I've been a college football fan for as long as I can remember.  This interest has evolved over nearly four decades as I've seen players as diverse as Herschel Walker, Mark Herrmann, Doug Flutie, and many other past and contemporary gridiron stars take full advantage of their hours upon the stage.  There have been numerous great teams over the years including blue blood franchises such as Penn State, USC, Michigan, Oklahoma, and many others.  Classic titanic games have also been part of my visual football experience, including Texas' pulsating victory over USC in the Rose Bowl a few years ago, a late 1970s Sugar Bowl game between Alabama and Penn State which saw the Crimson Tide make a goal line stand to preserve a tenaciously fought 14-7 victory, Oregon spanking USC earlier this year, and who could ever forget Boise State's electrifying 43-42 overtime win over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl a few years ago. 

There are also the coaches whose personalities and skills make college football so special.  These include Penn State's eternal Joe Paterno who will probably be strolling the sidelines long after most of us are gone, Ohio State's crusty Woody Hayes, Alabama's Paul "Bear" Bryant" and current big guns such as Texas' Mack Brown, Florida's Urban Meyer, Oklahoma's Bob Stoops, and USC's Pete Carroll.  The festivity of a college football game is unrivalled.  There is the tailgate experience, the songs and chants of schools such as Kansas' "Rock Chalk Jayhawk," Oklahoma's "Boomer Sooner," Michigan's "Hail to the Victors", and Notre Dame's "Onward to Victory."  A variety of colorful mascots also add zest to the college football atmosphere as evidenced by Purdue Pete, Sparty Spartan of Michigan State, Texas A&M's collie Reveillie, and many others.

Determining who's the national champion as always been controversial in college football.  In 1998, in a good faith attempt to provide some clarity to this situation, the Bowl Championship  Series (BCS) was created.  This saw the four elite bowls:  Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, and Orange get the honor of  hosting the national championship game every four years with the top two ranked teams in the country.  This system was advantageous to teams from major conferences such as the Pacific Ten, Big 12, Big 10, Southeastern Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference, and Big East conference whose champions were guaranteed spots in BCS games.  The BCS did not have room for powerful teams from less prestigious conferences such as the Mountain West, Western Athletic Conference, and other conferences.

This began to change in 2004 when an unbeaten Utah team received an invitation to the Fiesta Bowl where they promptly spanked Big East champion Pittsburgh 35-7.  This victory helped propel then Ute coach Urban Meyer to the  head coaching position at the University of Florida where he has won two national championships since then and is seriously contending for a 3rd national title this year.  In 2006, the unbeaten Boise State Bronchos from the Western Athletic Conference outslugged Big 12 champion Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl.  The following year, Hawaii from this same conference, had an unbeaten regular season and received an invitation to the Sugar Bowl where they were trounced by Georgia.  However, the next year an unbeaten Utah team was invited to the Sugar Bowl where they decisively defeated a strong Alabama team.  However, since the Utes come from the Mountain West conference which is not considered as prestigious, they did not receive the opportunity to play in the national championship game between Florida and Oklahoma and won by Florida even though Utah had a better record than either of these teams.

This year additional controversy is possible with the BCS.  Currently Alabama, Florida, and Texas are ranked in the top 3 and unbeaten.  Alabama and Florida will play each other in the Southeastern conference championship game and one of these teams will lose.  The way the BCS is set up Texas (if it stays unbeaten) will likely play Alabama or Florida for the national championship in the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, CA a few days after the regular Rose Bowl game.  However, Texas Christian University, the University of Cincinnati, and Boise State University are also unbeaten as of this writing and ranked among the nation's top teams.  Because of the way the BCS is set up, one of these teams (maybe Boise State) is likely to not get invited to a BCS bowl let alone have the ability to play for the national championship.

This unfair situation needs to be rectified because there is an increasing amount of parity in college football.  My modest proposal for resolving this situation is a sixteen team four round playoff in which each team is seeded as in the NCAA tournament.  For instance, the top seeded team would play the 16th seeded team in the first round.  There should be no more than two representatives from the six BCS conferences (in some years only one team from these conferences will deserve a BCS bid) and the champions of the Western Athletic Conference, Mountain West, Conference USA, and the Mid-American conference should also get invitations to this playoff.  The keystone four bowl games could be included in this as sites for quarterfinal or semifinal games and the championship game could be played at the site of the Rose, Fiesta, Sugar, and Orange Bowls.  Such a system would be more democratic, allow for the emergence of a cinderella team, be a big financial bonanza for the television networks and participating schools, and excite the country's imagination.

