Was it something I said?

A couple years ago, I had a chance to sit down with Fredrick P. Kessler, my State Assemblyman.  He was walking around the neighborhood carrying his own nomination petitions around and getting signatures to be placed on the ballot to be re-elected.  I knew his politics up front (he is a complete leftist, his nickname is 'red Fred'), and we had a chance to chat on my front porch for about twenty minutes.  We both knew going into the conversation that we were on opposite sides of the aisle, but he still took the time to chat with me.  You gotta respect a politician like that.

Flash forward to now.  Earlier this month, I learned that I was redistricted from Kessler's district into the neighboring district, represented by Jason M. Fields, another politician I will have very little in common with.  I reached out to Rep Fields a couple weeks ago regarding a vote he took, but have yet to receive a reply from him.

My email was short, as shown below:

To the Honorable Jason M. Fields
Dear Rep. Fields,

I am new to your district, and as such, I am now acquainting myself with your past actions as a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly. In my looking at your votes, I notice that you voted NO on AB 426, the mining bill. I am curious about your rationale on this vote. I would appreciate hearing your views.

Respectfully,
Jim Smith

I am going to retry again, this time with a longer email.  I'll post the updated email, and any repsonses.

Living Conservative in a Liberal World (Part 7): A Little Civility Please!

There is a local talk radio host who thinks that conservatives are wusses. We hold ourselves to a high ethical standard, and when liberals constantly take advantage of our high ethical standards and reap a political benefit, it is because we weren't willing to get down into the trenches and get dirty fighting back. He said that conservatives will never truly have political power until we are willing to play out of the same relaxed rule book as liberals, employing the same dirty tricks and taking advantage of every chink in their armor the way they do to conservatives.

Consider how the left set out to absolutely destroy Sarah Palin. They attacked her character, the character of her family (especially Bristol, with good reason), her intelligence and her ethics. When none of that worked, they attacked her for her clothes.

Now I am not a huge Sarah fan as readers of this blog may know. I don't have anything against her really, I just don't think she is the end-all be-all that some people believe she is. That being said however, I have a problem with people who can't leave well enough alone.

Recently, comedienne Kathy Griffin declared that her new target for the new year would be Willow Palin (read the article here if you like). She said that after having gone after Sarah, Todd and Bristol it is "Willow's year to go down" and that she wants "to offend a whole new Palin."

Can anyone say overkill? Why go after a 16 year old because you hate the politics of her mother? For that matter, what sane, rational person hates someone so much that they feel the need to attack their family? I mean, seriously, this isn't the mafia here. It is politics! And a couple years ago, when she "dated" Levi Johnston ... what was that all about? How hateful do you have to be in order to want to hurt the daughter of the person you hate by appearing in public with, and then vehemently denying you are dating, the father of that daughter's child?

I am not saying that only liberals have a problem with civility. It was conservatives after all, specifically Jerry Fallwell and his Moral Majority who fired the first shot in this war of incivility when they made politics a battle not of competing ideologies, but a battle between good and evil. I remember how riled up some conservatives got during this time in our political history. Nothing gets the blood of a religious person boiling like the belief that someone is acting against God.

So I make a plea here. Civility. Is it too much to ask for? Is it too much to ask that conservatives and liberals alike say "enough is enough, lets get back to the real issues here and stop this over the top incivility?"

Sadly, it may be.

There's glitter on the floor ...

OK, so maybe using a Ke$ha lyric as a title is a little odd, but go with it for a moment. To me, this post is kind of important. I had talked about Meghan McCain in a previous post, and now I am going to take on Sarah and Bristol Palin.

I think that the Palins are trying too hard to show America that they are a typical family and that Republicans and conservatives are normal people. They honestly didn't need to do this. At work there is a guy who is socialist in his ideas and is a vehement supporter of the Democratic Party because they are closest to his ideas as a socialist. When John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, this guy was running scared because she was so "genuine" it terrified him. He admitted that Sarah Palin scared the heck out of liberals because she was Conservative and middle class. The thing they don't want is middle class Americans identifying with a conservative Republican. If too many Americans look at her and think "gee, she is more like me than either of those two guys on the Democratic ticket, the Democrats lose the middle class, and like "Reagan Democrats", many will never return to the fold.

So the hunt was on. The media dispatched a legion of reporters to Alaska to dig up dirt on her, which failed. They tried to attack her on Bristol's pregnancy, but that didn't work, because so many middle class families go through the same exact thing. Then they started to focus on her inexperience, pointing out her lack of understanding of current events in Djibouti, but that didn't work either because most of Americans don't even know Djibouti exists, much less what their current diplomatic standing with the United States is and whether or not they offer safe haven to terrorists. Finally they focused on the cost of her wardrobe. "How much like you can someone wearing five hundred dollar shoes be?" was the unspoken question they were offering.

