A Conservative Tells Why For America, John McCain Must Win

Let me say at the beginning that my primary concern is that John McCain and neither of the Democratic possibilities is elected the 44th president of The United States. There are many specific grounds for that concern, but there are a handful of matters that I consider not merely a question of satisfying my personal sentiments or beautifully representing conservative ideological principle, which I do think is important: I believe that clearly portraying the truth has its own power, beyond simply the power of rhetoric promulgating fear or anger. A few matters literally pose a matter of the survival of defining critical elements of American society, particularly given a relatively cooperative Congress. I will discuss these few issues, but first I want to try to establish my own conservative bona fides.

I acknowledge that there are some who will call my conservatism into question based on the mere fact that I was a supporter of Mike Huckabee. Some have embraced the argument, made mostly for personal and political reasons, that Huckabee had decided liberal tendencies. And some are reflexively repulsed by the mere fact that Huckabee expressed interest in Main Street as much as Wall Street citizens, and dared to speak with constituencies that have traditionally been dominated by Democrats, like minorities, labor unions, and educrats. But much as history may tell you otherwise, to speak with and express interest in people does not directly translate into endorsement of the policy interests that that group as a whole has traditionally supported. I am the son of a Christian pastor and the grandson of a Christian missionary. Some of you will be familiar with the idea that there is a distinction between engaging cultures with alien ideas and syncretizing your message to alien beliefs. Huckabee is not only philosophically a conservative, but he was more consistent about conservative and constitutional principle than any other candidate, save Ron Paul, with whom there were other questions. In addition, I think Huckabee was right that The Republican Party is in for a long vacation from power, if we will not even show the interest to speak with these populations. Unsurprisingly, what is a virtuous effort is also a practical advantage.

I was a delegate to Republican State Conventions in the 1990’s. But, I became exhausted with Republican compromise on conservative principle by 2000, and abandoned the Republican effort. As a matter of fact, one of the things that Republicans have dramatically failed at in the past 8 years is also one of those few critical reasons why McCain must win. Republicans completely lost their way on the expansion of federal spending and government. And as often as I disagree with his perceptions on specific issues, John McCain is especially strong on restraining non-essential government spending and growth. As just one of many examples, McCain opposed the Medicare expansion that Bush proposed and signed.

I have said before, that of the 14 candidates for the Republican nomination in 2000, McCain was my least favorite and George W. Bush was next. Honestly, I now think that ordering was a mistake. Bush was not as heterodox on as many things as McCain, but I think that’s because Bush was not as assertive about ANYTHING, and he was more politically compliant. McCain is not so. And, I disagree with him on most of the catalog of his conservative deviations: McCain-Feingold (blatantly unconstitutional), drilling in ANWR (2000 acre drilling footprint in a desolate area of a 19 million acre park), global warming (no scientific evidence or temperature history has countered the appearance that this has every earmark of being an unjustified mass-culture proliferated panic), etc…

But pretty plainly, had McCain been president, the steepest expansion of the federal government since the 60’s Johnson administration would have never happened. Unlike Bush’s, McCain’s veto pen would not have been holstered for six years. If he were not talked out of it, McCain might have forbidden the waterboarding that disclosed terrorist activities. But, that’s over anyway, since every terrorist knows that waterboarding is no real physical danger. And, McCain would not have been slack on the war on terror. No, I wish McCain were now finishing his second term, the federal government was a lot smaller, and Bush had found another job.

But as it is, the spending flood is in more urgent need of stifling with massive (frankly a feeble word) entitlement liabilities upon us. McCain is pro-life (his stem-cell confusion is now irrelevant. We don’t need embryonic stem cells) And, the balance of the federal judiciary is such that a Democratic president spells social disaster, and McCain is the right choice for a Republican win, this year.

Huckabee And McCain Video

Huckabee and McCain Video
Mike Huckabee: News & Videos about Mike Huckabee - CNN.com
Sen. John McCain, on the last leg of this week's tour of economically struggling regions, was campaigning alongside former rival Mike Huckabee on Friday.

How I Might Vote For Barack Obama Over John McCain

A family member forwarded this link to a video about the frightening prospect of a President Barack Obama. It is followed by my response.

“It takes about 13 minutes to view the video on this link. It was an eye-opener for me in some aspects.”
Barack Obama Video


You know, I know that millions of people vote on the basis of this kind of information. But, such matters don’t even get on the map for me. Barack Obama has never said or done a single socially constructive thing that I am aware of, beyond the most non-specific calls for "change," “unity,” “hope,” and such general abstractions.

He has persuaded populations of people to support him, as many anti-liberty tyrants in history have done. Honestly, it is difficult for me to look at a man who has earned a law degree and an accompanying fortune, and who can construct a speech that moves populations and is at least syntactically correct though substantially empty, without the strong suspicion that his ideals have nothing to do with American society but are primarily oriented toward personal wealth and power. I’m sorry, but it’s just extremely difficult for me to imagine that these people could be so utterly ignorant about human nature and the social dysfunction that will grow from implementing their totalitarian supposed ideals.

You know of course, that there is little danger of me casting a vote for Barack Obama. Though I can imagine a scenario under which I might consider it: At least two gunmen break into my home on election day, one of whom corrals my family at gunpoint and instructs me that I will go with the other man to my polling place and he will watch me cast my vote for Barack Obama. He tells me that if I do not return in an hour with the other man’s confirmation that I did indeed, cast my vote for Obama, that the brains of my family will be splattered on the walls of our home.

It is at such a point that I would seriously consider the benefits of voting for Barack Obama. And, I hope that this dispels any suspicions that I might be entirely closed to the idea.

We should consider, on the other hand, that though I have frequently disagreed with conclusions that John McCain has reached. He is exceptionally strong on a few points that are of particular importance at this time of American history: on spending (today we are not just spending foolishly, but on the brink of budgetary calamity, and that’s not just words) judicial restraint that respects liberty and The Constitution, and the defense of American welfare and moral standards. And whatever John McCain concludes, he concludes it sincerely with America’s interest in mind. That is a monumental difference that I hope intruders don’t impose upon. 

Pro-Life Democrat Opposes Barack Obama And His Extreme Abortion Record

http://www.lifenews.com/nat3903.html

Pro-Life Democrat Opposes Barack Obama And His Extreme Abortion Record

I get reports from Life News, which published this. In fact, I have had several exchanges with Steven Ertelt, who reports Hentoff’s article at his http://www.lifenews.com/nat3903.html . Barack Obama’s extreme “pro-choice” record includes opposing a partial-birth abortion ban and twice opposing the Infant Born Alive (after a botched abortion) Protection Act in Illinois, which called on forbidding setting aside a live baby to die.

Hentoff’s actual article can be read at http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/hentoff042408.php3

But, thanks to Stephen Maloney for alerting me to the article.

Listen To Dennis Prager: The Age of "Foolishness"

Anyone who has recurrently looked in on this Blog, knows that I often refer to questions and emphases raised by Dennis Prager on his radio program. I emailed for over a decade before beginning it approximately a year ago, and always referred to questions and comments raised on television and radio talk shows. The most marked differences in the case of Prager, are the relative profundity of the questions raised (much of the discussion on other programs is relative pablum, by which I mean simplistic – see note at bottom), and the extent to which I often agree with his conclusions.

There are occasional instances in which I deeply disagree, which often seem rooted in my comprehensive Christianity relative to his Judaism. But, I very much appreciate his focus on moral beyond dogmatic considerations and his oft-stated maxim: “I prefer clarity to agreement,” which more tersely states Ludwig Wittgenstein’s century old definition of the philosopher’s task as that of defining questions more than promoting answers.

Anyway on Tuesday, Prager’s program in his “Ultimate Issues” series was a more focused discussion of his common assertion that his (baby-boomer) generation was the initiation of “the age of stupidity.” He clarified that he didn’t intend to imply unintelligence but a lack of wisdom. As he is an Old Testament student and Hebrew teacher, Prager will be familiar with Proverbs’ juxtaposition of “wisdom” with “foolishness.” I’ve heard him discuss this countless times and tend to agree with the observation and that it arose from the generally unprecedented ease and pampering of that generation’s youth. But, “the age of foolishness” works for me. There are plenty of brilliant people stewed in common errors of this time. I’m slightly younger, but I remember watching it from my youth.

I could discuss some of the details touched upon, but mainly there were just what I see as some low-level misconceptions about human nature that it was easy for a young generation to get swept up in, in an impertinent swirl of mass-culture consensus. But, it’s easier if you can listen to that hour (Hour 3 - The Age of Stupidity) of the program. http://www.townhall.com/TalkRadio/Show.aspx?RadioShowID=3&ContentGuid=e9c6008e-6187-4257-950c-24b5e9fd323a

“Pablum” is an interesting word. That’s what leapt to mind as what I wanted to say. But the word-processor identified it as a misspelling. Another online dictionary recognized it and confirmed the definition as trite or simple, but many did not. It is a shortening of the word “pabulum,” which is an infant’s porridge or cereal. The word is used for discussion that requires little in the way of chewing or thought. A more widely used word is simply “pap.”

Dr. David Berlinski and Dennis Prager Interview

This is Tuesday's easy to listen to interview by Dennis Prager of Dr. David Berlinski, whom Ben Stein spoke with in the movie, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.”

