Tea Party - Good or Bad?

The Tea Party – Good or Bad?

By Leon Howard

On Sunday, October 23^rd, 2011, a professor, Mark Mansperger, wrote a ‘hatchet job’ on the Tea Party movement; being careful to say that the Tri-Cities Tea Party wasn’t like the national movement. I consider that a political move to ward off rebuttal by us.  Wrong!!!

When he attacks the national movement, he attacks us! The independent Tea Parties around the country make up the national movement! There is no ‘national leader’ or one spokesperson, so when he calls the movement being made up of neoconservatives and that we “ … are ‘hijacking’ the nation’s core values: the Constitution, freedom, liberty, Christianity and capitalism.”, he attacks us!

The ‘good’ professor and his leftist minions have ignored our founding documents for 100 years or sought ways around them and we are ‘hijacking’ them? Notice he didn’t claim we ‘hijacked’ the Declaration of Independence – For good reason – The left refuses to link our founding documents because together, they refute his entire premise!

These charges come from a member of academia; someone living in a cocoon and no real life experiences to relate to. He studies, he reads, and he expounds on what others have observed, regardless of source; therefore his ‘conclusions’ are more than ‘suspect’, they are only one side and not the side of Freedom! Beyond that, he quotes no sources for his conclusions but I can see by his conclusions, his ‘news’ is garnered from MSNBC! (I wonder if he gets a shiver up his leg when ‘the chosen one’ speaks?)

Mansperger  wonders “ … where were they during the Bush years?” Again, when you rely on one news source (MSNBC) you don’t know what’s going on! Many of us were screaming at our TV’s, writing letters to our Congress, writing letters to the President, and demanding they stop the madness; the clincher for me was TARP – What stupidity! Mansperger finds it more expedient to say we are xenophobic – Don’t you just love those big $50.00 words? I had to look it up, which is good to learn every day: Xenophobia: An exaggerated or abnormal fear of strangers or foreigners. A strong antipathy or aversion to strangers or foreigners.

I find that term very troubling! Does Mansperger know something we don’t? Are the rumors true that Obama was born in Kenya and, therefore, not eligible to be President? But, again, no explanation to using the term – Maybe he was afraid to call us ‘racists’ because that’s been debunked too many times to count, so he used a term nobody knows in hopes of hanging a new handle to an old shovel.

Most of his article was drivel and off-point; first I was angry that the Herald would publish such a blatant fabrication of mistruths, innuendoes, and ‘balderdash’ but, as I re-read his drivel and started writing this rebuttal, I calmed down – Kinda!

What Mansperger conveniently forgets is Santilli didn’t utter those famous words: “It’s time for a Tea Party!” from the floor of the Chicago Mercantile until February, 2009, after the Obama administration announced they were going to start bailing out folks buried in mortgages! Most Tea Party members had never protested anything in public but this was perfect for us! Another thing Mansperger ignored was to mention that every one of our events is left cleaner than when we arrived, including the 1.2 million who protested in Washington, D.C., on September 12, 2009 – You do not see that kind of respect for public and private property from the union thugs and the Occupy Wall Street crowd!

Then he has the audacity to state “ … goal of the Founding Fathers was to establish a viable federal government and a prosperous Republic in which people have religious, political, and economic freedom.” As quoted here, that is true but then he continues with “ … capitalism is not of our national charter, for it is not mentioned in our Constitution.” If economic freedom isn’t capitalism, what is? One of the founding principles of our Constitution was private property – That certainly isn’t socialism, communism, or any of the other ‘isms’ except capitalism!

And speaking of the other ‘isms’, capitalism is the only ‘ism’ Liberty can exist in! Under the other ‘isms’, your ‘rights’ are granted by the government and therefore, are very limited and can be taken away at any time. Our rights are granted by God, not government and, therefore, cannot be revoked by man!

It would take more pages than I care to write to refute the inane drivel of Mansperger but, being 69, I don’t know if I would have time enough before I leave this earth to write it all.

But I will extend an invitation to the good professor, if he really wants to understand the Tea Party movement, to attend a Tea Party rally, one of our Open Board Meetings, and/or really read our founding documents and the thought going into the creation of our Republic (they are called the Federalist Papers) before you accuse me of ‘hijacking’ the Constitution!

Afterthought: How does a person ‘hijack’ Christianity? Again, very troublesome thought process from someone so learned.

The Electoral College

The Electoral College

By Leon Howard

Federalist No. 68: The Mode of Electing the President
From the New York Packet
Friday, March 14, 1788.

