The day after the formal announcement,  the Sunday talk shows, trotting out the GOP’s talking heads, are on the same talking point, that the selection of Paul Ryan by Mitt Romney is “courageous”.

Interesting word. It’s used because that was the Frank Luntz talking point to discuss the Ryan Budget. It polls very well for the uniformed and/or very stupid, or cruel. And since Paul Ryan is synonymous with his Budget, the word for anything “Ryan” must be “Courageous”.

Time to examine the definition of some words at play here:

Courageous – possessing or displaying courage; able to face and deal with
danger or fear without flinching; “Familiarity with danger makes a brave man
braver but less daring”- Herman Melville; “a frank courageous heart…triumphed
over pain”- William Wordsworth; “set a courageous example by leading them safely
into and out of enemy-held territory”

Synonyms: Spartan, Trojan, Adventuresome, Adventurous, Assured, Audacious, Cool, Daredevil, Daring, Dauntless, Doughty, Fearless, Fiery, fire-eating, Gallant, Game, Gritty, Gutsy, Hardy, Heroic, high-spirited, Impavid, Indomitable, Intrepid, Lion-Hearted, Martial, Nervy, Plucky, Red-Blooded, Resolute, Stalwart, Stand Tall, stout-hearted, Strong, Tenacious, Tough, Unafraid, Undaunted, Valiant, Valorous, Venturesome, Venturous.

Antonyms: Cowardly, Faint-Hearted, Fearful, Fearing, Meek, Shy, Timid, Weak.

To boldly go where no man has gone before

Bold: adjective, bold·er, bold·est. 1. not hesitating or fearful in the face of actual or possible danger or rebuff; courageous and daring: a bold hero. 2. not hesitating to break the rules of propriety; forward; impudent: He apologized for being so bold as to speak to the emperor. 3. necessitating courage and daring; challenging: a bold adventure. 4. beyond the usual limits of conventional thought or action; imaginative: Einstein was a bold mathematician. a difficult problem needing a bold answer. 5. striking or conspicuous to the eye; flashy; showy: a bold pattern.

Cruel: adjective, cru·el·er, cru·el·est. 1. willfully or knowingly causing pain or distress to others. 2. enjoying the pain or distress of others: the cruel spectators of the gladiatorial contests. 3.causing or marked by great pain or distress: a cruel remark; a cruel affliction. 4. rigid; stern; strict; unrelentingly severe.

Inhumane: adjective, cruel and heartless. Used to describe terrible things like your neighbor’s inhumane treatment of his hound dogs, which he leaves tied up in the yard in all kinds of weather.

Cowardly: adjective 1. lacking courage; contemptibly timid. 2. characteristic of or befitting a coward despicably mean, covert, or unprincipled: a cowardly attack on a weak, defenseless man.

Now that we have the basic terms involved here, let’s examine what is the crux of the Ryan Budget, who according to his own people, is at his heart. Keep in mind also that although he recently denied it, he is clearly on tape saying what a big believer he is in Ayn Rand’s principles that selfishness is a virtue and Christian charity is a farce (my summation, but prove me wrong)

The focus of the Ryan budget is to make the Bush Tax Cuts for the upper classes and corporations permanent, even though they currently account for nearly a third of our current deficit. He also wants to increase military spending. To do this the budget first of all:

Increases taxes on the middle-class and working poor by eliminating sections in the code that assist them in not paying what would cause them to fall into poverty. Home mortgages, education deductions, etc.

He slashes Pell Grants which keeps middle class and working poor from being able to afford higher education.

He eliminates Medicaid needed for disabled and poor who cannot afford healthcare.

He places Medicare on a voucher system that would increase the average elderly recipient out-of-pocket costs up to $3,000.00 per year (from people living on fix earnings) or in other words, takes a system where they currently pay 25% of their medical costs and increases it to over 80% while providing vouchers to those who are already so rich and cared for that they don’t need it.

He also will privatize Social Security, a system designed to not make people rich, but to keep them from lapsing into poverty. He plans on doing this by allowing Wall Street investors access to the $3,000,000,000.00 trust fund, take commissions and gamble with money that is currently safe from risky market fluctuations like the one that is responsible for the crash of 2008. 

Incidentally, he wants to remove regulations that are designed to keep bankers from gambling with your deposits that caused the current depression.

So what is he doing here? It is indeed bold and courageous because of his audacity to jeopardized the health and financial welfare of elderly, infirm, disabled, sick, powerless people to provide more money to people who already have more than they can spend in a life-time. People who if they never received another dime on income, would still live till their dying days and beyond in the lap of luxury, never wanting from anything.

It’s bold and courageous in its cruelty and inhumanity to others in need and are too weak to defend themselves. It is has bold and courageous as was rounding up people who couldn’t defend themselves, and murdering them even though the world may have taken a dim view of it.

Yes, it is bold and courageous in its cruelty and inhumanity. But you don’t have to be cruel and inhumane to be bold and courageous.

You can also be bold by telling your financial backers like the Koch brothers and Sheldon Adelson that you will work to help the less fortunate while taking their campaign contributions.

