Immediately after the election in November 2008, I wrote the following piece asking what have we done by electing this unknown man to the Presidency?



11-05-08

So, what has just happened? Explain to me how this happened.



...Imagine if back in 1948, just seven years after Pearl Harbor, America elected as president not Harry Truman but instead chose an American Japanese. What if in 1948 Americans elected someone of German or Russian decent? Would that have been possible? I know people today that still will not buy Japanese products because of the war with Japan. My Grandfather never forgave the Japanese. I have customers who ask specifically if the motorcycles we sell are made in America and not Japan because they still have strong feelings handed down to them from a parent or Grandparent.

Just seven years ago Arab Muslims perpetrated and carried out a viscous attack on our country killing 3000 American citizens and subsequently another 3000 plus have died fighting Muslim extremists in the war in Iraq and more in Afghanistan. Now we have elected to the highest office and to the most powerful leadership position in the world a man of African descent with an Arabic name with Muslim influences as a child.



Despite all of his potentially questionable relationships with his preacher, William Ayers and Chicago politics and being endorsed by someone like Louis Farrakhan there remain many questions. Clearly, without laying any blame whatsoever on Barak Obama for the actions of the terrorists on 911, the significance of our electing this man to the presidency on the rest of the world cannot be overlooked.



Barak Obama is no ordinary black American. He does not share the same "Black Experience" African Americans have other than deciding to say he does. Barak Obama's father was a Kenyan. I grew up in Kenya. I went to school with Kenyan's. Kenyan's do not have any of the Black American experience. They do not have any of our history of slavery and civil rights and prejudice common to black Americans. They have their own struggles to be sure but their frame of reference is not the same.



Barak Obama is an American African. By that I mean that he is an American citizen with an African father. That may not mean much to people in this country but in Africa, in Kenya, that is a big deal. They never ask who your mother was but who was your father. A man can have several wives but the children all have one father and his name is most important. So in Kenya, this morning Barak Obama being elected is a very big deal. In today's East African Standard, the daily newspaper, they are celebrating the election as if he is one of their own, which in a way he is. We may not understand for a while just how big of an issue this is but Africa now has a connection to US politics they have not enjoyed before.

The significance of the name Barak Hussein Obama in the Arab and Muslim world is huge. They must be praising Allah today for America has chosen the one man that puts an Arab name on the Presidency of the United States of America. I am in shock because I never dreamed this would be possible in just seven years from the worst terrorist attack in our history. To have given our enemies this kind of inspirational victory is astounding and dreadful while our solders are still in combat. Just go to the Al Jazeera web site to see their reactions.

As for what this election means here at home consider the many reasons that Barak Obama's promise of Change appealed to the voters. It is always exciting when promises of new and better and bigger things to come are proposed. Americans love to Supersize and to have the latest greatest everything. We are so used to hearing this we expect it to work whether it is a play-station game or an new clean and free source of energy. 　　

But what kind of change will we get? Mostly I heard things that worry me. We can be assured that we will not be doing any drilling off our shores for oil nor will we be drilling in Alaska. There won't be any new nuclear power plants, no new refineries, and no new coal powered facilities. He said that he would make the cost of new coal powered plants so expensive that to build one would bankrupt the builder. He also said that the cost of energy will necessarily have to become expensive in order to get the people to cut down on consumption. They will have to learn to turn off the lights and turn down the thermostats and of course business will have to pass their increased costs on to their customers.


This is definitely going to be change but I think we will not find it to our liking. Mostly this will discourage our productivity and our zest and enthusiasm for doing things we like to do. This may be a tactic that the Liberal Left feels will bring about cleaner air or less reliance on fossil fuels and I know they desire this but a wind powered NASCAR race is likely to reduce attendance at the events. The same thing happens when you tax something into oblivion like ammunition. Who wants to go shooting if you can't afford the bullets. It happens when we make an activity so difficult, loaded down with regulations, fees and conditions that it is easier to do something else. Snowmobiling comes to mind where a sport and an industry suffer because of government interference. Try regulating the kids on a playground at recess. See if they continue to have fun and still want to play. Grown ups are not very different.

