Littlestuff Weekender-2-11-2012

Home today following an exhausting and busy three days at CPAC. I had a chance to chat with some notables and some unknowns. Michele Bachmann and her assistant, Becky Rogness, shared a short time with us. Senator Rand Paul and former Senator and current candidate George Allen stopped for mini moments. Chip Reid of CBS News interviewed me for about 5 minutes, used approximately 12 seconds of the piece and placed it in the wrong context. Oh well, it’s the Main Stream Media and they are ideological and generally incompetent. We did encounter a 2 hour protest by the IBEW-led Occupy crowd….didn’t amount to much. Approximately 300 of the looting class failed to disrupt the producers. Looking forward to enjoying Sunday at the Little Patch of Paradise with my faithful canine companion, Frosty.

All in all CPAC is a worthwhile endeavor if you’re in to playing groupie, business card collector or fawning media watcher. This will be my final one unless I have a significant designated task for any future one (e.g. book signing, speaking or broadcasting duties). Elbow to elbow, lemming-like crowd movement is not my idea of a good time. It’s always great to renew old friendships, but the telephone and email are more private and less costly.

Dr. Paul did not address the CPAC convention, but Mitt, Newt and Rick did on Friday. Of the three Newt had the best and most raucous presentation, Mitt used more than 20 references to the word “conservative” during his speech….probably a subliminal thing, and Santorum professed to be the only clear contrast with Obama. Will their appearances and the subsequent media coverage change the dynamics of the race? Who knows?

As I traveled throughout the halls of the Marriott, it was obvious that an overwhelming number of the attendees wanted Obamacare stopped. Yet…neither McConnell nor Boehner was called out for his cowardly lack of leadership. It seemed as if the activists and their political leaders were moving in parallel universes. They all agreed about that it was bad, but no one (at least openly and publicly) attempted to hold the clowns accountable. That is my biggest regret about the CPAC gathering. I should have gone to the Boehner and McConnell speeches and risked being tossed for “dissing” them. I didn’t realize that I would have to be the only one of 6000 people who thought it necessary.

Tuesday evening from 6:00pm to 7:00pm I’ll be back on the air on the Talk of Toledo, 1370 WSPD. It’s Valentine’s Day so I may play the role of “Dr. Love.” Then again, perhaps not.  www.wspd.com

Thursday night, February 16^th, I’ll be speaking with the North Central Ohio Conservatives (NCOC) about The Fed and the economy. The meeting begins at 6:30pm and is held at the Camden Falls Complex at the intersection of US 224 and Ohio 231 on the south edge of Tiffin….right beside the Hampton Inn. If you can make it a little earlier, I’ll be eating dinner at Carmie’s in the same building. Good food and great prices are standard there.

On February 25 and 26 I’ll be in Elisabethtown, Kentucky to speak to the Libertarian Party of Kentucky. My theme will be “Why liberty? Why now?” If you are in KY, Southern Indiana or Southern Ohio, just check out the KyLP on Facebook for details and “come on down.”

Has Greece gone under….yet? What about California or Illinois? Maine selects their delegates today (Saturday).

Attorney General Eric Holder should be removed from office and prosecuted…at the very least for perjury regarding the Fast and Furious murderous debacle. He is an incompetent, lying ideologue….a dangerous combination for the Chief Law Enforcement Officer of the nation.

If you read my Friday column ”My Hall of Heroes,” you may be interested in knowing that I had more than 80 total responses from my various distribution sources. Nearly half of them “bitched” because I had left their favorite off my initial list. Good grief, the column was more than 1100 words…I had to stop somewhere. Poor persecuted me! J

Have a great weekend and a superb next week and a glorious eternal life.

cearlwriting@hotmail.com

www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com

My Hall of Heroes

In the rotunda of my mind there is a founding “Hall of Heroes.” They are people whose lives, letters and loyalty have inspired me. A few of my heroes are people of whom you’re unaware, but others are firmly ensconced in our nation’s pantheon of greatness. The more famous ones are those I will discuss today. Thanks to Wikipedia for the background and details.

