The Legacy of Nelson Mandela and the South African Revolution: Who was the Man Behind the Enigma of the Charismatic Madiba?

Introduction: Describing Nelson Mandela, the Conundrum- A Riddle Intricately Intertwined Within an Enigma

On December 5, 2013, the world lost what the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa declared to be a "colossus." Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela, born on July 18, 1918, became one with the ages at the ripe old age of 95. The world is engrossed in a state of mourning over the passing of a revolutionary figure universally considered a hero and perhaps worthy of beatification, and the vast majority of the world's literate people are easily provided access to reading of his triumphs, his martyrdom, and the liberation of a most multifarious nation with nearly three-quarters of its citizens. His victory over the evil institution of Apartheid in South Africa is more than considerable because it lifted the oppressed peoples comprised of the black ethnicities in the nation into the realm of being recognized with equal rights under the protections of the law. There can be no mistaken that what Mandela achieve, the figure whom many deify him when the general population of the nation refers to him by first his commonly-known tribal name "Madiba," but also as "Tata," which means "Father." In all, Mandela, through ending the scourge of Apartheid in his beloved South Africa, will forever be remembered as "the father of the nation."

Mandela is often spoken of for his achievements in the same spirit as those of Mohandas "Mahatma" Gandhi of India and Martin Luther King, Jr., the American civil rights figurehead who more than any other figure during the struggles for India's independence from the British Empire by Gandhai and for racial equity and the recognition that all American regardless of race, ethnicity, religion, or creed are loved the same by the one and only God whom all were borne of His Grace. These two revolutionaries in their respective nations represented a form of civil disobedience one would associate with the Transcendentalist principles behind Henry David Thoreau's literary works such as Resistance to Government (also known simply as Civil Disobedience) that was first published in 1849. For Gandhi, he is believed by some scholars to have interpreted Thoreau's definition of civil disobedience to be an argument for pacifism or for exclusively nonviolent resistance to suggest an equivalence between Thoreau's civil disobedience and his own satyagraha, which he defined in his words:

"Truth (satya) implies love, and firmness (agraha) engenders and therefore serves as a synonym for force. I thus began to call the Indian movement Satyagraha, that is to say, the Force which is born of Truth and Love or non-violence, and gave up the use of the phrase “passive resistance”, in connection with it, so much so that even in English writing we often avoided it and used instead the word “satyagraha” itself or some other equivalent English phrase." (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

In September 1935, a letter to P.K. Rao, Servants of India Society, Gandhi disputed the proposition that his idea of Civil Disobedience was adapted from the writings of Thoreau:

"The statement that I had derived my idea of civil disobedience from the writings of Thoreau is wrong. The resistance to authority in South Africa was well advanced before I got the essay of Thoreau on civil disobedience. But the movement was then known as passive resistance. As it was incomplete, I had coined the word satyagraha for the Gujarati readers. When I saw the title of Thoreau’s great essay, I began the use of his phrase to explain our struggle to the English readers. But I found that even civil disobedience failed to convey the full meaning of the struggle. I therefore adopted the phrase civil resistance. Non-violence was always an integral part of our struggle." (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

He described it further as the following:

"I have also called it love-force or soul-force. In the application of satyagraha, I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one’s opponent but that he must be weaned from error by patience and compassion. For what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on oneself." (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

For Thoreau, however, his position towards unjust laws proving to be injurious to the public such as the peculiar institution of slavery he so detested was that they deserve no respect and should therefore be broken. Thoreau would have consider Gandhi's satyagraha principles to be cowering before the unjust sovereignty of the government, and therefore, emblematic of the "prison" metaphor he described below as the state in which mankind exists under intolerable laws:

"Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.… where the State places those who are not with her, but against her,– the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.… Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible." (Courtesy of Wikipedia)

 

The Legacy of Nelson Mandela and the South African Revolution: Is America About to Fall Prey to Apartheid-Style Subjugation at the Hands of Islamic-Fascism?

Is America About to Fall Prey to Apartheid-Style Subjugation at the Hands of Islamic-Fascism?

On Thursday, December 5, 2013, Nelson Mandela, the popularly-acknowledged father of modern South Africa, passed onto the annals of Eternity from the cold, harsh realm so brutally characterized of the flesh. His greatest legacy is his decades-long struggle to subvert the minority sovereignty of the Afrikaners who through their formation of the National Party, implemented into law in 1948 the scourge of that nation where three-quarters of the population held no claim to a natural right insured by the government in accordance to the law of nature in the policy known as Apartheid. As the world mourns the passing of the charismatic enigma who was the universally-beloved Madiba in post-Apartheid South Africa, one wonders what his lasting legacy will beget to those who are to comprise of the future generations of the world's population. In attempting to correlate the struggles wrought upon South Africa by the governing minority Afrikaner white elitists with those of other areas of the civilized world, I will begin this multi-part series of commentaries by discussing how the situation in the Middle East is perceived from one perspective of the Jewish state of Israel to the other in the Islamic confederation of nation-states comprised of the Arab League and Iran; and furthermore, the reality of the rapid rise of the worldwide Nation of Islam and the prospect behind the rise of a new caliphate, and ultimate how the rest of the world will react to such a change from the status quo ante.

The Conflict Between the Islamic Confederation of the Arab League and Iran vs. the Jewish State of Israel

(Can political scientists irrefutably describe the situation amid the tensions between the Jewish majority within Israel and those of the Palestinian minority comprised primary of Muslims as being tantamount to the classical characteristics of the conditions normally descriptive of Apartheid?)

