Easter

This Sunday the entire world will celebrate Easter.  Easter, of course, commemorates the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  Even in the most anti-Christian nations in the world, the followers of Jesus will commemorate with great joy Jesus’ return from the dead after three days in the grave.  Easter is not just another holiday, a time to celebrate spring, or to enjoy the new clothing fashions, it is a celebration of the most important event in the history of the world, Jesus’ triumph over death.  And, it is celebrated with such universal and exuberant joy because His victory over the grave guarantees to those that trust in Him that they will leave this world to live forever with God in total joy and happiness forever.

As the Bible puts it in Colossians 1:18b, “He is the beginning, the first to come back to life so that he would have first place in everything.”  In other words, Jesus’ triumphal return to life is our guarantee that we too shall live again in perfect bliss and harmony.

And, according to the Bible, what do we have to do to be saved?  When the jailer realized that Paul and Silas were servants of God after an angel came and released them from prison, he asked, “What must I do to be saved?”  Paul and Silas responded, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you and your family will be saved."

The truth is that we all know that we are imperfect.  We are flawed.  We do things we regret.  We say things we should not say.  And, we think things that are downright evil.  Those things we do, say and think make us sinners. 

So the conundrum is, how do imperfect, sinful men and women enter into a perfect heaven?  If God just lets us into his heaven covered with sin, then heaven is no longer perfect.  It is full of people who are still sinners.

That’s why God created a plan and then inspired men to write down this plan in His book, called the Bible.  From the Book of Genesis, all the way through Revelation, the last book of the Bible, God reveals his plan of salvation. It’s right there in the Bible, almost on every page.It’s clear, it’s consistent, and it is miraculous.

Our Father in heaven sent His one and only son, Jesus, to take the sins of the entire world on Him so that those who trust in Him would not have to suffer the consequences of their sin.  It was the greatest act of love in history.  Jesus bore our sins so that we do not have to.   

Now, when we believe, God sees our sins no more.  He sees us as cleansed, washed clean by the blood of Jesus. What an irony, washed clean by blood.But, that is exactly what God did through the death and resurrection of Jesus.

Those in the Old Testament who lived before Jesus came looked forward anxiously to His coming.  They were encouraged by the oral recitation of the promise that God gave Adam and Eve after their sin forced them to leave the Garden of Eden.  And, then, throughout the entire Old Testament, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the prophets described in minute detail the suffering and death of Jesus that was to come so that those who follow Him might be saved.  Those who lived before Jesus and trusted in the Messiah to come were saved through faith.

Those who trusted in Jesus after he came are also saved by faith.  As it says in Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

Eternal salvation is a free gift.You don’t contribute a thing.

All God asks is that you recognize your sins and confess Jesus as your savior.

That, my friends is the true and full meaning of the celebration of Easter.  It’s the reason that Christians around the globe are so joyful and excited on Easter.  It’s the reason that Christians sing with such joy the hymn, I know that my Redeemer Lives!

Kathi and I and our entire family wish you a joyous Easter celebration.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

If you follow politics at all, you are aware of the fact that in 2008 and 2012 the Obama team followed a game plan that was quite different than anything that had been done before in a race for the White House. I'm not referring to the shenanigans and outright voter fraud committed by groups like ACORN. I'm referring to the sophisticated, high tech organization that was created on Obama's behalf.  It was an amazing operation that identified virtually every prospective Obama voter and then turned them out on Election Day.  In fact, it did much more than that.  It enabled a new level of efficiency in the way voters were contacted, and it identified voters better than they had ever before been targeted. There is little doubt that this approach made the difference between victory and defeat, especially in the 2012 race. This new approach to campaigning is rightly attributed to Joe Trippi, the man who ran the first bottom up, internet campaign for president on behalf of Governor Howard Dean in 2004.  The story of this groundbreaking effort is told in Trippi’s well written book, The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.

While Barack Obama won in 2012, he was the first president in the modern era to get re-elected with fewer votes than he received the first time.  In 2012, he won an electoral landslide, 332 to 206, however, Obama won just 51.1% of the popular vote.  The point is that the shift of just a very few votes per state or even per precinct could have thrown the election to Romney.

Collision 2012 is the book written by Washington Post writer Dan Balz. The full name of the book is Collision 2012: Obama vs. Romney and the Future of Elections in America.  It explains why the Obama campaign was light years ahead of Romney and the Republicans in 2012.The following excerpts from this book are quite revealing...

"As the Republican candidates were gearing up and then battling one another through the summer and fall of 2011, the Obama team was investing enormous amounts of time, money and creative energy in what resembled a high-tech political start-up whose main purpose was to put more people on the streets, armed with more information about the voters they were contacting, than any campaign had ever attempted." 

"No campaign had ever invested so heavily in technology and analytics, and no campaign had ever had such stated ambitions."

"The next goal was to create a program that would allow everyone — campaign staffers in Chicago, state directors and their staff in the battlegrounds, field organizers, volunteers going door to door and volunteers at home — to communicate simply and seamlessly.  The Obama team wanted something that allowed the field organizers in the Des Moines or Columbus or Fairfax offices to have access to all the campaign’s information about the voters for whom they were responsible.  They wanted volunteer leaders to have online access as well."

"From modeling and testing, the campaign refined voter outreach. Virtually every e-mail it sent included a test of some sort — the subject line, the appeal, the message — designed to maximize contributions, volunteer hours and eventually turnout on Election Day.  The campaign would break out 18 smaller groups from e-mail lists, create 18 versions of an e-mail, and then watch the response rate for an hour and go with the winner — or take a combination of subject line and message from different e-mails and turn them into the finished product.  Big corporations had used such testing for years, but political campaigns had not." 

And, this is the most important lesson... 

“The gap between the Obama and Romney operations crystallized in the key battleground state of Ohio in the closing weeks of the general election campaign.  Members of Obama’s team had been on the ground in Ohio for years.  They knew the state intimately.  Obama had at least 130 offices there, plus 500 or so staging areas for volunteers.  He had almost 700 staffers on the Ohio payroll alone.  Thousands of volunteers contacted voters."

In stark contrast, the Romney team had only been on the ground in Ohio for a few months with a limited staff, few offices, and without access to the sophisticated technology that the Obama team was using.  Romney never really had a chance. The software platform that the Obama team created was used for communications up and down the organization, for fund raising, and especially for voter targeting.  Moreover, the Obama re-election effort began just a few weeks after Barack Obama was elected in 2008.

That is not to say that the Obama for President campaign of 2008 was not a sophisticated campaign built on technology, volunteers and lots and lots of money.  In 2008 the Obama campaign raised approximately $750 million, compared to $238 million for John McCain.  This enabled the Obama campaign to outspend the McCain campaign 4 to 1 in Florida, 3 to 1 in Virginia, 2 to 1 in New Hampshire, and 3 to 1 in North Carolina. But, it wasn’t just the spending advantage that made the difference, it was how effectively the money was spent that was also crucial to Obama’s success.

While the 2008 Obama campaign was the most technologically sophisticated presidential race ever conducted in American politics, it could not hold a candle to the technology that went into the 2012 race.  In fact, here is how Balz describes the dawn of the 2012 presidential race...

