FOUR years ago, as America faced serious trouble at home and abroad, this news organization embraced the need for bold change to a different brand of leadership and endorsed Barack Obama for president.

That assessment of the depth of the nation’s problems and the most promising solution was correct in 2008. Regrettably, it applies no less in 2012, after nearly a full term of Obama’s administration. This is why the editorial board urges voters to choose Mitt Romney for president in the Nov. 6 election. He is the leader this country needs for the future. . .

Sad to say, the reservations our editorial board expressed about Obama in 2008 have been borne out. His inexperience in an executive position has been exposed. His naivete about his chances of getting much of his program through a deeply partisan Congress has been cured the hard way.

Instead of taking charge in Washington, Obama has shown unwillingness to take even the most basic step in presidential leadership: picking up the Oval Office phone to bring his influence to bear on reluctant representatives and senators.

Obama’s signature domestic achievement, the Affordable Care Act, is symbolic of his term for another reason: It passed entirely because of Democratic support.

The economy is making an all-too-slow recovery. The nation’s budget problems remain unsolved, portending a new financial crisis ahead. In the ending of the Iraq War and the killing of Osama bin Laden, there is a sense that we’ve already seen the high points of an Obama administration.

And Americans hoping for better from a prospective second term are frustrated by Obama’s failure to explain how four more years would be different. . .

Instead of following through on his hope-and-change message, Obama keeps telling us the limits of hope and change.
We are all for hope and we champion change. Many of this organization’s editorial positions are guided by the belief that change in government is to be sought, not feared. We embrace new leaders, independent thinking, and shaking up the status quo; this philosophy is evident in several other endorsements this fall.

Four years ago, the editorial board’s willingness to change horses in the middle of a churning river led us to call for voters to break the Republican hold on the White House and try a Democrat with a fresh spark.

Today, it leads the editorial board to urge voters to say “enough” to a Democratic administration whose sincere best has turned out disappointing, and install a seasoned leader with a record of fixing problems.

Mitt Romney is that seasoned leader.

This endorsement comes on the heels of a recent poll which showed that the most solid blue state in the union isn’t as supportive of the President this go around.

DonkeyHotey (CC)

“A former George Bush campaign insider told us, ‘Your Libertarian Presidential candidate Gov. Gary Johnson may determine who wins this Presidential campaign,’” Howell wrote. “You and I and our fellow Libertarians can seize this huge opportunity – IF we’re ready for the last 6 weeks before Election Day.”

That’s from Carla Howell, the Libertarian Party executive. Now, either Howell is extremely stupid, or she sincerely wants to hand the White House to Obama for a second term. If that is what the Libertarian party leadership stands for, I wonder what the rank and file Libertarian voters really think about that. Maybe she drank the same Kool-Aid Rand Paul has, and views the political landscape with the same lens. As Ramesh Ponnoru already observed, it is facile to assume that Libertarian views on social issues would virtually guarantee more moderate Democrat and Independent votes in traditionally blue states. For one thing, it ignores what I refer to as “brainless voting” – the ability of voters to simply choose “straight ticket” instead of actively choosing in each race. It is a depressing fact, but there is still at least a plurality of voters in many precincts that know nearly nothing about the candidates and issues they are voting on in a given election – they simply cast a ballot on party lines. That alone makes a case for the resurrection of poll tests, not to exclude a given race, but to exclude individuals that don’t bother learning anything about the people or offices they are choosing.

And there lies one of the major reasons why we still have a two-party system. History tells us where the current Libertarian movement is during this election season. Johnson could go down in history as the GOP’s Ralph Nader. Eye Desert made the observation that Republicans need to start listening to Libertarians, and most importantly, he has pointed out two possible outcomes if Romney does not win. If the GOP blames Libertarians, it could spell the end of the party. If not, it could mean a stronger, big-tent conservative party. It’s a solid thesis, and is nothing new. Barry Goldwater predicted the potential demise of the Republican Party years ago. He was there for the beginning of the takeover of the party by religious leaders, and the rise of social conservatism as we know it now. And Goldwater knew that would cause rifts within the conservative movement. Add in the big government spending that has been adopted by the GOP over the years, and that is a toxic mixture that has given rise to this latest growth in popularity for the Libertarian Party, and the Tea Party.

