North Korea and Iran caught in arms deal by U.A.E.

Axis of Evil anyone??

**interesting cricket chirping noise thing**

Aaron B. Gardner

Cheney Speaks

The Sith Lord Cheney, leader of the VRWC, requests you watch him on Fox News Sunday. Set your decoder ring to 01-30-41-03-20-89. If that teaser is representative of the entire interview, we are in for some good times.

So, grab your pancakes and eggs and sit in front of the T.V. This Sunday morning watch what everyone will be talking about on Monday.

Have a good weekend,

Aaron B. Gardner

Coincidence is a funny thing [UPDATE]

Today was an event filled day. In the morning I got called "brilliant" by the Only McCain who Matters. In the afternoon my Wife and I had our ultrasound appointment for our second child.

It's a boy!!

Since I am having a boy, I am now confronted with a tough question. Should I circumcise him?

Well, I don't know a whole lot about the subject. I do know that Andrew Sullivan called it "Male Genital Mutilation". I also heard that it may become mandatory under Obamacare. Then, of course, there are the Biblical arguments for circumcision. All of this I knew.

I did remember an episode of Penn & Teller's BullSh!t, but it really wasn't that convincing either way...damn libertarians.

I didn't know where to search or what to search that wouldn't end up taking me to a porn site. NTTAWWT. [That was for you Stacy] Finally I broke down and googled "circumcision, what a parent should know". Apparently some lady named Anne Briggs wrote an entire book about the subject. From what I gather she is against this brutal process, just like Andrew Sullivan. NTTAWWT IYKWIMAITYD. [Again, for Stacy]

My ADD then kicked in and I decided to check on my blog traffic and see what was new in google reader. It was a good traffic day with R.S. McCain linking. Coincedentally he had some new posts up about Trig Truthers.

Ugh...I thought. Not another deranged loony sponsored by Soros and company.

Nope.

Turns out it appears to be the very same lady who wrote the book on circumcision.

Anne Briggs a.k.a. annieb393 a.k.a Audrey. Trig Truther and Foreskin Friend.

Like I said at the beginning, coincidence is a funny thing.

Aaron B. Gardner

[UPDATE 1246 AM See all the sordid details at R.S.McCain]

R.S. McCain - Back on my goodside

R.S. McCain is the greatest blogger evah!!

R.S. McCain screwed the little guy

Today is a very sad day in the world of blogging for me. Recently I started reading The Other McCain [despite my heartbreak I will still link him], and I really admired his writing and his interaction with the lower tier blogs that are out there. I even received a call from him once after emailing him a post I thought was interesting. It was a pleasure talking with him and he secured me as a fan of his site.

That all changed today.

I got up this morning and played with my daughter a bit before taking her to daycare and starting my work day. I sent out my morning reports and checked on the political news. I am checking my google reader and I see R.S. McCain, shoe leather reporter, seeker of truth, falsely attributing MY work to Moe Lane, another blogging hero of mine. I have always wanted to be linked by R.S. McCain since I started reading him...but not like this.



See...look at that link...it say's Moe Lane, but the article it links to is my RedHot article on RedState which is crossposted here.

Now while I am flattered that R.S. McCain could not tell the difference between Moe Lane's blog-fu and my own, I would still appreciate the proper attribution.

Now I am not silly enough to go to war with R.S. McCain over this. I mean, I am no Meghan McCain. I would never go into battle unarmed.

So hook a blogger up Stacy, so we can put this unfortunate incident behind us.


Aaron B. Gardner

Well that's interesting...

[h/t to azaeroprof]

President Obama has set a personal record. -14 in the Rasmussen Presidential Approval Index. This is 2 points worse that President Obama's worst thus far.




I know that hurts. I assume this hurts worse..

Seventy percent (70%) of Republicans now Strongly Disapprove along with 49% of those not affiliated with either major party.

[Emphasis mine]

That is a unified Republican Party and parity in unaffiliated voters, in addition to an overall approval rating under 50%.



Waterloo anyone?

Aaron B. Gardner

Crossposted at RedState.

Unemployment up once again...

The stimulus was supposed to keep us below 8% unemployment, that didn't happen.

In fact jobless claims have consistently been rising.

Ed Morrisey has an excellent post on this today at HotAir.



