Michael Moore the millionaire Marxist is at it again.  Everyone knew it was only a matter of time until he came out openly Marxist, and with his latest piece of pro-Marixst propaganda, Moore does not disappoint.   In the film, “Capitalism, a Love Story,” Moore seeks to illustrate how capitalism has failed and thus socialism is the only viable system by which a sensible and advanced people may prosper. Unfortunately for Moore it is clear from viewing many of his previous films that he doesn’t know what capitalism is. It is also clear that while Moore may well indeed have a true empathy for those financially less fortunate than himself, he has no intention of spreading his wealth around. Why? Because, in his own words, he is just like us. A recent interview with Larry King revealed the following exchange:

Moore: Who's got the money? And whoever has the money has the power. And right now, in America, tonight, Larry, the richest 1 percent have more financial wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.

King: You're in that 1 percent, though?  (More...)

Now that the election is over and the American people have spoken, the task for the Right becomes at first obvious. That first task, ultimately, is to find and define itself – and to do so as expeditiously as is practicable. This much is obvious. What is not so obvious, of course, is how this all-important task will be or ought to be accomplished – if at all. 

To the question of whether this can even be accomplished, whether or not a new conservatism can be first, defined, and second, molded into a cohesive movement solid enough to accomplish what it must, that being nothing less than arresting the rise of tyranny and arbitrary government through the advancement of government-imposed socialism, I would submit that it can only be accomplished outside of the duopolistic hegemony of the current mainstream party system. The cause of the new conservatism must be begun and advanced wholly and entirely apart from the Republican Party. More pointedly, the new conservatism must be held as sacred and kept secure from contamination by the Republican Party, because for the foreseeable future, that Party, even if it survives its current implosion, will continue to be entirely void of true conservatism and, as such, poison to any true conservative movement that has the unfortunate occasion to be defined as affiliate with it. 

To succeed, the new conservatism must find a home where it is wanted – outside the mainstream of politics and nonsensical parties – in the realm of what we recognize as third parties, such as Libertarian, Constitution, Conservative, etc. Indeed, it would be most beneficial to the larger movement to have members and activists within all of these third parties taking responsible and active roles in defining the path and goals of the new conservatism, for healthy debate amongst the various legitimate schools of conservative thought and discussion and proper understanding of the significance of the varying trends and norms from the various parts of the nation will be essential to the success of such a movement. That much is, or at least ought to be, obvious.

What is also obvious is that in its infancy this new conservatism and the war it wages will be largely a war of words, that is, words employed to convey and explicitly define ideas both for our side as well as for the opposition. Thus, it is essential in this war of words to not be the one defined by the rods of the other, but to first define the other employing those words that best convey the message intended.

To that end, I would suggest a definition of this new conservatism: that socio-economic and socio-political thought which is analogous to the classical liberalism of such great minds as Adams, Jefferson, Hamilton, Jay, von Mises, Hayek, Hume, Locke, Bastiat, Montesquieu, etc. I suggest this particular definition for, while it is necessary to divest ourselves of any connection whatsoever to the “nouveaux” or simply “faux” conservatism currently embraced by the Republican Party and its surrogates, it is just as necessary – if not even more so - to define how the opposition is intended by us to be perceived. I do not intend to suggest that any sort of deliberate deception be employed to that effect; on the contrary, I submit that the language and terminology employed be selectively vetted so as to best convey truth, for if it is truth that is the very essence of what we wish convey to the general populous, then if we should employ duplicity and deception to as to achieve our end, then the truth becomes that we are no more righteous than those who would oppress us, and thus the intended affect is obviously lost. It must be, then, that this war or words be fought from the very beginning with the overtly expressed desire and intent to shine ever brightly the light of truth so as to expose the darkness of the authoritarian form of socialism that surely awaits us given the current trend toward “change” at any cost. If the people will not accept truth and still choose willfully to subject themselves to tyranny, only then ought other, more questionable methods and tactics be employed.

Having stated that, then, and keeping in line with professing the truth of the current political climate, my conclusion and suggestion is to redefine the Progressive Left not as they would define themselves (the Progressive Left) but as what they are: new-socialists. To be sure, they are not “progressive” in any sense of the word, with the possible exception of the fact that their “newness” is found in bringing socialism to the United States for the first time. They are, in fact, “regressive,” falling back to the worn rhetoric and failed socialism of past ages – all of which has ruined the respective societies that have embraced such ideas. They cannot be called “liberal” because true “liberalism” is found in the newness of the great minds listed above. 

