What Is Constitutional Conservatism?

-By Yuval Levin, National Review

(ED: I don’t usually repost an entire article from another site but this article is too important to just excerpt. I apologize to Mr. Levin in advance, but his essay is one of the best definitions of what American conservatism truly is that I’ve seen for a long time. It is also a good explanation on why modern liberalism is as wrong as can be and anti-American to boot. It is a must read for anyone that wants a hint of the character of American conservatism and a good guide on how to think about what conservatives advocate. I just had to post it in it’s entirety, just had to have this chronicled on my site.)

This fall, liberals from the president on down have begun to grasp the scope of the political and intellectual disaster that the past three years have been for the Left. Their various responses to the calamity have tended to have one thing in common: immense frustration. But the different expressions of that frustration have been deeply revealing. They should help Americans better understand this complicated moment in our politics, and, in particular, help conservatives frame their responses.

Liberal frustration has fallen into two general categories that seem at first to flatly contradict each other: denunciations of democracy and appeals to populism. In September, Peter Orszag, President Obama’s former budget director, wrote an essay in The New Republic arguing that “we need less democracy.” To address our country’s daunting problems, Orszag suggested, we need to take some power away from Congress and give it to “automatic policies and depoliticized commissions” that will be shielded from public pressure. “Radical as it sounds, we need to counter the gridlock of our political institutions by making them a bit less democratic.” Two weeks later, North Carolina’s Democratic governor, Beverly Perdue, made a less sophisticated stab at the same general point, proposing to suspend congressional elections for a few years so members of Congress could make the difficult decisions necessary to get our country out of its deep problems.

Orszag and Perdue both seemed to channel a long and deeply held view of the Left — that the complexity of modern life and the intensity of modern politics should lead us to put more power in the hands of technical experts who have the knowledge to make objective, rational choices on our behalf. Leaving things to the political process will result only in delay and disorder. President Obama has frequently expressed this view himself — wistfully complaining to his aides earlier this year, for instance, that things would sure be easier if he were president of China.
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What Is Constitutional Conservatism?”


There Isn’t More Political ‘Polarization,’ There’s More Government

-By Warner Todd Huston

Ron Fournier of the National Journal has committed the same mistake in political analysis that far too many others on both sides of the aisle make. He thinks, like many do, that there is somehow more “polarization” in Washington today than ever. Like all the others, he’s wrong. There isn’t any more than there’s ever been.

He then leaps to the claim that the political system is “broken.” It really isn’t.

Fournier goes on to make an even more egregious mistake assuming that this “polarization” will cause the rise of a third party.

All of this, he and others seem to think, is a result of the increased distance between Republicans and Democrats which, in turn, has caused out system to go off track. It is the extremist theory of the American political system, the idea that the far left and the far right (and by that people in the Old Media like Fournier only mean the far right) have caused Washington to self-destruct.
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There Isn’t More Political ‘Polarization,’ There’s More Government”


Democrats, Sen. Schumer Shut Down Citizen’s Forum

-By Warner Todd Huston

You know, it is unfortunate that the Democrat Party’s name has the word “democracy” as it root because the modern Democrat Party is 100% opposed to both democracy and our system of government. Senator Chuck “Hitman” Schumer just proved this to be true once again.

Last week Senator Mike Lee (R, Utah) had reserved a room in the Senate and invited a retinue of Tea Party representatives and the folks of Freedom Works to discuss the Tea Party Budget proposal drawn up by Freedom Works.

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Democrats, Sen. Schumer Shut Down Citizen’s Forum”


A 2012 World View: What is the End Game?

-By Nancy Salvato

Having a world view and understanding how that perception influences our choices is important to knowing ourselves, being able to take or defend a position, and set goals and work to meet them. Sharing perspective helps us to understand and communicate with those who do not share the same belief systems but allows us to get along if we can find some commonalities or on what we can agree to disagree. When people holding a world view do not have the awareness to understand why they hold their position or are unable to comprehend that different experiences allow for a different outlook, this is when conflict can occur. This holds relevance for the 2012 election cycle.

