The Enemy Within: A Conservative Response to a Radical Rebuttal
It is not often that I pay much attention to those who tread beyond the margins of respectable political opinion, much less on the fringes of American society. But after reading a member of Young Americans for Liberty’s response to my recent article at The Daily Caller, I’d like to volunteer some thoughts.
In my original piece, I argued that the vast majority of young conservatives who rightly support their country at war must begin standing down the insurgents within our political coalition who refuse to do so. I singled out the anti-war libertarian activists who have coalesced around people like Rep. Ron Paul and their viewpoints. Because these viewpoints tend to include sympathy for America’s enemies and gross historical revisionism (i.e., we provoked 9/11, the Civil War was unnecessary), I argued that proponents of such nonsense ought to be exposed and chastised by those of us who follow in the tradition of William F. Buckley. Just as he chased the radicals of his time out of the conservative mix, so must we.
What did my opponent from Young Americans for Liberty argue? Only a few excerpts from his diatribe need to be highlighted in order to understand precisely where he and his peers stand.
“I am arguing that the American government has engaged in a secretive, imperialistic, war-mongering foreign policy for over 20 years before 9/11 occurred at the cost of the peoples of both the United States and the Middle East.”
Truth be told, Osama bin Laden could not have said it better himself. If this is not a justification for some form of retribution against America, then I do not know what is. Furthermore, the Cold War policies to which he alludes were actually implemented in favor of liberating Afghanistan from communist occupation, at which we succeeded. And those policies, of course, ultimately led to the fall of the Soviet Union, of which he barely makes any mention.
“I mourn every day for the innocent people that died in the World Trade Center on 9/11, but I equally mourn for the men, women, and children of the Middle East who have endured horrible fates due to what Qualtere refers to as ‘the Good War of a new century,’ a war of aggression being cleverly disguised as a war of defense.”
It is not often that one hears a “but” follow an expression of sympathy for dead Americans, at least not when it comes from an actual American. It is even rarer, and vastly more disturbing, to see that “but” preface an equalization of one’s fallen countrymen with those slain by his country’s military during a combat operation. It is worth noting that the author does not bother at all to make any distinction between civilian casualties and dead terrorists. This is telling.
Earlier on in his article, he sarcastically dismisses another obvious distinction:
“Here’s a radical idea: suppose that young Americans consider the fact that the people of the Middle East are human beings just like us, and that the majority of them want nothing more than to live according to their own values. Suppose that a constant American military presence in the Middle East is recruitment fuel for Islamic extremists.”
Here’s a not-so radical idea: suppose that Americans don’t view everyone living in the Middle East as one homogenous people. Suppose that Americans choose to differentiate the liberated Iraqis who now fight shoulder-to-shoulder with our troops from the ones who once beheaded our men on video camera. And suppose that most Americans are able to see a clear difference between the Afghan woman about to be stoned for adultery and the clerical fascist with rocks in hand. But for that “American military presence,” she and countless others would be forced to live or die according to the oppressive “values” of someone else.
Unfortunately, radical libertarians like my opponent lack the courage to make these vital distinctions. Instead, they prop up contrived and utterly false moral equivalencies between an American soldier and a Taliban militant, between a terrorist attack and a legitimate military campaign, between radical Islamism and liberal democracy.
In the world view of such misguided souls, America has no enemies. The rest of the world, however, does. It is us. Alas, it is little wonder that the libertarian movement has attracted so many self-professed “9/11 truthers”—those who believe that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, planned and executed by the American government—with such public insinuations and arguments as the one with which my opponent closes his article:
“[T]he greatest enemies of our freedom are not hiding in caves overseas, but sitting in decadent halls right here at home.”
