We conservatives, of course. It is my contention that when you are beaten in a political fight, you usually deserve it. John Hawkins notes:
Edmund Burke once said, “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
The corollary to that statement here in the United States could be, “All that was necessary for the Democrats to triumph was for conservatives to do nothing.”
It’s fashionable to blame George W. Bush, the Republicans in Congress, and the out of touch, inside-the-beltway pundits for the ascendancy of Barack Obama and the left — and they certainly deserve the largest portion of the blame.
However, it’s worth taking the time to ask: what responsibility does the conservative movement — you, me, and all our conservative friends — have for this disaster?
Quite a bit actually.
We were too slow to challenge Republicans in D.C., including George Bush, when they veered from a conservative course. Yes, we complained, but not loudly enough and too late in the game.
We were also too complacent and too willing to stand pat on an out of date agenda. Consider the irony, for example, of conservatives using an income tax cut as a primary selling point for our domestic agenda when more than a third of the American public doesn’t pay income tax.
Along the same lines, we’ve been too content to advocate policies like the Fair Tax that couldn’t be gotten through Congress, or to merely poke holes in the Democratic agenda on issues like socialized medicine without truly pushing viable alternatives.
Conservatism needs to adapt to changed circumstances, that is for sure - we can’t go forward with the quiet dogmas of the past but must think anew and act anew. Conservatism has been, is and always will be the answer - but the applicability of conservatism changes as circumstances change. As a for-instance, we’ve won the tax battle - leftist Obama campaigned on a promise of tax cuts and hammered McCain very hard on the claim that his health care plan amounts to a tax increase. It is now time (and, indeed, has been time for years) for us to move beyond the mere debate over keeping taxes low and get into a debate on what should be taxed and when.
On and on down the conservative agenda, it is time to recast our efforts in light of the fact that we by and large won the battles of 20 years ago - we live in the economic and political house Reagan built for us and even the most ardent of liberal Democrats really propose no more than tinkering around the edges of it, plus socialized medicine. But we can bring the fight to them - provided we learn to be insurgent, and get fresh blood into our senior ranks, and propose bold, new initiatives to increase freedom, faith, family and prosperity.
I’m up for this debate about the future of conservatism, but I do issue one warning: let us not get into backbiting about who did what to whom. Such internecine battles only please our liberal opponents - clean slate, and lets start building a new conservatism for the 21st century.
As Matt received his NRA membership, a friend of mine purchased new ammunition for his weapon and I, for the first time, am considering purchasing a firearm…so this is not as surprising as it once would have been:
When 10-year-old Austin Smith heard Barack Obama had been elected president, he had one question: Does this mean I won’t get a new gun for Christmas?
That brought his mother, the camouflage-clad Rachel Smith, to Bob Moates Sports Shop on Thursday, where she was picking out that special 20-gauge shotgun — one of at least five weapons she plans to buy before Obama takes office in January.
Like Smith, gun enthusiasts nationwide are stocking up on firearms out of fears that the combination of an Obama administration and a Democrat-dominated Congress will result in tough new gun laws.
“I think they’re going to really try to crack down on guns and make it harder for people to try to purchase them,” said Smith, 32, who taught all five of her children — ages 4 to 10 — to shoot because the family relies on game for food.
Last month, as an Obama win looked increasingly inevitable, there were more than 108,000 more background checks for gun purchases than in October 2007, a 15 percent increase. And they were up about 8 percent for the year as of Oct. 26, according to the FBI.
No data was available for gun purchases this week, but gun shops from suburban Virginia to the Rockies report record sales since Tuesday’s election.
An armed population is a free population - just in case anyone of the Bill Ayers philosophy was thinking that the election of Obama is a license to Bolshevize the United States. It just seems a universal - we see a socialist elected President and we take out an extra insurance policy on our liberties.
It is fortunate that the Supreme Court recently ruled - quite properly - that the right to bear arms is an individual right. It will be hard for the Democrats to impose heavy restrictions on gun ownership, but we can expect them to try as much as possible to do so. And all of those commercials we heard in the battleground States that Obama was in favor of the 2nd Amendment? Just so much leftist smokescreen. Obama’s record is that of a gun-banner, not of a believer in the right of Americans to defend themselves.
