Evangelicals face a difficult but clear choice on Nov. 8th

Commentary by James Shott

Of all of us are struggling with the difficult task of selecting from four candidates for President of the United States, with the two leading candidates having shown themselves to be highly flawed. But perhaps evangelical Christians have the most difficult task.

Since NBC “Today” co-host Billy Bush released the 11 year-old recording of vulgar “locker-room” banter between himself and Donald Trump, and since the recent accusations of Trump making inappropriate sexual advances to several women years ago, Christian’s face the question of how to react to the moral infractions that have been shown, and alleged.

Andy Crouch, the executive editor of Christianity Today magazine, expressed the general displeasure of evangelical leaders to these things, writing, “Indeed, there is hardly any public person in America today who has more exemplified the ‘earthly nature’ … that Paul urges the Colossians to shed: ‘sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry’ (3:5). This is an incredibly apt summary of Trump’s life to date. Idolatry, greed, and sexual immorality are intertwined in individual lives and whole societies.”

Those who have been around for more than a few years remember a similar situation involving President Bill Clinton and then-First Lady, and now presidential candidate, Hillary Clinton from the mid-1990s. In both cases religious folks had plenty to object to on moral grounds.

Bill Clinton’s affair with a White House intern led to his impeachment by the House of Representatives, not for his immoral conduct, but for lying about it under oath to a federal grand jury. Despite this, Clinton was able to finish his second term as President.

While nearly everyone agrees that such conduct is wrong, not everyone agrees on how important these kinds of things are in terms of whether they should disqualify someone from becoming or remaining President of the United States. It obviously was not considered important enough to remove Bill Clinton from office.

But that was then and this is now, and today Christians and Christian activities are being criticized as never before. A faction of the public wants to ban public Christmas scenes, and to malign religious institutions in general.

Donald Trump’s political enemies think evangelicals must focus on the she-said/he-said of the recent allegations of inappropriate sexual advances on women, and believe that if these allegations are true he should be disqualified from the presidency.

However, many or most evangelical Republican leaders are sticking with Trump, saying that despite his lewd comments there is no other real option for them. They generally say they will not abandon Trump, as quite a few Republicans in Congress have already done.

“It’s not like this is new,” said Family Research Council President Tony Perkins. “That’s why I aggressively supported another candidate in the primary, Ted Cruz, who I share values with. But we only have a choice between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump now.” And Franklin Graham conceded that while Trump’s comments on the recording are troubling, they are not sufficient to abandon him, and that the “godless progressive agenda of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton likewise cannot be defended.”

Evangelicals face criticism for not walking away from Trump and his immoral behavior, but they realize that one of the two flawed candidates will win the election, and they must support the one that has the best plan for the country and the most favorable view of the place of religion in their lives. Trump may fail the first test, but he passes with flying colors on the second one.

American Values President Gary Bauer believes that if Hillary Clinton becomes president, religious schools will be forced to do things that are against their religious principles; she will appoint liberal justices to the Supreme Court; religious displays in the public square will face bans; and Clinton has expressed hostility for Second Amendment rights. Donald Trump takes the appropriate view of these things.

“A Christian who cannot see the difference between a candidate who has sinned and yet promises good policies, and a candidate who has sinned and promises bad policies,” he wrote, “has been failed along the way — either by our educational system, our political leaders or our faith leaders.”

“And, he wrote, “voters should do everything they can to make sure Crooked Hillary never steps foot in the Oval Office!”

Basically, most evangelical leaders seem to offer this rationale: We are not voting to fill a vacancy among the Seven Archangels; we are voting for the President of the United States. They realize that Trump’s views on the Supreme Court, the flawed tax system, the dangerously high National Debt and deficit spending; the severely weakened military; our weakened relations with foreign nations; the stagnant economy and lack of good jobs; the immigration problems; and liberal attacks on guaranteed rights are the most important considerations in who to vote for in this election.

Christian leaders are displeased with Trump’s actions, but recognize that as imperfect as he may be as a human being, he is a vastly better choice for President of the United States for them than Hillary Clinton, who will win the election if more people abandon Trump for morality reasons.

Cross-posted from Observations

Commentary by James Shott

The 2016 Index of Economic Freedom shows that the United States has climbed one notch from 12^th place to 11^th among the 186 nations of the world that were surveyed and rated.

The Index is an annual guide published by The Wall Street Journal and The Heritage Foundation, and rates nations for labor freedom, business freedom, and fiscal freedom. There are 10 different measures inside those three major groupings. Data used is from 2014, and was compiled and analyzed last September.

The nations with more economic freedom than the U.S. are, starting with first place: Hong Kong; Singapore; New Zealand; Switzerland; Australia; Canada; Chile; Ireland; Estonia; and the United Kingdom.