Conflict is not confined between strangers. It can arise within family units; it can happen in the workplace, on the playing field, or even at a party. On such a smaller scale, it might be considered a personality conflict. A person can even be conflicted inside one’s own head. It is how potential conflict is addressed that makes all the difference in the world.

Within our own country, the Founders and Framers understood that there has to be a balance between individual rights and the rights of the community. They were under no illusions that in a country this large that everyone could hold the same beliefs and goals. They wanted to create a place where to the largest extent possible, people could be free without imposing on others. You could say their end goal was freedom. In creating the U.S. Constitution, they created a document that would maximize freedom and minimize conflict. For example, rather than elevate one religion over others by sponsoring it by the state, they included the First Amendment, which reads:
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A 2012 World View: What is the End Game?”


Business Roundtable: Regulations Are Killing Business

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Friday I attended an informative business roundtable meeting of Chicago-area small businessmen who came together to discuss how government intervention and its avalanche of regulations are killing jobs and businesses not only in Illinois, but nation wide. Some of the stories were chilling, to say the least. These trials go to show how anti-business the most famously capitalist country in the world has become. No wonder we can’t get out of this second great depression!

The event was held at the headquarters of The Rabine Group in Schaumburg, Illinois. The Rabine Group is a group of nationwide companies that specializes in driveway paving, roofing, and other contracting work. The company is headed by owner and CEO Gary Rabine.

Filling out the panel was Moderator, Brian Kelly of Bulk Lift International; Gary Rabine, The Rabine Group; Garrett Patten, Patten Industries; Randy Truckenbrodt, Randall Industries, Inc, and Former State Senator Steve Rauschenberger, Rauschenberger Partners.

The panel began with some of the regulatory horror stories experienced by the panel. Each story illustrated how government stands in the way of job creation, small business, and expansion, and how government is not working hand-in-hand with small business but actually fosters an inimical relationship. The panel showed how the oppressiveness of these regulations actually tempts business to break laws just to be able to carry on with business.
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Business Roundtable: Regulations Are Killing Business”


Why Democracy Is Dangerous for the ‘Arab Spring’

-By Frank Salvato

There is a concerted movement that began in earnest with the Progressive Era to identify the United States of America as a Democracy. To be sure, this movement has made great strides in convincing the American citizenry of just that. This movement has been so successful in delivering this message that Democrats, Republicans, Liberals and Conservatives have, throughout history – and even up to and including today, have identified our American form of government as that of being a Democracy. There is even an initiative promoted by our federal government to export “Democracy” throughout the world. Today we see this initiative playing out in the Middle East and North Africa. There is only one thing wrong with all of the above and the problem exists at the root: The United States of America is not a Democracy; it never has been and, God willing, it never will be.

Democracy has always, throughout history, served as a gateway to despotism. This is primarily because Democracy is tantamount to “mob rule,” or government by the majority. In a government ruled by the will of the majority – a Democracy, the rights of the minority are not guaranteed and are often neglected or even ignored by those who hold power, most often in pursuit of keeping or maintaining that power.

Additionally, in a Democracy, because it is essentially government by the will of the majority, government has no constraints. If fifty-one percent of the people – or a plurality of the people – can be persuaded to believe a particular avenue of thinking; convinced that a certain law is “necessary,” it becomes the policy of the government or the law of the land, regardless of whether or not the minority’s rights have been usurped or protected.
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Why Democracy Is Dangerous for the ‘Arab Spring’”


Finger-Waving, Child-Like Protestors Refuse to Allow Left-Wing Congressman to Address Crowd

-By Warner Todd Huston

This is the funniest thing I have ever…

This is the funniest thing I’ve ever….

Seen in my life.

Seen in my life.

A bunch of child-like protesters in Atlanta, Georgia refused left-wing Congressman John Lewis — a civil rights icon to many — to be allowed to address the crowd this weekend. The whole scene is reminiscent of the worst, hackneyed, new agie-styled preschool program devised for 5-year-olds by one of the most idiotic leftists imaginable. But it makes for hilarious video entertainment.