But, we’re not there, yet. The Libertarian message is growing in popularity, but it is not enough. Until it makes sense for voters in states like Pennsylvania to switch their parties to the Libertarian side, we’re not there yet. And, sad but true, until the Libertarian Party sheds its fringe image due to people like Ron and Rand Paul, we won’t see multiple candidates up for election in closed primaries, like we do for the Democratic and Republican parties. While I would greatly enjoy seeing the GOP forced to address its problem with overspending and overly invasive legislative objectives in the name of saving everyone’s souls, we can’t afford four more years of Obama, period. It boils down to this – right idea, but absolutely the wrong time. Sure, it might feel nice to buck the system, and vote for Johnson this November. However, if supporters of Johnson end up handing Obama a second term, then what? I don’t agree with Eye Desert on this one. If the Libertarian Party ends up getting blamed for a Romney loss this fall, the GOP will destroy the Libertarians, rightfully so. It’s what the Democratic Party should have done to Nader and the Green Party, but unlike that party, losing the Libertarian Party would be a real loss. Since it’s becoming fairly clear that the Republican establishment can’t seem to play well with the Tea Party, it seems that is where the work needs to be done. Imagine the political landscape in 2016 if the Libertarians and Tea Party join forces. Now, that is how you build a relevant third party in this country!

Florida Senator Marco Rubio delivers his RNC speech

Remarks prepared by the Republican National Convention

In 1980, I watched my first Republican Convention with my grandfather.

He was born to a farming family in rural Cuba. Childhood polio left him permanently disabled.

Because he couldn’t work the farm, his family sent him to school, and he became the only one in the family who could read.

As a boy, I would sit on our porch and listen to his stories about history, politics and baseball while he puffed on one of his three daily Padron cigars.

I don’t recall everything we talked about, but the one thing I remember, is the one thing he wanted me to never forget. The dreams he had when he was young became impossible to achieve.

But because I was an American, there was no limit to how far I could go.

For those of us who were born and raised in this country, it’s easy to forget how special America is. But my grandfather understood how different America is from the rest of world.

Tonight, you’ll hear from another man who understands what makes America exceptional.

Mitt Romney knows America’s prosperity didn’t happen because our government simply spent more. It happened because our people used their own money to open a business.

And when they succeed, they hire more people, who then invest or spend their money in the economy, helping others start a business and create jobs.

Mitt Romney’s success in business is well known. But he’s more than that.

He’s a devoted husband, father, and grandfather. A generous member of his community and church.

Everywhere he’s been, he’s volunteered his time and talent to make things better for those around him.

We are blessed that soon, he will be the President of the United States.

Our problem with President Obama isn’t that he’s a bad person. By all accounts, he too is a good husband, and a good father … and thanks to lots of practice, a pretty good golfer.

Our problem is he’s a bad President.

The new slogan for the President’s campaign is “Forward”.

A government that spends one trillion dollars more than it takes in.

An 800 billion dollar stimulus that created more debt than jobs.

A government intervention into healthcare paid for with higher taxes and cuts to Medicare.

Scores of new rules and regulations.

These ideas don’t move us “Forward”, they take us “Backwards.”

These are old, big government ideas.

Ideas that people come to America to get away from.

Ideas that threaten to make America more like the rest of the world, instead of helping the world become more like America.

Under Barack Obama, the only “Change” is that “Hope” has been hard to find.

Now millions of Americans are insecure about their future. But instead of inspiring us by reminding us of what makes us special, he divides us against each other.

He tells Americans they’re worse off because others are better off. That people got rich by making others poor.

Hope and Change has become Divide and Conquer.

No matter how you feel about President Obama, this election is about your future, not his. And it’s not simply a choice between a democrat and a republican.

It’s a choice about what kind of country we want America to be.

We should remember what made us special. For most of history almost everyone was poor. Power and wealth belonged to only a few.

Your rights were whatever your rulers allowed you to have. Your future was determined by your past.

If your parents were poor, so would you be. If you were born without opportunities, so were your children.

But America was founded on the principle that every person has God-given rights.

That power belongs to the people.

That government exists to protect our rights and serve our interests.

That we shouldn’t be trapped in the circumstances of our birth. That we should be free to go as far as our talents and work can take us.

We’re united not by a common race or ethnicity. We’re bound together by common values.

That family is the most important institution in society. That almighty God is the source of all we have.

We’ve never made the mistake of believing that we are so smart that we can rely solely on our leaders or our government.

Our national motto “In God we Trust” reminding us that faith in our Creator is the most important American value of all.

And, we’ve always understood the scriptural admonition that “for everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required.”

We are a blessed people. And we have honored those blessings with the enduring example of an exceptional America.

I know that for so many of you, these last few years have tested your faith in the promise of America.

Maybe you are at an age when you thought you would be entering retirement. But instead, because your savings and investments are wiped out, you have to go back to work.

Maybe, after years of hard work, this was the time you expected to be your prime earning years. But instead, you’ve been laid off, and your house is worth less than your mortgage.

Maybe you did everything you where told you needed to do to get ahead.

