FAA a Model for Health Care

Over the past few weeks it seems like the FAA has been in the news just about every day.  Required maintenance has not been performed causing whole fleets to be shut down.

We put our lives in the hands of the FAA every time we climb into a plane, so it is somewhat unnerving to find out that they haven’t bothered to do their job.  It kind of gives you a warm feeling deep inside to think that this is the same type of bureaucracy that will be in charge of our health care if Hillary gets her way and is able to initiate universal health care.

Not only ineptitude will have to be contended with in the management of the program, but what happens if they actually mandate everyone see a doctor every year?  We can see what will happen if we take a look at the result in Massachusetts when they mandated such a program.

They system overloaded, too many people trying to see too few doctors.  Well, that sounds like we need to train more doctors doesn’t it?  That is true, but there is a small problem with that.  When the government controls the prices a doctor can charge the doctor  cannot make enough to justify the cost of medical school, admissions will drop and the situation will just get worse.

This is a disaster we cannot afford.  Let the free market operate and things will work.  Try to control them and you choke the life out of them.

The Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

This past weekend marked the 40th anniversary of the assassination  of  Dr. Martin Luther King in Memphis.  He had come here pursuant to the Sanitation Workers Strike in 1968 which was precipitated by poor working conditions and defective equipment.  Equipment which had claimed the lives of 2 men.

They were making a statement that needed to be made, they were, and are MEN, and should be treated as such.  There have been tremendous strides made in the area of Civil Rights.  We have a black man running for President this year, black men are serving in public office all across the south.  These are places that used to post signs telling blacks not to let the sun go down on them in this town.  A lot has changed.

Strangely enough, there are still people working here in Memphis for the Sanitation department who were working there 40 years ago when the strike took place.  The thing is, they can’t afford to quit.  There is no city pension plan for these workers.  The very workers Dr. King came and died to support decided at the time that they would take a lump sum bonus at the time rather than take part in the city’s pension plan.

These men sacrificed their future, on the altar of the immediate and are still paying the price for it.  Hopefully, the city will be able to work a plan to allow new workers to participate in the City’s plan, but it is too late for those who marched in 1968, it is too late for Dr. King.

Barack Hussein Obama, a Delicate Flower

It has become a sorry state of affairs when a candidate for the highest office in the land and arguably the world wears his feelings on his sleeves and people in the media tip-toe around him to ensure they don’t hurt his delicate sensibilities.

It is not acceptable to call him by the name his parents gave him because it might have a negative connotation and turn off some potential voters. The main stream media are tripping all over themselves to accommodate his wishes. Anyone who doesn’t follow his wishes in this area is considered to be a hate monger or a racist.

Yesterday, Barack had to come down on his preacher, Jeremiah Wright. I don’t know about anyone else but I wasn’t blown away with his speech. I really didn’t like the way he dissed the founders for not stopping slavery, but that is another issue. He also didn’t distance himself from what Wright was saying, only that he now knew that these things were being said and he didn’t agree with them. That begs the question of why did he stay in this church if the values being espoused were so wrong in his opinion. Why did he not stand up to challenge the pastor’s rhetoric? I just don’t buy it.

You can’t unsee truth, you can merely deny it.

I believe that man has something of a truth-detector hard-wired into his makeup. I don’t mean that we cannot be hoodwinked or fooled, but once we see the truth, it makes us somehow uneasy with accepting contrary ideas.

Unfortunately, I also believe that this mechanism can be turned off by consistently denying the truth we see. The question becomes one of why would we want to deny the truth? That is a good question. Like a 5 year old who has broken a vase, and who blames it on the dog in order to escape punishment, we deny the truth when it is in our perceived self-interest to do so.

Notice that I said ‘perceived self-interest’. What we perceive as being best for us, may only be best in the short term, or at the very least cost us the least amount. In life the least costly short-term solution can often be the most costly long-term solution. I have often heard that someone has, “Sacrificed his future on the altar of the immediate.”

In a very real sense, our government has been guilty of this fallacious acting. Our social security is going bankrupt because we kept using the money for some ‘immediate’ need. I don’t mean to say that the need wasn’t real, but the money for it should not have come from social security funds. It has never been the government’s job to bail citizens out of problems, read the Constitution, it just isn’t in there.

We need to start making some hard choices NOW, or we will find ourselves living in the street wondering how we got there.

Where Do We Go From Here?

Well, it has been several weeks since my last post. If you are keeping up with this, I apologize. No reason really, possibly depressed with the choices that we are down to. It is easy to fall into the “What’s the use?” mindset.

I have been doing some reading though, and watching the news. Politicians are starting to jockey for position now with Mitt Romney throwing his support behind John McCain, and just casually mentioning that he would not be against the idea of being the Vice Presidential Candidate on the Republican ticket. Hillary supporters are pointing out that Barrack is black, which came as a total shock to me, I thought he just had a great tan!

Yes, the fighting is getting more intense as the conventions loom closer and closer, yet no one has said anything of substance in this race. Or have they? It is possible that they have already brought everything they have to the table and laid it out for all to see. In other words, they don’t have anything to offer the American People. Has it gotten to the point that no one who is qualified and who has a vision of what this country can be is even interested in the job?

Personally, I am fed up with what I am seeing, and the more I think of it the more depressing it becomes. The one ray of light that I see is coming from a third party, the Libertarian Party. Typically, third parties don’t do well in our system, but that is also how parties evolve. When the two parties become so similar that you feel there is no difference in who you vote for it is time to examine what options are available.

Maybe it is time we looked at Wayne Allyn Root and his bid for the Presidency as the Libertarian Candidate. This is something that deserves a closer look.

