Robin Hood Review

First of all, I apologize to my large and growing following (thanks Mom!) for not posting anything for quite some time. I’ve been busy with law school and other stuff. My bad. Now, on to the post.

Jamie and I saw Robin Hood tonight and it was…eh. I give it a C+. At parts it was cheesy. The movie felt like it was actually two movies, one about Robin Hood and another about a war between the French and English, that were mashed together. It didn’t work for me. That said, parts were good, and there were some funny lines. I’d say it’s a decent (but not great) rental movie. There is an obvious setup for a sequel at the end, and if they make one, I hope they change things up quite a bit.

There was one thing, however, that really stuck out to me and its the main reason I will recommend the movie to friends: there was an overt, overriding message concerning the fundamental rights of people to govern themselves and enjoy their right to private property. It was evident from the very beginning that this movie was going to be about Robin Hood fighting a tyrannical and oppressive government, and not about anybody stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. In fact, Robin Hood spends much of the movie fighting alongside landowners and barons, not disparaging them or robbing them blind. This is an interesting development, and is also the interpretation of the Robin Hood story that too often gets overlooked for the liberal feel-good notion of robbing people of their own property and redistributing it to others.

The movie starts with some setup lines on the screen that tell the audience the story takes places in a time of tyrannical and oppressive government. Even King Richard, often glorified in previous Robin Hood stories, shares some of the blame for the state of things because of the high taxes he levied in order to prosecute the Crusades. The Church is also portrayed as a detached, bureaucratic, and oppressive regime that (with the exception of Friar Tuck) has little concern but for collecting money and grain from the masses for its own enrichment. But, the real villain is of course King John, the self-righteous, pompous, and naive king who feels entitled to the loyalty of his subjects as well as to all of their possessions.

At multiple points in the movie, the writers went out of their way to make the point that Robin Hood and his numerous followers were fighting for their individual rights against a burdensome government and were not just going to let the undeserving king take their treasure and land. In the lead-up to the climatic battle scene, Robin Hood gives a speech that I could’ve been the keynote at any Tea Party in which he describes the basic rights of man and states that government should be reflective of the people.

It’s also interesting to note that King John accepts none of the blame for sending his country into near rebellion, but instead blames his predecessor for all the problems he “inherited”. Sound familiar? Typical of a leader who favors big government, he believes the prescription for his nation’s debt crisis and short supply of cash is to tax the already overly burdened population even more. Also typical is the method by which these oppressive taxes are collected – by force. Here’s a clue to all world leaders: if you’re having to impose your will on people through force, you are most likely violating their fundamental rights in some way.

Anyway, I thought the movie’s message was a good one and was especially fitting for the time we live in. No, President Obama isn’t a tyrannical dictator, but that doesn’t mean his policies of confiscation and redistribution, enforced by the IRS, are any better ideas now than when they were employed hundreds of years ago and enforced at the tip of a sword. There are some essential truths in life and humanity, and Robin Hood touches on a few of them.

The System Worked, People Protected Their Freedom

Tonight, in Massachusetts, the people spoke their minds and kicked the governing party in America squaw in the…well, they told them to shove it.  The system designed by our Founding Fathers to allow the people of America to defend their right to freedom through elections has worked once again.

Our Republic allows the people to speak their minds every few years (and sometimes on special occasions) by voting for the candidates of their choice to represent them in DC. If they don’t like what they see, they boot the bums out and try again. The people in Massachusetts didn’t like what they were seeing in DC, and decided to try something new in Scott Brown. The system, designed to allow the people to voice their collective minds and hold their representatives accountable for terrible decisions, has worked. The Democrats now lack the required 60 votes in the Senate to pass health care, and many of them will get the message and tell Nancy Pelosi to take a hike in a last-ditch effort to save their own skins.

