The newest form of fear mongering is over the issue of net neutrality. I won’t go into the painful details, but the fear is that giant Internet Service Providers could limit aspects of the internet to save bandwidth. This has led many people (mostly on the left) to start clamoring for preemptive government regulation of the internet. Why is beyond me. If anything, the FCC’s role in our lives is already too great.

Thanks to regulation many ISPs don’t fear competition. Verizon had to fight tooth and nail just to offer competition to established cable providers all over the United States. For most of the United States there simply isn’t an alternative cable provider. The only choice is to get a dish. How did this happen? Government regulation. It tends to limit choices and favor monopolies.

Is your local football team not doing well? Why the hell is the game blacked out? Thanks to the FCC the NFL team that plays in a football stadium that was mostly likely built with taxpayer dollars can keep you from watching the game. What business does the federal government have in keeping citizens from watching a game on TV?

The regulation pyramid is a plague all over America. Liberals want ObamaCare to drive down costs and cover more people. Health care would be cheaper if the government had never gotten involved in the first place. Once the government starts regulating something it’s a slow and painful death and the typical lawmaker only has one answer to problem: more regulation.

Over the last 100 years corporations have used government regulation to stifle competition and secure subsides. The left has an inherent distrust of corporations, but they’ve been taken for a ride.  The only way to keep corporations in check is leveling the playing field.  Competition is the ultimate way to limit corporation overreach. We don’t need “net neutrality” we need “regulation neutrality.”

Star Parker represents real hope and change, not the government's false hope and perpetuation of the status quo.

There’s been a lot of talk about “racism” these days; a lot more than usual. Many of us were hopeful that candidate Obama would actually be the President he promised and usher in a new era of post-racial politics. If anything, racial politics have gotten much worse, which is why it is so important to elect people like Star Parker to Congress.

Star Parker is truly post-racial. She believes that all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator. She does not believe that certain minorities should be treated as inferiors and told that their identity and self worth is dependent on their superiors in government. Parker’s ideology is based on both subjective experience and objective reality:

As a young woman I was on welfare myself. I saw from inside the perverse and destructive culture it created. A dehumanized culture of dependence and irresponsibility that encourages behavior exactly the opposite of what a successful life demands.

Parker wrote a book about her experience under the government’s thumb called Uncle Sam’s Plantation. The book is a must-read for anyone who claims to be “open minded” and “liberal” because it challenges America to live up to its liberal ideals.

It is not liberal or progressive to perpetuate the dehumanizing and degrading welfare state, though it is certainly in the best interests of the Democratic politicians who perpetuate it. The overseers of the plantation know that the degradation of those in your “care” ensures subservience.

Star Parker believes in true equality; that blacks are just as capable as whites of living the American dream. But the so-called “liberals,” usually rich white people, are saying, in effect, that blacks are not capable and should be treated accordingly. Who opposes school choice for minority children? Rich white people whose children would never benefit from vouchers or other forms of school choice. As Parker puts it, “Liberating our kids from the cesspools in our urban areas that we call public schools is the great civil rights challenge of our time.”

We need more voices like Star Parker’s in Congress; those that shift responsibility from government to the individual to ensure progression and upward mobility for all people, be they black, white or purple. Parker realizes, through personal experience and hard data, that dignity and virtue come from personal responsibility, while slavery and degradation come from being told you’re too stupid to make it on your own:

Instead of solving economic problems, government welfare socialism created monstrous moral and spiritual problems. The kind of problems that are inevitable when individuals turn responsibility for their lives over to others. The legacy of American socialism is our blighted inner cities, dysfunctional inner city schools, and broken black families. Through God’s grace, I found my way out. It was then that I understood what freedom meant and how great this country is.

Do you really want to bring hope and change to America? Then donate to Star Parker’s campaign and let’s bring equality to all people; not equality of outcomes, but equality of opportunity. The Club Soda family is sending a small donation to Parker’s campaign today as well as select candidates in Colorado and across the country.

