Although this may not be a current article, geographical illiteracy has always been a pet peeve of mine. I remember seeing this same debate when I was in high school in the late 80's. A majority of high school students couldn't even find the US on a map. Let's take a second to to let that soak in. They could not find the country they live in on a map. One might be forgiven being a little hesitant in picking it out, but it's not like the US is a small country either. One also wonders if given a map of the solar system they could even narrow it down to the correct planet.

Part of the foundation of a strong culture is knowledge, not just in the history of itself, but in its place in the world. Losing this identity, as we have, is a sign of the weakening and watering down of our culture. The article suggests the blame might lay with us being too Americentric and thus too absorbed in our own culture. Perhaps, but only in the junk culture, as it indirectly notes with its reference to Survivor.

More young U.S. citizens in the study knew that the island featured in last season's TV show "Survivor" is in the South Pacific than could find Israel.

That part of our culture is worthless, and most cultures have that. Where we fail, and what National Geographic seems to miss, is that where it matters, our culture is not Americentric. Daily we are reminded by those, primarily on the left of how despicable and worthless our culture is compared to those of the rest of the world (which of course explains why so much of the rest of the world wants to live here). In response, many children growing up in the US school system know exactly zero about their own culture, about what made and continues to make this country great.

A symptom of that is not even knowing where America's physical place in the world is. I realize that knowing where Canada is in relation to the U.S. isn't as important as knowing the difference between a Tall and a Viente at Starbuck's, (still not understanding that, by the way tall=small, an argument for another time). However, knowledge of the world and who's in it is essential, whether you're on the left or the right. If you're going to have any part in the national discourse about what the US should be doing and where it should be doing it, at least know the basics of who's playing and how they're involved.

Those in the Midwest, it's important to remember that not only are there two coasts in this country that we don't see, but people live there and usually are the first to interact with people from other nations and cultures. Take some time to educate yourselves on the people of your own nation, and from there perhaps you can get a sense or at least a desire to know what is beyond our borders. Those on the coasts, remember, there's more to your world than your little microcosm of a city. Sure, you have a bit more cultural exposure being at arrival points, but there's a whole middle to this country you shouldn't just assume is crops and rednecks. You do so at your and our country's peril. There are vibrant communities of extremely diverse and educated people with a lot worth saying here as well as thriving immigrant communities most of you wouldn't have occasion to even believe existed.

Take time to learn these things. You're not a New Yorker. You're not an Angelino. You're not a Hoosier or a Buckeye. You're not a New Englander or a Texan, anymore than you're an American. It's important to remember that. Perhaps most importantly, maybe by finding out more about what's beyond your local tattoo parlor, you'll find out that as Americans, we aren't terribly different, and as citizens of this planet, we Americans are some of the very best.

 For those of you who own your homes, and that is a growing statistic these days, did you ever stop to think that the land you're raising your family on, well, isn't really yours. Of course, the first thought that might come to mind is "Well, duh, the bank owns most of it", but you can eventually pay off the bank and owe no one privately for what you've rightly earned. Who you can't pay off is the government. Yes, I'm talking about property taxes.

Consider that one of the cornerstone rights of us as a people is to own and be preeminently secure in our own property. There are many wonderful articles written on this, not the least of which is Walter Williams' always brilliant editorial, which I've referenced before. This is a fundamentally American notion, one repugnant even to the British as they trounced all over the Colonies in an attempt to squash our Revolution and one they, our closest allies, still consider somewhat alien. The rest of the world, admittedly, doesn't subscribe to this thought, most clearly stated in the 4th Amendment to the Constitution:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Even in that right, you see the inkling of the sacredness of personal property. These rights we would consider natural rights, and not civil, as is fashionable these days. Remember, these are not rights endowed to us by our government, but by our Creator, as I've discussed previously. Now, if all this holds true, and we consider these rights as immutable and unalienable, how then can any government justify taxing us for that which they do not possess? How, more so, can they threaten us with confiscation of our rightly-owned land for failure to pay them the extortion that is property tax?

