Common Sense Government Blog

The Health Care Debate

By John Eberhard

There is of course quite a bit of debate right now about the health care reform that Democrats are trying to pass.

Liberals have been wanting to pass some form of national health care for 20 years or more. They want it. They want it really bad. And they had to suffer through 8 year of Reagan, 4 years of George H. W. Bush, a failed attempt under Clinton, and 8 years of George W. Bush. Because a very socialistic program like national health care runs deeply counter to conservative philosophy.

Why do liberals want it so bad? Simply because it fits with their view that to be compassionate, a society must offer free health care. Liberals concentrate their attention and priorities on the lowest members of society, who can’t afford medical care. They feel that concern for the lowest members of society should drive nearly all policy.

Liberals see other countries, like the UK and Canada, that have already passed national health care. They feel almost embarrassed that the U.S. has not done so. They search really hard to find statistics to show that somehow people are better off in other countries, and claim it is because of their national health care systems. They ignore the statistics and facts that show the long wait times, the rationing, the costs, and the higher taxes to support these systems. 

Most polls I have seen show a majority of Americans are against this national health care reform. Most of the town hall meetings in August were about the health care reform, and Americans showed up in force to voice their opinions against the legislation. Then there was the protest march in Washington, DC on September 12, where it estimated that two million people showed up. See the picture I’ve included.

Since then, liberal Democrats are in a quandary. They have a majority in both houses and have the White House, but they know that if they don’t bring about a change in public opinion, that it will be perceived, correctly, that they rammed this so-called reform down everyone’s throats. And if that happens, many fear (rightly I think) that they can kiss their offices and their majorities goodbye in the 2010 election.

So they want to be compassionate, they want to be like their socialist European counterparts, they want to be well thought of by the international liberal/socialist community, and they want to erase their decades long embarrassment. They could ram the legislation through, but they fear that they will be thrown out of town. And so some of the moderate Democrats (not the party leadership though which is anything but moderate) are having second thoughts.

So now enter the modifications. Numerous factions are trying to float new versions of the reform which will stick when they throw them up against the wall. Some have the public option. Some don’t have the public option. Some versions cost more, or cost less. One version supposedly will not increase costs. And Democrats are accusing Republicans of not having a plan of their own and just being obstructionists.

If you are paying attention to all these different variations and wondering if one of them will finally assuage your fears and make you feel good about it, and if you are wondering why Republicans haven’t come up with a good plan of their own, I think you are missing the point.

The whole point, really, is: Do you want the government to gain more control over an industry that amounts to one sixth of the U.S economy?

Do you trust the federal government to take over one sixth of the U.S. economy?

Do you believe the government is capable of running any industry (aside from things like law enforcement, military, etc.) better than the private sector? Think the Department of Motor Vehicles. Or Amtrak. Or the Post Office.

I’m glad the Republicans are acting as “obstructionists.” Because I don’t want any health care reform plan to pass. I don’t care whether there is a public option in there or not. Even if the bill seems more or less reasonable, it is an attempt to gain greater government control over our lives. It fits with power-hungry Obama’s goals and actions so far, taking over banks and the auto industry. And even if the public option isn’t in there, then this bill will just be a stepping stone to accomplish what Obama has stated in the past that he wants to do, create a single-payer, government controlled, national health care system.

So if you agree, then go to the web sites for your two Senators and your Congressman and the President, and tell them that you oppose ANY form of health care reform, and that if they vote for it you will vote AGAINST them in the next election. They have to hear from us and know we’re serious. Do it today. Thanks for your support.

You Might Be a Liberal If...

