Wednesday, November 13, 2013

O Little Town of Nahalal

It is stunning to watch the encroachment of Marxist Socialism upon the American economy. Wherever it has been tried Communism/Socialism* has brought general societal decay before the system ultimately collapsed. The Soviet Union collapsed. China is furiously trying to modify its Socialism into a more workable, free-market economy, albeit heavily State-controlled. Cuba and South American Communist/Socialist nations are pathetic economic wastelands filled with innocent people suffering 30-60% inflation and enduring unending shortages of food and essential goods (like toilet paper!).

 

Nonetheless, America, like a nation of lemmings is running headlong to the cliff over which others have leapt and died. Perhaps no better evidence is necessary than to point to Obamacare – the nationalization (State seizing control) of 15% of the entire economy. Even without Obamacare, fully 50% of the American populace is on some sort of State subsidy (Welfare, Food Stamps, Medicare, Social Security). Our nation is mere steps away from the lemming's leap of death.

 

As a Christian, I bear a fascination for Israel – past, present, and certainly, future. Israel in the 20th Century was a fascinating place. A nation was born, a people group coalesced, and economic structures were invented afresh. My interest in the economic experiments of Israel began with, believe it or not, Google Earth.

 

The picture to the right is of a little town outside Nazareth – Nahalal. The town is purpose-built. No more than a third of a mile across you can see how the town is laid out to promote a certain culture. Houses, 80 of them, line the ring-road that connects the entire town. Small industry and agricultural structures radiate out from the house lots. Farmland lies at the outer perimeter of the spider's web. Inside the ring-road are the common areas of the little town – town hall, school, clinic, grocery, pool, etc. This town seems idyllic and quaint, 900 residents living in close cooperation if not complete harmony. That's the idea anyway, Nahalal is a kibbutz – an intentional experiment in Socialism repeated throughout Isreal.

 

But like every experiment, it takes time to figure out if the experiment proved or disproved the hypothesis (in this case, Socialism). I recently stumbled across a report on the Kibbutz experiment: The Kibbutz in Israeli Reality - The Rise and Fall of an Idea.


Chapter Three of this short report explains how the Socialist Ideal that inspired the initial organization of the commune ultimately led to its near-demise. As the author puts it, "The mechanisms that secured the ideological structure of the kibbutz led it slowly into stagnation." In short, the practical flaws inherent in a Socialist economy led directly to insufficient production and crippling waste. I'm struggling to keep this blog short enough to hold my readers' interest so I'm only going to share this short excerpt:

In the 80s and the 90s, with the deterioration in the economic and financial situation of the kibbutz, it became patently clear that the way to fight waste in consumption would be privatization. Proof of this was found in the early 70s, in the first attempt to create a “personal budget” which gave the member freedom of consumption in a narrow variety of products. The kibbutz learned that in each sphere in which responsibility would be shifted from the community to the private pocket, a rapid process of increasing saving and curbing waste would take place.

Instead of members receiving clothing, food, energy, use of a car and
a weekly movie free of charge and at the expense of the community budget, they
received both the money and the responsibility for using it, for purchasing the same services. The community budget decreased and the member’s budget increased by the same proportion. From that moment on individuals had to prudently manage their expenses as the money was now coming out of their own pockets. The effect of shifting the responsibility for purchasing products and services from the community to the individual was extremely impressive.

In short, when Nahalal was at the point of drowning in the futility of Marxist Socialism, they privatized (a giant first step toward Capitalism)! They put the burden of matching consumption with production back in the hands of the people who were consuming and producing!! The town wound up spending less and the citizens experienced increased satisfaction.

America's path toward greater government confiscation of private production (through taxes) and greater government control of consumption (through management of resources by laws such as Obamacare) runs exactly counter to the wisdom learned from Socialist experiments conducted throughout the world in the 20th Century. Nahalal tells the story that we'd all like to hear at bedtime… "the government interfered less and less and the people prospered more and more and they all lived happily ever after."

