that the President is going to do anything that will make this country, better, stronger, faster than it was before (how many of you recognize that as part of the opening for “The Six Million Dollar Man”? I loved when Steve Austin battled Bigfoot). He has a vision for America. And his vision is horribly wrong. So was George Bush’s vision, for the record. And it is time that we started looking at things the way they are rather than the way the politicians tell us they are. It is time we started remembering why this country came to the greatness that it did, and stop these out of control Washington lunatics from turning it into the economic and industrial wasteland that the majority of the world has become.

Obama and His Radical Czars

I was going through conversations the other night when someone, I forget who, posted a video that they wanted all of us to watch. I watched, and was enraged immediately. The video was basically talking about how one of these new czars was espousing the idea of fining bloggers for writing things that were negative about the government. I had to do a little research, but I knew I would be writing an article about any jerk-off who thinks that THAT is an OK thing to do. I was going to stick to that topic, but then in Tuesday’s comments, I was challenged by Ray, who didn’t believe that the czars being appointed by Obama were all that radical. He demanded proof. I then decided that tonight would be dedicated to all the czars, and the radical pasts they have. Because make no bones about it, Barack Obama has surrounded himself with perhaps the most radical group of advisors in the history of the Presidency. I thought I could write about these jokers in one night. I realized I was wrong. There was simply too much to write. So it had to get pushed to tonight instead of last night. And for the record, the logo to the left is the logo for the Radical Social Democratic Party.

More Public Education Indoctrination?

I began tonight writing about the radical appointments that the President has made in the form of his cadre of “Czars”. I wanted to answer Ray in  his request for some proof that they are radical. As I researched and read for hours I realized quickly that this was going to take more than a single night to write. So that will be coming tomorrow and then the First part of the health care series will be coming on Sunday night (Monday morning to all of you), with a guest commentary in between. Being that it is 3:30 as I start writing tonight, I decided that I would find something to offer that didn’t require me to do a whole lot of research but that would still be relevant and generate discussion. Of course everyone is free to again work a second day on any discussions that were happening on the Open Mic thread. I will again post a new thread where folks can copy a conversation over and continue the discussions, similar to last week.

Defining Socialism… and Our Discussions

I have been intrigued a bit to watch the debates unfold between several folks from the left and several folks from the “no government” perspective. What intrigues me is the opportunity to see things from the perspective of someone who believes that socialism is the way to go. It isn’t just an argument that health care, or a single issue, should be one way, but an actual claim that what we have doesn’t work so they are willing to give socialism a shot because they think it would be better for the American people. For those that believe differently, which is a large portion of the readership, I don’t think it is fair to simply say “socialism is bad”, so I think some discussion should follow as to what flaws have led people to that conclusion. Allow me to be clear that I believe that nothing could be further from the truth than the idea that socialism is a good way forward. Socialism is NOT a good idea, and I am going to discuss why….

Too Big to Fail, or Too Easy to Control?

I was reading an interesting article this evening on the Washington Post website. I had actually diverted there from another site, I don’t remember which, that was discussing the article and the facts around it. We all are fairly fed up with the bailouts that we have seen. The Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) was the only one that I even remotely understood as possibly being needed. That isn’t to say I approved, because I am not sure that it was needed (I would be interested in what some of our more economically inclined folks think about whether it was needed or even good). But, the government unfortunately does not seem to be too interested in my opinion about what they should or should not be doing these days (or the opinion of any other regular citizen for that matter). The bottom line is that they passed the TARP bill and President Bush signed it on into law. They blamed Bush for deregulating and allowing the madness to happen, despite the fact that both parties (and especially you Barney Frank) were fully responsible for what happened.

Defining the Greater Good

I read through yesterday’s comments with some level of fascination. The discussions about the greater good were simply too good to pass up the opportunity to continue them by posting an article with my thoughts on the topic. As many of you may remember, I am a proponent of social darwinsim. I understand that in some people’s eyes, that makes me evil. I can live with that, simply because I reject your definition of evil. I have seen evil in my lifetime. It can take many forms. I saw pure evil in the eyes of men. But the purest evil I know is that which takes the form of a smile as someone tells me they have the right to control another’s destiny in order to serve “the greater good”. So I thought I would write out some thoughts here and merge them with the Atlas Shrugged content that I was going to share. I think the place where many are getting hung up is the idea of true freedom….

The Idiots on the Fringes

I was looking through some news stuff tonight. Somewhere I stumbled across an audio clip of our favorite village idiot Jeanine Garofalo. Seriously, does this woman not look as though she just crawled out of a crack den to deliver her arrogant and completely false claims each night. I try not to be hateful. But you have to call a spade a spade sometimes. Garofalo is a nasty partisan hack. And it would be easy to simply blow her off as a greasy, dirty, homeless looking crackpot, if so many people were not packing into her shows and listening to her hate and giving her a standing ovation for it. I am no fan of Ann Coulter. But at least she has some semblance of reality to her rants. Coulter is hateful and nasty, but she brings facts to the table and 50% of the time the facts are presented honestly (at best). But Garofalo isn’t even close to presenting facts. I know those on the left are going to skewer me for offering up Garofalo as an example, but she was merely the thing that got me thinking on this subject.