Ed shows a great contrast between this recession and the previous recession..

The BLS also tracks “discouraged workers,” those who have left the workforce altogether and are not seeking jobs. That number has also reached highs not seen in at least a decade, with 796,000 workers currently falling into this category. Compare that to the last recession and recovery, where that number never rose above 534,000.

As Ed points out in his post, the last recession recovery was called a "jobless recovery"...I wonder what they would be calling this if a republican were president instead of The One™.

Anyhow...as the say, go read the whole thing.

Aaron B. Gardner

"You had 9 months to sort out a lift"

[via DrudgeReport]
[inspired by Lori...aka SnarkandBoobs]

Woman gives birth on pavement 'after being refused ambulance"

Seriously...that was a headline from the Daily Mail Online. As we all know the U.K. has a single payer health care system, similar to what President Obama, Barney Frank and many others in Congress envision for our Nation in the long term.

Now I don't want to be an alarmist so I had better look at more of the article...catch you below the fold.

the 27-year-old claims she was refused an ambulance and told to walk the 100m from her house in Leicester to the city's nearby Royal Infirmary.

Ok I know what you are probably thinking...100 meters isn't that far to walk. This may be true, but imagine yourself trying to walk 100 meters with a case of extremely explosive diarrhea, kinda like what comes out of Joe Biden's mouth. Might as well be a marathon.

Today the Trust that runs the hospital said it would look into any complaint made about the advice and care the 27-year-old received.

This Trust would be the equivalent to the Public Option or Co-op if you speak newspeak.

I phoned up the Royal Infirmary, it's just across the road, and they said to go into a hot bath, and then to make my way over there.

So a woman is in labor and calls the hospital and they say take a hot bath and then we will see you when you get here. I can't confirm this but I hear they also suggested she rub some dirt on it.

Moving on...

I went into the bath and realised she was going to come quickly. I didn't think I'd be able to make it out of the bath, so I phoned the maternity ward back and told them to get an ambulance out.

That's right...put that free health care to work!!

They said they were not sending an ambulance and told me I had had nine months to sort out a lift.

Wait...what? Sorry...no ambulance for you. I wonder what metric was used to deny emergency services to a woman in labor.

Ms Blake said despite the happy ending she was upset she was told to make her own way to the hospital as, being an experienced mum, she knew she did not have the time

Ms. Blake seems to be confused...she must think she controls her health care...crazy talk. After all, she couldn't even be trusted to "sort out a lift" given 9 months of prep time.

We are disappointed that Ms Blake was not happy with the advice and care she received and will of course investigate any complaint. We are pleased that both Ms Blake and her daughter are well and healthy.

That closing paragraph is a double edge blow off if I have ever seen one. First they take no responsibility and then act as if they had something to do with Ms Blake and her new daughter's healthy outcome.

Make no mistake...this is our future if the statists in this country get their way.


Aaron B. Gardner

Crossposted at RedState

P.S. A friend of mine, Caleb Howe, brought up a great point.

In the United States, if she were uninsured ... SHE'D STILL HAVE BEEN GIVEN AMBULANCE AND EMERGENCY CARE.

Just sayin'

Go Flag Yourself...

[h/t to Left Coast Rebel for this one.]

[Additional h/t to my friend Steve Foley over at TMR]

I haven't yet flagged myself...I've heard it makes you blind*. Alas I think it may be time to take that risk.

Let the self flagging begin.


Aaron B. Gardner

* Blind = racist, redneck, homophobe who is so selfish that he refuses to cede his medical care to a benevolent leader like Barack Obama. Duh. /sarc

Dear 52...or is that 47

"All your base are belong to us"



Crossposted at RedState

A quick lesson in projection

When a person has uncomfortable thoughts or feelings, they may project these onto other people, assigning the thoughts or feelings that they need to repress to a convenient alternative target.
Projection may also happen to obliterate attributes of other people with which we are uncomfortable. We assume that they are like us, and in doing so we allow ourselves to ignore those attributes they have with which we are uncomfortable.

We all know that the President and his minions have been claiming that right leaning activists are actually all bought and paid for by the Republican party and AFP. Most of us know that this is not the case but rather just projection from Democrats who are afraid of their own constituents.

The media and the Adminsitration has been going off for a week, or longer, about these astroturf claims.

