Thursday, October 29, 2009

Battleground: Upstate New York

The civil war in the Republican Party between the forces
of principle and the forces of expediency has come to the
23rd Congressional District of the state of New York.
The district, which comprises much of upstate New York,
is sparsely populated with much of the populace concentrated
in small towns while a scattering of dairy farms dot the area.
Politically, the citizens lean rightward, although Barack Obama
won the district with 52% of the vote, while they sent U.S. Repre-
sentative John McHugh (R) to Congress nine consecutive times.
With McHugh having been appointed Secretary of the Army by
Presidnet Obama, a special election will be held on Tuesday,
November 3 to choose McHugh's successor.

Three candidates are on the ballot: Republican candidate Dede
Scozzafava, Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, and
Democrat candidate Bill Owens. The district's GOP is divided
between Scozzafava, the pick of the party bosses, and Hoffman,
the choice of the rank-and-file Republicans and the Tea Party
activists.

Dede Scozzafava, a 10-year member of the New York State
Assembly, compiled a voting record that one would expect
of a substantially liberal democrat. In fact, her voting record
puts Scozzafava to the left of nearly half of the Democrats in
the assembly! She has voted for a state version of "Card Check",
a measure which would eliminate the Secret Ballot in union
certification elections as well as force workers to accept binding
arbitration. Workers would be vulnerable to attempts to pressure
them into voting in a union in their workplaces. This measure also
mirrors the federal legislation crafted by congressional Democrats.
Scozzafava also has spoken in favor of President Obama's stimulus
plan and has voted for a state stimulus plan drawn up in Albany.
Furthermore, she has cosistently voted for increased taxation and
spending throughout her decade in New York's Assembly and is
also a staunch abortion rights supporter. The 23rd District counties'
GOP chairmen have gotten behind Scozzafava; though disturbing,
this is not surprising when you consider that the liberal wing of
the New York Republican Party reclaimed control of the party
in recent years.

Doug Hoffman, an accountant, is a rock-solid conservative
Republican. Snubbed by the district's party bosses, Hoffman has 
the enthusiastic support of the Tea Party people along with that 
of the New York Conservative Party. Favoring tax cuts over tax 
increases, growing the economy over growing the government,
and being conservative both fiscally and socially (Hoffman is pro-
life on the issue of abortion), he says "I am not your run-of-the-mill
politician, and maybe that's why the Republican bosses don't like
me." A first-time office seeker, he has steadily gained ground on
both Scozzafava and Owen in recent polls.

Bill Owen, an attorney, is a garden-variety liberal Democrat. 
He stands out in contrast to Dede Scozzafava in one way:
Owen has actually criticized her for SPENDING TOO
MUCH MONEY! He has publically ripped Scozzafava for
voting for bloated, tax-and-spend-crazy state budgets in the
Assembly(!).  Robert Ripley, call your office! This story is
an item for your "Believe It Or Not!" Museum!

Do you see how Republicans are shooting themselves in the
foot here? They have a golden opportunity to retain a long-
held congressional seat and make a statement at the same time,
that the GOP is back on the wagon of fiscal restraint, the pre-
servation of personal freedom, and halting runaway government,
but they're blowing it big-time! William Farber, Hamilton County
Republican Chairman, was quoted in the Wall Street Journal in
an October 16 article about the upcoming special election
stating "We asked, is it possible to put in place a Republican
candidate that uniformly stands for all the conservative values
of the far right, but is unelectable?  I would much rather have a
candidate like Dede Scozzafava that I don't agree with 100% of
the time, but has always been honest and forthright."
Judging by Farber's remarks, one can draw the following
conclusions: (1) Farber does not know his district very well,
if at all. It has approximately 46,000 more registered Republicans
than Democrats, and most of the time votes for conservative
candidates. (2) Farber is ignorant of the fact that the conservative
values of what he arrogantly terms "the far right" helped the
Republican Party become the majority party for the while it
adhered to those values. That is how Ronald Reagan was elected
to the presidency in 1980, and how the party won both houses
of congress in 1994. (3) If Farber does not, in fact, agree with
Dede Scozzafava "100% of the time", he at least seems to agree
with her enough of the time to back her over the much more
conservative Douglas Hoffman. The New York Conservative
Party has given her a 15% conservative rating based on their
analysis of her votes in the Assembly; she is regarded as one of
the most liberal members of that chamber, regardless of party
affiliation. So what does that say about Chairman Farber?
(4) Finally, since Farber finds Scozzafava "honest and forthright",
can it be implied that he finds Hoffman dishonest and shifty?
If so, is it because of some character flaws that Farber has seen
but has not become apparent to anyone else, or is it because Farber
believes, ad hominem, that conservatives are untrustworthy?

