There is an article today by AP writer Julie Hirschfield Davis talking about the NRA and its sway over congress. The article mentions specific examples of NRA clout and quotes both the Brady Campaign and the NRA-ILA heads talking about the effectiveness of the NRA as a political machine.
Whether you stand by the NRA (and I do) or not (the Brady Campaign does not) the article makes it pretty clear that the motivated members of the NRA still have enormous power over Congress. It also makes clear that the source of that power is the fear of those members not giving their political support to any congressperson who doesn’t vote the values of the NRA. The NRA-ILA “grades” the congressperson based on what votes they cast. The implied threat is “We’re watching you, if you vote the wrong way, there will be consequences”.
The NRA it seems, holds Congress accountable for its votes.
Frankly, I wish that there was someone else out there actually keeping tabs on who voted for what and when on every single vote by every single congressperson. To my knowledge, there is no organization that does this at present, not one in the private sector anyway. While votes are a matter of public record, it is exceedingly difficult to find and compile the information and those organizations who do this are usually partisan organizations like the NRA or Brady Campaign who are keeping tabs only on the votes that count towards their agendas. And let’s not forget about the various rules and regulations in the house and senate that allow for secret votes and the like.
There is probably money to be made for any organization that would undertake this behemoth task in a “non partisan” way. And frankly, I don’t understand why someone is not out there doing it. While most voters are single issue voters, there are some of us who would like a report on exactly what our congresspersons are voting for and against.
And where is the press on this? Isn’t this their “actual” job? Shouldn’t they be the watchdogs out there keeping tabs on this kind of thing? Why isn’t there a weekly or even daily report from someone out in the field over who voted for what? Are you telling me that in today’s technologically advanced day and time we can’t have individualized reports of who voted for what sent to our emails if we wanted?
The way things are now, if the first step to holding someone accountable is obtaining the facts bringing them out into the open, then the American people will never be able or willing to hold Congress accountable for their actions. Meaning we’ll get the same old idiots doing the same old idiotic stuff year after year forever. Amen.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
How I Became A Conservative
It’s funny how we almost always assume the people we know and/or like are the same as we are. We believe they think the same as we do, share the same beliefs as we do, and we’re a little taken aback when we find out they don’t.
Over the years, many of my friends from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (where I graduated high school) have been shocked to find out that I am a political conservative, which is funny to me because I thought that everyone knew it. I was once paid the compliment from a very liberal friend “If you were any more conservative you’d be a damned rock.”
I often wonder what goes through my liberal friends’ minds when they come to the realization that I don’t think like they do about political issues. Do I lose their respect? Is their opinion of me diminished in some way? Does it color everything I say in their eyes? Do I become easier to dismiss? Am I automatically lumped in with the other people they consider crazy like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck?
But beyond that, when I think about my friends from Billerica, it occurs to me that I might not be nearly as conservative and certainly not as well versed in conservatism if it hadn’t been for my time in the Commonwealth.
I will be honest. I never thought much about politics until I moved to Mass. Reagan had just ended his term as President and GHW Bush had just begun his when I arrived in Billerica. I had no idea that Mike Dukakis had been governor of the commonwealth, nor did I know of the attachment so many people had to the man. Where I came from, Georgia, no one even registered Dukakis on their radar unless the word “idiot” was muttered under their breath. Politics had been a no brainer for me, Reagan was it. There were no questions.
So I moved to Mass in the latter part of my 8th grade year. One of the first people I met was Larry Frost, the liberal lion. His family had voted for Dukakis and he was proud of it. Larry would lecture me about the evils of George Bush and the glory that was Mike Dukakis. It was like talking to someone from Mars for me. Even in California I hadn’t known anyone who was as liberal as Larry. Or at least I hadn’t noticed them.
I have to admit, Larry made me think. I suddenly was being challenged by Larry (and a few others) to explain my penchant for liking Republicans.
Then Tiananmen Square happened. There was talk of a walk out. People were going to protest what was happening in Red China. Oh the excitement! Oh the thrill of sticking it to the man! This would show the adults we meant business! We would NOT tolerate oppression!
It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard.
I really became suspicious when I found out that some of the leaders were the biggest goof-offs in school who couldn’t have cared less what was going on in the next room much less in China. Then I remembered that about a week before the “walk out” rumors started going around the Marshall Middle School, an episode of “The Wonder Years” came on where Fred Savage leaves a classroom to go to the bathroom and inadvertently triggers the “walk out” protesting the Vietnam War. To this day, I believe that this is where the “protestors” got their idea.
