Ponderstorm My Brainstorm on Life & Politics

In Federalist No. 10 James Madison warned that “Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm.” This leadership status has been true throughout much of our history. Sadly, it will be true in our future as well since our nation did not elect an enlightened statesman yesterday. Instead, as a nation, we chose a politician committed to expanding a radical agenda that includes abortion, socialism, immorality and national weakness.

Now that I’ve had a few more hours to analyze this dramatic leadership shift, I offer the following five thoughts on the state of our nation in general and the conservative movement in particular.

1. Things are worse than they appear.

Public policy will be incredibly more dangerous for unborn babies, the military, businesses, the institution of marriage, our courts, law-abiding gun owners, the size of the national debt and even our very individual freedoms. The Left will have little restraint in pushing through a liberal agenda.

2. Things are not as bad as they appear.

In the future, there will be no question which Party is to blame and what policies to oppose. There will be unity on the Right which will provide a chance for real conservative leaders to emerge. The Left promised much more than they can ever deliver. Swing voters will become disenchanted and look for reasonable alternatives.

3. Republicans got a reboot and will soon be forgiven for their past transgressions.

Voters punished the Republican Party (which deserved it) but will soon grow to distrust the even more expansive Democratic Party and their near lock on power. In such an unrestrained environment, I predict the Democratic Party’s spending excesses and scandals will dwarf those perpetrated by Republicans over the past eight years. During this time the Republican Party will be forced to rebuild and retool but is likely to come back stronger and (hopefully) smarter as was the case in 1980 with Ronald Reagan and 1994 with the Contract with America.

4. Conservatives need to focus on changing hearts and not merely getting votes.

Conservatives cannot look at just winning elections but must focus on converting hearts and minds. That is harder to do and means more work up front by building trust and convincing people on the merits of conservative principles. However, the rewards are far greater and produce potentially life-long supporters.

5. There is no substitute for the values of morality and basic decency.

We’re at a crossroads as a nation. Moral issues like the right to life, the very definition of marriage, the rule of law and private property ownership are under attack. If enough voters don’t believe in these values then there will be no attempt to protect them in our government of the people. In our nation leaders are only as strong as their base of support. If moral and decent people do not make up a voting majority then our nation’s politics will reflect that shift.

So, take courage, Americans, and enlist for the journey ahead. It’s a wearisome road and one that includes setbacks and defeats along the way. I’m convinced, however, that we will finish the journey if we set our hearts firmly on this important task and take things one step at a time. The result will be worth it, and will be not just one, but a series of enlightened statesmen and women at the helm.

Posted under Politics, Quotes

I regularly read Obama 2.0 and just learned of some very interesting commentary by the talented founder of Macho Sauce Productions Alfonzo (Zo) Rachel. In his own words, Zo is a “musician, martial artist, amateure movie makin’, Christian conservative republican.”

His latest video is entitled 1 More B4 11 04 and builds a strong case for electing a conservative as President. He also describes very well the differences between liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, and Obama and McCain in ways that are very compelling. His logic is tight (I would dispute his dinosaur comment given some historic and scientific evidence that may suggest otherwise) and his reasons for supporting conservatives and John McCain in particular are some of the best I’ve heard. He is passionate about freedom and excessive government involvement in our lives. It’s well worth watching.

Posted under Barack Obama, Campaign, John McCain, Politics, Video

A few hours ago the U.S. House of Representatives defeated the $700 billion “emergency rescue” package designed to boost our nation’s financial systems and prevent an economic meltdown. More than two-thirds of Republicans and 40% of Democrats voted against this legislation.

AP Reporter Julie Hieschfeld Davis reported the following comments from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) after the measure’s failure to pass:

“The legislation may have failed; the crisis is still with us,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in a news conference after the defeat.

“What happened today cannot stand,” Pelosi said. “We must move forward, and I hope that the markets will take that message.”

Sounds like she was disappointed that the vote was insufficient to move the package out of the House, doesn’t it? Likewise Democrats were quick to blame Republicans for defeating this bill. However, that’s only part of the story. Some Republicans are saying they feel that Pelosi poisoned Read More…

Posted under Politics, Video

Recently somebody suggested that Presidential preferences are like this: “The ‘right’ wants a President they can have a beer with. The ‘left’ just wants someone really smarter than them.” My reply was something like the following:

I think its deeper than the “beer and smarts” analogy suggested above. The right wants to know confidently that their key principles (the “3 pillars” of free markets, national security and social conservatism) are held at a core level by the President and they (the President) won’t waver on them. They don’t care much about physical appearance, TV image, speaking ability, etc. as long as these core principles are not abandoned. Delegation as a leadership style is fine and a “hands off” approach by government preferred for most issues. In a nutshell, government is not to do much more than safeguard these principles and protect us from evil nations.

The left, on the other hand, wants somebody who feels their pain and is smart enough to fix everything that is wrong. That means somebody with an Ivy League education is preferred since only they are smart enough to hold such power. They must look good on TV and be respected by other players on the world stage so they don’t embarrass us. They also have to speak well to soothe us and make us feel comfortable after convincing us that they feel our pain and want to help us enjoy life.  Image and perception are everything as long as the economy is good and we are safe from all harms including natural disasters like hurricanes and dirty water. Risks are to be eliminated and the federal government is the ultimate safety net for everybody. Everybody should be equally happy.

I know that’s a light-hearted, broad-brushed view of things; however, I feel it does point out many core differences between liberals and conservatives. What do you think?

Posted under 60 Seconds, Politics

Yesterday director of economic-policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute and Bloomberg News columnist Kevin Hasset reported at Bloomberg.com that Democrats are the ones who created the current financial crisis that we find ourselves in as a nation. According to his commentary, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac “exploded” and injured many bystanders (some fatally). “Take away Fannie and Freddie, or regulate them more wisely, and it’s hard to imagine how these highly liquid markets would ever have emerged. This whole mess would never have happened.”

Hassett reports that as of the end of June 2008, “Fannie alone owned or guaranteed more than $388 billion in high-risk mortgage investments.” He continues (emphasis mine).

Some might say the current mess couldn’t be foreseen, yet in 2005 Alan Greenspan told Congress how urgent it was for it to act in the clearest possible terms: If Fannie and Freddie “continue to grow, continue to have the low capital that they have, continue to engage in the dynamic hedging of their portfolios, which they need to do for interest rate risk aversion, they potentially create ever-growing potential systemic risk down the road,” he said. “We are placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk.”

What happened next was extraordinary. For the first time in history, a serious Fannie and Freddie reform bill was passed by the Senate Banking Committee. The bill gave a regulator power to crack down, and would have required the companies to eliminate their investments in risky assets.

If that bill had become law, then the world today would be different. In 2005, 2006 and 2007, a blizzard of terrible mortgage paper fluttered out of the Fannie and Freddie clouds, burying many of our oldest and most venerable institutions. Without their checkbooks keeping the market liquid and buying up excess supply, the market would likely have not existed.

But the bill didn’t become law, for a simple reason: Democrats opposed it on a party-line vote in the committee, signaling that this would be a partisan issue. Republicans, tied in knots by the tight Democratic opposition, couldn’t even get the Senate to vote on the matter.

Hassett suggests that many Democrats may have opposed this bill due to the massive financial contributions they received from Fannie and Freddie. He continues Read More…

Posted under Barack Obama, John McCain, Politics