It’s now likely that the Dem’s health care debacle will go down in a ball of fire as scared Democrats in DC wake up tomorrow to the shocking news that a Republican has been elected senator from Massachusetts for the first time in nearly 40 years. At the very least, the Dems will have to either make significant changes to the bill or get exposed as the power-hungry statists they are when they attempt to cram the bill through the House and Senate before Scott Brown is seated to vote against it.

Watching Frank Luntz’s focus group tonight was actually pretty interesting. The participants were all Democrats, and nearly all of them voted for Obama in 2008. Half of them, roughly, voted for Coakley, and half for Brown. The Brown voters said they were trying to send a message to Washington that they were scared by what they were seeing in the health care bill and they want the Democrats in DC to STOP! Even the Coakley voters want the Democrats to seat Brown before there is a vote on health care. To paraphrase one man, “The state of Massachusetts has spoken, and you should honor our decision.” After all, that’s the whole point, and very foundation, of our Republic. If the Dems choose to ignore the will of the people and show disdain for our system of government, they will reap their terrible rewards in November, and may cause lasting damage to their party. Americans won’t look kindly on politicians overtly rejecting the will of the people.

Some Dems will insist that the real problem was poor messaging, or that they weren’t pushing hard enough for the liberal policies the voters really want. These people will soon have the title, “Former Representative from __”. They just don’t get it. Tonight’s election represents a monumental shift in the electorate and any politician that doesn’t heed this warning will rightfully be out of a job soon enough.

So, hats off to the Founders and the people of Massachusetts! Ya’ll did it again!

The Reckoning

Let’s just lay it out there: The Democrats in the Senate have ignored the will of the people and are going to transform our nation without their support or consent. They ignored conservatives. They ignored independents. They ignored liberals, leftists, union bosses, and “progressives”. The only people that got what they wanted were the appropriators and power grabbers that occupy our nation’s most prestigious club.

Principles were set aside. Values were cast overboard in exchange for billions in favors. The real priorities of supposed Democratic budget hawks have been revealed. “Pro-Life” Democrats tossed care into the wind over federal funding for abortions, bought off with massive government payouts to their home states. With your money, by the way. Your money.

There will be a reckoning for this. The American people recognize they have been duped. They did not vote for this. In fact, they were told they were voting for the opposite of this. Obama campaigned on no mandates for health insurance coverage. Now, we will have mandates. He campaigned on no new taxes on the middle class. Now, we will have $400 billion+ in new taxes, much of which will fall onto the middle class. That’s not even mentioning that if you aren’t covered by health insurance for even one month, you will be fined $495 or 2% of your income, whichever is greater. It only gets worse from there with taxes on everything big and small, from medical devices to tanning salons.

There will be no getting away with this type of tyranny by committee. The American people are not happy with this turn of events, not happy at all, and they will express their anger, their sense of betrayal, at the ballot box in 2010. But that must be just the beginning. It’s time for the American people to stand up and demand massive, permanent, and complete change. Our country simply can’t afford to keep accelerating down this path of tax, spend, and borrow. When Republicans behaved this way they were rightly punished in 2006 and 2008. Now the Democrats are back in power, and nobody can drive a country off a fiscal cliff like liberals can.

It’s not just the health care bill. It’s the $787 billion failed “stimulus” and its smaller brother the year before. It’s the cap-and-tax trillion dollar knee-cap to our economy. It’s the billions shoveled into the auto industry to prop up failing labor unions who will just pour the money into more campaigns for Democrats next cycle. It’s the Card Check legislation that would cripple our nation’s struggling small businesses. It’s the $400 billion omnibus spending bill that continued this wild spending orgy as if nothing were wrong. It’s the refusal to reform already bankrupt programs like Social Security and Medicare when millions of American depend on them and we are fully aware they’re on a path to fiscal ruin. It’s the simple disdain for fiscal sanity that seems to pervade our nation’s capital. It’s the intentional myopia with regard to the looming financial crisis that our nation is steaming towards. It’s the almost purposeful accumulation of soon-to-be overwhelming debt, for which the yearly interest payments alone with eclipse cost of the entire failed “stimulus” bill.