A friend just emailed me this: With apologies to Jeff Foxworthy: * If you think the same government that couldn’t run Social Security, the post office, Medicare, etc is capable of running a national health care system, you might be a liberal. * If you had no objections to Bush being depicted as Hitler but object to the recent posters depicting Obama as The Joker, you might be a liberal. * If you protested the war in Iraq when Bush was president, but are ignoring Obama’s increase of troops in Afghanistan, you might be a liberal. * If you complained about the deficit Bush ran up in eight years, but don’t say squat about Obama spending quadruple that amount in SIX MONTHS, you might be a liberal. * If you objected to Bush’s wiretapping program intended to catch terrorists, but had no problem with Obama’s recent flag@whitehouse.gov E-mail to report “fishy information” on Obamacare, you might be a liberal. * If you consider returning military veterans, and people who reject federal authority in favor of state authority or individual rights (aka people who support the 10th Amendment) right wing extremist terrorists, you might be a liberal. * If you say you want to end politics as usual, then appoint a tax cheat as the head of the IRS, you might be a liberal. * If you think disagreeing with the Bush Administration was patriotic but disagreeing with the Obama Administration is racist, you might be a liberal. * If you put the very people who caused the Fannie and Freddie mortgage crisis in the first place in charge of fixing the problem, you might be a liberal. * If you think the anti-war protesters under Bush were exercising their 1st Amendment rights, but call the people protesting Obamacare at the Town Hall meetings Nazi’s, mobsters, etc, you might be a liberal.

We The People Are Coming

The following letter, read on Glenn Beck's show, is rapidly circulating around the country. Americans everywhere identify with this 53-year-old woman. She has given us a voice. Once you read this, you will want to forward it to all of your friends...


GLENN BECK: I got a letter from a woman in Arizona. She writes an open letter to our nation's leadership:

I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me.

Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone.

Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?

Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:

One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.

Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.

Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.

Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.

Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!

Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.

Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations.

I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.

Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why -- what do you have against shareholders making a profit?

Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.

Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band-Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try -- please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.

Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now. Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law.

I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired.
I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about
taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face.

I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.

From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane.

I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making.

We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington.
Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.

We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you?

We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work, pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you.

For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish.

We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when he will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it.

You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired.

Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are.

If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent?

Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

Rasmussen Presidential Approval Index Hits -14

This is a Presidential approval rating graph from RasmussenReports.com. The green line shows the percentage of people that strongly approve of the job Obama is doing as President. The red line shows the percentage of people that strongly disapprove of the job he's doing. This is based on a survey of 1,500 people and is the most updated poll as of 8/23/09.

Rasmussen figures the number as an index with the strongly disapprove numbers subtracted from the strongly approve numbers. Today's figure at -14 is the lowest this has been.

Day by Day Cartoon

by John Eberhard

This cartoon pretty much sums up the way I feel about the Obama administration so far.

I like this web comic so far. Kind of like Doonsbury, without the tiresome knee-jerk liberal viewpoint.

Why Government Run Health Care is a Bad Idea

by John Eberhard

As you know, Congress is trying to pass a health care reform bill, which the President has vowed to sign. It has now been delayed for voting on until after Congress’s summer recess, but come September the proponents of the bill will be working hot and heavy to get it passed. And in the meantime the President, Congressional leadership and mainstream media are taking every opportunity to pooh-pooh and downright demonize the public that is speaking out against it.

There are a number of reasons why I think this bill in any form, no matter what final form it ends up in, is a bad idea and should be voted down. I won’t try to cover every reason but will discuss some basic reasons and some specifics.

Basic Reasons

1. Government never runs anything as well as the private sector. Think health care being run with the efficiency of the Post Office, Amtrak, or the DMV. Have you ever had fast, efficient service at the DMV?

2. According to FreedomWorks.org:
“The Congressional Budget Office has said the proposed government takeover of health care could cost $1.6 trillion. Other estimates put the cost much higher. Various officials have proposed raising taxes on soda and alcohol, a higher payroll tax, taxing current employer-provided health plans, and even a new national sales tax to fund this massive government program.”

3. Studies show that most Americans are overwhelmingly happy with their own health care -- including 70% of the 46 million Americans without insurance.

