Quotes of the week, DNC edition

"We make it possible." (No kidding -- that's the theme of the 2012 Democratic Party National Convention)

"Government is the only thing that we all belong to." (from a DNC video shown at the convention)

"We run this country for the People!" (Elizabeth Warren, candidate for U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, with true socialist fervor)

"We think 'we're all in this together' is a better philosophy than 'you're on your own.' ... If you want a you're-on-your-own, winner-take-all society, you should support the Republican ticket. If you want a country of shared prosperity and shared responsibility -- a we're-all-in-this-together society -- you should vote for Barack Obama and Joe Biden." (Bill Clinton, undoubtedly through clenched teeth)

"I always figured that if Bill Clinton landed on Mars, he would know how to do it with them, he would know how to reproduce, he would know everything. He'd just instinctively know how to talk to people." (Chris Matthews, gushing incoherently on MSNBC)

We needn't wait for tonight's punchline -- the collectivist rhetoric spewing from the stage at this week's Democratic Party National Convention has been downright frightening.

While the GOP ticket of Romney-Ryan is no prize, supporters of Pres. Obama are going "all-in" to perpetuate an irresponsible, dependent, entitlement culture -- and damn, they sure are proud of it. To the extent they're successful, at any level, they're destroying our nation.

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Quote of the week

"None of us have to settle for the best this [Obama] administration offers -- a dull, adventureless journey from one entitlement to the next, a government-planned life, a country where everything is free but us.

"Listen to the way we're spoken to already, as if everyone is stuck in some class or station in life, victims of circumstances beyond our control, with government there to help us cope with our fate.

"It's the exact opposite of everything I learned growing up in Wisconsin, or at college in Ohio.

"When I was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life. I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself. That's what we do in this country. That's the American Dream.

"That's freedom, and I'll take it any day over the supervision and sanctimony of the central planners."

(Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican Party's nominee for Vice President, from his acceptance speech Wednesday evening)

Quotes of the day

"Here's what it boils down to: I think that the country could survive four more years of Obama. But I don't believe the country can survive...full of people that would reelect him." (Rush Limbaugh)

"Let us come to the point. Obama is reaching out to his very own special constituency. It is composed of those who believe that the Republicans would put up as their candidate for the presidency a person who in his business life would engage in fraud, tax evasion, even murder. Mr. Obama is casting his net for the moron vote. I do not believe that there are enough morons out there to reelect him." (R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr. in The American Spectator)

I have to agree with Rush Limbaugh (this time) and, regrettably, I must disagree with Bob Tyrell -- there are more than enough moronic American voters to sustain this president's assault on Liberty.

Facebook follies

During a ritual cruise of Facebook this morning I came across a few posts that had me shaking my head. The first was an image crediting liberal political ideology with the creation of weekends -- seriously.

"In 1886," the graphic claims, "7 union members in Wisconsin died fighting for the 5-day work week and the 8-hour work day."

In 1886 my great-grandfather was a young man, mining coal to feed his family, working as many hours as the company would give him. One of his sons, my grandfather, became a farmer, raising dairy cattle and coaxing crops from 240 acres behind teams of draft horses.

After my father left military service, he became the first member of his family to graduate from college. He returned to his hometown and worked over four decades as a veterinarian -- out the door at 4am every day for his farm clients and in the clinic 'til 10pm (or later) every night treating housepets and performing surgery.

As for me, I can't imagine being proud of insisting on working a 5-day, 40-hour week. I guess it's not in my blood.

The second Facebook puzzler, not unexpected in this political climate, also displayed breathtaking ignorance of work and business.

Reacting to Pres. Barack Obama's "You didn't build that" speech, Georgia business owner Ray Gaster added a panel to the sign outside each of his three Gaster Lumber and Hardware locations:

I built this business without gov't help.

Obama can Kiss my ass.

I'm Ray Gaster & I approve this message.

One of my Facebook friends, a committed statist, posted an annotated photo of Ray Gaster and his sign. The altered image features 18 callouts, each presuming to show how the owner couldn't possibly have succeeded without the government's help.

My friend was hoist by his own petard -- the unintended result was a fairly comprehensive illustration of how our federal government meddles where it doesn't belong, how it takes credit for what it doesn't do, how it plunders and squanders and wastes and overspends the citizens' money.

