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Suggestions for Conservative Revival: Economics

Posted by Bert Chapman on Monday, December 22, 2008 1:29:08 PM
I'm making a few modest suggestions for a revival of conservative political fortunes and my post today will stress economic issues.  I agree with other conservatives in this debate who emphasize that conservatives need to address the economic anxieties of working and middle class taxpayers.  While supply side or monetarist economic theory, have inherent intellectual value and economic merit, by themselves they do not address the concerns of average Americans.  To regain the trust of Americans seduced by Obama, and regain political power, Conservatives must realize that most Americans are concerned with meeting their current economic needs and having enough money saved for economic contingencies they can anticipate.  In the field of health care, we need to stress that people take proper care of themselves through dieting, exercise, and getting enough sleep while also promoting policies that promote greater consumer medical choice in the fields of insurance policy purchasing, prescription drug purchasing, having choice in the doctors and specialists we choose to go to, insurance policy portability and in promoting medical savings accounts to plan for unexpected medical contingencies.
Conservatives need to deemphasize tax cuts and reassert the importance of government budgets being in balance and in providing efficient and well-administered governmental programs which meet the real world needs of individuals and families.  The ongoing bailouts of incompetent spendthrift auto companies and subprime mortage lending institutions are great opportunities to warn Americans of the consequences of reckless spending and incompetent management and how each of us will individually pay for these bailouts our of our own pocketbooks and with higher prices and greater regulation of these services.  Conservatives should also use these bailouts as an illustration of our excessive reliance on personal and business credit and place more emphasis on paying for goods and services up front and saving for the future in order to get high price items such as houses and cars at more reasonable rates.  These bailouts are also teachable opportunities to explain the evils of going deeper into debt and how such debt will seriously restrict the financial autonomy of individual Americans, American companies seeking to hire new workers, and the ability of local, state, and federal governments to function with optimum fiscal independence due to owing large sums of money to commercial creditors, other governments, and domestic and foreign credit and/or governmental sources.
 
Conservatives need to encourage Americans to rediscover the importance of personal savings accounts and investments in prudent conservative long-term investments such as Treasury Bills instead of risky speculative stock market transactions such as options.  We should promote a shareholder society by focusing on prudent financial planning instead of a delusory belief in speculative bubbles of dubious get rich get schemes which Western economic history repeatedly demonstrates will disappear with often catastrophic effects.
We need to promote entitlement reform so current and future generations are not saddled with debt and have reasonable prospects for financing the health care and living expenses of their retirement years without having to saddle their families and other taxpayers with onerous debts.   We need to jettison the utopian nonsense that all Americans are entitled to home homes without the economic resources to meet their mortgage obligations.  We also should take initiatives to promote conservative consumer oriented economic planning into the educational curriculum of public and private primary and secondary schools. 
 
These economic difficulties are also excellent opportunities for parents to have frank discussions with their children about economic realities and such discussions should also occur in churches and other religious institutions.  Difficult times like these can contain the seeds for political revival and for conservatives to rediscover the importance of saving and prudent economic planning and sharing these virtues with others who do not necessarily share our ideological predispositions but can materially and morally benefit from applying these principles to their lives.
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Illinois Governor's Scandal and the Obama Administration

Posted by Bert Chapman on Tuesday, December 09, 2008 8:00:31 PM
A few years ago, former Illinois Governor George Ryan left office in disgrace following a corruption scandal, and last year received a prison sentence for his crimes.  Unfortunately for Illinois citizens, his successor Rod Blagojevich didn't learn from Ryan's sins.  Blago, as he is called, was arrested this morning for a sordid list of crimes including seeking payment for filling the U.S. Senate seat created by "Messiah" Obama's election to the presidency.  Hopefully, Illinois voters will demand Blago's immediate resignation and impeachment.  Can you imagine how ethically tainted a Blago appointed U.S. Senate replacement would be? Will any Obama Senate replacement be seen as untainted by ties to Obama and the Chicago machine?  Sadly, Illinois political culture is increasingly coming to resemble the historical excesses of Louisiana and New Jersey politics and even the depths of corruption achieved in various third world countries.

What will be interesting to find out in days to come is to what extent Obama and his people were aware of Blago's crimes.  Those deluded simpletons voting to elect Obama President failed to realize he is part of the corrupt Chicago political machine infrastructure which produced Blago, Tony Rezko, Jesse Jackson, Emil Jones, and numerous other cretins.  To think Obama would stand up against his patrons and financiers and promote real political openness and ethical reform is the height of naivete.
We should not be surprised to see Obama attempt to replicate Chicago's corrupt political structure on the banks of the Potomac.
His appointment of Rahm Emanuel, an Clinton Administration alumnus, and notoriously hard-nosed political operator as his chief of staff is a clear sign that Obama intends to adhere to Chicago political ethics while he's ensconsced in the Oval Office.
Instead of practicing a mythical "change you can believe in", Americans need to ask themselves "Is this the "change" you wanted?" as we witness replays of Blago-like behavior in the years to come.

