Wednesday, March 23, 2016

The will of the parties vs the will of the people

As I've been saying for some time now Bernie Sanders doesn't have a chance of beating Hillary Clinton. The main reason is because the Democratic party doesn't want an outsider. Here's a great news clip explaining how the party is structured to prevent Sanders from winning no matter how many people vote for him.
Reality Check: Dem Super-delegates Include Registered Lobbyists!

Reality Check: Dem Super-delegates Include Registered Lobbyists!

Posted by Ben Swann on Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Now if you couldn't watch that, the gist is the party doesn't want grass roots candidates rocking their world. And it may shock you to learn that I agree with them. It's their party. They are the ones who run it, and fund it, and live it all year long. Let the party choose their candidate, which is why I have often said all primaries should be closed.

The Republicans are the same way. They only started allowing voters to have a say in their candidates 80 years ago. They thought it might help them come up with someone who could knock off FDR. But now that the voters in this primary may actually select a candidate that doesn't represent who the party feels they are, they are in scramble mode to stop him. The Dems have done a better job of thinking ahead. Their fix was put in a long time ago with "super delegates". The GOP will either be obvious about stripping Trump, or they will suffer through his candidacy. But a party is not the people! It's a political party.

For as long as I can remember there have been 2 parties. GOP (Republicans) and the Democratic party (Democrats). But there have always been other parties. Still rocking since the 1970's is the Libertarian party. People concerned about the environment have the Green party. Jim Rex and Oscar Lovelace started their own party a few years ago in SC called the The American Party.
When I bring this up that there are more than 2 candidates for most offices, people poo poo the idea of a third party ever winning an election. The money and power and everything is thrown behind the 2 big parties. Which is why you will never change them! The parties are designed to keep the power brokers the power brokers. It is rigged against you. However the American political system is not.

Bernie Sanders is an Independent . That means he ran against the Dems and the Gop and won. Today Bernie is 74 years old and represents a state with 626,000 citizens. If Vermont was a city it would rank #26 behind Nashville. He's an old man from a state that no one cares about, representing virtually no one. Congressman represent approximately 700,000 people each. Because a state has to have 2 Senators, Bernie only reps 313,000 people, while their sole Congressman, Peter Welch reps the whole state. All of that to say Bernie has no business starting a revolution. But he has. Millions of Americans love his message. If it was a general election, just the will of the voters, I have no doubt that Bernie would actually crush Hillary Clinton.  Bernie has raised about 100 million with 98% of that coming from donations of $200 or less. Hillary has doubled his donations at 216 million however 19% came in donations of $200 or less. The fat cats love Hillary and that shows in the coffers, but their votes are no more important than anyone else's. As far as sheer number of donations received, Sanders is the most popular candidate in our history! The 2,513,665 donations to Sanders’ campaign shatters the record set by  Barack Obama’s re-election committee. Through Dec. 31st, Obama had chalked up 2,209,636 donations.

American's need to wake up and recognize that they have been hypnotized by the political parties! And it's not like we weren't warned! John Adams said
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution. Our first President George Washington stated in his farewell address;The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty

 The 2 party system divides and conquers. Most Americans who vote, are not loyal to a party. The over whelming majority of voters don't register for a party but Pew Research reveals that most voters identify as Independent.

That means the parties have to ask people to support their candidate. And I know there's a large portion, perhaps not the majority, but a great number of people who support these parties somewhat begrudgingly because they feel it's the only way to make sure "the bad guys" don't win. They don't agree with their parties platform entirely, but feel like they have to join a force greater than themselves to stop what they see as bad policies. If you're a Democrat who is pro life you are brain washed! Your party's platform doesn't line up with who you are, so stop working against yourself. There are plenty of people who would love to run, that are pro life and also for more gun restrictions or whatever your "liberal" hot buttons are. If you're a Republican who wants more union leadership in the workplace, you need to wake up. I'm sure there are some folks begging to run as budget conscience, strong military candidates who want unions to rep the working folks.

I hope that Trump gets stripped, and Sanders gets screwed, and enough Americans get angry, to say they will never support a party again. If that happens we'll start getting more candidates. And the will of the people will begin to be represented, instead of the will of the parties. We need to convince Americans that voting for someone you believe in, is never throwing your vote away. That is a trick of the parties. A vote for so and so is a vote for individual you can't stand. But a primary isn't an election. This isn't your vote. This is you participating in a nomination process for the one of the two parties to then select a candidate to go into an election where everyone will vote. This is still the will of the party not the people. Let's not make it so the will of the party over throws the will of the people.
     
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Thursday, March 10, 2016

A preview of the ad Dems will run against Trump.