You studied hard and finished school. But now, you owe thousands of dollars in student loans. You can’t find a job in your field. And you’ve moved back in with your parents.

You want to believe we’re still that place where anything is possible. But things just don’t seem to be getting better. And you are starting to wonder if things will ever be the same again.

Yes, we live in a troubled time. But the story of those who came before us, reminds us that America has always been about new beginnings.

If we are willing to do for our children, what our parents did for us, life in America can be better than it has ever been.

My mother was one of seven girls, whose parents went to bed hungry so their children wouldn’t. My father lost his mother when he was nine. He left school, and went to work for the next seventy years.

They emigrated to America with little more than the hope of a better life.

My Dad was a bartender. My Mom was a cashier, a maid, and a stock clerk at K-Mart. They never made it big. They were never rich.

And yet they were successful. Because just a few decades removed from hopelessness, they made possible for us all the things that had been impossible for them.

Many nights I heard my father’s keys jingling at the door as he came home after another 16-hour day. Many mornings, I woke up just as my mother got home from the overnight shift at K-Mart.

When you’re young, the meaning of these moments escapes you. But now, as my own children get older, I understand it better.

My Dad used to tell us: “En este pais, ustedes van a poder lograr todas las cosas que nosotros no pudimos” “In this country, you will be able to accomplish all the things we never could.”

A few years ago during a speech, I noticed a bartender behind a portable bar at the back of the ballroom. I remembered my father who had worked so long as a banquet bartender.

He was grateful for the work he had, but that’s not the life he wanted for us.

He stood behind a bar in the back of the room all those years, so one day I could stand behind a podium in the front of a room.

That journey, from behind that bar to behind this podium, goes to the essence of the American miracle… that we’re exceptional not because we have more rich people here.

We’re special because dreams that are impossible anywhere else, come true here.

That’s not just my story. That’s our story. It’s the story of your mother who struggled to give you what she never had.

It’s the story of your father who worked two jobs so doors closed for him would open for you.

The story of that teacher or that coach who taught you the lessons that shaped who you are today.

And it’s the story of a man who was born into an uncertain future in a foreign country. His family came to America to escape revolution.

They struggled through poverty and the great depression. And yet he rose to be an admired businessman, and public servant.

And in November, his son, Mitt Romney, will be elected President of the United States.

We are all just a generation or two removed from someone who made our future the purpose of their lives.

America, is the story of everyday people, who did extraordinary things. A story woven deep into the fabric of our society.

Their stories may never be famous, but in the lives they lived, you find the living essence of America’s greatness.

To make sure America is still a place where tomorrow is always better than yesterday, that is what our politics should be about.

And that is what we are deciding in this election.

Do we want our children to inherit our hopes and dreams, or do we want them to inherit our problems?

If we succeed in changing the direction of our country, our children and grandchildren, will be the most prosperous generation ever, and their achievements will astonish the world.

The story of our time will be written by Americans who haven’t yet been born.

Let’s make sure they write that we did our part.

That we chose more freedom instead of more government.

We chose the principles of our founding to solve the challenges of our time.

We chose Mitt Romney to lead our nation.

And because we did, the American Miracle lived on for another generation to inherit.

Video courtesy of CNN.

1. 7:00 p.m. Convention convenes
2. Call to order
3. Introduction of Colors by Amputee Veterans of America Support Team (AVAST)
4. Pledge of Allegiance by Brigadier General Patrick E. Rea, US Army (Ret.)
5. National Anthem sung by Ayla Brown
6. Invocation by Ishwar Singh
7. Ron Paul Video
8. Remarks by Senate Republican Leader and Convention Temporary Chairman Mitch McConnell (KY)
9. Remarks by Senator Rand Paul (KY)
10. Remarks by Christopher Devlin-Young and Jeanine McDonnell
11. 8:00 p.m. Remarks by Senator John McCain (AZ)
12. Remarks by Attorney General Pam Bondi (FL) and Attorney General Sam Olens (GA)
13. Remarks by Governor Bobby Jindal (LA)
14. Remarks by Senator John Thune (SD)
15. Remarks by Senator Rob Portman (OH)
16. 9:00 p.m. Remarks by Governor Luis Fortuño (PR)
17. Remarks by Governor Tim Pawlenty (MN)
18. Bush 41, 43 Film
19. Remarks by Mike Huckabee
20. 10:00 p.m. Remarks by Condoleezza Rice
21. Remarks by Governor Susana Martinez (NM)
22. Remarks by vice presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan
23. Benediction by Archbishop Demetrios
24. Adjournment

2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay, FL

Last week, it was released that the GOP had accepted 11.5 of 12 planks which were part of the Freedom Platform, a platform developed straight from the people and the grassroots organization, FreedomWorks. The Freedom Platform embraces all forms of Conservatism and limited-government.