At any rate, I refused to walk out, whether the whole school left or not. I was not going to join a group of “Wonder Years” wannabes. To his great credit, Larry said he wouldn’t either.
That afternoon after putting the “kibosh” on the walkout, the faculty called an assembly. So the whole 8th grade went in the auditorium and got lectured about the proper channels for such things. We were encouraged to write our congressmen and tell them how we felt. Congress would help if we really felt that strongly about it. They asked for questions and comments. A few hands were raised and a few questions asked about how to contact congress and that sort of thing.
I couldn’t resist, I stood up and told the principal and superintendent “You keep telling us to write our congressmen about it, but to my knowledge our congress doesn’t have the power to do anything to China. And even if they did, they’d just sit around on their butts until every student in Tiananmen Square had been run over by tanks.” (I distinctly remember toying with the use of the word ASS instead of butt just to see what would happen, but refrained.)
I got quite a lot of looks. Actually, it felt like the whole auditorium turned around in unison to look at me. Then everyone started clapping and whistling and et cetera. Everyone that is, except the faculty and administration, who immediately asked Ms Olson my name. From that day forward I was a marked man at Marshall Middle School who could do nothing right in the eyes of the Principal and Vice. I lay as low as possible for the remainder of the year, till I moved on to High School.
In High School I had my next run in with liberals. It was the Gulf War. Older (sophomores, juniors?) Hippie chicks were wearing shirts saying “no blood for oil” and “No WAR in the Middle East”. Being a military kid I had an interest in the goings on over there. I used to get into arguments with one Hippie chick in particular. We had study hall together. She would tell me we were a war mongering imperialist nation whose only concern for Kuwait was oil. I would tell her to keep driving her ‘76 Impala getting 10 gas stations to the mile while lecturing me on how oil was not worth going to war over.
From her I learned, by the way, that when you point out people’s hypocrisies to them, they don’t like it. She said she never wanted to talk to me again. I pointed out how open minded that was of her to exclude talking to someone because they disagree with her. She said I drove her insane.
A few years went by of only occasionally arguing with people about politics. In 1992 I was not 18, so I couldn’t vote in the election, but if I had it would have been for Perot. I had to say that people had a point about Bush, yet I still was not comfortable with pulling for Clinton.
Then came graduation and I lost touch with a lot of people from High School. I read more, listened more and talked less for many years. I took an “argument” class taught by a card carrying member of the American Communist Party. I was shouted down by the professor and his converted students, me and a guy named Tim were the only two holdouts who refused to join the party. He told us we’d flunk if our final paper was on “Communism vs. Capitalism” so I naturally wrote about Ayn Rand’s version of Capitalism “Objectivism” or capitalism on steroids. I made an A-.
The only other significant political argument I got into in the 1990’s was with my future wife, who while in college was a liberal. (She has since converted.) We argued about Clinton, education, economics and Elian Gonzales.
In 2000 I really got into politics. I was excited for a change. I was passionate that Gore should not win. I was foaming at the mouth and said so. I got one friend so mad at me he didn’t want me to send another political item to him ever again. I vowed I wouldn’t, and to this day, I haven’t.
Then September 11th happened, and I got back up on my soapbox beating the drums for a war well executed. I wrote an essay called “War! What is it good for?” in favor of war in general and the Afghan war in particular. I got an email from my first girlfriend who said she questioned why we had ever dated in the first place since we were so diametrically opposed politically. I told her it was because she was brilliant and hot, but she never responded to that.
Today, in my office I am the “go to” conservative. Whenever someone wants to talk politics they come to me. Whenever they want to shut down one of our liberal co-workers, they come to me. I am the guy my liberal colleagues won’t engage if they don’t have to do so. I sort of feel like Darth Vader a little bit. It gives me a warm feeling inside.
All of these experiences are what has sharpened my conservativeness. I have been forced to think critically about my opinions and thoughts for years and it has given me a focus that I believe very few people have. Most people, after a few minutes, give up talking politics. Not me. I love it. I love the exchange. I love to challenge other people’s opinions and even more to be challenged. I love to reconsider an opinion, turn it over and see if it still holds true. It makes me a better thinker and a better conservative.
And I like it that way.
Over the years, many of my friends from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (where I graduated high school) have been shocked to find out that I am a political conservative, which is funny to me because I thought that everyone knew it. I was once paid the compliment from a very liberal friend “If you were any more conservative you’d be a damned rock.”