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Suggestions for Sarah Palin

Posted by Bert Chapman on Tuesday, November 25, 2008 7:16:13 PM
Like many Conservatives, I am personally and politically impressed with Sarah Palin.  She helped energize the conservative base and, until the Sept./Oct. financial market turmoil, gave the GOP a fighting chance.  Contrary to liberal critics, she is qualified to be Vice-President or President.  If she aspires to the presidency in 2012, I encourage her to take the following steps.

She should become acquainted with the writings of conservative thinkers in think-tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute, Heritage Foundation, Manhattan Institute, and other like-minded organizations.  She should also be given the opportunity to meet with conservative thinkers in these organizations and academe to get briefed on various public policy issues in order to enhance her intellectual basis for promoting conservative values.  Examples of these individuals would include Bernard Lewis and Daniel Pipes on Middle East issues, Michael Novak on church-state issues, Chester Finn on education, Jack Kemp on urban development, Richard Pipes on Russia, Mitt Romney, Steve Forbes, and George Gilder on economics, Newt Gingrich on the technology revolution, Robert Bork on judicial issues,  and Abigail Thernstrom on civil rights matters. She should also hold regular meetings with prominent conservative Senators or Representatives such as James Inhofe, Steve Buyer, John Kyl, Sam Brownback, Mike Pence, Jeb Hensarling to get their perspectives on Capitol Hill.  These congressional figures should regularly brief her on their responses to inevitable Obama policy blunders and how they are working to reinvigorate

Taking the opportunity to engage in foreign travel for Alaskan economic development purposes would strengthen her foreign policy knowledge base.  Trips to Pacific Rim countries would be particularly advantageous for Alaska and show her appreciation of this region's increasing global economic preeminence.

Giving regular interviews with conservative journals such as National Review, Weekly Standard, Human Events, American Spectator, and Commentary and their online editions would also be helpful as would speaking before groups such as the Young America's Foundation, Conservative Political Action Committee, National Rifle Association, pro-life and traditional values organizations would also enhance her visibility and credibility with the conservative base in the upcoming bleak Obamite years.

Campaigning for nationally significant Conservatives in 2010 in strategically important states with large electoral votes would also be beneficial.  She should also continue burnishing her credentials as a conservative reform Governor of Alaska by producing significant public policy accomplishments so she can win an impressive reelection victory in 2010.

Despite this month's election loss, Sarah  Palin has ignited hopes among Conservatives that she could become an important even transforming figure in American politics.  She can build on her positive start by taking the steps listed above to become an inspiring figure for conservatives and a substantive and credible national political figure as the inevitable follies and blunders of the Obama-Biden Administration become apparent in the months and years to come.

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A Tale of Two November 4ths

Posted by Bert Chapman on Wednesday, November 05, 2008 7:15:15 PM
November 4, 1980 was an exciting and rewarding day for me.  As an 18 year old, I cast my first presidential election vote.  It was for Ronald Reagan and I also cast my first U.S. Senate vote for Dan Quayle and both achieved victory and began the Reagan Revolution which has profoundly shaped my political world view.

Yesterday, I saw the first member of my generation be a major party's presidential nominee.  Because he does not share my values, I could not vote for him but I was honored to vote for John McCain and Sarah Palin.  Sadly, my vote was not successful.  Americans have let themselves be seduced by a fraudulent demagogue with empty and vainglorious promises of change masquerading as historically failed public policies reminiscent of LBJ's Great Society Liberalism, Jimmy Carter's stagflationary malise, infantile class warfare, and Neville Chamberlain-like appeasement of terrorist enemies.

Last year's election demonstrated that America seems to go into a petulant whining funk every 16 years as it did in 1976 and 1992.  This childish behavior has resulted in our selecting a president who rails against real or perceived Republican presidential failures but does not bring substantive improvements in public policy.  Obama's election last night represents a sign of a nation in serious intellectual regression and moral decline although California's endorsement of a ban against same sex marriage is a remarkably heartening exception.  Those supporting Obama are, in many cases, economic, historical, political, moral, and dysfunctional ignoramuses who don't want to do the intellectual heavy lifting or live the morally responsible lives required to be productive citizens.  They reflect the abject failure of much of our primary, secondary, and higher educational systems to effectively and properly educate the intelligent, discerning, and virtuous citizenry necessary for effective republican governance.

Many of these individuals let themselves be seduced by high flung rhetoric about change without bothering to scrutinize whether the change Obama seeks to bring will really improve their lives or make this a better country.  They continue to cuddle Obama's warm milk rhetoric while they suckle up to the federal government's seemingly limitless fiscal nipple to achieve their physical and mental nourishment.