"From the moment Obama took the oath of office on January 20, 2009, and every day thereafter, his team was always at work preparing for the coming campaign. Everyone said Obama’s 2008 operation had rewritten the book on organizing, and in some ways that was accurate. But 2008 was just a beginning, a small first step toward what Obama's team envisioned when they began planning the reelection campaign. In one of their first conversations about the reelection, Messina [2012 re-election campaign chairman, Jim Messina] said he told the president that the reason they could not rerun 2008 was because so much had changed in just two years. Technology had leapfrogged forward, with new devices, net platforms, and vastly more opportunities to exploit social media."

As previously noted, the bottom-up campaign strategy that the Obama team used successfully in 2008, and then again in 2012, had its genesis in 2004 with the Dean for America campaign (Vermont Governor Howard Dean's campaign for president) run by Joe Trippi. The Dean campaign that failed to win the Democratic nomination for president in 2004 was the prototype for the Obama campaigns of 2008 and 2014.

The Dean campaign is significant for a number of reasons.  Although the internet and social media were in their infancy, Trippi has always had a strong interest in technology (he began his studies at San Jose State University in Aeronautical Engineering). This interest in technology and the internet made Trippi the right person in the right place at the right time. And, as it turns out, so was his candidate, Governor Howard Dean.

The essence of this new approach to campaigning is not about the technology itself, but rather the use of technology that enabled a little known governor from Vermont to crash the national scene. Even with this technology Howard Dean would not have gained the traction he did had he not been an outlier, an anti-establishment candidate.  Dean ran as an insurgent. He was able to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars as well as sign on hundreds of thousands of volunteers because he opposed the war (which most of his opposition had voted for it).  His success also stemmed from the technology utilized by Joe Trippi to empower his grassroots supporters.

Trippi's book is exceptionally well written, but my one criticism is that Trippi writes the book as if all history of presidential campaigning coincides with his coming of age politically in the 1960s and 70s. To hear Trippi tell it, there had never before has been such a grassroots, bottom up campaign for president and that it was only possible in 2004 thanks to the internet.

That's just not true. I suspect that there have been lots of bottom up campaigns in the history of our nation.  But, like Trippi, my knowledge is primarily limited to my own experience in politics. And, even before Dean and before Obama, there have been a number of political campaigns for president that originated at the grassroots and that were grassroots driven. The advent of the Internet and social media simply make it possible to do this faster and more thoroughly than ever before.

The Goldwater for President campaign of 1964 and the McGovern for President campaign of 1972 were both bottom up, grassroots campaigns.  Each of these campaigns has much in common with the Dean campaign of 2004 and the Obama campaign of 2008. Of course, the main difference is that Obama won, while Goldwater, McGovern and Dean lost.  Nevertheless, there is much similarity between these races.

In 1964 Barry Goldwater was a United States Senator, but he was clearly not a member of the Republican establishment. He was not a Republican insider any more than George McGovern was a Democratic insider, or Howard Dean was a Democratic insider. The Republican establishment hated Goldwater, much as McGovern and Dean were disliked by the Democratic establishment. Yet, all three of these men had vast followings for their principled positions on important issues.

Goldwater had written a book, Conscience of a Conservative, that sold more than 10 million copies. It was a bold and reasoned treatise arguing for a roll back in big government, and a hard line against Communism. That book (penned by L. Brent Bozell, a brother-in-law of William F. Buckley, Jr.), and the bold conservative positions taken by this previously little know senator from the lightly populated state of Arizona ignited a revolution at the grassroots.

As a personal anecdote I recall a gathering of our family at Christmas 1962. My older brothers were already out on their own and established in their careers. My oldest brother, Allen, was living in Los Angeles, and my brother Bob, and his wife, Kay, were living in Seattle. I was in my second year in college. We celebrated Christmas in Seattle, and when we arrived, each brother had a gift for the other two brothers. That gift was a Goldwater for President bumper strip. Without any coordination whatsoever, we had all become ardent Goldwater fans.

Prior to the Goldwater campaign the Republican National Committee had just 25,000 big donors and the liberal eastern wing of the Republican Party ran the show.  They picked the nominees for President and some of their leaders, like Hugh Scott of Pennsylvania, were as liberal as the most liberal Democrat Senators.  The Republican Party was in the firm grip of the moderate (read liberal) Republicans and they had no intention of letting go of it.

Let go of it they did, but not without a fight. Barry Goldwater was a reluctant candidate, especially after his friend, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Marxist follower of Cuba’s Fidel Castro. But, Goldwater, and his book, symbolized growing unrest across the nation with expanding government, reduced individual freedom, and weakness in the face of Communist aggression around the globe. In the end, as my brother Bob put it, he found himself leading a conservative movement that he never fully comprehended.  However, while Goldwater lost the election in dramatic fashion, conservatives were triumphant. They had taken over the Republican Party from top to bottom. It was a true political revolution that made possible the triumph of Ronald Reagan in 1980.

In fact, Ronald Reagan, who prior to 1964 was known only as a Hollywood actor, played an instrumental role in the Goldwater campaign.  Similar to making a video on YouTube today, Ronald Reagan gave a made for television speech that, when broadcast, went viral, to use today’s terms. It was funded entirely in California, outside of the official campaign apparatus. The speech was entitled A Time for Choosing and it was a classic. I had an opportunity to view it again about ten days ago, and I can report that even in black and white, this is still a powerful speech.

Like a video on YouTube that goes viral, A Time for Choosing went viral.  All across the nation activists obtained copies of the speech, and then showed it to local audiences.  They also raised funds to pay for it to be broadcast over their local television station.  Almost overnight, A Time for Choosing became the Goldwater campaign. Millions of dollars in small gifts poured in to pay for repeated airings of the Reagan movie. And indeed, without this movie, Ronald Reagan would have never been elected Governor of California, or President of the United States. It was a speech that changed the course of history.

Prior to the Goldwater campaign the Republican National Committee had just 25,000 donors.  By the end of the Goldwater campaign there were more than 500,000 donors to the Goldwater campaign.  The funding base and the power base of the Republican Party was forever altered. But those 500,000 donors were not the extent of the grassroots effort on behalf of Goldwater.  It was through bottom up grassroots campaigning that the insurgent Goldwater effort topped the Republican establishment choice for President, Nelson Rockefeller in the California primary. Tens of thousands of conservative activists walked precincts, rounding up every possible vote in that key primary. The race was initially called by Walter Cronkite on CBS for Rockefeller. But by the early morning, the tide shifted and Barry Goldwater won the California primary in a squeaker. Winning California was tantamount to winning the Republican nomination for president.  And, shortly thereafter, in San Francisco, Goldwater became the Republican nominee for President.

In those days before the advent of the Federal Election Commission and their myriad of election restrictions, individuals all across the nation spontaneously started Goldwater fund raising efforts and waged a campaign for Senator Goldwater with little support or interference from the national organization. Among the dozen or more such groups, I recall Gold for Goldwater, a group that raised and spent several million dollars on behalf of Goldwater.

Joe Trippi hails the freedom of the Internet, and its ability to communicate up and down and side to side as revolutionary. Indeed it was. Similarly, prior to the advent of the Federal Election Commission, average citizens had the freedom to campaign for and raise funds for their favorite candidate without government regulation or interference. A lack of restrictions energized the entire political process and encouraged those at the grassroots to set up independent organizations for campaigning.  The truth is that the advent of the FEC was not brought about by any true demand or need for protection of the average citizen.  Rather it was created by the establishment, both Republicans and Democrats, to protect those in power.  Instead of protecting citizens, it diminished the power and opportunity of the grassroots to participate in the political process.