Farewell Fred

Fred, you will be sorely missed! Our prayers are with you and your mother through her illness.

Thank you for your love of country and your devotion to your conservative values. Both of these were evident as you spoke and were a breath of fresh air to many of us who feel abandoned by our representatives in Washington. Personally, I feel better knowing that there are some true conservatives left who will stand on principle without wavering.

Thanks again.

A Sad Day for National Security

After failing to gain traction in his campaign, Congressman Duncan Hunter has dropped out of the GOP Presidential Primary Race. As a true conservative he will be sorely missed, even more so because of his strong stance for securing our borders. My personal belief is that it was his push for the border fence that actually kept him from gaining the momentum he needed to make a showing in the Presidential Primaries.

While border security is a major concern of mine, and definitely one of the factors I have in choosing a candidate, Congressman Hunter seemed to dwell upon that at the expense of other important issues. Every interview I heard with Duncan focused on that single issue, and unfortunately, there are other issues that have to be faced in this campaign as well.

Congressman Hunter, it is my fervent prayer that you will be able to make some real progress in Washington regarding our border security, and that you will start planning now for the 2012 Presidential Campaign. This country needs strong conservative voices like yours!

Captain Obvious Strikes Again

When was it that we lost sight of things that used to be bywords of conservatism? When did the so-called Conservatives in this country start chanting the Liberal mantras instead of standing firm for the values that shaped Conservatism in the first place? How many times in our lives have we heard the saying that

He who stands for nothing will fall for anything.

Our leaders have stopped standing for anything, and the words that emanate from their lips would sound more at home in Hollywood than in any bastion of Conservatism.

We are facing serious problems in the coming years, our baby boomers are beginning to retire, there is recession looming on the horizon, we have soldiers in harm’s way in Afghanistan and Iraq and we have so-called Conservatives spouting rhetoric bemoaning our need for change who offer us nothing concrete that they will do, we don’t know what they stand for (if anything) and somehow we are supposed to be able to differentiate them from the Liberal Democrats they are running against..

So far, there are only two candidates who seem to rise above this miasma, they are Duncan Lee Hunter, and Fred Dalton Thompson. Both of these men have demonstrated a commitment to strong Conservative values and are willing to tell people who they are, and what they stand for leaving it up to the people to decide whether they want to elect someone who shares their values, or someone who will shift with the winds of discontent.

Both of these men deserve a good look, the decision is yours, for the sake of our nation, don’t screw it up!

Takin’ off the Gloves

During the South Carolina Republican Debate on January 10, 2008 Fred Thompson finally stepped out of the shadows and started to shine. It is worth listening to a few minutes of this debate to hear what he has to say about conservative values and how he contrasts them to some of the rhetoric being espoused by some of the other contenders for President.

I think that he said what many feel about the conservative movement, put it succinctly and put Mike Huckabee in his place.

The Line Item Budget Proposal

Let’s face it, our elected representatives have lost touch with the people they are hired to represent. (That’s us) But to be fair, many people in this country are enablers in this problem. Everyone would like to have something for nothing, look at the rise in state lotteries if you don’t believe me. What about the flood of casinos across the nation? Everyone seems to want a quick trip to Richville.

Our Constitution requires that a record of Congressional Activity be maintained and bound so that things are on record. Things aren’t being done behind closed doors so to speak. That is the reason we have the Congressional Record published daily whenever Congress is in session. This information is available bound, by subscription, but it is also available on line. Unfortunately, it is written in Congress-Speak, making it very difficult for the average citizen to wade through and make sense of.

Take the budget for instance. The current budget is around 3,500 pages long, and is loaded with many things that are required to keep a government running, and the military operating in an efficient manner. There are billions, yes billions of dollars though that are being spent for things that have no impact on running the Federal Government. Things of unquestionable importance like bike trails in Minnesota, Postal Museums in Las Vegas, rodent control in Alaska. Certainly these are all things that are big concerns to the mainstream of America, things which would cause devastation were they not included.

Earmarks are going to drive this country to the poorhouse. Why not put these items in a spreadsheet format showing the basic use of the money along with the amount of money being earmarked for the project. Publish these, along with the names of the Legislator who is proposing such a project and post this, on the internet and the Congressional Record so that we the people can see exactly where our money is being spent. Ideally, in time to allow the ire of the American people to rise up against Washington before they are tacked onto legislation, but spelled out clearly exactly what is going on, and how much it is costing us.

Personally, I live in Arkansas, and I have absolutely no interest in a bike trail in Minnesota, especially one that is costing me somewhere in the neighborhood of $700,000,000 to build. Yes, that is $700 MILLION . . . for a BICYCLE TRAIL! I think that if the people of Minnesota need such a trail, they should raise the money themselves and build it, but don’t steal money out of my pocket so you can ride your bike in Minnesota.

Likewise, why would I be concerned enough to spend $103 Million in order to control rodents in Alaska? Doesn’t Terminix have an office up there? Don’t private citizens have the funds to keep roaches and mice out of their homes? Someone needs to explain to me why I should subsidize this project.

A postal museum in Las Vegas? There is enough money in Vegas to build one if there is a need, and if there isn’t a need, don’t ask me to build it or maintain it for you. These are just a few of the unbelievable projects that are included in our new budget.

President Bush should veto this bill unless all of these earmarks are stripped out, but he won’t. Congress should give the President a line-item veto in order to allow him to strip out this garbage himself, but they won’t. Personally, I am fed up with sending my money to Washington just to have it wasted on this trash that is of no concern to me. We, as a people need to take a stand and demand this waste stop! NOW!