On Fear and Quantum Mechanics

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

John Rhys-Davies is a rare commodity in Hollywood these days. Best known for his portrayal of Gimli, the King of the Dwarfs in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Rhys-Davies has stood up to the political correctness that has calcified Tinsel Town into a liberal monolith. He believes kimono-opening comments he has made have cost him friends as well as opportunities for other roles.

Rhys-Davies has extolled the virtues of free speech, disagreement, and debate that simply cannot be tolerated in the enlightened utopia of Southern California. He compounds his sin by stating in reference to his new film, “Peter: The Redemption”,

“I think the film touches on something fairly important – whether you are a Christian or not, we are all heirs to Western European Judeo-Christian civilization, and your right to have your opinions directly comes from the Christians.”

Such comments are enough for Hollywood to edit the Gimli character out of all future releases of the “Lord of the Rings” special edition boxed set. Disagreement is one thing but then compounding it by crediting Christianity for anything positive? That merits banishment to Mordor!

The PC virulence that seethes in Hollywood is just a little ahead of where the rest of our society is. Tolerance is practiced in reverence as long as you believe what the purveyors of PC preach. However, may the fires of Hell itself consume you if you challenge the mandated groupthink.

What is it about Marxist/Socialist conformity that is so seductive to so many? Why is it such an easy sell? Anyone making a reasonable and objective study of the history of the world for the last hundred years can reach no other conclusion but that collectivism fails completely in its promises. Rather than producing equality, prosperity, and freedom; it instead maximizes poverty, misery and death. It can’t be argued yet if given the chance, half our country would choose the socialist path today.

Granted, we have become an increasingly ignorant society and the history of our founding is taught with hostility towards our founders and their principles, if it is taught at all. However, there has to be something at a more personal level that so many are acquiescing to.

I believe it boils down to one thing – uncertainty. Uncertainty and the fear it produces. To be human is to have fear and apprehension about the future. Whether it’s about our health or that of a loved one, our concern for our jobs, the safety of our children, or the ability to continue to live financially independent, we all have fears and concerns about the future. And therefore, much of our waking activity is focused on reducing uncertainty about these concerns and in turn, lessen our fear.

Fear is the ultimate motivator and the utopian pied pipers understand this very well. Virtually all of the Left’s talking points today are fear producing. They frantically claim global warming is going to destroy the planet or the police are out to get you or capitalists are stealing your money or Christianity is based on hatred. Instill fear and the masses’ hearts will follow.

So once the demon is unleashed, the Left then has a freedom robbing remedy ready to go. So what if you give up some of your freedom and autonomy? We are going to make sure you have some money or some food or protection from violence or a roof over your head. You don’t have to worry or fear anything.

Great, but what happens when all uncertainty is removed? Striving stops. Invention stops. Innovation stops. The familiar phrase, “necessity is the mother of invention” can be better stated as “fear and the reduction of uncertainty is the mother of invention”.

Which brings me to quantum mechanics. Yes, quantum mechanics. You know, the branch of physics that deals with the behavior of subatomic particles, wave-particle duality and most importantly, the uncertainty principle.

Unlike the macro-world where everything is consistent and predictable, the subatomic world beneath all our existence is highly chaotic, a roiling sea of unpredictability. Physicist Werner Heisenberg formulated his famous Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle (you Breaking Bad fans should know this) stating that it is impossible to measure the position and momentum of a subatomic particle with one hundred percent certainty. Positions of a particle at any point in time only have a certain probability and we can’t know for sure ahead of time just what their position might be.

However, out of the chaos and uncertainty that characterizes the subatomic world, we get this beautifully certain and stable macro-world. Gravity works consistently. My desk is always solid. The gas in my car’s cylinders always combusts as it should.

I believe capitalism is highly analogous to the quantum mechanics reality. Out of the roiling sea of individual human efforts, out of all of the chaos that exists in the millions and millions of unpredictable individual transactions all intended to reduce personal uncertainty, rises this beautifully efficient and stable societal form. The economy grows, lifestyles improve, knowledge increases, and optimism abounds. Yes, there is some failure and suffering on an individual level but society as a whole flourishes.

Utopians essentially say though, if a few suffer than we all must suffer. Therefore, they strive to remove all possibility of adversity and constrain us to rigid egalitarianism that saps all vitality and striving from a society. How about instead we return to capitalism and though a few might fail, they will still be better off than all of those occupying Utopia.

Marx, Alinsky, and Today’s Democrats

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

Ben Carson in his speech at the Republican National Convention provided a sharp contrast between America as constituted and the America the Democrats are endeavoring to transform us into.

Carson had the temerity to shine the light on our current president’s and his desired successor’s mentor, Saul Alinsky, and his game plan for the dissolution of our country as founded. He accurately stated that Alinsky dedicated his subversive tome, “Rules For Radicals”, to none other than Lucifer:

“Lest we forget at least an over-the-shoulder acknowledgment to the very first radical: from all our legends, mythology, and history (and who is to know where mythology leaves off and history begins—or which is which), the first radical known to man who rebelled against the establishment and did it so effectively that he at least won his own kingdom—Lucifer.”

(Note that newer copies are being published with this dedication omitted.)

Carson expertly made the point that our founding principles were based on unalienable rights that come from a creator God. This is clearly stated in our Declaration of Independence, enshrined on our currency, and recited as part of our Pledge of Allegiance.

Yet, Carson pointed out that the Democratic Party is abandoning the objective truth that has made this country the greatest in human history and instead, are pursuing its destruction via Alinsky’s methodologies that are the antithesis of a healthy functioning republic. Open debate and objective reasoning are being replaced with deceit and character assassination. Free speech and liberty are attacked by political correctness, agitation, and the incitement of discontent. Alinsky was right to dedicate such drivel to the Father of Lies.

The reaction of the sycophantic mainstream media to Carson’s comments was predictable and humorous. Cries that the Republican campaign became a witch trial or that Republicans say Hillary is a demon lover were typical. Why were they in such a lather over Carson’s citation? Methinks they dost protest too much. Could Alinsky’s tip of the hat to Lucifer have a more sinister implication?

Now I really don’t believe Obama or Clinton are consciously working to bring about Lucifer’s kingdom here on earth (but he does do his best work with oblivious drones, right?) I know some of you will debate that, but I doubt that they (or Alinsky) have spent significant time contemplating the spiritual side of existence. Rather, Obama and Clinton are consumed with their own power and aggrandizement in the here and now.

However, we should not just dismiss Alinsky’s reference to Lucifer or Satan as simply a literary flourish. Alinsky’s as well as Obama and Clinton’s Marxist ideology springs from the demonic heart of its founder, Karl Marx, who was indeed a Satanist. Followers like to characterize Marx as an atheist, but he very much believed that God existed and positioned himself vehemently in opposition to Him.

Marx was an ardent, pious Christian as a very young man but something happened to him by the time he reached eighteen that turned him staunchly against God. He wrote after his satanic revelation that: “I wish to avenge myself against the One who rules above.”

Many on the Left like to characterize Marx as an irreligious socialist. However, Marx cared little about humanity and righting the wrongs of society. He was driven to rid the world of God and it was only later that he seized on socialism as a method for enticing people into his anti-religion efforts. His true desire was destruction – destruction of God’s creation:

“Then I will be able to walk triumphantly,
Like a god, through the ruins of their kingdom.
Every word of mine is fire and action.
My breast is equal to that of the Creator.”

(This quote taken from Richard Wurmbrand’s “Marx & Satan”.)

Marxism is not based on a desire for man to live equitably and peacefully. Marxism was established to enslave and destroy. It was founded on a virulent hatred of humanity and God its Creator. Everywhere Marxism has been installed poverty, misery and death follow. No amounts of money or refinements or enlightened thinkers are going to change this result.

Marxism is the destination the Left is driving for and Alinsky’s “Rules For Radicals” is the vehicle to propel America there. Our current president and possibly our next are steeped in the poison prescribed by a man that hated all that is good and right.

If we allow the next Clinton presidency, we will see the hostility against religion ratcheted up. Last year at the Women In The World summit, Hillary made it clear that religion must yield to her twisted ideology:

“Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will. And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed.”