Ranking 11^th over all and 2^nd among the three North American nations, the U.S. “remains mired in the ranks of the ‘mostly free,’ the second-tier economic freedom status into which it dropped in 2010,” the introduction to the report states. In seven of the past eight years Americans have seen their economic freedoms decline, and this year’s score equals their country’s worst score ever in the Index. At 75.4 out of 100 points, the U.S. has seen its score drop 0.9 since 2012, and from 80.7 since 2009.

“America’s historically vibrant entrepreneurial growth is significantly hampered by intrusive, expensive, and often ineffective government policies in areas ranging from health care to energy to education,” the report states. “Government favoritism toward entrenched interests has hurt innovation and contributed to a lackluster recovery and stagnant income growth,” even though a private sector energy boom has put the U.S. at the top of the world’s producers of oil and gas.

While America’s 6.2 percent unemployment rate in 2014 has improved, GDP growth was an unimpressive 2.2 percent over five years from 2009 to 2014. Our public debt then was nearly 105 percent of national GDP, which means that if every dollar of production – the value of all final goods and services produced in a year – went to pay down the debt, we still would have debt.

One small piece of good news is that in the Rule of Law category the “Freedom From Corruption” rating rose from 72 to 74 from the prior year, but the “Property Rights” rating dropped 10 points from 90 to 80, and this year produced the lowest ranking of the American people’s trust in government in the last 10 years, based on polls taken in 2015, where 75 percent of respondents said they believe corruption is widespread in the government and in government regulation of business.

Taxation continues to bedevil America’s freedom standing, with more than one of every four dollars of domestic income being taken by taxes, the U.S. having one of the highest corporate tax rates on the planet at a punishing 35 percent, and the top individual income tax rate of 39.6 percent. Government spending runs just short of 40 percent of GDP, and the size and scope of the government remains too big and too intrusive. The “Government Spending” and “Fiscal Freedom” ratings each fell, 59.6 to 54.7 and 67.5 to 65.6 respectively.

The nation saw substantial declines in the Regulatory Efficiency category, where each sub-category saw declines: Business Freedom - 91.9 to 84.7; Labor Freedom – 95.1 to 91.4; Monetary Freedom – 84 to 77. The report notes that “180 new major federal regulations have been imposed on business operations since early 2009 with estimated costs of nearly $80 billion,” explaining that the regulations themselves are not rigid, but that policies, such as excessive occupational licensing, restrict employment opportunities, and “damaging monetary policies, tangled webs of corporate welfare, and various subsidies” have affected the economy negatively.

The U.S. was heavily affected in two of the three sub-categories of Open Markets, where “Trade Freedom” remained essentially flat at 87 points, but “Investment Freedom” and “Financial Freedom” each took a 10-point hit, falling from 80 points to 70. The report notes that while “domestic regulations have been emerging only gradually, the financial reforms adopted in 2010 have increased both costs and uncertainty.”

Even though the U.S. moved up one position among the 186 nations, being 11^th instead of 12^th does not provide enough for even Donald Trump to brag about, especially in view of the fact that the overall score fell nearly one point and that the U.S. lost ground in 8 of the 10 sub-categories contained in the Index. And its position in the second tier may prompt a drive to change our “land of the free” motto to “land of the mostly free.”

The importance of this report is not so much the U.S. ranking, but the continued commitment of its government to policies contrary to the values that made America exceptional and free. This perspective is not merely the view of conservatives and libertarians, but also of someone who has seen this same scenario up close and personal.

Filmmaker and American citizen Agustin Blazquez saw this same theme play out in his native Cuba, and warns, “Wake up, America!” Blazquez sees the same radical shift happening in America that turned Cuba into a communist country.

This ought to be a call to action, but thus far all of those have failed.

Cross-posted from Observations

America’s long, difficult trek from tyranny and oppression to …

Commentary by James Shott

North America’s colonists were necessarily daring and independent, otherwise they would not have ventured to the New World. Being so far from Mother England, they needed and were able to establish colonial governing bodies, which could levy taxes, muster troops, and enact laws.

As time passed the colonies strengthened, and began seeing themselves as independent states, and their obedience to and dependence on the British Crown was receding into the background.

As the future leaders of the United States grew into those roles in the colonial legislatures, they also studied the ideas of the Enlightenment: the social contract, limited government, the separation of powers and the consent of the governed, ideas at odds with the heavy hand of King George.