FreedomWorks asked their activists to go online and participate in a survey. In that survey they were asked to choose between two randomly selected policy-based questions. From the selections of close to 1.2 million people, and town-hall meetings with activists across the country, the Freedom Platform was developed. This ensured that the platform would include all of the policies that represented the grassroots.

Matt Kibbe, President and CEO of FreedomWorks, in a recent FoxNews column:

The GOP platform will include almost every plank of the crowd-sourced Freedom Platform. In
other words, 95 percent of the grassroots’ top priorities are being adopted as priorities for the
Republican Party.

Thanks to the efforts of an engaged fiscal conservative constituency, Republicans have
committed to repeal ObamaCare and pursue patient-centered reforms that return the decision-
making power from the government back to doctors and patients. The Republicans are
also committed to stopping the impending tax hikes, reversing the Obama spending spree,
implementing accountability for balancing the budget, and restoring fairness to our tax system
by pursuing a flatter tax.

Mirroring the Freedom Platform, the GOP platform strongly rejects cap-and-trade, protects
small businesses from the Environmental Protection Agency’s costly over-regulation, and
commits to unleashing America’s vast domestic energy potential. The Republican platform also
pledges to institute an annual audit of the Federal Reserve.

The only element of the Freedom Platform the GOP didn’t accept was the proposal to eliminate
the Department of Education. This proposal was actually a major plank of the Republican
platform from 1980 to 2000, until then-Gov. George W. Bush had it removed. Even so, the 2012 platform contains good language on the need for local control of education, as well as a very strong endorsement of school choice, both of which are key reforms supported by grassroots conservatives nationwide.

The 2012 GOP platform isn’t perfect by any means, but it represents significant progress within
the Republican Party in recognizing the importance of embracing bold, fiscal conservative
solutions for our nation’s myriad problems. While the Republican Party’s new platform reflects
well on its willingness to take a stand for principled policies, it also says a lot about how the Tea
Party has grown in lasting political influence.

No longer “just” a massive protest movement or even a well-oiled “Get out the Vote” machine,
the Tea Party has matured into a strong, focused policy powerhouse. The success of the Freedom Platform should forever put to rest the ridiculous notion that Tea Party conservatives
are incapable of engaging in the mainstream political arena without compromising their
principles. Grassroots conservatives stood firmly behind principled policies, and the Republican
Party listened.

This victory doesn’t mean the bottom-up campaign of individuals for sound economic policy
is over. Tea Partiers are still wary of the establishment, and no political party can ease the
grassroots into complacency with platform promises.

Finally the time has come that the Republican Party, a party which by all accounts in full of Progressive-lites, has finally taken a major step toward true fiscal and social Conservatism by adopting 95% of the Freedom Platform. While we should be excited that the GOP has adopted these planks, we shouldn’t let our guard down. We must make sure that the GOP and the Republican leaders follow through.

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“I don’t think that Governor Romney is somehow responsible for the death of the woman that was portrayed in that ad,” said Obama. “But keep in mind this is an ad that I didn’t approve, I did not produce, and as far as I can tell, has barely run. I think it ran once.”

But while President Obama said that it only ran once on television, according to a Senior Republican media strategist, the Obama SuperPAC has paid at least $169,047 to promote the Youtube video of the ad online.

“YouTube has a video analytics tool that allows you to determine the number of views per video through advertising,” the media strategist explains. “If you have the number of views that a video has obtained through advertising, the only question is how much they paid. Cellar is $0.35 per view and ceiling is around a dollar $1.00 per view. Therefore, the cost estimate we have developed per view is really very conservative because we went with $0.35 per view.”

He provides us with this chart:

Basically, it only ran once on television, but the outrageous ad continues to circulate online.

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Johnson briefly participated in the Republican primaries and debates before switching over to the Libertarian ticket, and per Fox News, Johnson is polling about 5% nationwide, which isn’t particularly bad for a third party candidate. Despite his low numbers, Johnson isbeginning to show a little pull in a few battleground states out west which includes New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Colorado.

Libertarian Party Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson

According to the same poll, he is polling at about 9% in Arizona and 13% in New Mexico – it’s not enough to win, but it could certainly be enough to hand out a disadvantage to the major party candidate that he is taking votes away from.

Earlier in the week, the Libertarian Party had this to say about Gary Johnson, “Libertarian Presidential Candidate Gov. Gary Johnson Could Deprive Mitt Romney of 5 battleground states, 74 Electoral Votes, 27% of the Electoral Votes needed to win in 2012.”

