In all the old horror movies, the master villain always had an assistant. More often that not, his name was Igor. He tended to lurch and he was usually a hunchback. I always wondered how he got the job. I mean, how would you go about finding someone who’d round up a human brain at a moment’s notice? Was it by referral? Did they hook up during Career Day at the Academy for the Criminally Insane? Did he answer an ad in the New York Times?

Nowadays, I ask similar questions regarding politicians. Who put them up to it? What made a harridan like Nancy Pelosi ever think that people would actually vote for her? And how was it that Harry Reid, a pickle puss who looks and sounds like he was born to play Uriah Heep, ever imagined he’d carve out a successful career in a profession that, at the very least, usually requires a modicum of charm and civility?

Speaking of mysteries, why is it that Obama’s approval numbers remain in double digits? Here’s a guy who not only lied about uniting blacks and whites, young and old, liberals and conservatives, but lied to his own base about shutting down Gitmo, providing illegal aliens with a general amnesty and getting rid of the military policy of “Don’t ask/ Don’t tell.”

On top of all that, what, I wonder, did you all make of his recent declaration that the U.S. and Iran have mutual interests in Afghanistan? Are he and Mahmud Ahmadinejad planning to co-produce “Karzai! The Musical!” on Broadway? And what comes next, an announcement that Russia and the U.S. have mutual interests in Czechoslovakia, Georgia and Poland?

To give you an example of how smitten the loonies on the left are when it comes to Obama, members of the UAW gave him an ovation when he said that Ford’s adding workers at its Chicago plant was proof that his bailing out Chrysler and GM saved the auto industry. As my friend, Don Melquist, a retired ironworker observed: “That’s like suggesting that Ford, which rejected the bail-out, wouldn’t be selling so many cars if Chevys and Chryslers weren’t also available. Obama might as well say that people would stop buying Pizza Hut pizzas if Dominos closed its doors.”

I don’t know where Barack Obama studied economics, but I suspect the teaching staff consisted of Saul Alinsky and Tim Geithner, along with tenured professors Larry, Moe and Curly.

Other current heroes on the left include Shirley Sherrod and Michael Bloomberg. It appears now that Mrs. Sherrod, who suffered the hardship of being unemployed for about 30 minutes before receiving a phone call from the president offering her Joe Biden’s job, is not quite as saintly as she’s been portrayed.

Ron Wilkins, a liberal black civil rights leader, infiltrated the New Communities farm commune back in the mid-70s. It was a commune managed by Shirley and her husband, Charles. Among other things, Wilkins discovered that the black work force, which included a great many children, were paid an average of 67 cents-an-hour, were constantly exposed to pesticides, were often forced to work at night, and were fired if they complained.

For good measure, Cesar Chavez’s far left-wing United Farm Workers joined in the condemnation of the Sherrods and their so-called commune.

When it comes to hypocrites, you would think we had already reached the saturation point. But the way the left keeps churning them out like sausage links, I can only imagine that some very odd place I’ve never heard of, and never wish to visit, must have a large standing order.

Consider Michael Bloomberg, if you will. Here’s a man who, combining the mental agility of a Joy Behar with the eloquence of Barney Fife, has taken it upon himself to teach Americans in general, and New Yorkers specifically, what religious tolerance is all about. Even though he’s the mayor of the city where Muslims slaughtered nearly 3,000 innocent Americans, he has given the Bloomberg seal of approval to the erection of a gigantic Islamic mosque next to Ground Zero.

It would be bad enough if the mayor was merely a run-of-the-mill left-wing moron. But according to the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, Bloomberg’s self-hyped ecumenical spirit has its limits.

For instance, Bloomberg has consistently opposed putting a nativity scene alongside a menorah in New York City’s public schools.

In 2007, when an “artist” created a huge vulgar “Chocolate Jesus” and sought to place it in a street-level gallery during Holy Week, Bloomberg, when asked about it, voiced no objection.

He also maintained his silence when Anthony Malkin, owner of the Empire State Building, decided not to join with other skyscraper owners in a tribute to Mother Teresa.

Finally, when a federal district court ruled that the Bronx-based Household of Faith, an inner-city Christian church, had the right to hold religious services on Sundays in a New York City school, Bloomberg’s administration sued to block the ruling.

In George Orwell’s “Animal Farm,” the evil pig, Napoleon, declares that under his rule, all the animals are equal, but eventually gets around to pointing out that some animals are more equal than others.

