We're Going The Wrong Way

The US economy is in trouble...more trouble than most people are aware. The problem is that our government, in trying to fix the problem, is actually taking steps to make things worse.

Treasury Set to Announce Regulatory Overhaul

Fed Eyes Nordic-Style Nationalisation of US Banks

Paulson Plan Endorses Fed's Enhanced Market Authority

Brace for $1 Trillion Writedown of 'Yertle the Turtle' Debt

Not long after our nation's founding, the country was plunged into a debate over whether the federal government had the authority to create its own bank. The truth is that the federal government has no authority to mess with the banking industry, including the creation of a national bank - yet the bank was created. Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government given the right to nationalize any private industry, but now there are rumblings of a nationalized banking industry. How can this be good news for the US economy?

For a long time now, the US government has garnered a well-deserved reputation as being an inefficient, slow-moving behemoth that just cannot seem to do anything right. Remember Hurricane Katrina? Is that the kind of leadership you want running our banks?

Yet that's just the kind of banking system our leaders are talking about.

The Constitution does not give our government the authority to nationalize our banks. The government has done nothing to help thus far. They've made some cosmetic changes, to be sure, but nothing that will fix the long-term disaster that looms over our economy.

Personally, I think it's time for the people of America to look to our founding documents. Read the Constitution, and realize that the government is exceeding its authority.

How about this line from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Nationalizing the US banking industry is yet another cosmetic change that, in the end, will only make things worse...and the more our federal government exceeds its authority, the more I tend to think of the original founding document of the United States: the Declaration of Independence. I think of how, as our federal government becomes larger and larger, taking more and more power away from the people, they "[become] destructive of these ends." It's time for the people of America to wake up. It's time to invoke the "alter or abolish" clause of the Declaration of Independence. It's time to put the politicians back in their place and start running a government that realizes that its authority and power comes from the people, and the people can take that power away.

Maybe it's time for another American Revolution.

Could a New President Tear the Democrats Apart?

The Democrat primary truly is turning into an entertaining race. Hilary Clinton and B. Hussein Obama have been in a virtual dead heat for the past several months, with Obama holding a slight lead and Clinton not far behind in the primary race. Throw in Florida and Michigan (which unfortunately don't count), and they're pretty much neck-and-neck.

So, it looks like the outcome of the Democrat primary will be determined by the superdelegates, which could very well wreak havoc throughout the party...think Florida in 2000, only on a smaller scale: in that election, the Democrats basically blamed the Supreme Court of appointing George W. Bush president (in actuality, they voted to uphold standing Florida state law, which the Florida Supreme Court violated). Instead of the people of the Democrat party choosing their presidential candidate, the candidate will be chosen by the superdelegates, essentially meaning that half of the party's population would be overruled through the hijacking of the election process. According to Chris Dodd, as well as the Boston Globe, this primary election fight could potentially shake the party to its foundations.

What's more, apparently there is some infighting between Clinton's camp and Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi has been urging the superdelegates to follow the voters when they vote to choose a candidate...which would essentially make the superdelegates redundant. Of course, the irony of the party that calls itself "Democratic" subverting the democratic process through the use of superdelegates even further shows the hypocrisy of the Left.

A Man I Would Vote For

I'm a conservative, which means I have strong libertarian leanings, but I've never considered myself a Libertarian, because I have too many disagreements with the Libertarian Party to sign up. However, one of the Libertarian candidates has caught my eye and I think merits a serious look by conservatives who, like myself, just aren't willing to bite the bullet and vote for a Republican as liberal as John McCain.

Wayne Allyn Root is a Libertarian Party candidate who is strongly conservative and stands more for common-sense conservatism than most Libertarians I've heard about in recent years. Limited government, lower taxes, a return to states' rights. This is the kind of conservative candidate that I've been looking for: the kind you won't find in the modern Republican Party. Root is currently leading the field in the Libertarian primary, and if he wins, I will vote for him in the general election.