The colonies found many things imposed by England objectionable, such as the Sugar Act that increased duties on sugar imported from the West Indies; the Currency Act that devalued Colonial currencies; the Quartering Act that forced colonists to house and feed British soldiers if necessary; the cruelty of the British Army at the Boston Massacre; the Stamp Act taxing many common items; and the Tea Act that spawned the Boston Tea Party.
 

Nearly two and one-half centuries later we are again facing a heavy hand, this time not from a monarch, but from the government created by those colonists after they had had enough heavy handedness, and fought for and won their freedom.

Our government’s objectionable activities from the recent past include an inspector general’s report showing that the IRS had targeted conservative groups for lengthy and onerous review of their applications for non-profit status. And cases such as when an Army veteran heard banging on his door before dawn, then he and his two young boys spent several hours in police cars in their jammies as a Department of Education SWAT team searched his home because his wife, who didn’t live there any more, had defaulted on her education loans.

A program of the Department of Justice called “Operation Chokepoint” is used to put the financial squeeze on legal industries the administration doesn’t like, such as firearms sellers and payday lenders.

Another program known as civil asset forfeiture allows police to seize, and then keep or sell, any property they allege is involved in a crime. Owners need not ever be arrested or convicted of a crime for their cash, cars, or even real estate to be taken away permanently by the government.

Wonder how the colonists would have reacted to these outrages had they been perpetrated by King George?

Today, the federal government has its fingers in virtually every aspect of our lives, and often it is very involved. Its activities no longer are effectively limited as directed by the U.S. Constitution. The federal government largely controls education at the local level, regulates mud puddles on private property, and now has taken control of the way Americans receive their healthcare.

With the force of law it now espouses positions based not upon Constitutional principles, but based upon ideology and political impulses.

One of the most ominous to date is the effort announced earlier this month to use the full force of the federal government, which has adopted one side of a vigorous debate on the effects of humans on the world’s climate, to criminally charge businesses that argue against the government’s chosen position with racketeering under RICO laws.

“Treating climate change as an absolute, unassailable fact, instead of what it is — an unproven, controversial scientific theory — a group of state attorneys general have announced that they will be targeting any companies that challenge the catastrophic climate change religion,” say Hans von Spakovsky and Cole Wintheiser in The Daily Signal.

Ignoring America’s principle of freedom of thought and speech, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said last month, “The bottom line is simple: Climate change is real,” and he is threatening to pursue companies he claims are committing fraud by “lying” about the dangers of climate change “to the fullest extent of the law.”

The coalition “AGs United For Clean Power” consists of 15 state attorneys general as well as the AGs of the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands. In addition to Schneiderman are Kamala Harris, California; William Sorrell, Vermont; Mark Herring, Virginia; Maura Healey, Massachusetts; Brian Frosh, Maryland; George Jepsen, Connecticut; and Claude Walker, the Virgin Islands, and representatives from Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington State and D.C.

Unsurprisingly, sixteen of the seventeen are Democrats, while the Virgin Islands AG is an independent. And no farcical climate inquisition would be complete without the participation of former vice president and climate change beneficiary Al Gore.

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch admits that the Justice Department is discussing the possibility of pursing civil actions against climate change doubters, and that the FBI has been asked to consider if it meets the criteria for federal law enforcement to take action. Tyranny rears its ugly head.

When the political left cannot prevail through the strength of its arguments in the arena of free ideas, it resorts to force. That is unconditional surrender, a testament to the failure of liberalism as a practical ideology.

Cross-posted from Observations

Commentary by James Shott

The American concept of personal freedom takes a back seat in West Virginia and other states that do not protect their citizens’ ability to get some jobs without being forced to join or pay fees to a labor union. For state governments or the federal government to allow such conditions for going to work to exist is as antithetical to the idea of individual freedom that our nation was built on as it gets.

Half of the 50 states have already embraced worker freedom and passed right-to-work laws. These laws have a positive impact on the economies and job picture for those states, and are creating jobs. And now West Virginia is poised to become the 26th state where workers are free to choose whether or not to join a union.

The state House of Delegates and Senate have both passed right-to-work legislation. The Mountain State’s Democrat Governor Earl Ray Tomblin, has vowed to veto the bill, but the Republican majorities in both houses can override that veto.

Advocates of right-to-work in the state legislature say they are not opposed to unions, per se, but do oppose state laws dictating that unions receive taxpayer and worker funds.

West Virginia and 25 other states believe that people should be free of pressure to join a union to get a job and believe that such mechanisms are deterrents to business development and job creation, and thus are harmful to the economy of states.

Characterized as pro-worker, pro-growth, pro-freedom and pro-job, abolishing forced unionization and the prevailing wage rule in the state are predicted to improve the state’s business climate, increase job opportunities for West Virginians, and help overcome the economic damage to the state’s economy brought on by the Obama administration’s war on coal.