The population of Israel as of September 2013 on Rosh Hashanah stood at approximately 8,081,000. The Arab League of 22 nation-states and territories advocating the nationalist culture and policies encompassing Islamic law (Sharia) in many cases is populated by approximately 422 million people, with over half under 25 years of age. There is a gross inequity in terms of the manpower of one nationality (Arab League) over that of the other (Israel) when you consider that based upon its awesome size in both land area and population, it is essentially a confederation of nations which lean upon the legitimacy of Islam to position itself favorably against the Israeli government whom the Arab League considers to be an apparatus of infidels subverting the will of Allah and His Prophet Muhammad. The greatest mistake ever made in this scenario might have been in its initial manifestation: the forced endeavor by the United Nations, spearheaded by President Harry S. Truman in 1948, to establish a Jewish state out of deference to the massacre of millions during the Holocaust under Hitler's regime. When one considers that within 11 minutes of the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948 that Truman authorized the U.S. to be the first nation to recognize its sovereignty without making overtures to consulting members of the Arab states within the region who considered this act a breach upon its pan-religious sovereignty as it is to them in violation of Koranic law (again, Sharia), it was a matter of "when" and not "if" there would be the manifestation of a constant state of war between the smaller Jewish state of Israel and a Pan-Arabic alliance committed to wiping Israel off the face of the earth. For the Jews who first settled in the old Holy Land of Judaism, it traded one form of Fascism (Nazism) for another more dangerous version based upon a religious dogma in the name of jihad (Islam). When a far larger population of an ethnicity seeks to commit genocide of a whole religious ethnicity of people as the Jews of Israel based upon its own religious doctrine lending it not simply its own legitimacy for its actions, but the commandment of its supreme deity (Allah), there can be no other end than one of catastrophic implications. However, the ultimate ubiquitous threat resides within the small segment of the Israeli population of Muslims which seek to kill all who are found in violation of Allah and His Prophet Muhammad as well as the artificially demarcated territories in a constant state of flux since the boundaries are always altered between conflicts.

Depending upon your perspective, "freedom fighters" can be ideological demagogues who wage war to liberate its people in order to spread peace across its legions of supporters; in the case of the United States government's definition of such individuals as are descriptive of our Founding Fathers and the patriots who fought the war against Britain, they are classified by the Department of Defense as "terrorists" and "extremists." To Islamic fundamentalists, however, peace can only be achieved by the application of the sword if one does not pledge a vow to Allah's sovereignty; and yet, if this is true, does this not imply that logically-speaking, the militant organizations such as al-Qaeda, Hamas, and the de facto governing army Hezbollah of Lebanon are all "terrorists" and "extremists" as well based upon a religion grounded in fascist characteristics seeking to annihilate an entire religion based upon the prejudices within Koranic doctrine? When these Islamic fundamentalists who comprise of a minority of the Israeli population seek to voice their dissent against the legitimacy of a Jewish government by conducting covert operations by the use of suicide bombers and political assassinations, what do you expect the Israeli government officials to do? Would you simply have them to sit by idly while these subversives of the general will slaughter a nation of millions of Jews all because it is being conducted under the guise of social justice in the name of religious dogma? That is tantamount to what I see when I read of the lurid history of the Afrikaners, who comprise(d) of less than a quarter of the population of South Africa, did when the National Party instituted Apartheid in 1948. The rule of law should always lean in favor of those comprised of the majority of the population in both sentiment and in terms of culture and yet take care in acknowledging the rights of those in the minority, and that was not the case during Apartheid-era South Africa, nor is it the case today in Israel today when the minority sect of the population comprised of Islamic fundamentalists is slaughtering as many Jews and other ethnic and religious peoples declared by them to be infidels in violation of Sharia law as they possibly can. The Israeli citizens of 2013 are not the same social refugees who emigrated to the Holy Land in the mid-1940's upon the U.N. granting it territory; and you therefore cannot accuse them of being guilty of subverting the general will of the Pan-Arabic state as a result. The bottom line is this: What is good for the goose is most certainly good for the gander; and if you wish as a minority sect of "freedom fighters" or "terrorists" -- the choice in nomenclature is yours alone -- to commit genocide by slaughtering scores of Israeli citizens who lend their consent to the legitimacy of the common law system of the Basic Laws of Israel which are heavily-laden with religious Talmudic principles and yet it takes care in legally recognizing the Muslim sect as a religious community, it therefore is indicative of nothing more than these fundamentalists seeking to wipe out all infidels and to coalesce the nations comprising the Arab League into forming at least a region-wide hegemony governed by Sharia, known as the caliphate. The last caliphate died with the Ottoman Empire's collapse in 1924; I suspect that there may be one day another uprising to establish a new one now that the Arab Spring has been in place since December 10, 2010, since every nation which has been toppled ultimately has reverted to a government of elected officials who then stake sovereignty not on the general will of the electorate, but based of Sharia. It is interesting to me that President Obama has completely alienated the Israeli government in favor of championing the Islamic world of the Arab League and Iran. My suspicions are quickly transforming into fears.

No individual or copious demographics of diverse peoples should ever be discriminated against. But then again, just who are we stating is most guilty of the perceived discrimination with the politically-defined borders of the Jewish state of Israel? Can you blame the Jewish population of Israel for feeling paranoid when the main source of the mass attacks on the religious and ethnic majority of the population, again Jewish, are Islamic fundamentalists who comprise predominantly of ethnic Arabs? There is no confusion as to whom or what the Jewish peoples of Israel fear when it comes to the daily question of their very survival since this is, indeed, the case. Our society through the screams of civil rights activists and left-wing demagogues speaks ill of those who perpetuate stereotypes, but I have learned throughout my life that with every stereotype, there is usually a grain or more of truth behind the details; ergo, there are always two sides to every story. Furthermore, how does one embark upon discerning one Muslim from another who each reside within the confederation of the Arab League, which as you asserted is separate from the large representation of Muslims residing in the Balkan Peninsula where the secular authoritarian government under Slobodan Milošević engaged in the ethnic cleansing of the ethnic Albanian Muslims? In the Middle East, there are very close physical resemblances with slight variations from one nationality to another within the Arab League of nations of those comprised within the Arabic ethnic demographic, and nearly all of those nationalities -- Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Syria, Lebanon, etc., -- which are experiencing some extreme of the Arab Spring phenomena are falling prey to the trend that so many revolutions have followed that led from one lesser form of tyranny to another that is worse. If your assertion that most Muslims adhere to the concept that Islam is a religion of peace, why then do they turn a deferential eye to the atrocities committed by those who are declared to be part of a violent fundamentalist minority who are literally following the verses within the Koran to the very letter in accordance to Sharia law? The only known form of peace through the manifestation of a society of equity for Islamic fundamentalists is through the coercion of the citizens of a nation of infidels to either convert or be forced to live in a permanent state of subjugation under Islamic domination, and therefore all are equal under the rule of Sharia, including the brutal consequences those found guilty of violating Allah's teachings will be forced to suffer. (An interesting series of Koranic verses to read can be found here, though I am sure some who read this will simply state that I am using a source with an agenda against the Islamic faith when in fact, these are actual verses from within The Koran's texts courtesy of the article on Islam and Forced Conversion article on the webpage titled The Religion of Peace.) Perhaps those who truly adhere to the peaceful principles of Islam sincerely believe it to be a religion of peace, but the jihadists who have carried out these attacks against those considered to be infidels have killed approximately 270 million over the history of the religion, and those among the declared infidel ranks in a nation have every right to fear Muslims if the peaceful ones are complicit in ignoring atrocities committed by the perceived minority which ultimately are becoming the sovereign leaders in the Islamic state of the Middle East during the Arab Spring. (See Tears of Jihad, courtesy of the webpage "Political Islam.")

