Missing the forest fire for the trees

The sweetest lady called me the other day, wanting to make sure that I did something on the preacher over in Gainesville who got all the attention after planning his little Koran BBQ. I’m afraid I may have angered her, at first, because my first reaction was, “No ma’am, that nut is getting too much attention as it is.” Which is what he was after, obviously, and the mainstream media lapped it up like stray cats under a fish-cleaning sink, because it worked with their “southern Christians=ignorant, possum-eating, cousin-marrying, six-toed morons” storyline to a T.

The media were played, clear and simple. You don’t start a Facebook page for something like that in a church of 50 people, unless you’re trying to attract attention. You’d just call them all or announce it at Sunday morning service. He wanted the big kerfluffle. He wanted to be on CNN. He consciously worked towards trying to enflame and enrage people, while primping for he cameras. What is that, two deadly sins? Pride and wrath in one act? And the guy was encouraging his church to join in? Yeah, that’s Godly behavior right there, I’m telling you what.

The media, though, was so busy spinning their “dumb religious redneck” agenda into round-the-clock coverage that they missed the real story. The FBI was sent to this preacher’s church not once, but twice, to “talk him out of it.” I don’t know about you, but if two government guys in an unmarked Ford, suits, sidearms and sunglasses showed up at my house to “persuade” me into not doing something, I’d be intimidated. Which is, undoubtedly, the effect that the administration was going for. It apparently worked, because he’s cancelled the event.

This preacher’s idea, as wrongheaded as it undoubtedly was, was a completely, 100% legal excercise of his God-given rights under the Constitution of the United States, and the government sent two goons to “make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.” How scary, Big Brother is that? Why were the headlines not “Government attempts to strong-arm minister” and “Civil rights and separation of church and state violated!!” Yeah, why is that? If George Bush’s FBI had shown up at the New York Times to try to get them not to expose troop movements or whatever, the media would have been screaming to the high heavens about brown shirts and gestappo tactics. And yet, on this attempt at silencing a small little nobody cog in the weirdo machine, all we’re getting is crickets. Nada. Nothing. Nobody is standing up for his right to be stupid in public.

I’d mark it down as an isolated incident or just bad judgment, but there was another one this week. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told the insurance lobby that if they don’t shut up about the premium increases that Obamacare is forcing upon them, that they’ll be locked out of the insurance market exchanges by the government in 2014. She wrote, “There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases,” and any insurance company who dares to say otherwise will be forced out of business by the government.

Excuse me, but did I fall asleep and somehow the Gambino family took over the country? Where is the media outrage? When did it become acceptable for the government to use their power of force and law enforcement to silence opposition? When a government official can destroy a business or an industry in a fit of pique, how are we different from China or Cuba?

We’re supposed to be different, because we’re supposed to have a “free press” to act as a watchdog on the government and to scream to high heaven when abuses like this happen. We’re supposed to be able to trust the “fourth estate” and the courts to keep the government from violating the rights of citizens and businesses. If your Constitutional rights fall in the forest, and there’s nobody there to hear them, does it make a sound, or is that just the ghost of Thomas Jefferson weeping and wailing in torment?

Sadly, most of the American media is buried so deep in it’s Obama uber alles agenda, that it can’t see the forest for the trees. It sure as heck won’t pull the fire alarm.

Depression Fix: Let’s go to the Fair

Woo hoo! Hello? Mr. President? Here I am, down, here! Under your nose! Can you see me now? How about it I climb up on top of the teleprompter. There! Can you see me now? Good. Because we need to have a chat, you and I. Why so depressed? Economy got you down? You must’ve spent a mint in here to redo the office. Looks spiffy, though. Nice rug you’ve got there. Um, you may want to re-check out that quote there sewn into that fancy new rug….MLK didn’t say that, my buddy Theodore Parker did. Nice guy, Theodore. You should have met him in college….no? What are they teaching college professors these days, I swear.

Who am I and how did I get in here? Well, I’m a friend of Mr. Paine. He helped build this town, you know. I’ve been hanging around since then, helping out when I can. Sure, I’ve been out of pocket for the last year or two, but I’m back now. You can call me Carmen. I guess you could call me Mrs. Sense if you want to be all formal. I don’t have many friends in town anymore, but there are some people who know me well enough to stand up for me. Sometimes we get together at the mall with my friends Sarah and Glenn and we have a cup of tea. Not exactly your social circle, I suppose, but I guess I’ve been “slumming” with the common folk for so long I don’t get out much in high society anymore.