America works best with the least government intervention and our productivity is its highest when we do things ourselves. We are very good at self regulation and at solving problems when it is time to do so. Which I suppose means we should be able to solve this one too. This may require throwing a few of our own incumbents (read dead wood) out and replacing them with our own rock stars. Too many of the members of congress have become entrenched in the way of Washington and have forgotten what life in the rest of the country is really like. When was the last time any of them, including John McCain, held real jobs like Joe the Plumber or you and I. That is why we liked Sarah Palin so much, she was one of us and despite her flaws she was not one of them. Ask yourself, if you were a young person would you be inspired by any of the boring talking heads of either party in Washington? The young people that turned out for Barak Obama responded to his youth, his looks, his exuberant style and his techno savvy approach to the campaign. I assure you they were not voting for Joe Bidenhistime. In fact the best thing in our favor is that Barak Obama is restrained not by the Republicans but by the 'Ball and Chains' of his running mate a dinosaur of a politician, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reed, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Chris Dodd, Barney Franks, Chuck Schumer, and both of the Clintons.

We have but a little time to locate and prepare our next candidate. I'm suggesting this year. That person will need to be on top of his or her game. No Ron Pauls, no Ross Perot's and they better have the appeal and charisma necessary to compete in an American Idol atmosphere. We have to have a smarter battle plan this time, the message is simple. The conservative ideals of Ronald Reagan are still relevant, we just need to revive them and apply them again.

　

Tim Woodsome

110508

A Tale Of Two Choices

I am really fascinated and concerned by the present debate taking place in our nation over the looming debt, taxes and fairness and the irrational posturing that the President and Congress engage in. America needs now more than ever an honest and truthful discussion about these issues.  We are divided more today than I have ever seen or imagined possible.

The President is campaigning on the rhetoric of blaming his predecessor, Republicans, the Tea Party, Conservatives, and Stay at Home Mothers for opposing his beloved Buffet rule and demanding the rich pay their fair share even though they already pay for nearly everything.  He completely ignores the real facts that the rich could not cover all of his costs if the government confiscated all of the private wealth. The CBO has warned of the crippling costs ahead with Obama care and Fed Chairman, Ben Bernake is trying hard to warn Congress of the very dire situation ahead if we do not get our fiscal house in order.  Read his warning here:

http://www.conservativeactionalerts.com/2012/04/bernanke-to-congress-were-much-closer-to-total-destruction-than-you-think/

If we do not heed these warnings and re-elect a president that just does not get it or worse does not care or even worse does get it and is deliberately trying to ruin America so he can make it fair for third world countries then we are doomed.

We have all seen the pictures on the web that circulate of the crumbling city of Detroit and I bet you have read the brief narrative of how it is that this once greatest city in the world has fallen from grace:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370199/Detroit-Haunting-photos-crumbling-remains-highlight-decline-Motor-City.html

Well, it does not have to be so. We are a vast and wealthy country with huge untapped resources waiting for us. We have immense oil and coal and natural gas reserves that we have not yet tapped. The world needs these resources now and the time to sell our resources could never be more timely:

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/maritanoon/2012/04/15/oil_boom_could_fuel_economy_if_we_let_it

Another image we often see in circulated pictures are of the opulent cities in the Middle East like Dubai.

 

Ask yourself this question, How does a place in the desert do this, without any of the resources that America has where everything has to be imported? The answer is OIL.  They sell the one thing they have lots of. In time they may run out and perhaps they will fade or if they are smart they will have a back up plan.

Our government is held hostage by Environmentalists, the EPA, Hollywood Librocrats, Flawed Science and Emotional Ex Hippies and Radicals that now have the power to Fundamentally Change America.

Liberals demand that we be more tolerant and when ever someone says that, if you are like me, you have a momentary self criticism asking yourself, "am I not tolerant?' I have seen this all my life especially during the years I was a deputy sheriff working in the schools. I watched the changes occurring as teachers were taught that they had to be kinder and gentler and kids were taught to have good self esteem and that nothing they did was really wrong and everyone gets a ribbon. Prisons do not rehab prisoners forgetting the reason they were there was for punishment.  Environmentalists taught that we are responsible for the weather and that if we do not stop using plastic bags and paper bags and burning wood .......

