By Josh Weizel – Editorial Editor

The year 1968 marked a transformative and new age in American politics and for the Democratic Party. The Vietnam War and the outcry of the civil rights movement lead to the rise of the New Left. The New Left distanced itself from the old Democratic Party in that they did not believe in gaining their support through labor unions and the working class, but instead they focused on the issue of civil rights and the Vietnam War. There were those in the New Left movement who went as far as being anarchist and believing that America was not an exceptional country. This New Left rise had caused the Democratic Party to lose major elections in 1972, 1984, and 1988 since those candidates were perceived as being at the fringe of the Democratic Party.

This all changed in 1992 with the rise of The New Democratic Coalition which was led by the governor from Arkansas, Bill Clinton. The main goal of the New Democratic Coalition was to hold on to the core progressive ideas of the Democratic Party of Franklin D. Roosevelt, such as advocating for more government action to protect workers and a safety net for those who cannot help themselves or have lost their job through no fault of their own, while at the same time strengthening foreign policy. The main goal of The New Democratic Coalition was to communicate their message to the working class and get their votes back. The strategy behind this was to explain and articulate to the working class why the Democratic Party was the party that stood for them.

The most misunderstood aspect about The New Democratic Coalition was that they were conservative Democrats when, in fact, the difference between The New Democratic Coalition and the new left wing of the Democratic Party was all about strategy because the more orthodox liberals wanted to continue only campaigning neighborhoods that would traditionally vote Democratic, but The New Democratic Coalition believed in also communicating their message to voters that would traditionally vote Democratic such as the working class and small business owners.

It is time for the Republican Party to use the same strategies of reaching out to nontraditional Republican voters to get elected and it is time for a transformative change in their strategy in getting elected. The Republican Party must stay steadfast to their ideas of economic conservatism.  The Republicans must stick true to the ideologies of Milton Friedman and Friedrich Hayek by standing up for individual liberty and small government and free markets.  They must stick to the core principles that the government does not know best how to determine human lives and that individuals know best in making decisions about issues that affect their own lives such as healthcare education and consumer choice and local control of issues like education instead of top down centralized control   They must remain true to the ideology of economic conservatism but they must communicate this message to larger audiences.

It is not enough for conservatives to talk rhetoric to their extreme and white working class base but instead they must communicate the ideas to African-Americans and Hispanics that government does not know best and that the policies of big government affect the most. They must communicate to these constituents an alternative which is the idea that if they are allowed to keep more of their own money they are more likely to succeed.

On the other hand, Republicans cannot claim to support small government when Republican administrations support widespread increases in government spending and regulation. George W. Bush expanded and spent more on the war on poverty more than Lyndon Johnson did.  The fact is George W. Bush increased the debt to trillions of dollars and broke away from the principles of fiscal sanity and cutting spending.  George Bush and Dick Cheney betrayed the constitutional, conservative ideas of giving all citizens equal due process to the law and rights to a fair and speedy trial even if they are accused of being terrorists and this shamed the Republican Party.

The worst betrayal of George W. Bush was the idea that education must be centralized and that mandating government testing is the way to go in education. The best solutions for education comes from the local level and there cannot be one-size-fits-all standardized assignments for every student in the United States because every student has their own unique differences and all students learn at different paces. The truth that progressive Democrats and unfortunately some Republicans don’t want to hear is the fact that the United States spends more on education than other industrialized country, but U.S. students lack many independent and critical thinking skills. During the last 40 years, the United States has spent $1.8 trillion on education, but the truth is there has been no significant outcome in student progress. These Republicans must learn that answer is not more spending but instead reforming existing programs and this cannot be done by the federal government but must be done by local communities and private individuals.