Apparently these people decided that their “assembly” would employ pure democracy. But if there was ever a more annoying way to do it, I’ve never seen it.

A scraggly, bearded, hippie wannabe playing the part of the crowd’s conscience spoke to those gathered over a megaphone system. He would say a few words and the crowd would, like five-year-olds in a preschool class, repeat his words verbatim.

It went something like this:

Anorexic Hippie Megaphone Guy: “We have someone here…”
Dirty, Ground-Sitting Hippie Crowd in Unison: “We have someone here…”
Anorexic Hippie Megaphone Guy: “Who would like to address the assembly…”
Dirty, Ground-Sitting Hippie Crowd in Unison: “Who would like to address the assembly…”

So, Anorexic Hippie Megaphone Guy explains to the crowd that they don’t “use clapping” in their “assembly” because clapping can “prevent someone else who is addressing the assembly from being heard.” So, to “signal approval” the crowd is instructed to raise their hands and wiggle their fingers. I swear I saw this on Barney the Dinosaur show.
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Finger-Waving, Child-Like Protestors Refuse to Allow Left-Wing Congressman to Address Crowd”


The ‘Solar Decathalon’ That Needed a Gas Generator for Cloudy Days

-By Warner Todd Huston

What happens when the sun refuses to shine on a PR event for solar power…

Yeah, look to the right under the sign. Yep, that’s a gas generator powering the “solar” sign.

Brett Jacobson was alerted to this hilarious example of the unviable nature of solar power as a reliable source of energy.

It was too deliciously funny to ignore.
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The ‘Solar Decathalon’ That Needed a Gas Generator for Cloudy Days”


Obama Hypocrisy: From ‘Talking to Each Other in a Way That Heals,’ to Dismissing ‘Kabuki Theater’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Barack Obama is nothing less than a hypocrite on his admonitions over public discourse and the latest example of this truth lies in his refusal to condemn the violence-tinged language of Teamsters president Jimmy Hoffa not to mention his similar silence on the obscene rhetoric of many of the leading members of the Congressional Black Caucus.

While Obama has tsk tsked folks on the right like Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin and told the nation that we need to start “talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wounds,” he has turned a blind eye to his own vice president calling political opponents “terrorists,” members of Congress saying that Republicans and Tea Partiers can “go straight to hell,” and just this week walked on stage grinning like a Cheshire Cat immediately after Teamsters President Jimmy Hoffa told a Detroit crowd that they intended to “take those sons a bitches out.”

Obama loves to sound as if he’s somehow above old fashioned, boilerplate rhetoric or the mudslinging that is associated with down-and-dirty politics. He not only claims to avoid such rhetoric himself but acts the national scold and wags fingers at others that do indulge such tactics. Well, he does if it happens to be his political opponents indulging that sort of rhetoric, that is. When his side does it, the scold in chief is suddenly silent.
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Obama Hypocrisy: From ‘Talking to Each Other in a Way That Heals,’ to Dismissing ‘Kabuki Theater’”


Israel’s Terrible Choices

-By Alan Caruba

I was eleven years old when Israel declared its independence and sovereignty in 1948 with the blessing of the United Nations. World War Two and the Holocaust were over barely three years and many of Europe’s Jews needed a state of their own to rebuild their lives. Jews from throughout the Middle East were forced to flee nations in which they had lived for centuries. Over time Israel would absorb Russian Jews and others from around the world.

Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon attacked Israel days after its formal establishment. They were defeated. They would attack again in 1967 and 1973. In the course of these wars, the Arabs that had been living in Palestine, as Israel was known due to the post World War One British mandate, fled or were displaced.

They would become the world’s oldest refugee group and the only one to which a UN agency would be solely devoted, absorbing U.S. and other funding to maintain their status as opposed to helping them assimilate into neighboring Arab nations.
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Israel’s Terrible Choices”


Illinois GOP State Central Committee Meeting: Sound and Fury Signifying No Changes

-By Warner Todd Huston

In one of the most well attended yet contentious State Central Committee meetings for some time, the movers and shakers of the Illinois GOP met on Tuesday evening to attempt to decide if the system for certifying delegates for GOP presidential candidates should be changed. The short answer is that there was a lot of sound and fury from party members lower on the food chain, much debate from those on top, and questions all around all of which resulted in a failure of the proposal to make the change. In the end a resolution was passed to keep it all the same as it was in 2008.

