Respect: Conferred or Deserved?

There are many people I admire and respect. One such person is my father-in-law, Carroll “Kack” Sisler. When you shake hands with Kack, you’ll note the arthritis in his hands and you’ll feel the calluses from a lifetime of manual labor. He has worked as a lumberman, a long-haul truck driver, a farmer, an oilfield worker and an excavator. In his 80s now, you may find him after a snowstorm plowing his neighbor’s driveways or, in summer, helping them build an addition onto their house.  What you may not know, unless you know him, in which case you would surely know, is that when you shake that calloused hand and Kack gives you his word, it is better than any contract written by an entire phalanx of lawyers. As Kack told his children, and my wife, Dawn, has passed on to our children, “There are a lot of things that happen in life that you can’t control. About the only thing that you have control of is your character.” And more than saying, he modeled it for his children. 

Kack would make a terrible politician because he believes in telling the truth, even when inconvenient, maybe especially when it is inconvenient, and for doing the right thing, not the expedient thing. As far as I know, the only elected office that he has ever held was as president of his homeowners association. The only political scandal that he was involved in was when a 30-something year old man impugned my then 70-something father-in-law’s integrity and was challenged to step outside and discuss the situation further. Thankfully, cooler heads prevailed and the whippersnapper was saved the humiliation of being pummeled by an old man. But Kack takes his reputation and his character seriously. They are essential to his very core.  He has never been wealthy; he has never held public office; he never went to college; but I cannot think of anyone I respect more.

A mantra that I have often heard is that, “You may not like the President or his policies, but he is the President so you must respect him or, at least, respect the office.” This is almost always said by supporters of whomever is in office at the time and, translated, means, “Don’t criticize my guy.” But is the President above criticism? Is he or she due respect simply because of the office he or she holds?

The United States is different than most of the rest of the world. We do not have a monarchy where rule and adulation are a birthright, conferred by God and respected by the people. Nor do we have a dictatorship where rule and “respect” are enforced by violence. Our system is egalitarian. We teach our school children that anyone, as long as one is a natural born citizen, can grow up to be President of the United States. No better example can be found than our current President, Barack Obama. Born to a mixed race couple and abandoned at an early age by his father, Obama was raised by his grandparents in a middle class lifestyle. By his own admission, an indifferent high school student who was more interested in basketball and smoking pot than he was in academics, he went on to graduate from Columbia and from Harvard Law School. After famously working as a community organizer, Obama decided to enter politics where he quickly rose up the political ladder, finally culminating in the Presidency. If anyone should embody the egalitarian spirit, it should be Barack Obama.

Unfortunately, people who desire the Presidency are rarely the most intelligent, best managers, most learned, or most humble. Instead, the people who achieve this office are often the most ambitious, most aggressive, and frequently, most ruthless. The Founders, in their wisdom, recognized this. They knew it was dangerous to entrust this amount of responsibility in one man, so they limited his powers by entrusting the responsibility of legislation and budgeting to Congress and Constitutional review to the judiciary. In addition, they empowered the press with freedom from government control in order to serve as a watchdog against government abuse and they made free speech a bedrock of the Bill of Rights so that people could speak out, without fear of reprisal from the very government they may criticize.

It is, therefore, not only allowable to criticize the government, but it was expected that we criticize the government. A free press is essential, but it is also important that we need not be a member of the press to criticize our government. It is a safeguard against governmental abuse that is allowed to anyone in the United States, not just a select few politicians or journalists.

It is telling that in the United States, politicians are said to be in “public service”.  When one is elected President, he is not merely elected to be leader of his party, but the leader of the United States of American, whether they agree with him or not. He is expected to put country over party and to put the public welfare over private ambition. While it may sound quaint, our elected officials are NOT elected to lord over the public, but to serve the public. The Presidency is imbued with tremendous power. As the Commander-in-Chief of the greatest military force in the history of the world and as CEO of the vast regulatory apparatus, the President has the power to destroy lives, both literally and figuratively. This is a power that needs to be handled delicately and with an attitude of humility.  It is a huge responsibility to be handed the reins of the Presidency.

Because of the power and responsibility, the President should be held to a very high standard. When he falls short of that standard, the populace has not only a right, but a responsibility to criticize. When a President abuses his power for personal or political gain; when he tries to circumvent the Constitution by legislating by fiat through executive orders when Congress refused to pass what he desired; when his administration thuggishly tries to silence their opponents through intimidation, smear, or by using the power of regulatory agencies; or when, unlike my father-in-law, the truth becomes subservient to expediency, when his core is not integrity, but ambition, he is not deserving of respect.

