I didn't want to put this on here, since it has nothing to do with my blog, but I had to have a url for this logo to link to.

Correct Roger!

I heard this clip on The Mike Church Show on Sirius/XM radio the other day. I had to look it up and find where it was posted because I couldn't let this go unseen. Enjoy.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/05/20/2905304.htm

Incriminating Obama Picture of the Week

"The Republic is no more, young Skywalker. We have created an empire!"

photo from: politicalhumor.about.com

caption by: Yours Truly

An Argument Against the Legality of Abortion

The evolution of my political beliefs, although still evolving due to the fact that my knowledge is and will be growing until my time here is over, have gone from a hard, party-line Republican to a mixture of conservative and libertarian--and if you're not familiar with the parlance of political affiliation, libertarian does not mean the same thing as the contemporary term, liberal. I don't have a liberal bone in my body. My world-view is very traditional. My moral fiber is deeply entrenched in Christian teachings. Because of that, I will say that I am very conservative. But the more I see the federal government encroach into our lives, the more I grit my teeth and say, "Don't tread on me." In that, I am somewhat of a libertarian, and I align myself quite a bit with the libertarian stance on many issues. But there is one issue that separates me from most libertarians entirely. That issue is abortion.

I believe that morality is absolutely absolute and not relative. By that, I mean the notion that a person can make his own morality is absolutely erroneous. If morality was relative, then there would be no morality; there would just be opinions on what should and shouldn't be acceptable. And if you believe this, then just say so, but don't say morality is relative to the individual. But until there is an absolute consensus on what is and is not moral, then there will be dissent on both sides of each issue. Because of that, I believe that the general stance of a large governing body, such as our federal government, concerning issues that do not affect or infringe upon the rights of individuals, should be largely amoral, in the sense that its laws should not be made on the basis of morality. I know what you're about to say.

But Vins,conservatives believe that the government should promote morality. So are you saying that the government shouldn't promote moral Christian behavior?

No. I'm not saying that at all. The Christian aspect of that statement will have to be addressed in another post for another time, but to the general question of whether or not the government should promote morality, I say absolutely. But this does not mean that the federal government should make moral decisions the law of the land. The reach of the federal government is far too over-arching to be making those types of decisions. So, to be clear: yes, the federal government should promote morality, but no, it should not make laws that tell us what we can and can't do on the basis of morality. Why? Because if we give the federal government that power, then we take a very real risk of having it make a law declaring something to be immoral when we might believe that it is moral. For instance, when I have children, I don't want the federal government to have the authority to tell me that I may not spank my children because it is immoral.

I can align myself with some of the core libertarian principles because of this, but as I said earlier, I cannot align myself with the general libertarian stance that abortion should be legal.

But Vins, you just said that the federal government shouldn't make moral decisions into law. So How can you say that the federal government should ban abortion?

Easy. Because the issue of abortion is not an issue of morality when in the sphere of government.

Huh?

Ok. I believe, with every fiber of my being that abortion is immoral. I believe that murdering a born child or an adult is also immoral. But if you believe that we give consent to be governed in order to protect our rights, then you also must understand that we don't have laws against murder because it is immoral, but rather because murder takes away the right of life to an innocent person. Once again, the reason why we allow the government to make laws on our behalf is a topic for another post (and I have written about this already in another post), but simply put, the reason that a society comes out of the state of absolute liberty (anarchy) is so that it will have a common authority that will punish others who try to infringe upon the rights of the individuals in that society. Therefore, understanding this, one can only conclude that the laws that we do have should only be for the protection of liberty, not for moral reasons.

Ok, Vinniemac, you're chasing rabbits again. What does that have to do with abortion and it not being a moral issue?

Well, if abortion was only an issue of morality, then our federal government should have no authority to make a law concerning the issue. But if it can be argued that abortion does in fact infringe upon the inalienable right of an individual, then not only can the government make a law to protect that right, but it also has the undeniable duty to make a law to protect that right. And the inalienable right that I am speaking of is, of course, life.

If the "fetus" in the mother's womb is a life, then our government must protect that individual's right to life. I don't think that anyone can argue with that. As equals, no one person's rights are weighed any more heavily than another's, right? Then neither the mother, nor any other individual, has the right to take the right to take the life from of unborn child.

Aha! Well, Mr. Rocket Scientist, there's where you lose your argument. No one can prove that the fetus is a life, because no one knows exactly when life begins.

Absolutely right. I don't know for a fact when life begins. I believe that life begins at conception, but I have no way to prove it to the "Doubting Thomas". But I don't have to prove that it is a life. All I have to prove is that it may be a life.

Huh?