No one can be certain on what kind of effect Gary Johnson will have on the outcome in November, if any, but he wouldn’t be the first ‘monkey to throw a wrench in the machine’.

Twenty years ago in the 1992 presidential election, third party candidate Ross Perot collected an astounding 19% of the popular vote. Some have come to think that Perot’s influence aided Bill Clinton into the White House with just 43% of the popular vote, and disadvantaged incumbent George H. W. Bush.

However, Ross Perot had a large amount national support, something of which Johnson is currently lacking. But with the race between former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and President Obama being so tight and within the margin of error, Johnson’s influence could likely turn a state red or blue.

To add, some think that Johnson might not just hurt one side of the aisle, but both. While most think that Johnson will pull votes away from Romney, the Liberal PPP (Public Polling Policy) believes that Johnson could hurt Obama in Colorado.

“He’s going to be a problem for somebody, somewhere,” writes political strategist and Fox News contributor Joe Trippi. “We don’t yet know which candidate he might harm the most … both campaigns should be looking over their shoulders at that guy almost nobody is talking about.”

All of the numbers and opinions aside, Gary Johnson is a legitimate candidate for presidency, and shouldn’t just be thought of as a ‘vote stealer’. Johnson is the third party alternate in an election where the two major candidates are thought to have a lot of similarities. Johnson stands for a lot of what the other two candidates won’t stand for, simply because of political ramifications.

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Paul Ryan, the 2012 Republican Vice President Candidate

A considerable amount of this surge amongst young voters for Romney can be attributed to his youthful running mate, whom is the first of his generation to make it onto a major party national ticket. But don’t stop at this single poll. A poll that received far less notice from the liberal PPP group came out with the exact same results: 41% of young voters said they supported Romney, while just 49% of young voters supported Obama/Biden. In this same survey, young voters disapproved of President Obama’s performance in office, 57% to 37%, and an astonishing 75% of those polled said they thought the country was heading into the ‘wrong direction’.

Generation Opportunity, a conservative group that reaches out to young conservatives and Americans alike, has recently reported that the unemployment rate among young people is substantially higher than the national average – 12.7% of young people are unemployed compared to the ‘mere’ 8.3% national average. Generation Opportunity also noted that 1.7 million young Americans aren’t even being counted in those statistics, because they have completely abandoned the workforce all together.

But are we even getting the whole story? What isn’t being reported about Obamanomics is that the majority of the job ‘growth’ is coming from part-time and temporary jobs, while unemployment of full-time workers continues to skyrocket. This makes it even harder on entry-level workers, most of which hold a college degree and are young Americans, as they are competing with people that have much experience in the workforce.

It has also been found that a majority of young Americans are cynical about Big Government social safety-net programs such as Social Security and Medicare, and rightly so. Young Americans realize that there isn’t much of a chance that those programs are going to be

around when they reach retirement, unless dramatic changes are made to the system. Some young people just accept their loss, but others are realizing that they are on the wrong side of massive debt, instability, and an ailing country.

With all of this being said, why does the Obama/Biden ticket still have the support of the majority of young Americans? It might have to do with the “happy, go-lucky” feel a young person gets when they are told if they share their wealth a little, it will decrease poverty. Maybe it’s because the American college system is infiltrated with liberalism and progressivism. But for any reason, this point in the election has marked a stark improvement for Republicans amongst the youth in America.

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First, slavery would have been abolished long after other European nations, even backwards Russia.

In fact, Tsar Alexander II abolished slavery by decree in 1861, two years before the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president.  After Lincoln’s assassination, the presidency was filled by Andrew Johnson, a War Democrat who had the distinction of being impeached and nearly removed from office. (William Jefferson Clinton also shares the honor of being among the impeached Democrats.)

Among Johnson’s high crimes and misdemeanors? Hostility to Freedmen and the passing of Black Codes that gave dark- skinned Americans inferior status. Democrats would continue their tradition of opposing emancipatory laws for blacks through to the 1960s, when far more Democrats voted against the Civil Rights Act than Republicans.  (And not on the principled grounds that the legislation was hostile to private property rights and the rule of law.)

Second, America would have developed into a highly unionized and more economically inefficient nation since at least the 1880s.  While progressives today tend to idealize unions, and imbue them with legendary status for opposing the monopoly capitalists and granting rights to the working man, unions were in many ways quickly bypassed and outmoded by corporations in terms of granting pensions and benefits to workers.

The end result of over-unionization would be decreased productivity in exchange for higher-than-market-level wages and benefits.  There was a reason GM went broke and needed a bail out.