It has to stop. If it doesn’t our nation will go bankrupt. Our people will slave away day after day just to pay the interest on the bills we’ve already rung up. Innovation will cease because no one will be able to afford R&D costs. Unemployment will skyrocket and our currency will be devalued.

Conservatives need to step forward. Stop wasting time chasing the fantasy of a third party. Re-take the Republican Party. Use it as the vessel to knock down the gates, and storm the castle. Our government is out of control, and we need to take it back. It’s forgotten that it derives its power from us, that it’s beholden to the people. Next year will be the beginning of the effort to re-take our country from the appropriators and the power-seekers, and redistribute that power back down to the people and their local governments. But, it will not end there. It can’t. The ship is too big to turn in just one push. This effort must be sustained and disciplined. It’s an effort to inject liberty and freedom back into the lives of everyday citizens, and it must continue into perpetuity or we will risk sliding back into the same position we’re in today.

It must be bold. No commitments to only slow the growth of government. We must cut spending in every non-vital area of government. Not just tiny and ineffective tax rebate checks once every so often, but large, long-term tax cuts that will encourage investment for the future and spur real, sustainable growth. Not the carved-out exceptions for this or that industry, but an across-the-board slash in corporate taxes that would allow companies to begin hiring and invest more money at home in America. Not just temporary fixes to Social Security and Medicare by raising taxes on the rich and hiking the retirement age, but actual reform of the programs that will solve the problem and allow seniors to sleep soundly at night not having to wonder if Congress is going to rob them of their retirement after they’ve paid their dues for decades.

This bold re-taking of America must begin now. Conservatives must become active within their local Republican Parties. This must be a ground-up effort, not just one driven by the old guard of the conservative movement. They certainly will be involved, and vital to the effort, but it must be the people who lead this push. Indeed, it’s already begun with the mass protests in cities around the country, but it has to evolve into something more. We will say “No!” as long as we have to, as long as the appropriators are in power. But then, we must seize power and implement our own agenda to restore liberty to the people and shut down this tit-for-tat system.

It’s time to get involved!

Obama the Meek

Having just watched President Obama’s speech at West Point where he announced his “new” strategy (let’s not forget that he first requested this new approach in March!), I came away with the continued sad impression that our president is timid.  Some will try to cast his decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan as politically courageous, but nothing could be further from the truth. Once again, Obama has chosen the political middle-road: he will not upset the rational Left (the rest are beyond hope) too much because he set a timetable for quick withdrawal; and he has mildly satisfied the Right by doing the right thing and sending more troops to pursue a COIN strategy. With the alternatives being to completely withdrawal all troops leaving the stain of a lost war on his presidency, or doing nothing and letting American soldiers die in the foggy status quo, Obama made the easy (and partly correct) decision.

The problem is that while he announced an increase in troops, it was 25% fewer troops than the commander in the field requested, and, more importantly, Pres. Obama announced to the terrorists that we’ll be leaving in 18 months. I’m all for putting pressure on the Afghans to speed things up with training their army and police and cleaning up their corrupt government, but there is no need to give the terrorists notice to just hunker down for a while because we’re gonna take off soon anyway.

This is either a war of necessity, and one in which the entire world has a stake, as Obama asserted tonight and has talked about regularly, or it’s one where we can feel free to give it our best shot for a year and a half, and hey, if that doesn’t work, well then, shucks, we’ll just go home. Tonight, Obama noted the necessity of this war, and in his very next sentences said that since we’re in hard economic times, we might have to quit early if his magic wand doesn’t work. Yes, our nation is in dire economic times, but it’s either the responsibility of the government to protect everyone from terrorism or it isn’t. This fight is either a necessary war for a safer planet or it isn’t. Perhaps instead, now isn’t the time to toss $787 billion into the wind to create thousands of fictitious jobs, or to spend $1-6 trillion on government health care that large majorities of Americans don’t want. Then, the government could afford to fight terrorism and keep people safe – you know, it’s job.