I often wonder what goes through my liberal friends’ minds when they come to the realization that I don’t think like they do about political issues. Do I lose their respect? Is their opinion of me diminished in some way? Does it color everything I say in their eyes? Do I become easier to dismiss? Am I automatically lumped in with the other people they consider crazy like Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck?
But beyond that, when I think about my friends from Billerica, it occurs to me that I might not be nearly as conservative and certainly not as well versed in conservatism if it hadn’t been for my time in the Commonwealth.
I will be honest. I never thought much about politics until I moved to Mass. Reagan had just ended his term as President and GHW Bush had just begun his when I arrived in Billerica. I had no idea that Mike Dukakis had been governor of the commonwealth, nor did I know of the attachment so many people had to the man. Where I came from, Georgia, no one even registered Dukakis on their radar unless the word “idiot” was muttered under their breath. Politics had been a no brainer for me, Reagan was it. There were no questions.
So I moved to Mass in the latter part of my 8th grade year. One of the first people I met was Larry Frost, the liberal lion. His family had voted for Dukakis and he was proud of it. Larry would lecture me about the evils of George Bush and the glory that was Mike Dukakis. It was like talking to someone from Mars for me. Even in California I hadn’t known anyone who was as liberal as Larry. Or at least I hadn’t noticed them.
I have to admit, Larry made me think. I suddenly was being challenged by Larry (and a few others) to explain my penchant for liking Republicans.
Then Tiananmen Square happened. There was talk of a walk out. People were going to protest what was happening in Red China. Oh the excitement! Oh the thrill of sticking it to the man! This would show the adults we meant business! We would NOT tolerate oppression!
It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard.
I really became suspicious when I found out that some of the leaders were the biggest goof-offs in school who couldn’t have cared less what was going on in the next room much less in China. Then I remembered that about a week before the “walk out” rumors started going around the Marshall Middle School, an episode of “The Wonder Years” came on where Fred Savage leaves a classroom to go to the bathroom and inadvertently triggers the “walk out” protesting the Vietnam War. To this day, I believe that this is where the “protestors” got their idea.
At any rate, I refused to walk out, whether the whole school left or not. I was not going to join a group of “Wonder Years” wannabes. To his great credit, Larry said he wouldn’t either.
That afternoon after putting the “kibosh” on the walkout, the faculty called an assembly. So the whole 8th grade went in the auditorium and got lectured about the proper channels for such things. We were encouraged to write our congressmen and tell them how we felt. Congress would help if we really felt that strongly about it. They asked for questions and comments. A few hands were raised and a few questions asked about how to contact congress and that sort of thing.
I couldn’t resist, I stood up and told the principal and superintendent “You keep telling us to write our congressmen about it, but to my knowledge our congress doesn’t have the power to do anything to China. And even if they did, they’d just sit around on their butts until every student in Tiananmen Square had been run over by tanks.” (I distinctly remember toying with the use of the word ASS instead of butt just to see what would happen, but refrained.)
I got quite a lot of looks. Actually, it felt like the whole auditorium turned around in unison to look at me. Then everyone started clapping and whistling and et cetera. Everyone that is, except the faculty and administration, who immediately asked Ms Olson my name. From that day forward I was a marked man at Marshall Middle School who could do nothing right in the eyes of the Principal and Vice. I lay as low as possible for the remainder of the year, till I moved on to High School.
In High School I had my next run in with liberals. It was the Gulf War. Older (sophomores, juniors?) Hippie chicks were wearing shirts saying “no blood for oil” and “No WAR in the Middle East”. Being a military kid I had an interest in the goings on over there. I used to get into arguments with one Hippie chick in particular. We had study hall together. She would tell me we were a war mongering imperialist nation whose only concern for Kuwait was oil. I would tell her to keep driving her ‘76 Impala getting 10 gas stations to the mile while lecturing me on how oil was not worth going to war over.
From her I learned, by the way, that when you point out people’s hypocrisies to them, they don’t like it. She said she never wanted to talk to me again. I pointed out how open minded that was of her to exclude talking to someone because they disagree with her. She said I drove her insane.
A few years went by of only occasionally arguing with people about politics. In 1992 I was not 18, so I couldn’t vote in the election, but if I had it would have been for Perot. I had to say that people had a point about Bush, yet I still was not comfortable with pulling for Clinton.