You can be bold and courageous by telling racists, misogynist, bigots that you do not accept what they say in public and openly and critically ridicule them for their comments.

You can be bold and courageous by doing what right for the country despite the power base being hell-bent on doing only what’s right for them and not the people.

I’ll add that by not being bold and courageous in the ways mentioned above, you are in fact, weak and cowardly and not deserving of any support.

After my twitter tirade this morning on the Mitt Romney selection of Paul Ryan as Vice President I added a blurb asking Mitt Romney again about his tax returns. Kenny K @GoAvi8tor had to chime in with the above quote (he also made a derogatory reference to my dog and her picture on my twitter page). Well, this is a common talking point from those who apologize for the uber rich, that they already pay more taxes than the rest of us, so lay off them! I’ll try to keep this simple and succinct for those people should they have the courage to read and intelligence to comprehend this rant.

Surviving in the world today requires money. I know that’s a wild concept for many but it’s true. Basic living expenses, housing and food, breaks down to what is called the “Poverty Level”. The poverty level for a family of four in this country is $23,050.00.  Basic subsistence is about at that level, though many would argue it should be higher. Currently in our nation, 46 million Americans live at or below the poverty level. Those below that level get government assistance to merely survive. Despite talking points recently flaunted in campaign ads from the Romney Camp, only 4.2 million Americans get what is commonly known as Welfare. However, to get that welfare, they must actually be employed, and can only collect that money for a grand total of 5 years of their entire lives. After that, they don’t ever get a dime again. This has been in place since 1996 and hasn’t changed at all, nor has anyone in the administration proposed any changes.

So, we have people at or below the poverty line. They pay no Federal Income tax. None at all. However, they do pay FICA (if employed) and pay State, County, City and sales taxes. The taxes they pay come out of what little money they have in order to simply survive. You can say it comes out of their disposable income if they had any disposable income, which they don’t.

Now if you make above the poverty level, then in theory you have more disposable income, money above what is absolutely needed to survive in the country. The more you make, the more in Federal Taxes you should be paying, is called a “Progressive Tax Code”. This is an amount over the money absolutely needed to survive. The more money you make over this level, the better your standard of living and in theory, the more you are able to pay in taxes and not impact that standard of living. In short, you’re not taxed into poverty.

Now let’s take the example of Mitt Romney (for whom we still don’t know what tax rate he’s paid over the past 12 years and beyond). If we take him at his word, he is worth $250,000,000.00 and earned $21,600,000.00 in 2011. At the reported 13.9% income tax rate he paid, that means he paid approximately $3,002,400.00. At that rate, Kenny K is right, Romney paid more in taxes than I could earn in 5, possibly even more than 5 lifetimes. But here’s the thing of it. Take that $3,002,400.00 away from his earnings of $21,600.000.00 for 2011 and he’s left with $18,597,600.00 to apply to his standard of living. And he has a very high standard of living. The man and his family will never starve or end up living on the streets. How could he? You know how many homes you can own if you’re worth $250,000,000.00?

Now let’s apply that tax rate to someone who earns let’s say the average American Household income of $46,326.00. 13.9% of that is $6,469.31 leaving $39,856.69 to live on. Now keep in mind two things, the average federal tax rate for that income as head of household is actually 13.6% very close to what Romney declared. Very nice. But the remaining money goes to home, food, healthcare, State, County, City, Sale taxes, all eating into that $39,856.69 left for an average family of four. Anything higher would certainly impact their “Standard of Living”.

Those who advocate a flat tax rate appear to not understand that such a rate would severely impact those on the lower wage scale, so those people actually could be taxed into poverty. Our current progressive tax rate is designed to bring in the needed funds to run this government and not tax people into poverty. Since the 1% actually do control 40% of the nation’s wealth, wouldn’t be fairer they pay 40% of the taxes coming in. Oh wait a minute, they do. And guess what, they can pay more and still have no impact on their standard of living.

So, if we doubled Mitt’s tax rate to 27.8% of his 2011 income of $21,600.000.00 he would be paying $6,004,800.00 leaving him $15,595,200.00 to live off of for that year. Can you tell me that his standard of living would be compromised as a result? Would he be taxed into poverty?

Do the same to the average family we discussed earlier. Double their 13.6% tax rate to 27.2% and apply that to their $46,326.00. That would be $12,600.62 leaving them $33,725.38 for a family of four. And guess what, they are now getting closer to the poverty line in this nation for a family of four. They are slowly being taxed into the poverty level of $23,050.00 discussed earlier.

It’s not the amount of taxes you pay that determines fairness, it’s the amount you can pay and not have it impact you and your family’s standard of living. That is the math, that is the fairness. Why stick up for the uber rich who have been sticking up the 99% for their own self-interest?

Last year, the National Republican Lawyers Association, an organization that says on its website “Advancing Open, Fair & Honest Elections” and has the GOP Elephant in their logo completed an exhaustive nationwide review of all voter fraud cases in the country in a ten-year period of time. Anything from misrepresenting yourself at the polls, lying on a registration form, placing the wrong address on a form, everything was counted.