The Annotated Gaster doesn't deserve even a participant ribbon, much less a gold star.

Finally, it's been entertaining to watch left-wingers' heads explode over Mitt Romney's choice of Paul Ryan. The disinformation, the tortured talking points...let's just say that I may run out of popcorn well before Election Day.

Perhaps the most sideways reaction I've seen, however, came to me from New York City by way of a Facebook thread:

"I am personally embarrassed that Paul Ryan was a graduate of Miami of Ohio. Yes, there were many conservatives that attended in my days at the University. However, I developed my liberal and ethical leanings from Miami. He obviously had a different 'Miami experience.' So sad."

Sad? Really? How arrogant is that?

Looks like Paul Ryan didn't read the chapter in the student handbook requiring all Miami grads to ply the waters of the world listing to port.

'From my cold dead hands!'

It looks like I'm back for one more encore. I've been asked to serve a third term as your president.

I don't think anyone's done that before. But George Washington hung around until the Revolutionary War was won. Roosevelt hung around until World War II was won. Reagan hung around until the Cold War was won. If you want, I'll hang around until we win this one, too.

Do you feel that incredible energy in the air here today? I'll tell you what it is. It's the feeling you get when you're making a difference in the future of your country.

That was my goal -- to make a difference -- when I became your president two years ago. So I set some lofty goals. I said I'd do my part if you'd do yours. Now, just two years later, we've accomplished them all.

All except one.

First, I asked you to rebuild our NRA membership, and you have. Not by just a few thousand members, but by one million members.

Second, I asked you to rebuild our NRA war chest, and you have. I don't mean just in dollars, but in sense. The good sense of the NRA leadership you see here today. Your leaders are qualified, competent, unified, and believe me, fearless.

Third, I wanted to bring the NRA back to the table of mainstream political debate, and we have. You saw Wayne on that tape. I'd say we're not just at the table.

We're eating their lunch.

But more than anything else, I asked you to believe in each other again. To believe that gun ownership is as wholesome as it is constitutional. To believe that an NRA sticker on your windshield is a sign of pride. To believe that a kid who wants to plink at tin cans is not a kid gone wrong. To believe that the great flame of freedom our founding fathers ignited has not grown cold.

I declare that mission accomplished! I look around this great hall and I see the fire is in your eyes, the pride is in your hearts, and the commitment is here in your presence today. The NRA is baaaaaack...

All of which spells very serious trouble for a man named Gore.

Didja see that Gore rally in D.C. last weekend? One of the marchers said, "The hands that rock the cradle rule this nation." And I thought, No madam, the hands that rock the cradle rule our families and governments and corporations. The hands that wrote the Constitution rule this nation.

All the anti-gun celebs came out to march. Tipper Gore was there, Rosie O'Donnell was there (I like to call her Tokyo Rosie). A fine actress, Susan Sarandon, was there and shouted with great diplomacy and stateswomanship, "We Moms are really pissed off!"

I must ask, pissed off about what? If it's crime, why aren't you pissed off at the failure of this Administration to prosecute gun-toting criminals?

If it's accidents, why aren't you pissed off at swimming pool owners, or stairway owners, or pickup owners?

Why aren't you pissed off that gun accident prevention programs aren't in every elementary classroom in America?

As a matter of fact, why aren't you pissed off at parents who're oblivious that their kids are building bombs in their bedrooms?

Why aren't you pissed off that Mr. Gore wants registration and licensing instead of parenting and prosecution?

Which leads me to that one mission left undone: Winning in November. That's why I'm staying on for a third tour of duty.

Today I challenge you to find your third term, and serve it. Find your extra mile, and walk it.

Only you know what you can do between now and that decisive November day to turn the tide of these elections in favor of freedom. I ask you to find it and fulfill it.

Go the extra distance, find that extra member, write the extra check, knock on one more door, work one more hour, make one more call, convince one more friend, turn the other cheek if you must, but find your third term and serve it.

That's your part to play. What more important role can there be...than to bequeath our freedom to the next generation as pure and intact as it was given to us. As Mr. Lincoln commanded: "With firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work we are in...and then we shall save our country."

Each of us in his own way, plus all of us in our collective millions, must give that extra measure that freedom demands of us.