When a President stands up in public and calls those who oppose his political agenda, “enemies” who must be punished; when he tells his political opponents to “stop talking” and to “go to the back of the bus”; when he calls his political opponents a name denoting a sexual act; when he routinely vilifies and attributes the worst motives to anyone who opposes his agenda; in short, when the President does not respect the American people, he forfeits his right to respect.

There are many people I admire and respect; Barack Obama is not one of them.

Fed Up

I am fed up. I’m fed up at Harry Reid and Barack Obama. I’m fed up with Obama’s campaign team. I’m fed up with those people who support and encourage this kind of behavior. And I’m especially fed up with people who claim that they are conservative but refuse to see the difference between the two candidates in this election.

I have never seen a campaign so dirty, so underhanded, so dishonest as the Obama campaign, aided and abetted by upper levels of the Democratic Party. Last week, Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, made a claim to the leftist rag, “The Huffington Post” that Mitt Romney hasn’t paid taxes in 10 years. His source? A “Bain investor” who called Reid on the phone. Reid said that he didn’t know with certainty that Romney hadn’t paid taxes, but that Romney has the “burden of proof” to show he isn’t a tax cheat. Later in the week, he doubled down on that accusation on the floor of the Senate. Well, Harry Reid, I was told that you are a pedophile. I’ve made the accusation and it is up to you to prove it isn’t true. That seems fair, doesn’t it?

Today, the Obama campaign released a campaign ad that questioned whether Mitt Romney has paid taxes over the last 10 years – a very ironic accusation coming from this administration, which knows something about tax cheats. Again, they have no evidence, whatsoever, they are just slinging mud and hoping something sticks. They know that Obama’s first term as President has been disastrous and he has nothing to run on, so they have resorted to character assassination.

Earlier this week, an Obama Super Pac came out with an ad accusing Mitt Romney of causing a woman’s death from cancer. Subsequently, almost everything in that ad was shown to be false, but the administration has yet to denounce it and the Super Pac refuses to pull it. The Obama campaign claimed that they knew nothing about this man or his story but, as is their routine, they were lying. This man had appeared in two Obama campaign commercials and was recorded on a White House conference call. It is illegal for campaigns to coordinate with Super PACs, yet White House employees openly raise money for Obama Super PACs.

That should come as no surprise to anyone who has watched this administration thumb its collective nose at the laws of this land. This is, by far, the most corrupt administration I have ever seen – and I was around for the Nixon administration. The Eric Holder Justice Department has been an embarrassment from their dismissal of an obvious voter harassment which had already been won against the New Black Panthers in Philadelphia to “Fast and Furious” to suing states over everything from border control to attempts to limit voter fraud to its refusal to submit subpoenaed documents to the House committee responsible for the oversight of the Justice Department.

Don’t tell me, “Everyone does it.”  When Romney, Mitch McConnell, and Romney’s campaign team claim that Obama is a murderer, a felon, and a tax cheat, come talk to me. Until then, you don’t have a leg to stand on. Now, I am a fan of negative advertising. I think running against policies and positions that you think are wrong are perfectly fine, but unsubstantiated lies and character assassination should be met by the electorate with contempt.

The fact that almost half the country continues to support these despicable people is very disheartening. Don’t tell me that you want a “change in tone” in Washington; don’t tell me that you want men and women of high character in elected office; don’t tell me that you want moral leadership if you continue to support people who use these tactics. I don’t even want to hear it. Just admit that character means nothing to you or you are a hypocrite.

And for those people who claim that there is no difference between these two candidates or that people are voting for the “lesser of two evils”, I have only this to say, “Are you freaking insane or have you just not been paying attention?” It would be nice if we could afford to be ideologically pure, but this election is just too important. The only person with whom I agree 100% of the time is myself, and even then I’m inclined to change my mind from time to time. It is time to realize that perfect is the worst enemy of good enough.

The fact is that there is a clear difference between these two candidates. On one hand, you have a decent, intelligent man who has been a success in almost everything he has done; a man who has seemingly done everything right; a man about whom there has not been a whiff of scandal; and a man who has demonstrated he understands free market economics. On the other hand, you have a scorched-earth Chicago machine politician whose first term has been marked with continual job loss, a disastrous approach to economics, class warfare, and corruption. Staying home or voting for a third party candidate who has absolutely no chance of winning may make you feel righteous and pure, but it is irresponsible if you want to at least slow the rapid descent of this country into socialism.

