Media Matters

"Promote then as an object of primary importance, Institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened."

George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly...who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat." Teddy Roosevelt

Have you ever heard anything in the media (newspaper, TV news or otherwise) on a subject you knew a lot about? If so, how accurate was the information? Personally, I have never seen such information treated without distortion or bias; or with enough depth for anyone without my background to have an entry-level understanding of the topic. Once I realized this, it caused me to question media sources more thoroughly on all topics, and to assume that the distortions likely existed across the board. That realization led me to research any topic I heard about in the media for myself, and to always ask the question in my mind about what perspective (i.e.: angle or agenda) any source brought to the story. Such agendas are not always diabolical - as long as you are not being patently dishonest. After all, everyone has a world view through which we see events - and there is actually no media professional's Hippocratic Oath that says any of them must strive to be objective....nor do I think there should be. But that's also why we have to be savvy enough as consumers of information to know the background on people who try to give us information. If you know the agenda, for example, of Greenpeace - and you know the sources of their funding - then that knowledge should put any assertion they make about oil companies into a certain perspective. If you don't do this with everyone, you risk becoming someone who falls for anything just because it's published information.

In an attempt to avoid this in my own life, I seek out alternative media sources. No, they are not objective either, but again, neither is anyone. That's just all the more reason that competition in anything is so vital to maintain...so that we can balance all perspectives against each other, and raise the quality of what's put out from all sides. Eliminate the alternative media - as Pelosi and Obama are actively attempting to do right now with the anachronistically-termed "Fairness Doctrine" - and you end up with nothing more than government-approved propaganda where news used to be...as is the norm in most of the rest of the world. That's one reason you always hear about how different we are here in America, but our freedoms are not the natural state of affairs...they have to be maintained vigilantly against people who would threaten them. Oddly, more and more that threat comes from our own politicians...but that too is the norm in most of the rest of the world. Our Founders understood this. They were students of history who practiced a lot of wisdom when they wrote our Constitution. That's why they wrote "checks and balances" into our political system - and the same concept of "competition leading to higher quality and less abuse" from government, also applies to all things...from business markets, to school choice, health care, or the media.

We have to have a way to communicate the ideas that can preserve our freedoms. And all sides in politics need to be able to use the media to articulate the differences between themselves and their competition. Until that happens, their competition will continue to portray them any way they see fit; voters will remain uninformed on the true nature of what is meant by the terms "conservative" and "liberal" for example; and it'll continue to be understandable that the voters believe that "it doesn't matter who I vote for, they're all the same."

You say you have never heard of The Fairness Doctrine? Well, my friend, you wouldn't if you limit yourself to the traditional media sources who'd like to see it slip into law while you're not paying attention. There are many such things that government and the complicit media do every day that you won't hear about unless you spend a little time digging for yourself. But fortunately, that's pretty easy these days. Which is why it's odd that our voting public remains appallingly ill-informed.

"Those who dare not offend cannot be honest"         - Thomas Paine

Let's Get More Specific About What's Happening Right Now:

The 2008 Election Season will go down in American history as the year that traditional media outlets ceased all efforts to be a balanced news machine. The way that CNN and the networks openly campaigned for one party over the other shed the last vestiges of journalistic integrity. No one is objective - nor should they pretend to be - but professionalism shouldn't be too much to expect in a country that should have higher standards than what you'd find in any two bit banana republic; where news is nothing more than propaganda from politicians. This reality here in our country is the reason that alternative media sources like talk radio and the internet have risen to greater prominence, as Americans seek some balance in their exposure to the facts.

Why would any open-minded, fair person limit themself to a "news" media machine that will proudly tell you itself that it - like Hollywood - votes overwhelmingly a certain way? Over 95% by their own statistics. The fact that you already know  which direction they "lean" is more proof of their bias than anything I could write here. That's what's meant by all the talk you hear concerning "media bias."