Let me tell you what I mean. Until a few hours ago I was finishing my 80th film in Vancouver, Canada. I was there because I love my craft and I love to feed my family.

So you'll forgive me if I'm a little tired. I flew all night, across a continent and three time zones, to be here with you. I'm here because I love my country and I love this freedom.

But it was just the most recent flight in thousands of flights, the most recent mile on thousands of roads I've travelled in my ten years of active service to this great Association. It's been a helluva ride.

I remember a decade ago at my first annual meeting in St. Louis. After my banquet remarks to a packed house, they presented me with a very special gift. It was a splendid hand-crafted musket.

I admit I was overcome by the power of its simple symbolism. I looked at that musket and I thought of all of the lives given for that freedom. I thought of all of the lives saved with that freedom. It dawned on me that the doorway to all freedoms is framed by muskets.

So I lifted that musket over my head for all to see. And as flashbulbs popped around the room, my heart and a few tears swelled up, and I uttered five unscripted words. When I did, that room exploded in sustained applause and hoots and shouts that seemed to last forever.

In that moment, I bonded with this great Association. And in thousands of moments since, I've been asked to repeat those five words in airports and hotels and rallies and speeches across this land.

In your own way, you have already heard them. That's why you're here.

Every time our country stands in the path of danger, an instinct seems to summon her finest first -- those who truly understand her. When freedom shivers in the cold shadow of true peril, it's always the patriots who first hear the call. When loss of liberty is looming, as it is now, the siren sounds first in the hearts of freedom's vanguard. The smoke in the air of our Concord Bridges and Pearl Harbors is always smelled first by the farmers, who come from their simple homes to find the fire, and fight.

Because they know that sacred stuff resides in that wooden stock and blued steel, something that gives the most common man the most uncommon of freedoms. When ordinary hands can possess such an extraordinary instrument, that symbolizes the full measure of human dignity and liberty.

That's why those five words issue an irresistible call to us all, and we muster.

So as we set out this year to defeat the divisive forces that would take freedom away, I want to say those words again for everyone within the sound of my voice to hear and to heed, and especially for you, Mr. Gore:

From my cold dead hands!

(National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston, in opening remarks delivered at the NRA Annual Meeting on May 20, 2000)

I miss Barry Goldwater -- and you should, too

"I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is 'needed' before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' 'interests,' I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can."

(Those are the words of Barry M. Goldwater from his 1960 book, The Conscience of a Conservative. Over a half-century later, Liberty-loving Americans are suffering through a presidential election year dominated by Santa Claus on one side and Wink Martindale on another. With the exception of Rep. Ron Paul and Gov. Gary Johnson, this campaign shows little evidence of Sen. Goldwater's legacy.)

Principle & counter-principle

Speaking last Friday in Roanoke, Virginia, Pres. Barack Obama now-infamously said,

"If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

Mitt Romney, at a campaign event yesterday in Irwin, Pennsylvania, responded:

"Something happened on Friday -- President Obama exposed what he really thinks about free people and the American vision and government, what he really thinks about America itself.

"He probably wants to understand why his policies failed. If you want to understand why his policies have failed, why what he has done has not created jobs or rising incomes in America, you can look at what he said.

"And what he said was this, he said, and I quote -- and he's speaking, by the way, of businesses like this one, small businesses, big businesses, middle-size businesses, mining businesses, manufacturing, service businesses of all kinds. He said this:

'If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen.'

"That 'somebody else' is government, in his view. He goes on to describe the people who deserve the credit for building this business. And, of course, he describes people who we care very deeply about, who make a difference in our lives -- our schoolteachers, firefighters, people who build roads.

"We need those things. We value schoolteachers, firefighters, people who build roads. You really couldn't have a business if you didn't have those things. But, you know, we pay for those things.

"The taxpayers pay for government. It's not like government just provides those to all of us and we say,

'Oh thank you, government, for doing those things.'

"No, in fact, we pay for them and we benefit from them, and we appreciate the work that they do and the sacrifices that are done by people who work in government. But they did not build this business."

And that's the truth -- not bankable truth, alas, but truth nonetheless.

For once, for cryin' out loud, choose Liberty

Shortly after declaring my support of Gary Johnson, Libertarian Party candidate for President, I began catching flak. The most common reaction (and the easiest to have predicted) goes something like this:

"A vote for a third-party candidate is a vote for Obama."