Elliot Engstrom, the author of Young Americans for Liberty’s rebuttal to my piece, need not worry about ever bearing any sort of influence on mainstream American politics. His radical assertions, only a few of which I’ve quoted above, have all but guaranteed his irrelevance and permanent place on the margins. But there are many more young activists like him, wise enough to conceal their apparent hatred for the United States but bold enough to continue jostling for political representation and power. All the while, they are obstructing the ideas and efforts of American conservatism and contaminating the party of Reagan with an extremism he would have despised. It is they who must be confronted, discredited, and exiled from the mainstream conservative movement lest they mistake their flimsy CPAC straw poll victory for anything more than a transient fluke. In particular, they are enemies of conservatives of every age, of every brand, of every background. Indeed, in the midst of this war for civilization’s very future, they are enemies of our nation’s indispensable fight for victory. Henceforth, let us treat them as such.
___________________
Tom Qualtere currently serves as research assistant to the president of The Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C. This column was originally published at TheDailyCaller.com.
Visit ConservativeCongress.com
Today thelobbyist soft launched Conservative Congress. This website will be replacing campaignlobbyist.net. Our resources were really spread too thin to cover campaigns and elections via blogging. So we decided to do something more difficult…. review every candidate in every district in America based on a Issues Statement platform that 5 members of the project from varying conservative ideologies agreed defined “true” conservatism.
So today we soft launched. The site is up and working in full, but we are still gathering data from various candidates who have not returned their questionnaire. Right now we have information on candidates for Primary Elections taking place over the next 90 days (i.e. through May). We will always strive to maintain this time line of always being 90 days ahead of primaries giving voters a chance to take a hard look at their candidates.
What we’re doing? In a nut shell we’ve researched a candidate based on our platform. If he aligns himself or herself fully with our Issues Statement we recommend them to the voter. Bare in mind if multiple candidates in a district meet all our criteria, we recommend both candidates as individuals that are truly conservative. We leave it up to the voter to determine their opinion on character, local standing, etc.
For full transparency we have included all our research in our Research page. There you can select your state and see where a candidate in your district may have fallen short, or on what issue they have not answered our questions.
You can follow updates for Conservative Congress @ConsrvCongress. We also have a Facebook fan page and our home page is constantly streaming the most recent campaigns and election coverage from the top conservative websites and blogs on the net.
Finally, and dearest to my heart is our Conservative Congress Forums. They are simple and elegant in form and provide an easy way for you to get active in debate and discourse on the campaigns and primary elections in your area!
We hope you enjoy the new site!
Yours in Conservatism,
Nick R. Brown
Greece-ing the Skids Toward Dependency
On my drive from work, I was listening to a snippet of NPR where they were discussing the current economic apocalypse in Greece that Glenn Beck warned in his CPAC speech would occur here. There have been riots in the streets as the Greek government desperately seeks to find ways of ameliorating their budgetary boondoggle. They are of course frustrated by a plethora of failings and attempted fixes as reported by The Globe and Mail:
Greece will need to cut spending – by 10 per cent of GDP over 10 years – while raising revenue and cracking down on its untaxed black-market economy, which counts for as much as a third of all financial activity in the country. This combination could provoke further unrest, and may foretell similar tensions in Italy and Portugal.
If Greece’s crisis and accompanying political unrest were an isolated case, it might be more manageable, but this week the turmoil seemed to spread across the belly of Europe.
On Tuesday, Spain’s cities were shut down by unionized workers protesting its left-wing government’s plan to raise the retirement age to 67 and cut spending in order to deal with its own serious fiscal situation.
Spain has debt of 54 per cent of GDP and a deficit of more than 11 per cent, plus unemployment levels that approach 20 per cent and a housing-market collapse.
What struck me during the NPR report was their emphasis on the retirement age being raised while benefits are to head in the opposite direction in Greece; and at the same time, the story according to The Globe and Mail is that Greece is going to be taking similar steps.
Riots are occurring in the streets because the government is controlling the retirement benefits of the citizenry. Scary.