Well I think the lady doth project too much...and the evidence is below...



Fight the Status Quo! $400-$600 Per Week (Minneapolis, MN) [Cragslist posting]

Date: 2009-07-27, 12:12PM CDT
Reply to: see below

You can help leading organizations win historic changes on issues that you care about and that are important to America.

Build support for health care reform with U.S. PIRG. Mobilize activists to cut the cost of health care, expand coverage, and stop sick from getting dropped by insurance companies. Go out in your community and make change happen. Make friends and money along the way.

Earn $400-$600 per week. To apply for a job, call Chris at 612-331-1434.


The Fund for the Public Interest has been working for over 25 years with organizations such as Sierra Club, Environment America, Human Rights Campaign, Progressive Future and U.S. PIRG to win concrete victories for the public interest. We are the nation's premier nonprofit for raising money, building membership and winning grassroots campaigns.

Location: Minneapolis, MN
Compensation: $400-$600 Per Week
This is at a non-profit organization.
Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
Phone calls about this job are ok.
Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.
PostingID: 1291504484

Emphasis mine.

As you can see this is a Progressive front group that is putting together an Astroturf campaign. By the way...$600 a week is more than my Wife makes working with disabled children. Just saying.

I have said it before but it is worth saying again...if you want to know what this Administration is doing, simply listen to what they are claiming the other side is doing.

[h/t to Charlie @ RedState]


Aaron B. Gardner

Crossposted @ RedState

Post Partisan MY ASS!!!

[h/t Steve Foley @ The Minority Report]

President Obama is actively inciting hate against those that disagree with him, not those who created this mess, after all the Democrats have had control of the congress since Jan 2007. Obama is up there preaching like his pal Rev. Wright...using the bully pulpit to cause division rather than unity.

He claimed to be post partisan.

He claimed to be above the fray.

But to those who were paying attention, these sort of union thug tactics are no surprise.

Remember...this is not the first time he has asked his minions to get in the faces of those who dissent with The One™.

Aaron B. Gardner

Mel Martinez to resign early...

Just saw the report on Fox and also at RedState. No doubt Crist will appoint himself as Senator and then resign his current office as Governor of Florida.

The questions I would like answers to are...

Was this deal worked out between Martinez and Crist before hand?

If there was collusion between Crist and Martinez, were Crist's poor showings in straw poll after straw poll the catalyst for this?

Those are two very important questions which should be asked...and answered.

The good people of Florida deserve that, well actually they deserve Marco Rubio but when has the well being of Floridians ever stopped Crist from being a self absorbed political elite?

Aaron B. Gardner

After 6 Months, More View Obama's Presidency as a Failure Than Bush's

After 6 Months, More View Obama's Presidency as a 'Failure' Than Bush's - Real Clear Politics.

Yes you read that correctly.

President Obama is worse than Bush...and that was with an oversample of African Americans.

I wonder if he is plotting an attack on the homeland in order to bump up his polling numbers?*

The only question is who will he blame the attack on...My guess is that it would be a 3 letter word just like "JOBS" [h/t Joe Biden]. But then again everyone in the know spells it with 11 O's**.

But I digress...

Here's to you President I WON™, You are now less popular the ChimpyMcBushiltler***.

Suck it!!

Aaron B. Gardner

P.S. I am the Mob!!


* Sarcasm
** Even if nothing happens it will be the fault of the Jooooooooooos!!! That's just how the left thinks.
*** I thought about not using that...but I wanted to remind everyone of the lengths that the left has gone to in the past.

34 Million on Foodstamps in U.S. [UPDATED]

[UPDATE]
Ok Math FAIL on me. As pointed out in the comments the % is 11% not "almost 10%" Thanks to my friend from Maine for pointing out my error!!
[END UPDATE]

For the first time ever the number of Americans on Foodstamps has hit 34 Million.

With the current population at 307,101,771...That is over 11% of the nation. 11%!!!

Since Obama's inauguration the number has increased by 2.2 Million.

You just gotta love all this Hope&Change™

Aaron B. Gardner

#iamthemob A special Message to The One™

I am realaying this post to you from Caleb Howe over at Acticons.

