Years ago, I concluded that America was trending leftward politically due to factors such as liberal education, liberal mainstream media, and the changing culture of America. There are many other factors as well, given that we have achieved, as a society, something that may have seemed impossible to generations of the past: ignorance through over-information. Right now, human beings living in America can only remember so much, a slogan here, a jingle there because we live in a society where TV commercials, billboards, spam email, pop-up ads, product placement, and countless other sources (like this blog) are trying to get our attention. Yet mass propaganda has been a specialty of the Left for more than a century, because Leftist ideology is an ideology of the masses, not individuals or human rights. American society is tilting further and further to the left because of this. I say this because it comes from personal experience… let me explain: I am a person of Latin American descent, the eldest son in an immigrant family that came with nothing to this country, and my first language was Spanish. We lived in a one-room apartment in a seedy area of Miami during the days when crack and cocaine overran the streets. I have family members who ended up on drugs, imprisoned, and killed due to the street life. My upbringing was decidedly urban, a mixture of Latin culture, urban music, and street slang. I went to public school where they taught me that affirmative action, welfare, and Keynesianism were all good things. They taught me that the great Presidents were all Democrats (except for Lincoln): FDR, JFK, LBJ, etc. They taught me that ethnic and racial diversity should be mandated. In other words, my experiences within the system was pretty much the formula for creating a “class-conscious,” tax-the-rich, reverse-racist liberal. So why did I overcome these influences and decide on embracing liberty instead of liberalism? There are two reasons for this: the first is that I am an individual and never allowed myself to be sucked into ways of thinking just because it was the popular thing, the second is that I read.

It is rather curious how I became conservative, especially since I accepted a lot of the things that liberalism holds to be true when I was younger, like seeing the world as black, white, brown, yellow, etc. One reason that turned me against the Democrats at a young age stemmed from the fact that they categorized me as “Cuban-American” and I accepted that label… unfortunately for liberals, when Cuban exiles mounted up, landed on the beaches of Cuba with rifle in hand ready to depose the most brutal dictator ever seen in this hemisphere, it was a Democratic president, John F. Kennedy, that refused to provide the promised air support and left my fellow Cubans to die at the hands of the communists. So while they brand me a Cuban-American, their own actions towards Cubans and Cuban-Americans make me more aware of what they, as a party, have done to us, as an ethnic group. So immediately, in my mind, the halo around JFK started to dissipate and I started to question what it was that made him supposedly great. Nice speeches? Great expectations? He had the chance to end communism once and for all in the Americas… this would have meant no Cuban Missile Crisis, no communist guerrilla war in Colombia, no Hugo Chavez, etc. etc. etc. He squandered this great opportunity.

While the liberals taught me that “white” Americans were racist and thought themselves as superior, I came to conclude that racism was a bad thing… but that is where liberals wanted me to stop, they did not want me to actually think. So I, at a young age, realized that if it was wrong of one race to prejudge or discriminate against another, then it must be wrong the other way around, thus blacks and Latins should not be racist towards whites. So when I was told that qualifications were secondary when it comes to getting accepted into college, that first they consider the racial composition (skewed in favor of minorities) of the student body (I am simplifying a bit to make a point), I immediately realized that this was another form of racism and it was completely illogical. The inherent contradiction in liberalism made it clear that it was not “racial justice” that Democrats care about, it is a political maneuver to keep people thinking that they are oppressed somehow and to keep them voting for Democrats.

One of the biggest political influences on my life was Das Kapital and The Manifesto of the Communist Party, mainly because I was revolted by these ideas. The former was a text of utter incompetence written in rich complexity. The latter was a blueprint for a totalitarian state written in clear, direct prose. Both form the foundation for modern American liberalism (in my opinion), from the insistence on absolute secularism to the wealth redistribution methods to the interpretation of History as a perpetual conflict between rich and poor, almost everything that Democrats represent is Marxist. My thorough understanding of this philosophy turned me completely against liberalism… I have always believed in freedom, human rights, responsibility, and I believe that one should be able to enjoy the fruits of his or her labor. There are those who say “yeah, but communism is good on paper, it just doesn’t work in real life,” those who say that either a) have never read Marx or b) do not understand it. It does not work even on paper. If you are one of those, I advise you to reread the books mentioned, it is a blueprint for totalitarianism… read about Bakunin too. Here’s a quick, less known quote from the Communist Manifesto: “Abolition of the family! Even the most radical flare up at this infamous proposal of the Communists.” Is it any wonder that Democrats are not considered friendly to “family values?”

In sum, my life experience has been an experiment in liberal social engineering and I believe that I am one of the lucky few who emerged with a strong rejection of socialism and a stronger belief in freedom. Because of this, I no longer see myself as part of some group, as a race or an ethnicity, I see myself as an individual, an American. Sadly, most of my peers fell into the liberal trap and continue to twist logic to fit the world-view inculcated by the liberal education we receive on a daily basis. I believe that my path away from liberalism is relatively unique because it is not based on a strong family tradition nor a strong religious background nor a conservative social environment nor even the traditional “Cuban-American” stereotype that we are all Republicans… politics was not discussed all that much in the family, politics cost my family so much back in Cuba (imprisonment for political reasons, blacklisting, family separation) that here in the United States we focused more on living the American Dream. There are signs that the leftward movement of this country might not be inevitable, reading this article about how independents are becoming a larger part of the electorate gives me hope, especially since the current Democratic regime is losing their support rather quickly. From my perspective, there is only one thing that can save Americans from this national liberal indoctrination: the truth. Let’s hope that people keep trying to seek it.

-AG

Well, it has been a hectic week so I haven’t been able to post recently, but my life is stabilizing so worry not, I will be back to posting as frequently as before. I’ve missed you guys and gals out there, whoever you are.

By now, most people are aware that Ted Kennedy succumbed to brain cancer, may he rest in peace. He was known as one of the most liberal members of Congress and was a driving force behind many projects of the Left throughout the decades. His principal issue was health care reform and he favored a universal government-centric system. He called it the “cause of my life.” Now that he has passed, what I see is the Leftist machinery start to do what the Communist machinery did in Cuba: use the death of a national figure as a bludgeon. In Cuba, it was Che Guevara, a person who was essentially sent on a suicide mission abroad to start communist revolutions in Latin America, and his death was ruthlessly and coldly marketed by the Castro regime, having young children recite songs in his honor. While the leftists in America may not go quite that far, I have started to see them start the exploitation of Kennedy’s death.

First I read this article, that called to honor Kennedy by passing universal health care and made the sensationalist (and completely false) claim that 14 million Americans are losing their health coverage every day. First of all, the wishes of one man should not determine whether or not we pass a national government-run health care program. If he wished that the Constitution be repealed would we heed the calls to honor his wishes and change this nation overnight? Of course not. He was a legislator with many ideas, let’s not use his death as an excuse to suspend debate on any or all of them.

Of course, the Democrats in Washington never let a crisis go to waste and they are going to politically use Kennedy’s passing as much as possible. Consider that Senator Robert Byrd, a West Virginia Democrat, has proposed renaming the health care bill after Ted Kennedy, could he be more opportunist? Imagine how it would look if anyone voted against the bill. Again, the exploitation of the Kennedy name continues.

It does not end with the Democrats, even in the mainstream media (surprise surprise) Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball, called Barack Obama the “last brother.” Of course, no conservative commentator could ever get away with calling Obama a “brother,” but despite the racial connotation, to knight the current president as a symbolic brother of the Kennedy’s is, again, exploitation of the highest order.

These are just a few examples of what is typical among the Left, exploitation of the death of a national figure. It figures from the illogical promotion of the idea that Kennedy’s death had something to do with the current health care reform debate, that his death was actually a martyrdom. It was not. It is very sad that he got sick and died, even with the extra health care he received, extra care that, as Mike Huckabee said, would not have been possible if not for the choice offered by having a private, competitive health care system. People have criticized Huckabee for saying what he said, but he spoke plainly and truthfully about Obama’s plan. You can see it for yourself below, Obama says that “we as a… society” (that’s code for government) should step in to make decisions about end of life care, crassly saying that maybe instead of trying an expensive or risky surgery, grandma should just take a pain pill. This is what choice is about, it should not be the government that decides this, it should be the patient.

The truth is that we should not be throwing around Ted Kennedy’s name around in the health care debate or using it as a political bludgeon, neither side. It would be best if both sides just stick to the facts about Kennedy’s life and beliefs, but not try to “load” the current health care debate with emotional responses to Kennedy’s passing.

-AG

Ladies and gentlemen, this is insanity! See this short video below:

I had not seen this before, but he was already planning his “change” and telling us to our faces about the radical direction he wanted to take this country. Is this what Organizing for America and ACORN are about, the seeds of a future paramilitary organization? This was done in Germany by Adolph Hitler: the Schutzstaffel (SS). It exists in Venezuela under Chavez: the Bolivarian National Militia. It exists in Iran under the Ayatollahs: the Basij militia. Will it now come to be, right under our noses, here in the United States? I thought this was America, people!

-AG

I was thinking of starting a new blog called NeoSocialista and the posts would look something like this:

“Today I woke up thinking how crappy my life is. I live in a country where there is racism, sexism, classism, xenophobia, homophobia, and, the big ‘C,’ capitalism. After I had my ten dollar morning coffee with whipped cream from Starbucks, I got to thinking how great life would be if Obama finally got through his health care reform… I mean really got through what he wanted, not the watered-down public option that he’s being forced to pass by these neanderthal Republicans who want us back in caves beating our women. Seriously, health care is a human right that should be given (by our loving government) to all people just like the right to (im)migration across recognized, international borders (like the one between us and Mexico) or the right for women to choose at the end of eight months or so if they want to abort their babies, err… I mean, fetuses. Obama should simply focus on passing his ultimate goal: single-payer health care. Instead, we have all these paid, right-wing operatives who show up at these town hall meetings with their walkers and canes making a scene and demanding answers. Don’t these people realize that Obama knows best? He went to Harvard for goodness sake! I hope that if single-payer does kick in, the rationing boards will take their age into account, I mean seriously, how can our society progress with all these reactionary, right-wing, fascistic old people still stuck mentally in the Cold War? On top of that, they don’t even work anymore and as a society we need to make these tough choices, otherwise we’ll be dragged down.