That is why the current ruling establishment would like nothing better than to regulate the Internet in the "public interest." And, of course, by public interest they are referring to the interest of the ruling class, the Republican and Democrat establishment.

In 1972 Senator George McGovern took over the Democratic Party.  McGovern had been a prairie radical his entire adult life.  In 1948 he was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention.  If you recall, it was at that convention that southern Democrats split off from the Democratic Party and formed the Dixiecrat Party whose nominee was Strom Thurmond.  Harry Truman was eventually nominated at the 1948 convention.  It was after Truman won a squeaker of an election over Thomas Dewey that the Democratic Party first proposed a version of socialized medicine. 

But, what is noteworthy, is that President Harry Truman was not liberal enough for George McGovern. When Truman was nominated in 1948, George McGovern left the Democratic Party and supported Norman Thomas, the Socialist Party candidate for president. But, by 1972 the prairie radicals in the Democratic Party, led by George McGovern, had come of age. McGovern won the nomination only to lose in a landslide to Richard Nixon. However, had McGovern not won the nomination in 1972 and taken over control of the Democratic Party it would not have been possible for Barack Obama to be elected president in 2008.

Prior to the nomination of George McGovern the Democratic Party was controlled by party bosses like Jim Farley, who relied on funding by the unions and from a limited number of wealthy individuals. However, after McGovern was nominated, direct mail whiz Morris Dees altered the funding base of the Democratic Party forever. Dees generated some 700,000 donors to the George McGovern campaign, thus undercutting the strength of the previous Democratic establishment.  And, while McGovern was spurned by every union in America except the National Education Association, his nomination was the turning point for the radicalization of American unions.  Of course, there had been union radicals before, like Harry Bridges of the Longshoreman's Union, but by and large AFL-CIO leaders like George Meany were anti-communist and pro capitalism.  Today that has all changed.  The Democratic Party and the Unions are in total control of Marxist radicals.  None of this could have happened without the nomination of George McGovern whose campaign, like the Goldwater campaign before it, was from the grassroots up.

What do Goldwater, McGovern and Dean all have in common?  They are men who were disliked by the establishment, who took positions contrary to the political establishment, and whose message tapped into a large grassroots audience.

None of this is to diminish the importance of what Joe Trippi accomplished in 2004 or his creativity and ingenuity in using the internet to empower the grassroots organization that was the backbone of the Howard Dean campaign.  It is truly an amazing story.  The Dean Campaign was a high wire effort that Trippi likens to jumping off a fifteen story building and counting on the grassroots supporters to catch you.

And, Trippi correctly identifies the strength of an internet based campaign as its ability to be driven from the bottom up.  He agrees that television revolutionized the campaigning process, but like all mediums before it, it pushed out information to the voters that the campaign thought the grassroots should receive. In contrast, the internet is a two way street that allows the grassroots to tell the campaign what they want, instead of the campaign telling the grassroots what they should do.

And, the internet, especially social media like Facebook and Twitter, allow a campaign to gather public data on its volunteers and donors, thus enabling the campaign to reach them on issues they feel strongly about.  More than that, the internet empowers individuals to take the initiative in a campaign, driving themes, and effectively running their own campaign effort on the local level. It means that campaigns must trust their volunteers and have confidence in them.  The campaign must not think that they have all the good ideas. Trippi likens it to placing power in the hands of the folks at the grassroots to drive the train and take it to the right destination.

The bottom line is this…the computer age, the internet age, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc. have created new avenues of communication and coordination.  They have empowered the grassroots activist.  However, I do not believe these are tools that will work well for establishment candidates in either major political party.  These tools work best for outsiders who have bucked the establishment and seek to lead a revolution.  They work best for those who can energize the grassroots through issues and ideas.

To effectively win on the national level today a candidate needs to be leading a charge that has a specifically defined objective that is popular at the grassroots level.  It takes four things to win on the national level today…

1. A powerful software platform that can identify and categorize prospective voters and donors
2. A strong grassroots organization built upon the software platform that is created
3. Early money that will help build the software platform, and
4. Sufficient time to raise the funds, build the software platform, and utilize the platform to organize and raise more funds

A presidential campaign that waits until a few month before the first presidential primary to raise funds, create a software platform, and then build an effective organization is destined to fail. This is not your father’s political landscape. This is a new era.

Some prospective Republican candidates for 2016 have already lost the nomination and they don't know it.  Other candidates or their surrogate SuperPAC have already raised early money, utilized technology, and are building a grassroots base.  These are the candidates to watch.  However, unless they are outside the establishment with a popular call to arms, they too will fail in their quest to win their party's nomination and after that the general election.

A big donor base that can be accessed quickly in a fast moving delegate selection process is not a luxury, it is a necessity.  Only those candidates who are making preparations now and who have legions of volunteers and supporters will have a chance of winning in 2016.

Nothing Ever Changes

Those on the left never learn anything from history. On September 30, 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement with Adolph Hitler, Chancellor of NAZI (National Socialist Party) Germany ceding an area in Czechoslovakia they designated the Sudetenland. Czechoslovakia was not a party to the negotiations. After betraying Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain flew back to London, and in triumph he proclaimed "My good friends this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honor. I believe it is peace in our time."

What Chamberlain really achieved, however, through his betrayal and appeasement, was the foundation for the worst war in the history of the world, World War II. Appeasement and excusing territorial expansion through the use of military force, always leads to war. And, if it does not lead to war, it leads to slavery.

The argument made by Hitler for annexing the so-called Sudetenland was that the majority of the population was German. In similar fashion, Russian President Vladimir Putin recently argued that the majority of the population located in Crimea were Russians and therefore should be a part of Russia.

Several years earlier, Putin had engineered the election of a pro-Russian Ukrainian President, Viktor Yanukovych. This was after the previous Ukrainian President, Viktor Yushchenko was poisoned. While it has not been confirmed, it appears that President Yushchenko was poisoned by the Russians. Since Putin is the former head of the KGB under the old Soviet Union, it is not inconceivable that he personally orchestrated the poisoning of Yushchenko.

The election of Yanukovych led to great protests as the new, pro-Russian President, began to tie Ukraine more closely to Russia, instead of to NATO and Western Europe as the people desired. The Ukrainian people have not forgotten the intentional starvation of more than 20 million Ukrainians by Soviet dictator, Joseph Stalin. Finally, Yanukovych was driven from office. When that happened, Putin realized that his grip over Ukraine was slipping away.

Vladimir Putin took stock of the resolve of the West, especially the President of the United States, Barack Obama. After seeing Obama’s unwillingness to take action in Syria, his timidity in dealing with Iran, and his soft approach to North Korea, Putin acted decisively.

Using the same pretext as Hitler used to invade Poland in 1939, Putin launched an invasion of the Crimean region of Ukraine. Facing little or no resistance, Russia annexed Crimea quickly, thus initiating the beginning the reconstitution of the old Soviet Union. Crimea provides Putin with important military ports on the Black Sea and other economic advantages.

As I write this, Russian troops are massed on the border of what remains of Ukraine. It is not hard to imagine what is coming. I suspect it will play out similar to what happened in Poland just prior to World War II.