4. Government run health care is socialist. It is based on the Marxist principle of “to each according to his need, from each according to his ability to pay.” We already have a “progressive” (socialist) taxation system in America, where the bottom 30% of the population pays no taxes, and the top 5% pay the majority of the taxes. Government run health would be yet another socialist takeover of a major portion of American life, one fifth of our economy.

5. The health care reform in its current form will include funding for abortions.

6. The health care reform in its current form will include full health care benefits for illegal aliens.

7. Ask yourself if you trust the government to make life and death decisions about your health.

Before I go on and before anyone assumes “Oh he’s against it because he has his cushy insurance,” I will say that I am self employed and don’t have health insurance.

I also want to say that I worked in the insurance industry, at an insurance claims company for several years. I believe all the rhetoric slamming the “greedy insurance companies” and with Nancy Pelosi demonizing the insurance companies is largely a bunch of baloney. Insurance companies typically operate (due to competition I might add) at one of the lowest profit margins of any industry in America. Insurance policies are written to cover what they cover and consumers agree to those policies and buy them. And for the most part, insurance companies cover the things that the policies say they cover. I believe often people don’t bother to fully understand what is covered when they buy the policy.

Tort System

I believe one of the biggest problems in the medical field today is our tort system, meaning the court system. Outrageous malpractice suits have caused doctors to have to carry expensive malpractice insurance ($200,000 a year for a doctor who delivers babies, just for a doctor starting out), and to order excessive and expensive tests to protect themselves from possible future lawsuits.

This new legislation does not address this problem at all, nor is it likely to, with the trial lawyers associations being one of the biggest campaign contributors for the Democratic Party.

Some Scary Specifics

Here are some specifics from the current bill. This information is from Economic Policy Journal:
http://www.economicpolicyjournal.com/2009/07/whats-in-healthacre-bill.html

Page 494-498 Government will cover Mental Health Services including defining, creating, rationing those services

Page 50 Section 152 – Health care will be provided to ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise

Page 127 Lines 1-16 – Doctors and the AMA - The Government will tell YOU how much money you can make.

Page 145 Line 15-17 An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into public option plan. NO CHOICE

Page 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay for health for part time employees AND their families. (These are the types of overly generous benefits that have bankrupted the US auto makers – JE)

Page 425 Lines 17-19 Government will instruct & consult regarding living wills, durable powers of attorney. Mandatory!

Page 317 Lines 13-20 PROHIBITION on ownership/investment. Government tells Doctors what and how much they can own.

Page 170 Lines 1-3 Any NONRESIDENT Alien is exempt from individual taxes. (Americans will pay)

Page 22 MANDATES the Government will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure

Page 30 Sec 123 - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments and benefits you get

Page 29 lines 4-16 - YOUR HEALTHCARE IS RATIONED

Page 42 - The Health Choices Commissioner will choose your health care benefits for you. You have no choice!

Page 59 lines 21-24 Government will have direct access to your bank accounts for electronic funds transfer

There’s more at the URL above.

Take Action

At this point it is clear to me that the Democratic Party leadership does not give a flying hoot what the American public want. I believe their whole strategy right now is to ram through as much radical leftist, socialist, Marxist legislation as possible that has been on the far-left wish list for decades, before the American public notices or can object. That is why they are in such a rush, and why President Obama hasn’t kept campaign promises to wait a reasonable time before signing legislation, and to put it up on the Internet so the public can see it before it is signed. And the Democrats have largely kept Republicans out of the process on much of their agenda legislation.

But one thing that still works in America despite having a far-left, liberal, socialist leadership in both houses of Congress and the White House, is that Congress at least is still accountable to the people, especially members of the House who face elections every two years (the next election is 2010).

So I urge you to send a fax to your representatives in Congress and to the President. I have read that faxes have more impact than emails. Go to Google and enter the names of your senators and your representative in the House and get their fax numbers.

We have a chance to turn the tide by speaking up.

Remember a couple of years ago, when Congress was all set to pass “immigration reform,” i.e. illegal alien amnesty? The public outcry against was so huge that Congress backed down, even with the full support of President Bush.