Food for Thought regarding alternative media sources ... and I promise to be sensitive

For those who say they're too "open minded" to listen to Talk Radio, please reflect on this...

If what's said on talk radio can be so easily verified, yet the same info is not put out on traditional media outlets, then who is really biased?

Talk Radio and the new Blogosphere are much needed alternative information sources. But that's also why they bother the established media sources - and the politicians they support - so much. Both are pushing hard to reintroduce The so-called Fairness Doctrine that was law for several years until 1987. That old law would silence their critics, like it did when it made the airwaves off limits in the 80's to people who held certain types of opinions - yes, in America. Yet that competition in the media - as elsewhere - is vital to True Fairness...otherwise you end up with mere propaganda, which is the norm in less developed countries...and is what we undeniably saw on display in the networks during the 2008 election season.

The "Fairness" Doctrine

A real proposal (from open-minded Pelosi and Obama) that's real censorship

Never heard of this? My friends, you wouldn't if you limit yourself to the networks and CNN. But it's a real proposal by left-leaning politicians to snuff out their critics on talk radio and even on the internet. Yes, in America! Whether you think "Rush is Right" or not, this should obviously alarm all of us and show you the left's true colors. Google Fairness Doctrine for yourself if you don't believe me. It's easy to do.

I love the deceptive names "Liberals" come up with for really diabolical ideas: "Fairness," "Welfare," "Entitlements," "Social Security," "The Great Society," "Liberalism," "Progressivism," "Wealth Redistribution." The list goes on. It's as if they know better than to call this stuff what it really is; and it's as if they believe that you won't stop watching American Idol long enough to investigate these ideas beyond their feel-good labels. Maybe they're right, though. I mean, far too few people asked for a definition of "Hope" or "Change" from Obama before they voted for him.

How do you      with     ?

Media's Effect on the War Effort  - From Vietnam to Somalia to the Global War on Terror (GWOT)

I don't even know where to start on this section...there are just so many troubling facts about the media's track record covering America's war efforts...warfare that's conducted by the very people putting their lives on the line to defend the media's right to have a job in the first place. Far starters, I'll give you the example of Somalia, because it's a smaller, easier to digest sample of the same mindset that's dominated our media's efforts at least since Vietnam.

There are far better people than me to put the proper light on this subject, one of whom I wish to cite here. The following is a direct excerpt from Delta Force commander Lieutenant General Boykin's exchange with Donald Rumsfeld that he chronicles in his book "Never Surrender:"

Secretary Rumsfeld: "You know, I still don't understand that, how Mogadishu was considered a failure," he said. "When you consider the statistics, it appears to me that we won that battle."

General Boykin: "Well, that's always been an issue with me," I told the Secretary. I felt fairly certain Rumsfeld knew that the popular version of the events - both the book Black Hawk Down, and the movie made from it - omitted my role as mission commander. "We killed or wounded eleven hundred, but lost eighteen and had seventy-six wounded. It's an example of how you can win a battle and lose a war because of politics."

Too true, yet it happens time and again - from Walter Cronkite's slanted reporting on Vietnam that led the public to withdraw their support for their own troops - troops who were effectively checking the threat of communism's bloody and oppressive expansion. And then there's the example of still-serving Congressman "Baghdad Jim" McDermitt's man-on-the-street media trip where he publicly undermined the troops and their mission there - putting them in greater danger by encouraging their enemy to keep fighting. I know that's not what he thought he was doing exactly, because he lacks the training our troops get, but that's why providing "aid or comfort" to the enemy is part of the definition of treason.

I realize that most people in the public don't have the background to know this either...but in the Special Operations community, and more and more in the military at large, it is a long-known and well-known fact that the war of "hearts and minds" is far important than any battle fought with weapons. That's why fully two of the five groups that fall under Special Operations Command deal directly and completely with the humanitarian, "heart and mind" aspects of modern warfare. Never heard that either? Again, you won't from the traditional media outlets.