Conclusion: A Dire Warning for Future Generations of Desperate Citizens Seeking to Subvert the Legitimacy their Current Tyrants in Order to Replace It with One Not Guaranteed to Not Be Worse than the Predecessors

If a national identity of peoples are to fight a revolution on the grounds of liberty, equality, and fraternity, what does one predicate the premises behind what that equality is to entail? Does it mean that all people are equal under the rule of law as pertaining to what the Islamic fundamentalists believe to be achieved not through the voluntary consent of the governed, but rather through the deceptive art of murana or forcible coercion? In Revolutionary France (1789-99), the mantra used to rally the masses to subvert the Bourbon monarchy was one of "liberté, égalité, fraternité" for all the French people, and the movement was initiated by a relatively benign method in comparison to what would come later of a mob of sans culottes storming the Bastille prison where debtors and political prisoners were jailed. The revolution evolved into a virtual collective anarchy upon one coup d'tat in Maxmillien Robespierre's Committee of Public Safety who initiated the infamous Reign of Terror (1793-95) which led to the deaths of tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands of French citizens and partisan revolutionaries alike yet another, which also derived its legitimacy from the mythical power of a finite entity sans the essential supernatural or metaphysical qualities to unite the people under a set of moral standards by which the population could generally agree as its uniformity amid a cultural norm. It happened again in 1795 with the rise of the Directory, which executed the previous despotic governing body (again, the Committee of Public Safety and Robespierre) when it condemned those oligarchs to the guillotine just as deposed victims had done so with the Bourbon family in 1793. In the end, a feudalistic system which begat inequities between the three Estates under the divine right of kings transferred into two subsequent ones which were predicated upon atheist principles, only to conclude in 1799 when the obscure Corsican general Napoleon Bonaparte seized power by throwing his own coup d'tat and establishing his hegemony over most of continental Europe by spreading the ideals of the French Revolution, while consolidating an imperial monarchy which restored aspects of the deposed Ancien Régime. In summation, the French Revolution was a ten year roller coaster ride from one form of imperial monarchy to another one founded upon the coup of 18 Brumaire which installed the Consulate and, in essence, manifested a French society governed by a military dictator (again, Napoleon Bonaparte) under the new Constitution of the Year VIII that was approved in a plebiscite held the following January, with 99.94 percent officially listed as voting "yes" -- which no doubt was fraudulently manipulated. Napoleon was bent upon dominating the peoples of the European continent and spread his self-manifestation of legitimacy by a conquest for empire. To make it appear as if his power was derived in accordance to divine right, the irony is that there was no democracy of a to truly lend nor deny him consent other than the coercion to cede their sovereignty to Napoleon I, the new Emperor of the French Empire, whose legitimacy was acquired by political intrigue as he summoned Pope Pius VII to his coronation in 1804 in what became a rather bizarre ceremony where Napoleon seized the crown from the pontiff and placed it upon his own head. Power is intoxicating, no matter the source of the hegemons' claim(s) legitimacy. 

What do all of these tumultuous conflicts have in common? Well, nearly every revolution which has ever been fought for and won throughout the past 238 years has been spearheaded most aggressively by a loud minority whose bellicose cries and saber-rattling led to the conquest of the old order and the implementation of a new one which was nearly always more brutal and totalitarian or authoritarian in nature. The leftist revolutions in Russia, China, and others under the concept the U.S. termed to be the "Domino Theory" of Communism's global spread were conducted by a small faction of political ideologues classified as members of an intellectual elite who believed that they were so enlightened as to know what was best for the general welfare of the public better than did the actual citizens, and their ideas of absolute equity under the rule of law -- and it was always absolute equity they promised -- appealed to the uneducated, unenlightened masses. When the people would finally rally behind these enigmatic, charismatic demagogues upon their movement gaining strength, the tide of populist sentiment crushed the opposition of the old imperialist guard, and in its wake would transfer its consent over to a new government promising to create a Utopian society of peace achieved through all being equal under the rule of the new oligarchy, this one being the intellectual elitist/ideologues who issued the guarantees for liberation. Unfortunately, Lord Acton was all too correct when he stated that "absolute power corrupts absolute," and no matter what the source of legitimacy is in how a politician stakes claim to its legitimacy, the truth, however inconvenient when an educated elitist attempts to intellectualize how to solve a social conundrum, can always be manipulated in order to serve the best interests of the rulers in power at the detriment nearly always of the people. Rousseau stated that might does not always make right, but if that is the case, what is right to those who have shanghaied the general will of the people into lending popular consent to the new ruling apparatus in power is ultimately always right in its absolutism over all regardless of what is truly just since in the world of politics, the ends will always be justified by the means per Machiavellian principles of wielding power in terms of what for them is politically expedient since the people who fought the revolution to accord them their consent to the rulers' legitimacy to govern will have tacitly agreed to these measures through their social contract; ergo, they are contractually bound to adhere to the terms of their acquired freedom from the previous masters, according to Rousseau. And as Islam is currently the fastest growing religion in followers in the world, the dilemma then becomes as to how the world will reconcile this emerging colossus of faith should the popularly-acknowledged minority of the religion, the fundamentalist-jihadists, continue to serve as the face of an entire religion in which the fear of its violent history is to be both legitimate and justifiable in terms of the threats posed to the peace and stability of the status quo ante.

In the case of a desperate people seeking liberation from a despotic governing apparatus, the prevailing wisdom should always be the following: a people should always take great care amid caution in considering to whom it chooses to lend its consent, for if the subjugated peoples are too desperate, the figure who offers to liberate them if they should choose to support it in return for the abdication of their sovereignty as a collective of individuals living according to one of a long- established standard of universal mores will do so at the cost of their own dignity, salvation, but ultimately, the stilling of the heartbeat of a once harmonious social conscience since their old core beliefs will no longer be legally acceptable and the liberty for which they fought to attain will have been a mirage amid the blood on their hands and the deception will have begat their self-inflicted doom due to their naïveté.

The Division Among Conservatives Over Sarah Palin (Repost)

(Left: Sarah Palin, former governor of Alaska and GOP vice presidential candidate of John McCain in 2008.)