Clark H Smith



* Communism? Socialism? Which is it? What's the difference? Here's the way I explain it. Communism is a utopian concept, a pure daydream. Only in Heaven and John Lennon lyrics (and occasional church pot lucks) do all people share all things in common. Marxist Socialism is the "practical" implementation of Communist ideal. The State (government, and really, the ruling elite) controls levels of production and commands levels of consumption. In Socialism, there is no such thing as a free market place in which free-will consumption determines what goods and services are produced. Capitalism, in which "Greed is Good" by the way, works because it does allow a free marketplace in which consumption and production are held in tension economically, rather than politically. In Capitalism, greed drives the producer to deliver goods and services to the marketplace which satisfy consumers. In Socialism, greed is supposedly eliminated (except among the ruling elite) and so it consumer satisfaction.

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Property is Power

I’m reading a fascinating book right now – The Other Greeks, The Family Farm and the Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization by Victor Davis Hanson. In this book, Hanson describes the life and times of Greek farmers from about 700-400BC. Prior to this period, Greece had been a largely nomadic hunter-gatherer-shepherd culture with neither prosperity nor quality of life. Then something happened, the ability to own property developed as a legal principle in Greece.

Prior to property/land ownership, peasants roamed the many hillsides chasing goats and essentially scavenging for food and shelter. Some peasants rented land from local lords and attempted subsistence farming. Hanson notes the impact forged by property ownership:

Renters, serfs, indentured servants, or lessees cannot invest in capital crops such as trees or vines in any efficient manner. Nor will they take the considerable risks entailed in viticulture or arboriculture without clear title to the land they farm. Farmers, especially planters of trees and vines, will soon demand to own their own land if they are to invest labor and capital in order to enrich the surrounding community. (p.35)

Note that last phrase, property rights and land ownership led to tremendous advances in nutrition, health, and wealth of the entire Greek citizenry. Hanson continues in his book to enumerate the remarkable and almost entirely positive changes that swept over Greece during this time that connect directly back to the ability of a Greek farmer to own his land.

Hanson also illustrates the virtues that ride shotgun with property rights / land ownership. He speaks about the conservative outlook that farming requires that, in turn, flows out into the surrounding culture. (Test this idea, where are the Red States?) He speaks of ingenuity and individualism that enable the farmer to succeed. On the whole, owning and working the land made Greece great and it is what made America great. Our greatest era came when farming was optimized through investment in technology*. When the citizenry is willing to invest capital in their property and they are free to retain the increase in property that their investment earns them, the entire society is blessed.

I’ve stressed property rights in this article because I believe they are under direct assault in America today. Consider first that your wages are YOUR PROPERTY**. Consider what portion of your property is seized by government agencies before you ever get it in your hands. These agencies demonstrate a confidence that they are more able than you to use your property wisely “on your behalf”.

Consider the confiscation of real property through myriad ad valorem taxes. Consider the limits (virtual confiscation) on property that occurs daily through bureaucratic regulation. Even as I write, the Liberals in American are aiming (pun intended) to diminish more property rights by regulating guns into extinction, if they can manage it.

You didn’t build that,” spat the Liberal President at people who invested their own capital in their own property. We see in that intentional statement both the contempt Liberals have for Capitalists and the calculated scheme they have to steal back property. Of course, if you didn’t build that (on your own), it is only fair that the government take back some of “that” and redistribute your property to others – to your “partners” in this collective adventure of life.

The entire outlook of Conservativism and Capitalism in one of empowering the individual to make it on their own. Property rights ensure that hard work is rewarded. No wonder at all, is it, that the Liberals want steal your property. Property is power!

Clark H Smith

* Technology-enhanced farming created tremendous advances in agriculture and set farm laborers to embark upon other pursuits (manufacturing, technology, finance, etc) which, from about 1945 forward, created an unparalleled explosion in the standard of living of all Americans and most of the world. Efficient, effective farming – it’s a good thing.

** In ancient days, you would work in the field with your hands for the food you ate,  the clothes you wore, the shelter you needed. You earned your property. Just because you sit at a keyboard today and get paid by direct deposit every two weeks, that does not mean you are NOT still working to earn property. It just comes in a different form - a form far more vulnerable to pilfering by the government.

Thursday, January 3, 2013

The Most Brilliant Political Strategy – EVER!

I don’t watch the news. I’m sick and tired of all of it. What comes after a “fiscal cliff”? A “fiscal precipice”? A “fiscal tectonic plate shift”? Whatever they call it, it will come. It’s inevitable.

ONE thing will change the way Washington does business.
ONE THING: A balanced budget amendment to the constitution.