Beginning at 5 PM the meeting at the Boilingbrook Country Club was well attended by both SCC members, concerned party members, a few county party chairs, committeemen, and Tea Party activists. House leader Tom Cross made an appearance as did long-time conservative activist Jack Roeser. Illinois State Treasurer Dan Rutherford was also there, like many of the others, to speak about the proposed rules change.

I should note that one reason this rules change was contemplated is that the national Republican Party is trying to get every state to change their system into one of proportional representation of delegates to the convention. The RNC gave Illinois the leeway to change its process and several activists took this opportunity to propose a major change to the system, a change that meets the law as well as state and national party rules.

Certainly the change being contemplated was extensive. Currently, the presidential candidates are awarded delegates via the ballot box, a method only three other states favor. Campaigns come to Illinois, build their Illinois machine, and solicit for delegates. These delegates then have to stand for election on the primary ballot. To do so they must each get 600 signatures of voters in their district so that they, the delegates, can get on the election ballot. Then, those elected are considered official delegates to the GOP nomination convention.
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Illinois GOP State Central Committee Meeting: Sound and Fury Signifying No Changes”


Infant Tyro: Obama’s One-Upmanship of GOP Debates Clearly a Power Play

-By Warner Todd Huston

President Obama wants to give us his jobs plan. Yeah, three years after he got elected saying he was all about jobs. It isn’t the speech that is important, here, though — he won’t say anything new or important in it. It is the fact that he’s trying to bury the GOP debate that is being held on the same night he suddenly wants to issue his speech. This is childish, one-upmanship of the highest order.

Worse, when his press mouth, White House Press Sec. Jay Carney, was asked about the date question, Carny haughtily told the GOP to go ahead and change the timing of the debate they had scheduled months ago.

Obama suddenly announced today that he wants to appear at a joint session of congress so that he can present his jobs plan. He then announced, without fully confirming the date with congress, that the date of the speech would be September. Sept. 7, of course, is the date that the next GOP debate had been scheduled for, a date that had been announced many months ago.
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Infant Tyro: Obama’s One-Upmanship of GOP Debates Clearly a Power Play”


Union Astroturf Pretends Like Tea Partiers to Attack GOP

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Hill has an interesting, if not a bit slanted, report about the faux grassroots efforts of unions and left-wing advocates to pretend they are somehow just like the Tea Party by attacking the town hall meetings of various GOP congressman across the country this Summer.

The Hill dutifully reports without complaint the union’s claims that they are organizing just like the Tea Partiers and forcing GOP congressmen to face “angry protests at home” this month in a “replication” of the Tea Party backlash that “bit” Democrats in 2009.

“Liberal groups have been planning these protests for months,” trumpets The Hill, “One organizer told The Hill in February that the campaign would ‘build to a crescendo’ in August.”

These protests have been organized by Obama’s supporters in government unions like the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the AFL-CIO as well as far left NGOs such as MoveOn.org, Campaign for America’s Future and others.
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Union Astroturf Pretends Like Tea Partiers to Attack GOP”


Top Ten Richest Members of Congress: Only 3 Are Republicans?

-By Warner Todd Huston

OK, what’s the deal, here? I thought all the rich folk was s’possed to be Republican? But in Roll Call’s list of the richest members of congress we find that the top ten is stuffed mostly with fatcat Democrats. Only three Republicans made the top ten richest list.

Gosh, what happened to the left’s meme?

Democrat Senator John Kerry has in the past been the richest fellow in congress, but he’s slipped to third place these days. The top two richest now happen to be Republicans, though. Texas Rep. Michael McCaul and California Rep. Darrell Issa take spots one and two respectively. But the next Republican doesn’t show up again until the tenth spot. All the rest of the top ten are Democrats.
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Top Ten Richest Members of Congress: Only 3 Are Republicans?”