Tuesday April 22, 2008
H3: Ultimate Issues Hour: Atheism and Science With Dennis Prager
Prager H3: Dennis talks to David Berlinski, senior fellow at the Discovery Institute in Seattle and a former fellow at the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques in Paris, France. His new book is The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions.
Length: 00:34:14


Dr. David Berlinski is the scholar that Ben Stein visited in Paris in the movie.
Something about him intrigued me. I checked him out and I found out why.

In the late 1950's, a stronghold of positivist empiricism in academic philosophy that had held sway for 50 years was debunked by Harvard philosopher Willard Van Orman Quine. Quine was a mathematician-logician who was not pressing a transcendent reality. He agreed with the status quo academic standard that the empirical data was all that there was to begin our investigation with (I don't agree with that, BTW-I'm a Christian).

However, applying cold logic, he demonstrated that empirical data alone cannot establish and justify a belief system: we must apply certain aesthetic standards and objectives. Dr. David Berlinski is a secular agnostic Jew. But, he is a mathematician and logician. He watched the publication and celebration of authors like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens and felt compelled to speak out against the outrageous presumption that science has debunked important non-scientific “disproved” religious claims. We make and live by many assumed truths that science cannot prove or disprove, including most of the important matters of our life. As with the empiricist philosophers, these have noisily overstated the implications and the capacity of science. These contemporary “science” advocates (their metaphysical claims and curses have nothing to do with real science) are a tardy and relatively vulgar manifestation of an error long ago put to rest. I just love it when a neutral party demonstrates the audacious presumption of a false dogma.

In addition to this a much less turgid interview with radio talk-show host Dennis Prager, I will post links to his discussion on C-SPAN's Book TV, and and a reference to Berlinski's new book, "The Devil's Delusion,".

At C-SPAN’s Book TV page:

Author: David Berlinski – The Devil’s Delusion

About the Program
David Berlinski, teacher and author of books on mathematics, challenges the fields of science and atheist thought by arguing that science has not been able to prove the inexistence of a God nor explain the start of the universe. This event was hosted by the Discovery Institute in Washington, D.C.
About the Author
David Berlinski is the author of several books, including "A Tour of Calculus," and "Newton's Gift." A former fellow at the Institute for Applied System Analysis, Mr. Berlinksi is currently a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute.

Go to this page and click on "Watch."

The Devil's Delusion

Militant atheism is on the rise. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens have dominated bestseller lists with books denigrating religious belief as dangerous foolishness. And these authors are merely the leading edge of a far larger movement--one that now includes much of the scientific community. "The attack on traditional religious thought," writes David Berlinski in The Devil's Delusion, "marks the consolidation in our time of science as the single system of belief in which rational men and women might place their faith, and if not their faith, then certainly their devotion." A secular Jew, Berlinski nonetheless delivers a biting defense of religious thought. An acclaimed author who has spent his career writing about mathematics and the sciences, he turns the scientific community's cherished skepticism back on itself, daring to ask and answer some rather embarrassing questions: Has anyone provided a proof of God's nonexistence? Not even close. Has quantum cosmology explained the emergence of the universe or why it is here? Not even close. Have the sciences explained why our universe seems to be fine-tuned to allow for the existence of life? Not even close. Are physicists and biologists willing to believe in anything so long as it is not religious thought? Close enough. Has rationalism in moral thought provided us with an understanding of what is good, what is right, and what is moral? Not close enough. Has secularism in the terrible twentieth century been a force for good? Not even close to being close. Is there a narrow and oppressive orthodoxy of thought and opinion within the sciences? Close enough. Does anything in the sciences or in their philosophy justify the claim that religious belief is irrational? Not even ballpark. Is scientific atheism a frivolous exercise in intellectual contempt? Dead on. Berlinski does not dismiss the achievements of western science. The great physical theories, he observes, are among the treasures of the human race. But they do nothing to answer the questions that religion asks, and they fail to offer a coherent description of the cosmos or the methods by which it might be investigated. This brilliant, incisive, and funny book explores the limits of science and the pretensions of those who insist it can be--indeed must be--the ultimate touchstone for understanding our world and ourselves.

If Nothing Else," Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" Should Tell You Something, Just In Case You Haven't Noticed

I got out Friday night, to see “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” I had made arrangements to possibly see it with a few more people, in the next few days, and I happily will, and have opportunity to discuss it. But, after seeing the film and reading reviews online, one thing stands out particularly starkly to me.

I watched comment on the film leading up to its release and the reviews of those who saw it early. There is enough positive comment to read on the web. Here are a few at a good ones at: PipeLine News.org, http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=expelled4.19.08.htm , and The American Thinker, http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/04/post_83.html . But, everything in what are considered major, usually traditional news outlets, totally and pretty abruptly trashed the movie, calling it ignorant, or dishonest propaganda.

Consider two things about that:

1) Without going to a specifically theistic source, before the popularity of the Internet, you could have read NOTHING positive about the film. That’s the world that I was raised in, born in the late 50’s and a young man in the 70’s.
2) And 2 (and this is what stood out so starkly) Stein’s movie discusses how a academic and science organizations are closed to the mere suggestion that an intelligent author might be responsible for the design of systems more complex and capable than anything human beings have ever created. And, they are hostile to the point that those who even dare to draw their fundamentalist naturalist dogma into question suffer sanction socially and/or professionally. Many whom Stein interviewed would not even appear on camera, for fear of reprisal. But these established news sources are so similarly insulated that they can scarcely deliver up a report that does not endorse and defend this and other aspects of the pop-culture status quo.

These people would like the public to think that they are the real, objective source of news. But, the population of these establishment news sources is a) a fraction of one percent of the American population. And b) regardless, is philosophically restricted.

Do I think that this is an intentional distortion of the news? No, I don’t. In fact, I’m certain it is not. To make such a charge would be like their charges that Ben Stein is involved in dishonest propaganda. They are entirely genuine. They just don’t know any better. These days, the information of the fossil record and the complex systems is so extensive that it could hardly be more obvious that the differences are not over the data, but over predispositions in interpreting the data. The systems look to be of design if you do not foreclose the idea from the very beginning. And, if you do, the complexity of the system only display the wonders that evolution can perform, regardless of the lack of fossil evidence and the lack of explanation of how such a process began and continued to reproduce through stages of development. Other options are off the table.

This is how the establishment scientists arrive at their conclusion: they have nowhere else to go. Lack of evidence is just that; the evidence is incomplete and we will supposedly know eventually. But, that’s the point of Stein’s movie: that other options may not even be entertained. Stein is not asking, as some caricature the whole notion of intelligent design that a Biblical or any other account of creation be taught in public schools. The only argument is that scientists shouldn’t be shut off from discussing what they see as the evidence of design in the system. Anyway, they aren’t trying to deceive us. THEY REALLY BELIEVE that someone like me is impenetrably stupid.

They say that God cannot be studied by science. Obviously, the author of nature cannot be tested by nature. It’s a bogus argument, anyway. Not only can God not be empirically tested, but any theoretical empirical evidence would be of something less than what ordinary language means by the term, God. But, the critical journalists are annoying. The Pipeline News article cites a good example at Time Magazine http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1729703,00.html : a writer who has no idea what he’s talking about is presuming to pronounce both scientific and moral judgment on Stein and the film, when he seems to have little more than a freshman pop-biology foundation of authority to stand on. This is really simple stuff: plainly, these persecuted scientists are vastly more scientifically aware. No matter: they parrot the establishment, however feebly.

Stein speaks with scientists who contend that there should be openness in interpretation of the data, but have either seen or experienced suppression of the mere mention of heresy from the establishment Darwinist confession, not about change due to natural selection (which is an uncontroversial fact), but about any consideration of the evidence that complexities in nature suggest intelligent design and/or that Darwinism offers no explanation for the origin of life. The notorious evolutionist and ant-religionist Dr. Richard Dawkins *author of the God delusion finally admits a possibility that life on earth might be the product of an intelligent designer. But, such a designer would have to have been a highly evolved species of an alien civilization who planted life on our planet. In other words, intelligent design may be considered as a possibility…just not by God.

The supposition of God or an alien author are alike metaphysical (extra-empirical) ideas. But one needn’t feel obligated by supposing the existence of space aliens. God on the other hand, might have the temerity to hold standards for His creation…a most beastly idea. One scholar in the movie makes the clear statement that the dispute is not scientific, but a metaphysical one. And, it is plain to me that once that insolent anti-God metaphysical posture is established in a systematic mind metaphysical, they almost inevitably become supercilious and scornful of infidels: just the sort of religious adjudication that they ostensibly oppose. And all of the hyper-Darwinist scholars in Stein’s movie evidence this tendency.

The movie was good. Stein is just trying to leverage the question to consciousness via the pop-culture medium of film. At bottom, the issue is not at all scientific evidence. The issue is freedom of speech. And, speech is being restrained not by scientific evidence, but by the typical human anxieties of power, money, and fear. And, as with any entrenched interest, when they can’t respond to questions with answers, they respond with moral judgments and/or intellectual ridicule: “You’re evil! You’re stupid!” It’s a contemporary Inquisition. And these of the pop-science establishment are the dogma-pounding fundamentalists. I’ve seening the film twice

Ben Stein is visibly amused by the selective disdain of different metaphysical postures, and troubled by some of the historical logical ramifications of Darwinism. America will decide what path it follows. If we move wrongly as a society, it will get dark...here, as it has in Europe. But, Christians needn't despair. In what were thought more darkened parts of the world, when I was young' in Asia and Africa and South America, Christianity is burgeoning. Even if Europe and America progress toward cultural self-immolation, these parts of the world will thrive. The New Testament foresees that "the last will be first." And, a culture that stews in self-worship, will achieve what it has earned.