We need to do the same thing here. Every poll I have seen on the subject shows over 50% of the public against this (a poll on Facebook showed 75% against it). But Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi don’t care. We have to make them care. This is our country. Let’s not allow the elites who think they know better tell us how to live our lives.

Facebook Poll: 75.2% Oppose Government Run Health Care

by John Eberhard

A new poll on Facebook shows that 75.2% of those who took the poll oppose a government run healthcare system. Only 21.4% were in favor, with 3.4% undecided. This is out of a total of 343,406 votes cast.

And note that Facebook is not particularly a place for conservatives.

Unions Are No Longer a Constructive Force

by John Eberhard

I think we must face the fact that unions are not only no longer needed in society, but they have passed over from being a constructive force to being a destructive force in society.

Unions came into being at a much different time in history. It was near the beginning of the industrial revolution. Some early industrialists, such as factory owners or mine owners, were abusing workers with long hours, low pay, and abusive or dangerous working conditions. Unions grew up and employed collective bargaining and the threat of the strike to wrest better working conditions and better pay out of “management.”

But let’s compare that time in history with now, and we will see that in many ways they are not the same. At the time of the birth of unions, most people worked the same job with the same company, or at least in the same industry, their whole lives. In many cities and towns dominated by a coal mine or a big factory, the mine or the factory was the only game in town. In other words, if conditions were abusive, there were no other options to go elsewhere for a job.

Compare that with now, where most people switch jobs repeatedly throughout their lives, and many people have two or three completely different careers during their lives. Most abusive and dangerous working conditions are banned by law. And let’s not forget the ready availability of attorneys to help you sue an employer should they do anything that breaks any of many employments laws with which they must comply.

I myself have worked quite a few jobs during my lifetime, mostly in the marketing field. Frankly, if any boss ever got abusive with me, or wouldn’t pay me what I felt I was worth, I’d start looking for another job, and I’ve never been out of work for more than two weeks at a time for my whole life.

I’m not necessarily saying that one should jump around from job to job, as I know some friends of mine who’ve worked at the same company for all or most of their careers. But what I am saying is that in the vast majority of cases today, no one is locked into a job working for one company and is unable to change to another one if the situation grows unpleasant or abusive. And the competition between companies for talent means that if you are good at your job and increase your worth throughout your career by getting better and faster and more knowledgeable, chances are you can find a job paying you what you are worth.

So in such an environment, is it possible that unions are no longer needed? Is it even possible that the pendulum has swung over to the other side and unions have begun to be a destructive force? Let’s examine that.

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, formerly largely a steel mill and auto factory town. When I was a kid, one of my parents’ friends worked for a local auto plant. He told us that the union had negotiated a contract whereby each employee had a daily quota of work to be done, and once that quota was done he was not permitted to do any additional work. In this case he told us that most of the guys could finish their work quota by noon each day. So after that, they were not permitted to do any more work, and so they would play cards the rest of the day, on the clock and being paid.

How could such an arrangement be good for anybody? That was back in the 1960s.

Do you remember how the Japanese car companies came in and starting cleaning the clock of the American auto makers? Well after that there was a lot of effort to improve the American auto companies to make them more competitive with the Japanese.

But where are those American auto companies today? They are all broke. And if they had filed bankruptcy, that would have relieved them of their onerous union contracts. Which is why President Obama has worked very hard to ensure that they wouldn’t file bankruptcy. It’s payback to the unions who supported him in the election. He even gave partial ownership of Chrysler to the unions, an unprecedented move.

Several years ago in Los Angeles there was a strike of grocery store employees. I remember hearing that these guys had the fattest, cushiest health care plans, even for part time employees, that you ever heard of. And I also remember hearing complaints from grocery checkers that you couldn’t support a family of four on what they pay a grocery checker.

At the time I thought to myself “You’re not supposed to be able to support a family of four on a grocery store checker salary! That job can be taught to someone in a day. It requires the same skillset as that required by a teenager working the counter at McDonalds.”