The media treatment of the Global War on Terror has degenerated into (at best) a intelligence-collection service for the enemy with their daily body counts (in the military that's valuable, sought after intelligence called "Battle Damage Assessment" or BDA); and (at worst) a propaganda machine that routinely and directly benefits the enemies of our country. It's as if the events of September 11 are either forgotten in the media - which, sadly, somehow means forgotten by the public - or are now seen as an aberration, a one-time event, rather than the centuries-old trend of violent Muslim expansion that only ended with the fall of Islam's powerful state sponsor, the Ottoman Empire, around the time of WWI. The resurgence of Islamic violence since the 70's or thereabout is directly attributable to new, oil-rich state sponsors all over the Middle East. I know, the media talk as if the resurgence is the fault of our own "imperialistic" spread of influence, rather than a necessarily international check on the resurgence of Islamic violence, but that's the media for you.

Shown left is the true face of compassion. How so? Because he stands in the gap between aggressors and victims. He chooses to use his very life to defend others - rather than sit on the sidelines singing wishful-thinking peace songs that don't help anyone. Look at it another way: Who is more compassionate at the scene of a crime?...the defender who intervenes against the violence; or the reporter who stands idly by but merely comments on 'what a shame' crime is?

Forgotten in the media are the battles we've fought in places like Serbia to protect other Muslims who were being attacked; or the many other terror attacks on us that show Sept 11 to be anything but an isolated event. Rather, the Trade Center, Pentagon, and Capitol building attacks that day were supposed to be the kick-off of a new age of terror on a grander scale. But it didn't work out that way for them, did it? Instead, can't you just see them hiding in caves and wondering about the wisdom of their career choice? Sure, there are some die-hards (and that's all they are - an appropriate label, our Special Forces would say) who would fight on regardless of the odds and love doing so. But such fanatics - even in Islam - are not the norm. It's good for terrorists to have reason to fear us, and a "quit before the job is done" approach won't accomplish that. Instead, that will encourage more of the same from them, because it will validate their tactics of "wear them down till they get tired and leave us alone to plan to more attacks."

To an enemy that thinks in thousand year increments vs. our "microwave dinner mentality," they have time to wait us out. If we fall into the mindset of quitting before the job is done - or of weak kneed appeasement - the terrorists will win. Just ask Neville Chamberlain, who tried early on to appease Hitler with his "Peace at any Cost" campaign. How different might things have turned out if Hitler had been stopped before he became a global menace? Of course, if Neville had fought Hitler when the Austrian was a more manageable threat, the media would likely have painted him as the war-monger, who picked on a smaller nation that had had to resort to guerrilla tactics because it lacked England's resources to fight. You change a few of the names in that hypothetical and it becomes an interesting parallel to the state of affairs in the Middle East today. That's why

The unofficial motto of the CIA is "the public will always hear about our failures; but will never know the shadowy successes that keep them safe - because it's hard to convince most people how you saved them from something that didn't happen.'"

A terrorist's greatest weapon is the media, yet when was the last time you saw a report in the traditional media that expressed the importance of preventing additional terror attacks here at home, or of maintaining our resolve in the face of these extremists? When was the last time you heard it pointed out that we haven't had another attack since September 11, or a report that makes any connection between that fact and the actions of President Bush in their in-depth analysis of events? Friends, I have many issues on which I diverge with President Bush, and I don't want to turn this article into a political statement on anything except the media itself, but ask yourself please...

If you could go back in time to September 12, 2001 (when everyone was talking like it was Doomsday) and tell the public that in 2008 the airline industry would be busier than it has ever been, that there had not been one single additional attack, and that terrorists hadn't altered the lives in any way of the average American who hadn't sworn to go and fight to "keep terrorists busy," what do you think the people's reaction would have been?