Now if only the administrations and athletic departments of the BCS conference universities would end the restrictive cartel that the BCS is and open up the BCS to more competition!
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I was fortunate enough to be able to travel to England this summer.  Much of the trip was spent in the London area and as a bibliophile it's a pleasure to visit the wide variety of London bookstores and sample the rich output of the British publishing industry.  During this British sojourn, my wife and I were able to visit a number of museums, a couple of castles, and see the fabulous Royal Botanical Gardens.  Since I also enjoy British history, I was able to pick up some additional works in that subject area.

Collecting art museum handbooks has become a hobby of mine and I was able to add to this collection by collecting works on the  Wallace Collection, the Tate Britain, the British Museum's Chinese ceramics collection, the National Maritime Museum, Royal Astronomical Observatory, and the British decorative arts collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum.   The Wallace Museum features excellent collections of French porcelain, 17th-19th century French art, and a strong collection of armor and all of these items were acquired by a single affluent family over several generations.   The National Maritime Museum does a superb job documenting British maritime history and nautical culture.  The Queen's House, which is part of this museum, features an excellent collection of naval art work.

I also purchased a sleek book on the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew which commemorates this facility's 250th anniversary this year.  These gardens consist of 300 acres on the Thames and feature a wide variety of plant life from all over the world in keeping with the gardens international educational and research objectives. A visit to Hampton Court  produced an illustrated history of that remarkable facility plus a work on its equally remarkable gardens.  Hampton Court's history is phenomenal having served as a key residence of Henry VIII, the locale of the 1604 Hampton Court conference where the King James Bible was created, and possessing extensive gardens and a large kitchen complex to feed and quench the thirsts of the royal household.  My recent and growing interest in architecture was augmented by acquiring biographies of Inigo Jones and Lancelot "Capability" Brown.  A trip to Kensington Palace, just west of Hyde Park in west central London, saw us visit the residences of royals such as William and Mary who came to rule England as a result of the 1688 Glorious Revolution, features the royal dress collection, and was recently the home of the popular Diana, Princess of Wales. A day trip to the Cotswolds resulted in obtaining a nice picture book on the pastoral region approximately an hour west of London and this same adventure saw a visit to Blenheim Palace near Oxford and the opportunity to see where Winston Churchill grew up.  Additional works procured include a history of Wales published as part of Cambridge University Press' concise histories series covering various world countries and regions, a biography of Henry VIII, a history of the Thames River's multifaceted environmental and cultural impact, a biography of recent British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the travails of his premiership, and a work on captive experiences throughout the British Empire.

We were also fortunate to see an excellent exhibit of Indian Art at the British Museum called Garden & Cosmos and acquired the lavishly illustrated guidebook for this exhibit. 

London features a wide variety of excellent chain and independent bookstores.  Foyle's, who's main branch is on  Charing Cross Road, is one of my favorites but there are also other stores such as Hatchard's, Waterstone's, Blackwell's, and museum shop stores.  Visits to other areas in the United Kingdom will also produce excellent bookstores and careful planning and fortuitous timing on your part may produce significant bargains as well.  Happy browsing.

Today we celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall's fall and the stunning revolutions in Eastern Europe that toppled Communist governments in that region.  The Berlin Wall had been constructed by the East German government to stop its citizens from fleeing to the freedom and greater economic opportunity of West Germany.  In the nearly three decades this structure was up a number of people attempted to escape only to meet violent death.  I was able to experience the Berlin Wall when I visited both East and West Berlin in 1980.  On the western side of the wall, I enjoyed seeing the anticommunist graffiti sprayed on the wall with one statement, translated from German saying "For Capitalism" which gladdened my young conservative heart.  I went through Checkpoint Charlie which was truly a surreal experience and a vivid demonstration of the repressive power of totalitarian Communism.  On our way back from East Berlin as we were going through Checkpoint Charlie, I momentarily couldn't find my visa and had panicked visions of being hauled off to the East German gulag by the Stasi.  Fortunately, I found my visa okay.