I happen to think that Mitt Romney will make a pretty good President. If you don’t like the idea of voting for him, at least cast a vote against Obama. It will send a message that we will not tolerate the type of character, or lack thereof, that resides in the White House now.

Don't Let Them Eat Cake! (Save It For Me)

Bratwurst



Kielbasa



Cheeseburgers


Deep Dish Pizza



Buffalo Wings



German Potato Salad


Twice Baked Potatoes


Snyders Potato Chips and Pretzels



Chips and Dips



Salad
 


Ice Cream

Sounds like a pretty decent Super Bowl party spread. No one should have gone home hungry, in any case.

I don’t begrudge anyone good food. My current level of rotundity testifies that I have partaken of my fair share of buffets. The problem is that this array of eats is what was served at Barack Obama’s Super Bowl party.

Now, I think the President should be able to have a party or two, and heaven knows this President has had a few parties. Nor do I think a President should not be entitled to eat tasty food. In fact, when compared to the Wagyu beef ($99-$115/lb. at Allen Bros. as of this writing) bash that the Spender-in-Chief threw to celebrate passage of the “Stimulus Bill”, this menu is downright plebian.

The problem that I have with the Obamas serving this food is that this is a White House that continues to nag us about our eating habits. Michelle Obama lobbied heavily for the Child Nutrition Act, a $4.5 billion bill that, among other things, allows the federal government to mandate ingredients in school lunches, what may be sold in school vending machines, and even whether or not bake sales will be allowed in schools. She continues to pressure restaurants to cut fat in their menus, cut out salt in food preparation, and serve apples with fast food instead of French fries. Michelle has become a reverse Marie Antoinette, exclaiming, "Don't let them eat cake!"

We can argue whether or not this should be a concern of the federal government but, if nothing else, it once again demonstrates the hypocrisy of the left and of this administration. As usual, this is an example from this administration to “Do as I say, not as I do.”

This is the same administration that believes that everyone who makes more than $200,000 a year should pay more in taxes but has a tax cheat as its Secretary of the Treasury. It is an administration that says the populace must tighten its belt, but spends at a record pace. It is an administration that tells corporations not to hold conferences in Las Vegas, but spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on lavish vacations. It is an administration that cancels the school voucher program in Washington, DC, the worst public school system in the nation, and then sends its children to exclusive private schools. It is an administration that calls its political opponents “enemies” and “hostage takers”, then says we need to tone down our rhetoric.

This is a President that, when speaking on abortions, states that, “The government should not intrude on private family matters,” yet wants to not allow me to have fries with my Happy Meal.

This administration cannot be taken seriously on anything it says. Its only driving philosophy is to exert more and more control over your life. Every decision it has made, from health care to “net neutrality” to food has this as its ultimate goal. They want to you to sacrifice for their benefit. Do you really think the Obamas are going to be subject to Obamacare?

Americans need to be aware of their eroding liberties and stand against this administration. They must pressure their elected representatives to obstruct whatever increases the power of the federal government to the detriment of individual liberty and self-determination. Today it may be trans-fats, tomorrow, who knows?

Completing the Job

All the bell ringing and cheering you heard today was conservatives celebrating the turnover of the House of Representatives. It is a celebration well earned. Riding the enthusiasm of the grass-roots Tea Party and driven by a public that is tired of an out-of-touch, out-of-control Congress, the landslide election of last November 2 culminated in John Boehner taking the gavel of leadership from Nancy Pelosi. As one wag on Twitter said, “It will be nice to have a Speaker who won’t call us Nazis.”

There was reason to celebrate on the Senate side, also. The highly intelligent, Pat Toomey, replaces the execrable, Arlen Specter, as the Senator from Pennsylvania, thereby effecting a dramatic leap in the cumulative IQ of the upper house, even though Sens. Barbara Boxer and Debbie Stabenow continue to act as an anchor on that statistic. Probably the new Senator who caused the biggest stir, however, is Florida Senator, Marco Rubio. A young, handsome, well-spoken conservative of Cuban descent and Tea Party darling, many expect that Rubio may, one day, wind up in the Oval Office.

But while today was a day of celebration, we must keep in mind that the job is only half done. No, I’m not speaking of the 2012 elections when, hopefully, a conservative will ascend to the Presidency and, my personal project, Debbie Stabenow is returned to private life as part of a Senate take-over by Republicans. I am speaking of our duty to serve as citizen watchdogs over our government.

So far, the Republicans have said all the right things. They realize that they were not elected because everyone loves the Republican Party, but that they were elected because the people thought they might suck less than the Democrats. While that will no doubt be true, the bar is set pretty low and, frankly, past experience with the Republicans is not particularly encouraging.