Author: Alexander Hamilton

To the People of the State of New York: (An excerpt)

THE mode of appointment of the Chief Magistrate of the United States is almost the only part of the system, of any consequence, which has escaped without severe censure, or which has received the slightest mark of approbation from its opponents. The most plausible of these, who has appeared in print, has even deigned to admit that the election of the President is pretty well guarded. [1] I venture somewhat further, and hesitate not to affirm, that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent. It unites in an eminent degree all the advantages, the union of which was to be wished for.

Many say the Electoral College is antiquated – out of date – unnecessary and should abolished, going to a popular vote to elect the President. I disagree for many reasons but the biggest reason to disagree with its abolishment, instituting a popular vote is this: 65% of the nation’s population reside in seven (7) states on eastern and western seaboard; they are decidedly liberal, big government folks and I do not want seven states dictating to the other forty-seven (47) what our priorities are! Do you?

The Electoral College protects all the states from the few and is a protection of the Tenth Amendment for that reason! The smaller states voice isn’t lost to the roar of the bully states and I like the way Hamilton explained it: “ … that if the manner of it be not perfect, it is at least excellent!” And it is not perfect: The first constitutional crisis occurred when Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr received the same number of electoral votes. Even though Jefferson was chosen as the Presidential candidate and Burr as the Vice Presidential candidate, it took the House of Representatives 36 successive ballots to finally elect Thomas Jefferson as President. Twenty-four years later, again no candidate received a 131 vote majority of electoral votes needed to become President. In this case, the House of Representatives voted for John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson and William H. Crawford on the first ballot. http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/history.html

The Electoral College is an added protection to the representative republic the founding fathers established; realizing man is not perfect, the representative republic protects against the “mischief” of man. James Madison summed it up best in Federalist No. 10, in part: “The influence of factious leaders may kindle a flame within their particular States, but will be unable to spread a general conflagration through the other States. A religious sect may degenerate into a political faction in a part of the Confederacy; but the variety of sects dispersed over the entire face of it must secure the national councils against any danger from that source. A rage for paper money, for an abolition of debts, for an equal division of property, or for any other improper or wicked project, will be less apt to pervade the whole body of the Union than a particular member of it; in the same proportion as such a malady is more likely to taint a particular county or district, than an entire State.”

A more perfect safeguard for Liberty could not have been written and it is up to the People, you and me, to protect it from the elitists, the ‘progressives’, because if they have their way, the very things Madison warns against in the preceding quote will be our childrens’ and grandchildrens’ future!

Not on our watch!

Scream loud and clearly to save the Electoral College to protect States’ rights and the minorities rights from the majority!

The "Blame Game"

The “Blame Game”

This absolutely amazes me! The ‘progressives’ cannot or will not accept their responsibility in Standard & Poor’s downgrading of U.S. government debt! I guess when your thought process is impeded by ‘progressive’ “thinking”, you cannot process what is so obvious to the average American who has to live within his/her budget … In fact, the ‘progressive’ “thinking” won’t even allow them to create a budget, much less live within that budget!

First they blamed Bush for everything – Hell, they’re still blaming Bush for most of the economic woes of the nation! Then it was the Republicans “holding America ‘hostage’” by wanting to cut spending; then it was Mr. Boehner’s fault for not being able to convince his party members to raise the debt ceiling and grandma was gonna die! The ‘progressives’ are very astute using the “fear factor” when they want to do something the People do not want and the “lamestream” media reported the fears but not the truth and many bought into it and agreed to raise the debt ceiling as long as there were significant cuts in spending.

Standard & Poor’s warned Congress and the President that it was going to require at least $4 trillion reduction in debt to retain the AAA credit rating; I don’t know how much clearer Standard & Poor’s could have been – How can you not know the difference between $2 trillion and $4 trillion? Apparently, the ‘progressives’ and neocons couldn’t because they approved less than $2 trillion and when the “smoke & mirrors” was evaluated, it turns out it would be less than $1 trillion in reduction over 10 years! Now that’s the way to save the economy – 10 years! What a joke! And it is not funny!

After the “shock” of Standard & Poor’s action, did the ‘progressives’ say, “Golly, I guess we should have been more serious about reducing the debt.”? Or, “Gee, we didn’t think S&P was really serious, so we have to go back to the table and do it right!”? NO! It was time to kick in the “Blame Game” again, so it was the Tea Party’s fault that S&P took away the AAA rating! Even Sen. DeMint called that pitiful; I call it pathetic! And, apparently, they’re getting flack from others so now who do they blame?