I am calling for the Republican Party to run every House and Senate race in 2014 on ONE ISSUE: A balanced budget amendment (BBA) to the constitution. And I mean just that – no candidate campaigns or debates on any topic other than the BBA. And they take up no legislation in Congress until a BBA is passed. The GOP holds the House now, we won’t lose it under this campaign. Let the Dems put forth bill after bill after bill. Nothing will happen until the BBA is passed and sent to the citizens for ratification.

It can’t miss.

Everyone in America knows what is happening. The Progressive Left loves the anarchy and chaos that unfettered spending is driving us toward. Economics cause revolutions, not social issues.

The Conservative Right is so busy trying to stitch together a tent big enough to cover gays, pro-aborts, and other minority misfits that they wind up with no tent at all – and a withering constituency.

A BBA is an idea so fundamentally sound and broad that it would create the tent the GOP is fantasizing about. Certainly, sane “Independents” would agree that a BBA is essential to the survival of the country.

AND, I’ll even sweeten the pot for the Libs. Give the president a line-item veto. I’m dead serious. Every president gets aroused at the idea of a line-item veto. Give it to him (or her when Hillary is crowned). How can it hurt us? Conservatives believe in limited government. We don’t want more stuff from DC. We want less. If a Lib is in the Oval Office, let him try to cut Defense – he’ll cause an uproar he can’t tamp down. If a Conservative is president, whack away at the NEA, PBS, and every other sacred “progressive” cow. They’ve been begging for it, give it to them. We win.

I’m just one little taxpaying pudnocker. Political parties don’t pay attention to people like me. (The Tea Party got a little traction for one election cycle. I think they got too big for their britches. They tried to take over the GOP instead of communicating and organizing at the grass roots level.) I don’t have any misgivings that 2014 is going to look like any other election cycle…

But I’ll promise that if the GOP became the single-issue, BBA party, we’d begin to fix what is so desperately broke in this country. And if they don’t? Marxist Socialism will become the de facto economic strategy in America until we dissolve under our own fiscal weight – like so much Greece on a hot skillet.

Clark H Smith

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Emotion Trumps Reason

I once heard a man say on TV, “legislation named after someone is typically bad legislation.” Because it based on emotion. It makes everyone feel better to have a knee-jerk reaction to a terrible event. But it rarely is based on facts or solid policy.

Particularly right now, too many arguments are being made and policies being put forth, in order to calm our nerves over such tragedies like we saw in Newtown, CT.  But why the righteous indignation now? Why the spending of political capital now? Good policy today was good policy yesterday (or Thursday). Even Jake Tapper cornered(ish) the President on this issue. 

The Republicans have been guilty of this before certainly but the Left specializes it. Of course it would be great if the world was free of guns but that is not the reality anyone lives in and the Left knows it. There is no way not to know it. Study after study shows the ineffectiveness of gun control legislation. In 2003, the CDC conducted a study that looked at a wide range of gun control laws and whether or not they were effective:

                “The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes.”

In 1997, after a similar school shooting in England, the UK quickly acted to ban all handguns.  The BBC discovered:

                “A new study suggests the use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned”.

But folks, even far outside the typical political Left chose to ignore reality. This post is about much more than gun control. It is about the rush to pass legislation as a response to people’s emotions instead of as an honest attempt to fix a problem.  Conservatism, honest conservatism, does not capitalize on crises. It doesn’t react to the whims and emotions of the people. It uses truth, it uses facts, it uses level-headed thinking to advance its agenda. 
-Isaac

Friday, December 14, 2012

A Progressive’s Salute to Capitalism

What if I told you that someone enjoyed the following:

Luxurious mansion.
Extensive antique collection.
Custom-tailored suits.
Private sauna with room for 12.
Personal trainer and in-home gym.
Personal Russian masseuse.
Sculptured and professionally landscaped grounds.
House servants.
Ornate, oversized pool.
Elaborate poolside banquet.

These elements are typical of
a) proletariat, union worker living in a socialist utopia, or
b) Capitalist fat cat who has enriched himself by cheating his customers and laborers.

Let’s watch this commercial for Progressive Insurance and find out.