Luckily for the rest of us young and productive members of society we can rest assured that we will have health care paid for and on top of it all, it will be for free! At least for the regular Joe’s like you and me, since we are going to tax these greedy capitalists dry for their crimes. Greed is so terrible, I wish there were no rich people. Anyways, like I said, we’ll tax the rich so that we can pay for all these social services and hopefully, make this world a better place. This is the change I wanted and the change I voted for. Furthermore, I think that the health care battle will help bring everyone to the same level where rich and poor, black and white, homosexual and heterosexual, male and female, non-citizen and citizen will all sit side by side waiting for their appointed physician to come and take a look at them. Of course, we also have to consider that the white majority of this country has gotten better health care than all the other minorities, so it would be best if black, Latinos, and other minorities get first dibs on the doctors and the treatments. After all, these people need help so they can be equal to whites and whites are already in such good shape, even white European immigrants since the system was in their favor since they got here (it gets tricky when the white person is also a homosexual or if they are mixed race, but we’ll let the government sort that out). It feels so good, doesn’t it, to send white people to the back of the line? Hopefully, this will finally make it clear that their past racism was bad. Civil Rights wasn’t enough for them to realize it. Affirmative action wasn’t enough either. I mean look at all the fuss that these Republicans and conservatives are making over our first black president, he’s done such wonderful things, like making friends with dictators and promising better treatment for suspected terrorists, but they keep attacking him…. because he’s black of course. Even the libertarians are getting in on it. I have been reporting all of them to flag@whitehouse.gov and I hope that the administration does something about these Reagan-loving crazies.

Come to think of it, we need to have more minorities in government. Sotomayor was a great start but the right-wing conspirators kept wanting to look at her record and tried to make her answer questions about her past. These tactics are reprehensible. Just because she said that Latina women make better judgments than white men doesn’t mean she is racist and just because she said that “court is where policy is made” doesn’t make her a judicial activist. She’s just being honest and the fascists in this country can’t take it. You go, girl! Anyways, back to my depressing life, wondering when my dear president will level the playing field and knock out capitalism once and for all. I wish I lived in North Korea! That’s a place where people are living in harmony.”

I wonder if people would relate more to this blog than NeoRepublica? To tell you the truth I would never start such a blog, I’m too worried that they would.

-AG

Today, California Rep. Maxine Waters called on president Obama to keep pushing for public option and called some anti-public option “Neanderthals.” Maxine Waters is a profound disappointment. She is the person who publicly called for the nationalization of, actually for “socializing,” oil companies for the prices to come down. Here’s the video:

Can we call her a socialist? Yes we can! It should come as no surprise to conservatives everywhere that any time there is some financial problem, the Democrats, and sometimes the Republicans too, offer the same-old, tired prescription that they have always offered: more government control. But I digress. Waters is a piece of work. I guess that whenever a Senator exercises their God-given, Constitutional right to disagree with the President, according to Maxine Waters, that Senator is a “Neanderthal.” Or maybe it’s something else?

Here is a letter from Maxine Waters to the leader of Communism in the western hemisphere, Fidel Castro, where she apologizes for voting on a resolution that requests the extradition of a Black Panther fugitive who is wanted for murder, bank robbery, and kidnapping who is currently being granted asylum in Cuba. What is amazing about this letter is that she humbles herself before a mass murdering dictator, complaining about the Republican Party, and defends someone who is accused of multiple federal crimes, including murder. Her excuse is that sovereign nations have the legitimate right to grant political asylum (she regards murder a “political” act it seems) and she does not want to infringe on that… but is she being honest? During the whole Elian Gonzalez fiasco, I don’t remember her saying that the United States had the right to grant the child asylum, in fact, she said the opposite, that the Elian issue needed to be decided by parental rights and not any “right” of a sovereign nation to grant asylum. So she believes that a child escaping Castro’s gulag needs to be sent back to be re-educated while a suspected bank robber, kidnapper, and murderer should remain living in safety. Makes sense, don’t it?

Elian looks happy right?

It makes sense if you understand why Maxine Waters thinks that anti-public option senators are Neanderthals while she goes on repeated visits to see Fidel Castro in Cuba. Seriously, of what worth is her opinion if she believes that the totalitarian, mass murdering leader of communist Cuba is a decent human being, while senators that are opposed to increased government intrusion in the economy, senators opposed to socialism, are supposedly subhuman? From Stalin’s war on kulaks to Hitler’s rampant antisemitism to Castro’s demonization of exile “gusanos” (worms), totalitarian regimes use dehumanization as a technique to oppress particular segments of their populations and this is the very technique that Waters is currently employing by branding opposition senators as subhuman. Socialists and communists have used these tactics for more than a century, name-calling and dehumanization. I am sick and tired of liberals genuflecting before portraits of Castro and Che Guevara while they try to trample over the Constitution en masse. I am sick and tired of Maxine Waters, Castro apologist and socialist. Maxine Waters needs to look in the mirror and consider who the real Neanderthal is…

-AG

I was reading this blog post on the Florida Progressive Coalition Blog, Florida’s most useful idiots, where they assert that Barack Hussein Obama is not a socialist, because the socialists say so. To begin with, the socialists in this country would never feed into the accusations that Obama is a socialist because it would only push their agenda back by giving the Right more evidence about his socialist-ness. So in itself, the Socialist Party’s rejection of Obama means nothing. The interesting thing is that if you read their reasons for rejecting him, you realize that he actually is a socialist, about 100%.

First, the Socialist Party USA’s spokesperson asserts that socialists advocate direct nationalization of the financial industry. Apparently, buying and controlling majority stake in several major financial institutions is not going far enough. The only difference between what the administration has done and direct nationalization is that the government has taken over certain companies and banks “temporarily.” We saw that the government took majority stake in GM, unions were given majority stake of Chrysler, so far this year 81 banks have been seized by the state, and the government has huge stakes in several major banks… at what point can we cry nationalization? Politically, direct nationalization is impossible in America, no matter how loved the dear leader is. So the government takes the first approach, de facto nationalization and a second approach, destroying private industry. This is evident in the Cap-and-Trade proposal that, in Obama’s own, un-spun words, would “bankrupt” the coal industry. This is evident in the Public Option plan that the Obama administration was pushing, one that would be taxpayer-funded and would destroy smaller private insurers. So when the socialists say that Obama is not pursuing nationalization, their real concern is the speed at which Obama destroys private enterprise and increases government control. Obama’s socialism is socialism by increments.

On the issue of Health Care Reform, the socialists point out that Obama wants to create mandates that would force people to buy health insurance and therefore, they reason, that this actually helps the private insurance industry and is not a socialist plan. Either the socialists are lying or their are oblivious to reality. If the administration introduces a “public option” that is cheaper and subsidized, then the mandates will disproportionately help the government-run insurance program and end up destroying the rest of the industry, except for the very expensive ones. Mandates coupled with a public option of some sort will only accelerate government’s control of health care… but from all indications, it looks like the mandates have been dropped. Obama has made it clear that he favors single-payer universal health care but cannot get there right now and that the best way is to get there through a public option program. Socialists want single-payer right now. Again, it’s an issue of speed, not goals. Obama’s socialism is socialism by increments.

On the last issue of war policy, again the problem that the socialists have is that Obama has not called for a complete withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. Apparently, Obama is not defeatist enough. What the administration has done is plan to significantly reduce the number of troops in Iraq while somewhat increasing our presence in Afghanistan. His policy is one that decidedly draws us down and eventually takes us out of the region completely. Already, administration officials are in secret talks with the Taliban, probably planning our exit from there as well. Again, it’s an issue of speed, not goals. Obama’s socialism is socialism by increments.

So, is Obama a socialist? In my opinion, he tends towards socialism. He is taking an incremental approach to socialism in this country, particularly because Americans would never stand for such a society and the Constitution does not grant the federal government the necessary powers to become a full socialist state. Little by little, through a progressive taxation scheme that has the top 5% pay more taxes than the bottom 95%, through class and social divisions like affirmative action and identity politics, through the de facto nationalization of whole industries, and through massive federal spending, the government bureaucrats and socialists are inching their way towards socialism. Americans need live and vote like we are only one inch away from this “worker’s paradise.”

-AG

The Health Care Reform debate rages on. Now, people are starting to look at what Republican Mitt Romney did as governor of Democratic Massachusetts to create an almost-universal health care system. Personally, I am not a big fan of Romney, though I have respect for his accomplishments and think that he has some very good ideas. The MA model for health care provides many lessons for us as we discuss an even more government-intrusive health care system. The first problem I have with “RomneyCare” is the fact that it is based on “mandates,” a government-enforced obligation of all citizens to purchase health insurance simply because they have “health.” This essentially benefits the health insurance industry in general because it expands the size of the market, by force. I disagree with mandates because I do not think that the state should be in the business of telling people what to buy and what not to buy, it is another form of redistributing wealth, only in this case the wealth goes form the general population to corporations. The Obama plan is considering, or was considering, mandates for businesses and/or individuals. So does it make sense, in the current recessionary economic climate, for people and businesses to reduce their purchasing power by mandating that they spend a percentage of it on health insurance? Not really.

The next issue is addressed in this article by a New Hampshire physician: a shortage of primary care physicians. Right now in MA, the average wait time for a new patient looking for a primary care physician is one to two months. So the predictions of long lines and long waiting periods are not exaggerations, they are a necessary by-product of a universal health care system that has a scarcity of primary care physicians. Economically and logically speaking, the only way that we can change this is to have government pay these physicians more, but this would only increase the cost of health care in this country and bankrupt us even faster. In other words, if we enact a near-universal system like MA, we will be stuck with choosing between long lines or national bankruptcy. We have already heard the horror story of the Canadian woman who may have died if she kept waiting for Canada’s universal health care system to help her instead of coming to the US for treatment:

Since the MA system is essentially a government program, it has come in over budget and will end up costing billions more than initially expected. Given that Obama’s plan is slated to cost $1 trillion, it is probable that the real cost will be much higher. With higher costs, we have higher deficits and/or higher taxes.