I was listening to the February 23rd edition of Mark Levin (I do the free podcast a day later while I run, God bless him for making his show free and available) where he talked about being at the mercy of the government. As these people in Europe see themselves: at the mercy of their government. “Please sir, can I have some more?” Where is the dignity and the honor? I work in a place where I see the day to day sufferings of people who find themselves dependent on a government that only knows of their existence based on a number in a database. Is this what we want? To have to go to the government, to Social Security, to your Congress-persons’ offices, to Medicare, and beg for money to exist?
Tocqueville once lamented about the coming age of rational control. We look at a leviathan to take away the “pain of thinking” and the “agony of living” as Dr. Mansfield once recounted. What needs to be explained to people, is that a dependency on government does nothing of the sort! The people dependent on government might have purged the “pain of thinking” from their lives, but they continue to live in agony as their life is no longer at the will of him or her self or even Providence, but of boards, panels and case workers… How long after Health Care gets passed (should we be so unfortunate) before we are rioting in the streets because we have found ourselves in government bondage?
-rj
Dividing Lines-The Aftermath of Brown’s Stimulus Vote, Jeb Bush on Charlie Crist’s Socialist Policies
In an article published this morning, The Washington Post details the political backlash against Senator Scott Brown’s (R-MA) decision to vote for increased stimulus spending in the form of the ‘jobs bill’.
A month after being crowned the darling of national conservatives, Republican Sen. Scott Brown of Massachusetts is being branded “Benedict Brown” for siding with Democrats in favor of a jobs bill endorsed by the Obama administration.
However, according to the Post,
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky wasn’t particularly perturbed about Brown’s vote, saying his election last month has “made a huge, positive difference for us and for the whole legislative agenda.
In other news, Politico reports that Jeb Bush has openly condemned his successor, Florida Governor Charlie Crist, and his decision to support last year’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. A bold move, considering that Bush’s own brother was responsible for signing The Economic Stimulus Act of the previous year into law. “”I know I’m supposed to be politically correct and I said I was neutral and all that,” Bush said, but added of Crist’s move: “I got a problem with that.” While the former governor called Crist “about the nicest guy I’ve ever met in politics,” Bush called Crist’s support for the stimulus bill a critical “mistake.”” Bush’s words provide a superb example of both diplomacy and leadership, and a sharp contrast to McConnell’s slippery appeal to party politics.
While some may question the significance of drawing fine lines in the political sand, it is nevertheless of the utmost importance that we stand firm on those principles necessary to our country’s success and survival. Any and all votes for federal stimulus and subsidies, the expansion of federal social programs, and increases in federal regulation of private enterprises must be strongly opposed regardless of their source.
However, it is also important that we distinguish between sin and sinner. Although All proponents of socialist legislation, whether Republican or Democrat–Scott Brown or Barack Obama–inhibit progress through their acts, there is no reason why we must question their intentions. Nevertheless, playing nice does not require that we cease to play, but rather, that we play with grace and style. Kindness is not Compromise.
CPAC Saturday Live Blog
19.01
David Keene just thanked the crowd and adjourned CPAC 2010. Thanks for joining us for our coverage of CPAC.
18.59
Beck just shed a tear. Stacy McCain wins bet. Classic!
18.58
Beck: It will be morning in America again.
18.56
Beck bringing the house down now with New Colossus reading. Went through his talk about the Colossus of Rhodes vs. Statue of Liberty that he discussed on his show a couple weeks back.
18.52
Bloggers lounge has been noisy all day. But Beck has everyone completely tuned in.
18.46
Beck: The rest of the world needs to know that America is serious. We don’t need more speeches we need action.
18.39
Beck: Not a single times have we gotten a right from Congress. We get them from God. And he puts a warning bell inside of us. And when someone tries to take them away from us that bell goes off. That is what is happening now.
18.36
Beck: Not everyone succeeds. Not everyone gets a trophy. Stop teaching my kids that everyone gets a trophy. What is this the Nobel Prize!
18.35
Beck: We need less Marx and more Madisons.