Ensuing years will see the dangerous consequences of Obama's election in social, economic, foreign, and national security policy as well as judicial appointments.  I am looking forward to seeing the disillusionment of the idealistic dimwits supporting Obama as the reality of economic constraints, the U.S. Constitution, existing federal laws and regulations, international political, economic and military constraints, and the political realities of republican governance force Obama to make decisions which will be displeasing to his supporters in the Democratic Party's hard left.  As conservatives, we should look forward to the opportunity to tell Obama's imbecilic followers "We told you so" when things go wrong and to ask them "Is this the change you wanted?" when you made your fateful choices on November 4, 2008.

Conservatives will have to make tough decisions regarding our future and I'll make suggestions for possible renewal in later blog postings.  If Obama should, by providential circumstance, make a sound decision I'll applaud him for it.  The Democrats can no longer engage in their demagogic pillorying of President Bush.  They now hold the cards and when their abysmal failures to deliver on their lofty promises become manifest, we Conservatives need to ruthlessly expose them for the frauds that they are no matter how much they or their establishment media allies scream about our purported politics of personal destruction.  

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Will Canada Be Smarter Than the U.S. in its Election Choice?

Posted by Bert Chapman on Friday, October 31, 2008 7:32:35 PM
Several weeks ago, I mentioned that Canada's minority Conservative government was doing well and facing an election soon.  They held that election a couple of weeks ago and Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservatives were returned to power with an increased number of seats although they fell short of gaining a majority in the House of Commons.  The Conservatives have a nearly de facto majority due to the weaknesses of the Liberals, the separatist Bloc Quebecois, and the New Democrats. 

Canada is experiencing some of the economic challenges the U.S. is but not as severely.  As of now, Canada does not have a budget deficit and Harper reappointed Ontario's Jim Flaherty as his Finance Minister to ensure competence and continuity in these troubled times.  Harper also retained Nova Scotia's Peter McKay as his Defense Minister and Canadian troops will continue their yeoman service and sacrifice in Afghanistan.

A particularly important reason for the Conservatives stronger showing in this election was making progress in gaining the support of a larger number of Canada's ethnic minority groups such as the Indians, Chinese, and Inuit.  Some of the newly elected Conservative Members of Parliament (MPs) are from these groups and represent areas as diverse as Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, and the territory of Nunavut.  The new Health Minister Lena Aglukkaq is Inuit and from Nunavut.  An architect of these Conservative gains among these ethnic groups is Jason Kenney a Conservative MP from Calgary Southeast who becomes the Citizenship & Immigration Minister.  The Conservatives were successful with these groups by demonstrating that they valued them as individuals who could contribute their unique talents to Canada as a country, that Liberals and other leftist parties in Canada treated them like victims, took them for granted, and mocked their traditional moral values while the Conservatives, in contrast, seek to encourage traditional moral values, and provide sound government meeting people's everyday needs.

Canadians were not seduced by fraudulent rhetoric of "change we can believe in."  Instead, they wisely put their trust in prudent policymaking and intelligent leadership which will enable Canada to endure and emerge from current economic difficulties in far better shape than the U.S. will if we delude ourselves into thinking Barack Obama and his fraudulent messianic rhetoric are the solutions to our problems.  It's all to easy for us to dismiss Canada as a cold and frozen country to our north with no significance to us.  However, if the polls are right, it may well turn out that in the critical elections of 2008 Canadian voters chose wisely and U.S. voters did not.  Canada's electorate may turn out to be the smartest North American electorate of the year.

These are all lessons American Conservatives should learn from and apply if next Tuesday's results are disappointing.

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Work vs. Parasitism: A Presidential Campaign Allegory

Posted by Bert Chapman on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 7:19:27 PM
Recent campaign rhetoric over the encounter between Joe the Plumber and Barack Obama speaks volumes about the economic philosophies of the two presidential campaigns.  Those of us supporting John McCain believe that our country is strengthened by all individuals working and taking responsibility for our actions.  We believe our economy should benefit individuals who apply themselves in school, strive to live intelligent and moral lives, are prudent and save for a rainy day, and that government's primary economic role is creating and sustaining the conditions necessary for creating more wealth and allowing individuals and organizations such as small businesses to reach their God-given potential.

Those supporting Barack Obama, regardless of their socioeconomic status, tend to take a different view.  They believe government is the only entity capable of promoting economic growth.  They believe individuals are pathetic victims of supposed racism, sexism, homophobia, or some other victimology du jour to improve themselves.  A core tenet of the Obamaites is that you don't need to apply yourself in school, live within your economic resources, or engage in moral and intelligent lifestyle practices.   They believe you should consider yourself a victim and be a parasite who lives off of the governmental dole and the hard work and productivity of law-abiding, intelligent, and moral Americans like Joe the Plumber and a host of other individuals from all walks of life and sociocultural backgrounds who make the United States the greatest economic and moral power in history.