On September 1, 1939, just one week after Germany signed a nonaggression pact with the Soviet Union, Germany attacked Poland from the West. Then on September 17, of the same year, the Soviet Union attacked Poland from the East. By October 6, Poland was defeated, and Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin had divided up Poland, with each taking roughly half.

The laughable pretext for the invasion of Poland by NAZI Germany was that Poland had actually attacked Germany. When visiting Poland a couple of year ago, my wife, Kathi, and I took a guided tour of Gdansk. The tour was led by a young man who grew up in Soviet controlled Poland. His parents and his grandfather were ardent fans of Ronald Reagan, and this young man gave total credit to President Reagan and Pope John Paul for the defeat of the Soviet Union. And, even though his family had suffered much from the time Poland was captured by Hitler and Stalin, he had maintained his sense of humor. He shared this quip with us, “We Poles say that it is God’s little joke that he located Poland between Germany and Russia.”
 
After Putin annexed Crimea, there was much huffing and puffing by the White House. Secretary of State, John Kerry, intoned something to the effect that this is totally inappropriate in the 21st Century. Like Obama, Kerry talks like a college professor who lives in an alternate world. They talk about what should be, not what is. For quite some time President Obama said that he refused to recognize Russia’s occupation of Crimea, whatever that means.

It was the Obama administration, led by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that announced that they had pushed the “reset button” in relations with Russia. You see, in the eyes of liberals like Obama, Clinton, and Kerry, it is the United States that has been the number one cause of problems in the world. All throughout the Cold War, liberals wrote articles and gave speeches drawing a moral equivalence between the United States and the Soviet Union. In their eyes, the United States was no less responsible for tensions between the two superpowers than was the Soviet Union. If only America would be more understanding and more conciliatory, we could solve our problems, they said.

Liberals were totally opposed to the arms buildup under President Ronald Reagan. They said that it only increased tensions with the Soviet Union. They even opposed defensive missiles on the grounds that to install such missiles was an act of aggression that would encourage a nuclear attack by the Soviets. In his second term, Ronald Reagan met with Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavík, Iceland to negotiate an arms treaty. Gorbachev insisted that Reagan abandon his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which the American left derisively called “Star Wars.” When Ronald Reagan refused to do so, Gorbachev refused to sign the arms reduction treaty. The news media, the Democratic Party, and leftists of all shades were outraged that Reagan would not abandon the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) and sign the treaty. They said that Reagan failed at Reykjavík, that he missed a wonderful opportunity to reduce the chance of war. They could not have been more wrong. Reagan knew that having the upper hand was the only way to bring down the Soviet Union and free the people held captive by that ruthless police state. The Soviet Union was, as Ronald Reagan said, “an evil empire.” It was a description that the left hated and derided.

Mikhail Gorbachev later wrote that it was when Ronald Reagan refused to abandon SDI that he knew that the end of the Soviet Union was inevitable. While the American left believes in peace through weakness, the real path to peace is through strength, as Ronald Reagan understood.

During his second term in office, George Bush signed an agreement with Poland agreeing to install an anti-missile defense in that nation. One headline blared, “Will Bush ignite another Cold War with Russia by placing missiles in Poland?”

But, when Barack Obama took office he scrapped that agreement and refused to install the missile defense system in Poland because Russia opposed it. It was part and parcel of his hitting the reset button with Russia. It was the beginning of his efforts to appease Russia and encourage the bear to be friendly. Today, Eastern Europe is reaping the whirlwind of Obama’s reset of relations with Russia. Obama’s goal is to reduce American power, and he has gone far in accomplishing that goal.

And yet, we are still the only superpower in the world, but this Administration is embarrassed that we are. They refuse to project our power to discourage tyrants like Putin. The United States has the power to economically cripple Russia by signing an agreement to sell natural gas to Western Europe and opening up federal lands to fracking. Today, Germany, France, et. al. are held captive by the natural gas and oil they depend on from Russia. By simply eliminating this threat, we free up Western Europe to join us in financially crippling Russia.

But, we should not presume that economic austerity alone will deter Russia from taking all of Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia, and the other nations that were enslaved by the old Soviet Union. After all, the old Soviet dictators were satisfied as long as they remained in power to have their citizens live in economic misery. Why should we think that Putin is any different? Now is the time to reinstate of our agreement with Poland to install missiles in that nation and any other nation that seeks to deter Russian aggression. In addition, we should agree to sell advanced military weaponry to Ukraine and all other friendly nations in Eastern Europe.

Like everyone else in the United States I am weary of war. However, I do not believe it is necessary to go to war to deter Russian aggression. By signing mutual defense treaties, enlarging NATO, providing arms, and using every means at our disposal to economically cripple Russia, we have the opportunity to not only stop Russian aggression, but also encourage the downfall of Putin in Russia. The Russian people have no desire to fall under the grip of Putin the dictator. He is corrupt, dangerous, and evil.

In fact, it is the misunderstanding of human nature that is at the heart of all the miscalculations and misguided policies of the left. Liberals have told me that they believe they are an elite group and that they have achieved an ethical plane that is above the common man. They don’t believe that man is by nature evil as the Bible teaches. They believe that they have risen above that description and that they can lead others to a higher ethical level if only given the chance. That’s where the term progressive comes from—meaning progress to a higher ethical level. It was this false belief that led our first progressive President, Woodrow Wilson, to re-segregate the South because, in his view, African Americans had not yet reached the necessary ethical plane to work, go to school, and live alongside white Americans. And, it is this misunderstanding of human nature that results in all sorts of mischief by liberal politicians. If people would just act like they should, we could create a nearly utopian society, they say.

But, alas human nature is corrupt and will always be so. It was this understanding by our Founders that led them to create checks and balances in our government, keeping any one man or group of men from having too much power. Sadly, liberals don’t live in in the real world, they live in their own mythical world. Because of this, they have led our nation into war, they have created monstrous schemes that reduce individual freedom, they have ensnared the poor in permanent poverty, and they have rejected traditional moral values. Liberals and their policies are dangerous. Nothing ever changes.

Obamacare by Any Other Name…

The great liberal political scheme to make more Americans dependent upon government for their well-being, the so-called Affordable Care Act, has turned out to be the disaster its original opponents said it would be.  President Obama once proclaimed that he was rather fond of the nickname given to the Affordable Care Act—Obamacare.  But, alas, that pleasure has turned into chagrin.  After the disastrous roll out of the latest liberal scheme to have the government take charge of your personal health care, the name Obamacare has disappeared from the lips of the President and all those who supported it.  This, of course, includes the compliant whores of the national news media who have abandoned any sense of objectivity in favor of becoming Obama’s top cheerleaders.  Obamacare is no more; long live the Affordable Care Act they proclaim.  With apologies to William Shakespeare, Obamacare by any other name still smells like a pile of moose dung.

George Orwell was prescient.  The liberal answer to solve the problems of something that doesn’t work is to simply change the name.  But, simply reverting to the official name, the Affordable Care Act, is like putting lipstick on a pig.  A pig is still a pig, no matter how much lipstick it wears.

