United Liberty

I must admit that this is a subject I wanted to stay away from but the continuing “uproar” saddens me. I want to like Sarah Palin but she makes it hard sometimes . At some point she is going to have to stop playing the victim card and act like a big girl.

I heard the Rahm Emanuel “retard” comment before Palin responded to it (I actually agreed with him). But something told me somebody would say something. Somebody would be offended. Somebody would act like a speech Nazi. Somebody would express an opinion that would attack the natural right of free speech.

As a former member of the GOP I can remember getting into debate after debate with “lefty” Statists on the subject of language. I guess because of who I am and how I was brought up I feel like I have a right to speak my mind and if you’re the “political correct” type you can get over it (Being raised in NYC probably contributed a ‘lil as well). I am not offended by anything that comes out of somebody’s pie- hole. Many people say things that alarm me, but being offended is somehow being “hurt” by what is said. Ms. Palin kept referring to her “thick skin” on the campaign trail. Did it somehow disappear?

I’ve already heard other people make the point that Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck use the word “retard” on their shows and Sarah hasn’t criticized them. Blah, blah, that isn’t nearly the issue here. The fact that the “Right” is now acting like the language police leads me to believe I left the GOP at the right time.

Let me create a scenario for dear Sarah and see how she would handle it.

We live in weird times, and in these weird times, the truth cannot be relied on from predictable sources. Take for instance New York’s Democratic Governor David Paterson, who said:

But the candidates are couching their support in economic terms. Gov. Paterson, who is facing an uphill battle against likely rival Andrew M. Cuomo, told a group of bankers recently: “In New York, Wall Street is Main Street. … You don’t hear anybody in New England complaining about clam chowder. If you say anything about oil in Texas, they’ll string you up near the nearest tree. We need to stand behind the engine of our economy in New York, and that engine of economy is Wall Street.”

Paterson’s comments bring to my mind my experience growing up in Seattle, in which the public school system was effectively modernized with computers by Bill Gates and new stadiums and buildings, which brought in a host of new jobs and replaced the dangerous eyesore that was the Kingdome, were put into place by Gates’ fellow tech pioneer Paul Allen. Allen also turned radio station KCMU into the powerhouse that is today KEXP, a move that brought alot of early criticism, alleging that KEXP would be just another bland, commercial radio station.

Despite modernizing Seattle during the 1990s and 2000s, to the benefit of everyone living and working in the area, envy can be heard by many (but not all, of course) Seattleites simply because Gates and Allen have done well for themselves.

I just read Matt Wittlief’s thoughts on Scott Brown, and since I have only tweeted about the Massachusetts special election and talked about it on the radio, I must be falling behind as a “political blogger” myself.  I started this as a comment, but my opinions turned this into a post itself.

As I see it, the GOP needed solidarity in the Senate (41 votes) to derail ObamaCare, and Scott Brown is that 41st vote for ObamaCare in 2010. I have said it before, and I will continue to say it, Scott Brown is nothing more than a “short term compromise.” His positions are not that different from Coakley, when you compare them across the board for all three candidates that ran. He also supported RomneyCare in Massachusetts a few short years ago. His support of government intervention into the marketplace is unquestionable, and he confirmed it with his comments on Wednesday, that every libertarian that tweets or is on Facebook cited.

At the White House website, the biography of Bill Clinton illustrates the successes of his administration, most notably:

During the administration of William Jefferson Clinton, the U.S. enjoyed more peace and economic well being than at any time in its history.

It’s true. The Clinton years were some of the most prosperous years that the United States has ever seen. Was that the result of massive government spending and initiatives? Of course not. Clinton’s first major initiative - health care reform - failed, resulting in a Republican takeover of Congress and Clinton shifting to rhetoric such as ”the era of big government is over.”

The actual successes of the Clinton years were very right wing ones - welfare reform, free trade agreements and a robust innovative economy fueled by the ingenuity of software entrepreneurs. Spending was down, and Bill Clinton left office with a huge surplus. This was certainly the result of a lack of spending from the federal government, a foreseeable result of having two diametrically opposed political parties in power at once. The fact that the low-spending Clinton years (years in which the government actually shut down for nearly two months) resulted in economic prosperity, while high deficit eras like the pre-war terms of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Bush-Obama years resulted in depression and recession, makes one of the strongest cases for libertarianism.

After attending several Atlanta area health care town hall forums sponsored by legislators in support of HR 3200, I decided to participate in one hosted by MY Congressman, Representative Phil Gingrey (R-GA, 11th). I should note that I did not vote for or against Dr. Gingrey in 2008, as I lived in Georgia’s 13th Congressional District then. The convenience of the location of August 31st’s event could not have been better, unless it took place in my living room (the Cobb Civic Center is across the street from my neighborhood), however a 5:30 PM start time made it difficult for many constituents to attend.

I arrived at the Civic Center shortly after 5 PM to find a parking lot approximately half-full, some cars present as early as 3:30 PM. Outside the venue, there were a few individuals and groups handing literature to those entering, including members of GOP gubernatorial candidate, John Oxendine’s You Can Stop ObamaCare. I expected police-enforced restrictions that I encountered at previous town hall events, so my only tool to capture and share media of the event was my cell phone.