The rub arises when a union has negotiated a contract for workers in a business, and some workers do not want to join the union. The union argues that it isn’t fair for non-union workers to benefit from union negotiations, and the union is correct about that. So then non-union workers are assessed a fee to compensate the union for their benefits.

But then that isn’t exactly fair, either, as non-union workers have nothing to say about how the union uses their money.

The solution is simple: Those workers who want to join the union should be able to do so, and to benefit from the union negotiated work conditions and wages, and those who choose not to join should not be required either to join, or to pay money to the union, and therefore would negotiate their own deal with the employer.

Labor unions evolved from workers wanting better conditions, having endured conditions that were generally unfair and even dangerous for many years. Over the years after workers became organized, however, federal and state governments put laws and rules into effect that provided protections for workers, taking on the primary role that labor organizations had been providing.

With their prime function now essentially covered by laws and regulations, labor unions had to change their focus in order to survive. They have become active and influential political organizations, using member dues and non-union worker fees for political purposes. And too often, the demands they make to attract membership frequently involve things that no sensible business would do on its own, such as demanding work rules that are inefficient and designed to increase union jobs, rather than increase efficiency and productivity. They often demand pay practices that ignore individual worker performance, basing pay on considerations other than the worker’s abilities. And they routinely protect the job of all members regardless of their performance, or the health of the business.

Despite their actions on behalf of their members, which frequently are harmful to the businesses in which their members work, union membership has declined sharply from its peak in the mid-1950s, when one in three workers belonged to a union. The decline began to accelerate in 1980, according to Economy Watch online, and today union membership is a mere 11.1 percent.

That figure includes public-sector workers, who among all workers have the least justification for union representation, given that their employers are the governments that enforce labor law. Public workers are 5 times more likely to belong to a union than their private-sector counterparts, with a union membership rate of 35.2 percent, while the private employee rate is just 6.7 percent.

Many of the demands of unions on businesses, while good for union members, make profitability more difficult for businesses, artificially raising wages and labor costs, thereby increasing the price of goods and services for everyone, including union families. 

Rather than being an adversary of management, unions could become partners, focusing on providing a better trained and more productive workforce, assisting business in succeeding, and creating jobs through natural economic methods, rather than blackmailing employers into actions that benefit only one side of the labor/management equation.

Under this scenario unions could succeed on their own merits rather than depending upon government force and political intrigue for their survival.

Cross-posted from Observations

Religious beliefs take a beating in today’s politically correct world

Issues of religious freedom have been in the news a good bit lately. Primarily, these news events occur when someone finds their religious beliefs in conflict with another person’s secular desire. A baker or a florist who regularly sells their wares to gay/lesbian customers declines to bake a cake or make floral arrangements for their wedding because their religious beliefs do not approve homosexual marriage. Despite the fact that there are many, or if not many, at least some alternatives to those bakers or florists, those who refused to provide services were persecuted and some driven out of business by the uproar the offended gay/lesbian couples instigated because these people held to their religious beliefs.

More recently, a county clerk in Kentucky refused to sign marriage licenses of gay/lesbian couples after a court ruled that treating gay/lesbian couples differently than heterosexual couples is discrimination, and therefore illegal. A judge jailed the clerk for refusing to act, despite the commonly observed practice by judges of using the least radical punishment for such problems first, and then proceeding to more stringent punishment and ultimately jail as the last resort.

This last episode is a much different situation than those previously mentioned, as it involves a government employee refusing to do her sworn duty. But the attention it received and the way the judge handled the clerk does illustrate the size of the schism between people following their religious beliefs and social preferences or legal mandates.

If there were options other than punishing these Americans for following their religious beliefs, why were bakers, florists, and others who have had similar misfortunes singled out for what may rightly be termed persecution. This point is particularly relevant in a nation in which the first right among four specifically enumerated rights in the first of the ten amendments in the Bill of Rights is the free exercise of religion?

It is also relevant to note the degree to which these events attract media coverage, which highlights how unpopular traditional religious practices have become to the media and many Americans in the 21^st century.

Combine a media mindset apparently hostile to religious practices with a tendency to try to tear down Republican presidential candidates and you find Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson being given rough treatment after saying that a Muslim shouldn’t be President of the United States. "I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that," he said a while back on NBC's "Meet the Press."

A bit later in the interview, he said, when asked about a Muslim running for Congress, that it would depend upon the individual in question. "Congress is a different story, but it depends on who that Muslim is and what their policies are, just like it depends on what anybody else is," Dr. Carson said. "If there's somebody who is of any faith but they say things and their life has been consistent with things that will elevate this nation and make it possible for everybody to succeed and bring peace and harmony, then I'm with them."

