Conservative Voices

Crackers, Joe Scarborouth, MSNBC

2012-02-01T22:04:00.002-06:00

A PREVIEW OF COMING ATTRACTIONS. EARLIER THIS WEEK COMMENTATORS ON MSNBC (BETTER KNOW AS THE OBAMA NETWORK) CALLED THE VOTERS IN THE FLORIDA PANHANDLE "CRACKERS". AN OLD TERM COINED MANY YEARS AGO TO REFER TO SOUTHERN RACISTS IN CERTAIN AREAS OF THE SOUTH---THIS DOES NOT SURPRISE ME. MSNBC IS BEGINNING TO PLAY THE RACE CARD EARLY IN THIS PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION YEAR. HEY JOE (THAT'S JOE SCARBOROUGH) WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT BUDDY? AREN'T THOSE IN THE PANHANDLE YOUR FRIENDS AND FORMER CONSTITUENTS. SAY SOMETHING BUDDY, PERHAPS YOU ARE AFRAID YOU WILL GO THE WAY OF BUCHANAN---THAT'S EXACTLY IT. HAVE YOU REALLY JOINED THE ROUND TABLE OF CONSERVATIVE HATERS ON YOUR MORNING SHOW OR ARE YOU JUST AFRAID TO OPEN YOU MOUTH FOR FEAR OF GETTING THAT PINK SLIP! DRINK YOU STARBUCKS AND QUITE PLAYING THE TOKEN CONSERVATIVE BECAUSE YOUR ARE A LIBERAL LACKEY!

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Obama Sacrifices Pawns for Politics

2012-01-16T09:45:00.002-06:00

Img Via Polifake

Americans for Prosperity today released the following television ad in six states today. The ad exposes the outrageous cronyism and disregard for American taxpayers in the growing Solyndra scandal.

Tags: Americans for Prosperity, AFP, American taxpayers, Barack Obama, Solyndra, scandal, cronyism, ad To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. He Kept His Eyes on the Prize

2012-01-16T08:02:00.002-06:00

Ken Blackwell and Bob Morrison, ARRA News Contributing Authors: Informed in 1960 that the Rev. Martin Luther King, Senior would be voting for the Protestant Richard Nixon, Sen. Jack Kennedy smiled and said: “We all have fathers.” It was typical of his wit. Kennedy’s own father was a notorious anti-Semite and appeaser. Young Jack would never repudiate Old Joe, or fail to cash Joe’s hefty checks. Kennedy would win that election and go on to present Congress with the most far-reaching civil rights legislation in a century.

"Our lives begin to end the day we
become silent about things that matter."
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)

We celebrate this month the life and legacy of Rev. Martin Luther King, Junior. He kept his eyes on the prize: civil rights for millions of black Americans suffering under unjust Jim Crow laws.

Racial segregation was approved by the U.S. Supreme Court in one of the worst rulings in history, Plessy v. Ferguson (1896). In that case that the former Kentucky slave owner, Justice John Marshall Harlan, wrote this powerful dissent.

“The law regards man as man, and takes no account of his surroundings or of his color when his civil rights as guaranteed by the supreme law of the land are involved... We boast of the freedom enjoyed by our people above all other peoples. But it is difficult to reconcile that boast with a state of the law which, practically, puts the brand of servitude and degradation upon a large class of our fellow-citizens, our equals before the law. The thin disguise of 'equal' accommodations for passengers in railroad coaches will not mislead any one, nor atone for the wrong this day done.”

The wrong of that day of Plessy lasted into the 1960s. Justice Harlan, a Republican appointee, ringingly proclaimed that the Constitution must be “color-blind.” Let’s honor his memory, too.

Dr. King made his point in biblical cadences. He cried out from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial :” “Let justice roll down like a river, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5:24) Following the peaceful conclusion of that great March on Washington in August, 1963, President Kennedy invited Dr. King and the leaders of the civil rights movement to a meeting in the Oval Office.

It was not Dr. King’s first time there. President Eisenhower had made a point of inviting Dr. King to meet with him to discuss civil rights when King emerged as the leader of the Montgomery (Alabama) bus boycott in 1957. Dr. King and his followers refused to ride in the back of the buses that their tax dollars supported.

Ike had used his appointive powers to name Supreme Court justices who would correct the injustice of Plessy. Barely a year into Eisenhower’s first term, the high court unanimously ruled against segregation in public schools in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). And Republican Eisenhower sent federal troops into Little Rock, Arkansas when the Democratic Gov. Orval Faubus defied federal court orders to de-segregate that city’s schools.

Eisenhower was criticized endlessly by liberal elites for his emphasis on massive federal highway construction and for encouraging American prosperity. “A vast wasteland,” they dubbed TV in what all now see as its golden age. Still, it was over Ike’s new Interstate highways that the Freedom Riders of the early sixties blazed a trail to end segregation. And those TV news cameras let all Americans see, for the first time, the police dogs and fire hoses necessary to maintain segregation. Political reform followed quickly on the heels of Ike’s achievements.

When Democratic Sen. Hubert Humphrey led the fight for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, he had no stronger ally than Republican Leader Everett Dirksen. Minority Republicans in the Senate gave even stronger support, proportionately, than Democrats did to push through that historic legislation.

Dr. King was willing to lay down his life. His assassination by a white racist on April 4, 1968 was the culmination of King’s lifelong advocacy of full equality under law.

“I have been to the mountain top,” Dr. King told his worried supporters in the days before his murder. He had indeed. He saw the promised land of equal justice under law. He had that vision because he kept his eyes on the prize. All Americans can be grateful for his legacy.
-------------------------
J. Ken Blackwell is a conservative family values advocate. Blackwell is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and a visiting professor at Liberty University School of Law. Bob Morrison is a Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council. He has served at the U.S. Department of Education with Gary Bauer under then-Secretary William Bennett. Both are contributing authors to the ARRA News Service.

Tags: Martin Luther King, Ken Blackwell, Bob Morrison To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

The Reforming Governor

2012-01-12T18:47:00.001-06:00

Gov. Mitch Daniels has guided Indiana through tough economic times while cutting government spending.

by Sheryll Poe, Free Enterprise: Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels isn’t running for the nation’s highest office, but that doesn’t mean he’s going away quietly.

Since announcing in May that he would not seek the Republican nomination for president, the Harley-riding, Princeton-educated governor has stayed in the spotlight, offering his policy prescriptions for getting the country back on track in his new book, Keeping the Republic: Saving America by Trusting Americans In it, the onetime Reagan White House political director and Bush White House budget chief lays out in stark, mathematical terms the threat that the American Republic faces if government spending is not brought under control.

“The point of the book is that we are about to test not only whether we can manage our fiscal affairs and restore our economy, but also whether we’re still the kind of people who are competent to govern ourselves,” Daniels says during an interview with Free Enterprise magazine just weeks after his September book release. “It’s not a matter of philosophy; it’s a matter of arithmetic. I would hope there are not too many people left now after watching what happened in Greece, Italy, and Spain who don’t understand that there are mathematical points of no return.” America has reached a dangerous point, says Daniels. “Congress hasn’t moved fast enough. It hasn’t done anything on entitlements. It hasn’t really done anything meaningful on spending. I hope we have enough time.”

Changing Indiana
For someone often portrayed as a serious policy wonk, Daniels exhibits charm and a fine sense of humor. When he had surgery to repair torn cartilage in his right knee, Daniels took a sharpie and wrote “this one dummy” on the leg being operated on. In retaliation, his surgeon, a longtime friend, gave him a pink pedicure.

He’s also proud of his frugality, both when it comes to his cuts to state spending and in his own life. When running for governor in 2004, he traveled around the state in an RV and stayed in people’s homes. During our visit, he proudly showed off a light blue tie given to him by his friend Steve Forbes, gleefully pointing out that the tie was a leftover from Forbes’ annual Global CEO Conference in 2008.

No one can argue with Daniels’ success in turning around the Hoosier State. Since taking office in 2004, Daniels has turned a $200 million deficit into a $1.3 billion surplus by improving government services and creating private sector jobs. He’s lowered property taxes by 30%, privatized a major state highway, and ended collective bargaining rights for public employees without the contentious fights that other states have experienced.

He did it the old-fashioned way—by spending less than what the state takes in and by cutting government spending. Today, Indiana has the country’s fewest state employees per capita, employing the same number it did in 1975. “I say to people - you’d be amazed by how much government you never miss.”

Restoring Americans’ Autonomy
What bothers Daniels most about the current leadership in Washington is that it does not trust Americans to manage their own lives. “The problems I have with those in leadership now and the mentality that they represent is they’re really telling the American people: You can’t cut it. You can’t manage your own life. It’s just too complex, and left to your own devices, way too many people will simply make mistakes,” says Daniels. “So as I say in the book, we really have to decide if we are creatures of dignity or objects of therapy. I argue for policies that would affirm and restore the average citizen’s autonomy.”

Daniels points to the state health care reform he put in place in 2006. The Healthy Indiana Plan (HIP) is a health savings account for state employees and the uninsured. It’s paid for by a new cigarette tax and a waiver approved by the federal government that allows the state to reallocate Medicaid dollars toward the plan. “Citizens make their own decisions and manage the money. They are protected in true insurance fashion,” Daniels explains, noting that 99% of Indiana’s state employees have signed up for HIP. “We now have a body of experience that shows just because people have a moderate or low income doesn’t mean they can’t make wise decisions for themselves, and in fact, we have substantially lower health costs—by double digits—than would ordinarily be expected. Why? Because people are acting like real consumers.”

Daniels doesn’t hold back his criticism of the Obama administration, which, he says, is pursuing an agenda in which “jobs and growth always lose—doesn’t matter what the issue is. And an administration that can’t immediately stop piling new regulations, costs, and doubts in front of job creators is not serious about anti-poverty. It’s not serious about bringing down unemployment in this country. There are other things that are more important to it. The administration probably doesn’t see it that way, but based on the facts, there’s no other way to see it.”

To put America back on track, the administration must reform the tax code and entitlements, take advantage of plentiful energy supplies in the United States, and declare an indefinite moratorium on new regulations, according to Daniels.