Well, we have allowed the truth to be hi-jacked and the consequences are we have an entitlement society that is bankrupting our country. Government can not take care of everyone equally without reducing the overall quality of life because some will always endeavor to have more and to live better. That then requires a more forceful method of controlling the population.

North Korea has just such a society. They are so rooted in their belief in the State that they have broken the country and their people live like paupers while cheering on the next failed rocket launch. No greater contrast need be seen than the difference between North and South Korea.  Americans watch the news of a North Korean Rocket Disaster on a 60" HD Television made in South Korea.

Our choice is really quite simple. We have to choose between two Detroits. The one in the crumbling ruins from the link above or of continuing to maintain the one like the picture below.

 

I recently got another e-mail telling the story of a couple that passed away leaving their estate to the state. They were considered so poor that neighbors and friends collected money for their funeral expenses. Afterwards it was discovered that within the assorted old building located on their dilapidated farm were millions of dollars of antique cars and obsolete parts.

 http://www.car-appraisals.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=wiw2u.templates&templates_ID=298

The moral is if you have it, use it....

Tim Woodsome

Obama, Big Brother or My Brother's Keeper

President Obama would do well to learn the difference between Big Brother or My Brother's Keeper and Brotherhood. This is referred to as BOMFOG. The Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God.

Sadly Obama had a lousy pastor who misinterpreted the Biblical story about the conversation between Cain and God regarding the whereabouts of Able. Cain asked,"Am I My Brother's Keeper?"  In the context that "O" understands the story which is so often interpreted to mean that one should care for his brethren he repeatedly suggests that he is doing all that he can to redistribute wealth to the needy and is there by caring for them. However, ask any younger sibling to explain the difference between the relationship of Older Brother and Parent and you will get a clearer picture of why "O" is wrong. The Keeper job belongs to God. Not the President, not the government and certainly not to the older brother. No matter how well intentioned the older brother may be, the resentment of the siblings will be greater. They simply want to be brothers, equals as children of the parents. I was the oldest of five and there is still a lot of that resentment.

Americans do not want Keepers. Nor should we be Keepers. It never works.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-calls-more-redistribution-wealth-declaring-i-am-my-brother-s-keeper

Race, Riots and Ratings...A crisis too good to waste?

There is a real and dangerous mess taking place in Florida and we may be in for a second Rodney King style period of riots. The Main Stream Media is once again subverting justice and in the interest of ratings, is fanning the flames, literally. The usual suspects  Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton are in the fore front. Ophra and Spike Lee and even Rose Anne Barr are weighing in when they have zero information and the local authorities are now overwhelmed with a circus that has hampered any chance of a reasonable investigation into the death of Trayvon Martin.

 

You can recall so many cases where we have seen this happen before. OJ murder trial, the Duke La Crosse  Team rape case, Rodney King beating and trial, the Kobe Bryant rape case, Casey Anthony, Natalie Holloway and of course the Jon Benet Ramsey murder.  The media circus creates such a mess that the public gets involved in the theater of the trial and justice is the casualty. I saw this when I was a deputy in Colorado with the Ramsey case. While the media swarmed all over Boulder and the nation watched the chaos, my own county meanwhile worked a horrific gang related rape and murder case of a fourteen year old girl. The Jefferson County investigators successfully investigated, prosecuted and convicted the suspects. But no one knows who that little girl was. Why? Because the MSM was covering Jon Benet.

 

Right now as this case unfolds in Florida and we watch the racial tension rise and even the President putting his two cents in, I dare you to do one thing. Google these two names,  Channon Christian and Christopher Newsome. However, I warn you it is not good. In fact you would be wise to avoid the details but there is real evil among us and when the media glorifies mayhem and violence in the movies and on TV and then selects only some cases for scrutiny and wont touch others because it is too uncomfortable then there is distortion in the information and truth is the casualty.

 

By the way, Her name was Brandy Duvall.