“Liberalism,” in the classical sense, is analogous to the advancement of new ideas and the promotion of Liberty. It goes without saying that the present self-proclaimed “Progressives” are anything but open to dialogue and advancement of new ideas. Therefore it is all the more fitting to tag them with the most appropriate label and effectively chain them to the erroneous ideology they embrace as their truth, and which is wholly and entirely antithetical to the principles upon which our Constitution is founded: The Democrat Party ought now be termed the “Neo-Socialist Left,” with all the negative connotations of regressivism inherent in such language.

To be sure, those of us advancing the New Conservatism should not shy away from defining the Neo-Socialist Left as such but should immediately adopt such terminology and employ it to the benefit of our cause. Likewise, we should not resist embracing new or, for that matter, old language to clearly define our ideas. Therefore we should not be ashamed to employ such terminology as “Classical Liberalism” or a “Liberalism of the Classical School” in conjunction with the use of the word “conservatism” to that the desired perception be projected. Indeed, the words themselves attest to the truth we seek to convey. Thus, it is our present duty to properly employ them to our desired end.

Change is coming whether we want it or not.  In fact, it is already here.  The nation’s financial system is in turmoil.   The nine largest banks in the country have all but been nationalized by the federal government, the markets are scared and showing it; and, the possibility of a long and deep recession is beginning to put pressure on average folks who are trying to find what all of this means for them. To be sure, everyone will have to more closely watch his or her finances and strive toward a more frugal, long-term outlook. 

While economists are still in general disagreement as to how long, how deep and how significant this recession will be, we are even now witnessing rising unemployment, a lack of credit, and the Fed leading the charge toward hyper-inflation as they crank up the printing presses and create money out of thin air. And while the miscreants on Capitol Hill speculate, hypothesize and hold hearings and point fingers of blame for the current mess, the specter of authoritarian socialism looms over this republic, but the only people who seem to want to acknowledge this fact are those on the right – and no one, most certainly no one in government – seems to be taking us seriously. Indeed, of those who are even willing to acknowledge where we are headed, few will admit that we have already been on our way, ‘fellow travelers,’ so to speak, for quite some time.

To better illustrate this fact, I shall endeavor to point out the glaringly obvious with the help of Karl Marx. The following are what Marx in his Communist Manifesto deems as 10 essential elements to achieving socialism:

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal liability of all to work: Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools: Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form: Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

Marx also notes:

“Of course, in the beginning, this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property, and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production.”

Certainly no one would be foolish enough to suggest that the United States has already gone full-blown “commie.” But, one would have to be a fool to deny the fact that our government and politicians have been moving us steadily toward socialism by their insistence on more and more social and entitlement programs, giveaways, and interference in the economy and our personal lives. Even a cursory glance at the list above ought to raise a few red flags (no pun intended…). Of course the US has not met all of Marx’s essential requirements to facilitate socialism, but the groundwork has indeed been laid.

That said, here is something the average citizen should understand but does not: government is force, and every time government increases the amount and extent of its interference in the economy, in our social relations, in our commerce, it usurps our liberty little by little. It is unnoticeable at first, as such usurpations seem incremental; until suddenly the nation wakes up to realize that it is no longer free, that liberty has been sacrificed for empty promises of physical and economic security, and that the people have received – and will only receive – nothing for the sacrifice of their liberty. People don’t understand this because they have only been taught that government is good and benevolent and that its most noble purpose is to help the people on their way to success. Over the last several decades the general perception of what government is vis-à-vis what it ought to be has shifted decidedly in favor of bigger government and the welfare/nanny state.

The Federal Reserve and Federal Income Tax Acts both of 1913, the New Deal and Great Society and all the social-welfare programs contained therein, and, yes, the extraordinary consolidation of executive powers through the Department of Homeland Security and the Patriot Act are just some of the more glaring examples of government interference and interventionism. Certainly one cannot omit the government forcing the nation’s nine largest banks to “participate” in its bailout program, by which these banks taken federal money under coercion and the government assumes what it terms as “observer status” with a non-voting seat on the board. This sounds innocent enough, except for the fact that it is highly probable that at future board meetings the “observer” from the government might offer “advice” or “suggestions” to the controlling officers of the institution as to the government’s position on a particular course of action. Such situations easily conjure up images of the Soviet Political Officers or KGB officials inserting themselves into the everyday business of the citizenry.

