Freedom of speech is not a slogan. It is not a bumper sticker. Free speech is more than mere empty words. Just as I believe in free speech, and free markets, I also believe that more freedom, not less freedom, is the solution for what is wrong with our country. I believe that freedom is The Best Antidote for What Ails Us. It is the strongest antiseptic for what evils have infected our body politick, and our ‘public square’, right down to our local city or county government.
I believe that to allow a small group of self-serving individuals to throw their weight around in private, and to try to implement their agenda in small meetings, whether it is in your own home town, or in Washington D.C., is not an acceptable way to conduct the affairs of this great nation, nor is it a realistic way to inspire the youth of our great country! When a small group of powerful individuals seeks to impose their unpopular will upon the rest of us, it is wrong, whether it occurs in your own hometown or in our nation’s capitol, as it did recently with the gang of twelve in Washington D.C. The young people of our country see this and frankly it turns them off! If you want to lead America then you need to inspire the youth. Try doing something inspirational for a change. You will find that it works.
What the Republican Party has been doing for the past 20 years in Oregon has not been working! I’m suggesting a totally different strategy, and part of that strategy includes the free exchange of ideas and opinions on Republican websites. Let the best ideas prevail. If you think that you can turn this Party around, through some sleight of hand, and that you can turn this country around with just more of the same old same old, or some slight tweaks here and there around the edges, and some careful strategizing on your part, then you are sorely mistaken. Young people are not stupid. They want to be free. Someone just needs to explain to them what freedom is about and the responsibilities that go along with it. Does trying to suppress freedom of speech in any way sound like you actually believe in freedom, yourself?
The Republican Party needs a face lift. Those of us who have the courage to stand up to the Establishment are the face of that lift. Stand with me. The reason that the Republican Party has been nearly irrelevant in Oregon for most of the last 20 years is not because it was too conservative. It is because it didn’t successfully explain conservative ideas and make a convincing case for them. I want to change that by proving that Freedom is superior to the bankrupt ideology of dependence on the Federal government, as favored by the Democrats.
But it’s because of the way that the Republican Party has conducted its affairs over the last thirty years that explains why it has not been a significant political force in Oregon. By not listening to voters, by not returning phone calls, by not recognizing and nurturing talent in our midst, and by not selecting the best qualified people to lead this Party, Republicans have un-wittingly laid the groundwork for our own predicament. That’s why we haven’t won a statewide election in Oregon since Gordon Smith, or elected a Republican Governor since Vic Atiyeh. I actually find it hard to blame the voters of Oregon for not electing more Republicans to statewide office, when they look around and see some of the things that Republicans have done and quite frankly are still doing!
We are not going to change that with a few little tweaks here and there around the edges, or by pushing conservatives aside and nominating more moderates or liberals to run for office. There needs to be an entire sea change in Republican methods and thinking, and writers like I am, who can reach independent voters and disillusioned Democrats, and the next generation that will grow up to become the next generation of voters in America are essential to winning that battle. Writers and political commentators are essential to preparing the ground for the next generation of Republican politicians. You no longer have to be ashamed of being a conservative. You don’t need to hide your traditional values in a closet somewhere in order to win an elected office anymore. You just need to be able to articulate them and explain why they are better than the bankrupt ideas of the liberals. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s Democrat liberals or Republican liberals. If you don’t want to do it, then I do! I am trying to inform and educate independents, and disappointed Democrats, and the next generation of voters every day, on my website, and I put my money where my mouth is, right on my website! Progressive ideas have infiltrated into both of America’s major political Parties.
If you want to distance yourself from me, you can go right ahead, but you are heading in the wrong direction, and the winds of change are strongly blowing against you. That’s not how you, or this Republican Party is going to foster the much needed conservative changes along. And that’s not how we are going to move this country back to the Right. We have moved so far to the Left in this country that we can’t even begin to see where the Center is anymore. The only thing you will achieve from this kind of behavior is that you might elect more middle of the road Republicans, who won’t move this country anywhere at all. You might win one or two General Elections here and there if you’re lucky with a strategy like that, but that’s about it!
The final thing I want to say is this. It is important that when liberals decide to run for office as Republicans, they know that they are going to get vigorously challenged, and that their liberal or progressive ideas and records will be exposed, just like I am doing right now with Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney. That is the only way we are ever going to get real conservatives elected to office, and it is the only hope that we have of actually changing the unfortunate status quo in our country.
You can read more of Scott’s work at www.LessGovIsTheBestGov.com.
