Absence

I will be going on vacation tomorrow and headed to Texas. Who knows I might be able to go to one of those town hall meeting I have heard so much about. I will update if i can.

The MSM is Illiterate

Folks, I am not the best writer you can find on the internet. Read my blog and I am sure you can find spelling and grammar errors. I can however read a sentence and understand it but apparently the MSM cannot. Sarah Palin's death panel comments have created a whirlwind of controversy in the press but all of the networks and pundits are misrepresenting what she actually said. They are ridiculing her statement by saying that end of life counseling is voluntary and does not decide to kill people and was actually included in the bill by a Republican. Guess what? THEY ARE RIGHT!

Sarah Palin has never made a statemnet refuting those facts. Her statement about the death panel was refering to what the results of rationing health care to control results would be. Nowhere in her statement did she mention the counseling arena. Her exact words were:

The Democrats promise that a government health care system will reduce the cost of health care, but as the economist Thomas Sowell has pointed out, government health care will not reduce the cost; it will simply refuse to pay the cost. And who will suffer the most when they ration care? The sick, the elderly, and the disabled, of course. The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.
Even I can see the lack of reference to end of life counseling and can figure out that she is referring to what will eventually come when the government continues to have trouble paying for their utopian health care sysytem. This does not require a PHD in English to understand. If I can read and understand this, then the reporters, commentators, and pundits spewing the lies about the context of Gov. Palins statement need to write to the universities they attended and demand a refund!

To Mob Or Not To Mob--UPDATED

It's official. I can't decide what to be angry about, who to be proud of, what to rant about, or what to calmly debate about anymore. There is officially too much going on for me to keep it straight and call me a waffler if you want, my mind changes on how I feel about things hourly.

I am still convinced that any program that makes the federal government more prevalent in our lives is a bad thing so I am consistent with my view that "insert liberal buzzword" reform is bad.

I posted previously that Sarah Palin was wrong when she posted that we shouldn't do things that made us look bad or gave the opposition reason to ridicule us or marginalize our opinions. I owe Gov. Palin an apology, that moron that wore the gun to the Presidents town hall made everyone look bad and no amount of disowning him that I have seen on other posts (http://ace.mu.nu/) can separate him from us in the minds of people who saw it. He has the legal right to own and carry that weapon but injecting some common sense into the situation might help.

I saw a couple of videos that showed opponents to the "healthcare, insurance" reform reading calmly from a list of concerns at these town hall meetings and I was impressed with the way they summed up there concerns with calm and respect. I wish that our concerns could be addressed in this manner all the time and get the due attention it deserves but if anyone out there thinks that a conservative calmly asking his questions from a sheet of paper would have gotten air time on CNN prior to the more vocal demonstration of discontent than there is no hope for rational dialogue with you.

I have to give grudging respect to the members of Congress still holding town hall meetings and not following the examples of some of the chickens. McCaskill and Specter both held them and listened to the people in the meetings. Of course after hearing them they still spewed forth the same nonsense, non-answers, and supposed facts without evidential proof. It is easy to say you will not vote for or sign something that adds to the deficit or debt when your math is flawed to begin with and you ignore the CBO when their math states that these plans will most definitely add to the deficit.

There is an idiot on MSNBC named Carlos Watson that has tried to back up the liberal standard that anything conservatives oppose is racism. He tried to equate conservatives use of the word socialism to a new code for the N-word. In his words, "what concerns me is when in some of those town hall meetings including the one that we saw in Missouri recently where there were jokes made about lynching, etc., you start to wonder whether in fact the word socialist is becoming a code word, whether or not socialist is becoming the new N-word for frankly for some angry upset birthers and others."
Mr. Watson, you sir, need to pick up a dictionary, look up the word socialist, and then take a look at every action the President and this Congress has taken since January and admit that the word is being in the correct context and then apologize on air for opening your mouth without thinking about the impact of your statement.

The same goes for the mindless liberal on CNN, McCafferty. The idiot was reading Sarah Palins post calling for calm from healthcare opponents and had to stop multiple times and go "ooh big words". Then he goes to compare her description of healthcare in a previous post and the call for calm in this one as being mutually exclusive? She can't think that this plan is bad for seniors and think that some aspects of it are evil and call for civil discourse at the same? How does he think that makes any sense? Am I supposed to take this guy seriously? Is this news? Is he really so drunk on the Kool-Aid that he can't objectively take a step back and see how sexist, elitist, and ridiculous he sounds?

