STARVE THE FEDS

Eric Deaton is a “third party” candidate for U.S. Senate – the seat being vacated by George Voinovich. The main players are Republican Rob Portman and Democrat Lee Fisher. The forecast was that it would be a close race, but that Portman would pull through. Eric Deaton would put up a decent fight for someone who is a third party candidate, with no major party support, no major funding, very little media coverage, but would come out short just like any other minor party candidate.

Eric Deaton is also the most conservative person on the ballot. Despite the Republican Party’s insistence on pushing Rob Portman along on his political tour, Eric’s ideas clearly trump Portman’s. Portman’s track record as George W. Bush’s right hand man when it came to the federal budget is (or should be) his major downfall. Big spending government does not need any more senators with big spending track records. Deaton is an ordinary man that wishes for what no power-hungry government official would ever want – term limits, strict adherence to the Constitution, and severe budget cuts to comply with that oh-so-complicated axiom of finance that says that you should spend less than you make. Deaton campaigns his ass off, doing the little things himself, doing jobs most American major party operatives wouldn’t do. Sometimes he sleeps in his truck in between campaign stops. I’ve met the man and his family several times; the guy is solid, refuses to waver, and refuses to give up.

Earlier today, Eric Deaton was indicted with having unlawful sexual contact with a minor by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department, based on an audio tape that supposedly has him admitting to taking a 13-15 year old girl he knew at church to several motels to have intercourse with her. In dispute are also videos and hotel receipts. Deaton says he and his attorney will fight the “politically motivated” charges; the trial is unlikely to take place before Election Day 2010.

Eric proclaims his innocence, and I believe him. The leader of the Mansfield North Central Ohio Tea Party also stands with him, unless he is proven guilty or takes a plea deal. How this will play out remains to be seen, since Mr. Deaton is getting more press now as the accused rather than as a candidate.

I would like to think we live in a world (or a country) where politics respect all lines of morality, legality, and human decency. I would like to think that Mr. Deaton isn’t staring down the barrel of prison time because he dared to make a mark on 2010 Election season. It doesn’t seem to make sense seeming as how it was pretty unlikely he would win; however, he had potential to split the Republican/Conservative vote enough to make an impact, and cause the Democrat to win.

I’m not making any allegations, since I don’t know any of the other candidates very well. It just smells very fishy the way things have gone down. Anytime an accuser waits several years to make their accusation public record a few months before a big election, it just reeks completely. Of course, as with any fishy political situation, there’s no concrete facts to prove any hunches. It would take a track record full of repeated instances similar to what Eric Deaton is going through in order to establish any evidence that something this sinister would be going on. By that time, it would be too late. Several great candidates would be rotting in prison, while our country rots at the hands of those who are too free with taxpayer money.

This is more than just political minds and debate fueling all sorts of election excitement. This is someone’s honor and life at stake. A prison is no place for a convicted child molester if he wants to live. After a rally so successful as the Restoring Honor Rally last weekend at Washington, we’re back to square one. It’s the usual Jack’s lack of surprise – rally ignored by media, dishonor continues to be fashionable, while people cling to a hope that I have only felt in a church service this year.

We live in a great country where power transfers peacefully. That in itself is a miracle, whose only superior miracle is that it has happened to one country for over 200 years, and set the stage for other countries to follow suit. To suspect that this is deteriorating is infuriating, and sad. Please pray that the right decisions are made, whether it’s in a jury deliberation or an election booth. I have no reason to distrust Eric Deaton’s honor, as he has never walked the shoes of a typical politician in his life. I just pray we can live in a world where peaceful transfers of power continue to be the norm, so much as to spoil those who have no idea how good they have it, and probably don’t deserve it in more judgmental eyes. Let’s keep our eyes open.

I’m tired of it; I’m tired of everything. I think this whole Ground Zero issue is bringing this all to the next level. I’m trying to detach myself emotionally somewhat, and keep as objective as possible. However, there’s no avoiding the stubborn insistence of Mr. Rauf or whatever his name is. Honestly, I’m just hoping that this will wither away in obscurity after this controversy dies down and then everyone would forget his name anyway. The problem is, everyone is digging their heels in – regarding Ground Zero, “gay marriage”, and the second wind that the Christian bashers seem to have gotten. Nobody seems to be backing down and calming themselves. We’re firing each other up, and someone will needlessly get hurt. Dry powder keg, meet spark and subsequent explosion.

An old friend sent me an article explaining the concept of salience, which explains the phenomenon that occurs when ideologues are confronted with facts that contradicts their beliefs. Salience means we cling to belief even more so instead of correcting ourselves with the facts. As someone who I consider pretty intelligent despite his agreeing with the left more often than not, I was encouraged by someone who honestly conveyed his side of the story without setting foot inside the sewage whirlpool that is the intentional deception and name-calling used so freely in politics today.

We’re beyond salience. Salience assumes the facts being confronted with are indisputable, and are written in stone. In today’s world, news has gone by the wayside of propaganda. News and opinion are so intertwined, I have no idea where to go to get “just the facts, man”. I am beyond grateful the internet has given us infinite alternatives to the six o’clock news. However, that makes the whirlpool that much larger, and more unstable. People can’t handle sorting the information away from the bullshit.

I went to Gnadenhutten the other day (pronounced Je-NAY-den-hut-ten, if my sources are correct). Gnadenhutten was the site of the massacre of 96 Moravian Indians who attempted to stay neutral during the Revolutionary War. The Moravians, who had originally abandoned Gnadenhutten, came back to collect stored food since pickings were slim, and were confronted by a militia from Pennsylvania. They were tied up and left in a building to die, but the militia gave in to the Moravians’ pleads to stay alive one more night. The Moravians spent that night singing Christian hymns and praying, all the way until the moment the militia struck them with blunt mallets while the Moravians were praying on bended knees before being scalped and burned to death. The militia looted their harvest, and also burned their villages down to the ground.