It took the courageous leadership of individuals such as Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Helmut Kohl, Lech Walesa, and Vaclav Havel to maintain western resolve and strengthen democratic awareness behind the Iron Curtain to an extent where the Soviet bloc could no longer retain its iron grip.  Fortunately, Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev understood that there was no way Moscow could maintain its dictatorial control over Eastern Europe and allowed these mostly nonviolent revolutions to occur.

Germany has had significant challenges in absorbing its eastern region into a reunified fatherland.  It and other countries of the former Soviet bloc, like most of the world's economies, are facing challenging economic times.  Historically, difficult economic times have, in many cases, produced conditions conducive to the rise of dictators.  Hopefully, countries in this part of Europe have learned from sad experience that dictatorial regimes do not produce higher living standards.  Contemporary governments of these countries must work to meet the material needs of their populations while also recognizing the importance of meeting spiritual needs and providing open and honest governance.  It's especially good to know that most of the former Soviet bloc countries are now part of the NATO Alliance whose security architecture must be sufficiently credible to deter any potentially revanchist desires by an increasingly assertive Russia.

Considering the U.S.' important role in restoring German freedom and economic prosperity, it's particularly sad that President Obama could not find time to join Berliners in their justifiable celebrations.  Perhaps, he realizes that he can't measure up to true champions of freedom like Walesa, Havel, Reagan, and the other leaders mentioned in this posting.

This year England has been commemorating the quincentennial of Henry VIII's accession to the English throne.  When my wife and I were in England this summer, we experienced this visiting Henry VIII's palace at Hampton Court and at the Tower of London where an exhibit of his military attire entitled "Dressed to Kill" was on display.  Henry was an enormously significant monarch and an equally complicated and contradictory person.  He built a series of coastal defenses that enhanced English power and this can arguably be seen as the beginnings of its aspirations for great international power status.  The young Henry was an athletic individual and a devoted theologian whose attacks against Martin Luther's rebellion against papal authority saw Henry  recognized as "Defender of the Faith" by the papacy.

Yet Henry himself would turn against Catholicism when he was unable to get papal approval to divorce Katherine of Aragon due to her inability to produce a son who would become heir to the throne.  Henry's frantic desire to have a male heir to succeed him would lead him into five additional marriages and would eventually produce a male heir in Edward VI who would die at 15 just a few years after Henry's 1547 death.  Ironically, it was Henry's daughters who extended the Tudor dynasty.  Mary ruled from 1553-1558 and sought to forcibly reinstate Catholicism as the preeminent religion with tragic results.  Elizabeth, who ruled from 1558-1603, was able to achieve relative balance in English religious affairs, presided over a growing economy and cultural renaissance which produced Shakespeare and other articles, and provided the leadership, aided by skilled advisors such as Walsingham and Cecil, to increase English power to the point where it could defeat the Spanish Armada in 1588 and firmly establish England as a global maritime power that also sought to influence continental European affairs.

The one-time defender of the faith sought to destroy the power of the Roman Catholic Church through measures such as the dissolution of the monasteries and through creating the Church of England whose existence continues nearly five centuries later.  In his later years, Henry became the bloated figure featured in numerous paintings.  Henry was the quintessential absolute monarch who would have no understanding of democratic governance and would have resisted any reduction of his power with every tool at this disposal.  Yet, the impact of his work is still felt in the United Kingdom today and in the still separate existences of the Roman Catholic Church and Anglican Communion.  The actions and decisions of political rulers can endure far beyond their lifetime as the case of Henry VIII demonstrates.

On the whole it was a good night for conservative political aspirations.  The Virginia gubernatorial victory, while expected, was nice due to the mandate Gov.-elect McDonnell received.  He will now have to deliver on his job creation goals.  A very pleasant surprise was Chris Christie's victory in New Jersey's gubernatorial election.  He'll face an acute challenge in dealing with that state's tradition of high taxes and regulation and systemic corruption.  We should wish him well.

The defeat of Maine's same-sex marriage statute was particularly nice.  It now means that all 31 attempts to foist this abominable practice on states have been rejected by voters even in particularly liberal states like Maine & California.  The closeness of the results indicate that traditional marriage proponents still have a lot of work to do educating the public on the need to constitutionally codify male-female marriage.