Whether you acknowledge the spiritual side of existence or not, Marxism is a despicable and destructive ideology that must be stamped out. We have one political party that embraces it and one that does not appear to understand what it’s up against. It will be up to “we the people” to preserve our blessed republic.

Conservatives – The Endangered Species

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

This is an open letter to the twenty-five or thirty percent of Republicans that can be considered solid Constitutional conservatives. I share your concern for how this 2016 election cycle has unfolded and for what may lie ahead for our nation.

We had great hopes that given the last disastrous eight years, we were in position to turn our country back to the roots of its founding. This was such an enormous opportunity to make the case for conservatism and its promise of prosperity and happiness. However, we now have to face the fact that we did not succeed. In fact, we may have taken a step back from what we sought so ardently.

We have to clearly recognize that the Republican National Committee (RNC) wants to defeat conservatism more than it wants to defeat Democrats. This first started crystalizing for me with the 2013 Virginia governor’s race where a solid, Tea Party conservative, Ken Cuccinelli, was narrowly defeated by Clinton crony, Terry McAuliffe.

Cuccinelli could have won this strategic governorship if the RNC had provided funding at levels equal to what they had provided in previous elections. Instead, the Cuccinelli campaign was starved for funds to the point where they were unable to run any significant media ads the last several weeks of the campaign, insuring a McAuliffe victory. Now for the 2016 presidential election, McAuliffe is using the power of his office to turn Virginia blue and as a result, the RNC’s hatred of conservatism may cost them the presidency.

This scenario has just been repeated in Kansas where Tea Party conservative, Tim Huelskamp, was defeated in the Republican primary by a moderate candidate, Roger Marshall. Marshall had the strong backing of major agribusiness interests and the RNC puppet master, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A late landslide of RNC crony money buried Huelskamp.

Huelskamp was elected during the Tea Party wave of 2010 and was a constant thorn in the side of the Republican establishment and particularly John Boehner. He said no to business as usual in Washington and therefore had to be primaried. Marshall on the other hand was lauded for his ability to “reach across the aisle” (and presumably not stand on principle). Members of the House Freedom Caucus, none of whom endorsed Speaker Paul Ryan, are now on notice.

The rules debate at last month’s Republican convention in another illustration of the RNC’s drive to rid the party of conservatives. The contention raised by conservatives with the convention rules was not an attempt by conservative Cruz supporters or the never Trumpers to disrupt the convention in opposition to a Trump nomination as the obedient Fox News drones tried to promote. It was about reigning in the continuing centralization of power by the RNC. The RNC refused a role call vote on the rules package and crushed any further dissent that could have given the grassroots more say in the process.

The political lynching of Ted Cruz at the convention is another case in point. Everyone knew what was coming down with respect to a Cruz endorsement of Trump. Cruz very forthrightly told the RNC and the Trump campaign that he would not extend an endorsement.

Cruz provided a copy of his speech well ahead of time (and he DID NOT make a dishonest change to it during his delivery as Trump alluded afterward). The Fox News people were advised of what Cruz was going to say well ahead of time and yet they hyped it like they didn’t have a clue whether he would endorse Trump or not. RNC surrogates were then given airtime all through the day of the speech to set Cruz up. There are plenty of reports from people present on the floor during the speech, that the booing was timed and coordinated as well as Trump’s appearance as Cruz finished.

And the next day after receiving the nomination, what does the nominee speak of? Party unity? The fecklessness of his Democratic opponent? No, he goes after Cruz and repeats totally baseless and tasteless charges again. I’m sure the RNC loved that Tourette’s-like outburst.

You see, Ted Cruz is the face now of Constitutional conservatism. His actions are based on Constitutional principles that he honors above all things and this is antithetical to the way Washington works today. Their intense antipathy of Cruz is directly proportional to the fear they have of him and in turn, us. Time will tell if Cruz is finished like they so hope, but it does not and cannot and must not stop the conservative movement.

Our founding principles and conservative values are not just some passing whim. They are instead timeless, objective truths that can be followed or ignored. It’s our choice and responsibility as a society to decide what kind of government we will have and what our relationship to it will be.

As we continue to leave our founding in the rearview mirror, it’s up to we, the conservatives, to redouble our efforts to forthrightly make our case for limited government, individual sovereignty, and our right to make our lives what WE want them to be. We used to hear this from the Republican Party but now they have become the trailing edge of a statist wave leading us to ruin.

The Intention of Intent

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

Intent (/inˈtent/) – the thing that you plan to do or achieve: an aim or purpose

Do you see anything ambiguous or confusing about this definition? A fifth grader could easily understand it and use this word properly in a sentence. It’s only in Washington that the obvious meaning of words becomes distorted and pliable. Only in the land where it “depends on what the definition of is is” does the clear and certain become opaque and situational.

There is no clearer confirmation of this than the testimony on Thursday by the director of the FBI in front of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. James Comey confirmed every allegation that had been made about Hillary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State in her set up and use of a private email server.

Comey made clear that Clinton’s statements that she neither received nor sent top secret information from this unsecured server were lies. He confirmed that she orchestrated an effort to eliminate vast numbers of emails and shield them from scrutiny as required by government statutes. The director advised that Clinton actually accessed multiple unsecured servers with multiple wireless devices refuting the Secretary’s claim of only one device and one server. Yet, Comey decided not to recommend Secretary Clinton be indicted since she did not exhibit “intent” to violate the applicable laws.

Now think about that. Clinton clearly knew that setting up such a server violated State Department security regulations. That’s why she kept the scheme a secret. She clearly sent and received above Top Secret information on these unsecured servers possibly putting American lives at risk. With the massive deletion of emails from the server and the stonewalling in providing the emails that remained, Clinton acknowledged her law breaking and was attempting to evade detection. In the world that you and I live in, this exhibits intent to circumvent the law beyond any doubt. In Washington though for a member of the statist elite, there’s nothing to see here. Just move along.

Comey’s evoking the “intent” defense actually shows a calculated, premeditated effort to protect Clinton. If you look at the verbiage of the espionage statutes that Clinton clearly violated dozens of times, it says nothing about intent. It merely states that being grossly negligent in how one handles top-secret material in their possession constitutes a felony. It is quite purposely a low bar for violation. You don’t have to prove that someone had a plan to violate the statute. It’s simply that you did violate it. However, Comey injects a requirement of clear intent where it is nowhere to be found in the law to provide Clinton with an escape hatch.

Prior to this last week, all I heard about Comey was that he was an honest public servant; a man of great character who would make a decision based on the rule of law and not succumb to political pressure. I will never be fooled again when I hear the establishment setting us up like that. This reminds me a lot of how John Roberts was sold to us as a staunch Constitutional conservative who when we counted on him most, proceeded to rewrite Obamacare so the un-Constitutional abomination could move ahead unfettered to destroy our healthcare system. As Roger Daltrey sang, “We won’t get fooled again! No, no!”

Washington has become a cauldron of corruption from which very, very few can escape its withering influence of money and political power. With the return of the Clinton machine front and center on the Washington stage, the cauldron is rapidly heating up from a steady simmer under Obama.

What is it with almost half the electorate that simply cannot or will not see the Clintons for what they are – liars, deceivers, and money-grubbers who are power hungry, sociopathic, and vengeful? Everywhere they have squatted we have seen lawlessness and malfeasance, corruption and deceit, yet after three decades of their corrosive influence they may very well again gain control of the White House.

While Obama is like a sly weasel cautious in his deconstruction of America, Hillary will be like a rampaging rhino demolishing the already weakened ramparts of our Constitutional framework. Her actions will not be tempered by Obama’s natural passivity. She will bend the system to her unflinching will like an entitled monarch and accelerate the transformation of America into a neo-feudalistic state.

There was a slight ray of hope that came out of the Comey hearing though. The director inadvertently set Clinton up for a perjury charge as a result of false statements made during her Benghazi testimony before Congress. Hillary’s statements before that committee have now been clearly shown to be lies and in any other situation would guarantee a slam-dunk conviction. The FBI will surely get a referral from Congress over Clinton’s deceitful testimony. Comey should get a chance to redeem himself, but will he?