 

http://dcj.state.co.us/odvsom/sex_offender/so_pdfs/colorado%20cases,%20student%20handout.pdf

Super PACs in Colorado, The Dominion of Democrats

This distasteful type of political behavior continues to discourage honorable citizens from even wanting to be involved. Eventually you end up with the government you deserve. I don't know if Dems will ever realize what they have lost when they have destroyed the Republic. I for one am torn between believing the wrongs can be made right and thinking America must finally, like a drunkard, reach the bottom to find her salvation. If this is what politics is all about then what decent person would want to be a part of it Liberal or Conservative?

To have to reduce your self to the level of an organized opponent is to be like him. If only this was like war where a battle can be fought using the fierce determination of good over evil I would welcome it but it seems so lopsided with a populace preoccupied with the Kardashians and Obama's next vacation vs the soaring debt crisis and looming economic collapse and a popular media hell bent on assisting the demise of the only country that protects their very existence.

The attached piece is from the Denver Post and exposes the Democrat Party Machine that wins elections in Colorado. It amazes me that the citizens are so easily pursuaded to vote Democrat until you understand the scope of the organized machine that is in play. When did this become the way we behave?  There is a monster among us, a dragon, a dark force a terrible power if only we could find some Hobbits...

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_20148556/spending-by-super-pacs-colorado-is-dominion-democrats

Eat a carrot dumb ass!

How dare you eat a burger with fries, you should eat a carrot, just like a donkey being led into the trailer.


A whole bunch of years ago following a Christmas Eve service at my father's church the donkey used in the manger scene was to be loaded into the trailer but he flat out refused to budge. Several Firemen at the station across the street watched the spectacle for a bit then walked over to the trailer and offered their services. However, after several minutes of pushing and straining they found they had met their match. That Donkey was not moving. ( see this is why the dems have a donk for a mascot) Then an older neighbor lady came out of her house with a nice crisp carrot and gently led the stubborn beast into the trailer.

Ever since my DRIVE SMART days in the mountains I have argued that passing a law is never as effective as creating an incentive. All the nasty images of carnage has only managed to temporarily change teen driving behaviors then they go right back to doing reckless stuff. The same is true with adults. It takes years to ingrain a habit of doing something like buckling up your seat belt. I never did. However, when it became a clear condition of my employment with the Sheriff's Department even though Colorado had an exemption for cops, I willing did so. The incentive was my job. My natural inclination is to refuse for no other reason than because of my desire to decide for myself.

Just like the article below suggests, Americans are fiercely desirous of not being told what to do and I think when government intervenes too much there is a push back and perhaps if the push back is not directly against the law in question there may be secondary areas where that resistance manifests itself.

Tim


Wednesday March 7th, 2012 informationliberation.com


Coercive Nannies (Jeffrey Tucker)

The term "nanny state" actually dates to the 1960s, and that's not surprising. It was about this time that government ran out of ideas for improving society -- it didn't really improve us, but it claimed to -- and turned its attention to hectoring us about all the things we do to ourselves that it wants us not to do. That turns out to be just about everything.



The phrase "nanny state" captures the spirit of this push to regulate our consumption in all areas of life. But the phrase misses the mark when it comes to the methods themselves. Nannies are respectable market institutions. To be sure, if you hired a nanny with jackboots, Tasers and guns with real bullets who punished disobedience with jail and even death, that would be a closer approximation to what we are dealing with every day in the Land of the Free.



Of course, we would never hire a nanny like this. But then again, we never hired the government, either. It just presumes ownership over our bodies, property, businesses and lives and issues edicts about them every day. It is impossible to keep up with the outrages. Nothing is untouched by these people.



And it really does amount to a different style of government. If the government builds a dam, carves presidential profiles in a mountain, constructs a highway or sends some people to traipse around the moon, that affects you and me mostly in what we pay in taxes. These things don't directly intrude into other choices we make. We are forced to pay for idiotic government programs, but the pain in the neck mostly starts and stops with the bills we are forced to pay.



The shift to the nanny state was really a change because it invites government right into our kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms, backyards, garages, medicine cabinets, refrigerators and cubicles at work. Nothing is off-limits. What that means, in reality, is that there is no more freedom, since the idea of freedom is bound up with the right to make mistakes. We are not merely paying; we are obeying (or being told to obey) every minute of the day.