The fun part of this debate is that every single liberal that I have spoken to is convinced that the current plans will not include rationed care, that there are not long wait times, that the government will keep administrative costs downs, and that the quality of care will not be affected. I wonder what planet they live on. Even in the private health insurance system, health care is rationed: by the consumer’s willingness to pay higher premiums. The question is who should choose the quality and quantity of care, patients or the government? As for the long wait times, look at every country with universal health care. I rest my case. As for a government program that keeps costs down… do I really need to address this? We already have a government “option” for the poor and elderly and we are going bankrupt because of it. As for diminishing quality of care, as soon as government requires tens of millions of new patients to be treated by a health care system that is already overburdened, you can bet that quality will go down.

In sum, RomneyCare, while not overly reliant on the state, suffers from many problems and according to the article I linked above, 70% of the people in MA are happy with the program. Compare that to the 77% of Americans (87% have health insurance times 89% who are happy with their health insurance) who are happy with their health insurance and the fact is that even with universal health care model, people are less happy than with the current unworkable hybrid system that the rest of America has. RomneyCare imposes a government solution on the public (mandates) while ObamaCare (with Public Option) imposes a government solution on both the public and the free market. What we need is to expand the free market model in a way that promotes innovation, quality, and fairness.

-AG

Today, I was very busy and I was not planning to post anything else on NeoRepublica, but after reading this article on slavery I could not help myself. First off, as I often do for the benefit of those who care about class, race, ethnicity, etc. I am a mixed race American of Cuban descent. Cubans, on the island, can be broken down racially as 1/3 white, 1/3 black, and 1/3 mulato or mixed (this is for simplicity’s sake, accurate statistics are unknown). Enough of that though, it is not that relevant. This article was written by a self-described “white” American who is the descendant of slave-traders and from reading this article it looks like the guilt of participating in the slave-trade has spilled across the generations.

Katrina Browne

What she writes is one part liberalism at its finest and another part absolute irrationality (some may say that I am being redundant). Essentially, she concludes that because of the ripples in history caused by America’s history of racially-based slavery and discrimination, apologies are not enough and she “believe[s] [that] we do need more reckoning.” She wrote that equal rights and affirmative action are not enough. This is one of the myriad of reasons that people cite to make the case for some sort of economic redistribution or class preference and all that it does is undermine American freedom.

First let’s talk about the racial part. As a member of a minority group, more importantly, as a dark person (compared to “white” people) in America, I can attest that there is nothing in this world except the degree of my personal effort that has held me down or allowed me to succeed. Even my father, who spoke no English and whose Afro hairstyle would make Ludacris cringe, was able to pick himself up form his bootstraps without worrying about the “privileges” of the “white guy” next door.

Luda

No white privilege stopped me from reading books. No white privilege stopped me from rejecting a culture of mediocrity (these subcultures exist in all communities, “white punks", “black gangsters,” “latin thugs,” etc.) No white privilege stopped me from gaining an education. I could go on, but Katrina Browne personally insults me when she wraps her real condescension in “white guilt” by expressing that the poor “brown people” of the world cannot do anything because “the man” has held them down. If anything, Katrina Browne holds my ethnic “brothers” down with their hand-outs and their affirmative action by allowing us to profit from our race or ethnicity and not our sweat and intellect. So let’s first be clear, race is not a handicap.

Second, if people want to make the case that historical circumstance must be taken into account in the present in order to truly create better society, then we cannot stop with slavery… the list of actions taken by this nation and others against particular racial or ethnic groups is ridiculously extensive. What should we do about the Native Americans who were killed by both disease and military action at the hands of the United States? Should we surrender our entire civilization to them, given that this land was “theirs” before it was “ours"? How about the country of Cuba, where the entire native Taino people were destroyed? How do they distribute “reparations” or whatever other form of compensation? Technically speaking, US crimes against Native Americans and their descendants were very terrible and the inequalities that persist to this day are a result of “our” actions.

But why stop at the United States? Why not go back to Great Britain where the persecution of heretics was prevalent during the 16th and 17th centuries? Or Spain, for their treatment of Jews and Muslims during the Inquisition? Or to any country that ever engaged in any form of discrimination? Why not go back as far as all of documented history and if ever, any nation has discriminated against any race or ethnicity that a person is descended from, why not give that person some form of reparations? Adjusted for inflation, this will make a lot of random individuals in the present very rich for crimes committed by people in the past, a past now represented by certain countries and people in the present. As for me, I will be super-rich. I am certain I have African, Spanish, Native, and maybe even Arab heritage which, depending if they ever lived as a discriminated minority in any country that still exists today, means that I may be getting a good number of checks in the mail. Add to that the fact that I am also of Italian descent that I may get a check for the US internment of Italian-Americans during WWII. Hurray for racial reparations!

This Armenian-American received this chain from the Turkish gov’t as Reparations(jk)

Third, what about immigrants who arrived at this country after slavery was abolished? Are they exempt from having to “do more"? Or are they only exempt if they are not white, given that “white” people have “benefited” from the oppression of African-Americans? I wonder if I have to surrender some of my hard earned money or if my children will have to sit in the back of the bus because other people we are not related to oppressed some other people we are not related to many years ago. Collective punishment for a collective crime will punish people who did not benefit at all from the crime, people who benefited marginally, people who did benefit most, and ironically enough it will punish the people who were oppressed to begin with. The promotion of redistribution of wealth only drives away wealth and rewards people (in the present) on the basis of some genetic coincidence and not effort. The overall effect on America will be to make everyone poorer: less wealthy people, less investment, less businesses, less jobs, less overall opportunity for those poor oppressed minorities.

Fourth, Browne’s insistence that “love” of our fellow man should drive this redistributive experiment is misleading. If she means that out of personal affection we reach out to our fellow man, sure why not, if it’s our free choice? But this is not her intent. She insists that the state take the responsibility of fixing these “disparate outcomes” that exist today in society. The only way that government taking away one person’s wealth and giving it to another on the basis of race won’t be considered robbery is if we love the government for it. How Orwellian. Forced redistribution is “love.”

In totality, what she expresses here is a view of history that would have us look backwards forever until all historical grievances are addressed. Should the Christians continue to persecute the Jews for their complicity in Jesus Christ’s death? This is similar logic: collective punishment for a particular grievance carried out by particular people who are already dead. Luckily, reality is much different. The only way for humanity to progress (yes, that lefty word) is for societies to be forward looking (within reason, some introspection and retrospection is sometimes necessary). We must strive to create conditions and institutions so that the mistakes and crimes of the past are not allowed to occur ever again. We must make sure that there are no more Holocausts, no more slave trades, no more political persecution… and one day we will also realize that there should be no more ever-intrusive governments. If the crime of slavery was giving benefit to one race to the detriment of another, then the solution cannot be the same action in the opposite direction… the solution must be to abolish any system that is NOT colorblind. We can only start setting the foundation for a better world today… otherwise we will forever be condemned to answer for crimes and inequalities perpetrated by people who no longer exist and who have no relation to many in the present.

The truth is that the Left will look for any and every excuse to place the “collective good” or, as Browne writes, “the public good” above individual achievement and individual rights. Race is one of these excuses. I’ll let the Brownes of the world know that while they worry about their historical guilt and historical “disparate outcomes” I will make sure that I live my American Dream… I will live it without worrying about anyone else’s privileges… and I will live it because I have the freedom and the right to. I will not have it derailed by the ancient crimes of people who have neither benefited me through “privilege” nor have any relation to me… and I would hope that no American would have their dreams derailed by the irrational arguments I read in that article.

-AG

Single-party tyranny. Is it any wonder that people compare the Obama administration and his Imperial Democrats to Nazis? According to this article, top Democrats are considering ramming through health care with or without Republican support.

While they’re at it, why not just ram wholesale income redistribution and a centrally planned economy down our throats? Remember Obama’s promises of bipartisanship? Neither does he. We are entering dangerous territory, where one party can come in, spend more money, and create more gargantuan government programs than any time before in our history. From the banking industry takeover to the auto industry takeover to cash-for-clunkers to the welfare-like “Make Work Pay” tax credits to higher taxes on income and tobacco, we have seen the new government put their hands on the levers of the economy while throwing out hand-outs to their base like chum to hungry sharks. Talk of disregarding others opinions simply because they have a bare majority is plain-old tyranny of the majority. Talk of government intervention in so many major economic sectors is the beginning of socialism.

The positive side of this is the inevitable backlash and redefinition of the Democratic Party. Just like Bush’s betrayal of conservative principles caused many within the Republican Party to go back to their first principles, overreach in Democrat single-party rule will eventually produce a huge backlash from a fed-up and informed electorate. Unless the Imperial Democrats can figure out a way to disenfranchise conservatives, libertarians, and independents, this republic will be able to throw off the big government establishment. The Democratic Party will need to become more center and less radically Leftist, with fiscal conservatives taking the wheel, a welcome change from the free-spending, social-engineering, wealth-redistributionist Democrats that currently reign. Let’s just hope that the damage they do now is reversible.

-AG

Democratic Senator Kent Conrad

Right now, as Democrats slowly back away from their plans for a government-run ‘public option,’ another idea is emerging as a possible replacement: health care cooperatives. North Dakota Democratic Senator Kent Conrad, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, who recently said that the administration’s push for a ‘public option’ was dead in the water is a main proponent of this plan. So the question is: is a health care co-op a viable alternative or just the Democrats’ attempt to put lipstick on a pig?

Universal health Care Proponents (Left)

A health care co-op would be a non-profit entity that would offer insurance rates at competitive prices. Any profits they make would go back to the system. Conrad said on CNN’s “American Morning” that this program would attract 12 million customers and quickly become the third largest insurer in the country. The problems with this description affect people on both right and left. Starting with the Left, there are 46 million uninsured people, so the 12 million figure falls short. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the co-ops would provide coverage discounted enough for the less affluent and many existing co-ops can deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. In other words, liberals will complain that this is far too little government involvement.