Now I’m not trying to demean a grocery store checker, although it probably sounds like I am. I know grocery stores value a good and honest checker. The point I am making is that as one gets married and starts having kids, you should be thinking about how you can move up to a higher paying job, by getting training and learning more skills. Not by artificially trying to enforce that a relatively low skillset job be paid more. In many cases unions have taken a relatively low or simple skillset job and artificially inflated the value of that job.

California is on the verge of bankruptcy. Public employee unions in the state have negotiated fat contracts whereby many of the public employees make substantially higher salaries than in the private sector, not to mention cushy benefits and pensions. A couple years ago Governor Schwarzenegger went up against these powerful unions in a special election and got his butt kicked.

I think it is fair to say that we have crossed that point where these unions have become a destructive force in America. Their time should be over. But instead the President is working to give them even more power.

Conservatism into the Future

by John Eberhard

As a student of politics, I have observed how over the last century, the liberal, or as Mark Levin calls him, the “statist,” has gradually shifted over to a solid Marxist philosophy, and has been very successful in shifting American government over to a socialist system.

To be sure, it has taken longer than in Europe, but we have shifted over to many socialist systems and are doing so at a much faster pace now than at any time since the New Deal.

I recently realized some things about the liberal/statist, and how he has been so successful, and what conservatives can and should do to fight this socialist advance. Here is what the liberal/statist has done successfully:

1. He has wrapped himself in the mantle of positive change, reform, rights and freedom. Indeed, the roots of the words “liberal” and “progressive” mean “freedom” and “progress.” Thus the liberal is seen as the advancer of positive change and reform even when this is not the case. He has also adopted the role or position of the one who fights for the rights of others, even when this is often not the case.

2. The liberal/statist has benefited from a tacit agreement or understanding amongst government officials from both parties that once a new program or bureau or division or department is created, you can’t dismantle it or take it away. So he has been able to very gradually legislate and institute socialist policies, programs, bureaus or departments, and in many to most cases, no one has ever considered trying to dismantle or take these things away.

Think about this for a minute. Obama/Reid/Pelosi are currently trying to pass a cap and trade system. They intend to pass national health care. Now if the best case scenario were to happen and a conservative President and Republican majorities in Congress were to be achieved in 2012, would those politicians have the guts to simply dismantle everything that Obama/Reid/Pelosi have done? If not, why not?

Consider this: One of the proudest moments of the 1990s politically for conservatives was the passage of welfare reform. Well Obama/Reid/Pelosi just nuked welfare reform as part of the gargantuan 2009 stimulus bill. You probably didn’t even hear about it because they cleverly hid it in the middle of a thousand page bill that no one read, and the bill itself was so controversial that everyone’s attention was on the stimulus and no one even heard about the fact that they threw in the repealing of welfare reform.

3. The liberal/statist benefits from extreme liberal media bias. If you don’t believe this I recommend you read my multiple articles about this on CommonsenseGovernment.com, some of which have been published across the Internet, and books such as “Bias” by Bernard Goldberg, "Journalistic Fraud, How The New York Times Distorts the News and Why It Can No Longer Be Trusted" by Bob Kohn, "Slander" by Ann Coulter, "Off With Their Heads" by Dick Morris, "The New Thought Police" by Tammy Bruce.

Liberal media bias is what handed the 2008 election to Barack Obama. Now they are rooting for him, supporting his policies and covering up his mistakes with an enthusiasm I have not seen for any President in my lifetime.

Liberal media bias is part of what makes the liberal/statist/socialist agenda march forward, and what makes conservatives fear to tear down any part of the socialist machine. Because if they were to try, the liberal media would tear them to shreds.

4. The liberal/statist has also benefited from the almost universal liberal bent of college professors and Hollywood. So on the one hand we have colleges which have been turned into little more than socialist indoctrination centers, and on the other we have Hollywood turning out TV shows and movies that play loose with the facts and routinely make heroes out of liberals, and portray conservatives in the worst possible light, when they bother to portray them at all.