At the end of this study, they found 400 total voter fraud cases during those ten years. Most states had three or fewer cases of fraud each year. Compared to the number of ballots cast, this would represent a percentile starting with 0. and followed by a lot of zeros. Now those on the right will rightfully say that no one has really been paying attention to and rooting out voter fraud until just recently. No argument from me except that even today, the numbers are infinitesimal. But let’s examine that explanation shall we.

Why hasn’t anyone examine voter fraud until just recently? Specifically, since 2008? Is it a case that fraud was never there? Is it a case that nobody cared? Is it a case that the alleged crime has no impact on society? Or could it be all of the above?

Regardless, it is of concern now to many on the right. In arguments before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court over that State’s voter ID case that is expected to suppress conservatively over 750,000 people from the polls in a state that Obama won with around 600,000 votes, those supporting the law acknowledged there were no cases of fraud at all, few were expected, and the law wouldn’t correct the problem if there was,

Those targeted really aren’t accused of being in the country illegally rather they are accused of leaning a certain direction in their votes that the right doesn’t like. It’s the same with all analysis of these ID laws and voter caging operations. All independent analysis show a disproportionate impact on Democrats or those likely to vote Democratic. And remember this action violates two very important principles in our constitutional Republic, the right to vote and the presumption of innocence when accused of a crime. The fact that people who have legally voted for decades who cannot provide the needed documentation in the right time or be able to pay for it should make any constitutional scholar ashamed of these laws.

But let’s go back to the original point the right brings up. There is fraud out there that nobody til recently really ever looked into until now. It’s the same thing with immigration laws. The American people never really were all that concerned or frighten about this fact of American life until the 1980’s after Ronald Reagan gave them amnesty. They were here illegally, but it was seen more as a nuisance than a legal problem affecting the fabric of the nation. Review the newspapers and magazines over time. Barely a word ever mentioned until the Clinton administration followed by the second Bush administration did it become a national problem and these people became a threat. About the time that laws were being created to house these people here illegally in private prisons at tax payer expense. That was the gist of SB1070.

So two problems that weren’t really problems until people were told/convinced they were problems. Now lets look as mass killings using guns.

Guess what, not a year has gone by in generations when people have been concerned about gun violence, whether it be mass shootings at Post Offices, Companies, Schools, etc or domestic violence cases, assassinations, its been ongoing. Yet after generations of these problems, today it is easier for anyone to purchase an assault rifle with a high-capacity magazine than it is for people in those same states to register and vote, especially if they lean left for whatever reason. It’s an observable fact. The NRA has quashed a real concern that affects the fabric of this nation and has left people dead resulting in no true gun sale and ownership reform. Hell, Timothy McVeigh used fertilizer in his murder in Oklahoma City and sales have since been regulated and control, but after Columbine and other mass shootings involving assault rifles by people of apparent mental health and or criminal associations, nothing.

Time to get real here. At current projected rates of voter fraud that can be reasonably expected, if they came out and did it, it would have zero impact on any election whereas the draconian efforts to curb it would in fact throw an election the other way. There have been 400 cases in ten years. Let’s assume 40 fraudulent voters in each Congressional District were to occur. It would have no impact. And in a close race, there would be an automatic recount and the issue resolved.

Now if there were just one or two people of questionable mental health and/or criminal association out there in Arizona wanting to buy a few assault rifles and go on-line to buy thousands of rounds of ammunition, it is perfectly legal and they can go out anywhere and kill scores of people. Where’s the bigger threat and where should to true focus of legislation be to correct the problem?

He is now listed as one of Mitt Romney leading contenders for the Vice President. Both hard-core conservatives and leading Democrats equally welcome the prospect of Paul Ryan joining the Romney Ticket. (I’m still holding out for a long shot bet that Mitt will drop out at the Tampa Convention for somebody with a better chance, but that’s another rant)

So who is Paul Ryan and what is it about his famous budget the Mitt Romney has already endorsed to bring in conservatives to back his nomination?

Ryan represents Wisconsin’s 1st Congressional District. He is a fifth generation Wisconsin native serving his 7th term in the Congress. Prior to that he was a paper boy or something and has essentially always been on the tax payor’s payroll, though he get’s huge contributions from people like the Koch Brothers, Big Pharma, Banks; you know, the everyday people of this country who ask for nothing in return.

Ryan proposed the GOP House Budget called “The Path to Prosperity”.  Essentially it’s designed to slash over 6 trillion dollars in spending, while at the same time giving more tax breaks to corporations and the 1% AND raising military spending. How does he accomplish this seemingly impossible task? Well let’s leave aside the fact that it is impossible. The Congressional Budget Office has already determined it would in fact add trillions to the national debt and would cut assistance to the elderly and disabled via social security, Medicare and Medicaid. His plans places a higher financial burden on anyone born after 1955. It imposes vouchers for healthcare.