Protest against Government Takeover of Health Care (Right)

From the Right, the problems are more pronounced. First of all, this plan will end up gaining 12 million members, but from where? Obviously, this means that many of these new members will be people who already have private health insurance, hence when they talk about a ‘competitive’ co-op they mean competition against private insurers. In order to make them ‘competitive,’ government will need to subsidize people’s insurance, this is due to the fact that, unlike what liberals and other who have not worked in the private sector would have you believe, profits account for a small percentage of added costs to health insurance consumers. So you have a government-subsidized health care option… hmmm, sound familiar? So if the federal government ends up setting health care rules and subsidizing a non-profit entity that will very quickly become the third largest insurer (or larger), couldn’t this be called a ‘public option’? What a federally administered or subsidized health care co-op creates is the foundation for a future government takeover of health care… the co-op plan is but a toehold.

Of course, there are no details yet and some of my long-term predictions may be off, but to make a co-op competitive it is likely that we are looking at some sort of federal government subsidy. A co-op will not satisfy the far left unless it involves some heavy government backing and all it will do is compete with private insurers without insuring many of the currently uninsured. The liberal administration and Congress is simply trying to once again get its hands on private industry. Note that cooperative and commune are very similar terms… let’s make sure we keep up the pressure on those who want to turn America into one big commune/communist state.

-AG

A man showed up at an Obama protest toting an assault rifle! No crimes were committed. THIS IS NOT NEWS! The next time I exercise a right guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States I expect to see TV crews outside my home… the next time I water my lawn… the next time I go to the grocery store… the next time I go vote. The Leftist mainstream media is simply reporting every single gun sighting near any venue where the president is present in order to foment panic among the population. In fact, what this also does is inspire other American citizens to do the same, since it will get them on the news and since it is perfectly legal! Funny how the Left accused conservatives and Republicans of fear-mongering whenever they mentioned terrorists (people who actually want to kill us all) and think it is just fine to fear-monger by shining a spotlight on any American who legally carries a firearm. Actually, it’s not funny at all…

-AG

Obama has had a tough time with foreign policy. No single event has captured the full attention of the nation yet and let us hope that nothing catastrophic happens, but in all truth, Obama has fumbled nearly everything beyond our shores. He goes to Europe and apologizes. He gives a speech on disarmament the same day that North Korea fires a rocket over Japan. He claims that the United States is one of the largest Muslim countries in the world during his Islamic appeasement speech. He chastises allies like Israel and Honduras while reaching out to communist Cuba, Chavez’s Venezuela, and terror-sponsor Iran. In other words, he has turned US foreign policy on its head… remember people, the US is the world superpower and our foreign policy had at least a ‘little’ to do with that. Even during the campaign, it was equal parts comical and worrisome when then-candidate Obama vowed quick retreat from Iraq and brashly declared that he would invade our ally Pakistan if we had Osama bin Laden in our sights. So is he a pacifist or a war hawk?

This is Obama’s problem: he doesn’t know what, exactly, to do. So he sends more troops into Afghanistan while started a phased withdrawal from Iraq. The bad part is that our reduced presence in Iraq has only emboldened Al Qaeda while our increased presence in Afghanistan has similarly emboldened the Taliban. Commanders on the ground say that they need more troops, but Obama cannot commit many more troops because it would alienate his far left base, a group that is already mad at him for extending the Iraq withdrawal timetable and not withdrawing from Afghanistan. If he keeps this level of troops or reduces it, then he risks losing significant ground to the Taliban. The president needs to seriously consider increasing our presence, but because of politics he probably will not increase it by much. That is one good thing about former president George W. Bush, he did not care about politics when it came to the war, he took flak for sending more troops into what was starting to turn into a civil war in Iraq, and the surge succeeded. Obama, on the other hand, has his “popularity” and liberal base to take care of. He is between a rock (no pun intended) and a hard place.

Obama’s Far Left Base

Today, he is going to address the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention which will bring this issue to the forefront. Right now, most people are more worried about health care reform and the economy than the threat posed by a resurgent Al Qaeda and Taliban, so he has been getting a pass on his foreign policy blusters. This will eventually change. We cannot turn a blind eye to the events taking place in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan… bombings are occurring over there on a nearly daily basis. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are not taking a break for us to debate health care… and with Obama, they smell blood in the water. We should drop the bulk of American military power on their heads, not go in halfway.

-AG

In nearby Cuba, we see it happen time after time. The Castro regime takes some action that the United States does not like such as mass arrests of political prisoners or sending mass waves of immigrants in order to use that manufactured crisis to their advantage. They then start releasing some prisoners or try swapping them. They then stop the flow of immigrants and rafters from reaching our shores. All in exchange for two things: recognition for engaging in “reasonable” diplomacy and for whatever concessions they can get from developed, democratic nations. In North Korea, the same strategy applies, but with higher stakes.

What we see in North Korea is a regime that escalation after escalation showed no signs of wanting to cooperate in earnest. There are two reasons for this. The first is that by not cooperating, they could further develop their weapons technologies, knowing full-well that neither the United States nor anyone else would take any serious action to stop them. The second reason is that only by generating a crisis serious enough does North Korea have anything that it can barter with. After that point, it can start de-escalating and try extracting concessions from the rest of the world. Make no mistake though, they want both: nuclear/missile capabilities and concessions.

This is why North Korea even accepted Bill Clinton’s visit and released the two American journalists, it gave Kim Jong Il international diplomatic capital by demonstrating that they are willing to negotiate. The mere fact that former President of the United States Bill Clinton visited one of the most impoverished nations in the world gave North Korea more legitimacy. Of course, I applaud his success in getting back our citizens. Unfortunately, right now, the more timid elements of the State Department and the Obama administration are seeing this as a sign that Kim Jong Il just wanted attention from the beginning, attention that Obama was focusing more on the Islamic world, Europe, Russia, and the economic crisis. This is the wrong lesson, but North Korea is wasting no time in exploiting this opening. Now, North Korea has expressed that it is willing to resume family reunifications and cross-border tourism once again, a far cry from the North Korea of just a little over a month ago that was firing missiles toward Hawaii in a show of strength.

On their side, North Korea points to continued US espionage, sanctions, and joint South Korean and US military exercises as the provocations that have led to this tense moment in relations. They now portray themselves as the good guys, reaching out to the US by granting amnesty for the two journalists, reaching out to South Korea by granting family reunification and tourism, turning around a ship that was suspected of transporting weapons to Myanmar, and we can expect their weapons tests to be suspended for the time being. It was a manufactured crisis that they are now trying to exploit by reducing tensions and trying to lure the United States to the negotiating table. The Obama administration’s naivete and the Left’s burning desire to engage with communists and enemies of America will all but guarantee another round of concessions. These concessions will be followed by a period of relative calm only to be followed by more North Korean belligerence. This is the unchanged cycle of things. The single, most pressing global security issue is the proliferation of nuclear weapons because of the possibility that they may land in the hands of terrorist organizations. Appeasement of a regime that is determined to make themselves a potent nuclear power will only make things worse. Clinton did it and they became nuclearized. Bush did it and they became even more nuclearized. What do you think will happen when Obama does it?

-AG

I am glad to hear a Democratic Senator admit that there are not enough votes in the Senate to pass a health care reform plan that include a government-run public option. What this means is that the one-party control of Washington is not absolute enough to simply steamroll over any dissenting opinion. What this also means is that the “unruly mobs” supposedly paid by the RNC and “anti-reform PAC’s” are succeeding in stopping a government takeover of health care. Speaking of unruly mobs, I had dinner with two young ladies (and other friends), one a Democrat and another a Republican, who participated in town hall protests down here… rest assured that they were not paid by any organization and are not extremists of any kind, one is a registered nurse and the other works as a physical therapist. This is not what the mainstream media nor the Imperial Democrats would have you believe. They want to keep up the narrative that the grassroots protests are actually “astroturf” or “manufactured” popular protests. Nothing could be further from the truth. They are as organized as the Democrats are, as organized as any other grassroots organization that go make cardboard signs and try to carpool to the town hall meetings.

This goes to show that the far Left’s success in 2008 was the result of their relentless activist campaign against George W. Bush and the disillusionment of the conservative movement, since our leadership was going against our core principles. Now the pendulum has swung farther left and only activism on the grassroots level has been able to counter the president and his cronies. It fills me with pride to think that the President and the Democrats have resorted to attacking the grassroots themselves instead of simply attacking Republicans or corporations. They have insulted the American voter with their condescension and their accusations because they do not understand that neither the GOP nor big business are the source of Americans’ thirst for freedom and aversion to government. It is part of our national character; it is the foundation for our existence as a nation. Democrats always err on the side of big government and excessive spending… promoting collective mediocrity instead of individual empowerment. Only continued activism on the grassroots level can help change politics in America, away from big interests, big government, and the truly impressive cult of personality built up around the current president. This is not a nation run by one dear leader, we are a nation of independent, courageous, and free citizens. Let’s keep acting like it.

-AG

It is high time to bring it back to the 90’s… the 1890’s that is. Here’s a throwback to the days of the Communist Internationals:

Right now we have a man named Wendell Potter, former vice-president of corporate communications at health insurance corporation Cigna, who is blowing the whistle on his former health insurance company. What is he letting the public know about this uber-malevolent organization? They use “buzz” words!!!! Bring out the guillotines, we cannot allow this to happen!!! He accuses them of being masters at linguistics, the fascist version of Shakespeare if you will. Someone tell the president that engaging in PR should be a capital offense.

Potter also accuses them of… [wait for it]… raising insurance rates on people who get more expensive to insure! Heavens no! Didn’t anyone tell Cigna that they are supposed to freeze their premiums regardless of cost? But wait, if Cigna raises rates “artificially,” doesn’t the free market allow their customers to switch to other companies? Never mind that, let’s just focus on greedy greedy Cigna. What can we do to make the company seem even more evil? Let’s look at a case where they made a bad health decision that resulted in death… remember, all’s fair in love and health care reform debates. Apparently, a 17 year old boy died from leukemia because Cigna would not cover their liver transplant… but don’t France, the UK, Germany, Sweden and most European countries with government-run health care systems have higher death rates than the US? Never mind that, let’s focus on the greedy greedy Cigna.