I submit that it would have been disbelief at the very least; and if they did believe you they would be seeking an amendment to allow the sitting president who had protected them so effectively to run for office indefinitely. Why do we forget so quickly? Because we have it so good. Our apathy about freedom and prosperity is a direct result of our successes - military, political, financial and otherwise. It is a well-known fact that a people who no longer worry about the Gestapo kicking in their door; or about socialists looting their businesses and family savings, tend to stop keeping an eye on their government the way they should...which is exactly how the police states and socialists get back into to power. 

Of course, the media could help prevent this. For example, with regard to GWOT, they could air the towers falling so that we might remember why we are fighting; or they could re-air the 2002 State of the Union address where Bush told all of us that "this will not be like other wars, it will last much longer and be much more costly due to the shadowy and indistinct nature of the threat" (that's a marcsbasecamp paraphrase, but you can find the address on YouTube if you want to hear it word-for-word. Please do, it'd do you good to hear that again). For my part, I would add...

Many people are weary of supporting the Global War on Terror  because they see no end to it in sight, and so have lost their stomach - even though braver people actually in the fight still see its necessity plainly.  I would remind people that the open-ended threat is not a reason to stop fighting it. Quite the contrary, just as the fact that there will never be an end to crime is no reason to stop fighting it either.

I point all of this out, not to cheerlead for President Bush (although I do unapologetically desire to cheerlead for our troops and their mission), but to point out the slanted reporting of events. Our media prefers to see Bush embarrassed - because he is a member of the "wrong" party in their eyes - over supporting our fighting troops who provide the National Security under which they - and your own family - live. Friends, that's a sad state of affairs, and it wasn't always this way. During WWII and before, the saying went "politics stops at the water's edge." Meaning that, for all the faults inherent to most politicians, it was once a point of honor for even them to stand together in national unity in the face of undeniable threats from abroad. Not so today, and the war protestor culture of those who dominate in media today seems to render reporters fully unable to consider that our having no attacks since 911 has anything to do with the fact that our military has would-be attackers hiding under rocks instead. That is the only reason we've had no other attacks. And the media can't bring themselves to give that credit to our troops, solely because the media have politicized this war and don't like that our troops are being effective under a politician who's not one of their choosing. That's why they can't bring themselves to support the troops' mission - an apolitical mission that should be all of ours. I know, the cop out is that they say they "support the troops but not the war." Friends, that's a PC phrase that only flies with people who haven't given the situation more than a Michael Moore depth of analysis. Thirty seconds of deeper though would reveal that you can't support the troops if you tell them that you don't believe in their mission. If you don't, then at least have the stones to say so, in clear terms . You can't have it both ways.

You've been to airports and train stations and stadiums...think how easy it would be to attack us again if they only could get away from our troops to do so.  The fact that they have not is not because they don't want to - it can only be because of our war efforts

What else are you not hearing about that will affect your life and your family's prosperity and freedom? From a talk radio listener I can tell you with confidence that there's quite a lot that you are missing every day if you are "too open minded" to tune in.

For starters, what follows is a really small percentage sampling of what's out there. Did you know about the following things? Sorry if this seems slanted to you ... but is that really the point if it's true?