It is noteworthy that this is not where we are headed – it is where we presently are. So, what of the future? What will define what is rapidly becoming our American Socialism? Will it merely be an iPod and a cell-phone in every child’s book bag, enrollment in the new national healthcare program, and annual re-distribution checks sent out from the Treasury to those too “poor” to contribute, or will it devolve into something even more sinister? 

The great economist Ludwig von Mises wrote a great deal on the subject of government encroachment in the economy of nations, and we and our “representatives” in Washington would to well to heed his warnings. Mises concluded that government meddling in the economy, interventionism, can only lead to socialism, and that socialism cannot subsist unless it takes on an authoritarian nature, which is its tendency. 

In his essay “Middle-of-the-Road Policy Leads to Socialism (1950),” Mises wrote, “There are two methods available for the transformation of capitalism into socialism.” The method by which the US is moving toward socialism is, according to Mises, “…the method of the Hindenburg plan, the originally German pattern of the welfare state and of planning. It forces every firm and every individual to comply strictly with the orders issues by the government’s central board of production management. Such was the intention of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, which the resistance of business frustrated and the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional. Such is the idea implied in the endeavors to substitute planning for private enterprise.”

Mises continued his remarks on British and German socialism relative to the United States: “The United States embarked later than these other two countries upon this decline, and is today still farther away from its end. But if the trend of this policy will not change, the final result will only in accidental and negligible points differ from what happened in the England of Attlee and in the Germany of Hitler. The middle-of-the-road system is not an economic system that can last. It is a method for the realization of socialism by installments.”

The devolution of a nation into socialism has as much to do with economics as with politics. Government intervention in the market in the interest of enforcing “fairness” or in striving to manipulate such conditions as to create artificial conditions to continue an economic “boom,” leads to ever more widespread encroachment and manipulation to perpetuate artificial “boom” conditions, because it cannot be otherwise. If government implements price controls for one commodity it follows that the new condition will affect the production of that commodity to where its components must be strictly regulated and controlled, thereby expanding government intervention into areas of the economy never intended by enactment of the original policy. This is the law of unintended consequences, which itself is the result of the short-sightedness of policy makers and economists who look to the immediate solution or fix for one aspect of the economy or one class of people (farmers, middle class, etc.) without taking the time to think through the potential long-tem affects of their brainchild, and whether and to what extent those affects would be beneficial or not. 

Government is force and money is power and the two, force and power, should never be allowed to become concurrently subject to the arbitrary whims of government officials, bureaucrats and spineless and corrupt politicians. Should such a thing occur, as it has recently here with government acquisition of the nation’s nine largest banks, a republican form of government and rule of law will not long endure such temptation and tyranny. 

Socialism is coming no matter the outcome of the presidential election, and in many ways it is already here. The only way to stop it is to un-elect it by re-forming the ideological and socio-economic outlook and understanding of the people. In other words, demonstrate to the masses how government deceit, corruption and misguided planning, subsidy, welfare and other interventionist policies set about to ruin a solid free-market system that works best when simply left alone and unencumbered by government nonsense and politics. Given the current state of the economy and the possibility of what is to come with a pro-socialist majority in both Houses of Congress and occupying the White House we can be sure that things will get worse before they get better. Ironically, for that we might actually be thankful soon, for in our need to gather evidence and data to present and make our case against socialism to the people, government will have largely done our work for us. All we need do is present what they provide, which should be sufficient.

Here’s a news-flash you won’t see on CNN, FOX, or any other media outlet of ill repute for that matter: the US Government thinks you are stupid. So do the politicians we continue to elect to “represent” us at the legislative and executive levels. So do the bureaucrats that are appointed and hired by the government. They all think we are stupid, and they might even be right.

Why would I even suggest such a thing, that we the people might just really be as stupid as the politicians assume us to be? Here’s my answer: because we are acting like it. And if we don’t wake up real soon and take some serious action we are going to be jolted awake one morning only discover that we no longer live in a free republic, and all the evidence, coupled with the total economic impact of the events of the last several weeks suggest that we are coming perilously close to that day.

Many, if not most, who are reading this would agree with this assessment, but for the sake of those who haven’t been paying attention to history, have no clue that we have a Constitution that is being knowingly and continually violated with seeming impunity by our elected representatives, bureaucrats and judges, and for those who, being either blissfully ignorant about the truth regarding the economic catastrophe our once-free market has become or who simply nod their heads at the assurance of government that they are working hard to fix the problem and everything is going to be OK, I have some disturbing news for you: the government and the politicians you elected are all lying to you – because they think you are stupid. And if you continue to believe them, then you are stupid.