If you are on Twitter or you have a blog, don’t let the DNC get away with their continuing assault on your free speech and your right to protest and dissent. If you oppose Obamacare, go to Twitter and tell us who you are. Just add the hashtag #iamthemob.

If you aren’t on Twitter, you can tag a blog entry just like this one telling us who you are and why you oppose Obamacare. Tag it #iamthemob, and link it back here for a linkback.

I am tired of the threats from our government as well. Go read the whole post and do what you can to help out the cause.

Aaron B. Gardner

Can we call it "MobGate" yet?

Yes. We. Can.


By now I am sure many of you have seen the videos by the DNC and Babs Boxer. If not here they are.






By now I am sure you have heard of the flag@whitehouse.gov email account set up by the WH as a repository for all the tips their little snitches give them.

By now I am sure you have had quite enough of this.

So have the good people at the RNC. A staffer at the RNC has auto-forwarded those calling to complain [note this is the true astroturf campaign] back to the DNC.

How dare Republican's invoke their first amendment rights in opposition to "TheOne™". How dare these individuals dissent. How dare the VRWC!!

Oh and don't forget how dangerous this mob of people can be...



Uhhh...wait...that's not right.

Anyhow...where was I...oh Yes, that's right "MobGate".

So why attach the cliche "gate" to this??

I will tell you why. The gov't set up a mechanism to report and track dissenters. In addition the gov't is using another mechanism to identify IP addresses and correlate them to physical addresses, a violation of the mechanism's original purpose. Then if that wasn't enough for you, you also have the DNC inciting it's followers to become an angry mob.

But wait you say...is this really "gate" worthy?

Yes it is, the original "gate" was what it was because of the stupidity of those involved and the inability to shield the President from the event once public. So for "gate" to be truly applicable the DNC, and the Obama Administration, must receive the backlash of their own creation. Thanks to that enterprising staffer at the RNC, the backlash has already begun.

As Dan Spencer explains at RedState..."Opposition Panics Obama and Democrats". Yes Dan...the projection Chickens Obama let loose are now coming home to Roost [h/t Rev Wright..where you been dog!!].

And we aren't even through the first year here people.



Aaron B. Gardner

WRT Right Wing Extremists and Town Hall meetings...[UPDATED]

I am actually surprised one could find video of "Right Wing Extremists" at any town hall meetings.

After all...most of the Democrats in Congress aren't having town hall meetings because they don't want to deal with their constituents opposition to a plethora of proposals and acts of congressional overeach.

But alas that is not the point of this post...

For the point...



"They're Back"

Yes, you are correct...we are back and we are upset. One reason we are upset is that the Domocrats in Congress, and the Obama Administration as a whole, are calling us terrorists, extremists and many other names in order to marginalize us. And for what, what is it that we have done for them to categorize us as extremists?

Dissent, that's what. We dare to stand up for ourselves, we dare to invoke our rights given by our God and protected by our Constitution.

Once known as the "highest form of patriotism", dissent is now apparently the last bastion of extremism. How quickly the sands shifted.


Make sure to go here* to read more on the changing value of dissent in our Republic. If you want the cliff notes version see Caleb Howe's tweet here.

[UPDATE]

I highly encourage any readers I may have to go see Jeff Emanuel's take on RedState with regard to the hypocrisy exposed by this DNC Ad.

[END UPDATE]

Aaron B. Gardner

* SnarkandBoobs is a friend and a fabulous blogger...if not in your Google reader add now.

What do you get the man who has everything??

How about a disastrous monstrosity made of icing and cake.





Yes he is the President...but he is so much more.

A community organizer, radical leftist, heck I have even seen reference to him being some sort of god.


Michelle should understand by now that a god gets what he wants...



And I think this is what Bambi really wanted...




What? You don't think he wouldn't like this...do you?

Aaron B. Gardner

P.S. I don't care how long you hold your breath and kick your legs...you are not getting UHC for you birthday...and no I don't care that all your friends in Cuba have it. If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you also jump....ok bad example, but I think you get the point.

Ok so this is my new blog...

I am rather new to the blogosphere, considering the tenure of some. About a year and a half ago I started posting at RedState.com and it has been my home ever since.

Lately I have been wanting to branch out a bit...see where it leads me.


I posted a few of the blogs I wrote at RedState. These explain some of the core beliefs I hold as a conservative and show some of the rhetorical flare that I engage in.