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A little rag tag group of not more than nineteen airplane hijackers, directed by one evil mastermind from a remote cave in north eastern Afghanistan, terrorized America on September 11, 2001 and literally sent shock waves through the world community that reverberated all the way from New York to Bombay and back! These shock waves set off a scare that hijacked the whole world, and has held us all hostage ever since! 9-11 was more than ten years ago, and even though all of the hijackers are surely dead, and Osama bin Laden is supposedly dead too, nevertheless we are all acting like we are living in fear, and we are allowing our government to keep us in this continuous state of fear, so much so that the Patriot Act is still thought by many to be necessary today, – 
The only time in our nation’s history that American citizens were subjected to this kind of preemptory action by our own government was during the Civil War, and very briefly during World War II. All of this is being done today in the name of fighting terror. I’m starting to become more terrorized by my own Federal government than I am of any foreign threat! What about you? All this is being done under the pretense of fighting a “Global War on Terror” for which no actual Declaration of War has ever been issued! This is what Ron Paul is trying to warn us about! And he is not the only one who is sounding the alarm, – more than ten years after the original attacks on New York! Are we ever going to be able to go back to a normal pre 9-11 existence, and a normal attitude with respect to individual liberty and the Bill of Rights? If we don’t reverse this slippery slide into despotism right now, then I don’t think that there will be many of us left who can remember what “normal” was really like in America! There are just too many young men and women alive today, who were born after 1990, who have grown up under the Patriot Act, who actually don’t know anything different. They think that strip searches at airports, pat downs, and a myriad of other more than just mere inconveniences are all perfectly normal! That’s the real danger in all of this. That soon, another generation of Americans will have grown up, who will never know what it was really like to be free! 
The biggest threat to America is not coming from Afghanistan! It never was. I’m not saying that Afghanistan was never a threat. I said it was never the 
It’s been over ten years since 9-11, and two foreign wars later, and there hasn’t been another major terrorist attack in America! It’s time to repeal 
The last serious attack on our country was over ten years ago! Right now we allow ourselves to be seriously interrogated at airports, scanned like a box of fruit loops at a checkout stand, only with radar detecting devices instead of light emitting diodes, and we are patted down before we are allowed to board a plane, or a train. While that may still be necessary in order to keep the skies and the rails safe, there are city engineers who are installing cameras in most major cities of the world, just in order to monitor what goes on in the streets! And they are creating new laws like 
The Devil comes as an angel of light, and he sounds so much like a messenger from God that if it were possible, he would deceive even the very elect.
Today, some so-called conservative pundits, and radio and TV talk show hosts, sound very much like real conservatives. But they are actually wolves in sheep’s clothing! They are trying to derail the TEA Party train! They are trying to suck the wind from the TEA Party’s sails! They use the same jargon that real conservatives use, and if it is possible, and you can count on the fact that it is possible, they will deceive the very conservative voters that they are trying to influence.
MonCrief attended the University of Alabama where she majored in political science and history. She has worked with the American Bar Association’s Central European and Eurasian Law Initiative; (ABA CEELI), the International Crisis Group, the Grameen Foundation and American Rights at Work. She also partnered with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on their mission to Macedonia as an election observer.
Outing the Progressives & Liberal Democrats on the Ryan Budget
“We have a choice of two futures. We know the path we’re on right now. That’s the path the President is proposing: a debt crisis; no health or retirement security; a diminished future; a stagnant country; less jobs; less prosperity. That is not the America we know. We can choose this other path, but we have to make that choice. We can lift the crushing burden of debt off our children and grandchildren. And we can get this economy growing today. It is up to our generation to pick this path. The question is: will we do it or not.” – US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), Chairman of the House Budget Committee, Path to Prosperity (Episode 1).
This will be the question that the 2012 Presidential Election decides. Will we choose to remain a fiscally solvent and financially independent Republic of sovereign citizens? Or will be choose to complete the fundamental transformation of the United States of America from Constitutional Republic to nanny-state, Socialist Democracy? To me – and to most thinking Americans – the choice is clear: we would all like to remain as free and independent as possible. But there are factions in our country that would like to transform our country into something that it was never intended to be. And there are other factions that are so targeted on the retention of power that they would destroy our nation in that pursuit.
The 2012 House Republican Budget Proposal, put forth by US Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), arguably the most fiscally responsible person inside the beltway, is a solid, common sense piece of legislation that some on the Right – and on the Left – are calling moderate in its goals. It simplifies the tax code, collapsing the current system of six tax brackets for individuals into two marginal rates of 25 percent and 10 percent, and ends deductions that benefit a relatively small class of mostly higher-income individuals. It also lowers the top corporate tax rate to 25 percent – competitive with the world average, while eliminating carve-outs and loopholes that have allowed some narcissistic corporations to avoid paying taxes altogether. It would also scrap the Alternative Minimum Tax that captures more and more of the Middle Class each and every year.
