Part habit, part addiction ....all hypocrisy.

As the end of another month approaches, I marvel at how quickly this year is passing.

Looking forward, November is just around the corner and there is so much that must be done in such a short time, in order to prevent Obama from once again taking up residence in the White House…this time possibly for a much longer period than currently.

He has clearly stated that if Congress does not act in the manner he wants it to; he will bypass Congress and lead through executive order. Many Presidents have used Executive Orders to direct the Country as they want it done…but few have brazenly stated that they will use this Presidential power to bypass Congress…to, in fact, do the exact opposite of what Congress does.

This is not the way a democratic republic is governed.

For years liberal educators have spoken of the great political system called a democracy. They have imbued within their students a belief that America is indeed a democracy.  Walk down the street and ask anyone what a republic is and they will define a democracy…ask any high school student to define a republic and they won’t know.

Even our President never speaks of the Republic…he speaks only of the democracy.

So…friends, we have our work cut out for us.

We must first educate the masses. We must explain that a republic and a democracy are not the same. We must educate people that America is NOT a democracy (at the risk of being called fools…everyone KNOWS that America is a democracy – even the President calls us that!)

So, as I ponder the huge task ahead of us, and the short amount of time available, it occurs to me the end of this month…April 2012 has a personal significance that can actually help understand how we must move forward.

Let’s look at some numbers for a minute…

330,000 –  the estimated number of cigarettes I smoked since I started at age 18

3 –  the number of years cigarette free at the end of this month (when I say cigarette free, I mean absolutely zero smokes…not even a puff!)

50,000 – the estimated number of times I wished I could stop smoking

25 – the estimated number of times I really tried to stop smoking

1 – the number of times it took to ACTUALLY stop smoking

You see…smoking is a lot of things….

-          It is part addiction

-          It is part “cool” factor

-          It is part habit

-          It is part enjoyable

-          It is part peer pressure

-          It is part crutch

To successfully stop smoking, it does not matter what aids you use….it does not matter whether you need the patches or Chantix or acupuncture….or any of a million different ways of aiding the decision to stop…the one thing you need…the single thing that you MUST have is…the willpower and desire to change.

I smoked for over 30 years…a good deal over 30 years actually.

I can remember my first cigarette…I remember clearly how my head spun, how it burnt my throat and lungs as the hot smoke was drawn deep…how the nausea made me bend in two until it passed…and how I couldn’t wait to have another.

You see for me…all it took was the first one and I willingly had another…and another. It was not the addiction that did that…the addiction came much later. I found something fulfilling, almost spiritual, cleansing perhaps, in those first drags.

Over the years I heard all the health warnings. I understood the risks. I knew I was filling my body with poisons. I always knew that I would stop one day…but of course, that kind of thinking means that “one day” will never come.

Many times, I decided that I was going to give up…after all, my health was at risk, my kids hated it, my wife hated it….but I always failed…because I LIKED it. I liked the way I felt …even standing out in the cold, huddled in a winter coat squinting against the rain that was pelting my face…I STILL enjoyed the smoke.

Why am I telling you this?

Because this is what the conservative movement has to deal with.

You see, liberals/progressives are no different than the smoker I used to be.

They have heard ALL the arguments about how liberalism will destroy the country. They know that socialism cannot possibly work. They know that the seat of power within the progressive economic function relies solely on governments’ ability to keep as many people addicted to the government teat as possible.

(I am speaking of the mildly educated folk…not the hordes of addicted who are already a lost cause.)

So why are these people who know the truth still tied so closely to the progressive movement?

Because they like the way it makes them FEEL.

Just like I clung to my cigarettes because I liked the way they made me “feel”…progressives do the same thing.

They like to feel good because:-

-          Liberal policies help the poor, feed the hungry, heal the sick and house the homeless

-          Liberal policies take away their guilt because government takes these responsibilities away from them personally

-          Liberal policies ensure equality and fairness

-          Liberal policies will save the earth from the dangerous destruction that capitalist societies will cause

Wanting these things allows them to feel good about themselves…they can beat their chests and say they support the poor, the sick, the elderly, the homeless…they “feel” like they are doing something….when in reality they KNOW they are contributing to the problem.

My theory is that this is why so many liberals are so often angry…what they want to “feel” is represented in their minds by an ideology that they can’t live up to.