My plan is to talk about more than politcs...although not much more. I will also try to incorporate local political news for the State of Vermont.

I will be posting links to conservatives who need funding, no matter where they are or the level of government.

With a dash of satire, and a whole lot of linking I hope to make this blog not only a success, but an inspiration for material to post at RedState.

Hope you enjoy.

Aaron B. Gardner

Self Governance and a moral standard

The latter is the foundation of the former

Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. John Adams

What did John Adams mean by this statement? To me it is obviuos. For a people to be capable of self governance as described in the Constitution they must first have their foundation set firmly in a moral code accepted by those to be governed. Many question how this can square with the idea that there be a “wall of separation between the Church and the Government”(paraphrased Thomas Jefferson). Again to me the answer is obvious. Indeed it is not the place of the Government to set or enforce a specific moral code but rather the responsibility of those who wish to employ self governance, to adhere and promote a moral life despite the government.

Now in years past the moral code was easier to promote and pass on from generation to generation. It was easier because the family and greater community had direct control over how and what was taught to the next generation of Americans. This, unfortunately, changed with the creation of state runs schools and intitutions of higher learning. Gone are the days of the Bible being used to teach the beauty and function of the English language. Gone are the days of black and white moral positions. These have been replaced. Now we are given situational ethics and “See Dick Run”. Surely we underestimate our own ability to aquire knowledge and display wisdom.

We have gone from Theocracy under the reign of King George, to self governance under the direction of the Constitution and the Founders who brought that document to the people, to derision of religion in the guise of “objectivity” resulting in Democracy without the benefit of the structure of the Republic. Each peice of freedom that we cede to the control of the central planners in the beauracracy erodes the next freedom. Each time we decline to follow the moral code we also decline our Divine right to self governance.

The moral code, of which I speak, is not Christianity for all, rather I speak of accepted truths that go beyond any one religion. These are best summed up, in my mind, in the last six of the Ten Comandments.

Honor your father and your mother (snip) so that your days may be long and that it may go well

You shall not murder(don’t start on the death penalty or war…murder has a wholly different meaning than kill..if you comment on this you will be ingnored).

Neither shall you commit adultery.

Neither shall you steal.

Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbour.

Neither shall you covet your neighbour’s wife.

Neither shall you desire your neighbour’s house, or field, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.

(I know there are seven here…the last two combine to make the final Commandment)

Now obviously we don’t have a lot of donkey coveting in our modern age but the premise, I believe, is still sound. Nothing in this list is exclusively Christian. There is nothing in these words that should frighten the Liberatarians. Please do not respond to this if you are looking for a fight on Church and State or Religion in general, I am not asking you to believe in God, I am only asking that you recognize the importance of morality to the function of self governance.

In any experiment there must be a constant if you expect to see a measurable result of success. This is also true in the greatest experiment of all time, a self governing nation called the United States of America. Our constant was, and still should be, the moral code by which we live our lives and therefore self govern. The Constitution becomes nothing more than advice on a peice of parchment when we lose that constant. The success of our experiment is in, and has always been, in flux. It is our responsibility to our Country and all the patriots who came before us to re-instate the constant of morality to ensure the continued success of this grand experiment.

I hope and pray that this election will be the catylyst that will bring forth the re-emergence of the accepted moral code and the idea of self governance, lest we be left with only direct democracy and a goverment which gets to choose our path for us.

As John Adams warned above, he had also another warning:

Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.

Conservatism….Defined

Lately there seems to be a lot of confusion as to what a Conservative is and is not. Some seem to think it has to do with abortion or taxes or national security. Well the truth is that conservatism is not about any given issue, rather conservatism is about principles.

Before we go any further I believe it would behoove us to go over a bit of terminology that is thrown about too often without people understanding thier meanings. the terms I am refering to are Issues, Policies, and Principles.

Before we go any further I believe it would behoove us to go over a bit of terminology that is thrown about too often without people understanding thier meanings. the terms I am refering to are Issues, Policies, and Principles.

First let’s deal with Issues.

An Issue, for the purpose of Politics, is something that is a cause of dispute. Issues come and go, some last longer than others, but all issues are fleeting in the long term. Some issues we deal with today are abortion, international terrorism and slowing or failing markets.