• Democrats, encouraged by their victories, are already holding committee hearings on how to confiscate your IRA and 401K retirement plans? Look it up. It's true.
• You heard LOTS of flak about the Katie Courick interview with Sarah Palin and how the hockey mom failed the Katie's international geography quiz; but you probably were shielded from the interview where Obama thought there were at least 57 states in our country. It's on YouTube. Look it up for yourself. Again, MSNBC didn't air that because it would have deflated the aura surrounding their candidate - but they are not supposed to be candidate marketers...they are supposed to be news people.
• Barrack Hussein Obama campaigned for (his alleged cousin) Odinga in Kenya, who campaigned and lost while trying to implement Islam's extreme "Sharia" law - like the Taliban had in place. When they lost, they went on a killing spree. You were probably protected from hearing about Obama's connection to these folks by the traditional media.
• Obama's short "career" history is one of corrupt Chicago politicking; where he has won elections by manipulating the system to get his competition eliminated from the ballot - even black ones, if that matters to you. That is the norm in the environment where he learned his craft, and we have just nationalized that corruption in the 2008 election. The recent controversy surrounding the Illinois governor with whom Obama served is just the latest evidence.
• Obama actually said out loud to Joe the Plumber that he wanted "spread wealth around?" That's called 'income redistribution,' and it involves taking from you to give to people who didn't earn your money. They buy votes this way, and most democrats hide that this is their true intent. Many of us thought that this slip by Obama - caught on film - would be a real shift in the election, but...
• The only thing most of you probably heard reported about the Joe the Plumber encounter is the "controversy" surrounding whether or not Joe really had a plumber's license! Then the media started digging into tax records. Again, the politics of personal destruction at work....where you attempt to discredit the person rather than address the actual concerns they raise. This is what the left and the media does when they run out of logical ammunition - and Americans usually let them get away with it. For those who would point out to me that the republicans tied the same thing with Bill Clinton, I would say you are right. I felt at the time that there were far more substantial things to criticize Slick Willie for than being serviced by an intern. All sides should focus much more on the real differences between them.

What's the guy in this picture have to do with this article? Keep reading, please. I'll tie it all together

• When you actually do the math, Obama's plan to "tax the rich" reaches down to any HOUSEHOLD making $42,000 per year or more. Rich? Hardly. Yet why do you think he phrased it in terms of "taxing the rich" to sell you on the idea? I'll come back to that, but till then consider that a household of a teacher and fireman can easily bring in six figures ($100,000). Before you vote next time, friends, please make liberals (people who are "liberal" with other people's money) define "rich" for you, along with "hope" and "change"
• Those reportedly selfish rich people - in addition to creating all the jobs and driving ALL charity - also pay 97% of all taxes. That's according to the IRS's own public, on line statistics that you can find at IRS.gov. Here's how it breaks down...the top 3% of earners are paying over half of all taxes collected; and the top 10% are paying over 70% and the top 50% are paying 97%. So where do liberals get off asking high achievers to stop being selfish and "pay their fair share?" Friends, the motivation behind this is to appeal to our good old fashioned class envy...the same kind of thinking that led to the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia about a hundred years ago. Let's learn from history, shall we? and not fall into the trap of looting via the IRS the very people who produce our prosperity. This encourages them to start hiding their money instead, just as you would if robbers were in the vicinity, and to stop investing in our economy. That is never good, for self-evident reasons.

This cycle explained below has plagued all free societies thus far, but I believe it is avoidable with some economic education; and

We must exercise maturity in in the face of our natural tendency to resent people who have - or who can do - more than ourselves; lest we bankrupt our economy by looting the productive people

Class Envy, The Luxury Tax, and the Road to Ruin

Take a look at this guy with the Ferrari. How many of you reacted negatively to him upon seeing that picture? Did you resent him? Or were you among those who can look at such a person and think "good for him!"? Another question: if you were jogging in a park and a competitive runner zoomed past you on your left, would you resent him or allow yourself to be inspired by him in your own efforts? Why do I ask? Because the resentment of such people is natural, but like many natural things it's a flaw in our nature called jealousy. Worked into policy, this victim-like mentality leads to a welfare-statist attempt to loot successful people through taxation in the name of "Fairness." You hear it constantly in our media.

Have you ever heard of the "Luxury Tax?" It was written into law (look it up for the details...I wouldn't want to be accused of leading you anywhere you couldn't verify on your own) as a higher tax rate on items deemed to be "luxurious" in nature...things like yachts, Ferraris, homes that were "too big," etc.

Maybe you're sitting there thinking "good! they don't need those things." Careful with that. Here's why

1. Who should draw the line on what anyone really "needs" in a free society? Should a government institution have that power? Have you really considered what it would look like to have such a system?