Such ignorance and stupidity can only doom the Republican Party
to further wandering in the political wilderness. The GOP-leaning
electorate  in New York's 23rd Congressional District can drive this
point home by voting for Douglas Hoffman to be their next U.S.
Representative in Congress.


MEM



 

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Principle Versus Expediency

The battle for the Republican Party rages on.
The forces of principle, the people who favor limited
government, are exchanging volleys with the forces of
expediency, those who support expansion of government
power in the marketplace as well as in other areas of our lives.

One particular shootout merits mention here, a matchup
between U.S. Representative Ron Paul (TX) and U.S. Senator
Lindsay Graham (SC). Rep. Paul, who blends conservative and
libertarian political views, wants to grow the economy rather
than the government. He wants "honest money" instead of
the increasingly plentiful fiat money rolling off Uncle Sam's
printing press at an ever-increasing speed. Rep. Paul
wants to lower taxes to allow taxpayers to have more
of their own money to spend on needed goods and services,
which in turn will stimulate those businesses that provide them,
thereby creating jobs and stimulating the economy.
Sen. Graham, meanwhile, favors more governmental involvement
in the quest to stimulate the economy. Being quite chummy
with the advocates of larger government, he has been quoted
in a story that was recently published by 
The Daily Bell (http://www.thedailybell.com/) as saying that
"(he was) not going to allow the Republican Party to be 
hijacked by Ron Paul". Graham thinks that the Republican
Party should back candidates "who can win" regardless
of whether their political philosophies square with that of
the "Principle" crowd. Principle, to Sen. Graham and his
followers, seems to be all well and good unless it gets in
the way of seemingly quick and easy political gain.

But this is precisely the kind of thinking which caused the
GOP to sell out its principles along with its base. It is also
why, after 32 years in the party, your beloved Peasant left 
after the 2006 debacle and has been a conservative independent
ever since. Those of us who came to the Republican Party
looking for an alternative to ever-growing, costly, inefficient
and paternalistic government were betrayed by many of those
whom we elected to Congress and the White House.
As a result, many among us either voted for Libertarian Party
or write-in candidates, stayed home, or even --- yes, some
disaffected conservatives really did this --- voted for Barack
Obama and other Democrats, thinking that they wouldn't be
any worse than moderate-liberal in political tone. I wonder
what they're thinking now! So the Democratic Party won
control of the House and the Senate in 2006, then gained the
White House in 2008, padding their majorities in the
chambers of Congress.

The lesson to be learned is this: the way for the Republican
Party to regain and maintain power is to return to the principles
of limited government which it had abandoned for political
expediency, and to regain the trust and support of its base,
even if its has to beg on bended knee for it, and the party
may well need to do so. Offering the same thing as the
opposition but in smaller portions is no true alternative,
and the people are smart enough to recognize that. If the
people don't receive a clear-cut alternative to the proponents
of Big Government, then what happened in the last two elections
will continue into the forseeable future; this will be a trend that
we as a nation might not survive long enough to successfully
counter.


MEM

Friday, October 16, 2009

An Important Development

On Monday October 12 I was offered a wonderful, exciting job
with a major retailer for the Christmas season as a sales associate
in their menswear department, and I joyfully accepted the offer.
My work schedule shall begin as part-time, then become full-time
as Christmas draws closer.

Now, you may be asking "Why is the Peasant telling me this? Does
he believe that there is hot political action taking place in the
world of retail?" I mention this because my work schedule will
sometimes necessitate having to post on different days than I
have done to date. For example: I have been posting on Fridays
and Saturdays since starting this blog, but some weeks I will
have to work on those days and likely put in long hours.
So, during those weeks I shall post on different days, but at
least I will still be able to post weekly as has been my plan
from the outset. This is, of course, a weekly blog.

Rest assured, my wonderful readers, that there shall be no
forseeable interruptions in the essays offered weekly by your
ever-lovin' Peasant! Much to the consternation of the left-wingers
and "faux" conservatives, we shall continue to shine the light
of scrutiny on them while giving support to the people afflicted
by them, and have loads of fun in the process!