Each party comes to Washington promising that, this time, things will be different. Each promises to govern responsibly, and each rapidly succumbs to the temptations of power and knuckles to the pressure of their leadership.

In no Congress in my lifetime, and possibly ever, was this more evident than in the 111^th Congress. In spite of spirited confrontations in town hall meetings and polls ranging greater than 60% of the American people opposed, the Democrat controlled Congress disregarded public sentiment and rammed through the highly unpopular Health Care Affordability Act as only one of its many legislative abuses. Multiple statements by the Democratic congressional leadership and the President demonstrated the disdain held for the very people they were sent to Washington to represent.

Much of the problem with the Democrats in the 111^th Congress is that they interpreted their large margin of victory with a popular mandate for their policies, rather than the response of a war-weary country and an unpopular President. The Republicans in the 112^th Congress must avoid this same temptation, and it is up to those who elected them to make sure that they do.

So celebrate tonight, because the second half of the job starts tomorrow. Those of us who are conservative must remain vigilant and hold our Congress critter’s feet to the fire. We must make sure that they understand that it really can no longer be business as usual. Conservatives cannot any longer allow Republicans to get away with fiscal or legislative irresponsibility simply because they are Republicans. Our new Congress critters must understand that they represent the people and will be held accountable for their actions. If not, they should understand that they will go the way of their predecessors.

So get ready, conservatives. We’ve still got a long way to go.

Obama’s War on Me

If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, "We’re going to punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us," if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election, then I think it’s going to be harder, and that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2. – Barack Obama, Univision Interview, Oct. 25, 2010 (emphasis mine.)

That’s right. I am one of the President’s enemies, as are at least 60% of the rest of the country. Apparently, anyone who thinks that illegal immigration is, you know, illegal and dangerous to the sovereignty and safety of our country is an enemy and should be punished, according to our President. In fact, just the fact that you are reading this means that chances are good that you are an enemy of the President, as well.

Of course, this is not surprising. I knew the President held me in low regard before this. He has, at various times, described me as a bitter man, clinging to my guns and religion selfish, and racist. (Full disclosure - I don’t own any guns, but I will admit to clinging to my religion, though I’m pretty sure that Obama didn’t mean that as a compliment.) Just recently, he used the racially charged Jim Crow term to consign me to ride “in the back” of the bus, a phrase that would have been loudly denounced had it come from a conservative, and rightly so.

In Obama’s America, no one has an honest difference of opinion with him. Anyone who disagrees with him has malign intentions and are not opponents to be engaged and debated, but are enemies to be punished. We have seen plenty of evidence of this, such as when the White House tried to institute a boycott of FOX News – a move that failed due to the unexpected spine of the other news networks and the fact that no one hardly watches any other news, anymore.

It is an incredible thing when an American President declares that those with ideological differences are enemies, a designation, let it be known, that Obama will not utter in speaking of Iran, Hezbollah, or other of America’s enemies throughout the world. In fact, the same President who has called me an enemy, shook Hugo Chavez’s hand and addressed him as, “Mi amigo” (my friend.)

This is quite a departure from a candidate who campaigned as a post-partisan, post-racial “uniter, not a divider.” In fact, not since Woodrow Wilson has a president been more divisive. Can anyone imagine Ike, Reagan, Clinton, either Bush, or, yes, even Nixon refer to the majority of Americans as his enemy?

Six weeks after his inauguration, I wrote an article describing how it was obvious that President Obama was in over his head, an article for which I lost at least a couple of friends who, in true liberal fashion, accused me of racism. That is a common tactic of the left – if you can’t argue facts and policy, revert to racism as a conversation-stopper, a temptation that even our “post-racial” President can’t resist. At the mid-point of his first term, however, I am being vindicated by the fact that it appears as if the President’s political party is about to suffer an electoral defeat of near-epic proportions, based on his policies and his accomplishments. He has demonstrated himself to be intellectually vapid and morally vacuous. He is a small man in a big job.

We cannot have a President who thinks of greater than half of Americans as “the enemy.” We have seen that he will not hesitate to push cramming legislation down the throats of a majority of Americans who express a vociferous opposition, simply because he believes that he is right and those who disagree are stupid, special interest shills, racists, or all the above. It is essential that Americans elect a Congress that can stand up to the President and, yes, obstruct some of that destructive legislation. It is a further imperative that this man is a one-term President and that we put someone in office who respects Americans and is deserving of the job.