The election is over. Sarah Palin is not in the Vice President's residence on the Naval Observatory grounds. Rather than face into the background, Sarah and Bristol instead used the campaign to leapfrog into the world of celebrity status. Sarah got a gig on Fox News, which in itself is fine, but then she does her reality show "Sarah Palin's Alaska." Not the action of someone with Presidential aspirations. If getting on reality TV is a prerequisite for being President these days, we are in trouble. Does anyone else cringe at the thought of President Snooki?

Bristol goes on Dancing with the Stars and goes all the way to the finals. Good for her. Apparently, the stars don't have to glitter all that much to get on DWTS. What exactly qualified her as a star? Her inability to keep her knees together when Levi came calling? Somehow I don't think that is enough. I mean sure, she is cute. But should she, someone who displayed some problems with living up to the moral standards that the family claimed to stand for be on national TV shaking what her momma gave her? There were people saying she dressed, acted and danced like a whore. Thankfully my exposure was limited, but that didn't stop the liberals at school from throwing it in my face.

I choose not to defend them. I choose to defend ideas rather than people. Sadly, liberals will use the flaws of individuals to discredit ideas. The idea could date back to Adam Smith or Alexis deTocqueville, but if it is held by Sarah Palin, the fact that she believes it renders the idea as something that is not worthy of consideration.

This is the way the left operates. Destroy the people, because they are easier to destroy than ideas. I bought into Sarah Palin during the election. I wasn't a booster, but I thought she was just what McCain's anemic campaign needed. It was just what an anemic Republican Party needed. now, the Palins are just wannabe celebrities. Enjoy the glitter girls.

Living Conservative in a Liberal World (Part 6): A "recovered" liberal ...

NOTE: This is the final pre-written post on this string of posts. As I mentioned before, I will, from time to time revisit this topic thread. Hopefully, 2011 is a year of productive and happy blogging.

I sometimes describe myself as a recovered liberal. I first became politically aware back in the seventh grade. I remember the election of 1980 quite well. I remember going to the library on the bus after school and hearing people talking about the election. I said to one of the gentlemen, a Reagan supporter, something to the effect of 'Ronnie ray-gun will only get us into a war.'. The gentleman, an older gent by my recollection (of course when you are 12 anyone above their teens is "old"), said to me, "we have had four years of the clown, it is time for the cowboy."

I started attending church and going to youth group a few years later, and I remember listening to talk shows on the Christian radio station. As I listened, I heard a show featuring an interview with a guy by the name of Lindsey Williams who was exposing what he called "the energy non-crisis". He talked at length about "one world governments" and "the illuminati". He also referenced the then-current president of the United States, Ronald Reagan as being swayed by these secret groups. I made the assumption that Republicans were bad, and democrats were good. After all, people were starving around the world, and Republicans were in charge, didn't that make the fame in Ethiopia Reagan's fault? Working off of partial information and wild assumptions, I became a liberal. This lasted until my senior year in high school and that is when things began to change.

My senior year in high school, I had an amazing experience. I had the opportunity to go on a trip with a group of students to Washington DC as part of a program put on by the Close Up foundation. While we were there, we saw all of the sites and had educational programs. During our evening group discussion sessions, there were two liberals in the room, myself, and a young lady from Iowa. We argued our convictions with courage and passion, but by the end of the week, I was starting to question my beliefs.

Because I believed I lacked opportunities, I left to join the Navy right after high school ended. No one in my family had ever gone to college, and because we were barely making ends meet and couldn't afford the fees, I never took the SAT or ACT test. We couldn't afford college anyways, so why even try?

While I was in the Navy, I discovered many things. They say that boot camp makes or breaks you, well in my case it made me. I came out of boot camp far more confident than I went in. After boot camp, I went to Naval Air Station Memphis to attend my training school. While I was there, I spent a lot of time in a place called the Armed Forces Center, which was run by missionaries who were reaching out to military personnel on the base. In my time spent there, I came under the tutelage of two older military members who volunteered at the center. They taught me many things about constitutional government, patriotism and the founding of the United States. The more I learned, the more I realized that my previous beliefs were wrong, and by the end of my time in Memphis, I had abandoned them, but I didn't quite embrace conservatism yet.

As I had opportunity to travel the world and learn about the world and our own nation, I grew more and more conservative in my ideas. I came to realize that freedom from oppression and tyranny made all the difference in people's lives and lifestyles. I also learned that freedom from oppression and tyranny is more than being free from outside nations, but it encompasses being free within the borders of your own nation from excessive government intervention and interference in your life.

By the time I left the navy, I was a rock sold conservative. I based my convictions on my Christian beliefs, my observations of the world, and the writings of philosophers who believed in freedom and basic human rights. In the end, isn't that all you need?

Living Conservative in a Liberal World (Part 2): Why I Am Writing This

NOTE: This is a post that was written some time ago. I am gradually posting them in order to build up the blog and perhaps get myself into the habit of the blogging regularly.

I was talking to my class one day when I was struck with a couple of revelations. One revelation is that my urban students are "stuck on liberal," a revelation that is none too shocking. The second revelation, however, was shocking. The revelation was that it is the fault of conservatives that my students are stuck on liberal. As a matter of fact, it may well be the fault of conservatives that urban public education is failing altogether. This got me to thinking about the world we live in. It truly is a liberal world. Young people are inundated with liberal thoughts and ideology for at least twelve years if they are in public education.