Then came graduation and I lost touch with a lot of people from High School. I read more, listened more and talked less for many years. I took an “argument” class taught by a card carrying member of the American Communist Party. I was shouted down by the professor and his converted students, me and a guy named Tim were the only two holdouts who refused to join the party. He told us we’d flunk if our final paper was on “Communism vs. Capitalism” so I naturally wrote about Ayn Rand’s version of Capitalism “Objectivism” or capitalism on steroids. I made an A-.
The only other significant political argument I got into in the 1990’s was with my future wife, who while in college was a liberal. (She has since converted.) We argued about Clinton, education, economics and Elian Gonzales.
In 2000 I really got into politics. I was excited for a change. I was passionate that Gore should not win. I was foaming at the mouth and said so. I got one friend so mad at me he didn’t want me to send another political item to him ever again. I vowed I wouldn’t, and to this day, I haven’t.
Then September 11th happened, and I got back up on my soapbox beating the drums for a war well executed. I wrote an essay called “War! What is it good for?” in favor of war in general and the Afghan war in particular. I got an email from my first girlfriend who said she questioned why we had ever dated in the first place since we were so diametrically opposed politically. I told her it was because she was brilliant and hot, but she never responded to that.
Today, in my office I am the “go to” conservative. Whenever someone wants to talk politics they come to me. Whenever they want to shut down one of our liberal co-workers, they come to me. I am the guy my liberal colleagues won’t engage if they don’t have to do so. I sort of feel like Darth Vader a little bit. It gives me a warm feeling inside.
All of these experiences are what has sharpened my conservativeness. I have been forced to think critically about my opinions and thoughts for years and it has given me a focus that I believe very few people have. Most people, after a few minutes, give up talking politics. Not me. I love it. I love the exchange. I love to challenge other people’s opinions and even more to be challenged. I love to reconsider an opinion, turn it over and see if it still holds true. It makes me a better thinker and a better conservative.
And I like it that way.
Monday, March 9, 2009
Defending Rush
Defending Rush.
I’m trying to figure out why those who have most often told me they would defend my right to free speech with their lives, are the same people who are now vilifying Rush Limbaugh for saying he hopes that Obama fails and then turning on me for defending him. The consensus from the vast majority of these people are that Rush should definitely be silenced and that I probably should be.
Isn’t this hypocrisy?
I know Rush has a million people better equipped and with a larger mouthpiece than my simple blog who are defending him right now. Also, Rush does a good job of defending himself on a daily basis and this has been no exception*. But as resident right wing type in my office, I’m often compelled by left leaning types to speak on Rush’s behalf, because God knows they won’t listen to what he has to say, because after all, they can’t stand him.
So…for the record…Rush does in fact want Obama to fail, and frankly, so do I.
Once you get your panties unwadded, read further to learn why.
Most of the insults and arguments tossed at Rush from both the left and the (supposed) right comes in one of three forms and all three make assumptions that have yet to be proven true.
1st- Rush is an arrogant idiot unable to admit defeat.
This is nothing more than a personal attack. Ad hominem arguments are all “sound and fury signifying nothing”, so mostly I let them go. I bring it up here only because personal attacks are so rampant throughout this arena, and usually by those who are said to be the most sensitive to unjust impugnation of character. I will also point out that personal insults are the perfect argument for those with no actual facts with which to argue.
2nd- Obama is our PRESIDENT, and the PRESIDENT should have our support.
This argument makes me want to laugh. Since 2001, after Bush became President, the shrill voices of the left over every little thing the man did had me ready to throw up on my shoes. Just after September 11th, I heard “what did he know and when did he know it” and various other slogans chanted at me by the anti-war, anti-Bush crowd and 7 years later it was no better.
That’s okay, they had that right. They had the right to disagree with the President and hope that he failed. I do not fault them for that. I do fault them for being hypocritical now that the shoe is on the other foot. I saw no signs of support for Bush from the same lefties who are now condemning Rush for not supporting their President. And that “my friends” is hypocrisy.
Furthermore, I would like to know where it says anywhere in the Constitution that I or they or anyone have to support the President in every single thing he does. In fact, it kind of says the opposite in the much ballyhooed First Amendment where it says I have the right to take umbrage with the government and exercise the right to free speech (Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech) by calling for change when I don’t agree with it (“petition the government for redress of grievances”). In this case, some people seem to have forgotten those things.
3rd- If Obama fails, then that means the country fails.