As noted tonight by multiple commentators, this was no Winston Churchill speech.  President Obama projected ambivalence, weakness, and ignorance to our enemies abroad.  He is Carter Obama the Meek, Weak, and Ambivalent.

SNL Skit Mocks Obama. Also, Democrats Need a History Lesson.

I’ll let the video speak for itself. Click here to watch because I can’t get it to embed. Really do watch it.

It’s funny (sad, pathetic, tragic…) because it’s true.

Some idiot Democratic senator mentioned the other day that Republicans were on the “wrong side of history” (actually, I’ve heard it more than once now) for trying to oppose a government takeover of health care. Perhaps they should require some sort of history class before you’re admitted into the US Senate. The long struggle of humanity has been to get out from under the thumb of the oppressive few. Whether we’re referring to kings, tyrants, despots, an oligopoly, a clan leader, or an oppressive committee of the select elite, the vast majority of people have worked at the direction of others for 99.9999% of human history. Only recently have people come to realize their rights to live freely, as individuals. The Greeks, Romans, British, French, and others have moved the ball forward each in the own way, but all previous civilizations still had their flaws; usually these imperfections stemmed from the basic fact that the rights and freedoms of the people were still granted by the government, not the other way around.

Then, with the founding of American, humanity entered a new chapter in the march for freedom. Our founders recognized that people had certain inalienable rights that no government could abridge; that the government’s right were granted by the people. This intellectual, philosophical, theological, and sociological leap should be right up there with the invention of the wheel, fire, and Mac computers modern medicine. It forever changed the dynamic between the people and their government, not just in America, but around the world. There was a new standard for freedom. A new high water mark for liberty. All of a sudden, millions of people enslaved to their governments saw the shining city on a hill and had hope that they too could someday experience such emancipation.

But now, some people in our government wish for America to regress back towards the mean of human freedom. With every encroachment of government into the lives of everyday people, we cede a little bit of the high ground we had claimed with the founding of our country. With every right and freedom we hand over, we turn one page backwards in the book on freedom. Every time we choose the comfort of another government safety blanket over freedom of choice, we embrace the claws of history dragging us back under the yoke of slavery to our government, and reject every lesson history has tried to teach us.

Either this Democratic senator doesn’t understand history or he understands it all too well. He either doesn’t appreciate the lessons of failing and failed civilizations who fell victim to the temptations of the ever-expanding nanny-state, or he does and believes he is simply smarter than everyone to ever live, and will divine some solution to the problem this time around. He’s either ignorant, arrogant, or both.

And so, maybe this Democratic senator is correct after all. Perhaps Republicans are on the wrong side of history, a history replete with the rise and fall of civilizations who could not support their own extravagance. It all depends on if you believe America to be an exceptional place that can overcome the cycle of freedom which less-free nations succumb to, or if we are just another iteration of failed freedom movements from the past.

I believe America to be an exceptional place, and, therefore, I believe that this Democratic senator is wrong. Instead, I believe that the Democrats, who advocate for ever-larger government, are on the wrong side of history because America will prevail in our experiment for freedom. With this debate over health care, we are at a tipping point in this exercise. We can choose to accept that we are just like every other country, and that we should simply replicate the failing policies of every other country that has enacted some sort of government-run health care program. Or, we can recognize our exceptionalism, and demand something new, innovative, and better – an American solution to an American problem. Our freedom allows for unprecedented ingenuity. Let’s harness that innovative spirit, incubated in liberty, to solve our problems with a solution that maintains, or even increases, our freedom, instead of limiting and rationing it.

Lastly, let me point out that in America the other times people have been on the “wrong side of history” were when the opposed movements for freedom: slavery, civil rights, equal rights for women, etc. I believe in 2010 we will find out who the American people believe were on the wrong side of history during this health care debate, and I don’t think the Democrats will like the answer.