Obamas Travel Like South American Dictators

-By Warner Todd Huston

Presidente Obama es muy importante. He must be. He travels like a South American Dictator instead of a president of a democratic nation. Sacrifice is so for the little people, ya know?

Let’s take his latest of his many, many vacations. His loverly wife, Michelle, had the government fly her via helicopter and a government jet to their rented vacation estate at Martha’s Vineyard ahead of time so that she could luxuriate for a little longer. Bad enough, of course, as she could have just waited until hubby Barack was ready to go.

But el Presidente Obama upped her by taking TWO helicopters AND Air Force One to make the 500 mile journey.
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Obamas Travel Like South American Dictators”


Court: Obama White House MUST Make Visitor Logs Public (Who Yelled About Bush’s ‘Secrets’)

-By Warner Todd Huston

After running on the claim that he’d make presidential records more available and after criticizing George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney for “secret meetings” in the White House because visitor logs were kept from public view, the Obama administration continued the Bush era practice of keeping White House visitor logs secret. Now a court has ordered that Obama release those logs.

A federal judge in Washington D.C. ruled on August 17 that the White House visitor logs maintained by the Secret Service should be open to public access. U.S. District Judge Beryl A. Howell found that the visitor logs are Secret Service records and therefore do not fall under the president’s privilege. Therefore, the records are subject to Freedom of Information Act requests (FOIA).

Interestingly, Judge Howell was appointed to the bench by Obama but still ruled against his attempts to keep his White House visitors a secret. Good for her for actually adjudicating on the law and not on politics for a change.
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Court: Obama White House MUST Make Visitor Logs Public (Who Yelled About Bush’s ‘Secrets’)”


Unions Lose BIG In Wisconsin Recall Efforts

-By Warner Todd Huston

Oh, the union thugs in Wisconsin will certainly try to act as if winning a mere two of the six recall elections of the Republican State Senators in the Cheese State was a big win… but it wasn’t. In fact, this recall nonsense shows that the union issues were a huge failure. After all, they even shied from using the union issues to push the recall efforts after they got going because they were looking like a losing issue.

In fact, the two Republicans that lost their effort to beat the recall were the two that were a bit odd as it is, so beating them doesn’t seem to be such a great triumph. And even at that the margins of defeat were not great. David Fredosso of the Washington Examiner puts it well:

In the end, the union-backed Democrats picked up only two state Senate seats in Wisconsin last night, at a staggering cost in time, effort, and of course money. One of the seats was solidly Democratic, held by a Republican due to an apparent fluke of nature. The other was held by an alleged adulterer who had moved outside his district to live with his young mistress, and whose wife was supporting his recall.

A Pyrrhic victory, there, for sure.

Unions and left-wing Democrat operative told us that the people of Wisconsin were furious at Governor Scott Walker and his GOP partners. We were told that “the people” would swarm to the recall election polls and throw the rascals out. But aside from the two problem children above, none of the elections were even close.
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Unions Lose BIG In Wisconsin Recall Efforts”


New Health Care Law Requirements Ignore Obama’s Executive Order: Violates Conscience Rights of Millions of Americans

From Lake County Right to Life…

(Grayslake, IL — July 27, 2011) By August 1 the federal government is likely to accept a medical panel’s advice that new health plans must fully cover all contraception, including sterilization and pills designed to cause abortions. Conscience protections previously promised in President Obama’s 2010 Executive Order have been omitted. Individuals and providers will be forced to pay for services they object to on moral, ethical or religious grounds.

President Obama’s Executive Order 13535 states that existing conscience protections, particularly regarding abortion, will apply to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The panel’s recommendations also violate current conscience laws, the Church Amendment and the Hyde-Weldon Amendment.