On Huckabee And Conservatives, Dennis Prager And The Fair Tax, And John McCain's Economy Comments

I still have not been posting regularly, though I have been cruising other Blogs. There is much on my mind that I want to get into. But alas, current considerations come to the front.

First of all, I’ll just mention John McCain’s discussion of the economy, yesterday. I still hold out hope that he might be drawn to the cause of The Fair Tax, the economic promise of which I now consider critical. But John McCain expressed once again, his fervor for constraining spending, which must attend any changes or qualifications in our tax system. McCain’s repeated vow to veto earmarks (“I’ll veto them and make the authors famous…”) Is a first step, but essential and paradigmatic of his resolve that must be applied relative to considerations of government and taxes and spending.

As for taxes, McCain proposed a simpler filing method as option for individuals to the detailed filing of exemptions and deductions. Frankly, as often as I disagree with McCain, his resolve on a few things like this and winning against Islamic fundamentalism almost makes me cry.

Also, I had a Blog exchange about Huckabee, who announced HuckPAC today, and opinion among conservative Bloggers. And, Dennis Prager had segments on his radio program with Georgia Rep. John Linder about The Fair Tax and actor/writer Ben Stein about his movie which opens Friday: “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.” I will see the movie and expect that I will comment. But, today I will write about Prager’s embrace and discussion of The Fair Tax. I will send him a letter about some questions that he asked and why The Fair Tax is more important than just being a good idea, which I will post after the Blog exchange.

As part of today’s post, Adam Graham at Huckabee Alliance wrote:

…John Hawkins of Right Wing News did a poll of the right side of the blogosphere. You’ll recall a recent poll showed Huckabee an 18-15% favorite for the VP Spot in a national poll over Mitt Romney. Hawkins right-of center sample of bloggers chose Mitt Romney. This isn’t a huge deal because it’s within the margin of error nationally. However, Huckabee didn’t even show up with the minimum amount of votes to qualify for standing (5 points) and topped the list of least desired Vice-Presidential candidates. Here are the results in Reverse order from #15-#1:

15) Tom Ridge: Former Governor, Pennsylvania (5.0)
14) Tommy Franks: Former General (5.0)
13) Tim Pawlenty: Governor, Minnesota (5.5)
12) Rudy Giuliani: Former Mayor, New York (7.0)
11) Newt Gingrich: Former Congressman, Georgia (7.5)
10) Elizabeth Dole: Senator, North Carolina (7.5)
9) Mel Martinez: Senator, Florida (10.0) Condi Rice: Secretary of State (16.5)
7) Christie Todd Whitman: Former Governor, New Jersey (19.5)
6) Joe Lieberman: Senator, Connecticut (19.5)
5) Charlie Crist: Governor, Florida (20.0)
4) Colin Powell: Former Secretary of State (23.0)
3) Jeb Bush: Former Governor, Florida (23.5)
2) Lindsey Graham: Senator, South Carolina (26.5)
1) Mike Huckabee: Former Governor, Arkansas (42)
First of all, I don’t know what Tommy Franks did get on somebody’s naughty list. However, among elite conservative bloggers, a McCain-Huckabee ticket would be worse than a ticket with a pro-choicer on it (McCain-Ridge/McCain-Giuliani/McCain-Rice/McCain-Whitman, McCain-Powell), a Democrat (also pro-choice) (McCain-Lieberman), an illegible candidate (McCain-Martinez), and McCain’s co-leader in pushing for amnesty while attacking all amnesty opponents as bigots (McCain-Graham.) It’s shocking, really. Let’s no longer call this group, the rightosphere, let us call them instead the out-of-touchosphere. If there’s a been a reason for good cultural conservative to start and build strong blogs, this is exhibit A.
Larry

This year was very informative for me as a lifelong philosophical conservative, with all the "conservative" criticism of Huckabee. I zeroed in on three elements that inspired that animosity against Huckabee. Firstly, the establishment political commenters, writers and organizers were just culturally uncomfortable with Huckabee's unblushing profession of evangelical faith. A lot of the standard criticisms were cited, but I think at bottom this was just a little gauche in the circles they travel in. Note that many of them embraced the Mormon Romney, whose dogma was even more different. But, he was more duly modest about it, never saying pop-culturally uncouth (never mind that it is very appropriate) things like "My faith not only informs me, it defines me." For example, it animates his respect for life, the poor, justice, freedom, creation...all quite legitimate, as long as God has nothing to do with it.

Secondly, high-dollar economic conservatives didn't like The Fair Tax, which would tax the extravagances usually written off as "business expenses. For example, think of the tax on a corporate jet. When I was a salesman, we and our guests ate very well: it was all "written off."

But, in the case of most of these Bloggers, I think it was just a visceral reaction, confirmed by other critics, against Huckabee's gracious consideration of typically un-Republican issues and populations: what became referred to (largely erroneously) as Huckabee's "populism." He talked about "Main Street." and environmental stewardship, got union endorsements, affirmed the concerns of minorities, etc. In the minds of these people, all of this squared with charges, sincere and political, of "liberalism," which of course made many conservatives' skin crawl.


Dennis Prager:

I’m glad to see you firming up on support for The Fair Tax. I want address three things with regard to your discussion today. First and briefly, as you have before, you questioned why it is named “The Fair Tax.” The answer explains both why it is fair and why many wealthy individuals and traders tend to oppose it. Warren Buffett recently challenged corporate officers that he would give a million dollars if they could prove that they paid taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries. Last I heard, there were no takers. Right now, the very wealthy have teams of experts to “write off” every luxury as a “business expense. Heck, salesman of corporations and clients and prospective clients always eat and drink very well. Why not? It’s all “written off.” Now, think of a 23% sales tax on items like jets and yachts and such: EVERYTHING that was heretofore a “write off,” would be taxed at 23% under The Fair Tax. Corporate officers would rather pay their teams of tax preparers and keep their “write offs” than have tax free businesses and capital gains and have to pay 23% on every extravagance. As I say, “people accustomed to privilege aren’t real excited about fairness.”

Secondly and most importantly, The Fair Tax is no longer just a good idea. The economic activity that its implementation would provoke is the only way I can see that America may meet the tsunami of entitlement liability that it has taken on that is now upon us, and hopefully without calamitous tax increases, benefit cuts, and monetary inflation, which is taxation by another name. Strangely, there is not enough focus on this. But hyper-inflation and probably both huge tax increases and benefit cuts are inevitable if something dramatic is not done: watch the value of your reserves and investments evaporate.

Thirdly, you asked about what would be problems with The Fair Tax. In short, there will be problems, but they are relatively negligible compared to the current system. My biggest concern has been that, especially in the Internet age, there will be great appeal to saving taxes on expensive items by trying to ship items into the US from tax-free offshore sources. Linder says things will be taxed when brought into the country, and they should be to keep American enterprise on an equal footing. But monitoring smuggling across our borders, and appraising and assessing all items shipped in, which will have to included elaborate scanning and invasion of packages, will be no small endeavor. But the crime of tax-evading smuggling raises the question of other even internal tax-evasion. For one thing, barter will expand dramatically. But goods will also be sold on the street in an expanded “black-market. Think for example, of tax-free jewelry and electronics: a 23% saving will be a huge inducement to this kind of dealing.

Yes, all of these will be HUGE considerations. But, at least, this tax-evasion will be stark and indisputable crime. Under the current system, the “crime” is usually very gray and technical, and conviction involves elaborate and expensive prosecution. Deductions and exemptions are claimed and accepted or denied, and adjudicated in long trials. In truth, we may (and I hope we) find that much more of our commerce and especially our government function should be reigned in to state and local jurisdictions. Wouldn’t you rather see local police and courts restraining and prosecuting the crooks on the street?

Support The Fair Tax And Sign This Fair Tax Petition...PLEASE!

Support The Fair Tax And Sign This Fair Tax Petition...PLEASE!

http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=changedc
I want to start writing some personal thoughts about my own situation and things I have strong convictions about. But, one thing I have talked and will talk about is The Fair Tax. Mike Huckabee made that a significant issue in his campaign. Many Huckabee supporters got involved in the Republican political process, for the first time. And, in my precinct, that of everyone else I talked to, and my subsequent Senatorial District Convention, there were Fair Tax Resolutions, and I’m sure the issue will appear at the state convention. Mike Huckabee was correct that it presents a huge simplification, balance across income of the federal tax system, and also taxes heretofore “underground” elements of the American economy like drug dealers, prostitutes, illegal aliens, and miscellaneous criminals who do not file, but do and must buy things. And, he also correctly and consistently stated that The Fair Tax would bring a great surge of investment and economic activity to The United States.
However, he should have more starkly linked that surge of economic activity to the fast-closing crisis of America’s inability to meet the mountain of entitlement liability that the federal government has taken on. Only such a dramatic change as The Fair Tax poses any possibility of meeting these liabilities without a titanic and, frankly crippling combination of tax increases, benefit cuts, and monetary inflation. Unless we move with great dispatch to promote economic expansion and the consequent revenue increase, probably all of these band-aids will be applied, and soon. And yes, they will be crippling, bringing great economic and physical suffering, as shortsighted liberal solutions almost inherently do. I’m sending/posting this because today I received an email from The Fair Tax organization, encouraging me to send the message below to encourage others to sign a Fair Tax petition to be presented to Congress, as I have:
If you haven’t any questions about how The Fair Tax would work or about possible problems, email me and I’ll tell you the potential problems I see. But simply put, those problems are infinitely smaller than the ones we now face.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello,


With April 15th drawing near the folks at Americans for Fair Taxation (FairTax.org) are gathering 100,000 names for a "Pass the FairTax" petition to send a powerful message to Congress this Tax Day.

