AMERICAN CONSERVATISM IN 2008 AND BEYOND

Well, while I still oppose any attempt to even push a debate toward impeachment of the President--I am convinced it would cause far more harm to the conservative cause than do any good--I am encouraged at the Tea Party spirit and the spreading groundswell of opposition to the intense efforts of the President and Congress to take away more and more of our freedoms, rights, property, choices, opportunities, and ability to determine our own destiny.

This is what we need to encourage and this is where we should be throwing our support:

Quote:

Published Monday July 27, 2009
Nebraska legislators seek to assert state sovereignty
By Martha Stoddard
WORLD-HERALD BUREAU

GOP Candidate's Remarks Spur Outcry
(By Fredrick Kunkle, The Washington Post, July 17, 2009)

A Virginia Republican's fierce call to resist President Obama's political agenda -- with bullets, if necessary -- ignited an outcry on the Internet yesterday and forced her to clarify that she was not looking to incite violence.

Appearing at a "Tea Party" rally Wednesday to protest Obama's expansion of government, Catherine Crabill, a political neophyte running for the House of Delegates in the Northern Neck, quoted from a March 1775 speech by Patrick Henry and then went further, calling on Americans to resist the course Obama has set for the country.

"We have a chance to fight this battle at the ballot box before we have to resort to the bullet box," Crabill said. "But that's the beauty of our Second Amendment right. I am glad for all of us who enjoy the use of firearms for hunting. But make no mistake. That was not the intent of the Founding Fathers. Our Second Amendment right was to guard against tyranny."

Crabill, a real estate agent and home-schooling mother of four, said yesterday that she would not back down from her defense of the right to use bullets to address government grievances, saying that if fiery words were good enough for Henry, they're good enough for her.

"Those are my convictions," Crabill, 52, said in a telephone interview. "I am a full-blooded, freedom-loving American, and what we're seeing in Washington is domestic terrorism at its worst."

But as the video of her remarks zipped around the Internet, she said she worried that she would be caricatured. And she said she wanted to make clear that she was not advocating armed resistance.

"I have no desire to see this country erupt in any kind of violent revolution," Crabill said. "I don't even own a gun."

Looking around a nation in which some people have been stockpiling weapons since Obama's victory, however, she said she worried where it all might lead. She said her speech was less a call to arms than a call for conservatives to mobilize for coming elections at all levels.

"It scares me what's going on," she said. "And this administration is socializing every area of life." She added: "Socialism is probably being kind: This is a Marxist agenda."

After a video of her remarks was posted on the Internet, some Democrats seized on them to suggest that the Republican Party remains a haven for extremists.

"The Northern Neck is conservative, but not reactionary, and I think people will be appalled," said her opponent, Del. Albert C. Pollard Jr. (D-Northumberland).

Some said her remarks were not surprising, given an April 1995 article by the Washington Times that identified her as a member of a militia known as the New Mexico Citizens Action Association and quoted her as saying that she believed the Oklahoma City bombing had been the work of the federal government.

Pressed about her remarks of nearly 15 years ago, Crabill disputed the exact wording but not the gist of her beliefs.

From 1970
ALONG with all their other woes, the Democrats are suffering from a bad case of me-tooism. Accused of being too permissive toward radicals and, virtually, of advocating violence, many liberal Democrats have not until recently bothered to deny such charges. Polls and other soundings have persuaded them that they must indeed respond, thus putting them in the impossible position of having to outdo Agnew & Co. on law-and-order.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,909613,00.html

Posted on Monday, July 27, 2009
'Impeach Obama' bumper stickers spark a shopping mall protest

CHARLOTTE, N.C. " While protesters rallied in his support, the owner of a Concord Mills kiosk that sells conservative merchandise said he met with the mall's manager Sunday to see what arrangements can be made for him to remain after his lease expires Friday.

Nothing was agreed to, except that the two would meet again Monday, said Loren Spivack, owner of Free Market Warrior.

Spivack has contended that he's being kicked out of the mall for political reasons. He's traced his exile to a letter to the editor in the Charlotte Observer criticizing his business, saying it promotes “ideas such as racism, sexism and even slavery.”

He said he was at work again Sunday when he got a call from mall manager Ray Soporowski inviting to talk in his office.

“It was a pleasant, amicable conversation, but we didn't come to any resolution about whether our business would be able to stay in the mall,” Spivack said. “He wanted to include some of his company's senior management and we agreed to talk again Monday.”

Mall officials have repeatedly declined to comment. Reached Sunday, Soporowski continued that policy. “With all due respect, that conversation is between Loren and myself,” he said.