Every little bit helps, particularly since the “party of the people” gets the bulk of its money from the ultra-rich while the “party of the rich” gets most of it from individual donors.  Star Parker proves that the perceptions about each party are false.

The Democratic Party represents an entrenched, dinosaur-in-the-tar-pits system utterly opposed to any innovation or reform that would benefit the individual. It is anything but liberal, and is dedicated to the concentration and perpetuation of political power in Washington, D.C. at the expense of the individual. So if you consider yourself liberal, help Star Parker transfer power from the government to the individual.

Dueling bumper stickers: I was driving to Target the other day to partake in some rampant consumerism. Before I did my little part in destroying the planet, I noticed a car with two bumper stickers. One read, “Obama ’08,” the other, “I love my country but fear my government.” This puzzled me, because if one fears their government, is it prudent vote for the candidate who promises more of it? The problem with voting for more government is that, eventually, some right-wing fascist will be in power and abuse the hell out of the behemoth you helped create in the first place by voting for big-government guy (or gal). George W. Bush, for instance, would have been less likely to constantly violate our rights had the federal government been limited to begin with. It’s not a good idea to create an infrastructure that allows the next Hitler unfettered access to almost unlimited power.

The symbol for the Democratic Party shouldn’t be a Donkey. To be fair, it’s insulting to Donkeys. At least a Donkey is real animal. The Democrats want to believe in imaginary worlds. A world where man isn’t flawed. A world where we live in a Utopian state. In other words, it’s not a rational world. The Democrats love to cite the Canadian health care system; the same health care system that forces many of its citizens to come to the United States for adequate health care.

It’s not really the Canadian system progressives admire, it’s further North than that. It’s in the mythical world of the North Pole. You see the Democrats believe in Santa Claus State. Except the reality is that the State doesn’t give us anything, but instead takes everything we have. The intellectual giants on the left have listened to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” too many times. Now they’ve held onto that feeling. They can’t tell you why they’re in favor of ObamaCare. No rational person can, but it’s feels right. That’s why Santa Claus is the perfect mascot for the Democratic Party.

In many ways Santa Claus is the Anti-Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam “wants you.” In other words he wants you to get up off your ass and do something. Uncle Sam is skinny and angry. Santa Claus is fat, he only works one day a year, and he only wants you to “be good.” No wonder the man is so jolly. In other words you don’t have to do a damn thing and Santa Claus will give you something. Sounds like a fair deal. Don’t bother the Democrats with the details on how this is implausible; it just “feels right.”

If President Obama and the leaders of Democratic Party get their way this week the State will make it law that everyone must get health care. It will be against the law to “choose” not to have health care. If you’re a healthy 28 year old the heavy hand of the government will force you to purchase health care you do not need to pay for someone else’s health care. So when President Obama says if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it, he’s not telling the truth. What if I like not having health care insurance? Can I keep that plan? No!

It is for this reason that I call on our inspirational ancestors and declare than I am firmly in favor of the separation of health care and State. It’s not the government’s responsibility to tell its citizens to get health care. Safety nets are already in place in this country. No one is dying in emergency rooms because they’re not insured. This entitlement mentality already grips most of the left. If this bill passes this cancer will spread.

I suppose this will be the Climate Change Project Manager's office. Nice six-figure BS job if you can get it.

With the economy still in the tank and unemployment continuing to hover around ten percent, a lot of people are starting to wonder, “Where’s my bailout?” Well, if you look at the salary and employment stats in the public sector (city, county, state and federal government) you’ll see exactly where your bailout went.

Your bailout – or at least your hard-earned tax dollars that are partially funding the corporate fat-cat bailouts (the other portion being financed by the Chinese, among others) – is also being used to create make-work six-figure nonsense jobs, such as Climate Change Program Manager at the National Park Service. This ridiculous job, with a pay scale between $103,000 and $155,000, is just the tip of the iceberg (pun intended). According to the Dec. 11, 2009 edition of USA Today:

Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted. Federal workers are enjoying an extraordinary boom time — in pay and hiring — during a recession that has cost 7.3 million jobs in the private sector… When the recession started, the Transportation Department had only one person earning a salary of $170,000 or more. Eighteen months later, 1,690 employees had salaries above $170,000.