The Democratic victory in New York's 23rd congressional district is disappointing but not surprising.  The GOP party bosses in that district did an extremely poor job choosing a candidate whose commitment to core GOP ideology was very dubious.  That district will not produce as conservative a candidate as many other areas of the country would prefer, but it still should produce someone who's generally committed to fiscal, social, and national security conservatism in broad outlines.  Conservatives should back a candidate who actually lives in that district, is familiar with its history, economy, and political culture, and is actually selected by his or her constituents instead of being seen as a carpetbagger foisted by external interest groups such as the Club for  Growth (who are generally good) or by out of touch party machine personnel.

Last night was a good start but more work needs to be done to develop effective and appealing alternative policies to those being propounded to by the White House that will resonate with voters in the 2010 elections.

Driving to work this morning, I was flabbergasted to hear that Barack Obama had won the Nobel Peace Prize.  Why?  Has he actually done anything substantive to improve world peace or advance human freedom?  Has he achieved reconciliation between the Arab world and Israelis? Did he secretly disarm the Iranians nuclear aspirations with a whisper to the mullahs?  Has he achieved a permanent peace treaty between North and South Korea?  Resolved the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan?  Gotten the Chinese and Taiwanese to hold hands and break bread together?  Did he persuade the Taliban to join the National Organization for Women?  Of course, not! Perhaps, the Nobel Committee felt sympathy for Obama after his recent unsuccessful visit to Copenhagen to try and win the 2016 Olympics for Chicago.  

This is an example of a bunch of morally muddled stupid secularist socialist Scandinavians falling over Obama in the throes of prepubescent puppy love.  The Nobel Committee has become so enthralled with Obama's apologizing for America's purported sins during the Bush Administration, Obama's quixotic utopian desire to abolish nuclear weapons, and weaken our ballistic missile defense systems, that it has decided to bestow its blessing on Mr. "Change you can believe in" and his idealistic geopolitical stupidity.  Unfortunately, Obama's dangerously delusional beliefs increase the likelihood of war and will only embolden the enthusiasm of anti-American governments and terrorist groups to strike against the U.S. and its allies.  We also need to remember how intellectually and morally empty  the Nobel Peace Prize has become.  This "prize" has been awarded to Yasser Arafat, Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore and comparable leftist low lives.

America is slowly realizing that the "Messiah" is an emperor without clothes as our ongoing economic troubles and his attempts to impose statist solutions to our health care and energy problems demonstrate.  Increasing numbers of independents are beginning to experience buyers remorse over letting themselves be seduced by the Chicago charlatan.  Sadly, the seductive mist weaved by "the One" still lingers over the Scandinavian countryside and in various other international locales where purportedly progressive secularist cosmopolitanism is the preferred means for approaching international affairs policymaking.  Obama will enjoy his moment in the Norwegian spotlight but his winning this prize will do nothing to advance the cause of human freedom and actually retard it.

The ghost of Neville Chamberlain entered the White House recently as the Obama Administration had to decide whether to maintain the Bush Administration's commitment to build missile defenses in Eastern Europe.  Sadly, Obama has proven ignorant of history and of emerging geostrategic realities.  His decision to not continue building a missile defense system in Eastern Europe is a triumph of stupidity and will increase the security threat to our eastern European NATO allies (especially Poland) from a resurgent Russia and from Iranian nuclear weapon aspirations.

We now have the sad spectacle of an administration that does not keep commitments to our allies, fails to understand that the only thing that powers such as Russia and Iran understand is military force and the quality weapons and national will to use such force against the threats these regimes pose to Eurasian security.  Vladimir Putin, his sidekick Dimitry Medvedev, and the mullahs in Tehran must be dancing jigs or other celebratory dances as they contemplate how they have rolled the dimwitted Messiah who seduced the world with his empty rhetoric of "change we can believe in."  Sadly, the change this decision brings increases the likelihood of war in a geographic arena ranging from the Baltic to the Caspian Sea.  This decision also has a chilling affect on the aspirations of individuals in countries such as Georgia and Ukraine who will now face even greater coercive pressure from an emboldened Moscow.  It also places serious doubts on our willingness to continue fighting against Islamist terror in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere and will also be met with rejoicing in Pyongyang and Caracas by the anti-American and tyrannical North Korean and Venezuealan regimes.