Our ongoing economic difficulties have, unfortunately, strengthened the hand of the whining petulatant parasites.  Because of this we are in danger of repeating the biblical maxim of Proverbs 26:11 which admonishes "As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly."  Rather than using this economic crisis as a teachable moment to promote the virtues of thrift, fiscal prudence, long-term economic thinking and saving for a rainy day,  we have succumbed to the belief that we need more infusions of credit to incompetent businesses and imbecilic homeowners who knowingly took on more mortgage debt than they could pay for.  Instead of relying on new fiscal stimulus packages or governmental takeovers of the financial sector, we should begin the painful but necessary practice of restraining government spending and reducing our budget deficit and national debt.

This is an excellent opportunity for our governmental leaders to build a financial policymaking institutions that effectively regulate a 21st century global economy and dismantle unnecessary governmental entities.  Updating the 1980s Grace Commission reports on governmental agencies and actually implementing such recommendations would be an auspicious beginning to restoring governmental fiscal and administrative probity.  Such reform must also occur in Congress and our legislative branch needs to reform its oversight system by eliminating committee turf battles and developing one committee each in the House and Senate to oversee our financial system instead of having a patchwork of committees that our now doing this.  Now is also an excellent opportunity to reform entitlement spending and make our tax code more efficient and less burdensome.

An Obama presidency would mark the reemergence of a parasitic welfare state mentality that would do further damage to our socioeconomic fabric and societal development.  Instead of promoting real and market oriented change, false prophet Barack Obama and his simpleton followers and more sophisticated acolytes are advocating redistributionist polices which would resurrect the worst failings of LBJ's Great Society liberalism and Jimmy Carter's malaise economic policies.

We can hope and pray this commonsense realization will hit voters as they go to the polls.  Unfortunately, our fear that our current economic frustrations will cause many Americans to take their Barack Obama flavored Jim Jones poisonous Kool-Aid and cause this nation to commit political and economic suicide.

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Colin Powell: The Very Model of a Modern Major General

Posted by Bert Chapman on Monday, October 20, 2008 9:57:14 AM
Like a teenage schoolgirl in the blush of first love, the media establishment's hearts are fluttering with the news that Colin Powell has endorsed Barack Obama.    This is viewed as being an ephiphany like moment in which the "anointed one" has received a papal like blessing from one of America's leading military figures.  What you won't hear in most media stories is that this is a very calculated move on Powell's part.  Colin Powell, despite being an amiable person with a significant political and military career, is the consummate Washington insider.  A centrist "Republican" at best, Powell is eager to ingratiate himself with a potential Obama Administration, and may be angling for a cabinet level position like Secretary of Defense.  As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell was also very circumspect in the the circumstances in which he would permit the use of military force.  By no means can he be regarded as a first-rate or innovative military  strategic thinker.  Powell acceded to the military's adopting the mushy and morally ambiguous "don't ask, don't tell" policy of homosexuals serving in the military instead of vigorously insisting on the military retaining its traditional prohibition on open service by homosexuals as being incompatible with military cohesiveness. 
 
Powell was only an average Secretary of State at best.  He let himself be seduced into thinking the "Road Map" was the best way to achieve peace between the Israelis and Palestineans and he refused to conduct vigorous defenses of the war in Iraq when things got difficult after Saddam Hussein's regime was overthrown.  A truly honest historical biography of Colin Powell cannot be written for another couple of decades due to a much critical primary source material being classified.  When such a biography is written, it should reflect that Colin Powell was more adept at timely political maneuvering whenever the political winds changed instead of being a first rate military leader, diplomat, or strategic advisor to Presidents.  A good historical figure to compare Colin Powell with is Count Talleyrand, the French foreign minister from the late 1700s and early 1800s who managed to serve and survive French political regimes as diverse as the monarchy, the various Republican regimes including Robespierre's Reign of Terror, and Napoleon.  Any historian desiring to write a comparative biography of Talleyrand and Colin Powell will find remarkable and eerie similarities between these two figures.
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A Nightmarish Vision: Obama's Cabinet

Posted by Bert Chapman on Friday, October 17, 2008 7:32:19 PM
I've not given up hope that the American people may awaken from the seductive embrace so many have made of Barack Obama and realize the horrific consequences of an Obama presidency.  Such a calamity will have deleterious consequences in areas such as taxes, national security, judicial appointments, economics, foreign policy, social policy, and in national living standards.  I'd like to place particular emphasis on the individuals he may choose for his Cabinet.  Obama has hinted he may make Warren Buffet his Treasury Secretary.  The reputed oracle from Omaha is reported to be hostile to Christianity and recently "married" his three decade long mistress.  With behavior like that, he's would have been ethically qualified to work in Bill Clinton's Administration.  Buffet has no experience with domestic and international economic policymaking.  The way he's glorified by the liberal media and Obama should make us all uneasy.