I have never heard a satisfactory answer to this question, especially not by a government figure. I ran for County Auditor in a previous election cycle, and my esteemed opponent, while a very nice lady, was certainly not the model of "limited government" her party espouses. To such a notion that property taxes were an unbearable and unconstitutional infringement on a person's rights, she said people who believed such things didn't really understand government and were at best naive. Naive? People that believe the government exists to serve the people, and not that the people exist to service and feed the bloated pig of government are naive?! Let that sink in and remember to ask your local representative if they feel the same way.

In all fairness, I did let her know that I understood government very well, and understood that as long as you kept shoveling money into the trough, the bloated carcass of government would continue to feast at it. I think it's time to put the government on a diet. That seems to be all the rage these days with people, why not try the government. Several states have tried alternate tax structures and user fees to replace property tax, and to some success. Why then can't states like my own Indiana? It would remove the specter of totalitarianism from the government and make it leaner and more responsive to the jobs it actually needs to be doing.

It would be nice to see the government actually conform to its original intent than try to become the socialist nanny state so many on the left have worked so hard to see it become, but that's a whole different argument. Just remember next time when you get the little card showing you how your property tax is being spent, how your lot isn't much different than that of a feudal serf. You don't own your land, the government does, and you'd better believe they won't let you forget it.

 I want to talk briefly about language. Language is something I think is far too often neglected in our culture. We no longer say what we really mean. Everything must suffer "nuances" and "penumbras", cloaking any new idea or thought in doublespeak. I imagine such obfuscation makes these positions easier to defend. Our former President, Bill Clinton, brought this to the lowest common denominator with his pathetic response "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is".

Is this just laziness on our part, that we don't pay as close attention to what we say anymore? Perhaps a little. Just as likely is that it is intentionally used to subtley and slowly change perception. Let's look at say, the discussion we hear all too often of our 'civil' rights. Shall we look at the definition of a civil right? It is most often referred to as a right or rights guaranteed by reason of citizenship, but more specifically and notoriously if refers to rights granted to the people by government. If a government can grant a right, reasonably they can set limits on it, restrict it as they see fit, and even take it away.

Even some discussion of our most fundamental rights, such as freedom of speech or expression are lately being regarded as civil rights. Refer to this paragraph quoted from Walter Williams' excellent column from August 3rd, 2005. The article deals with the left's continuing hatred of individual property rights, but Williams' excerpt shows a definite tell on the part of the defender of the state's position.

According to Ms. Lochhead's article, "Elliot Mincberg, the group's legal director, said the case [Kelo v. New London] had been brought by the Institute for Justice as part of an effort by conservatives to elevate property rights to the same level of civil rights such as freedom of speech and religion, in effect taking the nation back to the pre-New Deal days when the courts ruled child labor laws unconstitutional."

See that notice of 'civil' rights? Well, the government gave you those rights, just like you're trying to get them to give you rights regarding your property! For shame.

A term you don't hear very often today, and one more proper to such freedoms as speech, expression and one of my personal favorites, the right to bear arms, is natural rights, that is, rights endowed to you by your Creator. It's no wonder so much effort is made to make ours a secular society these days. It makes it so much easier to curtrail freedoms and remold society in one's own image, if you remove that pesky God from the picture. As our Founding Fathers feared (say that fast ten times), if there is to be assumed no divine origin for our rights, then how can we justify that they are inalienable or fundamental? If rights were merely assumed by men, then other men (and women, let's not be sexist), can take them away, with full justification.

This is what we see every day, and it continues to worsen. We ignore such things at our peril. The price of freedom is indeed eternal vigilance, as Thomas Jefferson noted.

 "It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln, Gettysburg Address (1863)

I once heard this phrase was misquoted by a vast percentage of ivy school elites in the Elite College History Survey as having come from one of a number of documents besides the Gettsyburg Address, primarily the 43 percent that believed it originated from the Declaration of Independence. I thought, especially given this day and age, it was worth repeating and remembering.

It was that phrase of Lincoln's that I liked, even though I think the man himself left something to be desired. This speech actually embodied much of what his mentor Henry Clay's ideological nemesis John Calhoun stood for'; an ironic touch if there ever was on. In carrying on with such great statesmen, I too would not like to see such government pass from the earth, and this blog and its predecessor  have been my very humble attempt to carry through with that. Enjoy.