18.34
Beck: This is America there is no cap on success. But there seems to be a cap on the willingness to find that success. All men are created equal. Not all men will end up equal. Our daily choices determine the outcome.
18.33
Beck: In 2008 American’s gave $307 billion dollars to charity. That’s 10 times the giving power of France. Don’t tell me American’s need to be more like Europe. The people of Europe need to be looking over here.
18.30
Beck: This administration doesn’t create jobs, the American people create jobs. And the administration is doing everything they can to stop that.
18.28
By the way I’m sitting next to Stacy McCain of the American Spectator. He has a $20 bet riding on Beck breaking down and crying. Beck’s getting a little somber. Stacy may be close to a fresh $20. ha!
18.26
Beck: We are pricing ourselves out of the American Dream.
18.25
Beck: We do not have a right to health care, housing, or hand outs.
18.24
Beck: When did we become the country who thinks it ok that you can’t be too big to fail? …No one is entitled to happiness. But if you happen to find happiness along the way you should not be penalized for it.
18.23
Beck: If it wasn’t for me falling down I wouldn’t been able to pick myself up and be where I’m standing today.
18.22
Beck: I don’t care what happened in your child hood, I want to know what we’re doing today!
18.19
18.18
Beck: The problem is tax and spend. One party taxes and spends and the other doesn’t tax but spends.
18.18
Beck: I keep hearing everyone say that we need a big tent. What is this a circus?
18.14
Beck: I’m a recovering alcoholic and the Republican party says they are recovering but there is no evidence of that. There has been no come to Jesus moment with the Republican Party. They are addicted to spending and big government.
18.13
Beck: Cheney was here the other day and he said it was going to be a good year for Conservative ideas. It is, but it is not good enough just to not suck as much as the other side.
18.09
Beck: Van Jones was a self described Communist and no one paid attention to it.
18.09
Beck: The argument back in the day was that you weren’t a Marxist or a Communist you were a Progressive. What’s the difference? The difference is that one requires a gun and one deteriorates the system slowly.
18.07
18.05
Beck: Progress is the disease in America!
18.05
Beck just brought his chalk board out on stage! Crowd went crazy!
18.05
Beck: It’s still mourning in America, it’s just sort of a hangover type mourning.
17.54
Glenn Beck up next.
17.52
Straw Poll Results for #CPAC2010:
“Are you satisfied with the field of candidates?”
53% said yes
17.52
Straw Poll Results for #CPAC2010:
Nominees for U.S. President in 2012:
Ron Paul 31%
Mitt Romney 22%
Sarah Palin 7%
Tim Pawlenty 6%
Mike Pence 5%
17.51
Straw Poll Results for #CPAC2010:
2,395 participants this year.
Just grabbing some of the poll results here for the general questions…
Issue most important to those polled was “Reducing the size of the Federal Government”
“Thinking ahead to the Nov. elections, how many seats, if any, will Republicans pick up in the U.S. House?”
33% said 40 or more seats. 5% said 1-9 seats.
17.41
Straw poll coming up.
17.09
Rumor mill swirling that Palin will introduce Glenn Beck. But according to @sarahpalinusa she is in California.
17.08
Norquist: If the Obama Administration is a Martini, Obama is Vermouth, he’s barely there.
15.48
Horner: Carol Browner wants to get to a place where the energy companies can hold back energy so that consumers can’t run their A/C at peak.
15.46
Horner: Leadership is not asking other countries what is ok.
15.45
Horner: These people want to fundamentally change America. “We can’t drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times…” even though these are things the President does.
15.44
Horner: When pressed environmentalists always come back to “It’s the right thing to do”.
15.43
Chris Horner: Liberals think that there are too many of you and your using too much of everything.
15.42
Showing various video of Global Warming comments in the media. Including Brett Hume making a sly remark during the Presidential nomination that the snow on that day must be because of Global Warming.