I just signed the petition at www.changedc.org and would encourage you to do the same.

The FairTax petition makes a powerful statement to Congress: It says there is a better way than the current income tax system with its 67,500 pages of cumbersome tax rules and regulations for which individuals and businesses spend $265 billion annually on filing and compliance. It's called the FairTax and it promises to unleash the American economy especially during these difficult times, and unshackle us, the American taxpayers, from yearly nightmare that is April 15th.

If you're not already familiar with the FairTax, here are the basics:
The FairTax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including:
• A progressive national retail sales tax.
• A prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level.
• Dollar-for-dollar federal revenue neutrality.
• Repeal of the 16th Amendment through companion legislation.
Just imagine...bringing home your entire paycheck AND never having to file a tax return again! It's not a dream. It's called the FairTax, and you can help make it a reality.

If this sounds interesting, you can learn more at www.fairtax.org, and sign the "Pass the FairTax" petition there as well

Support The Fait Tax And Sign This Fair Tax Petition...PLEASE!

Support The Fait Tax And Sign This Fair Tax Petition...PLEASE!
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer?pagename=changedc
I want to start writing some personal thoughts about my own situation and things I have strong convictions about. But, one thing I have talked and will talk about is The Fair Tax. Mike Huckabee made that a significant issue in his campaign. Many Huckabee supporters got involved in the Republican political process, for the first time. And, in my precinct, that of everyone else I talked to, and my subsequent Senatorial District Convention, there were Fair Tax Resolutions, and I’m sure the issue will appear at the state convention. Mike Huckabee was correct that it presents a huge simplification, balance across income of the federal tax system, and also taxes heretofore “underground” elements of the American economy like drug dealers, prostitutes, illegal aliens, and miscellaneous criminals who do not file, but do and must buy things. And, he also correctly and consistently stated that The Fair Tax would bring a great surge of investment and economic activity to The United States.
However, he should have more starkly linked that surge of economic activity to the fast-closing crisis of America’s inability to meet the mountain of entitlement liability that the federal government has taken on. Only such a dramatic change as The Fair Tax poses any possibility of meeting these liabilities without a titanic and, frankly crippling combination of tax increases, benefit cuts, and monetary inflation. Unless we move with great dispatch to promote economic expansion and the consequent revenue increase, probably all of these band-aids will be applied, and soon. And yes, they will be crippling, bringing great economic and physical suffering, as shortsighted liberal solutions almost inherently do. I’m sending/posting this because today I received an email from The Fair Tax organization, encouraging me to send the message below to encourage others to sign a Fair Tax petition to be presented to Congress, as I have:
If you haven’t any questions about how The Fair Tax would work or about possible problems, email me and I’ll tell you the potential problems I see. But simply put, those problems are infinitely smaller than the ones we now face.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello,


With April 15th drawing near the folks at Americans for Fair Taxation (FairTax.org) are gathering 100,000 names for a "Pass the FairTax" petition to send a powerful message to Congress this Tax Day.

I just signed the petition at www.changedc.org and would encourage you to do the same.

The FairTax petition makes a powerful statement to Congress: It says there is a better way than the current income tax system with its 67,500 pages of cumbersome tax rules and regulations for which individuals and businesses spend $265 billion annually on filing and compliance. It's called the FairTax and it promises to unleash the American economy especially during these difficult times, and unshackle us, the American taxpayers, from yearly nightmare that is April 15th.

If you're not already familiar with the FairTax, here are the basics:
The FairTax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including:
• A progressive national retail sales tax.
• A prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level.
• Dollar-for-dollar federal revenue neutrality.
• Repeal of the 16th Amendment through companion legislation.
Just imagine...bringing home your entire paycheck AND never having to file a tax return again! It's not a dream. It's called the FairTax, and you can help make it a reality.

If this sounds interesting, you can learn more at www.fairtax.org, and sign the "Pass the FairTax" petition there as well

Changes And Supporting McCain

I unsurprisingly got a comment about my writing and expressing surprise at my support for McCain. As I’ve said before, over the last several years, my ideology hasn’t changed much. But, my disposition has shifted and the conditions we face have changed dramatically. Here is my response:

Cindy:

I'm sure it was on Kerry's One Mom Blog that I saw a comment of yours. I still look in on a handful of Blogs that I watched for months. I've hardly watched my own, in March. Is this mental decompression? There are still things going on in my head. I think I'll turn to a more personal focus on my perspective on life as a person with MS who spends a lot of time analyzing socio-philosophical questions. I don't have the popular platform of a public office or a media program. I don't even have an academic title to flaunt as credentials. I went to graduate school and finished my coursework in the early 80's, but I started working before I finished my essay. In case anyone asks, you can make money as a salesman that you can't make as a student or even as a teacher unless you get a Ph.D. and a good university position. I was at Western Kentucky, not Harvard or Stanford. (Speaking of marketing credentials) :-)

But plainly, I do have a unique position as a philosophically oriented person with multiple sclerosis. It has been interesting watching what has happened in my body and my subjective experience, as well as looking at society from a perspective not largely occupied with labor or an office. There are a lot of people with MS who don't get enough input about the physical and social effects that one might face, and most people have a friend or family member with MS. That's a fairly large potential audience, and their attention might (hardly incidentally) be directed to some social questions.

Speaking of that, I believe I mentioned that I was a MAJOR McCain critic. In the 2000 election cycle, of 14 original Republican candidates, McCain was my LEAST favorite. I called him "philosophically incoherent."

But as I said, I've come to recognize his unique virtues and our unique situation. Especially given that those unique virtues include a gracious and well-meaning disposition, when it comes to those philosophical questions, we should befriend and encourage him, not scorn and repel him. If he disappoints conservatives, that should be all his doing, not ours.

But, the other virtues include a thoroughgoing patriotism relative to foreign policy. And also critically important TODAY is his record and resolve against extravagant government spending. This is no longer a future concern: the entitlements tidal wave hits over the next ten years. For instance, S.S. disability is getting difficult to be approved, because bureaucrats see that there is no money. The plain truth is that there are very few politicians with the resolve McCain will have about controlling spending. That's why Tom Coburn supports McCain. In the statewide constituency pork barrel-prone Senate, Coburn is the closest thing you will see to a "Dr. No."

Just yesterday for instance, McCain said that it isn't the federal government's job to bail out businesses that made bad loans. He's right. This is just the umpteenth manifestation of the endemic pathology of the federal government that subsidizes failure and penalizes success. Of course, this invites more failure and less success. We need to support McCain for these literal VITAL reasons, and encourage and counsel him where we disagree. I think I'll post THIS.

Why Conservatives MUST Support John McCain

I have been resting from my Blog since Mike Huckabee withdrew from the campaign for the Republican nomination on March 4th, after John McCain secured enough delegates to clinch the nomination. I must soon be about changing many of the objects on the Blog, including revising its primary objectives. There are always current events I want to discuss and in fact, some specific writing that I want to focus on.

But for right now, it is a priority that I establish my resolve to support John McCain for the fall election and state why I believe this objective is critical. My feelings are independent of but unsurprisingly consistent with Mike Huckabee's expressed intention to direct his infinitely greater influence to the same end. With respect to me, some may find my disposition odd, given my history of dissent and criticism of conservative drift in The Republican Party. Perhaps I am a little different, but I certainly think the immediate situation is a LOT different and I will explain why I think so.

It is important first, to briefly explain my own background. I am a lifelong conservative who began reading conservative thinkers and ideals as a teenager in the 1970’s. After developing multiple sclerosis in the 1990’s, I became an activist participant in Republican politics and the convention process. I went to the 1998 Republican Party of Texas convention armed with flyers about my problems with John McCain. Even today, on most of the standard conservative catalog of McCain infidelities, I may generally agree. And in fact, I declined to support or even vote for George W. Bush, whom at the time I saw as only marginally better than McCain. I didn't and don't dislike Bush. I just thought he was not constrained by sound conservative principle.