Tired of this class conflict, greedy-corporations-versus-starving-little-Timmy argument? I know I am. Will it work? I certainly hope not. Let’s reform the system in such a way that takes advantage of the free market, lowers cost, reduces the burden on the taxpayer, and find a way to keep sick people from being left without care… without resorting to the easy solution of throwing our hands up and saying “let government do everything.” We can do it. We are enterprising Americans. Yes we can!

-AG

The Obama administration passed spending bill after spending bill the first few months in power. The reason? The recession. Already, his moves have made put America more in the red than any other president has in history… but he is not done. Now he wants to pass a health care reform plan that will end up costing $1 trillion according to the Congressional Budget Office but, knowing how government works, it will probably cost more. His reason: the recession is linked with the burden of the health care system. In the current economic climate, with rising unemployment, many people are even more worried about losing their employer-based health insurance. It is an interesting idea, health care partly leads to the recession and the recession leads to less and worse health care, but it is an idea not based in reality. The recession was caused by “a fundamental misallocation of capital” mainly a housing bubble in the US, whether government caused it or free markets caused it is a matter of debate. By linking the recession and the health care issue, he is banking that he can wield his political broadsword before the business cycle takes over and we get out of the recession. That is why he has been so adamant about passing health care reform NOW! Otherwise, people will not be losing their employer based health insurance and the public will not be in the panic mode that the administration wants to generate. Right now, in touting how he has saved the economy with his Stimulus package, pulling it back from “the brink” as he said, it looks like the conditions for passing government-based health care reform are fading away. Like Obama’s new chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, said “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” Unfortunately for the Democrats, contrary to their lack of understanding of free markets, recessions eventually come to an end. Funny how Obama benefits when America is in crisis, and fails when America is prospering. Actually… it’s not funny at all.

These are not the only outrageous claims that the president has made in order to panic the public into accepting his plan. To cite a few: in order to dispel rumors that he wanted a full government-run single-payer system, he denied ever supporting such a system, this is an outright LIE. See video. The quote: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care plan.”

In order to scare us into his plan, he tries to turn class-based anger on the “greedy” insurance companies by saying that they have been making record profits. This is a lie. To further scare us into a government-based system, he recently claimed that some doctors have opted to remove tonsils unnecessarily and have amputated diabetics’ feet simply for profit. Specifically, he implies that doctors may choose not to perform preventative treatment because of the amount of reimbursement and simply perform the amputation because it pays more. Outrageous.

These are just a few things that he has said that stretch the truth or tear the truth to pieces. It seems that the president insists on making the American people deathly afraid of greedy insurance companies who maliciously and purposely let people die every year and greedy doctors that will remove tonsils and amputate limbs for profit. This tactic of making outrageous claims is behind the Democrats’ insults aimed at concerned citizens at town hall meetings, calling them unruly mobs. Citizens have the right to petition government, we still have a first amendment… I yesterday saw Chris Matthews of MSNBC raise his voice at a protester who dared carry a non-concealed weapon to a protest, a right guaranteed by the Second Amendment, saying at one point “your carrying a Goddamn gun!” Fortunately, the guest, William Kostric, was calm, explained his point pretty clearly, and was able to avoid being cornered by Matthews on various points, but this only illustrates the point that liberals in the media are marching in lockstep with the Imperial Democrats that now control Washington. Here’s the video:

We, as Americans, cannot allow ourselves to be herded by threats, outrageous claims, or fear. We must think critically and independently. We must use conscience and, most importantly, facts in the face of so much confusion and emotional response. America’s spirit will not be broken by those who try to intimidate its people, our external enemies have failed and our internal ones will too.

-AG

Last month, I wrote a post about Nigeria and how Al Qaeda may be looking to extend its reach to that part of Africa. Just today, Hillary Clinton visited Nigeria and warned about the very same thing: Nigeria may be within Al Qaeda’s sights. Like I said before, the conditions in Nigeria are all favorable for Al Qaeda, especially since there are already terrorist groups with sufficient organization that have been launching attacks for some time now. Recently, a group named Boko Haram (meaning “western education is forbidden") was involved in clashes that killed hundreds in their fight to establish an Islamic State. The most important factors that Al Qaeda looks for in potential host nations is the presence of local militant groups in line with their ideology and a government that is willing to negotiate with them; the Nigerian government has shown a willingness to negotiate with the already-present terrorist groups there, making this country a suitable place to set up shop. This admission by the State Department shows that while Americans look inward at the government’s efforts to insert itself into health care, Al Qaeda and terrorist organizations are still not resting.

Boko Haram militants

The Obama administration has been overly focused on domestic issues while Al Qaeda has been running rampant. Other than the drone strike that supposedly killed Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan that was blamed for killing Benazir Bhutto and that has been threatening to strike at the United States(as I wrote abou t before), Al Qaeda has not been greatly hindered nor has it slowed its activities. Since our semi-withdrawal from Iraqi cities, Al Qaeda has upped the ante, launching terrorist attacks in their signature style: multiple simultaneous bombings, mainly in Shiite areas. In Kuwait, Al Qaeda terrorists were stopped from bombing and American base. Even more seriously, a leading British expert on Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal reported that Al Qaeda has attacked Pakistan’s nuclear facilities three times in the last two years. Al Qaeda is not resting… we mustn’t either.

The threat from Islamo-fascism is as important as the threat from creeping socialism. We would do well in remembering back in the nineties that we were so focused on domestic and internal affairs that Osama Bin Laden was given the breathing room necessary to build up Al Qaeda right under our noses and plan the tragic events of 9-11. We cannot make this same mistake. Recent Al Qaeda bombings and video messages haven’t caught our attention as a nation… we are distracted and that is exactly what Al Qaeda wants.

-AG

Irony. That is what I think when I see reports that religious groups will be coming to the aid of the Obama administration in their push for health care reform. Calling it a “moral issue,” certain religious groups are launching a national campaign called “40 days for Health Reform” in favor of the Obama plan. The real moral issue is whether or not a central government authority should force taxpayers to subsidize other people’s unhealthy lifestyles or subsidize procedures that are against personal beliefs like abortion or sex change operations. Should religious groups open the door for government to mandate participation in immoral acts? Whatever happened to free will? This makes no sense. It makes even less sense to come to the aid of a president who issued an executive order that funds abortions abroad as one of his first acts. In addition to that, opening the door for humans to be harvested for biological material, Obama issued an executive order to federally fund stem cell research. This is a president that calls a baby “punishment.” Personally, I believe in the sanctity of life… I highly doubt that the president shares my opinion.

Not all religious groups have taken a swig of the Obama kool-aid, the Christian Coalition of America and the Family Research Council are still opposed to the president. I find it surprising that any person of faith would support a person who could say that small town people are bitter and “cling to religion.” His condescension is amazing. It further surprises me that his ties to Jeremiah Wright, the reverend who thought it to be “moral” to say “God damn America,” haven’t completely alienated anyone who strives to lead an upright life. Of course I cannot judge them. People have their free will and their reasons for following a man who would take away our freedom to choose who to contribute our money to and for what reasons. I pray for this nation’s future.

-AG

The health care reform battle rages on. In one corner you have concerned citizens who are hearing things about rationing of care, socialized medicine, etc. and in the other corner you have a liberal government that is willing to question the motives of American citizens in order to pass a government overhaul that, by the most conservative measures, will guarantee even more unsustainable spending. Let’s be very very clear… Obama says that his goal is to create a plan that is deficit neutral, assuming this is the case and he is able to create a government run health care “option” at zero net dollars (to be paid for by more taxes I assume), the current unsustainable federal spending on health care will continue rising. Right here is where every American, regardless of politics, must realize that Obama’s solution IS NOT A SOLUTION. The problem is two-fold, current health care spending levels and the actual health care Americans. The latter is not so much of a problem, with 87% of Americans reporting that they have health care and 89% reporting that they are satisfied with the quality of their health care (source here). The former is a titanic-sized problem, with increases in total federal spending reaching higher and higher levels, taxes will go up, borrowing will increase, and the burden on the economy in general will increase. So why is the government trying to sell us a plan that may reduce the number of private insurers that are providing good service and increase government involvement?

Which brings me to the town hall meetings that have Democrats calling concerned citizens various names. Particularly, I want to comment on the words of Arlen Specter (PA-D) when he said at a recent town hall that “in our social compact, we have provisions that see to it that you take care of people who need some help.” What is he talking about?!? First of all, whatever social compact he must be referring to cannot be the Constitution of the United States. Nowhere in that document do you find that our government is somehow obligated to provide health care to its citizens, in fact, the Constitution explicitly points out that any powers not given to the federal government fall to the states. Limited government was the intent of the Constitution, not a welfare state. Specter is way off. The only way that this statement makes any sense is if Specter is referring to some sort of Rousseau-inspired conceptualization of our society where the individual must bow to the “general will,” a general will that the Imperial Democrats in Congress and the White House will decide for us.

What Arlen Specter faced in this town hall meeting were people of all ages and probably of all political affiliations, standing up and demanding answers. We saw a young woman voice her concern that government creep into the economy will result in socialism. We saw an older gentleman in a very angry state because he was told he could speak but was denied the opportunity (until he made a scene). I couldn’t believe it when Specter said that he was in fact “defending” the Constitution by opposing warrantless wiretaps (even though Obama defends those very policies), bringing up the specter of Bush at a time when we are debating Obama, his spending, and his health care plans. The hypocrisy of these politicians is astounding. Bush expanded government and Obama is doing worse… was it the founders’ vision that the Executive Branch would one day be compiling lists of people who oppose their policies?

The only way for people to wake up in this country and realize that the 2008 elections do not simply mean that we take whatever the Democrats gives us is for ordinary Americans to stand up and be heard. To allude to an old school Democrat, Americans need to “give ‘em hell.”