Tuesday Night Open Mic for August 18, 2009

As we breeze through another week of fun and politics, we reach tuesday night open mic once again. Its been an interesting week thus far, with the far left taking a shot at me, a new dog in my household (which in day one has been a lot of work), and a return to work coming that I am not looking forward to. But tonight is easy. Open mic is always a nice break for me. Although, as you have all noticed, I have taken a few nights off here and there. Good for the sanity (and the marriage I might add!). I appreciate all the health care questions you guys submitted as we trek towards the upcoming series. I was surprised to see so much that people wanted to know. I will do my best to not let you down. As for tonight, the topics I have to offer include a fraudulent campaign by the Clean Coal Coalition, Charges pending in the Obama as Joker posters, and weapons being brought to Presidential Town Hall meetings….

Starting Basic… Defining What We Seek

Some interesting conversations have been swirling around the last couple of days between BF, JAC, and others. This conversation seems to be focused around trying to define what government is and is not. It is an interesting conversation to have. More important, this is more than an interesting conversation, it is an absolute necessity. We discuss on this site daily the ways that we are dissatisfied with our federal government. We talk about things like “getting back to basics” and “returning to the principles of our founding fathers”. In short we are discussing what is right and moral, what is desired and deserved. We are talking about government; its purpose, its scope, its actions and its future. As we do so, we miss an important step in the discussion process…

Making Nationalized Health Care MANDATORY…

I wanted to write tonight but I have found that perparing for my trip after a long day of work is proving more time consuming that I had intended. So rather than leaving you all with nothing, I decided that I would post the article that I was planning to write about this evening. Starting to see bills like this pop up really bothers me and worries me at the same time. It seems that the Senate has decided that not only will Congress plan on making national health care a reality, they will also work to make it a punishable crime to decide that you don’t want coverage at all. As I said, little time this evening so this is the article exactly as it appeared. I will try to find time while traveling tomorrow to jump in and add my thoughts.

ABC Changes Name Name to SBC…

Last Wednesday night we saw the official move by ABC to abandon their old moniker and adopt a new one. I have to admit I was a bit surprised that it was ABC that did it rather than MSNBC. The latter being so far in the liberal camp that it cannot even be considered a news source any longer. I was actually initially OK with the idea that ABC was going to give an hour long block of time to President Obama in order for him to tell America about his health care plan and why we have a crisis that only he can solve. After all, there is nothing wrong with him making his case. Where I lost my being OK with things was when they refused to allow any groups opposing Nationalized Health Care to buy advertising spots during the program or to be able to offer any sort of rebuttal or alternative ideas on the channel. It showed me that the America Broadcasting Company has officially changed into the State Broadcasting Company (SBC)….

The Argument For Action…

The other day, a couple of you offered up the thought that “the time for talk is over. The time for action is now.” I took the time to address it on a very minimal level, with the promise of dedicating a post to it tonight. So I am going to talk about what we are doing here. I am also going to discuss what other folks are doing and my thoughts on that. And most important, I am going to discuss a bit of the “doomsday” feeling that I see from some of the folks here, and why I think it is a little bit of an overreaction. There is a potential for trouble, for sure. But the political reality in America is akin to blaming Iran for acquiring a nuclear weapon instead of acknowledging that we wouldn’t have to care if we hadn’t done things to make them hate us in the first place. The problem lies in the system, not the Democrats. I will lead with the increasing feeling that doomsday is just around the corner…

The Reality of Taxing the “Rich”

We have all heard plenty of talking points over the last year or so from the left about getting the rich to “pay their fair share”. Given the realities of who pays what in this country, that is a baffling statement from folks who obviously are appealing to emotion rather than looking at the facts surrounding what they are talking about. Recently in the comments I saw some discussion about the “death tax” and how it was the right thing to do, about what its purpose was, etc… But again I saw so many facts being ignored when that argument was being made. So I decided that I wanted to once again tackle the idea of class warfare and getting the rich under control, a game played by the left these days, but played by all politicians when it is politically expedient to do so. Because there are just too many flaws in the argument, and too many individual rights being trampled on…

March Towards Socialism Series Finale…

Ah… so we have marched through history gaining a better understanding of where the moves towards socialism/fascism began and grew. Now we move on to the last couple of years, with the end of the Bush Presidency and the beginning of the Obama administration. I must again say that I know there are a lot of things that I am not touching on here. I can’t write a full history of the US. I just write what comes to my mind. I think about things and go and research them. So in this final section we will touch on a few really big mistakes of George W. Bush, but primarily focus on the Obama administration and what they have done and plan to do, and why this is bad for our country.