No! No! Don’t call the Secret Service. I’m not here to go all jihad on you. I’m here to help you. I hear you’ve been having some problems with mid-term elections and poll numbers and such. I know, I know, don’t start crying on me, you’ll get your Armani all wet.  Well, honestly, you only have yourself to blame, you know. What did you think would happen when you turned everything over to that lunatic Pelosi and her friends? Yes, yes, I know. You thought you could just play golf and vacation in the Hamptons and that Nancy would handle things for you. Not working out so well, is it? No, I don’t have a tissue, suck it up for a bit, this is important.

Of mosques and men

I’m not sure who it was, but we should all heed the words of the wise man who said, “Don’t be so openminded that your brains fall out.” I think that pretty much sums up the whole bruhaha about the mosque they’re proposing to build right there at Ground Zero, don’t you?

Pretty much anyone with any common sense whatsoever knows, that you don’t allow a religion to build something called a “Victory Mosque” 15 stories high right next to the site where a bunch of their fellow worshippers killed 3,000 innocent people who were just minding their own business. “In the name of Allah,” of course. The people of New York–and all of you people who voted for the Obummer–need to ask yourselves why you elect representatives who refuse to represent the interests of our country instead of all the other ones.

Don’t preach to me about tolerance. When people who profess to be Islamic start showing some tolerance for everybody else in the world instead of murdering groups of Christian doctors who were just trying to help poor people who needed medical attention, then I’ll think about some darned tolerance for their faith. When they stop stoning young mothers to death, excecuting gay men and encouraging fathers to murder their teenaged daughters for going on dates, I’ll think about tolerance. When they stop funding “charities” that spend more money on rockets to kill Israeli school kids than they do on food for the hungry, then I’ll think about tolerance.

Every other church or religion I’ve ever heard of welcomes visitors and people from other faiths to come share their services…except Islam. Most mosques are muslims-only. They want to build a religous building into which most people are not allowed to enter because of their faith….in the name of “tolerance” and “building dialogue.” Yeah, sure. That makes sense.

To see how wrong that is, just substitute “skin color” for faith in that last sentence. What if a bunch of former KKK members wanted to build a members-only “Victory Chapel” a block from the site in Memphis where MLK was assasinated? You know, in order to “build a dialogue” with the community? Yeah, we all know what would happen…they’d be kicked out on their lily-white behinds faster than you can say “neonazi.” Because that would be hateful and wrong. And yet….our President says he’s totally behind this Saudi-funded ex-waiter building a mosque at Ground Zero. On our most raw, recent, and unhealed “hallowed ground.” And they call the 70% of the American people who feel this to be an intolerable violation “intolerant” or “racist.”

I’m sure that if a muslim family decided to show up at your church on Sunday morning, everybody would do the best they could to make them feel welcome. You’d invite them to dinner on the grounds and to come back next Sunday. Certainly there woudn’t be a bouncer at the door, kicking out non-Baptists, or Methodists, non LDS or whatever. THAT generosity and politeness is what tolerance looks like. Not that muslim visitors would be allowed to come at all.

I got sidetracked researching this column and stumbled across something called islamopaediaonline.com that explains the various tenets of the muslim faith to muslims. Non-muslims aren’t allowed in most mosques, but Islam doesn’t allow muslims to visit other faiths, either. The guide says: “… it would be Makruh Tahrimi (prohibitively disliked) to enter or even pray in a church, Synagogue, Hindu temple etc, being a place where gross Shirk (sins of polytheism) is committed. Also, according to explicit prophetic Hadiths , such places are the gathering places of devils.” Now THAT’s tolerance for you.

The Fox News Redeye host who joked that he was going to open an Islamic gay bar next to the proposed mosque may have been on to something. Maybe he really will open “Suspicious Packages,” or “You Mecca Me Hot” one day with his 72 virgin alcohol-free drinks, and then we’ll see just how tolerant those mosque-builders can be. Is tolerance a two-way street? Or is it just a club to be used against the stupid, gullible infidel in the pursuit of holy jihad?

I’m all for treating everybody the same, and freedom of religion. I’m all for people of other faiths building chapels or synagogues or temples or mosques where ever they want. I don’t really care what they believe, but I do care how they act. I’m not for allowing a bunch of Saudi-funded frontmen to use our freedom of worship, and our tolerance against us and gut-punch the country by building an Islamic center at the site of Islam’s Greatest Hit. There’s a big difference between tolerance and putting your tail between your legs, rolling over and baring your throat like a stray hound. We seem to be assuming that position an awful lot as a nation lately, and I for one, am fundamentally tired of it.

