Friday, May 30, 2008

Not Just My Thoughts, Phew!!

The Catholic view of John McCain.
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http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=28073&page=1
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The above talks of John McCain’s troubles with the conservative religious movement.. In my opinion the religious right organizations are sounding more and more like the Left wing loonies. Political Correctness with God on your side. I may be blurring things here as I agree with Anne that the left has made a religion out of environmentalism. But I think you see my point. I firmly believe in God. I firmly believe that this country with it’s constitution would not exist without the firm belief in God which our Founders had. The basis of our law is derived from God’s law. Notice I said God not Falwell, or Robertson or my pastor, or yours or Obama’s or a Catholic’s priest nor a Rabbi. I believe the founding fathers belief in God let them see past the partisan if you will vision of any individual religious leader or denomination to envision the Freedom to choose our own individual faith or none at all; to keep the government out of religion and religion out of the government. The Founders may have believed as I do that we are closest to God when we are alone with him. He is in everyone.

God gave me the right to post this blog it is inalienable to me to do this. Our government helps enforce my right to blog. I can use my inalienable rights any way I so choose. Barring injury to others. I am influenced by all sorts of people, but ruled by none. God rules me when I let him through my conscience, that ever present ability to see right and wrong immediately. Only after glimpsing it, am I then allowed to confuse the issue or not.

You know what?? I would like to give my candidate or any candidate for that matter the ability to do the same. One of the essential traits I vote for in a candidate is their ability to make free decisions based on fact for the good of America beholding to none. All of this political correctness is ridiculous. At the current level it has just become another interest group. These litmus tests are just another way to limit the ability of a President to make courageous decisions, unpopular decisions for the good of the country.

How can he win by not cozying up to the religious right? The same way we tell the Dems about getting away from their far left. I keep going back to the idea that the people know the government is broke. They are the ones that have to deal with it. The people want it fixed. They will vote for anyone with a good sounding plan, short of that they will vote the Bums out and hope for change. I’ve been posting about the big conservative movement in England and Europe for that matter. Showing an alternative or a possible case for voting the bums out. Looking closer to home we see 3 Republican losses in formally Republican strongholds. Also the “Blue Dogs” are threatening the same kind of harm to our party. Another article about that written today.
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http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/05/28/america/NA-POL-US-Conservative-Democrats.php
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WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Just found this, I’m as excited as someone can be who has been saying (blogging) the same thing forever and thinking nobody else is thinking the same way. I’ve just been blogging a little about it today, I’m lonely no more. I’m not going to erase what I just wrote above. It’ll remind me that all people if they use common sense can come up with the same ideas. I’m nobody, this guy writes for the National Review. Alex Castellanos talks in his piece about David Brooks, and The British Conservative movement led by David Cameron. About how we conservatives need to embrace the government to fix it and make it work for the people. Let us become the facilitators between government and people. Let us be the ones to set up local controls on government “bottom up politics”, that is why I started another blog after reading some Cameron speeches. {upper right on my side bar} I named it “Bottom up Politics” Please John McCain give Cameron a private call take him out to lunch. Lol. Try to understand his concept. Americans are dying to help. See my side bar “Update Across The Pond” for other Cameron stuff.
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http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=Njg0ZjliNmIyNzdlODBkNDQ3MjFmNGQ1ODExNDBlMzU=&w=MA==
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We have to be the ones to help the people get the government working again. That whole Cameron idea of the conservatives being the people party and the liberals being the party of government. Toooooo good of an article. The quote below about the various people recently weighing in, I’ve blogged on each one. I feel redeemed. Almost as if Peggy Noonan caught my eye and winked.
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"Republicans can’t seem to express an organizing principle these days, and almost everyone with a computer to type on has noticed. David Brooks writes in the New York Times that the British have at last declared their independence from us: American conservatives, he notes, have lost the leadership of the conservative movement to them. Tom Davis, a former leader of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, writes, “the Republican brand is in the trash can.” The New Yorker headlines, “The Fall of Conservatism: Have the Republicans run out of ideas?” Most painful of all, the elegant Peggy Noonan, who is to conservative composition what Fred Astaire was to dance, says the Republican party, including its conservative leadership, has “squandered the hard-built paternity of 40 years” because we are no longer serious about leadership, policy, or ideas." The Peggy Noonan part was great.


I’ve got to get out and get something in my neighborhood working.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Think I’ll also invite Alex to our “Sunday Morning Conservative Coffee for Ward 2 Muskegon” Peggy always has an open invitation. Lol. I’ll be there 8:00 am Sun. at the downtown McDonald’s. You are always invited too. It would be nice to see someone. Lol.