Arlen Specter… Harbinger of Destruction

The news flash out of Washington today is devastating for those of us who are committed to smaller government and less interference in our personal affairs. While I continue to say that BlackFlag is correct that the color of shit these days doesn’t matter, it does matter in terms of what can be accomplished and what cannot. Any overwhelming majority of either color of shirts, especially the blue ones, radically speeds up the process of government involving itself in every aspect of private industry and personal affairs. So what is this news? Arlen Specter has defected from his party and announced that he is now….. a Democrat. This is bad, bad news for the country if you happen to be against the giant increase in the scope and size of government. The Democratic Party, is now virtually unstoppable.

The March Towards Socialism Part 5

Really? I have found the ability to write enough on this subject to warrant 5 parts? As a matter of fact I have. And you know why? Because this march was not started recently. It has been a long and slow march. But we are in the home stretch of this series, which hopefully is not the home stretch for the country as well. Tonight we will handle the run-up to President Obama. He will certainly warrant his own post as that is the evil of socialism/fascism that we can confront. The rest of these folks aren’t in power any longer, so we can’t do much but look at what they did to help the cause along. It is not that I want to live in the past. It is only that I wanted, with this series, to provide some idea of the scope of how long this build-up has been going on, so that you will understand how we got here and how difficult it will be to change course. I hope that there are those among you noticing that a certain thing is missing from this march to socialism series…

The Death of Self-Sufficiency

I have had this discussion with some of the people that I associate with. I was wondering whether I should write a post about it. Then I talked to Revolution2010 the other night and she brought it up out of the blue (we had not discussed it previously). And I decided that I was indeed going to write about it. Much of the problem in America today, in my opinion, comes down to two things, personal accountability and self sufficiency. Personal accountability is something that I have discussed before, and I am sure I will discuss again because I despise the victim mentality that has permeated the American soul. But tonight I am going to discuss self sufficiency, because I believe that the current system does not foster it. And Obama’s plans will unfortunately makes things worse….

You Can Just Call Me… “V”

You guys didn’t really think I was going to let this topic go by without covering it did you? I had to let myself calm down a little bit to be honest. Because it is this type of hate speech that is becoming an identifying trait of the modern day far left liberal politician. Today’s target is Janet Napolitano. And that means that you already know where I am going with this post. Janet is a far left loon. There are many far left loons currently serving in the United States Congress and federal government today. And this is why I keep warning my liberal friends and readers that they may want to start distancing themselves from the Democratic party now, before the real main stream America (as opposed to the made up one that the MSM keeps telling you exists) gets them completely figured out. Because once that happens, I can’t protect those who stood up and supported the policies these whackos were executing….

March Towards Socialism Part 4

We have reached the next section of the “March Towards Socialism” Series. This one is going to be significantly shorter as I simply did not have the time to research and write as much as I would have liked the last couple of days. Again I think it is important to understand what my purpose was in doing this series. First and foremost, I wanted to show that this is not a new movement that Obama all of the sudden switched on. He is merely operating at a quicker pace than than we are used to in the march. If we have been ordered on a march to socialism, he has merely issued the order of “Double Time… March”. And it looks as though we may be told soon to just sprint for all we can. The question is whether we follow his order and go on until we have a massive coronary, or whether we stop, look at the politicians and say “Enough”.

March Towards Socialism Part 3

So we have finished with the War between the states. A quick summary statement there was that this was one of the big moments in our march towards socialism, as it showed the power of the federal goverment to control the states, to the point of levying tariffs and not allowing states to secede from the union when they felt that tyranny was coming. However there is still much to cover before we get to the current administration and the moves happening today. Now, admittedly, I am able to cover the Civil War era fairly well. As I said, I grew up right next to Gettysburg, and a photographic memory coupled with annual field trips and reading can sink in quite well.

March Towards Socialism Part 1

I was talking with someone the other day who had read my “Brownshirts” article and wanted to let me know how horrible it was of me to have insinuated what I did. They accused me of fear mongering and not giving a fair shake to the possible good parts of HR1388. I took pause to consider her thoughts, and eventually decided that I would write this post. Because I say to ignore what we are seeing is insane. I was not fear mongering, or even trying to make the President out to be a bad person. I was pointing out the realities of what is happening in Washington. Perhaps my viewpoints are wrong. But I would like for someone to show me where they are wrong. Her attempts were limited to basically saying passionately that “he just isn’t”. This is the mindset of the average American who isn’t paying attention. But perhaps one of the well read, smart folks here can enlighten me to where I am wrong.