Check out Wayne Allyn Root's site, see what he stands for, and vote for the true conservative option.

Another Reason Politics Doesn't Make Sense

Politicians have been pointing at higher gas prices for several years now, placing the blame with the Bush administration and the war in Iraq, and pointing to rising gas prices as yet another reason that America needs "change."

Well, Michigan Congressman John Dingell (D) wants to do something about it - he wants to raise the price of gas even further. During a time when consumers are already feeling the pain of higher gas prices, Rep. Dingell has proposed a 50-cent per-gallon hike in gas taxes...in order to discourage consumers from buying gas in an effort to prevent global warming.

The problem: for millions of Americans, gasoline is a necessity, not an option. Raising gas taxes will do little more than hurt average Americans who need to buy gas for their vehicles in order to get to work every day. Hiking up the gas tax may sound like a good idea for a Congressman who spends most of his time in Washington, where the public transportation infrastructure has had to grow in order to meet the needs of millions of people, but that just doesn't work across most of the rest of the nation. I can think of no better way to hurt the US economy and the average American than to raise gas taxes...which makes it the perfect kind of policy for a Democrat to propose.

Obama's Excuses

Barack Hussein Obama today gave a speech which essentially amounted to damage control for the comments of his pastor, Jeremiah Wright. Obama finally denounced Wright's comments, though in my opinion his words rang hollow. Were Obama a conservative, he would have been disgraced, driven out of the race, and his political career would be over - and all of that would have happened before the beginning of the primaries.

The truth is that nothing Obama could say would convince me that Rev. Wright's words didn't effect Obama, or that he didn't agree with them in some way. I can understand Obama having respect for the man who brought him to Christ, but there is no conceivable way that anyone would be a member of a church for twenty years if they disagreed with their pastor's political preaching as much as Obama professed to today.

Based on his comments, rants, and conspiracy theories, Obama's pastor is roughly the left-wing equivalent of Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church. As I stated earlier, were Obama a conservative, he would be receiving the political equivalent of being tarred, feathered, and run out of the campaign on a rail. As it is, he's largely gotten a pass thus far, probably due to some form of "white guilt" in the media - because it's a black church, Obama has cast this as a racial issue going all the way back to the existence of slavery at the founding of the nation...and because he's black, he'll probably get away with it.

The problem with this is that Obama has run his campaign on the platform that he will unify the nation. Bringing race in as an excuse for Rev. Wright's insanity does nothing more than to further the divide between races, religions, and political parties and ideologies.

Personally, I have no problem with Obama's faith - he has the right to worship as he pleases. But when his religious adviser is a left-wing radical conspiracy theorist, that worries me. Barack Obama may be a brother in Christ, but that doesn't mean I want him as my President.

The Democrat Party...Why They Aren't Democratic

It really is amusing watching the Democrats tear at each other during this primary process. To start with, it's really interesting watching the so-called "Democratic" party tear apart the process of effective democracy. First the party isn't taking delegates from Florida and Michigan, the all of a sudden they're talking about re-doing the Florida and Michigan primaries. Now it looks like the Florida repeat isn't going to happen, while the repeat primary in Michigan still might.

Obama has taken a strong lead...a fact that I'm not particularly fond of. While I'm not planning to vote for John McCain, I'd rather see Hilary Clinton in the White House than Barack Obama - Obama is seen as "tabula raza," but he's actually more liberal than Hilary.

And now there are questions concerning Obama's pastor - an anti-American race-baiting hater. Rev. Jeremiah Wright is pastor at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago - the church that Obama has been a member of for around 20 years - basically seems to be an expert at spouting anti-American leftist tripe, which definitely makes me more worried than ever about the possibility of his becoming president...because for Obama to stay with that church for 20 years, he has to agree with his pastors' teachings, and the last thing America needs is a president who hates his own nation.

And now, apparently, Obama and Clinton have agreed to play nice - their campaigns basically devolved into personal attacks, which is really all they have to work with, considering that they're not that far apart ideologically.