Despite his frustration with the current administration, Daniels says that he’s optimistic about the great American experiment: democracy. “Trust Americans to make more decisions in their own lives, and trust Americans with the facts regarding our national debt and the incredibly dangerous corner we’ve painted ourselves into. The solutions are going to require big change, but practical change that I believe we can assemble a majority of support for.”

Tags: Indiana, Republican, Governor, Mitch Daniels, Keeping the Republic, Saving America, Trusting American To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

SCOTUS Unanimous: Judges And The Govt Cannot Get Involved In Church Ministry

2012-01-11T19:24:00.002-06:00

The Roberts Court 2011
(Back L to R) Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen G. Breyer, Samuel A. Alito, Elena Kagan
(Front L to R) Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Chief Justice John G. Roberts,
Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg

ARRA News Service -
[1] Jesse J. Holland, GOPUSA: In a groundbreaking case, the Supreme Court on Wednesday held for the first time that religious employees of a church cannot sue for employment discrimination.

But the court's unanimous decision in a case from Michigan did not specify the distinction between a secular employee, who can take advantage of the government's protection from discrimination and retaliation, and a religious employee, who can't.

It was, nevertheless, the first time the high court has acknowledged the existence of a "ministerial exception" to anti-discrimination laws — a doctrine developed in lower court rulings. This doctrine says the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of religion shields churches and their operations from the reach of such protective laws when the issue involves employees of these institutions. . . . [Read More]

[2] by Peter Johnson Jr., FoxNew: Wednesday the United States Supreme Court delivered a knockout blow to the White House in the cause of religious liberty.

Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for a unanimous court swatted away the government’s claim that the Lutheran Church did not have the right to fire a “minister of religion” who, after six years of Lutheran religious training had been commissioned as a minister, upon election by her congregation. . . .

There was just one big problem standing in the way of the government's plan: the U.S. Constitution. For a long time American courts have recognized the existence of a "ministerial exemption" which keeps government’s hands off the employment relationship between a religious institution and its ministers or clergy.

Here, in this case, the Department of Justice had the nerve to not only challenge the exemption’s application but also its very existence.

But, Chief Justice Roberts pushed back hard, telling the government essentially to butt out: “Requiring a church to accept or retain an unwanted minister, or punishing a church for failing to do so, intrudes upon more than a mere employment decision. Such action interferes with the internal governance of the church, depriving the church of control over the selection of those who will personify its beliefs. By imposing an unwanted minister, the state infringes the free exercise clause, which protects a religious group’s right to shape its own faith and mission through its appointments. According the state the power to determine which individuals will minister to the faithful also violates the establishment clause, which prohibits government involvement in such ecclesiastical decisions.”

Citing well-known legal precedent dating as far back as Reconstruction, the court made it clear that it is not up to the government to contradict a faith’s determination as to who should -- and should not -- be performing religious functions. . . .

The Court also took aim at Plaintiff’s Cheryl Perich’s claims for back pay finding that such relief would operate as an unconstitutional penalty against a religious institution for terminating an unwanted minister and exercising its constitutional right to make decisions about internal church governance. Unfortunately, the federal government has become expert in imposing penalties for practicing one’s faith. . . . [Read More]

[3] More Info: Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC

Tags: Supreme Court, SCOTUS, unanimous decision, Hosanna-Tabor Church v. EEOC, judges, Federal Government, Churches, ministry To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Failing Leadership

2012-01-10T10:14:00.004-06:00

The Growing National Debt Is ‘Now As Big As The Entire U.S. Economy’ Despite President Obama’s Promises That He Would Stop Adding To It

Debt ‘Now Tops $15.23 Trillion,’ More Than ‘The Value Of All Goods And Services The U.S. Economy Produces In One Year’
“The soaring national debt has reached a symbolic tipping point: It's now as big as the entire U.S. economy.” (“U.S. Debt Is Now Equal To Economy,” USA Today, 1/9/12)

· “The amount of money the federal government owes to its creditors, combined with IOUs to government retirement and other programs, now tops $15.23 trillion. That's roughly equal to the value of all goods and services the U.S. economy produces in one year: $15.17 trillion as of September, the latest estimate.” (“U.S. Debt Is Now Equal To Economy,” USA Today, 1/9/12)

The ‘Buck Stops’ With President Obama, Who Promised ‘To Stop Adding To Our Deficit’
THEN-SEN. BARACK OBAMA (D-IL): “Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.’ Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership.” (Sen. Obama, Congressional Record, S.2237-8, 3/16/06)

· “The first thing you do when you're in a hole is what? … you stop digging. So the first thing that we're going to have to do is to stop adding to our deficit.” OBAMA: “Keep in mind, the first 42 presidents, they amassed $5 trillion worth of debt, the first 42 of them. The first couple of hundred years-plus of American history, we accumulated $5 trillion. Now we're at $9 trillion. That's just bad -- that's not being fiscally conservative. And so we're going to have to change our policies. Now, it's going to be -- let me say this. It's not going to be completely easy, because we're in a hole. And the first thing you do when you're in a hole is what?” (UNKNOWN): “Stop digging.” OBAMA: “Stop digging. Who got that right? There you go. You stop digging. So the first thing that we're going to have to do is to stop adding to our deficit.” (Sen. Obama, Remarks To Campaign Event, Watertown, SD, 5/16/08)

JACK LEW: “The problem is that, for years, we have just put it on the national credit card. And we have built up the debt… we say it’s time to stop.” (PBS, 2/14/11)

$4.61 Trillion Added To Debt Since January ‘09 (“The Debt To The Penny And Who Holds It,” U.S. Treasury Department, Accessed 1/9/12)

Having a national debt larger than our economy basically means two things. The debt is too big, and our economy is too small. - Rep. Jim Jordan R-OH)

Tags: Failure of Leadership, National Debt, The U.S. Economy, Barack Obama To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

The Smokescreen Behind No High School Diploma Necessary

2012-01-07T14:08:00.011-06:00

♠The recent announcement, informal though it may be, about the requirement of having a high school diploma may violate the American Disability Act (ADA) is a smokescreen by the EEOC and the current administration for something far more dangerous.

First, when looking at the US workforce and labor pool, who compromise the majority of under educated, under skilled and non-employed workers? According to the US National Center for Education Statics, black and Hispanic young males continue to represent the highest percentage of students dropping out from high school, lacking employable skills and currently not employed. The majority of these young people come from lower income homes.

Second, looking at the school systems with the highest drop out rates many are located in urban cities like New York, Philadelphia, Indianapolis, Chicago, etc. Most of these schools are public education institutions, supported by teachers' unions and some have graduation rates of under 50%.

The Indiana State Department of Education reported these graduation rates and consequently these failure rates in 2010 for these school corporations:

East Chicago School City, IN, 1 high school had 52% graduation rate or 48% not graduating
Gary School, IN, 2 schools had 56.7% graduation rate or 43.3% not graduating
Hammond School City, IN, 1 school had 62.6% graduation rate or 38.4% not graduating
Indianapolis Public Schools, IN, 1 school had 57.2% graduation rate or 42.8% not graduating

A quick Google search revealed these 2010 graduation rates for other urban school systems:

Chicago Public Schools, IL had an overall 55.8% graduation rate or 44.2% not graduating
Philadelphia, PA had an overall graduation rare of 71% or 29% not graduating
New York City, NY had overall graduation rate of 65.1% or 34.9% not graduating

Just imagine for a moment you were a business with these type of failure rate regarding your products or services? Would you still be in business?

Third, what are the first jobs for many young people? Answer is usually in the food service or hospitality industries. Even though the hourly pay is at minimum wage or above minimum wage, these jobs represent the foundation for future employment.

Fourth, what are the requirements for these entry level jobs? Usually the requirements such as for McDonald's are minimal in that the applicant must be a US citizen or documented alien worker as well as if over 18 years of age a high school diploma.

Fifth, who is hugely responsible for teaching these students? The answer is two-fold: Teachers many of whom belong to teachers’ unions and parents many of whom also did not graduate from high school. Back in 1969, the average national high school graduation rate was 77%. Thirty nine year late in 2008 the rate was 75%. At this time, there were very few teachers' unions.

Looking at expenditures per student these numbers become even more telling. Back in the 1960’s the yearly expenditure was $393 per student. Now some forty years later, the average expenditure per student in 2001 was $7,380 and by 2008 had climbed to $10,297.

Teachers' salaries averaged $8,635 in 1969 and by 2010 reached $55,350. Current estimates are $100,000 to publicly educate each young person K-12.

FACT: More dollars than ever before are being invested in public education with worse results.

Are you beginning to see the real reason behind the informal letter from the EEOC under ADA act? This is all about sanctifying the non-performance of teachers, supporting teachers’ unions, getting the vote of minority citizens many of whom cannot read or write at the sixth grade level and reducing the unemployment rate among these group of citizens.

This is not about discriminating against those with disabilities. And if you think it is then I have a bridge to sell you in the Mojave. Of course with the lack of very expensive public education in this country, some young people might actually buy the bridge because they did not know the Mojave is a desert.

Tags: no high school diploma, high school graduation rates, high school drop out rates, teachers unions, cost of public education, workforce development To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Obama’s New Year’s Resolution - Cut Free of Constitutional Restrictions

2012-01-06T12:07:00.006-06:00

by William Warren:

Also Reads:
ARRA News Service: Obama's Recess Appointments Are UnConstitutional And An Abuse of Power
NetRightDaily: Obama’s Radical Non-Recess ‘Recess’ Appointments
The Scribe: Obama DOJ Undercuts President’s ‘Recess’ Appointment Stunt

Tags: Constitution, Obama, unconstitutional, Obama Recess Appointments, Political Cartoons, William Warren To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

A 2012 Conservative Case for America’s Future

2012-01-05T13:02:00.003-06:00

By Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski (Contributing Authors): The United States is at a fork in the road regarding which way we will go as a people. The 2012 election could be the most important in our lifetime, and conservative leaders have reached a consensus on how to channel the energy and concerns of the American people to realize historic change this year.

The status quo will not survive the year. Our debt and spending have reached catastrophic proportions in the context of global financial difficulties and political upheaval. Consequently, by the end of 2012, America will either have taken a decisive step toward socialistic collectivism in the name of “equality” and “social justice,” where businesses and owners are punitively taxed to “pay their fair share,” or America will take a major step in the direction of returning to our Founders’ constitutional government, restoring the rule of law, federalism, free enterprise, and individual initiative and responsibility.