Patriots, these are truly becoming times that will try our souls. Our society is unraveling at an alarming pace and we have a statist government working against us. However, the biggest evil that we face as Constitution loving Americans is for us to do nothing. Let’s do all we can to defeat Hillary in the fall and then begin the work of taking our country back.

Liberalism As Psychopathology

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

The latest national presidential election polling shows that about forty percent of registered voters are planning to cast a vote for Hillary Clinton. This despite the FBI confirming that she violated criminal statutes for the handling of top secret material and then lied to Congress about it.

This forty percent will vote for her even though she was complicit in the deaths of four brave Americans in Benghazi and then promulgated lies about the attack for political purposes. Clinton will get their vote despite her catastrophic diplomatic initiatives in the Middle East that have left the region a seething cauldron of violence with tens of thousands dead.

How can forty percent of the electorate consider someone as incompetent, deceitful, and amoral as Clinton a viable candidate for the most powerful office on earth? The only consistent justification offered for her candidacy is that, “It’s just time for a woman to be president.” Heck, then why not Julia Louise-Dreyfus? This could have been her chance to be president for real. She would certainly be more appealing.

Truth is that this forty percent will pull the “D” lever no matter who the candidate is. The question remains though – why?

Despite the unambiguous failure of liberalism over the last six decades, this forty percent refuses to recognize it. The country is closing in on $20 trillion in operating debt. We have accumulated over $200 trillion in unfunded financial commitments the Left has dragged the country into. The black family is in shambles. Race relations are the worst in decades. Our military is the least prepared it’s been since well before World War II and morale is at an all time low. The number of abled-bodied Americans out of the work is at record levels. Our borders are wide open. The overall culture is in steep decline. And all of this is traceable directly to liberalism, yet a substantial percentage of the country is steadfast in maintaining their support despite our declining trajectory.

Again, why? If we conservatives are going to be able to turn this around and get our country back on a Constitutional foundation again, we have to understand the liberal mind and with that knowledge synthesize effective strategies to erode liberalism’s hold on so much of the country.

Lyle H. Rossiter, a forensic psychiatrist with more than forty years in treating personality and mental disorders and author of “The Liberal Mind – The Psychological Causes of Madness”, provides some vital insight into the foundations of modern liberalism.

In a summary of his book, Rossiter writes: “The modern liberal mind, its distorted perceptions and its destructive agenda are the product of disturbed personalities.” Today’s liberal mind simply does not recognize and acknowledge our fundamental human nature and therefore denies how humans are designed to live and relate to each other.

Modern liberalism does not recognize individual liberty as the highest social value to be preserved and cultivated. Therefore it does not protect nor respect basic property rights and the individual pursuit of prosperity and happiness. Instead, the liberal mind paints a picture of hopelessness, suspicion, victimization, entitlement, and dependence.

Our founding and success as a country was based on the self-reliance and perseverance of the individual. Through the struggle to build the life that one envisions; the individual develops character, courage, and respect for others in a similar pursuit. This builds a strong culture where individuals relate to each other in the most positive way and benefit from the innovations generated by the free flow of the creativity of its people.

The liberal mind deprives society of such benefits. It takes away the responsibility of the individual for his life and his actions to provide for himself. No matter how poor the judgment or how low the desire to make something of oneself or how fearful of facing difficulty, the individual is relieved of any personal responsibility for his plight. Instead, the individual’s failure to achieve his potential is blamed on “the system”. Social conditions are stacked against the individual making it impossible for him to succeed in any meaningful way on his own.

Therefore, the only chance the individual has of a fulfilling life is through the beneficial actions of a large ubiquitous government managing an ever-increasing level of detail in the individual’s life. Personal responsibility and autonomy are relegated to the ash heap of history and all of society becomes wards of the state.

Rossiter believes that such fanatical desire for a society of totally unactualized individuals is not just an honest miscomprehension of man’s true nature, but is rather a clear sign of psychopathology. Only psychic disorder of great magnitude could produce the fanatical and unrelenting pursuit of such a bleak society as we have seen from the Left in this country.

So, the battle line is clear. We need to view everything our government engages in through the lens of whether it enhances personal liberty and freedom or not. We oppose everything that places further limits on our autonomy. We must promote within our families and those that we engage with the values of individualism and personal motivation.

And every politician looking for our vote must provide clear answers to this very simple question – “If elected, what will you do to preserve and increase our individual freedom and sovereignty?” If we cannot get a clear list of actions from any candidate in response to this query, they are out. This goes for your local commission as well as Donald Trump and all offices in between.

It’s the Ideology, Stupid!

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

“Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people”.

Ronald Reagan at CPAC, 1975

With what passes for political discourse today, sometimes we just need to reflect and take stock on the timeless wisdom of our last political genius. Reagan’s words ring as true today as they did over 40 years ago and Republicans would be wise to take heed and follow them.

Donald Trump has a style that lends itself to making sharp contrasts but they are more often personal and tactical attacks rather than the ideological and strategic contrasts Reagan was emphasizing. If he wants to “make America great again”, The Donald should study carefully the speech methodology of “The Great Communicator”.

Certainly, there are near term issues that need the strong hand of the Oval Office to wrest solutions from the Washington bureaucratic quagmire. I believe Trump with the right team of advisors can be quite effective in slowing the seeming inexorable creep of government into our daily lives. However, there is a more fundamental battle that has to be enjoined if America is to again thrive.

Beginning in the 1960’s, the Democrats embarked on a long-term strategy to change the electorate from the greatest generation to one of managed sheep – ignorant and needy and they have succeeded beyond their wildest expectations. The Hart-Celler Act of 1965 coupled with Lyndon Johnson’s War On Poverty; set the nation on a transformational course that has resulted in the societal mess we find ourselves in today.

From our country’s inception, immigration had been an orderly process of adding important contributors from a variety of global regions to our society. Only those that could contribute to our national well being were admitted. The Democrats destroyed this process and turned our once orderly immigration system into a third world flood designed to populate the War On Poverty welfare state and insure a majority of slavish Democratic voters. This is just about complete now.

Trump has commendably focused on immigration and made it a defining issue for his campaign. Securing the borders and being much more discriminating in who is allowed to enter the country will be a good start in shutting down the Democrats’ scam. However, we would still be left with an ignorant, misguided electorate that must be introduced to our founding principles and the virtues of conservatism. This is where Reagan’s strategy gives us the way forward.

One of the biggest failings of the George W. Bush administration was that it did not defend and promote conservatism. Relentless attacks from the Left were ignored and left unanswered. Opportunities to explain and promote conservative solutions were too often bypassed. This reticence got us eight years of Obama and may well yield a third term with Hillary Clinton. The time is now for Republicans to paint a bold picture of the superiority of conservatism over the tired, failed bromides the Democrats are peddling.

Republicans must now understand that first and foremost they are engaged in an ideological battle with the Left. The Left has been driven to win an ideological war for decades now and Republicans have been sleep walking, limiting their actions to political maneuvering. They rail against Obama when he fails to label Islamic terror as such, yet they fail to call their political enemy in Washington what it is – totalitarian statism. How can you win a war when you do not recognize and name your enemy for what they are?

The case for conservatism is an easy one to make. It is an innate drive in humans to be free, to make of your life what you want it to be and to enjoy the benefits derived from your personal efforts. Every human has dreams and aspirations of what their life could be. Our highest state of being is the pursuit of that personal vision. This is the embodiment of conservatism and the Left has done everything it can to distort and dispel this truth from public discourse. And the Republicans have abdicated their responsibility to defend what has really made America great.

Trump’s life story is a clear model for the possibilities of every citizen. He could be an effective evangelist for the pursuit of happiness the liberal statists so abhor. However, he has to step back from the rhetorical jousting that has characterized his campaign so far and engage the ideological war that currently only the Left is fighting. He has the charisma and now the platform to engage the war effectively, but will he?