Now, far be it from me to call the mayor a pig. However, I’ve always felt that if it grunts like a pig, rolls around in mud like a pig and answers to “sooey, sooey, sooey,” the chances are you could safely stick an apple in its mouth, pop it in the oven and invite the Crachits over for Christmas dinner.

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Less government union Labor per Day, please

The original meanings of many American national holidays, including tomorrow's Labor Day (originally celebrated on a Tuesday) with its and others removal to Mondays, have given way to the celebration of leisure, especially of the three-day weekend variety for federal employees.

Most Americans will be thankful that their Obama Administration rulers will take 24 hours off from promulgating new guidelines to "properly" direct our happiness pursuits, but if idleness defines the day for employed government bureaucrats, then over 25 million underemployed Americans and their families (50 million or 16.7% of Americans impacted directly) have been "celebrating" this day for two years, thus dwarfing even 12 days of Christmas.

Hard work worthy of an American holiday celebration didn't first occur in 19th Century northern industrial sweatshops.

Its harder to organize and collectively bargain with fellow travelers on the Mayflower or cacti obstructing the way west than it is with New York City factory owners when the whistle blows at quittin' time. Gotta be some nearby deep pockets to pick before one can avert their gaze from the Scripture-endowed labor required before eating.

No, those that labored to found a nation that would become wealthy enough to indulge Jimmy Hoffas didn't insist on a day celebrating the work that made non-farm subsistence possible in the first place, much less UAW-GM pensions at age 52 that minimum wage Waffle House employees are now taxed to provide.

Fairness at the heart of the holiday

The labor movement that led to this holiday was, first and foremost, at least in the collective American mind, about fairness. Of course, as my Dad used to say to childish whinings about the cruel facts of life, "the fair comes in October," but the large numbers of former garden-keepers that moved to cities had to eat, riot or starve, and so the movement began. Keep in mind that employers who became so via hard work away from farms had no movement in hard times except movements back to the farm or six-feet under.

But the same Holy Bible insisting on labor before lunch, also promotes one day of rest out of every seven even for its Creator author, and inspired a Constitution meant to preserve endowed and unalienable rights that include the right of free speech and association. Hence the choice of job-providers to bargain with collectives or go back to mules and plows.

Full disclosure requires that DeVine Law reveal his upbringing was enhanced by the relatively better wages earned by Southern Railway, Carmens union members I addressed as Pop and Daddy. I also represented the union and many members in the 1990s. I also listened to the complaints of Daddy about how union policies hurt the company over time by making it nearly impossible to fire incompetent and slothful employees.

Whose labor owns the day?

Even before Americans discovered the true meaning of John Edwards' "Two Americas" mantra, I have called for Labor Day to be abolished as a national holiday every year since 2006.

Don't get me wrong, I am all for allowing most all non-military, not postal employees (I like the 44 cents solution) every second Monday in September (and all other days of the year) off from work.

But I have a problem with the Leftist, Democratic Party, class envy definitions of whose labor is worthy of praise, and so I refuse to participate, except to the extent I celebrate the labors of whoever slaughtered the pigs for my bar-be-que, the hands that cook it and Exxon for drilling the oil that gets me to the pit.

Democratic Party contempt for Reagan and ObamaDem policies reveal their true feelings about labor and fairness

Then FDR-New Dealer-Truman Democrat Ronald Reagan essentially gave up Hollywood super-stardom and his marriage to save the Screen Actors Guild labor union he led as President from Communist infiltration, nearly 30 years before he became President of the United States and led the war against the Evil Empire that employed those agitators (community organizers?, but I digress).

Reagan was shot at twice while SAG leader; only once as leader of the Free World, as he operated within the American Rule of Law that made union organization possible. Yet, when he fired illegally-striking air traffic controllers, he was denounced by the same AFL-CIO division of the Democratic Party that never had an encouraging word for him before he faithfully executed the laws as per his Oath.

By the 1980s you see, privilege, not fairness, defined the "movement" (if you can call it that given its decline from 30% of the private sector in the 50s to less than 10% then and now) so much, that Kremlin conversations were abuzz that this Cold Warrior was cut from stronger cloth than Nixons, Kissingers and Carters, if he had the audacity to fire, much less enforce the law against supposed union masters.