Here's another vision from hell.  John Edwards as Attorney General!  Placing the mother of all ambulance chasing trial lawyers in a position of real power should scare the cojones off of any rational person.  Edwards will spend more time clogging the courts with trivial lawsuits against political opponents instead of fighting real crime and aggressively fighting and pursuing Islamist terrorists.  He'll be more interested in pursuing hate crime vendettas against critics of him and Obama than in working constructively to promote law abiding behavior by Americans.

For Secretary of Defense, Obama could pick Iraq defeatist and corrupt Pennsylvania congressman Jack Murtha.  Democrats regard him as some sage on national security matters, when his actual experience with national security issues has been funneling defense spending to his district because of his long-time service and chairmanship on the House Appropriations Committee's Defense Appropriations Subcommittee.  Murtha is so hung up over Vietnam and his anti-Bush tirades, that he'd probably try to ask Al Qaida and Taliban commanders for permission to bomb their forces.

Obama's Secretary of State will probably someone committed to "repairing the damage" allegedly caused to the U.S. by the Bush Administration's foreign and national security policies.  What this will involve will be hiring a Foggy Bottom frump who will genuflect before the United Nations and seek to "apologize" every chance he or she can to international leftist and secularist public opinion that is appalled by our taking decisive action against Islamist terror.  Instead of forcefully stating our legitimate case against international terrorism and educating a supine international public opinion about the dangers Islamist extremism poses to democratic freedoms, we could see the next four years of our diplomacy being characterized by spineless cowardly curs who want to engage in ritual self-flagellation instead of asserting our geopolitical and strategic interests.  This may also involve pressuring Israel to make unwise concessions to sadistic terrorist extremists, cutting a "deal" with Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, allowing Russia to retake portions of the former Soviet Union, acquiescing in Iranian nuclear weapons development, and numerous other examples of appeasement in areas such as China and North Korea.

Our next Energy Secretary will tell us that we have to get used to a lower standard of living, travel less, and pay more in taxes for less energy access and delivery.  This individual will tell us we need to remain dependent on uncertain markets and petroleum suppliers who are hostile to our national interest.  This same individual, possibly Ralph Nader, will launch repeated public jeremiads against nuclear energy which is the most environmentally friendly and technologically proven energy source available.

Ask any of your friends and relatives who have been seduced by "the one" whether they like any of these policy scenarios I've described.  I highly doubt most Obama supports have the intellectual capacity to understand the role of cabinet governance let alone any intellectual understanding of the reality that the policies Obama supports have proven miserable failures when they were implemented by presidential administrations such as Lyndon Johnson's, Jimmy Carter's, and Bill Clinton's.


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Obama's Anti-GOP Regulatory Demagoguery

Posted by Bert Chapman on Wednesday, October 08, 2008 9:31:48 AM
During last night's presidential debate and at other times during his candidacy, Barack Obama has viteruperatively denounced what he claims are eight years of Republican efforts to gut federal regulations of financial activities which have contributed to our mortgage and larger economic problems.  As usual, Barack and his liberal dimwits are wrong.  There are thousands of pages of federal laws and regulations on mortgage banking, financial services, and investment practices which are easily accessible to the public and to members of Congress.  The U.S. Code, which is the complete cumulation of U.S. laws, is accessible at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/  This compilation is broken up into 50 different titles or subject areas.  Title 12 covers laws on banks and banking, Title 26 is the titanic Internal Revenue Code governing tax laws, and there are many other sections of the U.S. Code which will cover investments.  Complete revisions of the U.S. Code are done every six years (the 2006 revised vols. are currently being published) and updated annually.  These laws are passed by Congress and signed by the President.  Many of these laws have significant criminal penalties if they are violated and many of them require agencies enforcing these laws to prepare regular reports on their enforcement of these laws and on trends and developments in these areas of law which may require further reform.
 
Once laws are passed by Congress and signed by the President, agencies are charged with drafting and adopting regulations to enforce these laws.  These regulations are accessible in the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/ which, like the U.S. Code, is broken up into 50 different titles or subject areas.  CFR volumes are updated annually on a rotating basis throughout the year.  Title 12 of the CFR covers banks and banking and Title 13 covers business credit and assistance.  The general publication may comment on proposed regulations by going to http://regulations.gov/ which are published in the Federal Register http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/ which is published Monday-Friday.
 