For all these reasons, I'm happy that someone bothered to attempt a nearly comprehensive chronicle. The wonderfully infuriating and deeply alarming book is Nanny State by David Harsanyi. And check out the subtitle: How Food Fascists, Teetotaling Do-Gooders, Priggish Moralists and Other Boneheaded Bureaucrats Are Turning America Into a Nation of Children.



"When exactly did we lose our right to be unhealthy, unsafe, immoral and politically incorrect?" the author asks. "What if I want to be fat, drunk, immoral or intolerably stupid?"



These are salient questions. No one asked us. It just happened bit by bit, over the course of half a century. Daily, this trend is ramping up. We think we live in a free country, and then we actually try to do something different, risky, wonderful, productive or whatever and suddenly discover that we are living in a legal minefield, all in the name of making us safer, better, more caring or whatever.



Everything is regulated allegedly for our own good, but there are gigantic problems. First, insofar as the dictates are actually good for us, these are often redundant with existing cultural and market trends (life insurance premiums have done more to cut smoking than all the government warnings). Second, they are universal regulations and allow no dissent and, therefore, violate human liberty (if someone wants to be bad, that's their business). Third, much of what they dictate isn't really good for us all (the attack on domestic water use has made our homes much dirtier).



As I read this book, I kept thinking about the irony of this whole trend:





Government says it is making us safe. Meanwhile, the government’s wars kill tens of thousands and put Americans in harm's way, and the domestic police state has never been so violent

Government says that it is forcing us not to harm ourselves, but government threatens us with harm constantly with its guns, fines, courts and 10 million micro-coercions, not to mention its relentless looting of our bank accounts and purchasing power

Government says it is making us polite and civil, but it unleashes an army of bureaucrats who are the very soul of rudeness, hence coarsening society in so many ways.



What's also crazy is the high moral tone of all these rules and regulations. We are led to believe that not wearing seat belts is not just unwise, but completely immoral and evil. So it is with smoking, eating fatty foods, drinking raw milk, drinking a glass of wine before driving and telling an off-color joke. A civil religion of sorts has replaced traditional religion, and hectoring political dictates have crowded out traditional moral rules and norms that were self-policing.



The nanny state goes far beyond obvious issues such as smoking and eating, as Harsanyi points out. In New York, it is illegal to feed pigeons, sit on a milk crate in public, put a plastic frame around your license plate, take up a subway seat with a grocery bag, ride a bike without your feet on the pedals and other such outrages. All over the country, we are seeing bans on advertising, restrictions on happy hours and ladies' nights and every manner of legal carrots and sticks used to force us to eat more carrots and look like sticks.



Nor is this restricted to the left or right alone. Everyone with power has an agenda on how to manipulate our lives and make us all better people, as he defines that phrase.



The book opens with a chapter called "Twinkie Fascists." I'm thrilled by the phrase because I'm personally fed up with these invasive, coercive, pietistic demands concerning what we eat. It's gone way too far. It is none of the government's business. And the more the government attempts to legislate diets, the less Americans care to examine the issue of diets and health themselves.



But there is something else even more remarkable about this movement. The more it pushes, the more people themselves push back. I was at an Applebee's restaurant the other night, fighting for a table. On my way to my spot, I passed by table after table at which people were eating gigantic portions of hamburgers, fries, greasy everything, followed with massive desserts washed down with larger-than-life beers and per-person portions that would have fed whole families a few decades ago. It's crazy stuff. Yet I celebrate it all as acts of private defiance.



In fact, such defiance is all around us. We will not be controlled. Take a trip to the local playground and you will see the results of what Harsanyi chronicles in his chapter on "The Playground Despots." Gone is anything metal. Seesaws, jungle gyms, sky-high swings are all replaced by plastic tubes and other things that are so safe that they are fun. This was not a market decision; it was imposed by government decree.



But observe how the kids use them. Instead of climbing through tubes or sitting contentedly in a sea of plastic balls, many kids balance themselves dangerously on top of the tubes on which they are not supposed to be, and hurling those plastic balls at each other in wicked war games. This is the way adolescent rebels deal with the nanny state: Just as the adults, they find their fun in acts of defiance.