Next we have Policies.

Policies are the constructs that we create to deal with any given issue. Policies of today include the ESCR Ban, GWOT, and TARP.

Last but not least we have Principles.

Principles are what guide us in the formation of Policy on any given Issue. All political groups have their set of principles that guide them, but not all principles are equal.

So now we can move on a bit further having defined Issues, Policies, and Principles in their broader sense.

To be a conservative you must follow the Ten Conservative Principles written by Russell Kirk when constructing Policy for any given Issue. Below are the 10 principles.

• First, the conservative believes that there exists an enduring moral order

Moral order is the foundation to self governance as I tried to convey in this diary.Additionally Kirk acknowledges that order is made for man, and man is made for it: human nature is a constant, and moral truths are permanent. This moral order does not need to be religous but at the same time it should be irreligious.

• Second, the conservative adheres to custom, convention, and continuity

Custom, Convention and Continuity provide us with knowledge of our linked histories, the bodies of law which have been agreed upon in our history, and a way to pass both our history and our laws to generations to come. Kirk explains that when we throw off these customs and continuity that we often end up with a new social order which may be much inferior to the old order that radicals overthrew in their zeal for the Earthly Paradise.

• Third, conservatives believe in what may be called the principle of prescription

Prescription is those things which are established beyond the limits of memory, tradition, or recorded history. This as Kirk says is the acknowledgement that “modern people are dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, able to see farther than their ancestors only because of the great stature of those who have preceded us in time.” With this acknowledgement it is apparent that our minds should not run to the contrary of these established truths which allow us to better understand why we have government and why we believe it must be limited in order to secure liberty.

• Fourth, conservatives are guided by their principle of prudence

Prudence is the act of being wise in handling practical matters; exercising good judgment or common sense. As Kirk says “Any public measure ought to be judged by its probable long-run consequences, not merely by temporary advantage or popularity.” This principle was shared by Burke and Plato among many others and they believed it to be chief among the virtues of a statesman. If definitions were still pure prudence would be the principle of all foward thinkers.

• Fifth, conservatives pay attention to the principle of variety

Variety needs not to be defined, but I will say that it is not the faux diversity of the left that conservatives hold dear. True diversity, or variety, allows for, as Kirk states ” orders and classes, differences in material condition, and many sorts of inequality”. Additionally Kirk recognizes, as do conservatives, that “The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation”.

• Sixth, conservatives are chastened by their principle of imperfectability

Man is a fallen creature, this holds true regardless of any belief in God. Our imperfectability is not limited to the individual or the collective. I do not presume to be able to describe this better than Kirk himself, so I will provide a larger quote from Kirk on this matter:

To seek for utopia is to end in disaster, the conservative says: we are not made for perfect things. All that we reasonably can expect is a tolerably ordered, just, and free society, in which some evils, maladjustments, and suffering will continue to lurk. By proper attention to prudent reform, we may preserve and improve this tolerable order. But if the old institutional and moral safeguards of a nation are neglected, then the anarchic impulse in humankind breaks loose: “the ceremony of innocence is drowned.” The ideologues who promise the perfection of man and society have converted a great part of the twentieth-century world into a terrestrial hell.

• Seventh, conservatives are persuaded that freedom and property are closely linked

Property is sacred to freedom because of what property requires of the individual. Property must be maintained my the owner, and this as noted by Kirk instills in us all a sense of responsibility, not only to ourselves but to the community in which we live. “The conservative acknowledges that the possession of property fixes certain duties upon the possessor; he accepts those moral and legal obligations cheerfully”, Kirk states. Freedom is strengthened by responsibility.

Property is also the fruit of ones labor, and with that comes the possibility to pass those fruits down to generation after generation, allowing those who come after us to “rise from the natural condition of grinding poverty to the security of enduring accomplishment; to have something that is really one’s own”.

• Eighth, conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism

Here, again, I will quote a full text of Kirk’s writing on this principle for the simple reason that I don’t think I could say it better:

Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the lives of citizens are made locally and voluntarily. Some of these functions are carried out by local political bodies, others by private associations: so long as they are kept local, and are marked by the general agreement of those affected, they constitute healthy community. But when these functions pass by default or usurpation to centralized authority, then community is in serious danger. Whatever is beneficent and prudent in modern democracy is made possible through cooperative volition. If, then, in the name of an abstract Democracy, the functions of community are transferred to distant political direction—why, real government by the consent of the governed gives way to a standardizing process hostile to freedom and human dignity.