You know how well vouchers work. For education, vouchers represent tax payer money being used to supplement education cost for the wealthy, so their children can go to expensive schools that no other kid’s family can afford, even with the vouchers. It does so by taking money away from public schools, leaving them to rot and die, causing nothing but misery for the people who’s only crime is not being rich enough to go to the private schools, that the tax payers now supplement rich families’ children to attend.

In healthcare it would work pretty much the same way. The elderly who are not so fortunate as to be in the 1% will give up tax subsidized funding of their healthcare in Medicare, to pay for vouchers that go to all the elderly regardless on income. There is some means testing, but essentially those who don’t need the financial assistance, will still get it at the cost of those who absolutely need all the assistance they can get. According to the CBO, a typical 65-year-old, who under the current system pays 25% of their healthcare costs via deductibles and copays would now pay 68% under the Ryan voucher system.

Medicare would be privatized. You all know what happens when social services become privatized.  To make the profit margin, services are cut and costs go up. Nice deal for the elderly. It’s the same plan as Ryan has for Social Security. He forgets that Social Security was never meant to be a retirement plan, it was an insurance policy to keep the elderly and disabled from falling into poverty. But Ryan sees the trillions in the social security trust fund that if privatized, would make him and his friends rich while the elderly and disabled fall into poverty.

In a nutshell, this conservative nut’s plan is designed to make the rich richer by screwing those who aren’t rich. People who already have more money than they can spend in a lifetime, must get even more, even if it means taking it away from human beings, disabled, elderly people resulting in them lapsing into poverty like they did before Medicare and Medicaid was created and before Social Security was enacted. Hey, it’s not easy being rich, unless you have more poor people in poverty.

Paul Ryan is an avid believer in Ayn Rand, though he denies it. He says he’s a devout Catholic even though the Conference of Bishops have denounced his budget as anti-Catholic and anti-Christian, which it is. Paul, like the other Tea Party/Ayn Rand types is in it for himself. He has no sense of community responsibility, or Christian fellowship. He follows the teachings of admitted atheist Ayn Rand who ridiculed Christianity but ended up on Social Security and Medicare herself in her decrepid old age. May the same happen to Paul. Or better yet, with perfect Karma, let him lapse into poverty.

Yesterday on Twitter there was a hashtag going out #FessUpFascist. Of course as expected, many on the right were bemused about what they believe was humorous that liberals, who they see as fascist, would refer to the right as fascists. Many posts questioned the intelligence of those, including yours truly, for making such an accusation. From my point of view, people who like to call the people they don’t like politically, fascist, socialist commies are the ones who need a course in basic political thought.

This requires some reading and reflection on your part to gather what I’m about to say. In other words, I imagine those on the left will read and understand and those on the right either won’t read and/or will totally disagree because of the bubbles they create for themselves. As I tried to point out last night, those on the left believe in intellectual curiosity, growth and aspiration while those on the right don’t. However, I’ll acknowledge now, it’s really not that simple.

To start, there are two basic views of politics these days, Conservatism and Liberalism (Progressive). Many see themselves on either side of the divide exclusively. However in reality, most people have characteristics of both views.

Conservatism: (Latin: conservare, “to retain”) is a political and social philosophy that promotes retaining traditional institutions and supports, at most, minimal and gradual change in society. A person who follows the philosophies of conservatism is referred to as a traditionalist or conservative.

These are generally people who oppose change because they are comfortable with how things are, they reminisce on how things “were in the good old days.” They prefer things simple and orderly. They abhor complexity and value strength over anything else. Conservatives were the Tories in the days of the revolution. They opposed rebellion and preferred to stay with the established English way of life and governance. They didn’t want a change, just an accommodation.

Liberalism:  (from the Latin liberalis) is a broad political ideology or worldview founded on the ideas of liberty and equality. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally liberals support ideas such as capitalism (either regulated or not),  constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights and the free exercise of religion.

Note that the latter part of the definition refers to beliefs ascribed to the conservative movement (capitalism, constitutionalism, free exercise of religion) These are liberal values as documented throughout time. They are also conservative ideas. The only difference is in the specific details. However, this is an example of how many beliefs between liberal and conservative views cross the aisles if people are so willing to accept it and discuss it outside the pure ideology and rigid views of the people they surround themselves with. Liberals made up the majority of those who started the revolution against the long-established English system of governance.

What follows is not complete by any means, but it is a start to show where I’m going on this rant:

Communism (from Latin communis – common, universal) is a revolutionary socialist movement to create a classless, moneyless, and stateless social order structured upon common ownership of the means of production as well as a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of this social order. This movement, in its Marxist-Leninist interpretations, significantly influenced the history of the 20th century, which saw intense rivalry between the “socialist world” (socialist states ruled by communist parties) and the “western world” (countries with capitalist societies).

Now if you read this, the Soviet Union had some issues with that definition. The “communist state” was not truly Marxist because there was clearly a class system in place. As George Orwell pointed out in Animal Farm, “all animals are equal, it’s just that some animals are more equal than others” The state did run the means of production, government control of business and the needs of the people were dealt with, but extremely rationed and curtailed while the upper class basked in the life of luxury while the people barely eked by. It was more authoritarian than what Marx and Engels envisioned.