15.37
Global Warming panel coming up. Featuring:
Chris Horner, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming
Ann McElhinney, Not Evil Just Wrong: The True Cost of Global Warming Hysteria
Steve Milloy, JunkScience.com
Myron Ebell, Competitive Enterprise Institute
I used to work at CEI so it’s great to see Horner and Ebell up on stage.
15.35
Newt
15.27
Just met Katherine Jenerette who is a candidate for South Carolina’s 1st district and coincidentally was one of the candidates I’ve already reviewed for ConservativeCongress.com. She’s top notch. Hope she can pull it off, but I think she’s in a very difficult district.
14.30
Newt: I believe we will control the House and the Senate at the end of this year. I believe will will control the White House in 3 years.
14.29
Newt talking about Unions in New York making it so hard to fire bad teachers that they have to put these teachers in “rubber rooms” for 7 years before they’re fired at a cost of $50 million a year!
14.25
Newt: I know for a fact that Obama has created at least 3 jobs: McDonnel, Christy and Brown.
14.21
Newt Gingrich walked in to his speech to Eye of the Tiger. Pretty funny.
CPAC Friday Live Blog
17.51
Looks like we are wrapped for the day. Check back with us tomorrow.
17.49
And Ron Paul exits stage left.
17.49
Paul: If we do the right things we can pull out of this economic mess and be better than ever. I know that you want the best for America and if we work together we can make it happen.
17.48
Paul: During the presidential campaign the crash I predicted was laughed about and talked about and then when it finally came Fox News had me on about 60 times in a week period.
17.46
Paul: We should be nation building and it’s time we got those principles back.
17.45
Kinda wishing he’d wrap this up. I think I’ve reached my maximum political activism for the day.
17.41
Paul: You don’t have freedom because you are an American you have freedom because you are an individual.
17.40
Paul: There is only one type of freedom and that is individual liberty.
17.38
By the way I’ve just been informed that @lybberty has just made a video of the Women of CPAC 2010 have not viewed it yet.
17.35
Paul: The next coming problem is the reluctance to accept the dollar.
17.35
Paul: I will not vote for one single penny that we can not pay for.
17.34
Paul: The bottom line for all Conservatives is how are we going to pay for it. We are in 140 countries and 700 nations and our debt is exploding.
17.32
Paul: George W Bush was elected based on the platform of domestic policies. There is nothing wrong with being a Conservative and being for a strong national defense and not going to war so carelessly.
17.31
Paul: I’ve taken a very clear position on the 16th Amendment. End the Fed! [crowd starts chanting "End the Fed!]
17.30
Paul: 1913 was not a good year. It gave us the IRS and the income tax.
17.29
17.27
Paul: To me to be a Conservative means to conserve the goods parts of America and getting rid of the bad parts.
17.25
Ron Paul is in the house. Lots of cheering and some booing.
17.24
Ron Paul coming on. The Campaign for Liberty people are chanting “END THE FED”. I’m partially expecting talk of CIA coups and shadow men.
17.18
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell just made a special appearance. Nothing said of any real substance. Still awaiting Ron Paul.
17.07
Various pics from the day. Just got to a decent connection so I wanted to get some stuff uploaded.
Security panel.
Rush special video call.
Tom Price.
Crowd coming in for Ron Paul.
16.47
Room really filling up for Ron Pauls upcoming speech.
16.25
Price: This Congress is made up of a majority of career politicians that have never had a real job or run a business. They have no idea how to create jobs because they’ve never signed the front side of a check for one that they over saw.
16.14
Price: I cannot wait to return to CPAC next year to celebrate a Conservative majority in Congress and a goodbye to Nancy Pelosi.
16.11
Tom Price just informed me that it will be 67F when I get back to Georgia on Sunday. Very happy to hear that.
16.10
Ed Feulner coming on to introduce Tom Price and plugging Mount Vernen Doctrine.
15.56
Anita Moncreif, former ACORN employee just received a standing ovation for her courage in coming to CPAC and describing the voter fraud that ACORN is up to. I unfortunately missed blogging most of it because I was trying to get some photo’s up, but that was also unsuccessful because the connection here has suddenly turned to total garbage.
14.53
Gilmore: I think the Patriot Act has been affective when there is proper oversight and it doesn’t allow intrusion into the lives of Americans.
14.51
Gilmore: I think the Patriot Act has been affective when there is proper oversight and it doesn’t allow intrusion into the lives of Americans.
14.47
Barr: I don’t believe our military personal should be disarmed while they are on their base.
14.45
Sekulow is now asking the panel if Muslims should be allowed to serve in the Army because of what is going on with the South Carolina military poisoning story today. Do we do background checks on soldiers?
14.43
Dinh: We have military tribunals for the entire purpose of trying war criminals. The President has the right to chose to allow an enemy combatant to be tried in a civilian court. But he has to explain why and is held accountable to the Democratic process when he makes that decision. He has to explain why he wants KSM to be given the rights of U.S. citizens when his only connection to those people is that he wants to kill them.
14.39
Barr: If we pass laws that expressly bring terrorists to justice, then use the law. But we can’t go down the path of getting the cake and eating it to. The military doesn’t necessarily have better lawyers than the private sector.
14.33
Jim Gilmore: All of these people we are discussing are enemy combatants, they all want to do harm to U.S. citizens.
14.32
Robert Ash: People don’t understand why our current administration is wanting to release our enemies back onto the battlefield. Why they want to provide them lawyers and the rights of our citizens, and why they fail to admit that we are in a war with jihadists that want to kill us.
14.29
Dinh: We have every right in war to kill the other sides warriors.
14.25
Dinh: No where in the Constitution is there a guarantee of security.
14.22
Up now is the Does Security Trump Freedom panel featuring:
Hon. Bob Barr
Hon. Jim Gilmore, Free Congress Foundation
Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA)
Viet Dinh, Georgetown University Law Center
Moderated by Jay Seculow
12.39
Taking a short break to grab some food. Aiming to be back for Rep. Michele Bachmann (MN).
12.32
Health Care panel wrapping up.
12.31
Novack: Over the last decade the public has been completely ignored from the health care debate by the Washington elite.
12.27
Novack: We need an adult conversation about health care moving forward.
12.26
Martin: Congress Conroy cut 40 billion from health care for seniors.
12.19
Jim Martin, 60 Plus Foundation: People ask me if I work for the AARP so often that I came up with an alternate slogan. Association Against Retired People.
12.18
Scherz: Check out docs4patientcare.com for more information. Doctors don’t take care of Republicans or Democrats, they take care of patients.
12.16
Scherz: Deep in the Senate bill it is written that doctors must work with HHS and comply with their regulations or they will not be allowed to serve patients.
12.15
Scherz: Tort reform on malpractice insurance must happen.
12.14
Scherz: Those that can’t afford health care should receive vouchers that provide them emergency care.
12.13
Dr. Hal Scherz, Docs for Patient Care: Doctors and hospitals should post the costs of their procedures so that patients can shop for the best value.
12.01
Heather Higgins: The current outcry is a build up of 70 years of disgust at out of control spending.
11.57
Health Care panel includes:
Heather Higgins, Independent Women’s Voice
Dr. Eric Novack, Arizonans for Healthcare Freedom
Dr. Hal Scherz, Docs for Patient Care
Jim Martin, 60 Plus Foundation
11.48
Mike is done. Eemcee claims it was one of the best speeches delivered at CPAC. Saving Freedom from Health Care next panel coming up.
11.47
Pence: We must take this country back in 2010. You at CPAC are the faithful representatives to carry the message forward.
11.44
Pence: The time have come to end all federal funding for Planned Parenthood! [huge applause]
11.43
Pence: Part of the issue with America’s decline is a moral issue. We have to reclaim a hold on traditional American values. We must defend life, we must defend the sanctity of marriage.