Fast forward 20 years and the majority of union members now being paid by taxpayers not only don't fear being fired thanks to jobs saved or created by ObamaDem "stimuli"; but if existing laws don't suit them and and their GM counterparts, and Congress won't or can't change the laws due to timid blue dogs, Reagan's successor will deem the law as he sees fit, so long as it fits the SEIU agenda.

America used to be prosperous and fair. Now its Camel-Not. (h/t Rush caller)

The labor movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries accomplished a lot of good, most of which has been enacted into law to protect the health, safety and minimum wages of all workers. Many individual unions have been a blessing too many an employee and kept the faith with owners and managers in not killing the goose that made golden eggs possible. UPS comes to mind.

In many ways, the drastic decline in the percentage of private sector union employees is a result of union and American success and unparalleled prosperity over the past 100 years.

I find the existence and recent growth of the government union movement to be insidious ( a subject for another day), but at least before President Barack Obama and super-majorities of Democrats started carving out special privileges for their labor union benefactors both in and out of government, one could say that the battles had been, on the whole, "fair". Not so at Obama's un-round table.

In the wake of the assassination of her husband, former First Lady Jackie Kennedy referred wistfully to the 1000 days of America's romance with JFK as like "Camelot". Why did she echo the words of the legendary King from Excalibur after the end of the great prosperous fellowship of the Round Table (pictured) and Camelot:

” Let us remember, so that we may have it again.”

It, being a rule of law applying equally to Kings, Lords and Commoners. It, being the rights acknowledged by the Magna Carta. Sounds like America used to be doesn't it. Sounds like the days before a President could kill prosperity with TRO-violating oil-drilling moratoriums, doesn't it?

Looking forward to celebrating Labor fairness everyday, but first please, some labor

I believe most unelected Democratic voters care about labor, i.e. people. I also believe that bad dentists care about the patients who suffer from the pain they cause. But given the results of the leftist policies that have failed every time the Democrats had the votes and a President to impose them in the late 60s, late 70s and late 2000 naughts, one would be hard-pressed to gather enough evidence to convict them of caring about labor, jobs, the poor and middle class in a court of law.

Is it fair? Has it "worked"?

ObamaDems taxed non-government individuals and businesses and printed and borrowed trillions over the past 20 months, promising to "save and create"enough jobs to keep unemployment under 8%. Unemployment in the District of Columbia and many blue state capitols where government jobs were saved and created. Jobs that we will have to be taxed to pay for, forever.

Was that fair? Did it "work"?

Well, not if by "work", you mean achieving the stated goal of less than 8% unemployment. Unemployment in non-Districts of the United States, called "states" (you know, the entities that formed a federal government of limited powers, and who are now slaves to the monster, Dr. Reid Pelosi Obama created, still hovers near double-digits as the underemployment rate approaches Great Depression numbers.

Beyond that is it fair that:

Pitchforks get sicked on companies that dare question pay czars, secured bond holders, doctors and insurance companies?

EPA issues regulations by executive fiat when Congress tires of the three-times-a-charm ObamaCare strategy on how a bill becomes a law?

Federal judges issue orders allowing some of the 25 million American Idles to labor in the Gulf of Mexico, and the Commander-in-Chief puts them out of work the next day with the threat of attacks by the Coast Guard instead of the usual Rahm Emmanuel steam room visit?

What of executive orders giving preference to unionized companies instead of low bids, regardless of unionization?

Where is Edison's Bulb and Chevy's Corvette and why isn't the Ford Mustang also subsidized?

Fannie, Freddie and Dodd bills still impose racial quotas on mortgage lenders despite the bubble as mortgage-paying taxpayers fund the sloth, drinking tea through gritted teeth.

Bailouts for Ye Olde Obama's union and other pals, but not for Thee, We the People.

And if you don't like ObamaCare, take a painkiller and go home to die.

Sound fair? Didn't think so.

So what do we celebrate on Labor Day 2010?

I'll celebrate the labor of responsible labor unions, with my greatest praise reserved for those that created the jobs and the companies through their unsung labors in the first place.

I'll celebrate the labors of the founders, the warriors and the slaves that built and eventually built and protected the City on a Hill.

Most of all, I will celebrate the labors of God Almighty, his son Jesus Christ and his followers of the past 2000 years.

Then, I will rest, but not for long, because the only way the City on a Hill will shine again, will be through countless man-hours of mostly, non-union, yet united, labor.

