Resisting a Rigged Election

Asheville Citizen-Times Editorial – 101 – ClosingArguments – October 28, 2012

Offering closing remarks to a rigged jury is like praying to a jade Buddha. It may create some warm fuzzy feelings, but the outcome is predetermined. That this election is rigged and rocks can’t answer prayer is equally certain.

For a glimpse into the limitations of praying to stone, note that where idol worship prevails, so does poverty, despotism, and misery. To illuminate a fixed election, look to three liberal forms of idolatry – bias, racism, and denial.

At the turn of the last century, media bias was derisively termed “yellow journalism.” Today it’s enthusiastically termed “progressive.” In 2008, eighty-eight percent of the higher-level staff donations from the big three television networks went to Obama. The contributor percentages to liberal candidates by the PBS board governing Big Bird were even higher. Any bets on how consistently journalistic focus follows journalistic funding?

That reason is mostly mislaid in addressing racism is brightly revealed by black America’s lock-step dedication to Obama. His abysmal jobs record does not matter. Neither does his support for abortion, homosexual marriage, and illegal immigration – issues that black Americans are persistently against. What does matter is shared pigmentation. Voting against or for a man based on color is racism. Ignoring this misguided foundation for voter loyalty is another means by which the left is staging this election’s outcome.

Where addiction goes, denial follows in equal measure. This partnership explains why dependence is so prevalent and the reason our culture is so dedicated to personal vanities, entitlements, victimization, living off the labor of others, and postponed accountability. Not surprisingly, addicts reliably invest their vote in politicians promising a continued fix.

That this election is rigged is affirmed in a final way. There is simply no other means by which a candidate with a relentless record of failure in foreign, domestic, and economic policy could be otherwise promoted as a serious contender.

If past patterns are repeated, the orchestrated nature of this election assures our current President will have four more years to recycle failure. We’ll have equal time to experience the inevitable consequences of voting for personal gain over the best interests of our country.

If past patterns aren’t repeated, it will mean conservatives, culturists, and adult thinkers got off the couch and voted for the only guy in this race with a track record of executive success. Hint – Big Bird did not contribute to his campaign.

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Sidestepping Reality is a National Past-time

Asheville Citizen-Times Editorial –100– MostOverlookedIssues – 10-21-2012

What’s being overlooked in this election? Just about everything.

America’s Presidential selection process is about power and the victor is the guy who makes the most people feel good. Real issues are consequently addressed like hot potatoes. For leadership not prioritizing postponement and evasion as a governance model, we might look to our country’s creation. The men who made it happen retain a timeless relevance.

Tempered by subjugation, the Founding Fathers embraced realism as a foundation for a hope and change action plan. Modern America has embraced denial as a foundation for a hope and change fantasy plan. Closing our eyes to the systematic corruption of the authentic American Dream has become a national past-time. Thomas Jefferson warned of this danger – “Experience has shown, that even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

Further avoidance dances around Washington’s pattern of spending trillions we don’t have through authorization they don’t have. James Madison anticipated the unscrupulous practice of purchasing power by fostering constituent dependency on politicians, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.

Our expanding swap of decency for the freedom to debase ourselves and our culture is another widely discounted harm. No society can find a sustainable future in addiction, lust, immoderation, dishonesty, greed, consumption, infanticide, and other predatory indulgences. We’ve forgotten George Washington’s example, but his advice on personal and national character remains mournfully pertinent – “Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”

With each effort to whitewash the Constitution so as to liberate government and constrain people, we lose another piece of America. Patrick Henry’s cautionary call to action lights a patriot’s path – “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who approaches that jewel.”

We don’t deal with real problems during Presidential campaigns. It’s not possible. Any mention of reality, accountability, or consequence assures a candidate’s flogging and hasty retreat to the sanctuaries of sound-bites, fuzzy math, and emotional oratory. Ben Franklin, another one of those pesky Founding Fathers, offered handy insight on the best way to avoid overlooking the obvious and the difference in the men of his hour and ours – “Never confuse motion with action.” 

Romney’s Half Right

Asheville Citizen-Times Editorial – 99 – Romney – October 7, 2012

Like most liberal-progressives, Albert Einstein benefitted immensely from entrepreneurial capitalism. Per reliance on government generosity, his conscious embrace predictably landed on socialism. Even the brilliant are vulnerable to a seductive uncle.

