Many people have expressed a hope that Barack Obama will be an improvement over George Bush and that he will roll back some of George Bush’s excesses.  They see in Obama a man who understands nuanced argument, who at least acknowledges that those who oppose his policies can have good reasons and arguments for doing [...]

One aspect common to totalitarian regimes is the forced loyalty oath. Nazi Germany, for example, forced all pastors, civil servants and soldiers to take an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler. In the Soviet Union, in Communist China, and numerous other nations, the state demanded that people swear loyalty to the government as a condition [...]

California’s Proposition 8, the ballot measure aiming to outlaw same sex marriage, passed on a very close vote. Prop 8’s supporters* pushed a campaign of fear, misinformation, and a complete distortion of the meaning of individual liberty. This campaign commercial is typical of the intolerance and hysteria being promoted from the “yes” campaign. Argument #1: [...]

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism [...] The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is. -Ronald Reagan (1975) For the second election in [...]

Yesterday from Obama (google cache here, screenshot here): Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by developing a plan to require 50 hours of community service in middle school and high school and 100 hours of community service in college every year. Obama today: Obama will call on citizens of all [...]

First, President Bush in 2002 pushes for increased home “ownership” regardless of creditworthiness. Second, despite what Nancy Pelosi says, the Democrats most certainly did their part to help President Bush succeed in his “ownership society.” These Democrats who scream that this credit crisis is a result of lax regulations didn’t much appreciate the regulators when [...]

McCain on the Campaign trail, referring to the massive Treasury power-grab: “The first thing I would do is say, ‘Let’s not call it a bailout. Let’s call it a rescue,’” McCain told CNN. He said, “Americans are frightened right now” and political leaders must give them an immediate solution and a longer-term approach to the [...]

In fact, let me say unequivocally, I’m OK with more people dying, so long as we have more freedom; be it with drugs, or guns, or sex, or anything else. Are there limits? Of course there are; at the very least, my fist is limited by your nose… but doing immoral, unethical, and unconstitutional things [...]

Now that the conventions are over, it’s time to separate the facts from the fiction. With so much misinformation being peddled by the political campaigns (not to mention rumors spread through e-mail, the internet and the MSM), this is very often a difficult task. My approach is to be skeptical until I am satisfied that [...]

No matter how jaded I get, American “Christians” seem to come up with new ways to make me aghast. The latest CINO (Christian in Name Only) is Sheriff Lott, who is prepared to use a 50 machine gun to keep law and order in what I thought to be the relatively unwarlike Richland County of [...]

Time has an ongoing series which advocates the need for “voluntary” national service. In the magazine’s latest article by Managing Editor Richard Stengel, the author praises both John McCain and Barack Obama for their urging of Americans to “serve interests greater than self.” It is a unique moment for the idea of national service. You [...]

Ahhh work, that most marvelous of pursuits that keeps food on the table. Today was my first official day of work as a full time employee of Gigantomegabankcorp North America, where I have been a contractor for 26 months. Going from Contractor to FTE means bennies, paid time off (25 days a year actually. Woo [...]

Exhibit A, back in 2006: I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected Exhibit B, earlier this month: We are now going to have the courts flooded with so-called, quote, Habeas Corpus suits against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about [...]

I’m sure that like me, many of you have received e-mail forwards that Barack Obama is really a radical Muslim with the express intention of destroying America from the inside*. Snopes, truthorfiction.com, and others have done some fact checking about these e-mails and have found that most of these claims are completely false. Barack Obama [...]

The Hillary Clinton campaign has sent out mailers criticizing Barack Obama for trying to have it both ways on the Second Amendment. The mailer reads as follows: These are all valid criticisms of Barack Obama; I have made some of these very criticisms myself (here, and here). But the source of these criticisms (Hillary Clinton) [...]

On Thursday, President Bush decided to offer some encouragement to the troops in the war Afghanistan (a war he has often neglected in favor of his disastrous vanity project in Iraq) by offering this bon mot on his personal feelings about the mission and the service rendered by our armed forces: I must say, I’m [...]

Last week I wrote a post about how Barack Obama was trying to have it both ways on the Second Amendment. Ken Blackwell at Townhall.com, however, believes that Obama’s doublespeak about the Second Amendment (among some of Obama’s other statements) reveals a disturbing pattern in his attitudes about individual rights and a host of other [...]

MILWAUKEE (AP) — Barack Obama said Friday that the country must do “whatever it takes” to eradicate gun violence following a campus shooting in his home state, but he believes in an individual’s right to bear arms. Obama said he spoke to Northern Illinois University’s president Friday morning by phone and offered whatever help his [...]

I think this brings us up to seven or eight ”number threes” killed in the al-Qaeda hierachy since 2001.  Must be a hell of a corporate flow chart they have.  I wonder what country the next guy will be situated in when our government decides to “promote” him.  Somehow I think it will end up being whatever country [...]