They see themselves as hypocrites…wanting to desperately believe in the liberal nonsense that they know is wrong…because if it is right, they “feel” good…

But where do they go when the sun drops behind the horizon? They go to their secure and safe house, with the fences and dogs for protection. They work to pay the big mortgage and car loans and credit card bills that are the result of living a capitalist lifestyle.

When the sun rises and they look in the mirror the next morning….they see a sell-out looking back at them. They see a person who says one thing and lives another.

The see a metaphorical smoker who knows that smoking is bad for them, but who cannot wait to put another smoke in his mouth.

Understanding that liberalism is in many ways similar to smoking we can look at the task ahead from a different perspective.

All the warnings about progressives will fall on deaf ears. They already know that stuff.

And they don’t care…because it makes them feel good (even if only for a few moments)…the next morning when they wake up with a smokers cough, it doesn’t feel so good…but is easily forgotten with the next nicotine fix!

The health industry has made great inroads with educational campaigns about smoking and the health risks involved…but the reason that smokers are stopping is far more basic…they stop because they no longer “feel” good.

So…the simple solution for the liberal addiction…it no longer feels good.

Or…better yet…educate them that other beliefs can feel just as good…and will free them from the hypocrisy they face every day.

You see…conservatives feel no guilt, no hypocrisy. They feel good knowing they have earned what they have. They feel good knowing that they have created a legacy for the next generation…a legacy built on hard work, opportunity and responsibility. They feel good about their charitable works knowing that is driven by a truly personal desire to help someone less fortunate. They feel good about the opportunities they create for others.

When they look in the mirror each morning they see someone who not only believes but whose actions match those beliefs…they do not see a hypocrite staring back at them.

It is my opinion that we must work towards showing liberals not so much that their beliefs are wrong but that their beliefs do not match their actions…that their actions actually match those of the conservatives they hate so much.

The education will be slow…will be frustrating…will be like swimming uphill…but I guarantee that if you can show a liberal friend that he can do more for the poor, the sick, the needy by utilizing conservative principals, and will be happier in his own life as a result…then you will have a friend that will slowly see the light and the darkness will drop from his eyes…

Conservatives live their beliefs…progressives live a lie.

And the simple reason for living a lie…is to make them feel good…but that feeling is short lived.

It’s time to reach out to all who are lost…and to show how conservatism is the answer they are really seeking. It is not the life of a lie…but rather a life of freedom.

They will stop when they want to stop…no secret pills, no special patches, no techniques will ever stop the liberal from believing the liberal lies until he is ready and willing to secure a different life for himself. Then..and only then…will he be ready to understand the truth behind conservatism.

Our job is to gently direct them…gently encourage them…and be ready to welcome them into the fold when finally they see the truth.

Yes…a big task and very few months….and the truth is, after 10, 20, 30 or more years…the decision to let go of smoking and find a different lifestyle is not an easy one.

After all…part addiction, part habit, part peer pressure and part enjoyment are hard factors to overcome….

But it can be done…

…and the battle against liberalism is no different.

…..devereaux

Should I have taken the camels?

When I was younger, and graduating high school, I thought that I knew all I needed to get through life…but I was wrong.

It took less than a couple of weeks at University to understand that my education was way less than I needed to get through life. But by the time I had completed 4 years at University, I certainly then had all the knowledge I could possibly need.

Again, I was wrong.

A few weeks into the work force told me that I was severely lacking in the life skills department.

Now, some 30+ years later, I am wondering where I will ultimately learn the life skills necessary to get through life.

You see, I have learned that people never actually stop learning….never actually stop sucking up knowledge like a sponge…never actually stop learning the skills that will take them into the next phase of their life.

Of course…it is possible that people with a long term agenda WILL actually stop growing as they become more and more dedicated to that long term agenda.

This explains how someone can become President with little or no knowledge of how the world works outside of his own experience as a community organizer…relying on Dreams from his Father to guide his decisions and a very keen political mind and narcissistic tendencies.

These are the values that propel the useless into positions of power.

They are also the characteristics that will ultimately result in failure…as they leave no room for the knowledge that comes from worldly experience to infiltrate the closed mind that is the narcissist.

But take heart dear friends…opportunity is clothed in many different fashions…sometimes it is fashion from the greatest designers of the era, while at other times it may simply be the cast-offs of the working classes.

However she is disguised, opportunity can easily be missed…or she can be seen as what she is and actions taken accordingly.

Sometimes we do not see opportunity when it is staring us in the face.