I am not now nor have I been against the United States’ involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. That puts me at odds with most of my libertarian brethren, and in the same league as the likes of Larry Elder. Although I am a strong advocate of limited government and individual liberty, I cannot pretend that our nation exists in a vacuum.

Isolationism has its attractions, there is no doubt. During the ‘90’s, I saw the allure of it as our greatest enemy was no more and we became entangled in U.N. “humanitarian” angles that cost us blood and treasure but saw no one any benefit. I count the U.N. action led by the U.S. to remove Iraq from Kuwait in this messy period. For the record, my initial thought with our current invasion and occupation of Iraq is that it’s something we should technically have never been involved in. We were operating under the assumption that we were the world’s policeman and that through the U.N. we could make everyone play nice. We had no idea what we were getting into and although I would certainly offer every ounce of my support to the poor ground pounders that had to fight that run, I wasn’t too keen on backing H.W. Bush’s machinations.

In these actions, I agree with my good friend Mike Kole that we should’ve heeded Washington’s warning against becoming involved in foreign entanglements. We were, under an idealist non-leader of a President, engaged in feel-good police actions, assuming despots and tyrants would understand that because the paternalistic U.S. (under the U.N.) said something, they must do it. Well, the world never worked that way and it certainly still doesn’t. Most of the world only understands the language of war and those same feel-good policies made the U.S. look weak in their eyes.

Should we have cared? Normally, I might have said no, but 9/11 proved to me that we should not be so complacent. It wasn’t the start, just the waking up to what we had so blindly ignored for all those years, even through the 70’s and 80’s. Iran was fomenting world Islamic revolution with an odd combination of Marxist-Islamic apocalyptic thought. Al-Qaeda and to a lesser extent the other Sunni states (Syria, Arabia, Egypt, etc.) were all working to establish their own influence through a relic fascist-Islamic system. This is the basis for Palestinian terrorism that has flowed from that region. The European states, weak though they are due to the internal decay of socialism and atrophied militaries, still seek an edge against the United States. Russia fights to retain its importance while still trying to stick its proverbial finger in our eye whenever it can. And the inscrutable China has quietly been building an economic and military machine for its own reasons, not the least of which will require the economic and/or military collapse of the United States.

We ignored these threats at our peril. We still ignore most of them. If we were Paraguay or Kenya or even Luxembourg, the machinations of all these countries would mean little. But we are the United States of America, an economic juggernaut and the world’s current remaining Superpower. That means if any of the above entities want to see their dreams come to fruition, they must first get past our nation. That paints a big target on our back and 9/11 was the first noticeable dart in the ring.

We cannot ignore or avoid these threats. We can either appease them or defeat them. There is no compromise that I can see nor is any desired. Eventually, war had to be the answer. Historically, we should have known. When a rival comes at you spoiling for a fight, you rarely can talk them out of it. You either kneel and accept your fate or make sure you get in the first punch.

I want to see us get in the first punch. We haven’t even begun to face the myriad of threats to the future of this country, but we have stepped right in the middle of the hornet’s nest of the Islamic radicals, both those who used fascism as their base model and those who used Marxist-Leninist ideals. We cannot disengage, nor were we ever really disengaged. We have been engaged since Hezbollah blew up our Marines in ’83 and we are suffering for their victory to this day. What is necessary is for the United States to break the will of those who seek to do us harm and if the Islamic radicals that we fight have one thing in abundance, it’s will (one could say the same of the Chinese). That may require perception, or just straight-out fear, but it is possible short of glassing over the region. Most of that region understands power and might and they understand those who have the will to use it. They must be made to know that the United States is not to be trifled with and that they are slowly learning, either in this life or in the next.

I don’t pretend to be a national policy expert or a general or even one of the guys fighting and dieing on the front lines of this conflict, but I do try to understand what I can of it. What I understand is, Democrat or Republican or Libertarian, it doesn’t matter. Politics really does stop at the water’s edge. My stance on how our government is at best a necessary evil inside our borders is unchanged, but one of its basic functions is to protect us and sometimes it’s had to go outside our borders to do it. This is one of those times. Economically and militarily, government has to provide the tools to beat our foes and that’s why I can’t turn against the choice to go and fight in Iraq or anywhere else for that matter.