PS Just an ego thing maybe. But a list of some of my posts about the above.
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http://conservativeinmuskegon.blogspot.com/2008/05/two-brooks-emerging-river.html
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http://conservativeinmuskegon.blogspot.com/2008/05/leader-that-leads-solution-that-works.html
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http://conservativeinmuskegon.blogspot.com/2008/05/build-it-and-they-will-come.html
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http://conservativeinmuskegon.blogspot.com/2008/05/truth-in-peggy-noonan.html
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http://conservativeinmuskegon.blogspot.com/2008/05/cycles-through-bums-out.html
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Thanks for the time.
Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Thursday, May 29, 2008

The Precise Solution?


It is painful to read the obvious sometimes. More painful the shorter and more precise it is.
I have been writing a lot of pages to cover the images evoked by the following.
-----quote-----
Conservative Funk
Conservatives are pining for a candidate they can vote for. What they really need is an electorate that will vote for their candidates.
Cross Posted at Power and Control
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Below is where I lifted that gem from.
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http://www.classicalvalues.com/archives/2008/05/conservative_fu.html--------------
All that it said was in what it didn’t say. Kind of Churchill like. Those two sentences imply contradictions if the end result will be a culture change through election. The first sentence I’ll use Ronald Reagan as a candidate conservatives are pining for. The second sentence “ what they (conservatives) really need is an electorate that will vote for their candidates.” happened with the election of Reagan. Yet the statement above seems to claim that what happened couldn’t.

Like I said the beauty lies in what it didn’t say. It didn’t say how we will find that “ electorate that will vote for their (our)candidates.” The author in a reply to a comment states that candidates are “spurious“. What about a Reagan or any great leader? Isn’t the function of a leader during elections in a democracy to pull together a majority of people with his leadership and his ideas?

In effect the sentences above simply say that we need candidates that the people will vote for. My mind is working overtime connecting this to that and over and over to make sense of what I think these two sentences and their author implies.

Finally I realize that no matter what is implied. The beauty of it came from what I implied to it through my own preconceived notions. I had to spend this much time reworking my thoughts to try to make those two sentences fit my reality.

I take that Churchill remark back and change that to an Andy Warhol type of statement..

Still had me going, forced me to study myself some more. Did what writers should, what painters should. Evoke more than the sum of the parts. Stimulate inspire people to be more than they are. Perhaps that is what a Ronald Reagan candidate does to an electorate.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Michigan Fair Tax

I liked the idea of the Fair Tax when I ran across it on the national level. It claims to be revenue neutral, meaning that things (government programs and the funding amounts for them) remain the same. Just the way in which the government gets it’s money changes. The Income Tax would be scrapped in favor of a larger (9.25%) sales tax or “consumption” tax. See link below for a previous post I wrote about my views. Since then I haven’t found any defects in the plan that would outweigh the benefits.
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http://conservativeinmuskegon.blogspot.com/2008/05/fair-tax-what-say-you.html
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Michigan has a “fair tax” bill currently before the legislature. It is a clone of the national “fair tax” plan. The bill according to the site would charge 9.25% sales tax. Personal state income tax would no longer exist. Currently that averages over 4%. Again that revenue neutral concept comes into play. A big advantage for Michigan I feel would be the instant across the board tax breaks (none=0=nada business tax). Companies would quit leaving and start coming back to Michigan. Below a link to it.
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http://www.mifairtax.org/
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From the site above I see Jack Hoogendyk is a cosponsor of the bill along with a lot of others.
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http://www.mifairtax.org/news-docs/Cosponsors.pdf
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Below a link to the actual corrections in bold to the existing laws.
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http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2007-2008/jointresolutionintroduced/House/pdf/2007-HIJR-L.pdf
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A “fair tax calculator” NOTE THIS IS FOR THE FEDERAL “FAIR TAX PLAN”
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http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=calculator&autologin=true
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When I filled out the calculator. It dawned on me that the poor people who don’t file now would have to file somehow in order to get the prebate. National and State. I wonder if someone has thought through the inevitable fraud issues. I’m thinking fraud similar to the dead people receiving welfare checks and SS checks that type of thing. Well I’ll keep digging. Maybe do some calling or emailing to Jack Hoogendyk for some clarification. Maybe Nick at Right Michigan would have some answers also. I’ll check.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

Edit. Made a search of Right Michigan and came up with a list of post Nick has made about the "fair tax" See my side bar under "Xtra Links For Current Posts".

