Throw The Bums Out (or why I stopped hating the war on terror and started loving Gitmo)

The Rasmussen Poll everyone should be familiar with has been posted in the left side column.

When I was a young boy I was angry at everything. I remember it well. The universe was a malevolent place that we were all trapped in, forced to do time in, doomed to suffer for years in. I guess you could say, growing up was a process of being more and more aware of my surroundings. My first paycheck was my first real civics lesson. I found out what an Income Tax was, and what all the rest of those deductions on my check were. No classroom teacher was going to teach me "the cost" of living in a mixed economy, just the benefits of one. Reagan may have cut some of my taxes, but a dozen Presidents before him were busy raising them. From that point on I began to envision what I saw as the "ideal". A nation without a mixed economy. Remove socialism out of the American economy, and taxes are not needed. Most Americans would love to finance a war on terror, Gitmo, and a predominantly friendly police force and court system, Voluntarily. And could, if they were allowed to keep the full fruits of their labor, which would be a 40% increase in their pay if you include the total tax burden on the average American, local, state, and federal, income, consumption, fees, ect.
My mom told me, when I asked why I didn't recieve my full compensation for my labor on my first paycheck, "its to pay for the police, roads, and bridges". I thought that explaination sounded reasonable. But when I first moved away from home and found people living better than me, while I worked 60 or more hours a week, and they worked none, I began to question Moms Roads/Bridges/Police explaination. Now that I am 40, and due to a lack of the usual deductions most enjoy, I estimate I have paid a decades worth of my life, working to pay my taxes. In the end, what did I get? What has America gotten? For anyone still working, or still trying to keep a business afloat, you know the answer. The bubble of the "mixed economy". Capitalism, mixed with Socialism, officially at 60-40.
My conclusion on taxes is this, and it is a simple one. We don't argue for scraps. We don't call our politicians and ask them for a 61-39 mix of Capitalism & Socialism. We ask them for a refund, but not for our money, but for our time. "I want my ten years of living, back!".
But the stakes for America are more serious than this. Yes, we are half breed slaves, the lot of us, but our very existance is now being threatened. I spent six months of my life in a war torn muslim country in the early nineties. They do not just hate "the west". They are currently planning to destroy it. That includes America. Understand also, that includes you and me. This should cause people to stop and pay attention. National defense effects everyone, like taxation, but can end our prosperity overnite, unlike taxation. When I first saw the trade center towers under attack on TV, and heard that it may have been a terror attack, I thought of the murderous thugs who hated us in Somalia when I was there. Now I was not a fan of the Bush doctrine of war. Nor was I a fan of Gitmo. I was not a left wing Bush-hater. I just didn't like the "extras" the neo-conservatives brought to the table in reguards to national defense. Tribunals, trials, commissions, occupations, reparations, negotiations, and useless treaty expectations, with the worst kind of humans out there.
Whatever you want to call this war we are in, I think most people of reason will agree, it is a war. In places like Afganistan, and possibly Iraq still, to some measure, it very much is a war. There are troops beyond our shores fighting, to the death at times, to preserve this, the greatest nation on earth. I applaud them for that. But what do they think of us, putting on show trials for the captured worst of the worst? We all know these bearded thugs are guilty. Even the President says so. So then , why the trial? I think the purpose of terrorist on trial is obvious. It is a political football. These men should have been interrogated, then "tortured" for every last drop of information. Where could the military have done this? Gitmo. Why is this not being done? Because political victories for the left, and this administration, are more important, than the real victories.
How long can this last? I dont know. Not forever, certainly. The Gitmo guest list names keep turning up on battlefields with more blood on their hands. But I can tell you I do still long for the ideal. If we are going to have to fight an enemy, we should fight that enemy, and nothing more. We owe them nothing but a response in force to 9/11. I miss the war on terror, I miss Gitmo, they meant the government could actually do the only job it is truly chartered to do...protect the individual rights of the citizens who chartered this ngovernment hundreds of years ago.
Thats what our politicians need to know. That we ask for something called Individual Rights to be made concrete in our lives. That we are worth it. And that no matter the party, anything less than victory and individual liberty, is unacceptable.

Third Party, Fifth Column, or Swingin' Fad?

Its been discussed by main stream media, probably as a way of assuring Obama a second term. Activists have condemed it as a lose/lose scenario. History has shown it (at least in the past century) to fail miserably. Is a third political party an option? Can the rise of the new Tea Party Patriot be successful at changing the GOP, making it a party more true to its stated convictions of a constitutional, limited government? There are several possible outcomes for the Tea Party Movement. It can stay outside the major parties, holding both parties feet to the flames, endorsing candidates who are on message with freedom. It can literally caucus within the GOP, putting its own candidates forward in primaries, running its own PACS. Or it can simply usher in GOP victorys in General Elections, and fade, as confidence in the GOP wanes, as the candidates rush to the center. Perhaps all three of the above scenarios could occur? If history shows us anything about organizations, and this includes Parties, its that they change as their members views change. A group is only as good, and as effective, as its individual members are. But are we then to believe that this revolt is no different than the Gingrich led swing against Clinton in 1994? Or the Reagan Revolution, and swing to the right of 1980? Obviously, those "swings" had limited effects on Americas long march to the left. Perhaps, what we in this new Individual Rights Movement should be asking ourselves is, what can we do differently? What can we do this time, to make this "event" be more long lasting? Is it Educational? Legislative? Stategic? How can the Tea Party Movement make itself bigger than the GOP? Stronger than the Reagan Revolution, and longer lasting than the New Deal? Comments welcome here.

Dis-Connect & Revolution in 2010

In a recent poll, people were asked wether or not the nation would be better off if incumbents were re-elected, or, thrown out of office.

Of people "likely to vote", 63% said the country would be better off if incumbents were voted out of office in Congress. 19% disagree. 18% not sure.

Of mainstream voters (registered voters), 78% said that the nation would be better off if encumbents in Congress were voted out.

In November of 2009, not long ago, the same poll had mainstream voters at a 42%/42% split on wether incumbents should be in, or outed.

Something very big has changed, I don't think the Nixon and Vietnam Era was near this bad. Something that was brewing in 2008, and 2009, is starting to bubble over now.

In the same poll, people considered of the political "class", of them, 89% think the country would be better off re-electing the incumbents in Congress.

What a difference. Big changes are headed for the political animals. They are dis-connected from the rest of this country...about as disconnected as a group can be.

November will be interesting.

Tea Party Convention, Some Thoughts

To paraphrase our first President, 'government is force, and like fire, must be tamed', and that seemed to be the undercurrent at the National Tea Party Convention (the first!) this weekend. And what an important message. I encourage anyone who missed it to go to either CSPAN, or PJTV, to catch some of the coverage. I think it is important to have a pro-individual, dual party watchdog group, and I hope, this is a long term project.