Instead of bringing an early 21st century version of "peace in our time," this decision increases the possibility of anti-American regimes unleashing greater terrorism, asymmetric warfare, and even the dogs of war itself within the next few years.  Barack Obama has proven he doesn't have the cojones, strategic wisdom, or moral courage to understand the historical reality that military power and the willingness to use such power without mercy or hesitation is the only means of preserving peace and U.S. national security interests.

South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson drew the wrath of Messiah Obama's congressional colleagues when he dared voice his criticism of a part of presidential legislation with the declaration of "you lie."  Rep. Wilson's outbreak may be crude and inappropriate but one can legitimately criticize the veracity of Obama statements in a democratic country just as liberals are free to criticize the veracity of Republican presidential statements.  The fact of the matter is that is a Democratic congressional representative had made such pejorative comments during a nationally televised address by any recent Republican President, particularly George W. Bush, there would hardly have been any criticism of that individual for defaming the President or violating supposedly sacrosant congressional behavioral decorum.

This episode, and the just-passed congressional reprimand of Rep. Wilson, clearly demonstrate that Democrats can dish out inflammatory political rhetoric but can not take it when such incendiary rhetoric is directed at them.  Speaker Nancy Pelosi, reacting to the petulant whining of the Congressional Black Caucus that a white Southern Republican had the impudence to denigrate the "Messiah's" grandiloquent rhetoric and policy proposals, saw to it that the perpetrator of this "egregious offense" be reprimanded with a speed that would please apparatchiks in totalitarian dictatorships.

It's especially amusing to hear ignorant American news commentators condemn this alleged decline in American political civility.  Have they forgotten the often virulent criticisms liberal politicians and media figures made against former Presidents George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan?  Have they never witnessed the smash mouth political rhetoric emanating from British parliamentarians or from other parliamentary democracies during Prime Minister's Question Time?  They must not have noticed a year or two ago that South Korean legislators, opposed to a free-trade agreement with the U.S., tried to forcibly break into a legislative committee room to express their views.  These superficial insular political observers may also not have noticed that nearly a decade ago, if memory serves me right, Taiwanese legislators became involved in such a heated debate that they were vigorously punching each other.  These behavioral extremes pale when compared with the daily violence of political debate in dictatorial regimes across the world.

In reality, U.S. political debates, are as mild as the conversation of dowager women at a tea party.  What's most revealing about this debate, besides Democratic hyprocrisy, is that Obama Administration supporters are so intellectually incapable of defending their positions on health care policy, that they launch vicious personal attacks against their critics.  Such tactics, of course, were practiced by the Clinton Administration without a peep from Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, and other leftist media sycophants of that era.  This episode shows the beginnings of panic by Obama supporters as they realize they will not be able to ramrod their radical health care restructuring on the American people.  Those of us opposed to Obama Administration policies and by the sycophantic support the President has received from much of the establishmentarian media should take heart from the reaction to Rep. Wilson's outburst.

My wife and I recently enjoyed a wonderful vacation in England and have not been around to witness most of the town hall "debates" on the Obama Administration's proposed health care reforms.  Frankly, the "debates" and media coverage of these events are not satisfying.  Health care is really to complex of a topic to discuss with effectiveness and coherence in emotional town hall forums.  There is plenty of criticism to level at both sides in this debate.  The childlike faith of Obamites in the public option is native and appalling given the historical record of nationalized health care in countries such as Britain and Canada.  When I was in England, there was a story in the news that Britain's government run National Health Service had actually allowed a 16 year old to answer questions about the H1N1 flu on a government sponsored phone line concerning this critically important public health issue.  Do we really want an untrained adolescent providing public health advice in the U.S?  Nationalized health care, unfortunately, produces higher taxes, long waits for specialized services, lower service quality, impersonal relationships between doctors and patients, and rationed health care in certain cases.

The U.S. health care system is, in many ways the best in the world, but still has serious flaws.  There is insufficient competition in many areas of health care service, choice, and delivery such as pharmaceutical drugs, the ability to buy insurance across state lines, the shocking absence of electronic record keeping, and considerable waste in health care practices that can ruin families finances.  My brother and I are having to confront our parents declining health by working with an incoherent Medicare program that does not encourage individuals and families to save their money and effectively requires them to spend down their financial resources before they can become eligible for Medicare, Medicaid, and other governmental health programs even if they have been wise stewards of their financial resources.  High malpractice costs for doctors are another problem which conservatives have been better at recognizing than liberals.  To many conservative critiques of Obama health care proposals are not addressing these realities and engaging in infantile bashing of Obamite reform proposals without offering credible substantive alternatives that address the real needs of everyday people.  Conservatives also need to address the reality of large numbers of uninsured people having to turn to emergency rooms as their sole medical care providers and need to support methods such as cooperatives that allow self-employed individuals and small businesses to purchase health insurance at affordable rates.  As a long-time member of a financial credit union, I'm a strong supporter of private sector cooperatives which are customer owned and provide more prudent financial management and effective oversight than commercial banks and insurance companies.