Monday, May 26, 2008

MY NON INTERVIEW

My alternative interview about John McCain’s computer generated health model based on documents not seen.
I got upset seeing CyberAlert’s take on the interview linked below. I apologize for not picking up on this at the time, it slipped by without me noticing. I’m getting old.
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http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2008/cyb20080523.asp#1
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MY NON-INTERVIEW

Welcome viewers, our interview today will be with Joe Old Guy, formerly a doctor and at 72 years of age he considers himself active enough to come on my show. So welcome Joe, to let the viewers know a little about you I’d like to ask who you voted for last Presidential election.
------Well ah, JFK or Kerry it was it gets confusing at my age you know, LD (Live Dangerously). (that’s me the interviewer in case you too get confused)
LD-----So as a person voting democratic in the last election who do you think you will vote for in the upcoming election?
Joe------Well in my research from the actuarial tables I see that there is an 80% chance I will again vote democrat. An interesting anecdote I found LD was that If someone drove me to the polls and assisted me to the booth, the percentage jumps to 95% as there is a 15% rate that people in my category won’t make it to the polling station once they leave the house, LD these statistics don’t lie. I also found that 5% of my group once there for whatever reason couldn’t consummate the complicated process. That percentage in my defense is quite low. You know LD that in the sexual area of consummating that the percentage goes up quiet a ----(here there was a brief interruption)
LD------Well that is really very interesting, but we are here to talk about John McCain and the role age will play in his ability to function as President. What are your opinions on that Joe?
Joe------Well first off he’s a Republican so in my opinion from my own research at the Daily Kos he has nearly a 75% failure rate regardless of age but since you brought it up, due to his age he doesn’t really have much of a chance. I know.
LD------What about his wounds suffered as a POW Joe. How will those wounds affect his abilities both mentally as well as physically?
Joe------Good question LD. Very insightful. Mentally I think we can deduce from his history that he can be very stubborn to the point of unreasonableness to the point of harming those around him. I’m sure those that rescued him after his crash and cared for him, asked him politely at first some simple questions that evidence shows he new full well, and it was only through his undue stubbornness that they were forced to do what they had to in order to unite their wonderful country. You know LD that since the war they have made great inroads against progress and the harm it has caused especially in the South.
LD------So you think that his stubbornness could be a problem?
Joe------Why yes I do LD. I think it borders on delusional. His lack of compassion for his rescuers in not answering their simple questions should also be considered.
LD------Why is that Joe?
Joe------Because those people interviewing him had rescued him and were keeping him alive for one thing. For another, they were doing their jobs and I would not have wanted to embarrass them in front of their betters.
LD------So anyway this report that we haven’t seen yet says that there probably is something that will show Sen. McCain is unfit for the highest office in the land because he was in the military and on top of that he is almost as old as you. Joe ( a gentle nudge) Do you want me to repeat the question?
Joe-----No LD I was just resting my eyes. You bring up an interesting point. I can’t help but remember FDR (I voted for him you know). I think it would be unfair to compare the two.
LD------I didn’t
Joe------Even though FDR physical disabilities were far worse than John McCain’s, they were not caused as a result of being in the military. Well you know what that means, I mean they even teach innocent young people to use guns, and the crime being what it is now in the streets and they are all a bunch of war mongers starving killing raping children and Cheney and the CIA blew up the towers because they wanted the oil our friend Chavez has and they---(station break). ( well something like that) End of interview.
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Well I’ve vented enough, people who see this kind of thing still think for themselves and the age thing alone will come back to bite them. The insinuations a persons mental ability based on nothing but actuarial tables is beyond repulsive. I guess in the age of the collective consensus versus individual ability, what should I expect. Well I do expect more, that’s my problem.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

My Thanks go out to Senator John McCain on this Memorial Day

Sunday, May 25, 2008

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON MY WAY TO A POLITICAL ARGUMENT

A Funny thing happened on my way to a political argument.
I was talking with a guy yesterday and politics crept into our discussion. He was playing me some but that’s ok it’s politics. He suddenly sprung on me the question he thought would bring the real me out. Get me trapped, you know the setup get a read on how I really felt. He asked “What about Hillary Obama, what’s up with that thing”? Without pause for thinking I said “They got married? Wow. When did that happen? I didn’t know”. He looked at me then I saw the light come on and he burst out laughing I couldn’t resist either. Pretty soon we were joking about both sides, we had found by accident some common ground. We had found something personal that transcended the rhetoric. We knew we had different basic views but we were looking at the problem from a different place. Our views had subtly changed. We were a little different.

I don’t think we’ll all of a sudden change parties, and become bosom buddies, but if we ever face a real problem that needs a solution in the future, especially if we don’t have time to argue about it: we may remember our little laugh and be more inclined to work together to fix it.

Yup, A Funny thing happened on my way to a political argument, we laughed and left the rhetoric at home.

Regards, Live Dangerously Be A Conservative

PS. Here is a guy that should of laughed too. I forgot where I found this link. Listen to the whole thing to appreciate it.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YK0d8ENS__c
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I’m not a fan of Chris Wallace and the whole idea he harped on about appeasement wasn’t sound in my opinion. But the other guy was obvious lacking in the history of the discussion. This is the type of whacko I despise. I hate to see them creeping into our party. When Rhetoric means everything. Facts become irrelevant. See side bar under "Xtra Links For Current Posts" for Anne Coulter's take on it.