That presumes, of course, that I agonized over the choice between Johnson and presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney -- which I didn't. It wasn't even a contest.

A second term for Pres. Barack Obama, undesirable at best, isn't the worst thing that could happen to our country. Swapping a big-government Democrat for a big-government Republican and expecting something to change would be far more disastrous. Wishing for such an outcome is symptomatic of our national two-party disorder.

I had a rather strident exchange with one particular fellow, a friend for more than a decade, over the role of government. It was prompted by the assault on individual liberties, as I see it, represented by the Affordable Care Act (aka "Obamacare").

My friend reportedly suffers from some sort of "pre-existing condition" and, because he now relies on the federal government to forestall what he describes as a "death sentence," his physical affliction is indistinguishable from his ideology. That is,

"If you don't support Obamacare, then you don't care if I live or die and you're certainly not my friend."

A passion for Liberty, according to him, also means that I hate all sick people, all poor people and all women. On top of that, he says, it makes me a racist.

Seriously.

I'm not unsympathetic to his suffering (or anyone else's, for that matter), but it's sad to see what happens to a man when self-interest swallows principle.

And then there was the customer who came into our shop late last week. An unapologetic Obama supporter, he summarized his perspective this way:

"What's the problem? Just keep printing money!"

That, he said, would avoid the "unnecessary pain" of slashing programs, cutting government jobs and balancing the federal budget.

Naturally, he wants "rich bastards" to pay higher taxes -- a lot higher.

So here we have a guy who doesn't get that printing money and deficit spending only postpone pain -- they don't prevent it. He jaws about "expanding access to the American Dream," but he wants the "rich bastards" who have achieved it to pay for entitlement programs demanded by those who haven't.

The good news, though, is that even if his man doesn't win in November, he should be happy with a Romney administration.

Pandering (defined)

"If he became convinced tomorrow that coming out for cannibalism would get him the votes he needs so sorely, he would begin fattening a missionary in the White House yard come Wednesday."

(H.L. Mencken of Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936)

Decided (2012 edition)

In 2008, I didn't share my choice for President until the Friday before Election Day. This time 'round I needed far less time to deliberate.

Neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama represents, in my view, what's best for my country. Neither proposes to restore what we've lost. Neither has the courage to suggest that he intends to fix what's truly broken. And most important to me, neither Romney nor Obama has demonstrated that he values Liberty.

So today, 166 days before casting my ballot, I've decided to support Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson.

I categorically reject the simple-minded notion that I have only two viable choices, or that voting for anyone but the Republican nominee virtually guarantees the incumbent a second term.

The dominant parties and their wind-sock ideologies have failed us. Their candidates haven't earned my support.

On November 6th my vote will be a product of conscience, not calculation. Will yours?

'Federal inmate makes strong showing against Obama in West Virginia primary'

CHARLESTON, West Virginia (AP) -- Just how unpopular is President Barack Obama in some parts of the country? Enough that a man in prison in Texas is getting 4 out of 10 votes in West Virginia's Democratic presidential primary.

The inmate, Keith Judd, is serving time at the Beaumont Federal Correctional Institution in Texas for making threats at the University of New Mexico in 1999. With 93% of precincts reporting, Obama was receiving just under 60% of the vote to Judd's 40%.

[Some media are reporting that Inmate No. 11593-051 actually won nine of West Virginia's 55 counties in yesterday's Democratic primary. You can't make this shit up -- read the rest of the AP story here.]

Incumbent: A passion for Liberty is 'radical'

"These people are not conservatives. They're not Republicans. They're radical libertarians and I'm doggone offended by it."

"I despise these people, and I'm not the guy you come in and dump on without getting punched in the mouth."

(Six-term U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch in an NPR interview earlier this month, characterizing his Republican challengers and reacting to the prospect of breaking a political sweat for the first time in 30 years. At last weekend's Utah GOP convention, Sen. Hatch failed to garner enough votes to win his party's nomination outright, forcing a primary faceoff against former state Sen. Dan Liljenquist -- who, by the way, was born just before the incumbent's first term began -- in June.)