The percentage of Americans confusing the Land of Liberty with a milk carton can be argued. That those statistics confidently include rich and poor, young and old, and Republican as surely as Democrat can’t. Nor can the reality of entitlement discipleship growing faster than a Georgia kudzu patch.

Einstein was politically irrational, but he wasn’t morally bankrupt. Witness his quote – “If you are out to describe the truth, leave elegance to the tailor.” Mitt Romney did just that. Though technically wrong on percentages, he was honorably right on the truth.

Uncle Sam’s client list begins with the silent partnership of crony capitalists, crony socialists, and crony politicians skimming the cream off the American Dream. Close behind follow the regulated professions, like law and medicine, benefitting from the impaired competition and inflated costs of a closed system. Attorneys make hundreds an hour greasing wheels of justice manipulated to turn slowly, awkwardly, and expensively – just like medicine.

Obama’s hope and change plan has almost doubled the beneficiaries honestly utilizing or dishonestly exploiting food stamps. In the prosperity center of WNC, Asheville, the majority of students don’t pay anything for their salt, fat, and empty calories. Food banks continue to trigger our sympathies and do-gooder vanities with inflated claims of rampant hunger. Seen anything lately remotely resembling a starving human being? Bet you have noted the percentage of professional victims sporting smokes, obesity, attitude, or a hangover.

With big government comes benefit and retirement packages far sweeter than those of civilians. In that union greed and corruption reliably kills jobs, it’s good they’re now more prevalent in government than the private sector.

Most people on social security are taking out more than they put in. We have twice as many firefighters covering half as many fires as their dad’s generation. Forty-five percent of our Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans are seeking some form of disability. Public housing has evolved from a mission of transitional shelter to generational incubator. Our rampant drug culture abuses millions out of a hospital system persistently mistaking time-out for treatment.

Confusing nice with necessary and kudzu with grass produces similar outcomes. Romney’s absolutely right on America’s growing avarice. Regrettably wrong that noble people were ever in a majority.

We’re Befuddled for a Reason

Asheville Citizen-Times Editorial – 98 – Constitution – September 30, 2012

A traveler without the means to navigate is easily lost. That’s especially true when traversing unfamiliar territory. Twenty-first century America’s inability to solve problems, pass national budgets, live within our means, contain corruption, work together, or effectively make our way through a crazy world has little to do with bad luck – everything to do with discarding our map and compass.

America’s greatest enemies aren’t found overseas. They’re here, among us, exchanging liberty for temporary safety through the machinations of the Patriot Act, spending tomorrow’s defense dollars on undeclared and unwinnable wars in corrupt foreign lands, ignoring the violation of our borders, expanding unfunded entitlements, borrowing money on the futures of our children, and confusing the passage of complex, selectively enforced and special interest driven laws with good governance.

The U.S. Constitution was framed as a roadmap on how to liberate people and constrain government. Both the Republican and Democratic parties have a demonstrated zeal for reversing that equation. My party finds self-deceptive comfort in a reputation as the lesser of evils. There’s no honor in degrading our country more slowly than the competition. Noble efforts to preserve the Constitution, per the oath every politician, judge and serviceman takes, are astonishingly rare.

Contrary to progressive mythology, America’s systems of governance, education, finance, industry, culture, defense, and about everything else you can think of were birthed out of a Christian heritage. Amidst a world of confusing religions, Christianity uniquely provides a moral compass with far more history of uplifting the common man than aggrandizing the governing elite.

Separation of church and state are excluded from America’s Constitution for a reason. The 1st amendment was intended to provide freedom of religion, not freedom from religion. The language of the Constitution and the Christian values of the founding fathers decisively affirm where they stood. It’s no coincidence our society is suffering as we simultaneously abandon our roadmap – the Constitution – and our moral compass – the Christian faith.

Abiding by the Ten Commandments is not nearly as fun as exploring the counter-proposals of the seven deadly sins. Upholding the Constitution is rarely as rewarding as breaking it. Standing for something is always tougher than keeping your options open. Disregarding the document and morality that propelled us into an extraordinary American Dream has been a grave error. It remains to be seen if we’ll rediscover the vision and values necessary to evade the cliffs our vanity predicts.