White (House) King sacrifices white pawn

“If a ruler does not understand Chess, how can he rule over a kingdom?”
–King Khusros II

“Hello, I am Fidelity’s Chess Challenger. Select your level.” I grew up hearing this robotic greeting oh, I don’t know, a dozen times a day when I was a kid. Daddy played a lot of chess for a while. The Fidelity Chess Challenger was one of the first talking chessboard computers, with real pieces, that you could pick up and everything. I loved watching him play…and curse the stupid machine, when it beat him. He even let me play with his precious toy enough that I learned the moves and the basics. I was never any good, and I’m still not very good. I can’t seem to see the moves in advance like good chess players do. I’m not a good strategist, I suppose.

My kids can beat me every time…how sad is that? Mitchell is seven and Georgia is ten and they’ve been playing for years. At the FPEA homeschool convention one year, I bought them a chess board and coloring book that taught the basics, and followed up with a software program called “Learn to play chess with Fritz and Chesster.” If you have kids who want to learn, I can’t recommend this software enough. It’s amazing. It teaches strategic thinking, and chess, and it goes from super-easy–Mitchell was playing it when he was 3–up to complex moves and strategy that I have trouble remembering. Good stuff and so totally worth the $19.99.

Benjamin Franklin said, “Life is a kind of Chess, with struggle, competition, good and ill events.” I don’t know for sure, but I suspect Obama is not a chess player. Even I might be able to beat him. He doesn’t seem to have much of a grasp of strategic thinking, and he seems to choose the wrong move every single turn. Maybe we should start asking our Presidential candidates about their favorite games and only vote for the chess junkies. It couldn’t hurt.

Thomas Jefferson was an avid chess player; he once played a four-hour game with James Madison and he amassed a huge collection of chess sets during his lifetime. James Adams, John Quincy Adams, James Monroe, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, heck, even Rutherford B. Hayes: all were chess players. Perhaps most tellingly, Jimmah Carter said himself, that “I found that I don’t have any particular talent for chess. I hate to admit it, but that’s a fact.” (Gee, no kidding. Who would have guessed.) Although Obama claims in his autobiography to be a chess player, it’s probably as true as all of the other stuff in it. (Which is to say, um, not.) A chess player for instance, knows that you don’t bow to another king while you’re still in the game. Obama seems to bow to every king he comes across, doesn’t he?

Sebelius of Borg: Resistance is Futile

On Thursday, Florida’s House and Senate quietly passed a law called the “Florida Health Care Freedom Act” that effectively removes Floridians out from under the thumb of Obamacare’s individual mandate. It asserts that the government has overstepped Constitutional bounds by trying to force citizens to buy a commercial product against their wills and gives the feds the ol’ one-fingered biker salute. Thanks to Republican efforts in Tallahassee and our Democratic Representative Leonard Bembry, who did the right thing and voted for it, you’ll get the chance to vote on it yourself as an Amendment to the Florida Constitution in November.

Our uppity southern cheekiness so annoyed the Obambi administration that they sent out their go-to girl, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in her giant flying Borg cube to to let us know that “Resistance is futile.” According to the story from Health News Florida, she said that States “can vent all they want about a so-called “federal takeover” of health care. But they cannot deny their citizens access to its benefits or requirements.”

Let’s just stop and think about that a minute.

Now, anybody who made a C+ or higher in Mr. Storey’s American History Class: what does the 10th Amendment say? That’s right, it says that any powers not granted to the national government nor prohibited to the states by the Constitution of the United States are reserved to the states or the people. That means that the federal government is limited in scope; it can only do the things that the Constitution says, and that everything else is the state’s problem. Health care, as we all know, is not in the Constitution anywhere, and Thomas Jefferson would have laughed out loud had someone tried to convince him that health care is “a right” that should be paid for by forcing tax money out of a few to pay for the “free” health care of others…but let’s put the creeping socialism argument aside for the moment.

Sebelius is claiming that the states can wriggle and writhe and try to get Scotty to Beam us off the Obamacare Collective Borg Cube, claiming “unconstitutionality,” but that it won’t matter…the Constitution doesn’t get a vote. The states don’t get a vote. YOU don’t get a vote and you will be assimilated. Say that again? Does anyone remember the whole “consent of the governed” thing that our whole society is supposed to be based upon? Apparently liberty is just not fashionable in Washington, D.C. circles this year.