Pause for prophecy

"Our Government should be entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight. He should not be compelled to give his opinion as to the inspiration of the Bible, the propriety of infant baptism, or the immaculate conception. All these things are private and personal. He should be allowed to settle such things for himself and should he decide contrary to the law and will of God, let him settle the matter with God. The people ought to be wise enough to select as their officers men who know something of political affairs, who comprehend the present greatness, and clearly perceive the future grandeur of our country."

"Our Government has nothing to do with religion. It is neither Christian nor pagan; it is secular. But as long as the people persist in voting for or against men on account of their religious views, just so long will hypocrisy hold place and power. Just so long will the candidates crawl in the dust -- hide their opinions, flatter those with whom they differ, pretend to agree with those whom they despise; and just so long will honest men be trampled under foot.

"Churches are becoming political organizations."

"It probably will not be long until the churches will divide as sharply upon political, as upon theological questions; and when that day comes, if there are not liberals enough to hold the balance of power, this Government will be destroyed. The liberty of man is not safe in the hands of any church. Wherever the Bible and sword are in partnership, man is a slave.

"All laws for the purpose of making man worship God, are born of the same spirit that kindled the fires of the auto da fe, and lovingly built the dungeons of the Inquisition. All laws defining and punishing blasphemy -- making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men.

"An infinite God ought to be able to protect himself, without going in partnership with State Legislatures. Certainly he ought not so to act that laws become necessary to keep him from being laughed at. No one thinks of protecting Shakespeare from ridicule, by the threat of fine and imprisonment."

(Robert Green Ingersoll, quoted from Section III of Some Mistakes of Moses, published in 1879)

Congressional quack-off

Well, we didn't have to wait for the new Congress to be seated -- we have our gridlock now.

Oh, there's plenty of actual governing to be done in this lame-duck session -- taxes, unemployment benefits, START, DADT and the rest. This month could be our legislators' audition, if you will, a time to show the People that they can collaborate in our interest.

Fat chance.

GOP leaders, feeling their post-election oats, refused to devote even two hours to meet with Pres. Obama and ranking Democrats. They strutted afterward for the obligatory photo-op, certainly, just long enough to pay lip-service to bipartisanship. They even took time to assert right-wing censorship of art on display at the Smithsonian.

And then, with all that's at stake here and now, Senate Republicans found time to pen a letter to the chamber's majority leader. The gist:

"...we will not agree to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to any legislative item until the Senate has acted to fund the government and we have prevented the tax increase that is currently awaiting all American taxpayers."

In other words, Republicans will block everything else until the Senate votes to extend the (so-called) Bush-era tax cuts.

It's a political tantrum, a shameful partisan stunt. While it keeps an intellectually dishonest promise not to raise taxes, it flouts fiscal conservatism and lacks any semblance of economic credibility.

Calling the prospective failure to extend tax cuts "job-killing," invoking a pithy old GOP chestnut, presumes that the cuts created jobs when they were implemented -- they didn't, they haven't and (if they're extended) they won't. I find it hard to believe that anyone still subscribes to "trickle-down economics," since it's never, ever worked beyond the anecdotal.

And just like Dems' wish to turn federal unemployment benefits into another entitlement program, extending the tax cuts effectively adds to a deficit Republicans pledged to reduce. The perpetual practice of spending money we don't have -- by both parties -- is fundamental to why our nation's economy is on the road to ruin.

Any meaningful proposal to fix what's broken must be the product of collaboration among factions now preoccupied with the next election cycle. Neither side would get everything it wants -- which would be fine, since neither side has a monopoly on good ideas. Their solutions must incorporate both cuts in spending and increases in revenue.

No, I'm not excited about paying higher taxes, nor am I looking forward to (for example) working years longer before drawing Social Security. But if I want my country to be here for my spawns and their spawns, that's what it'll take. There are no other options.

Time is short, too -- we have two years, maybe less, to get our national barge turned around. And that means that we've already elected the representatives who will (or won't) do what's required to save our country.

I don't think they can. Even if they could, we wouldn't let them.

Governing is crippled by politics. Economic recovery -- like everything else, it seems -- is poisoned by ideology. We're screwed.

I ache for my country.

SHIFT_gridlock

It's hard to overstate how historic this Election Day was for Republicans. Although Democrats kept control of the U.S. Senate, not since 1948 have this many House seats changed parties.