In addition, it includes a provision that would overhaul and strengthen Medicare, a provision that Rep. Ryan worked out with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR). This overhaul and strengthening:
▪ Makes no changes for those in and near retirement (read: ages 55 and older).
▪ When those under 55 reach eligibility, Medicare will provide a payment and a list of guaranteed coverage options, giving the recipients the “right to choose” a plan that best suits their needs and in the same manner as members of Congress.
▪ Provides additional Medicare assistance for lower-income beneficiaries and those with greater health risks.
▪ Stops the fiscal raid on Medicare from Obamacare by mandating that any current-law Medicare savings go to saving Medicare, exclusively, not the financing or the creation of new open-ended healthcare entitlements.
▪ Caps non-economic damages in medical liability lawsuits, thus ensuring that the cost of frivolous litigation is not passed on to consumers in the form of higher healthcare premiums.
▪ And fixes the Medicare physician payment formula for the next decade so Medicare beneficiaries continue to have access to healthcare.
In addressing Medicaid, the plan would convert the federal government’s share of the Medicaid payment into a block grant – exactly as was done with federal welfare funds under the Clinton Administration. Initially, the allotment would be exactly the amount that states are receiving for their Medicaid programs today. In subsequent years this sum would grow to account for inflation and population each year. This plan allows States a greater flexibility to tailor their programs to their individual low-income populations; flexibility to focus on the specific needs of their States.
With regard to spending, deficit and debt reduction, the 2012 House Republican Budget Plan cuts $6.2 trillion in government spending over the next ten years, compared to President Obama’s proposed budget, and $4,000,000,000 more than the current-policy baseline. It sets a $1.028 trillion discretionary spending cap, below that of the $1.047 trillion cap set by last summer’s debt-ceiling deal, a difference of, $19,000,000,000. It mandates that congressional committees find ways to avoid the automatic cuts put in place by last summer’s “agreement” and eliminates hundreds of duplicative programs while honoring the ban on earmarks.
Most importantly, the 2012 House Republican Budget Plan brings government spending to below 20 percent of the economy; 20 percent of the Gross Domestic Product, a stark contrast to President Obama’s budget, which never sees spending fall below 23 percent of GDP over the next ten years. In the end, the plan reduces the national deficits by $4.4 trillion compared to the President’s budget over the next decade.
So, in a nutshell, the plan reforms the tax code, making it flatter and fairer while eliminating the tax breaks for the privileged few, which Democrats and Progressives continuously rail about. It literally throws a lifeline to Medicare and Medicaid, without service disruption (the Trustees for Medicare say “Without corrective legislation, the assets of the trust fund would be exhausted within the next 7 to 19 years”). It makes the corporate tax rate globally competitive and eliminates the “carve-outs” and special interest, “one-percenter” tax breaks that Liberals and Progressives say are so unfair. And it balances the budget by 2015 and pays off the national debt by 2050.
Sounds like a pretty solid plan, even if we do have to rely on the federal government to cut wasteful spending and realize that they must operate within the confines of a leaner, less extravagant annual budget, while refraining from saddling future Congresses with the bill for programs they want to take credit for today.
So, why is it that Progressives and Liberal Democrats are ratcheting up the smear machine so as to assassinate the proposal even before US Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), gets to deny a floor vote on it, which he invariably will? Mouthpiece after mouthpiece for the Liberal Left and the Progressive Movement – from US Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who continues to advance the out-and-out lie that the 2012 House Republican Budget Plan will advance “big tax breaks to the folks at the very highest end of the income ladder,” to Democrat National Committee Chairwoman, US Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL), who disingenuously contends that the 2012 House Republican Budget Plan “threatens the health security for 5 million seniors” and that it would facilitate having their “health safety net yanked from under them” – they have frantically taken to the various television and radio shows, visibly shaken, to condemn the plan before even debating it.
But why? If they are getting at least a prized portion of what they want – the elimination of both tax loopholes for the “rich” and carve-outs for the corporate “one-percenters,” prizes they can return to their constituencies and take credit for, disingenuous as that may be – why would they oppose advancing a budget that would treat all Americans fairer, as far as the tax code goes, while saving Medicare – as is – for those covered now and providing “choice,” a big deal when they talk about reproductive rights, for future beneficiaries?
The answer is simple and it’s three-fold: a) It takes away their ability to reward special interest political benefactors with tax breaks; b) It weans the citizenry off of the road to nanny-state Socialist Democracy, and c) It would see them allowing the Republicans a huge political victory before the 2012 General Election.
Keep those points in mind as you enter the voting booth this November. And keep this one in mind as well: The Progressives and Democrats have just demonstrated that maintaining power and defeating their political opposition are more important than doing what is right by the American people; more important than allowing for a secure future for our children.
Imagine that…