What has happened is that Obama and others of his ignorance ilk, have not bothered to learn how to make effective use of existing laws and regulations to punish financial criminals.  He would rather encourage ignorance of federal economic laws and regulations by making false charges against McCain and conservatives instead of taking the time to actually study these laws and regulations and conduct effective oversight as to how well or poorly these laws are working.  Birdbrained Barack probably has never read a document from the Treasury Dept., Federal Reserve Board, Securities and Exchange Commission, or other federal agency monitoring trends and developments in the mortgage or financial markets.  It's to easy for him to engage in demagogic denunciations without looking in the mirror as to whether existing laws and regulations have contributed to and exacerbated our financial problems.  It's probably beyond the intellectual capacity of Barack Obama to admit that legislation such as the Community Reinvestment Act and the failure of individuals to realistically assess their economic capacity to sustain a mortgage are equally responsible for the mortgage crisis mess we're in.  Obama and the Democrats want Americans to remain ignorant of the real laws and regulations covering financial activity while denouncing amorphous Wall Street greed and lobbyists and interest groups whose interests and activities they don't approve of.
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Palin's Back!

Posted by Bert Chapman on Friday, October 03, 2008 8:39:44 AM
Hopefully, Sarah Palin's strong performance in last night's debate against Joe Biden will reassure Conservatives concerned about her recent nerves in interviews with Katie Couric and Charles Gibson.  Additionally, it is to be hoped that Palin's performance will silence liberal ignoramuses who think she's unqualified to be Vice-President.  Palin has had to put up with an enormous amount of crap from the mainstream liberal media and feminzai academic harridans who are scared spitless by the idea that the first woman Vice-President or President could be a conservative, religious, pro-life woman who takes assertive stands on foreign policy and national security  issues. 

Palin drew blood when she described the Obama/Biden Iraq policy as being appeasement.  She also could have mentioned that if Obama/Biden really want to "end the war" they'll have to go begging to Islamist hotspots such as Waziristan, the Gaza Strip, and numerous other locales around the world to appease the wrath of the Islamist galoots.  Palin ably empathized with the problems middle class families are having with current economic problems and demonstrated that the massive government intervention favored by Obama/Biden would be injurious to their personal economic well-being as well as to national economic well-being.

On the nuclear weapons question, Palin did miss an opportunity to explain why we need to modernize our nuclear deterrent by testing and how the threat of nuclear armed Iran and/or North Korea makes developing effective missile defense a priority.
Biden managed to avoid his frequent verbal diarrhea although he fails to understand that the Vice-President is a member of both the executive and legislative branches.  Guess, he hasn't looked at his Constitution lately, which is pretty disturbing for someone who was once chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Hopefully, the McCain-Palin ticket can build on the strength of her performance in St. Louis last night.  In the upcoming Nashville debate, McCain needs to look Obama in the eye and tell him that he is not prepared for the presidency and incapable of giving America the strong and decisive leadership we need at this challenging time.  Both McCain and Palin need to tell Americans with blunt ferocity that economic problems and our national security situation will be worsened if the electorate makes the mistake of giving the presidency to Obama/Biden and retains congressional control in the hands of the rabid Nancy Pelosi and the doddering senescent Robert Byrd, and the insufferably anal retentive Harry Reid.

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Upcoming Canadian Election: A Northern Light Source?

Posted by Bert Chapman on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 7:51:38 PM
It's easy to dismiss our northern neighbor Canada.  To do so is unwise, because what happens in Canada affects the U.S. economy and national security just as events in the U.S. impact Canada which is our largest trading partner.

Canada is holding its federal election on October 14.  After 13 years of Liberal Party misrule, Canadians elected a newly reconstituted Conservative Party to lead its government on January 23, 2006.  Canada's Prime Minister since then has been Stephen Harper who is an intelligent and principled Conservative from the energy rich province of Alberta.  The Canadian electorate gave Harper's Conservative a plurality but not a majority of House of Commons seats in that election and after a lengthy two and half year minority government, Harper recently dissolved Parliament and is seeking a majority for the Conservatives in next month's election.

Harper and the Conservatives have had some success in their governance.  They have cut the Goods and Services Tax (GST) which is Canada's national sales tax from 7 to 5%.  Significant ethics legislation has been enacted in the wake of scandals during the Liberal Governments of Jean Chretien and Paul Martin during their tenure in power from 1993-2006.  Canada has been less damaged by the mortgage market downturn than the U.S. and is benefitting from increased oil and natural gas revenues.  It's federal budget is in much better shape than the U.S.  Harper has a much more mature and responsible attitude toward relations with the U.S. than some of Canada's leftist opposition parties do.  Anti-Americanism has periodically been an ugly rhetorical whipping boy for some of these individuals.

Harper's government is beginning long overdue efforts to upgrade Canada's military after decades of budgetary neglect.  His government wants to increase Canada's naval presence in the Arctic which will be increasingly important as Russia seeks to assert sovereignty over polar seabed natural resources that are far beyond Russian territorial boundaries.  Harper's government has continued Canada's involvement in military action in Afghanistan begun by predecessor Liberal Governments.  Canadian troops have performed admirably under trying conditions and have taken significant casualties.  All Americans should appreciate the work and sacrifice of Canadian forces in Afghanistan!