The American people will decide which path to take in the 2012 elections, not only in the general election on November 6 but also in the nominating process in primaries over the next several months for all major offices, including the presidency. Conservatives must act in a concerted and informed fashion in all of these contests to shape the public dialogue and thoroughly vet the candidates.

To achieve these ends, top conservative leaders acting under the umbrella of the Conservative Action Project have released “A Conservative Consensus for 2012” announcing agreement on major policies. These issues span all three wings of the conservative movement: economic, social, and national security.

The Conservative Consensus speaks to economic issues of fundamental tax reform, Obamacare, overhauling regulation, and energy production. It tackles social issues of strengthening families and advocating traditional values and religious liberty. And it covers defense issues of protecting the homeland, military superiority, and national sovereignty.

This document also advocates specific issues all conservatives must regard as essential. America needs a strong Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that caps federal spending. Immediate and drastic cuts to the federal budget. No corporate bailouts. The Second Amendment right to bear arms is a fundamental right, as is voting, so the ballot box must be protected from fraud and corruption. Because voting is also a citizen’s duty, reasonable conditions must be enacted to safeguard our democratic process. And none of these can succeed unless the right people are appointed as judges to our federal courts.

Achieving these goals is a tremendous challenge, and true constitutional conservatives must relentlessly pursue building a true coalition between the three wings of the conservative movement.

This means that true conservatives must not allow anyone to redefine conservatism as only about fiscal issues and the reach of government. Constitutional conservatives understand that strong families are the essential foundation for long-term economic prosperity. The demographic reality is that declining birth rates and rampant abortion creates a devastating loss of human capital that cannot sustain our entitlement systems or economic growth, and also result in millions of unfilled job positions that become a magnet for illegal immigration.

Fortunately most conservatives understand that national security is crucial to America’s success. But some wrongheaded individuals seek to silence or marginalize social issues, oblivious to the profound reality—proven throughout history—that where families crumble there is an unstoppable public outcry for government to fill the void with massive entitlements and programs. Government always grows when families fail.

Some economic leaders with libertarian or liberal beliefs fail to grasp this simple fact, and so pervert the concept of freedom to mean that individuals are free to do whatever they like, free of any concept of right-and-wrong or of personal responsibility or self-control. They willfully ignore our Founding Fathers, who believed that limited government only endures when individuals govern themselves.

Some social conservative leaders are making the same mistake. They were right to reject an unrealistic “truce” on social issues. But some are essentially calling for a truce on economic issues, supporting candidates who stand for traditional values but are not reliably conservative on limiting the size, scope, and cost of government.

While both social and economic issues are indispensable, and both move votes, the reality is that fiscal issues are moving more swing votes in this cycle than value issues. Social conservatives will overreach if they force voters to choose between the two by insisting on traditionalist candidates who are not also warriors for free markets, federalism, fundamental entitlement reform, and a strong Balanced Budget Amendment. Social conservatives must demand equal standing, not superior standing.

A perfect example where all three branches of conservatism can join forces is our national debt. America is now $15 trillion in debt, an unprecedented level exceeding 100% of our Gross Domestic Product. The only time we even approached such a proportion was the end of World War II, where we were in a global war that threatened our very survival as a nation. Instead of a temporary military emergency, our current debt is being fueled by deficits of over $1 trillion every year Barack Obama has been president.

In addition to an economic issue, this debt is a social issue. Our profligate spending is intergenerational theft, saddling each member of the next generation with over $120,000 in debt once they become taxpayers. That’s a mortgage on a house, with no house.

It is also a defense issue. The former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said our national debt is the single greatest threat to national security. We are on track to be paying $600 billion per year just in interest on the national debt, more than our entire military and security budget. This hamstrings our ability to defend our nation today while developing weapons and systems to protect us tomorrow.

Another reality is that constitutional conservatism cannot become our national policy without all three branches of government. If conservatives retake both houses of Congress it can only block bad legislation. Without a two-thirds supermajority, conservatives in Congress cannot override presidential vetoes of good legislation or undo harmful administrative regulations through the Congressional Review Act.

We need a constitutional conservative in the White House. Not all Republicans are part of the solution, and some leading Republicans are even part of the problem. America needs a president who is reliable on fiscal issues, and social issues, and defense issues. Two out of three is not enough. Ronald Reagan was all three, and only a Republican solid on all three bases can pick up President Reagan’s mantle to lead this country through the daunting challenges we face.

In our system of government, none of this will succeed without the right people serving in the federal judiciary. But judges are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate, so if the American people elect a constitutional conservative president and a Senate willing to fight for judges, there are scores of spectacular lawyers and scholars who are faithful to the original meaning of the Constitution. If we elect the right people, they can take care of the courts.

The courts are imperative for all branches of the conservative movement. In addition to abortion, same-sex marriage and religious liberty, the Supreme Court is deciding all-important economic issues like Obamacare and national security issues like Bill of Rights protections for terrorists captured by our military on foreign battlefields. All conservatives must demand that only principled originalists be nominated to the Supreme Court and lower courts.

So America faces a historic choice. And conservatives face a historic task, of making the case to the voters for how and why constitutional conservatism is the way to return our nation to strength and stability, and electing national leadership that will honestly and definitively tackle these challenges for the sake of our children and grandchildren.
---------------
J. Ken Blackwell is a conservative family values advocate. Blackwell is a former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission and is a senior fellow at the Family Research Council and a visiting professor at Liberty University School of Law. He is a National Federation of Republican Assemblies board member.

Kenneth Klukowski is a fellow at the Family Research Council and at Liberty University School of Law,and a columnist for the Washington Examiner. They are the coauthors of “Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America.”

They are the coauthors of “Resurgent: How Constitutional Conservatism Can Save America,” and contributing authors to the ARRA News Service.

Tags: 2012, conservative, conservative case, America, constitutional conservatism, Ken Blackwell, Ken Klukowski To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Food Stamps or Jobs

2012-01-04T17:15:00.000-06:00

AS I WATCHED THE REPUBLICAN DEBATE A WHILE BACK, ONE THING STOOD OUT---IT'S ALL ABOUT DEFEATING BARACK OBAMA IN 2012! PERSONALLY I COULD LIVE WITH ANY OF THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES AND WILL SUPPORT WHOEVER WINS THE NOMINATION. BARACK OBAMA MUST GO IF YOU LOVE THE AMERICA OF YOU FATHERS! OBAMA MAY OR MAY NOT BE AN ALIEN, BUT HIS THINKING IS ALIEN TO TRADITIONAL VALUES AND THAT IS WHAT MATTERS TO MOST AMERICANS. HE PROMOTES BIG GOVERNMENT "SOCIALISM" IN A COUNTRY THAT HAS ACHIEVED IT GREATNESS, NOT FROM COLLECTIVIST VIEWS, BUT FROM THE STRENGTH OF THE INDIVIDUAL! BARACK OBAMA DOESN'T SUPPORT OR EVEN LIKE THE FACTORS THAT MADE THIS COUNTRY GREAT, SADLY HE IS THE PRODUCT OF CORRUPT CHICAGO POLITICS AND ALL THAT GOES WITH IT.

HE IS A SMOOTH TALKER WITH NO IDEA OF HOW TO CORRECT THE MESS WE NOW FIND OUR SELF IN. "HOPE AND CHANGE" ARE JUST WORDS THAT BHO HAS LEFT IN THE DUST. WE HOPED FOR CHANGE AND GOT A SUPER-DOSE OF BIG GOVERNMENT THAT HAS TRAMPLED INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS IN THE NAME OF "IT'S GOOD FOR AMERICA"! NO IT'S GOOD FOR THOSE WHO SUPPORT A WELFARE STATE AND NOT FOR YOU. THE TRUTH IS SIMPLE, "FOOD STAMPS" OR "JOBS FOR AMERICANS".

Also posted at TOTUS

Tags: commentary, food stamp, jobs, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Unemployment Numbers Still Stink! - Another Big Government Bust

2011-12-31T10:20:00.011-06:00

Americans For Limited Government video counts down to the New Year with the Eleven Biggest Government Busts of 2011:
#11-The Chevy Volt
#10-The Keystone XL Pipeline
#9-The Rule By Decree
#8-The National Labor Relations Board
#7-The Food Police
#6-The "Occupy" Movement
#5-The Fast and the Furious
#4-The Super Committee
#3-Solyndra
#2-National Finances

#1 JOBS Are Still An Issue -- Unemployment Numbers Still Stink!

Also posted at ARRA News Service

Tags: President Barack Obama, Big Government, Unemployment, Jobs, Underemployment, 2011, government busts, 2012 election, video, Americans For Limited Government To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Reasons for Disparity . . . Cesspools of Liberalism

2011-12-30T13:16:00.002-06:00

Obama raising money in L.A.
Credits: Photo by Eric Thayer / Getty Images

by Jim Mullen, ARRA News Service: Liberals are a motley crew, but the DNA strand connecting most of them is an overpowering, almost obsessive-compulsive drive to make everything line up, balance, and come out even.

Obsessed with rearranging, realigning, and controlling the natural order of everything and everyone on Earth to fit the perfect liberal-progressive model, they quickly find disillusionment. Their cockamamie ideas meet with scorn and ridicule in the real world of reason and common sense. While a very high percentage of conservatives are actually grownup liberals who found truth and reason accompanied their years, most liberals find peace and tranquility in a make-believe world.

Frustrated by their inability to manipulate the behavior of others, yet having an uncontrollable fixation to make everything “equitable,” liberals learned long ago to harness the power of government.

They feel a self-aggrandizing compassion to empower government to create - not an equal playing field - but equal results. “Social justice” and balance (redistribution) among all people, classes, and “things,” are staples in every liberal pantry.

Enter Barack Obama marching in perfect step with his Democratic entourage to the rhythmic drumbeat of class warfare and race baiting. Together, they wail monotonously with cries of “disparity” in American society, insisting that everything must meet their definition of “fair.”