Also, as I write this the GOP has picked up 11 governorships. (A few races haven't yet been called.) Ohio is among those states, sad to say, with John Kasich wresting the office from one-term Democrat Ted Strickland.

It's quite a feat for a party that appeared to have sentenced itself to the margins two years ago. How'd they do it?

First, let's recognize the standard-bearers of the Republicans' march back toward relevance: Pres. Barack Obama, Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Nancy Pelosi. The Democratic Party, holding control of the White House, the Senate and the House of Representatives, had a rare opportunity to press its advantage -- and instead proceeded to screw the pooch in breathtaking fashion.

Once in power, the Dems splintered into familiar factions. They didn't accomplish much, and what they did accomplish they couldn't sell (or flat ran away from). Predictably adept at ineptitude, Democrats handed their fortunes to the GOP on a silver platter.

Second, after the presidential election Republicans found themselves ass-deep in lemons. True to the aphorism, they made lemonade -- instead of fleeing the fringe, they embraced it.

The GOP saw that the Tea Party, straying from its libertarian roots, responded reliably to stock-in-trade Republican tactics -- fear and loathing, that is -- and quickly absorbed the once-promising movement. That bought enough votes to swing dozens of races.

Third, Republican candidates did a masterful job of tapping into voters' upset that happy days aren't yet here again, playing the "Obama's failed policies" card at every turn. Such frustration is at once understandable and delusional, and appealing to it worked -- just ask Ted Strickland, whose election-day fate was all but sealed by 12 (count 'em) campaign visits by Pres. Obama.

Two years, especially two years of being sabotaged by one's own party, isn't nearly enough time to resurrect the worst economy in our nation's history -- hell, it's not even long enough to make real progress. The People demand instant solutions, however, and unreasonable impatience helped pave the way for a GOP landslide.

How about those shadowy "outside groups"? Didn't they play a big role?

Sort of. They sure didn't deliver for Democrats, and one has to wonder how influential the well-funded groups' messages would've been if the Dems hadn't convened their circular firing squad.

So there's just cause for Republicans to celebrate this morning but no good reason to flatter themselves. And yes, tea-baggers should be dancing -- carefully, though, lest they trip over something. Between dishonest campaigning and walking through doors unlocked by the opposition, there's isn't much for either to be proud of.

We, the People, got what we asked for -- we threw a lot of bums out. We got our fresh faces. And we got something else: gridlock.

We didn't alter the status quo -- we perpetuated it.

Think about it. The 2010 elections were carried not by skilled and committed public servants but by noisy ideologues. Voters sided with the most strident rhetoric, the most emotional (and least thoughtful) messages, half-truths rather than complete facts.

It disturbs me, for example, that we Buckeyes threw out Attorney General Richard Cordray, a Democrat, in favor of Republican challenger Mike DeWine. Enough conservative voters overlooked Cordray's steadfast defense of the Ohio and U.S. constitutions to elect DeWine -- a reckless enemy of liberty who won simply because he was a non-incumbent Republican.

DeWine, in reality, is politically indistinguishable from U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. For freedom-loving Ohioans, his victory comes as a belated Halloween fright.

We can all be glad that at least two "fresh faces" won't be packing for the U.S. Senate. The accidental Alvin Greene was trounced by Jim DeMint in South Carolina, and in Delaware the constitutionally ignorant Christine O'Donnell lost by 20 points to Chris Coons.

Neither of the winners is a prize, particularly -- DeMint is a right-wing nutjob and Coons is preferable only when standing next to O'Donnell. The scarier epilogue to the two races is that comic-book superhero Greene pulled 28% of the vote and I'm-not-a-witch O'Donnell a whopping 40%. It just amazes me (then again, maybe not) that fully two-fifths of Delawareans are either that desperate or that stupid.

(Two fifths -- that's about what I'd have to consume to cast a vote for either of those pretenders.)

Government by the People -- even hoped-for "small government" -- requires actual governing, and yet we keep falling for politicking. How in the hell are we going to get small government from big politics?

Excusing gridlock as some sort of defense against the dreaded "Obama agenda" -- which wasn't going anywhere anyway, really -- is politics, not patriotism.

It cripples our government, insults the People and postpones The Revolution. Until we figure that out, it threatens to be the downfall of our nation.

