Is Ron Paul the Compromise Candidate?

Is the Right willing to give up its war mongering for a smaller more constitutionally oriented government that balances it’s budget?

Is the Left willing to give up deficit spending for the cessation of endless American wars?

Except for Ron Paul there seems to be no candidate on either side that will do any of the above.

Ron Paul may be either side's only hope to win anything!

Ron Paul: the Mahatma Gandhi of politics

Ron Paul is a humble man of peace. He is the Mahatma Gandhi of American politics. His ideas may be those ideas, greater than the tread of armies, whose time have come.

The Liberal Mentality

A basic characteristic of the liberal is a lack of confidence in the individual’s ability to make it through life without government support.   And the belief that government has the capability to step in and, without fail, fill that ability gap.

College Student Voting

I am amazed that college students, whose permanent residents are elsewhere, are able to vote in the jurisdiction in which they attend school.   I spent 4 years at the University of Kansas and never would have dreamed of voting in Lawrence, Kansas elections.   I was a resident of Oak Park, Illinois.   Why should I interfere with Lawrence, Kansas politics?

Students should be studying when at school.   Getting involved in political activities while away from home at school is counter-productive to their education process.   It should also be illegal as that is not their permanent residence.

If a student wants to vote, fine.   But go home and do it!

Union Day?

I see that Robin Vos and Van Wanggaard are both considering ditching the Labor Day festivities. That is apparently because the unions don't like either of them.

Republican Pam Galloway is unwelcome by the unions in the Labor Day parade up in Wausau.

Since when did Labor Day become Union Day? I though the holiday was for the purpose of honoring the working people of the nation upon whose backs all this oppressive government spending is dependent. What has that got to do with unions?

Disappointing Debt Limit Increase

I am disappointed in the vote on the debt limit increase.   The five Wisconsin Republican Representatives to the House all voted for the increase.   That was a little surprising.   That Paul Ryan was party to that unanimity was not.   I have never considered Ryan a true conservative.   Very smart.   Very sociable.   But not very conservative.

The Wisconsin House Democrats went one for, one against, and one missed the vote.

That 269 for - 161 against vote on the limit increase puts the country an untold additional trillions of dollars further into debt.   Somehow, according to those who support the measure, it will now be easier to get out of debt.

I anticipate an increase in Michelle Bachman's stock.   Sarah Palin is even looking more presidential.

The Libertarians still have work to do before they become a serious consideration.   But they may become serious spoilers, although I don't know who they will be spoiling.   It won't be the Republicans.   They have already blown it.

Hold on my heart.

Obama or a Republican for President?

The United States will fare better with Obama as President than Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee or Tim Pawlenty; probably even Herman Cain.

There are about 240 Republicans in the 435 member House of Representatives. Of those 240 about 60 are in the so-called Tea Party Caucus. And the Tea Party House Republicans are having a big effect on what the House of Representatives is doing, particularly with regards to balancing the federal budget. They even show promise of curtailing the growth of government.

If the likes of one of the Republican presidential candidates listed above, all of them establishment type Republicans—non of them Tea Partiers, becomes president of the United States, it will dilute the effectiveness of the House in curtailing the Obama agenda as all Republican Congressmen become subject to the leadership of the President. Certainly the 180 non-Tea Party Republicans will gain the upper hand in the House and we will be into another Bush-type era in Congress - more spending, more wars, more economic stress, more compromising with the socialistic Democrats on entitlements.

If Obama remains in the White House, the Tea Party Caucus will maintain its effectiveness. It will continue to grow as Obama keeps the grass roots TEA Party electorate concerned, active and vigilant, sending more libertarian type candidates to Congress. The battle between Congress and the President will produce another Clinton type standoff and the country will get a much needed break from government expansion. We might even get a balanced budget as we did with Clinton in the White House and a Republican Congress.

So an Obama win, despite having to put up with a foolish, childish president for another four years, will be better for the country than a more respectable, establishment type Republican in that seat.

