Column for July 19, 2012

If you are like me, you look around you, watch the news, and wonder why you even bother with some things.  Quite honestly, I have been trying not to be so cynical lately.  Since I only have one column per week in which to express my opinions, I don’t want to take that one opportunity and rail on the same things time after time.  Sure, there are some core messages and values to which I do and always will adhere.  However, I don’t want to make every column about how Obama, Congress, the Supreme Court, our Governor, government, high taxes, and socialism all stink and how far from the vision of the Founding Fathers we have strayed as a nation.

Sometimes, I want to withdraw from my passions about politics and religion.  I would rather not care about church doctrine, good government, and the direction in which our nation is heading.  I would rather spend the time that I invest into writing this column and doing my television show into doing some stock trading, taking a college class, or holding my three-month-old.  My infant son has quite a personality at three months.  He smiles and laughs constantly, is fascinated by the world around him, and even gives me looks with his eyes while he is suckling on a baby bottle that reflect the joy he is already showing at that early age.  I would rather be watching a toddler TV show with my three-year-old, who asks me all the time, “Daddy, will you lay down and watch Caillou with me?”  He loves to lie on my bed and watch his favorite PBS cartoon on my television.  I would even rather be watching some chick flick or TV show with my bride.  As I write this, she is watching “The Bachelorette” without me.  When I am stuck in a hotel room for work on a Monday night and it is Bachelor or Bachelorette season, I even watch the show in my hotel room just so I can talk to my sweetie and feel connected to her.   I don’t mean to exclude my nine-year-old, but he is usually in bed by the time I sit down to compose my rants. 

I would rather have no concerns about my town, my county, my state, or my country.  I would rather not ponder the dangers of capitulating to radical Islam, treaties that have no real benefit to America but rather usurp the Constitution, the sprint current towards socialism, the upcoming election, or useless laws that only serve to leave a legacy or restrict freedom.  I still have concerns about things other than politics and religion, though.  Actually, I was thankful today for the beating the economy has taken.  I just got a great interest rate for a mortgage refinance that is going to knock at least five years off the length of my loan and keep my monthly payment the same or lower than it has been for ten years.  If President Obama and a liberal Congress had not run our economy into the ground, I would not have been able to get such a low interest rate.  Still, I would rather have a booming economy, since it is better for the country as a whole.

I would rather count down the days until I take my family on a vacation to Great Wolf Lodge than read the news about how Governor Beverly Perdue just signed another thirty-eight bills into law and yet vetoed the state budget recently.  There are another twenty bills on her desk on which she must take a decision.  Fifty-eight pieces of legislation passed along to the Governor?  As I looked over the 38 already signed, I see a lot of stiffening this penalty, making that crime carry a harsher sentence, blah, blah, blah. 

Important works of legislation will probably be better worked and passed in 2013, after the next election.  For instance, I can’t comprehend the US House of Representatives attempting to repeal Obamacare recently.  It is a foregone conclusion that such a bill, even though passed by the House, will never make it through the Senate, much less through President Obama.  Such serious legislation needs to be passed with a conservative Congress and President.  Well, the same applies to the State of North Carolina when it comes to voter ID laws, dealing with illegal immigration, and spending.

I suppose that I could rail on how President Obama just bypassed legislation concerning welfare requirements with an illegal executive order after hypocritically threatening the Supreme Court over the possibility of overturning legislation that was duly passed into law.  Then again, this type of stuff is really getting old, and hopefully, short lived.

Sure, things such as these cheese me off no end.  I truly wish that I could just ignore them, go about my merry way, and be blissfully oblivious to it all.  But if I did that, I would be ignoring who I am and was created to be.

Column for March 8, 2012

Object lessons sometimes can drive the point home a lot easier than attempting to explain complicated concepts to a child. It sometimes works wonders with my nine-year-old. He is often in the car with me when the morning news is on the radio. As such, he will sometimes get civics lectures, history lectures, religious instruction, or just plain common sense discussions depending upon the subject matter on the radio. This is especially true when I have a talk radio program on and we get into discussions. Usually a discussion begins when he sees me get very frustrated and react to what I am hearing.