Sarah Palin was the first female vice presidential candidate to run as a Republican. She served what essentially was the conservative wing of the McCain presidential ticket. Almost immediately, McCain's presidential prospects skyrocketed, albeit temporarily. The Arizona senator's reputation was one historically associated with that of a moderate. The non-partisan National Journal rates a Senator's votes by what percentage of the Senate voted more liberally, and what percentage more conservatively, in three policy areas: economic, social, and foreign. For 2005–2006 (as reported in the 2008 Almanac of American Politics), McCain's average ratings were as follows: economic policy: 59 percent conservative and 41 percent liberal; social policy: 54 percent conservative and 38 percent liberal; and foreign policy: 56 percent conservative and 43 percent liberal. Columnists such as Robert Robb and Matthew Continetti have used a formulation devised by William F. Buckley, Jr. to describe McCain as "conservative" but not "a conservative," meaning that while McCain usually tends towards conservative positions, he is not "anchored by the philosophical tenets of modern American conservatism." As both a daredevil and self-proclaimed "maverick," McCain named Palin, then the governor of Alaska and a relative unknown in the national political scene, as the vice presidential candidate in 2008. The rest, as they say, is history.

Perhaps my fondest memory of Palin was her Vice Presidential Debate with Sen. Joe Biden. Of course, a monkey can beat Biden with half his or her brain tied behind his back just to make it fair, but give Palin credit in how she scored big points against Biden's incompetence in the following video:

Gov. Palin is perhaps the most important figure along with Ron Paul in the history of the Tea Party movement. She is also a source of great division with the Republican Party. Her recent dissatisfaction with the 14 GOP senators who voted to pass the immigration bill so disgusted her that she threatened to leave the party and a form new political party, the Freedom Party. This, of course, has caused a major uproar within the conservative community. It is Sarah Palin who has been chiefly responsible for achieving the vast majority of congressmen and senators elected to office (Sen. Rand Paul and Sem. Ted Cruz, anyone?) through her activism as de facto head of the Tea Party movement in recent years. By doing this, she would damage the GOP's abilities to get leaders elected because the party has undertaken a policy of discouraging and dissolving grassroots efforts by people such as you and me in working campaigns for the party's candidates. She is a brilliant politician, and indeed I would not mind betting that if she were to run for president and win, she would be America's version of "The Iron Lady" Margaret Thatcher. 

Through two articles posted on one of my favorite websites, Commentary Magazine, I am going to provide you with two diametrically opposing perspectives on her recent rhetoric based on such intentions as leaving the party as well as her interest in running for the U.S. Senate from the State of Alaska.

The first two are the most recent. This is slam on her political lackadaisical nature, or his perception of such a manifestation, by Peter Wehner, from July 8, 2013:

The GOP Is More Serious Than Sarah Palin

 Peter Wehner | @Peter_Wehner

07.08.2013 - 10:25 AM

In a recent interview, former Alaska governor and GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin indicated she was open to leaving the GOP and starting a third party. After expressing her enthusiasm for the name “The Freedom Party,” Palin went on to say this: 

"If the GOP continues to back away from the planks in our platform, from the principles that built this party of Lincoln and of Reagan, then yeah, more and more of us are gonna start saying, “You know, what’s wrong with being an independent?” Kind of, with that libertarian streak that much of us have. In other words, we want government to back off and not infringe upon our rights. I think there will be a lot of us who start saying, “GOP, if you abandon us, what–we have nowhere else to go except to become more independent and not enlisted in a, one or the other of the private majority parties that rule in our nation — either a Democrat or a Republican.” Remember these are private parties. And no one forces us to be enlisted in either party."

Let’s begin with this observation: Ms. Palin is a fierce opponent of immigration reform, and any openness by the Republican leadership in the House would move her a good deal closer to abandoning the GOP. Which of course makes her reference to both Lincoln and Reagan odd, since Reagan was an advocate of amnesty and as president granted it to millions of illegal immigrants (“I believe in the idea of amnesty for those who have put down roots and have lived here even though sometime back they may have entered illegally,” Reagan said in his 1984 debate with Walter Mondale). 

As for Lincoln, in a new biography on him, Rich Lowry points out that “Lincoln was broadly pro-immigration… Clearly, Lincoln’s default position today would be generosity toward immigrants. The effectively permanent status as second-class citizens of millions of illegal immigrants would be anathema to him.” In their tone and substantive approach to legal and illegal immigration, then, people like Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush are far closer to Reagan and Lincoln than Ms. Palin is.

And what about the broader indictment by Palin, which is that the GOP is moving away from its principles and becoming a less conservative party? That charge–shared by some others on the right–strikes me as rather wide of the mark. After all, in many respects the GOP is becoming more amenable to her brand of Tea Party conservatism than it was in and prior to 2008–when Palin was a proud Republican and the party’s vice presidential pick.

For example, a smaller percentage of GOP senators voted for immigration reform last month than was the case in 2006. Representative Paul Ryan has on several occasions now presented a very serious plan to re-limit government and reform entitlements, especially Medicare–and in doing so he has gone far beyond anything that Ronald Reagan ever proposed. And to the astonishment of many, Ryan secured the support of virtually the entire Republican House. In addition, the GOP has uniformly opposed higher taxes. (Compare this once again to Reagan, who in 1982 signed what at the time was the largest tax increase in American history.) In fact, congressional Republicans have consistently been pushing for tax cuts. They accepted sequester cuts earlier this year, when many on the right predicted they would buckle. House and Senate Republicans have also opposed, almost to a person, the Affordable Care Act, and pushed for its repeal. Republicans voted en masse against the 2009 stimulus package. The GOP remains staunchly pro-life. It has opposed the president’s gun control and climate change agenda. And many Republicans have backed away from a larger federal role in education. Then there are Republican governors, current and recent, many of whom are conservative, successful and reform-oriented. 

Let’s stipulate that no party is perfect, that different currents exist within political parties, and that key figures within them will act in ways with which we disagree. The GOP certainly isn’t fully abiding by my recommendations. That said, where precisely is this great abandonment of principle we’re supposedly seeing? The GOP is in many ways a more conservative party today than it was during the Reagan years.

Several things are happening, I think. One is that some elements within the GOP base are in an agitated mood, spoiling for a fight, eager to make themselves look principled by constantly asserting the GOP is unprincipled. It’s similar to a quarrelsome marriage; every word one spouse says is interpreted in the worst possible light by the other. Sarah Palin and those like her are now disposed to attack the GOP, and perhaps even looking for reasons to break from it. But let’s be clear: It’s being driven by her/their frame of mind, not the heresies of the Republican Party. 