In the end, this will do nothing but provide a good quarterly profit for our firearms manufacturers - and, of course, provide another reason for tyrants to fear the people of the United States of America.
Catholics need to wake up when it comes to politics, and stop leaving “God in the pew,” says a Vatican aide.
Bishop Giampaolo Crepaldi, secretary of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, said this today when he addressed a conference organized by Retinopera, a network of Italian organizations that promote the Church’s social teachings.
The meeting, under way in Assisi, is reflecting on the idea of the common good and, according to its organizers, seeks “to consider development understood as a moral question.”
Bishop Crepaldi said Benedict XVI’s call in Cagliari, Sardinia, earlier this month for “the birth of a new generation of Christians involved in society and politics” was addressed to the Christian communities “who, as far as the formation new generations involved in society and politics is concerned, seem to be falling asleep.”
The bishop explained the need for Catholic laity involved in politics in the context of the “the idea, perhaps unexpressed, that secularization is an unstoppable process, a kind of ‘destiny’ of the West if not the entire planet.”
“Secularization, as God’s ejection from the world to the point that he ceases to speak to it, is not the destiny of modernity,” the bishop remarked.
The prelate noted this is precisely “the principal challenge” that Pope John Paul II faced, and that Benedict XVI is currently confronting. “We must confidently join them as real protagonists, and not see ourselves as tired bit players in a script recited by others.”
We can surrender the field to the secularists, or we can get out there and do battle for what we know is right. The crisis we face today isn’t really economic, but moral…only in a demoralized society which is sunk in despair could we get a situation where politicians connive with corporate bosses to defraud the American people…and then these same people blame those who fought against them, and demand that the people defrauded pony up to fix the problem. It is we, the believers, who have allowed this to happen - because we’ve been asleep at the switch, and afraid to tell the truth to those who are destroying our civilization.
The great battle here in the United States is, of course, the upcoming election - and its not really about Barack Obama. He’s a nobody - the problem is that he’s such a weak, ill-informed and morally confused man that those who seek to destroy Judeo-Christian civilization will find him easy to manipulate for their own ends. If we Christians refuse the battle - or temporize in our judgments - then we’ll get an Obama who will agree to appoint the most kook left judges imaginable…not because Obama wants kook left judges, but because he doesn’t know any better, and corrupt advisors will prevail upon him to make the appointments. You think Roe is horrific? Wait until an Obama-appointee decides that people have a right to euthanize their aged parents, or that taxpayers must pay for abortions…its coming, if we just sit back and allow it to happen.
Get out there and fight - as Obama put it to his troops, get in their faces and let them know how you feel…call them on their lies, each and every time they say them; tell them they are doing evil, even if they don’t recognize it. With mercy and love mixed with firmness and determination, lets carry the battle to them, and defeat them for the benefit of our civilization.
The devil will be in the details (and I haven’t seen the final bill), but if the provisions below are true, this bill will be a good compromise. From The Corner:
1. No ACORN money: All money goes to debt reduction
2. No blank check: Treasury is required to develop an insurance program
3. No union power grab: Dodd-Frank permitted unions to force themselves into the board room. This proposed compromise eliminates that.
4. No “cram down” bankruptcy provision (aka, trial bar giveaway):
5. No tax hikes: The proposed compromise simply requires a proposal to Congress to recoup any potential losses.
Note: Here is the office of Roy Blunt’s side-by-side comparison of a) The original Paulson Plan, b) the Dodd-Frank bill, and c) the final bill (according to Blunt).
This final bill is looking much better than the original iterations.