Here is the ugly truth: In the last month your government has committed to spend approximately $1 trillion to bail out various Wall Street financial institutions, along with Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. That brings the officially acknowledged federal deficit to roughly $10 trillion. And there will most certainly be more regardless who wins the election: more spending, more promises of programs to help homeowners in over their heads, more debt. The Treasury will have to continue bailing out the FDIC as it (the FDIC) has already paid out the $45 billion fiscal insurance policy it holds to the many banks that have already failed. Amid all this chaos the government officials and elected representatives and candidates for office step up and promise they’ll fix it. One of these reprehensible bulwarks of all that is wrong in the world, Rep. Barney Frank – a man who is at the very least (along with his many Democrat and Republican comrades) complicit if not guilty of gross negligence in facilitating this mess has promised to do “major surgery” on the nation’s financial system. 

If Frank and his compatriots in the Congress hold true to their promise you can bet there will be more bank failures and this current recession will likely devolved into a long depression. Why? Because the whole reason the world’s financial system is on the verge of total collapse is because of government meddling in the economy by trying to manipulate and perpetuate artificial conditions of a growing economy. This is called central economic planning, a long discredited manipulative policy that has been proven unsustainable over time, as we are currently witnessing. You will never hear your Congressman or Presidential candidates speak of this, for to do so would betray the truth, and the truth would set us free, so to speak. 

Speaking this truth would be the equivalent of admitting that our planned and over-manipulated economy is no more a true free market system than was the Soviet economy that imploded in 1991 – and as this ugly truth stares us in face all we hear from politicians and bureaucrats is that “greedy Wall Street CEOs” are the ones to blame. In fact, some in Congress are already holding hearings featuring testimony from CEOs of several of the companies recently bailed out or that have failed. The Congress has the sheer audacity to lay 100% of the blame at the feet of these CEOs, who certainly deserve their share of the blame to whatever degree they jumped on the high-risk bundle bandwagon, while conveniently overlooking their own actions that directly contributed the creation of an environment where such catastrophically stupid business practices were not merely possible but were strongly encouraged. One party accuses the other of deregulating the finance industry as if that were the cause while the other accuses the first party of enacting senseless regulations as if those were the cause – and to an extent, both are correct. What was had prior to deregulation was a lot of bad regulation that was replaced by nothing that would solve the problems the bad regulation created, and most would agree that this is so.

However, while enacting laws for the purpose of regulation of commerce is a legitimate function of the Congress, enabling the Federal Reserve to secretly enact policy of its own, and for which it is unaccountable and un-auditable, specifically designed and intended to manipulate the money supply and interest rates to create and perpetuate a false prosperity nicely contained in a bubble that is an anomaly of free market operation, is not. In fact not only does the existence of a central bank go against the advice of the Founding Fathers of our country, it essentially violates all of the core principles upon which the Constitution is founded.

The Founders knew all too well the pitfalls of a fiat currency, that is, a currency of paper money that derives its “value” by the arbitrary authority of government declaring it’s worth, as it is in reality not backed up by any tangible assets. During the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress financed itself partly by its self-produced Continental currency – paper money like we use today – that was not backed up by gold or anything else of any intrinsic value. The people were forced to use it, and the government simply was able to produce more of it by printing it, until they had printed such an overabundance of it that the currency itself became entirely worthless. Unfortunately the geniuses in government and those at the fed have not correctly understood the warnings of the Founders, because we have been doing the same thing since 1971 when Nixon took us of the gold standard. Either that or they know exactly what they are doing, which would be even more disturbing.

The fact of the matter is that those running the Fed are not stupid – everything they do is calculated. So why would they deliberately choose to destroy the dollar, because that is exactly what our government’s economic “rescue plan” or bailout will achieve if it continues the current charted course. They are destroying the dollar because the fundamental element of this “rescue plan” is the infusion of massive amounts of cash into the monetary system. The problem is that the treasury has none, and so it is left to the Fed to print it. With each new dollar that gets printed and injected into the system, the value of all the other dollars out there is diminished so they become worth even less on the market; therefore the buying power of individuals is likewise diminished as the value of the dollar goes down. The more currency produced, the less value it has. 