In order to have more diversity in their party, Republicans must also abandon orthodox conservative ideas about race relations and immigration reform. Republicans must learn that it is not just a left wing idea to support expanded voting rights to minorities. Despite the rhetoric about Frederic Douglas being a progressive, if he was alive today he was a traditional liberal and like Barry Goldwater he supported ideas of self-reliance and economic liberty and not demonizing successful individuals which are traditional ideas that are fundamental to the Republican Party. Douglas said, “He who does not think himself worth saving from poverty and ignorance by his own efforts will hardly be through worth the efforts of anybody else.” The Republican Party needs to stop the Southern strategy because they cannot get elected just on spreading fear and hatred and making white working class voters in the South angry. Instead they need to gain votes by expanding their base and using a unified message. It would be wrong to abandon working class white voters but the party should focus on making a unifying message to unify both the African American working class and the white working class against  big government controls and instead as a alternative for economic growth policies.

The Republicans also need to call out extremists in the conservative movement who have called President Obama a tyrant and a dictator. There is no moral sin against disagreeing with the president’s ideology and policies, but simply hating Obama will not grow the economic conservative movement. The Republicans must stand steadfast to small government ideology without holding on to tenacious strategies like using propaganda and demagogy and the power of fear to certain voters.  When the extremist in the Republican Party do this it is just as heinous as the left wing fringe which tries to tear down the wealthy. The Republicans must stand up for their ideas of wealth creation and against the ideas of wealth redistribution and punishing those who have been successful.  In order to win, they must state what they stand for instead of what they are against.  If they are against Obamacare, then they must offer real common sense solutions, such as letting individuals buy insurance across state lines which would reduce the price of health insurance.

Any true Republican would be against the Common Core mandates imposed on local communities, but they must stand for alternatives such as local control of education.  It is true that the poor and middle class are suffering in this country, but they must offer different solutions rather than spreading the wealth around. One idea for economic growth is tax cuts and growing the pie instead of spreading the wealth that is earned from the pie around.  They must believe and run on the fact that civil liberties and the freedom to decide what you want to do with your own life, like who you marry, is just as important as economic liberty.  If they want to get elected nationally again, they must understand that compromise is not a dirty word. The Republicans must understand that on foreign policy they can strike a middle ground and that they don’t have to stand for the extreme isolationism of the Ron Paul wing of the Republican Party or the extreme internationalist wing which includes those like Dick Cheney and John McCain.  They must understand that our country can remain firm against authoritarian countries that are against us while at the same time remaining vigilant and not sending our troops into harm’s way unless it is the only way to secure peace.

The Tea Party movement started after eight years of a Republican president who had increased the role of government and the rise of Barack Obama’s own big government agenda. This movement at first was a positive movement that stood against fiscal irresponsibility in Washington, but those behind the movement have distorted what the Tea Party real stands for when they refuse to legislate and say no to every proposal by the president without offering solutions. It is time for the Republican Party to not just stand against big government, but they must offer a positive and optimistic agenda against big government.

(Some information courtesy ncpa.org, fairimmigration.org, monadnock.net)

By Josh Weizel – Editorial Editor

Global warming has remained a controversy in the political world. This issue has caused debate because scientists argue that increased carbon pollution in the atmosphere is causing a greenhouse gas effect, which is causing the planet to heat up. But skeptics argue there is no substantial evidence that man’s actions are causing the temperature to increase. There is a debate in Washington D.C. about which policies the government should enact. There are those that argue that Cap and Trade, CO₂ control, is necessary to set a limit on emissions and root out greenhouse gases in our system. Then there are those that argue that government should not interfere with the free market and if the free market is allowed to naturally progress our country will naturally develop alternative fuels.

This nation is under attack by individuals who are anti-reason when it comes to this issue. It is incomprehensible that those who even question the existence of man-made climate change are labeled anti-science. What seems to be missing from the argument is that science is always changing and there is not just one science and once-believed scientific views can be disproven.

Let’s take their arguments one step at a time. The proponents of man-made climate change argue that increased C0₂ emission is causing the planet to warm up, but what these individuals fail to realize is that 500 million years ago when C0₂ was much higher, modern forms of life still survived even with high temperatures on planet earth. The proponents of climate-change don’t understand that while the climate is changing naturally, as it is scientifically proven the climate is always changing and our planet has gone through many temperature patterns including the Medieval Warming Period and the Mini Ice Age.