First lesson I drew from this – Christianity seems to thrive when under attack, and that is a very inspiring thought especially considering the plight of the Moravians who used that time to honor their savior. Praying is one thing, but singing? Gnadenhutten is one of the most dead silent towns I have ever been to. Call me crazy, but I could almost hear the singing and feel that intensity 228 years after it happened.

Second lesson – You can rip on the Pennsylvania militia for killing unarmed civilians, but this is where mistrust leads mankind. When mistrust turns to war, then one can not take any chances whatsoever. If war is in our future, we better stick to our cause, for the appearance of any wavering will be met with certain death. War is the unfortunate last resort. I don’t want to see this place. I don’t want to know what it feels like when mistrust is so catalytic that it leads to spilled blood. Mistrust doesn’t go away so easily after war is over, I imagine. War sucks; let’s for the love of God, please not go there.

Third lesson – This part of American history would not live if it wasn’t for two young boys who survived the massacre to tell about it. One was scalped but lived. No boys – no massacre memorial. No inspiration from God from Gnadenhutten, and the idea that history cannot be forgotten if no one was able to witness and tell it in the first place. How often has this happened? How often does this happen?

I often wondered where I was going with this “Starve The Feds” blog. At first, I thought I’d document my journey with politics and political office. Now, it’s a diary of today’s times. News can’t be trusted, so maybe diaries can. It worked for Anne Frank during her tragic times; why not here and now? I don’t plan on going down that she did; but really, who does? I can’t even fathom the horror the Jews felt back in Nazi Germany. Let this blog not only be a story to be told, but a testimony. Regardless of whether this gets read by a select few and then forgotten, or whether it gets preserved and remembered in some fashion, this needs to be here. I need to be here. We all need each other. I’m tired of being split away from our fellow man, but not at the expense of relinquishing my principles.

I used to be a Christian basher, but not anymore. I have learned respect for that religion even when I didn’t want to be a part of it. I’m learning that God doesn’t come from going to church, it doesn’t come from people professing to be Christians and then proceed to represent the religion poorly, it doesn’t come from over-the-top preachers, it doesn’t come from cliqueish congregations, it comes from love and hope. Gnadenhutten lives in me. Unwritten history lives in me. What is right – it all lives in me. Those that are kicking their Christian bashing into the next gear seem to intentionally provoke those who follow or sympathize with God.

The United States of America may have room for dissenting views and various religions, but I have no room for those who intentionally provoke with intent to pull the last straw for a loose cannon within our ranks. Once we cross that line, we may not be able to cross back. I fear for mankind. I try to forgive those who try to provoke me. It’s admittedly very difficult. I don’t want to be a subject for the ruling class. I don’t want to recognize that I live among people who’d steal their grandparents’ money for their own lavish lifestyles, while letting them wither away in irrelevant obscurity on their way to a seemingly meaningless death. Old people don’t die on their own. They take the World Wars, the Great Depression, the Roaring Twenties, and the country’s previous struggles with them. Old people will take history with them to their graves, so that we become the generation to repeat the history we refused to be taught ourselves.

Tea Party participation seemed to drop off for awhile these past few months. I chalked it up to a combination of hopelessness, tired of the daily grind required just to make sense of our twisted world, and being accustomed to instant gratification in the past. It suits me just fine that those who can’t dog it out stay home; I don’t want to be fighting alongside someone who is weary and talking negatively. Our micro-environments are key in the next few years. We need to be careful who we let influence us. That also includes me as well, as I was starting to fall for the news sites that were too eager to proclaim that the Tea Party movement had seen its heyday and was dying out. Add in accusations of racism for the death punch, and continue on working.

No such luck. No racism, no death punch, no lack of participation. Our local tea party has not shown one ounce of racism, not one. I think the local newspapers stopped coming to meetings because there’s no inherent racism to report on in order to fire up the locals and sell a few more papers. I have to commend our Tea Party leader for using this “down time” to allow a past high school history teacher to help us study the Constitution. Now that meeting candidates is just up around the corner, we’re armed with new knowledge of the document and ready to fire away at the candidate.

Political battlefields are roaring. It doesn’t take much to fire us up again. Progressives have yet to realize that just because we back off some, doesn’t mean a newfound anger at a new outrageous political step won’t give us second wind. Progressive need to realize that the sleeping giant may pause to recharge, but never to sleep again. Absolutely not.

And there’s no shortage of goings-on to get fired up about. In fact, I’m wondering if it is all escalating, and that there may be a case to elevate the political storm from F2 to F3 level. That’s not a good thing.

Arizona is on the main stage now. 78-year-old Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has a million dollars on his head; you can’t get that much closer to a real war than that. If that guy gets killed, chances are very likely that Arizona won’t lay down and play dead. They’ll come out swinging. Governor Jan Brewer continues to stand up to Washington showing more “cojones” than most. “The government has become our enemy”, says one Arizona sheriff. They are certainly on the front lines; they’re the ones who see firsthand when their government refuses to secure the border and protect their citizenry. We all see how the illegal non-citizenry seem to get more sympathy from the President. This isn’t going away. Our hearts and prayers are with you, Arizona.

Missouri voters just rejected the health care mandate by a 3-t0-1 margin. We’ll have to see how this pans out when the feds put them to the test. Here’s hoping that Missouri stands firm, as they also have targets painted on their backs; though they don’t possess million-dollar bounties like Sheriff Arpaio.