-AG

The Left is playing a dangerous game. At town halls all over the country, Senators and House Representatives are facing the anger of their constituents over what is perceived to be a government takeover of health care. Democrats are reacting by calling them organized mobs, saying that its manufactured anger, and calling these demonstrations a “violation” of the democratic process. The first problem I have is that these Democrats are quick to brand non-liberal demonstrators as a mob, but when the anti-Bush and anti-war protesters came out, camping outside the president’s home and causing disruptions, they did not make similar accusations. Just as other people have pointed out, it seems that for Democrats, it’s OK for liberals to protest, just not conservatives or libertarians. This is beside the point though, a lot of politicians are hypocrites and that’s just a fact.

The second issue is that Democrats are really missing the point here. They say that the mobs are organized by the Republicans, well then why didn’t the Republicans mobilize these people on November 4th? In fact, if I recall correctly, it was the Democratic Party that was very adept at mobilizing people, not the Republicans. The truth is that many of the people who are going to these town halls are not even Republicans, because the reality is that the backlash is not only conservative, it includes many independents and most libertarians. The Democrats simply do not understand that their actions in Washington run contrary to the very spirit of America. They continuously repeat that they were given a mandate by voters last year, but they misunderstand the mandate or maybe the voters misunderstood it. When Democrats say that we voted for “change” they confuse the true intent: Americans voted for “change from” Bushes, Clintons, etc., they did not vote for “change to” bigger government, more spending, and more taxation.

The outrage is not “manufactured” or “organized,” it is spontaneous and it is very real. Just look at what has happened: Obama explicitly states that he believes spreading the wealth around. His citizenship is questioned because a) his grandmother said that he was born in Kenya and b) because Obama has not shown his long form birth certificate. Pictures of him not holding his hand over his heart during the national anthem while everyone around him is. He vows to raise taxes on the rich but gives conflicting indications of what he considers “rich” to be. He passes a nearly ineffective stimulus package that does little to put Americans back to work but increases the burden on the taxpayer to unprecedented level. He proposes plans [Cap-and-Trade] to “bankrupt” [those are his words, not mine] the coal industry and heavy industry in general at a time when we are in a recession. He travels around the world, apologizing for America everywhere, essentially insulting the American people for their electoral choices over the last few decades. His policies of negotiating with the terrorists and tyrants have only resulted in giving them more time to develop and perfect their nuclear weapons and missiles. Congress falls under complete Democratic rule and the promises of bipartisanship are betrayed. Now, Congress is not listening to its constituents, instead branding them as members of an organized mob. In spite of all this, Democrats still do not understand why people are angry.

Add to everything I just mentioned the fact that Washington is now trying to insert government into health care and you just get more intense anger. The Democrats are making the average voter feel powerless to stop them and worry about what government-run care will entail: senior death notifications, the eventual rationing of health care, taxpayer-funded abortions, taxpayer-funded sex-change operations? All of these things are real concerns and while some in Congress have indicated that they would not do these things, but certain language in the bills and amendments being kicked around leave the door open for several objectionable things.

So, what we are witnessing is spontaneous popular outrage over what is being viewed by many as a government takeover that will affect everyone’s personal lives. This is not a calculated political move. No one from the RNC delivered instructions to me so that I could write this in my blog. That said, for those getting rowdy at town halls (both left or right): try to keep it civil, the last thing we need is for Congress to say “these protesters are crazy” and then dismiss the real and important concerns of Americans all over. On the other side, Democrats need to realize that Americans will not allow their country to be hijacked and changed beyond recognition. We are a free society of individuals, not a commune or a bunch of children that need a nanny-state to care for us. The message that politicians need to hear is this: Respect the American Citizen.

-AG

If you know anyone in Florida, send them this post, because people need to understand what governor Charlie Crist has done, especially since he will be running for Senate. Republicans are supposed to stand for free markets, limited government, and lower taxes, Charlie Crist has done none of this during his time as governor. First of all, in an effort to rein in skyrocketing insurance rates in the wake of two devastating hurricane seasons, he implemented price controls and required insurance companies to get permission from the state if they wanted to increase their prices. He also made it so that these companies will have to “return” the “excessive” profits they make. So much for free markets.

His next move was to make the state-run insurance company, Citizens, more competitive. It’s pretty expensive. After the price control policy was implemented, many insurers have either stopped writing policies or reduced their business in Florida, making Citizens the largest insurer in the state. In essence, Charlie Crist made the state the principal insurer of homes in a hurricane-prone peninsula. So much for limited government.

The next part is the most important. It is simple math. Let us say that Florida is hit by consecutive hurricanes like a few years ago. According to this article, insurance companies ended up paying more than $30 billion to meet their policy obligations. Right now, Citizens faces $400 billion in potential exposure and only has $3.4 billion in net assets. Simply put, a bad hurricane season can put Citizens out of business, but since it is state-run, taxpayers will end up “bailing out” the company. So much for lower taxes.

For the environmentalists out there, freezing prices and making property insurance rates more competitive will only increase urban sprawl and development along the coast. Bad news for the everglades and undeveloped lands. For those concerned with giving people affordable insurance, currently Citizens is among the most expensive insurance companies and if larger, more dependable insurers keep leaving the state, then a lot of people will be stuck with paying higher insurance bills or stuck with less dependable companies that may not be able to live up to their policy obligations.

In all, both Democrats and Republicans have compelling reasons to oppose Charlie Crist. He has put Florida at significant risk in a state where hurricanes are common. More importantly, he lied to and betrayed his constituents, pledging not to raise taxes but did so anyways. He cannot be trusted. Floridians need to make sure not to make this man Senator, we have enough crooked politicians in Washington.

-AG

At first, people around the country were simply doubting the legitimacy of the president. Some called him a fraud and others a usurper. Later, frustrated citizens were demanding proof of his legitimacy but the government simply kept repeating that they were not lying. The government accused the people who questioned their authority of being organized mobs paid for by political enemies, completely disregarding the protesters’ legitimate grievances. The president’s political opponents were branded as domestic terrorists and extremists… This is not merely happening here in the United States, it’s also happening in Iran.

The Iranian regime, which has rounded up and arrested scores of people for their protests questioning the fairness of the last election, is putting about 100 people on trial for their involvement in the protests. Among these people on trial are French and British embassy workers and notable people within Iranian society. It is important that we not lose sight of what happens overseas, because so many of the elements are the same, the only thing missing is government’s use of force, mass arrest, and kangaroo courts to silence opposition. What is worrisome is that fact that there are several independent reports of SEIU “activists” that have been threatening, manhandling, and assaulting people at town hall meetings who oppose the Obama plan to expand the government’s role in health care (examples here and here). We already have seen that the case of voter intimidation by New Black Panther Party members in the last election is being dropped by the Justice Department… I guess that to the victor go the spoils.

Black Panther members intimidating voters

Add to that the Department of Homeland Security report that labeled conservatives, libertarians, military veterans, and anyone considered “rightwing” as potential terrorists, and what you have is an administration that is increasingly using its political and executive muscle to bully political opponents. This is happening in Iran. This is happening in Venezuela. This already happened in Cuba. Americans must be wary: big government and political intimidation never lead to positive outcomes… at the same time, we must not allow ourselves to be goaded into a violent response, that is exactly the excuse that the administration needs to openly persecute patriots who oppose Obama’s expansion of government. Once that happens… let’s just try to make sure that never happens.

-AG

Right now, politics is getting ugly. While conservatives are on the offensive against the Obama administration’s proposed government intrusion into health care, the Democratic Party is striking back by labeling conservatives at town hall meetings: members of organized mobs. This is the second wave of attacks on conservatives in recent weeks, the first being the fact that the left has labelled anyone who wants to see the president’s birth certificate a “birther.” Let us be very clear on this point, regardless of what the mainstream media reports over and over, Barack Hussein Obama II has not EVER released a copy of his official, long form birth certificate. More importantly, he probably never will. That said, conservatives need to take it easy on this point, since it is highly doubtful that any action will be taken to confirm whether or not Obama was a natural born citizen or not. We will have to wait for these files to come out when they release the “who killed Kennedy?” files. You win some, you lose some.

Labeling conservatives that attend town hall meetings a “mob” just shows the desperation of the Democratic party. This is not the first time that this language has been used to discredit people to the right side of the political spectrum. For decades, the communists in Cuba and their sympathizers in the United States have called the Cuban-American population of Miami a “Mafia.” You could say that calling conservatives a mob is straight out of the Castro playbook. Of course, the assertion that every Cuban-American in Miami is the member of a “mafia” is ludicrous… and if it’s true, then I have not been receiving my “mafia” checks in the mail. I am not paid to oppose communism. I am not paid to resist socialism in this country. More specifically, I am not paid to, day in and day out, try to explain on this blog and to people I meet why government intervention into the health care industry is the wrong way to go. I do it because of PATRIOTISM, that p-word that liberals dread oh-so-much. It is my patriotic duty to speak truth, to oppose any agenda that threatens our country, and to fight for the freedoms that we enjoy. Accusing conservatives and libertarians of being an angry mob that is bought and paid for by the Republican Party just shows that A) the Democrats are clueless as to what the average American thinks nowadays and B) the Democrats are out of ideas.

Patriots around the country need to take a real hard look at the liberal agenda, particularly the administration’s health care reform proposals. If they are deficit neutral or cost more money, they will fail. If they don’t talk about tort reform, they will fail. If they cannot guarantee that the majority of Americans, who like their health insurance, will not lose their coverage, they will fail. The solution to the health care problem needs to look something like this: tort reform, cutting costs, tax incentives, quality analysis, and promoting the free market. The Democrats are offering: more spending, bigger and more complicated bureaucracy, higher taxes, centrally planned rationing of health care, and more governmental control. America cannot afford what the liberals are offering… and if it takes a mob to let Washington know what we think, then so be it.

-AG

Today, Senator Mel Martinez (FL-R) announced that he was resigning as soon as the governor can find a replacement for him. His decision comes on the heels of the confirmation of Sonia Sotomayor as justice of the Supreme Court, a vote where he broke ranks with the Republicans and joined the Democrats. Just yesterday, I wrote a post about his treason and lo and behold: Mel Martinez resigns. This can only mean one thing: NeoRepublica forced him out of office!

I humbly accept responsibility for driving out this Republican-In-Name-Only. Furthermore, our shared Cuban heritage makes it fitting and ironic that NeoRepublica would be the cause of his demise.