Once inside, I noted many of Rep. Gingrey’s older constituents in attendance, as I expected from reports of his previous forums on the subject. I also expected that most in attendance would be opposed to the health care reform bill known as HR 3200, also known as “ObamaCare,” like their Congressman, Rep. Gingrey. There were a handful of

Editor’s note: Please welcome Eric Von Haessler to United Liberty. Eric is a radio broadcaster (part of the of The Regular Guys), based out of Atlanta. He’ll be posting here as he can find time.

When I was a kid I always looked forward to the next television appearance of a guy known as The Amazing Kreskin. Kreskin called himself a mentalist and would demonstrate his ability to read minds by surprising members of the studio audience with his knowledge about what they were thinking right then and there. He ended every demonstration with a great gimmick. The host of the show would hide Kreskin’s paycheck somewhere on the set and the mentalist didn’t get paid for the appearance unless he found it before the end of the segment.

My enjoyment of this act was tempered by maturity. As I got older it became obvious to me that it was impossible for one person to read another person’s mind. My favorite TV mentalist was certainly entertaining but it was a parlor trick. I didn’t have to know exactly how he created the illusion- it was enough to know that no one can read minds. Therefore Kreskin cannot read minds. That epiphany from my young adult years strangely applies and helps to navigate me through the chronic Red state/Blue state bickering that now passes for debate in America.

If every passionate member on the Left and Right would take the time to remind themselves of their inability to read minds we’d be spared this endless cycle of faux-argument followed by faux-outrage. You know the drill. First a famous or semi-famous person makes a specious claim about the country, the administration, or whatever- then members of the opposite ideology begin the public handwringing and name calling that leads to an eventual boycott of something somewhere.

If it isn’t Sean Penn and Michael Moore raising hackles on the Right, it’s Ann Coulter and Glenn Beck poking at the Left. The brain dead Kabuki rolls ever onward and both sides turn out to be fueled by the same mistaken assumption. The idea that it’s possible for one person to read another person’s mind lurks at the bottom of the entire national discussion.

While perusing the morning headlines today I was greeted with the latest example of false debate from actress Janeane Garafalo. Ms. Garafalo, a well-known hater of all things right wing and Republican is now calling the Tea Party protestors ‘functionally retarded.’ She then adds that anyone of these functional retards that shows up at a rally or Town Hall meeting and shouts, “I want my country back” is just speaking in code. What they really mean is, “I want my white guy back”- presumably because they can’t handle the reality of dealing with a black president.

So how is she able to pick up on and decipher this right wing code? Well it’s obvious. She can read minds. No matter how much you natter on about the Constitution and free-market capitalism Janeane will not be fooled. She’s in your head. She knows what you are really thinking. It would be comforting to think she is alone in her mind reading quackery but it turns out to be a crowded field.

Garafalo’s latest gamma-burst of stupidity is only a parry to comments made by TV/radio host Glenn Beck about the President a few weeks ago. While opining on the whole Obama/Harvard Professor/Police Officer fiasco Mr. Beck couldn’t contain him self to commentary on the President’s actions alone. In order to round out his argument he made the claim that the President was in fact, a racist. He then went on to speculate about what might cause this deep-seated hatred of white people that lay at the core of Obama’s identity. Has the President ever expressed this hatred in a speech or interview? No. But he doesn’t need to do that. Glenn Beck can read minds and he knows what the President is really thinking.

Examples abound:

-Members of the Left just ‘know’ the war in Iraq was all about profits for the two oil men who occupied the White House at the time. Neither Bush nor Cheney claimed such a goal but the Left knows what they were really thinking.

-Many of my friends on the Right insist that Barack Obama hates the country and is engaged on a mission of sabotage in an act of personal revenge. President Obama has never articulated this as an item on his agenda but the Right knows what he’s really thinking.

Enough already. Speculation about the mindset of another may be a fun game to play but it has no place in the assessment of truth. The only proper way to judge a politician or anyone is to compare words and action. If a promise is made and broken, or a claim is found to be wanting, it is proper to draw conclusions about the veracity or competency of that person based on the evidence.  But this judgment gives you zero insight into the mind of the person you’ve just passed judgment upon. It can’t provide that insight because you don’t have the ability to read minds.

Give credit to The Amazing Kreskin. At least he understood how to entertain with claims of clairvoyance.  The white noise of constant outrage emanating from both the Left and Right is driving many of us to simply tune out.

If Glenn Beck and Janeane Garafalo continue to insist upon revealing the inner dialogue of their political enemies, we should demand a better show. Can you imagine the spectacle of Garafalo and Beck tearing apart the Fox News and MSNBC studios in search of their next paycheck? Now- That’s Entertainment!

We all know by now that the end goal of the health care “reform” bill proposed by the Obama Administration and Democratic leadership is to eventually run private insurers out of business, so we should be at all surprised by this gem that is tucked away in the 1,000+ page proposal, which you can read here:

It didn’t take long to run into an “uh-oh” moment when reading the House’s “health care for all Americans” bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.

When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.

In a recent conversation with a local Pastor, a social/moral issue rose and the man said I know how strong you will be,on that issue, since you are one of the most Republican people I know. Let me stop at his statement and draw two conclusions from his statement:

Yesterday, Arlen Specter (?-PA) made big news by announcing that he will run as a Democrat in his bid for re-election to the Senate in 2010. I consider this to be pretty big news - we don’t see politicians switching parties that frequently. This is likely to give the Democrats a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate (assuming Al Franken is seated as Senator of Minnesota). I would not be terribly surprised to see Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and/or Susan Collins (R-ME) switch affiliations at some point either.

First, watch a little of this YouTube Video:

Now, watch this short one: