August 18, 2006
Overlooked Blog Review – Urbanagora
The point-counterpoint style columns and blogs are ubiquitous and run very close to being cliché. However, Urbanagora overcomes that problem with two solid writers who do the Hannity and Colmes format the right way.
Brian Pierce and Billy Joe Mills are both columnists for the Daily Illini and two of the more influential political writers in central Illinois. They both are solid thinkers who communicate their points well. In fact, it is hard to read anything they write without coming away thinking you can't really disagree with it.
There commitment to serious discussion with opposing points of view is a refreshing change from the WWE-style form of political discussion that is all-to-common in the blogosphere and cable news channels. In fact, both writing from a college town, they overcome the typical mudslinging that pervades the conversations among the supposed "intellectual elite". Those mediums spend their time presenting personalities and suck up all the oxygen in the room leaving nothing left for ideas. Billy and Brian bring ideas.
By stimulating serious conversation between opposing points of view, they are doing the University community, and the blogosphere a great service. This is the way political discussion should be done.
If you would like to suggest a blog for the Overlooked Blog Review, please contact John Bambenek at jcb.blog {at} gmail [dot] com.
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What are we Conserving?
One of the most immediate questions that comes up when discussing conservatism is what exactly is it that we are trying to conserve? Is it individual freedom? Is it the power and influence of the "enfranchised"? Is it locking in the racial divide? Or is it a fear of change and psychological disorder as researchers at Berkeley so banally suggested? There is an obvious focus on tradition among conservatives, but why does tradition matter?
In a sense, political philosophy is no different than any other intellectual field. It is a field like any other that studies one facet of the human experience and tries to develop a common language and common principles to analyze, develop, and improve that human experience. Psychology builds upon understanding of how the mind and emotions work. Economics studies how people and groups make decisions with regards to property. Medicine studies how the human body works and how maladies can be healed. This list goes on.
Unlike psychology, economics, or medicine, political philosophy undercuts many different fields at the same time. While it is a question of government structures, organizations, and policies, it also encompasses sociology, economics, morality, and sometimes religion. However, for the purpose of this exercise, we'll deal with political philosophy as an academic field like any other.
Psychology as a field did not appear overnight. It build upon centuries of human knowledge and exploration before there even was a word "psychology". It built on ideas that were developed by the long dead. Sometimes those ideas were correct, sometimes they were wrong. Often those ideas were both, having some measure of truth yet missing something. Almost every human intellectual field is the same exact way. It is build upon centuries of experience and inquiry.
Great intellectual breakthroughs never happen in a vacuum without prior footwork. Newton didn't develop his physics from scratch. However, each breakthrough left some unanswered questions or incomplete explanations. No generation has every claimed to have achieved complete knowledge of the universe, and this generation is no different.
The next generation inherits the intellectual body of knowledge from the previous generation. The knowledge needs to be pruned and improved but very rarely are the ideas that survive in need of being discarded. In this sense, every single one of us is a conservative.
We use the same language as the previous generation, we use the same governmental structure as the previous generations, and we use many of the same conventions as the previous generation. It is simply impossible for a society to recreate its entire body of knowledge with each generation. That would leave each generation trying to recreate work that was already accomplished and leave it absolutely unable to move forward.
However, for some reason, the above idea that every serious person accepts is called into question in the very narrow case of political philosophy. The word "tradition" used in the political context stirs feelings of oppression and victimhood.
The fact is that our governmental form and social institutions have developed over centuries and withstood the test of time. As with all human endeavors there are errors and gaps that need to be dealt with, and in some very rare cases, institutions need to be dissolved (like slavery). As much as some like to say entire institutions need to be razed and modernized, those same people will keep a good deal of political philosophy conserved. For instance, not many people talk about repealing the constitution and starting over.
One of the defining differences between conservatives and others is that when faced with an inadequate institution or policy, conservatives will tend towards cautious reform while others seek to recreate to wheel. The later often falls victim to the law of unintended consequences.
An example of this is health care. In response to concerns about the quality and availability of health care during the 70s, Senator Edward Kennedy [D-MA] created legislation that led to the creation of Health Maintenance Organizations. HMOs are generally considered a large part of the problem with our health care system today; so much so, that the man who created this legislation, Sen. Kennedy, now speaks out against the organizations he helped to bring into existence.
When faced with new problems, conservatives look to conserve what has been created and is worth keeping. Very rarely is it necessary to raze where simple reform is sufficient. New problems can be dealt with by tweak existing organizations and policies, with a particular emphasis on solving problems on the lowest level possible.
It is no mistake that the United States has the strongest economy in the world and is regarded as the world's only superpower. Conservatives seek to not start fixing what isn't broken.
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August 17, 2006
Federal Court Rules Protecting America is Unconstitutional
The ACLU has convinced a federal judge that monitoring overseas communications of terrorists is against the constitution. Despite the fact the preamble lists defending the nation as an acceptable federal government function, the ACLU and US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor said that the risk "innocent" communications could be intercepted far outweighed the risk of Al Qaeda attacking the United States. Despite programs such as ECHELON, CARNIVORE, and others that existed happily (albeit controversially) under the Clinton Administration, the possibility that George Bush might actually defend the country is a threat the Constitution cannot bear.
Despite the evidence, the media still calls the case a matter of "warrantless wiretapping" despite the fact that the clear intention is to monitor international calls. This ongoing deception is an attempt to create hysteria that the US is becoming a "police state" and that the treats are from Republicans, not terrorists. This is the same political quarter that brings you the idea (despite all evidence to the contrary) that George Bush and not Al Qaeda is behind 9/11.
The judge in this case, an appointee of Jimmy Carter, doesn't seem to understand the difference between overseas surveillance and domestic surveillance. Will the CIA start needing warrant the next time the spy on a terrorist overseas?
According to the ruling:
The President of the United States, a creature of the same Constitution which gave us these Amendments, has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders as required by FISA, and accordingly has violated the First Amendment Rights of these Plaintiffs as well.
Let's skip past the FISA court idea, one that is still in dispute publicly and in the courts (other district courts either ruled for the government or declined to rule at all) and discuss the First Amendment issue. Debating what due process should exist for wiretapping is something that can and will take place, however, the idea that plotting terror attacks against the citizens of the United States of America could even possible be protected by the First Amendment should make everyone who cares about the safety of their family cringe. What other possible meaning is there to that phrase?
Many scoffed at the idea of framing resistance to the Patriot Act and the "warrantless wiretapping" programs as an attempt to establish an "Al Qaeda Bill of Rights", however, with Judge Taylor's ruling and the help of the ACLU, the shroud of the First Amendment has been extended to protect those who plot to kill Americans.
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August 16, 2006
Wictory Wednesday Presents Tom Kean for US Senate
This week, Wictory Wednesday present Thomas Kean for the US Senate for the state of New Jersey. Tom is a known conservative supporting sound economic and political policies that will keep America going in the right direction.
Much has been said about the "culture of corruption" that permeates both parties nationally as well as in New Jersey. Recently, the New Jersey Attorney General resigned over ethical violations. Kean is no stranger to the destruction a corrupt government causes and is committed to the cause of reform to clean up not only corrupt politicans, but wasteful bureaucratic spending and expansive government agencies.
Kean understands that funding education is essential but that it must come with accountability. Projects and organizations that are achieving results should be funded and expanded. Bureaucracies and programs that are failing students and parents should be defunded and discarded. Throwing money at a problem without taking the time to ensure results just wastes money and condemns American youth to second-class status in the global economy.
As a supporter of lower taxes, Kean understands that this must come with lower spending. While the economy is growing and reducing the impact that the budget deficit has on the economy, much greater gains would be made if wasteful spending never took place to begin with. Ending absurd taxes such as the marriage penalty and the ever-expansive alternative minumum tax would not shackle the middle class. The best way to create jobs is to keep the cost of running and expanding businesses economical.
Kean would be a solid voice for conservative values in the United States Senate where it seems to be needed the most. Please consider contributing to the Kean campaign.
This has been a production of the Wictory Wednesday blogburst. If you would like to join Wictory Wednesday, please see this post or contact John Bambenek at jcb (dot) blog [at] gmail {dot} com. The following sites are members of the Wictory Wednesday team:
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Press Release on BlogSoldiers is out
You can see it here:
Pentex Net, Inc. Acquires Blog Only Traffic Exchange, BlogSoldiers.comBlogSoldiers.com, a premier blog traffic exchange, has been acquired by John Bambenek of Pentex Net, Inc. promising to provide new and more expansive services to the blogosphere.
Champaign, IL (PRWEB) August 16, 2006 -- BlogSoldiers.com, a premier blog traffic exchange, has been acquired by John Bambenek of Pentex Net, Inc. promising to provide new and more expansive services to the blogosphere.
"Bloggers worldwide are excited about the acquisition and relaunch of BlogSoldiers.com. As an innovative resource available for bloggers to get more visibility for their content, BlogSoldiers is uniquely situated to provide advertising and traffic generation tools to the blogosphere. With the number of blogs increasing to over 50 million, it is a necessity to have a focused resource to provide affordable services to this community.
John Bambenek, CISSP, philanthropist and founder of Pentex Net, Inc. has spent over 10 years in the information technology industry building a reputation for expertise in information security. As a blogger and opinions journalist, he has shown passion for active political participation. He brings a combination of technological expertise and media savvy that will make BlogSoldiers a website to watch in the weeks to come.
BlogSoldiers is free to join and allows people to build traffic to their sites the first day they are on the site. It's extremely easy and user-friendly for even novices to achieve results. In order to maximize your membership, it is important to understand how the traffic generation works. Basically users earn "credits" by surfing blogs and those credits are used when other people visit that user's blog. Paid memberships allow users to pay for upgraded services and credits.
During the period of transition, BlogSoldiers is offering new member incentives like 50 bonus credits for joining, discounts on upgrades, and incentives for existing members such as referral bonuses and incentive credits.
BlogSoldiers offers many other resources for members with both Free and Paid memberships suck as banner and text advertisements and a blog directory. It also includes a blog education center, how-to videos, blog tools, and much more.
Pentex Net, Inc, owner of BlogSoldiers, is a provider of information technology and information security services.
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Fair Tax Blogburst: The Progressive Sales Tax
Reprinted with permission from Running in Circles
by Connor CarneyThe Progressive Democrats' Sales Tax
I consider myself to be fairly liberal on most issues. So some of you might be surprised that I am about to take a position that’s usually the providence of hardcore conservatives. I support HR25—the Fair Tax Act of 2005.
Yeah. The one that would replace virtually the entire tax system with a 23% sales tax.
I read about it most recently in an unnecessarily hostile editorial by Matthew Holmes. Truth be told, his article did nothing to convince me that the tax is a good thing. But it convinced me to wade through the full text of the legislation, and I’ve decided that not only is the Fair Tax Act justifiable, it is the ideal legislation for progressive Democrats. I’ll explain why.
Defining “Progressive”
I used the word “progressive” up there in my introduction. Exactly what that term means can be a little shaky sometimes, but when we’re talking about tax code, it has a pretty clear meaning: people with more money shoulder more of the tax burden. Using this definition, sales taxes are usually something progressives would avoid, since they often hit the poor the hardest. Most sales taxes make life considerably harder for the impoverished, because they increase the cost of basic necessities, making it harder for people to get by.
A National Luxury Tax
This proposal isn’t like that. The secret lies in Title II, Sections 301-303, a provision called the “family consumption allowance.” These provisions allow families to purchase necessities without paying taxes on them. (“Family” means “1 or more family members sharing a common residence”).
This exemption does something interesting: it means that the government would only get taxes from the sales of nonessentials—things that the impoverished, by definition, don’t buy. By allowing essential products to be purchased without the tax, it turns the “national sales tax” into something more like a “national luxury tax”.
In other words, people who spend most of their money on things like food, clothing, and medicine end up paying almost none of the tax burden, while people who spend a greater percentage of their income on luxuries pay a greater percentage of the tax burden. People who don’t have very much money almost uniformly fall into the former group, while people with lots of money almost uniformly fall into the latter group. People with more money shoulder more of the tax burden—it’s as progressive as is gets.
Helping the Needy
The family consumption allowance is a rebate, mailed monthly by the Social Security Administration to families of 1 or more(?!?). According to II§301, the amount of the rebate check is equal to the product of the tax rate and the poverty level.
Using this definition, families making (and thus spending) less than the poverty level could conceivably receive more money in their rebate check than the actual sales tax rate.
This is a similar concept to the Earned Income Tax Credit currently administered by the IRS, with a few exceptions. Unlike the EITC, it the consumption allowance can be claimed by the unemployed. The consumption allowance would also require a lot less paperwork than the EITC—just names, address, proof of citizenship, etc. That’s a good thing for families who are especially time-constrained or people who are poorly educated. And statistics show that such families are exactly the ones who would need such a credit the most.
Tax Evasion
Of course, the Fair Tax Act would also virtually eliminate tax evasion. Right now, companies can move their assets offshore and avoid paying U.S. taxes on them. Some people, particularly business executives and accountants, consider it to be good business.
I, along with most Democrats, consider this to be tax evasion. The Fair Tax Act would put an end to it. The Act would mandate that anything sold in the United States would incur U.S. taxes. There’s really no way to outsource that. Businesses couldn’t get around it by moving production to China, or by moving their income to Bermuda. If they want to sell their product in America (and they all do), it will be taxed.
There are no less than a thousand articles out there that deal with the tax evasion issue, so I won’t say much more about it, but corporate tax evasion is contrary to the spirit of a progressive tax system. It’s currently legal in many forms, thanks to loopholes in our indecipherably complex tax code. That’s bad, and this would put an end to it.
Illegal Immigration
The Act would also provide a serious new tool in the attempt to end illegal immigration. It wouldn’t involve any weapons or border guards or checkpoints or fences—and it wouldn’t cost the government a single extra cent. Again, it has to do with the consumption allowance that I talked about a few paragraphs back.
See, only citizens are eligible for the credit. That effectively increases the cost of living for illegal aliens (okay, okay, “undocumented immigrants”) by 23% (assuming, of course, that they live under the ceiling for such a credit, which I’m just guessing that most do.
Since the primary motivations for the border jumpers are economic, this throws a wrench in the whole concept of entering the country illegally. It gets at the reasons that illegal immigrants are trying to come into America—which is exactly what a lot of Democrats have been saying we should do all along.
Where Does All The Money Go?
The budget of the IRS is currently over ten billion dollars per year, plus the equivalent of a hundred thousand federal employees. Let’s think about that for a moment: ten billion dollars and a hundred thousand people… what could we do with that?
Some of it, of course, would go to the collection agencies established in III§302, but not nearly the scale of the IRS. For one thing, there’s a lot of administrative overhead that gets out of the way because the new Federal Sales Tax Bureau would, for states that already implement sales tax, be working with an infrastructure that is mostly already in place.
So let’s look at what we could do with the money, and with those employees. Let’s assume that a high school can accommodate 2400 students for 3 million doallars a year. That’s an average—in some places it costs more, in some places less, but it’s a fairly realistic estimate. $10 billion would cover the entire cost of operating over three thousand high schools—that’s the total cost of educating 7,200,000 students.
And that doesn’t include the agency’s hundred thousand employees. Let’s say we divided them evenly among the states and put them to work in DMV offices. Anybody who has ever applied for a driver’s license can appreciate the notion of having 2000 extra people in the DMV office. We could do that, in addition to the school thing, for no more than we are already paying just to operate the IRS.
No Tax Cuts for the Rich
The income tax and payroll tax systems that HR25 would replace have not been working out too well for progressives in the past four years. Why? Because the systems we have in place are too obscure. How many people even know what it means to “tighten the tax brackets?” How many people even realize that their income is not all taxed at the same rate?
The simple fact is, George Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich” that were so offensive to the idea of a progressive tax system were only possible because the tax system is so unbelievably complex. Under the system that HR25 proposes, targeting tax cuts at the top 1% of income earners would be not only politically impossible, but literally impossible. Why? Because the system inherently gets a greater percentage from those with more disposable income. (See the section above, “A National Luxury Tax”).
Unlike the current system, the national sales tax would do this without any disparity in the established rates. In other words, the only way that politicians could shift the tax burden away from the rich would be to explicitly give them a lower rate. That, my friends, sits in the dictionary as the cardinal example of “political suicide.”
But Shouldn’t Businesses Pay Their Fair Share?
One of the more obvious questions that comes up when we talk about replacing our entire tax system with a sales tax is whether it shifts too much of the burden away from business. A few people go so far as to say it shifts the entire burden away from business. And quite honestly, I cannot see how that is the case.
The argument that a sales tax shifts the burden away from businesses is fallacious because it assumes that consumers have unlimited disposable income. I will concede that if you are rich enough to believe that, you should absolutely oppose HR25. Most people I know do not have an unlimited supply of money.
If consumers had unlimited spending money, then the businesses could go on as usual. They’d hang on to their existing margins, pass the entire cost of the tax on to consumers, and the price of everything would go up by 23%. Again, that’s assuming that every customer has unlimited money.
In the real world, if the price of almost anything were to actually go up by 23%, they would price almost all of their existing customers out of the market. We’re talking a serious hit to their sales. So, we can expect most of them to change things to keep their numbers up—to decrease margins in exchange for increased sales. They don’t have to, but those who don’t will find that most of their customers can’t afford their products. No customers=No income=No business.
There is actually an exception to this. Businesses that cater almost exclusively to the indescribably wealthy could conceivably pass the entire cost of the tax to customers, but keep in mind that that is a relatively small market (and will remain that way), simply because so few consumers fall into the “indescribably wealthy” category.
Conclusion
It’s kind of hard to believe that I’m finishing up an 1900-word analysis of the tax code. I mean, who am I to evaluate the complex intricacies of tax law?
Ordinarily I’d defer to the accountants on an issue like this. After all, they’ve studied economics and spent years of their life working with and around the tax code. They know taxes like some people know their way home from work. I, by comparison, am a rank amateur.
But this is an issue where deferring to accountants is profoundly dumb. The accountants, as people who make their living off of a tax code so complex that only trained professionals can understand it, are inherently biased against a tax code so simple that garbage men can understand it.
And so I don’t, in this case, trust the people who I would usually look to for analysis. Instead I’ve done my own analysis, and I’m liking the prospect of a tax code that even I am able to analyze. Pretty cool.
Like most progressive Democrats, I’ve learned to be pretty averse to sales taxes. But in this case, we have a proposition that actually bolsters everything that progressives fight for in a tax code. I don’t believe that any progressive worthy of the cause can oppose HR25, and those who give any thought to it should wholeheartedly support it.
The FairTax Blogburst is jointly produced by Terry of The Right Track Blog and Jonathan of Publius Rendezvous. If you would like to host the weekly postings on your blog, please e-mail Terry. You will be added to our mailing list and blogroll.
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August 14, 2006
BlogSoldiers has a new owner: Me
I have just completed the acquisition of BlogSoldiers one of the first blog-only traffic exchanges. I'm pretty fired up about it and look forward to doing some great things with it. I've introduced some incentives to help grow the membership base:
1) 50 referral credits for all new members you refer.
2) 50 bonus credits on surfing 50 sites for new members who join.
3) Surfing Contest for the month of August, the Top 10 surfers will receive up to 500 credits for having the most pages surfed between Aug 15 and Aug 31. Top surfer gets 500, 2nd gets 250, 3rd 150, 4th and 5th get 100, 6th-10th get 50.
4) Membership contest. In ADDITION to the referral bonus, the member with the most sites referred will get 500 credits with the same bonus structure as above.
5) REDUCED PURCHASE PRICE FOR CREDITS! I have reduced the price on purchasing credits for THIS MONTH ONLY! It is now $8 - 1200, $14 - 2500, and $24 - 5000.
6) If you post on your blog about the purchase and relaunch of blogsoldiers, you get 50 credits IN ADDITION to any referral credits that post generates. (Please open a support ticket, send me the permalink and your username).
Please sign up at BlogSoldiers.
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August 9, 2006
Wictory Wednesday Presents Steve Laffey for US Senate
This week Wictory Wednesday presents Steve Laffey for the US Senate for Rhode Island. Steve is running against well-known *insert appropriate adjective here* Republican incumbent Senator Lincoln Chafee. The reasons to vote against Chafee are many, but as a rule, we should casts votes for something.
A vote cast for Laffey is a vote cast for fiscal restraint. Laffey understands that the federal government spends other people's money and that pork projects are an egregarious example of government waste and corruption. He also is against raiding the Social Security Trust fund (yeah, I know, it's a joke) and corporate welfare. It is a national disgrace that our tax system cannot be understood by even the enforcers of that system, the IRS, and that such a system is an oppression and shackle against the American family. He supports simplifying the system so that the average person doesn't need to hire a team of professionals to figure out what their "fair share" of taxes is.
Laffey is a strong economic growth candidate supporting policies that will keep the economy moving forward. He supports making the Bush tax cuts permanent and will work to introduce additional tax cuts. He understands that tax cuts also need to come with spending cuts. Laffey is an experienced politician who, as mayor, lead his town from having a near junk-bond rating to financial solvency and has overseen some of the greatest economic renewal Cranston has seen in decades. The Club for Growth has endorsed his campaign recognizing that he will move the nation forward and avoid the recession-prone policies of the Democrats.
Please consider contributing or volunteering for Steve Laffey's campaign for the Senate.
This has been a production of the Wictory Wednesday blogburst. If you would like to join Wictory Wednesday, please see this post or contact John Bambenek at jcb (dot) blog [at] gmail {dot} com. The following sites are members of the Wictory Wednesday team:
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Book Review: Conservatives Betrayed by Richard Viguerie
The marriage between the Republicans and conservatives has been a loveless and unsatisfying marriage. The Republicans keep "stumbling home after midnight, smelling of booze and cheap perfume." And it is time for the marriage to come to an end.
Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush and Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked the Conservative Cause by Richard Viguerie thoroughly lists, more than any other resource I can think of, the balance of indiscretions the Republicans have visited upon conservatism under the Presidency of George W. Bush (and even before that election). The days of the Contract With America are long gone and replaced with what can only appear to be a very similar spending philosophy of Democrats.
Viguerie systematically dissects the policies of the George W. Bush administration in the key areas of foreign policy, immigration, the right to life, the culture of life, the courts, and taxation. He shows beyond a reasonable doubt that the canard that this is one of the most extreme right-wing administrations in history is absolutely absurd. Sure, Bush has thrown conservatives some carrots, but he has shown that he's more than willing to grow the federal government and not buck the system. He, after all, has only recently cast his first veto and has used no rescissions to block pork barrel spending.
Chart after chart, figure after figure, the book painstakingly reveals what is apparent to most conservatives, George Bush isn't one of them.
This disaffection has been brewing for some time and came to a head with the immigration debate. While the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and the UAE ports deal resulted in acquiescing to the grassroots conservatives, immigration showed the GOP literally telling conservatives to go to hell. The argument was that by leaving the Republican plantation, we got eight years of Clinton, so now we had to suck it down. If that statement seems like it is defecating on conservatives, that is because it is exactly what it is doing. Conservatives should shut up and keep sending money to the GOP. We should leave the governing to the elites.
This book is a challenge to that accepted logic and presents a game plan to attempt to bring principles back into politics. The central premise is that conservatives should stop being wedded to the GOP and start being a movement that hopefully brings both parties into line or at least gives us an occasional chance to vote against the GOP candidate without implicitly supporting a repugnant alternative.
The status quo will lead to the situation we have here in Illinois -- party insider Rod Blagojevich running against party insider Judy Baar-Topinka with both having approval ratings on a good day rivaling President Bush. Not even party loyalists like their candidate. The state is on the verge of bankruptcy, in the worst financial shape of any other state, and there is no discernable difference (quite literally) between the policies of either party. Lastly, both are corrupt to the core having fair numbers of high-level staffers in both parties under federal indictment or conviction. That is the future of national politics if we do nothing… a bankrupt government, corrupt politicians, and sham elections between candidates no one likes.
One of the more scandalous, but most insightful, suggestions is dropping support for the death penalty. This stand, more than others, directly contradicts the general conservative support for a culture of life and undermines the moral authority that would otherwise be present if that stand was not there. Controversial, yes, but spot on.
The missing piece of the puzzle, however, is a social justice component (and I don't mean that term in the typical regressive way). Only one sentence of the book makes mention of communities supporting their members but the fact is, there are times where people will need a helping hand from others. Disasters strike, illnesses drain life savings, people die, and so on. A political ideology that does not explicitly have a plan on how to handle those situations is one that leaves a large portion of the population as a captive audience to the left and big government. Big government may not effectively meet people's needs, however many view it as "better than nothing". Arguing against minimum wage laws makes good economic sense, but is politically meaningless when there is no response to the fact some people simply don't earn enough for their families. The argument must seek to address this, and that comes by creating a living wage by reducing the cost of living (most of which comes in the form of taxation or increased cost of regulations passed down to the consumer).
Further, if an effective conservative movement is to be founded and empowered, it will take more than focusing on politics. Liberty is impossible unless it includes both political and economic liberty. Likewise, reform is impossible unless it includes both political and economic aspects. The book mentions Google and Yahoo as regressive-supporting companies. There needs to be conservative equivalents so people can vote with their pocketbooks. Arguing for conservative principles while supporting regressive causes (by using companies that are in the tank with regressive causes) is self-defeating, or at least self-impeding.
The book is exactly what it purports itself to be, a starting point and a moment to reflect. It is a quick read and should have nothing foreign for anyone moderately informed about politics. The disaffection of conservatives is a growing one and now, more than ever, is the opportunity to fight for the principles we believe in. Viguerie includes several steps to take to the field of battle which involves common people to run for office, or at least take effort to support conservatives over Republicans. It won't be until common people run for office that we'll have any real reform, or at least a return to some attempt at representing common people instead of the enfranchised elites.
In 2006, when only Congressional seats are up for grabs, conservatives have the chance to make it clear to Republicans that conservatism will win or lose elections for them, just as MoveOn has just proved that moderate and sensible Democrats like Joe Lieberman are not welcome in the Democratic Party. If conservatives engage the political system now, we can win. If we fall silent, we will become like Illinois, where all the potential leaders and talent flee the state and surrender it to the left. For now, Republicans have won only because of the incompetence of the Democrats; that will not be the case forever.
The question is: can we put principle above partisanship?
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August 8, 2006
Big News Coming Up
Stay tuned, I have some pretty big news I'll be annoucing on Monday...
Posted by John Bambenek at 7:19 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 7, 2006
Please Donate to the Tumaini Foundation
Tumaini means “hope” in Swahili, the national language of Tanzania. Hope is what we aim to provide to the many children in Tanzania who have lost their parents due to the AIDS epidemic. We know many have heard of the devastation brought about by the AIDS epidemic in Africa, and we are deeply concerned about the future of Africa’s children.
Our mission is to provide education for these children while meeting their basic material and medical needs. The boarding schools Tumaini supports house students who are either orphans or their parents send them to the school because their villages are too impoverished to provide a good education.
We want to share with you the great needs of these children for your prayer and support. By helping them secure a basic education, these children will have the opportunity to work towards self-fulfillment and empowerment.
The children at the schools are in need of everything from backpacks and school supplies to running water so that they can take showers. Our method of aid thus far has involved shipping large containers overseas packed with school supplies, medical supplies, furniture, bicycles and even a car. The reason for shipping the items rather than sending money is that it is far more expensive to purchase these same items in Tanzania than it is in the United States. The containers are also useful shelters and storage that can be kept to help meet their needs.
Tumaini hopes to send another container shipment in September, and so far we have had many generous contributors, both individual and corporate, donate large amounts of material goods. Carle Hospital in Champaign, Illinois, for example, has donated over 150 computers so far. We are now in most need of monetary funds to ship these items and to continue sending any and all future items. Our current fundraising goal is $10,000. Would you please prayerfully consider a tax-deductible donation of $100, $50, or even $20? Please send checks to the Tumaini Foundation, 715 Erin Drive, Champaign, IL 61822 or visit our website at http://www.TheTumainiFoundation.org. Thank you and God bless you.
Posted by John Bambenek at 11:51 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
August 4, 2006
DI Column Up: Iconoclastic Reactionaries
You can read my latest and last DI column for the summer here.
Enjoy.
P.S. Yes they mispelled my name. Again.
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The problem with the battle of the iconoclastic reactionaries
Jon Bambenek
Posted: 8/4/06
If society is "a group of reasonable beings united among themselves by a love having the same object" as St. Augustine suggested, we are witnessing the very violent murder of American society in our day and age. Political discussion has become so unreasonable, and the public mind so small, that we can no longer discuss ideas or events, we can only discuss people. We have become so fractured that in no way can Americans be described as having a love for the same object. This campus, a place of supposed open discussion, is no exception.It is on the twenty-four hour news channels and the blogs, which have done little but to exacerbate the problem, where people can no longer challenge ideas, they must attack the people behind those ideas as absolute moral evils to be annihilated.
Likewise, instead of presenting messages, we present messengers. Cindy Sheehan lost a son in Iraq; therefore, her ideas are beyond reproach. Ann Coulter is right because she sells lots of books. Yet neither advance ideas; they are defined by what they are against.
When people talk about privatizing Social Security, the voices that challenge the policy on economic grounds are drowned out by the voices who claim that it is a sinister plot to kill off old people. For those who discuss immigration reform, those who disagree with amnesty are not people with a different perspective, but xenophobes who are stirring anti-immigrant furor. Individuals who voice criticism of the war in Iraq, no matter how legitimate, are labeled as traitors and terrorist sympathizers.
Have we run out of ideas? Have we, as a country, become so superficial that we've bought into the idea of style over substance so completely?
The lines have not only been drawn with politics, but with race as well. There are African Americans, Caucasians, Latinos, and nowhere does anyone talk of simply "Americans" without qualifiers. We have black culture, white culture, and Latino culture, but nowhere do we have a common culture. We are not a society; we are several societies that by an accident of geography occupy that same chunk of dirt on a map. And like all divisions, we look upon the "other" with suspicion, disdain and fear.
There exist millions of little lobbying groups insisting that politicians give them what they want, or they'll declare that politician as a target to be destroyed. No one, at least those who show up on TV and command a small army of bobble heads, can fathom this simple idea: There are 300 million people in this nation, and sometimes their needs and wants matter too. Policy and politics are more than single issues considered in a vacuum.
In an arena where there is only good and evil with no middle ground, no real synthetic thought can take place. We are left with the Roman Colosseum, not a public square. It is the perennial battle of the iconoclastic reactionaries of all political stripes. The solution to bridge one warring faction with another is not moderate thought, but simply thought itself.
That leaves one of several options to us. We either learn to grow up and discuss ideas like adults, we retreat into our "communities" and the nation splinters, or we pick up guns and the last man standing wins. I'd prefer if we just grew up. © Copyright 2006 The Daily Illini
Posted by John Bambenek at 8:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 3, 2006
A Case of Double Standards
Compare and contrast these two cases:
The first, a scandal-ridden New Jersey Senator who was running for reelection abruptly resigns and drops out of the race 35 days before the election. Litigation ensues and the court decides that it should override the law under the concerns to ensure a "full and fair ballot choice" for the voters.
The second, a scandal-ridden Texas Congressman who was running for reelection resigns from office and drops out of the rice 5 months before the general election. Litigation ensures and the court decides that the candidate who no longer has residence in the district must remain on the ballot and there should be no exception to the law.
What is the difference between the two cases? The first was a Democrat, the second a Republican. Both were running for reelection for national office, however, the first was dealt with in state court, and the second, in federal court.
The inherent viewpoint of Democrats (and regressives in general) is that the written law means nothing when it conflicts with what is perceived to be the metaphysical intent of the law or what the law should be. This is why they can say with a straight-face that Bush should be impeached for crimes that amount to little more than not drinking deeply enough of the regressive Kool-aid.
Republicans generally believe the law should be upheld and if changes are needed the legislature (which exists entirely for this task) should be employed to modify those laws.
So when the Democrats ask for an exception, it is not inconsistent with what they believe, that namely, the law should reflect and advantage their policies, even when the written words of that law go clearly against them. When Republicans ask for an exception, they get denied outright.