The son of a wealthy businessman takes up the family business and becomes even more wealthy. He actually builds a national reputation for himself. And he uses that national fame to talk about how America used to be respected but because of our weak, ineffectual, leaders of the past 20 years or so we're now the laughing stock of the world. We're losing a war to a rag tag bunch of radicals who are taking down what at one time was the greatest military machine in the history of the world. As your President he will restore the military to their former glory. He will defeat that group of radicals so fast it will make our heads spin. And then he'll bring back the jobs because unlike most politicians he has actually employed thousands of people and he understands the economy a lot better than any of these so called experts.
That sounds a lot like the platform of Donald Trump. It is in fact the platform of Barry Goldwater. His dad founded Goldwater's Department store. When Barry took it over he grew it so the name Goldwater was famous! He was frustrated with the direction this country was taking. It was almost as if it didn't matter who was running it from a party stance. The Republican Eisenhower was as bad as the Dems Johnson and Truman. The GOP ran a moderate in 1960 in Nixon and we saw how that went. It was time for a man of the people to show how true conservative principals would win not only the election but win back our pride. We were getting killed in Vietnam by some group of people who had no business messing with the US military. All Americans were frustrated over that. All Americans felt like the federal government was moving in the wrong direction. And all Americans wanted change. LBJ should have been easy pickings for the Republicans.  In August of 63 the VP was dragged into a scandal because his protege, Senate Majority Leader Bobby Baker, was alleged to be involved with bribery and kickbacks to the VP. Baker resigned and the investigation was squashed. But LBJ was considered dirty then by the American public. Much like Hillary is today.

Goldwater's inability to connect with the middle wasn't because he was a far right politician. It came from his speech patterns. He seemed dangerous to people the way he wanted to wipe out the Vietcong. He seemed crazy. These are the same phrases being used to discuss the GOP front runner today. Goldwater's nomination led to the biggest defeat in GOP history.
Not only was he skunked outside of the south and his home state but in Congress 36 Republicans lost their seats to Democrats for one of the biggest shifts in Congressional history. And the Senate swung even more to the Democrats giving them a 68-32 majority. So if Trump goes on to win the nomination, this is the type of advertisement you should expect to see running this Summer. And you probably should expect a Democrat in the White House with some restored power in Congress so they can move their liberal agenda which the GOP has been able to block for the most part since the 2012 elections. On the positive side Goldwater's crushing defeat cleared the way for a new crop of Republicans which finally took over the party 16 years later it what's now known as the Reagan Revolution. If history repeats itself we are setting ourselves up for a Conservative revolution in 2032.  


This campaign ad from the 1960's is going viral
This "Confessions of a Republican" ad from the 1964 presidential election is going viral, thanks to its uncanny relevance to the 2016 presidential election.
Posted by Quartz on Tuesday, March 8, 2016
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Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Why should Donald Trump scare every American

Plato philosophized about 5 forms of government. In his theory Aristocracy was best for the citizens and Tyranny was the worst. Democracy was identified as the most free a citizen could ever be. However it's also the most dangerous because if the citizens don't remain disciplined then they'll "become drunk on their freedom", and decency would erode. The government would attempt to satisfy their citizens by allowing laws to be rewritten in ways that disciplined people would have never imagined. However as the laws become lax, some of the citizens yearning for discipline would turn power over to a ruler whom Plato described as the ultimate panderer to the people. An individual who positioned themselves as the protector of all that the citizens cherished but in reality was concerned with accumulating power. Democracy degenerates to tyranny according to Plato.

Tyranny today would be considered a dictatorship and even though Plato wrote those words hundreds of years before Jesus and only 100 years or so after the idea was first attempted in Athens he described what happened to lots of great democracy's that were to follow. Chile, Egypt, Panama, Italy, Venezuela, Germany, Bolivia, are some of the more recent governments who degenerated from democracy into dictatorships. Their leader's were elected and then took over as dictators. Hosni Mubarak, Vladimir Putin, Benito Mussolini and a long list of power hungry individuals have wooed voters with an idea that they can fix whatever it is that;s bothering them. When the obvious truth is if 1 person can fix the problem, they have way too much power. But because they keep promising to fix whatever it is that's bothering the voters, the voters keep giving them more power. Until it's too late and then the power is too centralized and can't be taken back.