On what most important factor do we base our legal system? The principle that all are considered innocent until proven guilty. Not the other way around. AND in order for a suspect to be convicted of a crime, all reasonable doubt of his innocence must be absent. In essence, in order for an individual to be eligible for a life sentence or the death penalty, all of the burden rests upon the shoulders of the prosecutor.

This same principle must be applied to the question of whether or not a fetus is a life. If the possibility exists that it is a life, then all reasonable doubt must be proven false in order for it's termination to be allowed. If it is not proven false, and there is some reasonable doubt to the opinion that it is not a life, then our government has the obligation to protect that entity under the reasonable possibility that it is an innocent life. And let's be honest, if a fetus is a life, then it is, without a doubt, the most innocent form of human life.

The "right" of the mother no longer bears any credence in the decision if the fetus is a human life, and since it cannot be proven that it is not a human life, then it must be treated as one since the possibility exists that it is a human life.

If one understands this, then my core beliefs are not hypocritical, and in fact, the core beliefs of many libertarians would have to be hypocritical, though perhaps not knowingly. The reason being that since individual liberty is the core principle behind both my beliefs and the beliefs of the libertarian philosophy, then abortion bans do not infringe upon the liberty of the mother, but rather protect the liberty of a possible life.

I rest my case.

An End to Welfare as We Know It?

I've been mulling something over in my mind lately, and I decided that I had enough of an outline in my head that I could share it with whoever might periodically read my blog. I constantly hear liberals who support Obama's health care plan, and others like it, say that conservatives have no ground to oppose the democrats' plans because we aren't coming up with a solution that will fix the problem. Now, first of all, this is not true; I have heard lots of conservative plans that would bring down the cost of health insurance. i.e. interstate insurance purchase and tax free health savings accounts. And second of all, I don't think that this is necessarily a problem because of the fact that according to polls, about 85% of Americans are happy with their health insurance. That doesn't exactly sound like an over-bearing problem to me. But I had a thought hit me recently after thinking about government controlled health care, and how some people are pushing for a welfare-like system to provide a means of assisted health care.

Now, to provide a premise for what I am about to suggest, let me say that in no way do I think that it is the government's responsibility to provide anything for anybody other than protection from the infringement of rights. But our federal government is already providing a plethora of social welfare programs for millions of Americans. This is a cancer to our liberty, and our tyrannometer should be blinking a big fat DANGER sign already from the amount of socialism that has been able to sneak into our country in the past several decades.

Problems that arise from poverty are real. Don't get me wrong. No one likes to see the guy on the street pushing a buggy with junk all in it, and not because we don't like the eyesore, but because most people genuinely are compassionate toward people who end up like that for whatever reason. But, in order for a free society to continue to be free, problems like this should be and must be handled by private philanthropy, because the ONLY way that government can give something to someone is to take it away from someone else.

With that thought in mind, let me say that the suggestion that I have could not only help solve that problem with providing insurance to those who can't afford it, but it could also possibly help purge our nation from all federal welfare programs. Keep in mind, though, that I am no expert on economic issues, so I don't know how to crunch the numbers to see what kind of impact this would have on federal revenue. I only know that the more we allow the government to provide for us, the less we are able to do for ourselves, and that means less liberty.

The plan is as follows:

First, the federal government creates tax incentives for the creation of privately owned welfare-like charity organizations. This will make it as easy as possible for private individuals and corporations to build entities that will provide things like assisted housing, food banks, transportations services, and yes assisted or free health care.

Second, the federal government gives incentives to individuals to donate money to any welfare-like charity organization(s) of his/her choice. For each $1 that is donated, $1.25 (or some other amount higher than $1) is deducted from that individual's federal income tax for that year. This would cause a few things to happen. First, most individuals would figure out exactly how much they would need to donate in order to erase any federal income tax that they would be required to pay for that given year, since they would spend less by doing this than they would from paying federal income taxes. Because of this, they would have more money at the end of the year to save or spend. Also, most people would rather know exactly what their money will be used for when they give it away, and since they could choose which charity/charities get their money, they would be in control of what cause it went to.

Third, as I said above, given the assumption that most people would donate just enough money to erase all owed federal income tax, they would end up with more money at the end of the year and would, in effect, see a tax cut. With more money in their bank accounts, they will be more likely to spend more through the year. To help generate some revenue, the federal government could implement a small (less than ten percent) national consumption tax on luxury items.

Since the burden of welfare programs would be lifted from the federal government, the required revenue from taxes would be greatly reduced, therefore the loss of income tax revenue would not hurt the federal government because they would only need enough revenue to pay for essential (Constitutionally endorsed) spending.