When liberals convince, coerce, and bribe government into implementation of their twisted theories, it creates a dam restricting the free-flowing waters of entrepreneurship, ideas, and success once so well-known in American society. Government interference by excessive taxation and crushing regulation restricts commerce and personal freedom with one grand purpose; equalizing the level of success downstream. They never allow it to exceed some predefined level established as “equitable” by a statist government and its stewards, the bureaucrats.

Progressive government promised bountiful, blissful waters under their control. Instead, the dam created fetid cesspools of stagnation downstream from the government's dam. The casualties trapped by liberal ideology in these wretched cesspools, and slums cover every region of the country held tightly in the greedy clutches of the Democratic Party’s radical left-wing.

Americans are not victims of free enterprise or Capitalism, but from out-of-control government. The President blames Wall Street, business, banks, and has dozens of other inane excuses for the worst economy since the great depression, and with the disparity of wealth and income. The federal government deliberately prevents normal movement and mobility between classes and represses freedom and initiative. Liberal-Progressives produced and directed the economic malaise and the perpetual state of dependency that afflicts our country. Ronald Reagan said it plainly enough, "Government is not a solution to our problem; government is the problem."

Progressive thought always misses the first basic law of life, not every inequality in this world is injustice, and not all injustices are fixable by government. Therefore, some laws of natural order will not succumb to even the most ardent liberal mind or government will.

Millions of Americans are casualties of their meddling and historically, these unlucky benefactors of liberalism receive inferior educations, city services, police and fire protection, and private retail services. Politicians take the tax and regulatory whip to business and taxpaying Americans, driving them into temporary refuges in other cities, states, and offshore where they find a more receptive attitude to free enterprise.

Never one to take failure nor facts for an answer, the community organizer from Chicago recognizes this and wants federal control and funding for the “cesspools of liberalism” in every city, county and state. Thereby, he reasons, there is no escape for the victims, no respite for the taxpayers, and yet another generation is saddle-broken to government.

Personal, economic, and constitutionally guaranteed freedoms are never options in a liberal-progressive’s mind. Freedom is much too disorganized and untidy, and represents unnerving threats to their perfectly organized, superior intellect, and their controlling nature. Every brilliant spark from a liberal mind ignites more injustice, and liberty’s fervor diminishes.

When they whine of perceived inequities, they become fodder for politicians and despots who understand how to control and use them for nefarious ends. They earned the title “useful Idiots” for their support of vicious dictators in Europe. An over abundance of these people congregate in positions of power at universities and in the media. Often called the intelligentsia, they promote the concept of ordinary Americans living in servitude. It is the perfect solution as it represents a theoretical, perfectly organized universe. There are no winners or losers, no right or wrong, and no disparity in income, wealth, or status. However, as it is with all dictatorial governments, there are really two classes of people; the ruling class and the masses, commonly called “the people” by the communists.

Historically, the moors to which liberalism anchors its destructive ideologies are class warfare and ignorance. It is a tragic time in American history when a President of the United States spends a vast amount of his daily communications and activities spewing propaganda, promoting ignorance, and dividing the country with class warfare rhetoric. Obama and all liberals depend upon the media, and over the long-term, the state-controlled public education system - to advance and support that ignorance. The more they stray from reality and facts, the greater the need for lies and propaganda. As Syndicated Columnist and Economist, Walter Williams says, “Class warfare thrives on ignorance.”

Ignore these people at your peril. They are relentless, cunning, and highly skilled back-alley warriors who specialize in scorch-and-burn politics. They throw punches and scream when anyone mounts a defense. When confronted by facts or challenged, they hurl invectives of racism and class warfare, shout down and diminish opponents, and then filibuster until everyone, intimidated or bored, walks away. While most people, busy building constructive lives, dismiss them as kooks, a liberal’s life work is that of a controlling tyrant. Determined and in the fight for the long-term, they will win the war by attrition unless conservative Americans unite and fight them with the same ferociousness.

Will the next Presidential election be another “date which will live in infamy” in U. S. history? Will that be the day America falls out of love with liberty and embraces Marxism as its new lover? Will we sacrifice our constitutional ideals for an abusive relationship that promises carefree subsistence, but at the price of our dignity and self-determination?

Remember Obama’s new internet advertisement – “Our work isn’t done yet!” These words should fill the heart of every freedom-loving American with sheer terror. Liberals’ idea of the “Perfect World Order” may be nearer than we imagined. The more they reshape the universe to fit their model world, the tighter, and heavier the chains of servitude on the rest of humanity.
-------------
Jim Mullen is a TEA Party Republican conservative activist and writer in Parkersburg, West Virginia. He also writes for the Parkersburg Conservative Examiner and his personal site, Freedom For Us Now.

Tags: Jim Mullen, Cesspools, Liberalism, Social justice, redistribution of wealth, out-of-control government To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Congress: Our Return In Investment

2011-12-29T11:10:00.002-06:00

By the Bankrupting America Team: Before we spend money on something, what’s the first thing we ask ourselves? What are we getting out of this? Whether it’s a mother buying groceries for her family or an investor buying stocks, it all comes down to return on investment.

We should be asking the same thing when it comes to our tax dollars. We spend trillions of dollars funding the government every year, it’s only prudent to step back and consider what we’re getting for it. The following infographic takes a crack at this. But rather than breaking down the entire federal government, it allows you to examine if we’re getting our money’s worth from Congress.

Click infographic To See Full Size

Did You Get Your Money’s Worth?
Another year is coming to a close, and one that was marked by Congressional battles
to lower the deficit and cut excessive government spending. What did Washington
accomplish in 2011? Did they get anything done? Did they cut spending?

Spotlight on 2011
• A Spending Overview
• Legislative Accomplishments

A Spending Overview
2011 was a year marked by congressional battles over deficit reduction. In the end, we saw the downgrade of our nation’s credit rating¹, and we saw the debt and deficit increase yet again during Fiscal Year 2011.

As we take a look back, here is a solid breakdown of what was taken in and what
was spent during the last fiscal year:
• Revenue: 2.302 trillion²
• Spending: 3.601 trillion³
• Deficit in FY2011: $1.297 trillion⁴

The federal debt was directly impacted by Washington’s bloated spending, as debt
totals reached new records standing at nearly $15.129 trillion⁵.

Congress gets paid a lot to pass laws that keep the country running. This year, the
salaries of members Congress and their allowances broke down as follows:⁶
Speaker of the House: $223,500
House and Senate Majority and Minority Leaders and Senate President Pro Tempore: $193,400 x 5 = $967,000
Other Representatives and Senators: $174,000 x 535⁷= $93.09 million

Budgets in House and Senate:⁸
Average Budget for all 441 House ofﬁces (including Resident Commissioner and Delegates): $1,446,009 x 441 = $637,689,969
Average Budget for all 100 Senate ofﬁces: $3,409,093⁹ x 100 = $340,909,300

Legislative Accomplishments¹⁰
But did Washington accomplish what it was paid to accomplish? This year, the number of bills cleared by Congress and the President reached signiﬁcant lows. Throughout
the calendar year, just over 70 bills were signed into law, a fraction of recent year totals.
Total bills signed into law:¹¹
• 2011: 70+
• 2010: 258
• 2009: 125
• 2008: 285

Furthermore, the number of bills passed by either chamber also failed to reach levels comparable to recent years.
Total measures passed by chamber¹²:
• House passed (2011, as of November): 326 bills
• House passed (2009): 970 bills
• House passed (2007): 1,127 bills
• Senate passed (2011, as of November): 368 bills
• Senate passed (2009): 478 bills
• Senate passed (2007): 621 bills

It should be clearly noted that it is impossible to measure the work of Congress based upon the number of measures passed. In some years, they pass lots of bills, buts lots of bills does not always equal sound economic policy. That being said, the number of measures passed by the House and Senate are one way to measure the productivity of Congress, but it doesn’t always tell the full story.

So what significant legislation was passed? Let’s take a glance. Highlighting 2011¹³:
• 13 of the 70+ bills passed named post offices or courthouses.
• The Budget Control Act raised the debt ceiling, led to the establishment of the super committee, and laid the groundwork for the upcoming sequester.

Other significant legislation includes:¹⁴
• Two extensions of certain Small Business Administration programs
• Transportation extension
• Four FAA extensions
• A repeal of the 1099 tax reporting requirement in the health care bill
• An extension of Patriot Act
• Intelligence authorization
• Three trade bills
• A veterans’ compensation cost of living allowance

So what do you think? Did you get your money’s worth?

1 Washington Post: S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating for first time. August 6, 2011.
2 CBO: Monthly Budget Review. FY2011. November 7, 2011.
3 Ibid.
4 Treasury Monthly Statement. November 2011.
5 Treasury: December 23, 2011.
6 Office of the Clerk: FAQ’s. #14.
7 Includes the Resident Commissioner and Delegates.
8 CRS: Congressional Salaries and Allowances. June 28, 2011. Pg. 3.
9 Congress passed a subsequent law that slightly reduced the Senate’s budget, but these numbers have not been updated by the Congressional Research Service.
10 All accomplishments as of December 19, 2011.
11 Government Printing Office. Public Laws; Library of Congress. Public Laws.
a) As of December 27, 2011, the Library of Congress tally’s 73 bills for 2011; this is not the final tally, however. It will likely be slightly higher.
b) For laws that were passed by Congress in one calendar year, (i.e., December 2010) but signed into law into the following year (i.e., January 2011), the law was counted when it passed Congress (i.e., 2010).
12 Washington Post: In 2011, fewer bills, fewer laws and plenty of blame. December 5, 2011.
13 Library of Congress: Public Laws.
14 Ibid.
Bankrupting America December 2011Also posted at ARRA News Service

Tags: Congress, Congressional pay, Congressional salaries, effective governing, Government Spending, infographic, irresponsible governing, public pay, taxpayer funded, Bankrupting America To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Global Warming Satire

2011-12-28T21:36:00.000-06:00

Ugock and his small clan crossed the vast ice fields of the frozen north following the great herds of caribou and at night they sought shelter in the many ice caves of the enormous glaciers. Once inside they used their flint tools to build a fire to provide the warmth needed to get through the long night. As the heat from their several campfires began to warm the cave ice on the caves roof it would melt small amounts of the ice and the water would drip or run down the sides of the caves walls. This was their way of life, the nights in the caves and the days searching for the animals of the north. A cycle that continued for thousands of years. As time passed Ugock noticed the level of a nearby lake was rising. He thought about this at night while sitting near his campfire as he watched the ice melting on the caves roof with an occasional drop of water hitting him on the head. Suddenly one night he jumped to his feet, for he had discovered an absolute truth, he was causing the lake to rise. It was him and his small cave fire and the fires of other nearby clans. Next day he raised the alarm and warned all he met of the approaching danger and urged all to reduce the size and number of their cave fires, less the lake continue to rise and drown them all. The fires dimmed but the water continued to raise and eventually out of desperation sacrifices were made to the old gods. The Paleo-Indians had discovered man-made global warming.