Let’s get some facts straight. Despite what scientists argue about the earth getting warmer in the present time, during the 500 million years that life has existed on our planet, the climate has been warmer than it is in the present time. During the Cambrian period, which is the time period when most modern life forms like mammals emerged on this planet the temperature averaged 25-75 degrees Fahrenheit. The reader may believe that these statistics come from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn Beck, but the truth is they come from a Ecology Ph.D scientist named Patrick More.

There are many problems with those that argue that man-made climate change is real. One problem is that we have based our views on climate change on a computer model that is only a model and it can not say anything scientifically for certain. How can we base it solely on a computer model when we can barely even predict the correct weather or temperature for the next day? According Dr. Freeman Dyson of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Studies, “A computer model is not a crystal ball. We may think it sophisticated but we cannot predict the future with a computer model any more then we can make predictions with throwing bones or appealing to gods.” The truth is that people cannot simply say that the science behind man-made climate change is settled because to this day scientists still do not have the complete groundwork for theories like Newton’s law and Schrodinger’s equation.

What the other side does not realize is that just because there is a correlation between higher CO₂ levels and higher temperatures does not prove causation. The other side will argue it from an emotional state instead of facts. They will argue that human actions and evil greed is causing extinction of the polar bears. What they fail to realize is that animal extinction even before human existence was a natural part of nature. It is scientific fact that certain species exist today because the earth went through a cooling period a few million years ago, and that since the polar bears are a separate species of brown bear they evolved as polar bears when the Arctic Ocean froze over for most of the past 2.5 million years. What the alarmist media won’t tell people is that there is no proof the polar bear population is decreasing because of man-made climate change and, in fact, its population is higher than it was 30 years ago. Although it is true that the polar bear population is gradually slowing down, there is no evidence that it is because of man-made climate change. In fact, it is because they are being trophy hunted and 20,000 to 35,000 bears have been shot, which is more than 700 shot every year by trophy hunters and natives.

The proponents of symbolically going back to the Dark Ages and who are anti-progress and reason will argue that that the science of man-made climate change is settled, but what those like President Obama, Al Gore, and Hillary Clinton fail to realize is that no science is settled and scientists are always finding new evidence about old scientific theories.

It is deplorable and shameful what the environmentalist movement has done. The dark and brutal history of the environmentalist movement is unimaginable. The environmentalist movement banned DDT as a pesticide but it eliminated the birds that carried malaria. According to the National Association of Science, elimination of the birds has prevented 500 million deaths. The environmentalist across the globe will argue that the ban of DDT was a necessary ban because it was harmful, but the reality is there is no evidence that the chemical DDT was harmful. The question is why they would do this when DDT was not a harmful chemical. Could they just have been stupid or could they have done it for a sinister reason like to slow down the earth’s population in the name of an earth where less resources are used?

The other side will argue that their real goal is to protect the world, but their real goal is to keep citizens under a state of fear, believing that man-made climate change is a reality. This is their real goal because their only true evidence is a computer model and not actual mathematical or scientific evidence. Their real goal is to ultimately control people not through a dictatorship of the mind and soul. These individuals would be willing to sacrifice anything even if it meant sacrificing our fundamental freedoms and constitutional rights as long as they had their perfect utopia.

Those on the other side of the argument also argue that our country should enact Cap and Trade and put a severe limit on carbon emissions. Those on the other side would like to put a limit on carbon emission by 80 percent or more. What the far left extremists who support Cap and Trade don’t realize is the simple reality. The reality is that it is not realistic to completely move away from fuels when it dominates so much of our economy. The truth is that would result in higher oil prices for consumers and less economic growth. The plain and simple facts are that four million Americans would lose their jobs from a Cap and Trade program which will lead to $4,022 to $6,752 loss in disposable incomes per household which will be a real life effect on working class families. It is ironic that the very people who advocate for Cap and Trade are the same people that always preach about how the poor are not being treated fairly in this country when in fact the Congressional Budget Office, which is a nonpartisan organization, has estimated that reducing carbon emissions would affect the poor. The reality is that even a 15 percent decrease in carbon emissions would cost the lowest income Americans 3.3 percent of their incomes but only 1.7 percent of the incomes of the higher brackets.