…. This occurred because S&P ‘joined’ the Tea Party and because the S&P used “bad data” in arriving at their conclusion to dropping the rating! The Standard & Poor’s, according to Tim “Turbo-Tax” Geithner, counted $2 trillion twice in their figures. This from the expert practitioner of “funny math” – It’s almost laughable! Almost. But this bad joke isn’t going to hurt the government at all – It is going to impact American families with higher interest rates and, probably, hyper-inflation! Now the ‘progressively’ controlled U.S. Senate is “probing the S&P downgrade”, so expect more of the same “Blame Game”! And get prepared for a very bumpy ride!

And the ‘neocons’ are, by no means, blameless in this debacle! It was a concentrated effort by all Liberty groups and the American People to get the Congress to hold the line and not raise the debt ceiling! Instead, we were all pressing for them to slash spending to avoid even hitting the ceiling! Mr. Boehner and Company are incapable of leading as winners and half of those elected in 2010 as Tea Party candidates folded like a House of Cards when it came down to the vote! Instead of listening to the People, they elected to listen and follow their ‘leadership’ into the abyss like lemmings!

I find the American People blameless in this because we were right when  we demanded they not raise the debt ceiling; we were right when pressured them to slash spending; and we are right demanding they follow the Constitution! What they refuse to accept is the American People are smarter than they are! We know that if we were to go to the bank and ask for a bigger credit line so we could charge 40¢ of every dollar we spend, they would refuse us because that is unsustainable! We are applying household budgeting principles to the federal budget and those in D.C. are incapable of doing simple math; they’d rather use funny math!

I did not blame the 2 major parties because it is pointless to blame them; they are without principles and that would let the offending politicians off the hook for their responsibility of the votes they cast! It is not the Republican Party’s “fault” that Doc Hastings voted for this bad legislation; it is Doc’s fault he voted for it! It is not the Democratic Party’s “fault” Sen. Harry “Bullet-Train” Reid is an idiot and voted for this bad legislation; it’s Harry “Bullet-Train” Reid’s fault he voted for the bad bill! (It might be his parents fault that he’s an idiot!)

Doc Hastings is being taken behind the woodshed for his vote; not the Republican Party!

We must continue to hold the individual politician responsible for his votes and if he’s not doing the job, we must replace him or her! It is the only way we can change “business as usual” in D.C.!

We Won! Bring 'Em Home Now!

We Won; Let’s Bring ‘Em Home Now!

September 11, 2001! A date we all remember and a date we all can recall exactly what we were doing when we saw and/or heard about the planes being flown into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. We were glued to our television sets and radios waiting to hear about the 4^th plane: Where was it headed? The White House … Congress? And then we heard that several Americans on the 4^th plane fought the terrorists and forced them to crash the plane in an open field in Pennsylvania – Heroes! In all the tragedy … Civilian heroes!

Heroes as heroic as our forefathers who gave their lives at Lexington for “the shot heard around the world”! White and black Americans; Christians and Jews laid down their lives to free us from the tyranny of King George and the heroes of 9-11 laid down their lives in our first battle against terrorism! We may not be able to recall their names but their sacrifice will never be forgotten!

Many wanted to excuse the attack because of this nation’s stupid foreign policy and it is a stupid foreign policy! But there is no excuse to take the lives of 3,000 innocent people to draw attention to a policy that meddles into the internal affairs of other nations! You make those changes by getting your diplomats to tell our diplomats to “butt out”! And if your government hasn’t got the guts to do that, you change your government! That was the solution Osama bin Laden and his useful idiots should have used but they would rather slaughter thousands of the “infidels”!

But it’s too late for reason so we vowed to kill Osama bin Laden and his useful idiots … We have killed many thousands of them and we finally killed bin Laden! Hoo-Rah!!

Okay; we won!! Let’s bring our troops home! We have no excuse to kill more Afghans – We are not “nation building” and the government we helped establish is Afghanistan is as corrupt as the Taliban so I don’t think we want to be associated with this scum either!

We have no reason to still be in Iraq today (if we had a legitimate reason to go there in the first place!). We have been at war for 10 years and finally killed the rabid bin Laden; we have sent our troops back for 4 and 5 “tours” of duty in a war zone (I never figured our how that can be called a “tour”)! We now have thousands of amputees and men and women with PTSD who may never recover – How many more thousand do we want to ‘sacrifice’ to “save” the Afghans and Iraqis from themselves? I say NONE! It is up to the Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians, Egyptians, Libyans, and the rest of the Middle Eastern nations’ people to decide what kind of government they want and do not be surprised if they pick another dictator because they have lived with oppression since the 7^th Century and they are comfortable with that!