California, out of all places, must have the best case for proving elections are meaningless. How else can a state constitutional amendment be ruled unconstitutional on the federal level? Which Article applies here, Judge? Even the “all men are created equal” doesn’t work. We all can marry someone of the opposite sex.

Which brings me to this – marriage is a man/woman concept, period. It should have never been a government concept, though I understand the perceived need to keep order via the family unit. Marriage is religious first and foremost. Even from a legal perspective, a binding contract can only create civil unions, which I am okay with (in case anyone needed my approval, right?). Marriage is a vow between man, wife, and their Creator. If gays want the same legal rights as straights when it comes to legal contracts and civil unions, I agree absolutely. Marriage should be left alone to religion; therefore, the whole idea of “gay marriage” by definition is an invasion of religion. It’s not enough for gays to create their own churches with their own rules; enough activists want to take religious institutions as they stand now and break them apart. That’s invasion in my book.

New Hampshire did it right – which was by their legislature (so strong it overrode the governor’s veto). California decided what they wanted. Activist judges imposing their will by fudging the Constitution and reversing the will of 7 million voters will not come without retribution. If California voters feel justifiably frustrated by the idea that their vote doesn’t matter come out swinging, watch out. I just don’t know who they’ll come swinging after first.

New York City keeps finding their way on the spectrum for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t enough that Mr. 9/11 KSM was going to be tried there for a spectacle waiting to be seen, but now the Muslims’ Victory Mosque got the go-ahead to be built near Ground Zero. Unions may refuse to build the structure altogether. I’ll tell you what – even if that mosque gets built, who says some crazy won’t go blow it up afterward? You know how kindly Muslims take to blowing up their places of worship (and war strategizing). New York can overtake Arizona real quick if this gets fast tracked; you can bet on it.

I’m not against mosques being built in general. It just seems way too fishy for one to be built so close to the World Trade Center site. Cultural sensitivity is a two-way street, so reach out to the New York public elsewhere.

Washington, D.C., will always be on radar for political standoffs. Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” march on Washington comes 8/28, along with another 9/12 march, and 9/22 (if the rumor I heard was correct). Why must there be three? Do we want to dilute our punch that badly? I think 9/11 could have made a case for it being Saturday and all, but Glenn was swift and made the first move, so the rest should just join with 8/28. Unless we can sustain millions of marchers repeatedly, let’s just stick with one date, can’t we?

I hear and read this phrase more and more often: “Remember November”. I’d like to add: “Watch out for the October surprises”. We’re in for a fight.

Do we have reason to fear our ruling class of politicians? Certainly, we do. The attempts to paint the Tea Party movement as racist haven risen in number again. The old news regarding the free pass given to the Philadelphia area Black Panther Party hasn’t been washed away in obscurity. Now it appears that the President is OK with assassinating his enemies with no trial, even if they are U.S. Citizens off the battlefield? Arizona is being sued not only by the federal government in court but also in the scathing and seething opposition it has received in the battle for public opinion. I don’t raise eyebrows for politics as usual anymore, but what about for politics taken to the next level?

Public opinion is pretty much everything. Whether you are a musician trying to make it in the entertainment industry, or a corporation trying to sell a product, or a politician trying to cover himself up, marketing the message is everything. Case in point – when the film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Two Towers” was released in 2002, there were those that objected to the title of the movie due to the 9/11 aftermath sensitivity, despite the fact the book was written a generation earlier. If the media message succeeded in pressuring the filmmakers to change the movie title’s name, it wouldn’t have mattered what anyone else thought. You could have had all the 9/11 families release a statement showing that they weren’t offended by a movie title, and it would have meant nothing in the face of media.

Therefore, in today’s politics, truth takes a backseat to the public message and public opinion nine times out of ten. Marketing isn’t everything (see “Crystal Pepsi”), but public sway can be. It always boils down to the people. Nowadays, it’s whether people want to make the effort to dispute or question what they are being told in media and advertising.

Those who wish the Tea Party to be branded as a bunch of racists have repeatedly attempted to do so since the movement started to have a real impact. The tactics used are deceiving – Michael Moore style propaganda, opinions given by prominent liberal talking heads on national TV (however loosely tied to the fact that opinion may be), or just by flat out lying about how we were on the wrong end of a recreated “civil rights” movement on Capitol Hill during a Tea Party protest. It doesn’t seem to matter that Andrew Breitbart has offered $100,000 to anyone who can prove someone from that Tea Party protest engaged in any racist behavior, and that no one has come forward. The stigma can still dog us and cause us to use our time defending ourselves when we should be on offense exposing politicians for who they truly are.

Conservatives can use the same tactics to strike back at the liberals, or we can take the higher road and hope enough voters will hop on board along with us. As for me, I will use this time and space for defense from my point of view, and then it’s offense from now on. Wasting time deflecting lies will only cause us to lose momentum.

First of all, I can’t stand racists from any side of the spectrum. So when any accusation of racism is used, you better have facts to back it up. If I’m going to take the road of truth rather than slinging mud back at the liars, then the line of truth must be drawn.

First premise – Tea Parties are NOT racist as a group. Big government is the catalyst, not the President’s skin color. As for me, my heart dropped when the big TARP bailout was voted on – McCain, Obama, George W. Bush – they ALL favored it even when the American people were screaming for them to stop. Whites, blacks, Democrats, Republicans, doesn’t matter – the stupid law was passed by all races, creeds, and political party in September 2008. The Tea Party started after we realized that Obama was no different. Many of us paused hoping Obama’s promise of hope and change meant an end to the bailouts and the start of something that made sense, even if we disagreed with his politics. The “Stimulus Plan” that was passed without being read put a stop to that hope, and we reacted quickly. If the problem was caused by people in general, then the reaction is based on the problem caused by the said people in general. I don’t care what the hell color you are.