The other thing that is occurring is that Palin and those like her have undergone a fairly dramatic shift in the last few years. One telling example is her reaction to Edward Snowden and the National Security Agency leaks. Palin has gone out of her way to defend Snowden  and asserted that America is “becoming a totalitarian surveillance state.” This is a silly charge–and evidence that Palin has lurched in a much more libertarian direction since she enthusiastically agreed to be John McCain’s running mate in 2008.

It may also be that Palin, having quit after serving less than one term as governor, is simply not very serious about, or even all that interested in, governing. She does seem better suited to compose tweets and star in reality shows than to carry out the duties of governing.

But Ms. Palin is right about this: No one forces us to be enlisted in either party. She is free to leave the GOP at any time, for any reason. And there may be more than a few Republicans who hope she will, if only so that they do not have to spend any more time explaining to the rest of the world why the GOP, for all its shortcomings, is far more serious than Sarah Palin. 

____

The GOP is notorious for its dubious record with women voters, and there are still far fewer conservative Republican politicians throughout the nation than there are liberal ones. To suggest that the GOP would be willing to see her leave is ludicrous. She would serve the party well to draw the attention of not only more conservative and libertarian voters, but those of the female population as well. However, I will have to acknowledge a correct statement by Wehner regarding Palin's grasp of history. Reagan did, indeed, declare that he was in favor of amnesty in the 1984 Presidential Debate with Walter Mondale on foreign policy. It also is one of the few parts of the Reagan platform that I find highly undesirable. While it is crucial that every politician know his or her history in order to properly base his or her decisions, it is quite common for them to fail this key test, and it is met with disastrous results. Still, history is a massive subject, perhaps the deepest in its breadth of detail in all the academies, and though Palin is a politician, a highly-influential politician I might add, her degree from the University of Idaho is in Communications with an emphasis in Journalism, not History. One cannot be an expert at everything, and yet we, the American people, expect our elected officials to be more than simply "a jack of all trades and a master of none." We expect them to be God-like. That is the quality the Democrats want you to believe they possess, and they portray it so well that the party has dominated the electoral process for more than 80 years. Thus, humanity is refreshing, but we must still strive for our best "selves" we can be.

The next article is from July 10, 2013, and was authored by Jonathan S. Tobin. Unlike the previous article, this one is supports Palin, encouraging her to run for the U.S. Senate: 

Contentions

Run, Sarah, Run and Keep Running

Jonathan S. Tobin

07.10.2013 - 12:10 PM

Was Sarah Palin just teasing us last night when she let drop on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show that she was considering running for the U.S. Senate next year? Maybe. Palin, as Politico notes today, will generally do or say anything in order to create some buzz in the media. It’s hard to find too many serious political observers who think that four years after she abruptly resigned her post as governor of Alaska, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate is willing to do the hard work of running for office rather than just running her mouth on television. Nor would it seem likely that she would put her celebrity status in jeopardy by running the risk of being defeated, either in a primary or in a general election.

But, at least for the sake of argument, let’s take her at her word and say that she really is considering challenging incumbent Democrat Mark Begich in 2014. If so, my advice to her is that she should do it.

Doing so might not be the safest play for preserving her “brand” as a pundit at least in the short term since it would take her off of television and the lecture circuit and possibly bring her career as a bankable personality to a premature end. Nor would it necessarily be what Senate Republicans want to happen since they would probably prefer a less controversial mainstream conservative to be the GOP nominee in a race for what ought to be a winnable seat for the party. But if Palin really wants to have an impact on the future of her party and her country and to revive her flagging popularity and chances for a future presidential run, trying for the Senate in 2014 is the only choice.

After four years as the queen of conservative snark, it’s hard to remember that once upon a time, Palin was one of the bright, young stars of the Republican Party with a hard-won reputation as a fresh, independent voice that was willing to challenge a corrupt state party establishment. That Sarah Palin was not so much an ideologue as she was a doer. Perhaps if John McCain had not listened to those conservative pundits who swooned over Palin’s obvious political talent and good looks and made her his personal Hail Mary play to transform a 2008 presidential election that he was bound to lose anyway, she might now be in the middle of a second successful term as Alaska governor and be one of the GOP’s favorites for 2016. A few more years in Juneau being a good governor and a careful rollout of her national profile in which she could portray herself as conversant on national issues would probably have been the best thing for her career, as well as for her family.

But that was not to be. Palin made a powerful first impression on the country with as brilliant a convention speech as could have been imagined, but soon crashed and burned in national interviews and, unfortunately, became the scapegoat for a poorly run McCain campaign as well as the primary focus for left-wing hate and liberal media bias. In the next year, she ditched her governorship and then proceeded to make a spectacle of herself on reality TV. The worst of it wasn’t so much her poor career choices and the way her family became a tabloid staple. The most dispiriting thing about Palin’s career arc is the way her bitterness at the media and other Republicans became the primary focus of her rhetoric. Rather than going to school on the issues and making herself ready for the next political challenge, she seemed content to become a sideshow for the grass roots, pandering to the worst instincts of her party and often appeared foolish rather than being a thoughtful contributor.

To note this unfortunate descent is not to ignore her still potent ability to generate publicity and draw crowds. Her interventions in some Republican primaries helped conservatives like Ted Cruz and Kelly Ayotte win Senate seats. Her raw political talent and speaking ability is still there even if it is most often used to rail at her enemies rather than to demonstrate thoughtful stands on the issues.

Doing so has kept her admirers happy and preserved her niche as a flame-throwing snark machine of the right. But she has to know that this routine has a limited shelf life. With the GOP now possessed of a deep bench of stars who are potential 2016 candidates, Palin is very much yesterday’s news and has already been eclipsed by people like Cruz and Rand Paul even among her own fan base. As the years go by, her appeal and her celebrity are bound to wane. Sooner or later, if she is to go on being treated–at least by people like Hannity, if few others even in the conservative media–as a big deal, she’s going to have to do something more than talk shows. The 2014 Alaska Senate race may be the best opportunity to do so that she will ever get.