2. We don't technically need much more than food and shelter. A cave and a garden would almost suffice. So are you willing to be told that you should limit yourself to that? We are not put here to just "survive," are we? Where do you draw the line? And where do you get off trying to tell anyone where to draw the line on how successfully they will be allowed to provide for their own family?

3. Have you considered who would buy the things that support everyone else if there were no rich people?

On that note, let's get back to the Luxury Tax. It was repealed a few years later. Know why? Well, what had happened was, as these items became more heavily taxed, rich people chose to do without them. I realize that the media paint such people as having insatiable appetites for luxury and that they can't help themselves from just consuming like the financial equivalent of a food glutton...but if you know anything about being wealthy and who gets that way you know that it's about good financial habits, being disciplined, and making wise choices. Sure, there are exceptions like pro basketball players, Hollywood starlets and cocaine dealers (am I being redundant?) - but statistically rich people are down-to-earth and responsible people. As such, they are typically people who can "do without" and not give it another thought if they deem an item to be superfluous. Which is how it looked to them once envious people elected politicians who plundered them through the Luxury Tax.

But then something happened that the plunderers - amazingly - didn't foresee. People started getting laid off. People who build houses, as well as electricians, fiberglass and metal workers, skilled welders, plumbers, etc. were losing their jobs. Why? Because you need all those people to build and sell luxury items. oddly enough, some people even built businesses around doing just that. And then the next wave hit as the sales of washing machines, and other things that the first wave of laid off people would have bought if they'd had jobs, sank into decline. That led to still more layoffs, of course, and then more in wave after wave of exponential impact on the economy. It was a good example of what happens when you raise taxes, as a similar thing would happen at all levels of income with any tax hike. Turn it around if you need to see it another way...what happens to sales on the rare "tax holidays" that politicians sometimes okay in order to stimulate the economy? They go through the roof! If it works on those days, wouldn't we all be better off if we had a society less burdened by taxes? But the main people with a voracious financial appetite are the tax collectors who finance a big, welfare state government.

The Luxury Tax fiasco also served as a good illustration of how the wealthy drive the economy, as they directly and indirectly create the jobs for the rest of us. And what good would it do anyone for those  who live with the fruits of success to deprive themselves? Yet this is what seems to be expected of them by what you hear in the media and from many politicians daily. Would it not be better for those in les developed societies to learn from us and raise their own standards? Why does it always seem to "fair-minded people" that the thing to do to bring others down instead of raise others up in their quest for the ever-elusive playing field?

The playing field will never be level. This is less a function of unfairness than the fact that everyone has different levels of ability, motivation, talent, ambition, drive, intelligence, wisdom, etc. Most of these character traits are subject to change, and are interrelated....especially in the case of motivation.

"Those who are capable of making something of an opportunity do not wait to be given one"    - Marc Heileman

Even a dog learns to not bite the hand that feeds him. Yet, societies typically fail to learn the same lesson. The pattern was best expressed by Alexander Tyler over 100 years ago. It goes like this:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure [through the taxation of the wealthy producers and then "redistributed" by elected officials to those who haven't earned the money but envy those who did]. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years [How old are we?]. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, [We're at least somewhere about here right now] from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage."

Taxes are there to support government, which in turn does a miserable job managing the money. Consider that when you see the media doing their part for their favored political party by pimping for Universal Health Care, auto-maker bail outs, and the like. Our socialistic democratic party has the media to thank for the fact that most Americans don't make the connection between high taxes and a bigger, less-efficient, monopolistic, uncompetitive, intrusive, and controlling government. I mean, why is no one saying in the media that we shouldn't look to government guidance, for example, in the auto or banking industries, from a Congress that can't even run the Congressional cafeteria at a profit? It's true, the doors are closed on it. You can't even try to make this stuff up. Ever been to the DMV? Yea, it's that way because you can't go anywhere else to get a license and they know it. They have no incentive to be efficient. Yet you want to subject your doctor to the same kind of system? Name one thing that the government - with their complete lack of competition - does well.