In his “Farewell Address”, Washington warned against foreign influence in domestic affairs and American meddling in European affairs. He warned against bitter partisanship in domestic politics and called for men to move beyond partisanship and serve the common good. He called for an America wholly free of foreign attachments, as the United States must concentrate only on American interests. He counseled friendship and commerce with all nations, but warned against involvement in European wars and entering into long-term alliances. The address quickly set American values regarding religion and foreign affairs, and his advice was often repeated in political discourse well into the twentieth century; not until the 1949 formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would the United States again sign a treaty of alliance with a foreign nation. Washington's position about the forming of political parties did not prevent their creation, which continues to the present day to the detriment of the nation!

“I deem one of the essential principles of our government, and consequently one which ought to shape its administration, peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”  Thomas Jefferson, 1801 Inaugural Address.

John Quincy Adams on U.S. Foreign Policy (1821):

“ … But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.

She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all.

She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.

She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.

She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. … ”

You can read the entire speech; it is very moving:

http://www.fff.org/comment/AdamsPolicy.asp

Why haven’t we listened to their astute counsel? The neo-cons, who have administered our ‘foreign policy’ since the end of WWII, will say, “We got caught with our pants down (militarily) at the beginning of WWII and we can never let that happen again!” All of us can admit that we were ill prepared for WWII: FDR and the Fed were still doing all of the stupid spending trying to end the Great Depression but were just putting us deeper and deeper into it! Japan’s attack on the U.S. was just the ticket to “save” FDR’s administration … He’d been trying for almost 12 years to end a financial collapse, some say created by the Fed, that would have corrected itself in less than 2 years, had the government stayed out of it! But that’s a topic for later discussion.

It’s our foreign policy in question here and trying to ascertain how that got us where we are today: Deeply involved in three (3) wars in the Middle East: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya; tens of thousands of our military personnel in 135 countries around the world (check it out: http://www.lewrockwell.com/vance/vance8.html); and virtually every nation hates America! Why? Our government gives tens of billions of the taxpayers dollars to foreign governments and call it “foreign aid”! China needs foreign aid? Saudi Arabia needs foreign aid? Brazil needs foreign aid? Iraq needs foreign aid? Three oil-rich nations need “aid” and America’s largest debt holder needs “aid”? Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest supporters of  Islamic terrorism, the vermin we are sending our boys and girls overseas to kill, our “foreign aid” supports! Why?!?

The foreign policy “experts” say: “There are five major categories of foreign assistance: bilateral development aid,

economic assistance supporting U.S. political and security goals, humanitarian aid, multilateral economic contributions, and military aid. Due largely to the recent

implementation two new foreign aid initiatives — the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the Global AIDS Initiative — bilateral development assistance has become the largest category of U.S. aid.” And let me add: “Blah, blah, blah, blah … ” You will find it all: http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/31987.pdf; 35 pages of double and triple-speak!

The truth is our government thinks they can buy friends and I contend it ain’t workin’ out so well! Most of these “friends” vote against us most of the time in the United Nations but they will vote for any initiative that the United States pays for! They smile and hug us when we hand them the money of hard-working Americans and they are still smiling when they shove the knife in our back! They aren’t even good enough to classified as “fair-weather-friends”! Fair-weather-friends abandon you when you run into tough times – These collective jackasses abandon us right after we give them the money!

But the neo-cons and ‘progressives’ still fight to give away our wealth but for different reasons: The neo-cons want to buy friends and the ‘progressives’ want to redistribute America’s wealth! A pox on both their houses!

We need to stop listening to the neo-cons! They spoke with wisdom when they said we couldn’t get caught with our pants down again – What we let them do beyond that is what must be changed! No longer can we be used as the World’s Policeman! No longer can we be used for “nation building”! No more can we afford to put tens of thousands of our military personnel in 135 foreign nations!

Our national foreign policy must be modified to now be: “To assure Peace, we must be prepared for war!” Another way to put it was said years ago: “There is nothing so likely to produce peace as to be well prepared to meet the enemy.”   - George Washington

We must let the world know that we are the “Beacon of Liberty”, not the meddlesome busybody we have been in the past, and we believe in self-determination of all people but if they are stupid enough to attack America again, we will “put a boot up your ass; it’s the American way”! In the same manner, we must end our affiliations with the United Nations, NATO, SEATO, etc.! Tell those nations they must settle their own differences and, if they care about their people, they will settle those differences through negotiations rather than war! ‘Trading partner’; not the ‘neighborhood enforcer’!

As Thomas Jefferson so eloquently put it: “I deem one of the essential principles of our government, and consequently one which ought to shape its administration, peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none.”

We have slain the monster – It is time to bring our troops home and rebuild our family!