I think it's obvious that American's are not happy with their government and have been begging for an answer for a while. Congress approval ratings have been between 9 and 19 percent for 20 years. From 2006 on President Bush had an approval rating between 30 and 40 percent. The same thing happened to Obama when he began his 2nd term.
In other words we have been frustrated with government for a long time. Following Plato's theory the laws would be loosened to accommodate the will of the citizens who wanted more freedoms that decent people didn't. Recreational marijuana laws, gay marriage, and prostitution is being legalized all over this country. That divides us more and now the people on the right want someone to turn it around. One of Trump's promises is to get rid of happy holidays and make us all say Merry Christmas.  
     
For people who are freaking out over the liberalism of our country this kind of promise is what they were dying to hear! It doesn't matter to them that he would have to violate our constitution in a spectacular way to achieve it. What else is bothering you? ISIS "I'll bomb the s--t out of them" says Trump. The other GOP candidates actually recognize that they have to work with Congress and allies and try to explain how they would put that together, all the voters just hear blah blah. Anything else? Illegal aliens? "I'll deport 12 million people so fast it will make your head spin". Except there's no way to do that. "I'll build the biggest wall you've ever seen and make Mexico pay for it". Problem solved. Actually not because most of the drugs and aliens that get here do so right through security. And when the other candidates try to explain the complexities of immigration the people on the right scream "fix it already".

If we follow Plato's overview of the psychology of a society when they replace democracy with a dictator the American people are ripe for a dictator. And when you look at the characteristics of a dictator Psychology Today says  They are usually charming, charismatic, and intelligent. They brim with self-confidence and independence, and exude sexual energy. They are also extremely self-absorbed, masterful liars, compassionless, often sadistic, and possess a boundless appetite for power
Very few people would say Trump doesn't have most of these qualities. Compassionless and sadistic are the 2 his supporters would say he doesn't. Well what do you call it when a person mocks another who has a disability. When other candidates were offering prayers and sympathies to the families of victims of a mass shooting in Oregon Trump was on MSNBC Morning Joe and said "What are you going to do, institutionalize everybody?… That’s the way the world works, and that’s the way the world always has worked.” He went on to say "these things happen". I'd call it compassionless. What about a man who says “When you get these terrorists, you have to take out their families. They care about their lives. Don’t kid yourself. But they say they don’t care about their lives. You have to take out their families.” That's a candidate for President saying he would order our troops do commit war crimes. And the murder of innocent people, no matter what the reason, is sadistic.

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Monday, February 22, 2016

Whatever happened to liberal media bias?

There have been countless stories written about the liberal media bias. Which is funny when you consider that the media is calling itself out. Bernard Goldberg wrote a book, and then created a career pointing out how the network news departments slight conservatives and build up liberals. And smack dab in the middle of primary season there's a lot of news coverage! It actually has been ramping up since 2015. And as you can see 2015 had more campaign coverage on network news than any other year leading into an election save for the year Obama started running and the economic collapse began.
Now as expected the most liberal Senator in recent history according to his voting record, Obama dominated the news cycle and won a major victory over Hillary and cruised past the Republican McCain. Conservatives were hopping mad that our candidates can never get that kind of attention. But according to the December 7th edition of the Washington Post Trump received more news coverage than Sanders and Clinton combined.  

But so far this year he is blowing away even that stat. In January Trump received more news coverage than all 10 GOP candidates combined and more than both Democratic candidates combined. 
So I have to ask is the media no longer biased towards liberals? I doubt it. What we see here is a dream candidate for liberals. Someone who if elected would strengthen or enact a lot of liberal policies. Trump is a fan of Planned Parenthood, the Obamacare individual mandate, and for taxing the rich. Trump is a liberals dream in that they love government control. Trump has made it clear that he will bypass Congress to do what he sees fit with ISIS, NAFTA, and Immigration as a whole. He will weaken the Constitution by continuing the trend of seizing power to do what the President wants. When the next President is elected they will take more power until one day a President decides he or she is too important to leave and just outlaws elections. So if this is what liberals want and Trump is offering to help, then I guess it's no surprise that for the first time in TV history a GOP candidate is getting more news coverage than the Dems.

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Sunday, February 21, 2016

Donald Trump and Jeb Bush are saving American politics

You may be reading this and thinking 'Kelly is a bit late because Jeb quite the race'. I know that. I'm writing this on Sunday 2/21/16. Here's what Jeb and Trump have done to save politics. They have proven that money has very little effect on votes.



The narrative has been whoever raises the most money wins. That the donor class is buying themselves candidates which translates into a corrupt political system. Jeb Bush and his pac have raised 155,6 million. 2nd place is Ted Cruz with 89.9 million. That's not even close which traditionally meant this race was over. Now despite what Donald Trump says on the campaign trail he is raising money. He has raised 19.4 million. You can see a lot of his donors here who have donated 2500 or more. His website asks you to donate here as well.  In reality the Trump campaign is skating on thin ice now as they have spent most of that money and are now down to 7 million left. But Donald has spent far less per vote than Jeb. According to a story today in the Washington Post, Trump has spent $64 per every vote he has received. Jeb spent $368 per vote. This shows that ads don't translate into votes. It's the message and the messenger.