Socialism is an economic system characterised by social ownership and cooperative management of the  means of production and a political theory advocating such a system. “Social ownership” may refer to cooperative enterprises, common ownership, direct public ownership or autonomous state enterprises. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them. They differ in the type of social ownership they advocate, the degree to which they rely on markets versus planning, how management is to be organised within economic enterprises, and the role of the state in constructing socialism.

As applied to a political system, socialism is what the basis of “We the People” is. Forgetting the economics of the matter, it is a system of government where the people as a whole, through elected officials determine how the society will be treated and in the best of all worlds, set up an even playing field. Yes, it involves regulations and redistribution of wealth to ensure that those who have benefitted from the society in which they thrive, give back to others who cannot quite handle things on their own. It isn’t government control of business, but it is regulation to ensure the people are protected. In terms of business, the NFL is a socialist economic establishment. The military, police, fire-fighters, teachers, social security, medicare and Medicaid are socialist programs that the people of the nation pay into to keep society running. There is no authoritarian control except through reasonable regulations.

Capitalism is an economic system that is based on private ownership of the means of production and the creation of goods or services for profit. competitive markets, wage labor, capital accumulation, voluntary exchange, and personal finance are also considered capitalistic. competitive markets, capital accumulation, voluntary exchange, and personal finance are, however, not capitalism, and are often a part in non-capitalist systems such as market socialism and worker cooperatives. There are multiple variants of capitalism, including laissez-faire and state-capitalism. Capitalism is considered to have applied in a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics, and culture. There is general agreement that capitalism became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism.

This applies to many political ideologies. Capitalism is actually in play in modern “Communist China” and was and is part of the English Monarchy. It was and is the driving force in our nation’s development. Whether is be totally private, or socialized via the State through regulations, a need not covered by the state is identified and exploited for profit if they are successful. However, to apply a pure Capitalist doctrine on needed services like police, military, healthcare only service to place a profit margin on the service and either increases the cost to the consumers or results in a shoddy product or both. This is why the best capitalism is one that is regulated by government of the people, in other words socialism. In short, capitalism and socialism are not mutual exclusive economic or political systems. They can and do work hand in hand.

Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek elevation of their nation based on commitment to an organic national community where its individuals are united together as one people in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry and culture through a totalitarian state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through discipline, indoctrination, physical training and eugenics. Fascism seeks to eradicate perceived foreign influences that are deemed to be causing degeneration of the nation or of not fitting into the national culture.

As stated above, capitalism applies to other political doctrines. This is one of the most egregious combinations. Fascism, rather than government regulating business for the good of the people, is business regulating and controlling government and as a result, the people for the good of the business. Mussolini was a media tycoon, a businessman who took control of Italy with his fascist movement. As Hitler did in Germany, the fascists broke up and crushed the unions, established monopolies, required citizens to partake in the services of private corporations to enhance their profits. That is the economic history of fascism. As the people became more devalued for the sake of the profits for those in business and government, other atrocities occurred.

Libertarianism refers to the group of political philosophies that emphasize freedom, liberty, and voluntary association. Libertarians generally advocate a society with a government of small scope relative to most present day societies or no government whatsoever.

I have found this philosophy fascinating as have many who follow it blindly. I have to agree with its most prominent voice Ron Paul in regards to our military exploits around the world and the resources wasted on the Drug War. The concept of limited government is fine, but to a point. No government is a suicide pack. In short, some Libertarian ideas actually do go the right direction provided it doesn’t infringe on the well-being and safety of others. Some government is needed in that regard to keep the playing field level. Again, if capitalists were given total freedom via a Libertarian world, what would they do to harm the consumers for their profits. Who oversees it. A free market only works if consumers have a multitude of places to go for services. In a Libertarian world, monopolies become the norm and if you can only go to one place for services, well, you’re screwed. And on a side note to Ron Paul, though he professes to be a strict Libertarian, there is nothing in the doctrine that allows for government control of the bedroom of women’s rights. That runs counter to the philosophy. So Ron really isn’t a pure Libertarian.

Which leaves me to my final point and basis of this long rant. There are extreme views and extremists in our country to say the least, but very few if any are purely connected to one particular view or philosophy. I only cited a few doctrines up there, but anyone reading and understanding the definitions of each of them may find some personal views of themselves applied to these varied doctrines. I see myself as progressive because I seek change for a better world that cares for the people, I also see myself as conservative and libertarian because I believe government should only be as large as necessary to keep things even, safe and protective of the people, no more. I see myself as a capitalist that is governed by government regulations. I don’t however see myself as anything that applies to fascism.

So to answer the question at the top of this rant, there really isn’t any such thing as a pure fascist, socialist commie because in their pure forms, all three doctrines contradict each other. Sorry Fox, its doesn’t add up. However, individuals to some minor degrees may have views that apply to those three doctrines and even more, but that requires complexity of thought and understanding that many who make such an accusation are unable to articulate or identify other than using the labels.