I am concerned with who I see Trump surrounding himself with. While Trump has promoted an image of being a Washington outsider, his campaign team is heavily loaded with Republican establishment insiders. His gaggle of advisors is looking more and more like the Bob Dole team of 1996. I don’t believe there is one advisor on his team that worked with Reagan.

It’s time for Donald Trump to stop flirting with Bernie Sanders supporters and become the conservative evangelist he is capable of being. Do that and he, like Reagan, could win in a landslide.

Benghazi Facts are Stubborn Things

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

I thought I had reached the limits of my disgust with this administration and the media. However, events this week in Washington have created new levels of revulsion for me to experience.

The House Select Committee on Benghazi released their long overdue report on the events that led up to the deaths of four brave men in the cesspool of despair that is today’s Libya. These were some of our finest with families and loved ones, who made the commitment to put themselves in the line of fire for us. They were lost because of the feckless, incompetent, and ideologically paralyzed hacks in this administration.

I’m not sure what disgusts me most – the actual events of September 11, 2012 or the administration’s spin and hackery in an attempt to dispel its culpability. They stoked their sycophantic media to proclaim there’s nothing new in the report while it clearly documents a lack of understanding and an unwillingness to act that borders on treason. Yet the media’s sole hyperventilating story line is that somehow Hillary is exonerated. Conservatives, please encourage your kids to become journalists!

While the report appears to be excellently done and thorough, I am disappointed in how Republican committee members presented their findings. During media interviews, they simply did not lay out the damning case against the administration that is screaming to be made. Trey Goudy seemed more concerned with being non-partisan and even-handed than shining the bright light of truth on an administration of roaches. Imploring citizens “to read the report”, an 800 page report, instead of making a clear indictment of this administration’s dereliction is just so typical now of our mainstream Republicans. They simply will not fight the battle as it needs to be fought.

However, there are two Republicans on the committee that did make the case for the American people dispelling much of the non-stop spin coming out of the White House. Jim Jordan and Mike Pompeo were so concerned that the facts and evidence be understood that they issued their own summary and views of the findings reached by the committee.

In forty-eight pages not eight hundred, they summarized the Benghazi debacle into five main conclusions, each a damning condemnation of the actions and dereliction of this administration.

First, the administration lied and misled us about what led up to the attack on the Benghazi compound and about their inactions during the attack. They attempted to tie the terrorists’ motivations to an obscure video that virtually no one had seen, all in an attempt to preserve the president’s reelection campaign. While they were proclaiming the video as cause of the attack, members of the administration (Shrillary for sure) were privately telling associates and other world leaders that they knew all along that it was a planned terrorist attack and the video had nothing to do with it.

Second, despite request after urgent request, the Secretary of State refused to put in place the level of security her own experts believed were required to protect the lives of our personnel. Whether through political correctness or a refusal to believe that her Libyan policy had been an abject failure, Shrillary left wonderfully dedicated public servants in the greatest jeopardy and it cost them their lives.

Third, once the attacks started, this administration did virtually nothing to rescue our personnel under siege. One of the spin points they offer is that they did not have forces in the area that could be deployed in time to provide protection and rescue. How did they know that? No one could know how long the siege would last. Yet, this administration did absolutely nothing for those it is sworn to aid and protect.

Fourth, the administration has done very little to fulfill its proclaimed commitment to bring the perpetrators of this attack to justice. They have found one token, low-level guy despite dozens being involved. And to further delegitimize their actions, they have even taken the death penalty off the table for him. What a joke.

Fifth and very telling about this administration is the fact that it stonewalled this committee throughout the entire truth seeking process. The Dems rail that it took two years and $7 million to finish the investigation (like Dems are concerned about spending tax payer money). That is directly because this administration did everything it could to prevent the committee from getting to the truth. If the administration’s spin could be believed and it had nothing to hide, would there not have been a free flow of information? Dam right there would have been. They did everything they could to keep the facts hidden because they are highly culpable for four deaths.

And there remains one big question that the House report could not answer. It’s a question that the media refuses to pursue and one that we the people must demand an answer. The question is, where was the president while these events were transpiring? We know he was briefed about 5 pm about what was going down. The next time we hear of his whereabouts is the next morning getting on Air Force 1 to travel to Las Vegas for a fundraiser. So where was he? What was he doing that was so important that justified being AWOL when Americans were dying?

Americans demand an answer.

Hillary’s Demonomics Will Sink Our Country

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

“I have a clear vision for the economy and it’s this. We need to make sure our economy works for everyone. Not just those at the top.”

So began Hillary Clinton this week in North Carolina while offering her rebuttal of Donald Trump’s economic prescriptions for the country. She continued:

“Not just for the rich or the well-connected, not just for people living in some parts of the country or people from certain backgrounds and not others, I mean everyone. And I have a plan to get us there.”

Yes, Hillary has a plan. Pay no attention to the fact that she has endorsed every economic policy the current administration has foisted upon the nation. Since Obama came into office, the top 1% has seen incomes rise by 11.2 %, while the remaining 99 % of us were stuck with an income decrease of .4 %. But this is yesterday’s news, now Hillary has a plan!

She laid out five “ambitious” goals that we would be directed to tackle together once she assumes the throne, ah I mean presidency. Attainment of these five goals will usher in a new, golden era of fairness and economic kumbaya.

First, the government will create thousands and thousands of good paying jobs by wait – drum roll – investing in infrastructure! Sounds kind of familiar, doesn’t it? Seems like we created a trillion dollars in debt that was supposed to fund the rebuilding of our crumbling infrastructure back in 2009. That was until our president mirthfully admitted that all those shovel-ready jobs were – well, not so shovel ready. That Obama, he’s such a cut up!

This time, Hillary is going to make this work by slicing through the dysfunction in Washington. I guess she’s going to complete Obama’s work of destroying the Constitution’s separation of powers foundation and just run the country with a pen, a phone, and a pants suit.

Second, Hillary will “transform the way we prepare Americans for the jobs of the future” by making college debt-free for all. Does she mean attending college will become debt-free because schools will cut professor’s salaries and benefits or dig into their endowment funds or reduce their construction of palatial administration buildings? No, no. This is where we all get the opportunity to spread our wealth just a little further. (Remember that it’s OK to rail against Big Oil’s profits but we must never speak of Big Education, Big Entertainment, or Big Law’s wallowing in cash.)

Next, Hillary will “rewrite the rules so more companies share profits with their employees and few ship profits and jobs overseas.” Hmmm. What could Hillary have in mind here? I can think of a few things she won’t be doing. She won’t be lowering the corporate income tax to a level competitive with the rest of the world. I bet she won’t be easing the EPA regulatory burden either. I doubt she will relax the penalty for repatriating funds held offshore. No, I think she has something a little more iron fisted in mind. Corporate leadership requires profit and productivity growth before laying out more cash to employees. Hillary will put a stop to this and government bureaucrats will determine what an employee’s work is worth.

The fourth point of Hillary’s plan is an oldie but a goodie – tax the rich, especially those Wall Street guys. Now, does anybody really think that after getting a $21 million payoff for making vacuous speeches the last couple of years that Hillary is going to bite the hand that fed her? Not a chance. And even if she confiscated much of Wall Street’s wealth, it doesn’t do much for our debt problem anyway. This is just an obligatory feel good for her ravenous, Marxist constituency.

As a finishing touch, Hillary wants to “put families first” by raising the minimum wage, enacting paid family leave, and expanding preschool. Family leave and preschool are all well and good, but the question is how do they get paid for? It will certainly place more pressure on businesses and create a greater tax burden for us.

Hillary throws the question at us that if other advanced countries can provide these entitlements how come the United States can’t? Could it be because we have to spend hundreds of billions of dollars defending their butts? If we didn’t supply so much aid to the world and keep the UN afloat maybe we could afford more.

The minimum wage though is what really shows how completely ignorant Hillary and those that support her are about economics. In Nancy Pelosian cluelessness, Hillary states, “If we want higher growth, we have got to raise incomes, so people have more disposable dollars to be able to spend, instead of holding back out of fear of what will happen.”