Host Chuck Todd also asked him whether a president's faith should matter to voters. "I guess it depends on what that faith is," he said. "If it's inconsistent with the values and principles of America, then of course it should matter. But if it fits within the realm of America and consistent with the Constitution, no problem." Asked whether he thinks Islam is consistent with the Constitution, Carson said: "No, I don't – I do not."

Clearly, Dr. Carson believes that anyone subjugating their religious beliefs, whatever religious beliefs they may hold, to the requirements of our Constitution is the key element.

He appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” last Sunday where reporter Martha Raddatz grilled him on that same statement, either ignorant of his other comments further defining his view on the issue, or unwilling to acknowledge them. Here is part of that interview:

Raddatz: “I want to go back to your controversial comments on the possibility of a Muslim president. The question seemed quite clear. The question was: Should a president’s faith matter? You said, I guess it depends on what that faith is. The question was: So do you believe that Islam is consistent with the Constitution, and you said no, I do not. I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that. 

Do you stand by that now?”

Carson: “Well, first of all, you know, what I said is on a transcript and it’s there for anybody.”

Raddatz: “I’m reading the transcript, Dr. Carson, that’s exactly what you said.”

Carson: “No – read the paragraph before that where I said anybody, doesn’t matter what their religious background, if they accept American values and principles and are willing to subjugate their religious beliefs to our Constitution. I have no problem with them.

Why do you guys always leave that part out, I wonder?”

Political correctness – or opposing unpopular things in favor of popular things – is the order of the day, in life and in the media.

Notice: You are breaking one or more federal laws and/or regulations

Commentary by James Shott

Most of us probably think of ourselves as law-abiding, up-standing American citizens. We pay our taxes on time. We keep our drivers licenses and inspections up to date. We don’t shoplift, or take illegal drugs. We don’t murder, rob, rape or assault others. That’s the way law-abiding citizens think and act.

And yet, I am willing to bet some money that every one of us has breeched or is on the wrong side of some federal decree.

I say that with a high degree of confidence because there are so many of these edicts from on high that nobody – not you, not law enforcement, not even the judges at whose mercy we will find ourselves if charged for breaking one – knows them all.

You see, here in the Land of the Free there are between 3,600 and 4,500 federal statutes that impose criminal sanctions, according to Michael Cottone, writing in the Tennessee Law Review.

As bad as that is, the ridiculously high number of federal laws pales in comparison to the number of regulations created by administrative agencies that carry criminal penalties, maybe as many as 300,000 of them.

With that knowledge, the old maxim “ignorance of the law is no excuse” is now a mere absurdity.

Of course, if we actually were to follow the dictates of the U.S. Constitution – a quaint idea, these days – at least some of those 300,000 regulations aren’t valid, since the only authorized law-making entity at the federal level is the Congress, and the Constitution does not authorize the Congress to abdicate that duty, and pass it along to the excessive number of unelected bureaucrats in the too-many Executive Branch agencies, departments, administrations, commissions and offices.

The Constitution sets forth the following: Article I, Section I: “All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives.” That’s about as plain as it can be. Notice it does not say, “except where Congress decides to cede that authority to the Executive Branch.”

Some laws are downright stupid, or sometimes are applied stupidly:
* A child saved a woodpecker from her family’s cat and was fined $535 under the migratory bird law.

* A 66-year-old retiree went to prison because he didn't have proper paperwork for orchids.

Some are irrational; others are conveniently broad and through twisted reasoning are used to punish American individuals and businesses. Consider the case of Gibson Guitars: On August 24, 2011, agents of the federal government executed four search warrants on Gibson manufacturing plants in Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee, where they seized pallets of wood, electronic files and finished guitars. Other than making excellent musical instruments, what had Gibson done?

Public servants in the Department of Justice determined that using wood from India that was not finished by workers in India is illegal, not by U.S. law, but because of the way the DOJ interpreted Indian law. The feds argued that Gibson violated the Lacey Act of 1900, which outlaws the use of plants and wildlife that have been taken or traded in violation of foreign law.

Apparently, Gibson is supposed to have known that Indian companies broke Indian law and sold wood illegally, thereby making Gibson subject to prosecution in the U.S. Seriously.

CEO Henry Juszkiewicz said Gibson competitors also use this same wood, and wondered why his company had been singled out. Fair question. Regardless, Gibson paid $300,000 to avoid criminal charges, was forced to make a "community service payment" of $50,000 to the U.S. National Fish and Wildlife Foundation to promote conservation and development of tree species used in making musical instruments, as well as withdraw claims to $262,000 worth of exotic woods seized by federal authorities.