We may have started this round in Iraq as simply a resolution to a failed U.N. endeavor from the early ‘90’s, but in Iraq and Afghanistan we have a chance to turn at least some of the tide in this region. We will never solve its problems or quench its hatred and intolerance of others, but we might redirect it, at least away from us and our allies. That is worth the attempt and we have the might and with God's grace the will to do it.

Victory should not be a dirty word.

 

For a variety of reasons, I’ve decided to move my blog over to Townhall. I will cross-post for awhile, but then post exclusively to that address. I will also post a few of my “non-event” position blogs to help anyone who stumbles on my blog at Townhall understand a bit of where I stand on the big issues. With that burst of fanfare, let’s dig right in.

It was not much of a shock that the Democrats moved quickly to strip a rule the Gingrich Congress imposed on itself that required a 3/5 supermajority to raise taxes. This rule has held firm for years in keeping taxes down and allowing the cuts made in 2001 to continue unhindered. Unfortunately, the rule really needed to be something on the level of a Constitutional Amendment. It took the Democrats less than one truncated work week (so much for the five day a week Congress) to dispose of the rule. Nothing so crass as a vote to cancel the rule took place. No, that might be even difficult for the Big Three to ignore. The Democrats on party-line simply approved a rule that allowed them to bypass the old rule with a basic majority vote. Leave it to the Democrats to add another layer of bureaucracy that doubly screws the American public.

Moves such as these are causing many to speculate, and perhaps rightly so, that the Democrats will raise our taxes soon. In other news, a bear was seen taking a roll of Charmin into Yellowstone and the Pope it turns out is actually Catholic. The rhetoric to date of course has focused on the evil “rich” among us, with numbers like “half a million” and the like thrown around to reassure us plebes that of course they don’t mean us. No, our punishment will be far more base. The reinstatement of the marriage penalty for income tax, capital gains tax for bonuses we receive and should those of us middle class who dare to own stock try to gain anything from it, the Dividends tax will make sure to smack us hard. Also, despite what others say, I doubt the Democrats will do anything to soothe over the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) creep that will start hitting more and more middle class. They didn’t for the years up to the Republicans taking charge, and we couldn’t even get the Republicans to abolish it. What makes anyone think the Democrats are interested in dropping a tax?

Democrats see any tax cut as “costing” the government. The media usually obliges by reporting such tax cuts in terms of how much the federal government will lose as if it was their money to begin with. There is a fundamental disconnect with such people when confronted with the idea that tax revenues are the confiscated earnings and yield of hard work of millions of their fellow citizens. They see it as magic money, appearing from thin air or at least the Mint’s thick printing presses. Watch any nightly news broadcast or Democrats debating on C-Span with this in mind and you will be awe struck by how much this belief is almost religious in the nature of the Left.

Of course, Democrats weren’t voted in because the majority of Americans thought we weren’t being taxed enough. That is what we got, though. A bevy of corrupt Republicans who were showcased to the tune of a hundred fold over their equally corrupt Democrat brethren were cited by most polls as the primary reason voters turned to the Left’s offerings. Naturally, most of these Democrats had to run so far right of center, they’ll have no choice but to be hypocrites when Pelosi and Reid come calling. When the tax bills come, they’ll be faced with every freshman Congressman’s moral dilemma of following their conscience or their party. You’ll forgive me if I’m a bit pessimistic in assuming they’ll fold on their ideals like a bad hand at a riverboat poker match.

The “Pay as you go” or “pay it forward” or “Citizens pay because we play” system or whatever the Democrats are trying to sell it now as is equally worthless. While interesting in principle, it has no basis in reality. A system that supposedly requires you match every tax cut with a spending cut is novel. However, since neither party has show any interest in cutting any program ever (except the military), there will never be a situation in which they can or will have the desire to cut spending. Hence, I foresee this as a fool’s errand. It’s merely a way to ensure that there is never again such an abhorrent thing to the Democrats as another tax cut. Lucky us.

Until true fiscal conservatives are restored to Washington, if ever that indeed there ever were such animals in the swamp, we can expect this situation to worsen and worsen quickly. A Will Rogers quote was recently published in The Federalist. “Alexander Hamilton started the U.S. Treasury with nothing, and that was the closest our country has ever been to being even.” When faced with that legacy, how on earth do we ever expect to catch back up?