Other acts of defiance are easy to document. Go to a local convenience store and ask the manager the main source of the store's profitability. The answer will come quickly: cigarettes and beer. If that is not a testament to the utter failure of the nanny state, I don't know what is. As for those stores in states where such sales are restricted, it's a wonder they make money at all.



Not enough people have taken notice of the shift in government policy that took place in the 1960s. Harsanyi seems to believe that it stems from a tendency of public officials to treat us like children and themselves as parents. There is certainly truth in that, but I'm inclined to suspect a more-malevolent motive here. The state is even more geared toward removing choice in our lives and forbidding what we want and imposing what it wants. In other words, it is spreading misery, mostly because that's all it has really ever been good at.



This is all a sign that public policy the world over has gone through an identity crisis of sorts. It is discovering the inner truth about itself -- that it really is and has always been at war with our well-being. The only difference now is that it is reaching further into our lives, wrecking them at every turn and daring to try to convince us that we should be grateful for this.



Harsanyi's book raises consciousness. That's the first step to overthrowing the central plan for our lives and thereby taking back our rights and liberties.

__

Jeffrey Tucker, publisher and executive editor of Laissez-Faire Books, is author of Bourbon for Breakfast: Living Outside the Statist Quo and It's a Jetsons World. You can write him directly here.

Act Of valor

We went to see this movie this evening. By we I mean my family, Sam, Ty, Nan and I. Brett had to work but it was funny because it was the first time I have gone to a theater in so long I do not recall the last time but I know it was the first time we were all at the theater together since a Mother's day outing in Denver long ago.

 

It was such an event because of the nature of the film. My family takes the whole Patriotic and Military  issue seriously and we all wanted to go and support this film based on all the reports and reviews.

 

That said we were riveted to our seats and the adrenalin was intense. I found myself clenched and tense and at times the emotions welled up as I watched the action take place on the screen. I've never been in situations like that but I have prepared for violent confrontation in my past and some of the scenes took me back. The real reason for the visceral reaction was we already knew the actors were not Hollywood fakes but they were the real deal. The Navy Seals that starred in the movie did not have the Hugh Jackman or Samuel L Jackson or John Travolta swagger nor did the bad guys look like the usual Hollywood suspects but instead they were a little more real because of that very fact.  Especially the Seals. They came across as real people with families and lives not so different as our own but they have another aspect the rest of us do not...

they are warriors and damn good ones. Their acting may be weak but their convincing skills are superb.

 

The story is good if not formula. The bad guys are bad and they die...quickly. There is no James Bond vs Bloefeld debate about life which always gives the villain a second chance. No in this movie the good guys kill the bad guys with the expedient expertise we would hope our elite Seals have. It is so good to know they are on our side and bad guys everywhere need to be very afraid.

 

There is one particular scene where the Seals are being extracted and at precisely the moment they need it most there is support from the teams sent to pick them up that is nothing short of AWESOME. I had a chill of goose bumps watching the sheer unleashing of hellfire and damnation by the good guys upon the bad guys that made me want to jump up and cheer. I didn't but probably should have.

 

How good was the movie....when it ended the whole theater remained seated and silent. Finally we got up and began to exit but there was only hushed murmurs and whispers.  

 

I urge you all to go see this movie for a myriad of reasons. 1) Support it because it is not Hollywood, prove the critics not just wrong but very wrong. 2) Make a show of support for our military by making this movie a statement of that love and respect we owe them. 3) Take your kids...I would say it is totally appropriate for any child old enough to understand and as parents you already know if they do. It is violent but not nearly as much so as most of the Hollywood crap. 4) Enjoy for a change plausible special effects not the Ironman or Transformer garbage. This is actually believable. 5) Go because we all need to be inspired and reminded of the good in our country, that there are those that stand between evil and us and despite the failures of Washington and an arrogant ruling class that derides and prefers to pretend we do not need a strong military, except when they do... these few are there for us.

 

Go to the theater to see this movie. Go so you can see others like yourselves in public supporting something better than the usual Hollywood nonsense. You can always watch it again later at home on DVD. I never go to the movies anymore but I'm glad I did tonight.

 

Tim Woodsome