Sebelius the Borg Queen is essentially dismissing us as too stupid and unimportant to count, saying that the federal government knows what is best for we, the people, and that the states had better shut up about the legality of it all and roll over and play dead or else. She mocks our reasonable concerns about government overreach as childish “venting.” The ruling elite have made up their minds, and the law of the land be damned. You will get your Obamacare gruel and tax hikes, and you will like it and say thank you, President Obama.

But we’re not in this alone–and some have not yet begun to fight: at least thirty other states have passed or started working on “opt out” legislation similar to Florida’s. That’s only a hop, skip and a jump away from the two-thirds required for a Constitutional Amendment if you’re keeping count. The majority of states are battling this health care takeover tooth and nail, but Obama is determined to force it upon the country at warp speed using the photon torpedoes of the national government against the states.

That is frightening beyond comprehension if you really think about it. I do believe we started a little not-so-civil shooting war that killed 600,000 Americans on both sides the last time the government tried to push southern states around like a schoolyard bully. We’re a lazier, softer, stupider and less principled people than we were back then, but every society has it’s limits. I suspect that forced government “sick bays” may be ours.

The Constitution is our best protection against runaway government expansion, especially the Tenth Amendment. Thomas Jefferson said of it, “To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.” I’m a simple little creature, though, and find his phrasing complex and too awkward to take to heart. I prefer the language of pop culture most of the time. Perhaps you’ll join me in November, when I proudly hit the voting booth and tell Obama, and his lackey, Sebelius of Borg, to “Assimilate THIS!” and beam Obamacare into a black hole in space, never to be seen again.

Make it so, Mr. Worf. Make it so.

A modest proposal for Repeal and Reform

Assume we get rid of Obamacare. What then? I have an idea. We’ll call it RightWingRedneckCare. It’ll fit on one sheet of paper and won’t cost the government anything. No new IRS agents will be hired, no new bureaucracies, nada.

Rule 1. Two simple changes will be made to the regulation of the insurance agency: once they take you, they can’t cancel you for anything other than lack of payment. And two, insurance will be available across state lines, on the internet, on late-night tv infomercials, however they want to sell it.

Rule 2: There will be no mandate and no subsidies for coverage. BUT…if you don’t provide proof of minimal health insurance for you and all the dependents listed on your tax return, no tax refund. That annual $3 or $4,000 freebie from Uncle Sam will be applied to purchase your family a no frills, bare bones basic major medical policy from some big gigantor like Blue Cross for the next year.

This will result in a bunch of insurance companies coming out with the health care version of PIP car insurance…cheap, and costing under the average tax return threshold.

I think it would work.

Tar and Feathers! Get your red hot tar and feathers! Beat the November rush!

It was a nice republic while we kept it.

Do me a favor and go check out Paul McKain for Congress. He’s running against turncoat liar Allen Boyd. He seems like a decent, conservative guy.

Now let’s catch our breath and come back swinging.

Boyd Betrayal

Alan Boyd stood right here in my hometown and promised us he wouldn’t vote for Obamacare. He lied. He betrayed the good people who elected him and he must be held accountable. Somebody has to put this guy on the unemployment line permanently. He sold us out and he needs to be replaced. Now.

Lambs to the Slaughter

Those who seek absolute power, even though they seek it to do what they regard as good, are simply demanding the right to enforce their own version of heaven on earth. And let me remind you, they are the very ones who always create the most hellish tyrannies. Absolute power does corrupt, and those who seek it must be suspect and must be opposed.
–Barry Goldwater

Wherever you are, reading this, look around you: next week you may be reading this column in another country. Sure, you may still be sitting there at the Cypress, with a big old glass of sweet tea in front of you at the same table you’re sitting at this week–but you will no longer be sitting in the United States of America that you were in today. Overdramatic, you say? Maybe so, but the democrats in Washington are planning to turn our homeland into something that our grandparents wouldn’t recognize.

I’m not going to go down the road explaining to you that Obama’s health care bill is “socialism” or “communism.” I’m fairly sure it is, and probably two or three other “isms” I can’t think of right now, but that’s not the worst thing about it. The worst thing about it is that it fundamentally transforms the principles upon which our country is built.

Our Founders understood that all men were “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights.” Our government, our Constitution, our very way of life is based upon that shared American belief. We are the only country built out of an idea and based upon a shared belief that every person born has the right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” These rights are given to us by a higher power; not the government. The government cannot give us rights, God does. It’s written into our founding documents, our way of life: it’s a fundamental part of the shared idea that makes us a country.