A Villain Big and Bold – The Iowa Hawkeyes

(H/T IowaHawkeyes.net for the video)

Just thought I would share that because it’s so badass. I’m still in shock that Iowa is undefeated, but as a lifelong Iowa fan I’m prepared to ask no questions and just accept this luck while we have it. But, for some reason, I don’t believe this year’s team success is due to luck. I think it’s grit. Pure determination. This Iowa team has a few talented players, but they win by closing their eyes and jumping off the cliff every game, fully committing. If things don’t go well the first half (as is typically the case), they know they can’t just ride out the game and hope something good happens; they’re free-falling and need to do something before they crash. Somehow, every week they come up with something. A fumble. An interception or two. Twenty-eight points in the fourth quarter. Iowa avoids meeting terra firma, and starts to quickly gain some altitude.

Jamie and I just watched Casino, and the Hawkeyes remind me of what Robert DeNiro’s character, Sam Rothstein, says about Joe Pesci’s character, Nicki Santoro:

No matter how big a guy might be, Nicky would take him on. You beat Nicky with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And if you beat him with a gun, you better kill him, because he’ll keep comin’ back and back until one of you is dead.

Iowa keeps getting beaten in the first half, even the first three quarters, only to get up, dust off some dirt, look their opponents in the eye, and smile a little bit. They smile because they know they’ve won; it’s the fourth quarter and they’re not dead yet. Michigan State was close. Michigan was close. Indiana was really close. In fact, eight out of nine teams were close. But they never finished the job. They had Iowa down, but we just kept comin’ back.

Let’s hope this continues. Casino didn’t end very well for Nicki Santoro, but only because he got cocky. And, if anything, we all know Iowa isn’t cocky.

Iowa isn’t getting much respect from the national sports media (and certain cocky Alabama fans at law school). I think critics should underestimate the Hawks at their own peril. There’s something intangible about this team that makes them dangerous. Maybe it’s the very, “Come on, give me your best shot!” attitude that I described above. Whatever it is, for many college football fans out there, Iowa is prepared to play the villain this season.

My Prediction for the Iowa Game Tomorrow

PWNED!

The Iowa Hawkeyes, rumored to be Superbowl contenders, are 7-0. While not every game has been pretty, the victories have been just as sweet.I predict we beat MSU this weekend 31-14. I have little to base my prediction on other than this:

And this::

And, of course, this:

To keep going would just be overdoing it…

Sorry, that was the last one, I swear.

In their honor, I bring you some highlights from the season so far:

Videos were found on IowaHawkeyes.net and the PWNED! pic was found on BlackHeartGoldPants.com, two blogs I check regularly to get my fix on Iowa Football.

Why am I a Republican? – Let’s ask Sen. Snowe

That’s the question the new GOP.com website is asking, and it’s the question that Sen. Olympia Snowe should be asking herself today after her indefensible vote today to condemn Americans to a future full of higher taxes, lower quality health care, and rationing. Maybe we should all email Sen. Snowe’s office and ask her to fill out the simple form on GOP.com to remind us why she is a Republican….Go ahead.

I’m never one for kicking people out of the party; I’m just not. I think it’s stupid to purposefully boot people off the team, when the only way to win the game is to have a bigger roster than your opponent. But at some point, all of the teammates need to look around and ask why they’re playing for the Republican Party. Someone compromising on a particular issue here or there is a necessary consequence of having a big tent party. Even some of the best conservatives in the party slip up here and there. Not every issue is central to the Republican Party’s or conservative movement’s purpose, and some issues may even have viable conservative arguments available on more than one side. Take the Patriot Act for instance: probably most conservatives argue in favor of it from a national security perspective, while others argue against it because they fear the erosion of individual liberties.

But some positions are so central to the purpose of the Republican party that taking a different position calls into question why you’re even a Republican at all. A vote for the “stimulus” bill is a great example. The whole point of the Republican Party is to advocate for limited government and stand in opposition to wasteful government spending. If you can’t agree on that, then you simply are not a Republican. That’s it. There is no more central purpose to our party than standing for the individual and limited government. There simply wasn’t anything about the “stimulus” bill that should’ve been appealing to any Republican (ahem, Charlie Crist).