The new health care law requires 100% coverage for standard preventive care, such as mammograms and colonoscopies. The panel’s idea to classify contraception as “preventive medicine,” causes all related drugs having FDA approval, such as abortion pills Ella, Plan B and RU486, to be included.
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New Health Care Law Requirements Ignore Obama’s Executive Order: Violates Conscience Rights of Millions of Americans”


A New Declaration of Independence for a New Revolution

-By Warner Todd Huston

America is fast coming to a crossroads from which there will be no return if we take the wrong path. Do we take the road that leads away from America and toward a Euro-esque way of governing? Do we cast aside our American character and bury our great nation in a grave of socialist-styled authority? Do we damn our progeny to a failed superstate that violate every tenet of our original ideals?

I say we do not. I say we reject the Democrat’s Euro-esque ideas and refocus ourselves on American exceptionalism. Our federal system has strayed far from our founding ideals and we may soon find that its time for a new Declaration of Independence from a tyrannical government that has usurped power from proper authority.

Since it was just Independence Day over weekend (and I waited until it was over on purpose so as not to obviate from that celebration), I offer this new Declaration as a rallying cry to all those willing to return to our true American character…
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A New Declaration of Independence for a New Revolution”


The Strategic Debate We Need To Have

– By Jeff Lukens

The U.S. federal debt is our nation’s greatest strategic weakness. As the debt continues to grow, our military posture around the globe is threatened. Defense cuts are coming, and with that reduction must come a reduced mission. In this environment, what our nation’s strategic mission should be, and what the corresponding defense funding should be to meet that need, are open questions. They are questions that need to be openly explored by politicians and the American people alike.

In a recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, “A smaller military, no matter how superb, will be able to go fewer places and do fewer things.” Ever the public servant, Gates seeks to kindle a debate the country seems reluctant, but needs, to have. It would be an invitation to disaster if we kept the same mission with reduced funding, or a reduced force. By bringing the issue to the public forum, Gates apparently seeks to avoid that calamity.

The core Pentagon budget is now about $530 billion, and accounts for roughly 20 percent of federal spending, and roughly half of discretionary spending. Defense cuts are coming, that much we know for sure, and the easiest of them have already been made. Gates acknowledged that over the past two years, “more than 30 programs (weapon systems, etc.) were canceled, capped, or ended that, if pursued to completion, would have cost more than $300 billion.”
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The Strategic Debate We Need To Have”


America’s Version of the Ouroboros — Deliver Us from Stupidity

-By Rev Michael Bresciani‏

The most read article I have ever written is only made it to my own website after being circulated around the internet for over five years. It has been published to over fifty other sites and read by about 350,000 people. It is entitled “7 Sure Fire Ways To Overcome Stage Fright When Speaking Or Performing” it was written and published back in 2005. Within that article I advise my readers a bit on how to look at a crowd of people with the following advice.

“See the Crowd as Only One Person: No science is available to prove how or why this little tool works, but be assured it will never fail. Always speak to the audience as if you were talking to only one single person. It makes them feel that you are being very personal with each individual, they can feel the difference. It shrinks the crowd on a perceptional level for you. Remember that perception is often the better part of reality. It moves the entire matter to a, one on one. Who wouldn’t admit that they are more comfortable talking to their neighbor or some stranger but not a whole crowd? Approach your performance or address as if you were doing just that and you will succeed.”

When writing, this rule also applies but what are missing are the eye contact and the verbal and emotional responses of the crowd. Yet, even for that, the statistics of an article, the feedback and the demographics of the readership says a lot. So what exactly does it say?
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America’s Version of the Ouroboros — Deliver Us from Stupidity”


More Arts Funding Boondoggles in Age of Obama Economic Meltdown

-By Warner Todd Huston

Yes, it’s time for another tale of millions of your tax dollars wasted by the NEA on “art” in America.

Supporters of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) like to puff themselves up as saviors of high “art” in lowbrow America. They love to imagine that without their advocacy for spending millions of our tax dollars to support dubious art projects, why, “art” in America would vanish. After all, you people are all uncultured, Neanderthals, you know?

Bruce E. Walker recently alerted us of the newest boondoggle to come out of the NEA. This time the NEA is sponsoring hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to video game makers.