Here’s a 10 minute video that is worth every second to watch:
UPDATE, by Mark Noonan: Senator Bunning injects a note of reality into the debate:
I also strongly disagree with the Senators who have come to the floor and declared that this crisis is a failure of the free markets. No, the root of this crisis is a failure of government. It comes from a failure of regulation and, most importantly, monetary policy. In the long term we certainly need to update our financial regulation to reflect the realities of our modern economy, but it is just plain wrong to blame failures of our regulations and regulators on the markets…
…I want to mention a few more failures of government that directly contributed to this mess. Federal regulations require the use of ratings from rating agencies that have proven to be wrong on the biggest financial failures of the last decade. The Community Reinvestment Act forces banks to make loans they would not otherwise make based on the credit history of the borrower. The Securities and Exchange Commission under former Chairman Donaldson failed to establish meaningful oversight and leverage restrictions for investment banks.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac used the implied backing of the government to grow so large that their takeover by the government effectively doubled the national debt. And they were pushed by their executives and the Clinton Administration to loosen their lending standards and write the loans that drove the companies to the point of being bailed out by the taxpayers.
Finally, the same individuals who have come to this building to ask for the latest bailout set the stage for the very panic they are using to justify the bailout.
Michael Barone has the scoop on how to get this rescue plan done. Alter the plan so it is insuring tax-payers against Wall Street excesses and not bailing out Wall Street and you can get a deal done:
What do House Republicans want? A senior House Republican gave me and some other reporters a look yesterday at what a working group headed by Assistant Minority Whip Eric Cantor is demanding. The senior House Republican (hereinafter SHR) has what sounded to me like an ingenious approach. He cited Ginnie Mae loans to low-income borrowers, which the government can insure. He proposed that the government (presumably through the entity envisioned by the Paulson plan) offer to sell insurance to financial institutions that hold mortgage-backed securities (hereinafter MBS). Premiums would be determined by the rates of foreclosure on each class of securities so far. Under this plan, the government would be taking in money, not paying it out. Of course, if the premiums are not enough to cover losses, the government might eventually take losses, as it did when the savings and loan industry collapsed. But losses don’t seem inevitable and in any case will mostly occur in out-years, not now.
[Would] House Republicans would go along if Paulson pledged to use authority in the statute to set up an insurance program within a month of passage. “That would go far toward convincing [Republican] members.”
As one of the few people that actually understands the inner-workings of these banks and what needs to get done to avert disaster, I like this plan. A deal needs to get done, but Paulson and the Democrats need to take a few more steps closer to tax-payer protection to get the deal done. It’s that simple.
Polls are tightening up all over and one of the most important states in this election is Michigan. Here, Henry Payne of the Detroit News finds a “surprising amount of strength for the Republican ticket.”
Why is that?
First, unlike Republican candidates of the past:
“McCain is a fit for Michigan’s culture of maverick entrepreneurs, military families and working-class voters.”
Adding to the natural McCain appeal is the Palin Effect:
“The key to winning Michigan has long been white-collar Oakland County and blue-collar Macomb County, both in the north metro-Detroit area.”
For Oakland County:
“[Palin] is energizing Oakland’s hockey moms (one nickname for Metro Detroit is “Hockeytown”), while also reinforcing Mr. McCain’s maverick credentials.
Veteran pollster Steve Mitchell concurs, citing Mrs. Palin’s appeal to the GOP base, her appeal to women and the appeal of her small-town story.”
For Macomb County:
“Their ideal presidential candidate? An “outsider, middle-class” senator, who feels their pain and their betrayal by America’s economic and political elites, according to [Democratic pollster Stan] Greenberg.
McCain has a lead in Mr. Greenberg’s polling, running ahead by seven points.” While ‘Obama is still an exotic candidate to this heavily white, socially conservative electorate’ according to Bill Ballenger, publisher of the influential newsletter Inside Michigan Politics.”
…
“She’s “Macomb’s girl next door,” says Peter Brown, Quinnipiac University’s assistant director of polling. The McCain campaign knows it. The first stop Mr. McCain and Mrs. Palin made after the Republican convention was in Macomb County, an event that drew a 10,000-plus crowd.
“Macomb County was a place McCain was thinking of when he picked Palin,” Mr. Brown told me.
Finally, statewide:
“Republicans have an “enormous field operation” that has been built by state GOP Chairman Saul Anuzis and that has doubled the number of Michiganians identifying themselves as Republican voters in recent years.”
As for Mr. Obama in all of this? He’s playing identity politics of the past while the state’s economic engine (the auto industry) is going through revolutionary changes:
Obama’s campaign is built on themes from the 1970s of greater benefits for less work that have lost their power.