And Obama once again summed up concerns that we have anytime the Federal Government takes on a program by saying that UPS and FEDEX are doing just fine, its the Post Office that is always having problems. Thanks BO! That instills me with much needed confidence that my health is in the good hands of an entity that can't even deliver mail efficiently.

I could keep going but I will just leave you with this:

"Repeal that [welfare] law, and you will soon see a change in their manners. St. Monday and St. Tuesday, will soon cease to be holidays. Six days shalt thou labor, though one of the old commandments long treated as out of date, will again be looked upon as a respectable precept; industry will increase, and with it plenty among the lower people; their circumstances will mend, and more will be done for their happiness by inuring them to provide for themselves, than could be done by dividing all your estates among them."

--Benjamin Franklin, letter to Collinson, 1753


I would like to thank Paul for his comments to this post and respond to some of his points. Paul's mistake is that he has succumbed to the same failed logic that most liberals have and that is buying into DNC talking points about these protests not being grassroots, in reality he is listening to what someone else told him about the reason for the protests and is repeating it without thinking about it. I have not had any organization tell me what to say or how to think and a large majority of the people you see on TV have not either.
Paul is right in that ordinary circumstances yelling and screaming would be counterproductive, but without those outbursts we would be cruising through summer with the MSM force feeding us the positive spin on health care without pointing out any arguments against it. As for his point about Veterans, unless he is one like myself and has had to deal with the complete and total failures the VA has had in regards to veterans he shouldn't go there. As far as Medicaid and Medicare go, give me a break, those are two shining examples of inefficiency and cost overruns and have been running over budget for years. Paul, you will find very few of us that don't agree that reforms are required, where we disagree is the governments involvement, paying for it, and lack of tort reform measures.
Paul, please exam closely the reactions of your own party before you start making accusations that make you look like an Obamabot. Everything we are doing right now to oppose health care came straight out of the democrats handbook, forced on us due to a party in control that will not listen to our concerns (Sound familiar anti-war folks? By the way, there is still a war going on, where are you now?). Liberals created the art of protests, screaming down opponents and labeling to make their points. As far as the birthers go, those crazy little goons are as credible as the AWOLERS during the Bush Administration. Next time you have problems with protests, even ones you think are organized, remember your words the next time PETA terrorizes people trying to eat at a McDonald's, or Greenpeace keeps commercial fisherman from feeding their families, or any number of other ORGANIZED DEMOCRATIC PARTY protests...We sure will.

The First Liberal

Christopher Columbus. He left not knowing where he was going, got there not knowing where he was, left there not knowing where he’d been and did it all on borrowed money.

(from an email from my friend Blayne, thought a little humor was in order after my angry last post)

