Conservatism is Hard Work

“If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.”

~Ronald Reagan~

With so many ideas now condensed into a bumper sticker, it’s no wonder why so many are truly ignorant to basic issues that slap us in the face everyday.

The Citizens United ruling is one of the most profound and most misunderstood of these issues. How many truly know just what that Supreme Court case was all about?  A slippery slope of 1st amendment encroachments was put to an end. Liberals cry foul; corporations are not people.

But those who read the court’s opinion realize it was based in sound constitutionalism. Any individual, or group of individuals, can pay to have a movie shown ANYTIME. That is what the ruling was about in a nutshell. Free speech is just that. The chilling effects of McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform were put to death.

Minimum wage laws are the most destructive legislation to minorities and the working poor. Conservatives, economists, democrats and republicans alike know this to be true. Why do these policies still invade our political sphere. Easy; It sounds caring and compassionate.  Doesn’t anyone wonder why labor unions promote minimum wage laws. I do. I found out that these laws make it increasingly difficult for low skilled/lower educated workers to get their foot in the door and increase skills to increase their ability to comfortably raise a family. Thus shielding high wage union jobs from competition. (another example of crony capitalism)

Conservatism is the daily study of the effects of policy. Liberalism is a study of  polls of their intentions.

I wish elected officials would legislate with their brains and not their hearts.

Brent Ebert: Author

Great BIG kudos the Anthony Watts; Please goto his blog @ WUWT and become as informed as I have.

Watts Up With That?

AP labels the 2012 Colorado wildfires worst in state history in this story.

My friend and fellow climate skeptic, nationally syndicated radio host Lars Larson, asks some pointed and pertinent questions about what appears to be some of the most idiotic policy ever devised by government. Since we’ve been covering some of the folly of trying to link the fire to global warming, I thought this government folly with trying to put it out would go along with the issues discussed here. – Anthony

He writes in an email to me from Friday:

I have new questions rolling around in my head every day but there are at least four things I know for sure this morning.  This year the U.S. Forest Aervice will spend north of a billion dollars fighting forest fires across America.  Billions of dollars worth of trees owned by the American people will…

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Poor People Just Want To Develop

Watts Up With That?

It’s time to give all mankind a real chance to enjoy genuine development

Guest post by Dr. Kelvin Kemm

The Rio+20 World Environmental Conference has come and gone. The “Plus 20” comes from the fact that it took place twenty years after the first such conference, held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1992. Between these dates, I was a delegate at the 2002 world environment conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. Ever since 1992 I have watched the eco-evolution taking place.

There is a good side and a bad side. The good side is that general world environmental awareness has been enhanced. That is definitely good. But there is still so much to be done, especially in poor countries where many people are always on the edge of survival, people must eke out a living off the land, and many will do whatever it takes to earn a little cash…

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A Long Train Of Abuses

Author: Brent Ebert

 

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

~Thomas Jefferson~

As Americans stood collectively over their Twitter feeds and Facebook posts this morning, a killing blow to the solar plexus of federalism and individual liberty took place. What this means… the Constitution, our arbiter of freedom, passed away. Liberty and free choice is being eulogized world-wide.

What we must remember is the Supreme Court did not rule that Obamacare is a fundamental “natural” right the founders outlined in the Bill of Rights. What was upheld today was no more than a law. A law that is subject to repeal.

True, I am deeply saddened by this monumental power grab. But, as I can’t help but feel the collective anxiety of America, I’m confident that “We the People” will see past and set out to change this usurpation. Be prepared to see the second largest ground swelling of grassroots patriotism in our history. A revolution, not of guns and powder, but of ballot.

A precious few times in our history have Americans united in a singular goal. I look forward to the fact that my son will be witness to the march of liberty. A true peaceful revolution to reign in government is at hand.

… But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Watts Up With That?

 

A rare kind of mineral which scientists hope could be used to remove toxic metals and radioactive species from the environment played a similar, crucial role early in Earth’s history.