The Social Progressive movement is the Liberal branch of the Democratic Party (the bunch that wants to collectivize workers under statist autocracy).  Long-time Progressive Insurance CEO Peter Lewis is the son of the company’s founder.  Lewis has donated millions to progressive causes – many of which are also backed by megalomaniac socialist, George Soros.  Here’s a third-party confirmation of the progressive activities of Lewis.

BUT… in this commercial, the Progressive (Insurance) voice admits what all conservatives hold to be self-evident: providing a worthwhile product and a fair price enriches both the capitalist AND his customers.  The Capitalist pitch comes between 15 and 20 seconds into the video.

“Three million people switched to me last year.
… It feels good to help people save.”

And because the “Progressive Insurance Policy” has taken such a high-demand policy to the marketplace, it is reaping the reward.  That’s the Capitalist ethic – let the marketplace balance supply and demand …and everyone benefits.

Oddly, Lewis and the rest of his progressive bunch don’t believe a word of this (although they have demonstrated Capitalism to work, and work effectively!).  They want the State to control production, limit supply, and define demand.

Here’s another Conservative ethic: Practice what you preach.

For more consideration of the Progressive Insurance public message, please visit here, here, and here.

Clark H Smith

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Banana Republic

Harry Belafonté knows a thing or two about banana republics – a nation with dismal humanitarian prospects overlorded by a brutal fascist.  I trust him when he advises Barak Obama to behave just like that.


What I love about this clip is that it reveals what most people know, but are reluctant to say out loud – “civil rights” are not about rights for all citizens.  The civil rights movement in America is the most prejudiced and racist scar on our collective soul.  There’s no defense of slavery, certainly not coming from me, but it was an economic proposition.  The civil rights movement is purely vindictive, seeking retribution and reparations for past wrongs.

The race-baiting Reverend Al Sharpton honors Belafonté as a “activist leader” in the civil rights movement.  Fair enough, even I will agree with that.  At 1:38 in the video, Belafonté this man who has “fought” for “civil rights”, urges Obama to “act like a third world dictator and put all these guys in jail”.  These guys?  These guys who disagree with Dear Leader and want him to fail.

“Civil Rights” 

It is clear that Belafonté does NOT believe in “civil” rights, he believes in rights only for blacks and those who agree with Obama.

A beautiful bunch a' ripe banana
Daylight come and me wan' go home
Hide the deadly black spider
Daylight come and me wan' go home

Amid the huge amount of light-colored fruit,
death roams in black form. Hmmm…

In the last election, 246,134,507 men, women, and children did not vote for Barak Hussein Obama.  I was one of them.  Come and get me, Banana Man.


Clark H Smith

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

Capitol Attention

Over half of yesterday's traffic came from our nation's capitol.
Thanks DC, and we hope it helps.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Perilous Times

Ray Agnew was Rising Star, Texas’ affable and generous grocer. In a 2000 square foot store on Main Street, Ray offered as much as he could at a fair price. You either shopped at Agnew’s or you drove 30 miles to get your Campbell’s soup.

One day, Ray decided to send head cashier Betty to the meat department and brought Bob up from hacking meat to run the register. An hour after the switcheroo, the town mayor walked in and crowed “Where’s Betty?” 

“Makin’ hamburger,” groused Bob, covered in blood and doling out S&H Greenstamps.

“Well, I don’t like that one little bit,” scowled the mayor who immediately went back to his cheap paneled office and wrote up a $250,00 fine against Ray Agnew for… “for disturbin’ mah peace.”

Sound ridiculous… “disturbing” even? Did this really happen or is Clark H Smith just hyperbolizin’ again?

In fact, this DID happen. No, Ray Agnew never switched staff and he never got fined.  But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. In fact, it happened just last week. NBA Totalitarian Commish, David Stern, fined the San Antonio Spurs a quarter mil for not taking his top players on a road trip.

And I’m fine with that. The A in NBA stands for “association”.  Although the individual teams are franchises, they still belong to a closed association which gets to make and enforce its own rules… regardless of whether they make sense or seem fair “in the real world”. The NBA is not the real world. It’s a fake world of made-up rules. Don’t judge it. Everyone in the NBA signed off on the fake rules.

The “Agnew Problem” becomes a problem when these things DO happen in the real world - specifically, when government tells you that you have to do things because, well… because the government says so.

No surprise, our next illustration comes from France – and it’s no pretend story as much as you might think it should be. The mayor of Lhéraule has decreed that visitors to the town hall will be asked to leave the building if they do not say ‘hello’ or ‘thank you’ to staff. Can he do that?