Mike DeVine

"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson

Charlotte Observer, The Minority Report and Examiner.com archives

www.devinelawvista.com

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ICYMI, on Thursday, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) filed an amicus brief on behalf of 66 Members of Congress, urging the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold S.B. 1070, the Arizona immigration law, in its entirety. As the ACLJ explains:

The argument we make in our amicus brief is clear:  “Congress has plenary power to prescribe the immigration laws and the Executive must follow Congress’s direction.”

Further, the brief asserts that provisions of the Arizona law “are consistent with federal immigration policy that promotes increasingly greater roles for states in enforcing immigration law.”

And, according to the brief, the district court wrongly “held that the Executive’s prosecutorial discretion and foreign policy preempt Arizona's law. The district court ignored Congress's intent in evaluating the Administration's preemption claims.”

Finally, the brief argues that if the Court of Appeals “does not reverse the district court’s decision, preemption analysis will no longer turn on congressional intent, but on each Administration’s political views.”

The brief concludes that Arizona's law is compatible with federal law. “The federal and state alien registration laws in this case are seamlessly integrated. . . Because S.B. 1070 mirrors federal immigration provisions, its plainly legitimate sweep is indisputable…”

What Congressional Members chose to stand with Arizona? The list, which is included below, includes 5 Senators and 61 Members of the House of Representative. While it’s great that these elected officials took a stand (for the obvious, if you ask me), unfortunately they represent only a fraction of those in Congress. 

Senate Members Standing with Arizona:

• John Barrasso
• Jim DeMint
• James Inhofe
• David Vitter
• Roger Wicker

House Members:

• Robert Aderholt
• Rodney Alexander
• Michele Bachmann
• Spencer Bachus
• J. Gresham Barrett
• Brian Bilbray
• Rob Bishop
• Marsha Blackburn
• John Boozman
• Paul Broun
• Ginny Brown-Waite
• Michael Burgess
• Dan Burton
• Ken Calvert
• John Campbell
• John Carter
• Jason Chaffetz
• Howard Coble
• Mike Coffman
• John Culberson
• Geoff Davis
• John Fleming
• Randy Forbes
• Virginia Foxx
• Trent Franks
• Elton Gallegly
• Scott Garrett
• Phil Gingrey
• Louie Gohmert
• Bob Goodlatte
• Ralph Hall
• Dean Heller
• Wally Herge
• Pete Hoekstra
• Duncan Hunter
• Walter Jones
• Jim Jordan
• Steve King
• Jack Kingston
• John Kline
• Doug Lamborn
• Robert Latta
• Don Manzullo
• Patrick McHenry
• Gary Miller
• Jeff Miller
• Jerry Moran
• Sue Myrick
• Randy Neugebauer
• Joe Pitts
• Ted Poe
• Bill Posey
• Tom Price
• Ed Royce
• John Shadegg
• Bill Shuster
• Lamar Smith
• John Sullivan
• Gene Taylor
• Todd Tiahrt
• Ed Whitfield.

Source Info:
9th Circuit Urged to Uphold AZ Immigration Law
66 Members of Congress: Uphold AZ Law

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Thought you all might enjoy some of the pics I took (disposable camera explains the graininess) at the event:

http://i784.photobucket.com/albums/yy122/johngalt1776/Restoring%20Honor%20Rally/23120001.jpg

http://i784.photobucket.com/albums/yy122/johngalt1776/Restoring%20Honor%20Rally/23120005.jpg

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Why Democrats win elections

Since his 2008 re-election Governor Mitch Daniels has been, rightly, singularly focused on reducing the size of the Indiana state government; balancing its budget and pursuing policies that would attract business to the Hoosier State.

Ronald Reagan would be proud of Daniels' successful application of conservative principles at the state level as well as his clarion call that America faces an existential economic, budget and debt crisis that can only be arrested with radical conservative change.

But the Gipper would, rightly, not be pleased with that portion of the clarion call that suggests the economic crisis can only be addressed if fiscal conservatives and social conservatives "call a truce" until our economy is saved.

Democrats have never won elections touting social liberalism

There are a number of false premises behind Daniels' vague suggestion,which I address below, but the best evidence that such a truce is not only not necessary, but also counterproductive, is provided by the history of the Reagan Administration during the last severe economic crisis.