Patrick Henry…

…(May 29, 1736 – June 6, 1799) was an orator and politician who led the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s. A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia from 1776 to 1779 and subsequently, from 1784 to 1786. Henry led the opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765 and is well remembered for his "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" speech. Along with Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine, he is remembered as one of the most influential exponents of Republicanism, promoters of the American Revolution and Independence, especially in his denunciations of corruption in government officials and his defense of historic rights. After the Revolution, Henry was a leader of the anti-federalists in Virginia who opposed the United States Constitution, fearing that it endangered the rights of the States, as well as the freedoms of individuals.

Thomas Paine…

…(February 9, 1737 [O.S. January 29, 1736^[1]] – June 8, 1809) was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.^[2] He has been called "a corsetmaker by trade, a journalist by profession, and a propagandist by inclination."^[3]
Born in Thetford, in the English county of Norfolk, Paine immigrated to the British American colonies in 1774 in time to participate in the American Revolution. His principal contributions were the powerful, widely read pamphlet Common Sense (1776), the all-time best-selling American book that advocated colonial America's independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, and The American Crisis (1776–1783), a pro-revolutionary pamphlet series. "Common Sense" was so influential that John Adams said, "Without the pen of the author of 'Common Sense,' the sword of Washington would have been raised in vain.”^[4]

Samuel Adams…

…(September 27 [O.S. September 16] 1722 – October 2, 1803) was an American statesman, political philosopher, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. As a politician in colonial Massachusetts, Adams was a leader of the movement that became the American Revolution, and was one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism that shaped the political culture of the United States. He was a second cousin to President John Adams.
Born in Boston, Adams was brought up in a religious and politically active family. A graduate of Harvard College, he was an unsuccessful businessman and tax collector before concentrating on politics. As an influential official of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and the Boston Town Meeting in the 1760s, Adams was a part of a movement opposed to the British Parliament's efforts to tax the British American colonies without their consent. His 1768 circular letter calling for colonial cooperation prompted the occupation of Boston by British soldiers, eventually resulting in the Boston Massacre of 1770. To help coordinate resistance to what he saw as the British government's attempts to violate the British Constitution at the expense of the colonies, in 1772 Adams and his colleagues devised a committee of correspondence system, which linked like-minded Patriots throughout the Thirteen Colonies. Continued resistance to British policy resulted in the 1773 Boston Tea Party and the coming of the American Revolution.
After Parliament passed the Coercive Acts in 1774, Adams attended the Continental Congress in Philadelphia, which was convened to coordinate a colonial response. He helped guide Congress towards issuing the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and helped draft the Articles of Confederation and the Massachusetts Constitution. Adams returned to Massachusetts after the American Revolution, where he served in the state senate and was eventually elected governor.
Samuel Adams is a controversial figure in American history. Accounts written in the 19th century praised him as someone who had been steering his fellow colonists towards independence long before the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. This view gave way to negative assessments of Adams in the first half of the 20th century, in which he was portrayed as a master of propaganda who provoked mob violence to achieve his goals. Both of these interpretations have been challenged by some modern scholars, who argue that these traditional depictions of Adams are myths contradicted by the historical record.

David Crockett not a Founder but an excellent example of our early spirit…

…(August 17, 1786 – March 6, 1836) was a celebrated 19th century American folk hero, frontiersman, soldier and politician. He is commonly referred to in popular culture by the epithet "King of the Wild Frontier". He represented Tennessee in the U.S. House of Representatives, served in the Texas Revolution, and died at the Battle of the Alamo.
Crockett grew up in East Tennessee, where he gained a reputation for hunting and storytelling. After being elected to the rank of colonel in the militia of Lawrence County, Tennessee, he was elected to the Tennessee state legislature in 1821. In 1826, Crockett was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Congressman Crockett vehemently opposed many of the policies of President Andrew Jackson, most notably the Indian Removal Act. Crockett's opposition to Jackson's policies led to his defeat in the 1834 elections, prompting his angry departure to Texas shortly thereafter. In early 1836, Crockett took part in the Texas Revolution and was killed at the Battle of the Alamo in March.

Thomas Jefferson…

…(April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743 O.S.) – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence (1776) and the third President of the United States (1801–1809).
At the beginning of the American Revolution, Jefferson served in the Continental Congress, representing Virginia. He then served as a wartime Governor of Virginia (1779–1781), barely escaping capture by the British in 1781. Just after the war ended, from mid-1784 Jefferson served as a diplomat, stationed in Paris, initially as a commissioner to help negotiate commercial treaties. In May 1785, he became the United States Minister to France. He was the first United States Secretary of State (1790–1793). During the administration of President George Washington, Jefferson advised against a national bank and the Jay Treaty. Upon leaving office, with his close friend James Madison he organized the Democratic-Republican Party to oppose Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton's policies, especially his desire to create a national bank. As Vice-President opposed to John Adams, Jefferson with Madison secretly wrote the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which attempted to nullify the Alien and Sedition Acts and formed the basis of states' rights.