The profligate spending and federal government usurpation of the past six years have born that concern out. But looking back, perhaps Bush was more politically constrained. What has become clear is that on the things that he strongly believes, John McCain has been an uncommonly resolute United States Senator, including on urgent issues on which we agree. And, he has run his campaign this year in an uncommonly civil and gracious fashion. Let me explain why a few of those points of resolve and agreement rise categorically above any list of disagreements:

First, all of us other than some Ron Paul enthusiasts understand that on the primary duty of the federal government and the president, defending the American people and their interest, John McCain is not only with us but most assertively so and most prepared for the responsibility. America’s physical defense is of course, constitutionally established as a priority for the federal government generally and the chief executive specifically, who is the commander-in-chief of America’s armed forces. And in a world that technology has brought close and in which America is the technological and military supreme power, defending American principles of humanity is a duty the neglect of which is a human dereliction. As we know, today, these concerns are not incidental but pressing priorities.

Secondly, there is another great crisis upon us that some have warned of but many Americans seem to have slept through the approach of. For decades now, we have had warnings of the long-term insolvency in government’s accrued liabilities versus reasonably expected revenues. But, when plans to devise a correction have been raised, political rhetoric has killed the effort. In fact we have only continued to widen the shortfall. Well guess what? We are only barely talking about a future problem, now.

For the next decade the entitlement liabilities will devour the disbursements of the federal budget. Discretionary expenditures will be cut. And the gap won’t be near filled. The yawning debt will be expanded. New taxes, benefit cuts, and accelerated currency printing (i.e., rapid inflation/devaluation of money) will be the only options to try to meet the liability. Unless a dramatic change is made to boost productivity and revenue (a massive tax reform – like The Fair Tax plan) is implemented, all three of these supposedly more modest solutions would probably be tried. But, the net effect would be to make matters worse. John McCain has the resolve to resist these efforts.

Whatever course is taken to infuse the system, America will have to stop the bleeding; that is, the spending. Say what we might about John McCain, there has not been a more resolute actor in Washington against budgetary extravagance. Under the Bush administration, a Republican majority expanded government at a rate not seen for forty years, since Lyndon Johnson and a Democratic Congress. Most dramatically, these Republicans greatly increased the Medicare entitlement that along with Social Security was already long-term insolvent. John McCain was among the few who opposed this action. There probably is not a more stark demonstration of why fiscal conservatives like Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn and former Senator and economist Phil Gramm are enthusiastically supporting McCain.

Thirdly, we are looking at long-term social imprudence prevailed upon the country if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton appoint the next generation of federal jurists, including 2-4 Supreme Court justices. The folly will be broad and deep, but for example, the social calumny of “legal” abortion will be guaranteed until at least the middle of this century. I always emphasize that, as hard as it is to believe, the most tragic victims of this would not be the innocent lives lost over what will have been 60-80 years. God has always dealt with and will continue to handle the deaths of innocents. They are a class that will bypass this vale of tears and be delivered directly to perfect justice.

However, as usual, the true sufferers and victims will be our children that have to live in a society that has assimilated this most fundamental and grave selfish incivility. Why will neighbors and commercial relationships be afforded a respect that is not held up even for our own offspring? Relatively speaking, dog-eat-dog sounds like an innocuous social standard.

For all of last year, until he withdrew on March 4th, I was a Mike Huckabee supporter. I studied Mike Huckabee’s record and campaign for over a year, and found the supposedly “conservative” criticisms of him to be misrepresentation. But, most remarkable about his candidacy was his distinctive positive and engaging approach, which often disarmed and engaged even liberals who disagreed with his policy conclusions, but trusted Huckabee’s honesty and sincerity, which was particularly ironic in that those were precisely the thoughtful qualities that many conservatives were suspicious of. In defending him, I often found myself oddly cast as a “liberal,” just like he was.

But, John McCain conducted a campaign that was likewise civil and genuine. For the sake of the nation and an American model for an elevated disposition, it is critical that conservatives rally around John McCain and engage him by putting their concerns before this genuine and resolute American patriot. Let’s help him with everything we have and ask him to help with our sincere and noble concerns for America.

The Pros And Cons Of John McCain

I’m anxious to hang it up for today, but I wanted to say at least a little about John McCain. Understand: Tuesday is the Texas primary, I already voted early for Mike Huckabee, and will promote Huckabee and his ideas in the Texas convention process. Today, I was cited polls supposedly showing a poll margin of twenty or more percentage points for John McCain over Mike Huckabee. But, that will not happen. One direction or another, I think the difference will be single digits. I have a number of reasons to say that, but time will soon tell. As an example, Texas Governor Rick Perry has endorsed John McCain. And depending on turnout, that should prove a net (additional) negative for John McCain. A large turnout of relatively casual observers may favor McCain. But, the greater percentage of the vote that is more activist Republicans, the better it will bode for Mike Huckabee. Though it is March in Texas, I wish it would snow.

I have been critical of John McCain for over a decade. In 2000 when asked whether I liked McCain I said, “I loved my grandfather, but I wouldn’t recommend him for president.” It has become only plainer to me that, especially as he has aged, John McCain is a sober and well-intentioned human being with a substantially undefined philosophical compass. It is ironic that his philosophically brutish and constitutionally audacious lunge at tamping the influence of money in Washington, the infamous McCain-Feingold, is now nipping at his posterior as a presidential candidate. And that is hardly the beginning of his infidelities to The Constitution and misunderstanding of some basic inclinations of human nature.

But all of that said, should Republicans fail to deliver the miracle of fidelity of principle that give the nomination to Mike Huckabee and McCain is the nominee, barring an outrageous act that surely he would be warned away from , I would support McCain as I never did George W. Bush’s presidential bids. And by the way, in case you haven’t read it before in the past several years, I’m not mad at George Bush. I just think he is ill-equipped to lead or steer America out of the aimless ideological drift in which the Reagan administration was a hiccup.

When Bush was elected in 2000, I said, “Leviathan gets a night manager,” and history has shown that to be an accurate assessment. I have also said that with a Republican Congress, Al Gore could not have succeeded in expanding the federal government and its expenditures as Bush has, and I sincerely believe that. But though hardly perfectly, Bush has succeeded in giving us marginally better federal judges and has been resolute about the primary federal government responsibility of defending America and basic humanity. And in the face of strong pop-cultural headwinds, I must say.

I think that John McCain will be equally or more resolute and apt, in that regard, and will do an starkly superior job of restraining federal spending that in fact now threatens economic calamity. I also think that as an older man, he will be more sober about reckless judicial possibilities and the social pathologies that have settled into American culture.

Of course, it will make a great difference to me if McCain should choose a more philosophically meticulous running-mate to provide counsel to his administration. Though he is advised against it on left and right, I would be greatly more animated about a McCain ticket if Mike Huckabee were on it. And I believe it is true that this way or another, McCain would need to animate the social conservatives who inject the legwork and elbow grease that drives Republican campaigns and pulled the Republican Party out of the congressional shadows almost 30 years ago. Huckabee is the obvious choice in that regard. He understands the drift of American principle. And, it would be revolutionary and unprecedented productive if Huckabee could sell McCain on the virtues and prospects of The Fair Tax. That’s my two cents worth.

But today, I still hope and pray for a Huckabee victory in Texas on Tuesday, and that “miracle” of a brokered convention. It seems to me, that McCain and Huckabee could distinguish two factions of the Republican Party and in the spirit that they have exercised all along, unite them and the country to successes that neither the party or the country have seen in a long time.

Huckabee Discusses Evolution And Gay Marriage With Tyra Banks

http://www.gabbybabble.com/2008/03/mike-huckabee-talks-about-homosexuality.html

http://www.duckydoestv.com/2008/03/01/watch-tyra-banks-interview-mike-huckabee-video/


Perhaps you should prepare to shake your head and wonder more at the persistence of skepticism about evolution. But, I find it highly questionable. And, it isn't as though I'm a semi-illiterate who has not read the relevant material. I am confident that I am more familiar with the material and the thinking on both sides of the question than over 99% of the American public.

If I found the evidence for macro-evolution across species from a common ancestry) at all compelling, I would tweak my habits of interpreting data and go on. I understand the psychological force of the consensus of confession in the popular American culture and the consequential majority of textbooks, but I don't find the evidence compelling at all.

The evolutionist confession is not one driven by the data, as often suggested. It is not a scientific (empirical) conclusion. It is a philosophic predisposition largely driven by the force of consensus.

Given the pervasiveness of that disposition in the culture, I believe it is essential that the theory be taught in schools. An American who doesn’t understand that is uneducated and culturally illiterate in a very critical way. But, they should teach the details of the metaphysical belief in macroevolution, while maintaining the bare modesty that recognizes that it IS, in fact, a metaphysical confession and not a "scientific" conclusion (a "fact")

I also voted for Huckabee. He is simply the most able and thoughtful candidate to have appeared in the contest. And, I mean "thoughtful" in both senses of the term: in terms of ideas and in terms of consideration and engagement of the broad spectrum of Americans.

I disagree with amending The Constitution of the United States on marriage, though. Not because I think the institution by the state of "gay marriage" is a good idea: I don't. I think rather, because I think the federal government ought to have nothing to do with it. If we concede that the federal government has the jurisdiction to define marriage one way today, we concede that it has the jurisdiction to define marriage another way, tomorrow. Governments don't determine what marriage is. But, let anyone, with some modesty about how often and how much it may change, determine to whom they may assign the benefits of personal relationship, relative to benefits, contracts, etc.

I'll get to John McCain, next.