…
His campaign is built on class warfare (he blames greedy executives for mismanaging the auto industry) and protectionism (he blames foreigners for stealing American jobs).
Not a lot of “change” and “hope” coming out of Obama in Michigan.
Palin is not just a problem for Obama. She is also a symptom of what ails him. Before Palin, Obama was the ultimate celebrity candidate. For no presidential nominee in living memory had the gap between adulation and achievement been so great. Which is why McCain’s Paris Hilton ads struck such a nerve. Obama’s meteoric rise was based not on issues — there was not a dime’s worth of difference between him and Hillary on issues — but on narrative, on eloquence, on charisma.
…
The problem is that Obama began believing in his own magical powers — the chants, the swoons, the “we are the ones” self-infatuation. Like Ronald Reagan, he was leading a movement, but one entirely driven by personality. Reagan’s revolution was rooted in concrete political ideas (supply-side economics, welfare-state deregulation, national strength) that transcended one man. For Obama’s movement, the man is the transcendence.
…
To top himself, Obama had to reach. Hence his triumphal declaration that history would note that night, his victory, his ascension, as “the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
Clang. But Obama heard only the cheers of the invited crowd. Not yet seeing how the pseudo-messianism was wearing thin, he did Berlin (#4) and finally jumped the shark.
The election is a long ways away, bt if Obama blows it, you can point to this column as the roadmap of his rise and subsequent fall.
Well any of you out there fretting over whether John McCain can build on the ground game George Bush used so effectively in 2000 and 2004, I can put your fears to rest. Marc Ambinder at The Atlantic has the details:
The huge crowds Gov. Sarah Palin attracts are one thing, but enthusiasm about the Alaska governor has produced an outpouring of volunteers for the GOP’s get-out-the-vote program.
According to a Republican official, countywide, seven to ten times as many new volunteers are signing to help as compared to the same days a month ago.
The day McCain announced the pick, and the Wednesday and Thursday of the convention, the numbers were through the roof, dwarfing the number of new volunteer sign-ups during that same period in 2004.
That’s more people that GOP field planners assumed they’d have, so in some areas, they’re scrambling to figure out what to do with them all.
* The Republican base is now energized and enthusiastic like never before
* Palin offers geographic appeal and help in key swing states
* Palin revived McCain’s maverick, outside the Beltway message
* Expect more attacks on Obama’s own history of accommodation with the Daley machine in Chicago
* The problem with Hillary Clinton’s disaffected voters is back
* Palin has engaged the community of families with special needs children
* Palin will keep the energy issue front and center and pound home the message that the GOP is in favor of an all-out, multi-front effort to develop domestic sources of energy including oil and natural gas
* She dealt a blow, a big blow, to the credibility of the MSM
* Palin has made Joe Biden a greater liability.
* Palin allows many voters to “make history”
These are just 10 of the increasingly numerous ways Sarah Palin has been that “game changer” Republicans sorely needed. Read the whole thing.
The smear and fear tactics from the Democratic National Committee have reared their ugly head in Pennsylvania. Here is a postcard the DNC is using to flame the culture wars and wrongly characterizing John McCain arriving in Pennsylvania mailboxes (and maybe others) today:
Frontside:
Backside:
McCain has them scared and they are going ugly early in Pennsylvania.
When McCain met Sarah Palin last February, he was meeting the rarest of creatures, an American politician who sees the world as he does. Like McCain, Palin does not seem to have an explicit governing philosophy. Her background is socially conservative, but she has not pushed that as governor of Alaska. She seems to find it easier to work with liberal Democrats than the mandarins in her own party. Instead, she seems to get up in the morning to root out corruption. McCain was meeting a woman who risked her career taking on the corrupt Republican establishment in her own state, who twice defeated the oil companies, who made mortal enemies of the two people McCain has always held up as the carriers of the pork-barrel disease: Young and Stevens.
Considering his other “short list” options included people as ideologically opposite as Joe Lieberman, it looks like John McCain continues to cement the GOP as the party of the “Big Tent.” Be sure to read the whole thing.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Dueling delegations pitting Ron Paul’s Nevada supporters against those of John McCain vow to take their fight to the Republican National Convention.