Now some 15,000 years later the new cave-dwellers of the sprawling canyons of metropolis have again discovered that ancient enemy of global warming and just as Ugock they are calling for the dimming of the campfires to stop the rising waters. And in time they will call for greater sacrifices to the gods of science, not the virgin sacrifices of the past (alas, no more virgins), but instead, the sacrifice of "our way of life". The sky is falling again and the Chicken Little's of the world are sounding the alarm!

Also posted at TOTUS

Tags: global warming, satire, commentary, paleo-indians To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

The Daisy Ad and Today's Politics

2011-12-28T15:26:00.000-06:00

SOME OF YOU WILL REMEMBER THE INFAMOUS "DAISY AD" USED IN THE 1964, PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF LYNDON JOHNSON vs BARRY GOLDWATER. IT WAS VERY EFFECTIVE IN HELPING TO DEFEAT GOLDWATER ALONG WITH THE RECENT ASSASSINATION OF JFK SOME YEAR BEFORE. THE COUNTRY AT THAT TIME WAS MOVING TO THE LEFT AND AS BEST I REMEMBER GOLDWATER ONLY CARRIED 5 STATES IN THE ELECTION. ONE BEING HIS HOME STATE OF ARIZONA AND THE OTHER 4 DEEP SOUTH STATES WHO WERE IMMEDIATELY PENALIZED BY THE PASSAGE OF THE VOTER RIGHTS ACT OF 1965 WHICH SENT FEDERAL ELECTION OFFICIALS INTO THOSE STATES THAT VOTED AGAINST LBJ. GOLDWATER WAS PAINTED AS AN EXTREMIST WHO WOULD GET US INTO A NUCLEAR EXCHANGE WITH THE SOVIET UNION AND THAT WITH OTHER FACTORS WORKED.

WE ARE NOW APPROACHING THE ELECTION OF 2012 AND WE AGAIN, SEE THOSE ON THE LEFT PAINTING MOST OF THOSE SEEKING THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION AS EXTREMIST IN ONE FORM OR ANOTHER AND THEIR HERO, BARACK OBAMA, AS A MODERATE, REPRESENTING THE VAST MIDDLE OF THE COUNTRY. WHEN NOTHING COULD BE FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH. THE EXTREMIST IN THE UPCOMING ELECTION IS NOT FOUND IN THE REPUBLICAN FIELD, BUT IN THE CURRENT OCCUPANT OF THE WHITE HOUSE.

Also Posted at TOTUS

Tags: Daisy ad, Goldwater, election of 1964, commentary, LBJ To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Dollars and War

2011-12-27T19:11:00.000-06:00

When War was War and Not a Game!

More Dollars

The cost for each American soldier deployed to Afghanistan has now reached one million dollars per year. The cost of maintaining a Taliban soldier in the field for a similar period is somewhat difficult to estimate, but many find the figure to be under $3,000. This means the debt ratio is about 300 - 1, with the Taliban maintaining a overwhelming edge. The debt ratio is not however the only problem, but the ugly question of sanctuary is again hitting the American military in the face as it did in Korea, Vietnam, and to a certain extent in Iraq. The Taliban and their al Queda allies are more or less free to move between Pakistan and Afghanistan and we are powerless to attack them in their strongholds in the mountains of western Pakistan. Yes. we have the UAV's (unmanned aerial vehicles) with their hell-fire missiles that occasionally find an al Queda leader in a remote mud hut hidden in some mountain valley and dispatch that trusty Hell-fire against him at a cost of $100 to $200 thousand dollars each. The parts of this fallen leader are quickly gathered up and buried before sunset as is the custom in that part of the world. And a new leader is quickly named at a cost far less that the cost of sending the first on his trip to meet the many virgins. When I hear that we have killed another Taliban leader in the mountain of Pakistan, I almost laugh. Its like killing a single ant in the giant ant hill and calling that some kind of victory. This is not war, this is playing at war, this sadly has become a game with the young men of our country being the pawns in a protracted conflict we can never win with the current rules of engagement . We will lose this war without ever having lost a battle and the many young men who will never return to their families will have fallen in vain because of this great political game. The Taliban and al Queda will continue to be funded by the massive amounts of petro dollars coming from the Wahabis sects in the Gulf States and the enormous sums of money generated by the opium poppy in the mountains of Afghanistan.

No Sense
The way this war is being waged in the mountains of Afghanistan is absolute madness and insanity that is totally out of control and one that has its roots going back to the 1950's and the Korean War. In that conflict the U.S. government under the leadership of President Truman allowed a great American army to be stalemated in the mountains of Korea, and despite repeated request by the commander in the field General Douglas MacArthur for tactical nuclear weapons to be used they never were. Today we have a nuclear armed state in North Korea, a state that poses a serious threat to all of its neighbors in that region. A few years later in another part of the world French forces in Indochina faced a turning point in their struggle against a communist insurgency in what is now northern Vietnam. French forces were surrounded and outnumbered at the besieged fortress of Dien Bien Phu and after many request from the french government for tactical nukes to be used to break the siege Dien Bien Phu fell and we had the establishment of the communist state of North Vietnam and the stepping stone to the Vietnam war where tens of thousands of young American soldiers died. To this day the use tactical nuclear weapons remains off the table even though that decision has cost us tens of thousands of young Americans lives. At some point in the very near future the battle field situation will become so dire that an American President may be forced to revisit that decision and for once think about the troops in the field and not the journalist at the London Times. Even after seeing what happened in Korea and at Dien Bien Phu we entered another war where we were bound by old rules of engagement that had failed us in the past. Our enemy was allowed sanctuary---a place to regroup and rebuilt and a place from which to attack again and again. In Vietnam the American soldier never lost a major battle, but the government lost the war and Vietnam fell to the enemy. This is our current path in Afghanistan, a path we've traveled many times before and it will end in the same place--DEFEAT AND DISHONOR!

The defeat will not be of battles lost by our brave troops for none have been lost. And the dishonor will not fall on them for they are all, all honorable men. The defeat is the nations and the dishonor is ours. Also posted at TOTUS

Tags: Dien Bien Phu, Afghanistan, Wahabis, opium poppy, commentary To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Fall of the U.S.S.R. Twenty Years Ago: Beauty Killed the Beast

2011-12-26T20:10:00.001-06:00

Ralph Benko

by Ralph Benko: Sunday, passing nearly uncelebrated, occurred the 20th anniversary of the formal dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. There is much to celebrate about the December 25, 1991 implosion of a totalitarian, bellicose, imperialistic regime with 45,000 nuclear warheads, captor of dozens of nations, killer of tens of millions, sociopathic in its brutality against the innocent in its quest for world domination.

Without, in any way, diminishing the roles of the great -- Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, and others… the end of the USSR was, more than anything, the work of three regular people: beginning with one citizen-socialite from Houston, who recruited a drunken roué of a Congressman, who, in turn, engineered the critical funding for one malcontent CIA Agent who armed the Afghani freedom fighters.

Today, then, I sing of arms and the woman: Joanne King Herring, destined to live forever in history associated with a tiny handful of beautiful, regal, woman warriors: Queen Cleopatra, Helen of Troy and Queen Boadicea. Like her historic counterparts Herring widely was, and is, counted among the great beauties of the world. But Helen’s kidnapping was the casus belli of the Trojan War — she played no strategic role herself. Queens Cleopatra and Boadicea lost their lands and lives to the imperial storm troopers. Joanne Herring, "Queen of Texas," won.

Herring recruited Rep. “Good Time” Charlie Wilson to her cause of championing the Afghans against the Soviets. She helped Wilson persuade House Appropriations Committee chair Doc Long to turn on the funding which allowed CIA maverick agent Gust Avrakatos to arm the freedom fighters. This is extensively documented in 60 Minutes’ producer George Crile's galvanizing work Charlie Wilson's War. This book, far more than Mike Nichols' movie starring Julia Roberts, Tom Hanks and Philip Seymour Hoffman, shows how the world really works. And it’s not like the High School civics texts. It's about passion.

Crile, quoting CIA Director James Woolsey: "The defeat and breakup of the Soviet Empire is one of the great events of world history. There were many heroes in this battle, but to Charlie Wilson must go a special recognition." Crile observes:

"The oddness of this moment is hard to exaggerate. America had just won the Cold War, a triumph every bit as significant as the victory over Nazi Germany, yet there had been no V-Day celebrations, no ticker-tape parades, no Douglas McArthur to publicly celebrate. Life in the capital seemed to roll on as if there never had been a Cold War. At this moment, Charlie Wilson, of all people, was about to be honored as the architect of the great American triumph.”

Of all people?

"No congressman or senator in anyone’s memory had ever succeeded in flouting the rules so repeatedly for so many years and managed to survive. By this time, in the dull era of the 1990s, he had become the ultimate master of the Washington high-wire act, and that night his many strange and unusual friends had stood back and marveled as Charlie danced the night away, offering a toast to ‘Friends, to power, to passion, to black lace,’ before exiting with Ziva, a beautiful Israeli ballerina, on his arm."

But as Crile so meticulously documented, Wilson unquestionably was persuaded, empowered, and partnered in with his acts of heroic derring-do on the part of the mujahideen, freedom, and America, by his inspiration -- and close collaborator -- Joanne. Wilson and Avrakatos have died, as has their chronicler, Crile. Of those who broke the back of the USSR remains Joanne King Herring. She, who deserves a tickertape parade, has recorded her recollections in a wonderful, utterly unique, memoir, Diamonds and Diplomacy.