The truth of the matter is that all concerned citizens must speak out, incessantly and passionately, against those who claim to represent us, but instead lie and betray the people’s trust. Like a fellow blogger commented today, we must compile a list of politicians who lie and cheat their way into power and hold them accountable. The next in line for Martinez’s Senate seat is Charlie Crist, current governor, another RINO more interested in political maneuvering than in keeping his promises. Right now, we have a liberal Congress and an even more liberal White House intent on spending their way to “paradise” but instead will lead us to bankruptcy. We must stop them. The more that we reveal the truth about these political animals, the more that we lay out their broken promises and betrayals for all to see, the more honest we keep them and the better they represent us. Like one of my philosophical opponents once said: [bloggers] have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it. Let’s keep speaking truth to power!

-AG

The relentless march towards a society that rewards people solely based on their race or ethnicity in the name of diversity is proceeding smoothly. Sonia Sotomayor, the president’s nominee for the Supreme Court, was just confirmed to the Supreme Court today. The vote was 68 for and 31 against, with nine Republicans voting with the Democrats. As a conservative, I believe that these Benedict Arnolds should be burned at the stake for their treason, politically of course. The list includes: Ohio’s George Voinovich, Maine’s Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, New Hampshire’s Judd Gregg, Indiana’s Richard Lugar, Missouri’s Kit Bond, Florida’s Mel Martinez, South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham, and Tennessee’s Lamar Alexander. Conservatives everywhere who oppose Sotomayor’s confirmation should call or write to these representatives and let them know how disappointed they are. Remember fellow Republicans, we are elephants and elephants never forget!

I have a few choice words for my own state’s Mel Martinez. He came from Cuba knowing full well what is done in the name of “equality.” It means the forced relocation of people, the forced exile of people, and the subjugation of people in the name of equality. It means labor camps for homosexuals, still prevalent racism, and “re-education” for people of faith. Cuba should have taught him this, that justice must be color-blind and that interpretation of the law does not mean revisionism. I oppose wholeheartedly his decision to back Sotomayor particularly because he used the words “Hispanic-American.” I am considered a Hispanic-American, just as he is, but I will not be pigeonholed, I will not simply bow to the expectations of identity politics-as-usual, I will be an individual, an American. I may use the hyphen to express my heritage sometimes but I consider myself simply American, nothing more nor less. I am not a type of American, I am an American. Martinez’s support of a judge that has expressed openly that court is “where policy is made,” an empathetic judge, a judge who hopes that a wise latina would form better judgments than white judges, and a judge who barely answered any questions during her confirmation hearings is wholly unacceptable. For anyone who saw the confirmation hearings and had the patience to see her time after time refuse to answer simple questions, confirming her is an insult to common sense…

To all the conservatives out there, vote these guys out.

-AG

Today is August 5th and for the Cuban people and lovers of freedom everywhere is a date that shows that decades of totalitarian oppression cannot extinguish the spirit of freedom. On August 5th 1994, the people of Havana, Cuba spontaneously took to the streets demanding a free Cuba and shouting “Down with Fidel!” It was an event that came to be known as the “Maleconazo” named after the place where it all started, Havan’s famous Malecon. This act was not widely reported because of the Cuban regime’s censorship, but it showed that there was massive discontent with a government that brutally represses its own people. It resulted in thousands of arrests and a realization by the Castro regime that they needed to appease the population before a popular revolution overthrew them. This discontent continues to exist to this day and the Castro regime will routinely smash opposition figures, peaceful dissenters, and anything that smells like being pro-democracy or pro-human rights in order to preempt any popular uprising.

Currently, the administration is moving towards easing its policy on the Cuban regime, but it is not aware that, like in Iran, the people are fed up with decades of non-representation, decades of arbitrary imprisonment, decades of oppression, and decades of living in the darkness. All that the Cuban people need is a little bit of help, a little bit of organization, and a little bit of moral support for them to finally rise up once and for all and put an end to the totalitarian nightmare that is currently threatening Venezuela, Bolivia, and the other Latin American nations that have been hijacked by socialism. So this day, we should commemorate the Maleconazo and realize that while we enjoy freedom in this country, there are millions around the world that fight for it every day. Let’s not abandon them.

Viva Cuba Libre!

-AG

According to CNN, Americans are split when it comes to the president’s plan to increase government involvement in health care. Fifty percent are for the plan and forty-five percent are opposed. Most telling is this statement by CNN Polling Director Keating Holland: “Most people on Medicare and Medicaid also don’t think that the Obama plan will help them.” Yes that’s right, the majority of people who already benefit from government sponsored health care do not believe that more government intrusion will help. As I have expressed before, the solution to the health care problem in this country lies in free markets, not in big government. Every day, more people are waking up to the fact that the Obama administration’s answer to nearly every domestic problem is to throw money at it, money we don’t have and money that will eventually come out of the taxpayers’ pockets. Let’s just hope that the Democratic supermajority doesn’t ram this plan down our throats.

-AG

Speaking of liberals who pledge not to raise taxes, in local news Charlie Crist was censured yesterday by the Volusia County Republican Executive Committee for his non-conservative ways. The list of reasons assembled by the Volusian Republican rebels (they are going against the de facto GOP endorsement of Crist) is essentially a Marco Rubio blueprint for attacks against the leathery faced governor.

You gotta love it. A Republican censured in his own state for being a RINO. I do not support Charlie Crist anymore, specifically for his performance as governor… even my father, hard-line right-wing Republican, voted for the Democratic candidate for FL governor. The truth is that Crist is a corporate puppet, a politician in every sense of the word. He betrayed the state, signing tax increases and appeasing the Left by appointing liberal judges. He is just plain dishonest. Moreover, he rubs it in the faces of Floridians by going on a $430K vacation to Europe under the pretense of a “trade mission” on the public dime.

While Charlie “Crispy” Crist was getting tanned on the beach, Floridians have been foreclosing on homes at higher rates than the national average. While Charlie “Crispy” Crist was getting tanned on the beach, Floridians were stuck with paying higher taxes and higher fees. While Charlie “Crispy” Crist was getting tanned on the beach, Democrats around the country have been using Crist’s endorsement of Obama’s plan to bludgeon the Republican party. Being censured in his own state is not enough, Charlie Crist needs to be outed as a closet Liberal. Enough is enough.

-AG

When government takes away your money it’s called taxes. What is it called when government takes away your purchasing power? That’s what unsustainable national debt will bring. That’s what printing huge sums of money will bring. Now, government officials are leaving the door open to increasing taxes on middle class Americans directly. Make no mistake, Obama and co. have already “indirectly” increased taxes on all Americans through higher taxes on capital gains, higher taxes on upper tax bracket folks, and higher taxes on tobacco products to name a few. Those who don’t believe in trickle down wealth better start believing in trickle down taxation. Higher taxes on businesses and business owners translates into higher prices and less jobs. These guys are not about to let a liberal Washington take their money away.

Of course, many politicians make pledges that they will not raise taxes and do so. George HW Bush is the obvious example. Locally, in Florida, Charlie Crist is another example. Barack Obama, of course, is next in line to break this pledge, a pledge that no conservative took seriously. He might as well do it, he keeps getting criticized for his tax policies, so the costs of taxing the middle class directly will not be that high and it may offset some of his ridiculous spending. Of course in the long run, these taxes will probably reduce productivity and end up generating less revenue than initially expected. Not to mention that raising taxes during or immediately after a recession is a terrible idea. I say that Obama might as well take the plunge, if he really believes in it. I have a better solution though, instead of raising taxes on the middle class to balance the budget, he should cut the absurdly expensive spending programs and entitlement programs that he passed. Instead of funding a gov’t-run public option, focus on a cost-cutting approach to health care reform and include the free market through common sense tax incentives. Oh silly me, these solutions are all conservative solutions and do not involve “spreading the wealth around” as BHO famously said to Joe the Plumber. I guess in this administration, ideology trumps common sense. Again, I call for Obama to hire one more czar: the Logic Czar.

-AG

Notice the big smile on Kim Jong Il’s face, could it be that he just took his happy pills or that he’s overjoyed that the man who helped him develop nuclear weapons under the world’s noses is back for a second round? William Jefferson Clinton, former president of the United States, was the man who assured us at the end of his second term that he would stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons in exchange for billions in aid from the US. Apparently, peace-in-our-time Bill was under the impression that Kim Jong Il actually cared about his people or peace… how wrong he was. Fortunately, there seems to be a good chance that Clinton will secure the release of two US journalists being held there. Unfortunately, Clinton’s visit may also be the precursor to a strategy of direct diplomacy that will result in more appeasement of the communist regime. So far the official line is that this visit is a private affair. I highly doubt that. Slick Willy met his match in Slick Kim Jong Il-ly last time, let’s hope that this time he brought his poker face.

-AG

I am adding the song “Dream On” by Aerosmith to the songs on the left (scroll through the songs to find it) in honor of this visit.

Update: North Korea grants amnesty to the two journalists. Bravo. Only bad thing is that North Korea wins PR victory, but the lives of two Americans are much more valuable. “Clinton expressed words of sincere apology to Kim Jong Il for the hostile acts committed by the two American journalists against the DPRK after illegally intruding into it.” I guess that being a journalist is a “hostile action.” Let’s hope that Clinton or the administration did not make any other concessions to the communist regime… this goes to show that even Democrats can do good things, but at what cost?

I was just reading this article on how Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al-Qaeda’s second in command, was criticizing Obama for trying to advocate for a Palestinian state that does Israel’s bidding. It is funny that Al Qaeda is trying to slam Obama’s efforts far not going far enough in helping the Palestinian cause. It shows us that appeasement does not work and that extremists will blame us for anything and everything that is wrong in the world, even if we are doing something that they agree with. While some may consider this to be a sign that Obama is succeeding in capturing some Muslim goodwill, the reality is that terrorists are still capitalizing on anti-American sentiment in the region, with groups such as the Taliban, Hezbollah, and Hamas showing no signs of subsiding. They hate us for being a free and democratic superpower, only abandoning our ideals, our allies, and our interests will be enough to appease them.