In both cases, the misuse and abuse of the court system has lead to a schizophrenic application of the law, largely along partisan lines. The question of whether the law matters or not depends on which would most benefit the Democrats. An interesting thought exercise would be to imagine if George Bush stood accused of perjury in open court for lying about an affair during a lawsuit, and whether or not the Democrats would vote to impeach him on those groups. A fair amount of Republicans surely would.
It is tempting, then, for the Republicans to likewise abandon the written law and rely on tactics of jurisdiction shopping and court stacking to secure favorable outcomes, not based on the law, but on party loyalty. This temptation should be quickly dispatched. A law that means whatever those in power want, is not law, but tyranny projected through a black robe.
Citizens should take note at, yet again, the bipolar nature of the court system, and the routine differing application of the law depending on who is involved. If ever there was a case against judicial activism and reform of the courts, this episode would be it.
Posted by John Bambenek at 3:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Ending Corporate Welfare
The ACLU is indignant that there are members of Congress pushing to pass a law that would bar awards of attorney fees when groups sue to get religion out of the public square. These award of legal fees are very directly responsible to a vast increase in the body of law that has gone so far to protect against the appearances of government endorsement of religion, that even private individuals have been sanctioned for daring to utter the unutterable name of Jesus Christ in public.
It has been the ACLU's influence that not only is the government (rightly) prevented from taking sides on the matter of religion, but when private individuals happen to be speaking on government property, the First Amendment is brought to bear against them. It is unthinkable in the highest degree that the Founders or anything in the Constitution intended to restrict the free expression rights of citizens. The First Amendment was designed to create institutional separation between the agencies of government and the houses of religion, not to be a pre-regulated restriction on what private people can or cannot say.
The ACLU has used attorney fees to bully schools into submission in questionable cases or in matters where no settled law exists. School budgets are already tight (mostly because of bloated bureaucracy, but that's not the point). Many schools will capitulate to avoid having to fork out money to defend a winning case. As in most areas of law, he who has the most money wins. With the award of legal fees, it only encourages entrepreneurial lawyers to build cases where none may exist. It also prevents the ACLU from browbeating agencies into avoiding situations where those agencies may be right.
However, the money schools have is not their own. The money sitting in government accounts is not their own. They are merely stewards of assets they have been given to perform tasks they have been assigned. Their masters are the citizens who fund those organizations and who elect their leaders.
There is something profoundly wrong when, because of the actions of a politician, the entire society that funds that politician's organization is made to pay. There is much talk about making politicians and bureaucrats accountable, awarding legal fees for cases like this don't make the politicians accountable, it makes society accountable. It is irresponsible in the extreme to make other people pay for someone's "bad" actions. I'd prefer courts punish those people who are actually doing the deeds, not finding someone who has big enough pockets and make them pay, no matter how peripheral they may be. We'll throw them out of office the next election if the case warrants it.
Preventing the default award of legal fees makes good economic sense and it is good policy. The First Amendment is a simple area of constitutional law that does not, nor should not, take millions of dollars to litigate. It is about time this case of corporate welfare comes to an end.
Posted by John Bambenek at 1:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 2, 2006
Drunken Rants and Payback
Mel Gibson's drunken rants are disgraceful and there is no defending them. In fact, Mel Gibson himself doesn't defend them and claims they are not only disgraceful but that they disgrace his family. In a world where public figures hardly utter the words "I'm sorry" and issue non-apology apologies, one would think people would have been satisfied with not only an apology, but a healthy self-indictment for a very bad episode.
For the Anti-Defamation League, that is not enough. After reading the several statements from the ADL, it is clear that their righteous indignation has less to do with comments from a drunk being pulled over and more about the "Passion of Christ" (a link they themselves make in this release).
In fact, much like Psalm 59, the entire tirade seems to have been nothing but lying in wait for Mel to stumble so they can jump on him and label him anti-semitic.
Take this statement they made at the time The Passion came out:
Q. Mel Gibson has stated that many people are calling him an anti-Semite. What is ADL's position? A. ADL and its representatives have never accused Mr. Gibson of being an anti-Semite. We do not know what is in his heart. We only know what he has put on the movie screen. The images there show Romans who behave with compassion toward Jesus. The Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, constantly expresses his reticence to harm Jesus. The Jews, on the other hand, are depicted as blood-thirsty. The Jewish High Priest, Caiaphas, is shown as bullying Pilate, and the hundreds and hundreds of amassed Jews demanding Jesus' death.
Compare that with their recent statement:
Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement:Mel Gibson's apology is unremorseful and insufficient. It's not a proper apology because it does not go to the essence of his bigotry and his anti-Semitism.
His tirade finally reveals his true self and shows that his protestations during the debate over his film "The Passion of the Christ," that he is such a tolerant, loving person, were a sham. It may well be that the bigotry has been passed from the father to the son. It is unfortunate that it took an excess of booze and an encounter with a police officer to reveal what was really in his heart and mind.
We would hope that Hollywood now would realize the bigot in their midst and that they will distance themselves from this anti-Semite.
At first, they couldn't peer into Mel Gibson's heart, and now they see him through and through. At what point did people start considering drunken rants authoritative of the identity of a person?
With this childish rant that goes far beyond the condemnation that was warranted, the ADL have silences anti-semites all over. They no longer need to speak on how those who criticize the Jews are blackballed, they simply need to point to this URL. The ADL doesn't just condemn Mel, they call for him to be blacklisted. The Jews have enough problems with people falsely stereotyping them… they certainly don't need the ADL to live up to those stereotypes. Call the comments hateful, fine. Say they were out-of-line and false, that is true. Waiting until after Mel apologizes, claim to peer into his heart, and then call for him to be blackballed is the height of arrogance and the depth of stupidity.