The health care bill is another one of these core issue votes, for multiple reasons. The bill raises taxes on millions of Americans (core issue), grossly expands government involvement in the private sector (core issue), takes away the freedom of individuals to make decisions for themselves (core issue), permanently increases government spending on entitlement (core issue), and on and on.

On top of this, how naive do you have to be (Sen. Snowe), to actually fall for the budget trickery the Democrats have built into this non-bill (what’s being called a vapor bill)? Let’s make the assumption that all the numbers in the bill are honest estimates of real costs and revenues, and that the projected cost of the bill is actually $829billion over ten years. First, history has taught us that federal entitlement programs always cost more (often far more) than they were projected to cost when they were first created. When Medicare was created in 1965, it was projected to cost just(!) $12 billion. When 1990 actually rolled around, Medicare cost a whopping $100 billion. It is nothing but willful blindness to pretend that this situation is different.

Putting aside that scenario, can anyone honestly believe that the numbers included in the Baucus bill are honest? The biggest example is how the bill remains “deficit neutral” by using ten years of revenue to cover only seven years of expenditures. Get that? They’re going to tax you for three years before the bill takes effect to make it look like the first ten years don’t cost anything. After the first ten years, we will begin to see the true costs of the legislation kick in, and, according to the CBO’s report, we still will have over 25 million uninsured Americans.

For someone to pretend (Sen. Snowe) that this massive expansion in government control over health care is nothing more than the next step in the nation’s slow slide into a single-payer health care system represents a total disregard for precedent.

The only possible justification for Sen. Snowe’s vote today would be in the off chance that she is a super-calculating person who plans on magically exerting more than her fair share of influence in the merger discussions, thereby dragging the bill so far to the middle that she knows liberal senators won’t vote tolerate it, and perhaps the bill will fail before it reaches the president for a signature. The odds of this being her line of thinking: 5%.

Outside of the remote chance that, through some sort of Machiavellian maneuvering, Sen. Snowe believes she is actually dooming the bill by voting it out of committee (and then has the ability to actually follow through and doom the bill), her vote today was totally unacceptable.

Like I said at the beginning, I’m not one to kick people out of the party. But I am certainly one to hold people in our party accountable when they start acting like Democrats. Sen. Snowe voting for the health care bill today because it’s “historic” is no excuse for ditching every core principle of the party. How many other bills would have been “historic”, but were also terrible ideas? Either you believe in the principles of the party, and believe that taking certain positions is necessary for the betterment of the country, or you can be a Democrat and just vote how the polls say you should vote.

Again: Maybe we should all email Sen. Snowe’s office and ask her to fill out the simple form on GOP.com to remind us why she is a Republican.

9/11 Memories – Mine vs Kids’ Today

I was in high school in 2001 and I remember what happened on September 11th eight years ago. I recall walking through the hallways after the first plane hit and thinking, “What kind of idiot pilot can’t see a 100-story building in the middle of a city?” Quite obviously, and justifiably, my brain did not immediately assume that NYC was suffering the greatest terrorist attack in history.

When we got to our next class, we turned on the television to check the news before class started. The second plane hit and the teacher went to turn of the TV. Under protest from the students she kept the TV on and we watched, our jaws slacked and eyes watering, in realization that we were no longer witnessing an interesting and tragic news story, but instead a history-making mass-murder, a terrorist act, and something that would change our country forever. The bell rang and we shuffled to our next class. All we did the rest of the day was watch TV, mourn the loss of untold thousands, and hypothesize about what was going to happen next.

I was walking through the hallway when someone told me about a rumor that the Pentagon had been bombed. Other people were saying the White House was evacuated, that President Bush couldn’t be found and no one knew where Air Force One was. Hearing that other flights were in the air was terrifying. All I could think was that some small, previously obscure country was about to become famous right before it disappeared off the map. I was partly right.