The failure of Obamacare has little to do with a bad website that is neither secure, nor workable.  It has nothing to do with the fact that the President lied when he said, "If you like your health insurance, you can keep it, period!"  The problem is not that some of the so-called health navigators are former and future criminals.  Neither is the problem the high cost, the low quality, or the death panels (yes, it turns out that Sarah Palin was right and the New York Times was wrong, there are death panels).  Nor is the trouble with Obamacare the fact that you will not be able to keep your doctor, or that there will be a shortage of hospital beds, and medical practitioners.  It's not even the fact that Obamacare and other socialist schemes are outside of the Constitutional purview of Congress, and the President. 

All those problems associated with Obamacare are just symptoms of the underlying cause of the failure of all socialist schemes.  It is an actuarial fact that both Social Security and Medicare are financially insolvent.  In fact, the official name of what we call Social Security is the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance Program. In other words, it was sold to the American people as an insurance program.  Now, as you may know, insurance companies are heavily regulated by the federal government.  One very important requirement the feds place on insurance companies is that they maintain sufficient reserves to cover all future claims.  If an insurance company does not maintain such reserves, it is not only closed down, its officers and directors end up behind bars.  They go to federal prison.

But, while the federal government imposes these safeguards on insurance companies, there are no similar safeguards imposed on members of Congress.  To put it quite bluntly, Social Security, like all socialist fantasies, is a Ponzi scheme.  Actually, that’s unfair to Ponzi and even to Bernie Madoff.  Both Ponzi and Madoff were pikers compared to the politicians who created and continue to promote and maintain Social Security, Medicare, and now, Obamacare.

Instead of sending the socialist bamboozlers off to prison, we continue to elect them each year.  And, they pride themselves for their compassion, their caring, and for their concern for others.  While some of their followers actually believe in these bad ideas, most of today's politicians are far beyond that.  They know they don't work, they know these schemes are failures, but for them, the goal is not to create workable programs, but to gain power over others.  It is not without justification that politics is often referred to as the second oldest profession in the world.

Why is it that all socialist schemes are financially unsustainable?  Why won't they ever work?  Why, when you compare them with free market solutions to a myriad of problems, do government programs not only fail, but get progressively worse as the years go by?  And, why, in stark contrast, do solutions to problems provided by the private sector, i.e. free market capitalism, continue to get better and better as time goes by?

For example, televisions that were invented by private entrepreneurs have continued to become better and less costly as the years have gone by.  Telephones and automobiles have continued to get better and better.  Charles Edison, Henry Ford, and Bill Gates revolutionized the world.  They did so because they were visionaries who worked hard and took risk that greatly improved the lives of American citizens. 

In contrast, the US Postal Service (and all bureaus, divisions and departments of government) continue to decline in efficiency and performance.  And, while the cost of televisions and other technology continues to decline as quality improves, the price of mail delivery continues to rise while the reliability of delivery declines.

Why is it that government services are always poor and inferior while free market capitalism always works?  Whether it is medical care, retirement benefits, or mail delivery, government always comes out in a distant second place.  The choice is really between freedom and government.  The free, competitive marketplace demands that businesses focus on the needs and desires of consumers.  Government has no such focus.  The goal of those in government is to perpetuate themselves in power.

Are the people in government worse and more easily corruptible than those outside of government?  No, they are all mortals, cut from the same cloth.  They are the same flawed individuals, but the outcome is totally different.  Why?

The answer is simple.  It is easy to permanently corrupt the political process, but it is extremely difficult to corrupt the free market process.  Think about it.  When Social Security first passed, it was relatively sound financially.  In fact, it remained so for a number of years.  Yet, the ultimate trajectory was absolutely predictable.

It turns out that the political process is relatively easy to corrupt.  Politicians, no matter the party, always have one primary goal in mind—to get re-elected or to move up the political ladder to a higher political office.  By the early 1900s, politicians realized that they could perpetuate themselves in power by raising taxes and then doling out goods and services to political groups who, in return, support them for re-election.  Never mind the fact that there was absolutely no authority in the U.S. Constitution to support such a process.  Once they got over that hurdle, the gold rush was on! 

A good example of this process exists at the state level.  With the advent of unionization of state government employees (another brilliant idea courtesy of California Governor Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown), political corruption was raised to a new level.  It works like this.  Let’s say I work for the State of California.  By law, I am required to join a union in order to hold a state government job.  The union boss in charge of my union approaches state legislators and demands higher pay and platinum retirement benefits.  In return, he or she agrees to donate heavily to the re-election of those legislators who support such compensation and benefits.  That's corruption, pure and simple.  And, it's legal.

At the national level the political game works like this.  The Democratic Party identifies a voting bloc that it can capture by giving them some benefit, such as Social Security, Medicare or Obamacare.  Once that voting bloc becomes dependent on that benefit, the Democrats can count on getting their votes each election day.  It is bribery, and the irony is that the people have been bribed with their own money!

Unlike the constraints imposed on businesses in the free marketplace, there is no objective, fair mechanism to set compensation or benefits for government workers.  Neither is there any incentive to make the system work better or more efficiently.  And, lacking any incentive or job insecurity, the system continues to erode and decline as the years pass. 

It's all there, sitting right in front of us.  I’ve had jobs in government (City of St. Joseph and the U.S. Army) and in the free market.  The contrast is shocking.  There is incredible inefficiency and disorganization in government, including the Department of Defense.  In contrast, a business competing in the free market must work hard, and scramble to stay competitive.  Entrepreneurship is a high wire act, focused on serving your customers better than your competition, knowing that failure to do so means closing your doors.  It's a struggle that never ceases.  But, liberals just don't get it.

In fact, a liberal would argue that the allocation of goods and services based on success in the free market is neither fair, nor just.  They tell successful businessmen and women that they are just lucky in the lottery of life.  The fact that a successful person works long hours, takes great risks, and has educated himself or herself to the level needed for success is immaterial.  After all, a liberal would argue, successful people were born with advantages of intellect, risk taking, capital, or drive that others do not have.  In short, liberals conclude that business people achieve success strictly by luck.  As President Obama said, "You didn’t build that."

I know, it's a strange, almost weird argument that is out of touch with reality, but it is the only argument liberals have.  In short, liberals believe the world is unjust and imperfect.  Duh!  Early on I tried my best to disabuse my children of the idea that the world was just and fair.  It’s not, and it never will be, and if a few control the lives of many, the more unjust and unfair it will be. 

The idea that the individual decisions in regard to health care, retirement, transportation, communications, and more are best decided by a few powerful politicians and bureaucrats will work better than the individual decisions of millions of Americans is pure nonsense.  Socialism has a very consistent track record.  Never once has it worked anywhere.

Liberals seem to be mad at God (that is, if they believe in God) because He didn’t create every man and woman equal in circumstances, talents and ability.  God, for whatever reasons of His own, did not create all men and women equal.  I wanted to play baseball and throw an 85 mile per hour curve ball, but I was not blessed with the God given ability to develop such skills.  There are no two human beings alike.  We are all unique and different.  We are only the same in the eyes of God who blesses us as He chooses with the talents He desires.

So, that while men and women who work in freedom (the free market) are all subject to the same potential corruption and failures of those who work for government, they simply do not have as many opportunities to defraud the public as do public officials and bureaucrats.  The marketplace is simply too demanding.  In the free market, Social Security would have gone out of business as soon as its cash reserves were insufficient to cover future claims.  Its officers and directors would have gone to jail.  Yet, it continues to go forward with no financial reserves, using the funds that come in each year to cover the outflow to those long retired.