11.42
Pence: Get government out of the way and America will come roaring back.
11.39
Pence: When dealing with China, one hand should be extended in free trade while the other hand rests comfortably on the holster of the arsenal of democracy.
11.38
Pence: There should never be a question that America stands with Israel.
11.38
Pence: America is on its knees from years of reckless spending. Government officials have told me they see their job as “managing Americas decline”. The job of the American president is not to manage American decline, it is to improve America!
11.37
Pence: America is on its knees from years of reckless spending. Government officials have told me they see their job as “managing Americas decline”. The job of the American president is not to manage American decline, it is to improve America!
11.35
Pence: We need a Conservative Congress in 2010 | Thanks for the plug Mike! ConservativeCongress.com coming March 1st. Free tip on that one.
11.33
Pence: To borrow from a regular CPAC speaker a few years ago, “A recession is when your neighbor loses their job. A depression is when you lose your job. A recovery is when Nancy Pelosi loses her job!”
11.32
Pence: As my beloved Colts found out last week, you’ve got to be ready for an onside kick. Pelosi better be ready for an onside kick!
11.31
Pence reflecting on 9/12 rally: I remember coming around the corner of Congress and looking out at the National Mall and my knees locked. …New York Times said there were a few people. Fox News said there was a billion. [laughs]
11.22
Getting started on the live blog a little late today. But duty called on some real work stuff. So we will kick it off with Mike Pence from Indiana.
06.51
Grace-Marie Turner, Galen Institute : Dems will introduce a combined Health Care bill on Monday and dare Repubs from opposing it at the Health Care Summit.
CPAC Thursday Live Blog
16.57
Closing down for the day. I’ll post up a wrap up later.
16.55
LaPieree describing some pretty frightening examples of police just going into peoples homes and taking their guns without cause. Apparently this was a big problem down in NO after Katrina. Police and military just entering homes and taking peoples weapons. “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
That whole “shall not be infringed” part must be subject to interpretation…
16.42
LaPierre: The authorities have no authority to deny you the right to protect yourself.
16.30
LaPierre: Remember when the media was telling us last fall that truck loads of guns are coming into Mexico from the U.S.? My B.S. meter went off the charts!
—
Got a pretty big laugh.
16.29
Wayne LaPierre of the NRA up next.
16.23
Social media, blogging, tweeting event was sorta meh. If you’ve been to PDF Conference or really heard anyone talk about joining the “movement” of social media in any form you’ve probably heard the same thing before. David All is pretty intriguing guy to hear speak though.
16.21
House Minority Leader John Boehner just finishing up. Caught the tail end after coming back from break up group on tweeting and blogging.
14.09
Mitt closing down, off to lunch. Be back in about an hour with more updates.
14.02
Mitt: Isn’t it odd that those who are most against the private sector will soon find themselves looking for work there.
14.00
Mitt: America is not better off than it was 1.8 Trillion dollars ago.
13.58
Mitt: Liberals are not ignorant. It’s just that what they know is wrong.
13.57
Mitt: No one but the Democrats can be blamed for the rise of unemployment over 10% but the Democrats. So when you want to pin the blame, pin the blame on the Donkeys.
13.54
Mitt: Obamacare is bad care for America.
13.52
Mitt: Obama acts as if saying “No” is always a bad thing… [But] why do the Democrats say no to missile defense, tax cuts, trying KSM in a military tribunal…
13.46
Mitt Romney: Lindsey Vonn’s Downhill Gold Medal was stripped today. It was determined President Obama was going down hill faster than her.
13.45
Scott Brown just introduced Mitt Romney.
13.45
Tucker Carlson talked about The Daily Caller a bit. Said it was doing really well, which is great because I have enjoyed writing for him.
13.44
Erik: I run Red State from Macon, GA. You don’t need to live in Washington, DC to play a role in the movement.