That’s just one sign that the outsider, Internet-fueled movement led by the feisty Republican congressman from Texas remains afloat in the wake of McCain’s victory in the GOP primaries.
In the libertarian-leaning West, where Paul’s message of distrust of the federal government and ardent individualism played particularly well, there is talk of Republicans straying from McCain. Libertarian candidate Bob Barr has emerged as a favorite alternative for Paul activists, followed by Constitutional Party candidate Chuck Baldwin.
Even if the numbers of such dissenters are small, in tight contests in key Western states they could spoil McCain’s chances, experts say.
"In Nevada, there’s absolutely enough to have an effect on the election," said Chuck Muth, a leading conservative activist in a state in which early polls show McCain and Democratic candidate Barack Obama in a statistical tie.
"I think that you will see not just Libertarians who always vote for the Libertarian candidate but conservative Republicans saying we’ve had it, we’ve had enough and they’re going to go ahead and vote Libertarian," Muth said.
Paul — or "Dr. Paul," as his followers reverently refer to the obstetrician-turned-politician — ran as the Libertarian Party nominee for president in 1988. But this year he carved out a following as an antiestablishment Republican. His campaign won more than 1 million votes and became a catchall for anti-war, anti-government voters and disaffected Republicans.
Now I’m sure you’re thinking that 2008-2012 will be transitional years. Either Obama wins, FUBARs the nation, serves a one-term presidency, and loses in 2012; or McCain wins, FU the nation (but not beyond all recognition); gets old, and we get another shot at 2012. So, you say, either way it’s all good, right?
But there will be three reasons to vote for, and yes, even work to help elect John McCain this go-round: and those reasons are, to put it simply, Supreme Court, Supreme Court, and, oh, did I mention Supreme Court?
John Paul Stevens, 88
Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 75
Antonin Scalia, 72
Anthony Kennedy, 71
Stephen Breyer, 69
David Souter, 68
Clarence Thomas, 60
Samuel Alito, 58
John Roberts, 53
There’s no way that Stevens is going to last til 2012, and Ruth Vader Ginsberg will no doubt follow him out the door. Hell, Scalia ain’t getting any younger, either. That leaves two or more openings before 2012. To put it simply, a Barack Obama presidency (not to mention a continuing dem majority in both Houses) will most certainly poison an already-precariously balanced Supreme Court for years to come. An Obama presidency will be the catalyst in a perfect storm that will leave this nation saddled not with liberalism, but with out-and-out socialism for the foreseeable future.
Scorched earth. Is that what you really want? In the process of "sticking it" to the Republican party, you’ll be able to kiss conservatism, and yes, libertarianism goodbye. Put those ideals into a storm shelter, and perhaps take them out in a couple of decades. If we’re still around by then.
So, Paulbots– you still want to "stick it" to the Republicans?
Think hard. Think long and hard before you answer.
‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’
-Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America
The Tenth Amendment, which is supposed to hold weight equal to the First, Second and every other Amendment to the United States Constitution, has in the last 80 years been regarded as “a nice idea” but optional. This has resulted in usurpation of powers from the States in everything from health care to education (and everything in between).
Far from being taken seriously, the Tenth Amendment has become the red-headed stepchild of the Constitution, and has been ignored with impunity by the Federal government.
Oklahomans are trying to recover some of their lost state sovereignty by House Joint Resolution 1089, introduced by State Rep. Charles Key.
The resolution’s language, in part, reads: “Whereas, the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’; and Whereas, the Tenth Amendment defines the total scope of federal power as being that specifically granted by the Constitution of the United States and no more; and whereas, the scope of power defined by the Tenth Amendment means that the federal government was created by the states specifically to be an agent of the states; and Whereas, today, in 2008, the states are demonstrably treated as agents of the federal government. … Now, therefore, be it resolved by the House of Representatives and the Senate of the 2nd session of the 51st Oklahoma Legislature: that the State of Oklahoma hereby claims sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States over all powers not otherwise enumerated and granted to the federal government by the Constitution of the United States. That this serve as Notice and Demand to the federal government, as our agent, to cease and desist, effective immediately, mandates that are beyond the scope of these constitutionally delegated powers.”