Medicare is, like Social Security, financially insolvent.  One wonders why, if both Social Security and Medicare are bankrupt, we would pass yet another failed socialist scheme.  But, politicians are not subject to the same constraints and countervailing pressures of the free market.  They don’t care about success, they just care about getting re-elected, and about gaining more power.

In the marketplace, a businessman or woman has to compete to gain success.  They have to be innovative, efficient and hard working in order to survive.  They can't print money to cover their stupidity and mistakes.  Entrepreneurs always walk along the edge of a financial cliff.  No matter how successful they are, they are never far away from failure and bankruptcy.  If they don't operate efficiently and offer goods and services at the right price, they go out of business.  If they offer shoddy goods or services, they also go out of business.  Freedom is very demanding.

Freedom demands that workers work hard.  It demands that business owners deliver superior products and services.  It demands self-reliance and self-responsibility, by worker and employer alike.  Freedom creates a permanent state of uncertainty, yet in reality, freedom is our only security.  All security offered by the government is illusory.  The government can only give to you what it first takes from you, with a big slice taken out for the politicians and the bureaucrats.

Social Security is really no security at all.  Medicare does not provide security.  And, Obamacare will not provide security.  None of these government schemes are sustainable.  They are simply liberal fantasies designed to delude and seduce voters into supporting candidates who seek power and denigrate individual freedom.

It turns out that our only real security lies with God.  It's the same security the Pilgrims relied upon.  It's the security that the signers of the Declaration of Independence relied upon.  It's the security that the Founders relied upon.

But, freedom is fragile.  If you strip away freedom's foundation—faith in God—it cannot long survive.  When faith dies, compassion dies, self responsibility dies, and nations become ripe for tyranny.  Hope never rests with government or with men, it always depends on God. 

Could it be that Obamacare is the high water mark of the ill conceived ideology that has festered in America since the turn of the previous century?  Like Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg, historians may look back upon the Obama presidency as a similar futile episode that threatened our land.  And, Lord willing, Obamacare may turn out to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, and steered our nation back toward the Constitutional republic designed by our forefathers.  May God continue to bless the United States of America.

Why I’m Not Listening to the State of the Union Message

The Constitution mandates that every year the President of the United States shall report to Congress the state of the union.  Such reports as prescribed by the Constitution have long since disappeared.  In their place we have political speeches.

George Washington gave the first State of the Union message to Congress on January 8, 1790, in the provisional capitol of New York City.  The topics of his address are illuminating.  He dealt with the performance of the federal government as specified by the United States Constitution and the preamble to that Constitution.  It was not a political speech, but rather a report to Congress as to how effective the government was in fulfilling its very limited responsibilities under the Constitution, and how successful it was in avoiding interference into the lives of the citizens of the land.

Since one of the two enumerated responsibilities of the new government was to provide for the common defense, President Washington commented directly on that matter.  He said, in part…

"Among the many interesting objects, which will engage your attention, that of providing for the common defence will merit particular regard.— To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual means of preserving peace."

In other words, his advice was an early version of Ronald Reagan's axiom, peace through strength. 
Washington talked in his address about trade relations with other nations, and about the importance of uniform currency, weights and measures.  He also reminded the Congress that the future of the nation depended upon informed, free citizens, saying…

"And by teaching the people themselves to know and to value their own rights; to discern and provide against invasions of them; to distinguish between oppression and the necessary exercise of lawful authority; between burthens proceeding from a disregard to their convenience and those resulting from the inevitable exigencies of Society; to discriminate the spirit of liberty from that of licentiousness, cherishing the first, avoiding the last, and uniting a speedy, but temperate vigilence against encroachments, with an inviolable respect to the laws."

Edmund Burke, the great British member of parliament and philosopher, could not have said it better.  Liberty is fragile and exists only when government is minimal, law stands above the rule of man, and the people understand the foundations of freedom.
President Washington concluded his address with these simple, yet profound words…

"The welfare of our Country is the great object to which our cares and efforts ought to be directed. And I shall derive great satisfaction from a co-operation with you, in the pleasing tho arduous task of ensuring to our fellow-citizens the blessings which they have a right to expect from a free, efficient and equal Government."

Although the Constitution directed the President of the United States to make an annual report to Congress on the state of the union, it did not say that report had to be given in person.  Washington’s successor, John Adams, followed his lead and spoke to Congress in person.  In his speech, he addressed national security issues and the problem of piracy that threatened American commerce.  He went on to say…

"Although I can not yet congratulate you on the reestablishment of peace in Europe and the restoration of security to the persons and properties of our citizens from injustice and violence at sea, we have, nevertheless, abundant cause of gratitude to the source of benevolence and influence for interior tranquillity and personal security, for propitious seasons, prosperous agriculture, productive fisheries, and general improvements, and, above all, for a rational spirit of civil and religious liberty and a calm but steady determination to support our sovereignty, as well as our moral and our religious principles, against all open and secret attacks."

President Adams provided a thorough accounting to Congress of issues specified as the responsibility of the federal government under the Constitution.  He ended with this admonition in regard to public debt…

"Since the decay of the feudal system, by which the public defense was provided for chiefly at the expense of individuals, the system of loans has been introduced, and as no nation can raise within the year by taxes sufficient sums for its defense and military operations in time of war the sums loaned and debts contracted have necessarily become the subjects of what have been called funding systems. The consequences arising from the continual accumulation of public debts in other countries ought to admonish us to be careful to prevent their growth in our own. The national defense must be provided for as well as the support of Government; but both should be accomplished as much as possible by immediate taxes, and as little as possible by loans."

Adam's successor, Thomas Jefferson, abhorred the rule of Kings, and to him, giving a public address to Congress smacked of a monarch addressing those he ruled.  Thus, he declined to speak, but sent a written report instead.  This practice of sending a written report continued until it was broken by the father of the income tax, Woodrow Wilson.  Wilson felt very comfortable in the role of a monarch and, in fact, ushered in the relentless growth of government above and beyond the constraints intended by the Founders as written in the Constitution.  Wilson’s presidency was the beginning of the end of the rule of law in the nation, and it was the beginning of the growth of government into a powerful, all-controlling state.

However, Calvin Coolidge, who became President upon the death of Wilson's successor, Warren G. Harding, reverted to the policy of Thomas Jefferson, that of sending a written report to Congress.  Since that time, with the advent of radio and then television, State of the Union messages by the President have gone far afield of their Constitutional intent, and resemble instead a political speech directed not at Congress, but at the voters across the nation.

It is worth recounting the state of the union message of President Coolidge, in regard to the fiscal status of the government…

"Our main problems are domestic problems. Financial stability is the first requisite of sound government. We can not escape the effect of world conditions. We can not avoid the inevitable results of the economic disorders which have reached all nations. But we shall diminish their harm to us in proportion as we continue to restore our Government finances to a secure and endurable position. This we can and must do. Upon that firm foundation rests the only hope of progress and prosperity. From that source must come relief for the people."

It was this type of common sense that enabled Coolidge to lead the nation away from a very precarious financial situation and back to the kind of broad prosperity that is unknown by a socialist system, but is the hallmark of a free market that is minimally restricted by regulations and taxes.