While it is a reasonable position to want to move to more alternative fuels and the proponents make valid points about moving to more alternative fuels what they fail to realize is that it does not have to be done in an arbitrary manner by taxation and regulation which will affect the poor and middle class and it can be done more effectively by the free market then by anti-free market policies. There are also modest things our country can do to protect our air and water because even if people are skeptical of man-made climate change, that should be bipartisan. It’s time to stand up for the truth. It’s time to stand up for reason.

(Some information courtesy epw.senate.gov, instituteforenergyresearch.org, discovermagazine.com, and The National Science Organization)

By Josh Weizel – Editorial Editor

The National Security Agency is an agency within the federal government that is responsible for collecting data on potential dangers to our national security. Between 2012 and 2013, there were huge leaks on the data the NSA was collecting. This has caused an enormous amount of controversy on how far as a society we should go in giving up our liberty for a little bit of security.

It’s time for American citizens to face the terrifying truth that we are living in a time period in which are leaders are indifferent to our constitutional rights and liberties. This can be shown as data is being collected on American citizens in violation of the Constitution. The hard truth is the National Security Agency is targeting many citizens without definite proof that these individuals are involved in terrorist activities and without a warrant to target them. According to an internal audit of the agency completed in 2012, there were 2,766 violations committed between 2011 and 2012. What does this mean? This means that every American, no matter if they are a terrorist threat or not, is being targeted illegally.

Most Americans don’t realize how serious it is that the National Security Agency is spying on us. What most Americans don’t realize is that in a time of great technological advance, our constitutional rights are becoming less respected. Proponents of NSA targeting will argue the agency only targets foreigners and Americans suspected of terrorist activity, but that statement is inaccurate. According to a four-month nonpartisan investigation by the Washington Post most of the data being collected is not from foreigners, and terrorists and most of the individuals being targeted are innocent American citizens. In fact 90 percent of the intercepted data is from ordinary American citizens. This is an outrageous abuse of our constitutional rights and liberties.  This is also an insult to every American soldier who has risked his life in the name of our constitutional rights and liberties. We are living in a technological age where it is easier for the government to violate our civil liberties because unlimited data can be looked up on any individual.

It’s time we ask ourselves if the NSA is really making us more secure. The truth is the National Security Agency is not making American citizens more secure because it is so focused on targeting individuals not involved in terrorist activity. According to a public policy group called The New American Foundation, the NSA is not only violating our sacred constitutional rights but is ineffective and does little in preventing terrorist attacks. NSA proponents make valid points that The National Security Agency is necessary in protecting our country from terrorist attacks, but what they fail to realize is there is no evidence that targeting by the NSA has made American citizens safer. What these individuals don’t realize is that The National Security Agency can target people in a more direct and transparent way so the Fourth Amendment rights of Americans are protected.

The most disturbing part about the NSA targeting is the agency does not even have to alert citizens about when they are collecting data. Is it unreasonable to expect that the National Security Agency alert citizens when they’re collecting data on them? What many individuals don’t realize is the fact that the founding fathers wrote the Bills of Rights to protect us from a tyrannical government that would abuse its power. The Fourth Amendment states that Americans shall be protected against unreasonable searches and seizures, and when Americans are being targeted in a broad way this, the government is violating their Fourth Amendment rights. Although the National Security Agency may have good intentions in protecting our security there are politicians with ulterior motives who could abuse the powers of the agency. Who is to say that someone on the extreme right or the extreme left will not come to power someday and use the agency against their political enemies?

The U.S. Freedom Act which was voted on November 18 goes a long way in reforming the agency by ending mass collection of data. Unfortunately reforms did not go far enough in preserving our constitutional liberties because the U.S. Freedom Act would not end collections of the content of phone calls. Conservatives on the far right and progressives on the far left have one thing in common, which is they believe in control and that having a perfect Utopia is more important than our constitutional liberties. Progressives will stop at nothing to have an environmentalist Utopia even if it means giving up essential liberties for security and conservatives on the far right will stop at nothing to have a completely secure state free of terrorism even it means we give up our constitutional rights.