This is “inflation 101” and everyone on Capitol Hill and in Washington ought to know that. But, then again, these are by and large the same folks who signed on to creating the conditions that ultimately brought about this catastrophe, so it is not entirely surprising that they would sign on to allowing massive amounts of money to be printed and injected into the system. My dark theory on this is that in doing so they are inviting hyperinflation, which is when so much fiat currency is produced that it becomes essentially worthless (take Italy, for example, where you would pay 10,000 Lira for a pack of cigarettes). Perhaps they know this. Perhaps they don’t care. At the very least, they’d tell us, they are working hard and doing something to “fix the problem. 

But that is exactly the root of the problem in the first place, and so here is where the idea of individual responsibility and self-government comes in. The people are running like sheep in whatever direction the government leads – even if it is off a cliff- and unfortunately they have become so conditioned to looking to government to solve their problems that to do otherwise is often not even an afterthought. The people are not asking the right questions either – if they’re asking them at all. But, they are demanding that government “do something.” If they were living up to their civic responsibilities in the first place they would have been paying attention and seen this coming and would have been able to put enormous pressure on their elected representatives to stop the insanity before the crash became inevitable. 

The fact that this is happening in a Presidential election year makes the idea of individual self-government all the more important. The people are panicking as they see a long and deep recession looming, the politicians are panicking because they are afraid they’ll not be re-elected, and no one wants to tell the truth about how we got here in the first place. And now with the totality of the erosions of our Constitutional liberties having been much accelerated in recent years and the government nationalizing massive segments of industry, taking over individual home mortgages to presumably have courts renegotiate rates or perhaps dictate them, a complacent and uninformed electorate is only weeks away from electing a relatively unknown, unprepared, and untested politician who has spend the vast majority of his life immersed in the world of radical socialist ideology while pretending not to be. Our economy, our nation, our republic is being handed to him like John the Baptist’s head on a platter.

The people are crying, “Do something!”   Be careful what you ask for, because now that the government is doing something everything is going to get worse. You don’t believe that? Then name something outside of the realm of military action or law enforcement that the government does well. Incidentally, the national defense and law enforcement are really the only useful Constitutionally mandated obligations of the Federal Government, aside from the construction of roads, and the legitimate regulation of commerce. 

Also of note is Article I, Section 8. Under the title “Power Granted to Congress,” paragraph 5 reads: “To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin and fix the Standard of Weights and measures.” Note that nowhere in this paragraph is there mentioned an entity known as “The Federal Reserve,” nor is the authority to coin money and fix its value given to a single principal in the person of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Furthermore, it is important to note that the Constitution as written is binding as the Supreme Law of the Land, except where amended and ratified. No amendment created the Federal Reserve; rather, by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 did the Congress unconstitutionally give charter to the Federal Reserve and illegally abdicate its obligation to coin money and set its value. Indeed, as if the creation of the Fed as an illicit central bank wasn’t bad enough, think for a moment of the sheer audacity and arrogance in thinking that one person with even the best and brightest minds to assist them, could ever permanently manipulate the forces of the free market to create a condition of permanent prosperity. And that is a major part of the problem.

If the markets were left to themselves there would indeed be periods of growth and periods of correction; however, absent mountains of poorly defined or ill-scoped regulation and meddling politicians abusing their lawful authority to implement self-serving policies pandering to their own constituencies and thereby exerting massive, undue influence and encroachment on the machinations of the free market, those corrections would be comparably mild and sort-lived. Yet those very persons responsible for creating those conditions encouraging greed and corruption are now the same who demand of us still more of our money and our trust. The talking heads on the TV, with few notable exceptions, tell us repeatedly that as unfortunate as it is, we have no other option. 

To those who suggest as much I say this: economic freedom and liberty are inseparable – you cannot have the one without the other. If the market can be so easily manipulated by the arbitrary will of government for the benefit of the few, then the market is not free and neither are those who participate in it. If, on the other hand, the market is allowed to dictate unto itself and to its participants the worth of goods and services and the worthiness of those who seek them, then all are able to prosper to the extent that they wish to share in that prosperity. Such is free-market capitalism is spared undue meddling of government. That is our other option, indeed our only option; for if we do trust these power hungry fools again, the hegemony of the government, then we are exactly as stupid as they think we are, and we deserve the misery that shall most certainly befall us. If not for liberty we would only then have no other option but follow along like sheep and give to government all that it demands. We are now at a crossroad in the history of this nation, and the decisions to be made and the actions to be taken in the immediate future will have a profound and perhaps irreversible impact on our lives and those of our children. 