Research carried out by an international team of leading biogeochemists suggests for the first time that ‘green rust’ was likely widespread in ancient oceans and may have played a vital role in the creation of our early atmosphere.

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In Defense of Politics

In this election year cycle, many are grinding their teeth in anger over the daily barrage of politics. Republicans want to kill the elderly, pollute the air and water and make grandma eat cat food. Democrats, on the other hand, want to make all people slaves to the state by running deficits as far as the eye can see. Maybe Aristotle was on to something when he said…

Therefore, the good of man must be the end of the science of politics.

Sorry Mr. Aristotle, I must disagree.

What is politics? It comes from the Greek “politikos”, meaning of, for, or relating to citizens. Or, generally applied to the art or science of running governmental affairs.

Some argue that politics is an exercise in compromise. Our founding fathers did not see it that way when they decided to stop compromising and stand on principle. Shortly after the Revolutionary war they did compromise to draft the Constitution. Politics therefore can be flexible in compromise and rigid in principle.

When a family talks over dinner about where to go this year for vacation:POLITICS

When you defend yourself  to a judge over a speeding ticket: NOT POLITICS

When Congress takes to the floor and gives points and counterpoints to an appropriations bill: POLITICS

What politics really is, is the resolution of conflicts of interest  by discussion and debate rather than by force or even fraud.

So I give you exhibit “A”; politics is a very desirable tool in the workshop we call Democracy.

Author: Brent Ebert

How Global Warming Alarmism Caused the Collapse of Economies

authored by Brent Ebert:

 

    Since the beginning of time people have tried to consolidate power to their benefit. I can only imagine cavemen, in a series of grunts and pictures on the sand floor, cooperating to advance their agenda. Even if survival is your agenda, it’s an agenda by definition.

    Fast forward to the mid 1980’s. Global pressures elevate around the Iron Curtain and its certain demise. The Marxist forces that propped up this tyrannical despotism started jumping ship when they realized the very implements they were using to bail out the Utopian boat were riddled with holes. When the Iron Curtain and the Berlin Wall fell, neo-Marxist’s fled to the “green movement” in droves. As Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace, put it “to a certain extent the environmental movement was hijacked by political and social activists who learned to use green language to cloak agendas that had more to do with anticapitalism and antiglobalization than with science or ecology.”

     It is in this light that today’s environmentalist’s operate. We see the same slogans at an OWS rally as we see at a UN Rio+20 conference. Like; equality, social justice, sustainable energy, population control, income disparity and the list goes mind numbingly on.

     This movement gained popularity through these feel-good phrases. So popular that world governments began to take notice. The leaders of these governments are the very same peacenic’s of the 1960’s. But now instead of burning bra’s, because of the fluorocarbon that may be emitted, they choose to “recycle” them.

    Now the worlds leaders are following a green religion. I say religion because it’s belief is based on faith, not fact. A march towards “social justice” in the name of global warming began. A redistribution  policy began in full force. Carbon sinners were taxed. At the top of the list of carbon sinners is corporations. Capitalist corporations to be exact. Supply and demand are the principal drivers of a free market capitalist society. To curb carbon emission’s the free market must be regulated and taxed to the point of suffocation.

    In its zeal to do the right thing, governments started implementing a “green agenda”. The cost of this activity has been catastrophic to world economies. With the price of food skyrocketing, governments still push turning 1/3 of calories grown into biofuel. The EPA fines companies for not using a technology that doesn’t even exist.

    Around the world governments are siphoning money from tax payers and the private sector. Diverting the resources from private sector funding and placing it into unreliable technologies have left countries in poverty, disarray and darkness.

    In the U.S. alone it is estimated that compliance to EPA regulations costs the economy $1.8 trillion per year – about 15% of GDP. If this amount is accepted world-wide (developed countries average between 10% and 20% of GDP) can there be any doubt why an economic crisis is at hand.

    To sum up… jobs lost, revenue wasted, resources diverted, all to battle climate change, has put this world into a tail spin that will take the world decades to reverse. Many countries and their leaders are wising up to this reality. Lets hope this trend continues.