Second premise – Due to the Tea Party movement’s general lack of national structure, then it is expected that bad things can happen within its ranks. If there is no defined leader to condemn the wrongdoing, then that creates a vulnerabilty; a leadership black hole that allows racists to come out of the woodwork and leech onto the Tea Party to gain some sort of credibility. Possibly, maybe they were hoping the racist accusations made by the lying left were correct, and were trying to stand up for themselves, who knows? The Tea Party certainly varies in viewpoints – for example, those that refuse to allow God versus those who make God the focal point. There are also those who believe in infiltrating the current political parties versus others that want to create a political party of their own. There are also those who are more fringe than others (9/11 conspiracy junkies, militia types, overly judgmental religious zealots of any faith). There is no overall platform, no matter what national tea party organization that tries to seize public media and claim themselves as the voice of the Tea Party attempt to tell you. Therefore, as with any group of people, you’ll have your crazies. I know I denounce racists, as well as millions of others, publicly and privately, so there you have it. If the other side wants to ante up with more propaganda and misinformation, then hopefully that shows Americans who they truly are, and why they have to rely on anything that has nothing to do with honest debate, purposeful and serious quests for serious answers, and trying to unite under some concepts even if they don’t agree on the methodology.

I don’t want war, and fortunately, it’s unnecessary. However, there is no denying the political storm brewing, and I fear for the consequences. I helped welcome my new niece to the world earlier this morning; how would anyone explain our current situation to her? Would she have to learn the hard way at an age too young to fully grasp why things are the way they are? Would she allow herself to be manipulated by mainstream opinion, despite her parents’ attempts to have her think for herself? Political storms are a ticking time bomb. The consequences are deadly when life is completely disregarded. Ditto for the disregard for what is right in favor of what is easy.

You ever notice that most horror movies take place in some rural area in the middle of nowhere? You ever notice that these films are usually written by people who live in the big cities? I never really noticed that until family friends came over to visit and they got freaked out about being here. Every cricket chirp, every tree branch squeak, every squirrel stirring seemed to make our visitors jump. I exaggerate, of course, but not about the pitch darkness and the quiet at night. Every single time, I swear to you, some remark is made about “Children of the Corn”, or that Jason from “Friday the 13th” will come out from the woods and ax murder everyone indiscriminately.

It’s funny until it hit me why this kept happening. People are afraid of what they don’t know. They assume the worst when they have no prior experience to go by. I find it a little ironic that the stereotypical liberal that comes from a large city or suburb seem to stereotypically remark about how conservative rednecks from the countryside are quick to fear concepts that they don’t understand (like socialism!), yet they display the same fear themselves. I suppose it isn’t fair to overrely on stereotypes, but our fun visitors are guilty of the same crime every time they remark about how rarely come over to my place due to their fear of getting killed.

I don’t live out in the Wild West; I live in rural Ohio. There isn’t forty miles that separate me from my neighbors. It’s not like Wyoming where someone can go missing and no one would have a clue where to go look for the body. Neighbors are within shouting distance. When I went house hunting over four years ago, I found that there were no registered sex offenders within miles of this place, and crime was pretty much non-existent. People are statistically safer here than back where they live, yet they harbored some irrational fear every time they were in the safer place.

If you have fallen for this before, then hopefully you know firsthand how easily the mind is fooled by outside influences. If your environment repeats assertions at various times of your life, and you have no life experiences to contradict those assertions, then many in your situation will assume those assertions to be true. Those same assertions usually get repeated to friends during everyday conversation, in the form of “I heard that such-and-such….”, etc., you get the picture.

Now that we’re living in an age where the first instinct is to distrust the media’s presentation of news if we know what’s good for us, it takes some getting used to when we are apt to just casually make assumptions about what we’ve heard. In the past few years, I’ve been consciously making the effort to rely more on what I see rather than what I hear. Firsthand is better than secondhand, is it not?

Hence actions speak louder than words. Talk is cheap, yet we seem to hang on the words of authority during times of crisis. When we’re too busy or too lazy to do our own research, utilize our logic, and make our own estimates using our math skills, it seems to be the easier route to just accept what we hear; we blindly trust rather than verify. We’re all guilty of this; I don’t want to see any fingerpointing from either side.

It’s all part of the political game. Monopolize the airwaves. Get your message out. If the opposing side’s message makes you look bad, then contradict their message twice as hard, using twice the ammunition, twice the airtime. Lies, truth, it doesn’t seem to matter. Politics, as I’m learning, is the people giving permission to a select few to delegate power to them. That power intoxicates people; tempts them to play God. Are we a nation governed by laws, or a nation governed by men on their God-trip?

To dip our toes in the pool of politics means risk being swallowed by the inevitable whirlpool. Politics is only calm if you go with the flow, and the flow is not always the right path to take. The whirlpool consists of the constant babble of information, true or not, distorted or exaggerated, purposely flooding and confusing our brains to the threshold. At this point, any sane human being would want to opt out of politics, therefore giving in to the establishment. Others may get swallowed up in one particular side, and fight daily against the other side. Those who want to do the right thing sail through the stormy waters regardless. There is a place to go, and whirlpool or not, we need to get there, even if it means stepping on the powerful political parties to get there. Neither side has our interest at heart. The Democrats are floating their usual drivel and driving our country into the ground. The Republicans are talking the good talk; pandering, seizing upon Tea Party momentum to keep going with their country club lifestyle. Actions, words. What you see, what you hear. When I see that Mitt Romney and Jon Kasich come to Mansfield, Ohio, expecting $1,000.00 per ticket just to rub elbows with them, what does that do to what you see versus what you hear? When I receive emails asking for $50.00 “donations” to support a local Republican candidate for judge, what gives?