Cast

This is the third Election Day recorded here on KintlaLake Blog. In 2008 we drove two miles to the polls, while last year we lived five miles away.

At 6:30am this morning, my wife and I walked out into the pre-dawn chill, past our garage and across the back yard, up the hill and through the door of the community center that serves as our village's polling place.

A hundred paces, give or take, covered the distance from living in liberty to raising a citizen's voice in support of it.

As I stood at my assigned touch-screen voting machine, I thought back to a time when I didn't value this rite of democracy the way I do today. I was a comfortable youth, complacent about my freedom and shamefully dismissive of its price.

Those days, I'm glad to say, are behind me. Now I rise on Election Day with as much joy as I do on the Fourth of July.

I encourage my fellow independent citizen-patriots to join me in celebration -- vote!

Palin nails 'Raese'

This afternoon, @sarahpalinusa tweeted:

Send GOP 2 DC 2 avoid PA econ disaster under Obama/Pelosi Cap&Tax;workers need Raese

Translation:

Caribou Barbie endorses Republican candidate John Raese for the U.S. Senate seat from Pennsylvania.

Thing is, Raese is running for the Senate seat from West Virginia.

I'm guilty of typos and misspeaks myself, of course -- in fact, I just made a couple of beauties over on Facebook -- and I'm not sure that I could spell "Raese" without coaching from my Morgantown missus.

Not on the first try, anyway.

Then again, I'm just singing in the shower here. The Queen of Denali, on the other hand, portrays herself (and, disturbingly, is seen by many Americans) as a "thought [sic] leader."

Look, I'm sympathetic to all of this anti-status quo, anti-incumbent stuff, but please, can't you Tea People put someone out front who isn't a total dipstick?

Please?

Catch that?

A number of KintlaLake Blog readers looked closely at an image in one of yesterday's posts, past those old pocketknives to the words on the page of my 1967 BSA Fieldbook.


To satisfy expressed curiosity, then, here's the paragraph appearing behind the knives (emphasis mine):

"Quality in a knife, an ax, or a saw--or any other tool--has to be judged on proper design, suitable material, and honest workmanship. To the expert, just 'hefting' a tool--trying its weight and balance--and running an eye along its edge tells him a lot. The maker's name may influence his opinion--some--but the test will be in the using: will the knife take and hold a keen edge, does the ax hang right and swing true, can a saw bite deep and smooth and not chatter or run out of the cut?"

The guidance is simple, practical, correct. I used that page quite intentionally, of course -- thanks for noticing.

Watch & learn
Last week my exasperated younger spawn came to me and said,

"I'll sure be glad when the election is over."

Like the rest of us, he's tired of being bombarded with political ads at every commercial break. This 15-year-old even acknowledged that the candidates' pitches are laced with half-truths and outright lies, and that they're not very helpful. (A budding critical thinker, that one.)

Before the conversation ended, I reminded him that what he's discovered isn't unique to political ads. Come November 3rd, when the television starts telling him what he craves for Christmas this year, I want him to notice that commercial ads do the same thing.

We'll wait to see if that sticks. Color me cautiously optimistic.

Affinity redux
Josh Mandel, a 33-year-old Republican from the Cleveland suburb of Lyndhurst, wants to be our next State Treasurer. Mandel's bio, like every one of his campaign ads, leads with this factoid:

"Josh Mandel is a Marine intelligence veteran who served two tours in Iraq..."

I honor his military service, of course, but it doesn't qualify him to manage Ohio's $50 billion budget -- in fact, it's wholly irrelevant.

What's more, even though I'm not a veteran myself, I recoil from anyone who uses their military service as a gambit -- whether in politics, in business or in everyday conversation. Many vets see the tactic as diminishing their collective honor, and I agree.

Let's tell the truth about this -- Mandel is exploiting military service (as well as resorting to bigotry and Islamophobia) because it works.

Affinity politics, closely related to the identity politics typified by Christine O'Donnell's "I'm you" strategy, relies on voters to make decisions based on irrational fears, superficial personal qualities and insignificant biographical bits. Sadly, that's how most American citizens choose elected officials, so Josh Mandel will win.

He just won't be getting my vote.

Unintended consequences

Mike Castle's run as an elected official stretches back to 1966 and includes two terms as Delaware's governor. Considered a moderate Republican, the 71-year-old Castle has served his state in the U.S. House of Representatives since 1993.