Now I hear some yelling at their screen 'Nash you're an idiot! Trump is a candidate like no other so this data is flawed'. Of course that's true. But then how do you explain the candidate who has spent the 2nd most per vote...John Kasich. Kasich has received a little over 100,000 votes and spent $72 per vote. Kasich's message is simple. I'm a right of center guy who balances budgets, but believes government should do more for the poor. I'm very electable in a general election because I am the Governor of Ohio which is one of three swing states which usually decides who wins. The message and the messenger, who comes across as a very competent guy who is very sweet (he is famous for hugging people) is a winner for traditional conservatives.

The mood of the GOP is clearly not traditional this year. Since 2008 the conservative movement has become more frustrated. They want a fighter. They want someone to fix the mess that they perceive the country has been falling into since around 2005. Yes the mood of conservatives started souring during the 2nd term of George W Bush. In other words they have been in a bad mood for about 11 years and it started with a Republican. So it doesn't matter how much Bush or Kasich spends they can't win this year.  And that's great news for those of you who are concerned about how much money is in politics.

Now if we can convince campaigns that they're wasting a lot of money with the amount of ads they run, mail they send, and calls they make we can all begin to enjoy the process more.

If you want my prediction on how the rest of the race will go, it's simple. The 3 candidates have drawn their bases already. Trump is the guy who will fight to blow up a broken system. Cruz is the guy who will never compromise to outside pressure or bend to the liberals. Rubio is the guy who can fix the system buy luring lawmakers back to the conservative agenda. All 3 are outsiders with the 2 Senators first going to DC in  2011 and 2012 as Tea Party candidates, who beat well established Republicans,  and Trump having never served. Obviously the blow up the system crowd has a lead. But the stand firm to liberals and the lure the liberals crowd are pretty popular as well. I predict that there's no possible way to know who will win at this point, because so much can change. But I do know it won't be Kasich or even Carson.

 Carson is on that top tier of fund raising having raised over 66 million. And he has a message that probably would have worked this year. However his energy is too low for people to see him as a fighter which is required from this cycle of GOP candidates. And we know that because Carson has outspent most candidates. You didn't know that did you? Cruz and Rubio combined have spent 50 million. (28 for Cruz, 22 for Rubio) Carson has blown through 47 million himself! And yet no votes. Carson has by far the worst ration of dollars per vote at $795/1. With a general election winner receiving around 60 million votes the Carson campaign would have to spend 47 billion! Not only is that impossible (that far surpasses the amount of money the TV and radio and internet ad business brings in during a year) it still wouldn't move the needle much. Because it's what advertisers have known for years. If your product isn't something the public wants you can only fool them with marketing till they try it. Once people have seen Carson and Kasich for themselves the interest the ad's created blows away. And no amount of money can bring it back.

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Friday, February 19, 2016

Why did I endorse Marco Rubio?

I have been fortunate that through my job, I have met most of the candidates and had an opportunity to discuss issues with them. But even if had I not, we can all listen to their speeches. We can all see how they interact with the public. We can look up their voting records or if they don't have a record listen to how they say they would vote. I have thought about it for many months and decided that Marco Rubio, is in my opinion, the best person for the job.

Since announcing that I have been blown up on Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, voice mail and I'm expecting quite soon carrier pigeon, by other candidates supporters asking me to defend my decision. I will attempt to address all of the criticism and concerns people have expressed about Marco without disparaging any of the competition.

For those of you who think Marco is a puppet of the GOP please look at his voting record and how many times he went against leadership, or at the very least his conservative ranking from the Heritage Foundation which lists him as the 4th most conservative member of the Senate. Cruz supporters point out that Ted was ranked #1, and that’s wonderful. My point is Marco is very conservative and far from a puppet.

 Detractors of Marco point to the “amnesty gang of 8” bill. Let’s not distort what that proposal was. It was not amnesty. It was a proposed solution that would help the US deport illegal’s who committed further crimes, while imposing fines on those who had broken our laws by crossing our border. We have had amnesty for many years, because we have allowed the problem to grow so large that millions of them pay no punishment at all for their crime! This cannot continue! Marco has learned a lesson from this gang of 8 stuff, and that is that the border must be secured and the American people must have proof that it’s secure, before the 2nd part of their plan can be even considered. As most conservatives hold Ronald Reagan to be the standard by which their future leaders should be held, we remember that Reagan was burned when he signed into law genuine amnesty for 3 million illegal’s before the border was secure. Thankfully Marco has learned that lesson before becoming President. 