That said, Palin would have to do more than merely throw her hat in the ring to beat Begich. As one poll taken earlier this year made clear, even in Alaska her negative poll ratings are through the roof as much as they are nationally. The fact that a staggering 59 percent of Alaskans view her negatively with only 35 percent seeing her in a positive light might be enough to deter her—or any rational politician—from running. But it’s not as if any of the other likely Republican senatorial candidates look to be doing much better. In particular, the prospect of Tea Party favorite Joe Miller taking another try at the Senate isn’t scaring Begich. Miller beat Lisa Murkowski in a 2010 GOP primary but then lost the general election to her when she ran as an independent, and he isn’t likely to do much better this year. And while Begich has decent poll numbers, he is still a Democrat running in an overwhelmingly Republican state. Moreover, everyone knows that prosecutorial misconduct that helped convict the late Ted Stevens on corruption charges is the only reason Begich is currently sitting in the Senate.

A Senate campaign would put her to the test and even her sternest critics should not assume she would fail this time. It may be that Palin has become too polarizing a political personality to win any election, even in deep red Alaska. But she owes to herself and to her supporters to try. She almost certainly will never be president, but a Senate seat is not beyond her grasp. While I’m far from sure that her contribution to the national debate would be enlightening, it would be entertaining. 

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The division within the GOP, even in supporting her run for the U.S. Senate, is startling. She is considered unenlightened, lacking in intellectual depth; qualities the party seeks to extricate from their persona in accordance to what the Left through the mass media attempts to stamp upon every party member in general. There have been very few politicians in the history of the United States who were philosophical giants: Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan are to name a few. Sarah Palin may not be one like the majority of the others, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. She is an excellent speaker and a brilliant politician, "the queen of conservative snark," and furthermore depicts herself as the typical Middle American hockey mom who puts her children first and who would no doubt in my mind serve to coalesce the various factions of the party. 

Unfortunately, there is also the issue plaguing Gov. Palin regarding her public perception. As I state that her good qualities would no doubt serve her well as a source of party unity, her poll figures reflect otherwise. Even in heavily-conservative Alaska, 59% of the state's 600,000 +/- population view her negatively, while only 35% see her in a positive light. I am reminded, though, that Thatcher only averaged an approval rating of 40% in Britain, but she was a highly-successful prime minister because she won the general elections three times. Palin could be our "Iron Lady," but the only way she will achieve this will be to toss the die and run for the U.S. Senate. 

Commentary Magazine is probably the most brutally honest of all the conservative-libertarian online publications I have read, and they pull no punches. There are literally dozens, maybe over 100, articles about her of varying opinions. One characteristic that even her staunchest allies among the site's commentators have noted is her lack of intelligence, albeit they will rarely state it in that fashion. This is a characteristic with which Democrats are endowed, but as I have said before, they always coalesce when it involves implementing public policy whereas the GOP splinters.

My sincere hope is to draw as many intelligent, energetic women into the GOP as possible. We already know the party will never receive a majority of the women's votes in elections because the majority of them want to be allowed to have promiscuous sex without fear of being legally coerced in acting responsibly upon becoming pregnant. These women not only desire this, they want the taxpayers to fund their abortions. With my having stated this, it is a shame the party is running off two of its most energetic female political figures in Palin and Michele Bachmann, though I am fully aware that Bachmann is being investigated for campaign finance improprieties from her presidential campaign last year. There will always be upstanding citizens willing to serve the American people within the GOP, but they were perhaps the most vocal of those we have ever had in modern times who were women, at least since the first female congresswoman Jeanette Rankin, the pacifist who served as the representative from Montana during World War I on two different occasions and later ran for the U.S. Senate during her early 90's in order to voice her opposition to the Vietnam War. Too often, women receive the short-end of the stick within the party, whether it is because the consensus within the GOP is that these women are not intelligent enough ideologically to represent the party's interests, or in the case of Kay Bailey Hutchison, who was the U.S. Senator from Texas that Ted Cruz replaced, they are too far to the left in their beliefs and therefore do not fall in line with what the party wishes out of its leadership.At some point, the party needs to awaken and "smell the roses." No one politician has ever been perfect, not even Ronald Reagan, who supported amnesty for illegal immigrants. I do wish for Palin to run for the U.S. Senate seat out of Alaska because I believe she would win as Alaska is overwhelmingly a conservative Republican stronghold in the nation. Whether Palin is an intellectual or not is pointless; being a politician does not require one to hold a Ph.D., in Political Science, History, or Philosophy. I do believe that the party needs to cease this folly of eliminating all grassroot efforts within its establishment because this is where the Democrats are growing stronger by the day and with each election year. When the Democrats around the nation and liberal political commentators on the major cable news networks claim that the GOP is out of touch with the average American, I cannot argue with them because they are absolutely correct in this assertion. The party is in major trouble, and even those whom have long been members of the establishment are bitterly complaining how it has taken a turn for the worse. I would not be surprised is Rush Limbaugh is correct about the Republicans losing the House in the 2014 elections because the party is totally and utterly incompetent politically. The GOP is on the precipice of an abysmal fall into obscurity much like it experienced for more than 60 years other than three presidents winning election and another replacing his corrupt predecessor. Rather than the party biting off its nose just to spite its face, why not implement better methods of reaching as many people as possible? Surely it cannot hurt.

How to Deal with a Liberal and His or Her Extensive Usage of Lies and Fallacies Based Upon a Lack of Education: My Debate with a Liberal Residing in Ohio Originally from London, UK, Along with Another British Citizen Who is a Member of the Conservative Party Born and Currently Residing in Leeds

(Below is a post of mine today on my Facebook account upon reading of Detroit being declared legally eligible to file for Chapter 9 Bankruptcy. The first reply I made has quite a bit of profanity in it, and I do apologize for that since I was expressing my disdain for a lady to whom it was referring from back during the summer. The two gentlemen who replied are originally or still reside in London, UK, and one, Phil, is a member of the Conservative Party, while Steve, who now resides in Ohio, is a very liberal Democrat. Read the lies and the fallacies below which Steve tries to feed to Phil, who does not know enough about our system of government to know that Steve is misleading him due to either his lack of knowledge of the Constitution, or his complicity along with the rest of the Left in failing to acknowledge that sacred document as the supreme law of the land.)

President Barack Obama said that "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."

Well, I think that if Obama had a city, it would look like Detroit!

I suppose then that since Detroit is now legally the largest city in U.S. history eligible to file Chapter 9 Bankruptcy, there will undoubtedly be a bailout looming in Washington which will add further to the national debt, which in turn is laid upon the already-burdened taxpayers of this and future generations to come. I am sure future subsidies for the citizens of Detroit in the form of more and larger welfare checks are to come as well.