My Hope for Change: While the above cycle could very well describe our own irreversible slide to decline; I choose the winner's approach and will do my best to keep in mind that...

Before we had a Reagan, we had a Carter

So it is possible that we can recover from what is likely to happen over the next four years - though it will no doubt be painful. I believe that Americans possess several attributes that make us unique, and these attributes could - with some broader education on what's actually happening - overcome the destructive cycle. But we have got to wake up to the kinds of facts I have listed above. That will not happen if we rely only on a biased media for our information. We need checks and balances - competition - in more places than just government and commerce - we need it in the media too. That's the real importance of talk radio, and why the Fairness Doctrine is anything but.

Yet one of the main obstacles to understanding all of this better are the media types in Hollywood and the "news" outlets who seem arrayed against "capitalist wall street types," even though they fall into the "rich" category themselves. Why is this? In the case of Hollywood variety media personalities: is the phenomenon the result of idealism that has resulted from their having too few other cares once they were removed from the real world by very little actual work? Do they feel guilty about that? Should we have a new name for this syndrome? Perhaps "Success Guilt Syndrome" would be a fitting name for it. Maybe that also explains why people who live under America's blessings are capable of demonizing the very capitalist and military systems that made their family's success possible - because they forget all about why they possess these luxuries in the first place?

Who Is John Galt?

Consistently rated the number two most influential book of all time in surveys, it describes in an engrossing, novel form what happens to America when all the wealthy, innovative producers go on strike and move to a secret place called Galt's Gulch. All because they get sick of the masses' taxation of them and their constant entitlement expectations. It's the best explanation of Capitalism in history, written by a woman who lived through the Bolshevik Revolution and the miserable aftermath before emigrating to America. Her book has created quite a following among some of the world's most influential people. I took a hardback version up Mount Kenya with me because I couldn't put it down.

GET THE WORD OUT!

Don't Just be Part of the Peanut Gallery: I don't ever want to be someone who just rants and raves. It is important to offer solutions if you choose to be critical. There are several constructive action items that could happen - and need to happen - if we are to make it through America's current identity crisis. I'll offer you the following sample of four key bullets that would go a LONG way to healing many of our problems, and encourage you to click on What My Candidate Would Stand For link for more details

• First, we need a second Constitutional Convention, because this can be done legally without our having to rely upon current elected officials for action.

• This New Convention should limit the terms and the compensation for elected officials, as we were never meant to have professional, non-responsive, self-serving officials

• We also need to limit voting rights to people who can pass a knowledge test on our government and to people who are not benefiting from the system within which they are voting - anywhere else that's known as a conflict of interest ... and our Founders did not write in universal voting rights, in part for this purpose

• Tax and Tort (Legal) Reform

Yes, there are many other issues that need direct attention, but a great many of those problems would be addressed with these measures.

How To Communicate to Everyone What Needs to Happen: Now you can buy original marcsbasecamp bumper stickers, shirts, hats, and more at http://www.cafepress.com/marcsbasecamp Visit the link to see what's there. Personally, I believe that a billboard and bumper sticker campaign could help us get the word out about what conservatism is - because the traditional media outlets aren't going to air it no matter how much sense it makes...but everybody drives!

Listen to Wise Voices from History who are / were more articulate than people like me: Don't miss My Quotes Archive 'Cause there have always been wise people saying this stuff much better than I do

Links

Direct to Listen Live Links right

Quick Bytes - Short, to-the-point, common sense bullets that some politicians would say if they could. If more people understood these things, our country and the world would be a far better place.

My Political Articles Here (by topic)

A Succinct & BRILLIANT GUIDE to Lots of Things we need to understand about success, society and government. I wish I'd written it.