I’m hoping that the Richland County Republican Party sent a message to the Ohio Republican Party that the usual won’t be tolerated anymore. However, I know better. The Tea Party is not as prominent in Ohio as we would like it to be. We pale in comparison to states that seem to get it, like Arizona, Kentucky, Utah, Wyoming, Texas, and Alaska. To a lesser but still good extent: Montana, Nevada, South Carolina, North Dakota, and parts of California. Ohio is still wishy washy. We’re certainly not liberal New England or metropolitan NY or LA, but we’re not freedom loving enough just yet. 

I’ll say it right now: November is NOT a “gimme” for Republicans. They can still lose elections; not because the Democrats are waking up, because they aren’t. The reason is because there are Libertarian and Constitutionalist candidates that truly get it and are truly superior candidates to those that are more well funded. For every Rob Portman for U.S. Senate (Ohio), there is a breath of fresh air like Eric Deaton. Mr. Deaton will probably not win, but the D vs. R race seems to be close enough to where he can suck away votes from Portman. If that happens, the Republicans lose and they would deserve it. This is why I voted not to endorse Republican candidates in the central committee, because inferior candidates get what they deserve. It’s too bad America doesn’t get what they deserve as a result; but it would take a political party to wake up and become principled instead of pandering to the principled ones. That’s what Democrats do now – pretend to be moderate and conservative in order to pick up votes. It’s going to take time; too much time. Party politics excel; America suffers. We’re due to learn our lesson sooner or later.

Hopefully, sooner.

Is the $20 billion settlement between BP and President Obama the be-all end-all to the rule of law and the beginning of the rule of Men? When did the Executive Branch become less about enforcing laws and more about making up the rules as they go along? Is this the end of the Constitution? Will the election of freedom-loving conservatives reverse course, or will they seize and feast upon the new power the liberals have handed to them? If the Bush Administration took government power from one to ten, and the Obama Administration took the ten and made it a hundred, will the new administration make it a thousand? Is a hundred good enough? How about ten? What will it take to get there?

It took health care and BP to bring it from a hundred to a thousand. BP CEO Tony Hayward just handed the golden opportunity to our runaway federal government. If the feds are talking the $20 billion as a “down payment”, then we aren’t starving the feds. We’re giving them carte blanche at the all-you-can-eat buffet, and then drinking excessively on the house – the tab being ours – and then they get the women to boot.

I thought political hecklers aren’t supposed to get attention. I just saw an article on Yahoo showing a woman covered in oil screaming at the Congressional hearing. What a bunch of contrived theater. Then again, so is the idea of Congress grilling someone to give the citizens a show. It’s a media lions den.

BP got in bed with the federal government, and the government seduction was complete. What’s with the $75 million limited liability clause allowed to oil companies for oil spills; especially after the Exxon Valdez scandal wore off? Why did the feds disallow a shallower well when Louisiana allowed it? Why did Obama reject the Louisiana governor’s pleas to build dunes to block the oil spill for so long? Why doesn’t Obama plug the damn hole, so to speak?

Now people are mad, and rightfully so. I just wish we had the foresight to know we don’t think clearly when mad. The federal government knows, and refuses to let the crisis go to waste in a blatant power grab.

I’m sorry about supporting the Patriot Act at one time. I trusted Bush, despite the screaming from those who pleaded to watch the government power grab. I didn’t listen. One would think that after our trust was betrayed by one President, that we would watch the next one like a hawk. It turns out that the ones who warned us were right, but much fewer in number than I hoped. The liberal media picked up on it, and flew with it. Now Obama is making a ten into a hundred, and people have turned a blind eye.

The power levels have to be so intoxicating, that anyone, no matter their intentions, will lust after keeping the power after getting several tastes. It’s what made the 1994 Republican Congress blow it for everyone. Even if the 2010 Congress was as conservative as the voters allowed it, with all the new power government has, will they have the willpower to turn back what the Class of 1994 couldn’t with such a meeker opponent? What confidence do we have that any human being can take the Rule of Men and turn it back to the Rule of Law? Even if any human being/s could do that, what safeguards would be in place to ensure the line isn’t crossed again? If the safeguards take the form of words, as the law typically does, what’s to stop anyone’s disregard for those words as our current government does for the Constitution?

The $20 billion is yet another example about it being all about the money. Money that will go wherever the government wants it to go, so the company presidents can line up the campaign coffers in time for the next election. It’s why the “Porkulus Plan” was such a disaster. It’s why there’s no real job recovery – because the Census isn’t permanent, and Obama’s moratorium on offshore drilling killed even more jobs.

George Soros has upended small countries’ economies singlehandedly just by pulling out of stocks and funds here and there. His volume is the name of the game. Now is he pulling Obama’s strings, as Glenn Beck and Jim Quinn have alleged for several years now, but I was hoping I wouldn’t have to confront and believe? Why is Brazil allowed to expand their offshore drilling, then? Soros has his pockets in Brazil oil, and Obama is handing him the capital. So if Soros is that powerful, and wants to exert that power toward transforming America into a system that is the socialist ash to capitalism’s fire? When did our flame go out?