There would have been no Republican or conservative majorities, nor a President Reagan, absent the social conservative voters Reagan brought into the party. Far from playing down social issues in the midst of a recession with double-digit unemployment, inflation and interest rates; Reagan insisted that the Republican Party platform include support for a pro-life amendment to the Constitution.

False liberal premises that Daniels' truce assumes as true

Some have suggested that Democrats win elections due to manipulation of so-called "wedge" issues. That is a meme invented by the Left in the media and the Democratic Party to try and scare conservatives into silence when their conservative base is energized their base over amnesty for illegals, preserving traditional marriage and reversing Roe v Wade.

Yes, many people vote for Democrats because of their social liberalism. They are called liberals. They are no more than 20% of the population. They will always be Democrats and they ensure that the Democratic party will always be the liberal party in this country.

Most importantly, they don't enter into truces to be liked by conservatives and you can bet that they won't honor any truce that moderate Republicans enter into with social conservatives. Their favor, nor that of an even higher proportion of the liberal Democrats than the hard left, can't be curried no matter what Republicans do unless they denounce conservatism and join MoveOn.org.

Additionally, what would happen during a Mitch-inspired internal-GOP truce? Would liberal Democrats cease their assault on marriage? Of course not. You might as well call a truce between my Carolina Gamecocks' offense and defense and hope that Georgia Bulldogs don't try to score, but I digress...

So, why do Democrats win elections and how does that relate to Daniels' call for a truce between libertarians and social conservatives?

The at-fault party is the Default Party

The main reasons Democrats still win elections in this country, despite their dismal and repeated failed policies, is that they have dominated American politics for most of our history and are, therefore, the "default" party. After all, JFK, Clinton and FDR were Democrats and grandma votes Democrat, so therefore, blah, blah blah...

Well, this is not a Democratic Party filled with JFKs and Bill Clintons.

This fact of the Democratic Party as the default party must change, and may well be in the process of same given recent polling showing the GOP preferred over the Democrats by 10 points.

Ancillary reasons include their pre-Obama, Bill Clinton-enabled subterfuge as a "centrist" party and the tendency over the years for Republicans to be Democrat-lite and consequent failure to build up larger majorities when they have held power.

One can point to no election cycle in which the reason for Democrat victories can be traced to support for liberal social policies, nor to any backlash against conservative social policies.

Moreover, the whole premise that compartmentalizes votes is flawed. Most of the social conservatives that Reagan brought in were also ravaged by CarterDem economic policies and weakness in defense and national security policies.

Additionally, Democrats have been given cover over the years from being seen as primarily responsible for their failed policies by parties that were less ideological than today, compromise bills garnering lots of GOP support, and the Reagan fix that scared Boll Weevil Dems to vote for tax cuts and thus spread credit around for the 25-year boom.

Thankfully, and to the credit of elected Republicans over the past two years, President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party own all the policies of the past two years that have failed to usher in a recovery.

Everything is as clear to the voters as Luzianne tea, hence, the parties and town halls, Scott Brown and the polls.

The Great Recession (Depression?) and the 2010 Election

Mitch, Obama, failed Dem policies, exposure of the non-Clinton-like majority of Democrats and empty wallets have already achieved your goal of a singular focus on the economy that will put large conservative majorities back in charge of the House that will repeal ObamaDem laws.

No significant number of Republican voters are going to stay home because the GOP remains the Party of Life, and one can't point to any election cycle to make that case, much less the current one that will occur during a near economic depression and with polls showing pro-lifers on the rise.

There simply is no evidence that splits between libertarians and social conservatives have cost the GOP in the past, when elections were less focused on the economy. To the contrary, the rise of social conservatism within the GOP since the late 60s through the Reagan 80s and into the Dubya congressional gains of 2000, 2002 and 2004 have coincided with such gains.

Moreover, social conservatives have been the equal of the most loyal voters within the GOP since the 80s and dwarf in size those libertarians so enamored of internet gambling that they would cut off their bet-picking nose to spite their face with an ObamaDem economy that leaves them with no money lest to wager!

The scare line that the Religious Right wants into your bedroom works even less with ObamaDems having invaded every room in the house.

Mike DeVine

"One man with courage makes a majority." - Andrew Jackson

Charlotte Observer, The Minority Report and Examiner.com archives

www.devinelawvista.com

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While the Obamas have been vacationing, the Oval Office has had a make-over, including a new Presidential Seal rug with quotations running along its border.