William F. Buckley, RIP

I had also wanted to comment on John McCain, specifically in the context of his dissociation from the remarks of talk-show host Bill Cunningham. But, I will save that for the next post. The subject of this one is how National Review, the journal Buckley founded, for years listed the recent deaths of cultural luminaries, one of which he was. I subscribed to National Review as a teenager and have already commented on how both the breadth and depth of scholarly content has suffered since those days in the early to mid-seventies, when Buckley sat at the center of the operation. This is not primarily to criticize today’s publication, which is more than adequate to the standards of the time. Rather, it is to remark on the extraordinary intellectual distinction of the early manifestation. I say that, even though I assume and hope that my own analytical tools have been substantially enhanced in the intervening 30+ years.

Though my disposition on how conservative principle ought to be expressed and ought to engage contemporary culture has been somewhat modified, the news of Buckley’s death seized a sentimental nerve. Though there are publications that fancy themselves starker advocates of what they consider conservatism, which to me seem more viscerally than philosophically and historically based, it seems that the whole notion of a cultural depot for any intellectual philosophy may be well into the process of passing into oblivion. In fact, the whole idea is a phenomenon of 20th century Western pop-culture. I long ago said that dominating locales of general streams of thought would probably yield to a modern-day agora of online advocacy, with a near infinite supply of ideas and dispositional palliatives. In the 20th century, common music, film and television were part of a common “language” across the country. But, the change seems to be well under way: The era of culturally-dominant ideological outposts of information, social policy, art, and entertainment may be waning, but Buckley and National Review were certainly prominent figures of that time; my time.

This is how the old courier of New York cultural liberalism, The Village Voice commented on the death of William F. Buckley http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/archives/2008/02/william_f_buckl.php, citing an AP announcement, after its posting of an old video clip of Buckley becoming irate when in a debate, Gore Vidal called him an example of “crypto-Nazism.” I couldn’t resist commenting on it. By the way, I defend(ed) the Vietnam War, and oppose(d) as out-of-place and superfluous civil rights legislation beyond the 14th Amendment clarification that US constitutional rights apply to every human being and are not legitimately abridged within the constituent states. I don’t understand the context or substance of the “white community in the South” comment. But I do believe that the US Constitution should be the only constraint on the sovereignty of voluntary associations such as communities or The Boy Scouts, for example.

The AP on the National Review:

The National Review defended the Vietnam War, opposed civil rights legislation and once declared that "the White community in the South is entitled to take such measures as are necessary to prevail." Buckley also had little use for the music of the counterculture, once calling the Beatles "so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art, that they qualify as crowned heads of antimusic."

My comment:
As an old Beatles and William F. Buckley fan, I find the focus on Buckley's disdain for Beatle music to be unfortunate.

While I loved a lot of Beatle music and it was a substantial bit of the backdrop to my early life, Buckley was a studied musician and musicologist of an earlier age. While Beatle music was a common and usually upbeat cultural touchstone, it is silly to even imply that it was on an equal structural plain with earlier music compositions that transcended provincial time.

Were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison (Ringo Starr was mostly a character and relatively ordinary drummer) accomplished song composers and instrumentalists? Of course, they were. But with their bedroom/garage training and practice, could they have composed a classical symphony or even a big band standard? Probably not, else they likely would have.

In any case, this is an intellectually thin matter to focus on upon the death of a huge literary presence of the past 50 years. Regardless of your understanding or assent to what was Buckley's focus and accomplishment, this shallow approach is distracting and ungracious, to say the least.

If McCain Supposedly Has It Locked Up, Why Not Vote For Huckabee? - Wisconsin Tuesday, Sen. McCain's Lead In Texas Small

Supporters got an email message from Governor Huckabee with basically the same information as the web notice, below, and an appeal for contributions: http://www.mikehuckabee.com/ .

Irrespective of how Wisconsin goes on Tuesday, there’s a sure shot at winning Texas, if we get out everyone we know to vote on March 4. That would give the campaign a big push. If the delegate race goes to convention, a late string of wins will be difficult to overlook. I think conservatives should bombard McCain’s campaign and The Republican National Committee, demanding The Right To Life and The Fair Tax be given the consideration that has been earned. I’ll tell them that after this year’s campaign, the party cannot shrug off these constituencies and expect the fervency and work from them that is essential to Republican victory and first pulled them almost 50 years of minority status in 1980. I believe that reviving the sanctity of human life to the public conscience is essential to the long-term maintenance of a civil society. And, The Fait Tax is the most potentially liberating and empowering proposal of my lifetime.

If Huckabee does not gain the top of the ticket, wisdom would make him the running-mate, ensuring the enthusiasm of these constituencies for election cycles to come. I know that the distortions of Romney and Thompson and the reactions of some conservatives who were unnerved by Huckabee’s expressions of empathy for all humans, have left a sentiment among some that he is “not a conservative.” Just yesterday, I heard a radio host bemoaning Huckabee’s “Christian socialism” that supposedly sees government as the vehicle of Christian responsibility, which this person doesn’t see. The problem is that Huckabee has never said any such thing. He has a clearer than ordinary understanding of human nature and how government can corrupt it. And he also has a clear understanding of a conservative essential that many conservatives seem to have forgotten: the distinction between the responsibilities and capacities of state and federal government in The United States.

Mike Huckabee is also smart enough to engage this directly when given the opportunity. The great irony is that is Huckabee does not win the nomination, it will have been with the help of supposed conservatives that he will have not succeeded electorally for the first time in almost 16 years. He beat Democrats repeatedly. It took conservatives to slow him down, though he hasn’t stopped, yet.

February 15, 2008 - 12:59 PM
Sen. McCain's Lead In Texas Small
by Team Huckabee
Two new polls in Texas from ARG and POS show a 6 and 4 point lead for Senator McCain in Texas.
As Gov. Huckabee said in his email yesterday, Texas is the place to fight for the nomination. These leads are small considering the attention the media has been heaping on Senator McCain as the "frontrunner."

Here are a couple of red states we might mention, where Senator McCain had a similar lead:
Georgia won by Gov. Huckabee
Tennessee won by Gov. Huckabee
Alabama won by Gov. Huckabee
Louisiana won by Gov. Huckabee
Kansas won by Gov. Huckabee

McCain, Huckabee, Conservatism and Audacious Integrity/Dear Dr. Dobson

Rett Hatcher posted a comment on James Dobson’s statement that he cannot vote for McCain: Dobson Puzzle
My comment was extended it enough that I needed to post and reference it, discussing McCain and Huckabee…

Rett:

Listen, I went to my state Republican convention in 1998 with a stack of flyers detailing the problems with a few Republican figures, most notably John McCain. In 2000, and 2004 I voted third-party, in fact leaving the Republican Party and joining The Constitution Party. I'm in Texas and I knew that George W. Bush was philosophically skeletally structured. When he was elected I said, "Leviathan gets a night manager," and I was exactly right. The fact is that the Republican Congress never would have let Al Gore do things like double the federal Department of Education and greatly expand Medicare entitlements, for example: that required the affirmation of an "R" president.

I'm not angry at Bush and in fact hugely appreciate his resolve in opposing violent Islam and defending America and humanity, which is just one reason why I left The Constitution Party, the spokespeople and probably the majority of which have a foreign policy disposition closer to Ron Paul's. I wish Bush had had the same resolve about the social vitality of America. But, I always knew that that facility was not there.

Generally, I think McCain is similar and probably worse, in terms of philosophical ambiguity, because he has plainly shown a vulnerability to usually misguided pop-ethics. I think Bush has a helpful combination of sound counsel and political pragmatism, and McCain may be less amenable to countering advice. McCain's extraordinary resolve can be bad as well as good. A man who has never supported a tax increase, can go into Iowa as a candidate and oppose ethanol subsidies, oppose Bush's tax reductions out of conviction about spending, oppose Bush's expansion of Medicare, support resolve in Iraq at the lowest ebb of that position's popularity several months ago...there's plenty more, but I hope you get the idea...is strikingly loyal to the convictions that he HAS in today's political world.

I'm aware of the paradox in what I'm saying: McCain is philosophically deficient, but faithful to his sentiments. For me, that makes him preferable by legions to the picture that Mitt Romney's history presents to me. Provide him with surrounding counsel that is equally decent and philosophically more lucid.

I think Romney should get out. He can only compete in a few Western states. But, it amounts to a demonstrable waste of money. In the contests he needed, he lost to BOTH McCAIN AND HUCKABEE! Huckabee can very possibly win in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi and strongly compete in Ohio (very pro-life Catholic), South Dakota, and possibly Kansas. But Romney can do as he likes with his money. I just hope he doesn’t hurt anyone with it and doesn’t try, and I don’t think he will…anymore.

Huckabee can take a substantial stack of delegates. If he becomes the nominee, McCain NEEDS badly to animate the social conservatives in the South and Midwest, as is so starkly illustrated in James Dobson's comment that you cite. I don't know if there's possible path to that other than Huckabee on the ticket, who also balances McCain's age, appeals to women and youth. And believe it or not you aggravated conservatives; Huckabee also is the answer to that inclination to philosophical dysfunction, where he is clear and articulate. The only problem a McCain-Huckabee ticket can possibly have is if some conservatives continue to make a stink about it. I’m glad Hugh Hewitt has relented and is being positive about the fall Republican ticket. I’m waiting to hear about Rush’s or Ann coulter’s foolishness.