The author, as described by her publisher:

"She’s been dirt poor; she's been filthy rich. Rich was more fun. She married three times, divorced twice, found her true love, and lost him to cancer. At twenty-one, she was told she would soon die. She lived. Doctors said she’d never be able to have children. She had ‘em. She’s bargained with God, dictators, and Democrats. She’s partied with princes, presidents, premiers, Barbara Walters, Anwar Sadat, Margaret Thatcher, Tom Hanks, and Francisco Franco . . . though not all at the same time. She captivated powerful men with her feminine charm, and then persuaded them toward unlikely political alliances through her formidable intelligence. She waltzed with Prince Philip in Buckingham Palace, dressed in men’s clothes and smuggled herself in a barrel across the Pakistani border, threw a Roman-themed party so extravagant it was featured in Life magazine, and survived a Soviet gunship attack in the mountains of Afghanistan."

As she recounts in Diamonds and Diplomacy, "George Crile wrote in his book Charlie Wilson’s War: "[(Pakistan’s) President Zia] was so spellbound by Herring, and took her so seriously, that to the utter dismay of his entire foreign office, he made her Pakistan’s roving ambassador to the world and even awarded her his country's highest civilian honor, the title of Quaid-e-Azam, or 'Great Leader.' Charlie Wilson says that Zia would leave cabinet meetings just to take Joanne’s calls.'There was no affair with Zia,' Wilson recalls, 'but it’s impossible to deal with Joanne and not deal with her on a sexual basis. No matter who you are, you take those phone calls.'"

Herring claims with complete plausibility that she was extremely elusive as an erotic conquest. She eloquently describes an art rarely revealed which she calls 'the game.' Call it Social Fascination. "But for a woman to play on the big field, she must learn to play ‘the game.’ It’s complicated and nuanced in ways that distinguish skill levels. It is not flirtation. It is more subtle, a careful application of talents, with definite limits. What I refer to has little to do with sex — which is common and available on every street corner. … This game has many rules."

Pioneering sociologist Catherine Hakim refers to this rarely acknowledged power as Erotic Capital and Herring obviously possesses it in spades. Using her gifts adroitly, this Presbyterian princess modestly attributes her role to the will of God. “The aristocratic contacts I made at parties provided exactly the right person at exactly the right time and place to provide exactly the right tools to begin to end global communism.”

The movie version of Charlie Wilson’s War concludes with America’s ruling class, having made it possible for the mujahideen to win the war against the Soviets, callously leaving the badly wounded Afghani people in the lurch. Herring remains devoted to their welfare, concluding Diamonds and Diplomacy with her “Marshall Plan Charities for Afghanistan Recovery”: clean water, food, health care, schools and jobs. She writes movingly of the moral imperative and privilege to help and the opportunity the American people have to partner with the courageous, dignified, Afghani society.

Governments by their nature are risk-averse, agents of the status quo. Only living, breathing, passionate people are agents of transformation, people such as Joanne Herring, Charlie Wilson, and Gust Avrakatos. It took a great anthropologist, rather than a political scientist, Margaret Mead, to grasp and state this law of nature: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

As we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the end of one of the most lethal totalitarian dictatorships in history, let us reflect. Oh no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was Beauty killed the Beast. Thank you for securing our liberty, Joanne King Herring. America and the free world salute you.
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Ralph Benko is senior advisor, economics, to American Principles in Action’s Gold Standard 2012 Initiative, and a contributor to he ARRA News Service.

Tags: Ralph Benko, USSR, fall, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

The Tipping Point

2011-12-26T17:12:00.010-06:00

The "tipping point" is that invisible mark that each must find. And in the end some will sit on the side lines while others join the fight. But once the fight is joined the onrushing events will gather momentum and all will be effected by the great struggle and even the "sunshine patriot" will find no refuge from the storm. We are now approaching that point, that place from which there is no turning back, some will say yes, while others hold back and cringe before the foreboding warnings.

Great changes are in the wind and the forces of change are gathering as the approaching storm looms large on the horizon. Many are seeking the shelter of family and friends with the hope that these changes will pass them by and they can again feel the warmth of yesterdays. While others are rushing to fill the breach torn in the fabric of the nation by those forces who would not only destroy the tomorrow's but the yesterday's. For the fair weather soldier the tipping point will never come, for they will continue to push that point farther and farther down the road. They will stand under that sheltered tree as the battle swirls round them and their muskets will never know the taste of fire and smoke. But wiser men will stand and say, "no more", for they have reached that place from which there is no retreat---The Tipping Point!

by Ron Russell
Posted at The Tipping Point

Tags: Tipping Point, sunshine patriot, standing, decision, no retreat, Ron Russell To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Merry Christmas 2011

2011-12-25T08:00:00.001-06:00

Merry Christmas Conservative Patriots!

Tags: 2011, Christmas, Merry Christmas To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Obama Wants You To Be The New Reservation Indian

2011-12-24T16:55:00.002-06:00

THE HOMES OF THE RESERVATION INDIANS

GIVE UP YOU LAND, YOUR FREEDOM, ALL YOUR RIGHTS AND BECOME AN OBAMA-RESERVATION INDIAN COURTESY OF THE ALL POWERFUL FEDERAL GOVERNMENT THAT WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU AND YOURS FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE. THAT SOUNDS FAMILIAR DOESN'T IT. ARE YOU THE AMERICAN INDIAN WHO IS ABOUT TO BE RAPED BY THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. DID YOU LOSE THE WAR? ARE YOU A DEFEATED NATION? I'VE SEEN THE RESERVATION INDIAN IN THE AMERICAN SOUTHWESTERN STATES---AND WHAT THE TOTAL WELFARE STATE HAS LEAD THEM TOO! POVERTY AND HOPELESSNESS! THEY STAND ON THE CORNER WAITING FOR A HANDOUT AFTER THEIR MONTHLY WELFARE CHECK IS GONE. THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS REDUCED A ONCE PROUD PEOPLE TO BEGGAR STATUS! THESE ARE A GOOD AND GREAT PEOPLE THAT GOVERNMENT GRANTS HAVE REDUCED TO "BEGGARS ON THE STREETS"! THE LEFT WOULD HAVE THAT FOR AMERICA AND THEY KNOW BY DOING THIS THEY WOULD GET THEIR VOTES. THIS IS BULL#$*T! MAKE THAT CURRENT OCCUPANT OF THE WHITE HOUSE A ONE-TERM PRESIDENT!!! WE ARE NOT A NATION OF BEGGARS BUT OF CITIZENS WHO CAN STAND ON OUR OWN!

POSTED AT TOTUS and Conservative Voices

Tags: Barack Obama, nation of beggars, reservation, Commentary, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Reflections on "The Illusion of Validity" on the Birthday of the FED

2011-12-24T10:08:00.001-06:00

"Statistics and simple arithmetic tell us more about ourselves than expert intuition." -- Freeman Dyson -- Happy 98th Birthday, Federal Reserve System?

Courtesy of Woodrow Wilson Birthplace Foundation
Painting by Wilbur G. Kurtz, Sr. -
President Wilson signing the Federal Reserve Act in 1913.

by Ralph Benko - ARRA News Service: President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913, creating a central bank for the United States.

The Fed, of course, has become a source of great national controversy, eliciting books such as End the Fed by Congressman Ron Paul. Why?

World-renowned physicist and public intellectual Freeman Dyson recently composed a profound essay, How to Dispel Your Illusions, in the New York Review of Books. In it, Dyson reflects on the recent book by Nobel Economics laureate Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow. Dyson implicitly targets the fatal flaw in the well-intended foundation of the Federal Reserve. Dyson:

In 1955, when Daniel Kahneman was twenty-one years old, he was a lieutenant in the Israeli Defense Forces. He was given the job of setting up a new interview system for the entire army. The purpose was to evaluate each freshly drafted recruit and put him or her into the appropriate slot in the war machine. The interviewers were supposed to predict who would do well in the infantry or the artillery or the tank corps or the various other branches of the army. The old interview system, before Kahneman arrived, was informal. The interviewers chatted with the recruit for fifteen minutes and then came to a decision based on the conversation. The system had failed miserably. When the actual performance of the recruit a few months later was compared with the performance predicted by the interviewers, the correlation between actual and predicted performance was zero.

Kahneman had a bachelor’s degree in psychology and had read a book, Clinical vs. Statistical Prediction: A Theoretical Analysis and a Review of the Evidence by Paul Meehl, published only a year earlier. Meehl was an American psychologist who studied the successes and failures of predictions in many different settings. He found overwhelming evidence for a disturbing conclusion. Predictions based on simple statistical scoring were generally more accurate than predictions based on expert judgment. ...

Kahneman knew how to improve the Israeli army interviewing system. ... Statistics and simple arithmetic tell us more about ourselves than expert intuition.

Reflecting fifty years later on his experience in the Israeli army, Kahneman remarks in Thinking, Fast and Slow that it was not unusual in those days for young people to be given big responsibilities. The country itself was only seven years old. “All its institutions were under construction,” he says, “and someone had to build them.” He was lucky to be given this chance to share in the building of a country, and at the same time to achieve an intellectual insight into human nature. He understood that the failure of the old interview system was a special case of a general phenomenon that he called “the illusion of validity.” At this point, he says, “I had discovered my first cognitive illusion.”

Cognitive illusions are the main theme of his book. A cognitive illusion is a false belief that we intuitively accept as true. The illusion of validity is a false belief in the reliability of our own judgment. The interviewers sincerely believed that they could predict the performance of recruits after talking with them for fifteen minutes. Even after the interviewers had seen the statistical evidence that their belief was an illusion, they still could not help believing it. Kahneman confesses that he himself still experiences the illusion of validity, after fifty years of warning other people against it. He cannot escape the illusion that his own intuitive judgments are trustworthy.

Dyson continues, drawing from his own experience:

An episode from my own past is curiously similar to Kahneman’s experience in the Israeli army. I was a statistician before I became a scientist. At the age of twenty I was doing statistical analysis of the operations of the British Bomber Command in World War II. ... Air Vice Marshal Sir Ralph Cochrane was the commander of 5 Group, the most independent and the most effective of the groups. Our bombers were then taking heavy losses, the main cause of loss being the German night fighters.