One of those quotations:

"THE ARC OF THE MORAL UNIVERSE IS LONG, BUT IT BENDS TOWARD JUSTICE" - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Slight problem: It's not a King quote.

The words belong to a long-gone Bostonian champion of social progress. His roots in the republic ran so deep that his grandfather commanded the Minutemen at the Battle of Lexington.

For the record, Theodore Parker is your man, President Obama. Unless you're fascinated by antebellum American reformers, you may not know of the lyrically gifted Parker, an abolitionist, Unitarian minister and Transcendentalist thinker who foresaw the end of slavery, though he did not live to see emancipation. He died at age 49 in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090305100.html

On another interesting note, from the same article:

The familiar quote from Lincoln woven into Obama's rug is "government of the people, by the people and for the people," the well-known utterance from the close of his Gettysburg Address in 1863.

Funny that in 1850, Parker wrote, "A democracy -- that is a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people."

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Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. —Ronald Reagan

The two great economic tragedies of the 20^th Century were the Great Depression and the stagflation of the late seventies. Obviously the Great Depression was more severe and longer lasting, but most Americans forget that when Carter left office inflation was 13.6%, economic growth was an anemic 1.5%, unemployment was 7.2%, and the top income tax rate was 70%. No one had a chance of getting ahead in that kind of economy.

To a great degree, both FDR and Jimmy Carter had inherited a bad economic situation—which they never ceased reminding everyone within earshot. The question wasn’t what they inherited, it was their remedies. FDR and Carter aggressively applied progressive solutions to heal the economy. Both failed miserably, and imposed on the populous more suffering than had ever been seen in our country’s history.

Both calamities were quickly fixed when Republicans took control. In 1946, Republicans won the Senate and House for the first time in 18 years. They quickly passed business oriented legislation, unraveled pieces of the new Deal, and dismantled much of the war regulations that permeated every aspect of personal and business life.

President Eisenhower maintained a steady hand on the economic tiller through the 1950s, and the economy stayed relatively robust until the 1970s. Things turned bad in Nixon’s second term, and then got worse. On June 30, 1979, Carter gave his infamous malaise speech. We were on a relentlessly downward spiral. Supposedly nothing could salvage us.

Then Ronald Reagan took office in 1981.  He immediately applied sound economic policies; policies that in less than two years had the economy pounding on all eight cylinders. Before Reagan, pundits all agreed that the nation had grown so big and complicated that it had become impossible for any single individual to lead it successfully. Reagan stepped in and not only fixed the mess with apparent ease, he was able to nap during cabinet meetings.

You’d think we’d learn. Or at least, you’d think the supposed all-caring progressives would learn. These were their man-made disasters, which hurt everyone, but especially the poor. The 80^th Congress and Reaganomics not only fixed the damage done by these zealots, the return to rationality also ushered in unprecedented prosperity for entire decades.

This is not meant as an indictment of all Democrats. At many times the country has done just fine under Democratic control. Trouble starts when doctrinaire progressives seize control. These two economic black holes had one thing in common: devout progressive presidents teamed with a Democratic congress.

Just like today.

President Obama is an evangelist for progressivism. Like his two predecessors, he believes in shock and awe spending, slight-of-hand income redistribution, grand new entitlements, central control of every aspect of economic activity, regulatory frenzy, and confiscatory taxes. Obama is actually more dangerous to our wellbeing because he’s added crony capitalism, thuggery, and pay-to-play to the catechism.

After nearly two years of experimenting with his progressive policies, the economy is stumbling ahead at a dismal 1.6% annual rate, sales of single-family homes are at a fifteen year low, and unemployment seems firmly stapled at 9.5%. This is obviously not working. In fact, progressives can’t point to a single instance in all of worldwide history where their formula has worked. It’s not working now, and it has never worked. There are, however, innumerable examples of progressive economics failing. So what gives? Are progressives not nearly as smart as they want us to believe? Or are we missing something?

We are. Progressivism works surprisingly well for one objective: it gathers and concentrates power in a few hands. This is what is occurring now—and it is frightening Americans. Our remaining liberty depends on throwing progressivism into the ash heap of history, alongside royalist rule, feudalism, mercantilism, fascism, and communism.

James D. Best is the author of Tempest at Dawn, a novel about the 1787 Constitutional Convention. http://www.jamesdbest.com/

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We like to think of our nation’s history as one of achievement, triumph, and victory against daunting odds. And certainly, in many ways, it is. But we are not without our defeats. And when our nation’s flag debuted in battle on September 3, 1777, the showing was hardly an impressive one.