The truth is politicians with both extremist ideologies favor government control and statism in their own way. It’s time we stop electing politicians who disrespect the constitution and the bill of rights and it is time we start electing politicians who respect our freedoms and liberties. As Benjamin Franklin said, “a society that sacrifices security for liberty gets neither and deserves neither.” It is time that as Americans we stand up for a transparent government and a government that respects our rights as individuals.

(Some information courtesy offnow.org, washingtonpost.com, bloomberg.com)

 

By Josh Weizel – Editorial Editor

In many states and cities, the police have become increasingly more militarized with heavy SWAT teams. Actions like those in Ferguson, Missouri, where an unarmed African-American teenager was shot down by a white police officer, raise the question of how militarized police forces are. Is a little sacrifice of our liberties necessary in the name of security? There is a controversy brewing across the country about whether we should trade a little liberty for security or if our fundamental freedoms are more important.

When did the USA become a country that would be foreign and unrecognizable to our Founding Fathers? What has happened to our country when local police forces have become SWAT teams ready to raid people’s private property?

The evidence is overwhelming. According to the Los Angeles Times, the Pentagon is giving state governments $75 billion-a-year to finance domestic security, including items like surveillance cameras which violate the Fourth Amendment’s protection from search and seizure. What is even more startling is that this problem has grown increasingly worse under the Obama administration. President Obama came to power with noble promises and campaign against the Bush era civil liberty violations. The facts are, however, that during the Obama administration, police departments have received tens of thousands of machine guns with about 200,000 ammunition magazines from the federal government.

The startling truth is that local police forces are now starting to look like bands of soldiers ready for the battlefield. Our country is starting to look more like the Soviet Union than a Constitutional Republic. The Founding Fathers put the Bill of Rights in place to protect citizens from tyrannical government and to ensure against the infringement of those rights.

Whether we like it or not, there are some chilling facts we have to face. Many government agencies, like the Internal Revenue Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Fish and Wildlife Service, now include SWAT teams and they all have power over citizens. We have to face the chilling truth that we are going down a very dangerous road in this country and if we don’t unite together to stand up for our civil liberties we soon may not have the right to do that.

Militarization of states and cities isn’t the only issue concerning civil liberties in this country. Some people think that this is typical Libertarian rhetoric, but the truth is that real people have been affected by the militarization of the police force in all levels of policing. One example is John Pozgai, who is an immigrant from Hungary. Pozgai worked as a merchant, saved his money and was eventually able purchase land. Pozgai, who assumed he had the right to do what he chose on his own property, removed 7,000 old tires and old automobiles that were buried there. Would you believe that the Environmental Protection Agency defined his property as a wetland even though the only connection to a wetland was a small drainage ditch? Can you believe that after the Army Corp. of Engineers insisted that he apply for a permit and after he applied for that permit the EPA sent cameras to monitor his activities?  Can you believe that he was then arrested for putting earth, topsoil and sand into the United States waters?

In the logic of the EPA, he was discharging pollutants. Is it really moral that this individual spent three years in prison because the EPA deemed earth, soil and sand as pollutants? The truth is the EPA openly admitted that Pozgai did not release any hazardous waste into the earth’s waters. The truth is when the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution they did not intend for the government to have these enormous powers.

The Founding Fathers did not intend for police forces and government agencies to be armed SWAT Teams that can raid the homes of individuals and violate their constitutional rights. The Founding Fathers did not intend for local police departments to have tanks with 360 degree rotating turrets.

The side that supports police force and raids will make legitimate points in arguing that it is necessary to prevent violent crimes. What they fail to realize is that some of these raids are against individuals with nonviolent crimes. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, Special Weapons and Tactical SWAT teams connected to local police conducted 124 paramilitary style raids in the U.S. Eighty percent of SWAT team raids were used for nonviolent drug cases.

Is it really necessary to have armed Swat Teams to break into homes and terrorize residents for nonviolent crimes? Is this not escalating the situation? This is not a partisan issue since both Republicans and Democrats have equally infringed on our civil liberties. It’s time we unite and form political collations that include liberals, conservatives, and libertarians to stand up for liberty.