5. The liberal/statist does not give a flying hoot what conservatives or Republicans want, or even what the American public wants, and pursues his agenda with a one-mindedness and complete ignoring of and invalidation of what the other side wants.

OK, so now we have a statement of the problem as I see it. At least in part because of the above, the liberal/statist/socialist in America has been marching toward Marxist utopia for 80-90 years. And dragging us along with him, kicking and screaming.

The conservative response to much of this socialist advance has been simply to try to slow the progression. It has rarely been to formulate any new ideas ourselves and rarely to dismantle pieces of the socialist utopia. Not that I am trashing conservatives here, because I think the deck has been stacked against us.

After reading Mark Levin’s book “Liberty and Tyranny,” I realized that the major point of departure from the Constitution of the United States began with the New Deal. That is when the Federal government took on far more power than it should have been allowed to do according to the Constitution. So tearing out nearly everything that the liberal/statists have done since the New Deal is what we have to.

So here’s what I think conservatives need to do:

1. We need to find a way to wrap ourselves in the mantle of positive change. Liberalism/socialism has been the norm now for so long that to go away from it IS change, much more so than just implementing more of it like Obama/Reid/Pelosi are doing.

2. We need to adopt the attitude that we can and should change and dismantle anything that liberals/statists have done. The country does not belong to them. It is our country too.

3. We have to find a way to eliminate the extreme liberal bias that exists in the mainstream news media. I agree that the liberal media are destroying themselves, because readers and viewers are departing in droves, newspapers are going out of business and so on. And they no longer enjoy a complete monopoly over the news media because of talk radio and conservative books and the Internet. We saw that with Dan Rather and the Bush/National Guard story. But this disintegration of the liberal mainstream news media is not happening fast enough and liberals still enjoy a distinct advantage here. We have to find a better or faster or more proactive way to counter this.

4. Similarly we have to find a way to counter liberal college indoctrination centers and the “Left Coast” of Hollywood. David Horowitz is doing great work urging states to pass college student bills of rights which include not being required to think a certain way to pass courses and so on. I’m not sure what to do with Hollywood. We did have a conservative movie last year, with “An American Carol” a spoof on Michael Moore, but the movie wasn’t that good, and it was only one. We need to do better.  

5. We have to fight on with our conservative agenda, and – this is very important – we need to not giving a flying hoot what liberals or the liberal media think or say. They will fight us and we need not get their agreement, and we should not care whether they agree or not.

But, and this is important too, we need to make our case better to the American public. George W. Bush did an atrocious job of this, and did not respond to the constant carping and criticism and attacks from the Democratic leadership and the liberal media during his Presidency. The result was that his reputation at long last was completely destroyed.

My readers might be surprised to know that I didn’t like everything that Bush did, particularly the senior drug program and attempts to pass illegal immigrant amnesty. I did like many of the things he did and I supported the war in Iraq and the war on terror. But his biggest failing by far was failing to answer the constant attacks. After 8 years, enough people started assuming they were true, and the result was loss of the White House and control of Congress for Republicans.

It is also important to remember that liberals are not the majority in America and have never been the majority. Different polls over time put liberals at anywhere from 20% to 25%, and conservatives at anywhere from 35% to 40%, with the remainder being “moderates,” meaning people who really don’t understand the difference between liberals and conservatives.

The snarling and carping of the Democratic leadership, the liberal biased echo chamber known as the mainstream news media, and the lap dogs of academia and Hollywood make it appear that liberals are in the majority. They are not. Conservatives are. But we need to speak to the American people and articulately express and promote conservative ideas.

It’s not hopeless for conservatives. Some say that adversity strengthens one. We should take advantage of this time in the wilderness to strengthen our resolve, better formulate our arguments, and select leaders who will really follow a conservative agenda.

 

Rasmussen Poll

Rasmussen's poll today shows Obama's rating at -8, with 38% strongly disapproving and 30% strongly approving.