The measure passed overwhelmingly in the Oklahoma State House of Representatives, but was hung up in the State Senate (sound familiar?) However, Representative Charles Kay plans to re-introduce the measure when the Oklahoma State House reconvenes next year.
What would upholding the Tenth Amendment entail? Walter E. Williams writes,
Federal usurpation goes beyond anything the Constitution’s framers would have imagined. James Madison, explaining the constitution, in Federalist Paper 45, said, “The powers delegated … to the federal government are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, [such] as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce. … The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people.” Thomas Jefferson emphasized that the states are not “subordinate” to the national government, but rather the two are “coordinate departments of one simple and integral whole. … The one is the domestic, the other the foreign branch of the same government.”
Of course, the eye of the needle through which the camel squeezed its head was the Fourteenth Amendment, which gave the Federal government the authority to regulate interstate commerce. All well and good; however, meaning of the term “commerce” has been twisted and manipulated to not only cover business transactions between residents of different states, but everything else under the sun:
These scholars interpret interstate commerce to mean “substantial interstate human relations” and find this consistent with the meaning of commerce at the time of the writing of the Constitution. They also argue that this expansive interpretation makes more sense for the foreign and Indian commerce clauses as one would expect Congress to be given authority to regulate non-economic relations with other nations and with Indian tribes.
This ‘liberal translation’ of the term, ‘commerce,’ of course, flies in the face of Jefferson’s writings; which is SOP for liberals, who true to their moniker often take great liberty in using the words of the Constitution as so much silly puddy to bend and shape their meaning to fit their cause d’jour. This led to the creation of FDR’s “New Deal,” which led to the notion that the government pretty much had the right to step in to any situation, for any reason, if there was any indication of interstate commerce whatsoever. While minor shifts toward state’s rights have occurred in between, the Federal Government still maintains overwhelming authority over areas of our lives in which they Constitutionally have no business to regulate.
This could be the start of a groundswell of opportunity to defeat Federal usurpation of power, and to once and for all defeat the federal imposition of liberalism and its even uglier cousin, socialism. I look forward to a Republican legislator from my home state of Minnesota to take up this mantle (I know it won’t be a democrat).
We hear much of this, but let us actually think of the ways and means we can cut our oil consumption. We’re going to have a rule or two:
1. It can’t be something already put out by the Obama or McCain campaigns.
2. It must not require any new technology.
3. It must not require any direct government expenditure.
4. It must not add to the regulatory burden on the economy.
5. It must allow people to be in charge of their own energy consumption choices.
Herewith some of my ideas:
A: Switch from a standard 8 hours, five days a week at work to 10 hours, four days a week.
In theory, this would cut America’s collective commute - and the fuel consumed therein - by 20%; in actuality, it would be less even if it became the norm, but I’ll bet that a widespread application of this would reduce our gasoline consumption by 10%, as well as greatly cutting down auto emissions.
As for the practical terms of it - I and the Mrs have been working “four tens” for years now, and we’ve become so accustomed to it that we find it incomprehensible how anyone has any real fun with only two days a week off. Such a proposal would allow for people to have more usuable leisure time (that two hours you’re currently off each weekday are rather worthless for recreation in any real sense), more time to spend with family, more time to spend on personal activities (you think I’d blog this much if I had to put in a five day week?) and would allow for very flexible work schedules (some people, like me, will prefer Fri-Sat-Sun, but others will prefer Mon-Tue-Wed, or any combination you can think of). My preferred method of encouraging this - tax breaks for businesses which allow it.
B: Large trucks only to travel between 7pm and 7am.
Large trucks tend to clog the highways as they are slower and less nimble than automobiles - at rush hour, this tends to slow down traffic greatly, causing greater consumption of fuel for all concerned. By getting them off the road during the day we will make the commute much faster and easier (already made so, of course, by the fact that 20% less people are trying to get to downtown each day in line with Proposal A) and I believe that it can be demonstrated that keeping truck traffic to the night hours will show that average time on the road for the trucks is reduced, thus reducing the cost of shipping goods as well as the amount of fuel consumed. Preferred way to encourage - once again, tax breaks for transportation companies who will do this.