Just recently, there was a discussion about a famous talk radio show host who referred to a woman that testified before Congress as “a slut”. She had testified about her lascivious lifestyle as well as that of others she knows, and that she can’t afford all the expense of birth control as a result. Forrest Gump said in the movie of that same title, “My mama always said, ‘Stupid is as stupid does.’” Well, the fictional Gump’s mother is not the only one to have always said that; so did my mom. That principle transcends to behaviors as well. 

Because of a lifestyle choice, this woman wanted us taxpayers and/or insurance subscribers to pay for her birth control. If one performs a deed, the one performing it should be responsible for the consequences and responsibilities therefor, not others who are responsible enough to run their own lives well and pay for their own habitual needs. 

It just so happened that my wife and I were in the car with our son and our topic of conversation was about taxpayers paying for the actions and habits of others rather than them paying for their own choices. My son was wondering a bit about the conversation, so I decided to include him in the discussion.

I asked him if he would like to see other children in school get good grades, as he has been getting. Of course he did, was his response. I told him that I would contact the principal of the school and see about taking one of the A grades that he got and split it with a C average student. That way, both he and the other student could enjoy a B grade. “No way,” I was told. “I worked hard for my A. That isn’t fair. I shouldn’t have to get a lower grade just because someone else didn’t do as good as I did!”

“Why not,” I asked? “Why should other students get lower grades than you? What if they don’t have the opportunity to study as much as you do, have parents who make them do their homework, or maybe they just aren’t as smart as you? Why should you get a good grade and them not?”

“Because I earned my grades,” my son interjected. “It isn’t fair that I should work to earn my grades and have them taken away and given to someone who didn’t earn as good a grade! I earned it!”

“Congratulations, you are not a Democrat,” I informed him.

That discussion stuck with him, because he brought it up to me again just today. I know that this will be much to the chagrin of some members of the family who are loyal Democrats, regardless of the candidate or issues.

I remember my wife having a discussion with an elderly member of the family about a corrupt politician that is in office in Harnett County. My wife encouraged this dear old woman to vote for someone else in the (then) coming election. “But we can’t have a Republican in office,” was the naive response. The funny thing is that I know the family’s values. They have a strong work ethic, appreciate freedom, oppose welfare programs, oppose affirmative action, believe in merit based advancement, have been in and continue to run small businesses, want low taxes, and oppose things such as abortion. Those are conservative values, and none of which are traits of the present day Democrat Party. And yet there are people who will continue to vote that way regardless all because of some archaic, fallacious, and dangerous preconceived notion stemming back to the days of abolition.

I am still no fan of the Republican Party, believe me. I lament its current state and in general, its crop of candidates. If I could find an honest, conservative Democrat, he or she would get my vote. I just have not run across any in my lifetime. Then again, I have not run across many GOP candidates that are that way, either.

Column for Oct. 28, 2010

I ranted about political advertisements last week. The amazing thing about attack ads is that either an ad is going after someone’s character or their beliefs. One ad that really got my attention had a lot of elderly people griping about how one candidate for Congress wants to privatize the Social Security system. I personally love that idea. I would gladly relinquish any claim to Social Security benefits in the future if the government would allow me to take the money I pay into that system and instead put it into my own private retirement program. Yet Americans have been duped by the lie of “security” for so long, they have come to the “gimme mine” entitlement mentality.

I have paid into the Social Security system since I was 15 years old. When I sat down with my Merrill Lynch planning software and ran some figures on my target retirement income, Social Security was factored in as a part of my plan. But it was only a part of the plan, not all of it. As much as I dislike Social Security, I don’t know if I will ever be excluded from its regressive payroll taxation. The Social Security system was never intended to be a full retirement plan, but rather a supplemental plan. The New Deal under the Roosevelt administration was more of a raw deal for Americans. That Social Security system has morphed into something abhorrent and gives a false sense of security and entitlement.

Amazingly, through political wrangling, FDR managed to get the Social Security Act passed. It has never passed objective Constitutional scrutiny and would never have survived had he not received extraordinary, unconstitutional power from Congress. Franklin Roosevelt is often cited as one of our greatest Presidents, but I see him as one of the worst. When it comes to government intrusion and control, it is hard to beat FDR, but our present Commander in Chief is right up there with him.