He actually admits he can’t: “There is no law in France that forces people to say hello, and there’s no judge who will condemn someone for not saying it.”

So the mayor admits that his cheese stinks, his wine is sour, and his edicts are unsupported legally. Tough truffles, he’s committed to enforcing a practice that is patently unconstitutional. Let's see how that plays out.

Incroyable!! Well, yes, a political leader mandating unconstitutional actions is quite incredible. But, my friend, it is happening… and not just in rural France.

President Obama takes a dim view of the US Constitution.  He sees it as a charter or negative liberties because it doesn’t “say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf”. We’ve actually seen through Obamacare that Obama believes the Constitution is weak because it doesn’t say what the government can make you do – such as buy a product or service. Just like a French town mayor demanding politeness by an edict that contravenes the real-world rules, Obama’s “individual mandate” edict also offends the US Constitution. Unlike the pretend rules of David Stern’s association, Obama actually has a set of real rules to which he, and the rest of us, are accountable.

(Pssst, don’t try to tell me the individual purchase mandate was upheld by the Supreme Court. You know it was not. A “tax” was upheld by the Court and Obama denies it’s a tax. Finé.)

I once had the gross displeasure to work with a young man fresh from Canadia – America’s Cap. He was from the French side of the cap. Here in America, he was a youth pastor shaping young American minds. He once notably uttered that "Communism is enforced Christianity". Yup, Jesus was something like Karl Marx’s older brother and everything that Jesus taught us was the underpinning of the beauty that is Communism. (I can happily tell you I personally orchestrated his firing.)

Maybe that’s all Christianity is, a bunch of rules about sharing, but Christianity is also a take it or leave it proposition. There’s NO RULE that says you have to believe in it. And even if there was a rule, like being polite in a French town hall, it doesn’t mean you believe it in your heart.

America is neither Christian nor French… nor the NBA. Even those in power cannot unilaterally impose made-up behaviors on American citizens. We have a Constitution that, whether or not you believe in it, controls what the government can do to us.

We’re still, if barely, are a land where the Ray Agnew’s of the world can run their store the way they like, but we’ve also seen where an American president has set aside the Constitution he doesn’t believe in.  We live in perilous times. Throughout history, such circumstances did not end well.

Clark H Smith

Friday, November 30, 2012

Whither "American Primitive"?

This great blog name was shamelessly purloined from one of America's leading conservative philosopher's - Dennis Miller.  I make a point to record FoxNews' O'Reilly every Wednesday night to hear Miller drop Shock&Awe on Liberalism.

On the Nov 28 installment, Miller lead off a rant about anti-Christmas secularism by calling himself... wait for it... an American Primitive.  By that title he means that he's "old school", as the kids say.  He yearns for an American before it criminalized Christmas and de-criminalized baby-killing... etc.  That's what this blog is about - America before Liberalism locked her down.

Watch the vid at 20 secs in, Miller delivers.

Come after me! I'm a man!

I don’t have a problem with raising taxes. I don’t! If the government thinks that is the best way to reduce the deficit or fatten the collective wallet, fine. But that’s not the debate we are having. Time and time again our president and the Left have said flatly they want to raise taxes on the “wealthy” because that’s the fair thing to do.  I needn't give you the dictionary definition of “fair” for you to see the fallacy in such an argument.

I once worked with a lady who was proudly “basically a communist.” As a teacher at a daycare, she proclaimed how she liked kindergarten because it basically promoted communist philosophy. And just like that, without any provocation or protesting from me, she had laid out the perfect argument against radical left, big government, rule. Because the thing is, as an adult, I don’t want to be treated like a kindergartner.

Things like the “Buffet Rule” and “pay their fair share” play on the most juvenile level of human interaction. “I don’t have that and so neither should they.” And yet this what the politico-economic discourse (in this country and elsewhere) has been reduced to. An argument based on emotion and fuzzy feelings rather than facts (a trademark of the Left to be visited later on this very blog). Instead of heeding centuries of examples and basic, economic logic, the Left argues for “revenue increases” because the rich simply have too much. “You don’t have that and neither should they.”

So the question you must ask yourself is this: when do I get to stop being treated like a kindergartner? At what point do I expect to be treated like a grown up?  This is the essence of conservatism.