Class dismissed.

Governor Chris Christie has recently been on the media shows discussing his weight again. He’s been citing that his “30 year” struggle with weight hasn’t been easy. But how seriously is he really taking this?

As a follower of all things politics and someone who demands total honesty in elected officials, I demand to see Governor Christie’s medical charts regarding his weight and Body Mass Index (BMI) for the past 30 years. I, (no WE) demand to know what steps he has taken to address his weight in a serious manner. What’s his diet? What does he do for exercise? What does he do to promote healthy weight with his family, friends, constituents of New Jersey? Where’s the evidence that he has been working on this seriously for the past 30 years.

We are the Girthers and we will not be silenced, or sat on.

Wonder if Orly Taitz is available?

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

That is the entire verbiage of the second amendment of the US Constitution as written and ratified in the Bill of Rights. Very succinct, yet many on the right and especially those who pay homage to the National Rifle Association apparently can only focus on the part after the first four words “A well regulated Militia” which was according to the federalist papers and letters between Madison and Jefferson, was the whole purpose of this amendment. Now I only have one bachelors degree and one Masters and have only worked serving the people of Arizona in law enforcement for a straight 27 years and counting, so I may not be as qualified a “constitutionalist” as Sarah Palin, but give me some leeway here because I have read the constitution, the Federalist papers and the context of the times that the constitution was written.

So why those first four words?

At the time this was being written, there was a debate among the founders regarding whether the country should or shouldn’t have a standing army. Jefferson was adamantly opposed to a standing army because as he points out, at times of peace, standing armies are prone to take over government. What Jefferson and majority of founders envisioned is what Switzerland currently has, a well armed and regulated militia for times of war by invading forces. The Swiss have all the weaponry, but it’s ownership is extremely well regulated, as are their users. It’s not a simple matter that they are allowed to have high power weaponry. They are trained and assessed on a regular basis to ensure the safety of the Swiss people.

Many on the right who are so enamored with the second amendment say that this right is there to protect the individual from a  tyrannical government. Well, that flies in the face of logic. It’s there to protect the government from invading forces of the times. For instance, President Madison called out the “Well Regulated Militia” during the War of 1812 when the British forces from Canada came down and burned down Washington DC. And let’s get serious, if the founders were concerned about protecting the people from “their” government, then why also write in the constitution what constitutes treason against that government? Guess what? An armed insurrection against the United States Government is defined as Treason. If you doubt that, read up on the Civil War.

What we have today isn’t exactly what the founders expected or wanted. First of all, we do have a standing army. In fact it is one of the largest and most powerful in the world and well suited to protect this country (and government) from foreign and domestic threats. This is an army that as Jefferson so feared, could easily take over in times of peace if it were so inclined to do. And second, the power of the weapons we have today is unimaginable to what the founders had during their time. They dealt with muskets that needed training and time to reload, not the high-capacity magazines that can easily wipe out an entire column of British Redcoats in a matter of minutes by a single soldier. Not to mention what they can do to unarmed civilians.

So if you are going to support the full second amendment as the founder truly envisioned, then you need to effectively disarm our standing army in times of peace and you need to subject yourself to being regulated by government for that honor of carrying that weaponry you so dearly love over everything else.

Even Justice Scalia has accepted the fact that ownership of weaponry carries with it government regulation as the founders envisioned. Regulating weaponry isn’t infringing ownership, it’s making sure that the right people are properly trained and regulated to make sure the weapons are not in the wrong hands to jeopardize the government that a “well regulated militia” was designed to protect. Yes, even a government ran by a black man since the majority of the voting public place that black man in charge.

Live with it guys. If you can’t, then acknowledge this has nothing to do with the second amendment as it does profits for the gun manufacturers and/or racist views of small and limited minds.

“When fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and waving a cross,” ~ Sinclair Lewis. Pretty profound and leaves one thinking, has it already arrived and if so, what if anything can be done about it?

Fascism is almost universally a despised term of governance as a result of its use in the 1930’s and 1940’s in Europe that plunged that continent into a bloody war and has been blamed for the murder of people by those who were in control of government deemed to be “lesser people”. It’s so reviled that in this country, both the left and the right enjoy blaming the other side of being fascist. So if you have time and if you can deal with some historic fact, let’s examine the issue.

Italian Fascist Emblem

First of all, where did fascism come from? Well, it comes from the Italians from the late 19th Century and became a powerful movement with the help of Benito Mussolini. From 1922 through 1943 Mussolini ruled Italy as leader of the National Fascist Party. It was based on Italian Nationalism  and the restoration of Italia Irredenta (claimed unredeemed Italian territories) to Italy as well as territorial expansionism that Italian Fascists deemed necessary for a nation to assert its superiority and strength to avoid succumbing to decay. The movement wanted to reclaim Italian dominance of the Mediterranean region as it had during the Roman Empire and based itself on national historic pride. It wanted to reclaim colonies and create new ones.