Conservatives are an interesting bunch. I ought to know, because I am one. There are many different types of Conservatives, but there are a few distinct characteristics that many conservatives share. Many conservatives believe that the public education system is a bankrupt program which has failed to elevate the masses to full participatory citizenship in the great experiment we call the United States of America. Public education has failed to fulfill Jefferson's belief that only when people are well-informed can they be "trusted with their own government."

I would argue, however, that this failure is due to the ascendancy of liberalism in the public schools and the flight of conservatives out of them. In the 60's, liberals realized that the best place to replicate was in the sector of public education. Liberals started to go into teaching and take over the staff lounges at the nation's public schools. During the 1980's, seeing the path that liberals were taking our public schools, conservatives, and especially Christian conservatives, pulled their children out of public schools and placed them in private, often church run schools. Removed from the population of public schools in one decade were not only the students whose family upbringing would make them conservative in nature, but the conservatives who would have otherwise worked in public education to teach them.

We are rapidly approaching a time when those who believe in a greater government role in the lives of citizens will not only outnumber those who believe in limited government, but they will have a large enough voting bloc that old fashioned liberty, liberty envisioned by Jefferson, when he said "A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government."

It is sad, as one who loves liberty, to see the people of the United States sliding into the depths of being a culture of dependency. They look to the government for the things that our forbearers did for themselves. During the "great recession" of 2008-2010, a Facebook group was created called I.N.A.F.J. which stands for "I Need a F-ing Job." It was a poignant plea from people who are fed up with being unemployed. They wanted jobs, sure, but by creating a Facebook group, it seemed like what they were really after was validation. Through online T-shirt sales, they actually raised the money to pay for a billboard that greeted the President in Buffalo during a stop there that read "Dear Mr. President, I need a freaking job. Period. Sincerely, inafj.org." Last time I looked, it was not the job of the government, or the President, to help you get a job.

Now, I understand that the costs of regulation and high taxes leads to private sector job losses. I also understand that government action can create a favorable business environment that leads to job growth. That is not the point here. Sure the INAFJ folks talk about taxes and regulation on their website. They favor (supposedly) smaller government that spends less, allows people and businesses to keep more of what they earn and with that kept wealth, stimulate and grow the economy. But anyone who would buy a billboard that reads "Dear Mr. President, I need a freaking job" is a group that Makes me say "Dear Billboard Owner, Retrain, Reapply, Relocate" because, when it comes down to getting a job, I believe in the three R's.

What conservatives need to win …

This will be short and sweet in honor of Valentine’s Day.  If conservatives really want to win this November, they need something.  They need specificity.  The democrats won by whining and complaining.  The American people, now that they are seeing specifics of the democrats ideas and plans, they don’t like it.

So, for the republicans to win… for conservatives to take the government back, they need to put forth to the people a unified, SPECIFIC plan and message, much like the Contract with America from 1994.  Call it the American Plan for Prosperity or something.  Here is my wish list for the plan:

• Include in it a simplified tax code with three brackets (starting at $18,000.00 and eliminate the EIC at the same time) and close the current loopholes the tax code is riddled with. 
• Include in it a tax subsidy for homeowners who add solar and wind electrical generation systems to their homes if those systems feed power back to the grid.
• Include in it a cap on punitive damages in medical malpractice cases at the amount of the $500,000.00 or the ten-year average of the doctor’s annual salary, whichever is more.
• Include in it a ten-year plan of spending and construction to retrofit all existing federal buildings with green technology.
• Include in it a portability law which allows workers to take their health insurance with them when they change jobs, and allow people to purchase insurance across state lines.

By providing a simple, straightforward plan, with specific, measurable goals, we can take our country back from the democrats who seem hell-bent on destroying it.

Meghan McCain: Defiantly hot, but do we want her? NOT!

Meghan McCain is many things.  In the days after the campaign, she was put up as the face of a newer, younger, hipper Republican Party.  Sure, she's mattressable, but beyond that, does she have anything to offer a conservative like me?  Let's see, she hates the teabag movement. She favors gay rights (I am not anti-gay-rights, I m pro-civil rights, no one group deserves special rights).  She can't tell the difference between original sources (Rham Emanuel saying liberals were "retarded") and secondary reporting (Rush Limbaugh quoting Emanuel).  She is basically an empty-headed socialite who is, like Paris Hilton, famous only for being famous.  She has nothing in her resume that makes me believe in her as an individual.

I believe that she is a Republican only because of her family, and once John passes on, she will probably switch parties.  To that I say, fine.  Go Ahead Meghan.  Stop pretending and go be a Democrat.  Trust me, you will fit right in since I doubt your professed belief in conservative fiscal principles is very genuine.  You will fit in with all the other showy socialites.  Meanwhile, those of us who stand on principles will be rid of your poisonous influence.  And after the sad day that your father does leave this world, you will, thankfully, fade into the obscurity from which you came.