-Isaac

Thursday, November 29, 2012

Ever Get The Feeling...

Ever get the feeling that you're the only one who doesn't get it?
America, you have that feeling right now don't you?

Note this article on economic reforms in Cuba.  Cuba... you remember Cuba.  When the Soviet Union became the former Soviet Union, Cuba was left alone in the Western Hemisphere as the only communist state.  (This was before certain, ahem, "reforms" in Venezuela.)

Whenever I don't have
a more fitting picture to share,
I'm just going to post one of these.
Cuba had been propped up by USSR, but when the sugar daddy dissolved, Cuba was left to its own devices.  What did they do?  They began an inexorable slide toward... wait for it... capitalism.

This article explains how Cuba has pulled back from complete nationalism of industry and complete cradle-to-grave care of it's people.  (And that care was "tax free" because the State confiscated all industrial output - that's how Communist states roll.)  Now, it is implementing a quasi-capitalist economy and making citizens pay an income tax.  It's complicated by interesting.

Here's where America is left at the dance all alone.  As the single shining light of communism (State Socialism) between France and Fiji, Cuba is giving up on Marxist Socialism.  It will take a while, but they'll get there.  ON THE OTHER HAND, the USofA is sprinting toward excessive taxation, confiscation of property, and nationalism of industry - remember what happened to health care?

Europe and China, both with unique "interests" in America are begging us to cut spending and get our financial houses in order.  I take that seriously.  When communist and socialist nations/confederations beg us to not become like them, I think we should consider their request very carefully.

It's been a long, long time since I wished an American president would emulate Castro.  Long time.

Clark H Smith

The Peril of Being Conservative

Why are Liberals so apparently agitated to achieve their goals and why do Conservatives appear to be so passive about our condition?

Let me illustrate that for you.  On Sep 5, 2012 the Dallas Cowboys faced the New York Giants. With 2:30 to go in 4th Qtr, the Cowboys had the ball and a 7 point lead. The Cowboys needed only one 1st down and they could vanquish the Giants. What did they do? They ran the ball three times until a holding call put them back in 3rd and long.  Then they got pro-active again and passed for a first down.

There's the metaphor. With 2:30 to go, the Cowboys had achieved their objective - a points advantage over their competition. All they needed was to CONSERVE that advantage, not take risks, not even do the things that got them the advantage. When they fell back to 3rd & long, they still had the advantage, but they realized they had to be more aggressive in protecting their advantage.

Conservatives in America HAVE WHAT WE WANT (mostly). We have a capitalist, free market enterprise system of business, we have laws that generally lean right, protecting our way of life / our morals / our property and our preference for where the culture is heading. We have a government that seizes 30-40% of our personal property (income) every year, but we're used to that and we'll take that IF it doesn't go any further.

Liberals in America DO NOT HAVE WHAT THEY WANT. Not yet.  They want a thoroughly socialized (Marxist) economic system where no one has more property than anyone else (except for the ruling oligarchy). They want a centralized command-and-control federal government which dictates standard of living for all citizens. They want socialized, single-payer health care system. They want government-funded abortion on demand. They want open borders which feeds a permanent underclass to which they can pander with enslaving social programs.  They want a labor force dominated by Unions. And if you think I have exaggerated even one aspect of this, you have not watched their actions for the last 50 years. These conditions are the LEAST that they will settle for.

Conservatives are AMERICA'S TEAM. We have what we want and we are PASSIVE in protecting it. Liberals want to be GIANTS. They want to dominate the American social and economic landscape. THEY ARE NOT PASSIVE. They are AGGRESSIVELY pursuing their agenda and they are brilliantly agitating (community organizing) the people who would benefit from their cultural overtake. Watch them, they're angry. They hate Conservatives. They say sweet, ambivalent things when pressed, but their agenda is plainly written.

I don't blame Conservatives for being passive and expecting tomorrow will be at least as good as today, but it won't - not for long. Times are changing and the Liberals are the ones pressing the change. It's 3rd & Long and we have to be more assertive in protecting our advantage.

This blog is a father/son adventure in explaining and illustrating the principles of conservative politics and economics in hopes of agitating our readers and friends to be more AGGRESSIVE, pro-active if you like, in advancing the conservative cause.

Clark H Smith