Sunday, about 100 people rallied in front of the mall to support Spivack and his right to free speech.

He opened his Free Market Warrior kiosk last spring, selling such items as “Impeach Obama” bumper stickers and baby bibs that say, “My parents chose life. Thanks Mom and Dad!”

Spivack said he's found other stores in the mall selling T shirts and other merchandise with offensive slogans and feels he's being targeted “purely for politic reasons.”

Since the controversy arose, he said his business has picked up.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/72492.html

Should the mall be allowed ...

Foxfyre wrote:

Should the mall be allowed ...

any good libertarian will say 'yes'

it's a private business - what place does government (at any level) have in telling the mall owners who can and can't be in their space?

Impeach Bush, Impeach Obama - it's all pretty much of a piece when it comes to the right of an independent business owner.

Since business has picked up, I'm sure the fellow can find someone who'll be delighted to lease him a space - if the issue has to do with what he claims it does.

Myth 1: Medical malpractice litigation’s share of overall health care costs is crippling the system. Fact: Medical malpractice litigation’s share always has been minuscule, has fallen to the lowest level on record - less than 0.18 percent of all health costs. Even if one includes in the calculation the cost of all medical malpractice insurance premiums paid by doctors and hospitals, which premiums cover not only malpractice settlements, verdicts and the cost of litigation, but also insurance companies’ overhead and profits, the share is just 0.58 percent of all health costs.

Myth 2: There is a significant increase in number of malpractice payments being paid. Fact: The number of malpractice payments in 2008 was the lowest since the creation of the federal government’s National Practitioner Data Bank, which has tracked medical malpractice payments since 1990. Last year was the third consecutive year in which the number of medical malpractice payments sunk to an all‐time low.

Myth 3: The cumulative value of malpractice payments is skyrocketing. Fact: The cumulative value of malpractice payments (as distinct from the number of payments) in 2008 was either the lowest or second-lowest on record, depending on how one adjusts for inflation. Perhaps the only measure by which medical malpractice payments have increased over the life of the National Practitioner Data Bank is in the average, or mean, amount per payment.

Myth 4: Replacing the jury system with special tribunals would save the health care system money and would compensate more patients who suffered adverse events in the course of care. Fact: Data from Harvard’s Colorado-Utah Medical Practice Study were used to analyze the prospective costs of establishing special tribunals that would theoretically compensate more patients who suffered adverse events in the course of care but would limit the amount of compensation received by each. This analysis showed that a no-fault compensation system (compensating patients who suffer adverse events regardless of whether they are preventable) would cost more than four times as much as the tort system.

OUR VIEW: Thanks, Governor, for the stimulus money
(Editorial, The Lafayette Advertiser, July 28, 2009)

The response by Southern Republican governors to President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package has been fascinating, from both a political and a psychological point of view.

In Texas, Gov. Rick Perry occasionally appears to be having some sort of episode. He has threatened at least twice to lead Texas through another secession from the United States, the first one having worked out so well, because of some federal program or another. And he turned down $555 million of the $14 billion in stimulus funding because it was aimed at an extension of unemployment benefits that Perry didn’t think was sustainable beyond the next few years. He was lambasted by fellow Republican Kay Bailey Hutchinson.

Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina, opposed stimulus in principle, but not everywhere, and not all the time.

And our own Gov. Bobby Jindal had the same objections on principle that Sanford espoused and on the unemployment benefits expansion that got Perry in an uproar. Yet on Jindal’s Louisiana Works tour of cities and towns, he has passed out government checks, some of which derives from the federal stimulus act. Jindal has been criticized for hypocrisy on that account.

We should give the governor more credit than blame here. If you think taking the funding to which Jindal was opposed in theory was hypocritical, you might also have to admit that turning it down would have been just plain dumb.

Jindal, and the secession-minded Perry for that matter, opposed the unemployment extension for good reason. The feds were willing to put up the money for a two-year hike in jobless benefits. Jindal and Perry have both expressed doubts about what happens after that.

The possibilities are: a reduction to the old benefit levels, which Perry argues isn’t likely; more federal money, which cannot be relied upon; and a devolution of the financial burden to the state government. Jindal, who has been leading efforts to improve Louisiana’s commercial climate, argues that boosting unemployment insurance premiums for business doesn’t make long-term economic sense.

As for the stimulus money Jindal accepted and handed out, why not? His actions are no more two-faced than those of people who argue for campaign finance reform while taking money from PACs and looking the other way when so-called independent expenditure groups run attack ads.

Maybe the rules should be changed. Until they are, that’s the way the game is played, and those who don’t play by them represent their constituents poorly.