Yesterday, Castle lost the GOP primary for the U.S. Senate seat once held by Joe Biden.

While we should honor his contributions, we need not mourn his defeat -- it's time he retired anyway. I mean, if we're going to get The Revolution underway, we need new faces in government. And if those professional politicians and long-toothed incumbents won't step aside, dammit, we should vote them out of office.

In this case, unfortunately, Delaware Republicans have given us a cure that's worse than the disease -- Christine O'Donnell, a 41-year-old marketing consultant and political pundit who's best-known for promoting sexual purity. Seriously.

Addressing supporters last night after her victory, O'Donnell beamed,

"You guys are the visionaries and leaders who made this possible."

By "you guys," no doubt she was referring to endorsers Sarah Palin, Jim DeMint, Michelle Bachman and (natch) the Tea Party Express.

Yikes -- that's a scary bunch of wingnuts, for sure, but I'll give credit where it's due. O'Donnell's campaign vanquished the national Republican establishment, which threw everything but the kitchen sink behind Castle and still lost. Generally speaking, I celebrate whenever one of the dominant political parties goes down hard.

Who else is celebrating? None other than Chris Coons, the Democratic Party candidate. Here's what greets visitors to Chris Coons for U.S. Senate this morning:

There's also a rather pointed statement, which begins,

"With Christine O'Donnell, we face an ideology rather than a record. One of Sarah Palin's newest 'Mama Grizzlies,' O'Donnell will fight to roll back a woman's right to choose and lead the charge against stem-cell research, falsely claiming that this ground-breaking research exploits women. She has a record of supporting discrimination against gays and lesbians, and pressing for public schools to teach creationism."

Democrats should wait 'til after the general election to break into a Snoopy dance but, given the stark choice between a centrist Democrat and fringe-dweller O'Donnell, in a state like Delaware it's all but certain that Coons will prevail.

That's the rundown -- but what's really happening here?

Citizens are righteously pissed at our dysfunctional government. We're expressing our anger by shunning incumbents, insiders and establishment-backed candidates in favor of fresh political blood. Because the American electorate can't break its addiction to ideologues, however, the transfusion is hopelessly tainted.

"Throw the bums out" serves The Revolution, in my opinion, only if the alternative is independent of mindless ideology and dominant political parties.

The Tea Party, in its early days, was on the right track. Its focus was on constitutional principles and a libertarian approach to governing -- until, that is, it was polluted by ultra-conservatives and co-opted by the Republican Party.

The result, sadly, is typified by Christine O'Donnell -- a unelectable, anti-libertarian, right-wing extremist.

In a perfect Delaware, Republican primary voters would've had an intelligent, truly independent alternative to Mike Castle. They didn't.

Even worse, it appears, they wouldn't have known the difference.

Oh, they meant well, but when they chose a nutjob like Christine O'Donnell, they signaled to a troubled nation that The Revolution may need to be postponed -- indefinitely.

What say you?

Take a look at this TV spot promoting Sen. Harry Reid's re-election campaign:



For a moment, try to put aside the candidates and their parties -- focus on the ad's message that armed resistance against a tyrannical authority isn't among the "Second Amendment remedies" conceived by the Founders.

That's unfiltered bullshit, of course.

Almost exactly two years ago I quoted former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee on this very subject:

"...the Second Amendment is not about hunting. I get so frustrated when some candidates asked about the Second Amendment, they start telling me, 'Well, I have a hunting license, and I’m a member of the NRA.' Look, so do I. It's not about the Second Amendment.

"The Second Amendment is about freedom. It's about protecting ourselves, our families, our property, and ultimately, if necessary -- I know this sounds pretty bold -- but from our own government, when they get out of control. That's what it's all about."

For another perspective, check out columnist David Codrea's commentary on the Reid ad. He got it precisely right.

Despite hyper-paranoid rhetoric from the (truly) extreme right, currently there's neither call nor cause for armed resistance. The People aren't suffering under a tyrannical federal government -- not even close. So for now, we work within the system to save our country.

But that's not the point.

When a career politician has either the gall or the ignorance to insult the fundamental intent of the Constitution -- the Constitution he swore he'd defend -- he insults me.

I call bullshit. What say you?