But sometime on Friday, the people that we elected to represent us in Washington are scheduled to make health care a “right,” handed down by government fiat. Is it Constitutional for the government to force you at gunpoint to purchase a health care plan so that others who can’t or won’t purchase one can exercise their government-given “right” to health care? I’m fairly sure it’s not. Are they going to ram it through, poll numbers and the will of the people be darned? They’re going to try. They can’t do it legally, so they’re planning an end-run around the Constitution and around you.

You have the right to life, liberty, and deep-fried Oreos

“Do you want to be a big fat-fatty? Come join me, it’s sweeeeet.” Glen Beck said this one day on his show–and it must have been how he said it, because it doesn’t look so funny in print–but it hit us just right and Georgia and I almost had to go change our pants, we laughed so hard. It’s become something of a running joke in our house, applied to almost everything. We said it countless times on Thursday when we went to the Florida State Fair in Tampa.

It was an easy thing to think about being a big fat-fatty. Only at a state fair could you eat fried cheese on a stick, fried candy bars on a stick, fried Oreos, fried Twinkies, and something called a Krispy Kreme hamburger all in the same place. It seemed like each booth was trying to outdo the next one in sheer deep-fried fatty imagination. We saw one guy hawking “Deep fried Pepsi.” No, I have no idea what it was, and I didn’t try any. (You can ask Tank & Debbie Lee about the Krispy Kreme hamburger, though, they tried one. They said it was a hamburger with a doughnut on it.) Yay for the ingenuity of capitalism!

I did eat one of the kids’ deep-fried Oreos. It was pretty good, all hot and gooey inside. Not something I’d make at home, but as they say, when in Rome…ya gotta eat the deep fried Oreos. Or something like that. If you get a chance to go to the fair you should go and try all that neat stuff. Next year, it’ll probably be illegal. You’ll stop to pick up a little cheese on a stick, offering your five dollars, and Nancy Pelosi will jump out of the fryer with a bunch of State Department goons who will confiscate your glob of deep-fried gooey goodness in the name of National Security.

Think I’m exaggerating? Yeah, maybe a little bit, but not much. Michelle Obama has started up her new raison d’etre to justify her space in the White House. She’s declared war on fat kids. When I was little, I was taught that you weren’t supposed to pick on the fat kids, or the goofy kids, or the kids with glasses. I guess government officials can point and laugh because they think it’s for our own good.

Apparently, Ms. Obama thinks we’re fat because we live in “food deserts in this nation, which makes it difficult for families trying to access good options.” Food deserts? Really? In a nation with countless grocery stores, fruit stands, and fast food places piously serving up sliced apples instead of fries in “green” packaging, she says we’re in the desert? Here’s a thought, Michelle, send all those kids trapped in public schools learning to sing hymns to your husband outside to run or play dodgeball once in a while! (Oh, I forgot. We can’t play dodgeball anymore, it’s not politically correct. And they wonder why kids are fat.)

Ms. Obama apparently hasn’t seen the cornucopia of dining options available at the State Fair. You didn’t have to limit your choices to the “fried” menu. There was fresh roasted corn on the cob, fresh fruit everywhere, grilled chicken kabobs, smoothies, fresh lemonade, raw sugar cane, even a place where you could squeeze your own orange juice…I mean sure, if you wanted to eat badly, you could. Most people I saw did splurge on the fried fun. But that was their choice.

And therein lies the real truth to the Obama’s “War on fat.” It’s not a war against obesity, but a war on you. See, in the eyes of the skinny ruling elite, you, being the moronic knuckle-dragging peasant that you are, are too stupid to decide to eat “well,” or even to pack your own kids’ lunchbox. Since your elected rulers are oh-so-much-smarter-and-better-looking than you, they’ve declared war, not on fat, but on your right to make your own choices.

If you recall, I warned you all that this was coming back during the campaign when Obama said, “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times … and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK.” Elections have consequences, so welcome to the White House Diet, in which the government will tell you how much and what you’re allowed to eat. Sure, it’ll start with government schools, because that’s where they have the most control, but it won’t be long before you open your snack cabinet at home one Saturday afternoon and Rahm Emmanuel pops out like a demented Keebler Elf to lecture you about limiting your calorie intake for the sake of Big Brother Barry and the welfare of the collective.

Our Founders guaranteed that the government wouldn’t interfere with our God-given freedoms of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They didn’t add, “unless it’s bad for you,” or even “unless it raises your insurance premiums.” You eat that fried cheese on a stick if you want to, and tell Washington and Michelle Obama what they can do with the stick.