Fourth, over the course of a few years, gradually eliminate social programs within the federal government as privately owned welfare-like charities grow and can meet the need for such programs.

Fifth and finally, make it easier to buy health insurance from out-of-state suppliers to help increase competition and drive down cost for companies who offer insurance benefits and individuals who privately buy insurance.

Now, like I said, I am no expert on the economy, so for me to provide any details on the numbers I spoke of would be ill-advised. But I think the premise is sound.

I welcome any comments on this, both positive and negative. Give me a full critique, and let me know what could be changed for the better.

Demotivational Posters

I ran across some very funny "demotivational posters." I know I usually only post political opinion essays, but what's the point of having your own blog if you can't put what you want on it.
A little disclaimer: Some of the captions have adult language, so you've been forewarned. The captions were pre-written on the pictures themselves, so don't get mad at me.

If the captions or the pictures are too small to make everything out, just click on the image and it will enlarge it.

If They Get Free Health Care, Then I Want a Colt.

I was listening to Rush today, and I heard him make a great point that I wish I had thought of myself. Then again, it is hard to compete with a man of his caliber.

He was speaking of the Health Care bill that is being shoved into our faces. Now, I do not believe that this "Obama Care" is in any stretch of the imagination a good piece of legislation, but there is one aspect of universal health care that I haven't thought of before.

Government is not established to ensure that we have all that we need. Government is established to ensure that no one stops us from pursuing what we need. In other words, the government protects (or should protect) our rights from being infringed upon. So looking at this through the proverbial glasses of the health care field, and more specifically health insurance, the government is supposed to ensure that others do not infringe upon our rights to seek health care, if we want it.

Now, under Obama's plan, we will be required (and subject to a $2500 fine per year if we fail) to have some type of health insurance. Putting aside the argument that under this system all privately owned insurance companies will eventually see their own demise due to the inevitability that private companies will cease to offer health insurance to their employees when they can simply sign up for Obama Care, this type of system holds one other very frightening aspect.

You see, when people must sign up for a single payer system of health care, the government can decide who gets treatment, and who doesn't. We already see this happening in Europe and Canada. The elderly, especially, are often considered to be a lost cause by the bureacracy and are denied health care due simply to the fact that they are not worth the money.

Now, stay with me, beause this IS going somewhere.

We have a right to bear arms. If we choose, we can go out and by a pistol or a rifle or a shotgun. As a matter of fact, yesterday, I bought another pistol to add to my collection. That's right, I have a small collection of guns, and by God, I love them. But back to my point. Even though we have a right to buy firearms, that does not mean that the government is responsible for providing us with a means of self-defense, i.e. a firearm. But we do have the right to bear arms.

In the true definition of a "right," we do have a right to health care. If we so choose, we can purchase health insurance. If we do not choose to purchase health care, we still have the right to get care and just pay out of pocket.

But when we enter into a system that decides who gets what kind of health care, when they get it, and who they get it from, and they have the ability to deny pace-makers, cancer treatment, and organ transplants to those that they deem a "lost cause," we, in essence, lose our right to get health care. So those politicians who claim that health care is a right, are absolutely right. But they are the very ones who are pushing to take that right away.

We don't have a right to have health care provided for us for free, but we do have a right to health care in exactly the same way that we have a right to own guns. If these politicians believe that our "right" to health care means that it should be provided for us, why don't they push for the government to provide all of us AK47s. If this is about ensuring that our rights are not infringed, and providing those things that we have rights to is how they plan to protect our rights, then they would view the right to bear arms the same way.

Ah. But that's just it. Universal health care isn't about ensuring that our rights are not infringed upon. It's about power. The more facets of our life that they can get their hands into--health care, the automobile industry, energy--the more ways they can strong arm us into complying with their own agendas. This is exactly what they are trying to do.

And you can see this on both sides of the aisle. I used to consider myself a Republican. But too many Republicans are becoming Big-Government Republicans, and they too, are now trying to step into our lives and advance their own agendas, though not as blatantly and on as grand a scale as the Democrats. This is why I consider myself a Conservative now, and only a Conservative. But that's a post for a different time.

See, the difference between the gun analogy and health care isn't that guns can be dangerous and health care keeps people alive. No, that shouldn't matter. Under their premise, if both are rights, then both should be provided by the government. The difference is that guns in the hands of the people that they oppress scare them. That takes power away from them. Getting their grubby nasty hands into our health care system, however, gives them the ultimate power over us. They decide who lives and who dies.

I guess if they do shove this bull into our faces, I'll just start writing my congressmen and ask that they add to my gun collection on the taxpayer's dime. Because if this kind of health care is Constitutional, so is a government paid 1911 .45 cal. Colt.