Yes, video games. Apparently the NEA thinks we have a dearth of video games in America and they need to rescue this important and neglected “art” from somehow disappearing.
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More Arts Funding Boondoggles in Age of Obama Economic Meltdown”


Texas: More Atheists Lies Get Court Backing

-By Warner Todd Huston

In another strike against freedom, democracy, and American traditions a Texas court has decided that a Texas High School cannot have a prayer during its upcoming graduation ceremonies. Not only that, but according to this judge speakers are even barred from saying the words “join in prayer,” “bow their heads,” “amen,” and “prayer.” So now, according to these anti-democratic courts, mere words are illegal!

Naturally this decision was once again a result of a lawsuit filed by some radical, anti-American atheists. These prevaricators claimed that hearing a prayer would cause them “irreparable harm.” What tosh…

Red the rest at http://www.rightpundits.com/?p=8725 .


The Mistake of Global Democratization

-By Frank Salvato

We are hearing a great deal about a budding “Democracy movement” spreading throughout the Middle East. Many are calling it an “Arab Spring.” The belief is that after centuries of totalitarian oppression, the Arab street is suddenly pining for more freedom; rebelling against the elitist ruling class of kings, emirs, despots and tyrants. This is most likely true for a great number of those filling the streets of Egypt, Syria, Tunisia, Bahrain and myriad other Middle Eastern, predominantly Muslim nations. But there is a less than honorable component amongst the rebellion that simply waits for the “right” to a democratic vote. Contrary to how the idea of a move to Democracy presents, in the volatile Middle East there are elements in play that could make it a move in the wrong direction.

Each and every day we hear the misnomer that the United States of America is a Democracy. We hear it from the average man on the street, the mainstream media and even from those we have elected to office. But the fact of the matter is this: we are not a Democracy. We are a Constitutional Republic. A thorough and convincing exhibit of the facts surrounding this reality is presented in Notes on Democracy: And the Republic for Which It Stands. The fact that this issue is even in need of address is a scathing commentary on the constitutional illiteracy of the American electorate and serves as a sobering reminder that, often times, what sounds good – what “feels good” – isn’t always as it presents.

The distinction – between the benefits of a Democracy and a Constitutional Republic – is incredibly important, and while some describe our nation as a Democracy in an error of ignorance, others – some with schemes of political opportunism – do so with a nefarious purpose and bad intentions.
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The Mistake of Global Democratization”


Notes on Democracy: And to the Republic, for Which It Stands

-By Nancy Salvato

I’m fairly certain that everyone from my generation knows the words to The Pledge of Allegiance by heart.

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one Nation, under God, indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for all.”

When reciting the pledge, we should focus on the meaning attached to these words, most of which were written by Francis Bellamy, commemorating our history in honor of the 400th anniversary of Columbus Day at Chicago’s World’s Fair. I say “most” because the original pledge, as written by Bellamy, was altered. Nevertheless, each word in this final version provides our citizenry an appropriate lens through which we may view our world.
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Notes on Democracy: And to the Republic, for Which It Stands”


Democrat’s Redistricting Plan: ‘A Disgraceful Insult to the 12.8 Million People of Illinois’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Democrats Party of Illinois has released its plans to destroy the current districts and instead dish up a mangled, contorted mess of a redistricting plan meant only to erode every GOP stronghold in the state.

Why did the Illinois Democrats feel so threatened in a state that seems solidly Democrat anyway? Because Illinois sent five new Republican congressmen to Washington D.C. in 2010. This will of the voters is something the Democrats are desperate to quash.

As the official statement of the Illinois Republican Party says, “This proposal appears to be little more than an attempt to undo the results of the elections held just six months ago and we will take whatever steps necessary to achieve a map that more fairly represents the people of Illinois – they deserve nothing less.”
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Democrat’s Redistricting Plan: ‘A Disgraceful Insult to the 12.8 Million People of Illinois’”


American Government Must Be Torn Down and Rebuilt

-By Warner Todd Huston

In New York you need a license to work as a gas pumper at a gas station. A contradiction since you do not need that expensive license, training, and government meddling to pump your own gas in New York. In Chicago it is supposedly illegal to fly a kite inside the city limits. In Delaware it is illegal to have a basketball hoop on your driveway. In nearly every city and town it is illegal to build a shed on your own property without government approval and fees spent to “allow” you to do so.