So it is that President Barack Obama will once again give a so-called State of the Union message to Congress and to the nation.  As with virtually every President before him, he will pronounce the state of the nation to be good.  But, I will not be watching.

Why will I not be watching?  The answer is that there is hardly one word uttered from the mouth of this President that can be trusted or believed.  His lies are public and as many as the stars in the sky.  There are so many, it is impossible to recount them all.  He and his political team almost certainly instituted the Fast and Furious gunrunning scheme for political purposes.  As a result, one border agent, Brian Terry, died and hundreds of Mexicans have died.  The goal was to constrict your right to keep and bear arms, but instead it exposed a corrupt president and corrupt Attorney General.

Barack Obama lied about Obamacare, saying, "If you like your insurance, you can keep it, period." It was a lie and he knew it was a lie from the beginning.  He knew it would not become law if he did not tell this lie.  That's why he told this lie over and over and over again.  As a result, millions of Americans have lost their medical insurance coverage, and millions more will lose it in the future.  In addition, the financial burden of this socialist fantasy will further delay, perhaps permanently, a return to economic prosperity.

We now know that Barack Obama lied about Benghazi.  He knew from the very beginning that the attacks had absolutely nothing to do with an anti-Muslim video, yet he repeated the bald faced lie that it was for two weeks after an American Ambassador and, other brave Americans were murdered.  Our president was willing to let men die in order to get re-elected.

The President lied about the IRS.  First, he said he knew nothing about it and promised to get to the bottom of it and correct it.  Now, he has changed his story, saying that the targeting was correct and it was to protect the public.  This undoubtedly was another scheme cooked up by the White House political team to help the President get re-elected.

On and on and on it goes.  President Obama repeatedly says one thing and then does exactly the opposite.
So, that's one reason I won't be listening to the State of the Union message.  The words the President utters mean absolutely nothing.  It's no wonder that more than 70% of the American people don't trust the President.  They shouldn't!

The second reason I won't be listening is that this President is completely and totally ignorant of economics.  He has no clue whatsoever of how things work or that freedom is the secret strength of America.  Nor does he understand that freedom is not divisible.  You can't pick and choose your freedoms.  Either freedom exists in the marketplace or all freedom vanishes.  Either freedom of speech exists, or all other freedoms disappear.  Either freedom of religion exists, or all other freedoms are endangered.

His circumvention of Congress on the day of his State of the Union message by issuing an Executive Order setting a new minimum wage for federal employees, not only exhibits his contempt for the Constitution, but also his total ignorance of economics.  The so-called minimum wage law is the primary cause of limiting access to the ladder of opportunity to poor Americans.  It denies opportunities, especially to the poor, to obtain their first entry level job, and without a first job, there can never been a second job, or an opportunity for advancement at your first job.  It is abject economic ignorance to believe that government can set prices or wages.  Only the free market can set prices and wages fairly.  And, when government interferes by trying to set a minimum wage, it hurts the very people it will supposedly help. 

When the price of wages goes beyond the free market value of that job, the employer either has to employ automation, or terminate the service in order to survive.  Government intervention into the marketplace may benefit a few at the expense of many.  Often, a so-called black market appears, but in reality it is simply the free market serving suppliers and consumers at the best possible prices.  It is clear that President Barack Obama is totally ignorant of how an economy functions.  Government is an impediment to universal prosperity and to lifting people out of poverty.  Since government is not subject to the marketplace, the impact of President Obama's Executive Order will be limited to higher taxes on Americans.  But, while the passage of a new minimum wage law by Congress may be good politics for the uninformed voter, it is bad law.  It will destroy jobs and opportunity.

It is because of government that extensive poverty continues to exist in our land.  Let us not forget that the origin of minimum wage laws is racism.  They were designed by unions to deny employment opportunities to minorities, especially African Americans.  If you read the Congressional Record of the debate that took place about the Davis Bacon Act (the 1931 act requiring that only union labor be used in government construction projects), you will find blatant racist comments by Democrat Congressmen from New York, as well as from other parts of the nation.  It was designed expressly to deny black Americans an opportunity to participate in construction projects funded by the federal government.  Up until that time, African Americans were heavily involved in the construction industry, but thanks to that law, they have never fully recovered their position there. 

Similar to the Davis Bacon Act, minimum wage laws were created to artificially benefit union workers.  And, remember, each and every time wages are artificially inflated due to government preference in the form of a union shop, all consumers are penalized.  And, foreign competition benefits, as it did in the auto industry.

Up until this Administration, all Presidents did their best to unify our nation.  They encouraged productivity by both employees and employers.  They respected the heritage of our nation and revered the wisdom of America’s Founders.  This President has made it clear that he has no use whatsoever for the wisdom and counsel of the Founders.  He is a Marxist through and through.  Only Marxists talk about redistribution of income and inequality of outcomes.  Those who love and cherish freedom talk about the opportunity that comes from living in a nation of low taxes, few regulations, and limited government.  We encourage love and understanding, not division, envy and jealousy.  We form the backbone of compassionate America, the individuals who voluntarily give generously to help their fellow man, and to fund a myriad of nonprofit organizations that enrich the fabric of our nation.

Conservatives don't use the agency of government to compel our fellow citizens to support charitable cause that we deem worthwhile.  Rather we use persuasion and encouragement and our own dollars to intervene in the lives of others to help them overcome adversity.  We don't believe that taking tax dollars at the point of a gun is compassion, no matter how worthwhile the cause. 

Americans believe in unity, and common respect for others, and they believe in traditional moral values as enumerated most clearly in the Ten Commandments.  We trust in God's wisdom and justice, not in the vagaries of fallen man.  We revere America's Founders and share their understanding that all men are imperfect. 

We endeavor to tell the truth at all times and to rely upon integrity and honor, rather than cunning and scheming, to accomplish our ends.  And, we reject the idea that the end justifies the means.

Barack Obama has little to nothing in common with the values and principles of the Founders.  It has nothing whatsoever to do with the color of his skin.  It has everything to do with the corruptness of his ideology.  It is an ideology that is antithetical to American values and tradition.  It threatens to undo the greatness of America and turn this nation into just another soft European tyranny, or worse.

When President Barack Obama says that "I can't wait for Congress to act" and that he has a phone and a pen that he will use to go around Congress, he is violating the rule of law and acting like a dictator.  To go around Congress is to circumvent the Constitution of the United States of America. 

Make no mistake about it, corrupt politicians like Barack Obama will use the power of government to deny health care to those who oppose them.  They will spy on them, they will restrict them, they will harass them, they will stomp on their liberties. They will sic the IRS on them, and do whatever is necessary to maintain political power.  Power, it’s what all politicians lust after and once the people surrender their power to the bureaucrats and the politicians, our republic will be dead.

No, I will not listen to a liar, nor will I listen to an authoritarian wannabe.  Instead, I will continue to work hard to save this nation for my children and my grandchildren.  I want to restore this nation to the land of the free, where every child has an opportunity to climb the ladder of success as far and as fast as they can go based on their willingness to work hard, to take risk, and as God blesses them.  That is the America I grew up in, and by the grace of God, that is the nation my children and all the children of America will inherit.

Baseball

In about 35 days Major League pitchers and catchers report to spring training camps in Florida and Arizona.  It’s a ritual that has been going on since the 1800s.  The Cincinnati Red Stockings and the Chicago White Stockings held spring training camps in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1870.  The Washington Capitals held a spring training camp in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1888.