Of interest in the fascist movement was how business came into play. Italian Fascism promoted a corporatist economic system whereby employer and employee syndicates were linked together in corporative associations to collectively represent the nation’s economic producers and work alongside the state to set national economic policy. In short, corporations become an integral part of governance. The fascists saw this plan as an alternative to Capitalism and Marxism. They criminalized strikes by employees and lockouts by employers and  deemed those acts as prejudicial to the national community as a whole. It was a business model to governance where the country was only as powerful and prominent as the corporate culture that essentially ruled it.

Fascism opposed conventional democracy and stated that the only acceptable and desirable form of democracy was authoritarian democracy. It opposed mainstream socialism because they saw it as opposition to nationalism. It also opposed liberalism because they felt such ideas ran counter to a strong sense of national unity and strength. They were opposed to what is referred today as a “nanny state”.

So based on this, the accusations from the right that fascism is embraced by those on the left would seem to lack any foundation in fact:

If you support progressive, liberal ideas to assist those who are needy/have the least to survive, you do not support the fascist ideology that opposes a nanny state.

If you are opposed to unregulated corporatism where the big companies/monopolies have total say in how they do business with the blessing of government, you do not support the fascist ideology.

If you believe in unions and workers rights to a living wage, good working conditions and the ability to collectively organize, bargain and possibly strike to attain these ends, you do not support the fascist ideology.

Now as distasteful the concept of government running a country/society on business practices may be to some, that concept in of itself isn’t inherently evil. Nothing about that would justify the vilification of the term “Fascist.” We all know why the term is so distasteful. Mussolini actually had success with the fascist state in Italy in the beginning (he got the trains to run on time) and the Italian people were generally pleased with the concept and took pride in the reemergence of national unity. It went so well that fascism was being looked at by other nation states. One of which were the neighbors to the north, Germany. They were in a real bad place at the time, the sanctions and fines imposed upon them after World War 1 took a major toll on their economy. The worldwide depression didn’t help matters.

The German version of the fascist movement known as the Nazi Party. In fact, economically depressed countries around the world, seeing how Italy had rebounded, balanced its budget, improved production, and had a situation where the corporate elite got richer wanted part of that bargain. The Germans under Hitler implemented a pro corporation government agenda that grew German business, rebuilt the military as a means to improve corporate production and employment, and started slashing liberal programs that were part of their “nanny state”. Only they took it farther.

Germany came out of the depression faster and stronger than any other nation at the time. It infused money into building a war economy, maintained a balanced budget by slashing social programs for the needy. However it also collected revenues by taking the property of those they deemed “lesser”. It seized property across the nation from undesirables like the Jews, Gypsies, Homosexuals, Communists, etc. They outlawed and crushed the unions and literally imposed slave labor to help keep production costs low. Income disparity went off the charts, as it did with every other nation that imposed fascist regimes and ideology. Human rights violations became part of the national agenda for a “Greater Germany.” And again, prior to the onset of World War 2, other nations toyed with the idea of fascism to grow their economies and make their rich, richer. Spain fought a blood war where fascism beat out communism. Yes, fascism and communism are two distinct political ideologies Glenn Beck. There has never been or ever will be a Fascist Communist. Another country who toyed with the idea that was in the grips of the Great Depression in the 1930’s was the United States.

Well when you improve your economy by going into war production, and you instill a strong sense of nationalism among your people, and you feel a need to spread your influence over people who are quite happy being who they are, you usually end up using all those war supplies you created and war begins. World War 2 was long and bloody. At its conclusion, Europe and the Western Pacific were devastated. As the human right violations of the fascist regimes became publicly known around the world, fascism died out everywhere with the exception of Spain. Francisco Franco remained neutral during the war and stayed low-key for decades later. It was only after his death did Spain do away with fascism. The only country to come out way ahead in the war was the United States. Due to our capitalism, governed and moderated by regulations enacted during the New Deal and implementation of social programs that worked hand in hand with capitalism did our economy thrive after the war ended. Things were going well until people started forgetting and pondered about the same ideas that existed early in the 20th century.

Starting in the 1980’s, our government started rolling back the regulations on business and banking imposed during the New Deal and guess what? Our economy started to falter. We went back into a “bubble economy” that New Deal regulations held at bay and we started to see the same economic problems in this country that existed pre New Deal. All of this culminated in the national and worldwide financial crisis of 2008. So in terms of fascism, where does this lead us?

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” ~George Santayana

We are seeing this again. Income disparity in this country are at record rates, there is a strong nationalist movement, corporations are demanding less government regulations so they can improve their profit margin, corporate lobbyists like Gover Norquist actually control the workings of Congress, “lesser people” like the Hispanics, Homosexuals, Liberals, Non-Christians, are being singled out as the cause for our problems. Social programs are being slashed while more spending is going to the military industrial complex.

One little aspect that I left out in my history of fascism above. The Italian fascists under Mussolini had his “Black Shirts” a group of Italian thugs who took to the street to strong-arm others into compliance via terror to support the regime. Hitler had his “Brown Shirts” doing exactly the same thing. Who do we have? Well above is their emblem, the Gadsden Flag and they call themselves the Tea Party. They have wrapped themselves in the American Flag and carry a cross. Sound familiar?