Ummm….says who?
This argument begs the question. It assumes that Obama’s plans are the right plans for the country. But, are his plans for the country the right course for us? Are they the only course for us? When all is said and done, if his plans succeed will America be better off?
Rush doesn’t think so. Neither do I. Neither does a lot of people.
I won’t argue every single policy here. There’s not enough space and you probably wouldn’t read it anyway. But I will say that to me and to Rush and to those lots of other people I mentioned, Obama’s plans mean socialism bordering on communism. They mean a bigger government. They mean more government interference in our everyday lives. Obama’s plans mean the government doing our thinking for us and THAT scares the crap out of us.
For better or for worse, people are a compilation of their decisions and their actions. Obama’s decisions and actions seem to be taking this country down a road that I (and Rush and others) don’t approve of for our country.
You’re dang skippy we hope he fails.
*(For Rush’s own defense of the “fail” statement go to American Rhetoric (www.americanrhetoric.com) and download the CPAC speech. Or read the transcript. I did both.)
I’m trying to figure out why those who have most often told me they would defend my right to free speech with their lives, are the same people who are now vilifying Rush Limbaugh for saying he hopes that Obama fails and then turning on me for defending him. The consensus from the vast majority of these people are that Rush should definitely be silenced and that I probably should be.
Isn’t this hypocrisy?
I know Rush has a million people better equipped and with a larger mouthpiece than my simple blog who are defending him right now. Also, Rush does a good job of defending himself on a daily basis and this has been no exception*. But as resident right wing type in my office, I’m often compelled by left leaning types to speak on Rush’s behalf, because God knows they won’t listen to what he has to say, because after all, they can’t stand him.
So…for the record…Rush does in fact want Obama to fail, and frankly, so do I.
Once you get your panties unwadded, read further to learn why.
Most of the insults and arguments tossed at Rush from both the left and the (supposed) right comes in one of three forms and all three make assumptions that have yet to be proven true.
1st- Rush is an arrogant idiot unable to admit defeat.
This is nothing more than a personal attack. Ad hominem arguments are all “sound and fury signifying nothing”, so mostly I let them go. I bring it up here only because personal attacks are so rampant throughout this arena, and usually by those who are said to be the most sensitive to unjust impugnation of character. I will also point out that personal insults are the perfect argument for those with no actual facts with which to argue.
2nd- Obama is our PRESIDENT, and the PRESIDENT should have our support.
This argument makes me want to laugh. Since 2001, after Bush became President, the shrill voices of the left over every little thing the man did had me ready to throw up on my shoes. Just after September 11th, I heard “what did he know and when did he know it” and various other slogans chanted at me by the anti-war, anti-Bush crowd and 7 years later it was no better.
That’s okay, they had that right. They had the right to disagree with the President and hope that he failed. I do not fault them for that. I do fault them for being hypocritical now that the shoe is on the other foot. I saw no signs of support for Bush from the same lefties who are now condemning Rush for not supporting their President. And that “my friends” is hypocrisy.
Furthermore, I would like to know where it says anywhere in the Constitution that I or they or anyone have to support the President in every single thing he does. In fact, it kind of says the opposite in the much ballyhooed First Amendment where it says I have the right to take umbrage with the government and exercise the right to free speech (Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech) by calling for change when I don’t agree with it (“petition the government for redress of grievances”). In this case, some people seem to have forgotten those things.
3rd- If Obama fails, then that means the country fails.
Ummm….says who?
This argument begs the question. It assumes that Obama’s plans are the right plans for the country. But, are his plans for the country the right course for us? Are they the only course for us? When all is said and done, if his plans succeed will America be better off?
Rush doesn’t think so. Neither do I. Neither does a lot of people.
I won’t argue every single policy here. There’s not enough space and you probably wouldn’t read it anyway. But I will say that to me and to Rush and to those lots of other people I mentioned, Obama’s plans mean socialism bordering on communism. They mean a bigger government. They mean more government interference in our everyday lives. Obama’s plans mean the government doing our thinking for us and THAT scares the crap out of us.
For better or for worse, people are a compilation of their decisions and their actions. Obama’s decisions and actions seem to be taking this country down a road that I (and Rush and others) don’t approve of for our country.
You’re dang skippy we hope he fails.
*(For Rush’s own defense of the “fail” statement go to American Rhetoric (www.americanrhetoric.com) and download the CPAC speech. Or read the transcript. I did both.)
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