Cochrane said the bombers were too slow, and the reason they were too slow was that they carried heavy gun turrets that increased their aerodynamic drag and lowered their operational ceiling. Because the bombers flew at night, they were normally painted black. Being a flamboyant character, Cochrane announced that he would like to take a Lancaster bomber, rip out the gun turrets and all the associated dead weight, ground the two gunners, and paint the whole thing white. Then he would fly it over Germany, and fly so high and so fast that nobody could shoot him down. Our commander in chief did not approve of this suggestion, and the white Lancaster never flew.

The reason why our commander in chief was unwilling to rip out gun turrets, even on an experimental basis, was that he was blinded by the illusion of validity. This was ten years before Kahneman discovered it and gave it its name, but the illusion of validity was already doing its deadly work. All of us at Bomber Command shared the illusion. We saw every bomber crew as a tightly knit team of seven, with the gunners playing an essential role defending their comrades against fighter attack, while the pilot flew an irregular corkscrew to defend them against flak. An essential part of the illusion was the belief that the team learned by experience. As they became more skillful and more closely bonded, their chances of survival would improve.

When I was collecting the data in the spring of 1944, the chance of a crew reaching the end of a thirty-operation tour was about 25 percent. The illusion that experience would help them to survive was essential to their morale. After all, they could see in every squadron a few revered and experienced old-timer crews who had completed one tour and had volunteered to return for a second tour. It was obvious to everyone that the old-timers survived because they were more skillful. Nobody wanted to believe that the old-timers survived only because they were lucky.

At the time Cochrane made his suggestion of flying the white Lancaster, I had the job of examining the statistics of bomber losses. I did a careful analysis of the correlation between the experience of the crews and their loss rates, subdividing the data into many small packages so as to eliminate effects of weather and geography. My results were as conclusive as those of Kahneman. There was no effect of experience on loss rate. So far as I could tell, whether a crew lived or died was purely a matter of chance. Their belief in the life-saving effect of experience was an illusion.

The demonstration that experience had no effect on losses should have given powerful support to Cochrane’s idea of ripping out the gun turrets. But nothing of the kind happened. As Kahneman found out later, the illusion of validity does not disappear just because facts prove it to be false. Everyone at Bomber Command, from the commander in chief to the flying crews, continued to believe in the illusion. The crews continued to die, experienced and inexperienced alike, until Germany was overrun and the war finally ended.

Kahneman's mordant recognition of "the illusion of validity" mirrors, of course, one of the key insights of another Nobel economics laureate: Hayek. In his prize acceptance speech Hayek famously indicted "the pretense of knowledge." Hayek:

We have indeed at the moment little cause for pride: as a profession we have made a mess of things. ...

The theory which has been guiding monetary and financial policy during the last thirty years, and which I contend is largely the product of such a mistaken conception of the proper scientific procedure, consists in the assertion that there exists a simple positive correlation between total employment and the size of the aggregate demand for goods and services; it leads to the belief that we can permanently assure full employment by maintaining total money expenditure at an appropriate level. Among the various theories advanced to account for extensive unemployment, this is probably the only one in support of which strong quantitative evidence can be adduced. I nevertheless regard it as fundamentally false, and to act upon it, as we now experience, as very harmful.

The conflict between what in its present mood the public expects science to achieve in satisfaction of popular hopes and what is really in its power is a serious matter because, even if the true scientists should all recognize the limitations of what they can do in the field of human affairs, so long as the public expects more there will always be some who will pretend, and perhaps honestly believe, that they can do more to meet popular demands than is really in their power. It is often difficult enough for the expert, and certainly in many instances impossible for the layman, to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate claims advanced in the name of science. ...

But it is by no means only in the field of economics that far-reaching claims are made on behalf of a more scientific direction of all human activities and the desirability of replacing spontaneous processes by "conscious human control." If I am not mistaken, psychology, psychiatry, and some branches of sociology, not to speak about the so-called philosophy of history, are even more affected by what I have called the scientistic prejudice, and by specious claims of what science can achieve. ...

If man is not to do more harm than good in his efforts to improve the social order, he will have to learn that in this, as in all other fields where essential complexity of an organized kind prevails, he cannot acquire the full knowledge which would make mastery of the events possible. He will therefore have to use what knowledge he can achieve, not to shape the results as the craftsman shapes his handiwork, but rather to cultivate a growth by providing the appropriate environment, in the manner in which the gardener does this for his plants. There is danger in the exuberant feeling of ever-growing power which the advance of the physical sciences has engendered and which tempts man to try, "dizzy with success," to use a characteristic phrase of early communism, to subject not only our natural but also our human environment to the control of a human will. The recognition of the insuperable limits to his knowledge ought indeed to teach the student of society a lesson of humility which should guard him against becoming an accomplice in men's fatal striving to control society — a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization which no brain has designed but which has grown from the free efforts of millions of individuals.

Dyson: "The white Lancaster never flew." " The crews continued to die...." "The illusion of validity is a false belief in the reliability of our own judgment. The interviewers sincerely believed that they could predict the performance of recruits after talking with them for fifteen minutes. Even after the interviewers had seen the statistical evidence that their belief was an illusion, they still could not help believing it. Kahneman confesses that he himself still experiences the illusion of validity, after fifty years of warning other people against it. He cannot escape the illusion that his own intuitive judgments are trustworthy." Hayek: "...against becoming an accomplice in men's fatal striving to control society — a striving which makes him not only a tyrant over his fellows, but which may well make him the destroyer of a civilization...."

The Greeks taught us that after Hubris -- overweening pride -- comes the goddess Nemesis: retribution. Dyson, Kahneman, Hayek reteach this tragic lesson. Lehrman, whose Institute hosts this website, for over half a century been quietly preaching the humility -- a humble reliance on something very like "statistics and simple arithmetic," eschewing the "illusion of validity" reposed in expert judgment -- that endows the gold standard with its great benevolent power to create economic security and foster prosperity.

Now, as noted here, here, and here, the Bank of England itself has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that the world dollar standard is vastly inferior -- in terms both of stability and prosperity -- than even the dilute form of the gold standard established at Bretton Woods -- the monetary experts still cannot "escape the illusion that [their] own intuitive judgments are trustworthy." Happy Birthday, Federal Reserve. High time for your transformation into an institution much like the National Institute of Standards and Technology, one devoutly devoted entirely to keeping the value of the dollar defined to a weight of gold fixed, in precision, to the atomic level, by following the "rules of the game as codified" in Lewis E. Lehrman's The True Gold Standard - A Monetary Reform Plan without Official Reserve Currencies.
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Ralph Benko is senior advisor, economics, to American Principles in Action’s Gold Standard 2012 Initiative, and a contributor to he ARRA News Service.

Tags: Ralph Benko, The Fed, Federal Reserve System, illusions, Freeman Dyson, Daniel Kahneman, Lewis E. Lehrman, gold standard, gold To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Simplify the Tax Code and Lower Taxes

2011-12-22T11:32:00.008-06:00

The House Republicans and Senate Democrats are caught in an end of year situation leaving in doubt if and how lawmakers will resolve their differences over the payroll tax extension and other items before December 31st.

ARRA News Service identified that House Speaker John Boehner has written a letter to President Obama asking the President "[T]o call on the Senate to return to appoint negotiators so that we can provide the American people the economic certainty they need." Note that it was the Democrat led Senate that pushed for a 2 month verses a 9 months compromise bill and went on recess instead of waiting for the House response. If both chambers do not reconcile their differences over the bill by December 31, . . . "160 million middle class Americans will see a tax increase, over two million Americans will begin losing their unemployment benefits, and millions of senior citizens on Medicare could find it harder to receive treatment from physicians."

There is a better way. Some advocate for the FairTax. Others advocate for a Flat tax. Backers of both groups have similar objectives and points. Earlier this year, The Heritage Foundation outlined a comprehensive approach to tax reform that would provide the permanence and certainty in the tax system that American taxpayers want and the economy needs. The Heritage plan called Saving the American Dream would replace income and payroll rates with a flat tax rate of 28 percent for everyone.

Heritage’s J.D. Foster detailed their "flat tax" plan last week:

The current tax system discourages saving. It discourages investment. It discourages entrepreneurship. It causes decision makers to misallocate the nation’s resources, limiting productivity gains, wage gains, and the nation’s overall level of international competitiveness. And, it is far, far too complicated. The New Flat Tax is the remedy. It replaces every major tax collected by the federal government. For non-seniors, it is as easy as one, two, three—one rate, two credits, three deductions. For seniors on Medicare, one of the two credits—for health insurance—is replaced by an extra deduction. The New Flat Tax is simple, revenue-neutral, and will allow America to achieve its full economic potential.

The above pictured Heritage Foundation chart reveals why it is so crucial for Congress to consider reform. Without major changes or significant spending cuts, tax rates are projected to skyrocket in the years and decades to come.

Tags: chart, flat tax, Heritage Foundation, lower taxes , less spending, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

Gas Prices at All-Time Christmas High

2011-12-21T15:30:00.003-06:00

Rob Bluey, Heritage Foundation: Americans hitting the road this week are likely to encounter the highest-ever price for gas at Christmas in history. According to figures from AAA, the nationwide average for regular unleaded is $3.21 per gallon — an increase of 23 cents over last year’s Christmas record.

This marks the second straight year Americans are paying more at the pump during the holidays. The price in 2009 was around $2.60 per gallon and jumped to about $3 per gallon at Christmas last year.

These higher prices aren’t grabbing headlines as they once did, but that doesn’t mean Washington should ignore the issue.

As part of its North American Energy Inventory report, the Institute for Energy Research recently outlined steps that policymakers could take to reverse America’s decline in energy production.

Among the ideas:

Removing barriers to drilling. Less than 6 percent of federal lands and 2 percent offshore are open to exploration, limiting the potential of Americans to produce energy here at home.
Developing shale resources. America has the world’s largest supply of shale resources — the oil and gas found in rock formations underground.
Stopping excessive regulation. The government has slowed down and even halted offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, which supplies 30 percent of domestic oil production.