So, in Hillary’s twisted ideology, wage hikes cause profit increases. If that’s the case, then we should condemn the Democrats for short changing workers. If raising wages leads to increasing profits and prosperity, why are they settling for $15 per hour? Why not $50 or even better $100 per hour?

Anyone with the slightest economic sense knows that wage hikes can only follow increases in productivity and innovation. Just raising wages does nothing but eliminate jobs. It can’t be legitimately argued, but facts and evidence do not hold liberals back anymore.

I am at best, a lukewarm Trump supporter but I pray he will occupy the White House come late January next year.

It’s Our Guns They Want

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

The Islamic “true believers” are winning the battle against western civilization. The responses of our federal government and media to Islamic violence clearly confirm this.

I call terrorists like the perpetrator of last weekend’s massacre in Orlando “true believers” because they are acting out just what Muhammad demands of Muslims in the Qur’an, Islam’s most holy text. Muslims are admonished to make war against the non-Islamic world until it is brought under Islamic control and Sharia law. They are to never stop making war until this is accomplished.

We hear our government authorities and media luminaries continue to refer to Islam as a religion of peace though. It is neither a religion nor is it peaceful. Islam is an ideology of expansion and conquest. It is a totalitarian form of government wrapped around a theology that simply cannot coexist with any other form of society.

When Islamists see our leaders ascribe the motivation of the Orlando shooter to homophobia, Christianity, or the availability of semi-automatic firearms and defer blame from Islamic theology, they see America as capitulating to the will of Allah and they are told by the Qur’an to redouble their efforts to subdue the infidels.

All of this information is readily available through either the testimony of former Islamists or a direct reading of the Qur’an and the Hadith. Islam’s true nature can be easily discerned by anyone willing to spend a little time to understand it. So why does our government and media elite continue to peddle the “religion of peace” ruse?

There is a very concerning reason. Islam does not always resort to violence to advance its expansion. When Islamists cannot win battles by force, they will infiltrate and compromise their enemies until they can be taken by force. We know that the United States has been under what the Muslim Brotherhood calls a “civilization jihad” for decades. A civilization jihad is a pre-violent stage where infiltrators work to undermine our government and culture from within. They have been chipping away at our various institutions for many years now and they have made alarming progress.

Muslim Brotherhood members are essentially writing the policy and training manuals for our security personnel. They have expunged virtually all information concerning Islam’s violent goals and its true nature. It’s gotten to the point where any security analyst that might use the term “Islamic terror” could be immediately relieved of their position.

This disinformation campaign may very well have contributed to the loss of life at the Boston Marathon bombing and the shootings in San Bernardino and Orlando. In each case, we had actionable information about the perpetrators that could have prevented them from committing their heinous attacks. However, our security personnel were prevented from acting by Muslim Brotherhood installed political correctness.

As I write this, the news came over my smartphone proclaiming the big result of the Orlando shooting is a monumental gun control debate – not Islam, not terrorism, not our wide open borders, but gun control. Is this not just what the Islamists would want us debating, gun control? Would not disarming more Americans create more fertile killing fields like the Pulse nightclub?

DHS director, Jeh Johnson, stated that to prevent more attacks like Orlando and San Bernardino we must enact “sensible” gun laws. This has become a mantra of the left – “sensible” gun laws. They never say what’s sensible. They just leave it vague and undefined because what they really want is abolition of the Second Amendment.

Think about this administration’s current efforts to bring in more Muslim refugees from terrorist infested areas of the Middle East. A majority of these refugees are young, unmarried men that the government has clearly admitted they cannot properly vet. These are young men that don’t speak our language, have little education, have no money, and will not be able to find meaningful work – a perfect mix for becoming violent and producing more acts of terror.

Does this make any sense to you? It might, if your goal is to disarm us. We have been getting these kinds of mass shootings once or twice a year. Each time the Left comes out screaming for gun control (while ignoring what motivated the shooter) but typically the fervor dies down and we have withstood their Second Amendment attacks.

What though if we started getting such a shooting once a month or maybe even once a week? It would become much more difficult. After Orlando, we have already seen Fox News hosts promoting AR-15 bans and the Republicans in Congress getting weak kneed. With hundreds of unvetted potential terrorists being released in our country, the frequency of shootings could go up dramatically providing much more hysteria and fuel to disarm us. And that’s really the goal.

The Left is playing with fire by using Islam as a way to defeat their biggest enemies – Christians and the Constitution. While they find kinship with Islam’s totalitarianism, they are not exempt from its infidel designation. The Islamists are cunning and ruthless and the Left may find that they are the ones being used.

The Second Amendment is our line in the sand. We must not allow it to be crossed at all costs. Our government fears an armed population. We must make sure it stays that way.

Supreme Judgement Does Not Come from the Supreme Court

Opinion, Religion

Opinion written by John Tutten:

Do you feel like our country is coming under judgment? I mean judgment as is in Old Testament, wrath of God type stuff. While we are not being overrun by plagues of locusts nor is fire falling from the sky, do you not have the sense though that America is headed for some kind of reckoning and soon? Has God withdrawn His providence that we have enjoyed since our founding?

While I am a Bible believing Christian, I haven’t spent significant time pondering eschatology – the study of the events leading to the final destiny of mankind. There are many different valid, scholarly interpretations to end time events as foretold in the Bible. The most notable and popular today is the sequence laid out in the “Left Behind” series of books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, but interpretations by other Scriptural authorities paint different scenarios. For me then, I have just left it as a broad narrative that one day, Jesus will return and establish His Kingdom with those that have chosen Him.

So, has the end time clock started ticking? I think it has and has been ticking for a while. When Israel was reestablished in 1948, two thousand years after its destruction by the Romans, it was an astounding fulfillment of a three thousand year old Biblical prophecy. Most Biblical scenarios include the reconstitution of the Jewish nation as the gateway event to the ushering in of the last days.

The United States played a critical role in Israel becoming a nation again in 1948. However, most end time interpretations include virtually no mention of our country in the events leading to a new Heaven and a new earth. America is the most powerful and influential society in the world. How could we not be involved in any scenario of cataclysmic worldwide events? Maybe because something happens that neutralizes our power and influence.

Can anyone argue that our power and influence is on the wane? Financially we have transitioned from a creditor nation to the greatest debtor nation in the history of the world. We are fast approaching $20 trillion in operating debt. We really haven’t felt the effect of this yet because the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates close to zero.

So at this time, our interest payment on the debt is only about half a trillion dollars a year. What happens when rates begin to increase as they must and the interest payment rises to $1 trillion or $2 trillion per year? Social Security goes bankrupt much faster. Our infrastructure crumbles. Our military falls further into unpreparedness.

However, $20 trillion is just the tip of the iceberg. We have over $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities that are promised to our citizens (and all those illegals) that we have no hope of honoring. What do you think will happen when the government falls flat in providing all the goodies and handouts to all the entitlement classes Washington has created? It could mean total societal collapse.

If not a financial catastrophe, we could possibly see something more Biblical. The current Washington regime has aided and abetted the maniacal mullahs in Iran in their relentless pursuit of a nuclear weapon. We have removed sanctions, provided funding, restrained Israel, and allowed them to develop a capability to destroy our society with one missile. It’s called an EMP. By exploding a nuclear device a couple of hundred miles above our heartland, Iran could fry every semiconductor in the country and send us back to the early 1800’s. Many estimates show that only 10 percent of the population would survive after one year. A single flash in the sky could end our civilization.

So a financial collapse and an EMP attack are certainly possible, but to me the sign we are under unfolding judgment is already here and in plain sight. Just look at the leadership in Washington and its clear the pagans have infiltrated our government and are now plundering what took over 200 years and millions of lives to create and defend.

It’s our political elite that is charting our course to financial ruin. They are Balkanizing our society, separating us, and pitting factions against each other. They refuse to protect our power grid. They are seizing our liberty and freedom with thousands of regulations written by unseen bureaucrats skirting Constitutional rule. They promote the destruction of life in the womb. They are rapidly legislating Christian principles and beliefs out of the public square.

