FREEDOM !!!

Americans Long to be Free

The View from the Middle

         Recently, President Obama suggested that slavery and prejudice are in the DNA of America.  While I believe that there are some qualities built into the fabric of our country, I will respectfully disagree with our President.  Prejudice is not one of them.

Anything that is part of our DNA would be part of virtually every person in The United States, but even at its peak, the most aggressive estimate of slave ownership in the South is only 33%.  That means that 67% did not own slaves.  Now, you’ll say, “that  was just economics”.  Many families just couldn’t afford slaves.  That may be true, but it doesn’t account for all non-slave owners in the South or for the fact that slave ownership in the North was nearly non-existent.

I can safely argue that there has always been more people in this country that opposed slavery than supported it.  The belief in slavery or the subjugation of any individual has never been in the DNA of this country.  In fact, the concept of slavery died a long and grueling death here because it clashed with an idea that IS in the American DNA, and that idea is “Freedom”.

If you need any proof of that fundamental conviction to liberty for all, you need only take a quick look back at our Founding Fathers.  They risked everything when they signed the Declaration of Independence.  In fact, at the signing of that document, Ben Franklin famously warned his fellow signers, “We must, indeed, hang together, or assuredly we will all hang separately.” 

But today we give away our freedom far too easily. We won’t give up all of our freedom all at once, of course.  We give it away slice by slice; inch-by-inch as we attempt to stop “the other guy” from doing something that we are against.  Let me give you some examples.

Let’s say that you don’t smoke.  Good for you.  So, when some state decides to ban smoking anywhere (restaurants, bars, casinos) you’re all for it, right?  Smoking is bad for people.  You have the second hand smoke issue and all, so you don’t mind taking the right to smoke away from others because you stand on the moral high ground.

But do people have the right to smoke?  Do restaurants have the right to “choose” if they allow smoking in general or in special smoking rooms?  Instead of taking those rights away, why not just inform people of the impact of smoking and then let free people decide on their own what they will do?  If a restaurant chooses to allow smoking, that is their choice.  You don’t have to go there, and if there are enough people like you, then restaurants that allow smoking will soon go out of business.  Or some may flourish appealing to that niche market.  Freedom means having a choice.

Let’s say you support gay marriage.  Good for you.  Should you allow others to have an opposing opinion?  If you believe in traditional marriage, should you be forced to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple?  Should a church that supports traditional marriage be forced to wed a gay couple?  Do those people or those churches have any rights?  By definition, “force” means a lack of choice.

Let’s say that you have never even had a soda in your life, then, some crazy mayor bans the sale of all large sodas in his or her city.  Should you be concerned?  Of course, but that’s crazy and would never happen, right?  Uh-oh, it already did.

On the University of California campuses, the home of the Free Speech Movement, there are now dozens of phrases you can’t utter, including; “America is a melting pot” and “America is the land of opportunity”.  Is this political correctness run amuck?  I think so!  Is this not a violation of the freedom of speech?

Finally, the EPA is on the verge of regulating everything from our lakes and streams to the mud puddles in your back yard.  Remember, this is the agency that used the Roman practice of crucifying newly conquered citizens as a way to gain control.  Do you really want those guys snooping around in your private business?

We would never give up all of our freedoms at one time and move to a “Hunger Games” or “1984” environment immediately, but we could slowly move there as our government chips away at our freedoms one small step at a time.

We are, in my opinion, very much like the proverbial frog that would jump out of a boiling pot of water, but would be boiled to death if it were put into warm water, which is then slowly brought to a boil.  We need to keep the government small and involved only in the things it does well, which are very few.  But is our government too involved in our lives?

There are two ways to measure the intrusiveness of our government.  The first is to look at the size of our Federal Register.  The Federal Register is a publication of the administrative regulations of our government’s agencies.  When it was first published in 1936, it totaled only 2,620 pages.  In the Obama administration it has averaged over 80,000 pages.  And with every page we lose a little bit of our freedom.  Feel like that frog yet?

Another good measure of the invasiveness of government is to track its spending as a percent of our GDP (Gross Domestic Product).  In the first hundred years of our country’s history our spending represented less than 5% of our GDP, excluding the cost of the Civil War.  FDR brought that percentage up to about 10% and Truman and Eisenhower took it to about 20% right after WWII.  Today it is 25% and plans are to keep it there – sure!  Getting warm yet.