Assumptions are Good

Liberals are all about assumptions and that is okay. Very soon the left-wing is going to assume its way out of office. Why do I say that? Because liberals like to lump conservatives all into one group of people and assume that if they can use the MSM to convince everyone else that is who we are then conservatives will lose public support.
Some examples and my reactions to them:
1. All Conservatives are poor, wife beaters, in t-shirts and racist people who have been lied to by Rush and Glenn and live in trailers....That is the way we are grouped by the MSM when there is broad public support against a liberal policy or they find a nameless conservative blogger to trash behind their own liberal blogger credentials. There have been numerous times when I have asked a liberal on a blog somewhere who from and where they got some information or to explain something they said and the response was "shut up, go back to your trailer and beat your wife!"
2. We all love NASCAR....Okay, what is wrong with that? I like NASCAR but I can't tell you how many conservative friends I have that just don't get the appeal of watching cars go around in circles. I also lost count of how many pro-Obama bumper stickers I have seen on cars that also had NASCAR stickers. That's okay; sport is an individual non-political taste. When I say I hate golf many of my conservative friends look at me like that's not possible.
3. The majority of the conservative base is undereducated and are incapable of understanding the issues at stake....The reason this belief is so widespread is the result of rampant liberalism at state universities. Many conservatives in college now keep their political views quiet in the classrooms and campuses for fear of retaliation from professors and students. Another reason is the liberal belief that if you don't agree with their agenda you must not be smart enough. In the almost 20 years I was in the Air Force I have met very few liberals and all the conservatives I have met had, at a minimum, a high school diploma and most had at least one, and sometimes multiple, college degrees. A perfect example of this is to get a room full of liberals and conservatives together and discuss a controversial issue. Let’s see who resorts to name calling and throwing out information with no factual basis first. I'm not saying that there are not Republicans capable of this but far fewer than in the hate-spewing left. My measure of intelligence is who will sit longer listening to an opposing viewpoint to see if there is any chance they might be wrong before throwing out a defense of their belief. Most conservatives are much more likely to hear and really listen to all viewpoints, issues and evidence while behaving more like adults than liberals.
4. All conservatives are yuppie slime bags, wearing Easter colored pastel sweaters, driving to town hall meetings in their middle class cars from their middle class homes to oppose health care because the insurance companies/conservative politicians paid or told them to do it...This is a perfect example of the MSM changing their narrow definition of conservative to whatever group they feel will receive the biggest backlash. During the Tea Parties the MSM would have you believe that the conservatives at those events met the definition that I listed as number one. Now that the people are showing up to speak to their elected representatives, the MSM have changed that definition to meet the new enemy definition supplied to them by the White House and the Speaker, insurance company controlled yuppies. Look, I understand that some people are influenced by lobbyists, they are called elected officials. Just because citizens of a district oppose a plan supported by their elected official and go to a meeting to voice their opposition doesn't make them Evil Insurance Lobbyists, they are concerned citizens speaking out about a subject they are concerned about and opposed to. Isn't the whole purpose of a town hall meeting to let the elected officials know our feelings on a matter and to find out what they are going to do about it? If these people were being trucked in from out of state in insurance company vehicles and having their suite at the hotel paid for by a pharmaceutical company than that is reportable news. That isn’t what is happening, this is the MSM trying to drown out the voice that doesn't agree with their liberal agenda!
5. All conservatives are Bible thumping zealots determined to take over the country and force everyone to pray before any event, pump out dozens of babies with a partner you don't love, and force their ethics on everyone...Once again, not true! I haven't been inside a church in years. I believe abortion is murder because I believe that an unborn child is alive and when you cease its life it is dead, pure and simple. That is a belief that is often challenged with a request for scientific proof, I return the request and say that I would rather err in favor of life (the left uses the same argument to oppose the death penalty but it is okay for them, forget about how an unborn child can't decide to kill another human being). How about some non-challenged scientific proof of manmade climate change? The same goes with gay marriage and homosexuality in general. This conservative doesn't care who you do what within your private life as long as they are an adult and consenting. Where I have the problem is when there is an expectation that others beliefs will be discarded to support the institution financially through assisted parenthood for gay partners, tax advantages through legalized marriages etc..That is a tough sell to tell people that a government recognized religious service can be used to legitimize an activity they feel is against the laws set forth by God. In my opinion the government should never have gotten involved in the marriage business to begin with. Recognize no unions and let them be a matter between the Churches/agencies involved and individuals.
The bottom line is that liberals and the MSM are going to quickly alienate moderates of both parties by trying to narrowly define what makes one a conservative and ascribing a set of dismissive attributes to all of them. They are also going to motivate a conservative base that by nature is usually slow to stand up and say enough! Conservatives by definition try to stay out of other people’s business but criticizing their lifestyle by lumping them into groups that don't apply to them may wake them up. I say let the liberals and the MSM continue to dismiss the people who meet any of these criteria and they will fall apart under the pressure of their own political correctness when they offend one too many groups.

Charley Helvy

Misplaced Texan

I have been slow to add other blogs to my blog roll because I want it to truly represent blogs written by people that I share values with and to make sure they represent my position as well. It also doesn't hurt that most of these sites (IE..all of them) are much more accomplished than I am so the impact of me listing them isn't really going to do much for them. Anyway as a displaced Texan, working in the Middle East, who just retired from the Air Force in Alaska, this is the perfect site for me. It is an honest site that pokes holes in every theory, lie and smear directed at the only honest politician...

http://texas4palin.blogspot.com/

Harry Reid Chicken

Absoulutely hilarious!

Read this now! Love the picture!


http://anotherblackconservative.blogspot.com/2009/08/harry-reid-is-too-chicken-to-hold-live.html