So why not go with Cruz who is ranked as the most conservative? Because a President must have the ability to win people over to their way of thinking. Ted Cruz is an outstanding lawyer when arguing facts about law. But we’re not arguing law. We’re persuading Congress to write new bills that can become laws. That takes someone with a different skill set. Congress writes the laws (lawmakers), the President enforces those laws (protect and defend the constitution) and the Supreme Court interprets the law.

 Marco Rubio is a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. A man who knows and loves our Constitution and understands as Judge Scalia did that it’s not a living document open to further interpretation. When the 10th amendment says: 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, it means what it says. State governments have had their power eroded by the federal government and any future Supreme Court justices need to acknowledge that before nomination.

 We need not only a strong leader, but a leader whom the people will love. Reagan was loved for his wit. He had a gentleness about him that didn’t intimidate anyone… other than our enemies. Marco has that same spirit. Our enemies will fear us, and our allies will never be embarrassed by our leaders’ words or actions. I want our leader to be that type of person, and I want our nation to be strong and that’s why I endorse Marco Rubio and pray that God will bless us with Marco as the next President of the United States of America!


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Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Why free college is bad for everyone

I recently had a Bernie Sanders supporter ask me why I was against investing in our countries future by providing free college for all Americans. Their logic was a portion of society can't afford college so as a nation we miss out on their gifts. For others they are saddled with so much debt that their college loans become their biggest monthly payment, which surely affects our economy in a negative way.

 Free college would hurt the education system similar to how free K-12 has hurt the education system. Now before you start screaming at your computer screen, there have certainly been some benefits to public education being run by the government. But there is no one, and I mean even the staunchest of public education supporters, who would claim free school works as well as paid for private school. Granted one of the reasons private schools are able to offer a better educational experience is because their students come from homes of enough means to pay for it. Meaning they don't have to work with kids who are malnourished or neglected. Also they have a lower teacher to student ratio. They also have better facilities in most cases.

However the reason paid-for private school has better results is also because the parent is paying for a product. And if that product is substandard they will no longer pay for it. That's competition. But no where near enough competition to drive down prices. We'll get to that in a minute. The vast majority of American children receive an education that isn't as good as children in other parts of the world. We know that, because children around the world take the same tests, and ours do worse. Private school is an expensive escape for parents who can afford it. It's expensive because of a lack of competition. Competition drives down costs while improving the product or service. The government acknowledges this because they have anti monopoly laws. US Steel, Standard Oil, AT&T and others have been broken up by the feds because the companies were so big that they were able to squash potential competition which hurt consumers. Free school isn't technically a monopoly, but because it takes most of the potential consumers out of the market, it allows private schools to charge far more than if everyone was in play.

If college became free, the quality of the education would drop significantly. This is not in doubt even among the people pushing for it. To argue otherwise is simply a fairy tale. Some Americans believed that fairy tale with regards to the Affordable Care Act. That somehow we could add millions of people into a system without adding doctors and the quality would stay the same or improve. As for why we can't add more Doctors that answer was provided years ago. As you can see in this 2011 survey of Doctors. Once they saw the details of what the Affordable Care Act meant to them only 26% of Doctors said they would continue to operate as they had before. The majority were opting for early retirement, or cutting back on patients and hours. Still others opted out of the system entirely like my Doctor at Irmo Primary Care.

So the business model for Irmo Primary Care, and hundreds of others who want to provide the type of service they were able to provide before Obamacare, is to no longer accept insurance. Now patients who want that level of care are forced to pay more for a service outside of the government control. Before tax payers covered public education, local communities covered it. The results were a better service at a lower cost. The teachers were paid more, the facilities were better, and the kids learned more. However only the wealthy and upper middle class kids were receiving an education. The trade off was made by voters to get all the kids into the system.

Because government is a filter for money your tax dollars first go to local and federal coffers and then after bureaucracy takes what it wants, it filters the rest back to the schools. In addition to wasting so much of our tax dollars on bureaucracy the lack of competition builds complacency. One way to inject some competition would be the school choice voucher system. So parents could remove their student and bring them to a better performing school. Of course unions have squashed that idea for decades, and so they continue their downward slide. If you were to "make college free" it would then come under the same system that has given us the current mess we have. Curriculum would be brought down. Because it wouldn't be fair for say Clemson to have the best engineering program and USC to have the best business program for the students who can't attend. So the program would become more uniform so the students at not only College of Charleston but say Fresno State to have access to the same education. Forgetting that the reason the engineering program at Clemson excelled was because they have attracted the best engineering students year after year so the educators can further and further in their development. Now we have to make sure the kids who aren't as gifted can keep up in a free federal world. The only way to do that is to lower the standards at the better performing schools.