Harper is helped by having four leftist political parties in opposition.  The Liberals, who have regularly been Canada's governing party for many recent decades are lead by Stephane Dion who is from Quebec and is seeking to impose a carbon tax on Canadians which would have horrific economic questions.  Dion is a weak leader and the Canadian Conservative Party has a website at http://www.notaleader.ca/ which ably dissects Dion's manifold weaknesses.

Then there is the New Democratic Party (NDP) lead by Ontario's Jack Layton.  The NDP is a Social Democratic Party which combines organized labor and some leftist agrarian populists and is the party that is one of the intellectuals godfathers of Canada's nationalized health care system.  To add to further spice to this leftist goulash is the Bloc Quebecois lead by Gilles Duceppe.  This is a Quebec separatist party who's goal is to make the province of Quebec an independent nation.  Finally, there are the Greens lead by Elizabeth May. 

The Conservatives have made gradual inroads against the Bloc Quebecois in Quebec and have a chance of picking up a significant number of rural seats.  The Conservatives base is in Western Canada, particularly Alberta, where they hold all 28 Albertan seats in the House of Commons.  (Alberta, by the way, is a wonderful place to vacation.)  If the Conservatives can pick up enough seats in suburban areas near Toronto, they could get a majority.

While some Canadian Conservatives are more liberal than American conservatives, there are many who would fit comfortably in American conservative gatherings.  U.S. conservatives should pay close attention to the Canadian election as a bellweather and, hopefully, inspiration to our cause.  The Conservative Party website www.conservative.ca/ 
features campaign advertisements and detailed information about our Canadian partners in political arms.
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Excellent Australian Analysis of Financial Crisis

Posted by Bert Chapman on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 12:07:11 PM
Just found another excellent analysis of our economic problems from Janet Albrechtsen a conservative columnist from the Australian which is a newspaper I also recommended in an earlier blog posting.  Her article from tomorrow's Australian can be found at http://blogs.theaustralian.news.com.au/janetalbrechtsen/index.php/theaustralian/comments/dont_overlook_the_greed_on_main_st
 
We need to remember that our own fiscal profligacy is a major contributor to this problem.
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Excellent Canadian Analysis of Financial Crisis

Posted by Bert Chapman on Tuesday, September 23, 2008 11:51:33 AM
In one of my earliest blog postings, I mentioned that I like reading articles from the Canadian newspaper the National Post which is that country's premier conservative newspaper.  There is an excellent and insightful analysis of our current financial problems in today's edition of the National Post by economic historian Michael Bliss which correctly asserts that politicians and bankers can't be blamed exclusively for this crisis but that blame must also be placed at the feet of a credit infatuated society that wants everything now.  Go to www.nationalpost.com/news/world/story.html?id=814048 to read this excellent analysis.  It's okay to blame our political and economic figures, along with governmental legal and regulatory structures for our current economic crisis, but truly honest assessments of this must also involve looking in the mirror to see if our own economic practices and desires for immediate gratification are also responsible.
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Economic Market Problems: One Conservative's Perspective

Posted by Bert Chapman on Monday, September 15, 2008 8:17:47 PM
Today we hear of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the absorption of Merrill Lynch by the Bank of America.  Recently, we've heard of the federal government's de facto takeover of Freddie Mac and Ginnie Mae.  It's another sign of the economic troubles facing the domestic and the global economy.  Self-righteous liberals are strutting that these calamities are reflective of a conservative rush to deregulate and alleged Bush Administration mismanagement.  That's not quite the case.

Federal agencies draft regulations and industries such as the investment banking industry follow regulations based upon laws passed by Congress and signed by the President.  These laws and regulations have been approved by Republican and Democratic administrations and congresses.  No one party can take all the blame for these problems.

Our society has become to infatuated by the seductive allure of easy money.  We need to learn to adhere to the old Puritan maxim to not spend what you don't have.  We need to restrict the use of credit cards and easy credit schemes which seductively entice people into the illusion that they can spend more than they can pay.  The mortgage industry needs to reform by only allowing fixed rate mortgages where people will have a realistic understanding of what they will pay for their homes each month.  Laws and regulations allowing uncreditworthy individuals to purchase homes without a down payment and with fraudulent gimmicks like bubble mortgages must be ended.  Instead of bailing out Ginnie Mae and Freddie Mac, these entities should be broken  up into several smaller companies that will be able to offer mortgage holders more competitive choice and more accountability for their actions.  It amazes me that businesses or government agencies expect the federal treasury to bail them out for their economic incompetence and criminal stupidity!  As a taxpayer, I don't want to pay for the incompetence and stupidity of a reckless bank loan officer!

