The freedom to fly without being sexually violated.
The freedom to purchase a gun without a waiting period.
The freedom to grow, sell, and smoke marijuana.
The freedom to sell goods and services for whatever amount a buyer is willing to pay.
The freedom to make more than six withdrawals from one’s savings account each month.
The freedom to drink alcohol as a legal, voting adult under twenty-one years of age.
The freedom to purchase Sudafed over the counter.
The freedom to gamble without government approval.
The freedom to deposit more than $10,000 in a bank account without government scrutiny.
The freedom to not be stopped at a checkpoint and have one’s car searched without a warrant.
The freedom to sell any good or offer any service on Craigslist.
The freedom to fill in a “wetland” on one’s own property.
The freedom to cut someone’s hair for money without a license.
The freedom to home-brew over 100 gallons of beer per year.
The freedom to advertise tobacco products on television.
The freedom to smoke Cuban cigars.
The freedom to not wear a seatbelt.
The freedom to be secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.
The freedom to keep the fruits of one’s labor.
The freedom of an employer and an employee to negotiate for any wage.
The freedom to discriminate against anyone for any reason.
The freedom to videotape the police in public.
The freedom of businesses to hire and fire whomever they choose.
The freedom to not be brutalized by the police.
The freedom to not be arrested for victimless crimes.
The freedom to sell raw milk.
The freedom to not have one’s child subject to unnecessary vaccinations.
The freedom to not have one’s child unjustly taken by Child Protective Services.
The freedom to not be subject to the Patriot Act.
The freedom for kids to set up neighborhood lemonade stands.
The freedom to not have every facet of business and society regulated.
The freedom to stay in one’s home during a hurricane.
The freedom to not have our e-mail and phone conversations monitored.
The freedom to travel to and trade with any country.
The freedom to be left alone.
I wrote this over a year ago and forgot about it. I think it still applies today...
I am a conservative with pernicious libertarian tendencies who believes we should examine our politicians and probe their logic, not worship them. We should be skeptical, very skeptical, of everything that proceeds from their loquacious gobs. I also don't want any of them feeling too comfortable up there in the District of Criminals.
Thomas Jefferson said it best:
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.--Thomas Jefferson
I think George Bush was no conservative, but I believe he is a sincere and honest man, as politicians go. He is not Hitler, he was not in on any 9/11 conspiracy, and VP Cheney didn't shoot holes in the New Orleans levees with his Halliburton cannon. If you back me into a corner, I will reluctantly admit that Bill Clinton was a pretty good president, private peccadilloes aside.
I have a grudging respect for Hillary Clinton, although I disagree with her politics. She's a hard worker and she does her homework.
Conservatives and Liberals will never agree on many subjects, but here are three things I hope we can all agree upon: 1) Make the politicians prove it; 2) Listen to one another; 3) Dial it back.
Make Them Prove It
I will start by pleading guilty to not paying attention as George Bush and the GOP went wilding with our money. My days of not standing up and questioning those I voted for are now over.
We are living in the age of rampant, naive credulity, and it needs to stop. Our default position should be to disbelieve anything a politician says until she can prove it. While we're at it, let's make them defend their big ideas in light of the US Constitution.
Taking this hyper-skeptical approach will keep them from tragically wasting our blood and our treasure. There is a selfish partisan interest here as well. By holding our own politicians and candidates' feet to the fire, and spitting them out when they're found to be full of crap, we preserve the reputation of our respective parties.
No more letting them lie to us with a wink and a nod just to get elected. The incinerator at the bottom of the memory hole has been extinguished. With the internet, America's digital memory is now infinite. Lying and political shape-shifting doesn't work in an age when I can sit in my underwear and research everything a politician has said since he was in grade school.
I share no ideology with Dennis Kucinich or Bernie Sanders, but they are probably two of the most honest politicians in DC, and I can at least admire them for that.
Listen to One Another
Left and right are poles apart, by definition. No one should have to listen to hysterical ideologues screaming insults, but we should lend an ear to reasoned voices on the other side. You don't have to compromise your principles to do it, and you may learn something.
Wanna know one area where the right has jumped on the lefty bandwagon? Opposition to crony capitalism. Conservative mistrust most likely springs from a different motive, but we've seen the light! We agree with you that government should not be in bed with corporations and bankers. No special favors!
Another area where the right has seen the light? The primacy of the US Constitution. A few years ago, only libertarians and liberal social activists referred to that venerable document. Granted, the left narrowly focused in on the bill of rights, usually the 1st, 4th and 5th Amendments, but they could nonetheless claim to be bigger constitutionalists than their ideological adversaries on the right.
No more. Our disillusion with traditional Country Club Republicanism stacked upon our distaste for postmodern liberalism has left us nowhere else to go. So let's rally 'round the constitution and argue over what those words mean. It is so much more productive than the tired bread and circuses of Republican team versus the Democratic team and "my politician is better than your politician."
Dial It Back
I have excoriated President Obama. I got so mad once that I put red Mickey Mouse ears on him. He's the president, so I should have more respect, as I thought the left should have shown President Bush.
I remember thinking at the time that George Bush did not make the case for invading Iraq. But everybody this side of Russ Feingold was too scared to call him on it, so off we went.
I cut him too much slack because I liked him (I still do). I blindly trusted him on everything from the Patriot Act to No Child Left Behind. Some of that stuff needed to be done, but no one on the right seriously questioned him. We did not have a critical debate.