Your favorite Peasant has been hit hard by the sickly economy,
as has to bring home the bacon as best he can, as is so for
many of us. But this is what ensures that I am in touch with what
we all have to struggle with every day, unlike many of those in
the halls of power. This is what's known as "Keepin' it real!"

Thank you, my loyal readers, for your understanding and support!
We shall be triumphant!


MEM

Saturday, October 10, 2009

(Tea) Party Hearty!

The United States of America came to be when the citizens
of thirteen English colonies in North America protested,
and later went to war over the relentlessly increasing
taxation and regulation of commerce, the centralized
governance of the colonies, and the arrogant unwillingness
of the Crown and the Parliament to even listen to the
colonists' complaints. One of the more famous acts of
protest that was staged before the war was the Boston
Tea Party.

One December day in 1773 a handful of Bostonians raided
the supply of tea shipped over by the British East India
dumping it into Boston's harbor. It has been said that
American freedom was brewed in the world's biggest teapot.

Today, many Americans are complaining to our federal
government, as well as to our state and local governments
about the profligate spending and skyrocketing taxes, as
well as the increasing regulation of not just business but
every aspect of our lives. With our complaints falling on
willfully deaf ears, we are holding "tea parties" to
publicize our grievances; these rallies alert and educate
people about the fiscal and general radicalism of our
elected officials and the painful consequences where our
fortunes and our liberties are concerned. The very spirit
that the American colonists exhibited over two hunderd years
ago in standing up to the British government is alive and
well in the American citizens standing up to Washington
as well as the state and local governments through rallies
and town hall meetings.

President Barack Obama and the Democrat majority in Congress,
joined (distressingly) by some republicans, ridicule us for
our objections to their "stimulus packages", their buying shares
in heretofore private sector entities to gain control of them,
and their arrogant desire for stringent regulation of our lives
under the rubric of countering global warming (more on that in
a future posting!). We get further disrespect and contempt
from the very people we elected to our state and local
governments, not to mention the media. We have been called
"howlers", "angry mobs", "racists(!)", and "astroturfers".
Yet we have conducted ourselves in a peaceful manner at all
our gatherings, never instigating hostile confrontations,
only striving to make ourselves heard and our point of view
listened to. We have, in fact, been jeered, physically attacked,
and some of our members being "of color" subjected to racial
epithets. One black man at a town hall meeting in Saint Louis
was slurred and assaulted just for selling buttons with
conservative messages at the event. He had to be hospitalized
for treatment of injuries sustained in the attack.
Apparently a politically conservative black person brings out
the "inner racist" in the diversity-loving, pluralistic Left.
Our ranks are made up of mostly, if not entirely, local
citizens coming together in our town halls and municipal
parks to share our views; our enemies have bben the ones to
bus people in from afar to crowd us out of town hall gatherings
and to shout us down at these meetings, even trying to disrupt
our Tea Party rallies.

Your favorite Peasant had the pleasure of attending a Tea Party
get-together in Milwaukee in September, and I found no angry
mob, no "howlers", no racists, and the only person spoiling
for a fight was a left-wing counter-demonstrator who attacked
a teenaged girl who was taking photos of the event. Thankfully
the pinko thug was apprehended and turned over to the police,
and the girl and her camera were unharmed. One of the attendees
who helped subdue the troublemaker was none other than
Joe The Plumber, one of the speakers at the bash. Joe is the
gentleman who questioned Obama during the latter's campaign
stop in Ohio, where Joe is from, regarding his palns for higher
taxes and increased spending to fix the economy. Joe became a
folk hero almost immediately! I had the great pleasure and
privilege of meeting Joe and visiting with him at the rally's
conclusion; he is a fine and patriotic man and now a renown
activist and plumber both!

Among the guests who addressed the gathering were syndicated
columnist Michelle Malkin, Milwaukee County Executive and
gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker, and local radio talk
show hosts James T. Harris (a conservative black man; so much
for we Tea Party activists being racist!)and Vicki McKenna.
We in attendance were civil, jubilant, carried no signs
with violent or obscene messages, and even cleaned up after
ourselves, not so much as leaving a single plastic cup or
candy wrapper on the ground! Contrast that to rallies held
by the lefties, who leave gobs of trash at the parks, college
campuses, and the grounds of city halls, state capitols,
and other such places. The left-wingers love to accuse we
conservatives of not caring about the enviornment, but THEY
are the ones who give Mother Earth a black eye whenever they
hold a political rally!