It hasn’t. The Tea Party knows it (not the Republican cover up parties, by the way), the Campaign For Liberty folks know it, and even if many of us don’t know it, we suspect it, or know something just isn’t right. We all joke about how politicians are corrupt almost automatically, but that doesn’t mean we just have to accept it and take it up the rear end in the name of not making waves or appearing crazy to folks.

Those in power are playing with fire. The world hangs at an edge of a cliff. We’re not off it yet, but the conditions are becoming more prevalent. The Titanic sinks while we arrange the furniture.

In America, there should be no such thing as helplessness.

Olson 42%, Hartman 25%, Kent 20%, Morgenstern 13%.

I know it’s been a few weeks, but it’s taken some time to adjust back to normalcy.

It’s been almost one year since I publicly, and crazily, spouted my sudden urgency to run for President. It seems funny now looking back at it, but the humor is stifled by the earnest seriousness of the matter. Tea Party movements weren’t progressing fast enough; I needed some way to take back what I and many others let slip away. It led to running for county office and busy campaigning, which came to a crashing halt when the results came in the night of the Ohio Primary.

Many were utterly stunned by the loss, mainly myself. I am more shocked that I came in third place. Most of the folks I talked to in Richland County expected Olson and I to go neck-and-neck. Even those that did not support my candidacy expected the same. I’m not sure if reporters contacted the other two challengers an hour or so before the polls closed, but they found me. One tracked me down at our election party, even though I didn’t give him a heads-up personally. I know he expected a pretty close race. It wasn’t; so be it.

I never understood why some primary candidates stick around in races that involve three people or more, even though they know that they’re lucky to garner 5% of the vote. I promised myself that if I felt that the campaign was going to result in something similar, I would have dropped out and saved myself the time and money. I also promised myself that if I was running against someone who was more qualified for the position and was someone that I trusted, I would also drop out. I wasn’t in this for me. I was in this because so many believed in me and were counting on me. No matter how much hard work and money I poured out of my own pocket for this campaign, coming up short inevitably results in myself wondering where I went wrong and what I could have done better.

Graciously, people have pointed out that all the candidates have lived all or most of their lives in Richland County, except for me – I’m only on my fourth year of residency. In a county where most people have family and ancestors dating back past the Civil War living in the same area, the idea of running for office as an unknown could have been somewhat laughable. One person in particular pointed out that I haven’t really began reaching out to people until 6 months before election day; so through that perspective, pulling 20% was a miracle. Maybe so, but I wasn’t looking to do well for the first time out. I wanted to win for the sake of those who believed in me enough to put their trust in me. No matter how disappointed we all were about the outcome, I’ll never take that trust lightly. I am grateful to anyone who gave me the time of day, even if they didn’t vote for me..

I also noticed something – I got over 2,000 votes out of 10,000 approximately. I would have almost killed to get 2,000 fans of my bands/music projects, and I’ve been trying for years at the musical ventures. Maybe it goes to show that in order to inspire those who are teenagers or twentysomethings, you play music that they can believe in. For anyone older, one has to stand up for what they believe in politically. Both music and politics require integrity, and I hope to live up to those standards on both fronts.

Back to the politics for a bit – First of all, the voter turnout sucked…..hard. For a crucial primary election in 2010 – the year that citizen awareness was supposed to be the highest since the Revolutionary War – too many from Ohio stayed home. This didn’t just affect my race, but every race in the state. Just about every Tea Party endorsed candidate lost 2-to-1. Good thing this wasn’t a nationwide trend, as Utah and Kentucky primaries can attest. This blunder belongs to Ohio alone. So Ohio….you blew it!

In contrast to Ohio’s lethargic apathy towards politics, there is the red hot fiery political zone of Arizona. What John McCain wasn’t, Jan Brewer was in a big way. What’s with all this boycott talk from city councils across America all of a sudden? To me, this just sounds like your typical junior high school “fight” with the boys in the locker room barely slapping each other only because they were being egged on by peers looking to see some excitement to tell the kids on the bus on the way home. These aren’t knockdown, dragout fights to the death we’re talking here, just some sissy slapping with a bunch of tough talk going nowhere but wherever hot air ends up. Now if the one commissioner from Arizona follows through on his threat to cut off Los Angeles’s power supply, then we’ll have a level F3 political storm on our hands. It’s one step closer to civil unrest. Has it really come to this? I hope not; there has to be other peaceful means of achieving political ends. I don’t know what the answer is in this case; I haven’t been to Arizona in quite awhile.

I don’t know where to go next. I do know that Ohio is 400,000+ signatures away from putting a law on the ballot that can nullify all federal overreaching, such as Obamacare. If we were Arizona, no problem. We’re Ohio though; I’m not sure what to make of this but I am in full support.

Some of us from the Tea Party have made our county’s Republican committee. We can appoint replacements to county office when an official dies or resigns from office before his/her term expires. Other than that, I don’t know what to expect. Maybe I should have joined the Constitutionalist Party, since we still have too many RINO/”country club” Republicans here. Only time will tell. I just hope to rejoin life on somewhat of a normal basis, and have an impact elsewhere.

Maybe you have heard about the mud of politics, how it’s all about “getting in the front lines” and “fighting” without actually going to war.

This is not a fight about strength, it is one of endurance. A political candidacy that starts as an open, pure debate between clashing intellectual minds with opposing views ends up deteriorating into mud slinging, intimidation, and constant defense against lies and manipulation. It’s being ambushed with facts and figures that need checked constantly after the fact in order to even provide an opposing view. It’s a game of name recognition and slinging blame to those who cannot defend themselves in order for the politicians to absolve their own skins.