Tradition has it that just a few months after Congress officially adopted the Stars and Stripes as our country’s banner, soldiers under the command of American General William Maxwell gave the flag its first entrance into battle, raising the banner as they met and fought an advance guard of British and Hessian troops at Cooch’s Bridge, Delaware.

Instead of fighting to victory, however, the Patriot troops were defeated, falling into disorganization, retreating, and leaving the foe to claim victory.

There was no last minute maneuver that gave the Patriots the advantage. There was no rallying around the flag in a heroic effort that turned the tide of battle. There was no sound of that trumpet that never sounds retreat.

There was defeat. And instead of waving victoriously, the flag – perhaps tattered – presided over a battle lost.

Not too impressive for the Stars and Stripes’ opening act.

But – and there is a but – the end of the battle did not mark the end of the war. The flag that was somewhat ignominiously introduced on the fighting field would fly again, and again, and again – throughout wars and conflicts, hardships and triumphs, bright days and dark nights. Signaling liberty, signaling opportunity, signaling hope.

After more than two centuries, that flag is still flying. Not because it’s anything great in and of itself but because it stands for something great. And however hard the battle, our flag is still worth fighting for. I’m pretty sure Maxwell’s Patriots would have agreed.

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Every so often, one of my readers who has apparently dipped once too often into the cooking sherry wonders why I don’t run for Congress. The short answer is that I don’t want to ever again wear a necktie. I also don’t wish to spend my life going hat-in-hand begging for campaign contributions. Worse yet, what if I actually won the election and then had to listen to Nancy Pelosi and Barney Frank mouth off endlessly? Between her nursery school delivery and his lisping, I’m sure I’d soon be popping Excedrin like peanuts.

Instead, I prefer staying home and telling everybody in Washington how to do their jobs better. So, for openers, I would make it a law that every bill would contain only a single item. No more piling on. No more legislation that contains, say, funding for the military with tax dollars for ACORN or an unnecessary bridge or airport named after some partisan hack. As things stand now, every appropriations bill comes loaded with a ton of political pork. When called on it, the weasels in both parties get to say, “Well, I had to support the troops, didn’t I?”

Conservatives who automatically deny that the Arizona immigration law is racially-based are lying. Of course it is, in just the same way that a border wall would be. How can it not be when the millions of people who have snuck into the U.S. are all Hispanics? It makes as much sense to deny that the war on terrorism is directed at Islamics. The problem is that those who favor open borders accuse the rest of us of being racists. That’s the big lie they love to promote. Americans, after all, have no trouble living and working with Hispanics who are here legally.

If the illegals pouring in were Swedes, Germans or Poles, our opposition, which is based on principles and the law, would be the same. The difference is that the very same hypocrites who favor open borders today are the ones who would change their tune overnight if the aliens weren’t Hispanic. The ugly, but unvarnished, truth is that they’re the racists.

Of course the number one racist in America is the fellow who spent 20 years soaking up Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s vicious attacks on white Americans. It’s probably not a coincidence that Barack Obama is also the biggest liar who’s ever sat in the Oval Office. In fact, if his nose grew like Pinocchio’s every time he told a fib, they probably would have had to leave Joy Behar and Sherri Shepherd in the wings in order to make room for the presidential shnoz on “The View.”

The latest proof that in looking for a role model, Obama snubbed George Washington and patterned himself, instead, on a used car salesman was his announcement that he was “surprised, disappointed and angry” when Scotland released Lockerbie bomber Abdel al-Magrahi. It seems that Richard LeBaron, Obama’s deputy head of the U.S. embassy in London let Scotland know a week ahead of the event that the U.S. preferred that Magrahi receive compassionate release than that he be locked up in a Libyan prison for what was supposed to be the final few weeks of his life. The only surprise is that apparently the change in climate did wonders for his health, and Magrahi is now expected to live at least another ten years!

The U.S. government had tried to keep LeBaron’s letter secret on the alleged grounds that it would prevent “frank and open communications with other governments.” I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like a married man begging his mistress not to spill the beans, lest it prevent future frank and open communications with his wife!

According to Bedford Fall’s George Bailey, every time a bell rang, an angel got his wings. If it worked the same way with lies, an entire division of angels would owe a debt of eternal gratitude to the prevaricator-in-chief.

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