Because after all, does Obama not want to be able to say that Detroit is his city?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2013/12/03/judge-declares-detroit-eligible-for-chapter-9-bankruptcy/ 

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• Heather Davis and Phil Matthews like this.
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  Jonathan Henderson It's a damn good thing Sheila is no longer able to see these since I blocked her back in the summer when she started the incessant playing of the race card upon the verdict being rendered during the George Zimmerman Trial. She began posting shit about having all of her friends, mostly within the black community, sign a petition that was set up online by the NAACP to have him brought to trial on civil rights charges. I ignored these because I knew that despite her classifying herself as a "conservative Republican," she always loved to play up the race card and talk about how evil white people are. But when she started the insane shit about Detroit and accusing people who pointed the finger at government officials for the city's failures economically as being tantamount at our wanting to see these officials "fail," I simply replied to her my feelings on the matter, which asserted those beliefs which she so detested since that was my goal to anger her. She then accused me of being "part of the problem" and then told me that if I don't agree with her on an issue, that I should simply not post a reply on her page. Well, why should I not post a reply if I disagree with her when she was always one of the first people on my Facebook list of friends to do so with me and never minced words in how brutal she would be in her criticisms? At that point, I laid into her with a profanity-laced tirade, accusing her of race-baiting and of being racist towards all those who were not classified as "African-Americans." I then told her that if the citizens of Detroit would have paid attention to who was running the show and what policies were being implemented, this all might have been avoided. It went on, and I finally said my peace in one last declarative statement by stating to her that if she cannot handle the heat of an argument that she started, she should get the hell out of the kitchen, that when I no longer was willing to argue over political or social issues, I simply stopped posting a ton of stuff pertaining to those types of topics. I called her a "hypocrite" and then got offline. She never replied to me so far as I know, and did not block me. I blocked her. I was tired of putting up with her shit.

  9 hours ago · Edited · Like
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  Phil Matthews I feel sorry for you over there. I called Obama for what he was before he got elected first time round. He's the U.S.'s Tony Blair. A snake oil salesman. He talks a great game, full of crowd pleasing comments and political style but when it comes to substance or actually doing anything he's been found wanting. What's "changed" so much? He's been given a mandate with two election victories to really go after... well, seeing how he never really put his finger on what he was going after it's hard to know, but he puts out great soundbites and ultimately doesn't appear to have made much progress on any of the major issues. Just like a certain ex-Prime Minister of the U.K.... And like him I'm sure he'll have profited well from it too...

  9 hours ago · Like
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  Phil Matthews I should say I'm not being wise after the event. It's just that T.B. pulled that same stunt on the U.K. electorate before BHO did it over there and they fell for it here too.

  9 hours ago ·Like
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  Steve High Nothing gets done on major issues due to the House of Representatives refusal to do anything that doesn't reward their corporate masters.

  9 hours ago · Like
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  Phil Matthews Sorry to show my ignorance of the system here Steve but who sits in the HoR? (Presumably the Senators sit in the Senate but is that different to the HoR?)

  9 hours ago · Like
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  Steve High the House consists of members elected from districts in each state for 2 year terms vs. 6 yrs. for the Senate,. the more populous the state the more reps

  9 hours ago · Like · 1
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  Phil Matthews Ah. I never knew that. I can see how it'd work in 1776 with fewer states but that must get messy these days 

  
  

  
  

  
  

  9 hours ago · Like
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  Steve High It's a mess with the Jerry-mandering of districts in certain states to make sure a certain party carries that district to try and ensure a majority in the House

  8 hours ago · Like · 1
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  Phil Matthews Sounds like time the HoR was consigned to history like the House of Lords here. It had its purpose in the past but now? Well, a Senator is elected to represent a State. Why the need for the HoR? (Forgive my ignorance again, sorry).

  8 hours ago · Like
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  Steve High In theory a Rep will have their finger on the pulse of the needs of the people in their district whereas there are only 2 senators from each state. California for example has over 40 Reps. maybe even 50.

  8 hours ago · Edited · "Like · 1
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  Jonathan Henderson So Steve, I take that you are asserting that the House of Representatives alone controls the ebb and flow of the government but not the White House nor the Senate, which are controlled by Democrats? You failed to tell Phil about how nearly all of the large states except for Texas, Florida, and Ohio, as well as practically all of the major metropolitan areas, are paid for and owned by Democratic Party-run Machtpolitik organizations all too often at the polls! I do think you are missing far more here than you are willing to admit through your limited knowledge of our Constitution which is being ignored and trampled upon by Obama as well. If you are claiming that corporations alone are controlling our nation via our House of Representatives and that this is the lone governing apparatus in Washington, what, pray tell, are our president and the Democratic-controlled Senate with a large majority in power (55-45 currently) doing with their time on the taxpayer's watch? Do they not hold part of the responsibility of the laws which are passed in this country? Furthermore, how do you explain the policies which are being implemented even though this is what the media loves to refer to as the modern "do-nothing Congress"? Are you going to tell me that Obama has nothing to do with the fact that there are now legal initiatives based upon his executive orders to curtail the legal purchase and ownership of firearms? And what about what we are seeing regarding his handling of the Middle East foreign policy, how nearly 60 years worth of diplomatic relations with Israel have now been destroyed under the Obama administration's policies in order to serve his interests in the Islamic world for reasons some believe involve his actually clandestinely practicing the religion and collaborating with such parties as the Muslim Brotherhood and other terrorist groups in a potential plot to enact their will of the new Caliphate upon our world? And once more, how can you state with a straight face that corporate interests are only acknowledged by those within the Republican Party when Apple Inc.; Berkshire Hathaway, the large investment firm out of Omaha, Nebraska, which is controlled by Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest men in the world; Microsoft, which Bill Gates, who is the wealthiest man in the world, controls and often is found supporting the Democratic Party; the vast majority of the major news media outlets outside of Fox and a handful of political radio talk shows such as Oprah Winfrey and George Soros; Facebook, which is owned by a renowned member of the American Left in the young billionaire Mark Zuckerberg, who has family members running for Congress as Democrats; and let us not forget Hollywood, whose wealthy actors, actresses, and studio executives are so influential amid their extreme left-wing socialist views that through their art form and attraction from this which they have over the masses is so strong that now President Obama is calling upon these individuals to assist him in the gun control debate? Are these industries not controlled by a large wealthy elite? And how can you sit there and not acknowledge the truth that in fact, there are more millionaires and billionaires in general which are members of the Democratic Party than those within the GOP? Your contention that the sole fault of class warfare resides within the GOP is more than simply disingenuous and misleading, riddled with more holes than Swiss cheese, and grossly fallacious; and furthermore, the wealthy will always control the Democratic Party even more than the GOP because it is very simple to campaign for public office for a candidate or themselves by promising a house with a two-car garage and 2.5 kids to every person who votes for them. When you promise handouts, people will buy into your ideas despite what will invariably be demanded of them to forfeit in terms of their legal rights and liberties as guaranteed within the parameters of natural law. The left-wing socialists' false promises of how they will ensure that the meek shall inherit the earth never comes to fruition, but rather adds to their power base and mandate due to their perpetuating despair and social discontent through their initiatives of spreading false hopes.