I saw one of the best in the business engage in political trickery and machinery the other day. From orchestrating where his people sit after studying the acoustics of the forum in order to maximize the chances of applause becoming contagious, to talking 70% of the time (thereby leaving 30% for other candidates), to assigning someone to monopolize the time of the competing candidate after the forum so others are unable to conversate with the candidate.

It’s become a game. It’s something involving life vs. death, or job security vs. layoff, or corruption vs. honesty, or good-ole-boy network vs. wiping a dirty slate clean – it all gets tarnished by the desire to be re-elected. It makes one wonder what poison awaits the newly elected candidate that grabs ahold of them, takes over them, and tarnishes them in the eyes of the people afterward. What line is being crossed? In some ways, it’s almost similar to the line of thought that could occur when one ponders losing their virginity – sex can be one of the most beautiful acts of the world in the right situations, yet can cause utter pain at the worst of times. It’s responsibility vs. irresponsibility. It’s crossing a line that can’t be undone once the decision to crossing the line is made. Is getting elected that much like crossing over to some sort of a parallel universe, not unlike the one that was crossed in horror movie Silent Hill?

Corruption finds a home in politics because the ones who are willing to lie, cheat, and steal are the ones that get to go in, for the most part. The dishonesty puts the corrupt at an advantage over the honest, who are unwilling to go the extra dirty mile for the privilege of being the one selected to be deserving of the public trust. Is this much unlike a lions den for the honest and faithful?

An informed public is the only way to defeat this. At the national and state levels, organized Tea Parties using Facebook seems to be the most effective way of distributing information quickly to one another. It’s so effective that I stopped reading traditional news outlets, since all have been tarnished by political biases that credibility and trust have deteriorated over time, and make them not worth reading anymore. The only reason to read them online is to get a general idea of how people respond on the “Comments” portion of articles.

As for a local level, that remains to be seen. I think people are starting to utilize the tools that have been handed to them, and more are willing to try. For the intellectually honest, the new media is a great way to form your own opinions and have them challenged constantly. For the intellectually lazy, it’s just another way to be lazy and vote with their ignorance.

Since it’s easier for good men to do nothing, and let evil progress, does this mean that evil will always outvote the good, because the ignorant and lazy unintentionally align themselves with the evil? Does corruption win nearly every time since the corrupt know the tricks of the trade, instead of calmly demonstrating their record and daring others to challenge them? After being elected and re-elected repeatedly, why is there a need to play political tricks in the first place? Maybe this is why habitual incumbency is nothing short of a disease, and demonstrates why term limits are sorely needed.

We cannot sleep. The evil and corrupt are always moving.

There’s no doubt there’s been a paradigm shift since the Health Care Disaster passed. For a short while, it appeared the media was shifting course ever so slightly by giving the Tea Parties more truthful and representative coverage than they had before, even if they got a certain detail wrong here and there. Now they are back to putting up the dog and pony show of portraying us as racist, bigoted, and severely lacking in compassion. This is the similar playbook that got us the whole “Nazi” themed crap from the August Town Hall era. All it takes is two people to ruin it – one person to engage in unacceptable behavior worthy of news media attention, and one person filming that activity and putting it up on YouTube. Two people is also the minimum requirement for conspiracies and collusion, and that is entirely possible that this is the case again. Too bad the prevalent ignorance wishes to disregard those scenarios.

There’s no doubt the anger is absolutely out there and manifesting itself time and time again. Protests are popping up everywhere and increasing in frequency. In addition to the health care protests, the visit to the congressmen’s offices, the Tax Day Tea Parties coming up, the 2nd Amendment marches, the protest against the work of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner – I can’t keep up with them all. Then come the Democrat’s public relations move of publicizing violence and threats of violence on congressmen who voted for the health bill. You mean to tell me there’s not a single liberal who wished harm on conservatives? Not to defend anyone making threats to people’s lives and families, but this is a fringe affair, regardless of which side they are on. Anyone who thinks this is a one-sided deal is naive, and in this day and age, naivete is what is killing us. Naivete is negligence. Ignorance is negligence.

The political storm has been real and it has been upgraded. It is NOT unprecedented, but it is the most that many of us have experienced, as far as my generation goes (the so called “Generation X”, “Generation Y”, the “Millenials”, etc.). Trouble is brewing, gun ownership is the highest it has ever been; to ignore our political climate is to accept the inherent risk of being caught off guard down the road. Some of us are quick to state our rights but neglect the accompanying responsibilities. The true adults have learned to accept the give-and-take of both, and have learned to take it in our own hands when we know our unrepresentative government won’t do it for us.

The paradigm has shifted. Our country has inched further and further in terms of bigger government stretched out over one  hundred years that most of us hadn’t noticed until we starting thinking in big picture terms. When that happened, I don’t blame anyone for wishing it to STOP, and expressing it as needed. It’s time to back up, and reassess. We made our move – we told government to STOP and reassess. They made their move – by slandering us and pushing their big government initiatives anyway, called it “history”, and reveled in it. When was the last time the government reveled in pushing their will against who they claim to represent?

The time to “meet in the middle” has ended. If the extremes continue to push the envelope further, the middle moves in that direction by default. Any amateur statistician can tell you that. Therefore, “meet in the middle” is exactly the same as moving towards immoral big government, just not as much as liberals would like. From this point on, compromise is dead.

I feel sorry for those who wish compromise as a means of achieving political stability and peace. How can that happen when the pendulum has swung leftward for the last hundred years? How about I use the same logic as those who promote affirmative action? If the affirmative action folks want whites to be inferior for 100 years as reparation payments for the American slave trade era from 1776-1865 (not including the Colonial times and the Civil Rights struggle, back when the struggle was authentic), then let’s have small federal government for the next 100 years in return for the 100 years of Progressivism that we had been getting. How about that? Does that sound fair to you?