Biblical history shows that God will use heathens and pagans to deliver judgment to his chosen people who have fallen away. Whether they are Babylonians, Romans, or Marxists, God will use the spiritually dead to bring judgment to His wayward people. Our Constitution is being subverted, our borders are held wide open and our neo-Babylonian leaders who deceive and despise us are plundering our wealth.

However, the Bible makes it clear that there is a way out. If we humble ourselves before God, give Him praise and obey Him, then He will extend His mercy and grace upon us. I don’t believe anything short of the majority of this country turning back to God will save us. It’s time to put down the remote and spend time with Him.

“By Our Creator” Is Still the Truth

Opinion, Religion

Opinion by John Tutten:

“You think about the United States of America. We have a really good story called the Declaration of Independence. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal; that we’re endowed with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ That’s a wonderful story.”

So stated the current occupier of the Oval Office in Saigon this week to the Young Southeast Asia Leaders Initiative (YSEALI). Do you notice something missing from this recitation? It’s just a few words, obviously inconsequential to this president. The clause he chose to alter should read, “that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.”

This is not the first time this president has altered the foundational principle of our civil society. He has made a concerted effort to eliminate the reference to a Creator whenever quoting this part of the Declaration throughout his time in office. The first few times you could see him hesitate before passing over the phrase, making a conscious effort to skip over it. Now he flows over it very naturally.

In an earlier speech at the Hanoi National Convention Center, Obama couldn’t resist quoting a kindred spirit, Ho Chi Minh.

“And on the day that Vietnam declared its independence, crowds took to the streets of this city, and Ho Chi Minh evoked the American Declaration of Independence. He said, ‘All people are created equal. The Creator has endowed them with inviolable rights. Among these rights are the right to life, the right to liberty, and the right to the pursuit of happiness.’”

Is it not strange that a quintessential Communist like Ho Chi Minh will confirm the idea that we have unalienable rights that come from a Creator while this president will not? He quoted what Ho Chi Minh said verbatim, but in his own comments he time and time again leaves out that defining statement of truth.

What is it about the existence of a Creator that the Oval Office occupier is so averse to? He claims to be a Christian yet he refuses to acknowledge God’s role in our founding. Some assert that he is a closet Muslim, so maybe attributing our individual rights to a Christian God is insulting to Allah. (For you liberals, Christians and Muslims do not worship the same god.)

I believe the truth is that this president is really not a spiritually motivated person. Instead, he worships at the altar of grievance and government, iron-fisted government. He rejects our civil society and its republican principles and has dedicated his presidency to undermining both.

Notice in the first quote how he describes the Declaration of Independence as a “story” not as founding principles or beliefs, but a story. Maybe it was just a poor choice of words, but I believe he uses the word story here to refute the objective truth the Declaration enshrines. Ah, it’s just a story, no universal truths here.

This president’s god is his Marxist ideology – putting absolute power in the hands of a few masterminds. And this god is the only god allowed, all others must be eliminated. We’ve seen this with totalitarian regimes throughout history. The true Creator must be eliminated so the masterminds in their omnipotence can dictate what individual rights are. Individual worth, dignity, and sovereignty always suffer terribly when we are ruled by the subjective whims of humans rather than objective truth.

Dear readers, the truth of the existence of God is the real battle we face. Virtually everything conservatives are fighting against has its roots in this age-old battle. Too often we are preoccupied with fighting tactical skirmishes rather than the strategic war for the truth that separates us from the failed societies of history.

And we have so much ammunition. We have such good arguments to make. We do not have to use the Bible or theological gymnastics to make our case. The preponderance of scientific evidence best supports a theological worldview despite secular efforts to obscure this. Consider the following three arguments:

1) The universe had a beginning. Secular science confirms that the universe had an absolute beginning about 13.8 billion years ago. Time, matter, energy, and space itself came into being via the Big Bang. Prior to this, nothing existed. No quantum vacuums with fluctuating energy like secularists like to postulate. Nothing existed. Therefore something beyond time, matter, energy, and space had to have brought the universe into existence. Therefore, the cause had to be timeless, spaceless, immensely powerful, vastly intelligent and purposeful.

2) The universe is unimaginably fine tuned for life. The physical parameters of the universe are set to levels of precision that just could not have happened through a random explosion. Literally dozens of parameters that govern the universe’s physical laws are set to just the exact value they have to be for the universe to exist. However, there is no physical necessity for them to be set as they are. If any of these parameters are changed by an infinitesimal amount, the universe as we know it ceases to exist.

3) All biology runs on digital information. DNA that all life depends on is essentially a digital four-letter code that is very similar to the code running the machine you are reading this piece on but far more complex. The only mechanism we know of in nature that can generate such code is a mind.

So what is the best fit to this data? Clearly, it is a Creator who endows us with unalienable rights.

A Second American Revolution

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

“My main job is to keep my job, to get reelected. It takes precedence over everything.”

So says Congressman X in a soon to be published kimono-opening book entitled, “The Confessions of Congressman X”. Congressman X is a current or recent Democrat member of the U.S. House of Representatives who has chosen to remain anonymous for obvious reasons.

He describes how he is so busy fundraising that he seldom reads any of the bills he is voting on and has no idea how much they will cost the taxpayers nor how they are to be implemented. His staff briefs him and tells him how to vote just before he goes to the House floor. On more controversial bills, he sometimes votes yes on a motion and then votes no on an amendment so he can make the claim that he is on either side of the issue depending on what is politically expedient.

Does the Obamacare fiasco not confirm this is how our legislative branch runs? One can now understand how a former House speaker could utter the words that will forever hang in infamy, “We have to pass the bill to see what’s in it.” It all makes perfect sense under the Capital rotunda.

Congressman X goes on to say, “We spend money we don’t have and blithely mortgage the future with a wink and a nod. Screw the next generation.” Does anyone doubt this is true? He then adds, “Nobody here gives a rat’s (behind) about the future and who’s going to pay for all this stuff we vote for. That’s the next generation’s problem. It’s all about immediate publicity, getting credit now, looking good for the upcoming election.”

This explains why we are closing in on a $20 trillion national debt and have created over $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Our elected representatives in Washington are very conscious of the fact that by their hand, they will bankrupt this country and bring misery and despair on its citizens. However, they still sleep very soundly knowing that when the collapse comes they will be gone.

How could the government of the greatest country to ever exist descend into such a state? Our government once was a model of virtue built on the highest moral truths. It was dedicated to the freedom and liberty of the individual. Its most important task was to preserve our individual rights and allow maximum human flourishing.

Now instead of a Constitutionally founded government, we have a massive bureaucracy whose first priority is to preserve and grow itself and then steal our freedom and wealth through a web of insidious deceit.

They lie to us continually. Remember Obama’s lie “if you like your doctor you can keep him”? How about when they told us it was an Internet video that caused the Muslims to attack our Benghazi compound or that the Iran nuclear deal was negotiated with “moderates”? Don’t forget that our freedom and prosperity is causing the catastrophic heating of the earth. Washington is a brood of vipers!

No clear thinking person can take much issue with what Congressman X is telling us. We knew it already, but we just don’t want to deal with it. Why has it come to this? Look in the mirror folks. We, the citizens, are to blame.

Congressman X provides credence to our culpability, “Voters are incredibly ignorant and know little about our form of government and how it works.” He further expounded on the point, “It’s far easier than you think to manipulate a nation of naïve, self-absorbed sheep who crave instant gratification.”

He then sums up the current state of our culture by stating; “I worry about our country’s future when critical issues take a backseat to the inane utterings of illiterate athletes and celebrity twits.”

I worry about our future too but it is still in our hands. There’s still 20 or 30 percent of the country that is engaged and really understands what Washington is doing to us. Much like pre-revolution America when British rule needed to be thrown off. If you’ve read this far, you’re with us.

The key is that we have to understand that Washington in its current state is a lost cause. We can’t fix it with the people that are there. We need a new Washington and a new Congress. We the people must get far more engaged in selecting and electing men and women of great character and virtue to represent us. This is to be a citizen government, however we the citizens have been AWOL in fulfilling our responsibilities. That must change if we are to continue to live as Americans.

We also need to get behind the Article 5 movement to amend the Constitution. We must plug the gaps that have been exploited and brought us to the brink of ruin. This is a long and arduous process but we can prevail if we are diligent.