Although these five are my heroes, it should be evident from their brief biographies that none were infallible. It doesn’t require perfect people to secure liberty. It takes passionate persistent ones to smash the shackles of tyranny.

Comment: cearlwriting@hotmail.com
www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com

Split Decisions

Pundits have characterized current social and political discourse as “polarizing.” They claim that individuals and groups with varying positions have “dug in” and are stubbornly promoting their positions and not allowing for civil disagreement or “progress” on vexing issues. They seem to believe that every problem has a solution and every disagreement can be settled by consensus. My difficulty with that observation is that their “solutions” and their “answers” usually involve the growth of government…..locally, statewide or nationally. For example if my point of view is that the problem under consideration is not a constitutional requirement for government, my position is absolute…..any other solution must include government. So if I seek “common ground” with my opponents, I am in essence denying my original principle of no government involvement.

Put another way….if your position is “zero” on a scale and your foe is at “100” on the scale, any movement by YOU is a surrender of principle. A movement by your opponent is still a partial victory for him, and with the inevitable sliding and growing of government the ultimate rating will be greater than 100. Yet, if you or I refuse to violate our principles, we are ostracized for holding fast to our polarizing positions. Aside from whom our daughters choose to marry, most other highly contentious debates and disagreements are centered on the role of government in our lives.

National Healthcare

Our most recent national debate over the role of the federal government in our personal healthcare is nearly a century old. It impacts every region, every interest group and every person in our country. Some of us who rightly, I believe and know, resist extending government’s reach into our health and well-being are thought to be intransigent and uncompassionate because we appear to be denying quality healthcare for the less fortunate. At the present time our governments already control roughly half of the healthcare spending in the United States. The “poor” as defined by the government’s own statistics represent 25% or fewer of the population. It should be clear that if the poor are underserved with healthcare, the government is failing to properly use the resources they have already confiscated from taxpayers. Why then would any reasonable person be willing risk the integrity of the healthcare system by giving them more power and additional resources? Yet, those who want more government control and those of us who believe governments exercise too much already are polarizing the issue. We are asked to find a common ground (somewhere between 50% and 100%) so that the nation can move forward. I believe the best common ground is less than 10% involvement for government….just enough for battlefield medics and military hospitals. There is no common ground. Statists, big government socialist advocates must be defeated…..or we shall lose. There is no common ground.

EPA Overreaching

Though they may seem to be a national issue, the practices of Richard Nixon’s rogue agency EPA are very regional or local with their negative impact. Along with other bloated agencies the EPA has come very close to placing a stranglehold on the commerce of the United States of America, but it has done so by intruding into one business, one community or one property at a time. In addition its broad scale interventions into the marketplace have placed burdens on our producers that severely limit our global competitive stature. So therefore, if the EPA continually expands its portfolio and control over our lives and our abilities to earn productive wages, where is the common ground if someone seeks to limit my capacity for living and producing? The local nature of most egregious EPA actions allows it to run rampant over our freedom. The “not in my backyard” attitude of too many citizens gives the EPA license to run roughshod over my liberty, and as long as they are not directly or negatively impacted, they allow it…..perhaps even applaud it. There is no middle ground between my stance for freedom and the EPA desire to control my life. There is no middle ground.

When liberty or freedom are at stake….particularly mine and yours if you care about it…….there can be no middle ground. Almost free is not free. In fact I would argue that when government is the controlling agent, “almost free” means that before too long you will be noticeably less free as government increases its power. There is no middle ground. There is liberty, and there is tyranny. Oh yes, we can at times voluntarily subordinate our own desires for the common good….but to yield them to government means that our freedoms will never be returned to us. Polarization is absolutely necessary when freedom is in jeopardy and government control is the alternative. My greatest frustration with the Republican Party has been is willingness to trade away my freedom despite its stated philosophy and numerous party platforms. It has been eager to sacrifice my personal liberty so that the GOP can share power with Democrats, socialists and progressives. I find that position repulsive and unacceptable because there is no middle ground. I will not stand there, and I shall not seek it. It is here for liberty I stand….. first, foremost and forever.