I was into current events then as I am now and so people started asking me what I thought would happen next. I had no idea, but I said I had a hunch Iraq was involved. This turned out to be mostly untrue (they weren’t directly involved in 9/11, I know, but they did help support the international structure of terrorist organizations and they were soon enough part of the War on Terror). Interestingly, most people I was talking with had the same first thoughts.

I went home and watched news coverage until early in the morning. I can’t find the picture anywhere, but I remember an image of hundred of ambulances lined up on a bridge going into New York City. That was maybe the saddest image I’ve ever seen. Thousands of people ready to help survivors from the collapsed towers, but there weren’t any to help.

Schools canceled sporting events because no one was sure what would happen next. Looking back, it was a bit ridiculous to cancel football games in West Des Moines, IA, but who knew that at the time? Maybe the next wave of attacks was going to hit small communities – places where people felt safe. Of course, a second wave never came, and still hasn’t because of the tremendous efforts of our military, the intelligence and law enforcement communities, and the Bush administration.

Those are my memories. What’s really weird for me is when Jamie comes home from teaching and talks about all the kids in her class. Mostly seven and eight year olds, they weren’t even born when 9/11 happened. I ask Jamie if they talk about it in class, and she says some teachers do, and some don’t. One teacher has a 9/11 kids book to help her explain what happened. How do you relate such stories to kids whose worlds are so small and simple?

Studying history can often be abstract. You read about a battle in the Middle Ages where tens of thousand of people died or look at pictures of men on the moon, and you are never able to grasp the emotional sense that contemporary people experienced. Going through 9/11 (and not even having been in NYC or DC at the time) was traumatic and impactful. But kids who were five years old when it happened, or not even born yet, will never experience that. I had a 9/11 documentary playing the background the other day and even I commented to Jamie that it felt like watching something about Pearl Harbor. Still, reading things like this is really frustrating.

This is why it’s so important to consciously remind ourselves of the importance of such events – to never forget and never allow history to repeat itself. It’s also why it’s so disappointing for our current leaders in Washington to consciously try to put such events behind us, out of our collective consciousness. Calling terrorist acts “man-made disasters” and declaring the War on Terror over in favor of “overseas contingency operations”, diminishes the importance of historical events, and falsely lulls people into a sense of complacency.

It’s not fear mongering to remind people of real-life dangers. In fact, for our government not to do so, and instead pretend that everything is just fine, would be, and is, irresponsible. We are still in danger of more attacks. We are still fighting the same battles overseas that we have been for the past eight years. Renaming things to sounds more tolerable just makes it harder for our government to keep our nation safer; harder to remind people of the terrible intentions of our enemies.

September 11th, 2001 – Never Forget, Never Surrender. I never will.

Republicans are Optimists, Democrats are Pessimists

If there’s one thing I feel really crystallizes the differences between Republicans/Conservatives and Democrats/Liberals, it’s how these two groups approach the future. Republicans are optimists about things to come and Democrats are generally pessimists. This really shows in the solutions the two parties propose to today’s public policy problems. I bet there’s a lot of people, mostly liberals, that would disagree with that, but it’s really undeniable if you’re able to separate yourself from the minutia of legislation and look at what Republicans and Democrats are really saying about the events of tomorrow.

It thought of this as I read a post by Mary Katharine Ham, which included the following quote from endangered Colorado Democratic Congresswoman Betsy Markey as she spoke about health care reform:

“There’s going to be some people who are going to have to give up some things, honestly, for all of this to work,” Markey said at a Congress on Your Corner event at CSU. “But we have to do this because we’re Americans.”

Let’s delve into this some.

While talking about the health care system in America, a system that is in undeniable need of reform to control the skyrocketing costs of care, Democrats have proposed giving government much greater control over the system through the creation of a public option (read: stealth single-payer plan) and a whole host of new regulations and mandates. Congresspeople such as Rep. Markey support these ideas because their first inclination when confronted with any problem is to raise taxes and bring into existence a massive new layer of government bureaucracy that will force every American into the same mold.