(Some information courtesy nytimes.com, theweek.com, latimes.com, and alternet.org)

By Josh Weizel – Editorial Editor

“Atlas Shrugged,” by Ayn Rand, is set in a dystopian United States where the producers of society go on strike because the government has increased the number of regulations and enacted policies of regressive taxation. As a result of this, the economy collapses and the citizens go hungry. Some religious leaders believe that Rand presents an amoral individualist ideology, one where people look out for themselves instead of for those most in need. There are some that believe that Rand’s book has never been more important than it is now and that the prophecy is coming true.

Consider the following: Does the U.S. has a tax code that punishes job creators that produce the goods and services that society needs? Is there a tax code that is 17 % of GDP?  How can jobs be created when the government punishes the very producers that create the very jobs that society needs? The truth is government bureaucrats cannot create jobs instead they can only destroy productiveness. Every dollar that is taken out of the private sector to support these government job programs is taken from the productive sector. Could the government allocate more competitive programs in health care than the private sector?

The evidence is overwhelming that this is not true. Economists James Gwartney, Randall Holcombe and Robert Lawson tested the impacts of government spending and the impact it has on economic growth in 23 Organization for Economic  Cooperation and  Development  member countries (OECD).  The differences in the domestic policies of these countries lead to different results. The data showed that wherever there was an increase in governmental spending and where government got bigger, the economic growth rate of the economy fell.

These are not just conservative talking points. These are just plain and simple facts and, according to the OECD study, the fact is that every 10 percent increase in government spending leads to a decrease in economic growth of about one percent. Sometimes facts are hard in politics because politicians don’t want to face the facts that ideologies of endless spending and printing and money does not work in a practical world. Facts are hard for politicians in both parties, including Democrats, who want to spend endless money on the welfare state, and Republicans, who want to spend endless amounts of money for militarism and nation building around the world.

Some people argue that cutting spending will lead to less economic growth, but that is just not true. In order to really cut government spending, the U.S. needs to change its overall ideology of government and realize that bureaucrats in government cannot solve the nation’s problems more effectively than individuals. In order to have a nation that creates jobs, the government needs to stop these regulations that prevent job creators from being productive.

Why is it that whenever there is one economic disaster caused by government regulations, government bureaucrats are always asking for additional interventions in the economy? This is a trend that Rand referenced in her book. Whenever there is economic disaster and shortages of food caused by government in “Atlas Shrugged” the government bureaucrats are always calling for more intervention. An example of this is the economic collapse and housing bubble in 2008 which were not caused by a so-called “prehistoric free market.” Those on the left would like to pretend that was the case, but the truth is the housing bubble was caused by the government encouraging loans to people who were not eligible for loans.

The people who favor more interventions and a crackdown of so-called corporate monopolies don’t realize that government control leads to whole new monopolies. Despite what progressives argue   about the danger of corporate monopolies, there is not as much danger in corporate monopolies as there is in government monopolies. Milton Friedman, a conservative and libertarian economist, said it best when he said, “The great disadvantage of either government regulation or operation of monopoly is that it is exceedingly difficult to reverse.” Like it or not, the U.S. makes the most obscure and regressive regulations. The most obscure thing about the regulatory system is that almost any type of business activity requires a license. Did you know that in some states, a degree is needed to submit applications to certain business? Despite what progressives argue about government regulation helping the little guy against evil corporations, the facts are that government regulations have a huge effect on small business. People who have never owned a small business cannot comprehend the amount of paperwork and the cost of all of these the regulations.

The people who advocate for more government control of the economy make legitimate point that the poor and middle class cannot get by in the current system and that the U.S. needs to provide a level playing field to give people more opportunities. What these people fail to realize, though, is the excessive government spending and regulations and taxation hurt the most vulnerable. In order to cut regressive taxes, those in government need to walk away from that idea that collectivism is superior to the inherent worth of the individual. The U.S. cannot make the same mistakes that socialist countries like the Soviet Union once made. It is amazing how there are those who want to experiment with the ideas of socialism in the U.S. even though that type of system has continuously failed throughout history.

(Some information courtesy theheritagefoundation.com, finance.townhall.com, and usatoday.com)

(Photo courtesy whatamimissinghere.com)