We must implement term limits on Congress. Much of the corruption we now endure can be defeated with strict limits. We should also limit Supreme Court justices to a specific term and not lifetime appointment.

We desperately need a balanced budget amendment that includes sunset provisions on the bureaucracy to protect future generations from the sins of prior generations.

Much of the ideology that confronts us has its roots in Europe. Are you ready for a second American Revolution?

An Age Old Battle

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

I believe I understand now why conservative supporters of Donald Trump’s candidacy are so ardent and so energized. I understand now why they continue to support him despite his floating the most absurd and despicable accusation in modern politics. I speak of Trump’s implication with zero proof that Ted Cruz’ father, Rafael, was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy. He did this despite knowing that he was going to win the Indiana primary in a landslide. Such cruelty. However, Trump supporters remain undeterred.

I understand now why conservative Trump supporters will continue to pledge allegiance to his candidacy despite his campaign making it clear that he will be moving decidedly left. His statement this week in support of increasing the minimum wage confirms this latest strategy and will be ignored by his many conservative devotees. Trump’s confessed support for gender confused men using women’s bathrooms will just fade into a fog of cognitive dissonance.

I understand now why certain conservatives will continue to back Mr. Trump despite his questionable and potentially disastrous economic policy pronouncements. His supporters will not flinch when Trump in an effort to “make America’s economy great again” promises to weaponize tariffs much like Herbert Hoover did prior to the Great Depression. Or when he boasts that he will make Apple bring iPhone production back to the United States or punish any company that would move operations to lower cost areas outside the country. Nothing to see here, dude!

I get it. I understand. Because there is an overarching reason why good conservatives are supporting Trump and are overlooking his obvious shortcomings in temperament, experience, and character. There is a much more fundamental concern that explains why they look past all of his questionable policy positions. They continue to support him because they believe Trump is the best person to win a battle that is much more strategic than any particular social issue or trade agreement.

This battle is age old and has been with mankind since humans began to congregate and live in cities. It is simply a battle for power, societal power.

The battlefield is delimited by iron-fisted tyranny on one end and pure democracy on the other. Therefore, there has always been and continues today, a constant struggle to set the balance point between individual liberty and ruling class control.

Plato, the ancient Greek philosopher, described this in detail in his blueprint for a utopian society, the “Republic”. Plato saw in Athens that there were two societal protagonists that vied for power. First were the oligarchs, the few wealthy property owners whose desire was for a state in which only they could vote and hold public office. Plato then called the large number of poor citizens the democracy and they stood in opposition to the oligarchs and sought a much wider distribution of political power. Plato described an ever present antagonism between the two classes and that every city really consists of two cities that are at constant war with each other.

The antagonism Plato wrote about can be seen in full relief in our country today. This tension between the ruling elite and the people is what is fueling the Trump phenomenon. Trump supporters are saying, “Ok, so what if Trump is inarticulate and inexperienced, he still is the best guy to wrest power from an oligarchy that has robbed we, the people (Plato’s democracy) of the power and freedom our founding documents ascribe to every citizen.” Whether Trump really is the best candidate for this task is highly debatable, but I understand the logic.

Unfortunately in our mainstream discourse, the fact that our country is a representative republic and not a democracy gets lost. Pure democracies are completely unworkable. Most of us do not have the time, knowledge, or inclination to be involved in the details of our government. Therefore, we elect individuals we believe are qualified (but too often are not) to represent us in its detailed operation.

The problem is that today’s monied and powerful oligarchy pulls all the levers of the political system. Certainly, for the elected positions in the federal government, this oligarchy owns the process. They determine the candidates and the platforms they promote because they control the money and the media. Trump has very astutely positioned himself as the one man that can break the oligarchy’s grip and change the balance of power. However, he has to win a general election first and the current polls make this look highly problematic.

The problems we are facing today ultimately though fall directly on “we, the people”. While we are not directly involved in the detailed operation of our government, we have a responsibility to be vigilant and informed to the extent that we know if the officials we elected are performing their duties within Constitutional guidelines and for the good of the nation. We have failed here.

We are distracted, apathetic and lazy and have allowed a government of people of low character and brazen personal interest to metastasize into a willing tool serving their oligarchic masters. This has to stop now.

I’m to the point where anyone who wants to run for office is unfit to serve. Federal office should be a duty and a service, not a career path. We need to start identifying the right people and convince them to run. A very reluctant politician is the best politician.

When He Is She and She Is He

Opinion

Opinion by John Tutten:

When is a five foot nine white guy not a five foot nine white guy? When he asserts to today’s college kids that he is a six foot five Chinese woman. What’s hard to figure out about that? The recent Internet video by Jason Backholm of the Family Policy Institute shows our children have been conditioned to accept just about any ridiculous declaration out of political correctness.

When I was a kid, I was told over and over again that I could be whatever I wanted to be. “Whatever I wanted to be” was understood to refer to an occupation or a station in life. Today “whatever I want to be” is taking on a far different meaning. It means much less about what I might make of my life to instead, who and what I identify myself to be. Physical identity is now up to the individual and is no longer constrained by objective reality.

That’s because the concept of objective truth is now being discarded. Truth is now what we decide it is for ourselves. It’s personal. It’s situational. What’s true for me may not be true for you. Therefore, you should not try to impose your views on others since there is no universal truth. You have no right to deny what I decide I am or what’s right for me to do.

So if Senator Elizabeth Warren decides she’s a Native American, then we must accept and treat her like she’s a Native American. If Sylvester Stallone gets up one morning and decides he’s now Sylvia Stallone, then ladies you must accommodate him in your bathroom. It would offer a great opportunity to teach your daughter how to honor his (or her) choice. Welcome to the Left’s post-modern utopia!

You have to hand it to the Left. They have worked for decades to destabilize our society and we are now wobbling like a gyroscope running out of spin. Barack Obama just before the 2008 presidential election boasted that the transformation of America was about to begin with his election. Nonsense. This country has been in a state of transformation since the end of World War 2, maybe earlier. Obama was just lucky with his timing to be in office near its culmination.

While the Left has been relentless in its pursuit of a post-modern transformation of the country, they are quite selective though in how the idea of individualistic truth and morality are allowed to play out. It is considered courageous to set aside your actual physical composition as a man and live in a psychologically generated identity as a woman. This is your truth and only you can decide that truth.

However, if your belief is that when you are born a man, you stay a man and can never be a woman therefore making the ladies room off limits, well that kind of personal truth just can’t be tolerated.

Famed baseball pitcher, Curt Schilling, can testify to that. He simply expressed his “personal truth” that, “A man is a man no matter what they call themselves.” Oh the horror! He went on to comment that the respective bathrooms reflect the differences in anatomies and it is pathetic that states now need to pass laws to keep three hundred pound Gus from urinating next to your sixty pound daughter. Of course, ESPN was compelled to deprive Schilling from making a living under their employ. How brave and courageous that is. I wonder when ESPN will promote young, Caitlyn Jenner types playing in the lingerie bowl. It has to happen, right? Kind of gives a whole new meaning to their “drag” racing coverage!

Even our leading Republican presidential candidate has stated his support for psychologically defined gender. In a clear attempt to pander to northeastern liberal sensibilities, he castigated North Carolina for messing with the issue and declared, “People go, they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate.” How come we didn’t hear such candor prior to the North Carolina primary?

The one true conservative in the Republican race, responded that, “Grown adult men, strangers, should not be alone in a bathroom with little girls.” He labeled his view as just “basic common sense.” What narrow-minded bigotry!

The Republican vice-presidential candidate when asked about the controversy began his comments with how his father was a mailman and the mike suddenly went dead.

Political correctness has become the Left’s most effective weapon for societal change. It is a despicable, Marxist inspired method to effectively neutralize the First Amendment’s free speech provisions and promote a mob rule mentality that is completely antithetical to our founding.

However, political correctness cannot be effective without the appropriate societal conditioning. It cannot be effective against a population composed of individuals who are capable of critical thinking, who understand that all truth is objective, and who believe that the individual is sovereign.