Third, there would be a lot less rich people, and a lot more poor people.  This would be true in absolute terms, and not in relative terms; it means that the overall standard of living would be depressed. While more equality may sound great to Democrats who want to punish the rich with higher taxes in the name of social welfare spending, what happens when the rich are so overtaxed they become as well-off as everyone else?  Presumably the social welfare programs need more funding, but without rich people around, everyone gets taxed more. Rinse and repeat until everyone is poor, but “socially secured” by a state that is immune from market accountability.

With a state-run economy, the standard of living would decrease. In plain English, how good would your doctor be if you had no choice who he is, like under the single-payer healthcare system that Obama, apparently like a century of Democrats before him, is dead-set to implement? The doctor you would draw would be a matter of luck, much more so than under a market system.  Under many “free” healthcare systems, you get what you pay for.

Fourth, America would be industrially depressed.  Hit by numerous safety and environmental regulations in order to micro-manage the economy and extract resources from it, the country would soon resemble Detroit, Baltimore, or any other city that has been run by Democrats for generations.  We might never have even had the automobile manufacturing revolution that made America’s economy the “engine of the world.”  We never would have taken the risks needed to accrue benefits from unexpected discoveries; in other words, we never would have pioneered world scientific progress using what Schumpeter called the “creative destruction” of the market.

No, the Democrats would continue to bail out all the losers, and put them on equal terms with those who succeed.  There would have been little incentive to strike out on a wild idea in order to make a fortune.  Ours would have been a middling industrial economy, perhaps insufficient to even assist our allies overseas with enough industrially-fueled military might to decisively defeat their adversaries.

Fifth, America would quickly have become completely immoral.  With little sense of right and wrong, except that redistribution is good, and rich people are bad, crime would have become as rampant across the country as it is in Democrat-run cities.  Far from being a coincidence, when people have as little respect for private property and human life as the Democrat Party, and people are forbidden from having guns for self-defense, crime is going to skyrocket.

Sixth, America would have a weaker national defense.  The beloved target of all Democrats when it comes time to trim the budget is defense spending, which is ironically the main legitimate function of the central government.  While Democrats love to fight wars (see the twentieth century’s wars initiated or escalated by Democrats, and those ended by Republicans), it is no secret that the Dems would rather be doling out other people’s money to make new client-slaves of the state,though they are not morally opposed to sending Americans overseas to kill and be killed in nation-building projects.

In conclusion, an America exclusively run by Democrats from its inception would quickly have become an impoverished, crime-ridden, industrially depressed, war-riddled slave state. On the other hand, Republicans freed the slaves, provided a climate for economic growth and innovation, were responsible enough to provide military funding for wars that Democrats started or agreed to wage, have tended to keep crime under control, have mostly respected individual rights, and more closely obeyed the Constitution.

The Republican Party might not be as conservative as many on the right would like, but it is an indispensable check on the irredeemably corrupt and dangerous Democrats. Those of us who consider ourselves on the libertarian and conservatarian side need to work within the party to push for realistic and positive change.

Gov. Scott Walker is a prime example of the success derived from GOP policies

While liberals remain aloof to our economic recession in Washington, every Republican governor elected in 2010 has reduced unemployment and spurred an economic recovery at a rate faster than the national average in their respective states.  Tony Lee of Breitbart.com stated that “the average drop in the unemployment rate in these states was 1.35%, compared to the national decline of .9%, which means, according to the analysis, that the job market in these Republican states is improving 50% faster than the national rate.”

According to Kate Hicks of Townhall.com, that’s seventeen states where the model of cutting taxes, spending, and reducing the size of goverment has proven to be an effective formula in stimulating economic growth.  Again, that’s seventeen examples that disproves Mr. Obama’s agenda and that of the institutional left.

Here are some examples of GOP executive success courtesy of Robert Elliott at Examiner.com:

Kansas – 6.9% to 6.1% = a decline of 0.8%

Maine – 8.0% to 7.4% = a decline of 0.6%

Michigan – 10.9% to 8.5% = a decline of 2.4%

New Mexico – 7.7% to 6.7% = a decline of 1.0%

Oklahoma – 6.2% to 4.8% = a decline of 1.4%

Pennsylvania – 8.0% to 7.4% = a decline of 0.6%

Tennessee – 9.5% to 7.9% = a decline of 1.6%

Wisconsin – 7.7% to 6.8% = a decline of 0.9%

Wyoming – 6.3% to 5.2% = a decline of 1.1%

Alabama – 9.3% to 7.4% = a decline of 1.9%

Georgia – 10.1% to 8.9% = a decline of 1.2%

One side has policies that are proven to reduce unemployment.  The other side has overseen an unemployment rate remain above 8% for the past 40 months. Is this really a choice?