Now I’m not saying that all the rank and file of the Tea Party Movement are as vile, violent and racist as the Black and Brown Shirts were. In fact, many of those people weren’t by nature, racist violent thugs. They were conned and conditioned into an ideology that they thought would help their nation. The Tea Party honestly believe they are helping the nation, and sadly few realize they are actually doing the bidding of corporatist elitists like the Koch Brothers, Sheldon Adelson, et al, who are using them and have no intention of letting them share in their new-found wealth and prestige. The history of fascism is the history of a select few, using the many for their own personal gain.

Can this be stopped? Of course it can. But it requires not being afraid to call it out for what it is. Not backing down, fighting not only for your human rights, but the human rights of others, including those you do not agree with or even like. It is an uphill battle and will be a long and messy war. Let us pray not as long and bloody as the last war to end fascism in the world was. It’s up to you. As Thom Hartmann would say at the end of each of his shows, “Tag, you’re it!”

For those of you who slept through American History, the figure above is President Theodore Roosevelt. Not only was he a very effective and popular Republican President, he was at the forefront of the Progressive Movement at the turn of the 20th Century. I use him to illustrate a Pew Poll that came out several weeks ago.

In this poll, the political term of “Conservative” scored 62% positive and only 30% negative. Very impressive. But you know what? in the same poll, the political term “Progressive” scored 67% positive and only 22% negative. And guess what else, Liberal and Capitalism scored nearly even at 50% positive and 40% negative.

This would appear to run contrary to what you hear from mainstream media and politicians who run on the label of “Conservative” while bashing the term Progressive. They continue to bash Liberal even though I see the term synonymous with Progressive. Socialism scores the worst at only 31% positive and 60% negative. It’s ideological opposite of Libertarian barely beats it out at 38% positive but only 37% negative. What explains this?

Well its messaging. Over the past few generations, the right has done an excellent job in using the mainstream media to convince the country that Liberal is bad and Conservative is good. It’s interesting to question self-proclaimed Conservatives on specific issues to find that they actually support the liberal view of these issues over the conservative. It boils down to wanting to belong with the popular folks, screw whatever they stand for. The problem the right created for themselves is they continue to focus on Liberal and not Progressive. Progressive is popular because human nature wants to progress through life, not stay stagnate or go backwards. That is actually the very nature of conservatism. Keep things as they are, don’t try to make it better because you never know what you might end up with. As some research has pointed out, conservatives tend to be more easily scared and operate in the fear mode than liberals/progressives, they are more daring and hopeful.

Historically, it was the Liberals/Progressives that started our revolution, the conservatives of the age wanted to stay with the King and supported the corporate structure of the East India Company. As time progressed it was the Liberals/Progressives that wanted to end the established institution of slavery while the conservatives wanted to keep it as their “peculiar institution”. It was during this time that the Republican Party came to prominence and power because it proposed Progressive ideas that moved the country forward and that’s what the majority of our people wanted.

At the turn of the 20th Century under Teddy Roosevelt, the progressives worked to end child labor, establish a “living wage”, established a social safety net for those who couldn’t care for themselves, worked for prison reform, government reform, populist movements, again these were progressive ideas while the conservatives held on to the Robber Baron establishment or corruption, a system where the power elites had control and they didn’t want to upset the cart. This continued to the ascension of Teddy’s cousin Franklin and the New Deal. The fruition of all the built up anger and populist reform demanded from a country fed up with conservative ideas that created the Great Depression and stagnation of the American People.

It was a result of the government and economic reforms of the Liberal/Progressive New Deal legislation that led to the greatest growth, both economically and social mobility of the American people. It was continued by both Democratic and Republican administrations right up until Ronald Reagan and the new messaging that “Conservatism” was good and Liberal was bad. Complacent Americans bought into the labels, but never really dwelled into the substance and ever since, the country has regressed both economically and socially. The only respite was the Clinton Administration, but now we are back to where we were just before the implementation of the New Deal.

The majority of the American people are Progressive by nature, their populism is reaching fever pitch while the Conservative Movement that only has support due to successful labeling of the term, hangs on for support. As people truly learn what conservatism means to them, they start to move left for their and the country’s best interests.

While researching for this rant, I found this interesting Conservative/Progressive Wheel. It has no relationship to percentages of where the American People stand regarding where they are, but it shows and interesting linkage. You will note that Corrupt Progressives (Democrats) meet up with Corrupt Conservatives (Republicans) as they move towards “RealPolitick and Anti-Intellectual” beliefs. The far right extremes of the conservative and progressive movements actually tend to meet as they become corrupt and unaware of what they stand for. When they forget the truth of their movement and focus more on the politics. But you can draw your own conclusions from this wheel.

Regardless, the Progressive label is more popular than the Conservative label because that is what this nation is. Again, I suspect most people call themselves “Conservative” because they want the label, not the blame for what the movement actually means.