For a nation is no stronger than the numerous little communities of which it is composed. A central administration, or a corps of select managers and civil servants, however well intentioned and well trained, cannot confer justice and prosperity and tranquility upon a mass of men and women deprived of their old responsibilities. That experiment has been made before; and it has been disastrous. It is the performance of our duties in community that teaches us prudence and efficiency and charity.

• Ninth, the conservative perceives the need for prudent restraints upon power and upon human passions

This principle was key in the development of our form of government. The Founders, wisely, understood man’s lust for power and where the passions of man would lead once power was attained. For this reason they created the different branches of government and the checks and balances between those branches. Additionally, the Founders understood that there needed to be a check on the Federal Government as a whole and wrote the Tenth Amendment with that in mind:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

There is also a balance to be struck on this as Kirk notes in the following passage:

A state in which an individual or a small group are able to dominate the wills of their fellows without check is a despotism, whether it is called monarchical or aristocratic or democratic. When every person claims to be a power unto himself, then society falls into anarchy.

The bolded portion is a reminder to our more extreme libertarian brethren. Liberty unchecked leads to anarchy which quicly avails itself to tyranny. We must find the balance between the two, and the conservative believes that “A just government maintains a healthy tension between the claims of authority and the claims of liberty”.

• Tenth, the thinking conservative understands that permanence and change must be recognized and reconciled in a vigorous society

Conservatives understand that with advancements in technology and medicine and science in general we must continually evaluate the status quo, but with that we aslo acknowledge that some things are permanent. Through careful deliberation and adherence to the other nine principles we will embrace progress as long as it is not the cult of Progress (notice the capital P). To better understand this I will provide another quote from Kirk:

The permanence of a society is formed by those enduring interests and convictions that gives us stability and continuity; without that permanence, the fountains of the great deep are broken up, society slipping into anarchy. The progression in a society is that spirit and that body of talents which urge us on to prudent reform and improvement; without that progression, a people stagnate.

These Ten Principles are what guide conservatives in the construction of policies on any given issue.

So now I ask you, are you a conservative?

Aaron Gardner

2 ½ Years to Live

In 2½ years I am going to die. I know, it shocked me too. I had a cancer earlier in my life and with the work of some really fine doctors it went into remission during the 80’s. The cancer is a very rare form of cancer, one of the first cases was in France in 1715 and the Doctor who treated it was named John Law . Unbeknownst to many the cancer startedgrowing and mutating in the 90’s , At first the cancer went unnoticed as the manifestation of symptoms was not yet present, but they were there, waiting like a time bomb. I had adoctor who noticed, but his priority patient was a soldier who we all needed to live. He tried to give me a referral, but many of the doctors just wouldn’t listen.

In 2007 the time bomb went off. Some of my organs were immediately weakened, but my spirit was still strong. Everybody told me there was this new doctor and that he was not only the best doctor in the world, he was also the best at removing cancers, finally I had hope and really believed that things were gonna change. With his treatments I was sure to be on the road to recovery. I felt great the first couple of office visits, he seemed like he had it all under control.

Things started changing but not for the good, he was no longer talking with me, he was talking at me. A short time later he started pushing me to take treatments that I didn’t really want, but he said it was a crisis. I told him that I felt I was getting sicker the more he kept forcing the treatments, almost as if my insides were at battle with each other, but he would not listen.

If I continue on the same course as the Law case, I could die in 2 ½ years.

This is a sobering reality.

We all go through the 7 stages of grief .

But I am not dead yet…I am beyond the depression and the upward turn. I am working onreconstruction and working through. With enough work, maybe I can overcome this cancer.

I have my eye on a new set of doctors, similar to the one back in the 80’s. Unfortunately I am going to need to raise a lot of money. so I can get out from under my current doctor’s bills, and I won’t be able to begin my new treatments until Jan 2011 because I have toclean out all the trash in my system and then bring all the new doctors in.

I am asking you to help me. I promise this money will go to good use.

I thank you all for the contributions…they may just save my life.

God Bless,

The United States of America