  
  

  
  

  When it comes to the issue of corporations controlling the federal government due to the House of Representatives alone being controlled by the Republican Party, your argument simply does not support what facts are present amid your slew of logical fallacies. The federal government, for all its flaws, is still a checks-and-balances system of apparati, and yet the Left continues to blame every last minutia of Obamacare's failures on the GOP simply because they "do not support it publicly." If your position is for government to control virtually all industries in America as a monopoly, you are hearkening upon the failed policies of your homeland's Labour Party prior to the Thatcher premiership, which led to the infamous "Winter of Discontent of 1978/79" that placed the icing on the cake of what became attributed to the United Kingdom as being "the sick man of Europe"; and Thatcher's initiatives of privatization and deregulation and essentially castrating the capacity of the labor unions that were so prominent and powerful in Northern England and Scotland in the government-controlled coal mines which dominated practically every facet of the British socialist economies of scale that it took more than five years to bear fruit since Britain's economy was mired in one of the worst recessions in post-depression era Western civilization, which included a spike in the number of unemployed from 1.5 million in 1979 to 3.3 million in 1983, followed by a dramatic decrease in unemployment, the rise in wealth for all levels of income as well as private ownership of the means of production while the rate of inflation dropped by more than half from 23% in 1979 to about 10% in 1990, when she was deposed by her own party due to her unfortunate choice to implement the Community Charge in 1989, and what in my mind was a wise decision that we are seeing she was very much correct in asserting herself in regarding not joining a federalized Europe, the precursor to the European Union, and avoiding a unified continental currency which is now failing. Thatcher was responsible for Britain's great economic miracle of the 1980's because she encouraged private ownership and entrepreneurship as opposed to a massive state-run economies of scale; and she, along with Ronald Reagan, proved to the world why Keynesian economics failed and the principles espoused by Milton Friedman and Ludwig von Mises are now the most prominent economic policies on Earth. Ultimately, if there are any socio-political entities we should fear of attaining a "new world order," it should be socialists and other varieties of left-wing extremists who seek to unify all the nations of the world under one class of people, none rich despite working to provide for their families since the fruits of their labors are paid almost entirely into the government, and all are poor in comparison to a small oligarchy of those who control every aspect of their lives. This is the theory of Marxism ushering in a democracy based upon the dictatorship of the proletariat whereby a centralized governing apparatus alone governs while the rest of the workers are subjugated to the wealthy governing oligarchs' whims. It bears mentioning that all major Marxist revolutions which have ever been successfully conducted were done so in nations which were agricultural in their major economic systems of operations, while never once occurring in a capitalist, free-market economy, as Marx stated would be impossible in 1873. If class warfare to you should entail that to be poor is a virtue if all are equal in income under a ruling apparatus of wealthy oligarchs, I dare say that such individuals with this like mindset as yours are among the most dangerous alive.

  23 minutes ago · Edited · 
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  Jonathan Henderson If it becomes a matter of who controls the means of production, Steve, who would you prefer to have the power: the members within the private sector who can be sued and forced to address their unfair business practices if they should wrong their customers or employers amid the principles of a free-market economies of scale? Or should we allow the federal government to control every industry, whereupon if the people disagree with the policies of their own government in operating their businesses and controlling the prices and wages amid the phenomena of inflation that would become a major issue, they have no say as to what and how the situation would be addressed for fear of facing dire consequences? The onus is on you to address these issues with evidence that socialism has worked well in the past; is working well today when the more any government continues to subsidize the poor within the inner cities and rural areas rather than promoting initiatives friendly to the plight of the ownership of small businesses, poverty continues to flourish in these areas, and the lone source of racism for many of these individuals of minority races and ethnicities continues to be blamed upon right-wing conservatives and libertarians when in reality, they are being rendered redundant and dependent upon the government for every aspect of their survival; and that based upon these precedents, if you can prove that any meaningful effort at implementing a socialist state in terms of universal equity without the governing apparatus becoming too powerful is even possible. If government is to play any role in the health and viability of a nation's economy, it should be by putting people to work in jobs within the private sector which pay reasonably well and cutting the number of people who rely upon welfare and food stamps for their survival, not by adding to the list to where we now are seeing a record of 46 million Americans on some form of government welfare plan; and furthermore, government regulatory bureaucracies and other forms of public expenditure programs need to be both privatized and deregulated so that we stifle all abilities of the government to impede upon the lives of those who are willing to be innovative and create jobs with substantial pay wages. If the American people are being kept poor, it is because of our government and those politicians such as Obama, Sen. Reid, and Rep. Pelosi who seek to maintain the ever-growing portion of the nation in poverty as the status quo as their source of political legitimacy by being the hands which feed or destroy them. The height of the modern Democratic Party's existence will always be during the 12 year Reign of Terror of Franklin Roosevelt when the specter of soup and bread lines resonated in photographs within the pages of the major national newspapers and magazine articles and only grew in number and severity under FDR, not lessened until he drew the U.S. into World War II, at which time he created what the Soviet Union once referred to as a state-operated economy based upon "war communism." Considering that the Democratic Party blamed a Republican president in Herbert Hoover based upon his policies of expanding government's role in the economy through what were progressive political measures (this was the platform upon which FDR ran in 1932) for what became known as the Great Depression and then FDR, upon winning the 1932 election, far exceeded what Hoover ever did in creating the modern socialist and welfare state in America, any means by which your party or those around the world may utilize for the purposes of political expediency to gain power by frightening the people into electing them will be sought as a source for acruing power. A scared people is the Left's best friend in terms of the acquisition of power. 

  
  

  
  

  You should discuss what the British government's policy of public ownership of major corporations such as Jaguar, Rover, British Airways, Rolls-Royce, etc., did for that economy with Phil. I am sure with his greater knowledge of British history than that of my own, he can describe in glowing detail how well socialism worked in his country.