There’s also the added benefit of more revenue for the federal government with increased energy production, a point Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) stressed on last week’s Scribecast.

Heritage’s Nick Loris recently commented: “Allowing access for exploration and creating an efficient regulatory process that allows energy projects to move forward in a timely manner will not only increase revenue through more royalties, leases, and rent; it will also create jobs and help lower energy prices in the process.”

Tags: Christmas, David Vitter, domestic oil production, energy prices, Gulf of Mexico, Institute for Energy Research, offshore drilling, oil and gas, regulation, oil, gas, natural gas, peak oil, peak energy, department of energy, EIA, Heritage Foundation, Rob Bluey To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

The Death Certificate Of The Paper Dollar: Where To Next?

2011-12-20T13:25:00.002-06:00

Image via Wikipedia

by Ralph Benko, Contributing Author: The world dollar standard's death certificate arrives in the mail this week. The Bank of England - "the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street" — one of the most staid, cautious, and dignified entities in the world of monetary policy - signals that the fiduciary currency standard ushered in on August 15, 1971 is, empirically measured, far inferior to the (dilute form of the) gold standard erected at Bretton Woods. Fellow Forbes.com columnist Charles Kadlec thoroughly reprises and analyzes the facts submitted to a candid world by the Bank of England in a paper to be officially published December 20, 2011.

The Bank of England’s Financial Stability Paper No. 13, Reform of the International Monetary and Financial System, reported at Bloomberg BusinessWeek and reviewed here, is being seen by many monetary policy observers around the world as the "coroner's report" on the death of the world dollar standard.

What's next? Presciently, at the watershed October 5-6 Heritage Foundation Conference on a Stable Dollar: Why We Need It and How to Achieve It, Forbes’ editor-in-chief Steve Forbes called for escalating the discourse from “whether” we should restore the gold standard to “how” to do so. The floodgates open.

In the second half of 2011 monetary policy scholars, policy virtuosi, financiers and activists have issued over half a dozen books and important monographs on the very subject heralded by Forbes whose call was seconded by Heritage's president, Dr. Ed Feulner in an influential Washington Times op-ed:

That's why we should welcome a debate about the role of the Fed and what our monetary policy should be. But we have to ask the right questions. … Should we fix the dollar price of gold? ...'If the defect is inflation and an unstable dollar,' asks Lewis Lehrman of the Lehrman Institute, 'what is the remedy?' We can’t answer that without a robust and full discussion. Let's hope the hard questions being asked now about the Fed touch off a much-needed debate.

This, together with ongoing efforts by The Lehrman Institute and by its strategic partner, the American Principles Project (with both of which this writer has a professional association) laid the groundwork for another critical development: putting monetary reform at the core of the agenda of the conservative movement. The largest and most influential umbrella group of conservativism is the Conservative Action Project. This convened 100 leading conservatives at a summit this month. President Reagan’s Counselor and the 75th Attorney General of the United States, Edwin Meese, III, presided and the Project issued, last week, A Conservative Consensus for 2012.

This, which fairly may be considered the consensus conservative platform, calls for Growth, Family, Strength and Accountability. The first element of the very first item on the agenda includes a call to "encourage sound monetary policy, thereby helping the economy grow and create more jobs." Many conservatives take these words to mean going forward to gold.

But how? Earlier this autumn, Lewis E. Lehrman published the fruit of 40 years of study and thought, study that began with his tutelage by French monetary statesman Jacques Rueff, of The True Gold Standard - A Monetary Reform Plan Without Official Reserve Currencies. It was lauded by TV journalist Lou Dobbs as "a compelling read and a compelling architecture for a way forward," by Federalist Society co-founder and Bradley Foundation "Genius Award" winner David McIntosh as "a must read for policy makers," by financial journalist James Grant as "The answer, brilliantly expounded…." The New York Sun’s Seth Lipsky summarized its essence:

... a transition in which, on the date that Congress authorizes the resumption of unrestricted convertibility between dollars and gold, Federal Reserve Bank notes and American dollar bank demand deposits would be 'redeemable in gold on demand at the statutory gold parity,' ... the minting by the Treasury and authorized private mints of what Mr. Lehrman calls 'legal tender gold coin in appropriate denominations, free of any and all taxation,' ... an international monetary conference 'to provide for the deliberate termination of the dollar-based official reserve currency system and the consolidation and refunding of foreign official dollar reserves,'... the establishment by the conference of gold as ‘the sole means by which nations would settle residual balance of payments deficits,' ... and steps to 'uphold stable exchange rates and free and fair trade - based on the mutual convertibility to gold of major currencies.'

Other noteworthy works on how to restore the gold standard promptly followed. These include monographs by George Mason University’s Prof. Lawrence H. White recently presented at the 29th Annual Monetary Conference of the Cato Institute, entitled Making the Transition to a New Gold Standard, and extensive and erudite testimony shortly preceding Lehrman’s book by Dr. Lawrence Parks, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Monetary Education, at a September 13 hearing of Dr. Ron Paul's subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy entitled "Road Map to Sound Money.'

In addition, financial analyst James Rickards’ Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis is receiving significant popular attention and bestseller status, Detlev Schlichter’s Paper Money Collapse, and we see the publication of Paul Nathan’s The New Gold Standard<, a new edition of prominent libertarian (and rocket scientist) Dave Redick's Monetary Revolution USA and, now, the keenly anticipated Fixing the Dollar Now: Why US Money Lost Its Integrity and How We Can Restore It by Dr. Judy Shelton.

Dr. Shelton is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal's editorial page and was a participant in both the Heritage and Cato conferences (as well, with Forbes, Lehrman and Jimmy Kemp at Atlas Foundation’s own monetary panel conducted at its annual Liberty Forum). She has an international following and is respected by powerful legislative officials in Washington, D.C.

Shelton first won worldwide credibility by being among the first to precisely predict the time and manner of implosion of the Soviet Union in her iconic work The Coming Soviet Crash. Shelton's work The Money Meltdown was praised by Publishers Weekly as "masterful."

Shelton has surpassed herself in Fixing the Dollar Now. This work aptly was called by Weekly Standard founder/editor (and gold standard proponent) William Kristol 'bold and practical, sophisticated and straightforward.' It lays out the alpha - the Constitutional underpinnings - and omega - financial integrity, stability, and prosperity - of why the gold standard now is a must.
Shelton:

What would it take to set up a genuine gold standard with a working mechanism for converting US dollars into gold on demand? The first step would be to address current federal legal tender laws.... The next major step toward achieving gold convertibility would be to define the US dollar as a fixed weight of gold. Such a major change from our current practice presents significant challenges in managing the transition. ... Still, the advantages of forging an inviolable link between the value of US money and gold through fixed convertibility seem to make it well worth tackling the difficulties. ... Gold convertibility of the dollar would reassert the early principles embedded in both the Constitution and the Coinage Act with regard to establishing a money unit defined as a precise weight of gold or silver. ... Calling for an international monetary conference would reassure the United States’ trading partners that their cooperation is welcomed, even solicited. At the same time, given the pre-eminent role of the dollar in global financial markets, it would be seen as an important step toward achieving radical international monetary reform.

The world dollar system has been pronounced, now almost officially, a failure. The main surprise is that the pronouncement took so long. The call by Steve Forbes for a discussion about how to restore gold, and the work of monetary savants such as Lehrman, Shelton, and White laying out precisely how, could not be more timely - or needed. Public pollsters show gold to be extraordinarily popular with voters. Monetary reform is at the core of the conservative consensus. Presidential aspirants are taking note. Anticipate legislation.

Onward to gold — and prosperity.
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Ralph Benko is senior advisor, economics, to American Principles in Action’s Gold Standard 2012 Initiative, and a contributor to he ARRA News Service. His article first appeared in Forbes

Tags: Ralph Benko, wold currency global markets, American dollar, Bank of England, International Monetary and Financial System, Dr. Judy Shelton, death of the dollar, gold standard, gold, To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to Conservative Voices. Thanks!

2011-12-17T09:58:00.001-06:00

Update From Gary Bauer: The U.S. Commission of International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) is scheduled to close for good tomorrow. Created in 1998, the USCIRF provides recommendations to the State Department and acts as a watch dog on international religious freedom. “…[I]f you eliminate USCIRF, you send a terrible signal internationally that we are less concerned about religious freedom,” Chris Seiple told Christianity Today last week. The elimination of the USCIRF, says Thomas Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University, makes it, “reasonably clear to the persecutors… that advancing religious freedom is not a priority for the United States.”

We know that the persecution of Christians abroad is not a priority for the White House and many in Congress. But we need to make it a priority for ourselves. Again, please watch and share this video and please pray for the persecuted church.

ARRA News Service - Gary Bauer, Contributing Author: Christmas is such a wonderful time of year, particularly here in America where we are free to celebrate the birth of Jesus without fear of outright persecution. Sadly, as most of you know, millions of Christians around the world cannot openly worship without fear of persecution and even death.

Christians are undergoing a level of persecution not seen since the early days of the Church. The persecution is actually increasing as radical Islamists rise to power in the Middle East and Africa. And yet, scandalously little is being done by those most able to make a difference. We need to speak up.

Meanwhile many here in Washington, D.C., are silent or worse about the violence. In fact, on this very day the Obama administration is meeting with representatives of dozens of countries to discuss hateful speech and religious persecution, not against Christians but against Muslims!

We have unveiled a new video that highlights the plight of Christians across the globe. (Warning: the video contains some graphic images and is not suitable for children.) Please do me a favor: Watch this video and share it with your family members, friends and colleagues. And ask them to share it with their friends. (While on my YouTube page, you may subscribe to my YouTube channel and watch other short videos that we’ve produced.)

If you are on Facebook, you can watch the video on my page, and share it with others. Knowledge is the first step to making a difference. I am asking each of you to do everything you can to promote this video. We cannot remain silent in the face of such evil.
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Gary Bauer is is a conservative family values advocate and serves as president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families

Tags: Gary Bauer, Campaign for Working Families, Christians, Silent Night, Christian persecution, Christmas, persecution, violence, murder, death, Iraq, Egypt, Afghanistan, India, China, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Iran, Turkey, Africa, war, violence, torture, Islam, Islamofascism, Muslims, war on Christians,
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