Moreover, the New York Times reported in August of 2009 that while the private sector lost 6.9 million jobs, state and local governments added 110,000 new jobs. All of this data – and it goes on and on and on, if you care to look into it – strikes me as horribly backwards.

I’m no economist, but if deficits are skyrocketing and companies are looking for relief so they can begin hiring again, wouldn’t logic dictate that government cut jobs, siphoning those people into the private sector, while providing tax incentives to individuals and private sector companies?

In December of 2009, 382,758 federal employees were making $100,000 or more annually. That’s more than $38 billion in what is largely bureaucratic largesse. Last I checked it’s the private sector that actually produces our GDP, not government jobs that essentially produce nothing. That’s a lot of nothing we’re getting for our billions.

Why we’re headed down the same road as western Europe, California, Massachusetts, New York, etc., etc., which ultimately leads to economic crisis and bankruptcy, I’ll never know. Or, maybe I do know…

It’s all about power and payoffs. The more the private sector and citizens cede to the state, the more power and money that’s funneled to the state and its dependants. It’s simple mathematics with the additional wild card of human nature (it’s corrupt, by the way).

While some see this as a Utopian system, rational people recognize that an all-powerful, controlling state destroys liberty and freedom. The explosive growth of public sector payrolls and jobs is simply another data point in a trend line that shows America headed toward the abyss. If you’re not concerned about it, you should be.

As I was saying a few days ago. There’s a lot of fat in government than can be cut but no one in Washington is serious about it. I’m not exactly sure what the President is doing. I’m starting to fear that Obama is just completely in over his head. Presidents can either lead or they can’t. For all their faults Bush and Clinton were able to get things done. Americans are growing weary of Obama’s long speeches and inability to accomplish anything popular.

Obama’s biggest problem is that his ideas are not popular. The President must realize that he was elected because people were fed up with Bush, not because we were ready for big government solutions. Many on the left haven’t learned this lesson. Have the Republicans learned anything after being tossed out? I won’t hold my breath.

Obama’s first budget was emblematic of a politician who, when he announced his run for the presidency two years ago, had rejected the conventional wisdom that, having little experience in national politics, he was moving too fast and should wait his turn.
“This is a matter of political judgment, not political science,” said William Galston, a Brookings Institution economist who worked in the Clinton White House. “My judgment is that his reach will exceed his grasp. But I could easily be wrong about that.”

This budget isn’t about making the difficult choices. It’s about growing the federal government and the voting base of the Democrat party. The promises of reducing the deficit are based on faulty numbers. If the president really wants to be honest with the American people he should add the Social Security and Medicare shortfalls to the books. Until those numbers are accounted for this budget is just like the budgets we’ve seen the past twenty years. In other words it’s a fabrication.

“The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the Government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.” – Grover Cleveland

Can anyone imagine a modern president making this statement? Federal assistance is so engrained into the national consciousness that every misfortune is greeted by aid from the federal government. I believe Cleveland was right. Federal aid encourages people to look to the government for the solution to every problem. Is it really surprising then that liberals give less to charity and volunteer less time for community service? The liberal ideology is all about outsourcing all these good intentions to someone else, namely some well intentioned bureaucrat who’s more concerned with wasting money to get reelected than helping anyone. This idea that corporate America is evil and people in government are looking out for us is naïve. Both of these groups are the same. CEO and Senators both look out for their inherent self interest. Americans should quit acting surprised that Congress is inept and quit outsourcing our problems to the federal government. True liberty is not possible if a majority of the population is unwilling to live without risk. Grover Cleveland was a great president and he’s best remembered by this quote from Mark Twain.

“Your patriotic virtues have won for you the homage of half the nation and the enmity of the other half. This places your character upon a summit as high as Washington’s. . . . When the votes are all in a public man’s favor the verdict is against him. It is sand, and history will wash it way. But the verdict for you is rock, and will stand.” - Mark Twain