There is a third alternative: put a libertarian type of Republican into the presidency. That would be the best case scenario of the three. There are two such candidates currently in the race: Ron Paul and Gary Johnson. But neither of them is going to win the Republican party nomination. The press and the Republicans will assure that outcome. End of discussion of an improbable libertarian presidency.

Should you vote for Obama? Only if you are a socialist or a masochist. I will be voting Libertarian in 2012 and smile when Obama rolls into another 4 year term.

Where lies hope? Real social and economic recovery is coming via the States.

Presidential War Powers and the Murder of bin Ladin

Per the constitution, only Congress may declare a war. The Founders put this in the constitution to prevent a president (also established as the Commander In Chief of the Military by that document) from throwing the country into a war for specious reasons and was the habit of kings working within a monarchy.

Not to be denied, the presidents of the United States continue to engage in such wars, illegally. Not since Franklin Delano Roosevelt has the United States legally engaged in war.

And now, the president of the United States has actually committed murder in the killing of Osama bin Ladin. What right does he have to invade any country, even our own, and, without an order of a court, pursuant to due process of law, search out an individual and kill him.

Could such an action as taken by the president be legally done? I think so, but only under the war provisions of the constitution.

Some will say that the War Powers Resolution of 1973 gives the president such authority. If it does then we have reverted back to the 18th century powers of the Kings of Europe, the very world we revolted against in Lexington in 1775 and condemned with the writing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Alan Colmes interviews Judge Andrew Napolitano discussing the killing of Osama bin Ladin within the framework of constitutional war and presidential powers. (12½ minutes)

Vice-president Paul Ryan?

Paul Ryan would make an interesting running mate for presidential candidate Gary Johnson, former governor of New Mexico. Ryan would add a conservative “legitimacy” to Johnson’s libertarian agenda.

Can Government Protect Your Liberty?

Joseph Kexel asked this question on Libertarians Unleashed, his blog talk radio show, this evening. It is an interesting question.

We know that governments historically have never protected the liberty of their constituents. They have always done the opposite: led (or driven) them into slavery—short of revolution or collapse.

I can confidently predict that no government ever will protect the liberty of its constituents. Considering the record of government, that is a fairly easy prognostication.

But can government protect your freedom? Is it even possible? That's a tougher question, and an answer I think worth pondering.

If we start with the caretaker-charge paradigm, it is pretty obvious that the patient does not tell the caretaker what to do. It is quite the other way around.

Work that paradigm into the government-constituent relationship, incorporate that into what we see around us in what is commonly referred to as "the nanny state," and...well...the concept of governmental capability of the protection of individual liberty does not hold a lot of promise.

Walker Puts It On the Line for Local Government

Scott Walker is giving local taxing agencies a great big tool to help them balance their budgets. He didn’t have to do that, you know.  He could have simply reduced Shared Revenues (money to municipalities and counties) and State Equalization Aid (money to school systems) without helping those systems out at all.  That is exactly what Jim Doyle, Walker's predecessor, had planned to do.

But Walker refused to leave local governments out on that proverbial limb.   Instead he put his neck on the block and got the law passed that demanded—ordered!—the local governing systems to replace that lost state subsidy with money saved through long overdue, reasonable contributions by employees to their pension funds and health care benefits.

That was a gutsy thing to do.

No one in government is going to give up their piece of the pie happily.   And when you take a large section of the public sector and force them to do just that—all at once—you get the phenomenon we recently observed in Madison.

There aren’t very many men or women with courage that get that high in office.   Most attain those lofty heights through cowardly demagoguery.

We have a real jewel here in Wisconsin with Scott Walker as our governor.  He is upsetting thousands who have been leaching unjustly off the labors of hard working Wisconsinites.   But he will be appreciated by millions who deserve to keep the fruits of their labor and use their energy to rebuild a prosperous state in the place of one that is on the verge of bankruptcy.