It is unfair and oppressive to hold taxpaying citizens to the impossible standard of knowing and obeying every one of the hundreds of thousands of laws and regulations that might affect them, but in addition to that, perpetuating circumstances that allow prosecutors to haul people into court and potentially fine or imprison them on the flimsy basis that they should actually know all these decrees is outrageous, although Mussolini, Pol Pot, and Stalin would approve.

"The criminal code today is so vast and complex that judges and lawyers have a lot of trouble discerning what's legal and what's illegal," John Malcom, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation, told the House Judiciary Committee. "What hope do ordinary citizens have?" The government should be required to identify every federal crime, he said, and make that list easily accessible and free to the public.

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers president Steven Benjamin testified that when the average citizen cannot figure out what is illegal, "that is unfairness in its most basic form. We have become addicted to the use of criminal law as a blunt instrument to control social and economic behavior."

George Terwilliger, former deputy attorney general in George W. Bush’s administration, thinks Congress should pass one overriding law that requires proof of intent for any federal crime.

Contact your representative and senators and tell them to implement the Malcom and Terwilliger recommendations.

Talking about the problem does nothing to solve the problem!

Take A Stand - Shout It Out 

 An alternative for today 

Great minds discuss STRATEGIES 

Average minds dwell on problems 

Small minds discuss people

                                    Eleanor Roosevelt (w/revisions)                      

                               

America needs freedom troopers not blow- hards whining about the situation.

Here is the rub: 

Conservatives, as I have observed, spend lots of time bloviating - railing about America's problems and talking about the people causing them - what is worse they primarily do so to others of like minds. Not the opposition or the young people that need to know how much America has declined. 

They are often times more interested in showing how smart they are to each other but they shy away from entering the fray.  Too many I meet are weak in their convictions, scared of being criticized by the leftists. 

Patriots Stand Up 

Be Proud 

Shout it Loud

Jesus Died for Us

Make him Proud

Stand up against

Christian and Jewish Oppression

Twitter is a POWERFUL tool 

Use IT! 

Is there anything on Earth the government doesn’t want to control?

The EPA is determined to control everything that has anything to do with air, ground and water. The DOJ wants to put legal but “unpopular” types of businesses out of business. The feds tell schools what they can sell to the public at bake sales and at athletic events. And now the five unelected members of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) have decided the government should control the greatest and most creative invention since the wheel: the Internet.

“President Obama has pushed for the reclassification, which he said is needed to ensure a fair and open Internet,” writes Susan Ferrechio in the Washington Examiner. “But critics say it will stifle innovation and increase fees and taxes by imposing on the industry a 1934 government regulation meant for managing large utilities, such as the old telephone companies.”

"The closer we get to the FCC rubber-stamping President Obama's Internet grab, the more disturbing it becomes,” said House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., prior to the FCC’s decision. Consumers, innovators, and job creators all stand to lose from this misguided approach."

Some background, from Wikipedia: “The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link several billion devices worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), the infrastructure to support email, and peer-to-peer networks for file sharing and telephony.”

The Internet began gaining wide usage in the mid-1990s, and since that time has provided users with resources and connections that only until recently was even imagined. It has survived very well without the control freaks at the federal leviathan sticking their noses in.

Even though the FCC did vote to take control of the Internet, the vote was not unanimous. With a Democrat in the White House, the FCC now consists of three Democrat members and two Republicans, and both Republicans voted against the takeover.

One of them, Ajit Pai, made three important points in his dissenting statement. “For twenty years, there’s been a bipartisan consensus in favor of a free and open Internet … [and] the results speak for themselves. Dating back to the Clinton Administration, every FCC Chairman — Republican and Democrat — has let the Internet grow free from utility-style regulation.

“But today, the FCC abandons those policies. It reclassifies broadband Internet access service as a Title II telecommunications service. It seizes unilateral authority to regulate Internet conduct, to direct where Internet service providers (ISPs) make their investments, and to determine what service plans will be available to the American public.

“This is … a radical departure from the bipartisan, market-oriented policies that have served us so well for the last two decades.” 

His second point centered on the idea that the disagreement between Verizon and Netflix exemplified problems that required government intervention to protect consumers. But a free Internet operating in the free market solved this problem without need of government action, and well before this foolish decision was made.

“So the FCC is abandoning a 20-year-old, bipartisan framework for keeping the Internet free and open in favor of Great Depression-era legislation designed to regulate Ma Bell,” Commissioner Pai said, referring to the Communications Act of 1934 that authorized the FCC. “But at least we’re getting something in return, right? Wrong. The Internet is not broken. There is no problem for the government to solve.”