Comment:  cearlwriting@hotmail.com

www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com

    

Fearing Nothing

Many of our citizens in these United States of America fear nothing. It’s not because they are especially courageous or totally unaware. No, it’s because many now fear our government, and government, by extended definition, is nothing. Despite the thousands of granite buildings with marble floors and the legions of munchkin-like bureaucrats scurrying through the halls, the government is nothing more than an idea….a concept….a construct….a fabrication created from the minds of men. It is an artifice that over time will devolve into an historical artifact.

“That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed,-

From the Declaration of Independence, July, 1776 (emphasis added).

There are some people who believe that government should be the dominate initiator and factor in the lives of the people. Oddly many of these very people who are willing to submit to an artificial construct like government are critical of granting personhood to corporations. Corporations mirror government in the sense that they are created from whole cloth….from nothing into something. The role of stockholders very closely resembles that of citizens in a state. The corporation and the government are entities that exist only in the abstract. Their reality is subject to what they represent. No land, no people equals no government. No product, no stockholders and no commerce yield a shell corporation…an existence in name only with no productive function. It seems reasonable to me that if we were to view government with the same jaundiced eye that we behold corporations, our fear of government’s potential for harm would be minimized. True, a government often achieves a “life” of its own and readily employs force to assure compliance with its dictates, but the ultimate consideration should be that government does not, cannot exist on its own without the willing compliance of the people. If the people are truly aware of the proper dynamics and status in the servant-master relationship, government would instantly become toothless and ineffectual. True, the nature of government, openly tyrannical or otherwise, is to resort to force and violence to maintain its stature. A public that is totally aware of the “nothingness” of government…that NO government can exist without either the endorsement or willful obedience of the people, will force the government either to conform to their wishes or be dissolved or overthrown.

"When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."

                                                                                    Thomas Jefferson

Why should we fear “nothing”… an entity that cannot exist but with our approval? Of course, the realistic fear of the government’s use of force and perhaps violence can cause the bravest among us to hesitate … to falter. Consider that one, two or three weak men can subdue a strong person. Doesn’t it follow that an irate and committed populace could subdue the most oppressive state if all, or most, were united to achieve that outcome? What the people lack in power and resources could be overcome with numbers and passion. The primary obstacle for restoring our nation is one of attitude. Too many of us are self-delusional. We cannot accept that our government has grown beyond its purpose and has morphed into a malevolent malignancy. Like any other type of cancer it will continue to grow, to metastasize unless it stopped and excised. Its deadly force growths more lethal with each passing day, and the treatment can be much more successful in the early stages of the disease. Just like cancer affects the body, an aggressive government destroys its host….gnawing and consuming until the body politic collapses from exhaustion. We must never lose sight of the reality that we own our bodies and have the sacred responsibility to repel corrosive invaders. When there is no host or body, cancer loses its strength and its power. If the people of the nation refuse to countenance a malicious and vicious over-reaching government, its days will be numbered.

“O Lord, truly I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant; you have freed me from my chains.”

                                                                                 Psalm 116:16(NIV)

For those of us who profess to be Believers, there are no excuses, no alibis, and no rationalizations for our reluctance to battle a government that smothers our freedom. The Creator gave us Liberty, and as with any other gift from Him, we must express our gratitude through obedience. He did not grant us freedom so that we could squander it through inaction and cowardice. As has been noted earlier, government is not tangible. It exists only through the assent of the governed. Some might protest that despots have maintained power throughout human history despite lacking popular support. I would counter that we have numerous instances of people overthrowing their oppressive governments when their anger overrides their caution or fear. How much easier it would be for a nation that still enjoys some remnant of freedom to rise up and dismantle a growing repressive state.

The state (government) should neither be honored nor feared. It must be controlled. It is the obligation of the people to assume and exercise that control. It is our moral duty. We must preserve something and never fear “nothing.”

Comment: cearlwriting@hotmail.com

www.littlestuff-minoosha.blogspot.com

On the air for Brian Wilson on the Afternoon Drive Show, 3-6:00pm, Monday and Tuesday, and our regular show Tuesday 6-7:00pm. On the Talk of Toledo, 1370 WSPD.  www.wspd.com