Big government is a disease that transmits slowly like mold does on cheese. I don’t mind typical liberalism and taxpayer funded social programs, so much as it is controlled at the state level. Otherwise, why bother even having 50 states? Having 50 different choices for law levels in a “live free or die” society has given way to which party wrestles control over one gargantuan superpower of a country. Power hunger is dangerous. Power hunger is more dangerous than an unethical CEO of the corporations that typical liberals hate so much. Conservatism does not matter in an age of Big Government. Liberals – why not just be happy with enacting your policies in your state and leaving the rest of us alone? Answer – greed and lust for power. Take, take, take, and take some more.

What a poetic concidence that the number of states whose respective Attorney Generals are suing for the rights of their citizens matches the number of original American colonies. Maybe it’s grown greater than 13 by now; I’m not sure, I haven’t kept right up to date since learning that Ohio won’t be one of them. Ohio will never know what Steve Christopher could have done for us, as he lost his battle to even be on the ballot. What a terrible loss and injustice to Ohio citizens. The “best” we can now hope for is anti-gun Mike DeWine, thanks to our joke of a Republican party.

For those of you so ignorant enough to accept one side, yet find themselves reading this blog at this particular juncture, understand this – we wish no violence, only to be left alone. We wish no federal power over you, just that the feds respect the wishes of the individual states. We wish no violence to eliminate those who disagree with us, but only the bare minimum necessary to defend ourselves, our liberties, our wealth that we earned and did not TAKE from you, and our rights (and the responsibility that rightfully accompanies those rights). Just as to be sure as hell that you will be shot dead once you break in the confines of our house, we will use whatever is necessary so you can’t take away any more than you have already taken. Guns are defense, not offense. Don’t force the issue to the point to where the best defense is a better offense. We just want our country back to its Federalist origins, where it damn well belongs. We seek not to eliminate liberalism, just at the federal level only.

Your move.

I am semi-stunned in disbelief that the Obama administration is deliberately trotting out its embarrassment of a stimulus plan one year after it passes, with some half-assed message about how it saved the economy. I thought by now he’d try to bury it underground and slam his JOBS JOBS JOBS down our throats.

I think one year is enough time to give someone a chance, no? Hence it has been over one year since this disasterpiece passed legislation and signed by our president as some monumental achievement, and many are still saying now what they had been saying then. Unemployment is up, and our confidence is pretty much shot to the point where an imminent collapse has me considering yanking my retirement funds away from the stock market. Our predictions rang true in the general sense, the Obama administration’s predictions have rang false. Scoffing at his remarks is almost becoming the new national pasttime.

Keep in mind, that a February 17, 2009 passage of this bill led to the February 27, 2009 birth of the Tea Party as we know it today. We know Obama’s “Stimulus Plan” as “The Last Straw”; a beginning of a country’s freefall that rendered us helpless, until we took our gumption and decided to fight back – first with words, then with face-to-face confrontation, then us coming to them instead of waiting for them to come to us, and now hitting the polls like a lifelong welfare recipient makes damn sure he picks up his check (except we have direct deposit now, so he or she can sit on his ass 24 hours a day instead of 23).

Let it be known though, that the tried and untrue “stimulus plan” is not the only idea that ceases to work when repeated ad nauseum. I’m tired of Newt Gingrich wanting to do a “Contract With America II” like this is some rehash of the “Republican Revolution” of 1994. You had your chance buddy; now get the hell out of the way. You are NOT going to fuck this up for all of us. The so-called Revolution of 1994 led to the Throw The Dumbasses Out in 2006 and 2008. This was still back in an age when we were still fooled into thinking the “D” and “R” labels still meant something. That’s all gone now. All an “R” means now is that we’ll pick you apart much more closely and ask questions until you collapse so that you might stand a chance of being labeled a true conservative that’s looking to protect our Constitution. Talking the tax cut sweet talk is not enough. If you haven’t learned that now, then sit down as a favor to your country, and let the rest of us handle it.

I respect my elders who have paid their dues, but a track record is all we got for the experienced ones, and solid beyond blacksmith principles for us newbies that want our turn. I can NOT trust John McCain as a politician, though if I was military I’d want him on my side any day. I can NOT trust Mitt Romney to step anywhere near Washington as anything but a civilian, because even though he almost singlehandedly saved the Salt Lake City Olympics from reputational ruin, he also allowed Massachusetts universal health care to see the light of day. I do NOT trust Mike DeWine to not Gang-of-14 us into a compromise in which we lose and they win.  Although I love her dearly (politically), I remain skeptical about Sarah Palin’s $100,000 fee for a much-hyped Tea Party Convention, when Neal Boortz charges zero. I forgive her for campaigning for McCain, because I too would have to thank him for bringing her out into the spotlight. Her PAC is lining the pockets of campaign coffers for those like Rob Portman – a decision that may have hastened Tom Ganley’s decision to abandon his U.S. Senate run and try his hand at OH-13 for the House of Representatives.

I respect traditional thinking, but I don’t respect old thinking – especially if the old thinking has already failed us once or twice. As long as we all stay true to our principles individually, regardless of our differences of beliefs – even in the same Tea Party organization – we cannot fail. If we don’t give in, we will not fail. No matter who claims to be for the Tea Party but whistles their own tune when they go back to Washington, our principles and our will are the only concepts we can count on to weed out the pretenders. It is up to ourselves to see that we don’t blow Election Year 2010. This is not our fight to concede.