In truth, where Huckabee is distinguished from this rabid population is in his lack of animosity and his realism, which is another source of my separation from The Constitution Party. I am a Christian, as are most all of the CP, mostly good and thoughtful and dedicated people. But, the model of Christ engages reality, not just an abstract and practically irrelevant ideal. Jesus had the Spirit of God...IN a FALLEN world. The whole point of the divine incarnation is that Jesus LOVED SINNERS, which incidentally includes ALL of us. We don't require grace any less than anyone else. Our duty as grace's recipients is to be the expression of God's grace to a world as flawed as we are.

Constitutionalists will insist that government has nothing to do with that. As an example that I have written about in the past, many months ago now, I visited a web site organized by a constitutionalist guru after they misunderstood the issue that had arisen about Huckabee and a smoking ban. In the first place, Huckabee’s position was misconstrued and the question hadn’t arisen as it had been portrayed. But, I raised another question about the extremity of health care costs and the need for their containment. I was immediately swarmed as though I had shaken a stick in a beehive: “…no constitutional authority!" they scorned, which was correct: there is none. But a little reality check is in order and urgently in need. The federal government is fairly drowning in medical liabilities that it has accrued, never mind the high and rapidly escalating personal costs that the system, including govt. regulations. Constitutionality is irrelevant: the costs and liabilities are an intractable FACT. What is a meticulous constitutionalist going to do about that? It seems like they are going to pretend it isn’t there.

But, all of that is part of the exile into abstraction, which I suspect animates much of the hostility against Huckabee, who commits the audacious apostasy of even expressing concern for the concerns of ordinary Americans, including populations that have to a great extent favored Democrats: minorities, laborers, or simply as he says, “Main Street” Americans. If we can’t even talk like that, such populations will stay largely Democrat strongholds. Conservatives need to work on and explicate conservative responses to those concerns. Reality is that the utter disjunction of government from moral concerns is a battle long lost. If you don’t want to play, you may as well leave the field. But to some conservatives, empathy only translates to the love of unconstrained taxing and spending and “open borders.”

That root problem of Huckabee’s empathetic expression runs through most of the so-called “conservative” complaints about him. As a state government must do, taxes were raised (though modestly) to address state essentials. States must provide education, build roads, and maintain parks, which was the great bulk of tax increases. Under Governor Huckabee, Arkansas also (gasp) gave very poor children access to Medicare coverage. Scandalous! And all of this was in a state with an 80% Democrat representation, by the way. But, Huckabee cut taxes at every opportunity, including a broad-based income tax reduction, and all of them were unprecedented in Arkansas. The tax attacks were politically and/or personally motivated, and drastically deceptive.

Likewise, he did not scorn and spurn illegal aliens. But in 2007, he opposed the immigration bill that didn’t secure the border first, and later outlined the most rigorous immigration enforcement bill, which offered incentives rather than proposing (ultimately probably empty) threats, to return home and pursue an orderly legalization via a hopefully expedited process. And the Fair Tax idea that Huckabee endorses and advocates for is the most economically liberating and stimulating idea to have appeared in our lifetimes.

I support Huckabee because he’s a remarkable combination of philosophical clarity, empathetic realism, sound character, and engaging leadership. Today, I heard Bill Krystol doubting Huckabee’s potential as a VP option, saying McCain would need someone of “more stature,” and mentioning Jeb Bush, though acknowledging the last name is a problem.

What does one have to do to achieve “stature?” Huckabee was Arkansas governor longer than Bill Clinton and longer than Jeb Bush was governor of Florida. I’ll acknowledge that Florida is larger and more electorally critical than Arkansas. But, I may be accused of mere “identity” defensiveness as an evangelical Christian, but I can’t help but think that Huckabee wouldn’t meet the “stature” standard, even if he had served his 101/2 years (14 as Governor and Lt. Governor) in Florida, precisely because he is an evangelical Christian, which can be condescended to, even if subconsciously, by the political establishment. That’s an irony when so many establishment Republicans endorsed Romney, whom I assume has no “stature” problem, even though he was Massachusetts governor for only 4 years.. But, Romney might have gotten similar treatment if, in addition to affirming his Mormonism and the role of “faith” in America., he said things like, “My faith not only informs me, it defines me.” That is laudable in terms of integrity and consistency. But, in terms of pop-culture, it’s “politically incorrect.”

McCain About America, Romney About Romney, Huckabee Better Than Both, and Consider This/Super Tuesday Republican Run-Down

Before summarizing the remaining candidates, I just want to say two brief things: 1) I would vote for Mike Huckabee next month even if he averaged less than 10% tomorrow (which he won’t) and he has pulled out of the competition by then, IF HIS NAME IS STILL ON THE BALLOT, simply because he is the best presidential candidate of my 50-year life. And, he’s easily the most clear-headed conservative mind that America has seen in the past few years. And 2) I often disagree with John McCain, who probably has a Washington provincially distorted perspective. But John McCain is by far a more noble man than Mitt Romney. And, right or wrong, McCain acts and speaks in the interest of America. To me it appears that Romney acts and speaks in the interest of Mitt Romney.

That said, It has been a remarkable year. While there were once 9 Republican candidates for president, heading into tomorrow, Feb. 5, when 22 states will vote on delegates to the Republican National Convention, there are four remaining. The front-loading and compression of the process, has certainly made a dramatic difference in how it has played out, which is mostly regrettable, I think. There was a lot of speculation early on, about how that situation would play out. Mostly, it asked whether the early states be more or less important? It would seem to have been the latter. Certainly in previous presidential campaign seasons, the sorting out would have been farther along or over after the South Carolina primary, with only 1 or 2 left standing.

Perhaps the “frontrunner” perception has not had enough time to settle in between contests. The notion is a strange one to me. But, it’s no great surprise if I’m not typical. Someone I spoke with doubted the force of the tendency, but it seems undeniable that many fall in line behind what or whom they perceive a “winning.” Indeed, that is the whole idea of “momentum,” a sort of psychological centrifugal force. As I said, I have no sense of that. I’ve been voting for 32 years, and I’ve never moved my vote for a “winner” vs. whom I thought was the best candidate. In fact, Ronald Reagan was the only winner I ever voted for in a primary, and I had supported him from the start. The herd followed my sentiments, not vice-versa. In fact, I had voted for Reagan in a 1976 primary, when he was not the eventual winner, though he came close.

All of that said, I’ll say that I’m a supporter of Huckabee (whom the political chatterers also say will not be a winner) But Consider This: Huckabee has said that he’s in it until a candidate has the delegates to secure the nomination. That cannot even mathematically happen, tomorrow.Mitt Romney will likely watch more millions be flushes away, and tomorrow ning, find himself hopelessly far behind and not especially liked. If he finally decides that 100 million dollars, over 35 of it his own, is enough and drops out, what do the McCain haters do now, especially since many also hate Huckabee? They are the only ones left. That’s kind of amusing.

I’ll discuss the remaining 4 candidates, in order of unacceptability: how they stand, and how they’ve gone through the process:

Ron Paul is a very interesting character. He is not a “nut” or any other similar description that many throw at him. Ron Paul is a plenty smart man. He is very exceptional, in that he discusses in detail many things that the others don’t discuss at all like, very notably, the integrity of money and the primacy of private not government effort in shaping the economy. That kind of talk is not at all apart from why he is called names decrying him as strange. He is strange in the sense of standing apart from a perspective constrained by conventional popular culture, which is fraught with foolish assumptions. Generally speaking, I hardly consider that a fault of any sort.

However, there is an element of that unique ideal that I can’t go along with. And, unlike the many differences I have with John McCain, for instance. This is one that I can’t pass off for the sake of any sort of greater good. It seems to me that the same sort of philosophical resolve that tethers Ron Paul to the virtue of sound currency and free and private commerce, has him philosophically blinkered with a foreign policy for America that amounts to a dereliction of duty relative to security and basic humanity. Of course, what he calls a “non-interventionist” foreign policy has nothing to do with the sort of Smithian Natural Law about the inherent principles of human commerce and wealth production and maintenance.

But, I fully understand his shyness about military adventurism and the temptation of military power and expansion. And, I understand the counsel of the American Founders to “avoid foreign entanglements,” and the paleo-conservative tradition of modest foreign policy. But, the very obvious problem to the non-philosophically blinkered who must make moral and prudent judgments about the real world, is that the evolution of technology has run full out from under a world where travel, transport, and communications across the ocean required a ship’s voyage of months or years. Today, men travel the world in a day and sound and video images are transmitted around the world in practically real time. As today’s threats of terrorism have vividly demonstrated, it is no longer a sufficient defense posture to wait and respond when cannonballs are lobbed onto a populated shore. Technology is such that a very few can pose a frightful danger to American life hatched on distant continents and delivered quickly and surreptitiously.