The point is, the government will continue to grow, because that is all it knows.  And, as it grows it will continue to intrude into or take over our lives, unless “we the people” stop it.  We all need to reign in the size of our government with our votes before it is too late and “big brother” controls every aspect of our lives, and freedom is nothing but a vague memory.

The Government Has NO Money

The Government Has NO Money

The View from the Middle

The plain truth is, our government has no money!

So how it spends so much seems almost funny.

We, unfortunately, are the source of their cash,

But they spend without care thus treat us like trash.

They lavish themselves with first class air and healthcare,

And waste on treadmills for shrimp and bridges to nowhere.

They use OUR money for bribes when in a bind,

The Cornhusker Kickback should come to your mind.

They slyly take your money, and that’s a fact.

Then they seem so gracious when they give some back.

They take it from your paycheck, right under your face.

They have totally forgotten it was yours in the first place.

Their budgets are automatically increased,

While OUR salaries have dropped and raises have ceased?

They don’t put their plans and departments to a test.

They just take even more and borrow the rest.

They don’t respect what they get from our taxes.

A Billion dollars means nothing to these jackasses.

They get numb to the excess, as if they’ve been drinking.

They’ll blow all our money without even blinking.

What will we tell our kids about all this debt?

We were too thoughtless to even leave them a net?

We’ve spent their futures before they were born.

Will they treat us with honor or view us with scorn?

But there is a solution.  Vote these bums out!!

Term limits would help and of that there’s no doubt.

We have the power if we would choose to use it.

But if we don’t vote or think, we will certainly lose it.

Whatever we do we must act real fast.

There is an example we can take from our past.

The greatest generation really answered the call.

Or will we go down as the most selfish of all?

Stephanopoulos

George Stephanopoulos, a Microcosm of the Bigger Clinton Scandal

The View from the Middle

If you haven’t read the book Clinton Cash, you should.  Oh what a tangled web they have woven.  It is revealing as well as entertaining, in a sad, sort of sick way.  But you can get the short version, a microcosm if you will, of the Clinton Cash for influence scheme by following the much easier to understand “George Stephanopoulos” saga.    

George was the White House Communications Director for Bill Clinton back in 1992 before becoming Bill’s Senior Advisor for Policy and Strategy in 1996.  Now he is chief anchor for ABC News and co-anchor of ABC’s Good Morning America.  No potential conflict there, right?

Last week, Stephanopoulos interviewed the author of Clinton Cash, Peter Schweizer, for ABC News.  It was seen immediately as an inappropriate cross-examination instead of an unbiased interview.  Within a few days, George revealed that he had donated $75,000 to the Clinton Foundation over a three-year period, and OOPS, had forgotten to report that to ABC or the world in general.  OK, now I see the conflict of interest.

For sure, he had donated the money because the Foundation does such a good job of making the world a better place.  The Clinton Foundation says that it fights Aids/HIV, childhood obesity, climate change and advocates women’s rights, although it is not named as a top charity for any of these causes. 

In fact, sources suggest that the Foundation gives only 15% of its assets to their causes with the rest of the 85% of its money going to travel, salaries and “other” expenses.  Charity Navigator won’t even give them a rating because (and I’m simplifying here) they don’t understand what the heck the Clinton’s are doing.

Yet despite all of this evidence, George Stephanopoulos couldn’t find a more suitable recipient for his $75,000 to fight Aids, or whatever, than the Clinton Foundation?  I guess the Aaron Diamond Aids Research Center just wasn’t good enough, or the Hewlett Foundation for climate change didn’t quite cut it.

Or could it be that neither of these foundations could also guarantee access to the Clintons for this ABC newsman.  Of course, George will deny that his donations had anything to do with access to the Clintons.  He will say that there are no videos showing he and Hillary shaking hands and with him saying, “OK, for this $75,000 I will get unfettered access to you and Bill for the next three years”.  He’ll say there is no e-mail that lays out a contract between the Clintons and him for future favors.