13.11
Attending the Saving Freedom Through Technology: Growth of the Online Movement session with Rob Bluey from Heritage Foundation moderating. Erick Erikson from Red State just spoke on getting involved in the online conservative movement from anywhere using twitter, facebook, blogging, etc.
13.04
Dick Cheney: I believe Obama is a one term president.
We’ll keep our fingers crossed Dick.
12.06
Ended up having trouble finding the Obama Secrecy panel. So I dropped into a showing of the Newt Gingrich film Finding God in America. Pretty interesting insights into the founding fathers and start of the country. I’ll tryto find the trailer online when I get back to some Wifi. Just on the old iPhone at the moment.
10.51
Gonna be heading to break out on Breaking Obama Secrecy. By the way, just announced 10,000 strong at this years conference.
10.50
Stephen Baldwin about to come up and talk about media.
10.49
Finishing up some of the closing speeches. Sen. Mike Demint closing. Speeches so far are what you would expect. Not a ton of substance. Pretty much “Ra-Ra!” speeches to get the crowd pumped up for the event. Good stuff though!
10.41
So far we’ve had the welcome speech by David Keene and a pretty rousing “campaign” speech from Marco Rubio. The guys pretty sharp. I honestly wouldn’t blink an eye if we are seeing him take a run at the presidency 6-10 years from now.
10.39
CPAC is up and running. Will be live blogging from this post all day. So you can keep refreshing this post to see the latest entries.
03.02
Liz Cheney just surprised the crowd with her father Dick Cheney.
1934 Predictions From The Chicago Tribune
The Census Is Wasting Millions of Dollars
Okay, so it’s probably not a surprise, but Yahoo! Finance is reporting that the upcoming release of an audit of the census’ costs in 2010 show the costs ran over. According to the article,
While the project finished ahead of schedule, Census director Robert Groves in October acknowledged the costs had ballooned $88 million higher than the original estimate of $356 million, an overrun of 25 percent. He cited faulty assumptions in the bureau’s cost estimates.
Let’s assume this was the private sector and a company ran costs over by 25%. Wouldn’t the business have to take the losses without complaining, or risk a lawsuit by the customer? In this case, the government is taking the losses, but of course those losses are backstopped by the American taxpayer. Fortunately, the article offers a number of solutions (emphasis mine)-
Because the population count, done every 10 years, is used to distribute U.S. House seats and billions in federal aid, many states are pushing for all-out government efforts in outreach since there is little margin for error — particularly for Democratic-leaning minorities and the poor, who tend to be undercounted. At the same time, the national headcount will employ 1 million temporary workers and is the most expensive ever, making it a visible sign of rising government spending.
Allow me to make a statement before offering my ideas: The fact that the census is the most expensive ever is probably not a big deal. It is to be expected, because our population is rising, though I have to wonder- what with the popularity of the Internet- if the census could be partially done online, saving massive costs. However, that is mostly beside the point.
The solution to backstopping the American taxpayer is simple- every state and federal official, as well as any non-governmental activist and advocacy groups, pushing for the census to be so widespread it is losing money should pay for the extra costs personally. Or, better yet, have those organizations and people volunteer their time to go to the inner cities and minority areas where undercounting is alleged and take care of the census issues personally. Conservative, liberal, moderate, Socialist, Fascist, whatever- if the organization or individual is pushing for efforts beyond what the census has done before, those people should cover the costs that go over the expectations.
It is well-established that the census is necessary, and of course it has to be done by the government to ensure (allegedly, that is) that the process is fair and unbiased. With the push for illegal immigrants to be counted in this year’s census, however, and the change in prisoner address policy, private citizens need to keep an eye on what’s going on, and demand that not only are costs reigned in, but that those organizations which influence the census’ policies pay for the costs of said influences.
MISS ME YET?
Yes, this is real. Found near the town of Wyoming, Minnesota on I-35 you will find a giant George W. Bush waving at you.