Let us not fool ourselves: we have been asleep at the wheel for far too long, and if we don’t immediately wake up and grab the wheel we run the very serious risk of driving right off the cliff. If you don’t believe in the possibility of an authoritarian socialist regime in the United States you are either very naïve or ignorant of history, because the possibility is not only very real but is staring us in the face. Right now our system is still the best in the world, albeit imperfect. It would be even better and we would be returned to great prosperity if our representatives and government were actually abiding by the Constitution. They will not do so unless we the people force them too.

It could be argued that we are in the beginning stages of tyranny, of the proverbial “benevolent dictatorship.” The government is moving now, through the Fed, to take over controlling interest in even more of the banks in the US. The government is also planning on purchasing mortgages and will thus become the largest homeowner in the world. As they “loan” billions to the auto industry and then, doubtless, to others they will likewise require oversight, if not “public ownership” in those companies. Does “public ownership” sound familiar?   Once government encroaches on a segment of the private sector it will not extricate itself unless the people force it to do so. Remember, the New Deal was sold to the people on the premise that it was a temporary measure to meet the needs of an extraordinary crisis. This same line is being sold to us today. Don’t believe it.

At a time when government encroachment into the private lives of citizens at the federal and state level is at an unprecedented level, where state executives and legislatures usurp the rights of parents by mandating that children receive certain “vaccines,” where the Federal Government is pursuing a course to take over massive segments of the economy, where private sector jobs are being lost while government jobs are being created, and where the most likely winner of the upcoming Presidential election will seek to force state run health care, “world” taxes payable to the UN, and the elimination of the right of Americans to keep and bear arms, complacency is not an option. We must be organized and united starting today, for we must take back control of our government and make it work for us and not against us. Government encroachment into areas heretofore left to the individual self-government and personal responsibility of each citizen is out of control, and if left unchecked it will consume us. Keep this in mind: our Founding Fathers sacrificed their very lives for the liberty we are letting the government illicitly usurp piece by piece. So, as you witness these current events continue to unfold, keep asking yourself this question each day: “Am I sovereign or a subject?” Wake up, America, before it’s too late.

Thanks be to God! The House of Representatives just killed HR 3997, defeating the bill 226 Nays to 207 in favor. Democrats voted 141 in favor and 9 opposed, while Republicans voted 65 in favor and 133 opposed. Members debated the merits and consequences of the bill all morning before taking a final vote around 1:30. A simple majority of 218 was needed to either pass or kill the bill. It is unknown at this time when further talks about a government bailout will resume.

Though the votes were not strictly along party lines, many of the floor speeches were. Rep Ron Paul spoke out passionately against the bill, reasserting the points he has been making for the last several years regarding the Fed over-manipulating the economy and creating artificial conditions that were unsustainable and damaging to the dollar, concluding that passage of this bill will do far worse damage in the long term. Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) earlier referred to the bill as a “crap sandwich” but implored his colleagues to vote in favor.

Maxine Waters rambled on about Martin Luther King and poor disadvantaged inner city folks, and George Bush and Republicans. Waters also loudly proclaimed her unwavering support for this bill while waving her pocket Constitution in the air. Someone should reminder her and her colleagues to actually READ that Constitution sometime. Someone should also remind Ms. Waters that she forgot to mention Dick Cheney and Halliburton – we all know they are the ones responsible for this debacle. They were probably the ones who really killed all those “deals” Dodd and Pelosi kept announcing over the weekend. Perhaps Ms. Waters could hold hearings on the matter? 

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) had a bunch of things to say, but no one could understand him.

My favorite remarks came from Charlie Rangel (D-NY) blamed Bush and lamented over the poor who will not be able to buy a house. Then he asked, “Where are all the small –government conservatives today?” Well Congressman, apparently 227 of them were present.

It is somewhat comforting when conservatives find their backbone and stave off the advent of socialism in the United States for another day. Thanks be to God.

Elections are as funny and entertaining as they are serious, and if you can’t find the humor in this stuff you’d better make sure you don’t miss taking your blood pressure medicine, because the differences between the candidates in this race are indeed striking, and the very future of our republic hangs in the balance.

Politicians are funny too – especially Senators and anyone running for President.  You’ve got to expect gaffes and goofs and stupid things.  And you ought to laugh at them, if for no other reason, than because it’s good for the soul.  But I digress…

Don’t you just love watching the elite intelligentsia try to relate to us every four years?  I do – I can’t get enough of this stuff!  Now, GOP and Democrat candidates have markedly different ways by which they demonstrate that they are just like us.  The Republican multi-millionaires will dress casual, which means they don’t wear a tie with their slacks, blazer and loafers; and they’ll go to local coffee shops and restaurants and talk to the folks and try their best to come off as a regular Joe or Jane.  Sometimes the GOP candidates from the plains or the west even wear jeans. Oh, audacity of hope!