But too often lost in the passage is the caveat that, “Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women.”

Suffice to say, we can temporarily be at ease that the ruling elites do not intend to seize upon our women, but the promulgation of like fear in the public mind has been sustained for so long that the two dominant parties, perpetually resorting to the contrivance of crisis to shore up their shortfalls and to mask their failures, are breaching upon new territory: abject hatred of both.

When Richard Hofstadter, the highly esteemed and most pre-eminent of political scientists, a card-carrying member of that sequestered class of lofty law-givers whose penchant for impartiality and altruistic distance from the statist program never ceases to astound, colored American politics as portraying a “paranoid style,” he was speaking, all winks and nods aside, particularly of right-wingers, and particularly of opposition to the amoral and gutless rule of the technocrats.

But all clear-sighted and wise politics stems from paranoia; in the sense that a free people is always watchful of the statist wolf in the proletarian henhouse. When men become distracted from fear of the government, that’s when the nation’s politics go awry.

What made Mr. Hofstadter, if one may characterize him as a mere man, “paranoid” is the idea that the unenlightened proles would seek a measure of self-rule without the meddling of utopian technocrats. After all, what mad world might result if the trend towards chaos and disorder was not reversed? What mad world if all individualism were not subjugated to the one cause, the elite-determined caused, which should triumph and reign for eternity?

Alas, the inextricable human condition of self-interest makes such fantasies as those possessing the global governance fetishists impossible to transfigure into reality. The inability to remove self-interest, this ineradicable barrier to unlimited manipulation of the human psyche, has turned the hatred of self-interest into the hatred of humankind: what else is the explanation for sacrificing man to mosquitoes, crushing his dreams to safeguard avian ova? Snatching him from the jaws of polar bears to drown him in a sea of regulatory red ink? Cutting down his habitations in order to preserve in tact sacred tree bark?

The fear of nature has been facetiously wielded against the unmoved masses for two decades; ever clamoring for the end times, ever clamoring for a bigger slice of the public dime, the eschatological guild of environmentalism has sought to profit from its dire prophecies; but it has become common knowledge that the apocalyptic utterance is a lie, if not through scientific exposition, then through the sheer elapse of time.

It would be remiss not to remind the reader that it is consensus within both political parties that manmade global warming (yes, you read that right, scientists of the future!) represents a grave threat to human civilization; and therefore, proceeding with airtight logic, all progress within human civilization, all accoutrements of industrial society making us safe from the vicissitudes of nature, along with the intellectual freedom that made those innovations possible, and along with the economic system that allowed invaluable goods to be so widely distributed – must be scuttled in order to prepare the way for a new man, a mediocre society, and a cowardly political order: one of blind irrationality within the public and calculating hyper-rationality within the political elite.

Such a schism results when one considers that rationality is the greatest enabler of freedom, so long as it is promulgated throughout the whole of society. But when state-controlled schools become a breeding ground for ignorance and irrationality, there must necessarily be a gaping chasm into which liberty falls. And when academia becomes a haven for a collectivist priest class, whose dichotomy in profession is the public pronouncement of teleological bromides like the inevitable triumph of socialism and the private hoarding of scientistic psycho-political manipulation, society falls prey to sundry schemes.

But only for so long. Despite the rantings of the lunatic leftists, the war-championing of the rabid right-wing, and the daily dissembling of the press, the American people have been fairly inoculated to the fear-mongering. Estimates of the drivers of political fear show “big government” far and away the leader, seconded by “big business,” and “big labor.” Big things are apparently scary.

Yet delving into what prevents citizens from focusing their rational fear of tyrannical government (to rephrase their perception more accurately), we find cross-cutting cleavages. Social conservatives fear a godless society, an understandable phobia from their perception, which is fueled by progressives. Those attending the public education system are forbidden the exercise of their free speech rights guaranteed by The Constitution, as the left-wing feigns that religious speech is somehow different from “ordinary speech.” Not to say that classes should devolve into a cacophony of chatter and noise, interrupting the nominal advancement of their intellects; it is to point out that religious persons are persona non grata and religious sentiments intrude upon the secular priest’s hallowed ground.

From the converse point of view, religious ideals frighten the wits out of progressives. The poor souls imagine a restoration of the Malleus Maleficarum, the Salem witch trials, the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, and the burnings of atheist heretics if not for the steady hand of opinion suppressors like themselves. Beyond this irrational fear of the innocuous nature of religion in our current political confines is the unmistakeably leftist program to extricate religion from the cultural conversation so that recognized morality can be wiped clean as a tabula rasa and our sentiments overwritten by unabashed statists.