Of course, a natural effect of forcing end-equality on everyone is that for every winner, there is likely to be a loser. Thus, Rep. Markey refers to the fact that, “…some people…are going to have to give up some things,” because there would be no way to just magic into existence enough resources to give everyone the absolute best option. And who will decide who gives up what and to whom? The government will tell you. We will all be a little below average.

Democrats advocate policies like this because they are pessimists. They believe that things simply won’t get better. There won’t be new technological innovations. Smart people won’t figure out a new business model that provides consumers with more for less. We are stuck in time, and so we need the government to step in and split up all these limited resources between everyone because they are the only objective entity in the process (Ha!), and these resources are only going to get more and more limited as more people enter the system.

Democrats believe this is the American Way – that the American Dream is for everyone to end up equally stuck in the same situation. Now you can see how Rep. Markey actually believes the disturbing things she says – “But we have to do this because we’re Americans.” What kind of vision is that? She sees a country where we all suffer equally. Sad. Democrats: “We must all live crappily together and sacrifice things very dear to us because America stinks.”

The results of thinking this way (more government, more taxes, less ) are limiting, but two things are usually guaranteed, neither of which is actually solving the problem:

1. The problem will continue to exist forever, and will likely get much worse. It will never be solved because the government has now institutionalized it. There is no incentive for the government to cure the nation of its ills, just to treat the symptoms as long as they persist – and in many instances, much longer than is necessary.
2. The American people now actually have fewer means to try and solve the problem for themselves. Every new government burden (financial and otherwise), takes resources out of the system, in turn leaving people and businesses with less resources with which they can improvise, innovate, and experiment. Less for R&D, and less room for Americans to feel financially comfortable enough to try new things.

But, don’t despair, oh pessimist! There is another way!

Conservatives and Republicans are optimists. We believe that things don’t always have to be this way – they can get better! In fact, let’s make them better. Of course, to have something better than what you have now, you must have a choice between two or more options – so let’s free businesses large and small to try some new things and then free consumers to pick the ones that are best for them.

Too many people and not enough food? I’d be willing to bet some family farmers and major agricultural companies will find a way to make more (Hint: that’s already happening). Not enough oil? Energy companies are finding some really amazing new ways to squeeze oil from rocks (literally), and at the same time are investing huge amounts in renewable energy.

Health care cost too much? Let’s not accept that things can’t get better. Let’s not relegate ourselves to a permanent existence in the present. Let’s not institutionalize our problems in a tangled web of government bureaucracy.

Instead, how about we free the market up some to let consumers purchase health insurance across state lines. Allow people to buy inexpensive, high deductible policies (illegal in many states because they impose so many different types of mandates on insurance providers such as maternity care for 80 year old women and free visits to dietitians) and match them with tax-free Health Savings Accounts.

Imagine how much prices would come down if health insurance companies were allowed to compete like car insurance companies. There would be 100 companies in every state, and each company would have to compete on price to survive. Progressive Auto Insurance allows customers to name a price they can afford and then builds a custom policy for them. This would be illegal for millions of people trying to get health insurance in today’s system.

Why not give taxpayers the same tax incentives to buy insurance that are given to businesses? Why not allow small businesses and associations to pool together when buying insurance? Why not finally (!) enact some strict tort reform to prevent frivolous lawsuits against doctors who are paying through the nose for malpractice insurance.

There’s plenty of things to do besides accept that things will always suck, and so we should just chop up the suckiness and pass it around.

While Democrats want to hit the pause button and equally divide up what we have, Republicans wish to light the fires of progress and put America to work in finding a solution to the problems that confront us. Democrats see a tomorrow that’s a lot like today, just more equally split up. We’ve reached our potential and it’s just the right thing to do to give up most of what you have for the greater good.

Republicans don’t believe that this is as good as it gets; that we can do better than this. We don’t have to accept that today’s problems are going to last forever – we can solve them. We can progress.

You tell me which party’s full of optimists.