Instead, Marxist tyranny depends on a society of individuals that can be easily nudged and coerced by the masterminds. It depends on individuals that have little understanding of world history or the true nature of man. It depends on individuals with no foundational beliefs about the true nature of reality.

Look at what has unfolded during the last several decades. The fact that we are no longer a nation of freethinking, sovereign individuals is undeniable. America has been transformed. The question is, can we awaken the hive-minded drones in time?

The Money Making Media

Opinion

Opinion written by John Tutten:

The left wing bias of the mainstream media has been responsible for much of the decline we see in our civil society today. They have been the mouthpiece and the cheerleaders for leftists pursuing the “transformation” of America for decades now and have been highly successful in tearing the country from its Constitutional moorings.

However, it is not just ideology that we need to be concerned about. I believe the problem of the media was compounded when news operations became major profit centers for the networks. This is especially true with the TV/cable news. News operations today especially Fox News have become ratings driven revenue generators just like their entertainment media brethren. This has a dramatic effect on what news stories are covered and how they are covered.

When I was growing up, pursuing and reporting the news was considered a higher calling. There was a responsibility and an obligation to be the watchdog of government for the good of the people. News operations weren’t pressured for ratings, so stories that were covered were meaningful and of greater substance.

Today, instead of inspiring meaningful discourse, today’s news outlets present the sensational designed to maximize the bottom line, not to provide real value to citizens. It doesn’t just have to bleed to lead. Whatever will get viewers to sit through another Geico commercial is fair game. An especially heinous murder, a high profile Christian pastor embezzling funds, or a celebrity up skirt photo are especially good attention getters and maintainers. I wish Prince had been as good in life as they made him out to be in death.

Nowhere is profit generated news coverage more clearly illustrated than that of the Trump presidential campaign. Trump clearly knows the media and what they are after. Years in reality TV has provided him with a wealth of experience in generating the kind of viewership that drives profits.

Trump’s campaign strategy has given the media just what they are looking for – big ratings. He boasts about his campaign being self-funded. However, he has actually spent very little of his own money for a national campaign because the networks have essentially surrendered their coverage to him in exchange for ratings profits. Why put together a complex fundraising organization when the media is just handing you their audience? Trump has received upwards of two billion dollars in media coverage just for being Trump and driving ratings.

Do you really think Rupert Murdoch likes Trump? He is an open borders guy and wants no part of Trump’s wall. Fox News is behind him now to keep the ratings thing going. And they are going to push him all the way to the convention and hopefully to the general election. Network execs wake up sweating in the middle of the night about the possibility of a Cruz nomination. Not just because he’s the real conservative, they believe he will be a total ratings buzz kill. Oh my God! We gotta cover individual sovereignty and property rights? The horror!

So there’s this weird symbiosis between Trump and the media. They can’t stand him, but he’s their pusher who’s supplying them their ratings fix. He definitely needs them until the convention since he really doesn’t want to pony up and pay his own real money for his campaign. If he receives the nomination, then the RNC starts doling out the campaign money and his need for free media coverage subsides. Maybe then we will see this transformation from Morton Downey, Jr. to Thomas Jefferson we have been hearing so much about.

This may very well have been Trump’s strategy all along. Boast about financing his own campaign while using his great ability to manipulate the media to get wall-to-wall coverage until he gets the nomination. Therefore, Trump gets the media exposure he needs without having to pay for it. If true, I kind of have to respect that.

The only flaw in the plan is that after the convention, the left wing media will pull out the sharp knives because at that point, ideology will trump Trump. And in his effort to generate ratings in exchange for coverage, he has alienated much of the conservative Republican base. All those recent big victories in the Northeast, forget about it in the general. Hillary will mop the floor with Trump in those blue-blue states.

I have pretty much given up watching any of the cable new outlets. I have just had enough of the pandering and manipulation that is on display on all of them. If you are a real conservative and want great analysis from a Constitutional viewpoint, there’s one great place to go – Mark Levin’s new Internet channel, Levin TV. It’s about all I watch anymore. Maybe you should too.

Personhood? That is the Question!

Opinion

Opinion  by John Tutten:

Donald Trump may have inadvertently helped the Republican cause this year with his stumbling over a hypothetical gotcha question about the abolition of Roe v. Wade.

During an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, Trump stated that with abortion illegal, women seeking abortions should face “some form of punishment”. (Why is Trump taking questions from Matthews and ducking Mark Levin? Doesn’t strike me as conservative.) Trump later recanted his initial response and restated his position as only a doctor performing an abortion should face prosecution and not the woman undergoing the procedure.

I can’t begin to fathom how Trump could be so ill prepared for such a question. He should clearly understand that abortion is part of the Left’s fictitious “war on women” playbook and be ready with a thoughtful response. However, this is another example of his lack of understanding and shallow thinking on many serious issues he should be well prepared for.

Hillary Clinton couldn’t wait to pounce. And pounce she did…and then fell flat on her face.

In an interview on NBC’s Meet The Press with Chuck Todd, Hillary while trying to burnish her image as a champion of women’s rights, managed to give a response that incensed everyone on both sides of the issue.

In responding to Todd’s question about the constitutional rights of the unborn, Clinton stated, “the unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights.” And with just these seven words, Hillary alienated virtually everyone concerned about the abortion issue, an amazing feat even for the world’s smartest woman.

On the one hand, she is denying constitutional protection to a “real person” and on the other she refers to what abortion promoters call an unviable lump of cells as a “real person”. Wow, what an amazing, non-sensical conflation! I would love to have the commission on all the Republican ads that will be run highlighting her incredible faux pas.

Asserting that the unborn is simply an aggregate of cells like some superfluous tumor is the bedrock of the Left’s justification for ending a pregnancy. There’s nothing of value associated with a rapidly growing fertilized egg. Just get rid of it before it becomes a real inconvenience! Besides, you ladies have the right to choose whether to permit this valueless aggregate of cells to develop into, well, a life.

And that is the question, isn’t it? When does that the growing pregnancy transition from worthlessness to pricelessness? Abortion proponents are all over the map on the question. The more reasonable assert that up until the end of the first trimester the growing pregnancy is of no value and can be destroyed. After this, abortions should be prohibited. However, more ardent supporters promote much later term terminations that require gruesome techniques I will not describe here.

There are even others that think termination of babies delivered full term is acceptable. Peter Singer, professor of bioethics at Princeton University, believes parents should be able to kill infants up to thirty days after their birth: “Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons”; therefore, “the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee.” Dang, it’s a girl! We have two already, so let’s get rid of her!

So is Singer right that what constitutes life is self-awareness and a sense of time? Or is there a set of biological parameters that instead define personhood? This is the question we as a society must answer.

However, the pro-abortion forces avoid at all costs any kind of definition of what constitutes life and instead deflect the argument to one of women’s rights. They sloganize about a woman’s right to choose and proclaim a woman has a right to decide what she does with her body. Would that mean then that a woman can choose to charge money for the sexual use of her body too? I believe we have laws against that.

The left has controlled the focus and the language of the abortion debate for too long and we must bring it back to where it belongs – when does life begin?

Singer’s assertion that personhood begins with self-awareness and a sense of time could extend well into infancy and clearly leads to state sanctioned infanticide. If we say that life begins at the second trimester, we need to have a set of biological parameters that justify the claim. Just what happens physically at an instant into the second trimester that makes a growing pregnancy life when it wasn’t just prior to that instant?

You see, we can’t answer that question. Therefore, the only way to make sure that we do not take innocent life is to define conception as when life begins.

The Left is staunchly against the death penalty because we could possibly execute an innocent man. Yet they are very cavalier when defining when abortions are permissible. With our lack of understanding when life begins, how do we know that every abortion does not kill an innocent? Isn’t the most enlightened thing we can do is to insure no possibility of innocent life being taken by affirming that life begins at conception? Of course it is.

Hopefully, Hillary’s Freudian slip will help elect a conservative this year, one who will begin rebuilding the Judiciary with solid conservative judges. Then maybe, just maybe, down the road, we can begin to eradicate this stain on our society.

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