The Democrats are more fun I their approach.  Bars and rodeos.  I mean, what normal, average, everyday American doesn’t like bars or rodeos?  We’re talking proletarian-paradise here.  Corn-dogs, beer, cowboy hats and, of course, don’t forget the rodeo clowns wearing cowboy hats!  Ah, Americana at its best!  And speaking of clowns in cowboy hats, I’ll tell you, when I saw the image of Senator Obama in a cowboy hat doing his best John Wayne, I just couldn’t help but be moved.  No, no, not that kind of movement – and not the “tingly-leg” thing either.  It was more of a moment of self-reflection and identity.  It was like I jumped out of myself because it was like I was looking at myself, you know?  I just wanted to scream out, “WOW!  He’s just like me!  This progressive, socialist leaning liberal Democrat understands ME!  Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!  HE IS JUST LIKE ME!  This man GETS IT!”

And he’s into electronic devices, too, although I admittedly kind of lost my enthusiasm momentarily when I thought about how I only have a little Razor cell phone and therefore can’t really relate to a guy with a few million dollars in his pocket who can bring a teleprompter to the rodeo.  But I digress yet again…

Seriously though, when is the last time you saw even a closet socialist wearing a cowboy hat?  I can only think back to when Gorby visited Reagan’s ranch in California and when Khrushchev visited President Eisenhower in 1959 and stuffed his face with good old American corn (because they didn’t grow enough in the Soviet Union, maybe?).

I also got a chuckle thinking about something else: Mike Dukakis sitting down on the T on his way into Boston, holding his latte-frappa-doosie, and opening his Boston Globe only to see Senator Obama’s picture in the cowboy hat there staring at him.  Yes, one need only muster a little imagination to guess what was going through the Duke’s mind as he reacted to the photo of Obama as if it were saying, “Howdy pilgrim.”   Can you picture him thinking back to the photo that killed his campaign as he bolted out of his seat shrieking, “NOOOOOOOOOOOO!” before collapsing back into the seat and leaning his head against the window, silently watching the suburbs pass by and lamenting yet another lost opportunity to advance the cause of the Proletariat.  Yeah, kind of makes you smile, huh?

Oh, the lamentations of the Duke!  “How could this be?”  I don’t know.  I wonder if Obama had ever seen that photo of Dukakis in the tank.  I mean 1988 was only 20 years ago.  Well, maybe Obama was too busy organizing communities and multiplying fish and loaves for the downtrodden masses to have seen the picture.  Oh, yeah, and in his spare time he was probably in church praying for the rise of world socialism and rejecting middle-classness, and fist-bumping Jeremiah Wright after his radical sermons, after which he would read and memorize Saul Alinsky books.  And when he went on to Harvard he was still far too busy to seek out the Duke for his political savvy and advice for the future.  Not to mention the fact that the Duke taught at Northeastern after the election, and no respectful member of the Harvard elite intelligentsia would be caught dead hanging out in the Fens at Northeastern.  Please!

Yep, that Barak Obama, why he’s just like me, and I can really relate to him, except for all that money he has, and the radical black liberation theology to which he subscribes, and the degree from Harvard, and the “community organizer” thing, and his proclivity toward socialism.  Oh, and the teleprompter at the rodeo.  Yep, just like me!  Yes we can! Hope! Change, change, change!  Yes we can!

You know, come to think of it, I think I can actually relate a little bit better to Dukakis - at least the Duke was in the Army for real, long before the photo ops.

Or, are they suffering from a bit of buyers’ remorse from their excessive secularization and collective devolution into socialist nanny states and wants us to become just like them? Since the Republican National Convention last week and the shift in momentum, European socialists and socialists throughout the world seem are lamenting the obliteration of Obama’s lead in the polls by the McCain-Palin ticket. There is a rising clamor abroad, you might say, incredulous that Americans could possibly make such a grave mistake as to NOT elect Obama. After all, polling data in many European countries show that Obama would be elected there in landslide victories, and we all know how “progressive” they are now, don’t we?