Way back when, in the mid 80’s, I found myself travelling through Africa with my wife and about 20 other fellow travelers.

We travelled in an old Bedford ex-army truck, painted pink to avoid any confusion that it could actually be an army truck, a tactic that worked in some ways but not in others…but that is a story for another time.

Travelling south to north, we entered the Sahara desert…a very harsh part of the world. With the road marked by black painted drums set about a mile apart the desolation was almost complete. We could travel for hours without seeing any sign of life….sometimes travelling through rocky outcrops, sometimes on soft sand that threatened to suck the tires into a sandy grave.

And then, out of nowhere we would find perhaps a local tribesman walking in the middle of nowhere with a huge bundle of sticks sitting precariously on his head. Where he was going was impossible to tell as the sand stretched in all directions to the horizon, with the occasional dune breaking the monotony.

We reached an oasis where we needed to stay a few days…replenishing supplies at a nearby village, and generally resting up before the rest of the long trek across this dauntingly huge emptiness.

(To put this in perspective, it took almost 2 weeks of travelling time to cross the Sahara…with daytime temperatures well into the triple digits and night-time temperatures below freezing. It takes some tough people to eke out a living in that climate…and yet they do.)

While sitting in the shade one day as the mercury climbed well past 100 degrees, I saw a strange site…a caravan entered the oasis. This was almost like a scene out of Lawrence of Arabia…with the leader riding his camel…followed by his string of wives walking behind…and then a herd of camels, goats and a large number of children herding them along.

It was kind of surreal…a picture book from my childhood could not have portrayed this scene more colorfully.

Over the next several hours the women went about setting up camp…their burkhas blowing in the gentle breeze sometimes giving a hint as to the shape beneath. The women’s eyes were the only visible part and they kept them averted most of the time. It was impossible to determine their age …or indeed their ethnic background.

As I said earlier….opportunity may come dressed in odd fashion…and when the leader of this merry band came to speak with me, I confess that I did not see the opportunity in front of me.

You see, he approached me as one of great wealth would approach a potential business associate. He clearly possessed great wealth…the saddle on his camel was inlaid with silver and he rode with a bearing that cried out “nobility”.

He sat with me in the shade and with the aid of a translator told me how enamored he was with my wife…how her blonde hair and blue eyes were highly prized in his world.

He then offered me five camels for her….stating that she would hold a place of prominence in his harem because of her skin color. He told me she would be treated well and bestowed with all the trappings that a consort of his should have.

He actually laid it on quite thick.

The translator told me that 5 camels was a high price and that I should accept this very generous offer.

I turned it down.

In fact I was horrified that in the 80’s women in this part of the world could be bought and sold as chattels…my ignorance of the world was showing and I didn’t even think before I graciously turned down his most generous offer.

Opportunity.

Many years later, my marriage ended in divorce…a not unfriendly but very expensive affair.

Maybe, I should have taken the camels?

As I look back on this experience it occurred to me that opportunity had come my way dressed in robes and sitting on a camel.

I am not saying it was a good opportunity, although undoubtedly receiving a king’s ransom then would have been much preferred to paying a king’s ransom later, but nevertheless an opportunity presented itself.

While I will maintain to my dying days that I made the right decision, the fact remains that I responded without first giving due consideration to the many alternatives. I immediately relied on my own sense of right and wrong…I refused to give any consideration to what the translator was explaining to me…I knew better.

I know many of you reading this will immediately think that I had no choice…that I could not simply sell my wife into life as a sex slave or harem leader or whatever might befall her. I know some are thinking that this is a silly story…of course there was no opportunity there. Not in terms of our own beliefs and principals anyway.

But the fact remains that in 1980 a blonde haired blue eyed woman was worth 5 camels . Is it really any different today?

How much would a beautiful young girl fetch today…10 camels? 15? More?

And how much does it take to corrupt one’s own sense of right/wrong? Is the lure of camels enough? Is it dollars? Is it sex? Is it power?

When opportunity comes knocking in any of its many disguises, we must be careful to know the difference between a good opportunity and one that will send our souls on the start of a journey into hell.

How do we know the difference?

Life experience.

The disguises that opportunity wraps itself in are way too numerous for the inexperienced to recognize.

And that, dear friends, is why it is so dangerous to have the Community Organizer ruling in the White House.

That is why an inexperienced narcissist who listens to no-one, but relies on dreams from the father he never knew as his guiding light, represents the greatest threat to this Republic than she has faced in her entire History.