Fellow conservatives, we also need to take a long hard look in the mirror!  For to long, we have glorified the reckless speculator and the excessively risk taking entrepreneur as arbiters of virtous economic practice and holders of esoteric economic knowledge.  We need to rediscover the virtues of true economic conservatism which include prudence, saving our resources, not spending money we don't have, planning for a rainy day, understanding that there will be economic bad times, recognizing that prudent saving and planning can mitigate the effects of economic downturns, and, most of all, recognizing that business and economic leaders must adhere to the same high ethical standards that we expect other political leaders and all individuals to adhere to.  We also need to teach ourselves and others that reckless economic behavior, as has occurred in the mortgage industry, is the road to increased governmental regulation of the economy which history and experience teach us to abhor.  We need to understand what government institutions can and cannot do to alleviate economic misfortune.

There's no telling how long our economy will live with the consequences of this fiscal recklessness.  We've felt it in our household when my wife was laid off several months ago from a support staff position she had with a local real estate firm.  This firm is competently run but the economic malaise we are in has kept her from being able to find full-time work again.  We can find solutions to our economic problems but they must be based on fiscal and moral prudence instead of looking for quick fixes from the federal government or naively expecting the market to work things out on its own.

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Vain Attempts to Stop The War on this 9/11 Anniversary

Posted by Bert Chapman on Wednesday, September 10, 2008 9:31:53 PM
Very frequently you will hear critics of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan claim they want to stop these wars.  Since many of these individuals are apostles of Bird Brain Barack and virulent critics of President Bush, the hope of the Obamaites is that once their messiah is ensconced in the oval office that peace will break out, the troops will come home, that birds of peace will sing melodic sonnets, and that nirvana will arrive.  Not going to happen!

These critics of the war better put on some walking shoes and birkenstocks and stock up on their frequent flyer miles if they want this war to end.  First of all, they'll  have to go to Waziristan in Pakistan or somewhere along the Afghanistan frontier and find whatever hole Osama Bin Laden and Zawahiri are in and persuade them that we should all just live in peace.  That vision alone would make a delightful made for tv movie!  I imagine Bin Laden and cohorts would have a few good laughs before they dispatch the imbecilic apostles of peace to their doom.  Then the Islamist appeasers will have to go to Kandahar or other regions of Afghanistan and make their entreaties to Mullah Omar and the Taliban gang.  I don't expect any better results there.

Continuing westward, they can head to Iran and try cross-cultural communication with Ahmadinejad and the terrorist-stained Iranian regime.  I'd love to see the peace activists dialogue with the ayatollahs on the "environmental evil" of nuclear power.  Perhaps these activists can convince the Iranians to "go green" and lessen their carbon footprint.  That won't happen either.  Next, our indefatigable useful idiots can head to Iraq where they can break bread with the remnants of Al Qaida about their desire for mystic harmony.  Perhaps Moqhtada Al Sadr and his "Mahdi Army" can be persuaded to wear peace signs and sing "give peace a chance."  I don't see this happening either.

Let's move on to the Mediterranean shores.  Hang a left and head to Gaza where you can see remnants of Yasser Arafat's Fatah engage in internecine strife with Hamas.  Invite Hizbollah to this barbecue which seeks to slaughter Israelis and whose nefarious ideological grip encompasses Lebanon and Syria.  Our true believers in peace also need to make pitstops in Somalia, Sudan, North Africa, Yemen, and other locales in the Gulf region.

I musn't forget Southeast Asia.  Let's head to Indonesia where Islamist demons have attacked Christians and destroyed churches, and to locales as diverse as the Philippines and Malaysia where Al Qaida sympathizers have spewed their venomous violence and odious religious doctrines.  If our believers in appeasing Islamist terror want to make a European jaunt, then I recommend they visit radical Muslims groups in Britain who have proclaimed their desire to impose Sharia on Britain and other countries, or to France where radical Muslims were involved in rioting in many French cities, or in Spain where Al Qaida blew up a Spanish commuter train and compelled a spineless Spanish electorate to vote out a government that courageously fought Islamist terror and replace it with a bunch of dithering and spineless Socialist simpletons!

The fact of the matter is we are in an ongoing war against militant Islam which wants to impose a Taliban like regime over the entire world.  They are contemptuous of anyone who disagrees with their world view and will stop at nothing to destroy those of us opposed to their sadistic and satanic Weltanschauung.  This 9/11 anniversary there will be plenty of commemorations of the attacks and we should justifably honor the dead.  This war will only "end" when these sadistic individuals are killed choking in their own blood and dispatched to hell or when they succeed in imposing their dark savage slavery over us.

Unfortunately, there will also be a lot of multiculturalist politically correct mush seeking to excuse the perpetrators of Islamist terror and their apologists in the media, academe, and elsewhere.  I highly recommend these individuals view the documentary movie Obsession which ably chronicles the radical and nefarious nature of Islamist terror.  The movie's website www.obsessionthemovie.com/ provides good background on this essential cinematic work while also ably illustrating the unfathomable intellectual and ideological stupidity of antiwar critics.  We can only hope it awakens these deluded fools to the savage reality and long-term existential nature of the conflict we are in with this evil messianic ideology.

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