Apparently, the PR handlers at the ADL got Foxman to calm down in the latest release, but even then he couldn't keep from kicking a man while he's down. ADL's Op-Ed largely goes back to the ranting, threatening to hold the sword of anti-semitism over Mel for life. There is conventional wisdom that when someone comes to you to sincerely apologize, you don't keep kicking them in the face.
What the entire incident smacks of is revenge for The Passion in which, for whatever reason, the ADL didn't feel like they could truly unload on Gibson. They are making up for that now. These releases smack of not really being all the concerned with what Mel said, but of being pent up anger finally finding a pretext to allow its release.
Anti-semitism shouldn't be tolerated, but at some point the ADL should realize that their cause is not helped by the politics of personal destruction. Maybe they should save their big guns for those who are calling for a second Holocaust… like Iran.
Posted by John Bambenek at 9:52 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
Wictory Wednesday Presents Thelma Drake
This week, Wictory Wednesday presents Thelma Drake for US Congress for the Second District of Virginia. Representative Drake is running for reelection for her second term in the Congress and is running against MoveOn backed candidate Phillip Kellam. Polls indicate this will be a tight race, and from the amount of money being poured in by MoveOn, a race of importance in 2006.
Rep. Drake has been a supporter of victory in Iraq, rejecting calls to surrender to terrorists and leave the region in chaos. By providing support that the troops need, it gives the military and administration the latitude needed to do the hard work of reconstruction.
Also a supporter of free trade, Rep. Drake has voted to create a free trade zone in South America to further economic development that is beneficial to all parties. Many protectionists keep railing against the trade deficit without realizing that the trade deficit does more for other countries developing their economies than humanitarian aid could ever do.
Lastly, in the light of the recent debate on immigration, Rep. Drake gets it. Regulating the flow of immigrants is not xenophobia, it is common sense. It is one thing to be generous in allowing immigrants to come here to build a better life. It is another to have no real border and allow anyone, including terrorists, free reign across the border. Immigration is healthy for a county, unregulated flaunting of a border is not.
Please consider supporting Thelma Drake in her race for reelection.
This has been a production of the Wictory Wednesday blogburst. If you would like to join Wictory Wednesday, please see this post or contact John Bambenek at jcb (dot) blog [at] gmail {dot} com. The following sites are members of the Wictory Wednesday team:
Posted by John Bambenek at 9:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 1, 2006
Is Islam a Violent Religion?
Something has always bothered me about declarations that claim Islam is a violent religion. Largely relying on circumstantial evidence, because the regions that are typically the most violent tend to be Islamic, the argument goes that Islam is a violent religion. I haven't read the Koran that I was sent by CAIR yet to decide for myself, but the claim sounds eerily similar to those that come from another sector of society.
The problem I have with this line of reasoning is that if you take history from a few hundred years ago, it could just as easily be applied to Christianity, and in fact, many secular "thinkers" continue to argue that Christianity breeds nothing but violence. It is this line of thought the leads social elites to demand that students say nothing that could smell of religion because that would violate the "wall of separation". How it can be argued that the First Amendment (designed solely to protect individual citizen's right of expression) supports the notion that private citizens not be allowed to speak their minds is beyond rationality.
Universities unconstitutionally suppress religious speech. Anything that can be related to Christianity is ripped out of the public square. This is what Enlightenment thinking has wrought, not freedom of expression, but restriction of the lines of inquiry into the deepest questions of human existence.
By claiming Islam is a violent religion on similar bases, people have unconsciously validated the Enlightenment thought that religion only breeds violence. This idea is simply wrong.
As an example, take North Ireland which is often described as suffering from sectarian violence. On one hand, you have the Catholics who want to claim North Ireland as their own, and on the other, you have the Protestants (Anglicans) who want to claim North Ireland as theirs. The problem is the fighting has nothing to do with religion. Belfast holds no particular weight for the Papacy, and unless Belfast figures into Henry VIII's problems with his Y chromosome, it has nothing to do with Anglicanism either.
The fighting over North Ireland is a political fight based on two nation's claims that the land belongs to them. The Irish (a predominantly Catholic people) claim that Belfast rightfully belongs to them. The English (predominantly Anglican) claim it is theirs. Religion isn't the area of contention. Anyone who describes this as a sectarian fight largely misses the point or is intentionally trying to find a tendency of violence in religion where it does not exist.
Another example is the so-called sectarian violence in Iraq. The Sunnis and Shiites don't like each other, that is clear. However, when they have been fighting in Iraq, it doesn't appear that they are fighting over the finer points of Islam. They do appear to be fighting over economics and political power. For the two groups to come together and form a viable government, it won't take a reconciliation of the finer points of religious doctrine, but a political compromise.
The problem with religion is that it makes good propaganda in the hands of social elites who want to manipulate public opinion in their favor. This is why the "wall of separation" exists, to prevent the organs of government from misusing religion and vice versa. The institutions ought to remain separate.
It isn't religion that drives people to violence; it is the social elites who use religion as a tool. It is naïve in the first degree to think heads of state site around and think about what God wants of them. Generally, the most power hungry are more concerned with an increase of their own power and wealth, typically the things directly antithetical to most religions.
The next time someone says Islam (or another religion for that matter) is violent, take pause. Such over-simplistic stereotypes tend not to be well thought out and are generally just intellectual laziness on the part of a person who can't win an argument otherwise. Anyone can cherry-pick a verse or two from a book.
Posted by John Bambenek at 1:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