He also said that Obama’s new nice-guy policy towards the Islamic world was the direct result of the “heavy losses” we have suffered because of them (and other terrorists/insurgents). This was my point from the beginning, Obama is perceived as one who cannot stomach a fight and will surrender and withdraw at the sight of terrorist attacks. Repeated communications from Al Qaeda only further prove this point. It is this very sentiment with regard to the mujihadeens’ fight against the USSR in Afghanistan that made the Taliban and Al Qaeda so appealing to terrorists and would-be terrorists. Beating Goliath is as much a motivator as being beaten by Goliath.

Another interesting thing is that Al Qaeda took the time to criticize Iran for not fighting directly against Israel when they invaded Gaza. Zawahiri called the Iranians sell-outs… which makes it official: even terrorists, our sworn enemies, will stand up to Iran but our president won’t. When Iranian protesters were on the street getting beaten, arrested, and killed as they demanded democracy, Obama said nothing and did nothing. When the abuses became more and more apparent and the international community condemned Iran’s regime nearly unanimously, only then did the president come out and condemn them for their oppressiveness. When Iran publicly expressed their support for international terrorism, the administration again did and said nothing. This is the pattern for the administration and it only enables Iran’s destabilization of the region.

Since Obama will probably do little to defend America from these two threats, Al Qaeda and Iran, I certainly do not mind if Al Qaeda and the Iranian regime go at it… and destroy themselves both in the process.

-AG

Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb, Western intelligence sources have told The Times.

At this moment, Iran has the capability to develop the bomb and can produce enough enriched uranium in about 6 months. Last January 20th it would have taken them 6 more months, but of course they were not stopped by the Obama administration. Instead, Obama decided it was time to engage in a long-term chat with the Iranian regime. Worse still, Iran’s Supreme Leader has just endorsed the hard-line, Holocaust-denying Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iranian president, making these US-Iranian tea-time-chats even more useless in advancing our goal of preventing their production of nuclear weapons. When Israel suggested that a military strike was possible and it would push back their development 2 to 3 years, Obama told them ‘absolutely not.’ At what point does timidity become treason?

Worry not, though, I am not sticking to the right-wing talking points, the truth is that Bush also played a huge part in this appeasement strategy. Bush’s botched handling of the Iraq war gave North Korea and Iran the green light to develop nuclear weapons because they knew that we could not commit to another lengthy invasion/occupation like Iraq and Afghanistan. A successful invasion/reconstruction of Iraq would have been the best deterrent, but alas, a failed post-invasion strategy led to a near-civil war and an empowered Iran. Obama made it worse by openly advocating a kids-gloves policy towards dictatorships and terror-sponsoring states… it’s like the more dangerous the regime, the nicer that Obama acts.

If The Times report is accurate, then the civilized world better find a way to stop the Iranian regime or get used to a nuclear-armed state that openly preaches the utter destruction of our allies while sponsoring international terrorism. The thing that Americans need to ask themselves is “Why would president Obama work to further the goals of that hard-line Iranian regime?” The answer straddles the line between the sinister and the naive. The Left has long had a love-affair with totalitarian ideologies because of the fact that they are instinctively suspicious of American power and American freedom. Left-wing ideology stems from a rejection of individual initiative and instead embraces almost any ideology that posits that the collective is superior to the individual. This belief also applies to nations, where they believe that the inequality of nations, the inequality of powers in the world, is inherently evil and leads to war. That’s why Leftists ridicule and fear patriotism, disdain the military, and believe that the idea of “country” needs to go away and be replaced with a unified single world government. The only way to do this is to make countries equal in power, just like the Left’s domestic socialism strives to make everyone equal in wealth. This is why Obama embraces any regime that is willing to challenge American power, it is simply in his DNA to strive to create a world of multiple “equal” powers; he essentially said as much when he visited Europe telling them not to rely on America (economically) as much in the future. In the process, the role of democracy and freedom in the world will be diminished and instead of worrying about an intrusive federal government accountable to the people of America, we will have to worry about an authoritarian global government accountable to no one. It’s a brave new world out there.

-AG

For years, the terrorists of the world have dreamed of setting foot inside the continental United States so that they could wreak havoc… finally, their dreams are about to come true. Our Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama, is considering bringing Guantanamo Bay detainees to the continental US: either Michigan or Kansas. We have known about this for a while, but the administration has been unclear as to where they want to take them and Congress recently denied the funds to relocate detainees. The administration is now considering building a prison-courtroom complex to house the suspected terrorists and put them on trial. Remind me again, why can’t we put them on trial in Guantanamo right now? Didn’t the administration put all of the suspected terrorists’ trials on hold? Oh yes, of course, FOX wanted to film a reality-TV version of Prison Break but wasn’t allowed to film in Gitmo.

Closing a perfectly good legal purgatory that keeps the suspected terrorists far away from the American population makes no sense. The reason that the administration is doing this is just politics, appeasing the far left. Let’s get the trials rolling. Let’s make it a bit more transparent so that the skittish liberals can see that we are not torturing anymore, and if they are torturing then it will get them to stop. Let’s keep the suspected terrorists off US soil. Is SANITY from this administration too much to ask?

-AG

I talk a lot about socialists in this blog, particularly Castro and Chavez. My worry, which is the worry of many Americans, is that president Obama is following in the footsteps of these leaders, expanding government to the detriment of the individual and free markets. It is important to highlight the events that are taking place in socialist countries around the world, especially the socialists that base their systems on the ideas of Karl Marx and his authoritarianism. The reason that Marx fails is simple, I have had discussions about this ad nauseam: Marx theorized that organizing the “proletariat” into a ruling class and implementing communism through dictatorship will eventually lead to a “stateless” and “classless” society… clear logic will reveal that making the state all-powerful will likely not lead to a “stateless” society and that making the proletariat a “ruling class” will likely not lead to a “classless” society. Hence, Marxism is a recipe for permanent dictatorship in the name of economic justice and history has repeatedly shown this to be true.

That said, Venezuelan “president” Hugo Chavez has recently shut down dozens of private radio stations in Venezuela in his campaign to stifle all dissent and free expression. This is rule number six as listed in the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” written by Marx and Frederick Engels: controlling all means of communication. Of course, people familiar with the history of Cuba knew full well that Chavez would eventually get to this point; we have been warning Venezuelans of this for years. In fact, Chavez is going further and trying to pass a law that will criminalize certain types of speech. Amending the Constitution, nationalization of private industry, shutting down the media, aiding communist guerrillas in Colombia, and increased militarization of Venezuela are all actions that Chavez has taken to transform that country into a socialist/communist state. He is also exporting this Castro-inspired model to other countries in the region, spending heavily to influence their electoral processes. Is this a person we want to be friends with?

-AG

With the recent declaration from Cuban dictator Raul Castro that he will not end ’socialism’ in Cuba but rather ‘defend, maintain and continue perfecting’ it, I realized that my position with respect to Cuba is diametrically opposed to this administration’s approach. Castro, either Fidel or Raul, cannot be negotiated with, Castro must be killed. Of course, I am no extremist, so when I say ‘kill’ I mean that the dictators should be put on trial and given the death penalty… in other words, there is a legal process, but the crimes are already known, there is not much wiggle room. By Cuba’s very laws, the crimes that the regime has perpetrated at the direction of both Castros are punishable by death. There have been forced deportations, denial of basic human rights, mass executions, disappearances of political opponents, widespread torture, and untold other crimes that the Castros have authorized with impunity.

In a more objective sense, international law calls the Castro regime a perpetrator of “crimes against humanity.” People like Wilhem Frick, a Nazi who ran the concentration camps, was sentenced to death even though his participation was institutional, i.e. he wasn’t personally killing people. The Castros on the other hand were and are the ultimate architects of the daily criminal acts against the Cuban people and they know exactly what they are doing. Just like the Nazis, these enemies of humanity will not just surrender to international authorities, they need to be arrested and put on trial. Apparently, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1674 makes the UN Security Council responsible for the prevention of crimes against humanity and also for the protection of populations from these crimes. This means that Castro, according to international law and the UN, needs to either surrender to the authorities or be forcibly arrested, and given that the United States is the closest and most able member of the UN Security Council, it only makes sense that the US be the nation that carries out this mission. In fact, I will volunteer to join the group that is sent to arrest the Castros… gladly in fact. So, let’s not mince words, the United Nations needs to live up to its mission and obligation to the world and order the arrest of Fidel Castro and Raul Castro (and anyone else that is guilty in the regime)… dictators around the world will be put on notice if the Castros are given the death penalty.

I hope that makes my position on Cuba crystal clear. The Castros need to die.

-AG

Once upon a time there was a country with private run health care. The system was not perfect in that it did not cover everyone, but the quality of care was very high by international standards. One day, a person came along and ran for president. He would come to promise a better life for everyone, a change from the previous government, and the people flocked around him. When he came to power, he started making changes that would eventually result in a government-run universal health care system. Sound familiar?

In this system, if you needed to go to the dentist, you would need to make a line and sleep over the night before at the doorstep of the dentist’s office. Once you would be admitted, all the dental work would be done without anesthesia, because of a shortage, and the dentist would be rushing to get you out. If you moved too much he would yell “Stop moving! I have like twenty other people behind you!” all while hitting a nerve and nearly drowning you with the little water hose (because they have no suction hose either, costs too much).

Well, this is not a story about what is happening or may happen in America, but rather a story of what actually happened in Cuba. The person visiting the dentist was my father and this was a typical visit to the dentist. The regular doctor was not much different. The moral of the story is that government-run health care will invariably lead to rationing and long lines, it already happens in Canada and the UK. If this is the type of care that Americans want, a system that puts people on long waiting lists so that they can simply see, then we can start with a public option that will eventually evolve into a straight government-run health care system. Obama has been very explicit in calling for single-payer government-run universal health care, he is simply going about it a roundabout way. This is a matter of choice: either you deny choice by creating a government system or you allow people to have choice by letting private insurers offer their services. Red pill or blue pill. Should Washington bureaucrats, who refuse to read the bills they pass, choose or the American people?

-AG