In fact, now there are not-so-veiled threats of pending severe bouts of “anti-Americanism” emanating from the four corners of the globe. OK, it’s mostly leftists trying to disguise themselves as non-leftists, but whatever. An article in Britain’s Guardian UK online tries to make that point as if to scare Americans in to electing Obama’s corrupt socialist political machine in November. The article is entitled, “The world's verdict will be harsh if the US rejects the man it yearns for: An America that disdains Obama for his global support risks turning current anti-Bush feeling into something far worse.” Are you shaking in your boots yet? Good. I’m not either. It gets better, though. Here’s the first sentence: “The feeling is familiar. I had it four years ago and four years before that: a sinking feeling in the stomach. It's a kind of physical pessimism which says: ‘It's happening again. The Democrats are about to lose an election they should win - and it could not matter more.’”

After several paragraphs bashing Sarah Palin and making McCain out to be George W. Bush Jr., the author Jonathan Freedland writes this gem: “Remember, this is a woman who once addressed a church congregation, saying of her work as governor - transport, policing and education – ‘really all of that stuff doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God.’” Remember this folks: cultured, enlightened and properly progressive European politicians would never address a church of any kind, nor entertain the thought of acknowledging God in a public venue, because Europe acknowledges no God – only Allah. And don’t you soon forget it, or they’ll put out a Fatwah on you.

But here is what is probably the best reason NOT to vote for Barack Obama on November 4: “But what of the rest of the world? This is the reaction I fear most. For Obama has stirred an excitement around the globe unmatched by any American politician in living memory. Polling in Germany, France, Britain and Russia shows that Obama would win by whopping majorities, with the pattern repeated in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America. If November 4 were a global ballot, Obama would win it handsomely. If the free world could choose its leader, it would be Barack Obama.” (emphasis mine) 

And if McCain-Palin win we can expect the cold-shoulder from our comrades in Europe “For it will have been the American people, not the politicians, who will have passed up a once-in-a-generation chance for a fresh start - a fresh start the world is yearning for.”

In a poll of 22,000 of our fellow global citizens, “49 per cent across the 22 countries preferred Senator Obama compared with 12 per cent preferring Senator McCain.”

I bear no ill will to our friends in Europe or anywhere else, for that matter – at least toward those who are not trying to kill us. The problem that the rest of the world is suffering from is that the rest of the world is not America. The do not understand us, they do not think like us, they can neither conceive of nor truly grasp what makes one “American.” They never will. 

We are different from the rest of the world. Always have been. Always will be. Most of the time we are willing to work well with others, but sometimes we find it necessary to go it alone, regardless of world opinion, because at the end of the day those 22,000 people polled in Moscow, and Berlin, and London, and Paris, and Khartoum, and Beijing, and Singapore, and Seoul, and Beruit, and Gaza, and Amman, and Istanbul, and Riyadh are not Americans. 

The Europeans cannot understand us because they have sacrificed their Liberty for comfort and security – and obtained neither. Europe has devolved by choice into a continent rife with socialism or the kind that would make Karl Marx proud. They have become one giant bureaucracy that dictates to every aspect of daily life. This is something that, when it comes right down to it, is inconceivable and unconscionable to Americans. For all of our differences and eccentricities, the one thing we Americans all have in common is that we cherish our Liberty; and, even though there are those among us who even now are misled, misguided and deluded into thinking that we can achieve a benevolent government run welfare state to care for our every need, provide our security, bring a lasting peace to the rest of the world and still retain their Liberty, we respectfully make our case, the case for Liberty, and try to enlighten them as to why they are wrong. That is the American way, a way that other peoples cannot understand. 

Many have come to understand that socialistic government programs must by their very nature as dictated by the purpose for which they are created, encroach upon the Liberty of the people. Government authority and Liberty are diametrically opposed forces, irreconcilable except for law. A free people cannot relinquish only “a little” Liberty; a people is either free or it is not. 

With all due respect, the continent of Europe has forsaken Liberty for the vain promises of arbitrary government authority, and it is failing them. Europe is in decline, economically, morally, socially, militarily, politically and in any other way one can imagine, and it has been in decline for decades. When one trusts in government, any government – no matter how well designed – to fulfill roles never intended for government one is bound to be disappointed. The Europeans want Obama because his vision for the future is Europe, and they understand that. They revile resistance to such “enlightened” positions as radical or extremist because they have become so secularized by their own government systems that they cannot understand Americans’ willingness to fight and die for such things as going to church on Sunday.

Europe chose socialism and is now paying the price, and that price is the decline and ultimately the death of nationhood and liberty. That is where Obama’s vision will lead us if we allow him to. So, if you really need another reason NOT to vote for Obama on November 4, just look to Europe.