When opportunity knocks, it takes discernment far beyond his experience to know what to do.

You see, opportunity is a cynical bitch…she knocks when you are least prepared…and you must rely solely on your own beliefs to determine what to do. Some opportunities are easy to ignore.

Others?

Well…Zimmerman may have some words to say about this President and his use of opportunity.

Maybe I should have taken the camels?

…..devereaux

Swallow now - you may be next on the menu!

The rich must pay their fair share!

It is just morally wrong, indeed reprehensible, that some folk in America get to enjoy great wealth, and pay less tax than their secretaries.

The Buffet rule is a good rule (but don’t ask Buffet….he probably cringes at the thought of ACTUALLY having to pay more taxes – he prefers to pontificate on what should be, rather than taking action on what WILL be.)

Regardless of how you look at the Liar-in-Chief’s continuation of the claim that the rich must pay their fair share…regardless of how he packages it…he is appealing to one type of person. He is appealing the parasite…to the 47% of Americans who now pay zero taxes and yet enjoy the fruits of Government handouts.

He speaks of the millionaires and billionaires…he talks of their secretaries…he hails there willingness to pay more taxes to solve the economic problems.

He lies.

What he is speaking of is cannibalism of the highest order.

He hates those that control more wealth than he has…and wants to bring them back to earth by soaking them as much as he can.

His phony cohorts go along with him because not only does it assuage their guilt – their belief that if they are rich, they must have stolen it from someone – but it makes them feel they are more likeable to the common man. It makes them feel like they are not hated because of their wealth – after all, they can’t be all bad if they are willing to pay more tax and spread their wealth around, right?

Well, let’s just take a look at this and see what is for dinner.

For our appetizer course we will look at the ten richest (by net worth):

These include:

Bill Gates - $59b

Warren Buffet - $39b

Larry Ellison - $33b

Charles Koch - $25b

David Koch - $25b

Christie Walton - $24b

George Soros - $22b

Sheldon Adelson - $21b

Jim Walton - $21b

And rounding off the top 10,

Alice Walton - $20b

Total net worth – around $289 million.

Now, let’s think about this for a moment. This is not income…it is net worth. But, if we are going to eat the rich….indulging in Obama’s favorite bit of cannibalism….we need to get serious and really eat them…not just nibble at the edges.

So I suggest we tuck our napkins in, grab our forks and a big carving knife, and gouge out….oh…how about 91% of their wealth…a staggering $263 billion!

Now what can the government do with that?….It could sure feed the masses…with 300 million plus people in US, we could all receive around $0.87 each! Now, I am sure we could all find a way to make good use of our newfound cash….

Or it could use that money to finance government spending…nah…that won’t help economic recovery.

OK…so maybe we need to eat the top 100….the net worth of the top 100 amounts to around $700b. If we took 91% that would be $637b – almost enough to give everybody in the US $0.87 each and BUY the nation of Greece….we could all go to the Greek Isles on vacation!

But …what would happen when the vacation credit card bills arrive?

Oh I know…we simply have the main course…the next 300 soon to be devoured rich guys!

So now, we have eaten a mere 400 of America’s richest people….and do not have much to show for it…the 300 we had for the main course produced no more than the previous 100…and a quick look at the rich list shows us that after 400, we are down to pretty meager pickings.

But it is time for dessert….and after a vacation to the Greek Isles…and dining on 300 1%ers to pay for it, we deserve a nice dessert and maybe a nice dessert wine as well, don’t we?

To do that we have to eat the next 1, 000 rich people….now don’t get me wrong…these folks have plenty of money….with net worth in the multiple millions of dollars, they can afford to give up 91% of their money, right? Sure they can…we can dine on them like pigs at a trough….

But hang on…isn’t that guy about to be devoured, your neighbor Jim? You didn’t realize he was so wealthy? After all he is just your local McDonald’s franchise owner….how did he get there?

There must be some mistake…we don’t want to eat him…he provides a job for your tennage son to help him get through college….

Gulp!

Too late…Jim has been devoured by the relentless hunger of the addicted. In a flash he is gone, and the jobs he created with him.

Now there are more folk with their hands out….

Now we have to eat 100,000 rich folk just to get a cup of coffee to finish our meal.

The problem is that this 100,000 includes some people who are seated at the table cannibalizing the rich.

Oh well.

Stupid is as stupid says.

…..devereaux

The straw man.