We who hold our tea parties are merely exercising our rights
to peacibly assemble and express our opinions and ideas;
rights that are guaranteed for us all, regardless of political
persuasion. Let us tell President Obama, the Democrat-comtrolled
Congress, and the sellouts in the Republican Party that we shall
continue to hold out tea parties, attend town hall meetings,
and to write, fax, e-mail, telephone, and visit their offices
in Washington, in our state capitols, and our city halls to
inform them that we don't want to fund through our taxes
dubious "stimulus programs" which will not stimulate our
ailing economy but instead will line the pockets of the backers
of Obama and his fellow dems. We do not want them to regulate
our businesses out of busienss, nor regulate them or our
personal lives with stringent mandates to combat an enviorn-
mental threat that does not exist! And we WILL make these
elected officials of ours listen to and serve us, NOT ignore
and disrespect us, not dictate to us, and to realize that they
are our servants, NOT OUR MASTERS! When these elitist fools
finally get all this into their arrogant heads, or we replace
them with people who do understand the role of public servants,
then the tea parties will cease; our work will be done.

In the meantime, let's (tea) party hearty!


MEM

Friday, October 2, 2009

Walk the Walk

Can you tell what is wrong with each of the following pictures?

A married conservative governor known for promoting family values
as well as other socially conservative virtues, enters into an
affair with a woman from Argentina. He plans a trip to visit her
in her home country, covering his tracks by instructing his staff
to inform the press and the people of his state that he was going
hiking on the Appalachian Trail for a week. Should an emergency
occur necessitating the governor's return, no one would be able
to contact him. The state would be placed in a vulnerable position.
All of this, after the governor's public condemnations of one-time
congressional House Speaker-designate Bob Livingstone (himself
a Republican) and then-President Bill Clinton for their extra-
marital dalliances; he accused Livingstone of lying to cover up
his affair and stated that Clinton should resign the presidency.
The truth of the tryst comes out despite the governor's secrecy,
leaving his family life and his career in shambles.

A conservative Republican candidate for a seat in his state's
legislature, or perhaps in Congress, is elected on the tradi-
tional conservative vow to reform the budget so as to rein in
spending and lower taxes. On the campaign trail, he was critical
of the Democrats' always seeking more and more revenue for gov-
ernment programs of questionable necessity and purpose ---
read "pork". "No more pork-barrell projects! Accountability to
the taxpayers!" was the candidate's promise to the people.
But not long after taking office, the legislator veers away
from the candidtae's promise, voting for exactly the kind of
projects that the candidate had criticized, all to gain favor
with powerful interest groups with deep pockets and loads of
clout.

In the first picture, the philandering hypocrite is Governor
Mark Sanford of South Carolina; in the second picture there
are dozens of Republican legislators, all doing one-eighties
to the chagrin of their constituents back home. Gov. Sanford
flushed his political career down the toilet; he was considered
by many in the GOP to be a strong presidential prospect for
2012, and a lock for re-election as his South Carolina's
governor in the meantime. Neal Thigpen, a political scientist
at Francis Marion University, recently remarked "Now he's
(Sanford) not even a lame duck -- he's a dead duck!"
I couldn't have phrased it any better! As for the Republican
legislators who sold out their political principles and their
supporters for perceived political gain, many of them have
instead lost their seats in their state legislatures and in
Congress to Democrats, resulting in shifts of power in these
legislative bodies. Even former President George W. Bush,
an ostensibly conservative Republican, went against some of
these same conservative principles that the Republican Party
rode to victory in elections in the 1980s and '90s with, most
notably Ronald Reagan, in what were watershed events in American
politics. Bush gave us then-record spending, then-record debt,
and then-record budget deficits, paving the way for the election
of Barack Obama to the presidency along with a Democrat-run
Congress. Obama & Company have since taken these to even
higher levels.

The lesson here is that when conservatives in office go against
conservative principles, they cease being a buffer against
liberal statism as well as cease being an alternative to ethical
and moral laxity. To be a conservative entails adherence to a
set of well-defined political, economic, and social principles
which foster liberty and personal responsibility. When conser-
vatives abandon their sense of responsibility, their account-
ability to the people dissolves, along with the people's
confidence in them. This is why the Republican Party was soundly
defeated in 2006 and 2008.

Note to Gov. Sanford and other wayward conservatives:
your deeds, in both your public and private lives, should
always match your words. Don't just talk the talk; you must
also walk the walk. If you can't --- or won't --- do that,
then stop calling yourselves conservatives.


MEM