There would be some schools who try to break free from the system like Irmo Primary Care has broken free from the health care system. But much like the private schools in the K-12 category there wouldn't be enough students to drive down prices. So a good education would cost more. Meaning fewer American's would get one. Meaning the dumbing down of our work force. Meaning the weakening of our country. That is why free college is bad for all of us.

If you want to improve the education system get the federal and even state government out of it. Let the citizens of each community decide how much they want to tax themselves and what kind of system they want their future leaders to go through. To set a safety next there should be some sort of minimum standard required. Does that mean that rich kids are going to have a better education? Yup. Is that fair? Nope. But lowering everyones standards to the bottom so no one can get ahead is exactly what socialism does. Capitalism is about incentives to push individuals further. Parents work longer and harder to get into better school districts, or start at home schools. Those kids then can have a better life than their folks and we all benefit from having better educated people. Communities rally around their schools now. It will be even more so when they have direct control over it. School pride will swell. All of those things are next to impossible when the federal government controls your local school.

The great economist Milton Friedman had a special on education years ago that you might enjoy.

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Monday, February 1, 2016

Donald Trump is the Cam Newton of this election

Cam Newton recently was asked why he believes he is so divisive. He answered "I’m an African-American quarterback that may scare a lot of people because they haven’t seen nothing they can compare me to", That may have been true for Doug Williams who was the 17th pick of the 1978 NFL draft. He was 6'4" 225 lbs and black. The prototype for a running QB in the 1970's were Fran Tarkenton at 6' 190 lbs and Roger Staubach 6'3" 195 lbs, Doug Williams was a lot bigger and stronger than others at that position. Plus he was the only black QB in the league. He was paid $120,000 a year which was lower than 12 backups in the NFL were paid that year. Doug broke the mold, and went on to become the Super Bowl MVP in 1988. Since then we've had some amazing black QB's like Warren Moon, Steve McNair, Michael Vick, Randall Cunningham, Donovan McNabb etc. When confronted with this truth by ESPN Cam replied;  "I said that I’m not a person that can necessarily be labeled because when I was coming out, I was labeled to guys that no longer are in this league. I didn’t mean it to come off as a race thing; I didn’t mean it to come off as anybody that’s being brash or flamboyant about a specific question. I was saying facts. I am hoping to be a trail blazer to give an avenue not only for African-American quarterbacks, but athletic quarterbacks as well.” Cam found something that had some truth in it, that allows his believers can than call the rest of us racist if we thought his original comment had to do with race. Now let's look at Trump.


 Yesterday Trump said: "We’ve got to do something. You can’t have a — a small percentage of our economy, because they’re down and out, have absolutely no protection so they end up dying from, you know, what you could have a simple procedure or even a pill. You can’t do that. We’ll work something out". For months he had been saying "Obamacare is a total disaster and I'm going to repeal the entire thing". That get's him huge support from conservatives. But liberals have been hammering him with the "what are you going to do for the people who can't afford insurance" question. So now he's giving them this shred of truth. Because we've never allowed people to die who needed a simple procedure or a pill. Today conservatives are hammering him on his socialized medicine plan, so he's saying "I'm not talking about single payer. But look if this means I'm going to lose an election because I want to blow up Obamacare and replace it with something better, then that's fine. Because unlike all of these other guys I'm out here telling you the truth, and I've got the guts to stand up to them and fix it". Complete crap. But again if you like him it gives you something to point to.

Trump and Newton are both incredible talents in their chosen fields. Everyone agrees on that point. Cam is the MVP of the NFL and Trump has become one of the wealthiest and most famous men in the world. But being incredible doesn't make you likeable. To be good you need confidence. You have to believe you can win. But you don't have to gloat and boast about it. You don't have to call people competing with you ugly names. You don't have to do over the top gestures to show you have succeeded in gaining a first down.

When the Cam Newton quote about people not liking him because he's black went viral last week I tweeted to him
And if one of the greatest QB's ever was still alive perhaps Johnny Unitas would have tweeted his famous quote; "There is a difference between conceit and confidence. Conceit is bragging about yourself. Confidence means you believe you can get the job done". It really comes down to class. Trump goes on and on about how rich he is, and yet there are lots of people in his own city who have made far more than him. Are they smarter? Maybe but they don't talk about it. Cam says there's nothing we can compare him to in the league right now. But we've seen his game before and we will see it again. It's special for a few years and then it will be forgotten. The greatest athletes of 1916 are all forgotten except for history books that no one reads. In 2116 no one will be talking about Cam Newton or anyone else from today. So seeing that the only people who will remember you, are the ones you're going through life with, you should take care to leave them with a good impression.
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Monday, January 25, 2016

Who said it; Trump or Mussolini?