A Clear Choice

We are one week away from a historic election. Now, I am not one to indiscriminately encourage people to get out and vote because, frankly, I believe that most Americans have no business voting. Too often, Americans know the smallest detail about how Joey Buttafuco beat Lorena Bobbitt in Dancing with the Stars, but don’t have the foggiest idea of where their politicians stand on issues or even what those issues may be. Consequently, decisions on who we will have governing our country are decided by people who vote for an individual because of the candidate’s hairstyle, because their commercial tells the most convincing lie, or because I’ve always voted for one or the other of the political parties and everyone knows that the other party is evil. In my opinion, people who have not educated themselves on the issues and the candidates have a responsibility to stay home and not vote.

This year, however, the political landscape is different and the issues are much more black and white. This has presented the voters, even those who do not follow politics closely, a clear choice. Because the Democrats have had control of the White House and a veto-proof majority in the Senate and overwhelming majority in the House of Representatives, we know exactly the governing inclinations of the Democrat party.

If you desire a large government that interposes itself in every aspect of business, even to the point of essentially buying those businesses (GM, Chrysler, multiple banks), you should vote Democrat.

If you approve of a government that tells you what commodities you must buy, whether you want it or not, and one that would fundamentally destroy the best health care system in the world, you should vote Democrat.

If it is of no concern to you that those you elect disregard the wishes of the people and pass laws because they, in their wisdom, know better than you, and then complain that you should not be offended, but should, instead, thank them for it, you should vote Democrat.

If you are fine with your elected leaders systematically denigrating large swaths of the populace and stoking racial and class division, you should vote Democrat.

If you think that it is the government’s role to tell you what you can or cannot say, listen to, or even eat, you should vote Democrat.

If you think that giving foreign enemies of our country the same rights as our citizens, if you think it is a good idea to bring them from the battlefield into our civilian courts, and if you think that returning war veterans and the Christian right are as big a threat to our country as Al Qaeda, you should vote Democrat.

If you believe that the way to increase employment is to tax those who create the vast majority of jobs in this country so that we can spend trillions of dollars in order to do things like teach men in Africa to wash their genitals after sex, study the effects of cocaine on monkeys, and build turtle tunnels under highways, you should vote Democrat.

If you truly believe that the “biggest bang for the buck” in stimulus is food stamps and unemployment insurance, you should vote Democrat.

If you believe that a stagnant 10% unemployment rate, in spite of trillions of dollars of debt incurred, more debt in the first two years of this administration than was incurred from the administrations of George Washington through George W. Bush, has placed the country, “On the right track,” you should vote Democrat.

In short, if you think that the last two years of governing has been just wonderful and that you want the country to continue in the direction it is now heading, vote Democrat.

But if you are tired of Washington treating you like you are a child who needs their guidance, if you are think that government isn’t the answer to every question, if you are a believer in the free market and in American ingenuity and exceptionalism, then vote Republican.

Frankly, given their recent track record, I am not enamored of the current crop of Republicans. But like columnist Frank J. Fleming said, the Republicans suck in the manner of a dog barking all night, but the Democrats suck like the zombie apocalypse. We can’t say that we don’t want to escape the zombies because if we do so, we’ll have to go back to listening to that stupid dog barking all night. And, hopefully, the Republicans have been paying attention and will be responsive to their constituents this time. If not, we’ll vote ‘em out in 2012. And, if nothing else, at least the gridlock will stop the destruction of our way of life that is currently occurring.

This is an extraordinarily important election and the choices couldn’t be more clear.

Obama Is Making Things Difficult For His Defenders

A couple of weeks ago, a survey was published that indicated that 18% of Americans believe President Obama is Muslim and that only 34% of Americans believe he is Christian. A plurality of Americans (43%) said they didn’t know. This was roundly met with hysteria on the side of the left and the Main Stream Media (but I repeat myself) who claimed that everything from stupidity to racism was responsible for the misunderstanding. But Obama is making it very difficult for his defenders to continue to hold to their talking points.

In addition to sitting for over 20 years in a church presided over by a hate-spewing preacher whose doctrine is anything but Christian, in addition to regularly disparaging Christians (racists clinging to their God and their guns), he continues to stumble over basic precepts. For the latest example, check out this video during his speech for a dinner sponsored by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. See if you can spot the missing phrase:

If you picked up that the inalienable rights are apparently no longer “endowed by their creator”, you may be one of those religious bigots that Obama warned us about.

Are we to believe that this “genius” President just forgot that phrase? If so, I would like to congratulate the President on weaning himself from his teleprompter, even if only for a phrase.