While I believe he is sincere and resolved as he is about other things, given today’s technology of travel, communications, and destructive force, Paul’s sort of non-interventionist prescription presents two HUGE problems:
1) it is an imprudent security risk. Paul frets military engagement with peoples’ who present no armies or navies to threaten American military power. So, what? None are required to impose great destruction. And
2) Yes, America has great power. Paul may insist that policing the world from tyrants is not American government’s business. But, no private agency has the power to do so. And a power held is a moral responsibility. It is a real question to ask when we are “intruding” (or building empire, as Paul likes to say) and when it is a moral responsibility to intervene against inhumanity. As I often ask, given today’s world, at what point does ignoring human abuse become something on the order of watching a sidewalk attack out your window and declining to get involved.
The first problem is an ostrich-head-in-the-sand question to an extreme degree. And, the second problem is an extreme degree of humanitarian responsibility. How close are we to treading into stark cowardice?

For these reasons, though Paul has all year been the philosophically clearest and most resolute candidate, what I see as his anachronistic human misjudgments are too severe, besides the fact that he is not especially skilled at personal engagement and encouragement with the public. So, though I think he is exceptionally clear and consistent, and should be an advisor in many areas, Ron Paul is the LAST Republican candidate that I want to see with presidential power.

Mitt Romney has constructed a black and white confession on definable issues, that I agree with over 90% of the time. But, I don’t feel that I have any sense of his heart and wonder if I possibly could. People accuse him of “flip-flopping” on issues of serious concern. Even if his changes were genuine, I am unimpressed with a potential leader who was ambiguous on grave issies well into his fifties. He’s obviously a smart man, which suggests not ambiguity but spectacular pliability. I believe conservatives need to “sell” conservative principle to traditionally ambiguous or antagonistic populations. If Romney was to any extent demonstrating that with his election in Massachusetts, he has disavowed all of that, now. Pliability, again?

Many conservatives are irrationally frantic about the possibility of John McCain as the Republican nominee. I just repeat what I said at the beginning: “I often disagree with John McCain, who probably has a Washington provincially distorted perspective. But John McCain is by far a more noble man than Mitt Romney. And, right or wrong, McCain acts and speaks in the interest of America. To me it appears that Romney acts and speaks in the interest of Mitt Romney.” Check these links: http://www.trueromney.com/ and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peFGA_HN3Yc I really would hate for my arm to be twisted to choose Romney over a Democrat.

As I have also said, John McCain has a philosophical disability. But, he’s a genuine man and American patriot, with plenty of conservative sentiments about spending and jusicial activism, for instance. He als favors tax reduction and reform. He undetrstands that the public has insisted on securing the border before, not after, anything else. And, he has supported restrained not activist judges. A good VP might nudge him away from sentimental errors. Again, “…right or wrong, McCain acts and speaks in the interest of America. To me it appears that Romney acts and speaks in the interest of Mitt Romney.” He wouldn’t be my first choice. But especially given the options, he is far from my last.

Mike Huckabee is a clear-headed and constitutional conservative who is prepared to effectively deal with 20th century realities. He won Iowa with months of face-to-face engagement of Iowa voters, which has not been possible in subsequent contests, though he nearly won again, in South Carolina. I will pick his name on any ballot in which he is a candidate. He has a sober and diligent heart, and offers real solutions to move America from problems that it has gotten itself into. Based on the evidence so far, I will be surprised if I see as good a candidate as he is, again. Hopefully, he has established a model.

A Vote For Romney Is A Vote For McCain

Thanks to The Thomas Report for posting this: A HUGE LIE: VOTE FOR HUCKABEE, A VOTE FOR MCCAIN??

Contrary to Romney apologists’ reports that “A vote for Huckabee is a vote for McCain,” this blog points to a FOX News Opinion Dynamics Poll (below) that suggests quite the opposite.

I pulled these numbers from the actual report. Note that with all three in the race, Republicans polled chose McCain by 48%, with Romney and Huckabee in a statistical tie at 20% and 19%, while if Huckabee is removed from the question, McCain’s polling among Republicans soars to 62% while Romney’s rises only to 29%. McCain rises 14 points while Romney rises only 9. And in fact in Rasmussen polling, Huckabee leads Romney in GA, AL, and MO and is competitive with him in all of the southern states that both need. So plainly, a vote for Romney is a vote for McCain.

This in essence suggests that Romney is wasting more money with his latest multi-million dollar buy. He spent millions in Iowa to trash Huckabee and lost to Huckabee. He spent millions in New Hampshire, less than an hour from MA, where he was governor) to trash McCain and lost to McCain. He won in Michigan where he was born and his father was governor, playing the socialist “conservative” by pledging over 15 billion dollars for research to the auto industry: Promise made in Michigan could backfire on Romney . (by the way, that promise was YOUR money, not his) Then, after putting millions into South Carolina and foreseeing failure, he pulled out (finally finishing 4th) to go directly to spending in Florida, where McCain beat him 36% to 31%.

What’s that they say about doing the same thing over and over and looking for different results? Anyway, Huckabee supporters can actually thank Romney for shoveling out more millions to savage McCain. What a swell guy! Basically, Romney seems to be a good man with a nice family, and has been a successful business man. He obviously can do as he wishes with his millions of dollars. But based on the record, I wouldn’t invest a hundred bucks in such a sorry candidacy. Poor guy! At least, he should get a plaque for the effort! But, Huckabee has gotten a lot more return on a lot fewer dollars. If you agree with Romney that McCain was wrong on McCain-Feingold and stem cell research, vote Mike Huckabee.

FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll
1 February 08

#6. If the 2008 Republican presidential primary were held today, for whom would
you vote if the candidates were: (RANDOMIZE)
-- Rep --
30-31
Jan 08
John McCain 48%
Mitt Romney 20%
Mike Huckabee 19%
Ron Paul 5%
(Other) -
(Don’t know) 5%
(Would not vote in GOP primary) 2%

#7. If John McCain and Mitt Romney were the only choices in the
Republican primary, how would you vote? 30-31 Jan 08
McCain Romney (Don’t know) (Would not vote)
Republicans 62% 29% 6% 3%
Independents 60% 21% 11% 8%

The Political Facts As Things Stand

I think it’s useful for you and I and others who care about the integrity of American policies like the respect of life, the respect of privacy, the respect of free people and free markets, etc, to acknowledge the facts of how the public behaves, which is not like you and I. I believe strongly that Huckabee brings and delivers the clearest and most urgent message for the good of American culture.

And, as to great extent illustrated in Iowa, when he has plenty of time to deliver that message to personally deliver that message to the American people, it is well-received by a substantial number of Americans. I also believe as I am sure you do that unforseen things can and do happen, as we have seen in this very unique presidential election cycle.

As long as he’s on the ballot, I wil vote for Huckabee. And in fact in Texas where he led in recent polls, he could win on March 4th if he’s still in the mix, and I expect he will if he is a strong presence. But the fact is that the vast majority of people do not vote on any sort of careful consideration: not in the manner that you and I do, nor in the aggravated visceral way that is so often exhibited on the blogs, across the political spectrum. Consider these things:

Only a couple of months ago, John McCain was considered politically dead. Many of the conservative blog bugs wish he still was. Mitt Romney was objectionable to many people, for reasons ranging from his religion to his posturing and pandering to his simple status among many conservatives as a governor of liberal Massachusetts.

Consider also that, as I have said elsewhere, in his last electoral faceoff only ten days ago, Huckabee drew 30% of the electorate, a majority of Republicans (McCain’s 33% included many Independents, who aren’ voting today and in most coming primaries), and almost surely would have won without Fred Thompson in the race and misleading people about both their records – he knew the conflicting truth).

Nevertheless, media and polls (chicken and egg?) today make Huckabee an also-ran in Florida and McCain and Romney the primary competitors. I think that we are in a much superior position today than we were ten years ago, but in terms of being mostly distracted by other things and politically lead around by the nose by media (even including the media, posts on which also largely reflect he promulgated pop-culture reality, there is still a substantial reality. I always strangely paid an extraordinary amount of attention to the political process. But even my perspective has been greatly exaggerated by a personal situation that has narrowed the focus of my life.

I don’t have to look far to see relative normalcy: my own friends and family are quite typically influenced by the popular culture prism. And, while I wish people paid a little closer attention, the bare fact is that most people, even beyond the bemusements of American life, are hard about what are, certainly in the near-term, much more critical activities without which essential concerns would not be met, including governmental ones. These are concerns like…oh, FOOD, clothing, housing, and every manner of industry.

Given those primary diversions yes, like it or not: most people will make their judgments on the pop-perception of the facts: do I prefer Romney or McCain, or later on, one of these or a Democrat? Are there objectionable things about Romney and McCain? Is Huckabee a better candidate? In both cases, I think, “Yes.” And in practical terms, it’s irrelevant. A sliver of the electorate that pays just a little attention with still very incomplete information, will determine two people from hundreds of millions of Americans, who will comprise Americans’ ultimate “choices.” I think that if that is going to change, it won’t be because of but in spite of Americans’ wisdom or lack thereof.

I think America needs dramatic change in its structure and perspective, and I think Huckabee is the only one who poses it: for example with his insistence on the sanctity of human life and his advocacy of The Fair Tax. But from the others, I don’t think we’ll get that change. In sum, I don’t trust McCain’s judgment and I don’t trust Romney’s character. But, I prefer a judgment defect to a character defect. And if McCain’s judgment is sometimes unfortunate, his sentiments are decidedly conservative in terms of spending and even in general.

I’d support a ticket McCain’s heart and and Huckabee’s judgment enthusiastically. I don’t think Romney will win in November and if he did, he would bring remarkable change: more business-as-usual.