This is going to sound rough, but anyone who was ignorant enough to buy into the lie that government will supply all of your needs and therefore never made any other arrangements is going to have to live off the fruit (or lack thereof) of their own efforts. I know that is not going to sit well with people who are elderly and on a fixed income, but it is the brutal truth. In this country, we are guaranteed equal opportunities, not equal outcomes.

I just had a discussion with a friend about Social Security and its lack of constitutional grounds. We discussed the Democratic-Republican party history that sprouted as a reaction to big government Federalists. The party included men like James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. Both were for limited government and a “laisez-faire” style of government, meaning that government stays out of your life and your business. The idea also was that you are responsible taking care for your own and your family’s well being, not the government.

I will never be a member of the AARP. One reason is that they are terrible about supporting gun control agendas. Another is that they are adamantly opposed to privatization of Social Security and play on the fears of the elderly. They frighten people into thinking that politicians who are for financial accountability and rule of law are trying to take away their entitlements and will force them to eat cat food because they can not afford groceries.

In the nation of Chile, their old system of social security was modeled much like our own. They found it to be inefficient, expensive, and not beneficial to their citizens. They abandoned their system and privatized much of their public system. To quote Chile’s Minister of Labor, José Piñera, “Pension reform has contributed strongly to an increase in the rate of economic growth. Before the 1970s Chile had a real growth rate of 3.5 percent. For the last 10 years we have been growing at the rate of 7 percent, double our historic rate. That is the most powerful means of eliminating poverty because growth increases employment and wages. Several experts have attributed the doubling of the growth rate to the private pension system.”

In the ad to which I refer, a politician taking aim at another totally missed the idea that there are Constitutional boundaries and fiduciary responsibilities to those who are and will be paying the bills in this nation and played upon fear. I find the nagging, “Don’t touch my Social Security!” and “Privatize Social Security? Are you nuts?” claims of gloom and doom as disgusting as the mud slinging personal attacks. I also find the entire Social Security boondoggle a sad testament to America’s decline into socialism.

Column for June 4, 2009

Putting the right people in office is not a matter of race

I was just in a discussion about the political issues of the day, namely the nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for Justice of the Supreme Court of the U.S. I was criticized heavily for not supporting a liberal Hispanic woman on the Supreme Court. I was asked if I "suppose America would be in a better state of being if we did not have those in office now? Should we maintain the white supremacist ideology that has tainted and permeated American government for too many generations as it is? Does diversity not matter; especially, when that is the only thing that is going to, even in the slightest manner, offer some degree of balance to the ideology of those serving in public leadership in America today so that we can move toward a better way of life?"

Here is the way I see things. I 100% believe that we would be better off without the current leadership in office, in the White House as well as in Congress. We have been on a downward spiral into socialism for years and now we are head first diving into it. Socialism is a failed system of government, not to mention an unethical one. The assertion that this is a matter of white supremacy is garbage. I could not care less about someone's ethnic background. That is the whole point of "all men are created equal". I vehemently disagree with appointing someone as judge, electing someone to Congress, or to the presidency simply based upon racial background or sex.

Following the Constitution and rule of law has nothing to do with race. It has to do with being a nation of law and following law. As a nation we should not concern ourselves with "diversity". Since when should we forsake our rule of law for the sake of having a diverse representation? Let us take that concept to its logical conclusion. If we were indeed to have a true representation of diversity in our government, 12 - 14 % of our governmental employees, representatives, expenditures, and operations would be Negro. 14+ percent would be Hispanic. The majority would still be white. About 1 - 2% would be Asian. Obviously, none of this holds true in the name of "diversity".

Is the definition of "a better way of life" one that rapes the American taxpayer and funnels money and benefits the way of minorities in the name of reparations, fairness, or correcting any perceived (usually incorrectly) disadvantages? That is just plain unethical, fiscally unsound, and the lazy person's way out of their own paradigm of despair. It is a false hope. It is unfairly burdening my children, grandchildren, and all of yours as well, with massive debt and constraints far greater than those some wish to remove.

The values I espouse are the very ones that drove tens of thousands of white men to die in the name of freeing enslaved people. They are the same values that brought the Civil Rights Act. They are the values that say you can succeed if you put forth the right effort. Yet there is no guarantee of success, just the equal opportunity to try. The world and our culture are based upon the equal right to strive, not the equal right to outcome. That is socialism or communism and is just plain illogical, failed socially and financially, and one of corruption.