Benito Mussolini left the socialist party and denounced it as too liberal to become the fascist dictator of Italy. Donald Trump left the democrat party and denounced it as too liberal and is currently running to become the Republican nominee for President of the United States. They share a lot similar beliefs.

Trump: "Companies are leaving to go to other countries. I will get those companies to stay because it will be too painful for them to leave".
Mussolini: “Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”

Trump: "Our country is a disaster right now and I can fix it. How? Well there actually does have to be a trust. If you don’t trust you’re not gonna do very well.”
Mussolini: "Socialism is a fraud, a comedy, a phantom, a blackmail. The people know they can trust me to restore order and make them proud of our once great nation again".

Trump: "When somebody challenges you, fight back. Be brutal, be tough".
Mussolini: "It is better to live one day as a lion than 100 years as a sheep.”

Trump: "I support health care for people. I want people well taken care of. But I also want health care that we can afford as a country. I have people and friends closing down their businesses because of Obamacare. I'm going to make it so everyone has healthcare, without bankrupting the country".
Mussolini: "The people can't thrive if they're sick so we need to make them well. I will make sure that we have the best doctors in the world for our citizens".

Benito Mussolini
Here's the bottom line. The founders knew that trusting anyone with a lot of power would lead to corruption. So they limited the amount of power one person can have over our country. They also knew that the natural state of government was to try and seize more power for itself, so they put in the Constitution  the 10th amendment; "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". The federal government doesn't have a right to health care or plenty of other things under the Constitution...until the voters give it to them. Once you give the power to the government, those powers are never coming back. Obama has already grabbed too much, and now voters want to give even more to Donald Trump "so he can fix what Obama did". Here's some of the power he is looking to take from you.

Trump is going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it. Only the Congress can authorize that.

"I'm going to get rid of Obamacare and replace it with something terrific". Only Congress can pass healthcare reform.

"Prosecute Hilary Clinton for her use of private e-mail servers while handling top secret documents". Only the Dept of Justice can decide to prosecute.

"Pick Supreme Court Justices who are really great legal scholars". The President nominates, congress decides.

Donald Trump
You can read 76 promises he's made here, the vast majority of which are unconstitutional. But for voters who think that Trump is going to do all the things he's promising, understand that he would be giving more power to the President who follows him. The office of the President has grown stronger under every President in my lifetime, and will continue to do so it would seem until we reach that sad day, where the people finally give up completely and sign over whatever power we still have left to a dictator who promises to be great. A vote for Trump is a vote against freedom and a vote for fascism. I know a lot of people are upset when I call it facism because Mussolini was a bad guy who did bad things. But if we called fascism by another name and just gave you the definition I bet most of Trump supporters would love it. Fascist negations of anti-liberalism, anti-communism, nationalist authoritarian goals of creating a regulated economic structure to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture; and a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism, mass mobilization, and promotion of masculinity, youth and charismatic leadership.
Trump supporters see "self determined culture", "anti liberal, anti communist", "charismatic leadership" and think Reagan. But Reagan also knew that the words nationalist authoritarian goals are evil. No matter what the goal is. Nationalist authoritarian goals of feeding children or saving kittens. It's not what the goal is, it's how you get there. And that's why America was founded to prohibit a nationalist authoritarian anything. You have representatives that run for office every 2 or 6 years. They are your voice in government. If they fail you, then you replace them. The President is there to enforce what your reps have decided as law. The President can also suggest laws to your reps, and because he is a very popular individual, his suggestions usually have more weight. He can get the public to influence the congress. But if you change the laws so that your President decides what to do, you no longer need a congress. And then we're down to a dictator.


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Tuesday, January 19, 2016

Should Christians want a Christian President?