“Literally nothing in this Order will promote competition among ISPs,” he continued, outlining the third point. “To the contrary, reclassifying broadband will drive competitors out of business. Monopoly rules designed for the monopoly era will inevitably move us in the direction of a monopoly. If you liked the Ma Bell monopoly in the 20^th century, you’ll love Pa Broadband in the 21^st.

“One avenue for higher bills is the new taxes and fees that will be applied to broadband. If you look at your phone bill, you’ll see a ‘Universal Service Fee,’ or something like it. These fees — what most Americans would call taxes — are paid by Americans on their telephone service.

“Consumers haven’t had to pay these taxes on their broadband bills because broadband has never before been a Title II service. But now it is. And so the Order explicitly opens the door to billions of dollars in new taxes. Indeed, it repeatedly states that it is only deferring a decision on new broadband taxes — not prohibiting them,” Mr. Pai concluded.

Will this lead to the FCC playing politics with the Internet like the IRS does with applicants for nonprofit status? Why wouldn’t it?

As happens quite frequently, rules with the force of law are being created not by the only branch of government authorized to create laws, but by the branch of government authorized only to enforce the laws properly created.

Once again under the Obama administration the Constitution is turned on its ear.

New Jersey, New York and California should start learning what the people in Chicago have figured out!

This year’s election can help change the direction of our country

Commentary by James Shott

Next week’s election provides an opportunity to take a big step toward correcting the numerous wrongs afflicting America.

The federal government is too big, too expensive, too oppressive, and too intrusive. Some of those who work for us in Washington and elsewhere misbehave: they lie, cheat and steal, put politics ahead of service and pay no penalty for it. Sometimes, they are rewarded for their treachery.

They believe it is their job to decide what we should eat, what kind of toilet to buy, what kind of light bulbs to use, what we can and cannot say, what health insurance we must buy, which industries should be shut down, how our electricity should be produced, how we may utilize our own private property, the minimum amount employers must pay the least experienced and least knowledgeable workers, who we can do business with. They want to know who we talk to and what we think, and think they can tell religious organizations they must violate their principles or face penalties, and they waste our money on frivolous projects that often fund their friends.

What ever happened to being able to like or dislike anything at any time for any reason, or for no reason? What happened to “we reserve the right to refuse service to anyone?” People invest their money, mortgage their home to fund a business, only to find they are not actually in charge of it; they must follow sometimes-foolish government rules, or suffer the consequences.

The excesses, corruption and wrongdoings of the federal government are much worse than those of state governments, which in turn are much worse than those of county and municipal governments. Why? Because the smaller and closer government is to the people it serves, the more responsive to and respectful of those people it is.

It has not helped that our federal government is staffed by career bureaucrats who often take on a sense of power and privilege beyond their limited authority, and it is run by career politicians, many, perhaps most, of whom at some point shift their focus from good and faithful service to being re-elected.

Flipping channels the other night I came upon a replay of the Communist Party USA convention in Chicago last June on C-SPAN3.

Party Chairman Sam Webb was speaking: “Here are my two cents. What is needed is nothing less than the restructuring of the economy and the consistently and deeply anti-corporate and eventually socialist direction.”

Among the things Mr. Webb favors are “a guaranteed livable income for all and the reduction of the workweek with no cut in pay” … “and major expansion of every aspect of the public sector to education, housing, retirement security, health care, elder care, and so forth.” He supports raising the minimum wage, and the idea that everyone who isn’t doing well – the underpaid, underemployed, unemployed, the discriminated against, struggling families, students, the underwater homeowner, the bankrupt city” – are victims of capitalism.

He favors moving “government priorities away from military spending.” And he wants the wealth amassed by the evil 1 percent to be transferred into “public hands, our hands.”

He sounded just like big government American liberals, who prefer to call themselves “progressives,” presumably to describe their drive toward socialism/communism.

Mr. Webb might have listed the countries that have thrived after implementing these ideas, but he didn’t, because there aren’t any. Though heaven knows many have tried: Cuba, North Korea, China, Vietnam, Laos, et al. They exist as repressive nations forcing their ideology on their citizens and killing or imprisoning those who disagree, and usually have to adopt some capitalist market characteristics to survive.

Under our Constitution, which designed the government that led the United States to levels of greatness and a degree of individual freedom never before imagined, the federal government was never supposed to be what it has become: an obese and controlling machine that is blind to or unconcerned with its harmful effects on the people it is designed to serve.

Much authority was deliberately left to the states and to the people, as so stated in the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution. “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

From 1955 until 1980 Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, also from 1987 to 1995, and again from 2007 to 2011. Since 1955 Republicans controlled both houses of Congress for only 10 years, during the period 1995 to 2007, while Democrats were in control for 50 years. During this period of Democrat dominance, government has grown into a gargantuan monstrosity that threatens our freedom, and indeed our very survival today.