By 1900, virtually all teams held spring training camps in Florida and Arizona.  Thus began the annual ritual not only of the teams themselves, but also of the fans getting out of the cold weather in the North to sit in the warm sunshine and watch their team prepare for the regular season that opened in early May, or in mid April, as it does today.

Early on, spring training was typically tied to barnstorming tours where the major league teams played local clubs who wanted to see how they stacked up against the big boys.  Barnstorming was also a way for major league baseball players to make some money.  Even after World War II, the salaries of the typical major league player were very modest.

In his book, White Rat, Whitey Herzog talks about getting along financially as a baseball player in the mid 1950s through the early 1960s.  When Herzog was playing for the Washington Senators (1956-58) he lived in a trailer, because that was the most he could afford on his salary.

When Herzog played for the Kansas City Athletics (1958-60) he lived in a home that he built.  But, even then, during the off season he umpired at high school basketball games and operated a small construction company just to pay his bills.

Herzog was never a great player, but he was dedicated.  His lifetime batting average was .254.  He hit 25 home runs and had 172 RBIs in 634 games.  Of course, he went on to be one of the greatest managers in the game, being inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2010.  One of Herzog’s greatest lines was, “Baseball was good to me after I quit playing it.”  And, indeed while he never really made any significant money as a player, he was well compensated as a field manager.  After short stints as a base coach, interim field manager, and in charge of player development of several teams, Herzog became manager of the Kansas City Royals in 1975.  There he won three straight American League Western division titles.  But, his greatest success was as the field manager of the St. Louis Cardinals where he was famous for “Whiteyball,” the nickname for the team he built on a foundation of base running speed.  In St. Louis he won the 1982 World Series and the National League Pennant in 1985 and 1987.

Until 1947, the vast majority of Major League teams held spring training in Florida for the practical reason that the farthest team west was the St. Louis Cardinals.  It made no economic sense to train out west, when Florida was much closer to the fan base of the teams.  But in 1947 the New York Giants and the Cleveland Indians were persuaded to train in Arizona.  It is true that a number of MLB teams had trained out west prior to World War II, most notably the Chicago Cubs, who first trained in Santa Monica in 1905 and then trained on California’s Catalina Island from 1922 to 1942, and again in 1950-51.  The incentive for the Cubs to train on Catalina Island was the fact that the team owner, William Wrigley Jr., the chewing gum magnet, was the owner of the Cubs and the owner of Catalina Island where he wintered.  Other teams trained in California so that they could barnstorm their way back home, earning money for the players and expanding support for the team.

Similar to the draw for the Cubs to Catalina Island, was the draw of Arizona to the Cleveland Indians.  The Cactus League became a reality in 1947, when Horace Stoneham’s New York Giants and Bill Veeck’s Cleveland Indians took up residence in Phoenix and Tucson, respectively.  Veeck (Veeck as in wreck he would say) owned a ranch near Tucson.  Bill Veeck went on to be the most innovative and future looking, if madcap, owner in baseball.

During his time in baseball, Veeck was the owner of the Cleveland Indians, the St. Louis Browns and the Chicago White Sox.  In 1947, he signed the first black baseball player in the American league, Larry Doby, and later that year signed the ageless Satchel Paige, who became, at the time of his signing, the oldest rookie in the history of baseball.

In 1948, Lou Boudreau hit .355 and that propelled Cleveland to its first pennant and World Series since 1920.  Not afraid to be wacky, Veeck famously buried the 1948 pennant once it became obvious that the team would not repeat in 1949.  One of Veeck’s most memorable publicity stunts was the hiring of the 3 foot 7 inch Eddie Gaedel.  On August 19, 1951, Veeck sent Gaedel to the plate to pinch hit.   Gaedel’s uniform number was “1/8” and yes, he walked on four straight pitches and then was pulled for a pinch runner.

But, back to spring training.  Today, baseball spring training is bigger and better than ever before.  The facilities are nicer and bigger than they have ever been.  And, it’s often difficult to get tickets to spring training games because the demand continues to grow each year.  Tens of thousands of fans make attending the spring training of their favorite team an annual ritual.  There’s a special camaraderie among both fans and players as practices begin.

And, then when the actual games begin, the stands fill up.  No one wants to miss the first appearance of a heralded rookie, or see their favorite player take the field or hit one out of the park.  And, at the beginning of each regular season, every fan holds out hope that “this is the year” for his or her team.

Of course, there are lots of great sports played in the United States.  There are the timed rectangular sports of football, soccer, basketball, rugby, hockey, etc. where you score points by making it to the other end of the rectangle and dropping your ball, puck, or whatever in a hoop, a net, or score simply by bringing it across the goal line.  These sports can be lots of fun and bring lots of excitement.

But, as for me, give me that special green diamond that is unlike any other sport in the world.  It has a special magnetism, a special draw that is different than any other sport.  And, I must not be alone in this feeling since the number of people who annually watch baseball at all levels far outnumbers any other sport.  For instance, the annual attendance of several triple A baseball teams is much higher than the annual attendance of the highest attended National Football League team.  I know, a NFL team only plays 16 games per year, just one tenth of those played by the fellows on the diamond.  Nevertheless. Baseball has a certain long term drawing power that no other sport can match.

While the NFL has seen a decline in television viewership and attendance over the last few years, attendance at MLB games has continued to grow.  And, the fascination of Americans with baseball isn’t just as a spectator sport.  Millions of Americans—young, middle aged and even older—play baseball each year.  And, across the globe, in places as far away as Russia and Italy, baseball continues to grow in popularity.  Of course, in Latin America and in the far East, baseball is huge.

And, this doesn’t even touch on the fact that more money is spent on salaries of US baseball players than on players for any other professional sport.  Nor does it cover the fact that revenues to professional baseball far outstrip any other professional sport in the USA.  And, let’s not forget that the most money ever paid for a professional sports franchise is $2 billion, the amount paid to purchase the Los Angeles Dodgers.
But, baseball is not about money, it’s about the love of the game.  It’s about hitting an 85 mile per hour curve ball.  It’s about the most difficult play in sports, turning a double play.  It’s about miracle catches, and late inning walk off home runs.  It’s about seeing a young pitcher throw a perfect game.  It’s about seeing your son or daughter play the game and come to love it as you do.

Baseball is truly as American as apple pie.

Yes, professional baseball had its problems with drug use.  But, I believe that is gone for good.  Roger Clemens, Mark McGwire and others dishonored the game by using performance enhancing drugs, but last year baseball writers uttered their verdict.  They bypassed both Clemens and McGwire for entry into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  They sent a stern message to all professional baseball players, if you want your shot at getting into the Hall of Fame you can’t use performance enhancing drugs to get there.

This year the Hall inducted some all-time great players, Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Frank Thomas.  These are great choices and great players who understand what baseball is all about.  It’s about loving and  respecting the game of baseball.

So, as for me, I’m packing my bags and heading south, looking forward to seeing the St. Louis Cardinals in spring training in Jupiter, Florida.  I’m going to enjoy the warm sunshine, and the gentle breezes, but most of all, I’m going to relish the crack of the bat, the pop of the glove, and the amazing athletic skills of the players on the field.  And, while I’m at it, I’m going to root, root, root for the Cardinals.  There’s just nothing like a baseball game.