Donald Trump is the number one choice for voters who classify themselves as Evangelical according to an NBC poll taken this month. He leads Ted Cruz 33% - 21% with Ben Carson at 12% and Rubio at 10%. We discussed it today on our podcast but I had some more thoughts on the subject.
Yesterday Donald Trump addressed Liberty University, a Christian institution founded by Jerry Falwell. The gaff everyone is discussing comes around 4:55 into the 50 minute speech. You can see the entire speech here. Trump refers to II Corinthians as two instead of second. It basically shows that he doesn't discuss the Bible much. It's like someone claiming to be a proud Gamecock fan mispronouncing Jadeveon.
Trump goes on to say he's "very very proud" to be a protestant specifically a Presbyterian and that we have to defend Christianity because bad things are happening to Christians all around the world. He's correct of course. Though this is nothing new. Christians have been hated as promised by our founder. Jesus said in John 15:18 "If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first". In Matthew 10:22 Jesus says "You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who endures till the end will be saved".
The idea of breaking down a Trump speech or even his life's work to demonstrate that he isn't someone who has devoted his life to following Jesus seems mean spirited. So I won't go there. But if you're a Christian you need to decide for yourself if Donald Trump is or isn't a Christian if you're considering voting for him. There are a lot of people claiming to be Christians who like to quote Matthew 7:1 "Don't judge so you will not be judged". But if you think it means Christians aren't to judge people, well you need to keep on reading! If we were commanded to not judge anyone, Matthew 7:17 would not make any sense. "So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit". We need to judge if the fruit is good or bad! Jesus is telling the parable of the tree and it's fruit and commanding us to judge their fruit so we know who to trust. The gist is don't pay attention to peoples words but their actions. Your work is your fruit. What or whom do you glorify?  You can be a politician or entertainer where part of your job requires you to become famous, but if you're using it to glorify God then your fruits are good. But even if you spend your entire life devoted to charity work and your motivation is people pleasing rather than glorifying God, your fruits are bad.
So should Christians only vote for Christians? That's a complex question. There are plenty of wonderful Christians who don't have the correct temperament or intellect or whatever to be a great political leader. There are also people from other religions and even atheists who God uses for His purposes. In Romans 13:1 God declares that anyone in a position of authority was placed there by Him. That includes what we would call bad leaders. Saddam, Osama, and any person in authority was put there by the Lord to bring glory to Himself. Daniel 2:21 says He removes Kings and raises up Kings. Not only does God put them in their positions He works with those leaders, even the bad ones. Exodus 9:12 finds Egypt's leader, the Pharaoh, dealing with a crisis. Egypt has suffered 6 plagues and Moses has told Pharaoh the plagues will end if he releases the Jews. The people around Pharaoh are begging him to let the Jews go. "And the Lord hardened Pharaohs heart and he would not listen to them, just as the Lord had spoken to Moses". Rest assured Gods' plans always come to fruition and God's plans always work for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28) and bring Him glory (Isaiah 48:11).
Well then does it even matter who we vote for or that we even vote? Yes. First Jesus wants His followers to perform their civic duties. Render to Caesar that which is Caesar's and to God that which is God's. Matthew 22:21 Christians are to be a blessing to those around us and to participate in our culture which includes going to jury duty and taking out the trash on trash day and of course voting. Christians are reminded that earth isn't your permanent home but we have dual citizenship's. The apostle Paul showed that in Acts when he declared that he is a citizen of Rome and that as a citizen he had the right to appeal to Caesar.
 Jesus says in Matthew 5:14 we are to be light to the world. Light doesn't change it's surroundings, it enhances them. Light clarifies. When you shine a light on something, it doesn't make it good or bad, it only allows other people to see it for it is.
Donald Trump says he is a Christian who loves the Bible. Why is he saying that? We can find no mentions of Trumps love for the Bible or his pride in Presbyterianism before this campaign. When asked if he had ever asked God for forgiveness Trump has no idea how to answer.



 If he is a new Christian then he should say so. But he is implying that he has a life time of Christian teachings under his belt. He says "the great Norman Vincent Peele was my pastor". He's name dropping preachers! And this one has been dead since 1993! The only logical conclusion as to why he would be doing that is to influence your vote.
The frightening fact, according to the Washington Post, is that Christians know he's lying, and don't care. The consensus of the interviews is Donald Trump isn't a Christian but he'll look out for us. You would trade the protection of God for Donald Trump's protection? This reminds me of when the Jews asked God to send them a King. He said He was their King but they demanded an earthly King. God tried to warn them. And finally He granted their wish for a rich businessman with a huge ego who would make sure Israel was protected from the countries around them. Saul may of even said I'll build a wall and have Egypt pay for it.
 If you're a Christian then stop looking to politicians to fix your problems. Vote for politicians who reflect Gods glory to the world. God is your sanctuary, not your President. Remember that God will put as our President whomever He wants. So instead of trying to convince yourself that the guy trying to deceive you will be great for Christian values, get on your knees and humble yourself before your creator, and pray that He sends us someone who brings peace and prosperity. Someone who honors God. And then ask what you can do in that process. God ultimately wants you to obey Him in all things. So ask Him who you should vote for and then obey.
    

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