C: Encourage telecommuting.
How many millions of us spend our work day in front of a computer in a cubicle? I do and the Mrs does. The difference? She rolls out of bed, brushes her teeth, grabs a bite to eat and then goes into the home office to work. Zero fuel expenditure for her morning commute, as well as being able to sleep in later. As for me, I drive 18 miles each way to do a job I could just as well do at my kitchen counter on a lap top. A neighbor down the street telecommutes to New York City every day - her “workspace” being her back patio next to the pool, where she’s able to put in a solid days work as well as become the most perfectly tanned person I’ve ever known. There is, as far as I can tell, no downside to telecommuting - and we can make a great upside for corporations by allowing them to write off the cost of setting up telecommuting for their employees.
Those are three that I thought up (though the “four tens” thing was actually suggested by the Mrs - too close to the reality for me to actually notice that I spend less on gas than most because I’ve only got to drive in four days a week). What do you think of them? What would you do?
What could Mark Steyn’s punishment look like, if he’s convicted by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal?
It could look like this order, issued just last week by Alberta’s human rights commission, against a Christian pastor named Rev. Stephen Boission.
The kangaroo court judge in this case is a Tory patronage appointee, a divorce lawyer from Lethbridge named Lori Andreachuk, (pictured at left). That’s her expertise: divorce law. Not constitutional law; not freedom of speech or freedom of religion. And it shows.
Last November, she convicted Boissoin. Last week she ordered her “remedy”.
It is the most revolting order I have ever seen in Canada. Ever.
I’ll excerpt a few lines from her ruling:
In this case, there is no specific individual who can be compensated as there is no direct victim who has come forward…
That’s insane already. No-one was hurt. The complainant was an officious intermeddler, a busybody, the town scold, an anti-Christian activist named Darren Lund who had an axe to grind, and Andreachuk gave it to him.
Dr. Lund, although not a direct victim, did expend considerable time and energy and suffered ridicule and harassment as a result of his complaint. The Panel finds therefore that he is entitled to some compensation.
So a busybody with no standing spends time filing complaints — and gets a tax-free reward for doing so. Oh — and for his “suffering”. Not suffering at the hands of Rev. Boission, but “as a result of his complaint”. People in the community ridiculed Lund for filing the complaint — as they should. And so Andreachuk will get the pastor to pay for that. Why the hell not? Who’s going to stop her? Her political patron, Ed Stelmach?
Mr. Boissoin and [his organization] The Concerned Christian Coalition Inc. shall cease publishing in newspapers, by email, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals.
There’s a lot there, starting with a small but telling point. Darren Lund is a not a medical doctor. He’s a professor. But Andreachuk refers to him as Dr. Lund. Stephen Boissoin is a pastor. But Andreachuk calls him “Mr. Boissoin”. No “Rev. Boissoin” for her.
But look at the staggering order there. Boissoin can never — ever — communicate anything “disparaging” about gays. It’s a lifetime ban — and it applies to every conceivable medium, including his private e-mails.
But nothing “disparaging”? That means nothing critical.
She didn’t order him not to communicate anything “illegal” or even anything “hateful”. She ordered him to say nothing disparaging. Ever. For the rest of his life.
A divorce lawyer from Lethbridge with a second-rate patronage job just ordered a Canadian pastor to stop communicating to anyone, ever, about gays. Not to stop “hate speech” — whatever that malleable legal definition is. She just told him to shut up, period.
Its from Canada, but this is precisely what the left wants to bring to the United States - and if we don’t stop them, cold, it is whaat they will do. They don’t want the free play of ideas amongst thinking people, but unthinking acceptance of liberal orthodoxy in all matters. In the United States they are handicapped by the First Amendment and a staunch desire for liberty amongst the American people…but if, say, they ever get a solid, leftist majority on the Supreme Court, you just watch them push this sort of thing through via judicial fiat.
Each election matters; each battle matters and as we’re dealing with people who’s concept of freedom is sexual license coupled with slavery in all other matters, we daren’t compromise. Its fight for freedom, or become the mindless robots of liberalism.