And yet we have Democrats championing themselves as the saviors of values and of the minorities in America. Democrats were the ones who fought to keep the enslavement of a race of people here in America. Democrats were the ones who founded the KKK. Democrats were the ones who passed Jim Crowe Laws. Democrats were the ones who stood against integration and wanted blacks to ride in the back of the bus. It was Democrats who fought to keep blacks out of the public schools. It is Democrats who keep telling minorities that they are not smart enough, not good enough, and not able to make it in this country without the help of the government at the expense of everyone else. That is just one form of enslavement for another. Physical enslavement has been replaced with a profound dependency upon Uncle Sam.

We, as Americans, should be more concerned with what is best for our nation, not what is the best make up of ethnicity of our representation. Good representatives will do their job regardless of the color of their skin. Having a black man in office does not guarantee good results for blacks. I have no regard for white folks in office, either. I care about their VALUES, not their skin color. If their values are correct, their actions will be correct for the nation, not one particular group. I will vote for (and have) a black man or woman who has the right core values over an ignorant, liberal white guy any day.

Column for March 19, 2009

Trying to not be weary and not faint in my column

I was just asked if writing a column each week wears on me after a while. To be perfectly honest, sometimes it does. Today is one of those days in which it does wear on me.

Sometimes ideas for columns just present themselves to me and I find easy fodder. Other times I start to bang away on my keyboard only to re-write with something else altogether. My biggest challenge is sometimes not what to include in a column, but what to leave out. I often have to go back and take things out of the column and still get the idea across. The newspaper's editor will attest to the idea that I can sometimes just keep typing like the Energizer Bunny bangs a drum. Sometimes, before I know it, I have doubled my allotted space. I have gotten chastised for that more than once. I thank the editor for his criticism and keep on typing with the intent to do better in the following column.

What wears on me at times is the wonder as to whether or not the effort is worth the energy and having any influence or not. I obviously have a set of ideals, cling to them like a pit bull, and am not afraid to express them. I have lost friends because of this very thing. I have lost acquaintances and connections with old friends, coworkers, classmates, and the like as a result. I have been kicked out of churches for the same tenacity to what I believe…nay, know to be truth.

What I can say in hindsight is that I have in almost every such case been vindicated. I have been proven correct, men have come to me later (sometimes years later) and apologized, or the facts just bore out as such. There have literally been times when I "knew that I knew that I knew" what I was pontificating was the honest truth. I have clung to that and when deep in my gut I know I am right, I am almost never wrong. When I am wrong, I am man enough to admit it, make corrections, and press forward.

So, with that being said, why would I be weary? I grow weary from time to time when I am so exasperated at the things I see around me and feel powerless to do anything about them. Usually it is when I am profoundly disgusted in general rather than at a specific principle.

What do I mean by in general? When I see trillions of dollars wasted on programs that will do little except get us into tremendous debt. I mean when I see terrorist prisoners about to be released from a prison to fight another day. I mean when I see this country announcing in advance to the world and to our enemies when they can expect to get no more resistance from the United States. I mean when I see the state of North Carolina raid the lottery budget to balance the state budget and yet spend like a drunken sailor on shore leave.

I mean when my taxes go up and see no real relief in sight. I mean when I see local spending at the municipal and county levels at an all time high. I mean when I see an invasion of this nation by illegal aliens and no desire on the part of our elected officials to stop it. I mean when our elected officials totally and blatantly ignore the Constitution. I mean when our system of government is usurped and we become a socialist nation. I mean when I see the Communist Manifesto played out before my eyes in the United States and I want to move to Iceland or Canada.

Sure, all these thoughts cause me to grow weary, make me want to throw up my hands in disgust, and ask, "Why bother?" However, if I am anything, I am tenacious in my beliefs. When I know something to be true, I latch on and hold fast. I admire those who are the same way. God made me stubborn about some things and it is my lot in life to hold fast. If it were not so, I would not be writing my little column about big ideas here in this little newspaper in this little town. Thank you, Lord God, for my opportunity and responsibility to do so.