So, I guess we just have to take his word for all this.  NO!  We can actually use our own brains and decide for ourselves whether this kind of activity is appropriate.  Do we really want this kind of interaction between our politicians and the media?  Do we want this kind of give and take between our politicians and foreign governments? 

By the way, we do have recourse in all of these shenanigans.  We can choose not to watch George or even ABC altogether if we think we are getting a partisan skew to his reporting.  And, of course, we always have freedom of choice when it come to who you vote for.  Remember, when you are in that voting booth and you consider pulling the Hillary lever, you are in effect voting for this kind of behavior.  Is that what we really want in Washington?  Think it over.

Brady, meet Clinton

Tom Brady, Meet Hillary Clinton

 The View from the Middle

While in some ways Tom Brady’s situation couldn’t be more different than Hillary Clinton’s, but in other ways there are striking similarities.  The biggest difference is the actual gravity of the circumstances.  Tom Brady plays professional football, and while we have some rabid fans out there, no matter who wins the Super Bowl, the world order is not in jeopardy.  But, there are many similarities.

First, no matter how big a Tom Brady or Hillary Clinton fan you are, it is clear to most reasonable people that they are both guilty of inappropriate if not illegal activity.  It is interesting that defenders of both have used the same defense.  They say there is “no smoking gun” to convict them.  As if the only way to convict anyone of any crime is to have a video tape of the offense or a letter or email virtually admitting to the actions.

Do we really think Tom Brady is stupid enough to send an email or even a text message to the equipment manager or locker room attendant telling them to deflate the footballs?   Do we really think that a savvy, political operative like Hillary Clinton would be any less careful?

Yet, Ted Wells and the NFL have, in effect, found Tom Brady guilty.  Ted Wells said that he, “could not…ignore the import(ance) of the text messages” sent by James “the deflator” McNally.  Even though McNally never admitted to doing it, the connection was too strong to ignore, and Wells used the “Preponderance of Evidence” standard to make his ruling.

The evidence against Hillary and Bill is probably even stronger.  Of course we don’t have an e-mail from Frank Giustra or Ian Telfar laying out a quid pro quo for their speaker fees to Bill or their donations to the Clinton Foundation, but the connections are undeniable.  I’m sure that Bill is a wonderful speaker, but no one pays $500,000 just for inspiring words or pays millions to a foundation that only gives 10 to 12% of its assets to its beneficiaries.  The preponderance of evidence would suggest that influence was sought and clout was delivered.

The next similarity is the poor judgment used by both Brady and Clinton.  Tom Brady is a gifted NFL quarterback, whom many would argue is the best of all time.  In the very game that the Patriots were accused of deflating the footballs, New England pounded the Colts even worse in the second half, with properly inflated balls than they did in the first half with the illegal balls.  Did Tom Brady and the Patriots even need the advantage created by tampering with the balls?  And, what advantage did these under-inflated balls deliver?

Hillary and Bill Clinton are icons in America no matter which side of the political spectrum you occupy and no one is stupid enough to think that they were in danger of living their lives out poverty-ridden squalor.  First of all, Bill qualifies for his Presidential pension for the rest of his life.  While that’s only a measly $200,000 a year, Hillary probably pulls in another $50,000 from her pensions.  But that is just the tip of the iceberg. 

Through book deals and legitimate speaking fees, the Clintons could easily coast in at over a million dollars a year in compensation which would put them well into the top 1% of earners that the Obama administration loves to blame for the country’s problems.  The point is, they needed neither more celebrity nor more money, so why did they get involved in things that would risk their legacy? 

What is it about these celebrities that would entice them to risk so much for so little?  For Brady it was clearly not about the money.  His wife is a super model and their current net worth of over $400 million will probably allow them to skate by for the rest of their lives.  The Clintons also want for neither fame nor money.  So why do they do it?

The only thing I can come up with is a kind of greed.  No matter what they have, they always will want more.  Second, they must have a sense of privilege.  The rules are made for others, not them.  And by others, of course, they mean those other people that they feel are less entitled than they are.  And this may be the most disappointing thing about both of these messes.  Here are people whom millions have admired, that have tainted their legacy.  For one this may cost him the designation of the best quarterback that ever played the game.  For the other, it may cost her the White House.