You know what would have made it easier for me to part ways with Bush on some of these issues? If foaming-at-the-mouth leftists had not been jumping all over him like a mob of diseased orangutans, vomiting insults and hysterical rage at him. Had much of that legitimate criticism been well-stated and not couched in ad hominem, I would have found it much easier to jump on board. I was in the military at the time, and it seriously seemed like it was President Bush and us against the world.
We're All Americans
We will never agree on abortion, gay marriage, or health care, but we should all agree that no politician gets a free pass. We the People can also all agree on a few founding principles like a wall of separation between business and state, and a kick in the bum for crony capitalists and the corrupt political hogs who wallow with them. Maybe we can even be friendly to those on the other side who are not spewing hatred our way.
Am I dreaming? Probably, but I feel compelled to say this in the name of ideological ecumenism.Western Hero
We understand that when we’re granting the rights of marriage, that that’s a special right Tony, that’s something we have suggested is clearly the best possible way to see children raised through the best possible environment to launch the next generation, we believe that with all of our hearts as a society, I think most people understand that. So we’ve set aside this special area of the law that says we’re going to respect traditional marriage of a man and a woman because that is the launching pad of the next generation. Let’s face it; we have made a special exception in the law that gives special consideration and recognition to that.Then, just when you still might have thought that he was at all sane:
And when people would come along and blur that distinction and say ‘well that should apply in every way’ it not only is a complete undermining of the principles of family and marriage and the hope of future generations but it completely begins to see our society break down to the extent that that foundational unit of the family that is the hope of survival of this country is diminished to the extent that it literally is a threat to the nation’s survival in the long run.Who votes for these people?
One of the most misleading and distracting formulations that has been applied to the countering of terrorism is the notion that this effort is a “war.” The notion was in full bloom with the Bush administration's “war on terror.” Terrorism being a tactic, this concept, as Zbigniew Brzezinski once observed, makes as much sense as a “war on blitzkrieg.” The “war” idea also ignores several other realities: that military force is only one of several tools that can be used for counterterrorist purposes (law enforcement resources and the criminal justice system being a couple of the others); that counterterrorism does not entail a struggle against a single identifiable foe, as a real war does; and that counterterrorism does not have identifiable beginnings and endings, as real wars do.
Applying the “war” notion to counterterrorism has several negative consequences. It overly militarizes counterterrorism itself, encouraging excessive reliance on the military instrument. It invites the tendentious association of counterterrorism with unrelated military adventures or misadventures, as happened with the Bush administration's Iraq War. It further invites the open-ended use of extraordinary and even extra-legal methods, as occurred with the Bush administration's practices on detention and interception of communications. It elevates terrorists from the status of criminals to that of warriors.The National Interest
......
And so yet another important function of government, like many others, has been turned into either an ideological gesture or a campaign talking point.
A conservative popular with tea party activists and evangelical conservatives, she later linked President Barack Obama with "4,400 American lives" lost in Iraq. However, the death toll in the 8-year-old war that began under President George W. Bush had already reached 4,229 when Obama was inaugurated in 2009. It now stands at no fewer than 4,481.
As she campaigned in Iowa, now the focus of her effort to win the Republican nomination, Bachmann accused the administration of making changes in training manuals under pressure from pro-Islam groups with terrorist links.
"And now Obama is allowing terror suspect groups to write the FBI's terror training manual," she told about 75 Republican activists in an eastern Iowa hotel conference room.
The FBI has not removed Islam from training material, said an FBI official who was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter and requested anonymity.
The FBI has been conducting a comprehensive review of its training materials after it was revealed that what officials termed an inaccurate description of Islam, one that linked the religion to terrorism, was being used in some of the bureau's training programs. Last month, FBI officials said the agency was undertaking the review in light of an analyst's criticism of Islam during a lecture last spring.
In her remarks Friday, Bachmann broadly painted the effort as trying to remove the link between Islam and anti-American terrorism sponsored by radical Islamic extremists.
"And so now the White House has scrubbed all Islamic terms from the national counterterrorism strategy. The White House has removed all Islamic terms from the Pentagon's report on the Fort Hood shooting. And now, Obama is allowing terror suspect groups to write the FBI's terror training manual," she said.Link
Let's face it: there are some people who will buy damn near anything with Steve McQueen's name on it — *cough* us *cough* — but this is one of those times that you needn't be ashamed about it. Based on the classic T100 and inspired by the Trophy TR6 McQueen rode during the stunt scene from The Great Escape, the Triumph Bonneville T100 Steve McQueen Edition Motorcycle ($TBA) will be limited to just 1,100 bikes, and features a Matt Khaki Green paint job, the late actor's signature on the side covers, a solo seat, blacked out headlamp, luggage rack, wheel rims, hubs, handlebars, rear springs, mirrors, and mudguard supports, and arrived individually numbered, with a plaque on the handlebar clamp and a certificate of authenticity.Link
"One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. [Sex] is supposed to be within marriage. It’s supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal…but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. This is special and it needs to be seen as special."You Tube
It is possible to take something beautiful and lasting out of the heart-wrenching experience of seeing the animal you love move inexorably toward death. Nobody can take the grief away, nor should anyone try, but our love for animals is nothing but a gift, and it keeps on giving, even when they go home.
A man named Harry, an Iraq war veteran and tennis coach from Minnesota, hit upon a simple and profound idea to transform this otherwise sad experience into a blessed one.Read the rest here