When I was a kid and knew no better, I thought a straw man was simply a PC way of talking about a scarecrow…you know, those straw-filled pants and shirts designed to scare away crows from the growing corn….farmers recycling their old clothes, repurposing them, making something useless useful once more.

But now that I have decades of world experience behind me, it is much easier to understand what a straw man really is…and much easier to identify one when I see it.

Unfortunately, this is a skill that too many conservatives have not fully developed…and is a weakness in the conservative armor that the left continually attacks.

The straw man.

The straw man is an argument advanced that has absolutely no bearing on the subject, and is designed to turn the attention away from the subject at hand and toward the new subject being that of the straw man.

Here is a simple example.

We have all heard about the spending spree of the GSA conference in Las Vegas last October. At a cost of some $820,000 of tax-payer money, it must have been quite a party!

Now that the videos have arrived and it is clear to all that GSA employees made mock-music videos during working hours, wasted enormous sums of money on parties etc, some senior GSA employees have become the sacrificial lambs and now have all the time they want to play in Vegas…except not on the taxpayers dime now.

The Obama administration, meanwhile, has not attempted to defend the 2010 conference. Top Obama officials have condemned the expenses and pledged to implement protections to clamp down on wasteful spending.

However, the administration has pointed to rising costs under the George W. Bush administration to suggest that the $820,000 Vegas conference could have been avoided -- if the Bush-era GSA had acted.

Readers…let me introduce you to today’s straw man…. The diversion of the $820k wasted by the Obama administration could have been avoided if Bush had controlled the costs during his.

The use of Bush in this example may initially run counter to logic because over the course of Obama’s administration, the “blame Bush” syndrome should have run its race.

Reality, on the other hand is very different.

Remember, the purpose of the straw man is to divert attention. And in this case the administration is trying to redirect your anger away from the waste and toward the continuing attacks on Bush. Those conservatives who long ago decided that there was no value in defending the Bush policies remain angered at the Obama administrations continuing to blame Bush…and that is the anger the straw man is trying to ignite.

That is the anger that has no substance….that is the anger that can only fully fledged conservatives who would NEVER vote for Obama will feel. Meanwhile, the issue of the waste under Obama’s watch gets quietly put to bed….the attention of the conservatives has been redirected…and the media certainly won’t follow up…so the administration eventually gets a free pass.

Straw man tactics work…and the left know exactly how to use them.

What I find most distressing is that conservatives fall for it every time.

Every time.

Over the next few days we will hear and read many stories that are checking the facts on the Bush costs…that try to prove or disprove the efficacy of the administration’s statements…that try to justify what Bush did…or simply try to argue that it doesn’t matter what Bush did.

You will see stories about how Obama has once again blamed Bush…but you won’t hear many stories about this particular waste of $820k of taxpayers money…that will become lost in the hullabaloo surrounding the Bush accusations.

Be wary though…it is not just the administration that builds straw men. It is such an effective strategy that the media also uses it.

In the last few days statistics were released that show that under the Obama administration, something like 92% of all jobs lost were jobs previously held by women.

When you have Obama and the left courting women and talking in terms of the GOP war against women, this is a particularly troubling statistic.

But the Obama administration need not fear….the media, through Politico, was quick to erect the next straw man.

They produced statistics showing that under Bush most job losses were jobs held by men, so that when Obama came into office the only people who were left to lose their jobs were women.

Yep….what a great straw man this is.

It hits several levels of creativity….

It implies todays job losses by women are Bush’s fault….awesome!

It suggests facts that are not necessarily proven.

It sets itself up for lots of new stories trying to prove and disprove the allegations.

And in the meantime, the real story gets put quietly to bed again.

In a few weeks nobody will know what the real story is…but they will know everything about how many men and women lost their jobs under Bush.

A perfect straw man!

And of course, the fact that a straw man has the shape of a man, but has nothing but (symbolically) worthless straw inside, makes it a symbol for people regarded as lacking needed qualities.

In the Wizard of Oz, the scarecrow lacks a brain….

And that raise in me a question….

Do the folk who erect the straw man lack intelligence….or is the folk who are fooled by the brainless ramblings of the straw man who lacking?

Do not be fooled by the brainless ramblings of straw men….

See beyond these feeble attempts to distract you from the real issues, and simply ignore them….focus on what is important, not on your emotional response to straw men.

Only by knowing what is important will you be aware of the straw men blocking your path!

…..devereaux