But the division of Christianity in the United States is such that it is both flourishing in its abundance and brittle in its lack of cohesion and public eminence. This is the secret meaning behind the hysteria regarding the threat of radical Islam. Christians recognize the threat as metaphysical and disallow their fellow citizens the rational faculty of realizing the doctrine is not at all persuasive — perhaps to violent criminals who are a threat in any case.

With realistic appreciation of the enemy’s desire to commit mass murder within the nation, Christians brush by the implication that terrorism is a weapon of the weak; that America will not be laid low by such barbaric techniques of psychological intimidation so long as its society remains united, there is the will to triumph, and its military remains the most effective fighting force, backed by nuclear weapons to boot. So easily we are cowed by these liberty stealers, these faceless abetters of the unlimited state!

The moderates, for their part, fear disunity; and all incumbent accompaniments, such as fractiousness, and rough-and-tumble politics. And on their behalf those who rationally fear unchecked government are scolded to sacrifice the heat of their rhetoric, to tone down their verbal epithets, and to concede that the middle is comprised of the “reasonable” ones.

We the extremists are implored to revere the sagacity of the centrist, the wisdom of the pragmatist, and the far-sightedness of the know-nothing fool. In a climate of fear propagated by the government, we are meant to adore the calm hand of the cool-toned chameleon, who strokes our hair, reassures us the experiences of the past sundry years were all but nightmares, the government indeed means us no ill, and the bitter acridity of our tea would best be replaced by the somnolescence of warm chamomile.

But we are mutually afraid. Fear of death, war, terrorism, tyranny, atheism, heresy, pollution, disease, natural disaster, cataclysm, the end times, extinction, makes us vulnerable to the depredations of politicians, who shamelessly redirect our imagination from the rational fear of government towards numerous irrational fears.

And under guise of protecting us from the realization of these fears, the government robs us. Donning the face of the friend, it constantly stabs us in the back.

In some ways, the original party of government-fear, the former Republican Party, was put in an impossible position. Charged with representing people who were both apathetic and hostile to government, Republican politicians were put in the position of self-loathing; implored to hate the very power it was entrusted to wield. The Democrat Party suffered a psychical break during the era of radical politics; its Alinskyite doctrine taught that power is neither good nor evil, and the all-too-eager converted then shamelessly and guiltlessly grasped the reigns and never looked back. Over time, the Republican Party was bullied into recognizing its public pretensions were unreal; that power was a cudgel to wield against its adversaries lest it be bludgeoned to death.

The Republican Party developed two enemies: the Democrat Party and the freedom-loving American people. And just as voters have had to do over countless years, it chose what it viewed as the lesser of two evils: the Democrat Party.

Both loving power, fame, influence, and wealth, the parties have made a tacit peace; and both have turned against the citizenry, which had been the assumed source of constitutional authority. Sacrificing esteem for material benefit, glory for mundane comfort, and to wit, love for fear, the elites fancy themselves princes ruling over a populace made too ignorant, too distracted, too divided, and too preoccupied by fear to act in defense of self-interest.

And those still unpersuaded to abnegate their self-interest, in a word, those who value freedom, are tempted by the fiat-and-debt conjured welfare that is precisely the perversion of enlightened self-interest.  What is meant by that potentially mischievous phrase is that the public life continually lived at the expense of the future eventually compresses the opportunity of the present until the economy, the society, borders upon crisis.

The rational in society, those who are able to perceive, to predict, to feel this malevolent mechanism in process, are chided to hold their peace, to cease ruminating about their “paranoia,” and to allow the managers to do their magic. All of human history points otherwise – not that we should believe history or our lying eyes, say the fork-tongued technocrats.

Once Americans revered their government as an entrusted protector of their freedoms. That time is no more. Endless deception, calumny, scandal, and crisis has propelled the entity that was to remain in the backdrop of our lives to the forefront. And until the beast is tamed, that inevitable circumstance is here to stay.

Fear is healthy when roused and applied to the rationally recognized fountainhead of our problems. But chasing phantoms of the imagination, chimeras born of demonization, and irrelevant scapegoats leads us into the empty desert. The solutions to our problems begin and end with us, and begin and end with the mind. Mastering our fears is the key to mastering our political future; with reinvigorated courage and steely rationality we can decide our own fates.

Kyle Becker blogs at RogueGovernment, and can be followed on Twitter as @RogueOperator1. He writes freelance for several publications, including American Thinker, Misfit Politics, Independent Journal Review and OwntheNarrative, and is a regular commentator on the late night talk shows at OTNN. He holds an M.A. in International Studies with emphasis on Russian, East European & Eurasian Studies and is an advanced PhD. student in Political Science.