Capitalism and limited government got us where we were when the United States was on top. Liberal Democrats took us from there to the low point where we are now. The devolution will continue unless we put a stop to it. The Republican Party is the only viable mechanism to slow or stop the headlong slide toward socialism/communism we have witnessed over the last few decades.

Vote Republican in this election.

Cross-posted from Observations

Bundy is a lawbreaker, and the government is much too aggressive

Commentary by James Shott

We have learned more about the standoff in Nevada between a rancher and the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), and most of the new information comes from the government side. We knew right off the bat that Cliven Bundy has refused to pay fees for about 20 years to graze his cattle on land first grazed on by his grandfather more than 130 years ago, now restricted by the federal government. We knew that the BLM sent approximately 200 heavily armed agents to take Mr. Bundy’s cattle because of his fee debt to the government.

Sen. Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who is Senate Majority Leader, apparently asserts that the Bundy family are lawbreakers because they have refused to pay grazing fees, and that justifies whatever action the BLM decides to take against the family. But not everyone agrees with the government’s actions, and hundreds of Americans came to the ranch to stand with the Bundy family against what they believe is unacceptable and intolerable action from the BLM. These people Sen. Reid has ridiculously characterized as “domestic terrorists.”

When you apply a little conscious thought to this situation, which Sen. Reid probably didn’t, what the Bundy family and their supporters are doing is participating in the age-old and venerated activity called “civil disobedience.” It’s not different from what occurred during the Civil Rights Movement, or what our ancestors did at the Boston Tea Party in 1773. I wonder if Sen. Reid thinks those folks were domestic terrorists?

Rational folks think the Tsarnaev brothers who killed and injured several people at the Boston Marathon last year are domestic terrorists, and the Army doctor who killed 13 at Fort Hood is a domestic terrorist. Does Sen. Reid?

Declaring that the action against the Bundy family is not over, he told a Reno TV station “We can’t have an American people that violate the law and just walk away from it.”

Apparently, his idea of what constitutes law breaking is as foggy and duplicitous as his idea of domestic terrorism. He wants lowly citizens to obey the laws, but looks the other way when government agencies and officials don’t. President Barack Obama routinely breaks laws, like ignoring and modifying some of the decrees of the Affordable Care Act, which we are endlessly reminded is “the law of the land.” He selectively chooses which immigration laws to enforce, and circumvents the Congress with Executive Orders. But we hear nothing about that from Majority Leader Reid.

Nor does he think it important to follow the real law of the land, the US Constitution, and bring an annual budget up for the Senate to vote on, as the Congress is required to do by Article I. He also sits on his hands when bureaucrats in the Obama administration refuse to respond to requests for documents from Congressional committees charged by the Constitution with oversight of administrative agencies.

And, he has not voiced opposition to the over-the-top behavior of the heavily armed agents of the Bureau of Land Management against citizens of his own state. The Bundy family has been subjected to heavy-handed roundup practices that have injured calves, slaughtered cows and bulls and buried them in mass graves, damaged water system equipment, and torn down fences. That was not a part of the government plan, we are told. And, of course, the foolish and dangerous idea that 200 militarily equipped troops needed to respond to a case of overdue fees, the collection of which is usually assured through a lien on property.

You might also think that Nevada’s Senator would at some point consider standing up for the interests of the people he represents, who inexplicably keep returning him to office, and oppose federal control of a huge majority of the state’s land. According to the Nevada Policy Research Institute, the federal government owns or controls 86 percent of the land in Nevada and 89 percent in Clark County, where the Bundy ranch is located.

“The tight federal grip on this land is causing economic harm — and, in many cases, genuine hardship — to local developers, workers, renters and would-be homeowners,” author Charles F. Barr wrote in the Executive Summary of a 2007 study titled “The Federal Land Stranglehold.” The situation has changed little since then.

Watching the outrageous response of the BLM to the Bundy situation, one wonders if whomever thought up this plan imagined it would be sensible and appropriate to point “assault weapons” at citizens and threaten them for doing no more than protesting a government action; attempt to restrict their free speech to “First Amendment Areas”; seize and kill privately owned cattle, and destroy fencing and watering systems?

That person should first be disciplined, perhaps fired, and even prosecuted, along with the BLM agents who imposed this heavy-handed outrage on citizens of the United States.

We can no longer allow government wrongdoers to indulge in improper and/or criminal behavior with impunity. Unless we begin very soon to hold to account those who abuse their positions and abuse the people they are paid to serve, what once was “the land of the free” will no longer be.



Cross-posted from Observations