We need to place greater emphasis on disease prevention with particular emphasis on obesity, anti-smoking measures, and alcohol abuse which are major drivers of health care costs.  We also need to eliminate cosmetic surgeries unless they are required to repair damage caused by auto accidents or fires.  We also must face the realith that we will all EVENTUALLY DIE and quit clinging to the hope that more and better medical care or increased medical research funding for the disease du jour is the ultimate solution to our health care problems.  Individual need to be able to take existing insurance policies and be able to transfer them easily if they change jobs and those with preexisting conditions such as allergies (which I have) should not have to worry about losing insurance coverage becuase of these innate conditions.  Doctors and specialists need to do a better job or not ordering unnecessary medical tests and medical schools need to place greater emphasis on training general practitioners and preventative health specialists instead of esoteric specialists such as cosmetic surgeons.

All sides in this debate need to recognized that nationalized health care has not effectively addressed health care problems in countries which have made that choice and that there are significant problems with the current U.S. health care system that cannot be resolved by relying on market forces alone or rhetorical incantations against socialized medicine.  Individuals should communicate with their congressional representatives constructive suggestions for improving our health care system which can include stories of problems and successes they have had with their own medical care.  They should also actually try reading the text of proposed legislation submitted by all participants in this debate instead of relying on distorted media or interest group interpretations of these proposals.

Our private sector health insurance system, including employer provided health insurance, needs to be encouraged to make positive reforms to expand access to this system.  Infantile class warfare bashing of insurance companies is counterproductive and only furthers the agenda of leftist class warriors.  Developing truly effective health care reform will take several years and involve multiple choices for consumers.  It will not be achieved within the narrow parameters of presidential political priorities or the constraints of two year congressional legislative sessions.  It must produce real reductions in medical costs for individual and families, not deter physicians for pursuing medical careers, and not increase the federal deficit or national debt.

The U.S. Senate appears to be on the verge of passing "hate crime" legislation which would allow gender identity and so-called "sexual preference" to be included in the list of factors to be considered in prosecuting and punishing violent crimes against individuals.  "Hate crimes" entered the criminal justice lexicon and the fevered ideals of liberals and gay rights activists following the 1998 murder of gay University of Wyoming student Matthew Shepard who has become the "martyred saint" of the leftist sexual identity movements  Shepard's murder was a tragic incident which, like other murders and violent assaults, can be prosecuted under a wide variety of federal and state legislation.  His murder and murders like it should be plain and simple death penalty cases.

Unfortunately, that's not enough for Harry Reid and other gender and sexual identity sycophants.  This legislation would essentially require prosecutors to factor in extraneous factors in their efforts to prosecute and convict violent criminals which would drive up legal costs in order to meet the leftist rage for retributive ideological justice.  Those of us not subscribing to their ideological sense of victimhood could have our free speech, thought, and religious liberties endangered if we are not subservient to their world view that gays or other members of favored minority groups deserve special legal treatment if they are victims of violent crimes because they have "special status".  Isn't being a human being sufficiently important?  It's very easy to imagine that the "hate crimes" advocates would then seek to regulate speech that does not adhere to the liberal secularist worldview on issues of gender and sexual behavior.  Is this the change you wanted when you voted for Obama and an increased Democratic Congress?

Another exceptionally despicable tactic used by Reid in this legislation is including it as part of the annual defense authorization legislation.  Our troops fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq need to have legislation that will actually assist them in their efforts and our defense forces need to have legislation providing them with the equipment and financial support necessary for them to carry out their multifaceted missions.  They don't need irrelevant and insidious leftist social engineering riders attached to defense spending legislation.  Liberalism can become further entrenched through innocuous and insidious legal, legislative, judicial, and regulatory means that are difficult to uproot once planted.  This "hate crimes" legislation is a perfect example of this process.