These are all examples of how the United States of America has fallen severely away from the land of liberty and personal freedom we once enjoyed. These are also examples of why we need politicians that will run on eliminating laws, regulations, a government meddling, not adding more.

We are being “governmented” to death, America. The nanny state has reached out to quash everything we as individuals want to do. We cannot put up a yard fence, we aren’t allowed to park certain vehicles on our own property, we cannot have garage sales without licenses, fees, “allowances,” and government meddling.
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American Government Must Be Torn Down and Rebuilt”


‘A Government of Laws, and Not of Men’: The Electoral College

-By Nancy Salvato

In Federalist 51, James Madison writes,

“In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”

Madison’s concern is that, even though the people are sovereign, hold the ultimate authority over the government, there need be additional mechanisms to assist in preventing the possibility of power becoming consolidated within a particular faction of those charged with governing on our behalf. Should power become consolidated under one entity, and the faction abuse its authority, the people would be ruled through tyranny, denying them their ultimate sovereignty unless they take drastic measures to remove the authority from power.

Perhaps what Madison is saying here is better understood through an analogy of what can happen when those charged with looking after our best interests give greater concern to selfish motives. Until a child grows into an adult, he or she cannot make all the decisions associated with being grown up. In such a case, all power is vested in one or two parents who are expected to make decisions in the best interest of the child. Sometimes one or both parents make really bad decisions that can cause irreparable damage to a child. This might require a drastic measure, such as a child protective services agency stepping in to remove the child from the situation. James Madison feared that those in a position of power may not always put our rights first. This problem would become much worse, and more drastic measures would need to be taken, when all authority is vested in one entity that is in charge of all decision making, as in the situation of a child with abusive parents.

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‘A Government of Laws, and Not of Men’: The Electoral College”


Federalist Papers Identified How Democrats Would Destroy Us

-By Warner Todd Huston

Our fourth president, James Madison, has been called the father of the Constitution for not inconsiderable reasons. Madison was highly educated, widely read, and well thought of. He was also a prescient man. Madison was so prescient that in February of 1788 he was able to describe the precise reasons why his beloved Republic would be faring so badly 222 years later in 2010.

Madison’s far-reaching delineation of our current troubles appears in the Federalist Papers, a document that Thomas Jefferson proclaimed “the best commentary on the principles of government ever written.” There in Federalist 62 — his explanation of the senate — we find an amazingly clear prediction of how badly we’ve gone off track in Washington D.C., not to mention our state and local governments.

Student of history that he was, Madison understood that democratic governments often suffer from the malady of unfaithful elected officials. “It is a misfortune incident to republican government,” Madison wrote, “that those who administer it may forget their obligations to their constituents, and prove unfaithful to their important trust.”
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Federalist Papers Identified How Democrats Would Destroy Us”


Operation March Sadness

-By Chris Slavens

It’s not every day that state employees are caught on video threatening, lying to, and blatantly stealing from innocent citizens—but that’s exactly what happened on March 25 in a quiet neighborhood in Claymont, Delaware.

With the help of the Delaware State Police, a horde of Delaware Department of Transportation (DelDOT) workers rumbled through two subdivisions early Friday morning, uprooting street-side basketball hoops with a front-end loader and roughly piling them into a dump truck. Operation March Sadness, as it has been nicknamed by outraged locals, was the state’s response to the complaints of a neighborhood grouch, who felt that games of street ball were hazardous to children and drivers alike.

Melissa McCafferty, who lives in a peaceful cul-de-sac, scrambled up her kids’ basketball pole to protest its removal. After unsuccessfully trying to persuade her to come down, and, she claims, threatening to tear the pole down with her on it, the crew moved on. But as her husband, John, was being interviewed by a reporter for the News Journal, the posse returned. The video of the resulting confrontation, posted on YouTube.com, immediately went viral.
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Operation March Sadness”