Enough About You, Let’s Talk About Me

John McCain is what my Father would have dead-on pegged as a silvershirt: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_shirts

The difference is that it is not the 1930’s, it’s 2008. There’s no Nazi Germany to inspire McCain’s militarism.

However, he and his ilk find an outlet in an all-out support for the American Empire — overseas and at home — whatever it takes to suffocate our civil liberties in the name of “security.” And that includes American men and women crippled for life and dying in Iraq for 100 years. That, says McCain, “would be fine with me”: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFknKVjuyNk.

Think about it. How was Nazi Germany different, except in degree? We have Gitmo now. How long will it be before we have domestic Gitmos? (Possibly we do — who would know?)

All it takes is a few more regulations to give some TSA agent the power to decide that because you don’t look right to him or her you need to be “detained.”

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It’s deja vu all over again. 1968: Ronald Reagan, the conservative candidate for President (his campaign never got off the ground), loses the nomination to the “moderate” Republican Richard Nixon. Nixon wins, conservatives in Congress are effectively silenced. Nixon rightly figures, “where will they go?” and moves left. It takes conservatives 12 years to regroup within the GOP. Many who voted for Nixon on the lesser of two evils theory bitterly regret it when they realize how they have been sandbagged.

2008: Conservatives are faced with the lesser of two evils argument once again. Vote for McCain because he’s better on some issues than the Democrat? “Throw away” your vote on a third party candidate? Stay home? Some are even threatening to vote for the Democrat, either Clinton or Obama, figuring that 1) we’re entering a recession and the president will be blamed, so better them than us, and 2) four years of crazy liberalism will energize conservatives and the country and the next election will be a conservative GOP landslide.

This also reminds me of 1976 (when I worked full-time for Ronald Reagan). We lost the nomination to the more liberal Jerry Ford, who lost the election to Jimmy Carter. Four years later the country was so fed up with Carter, and the conservative movement had grown so strong, that Reagan won in a landslide. Should conservative Republicans take 1976 as their model? Yes, they should.

Either that, or form a new party. Conservatives have to stop thinking that conservatism and the GOP are joined at the hip.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMShvQa4SI0

Is a disaster.  You wouldn’t believe the stories I’ve heard lately from hard money lenders.  Defaults, foreclosures, losses up the wazoo.

Stay away, stay far away, from doing hard money lending or buying the paper right now.

I went to www.missingmoney.com and looked up my name to see if I had any unclaimed assets. I didn’t. I looked up some friends and, amazingly, about half of them did (I let them know, of course).

It’s a free service sponsored by state governments or something. Try it — bet you never expected to make money just reading a blog posting.

Since he’s running in the Republican primaries for president, don’t expect Mike Huckabee to be advertising the strong endorsement he just got from Ted Strickland, Ohio’s Democratic governor. It seems Mr. Strickland, who typically racked up a 95% rating from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action during his 16 years in Congress, has discovered a kindred spirit in Mr. Huckabee. He told the Cincinnati Enquirer last Sunday that Mr. Huckabee is a “combination of conservative views in some ways, but very, almost liberal views in other ways.” Mr. Strickland concluded: “Of all the Republican candidates, Mr. Huckabee would be my personal choice.”

While Mr. Strickland didn’t specifically mention education as an area where he shares agreement with Mr. Huckabee’s “almost liberal views,” it’s notable that the former Arkansas governor was endorsed for the GOP nomination this month by the New Hampshire affiliate of the National Education Association. Mr. Huckabee has sent mixed signals on support for school choice, but the president of the NEA in New Hampshire cited opposition to school vouchers that Mr. Huckabee apparently expressed in his meeting with the union as a key reason for the endorsement.

As for Mr. Strickland, he has become one of the most vociferous opponents of school choice anywhere in the country. Earlier this year, he attempted to end Ohio’s statewide school choice experiment with a line-item veto, called for a moratorium on new charter schools, and said he would like to ban for-profit companies from operating schools in Ohio. It’s frequently said politics makes strange bedfellows, but in the case of Ohio’s Democratic governor lavishing praise on Republican Mike Huckabee, it appears to be a case of two peas in a pod. — OpinionJournal’s Political Diary

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The Constitution is a “living, breathing, document.” — Mike Huckabee, CNN interview, Jan. 18, 2008

WJM – That is the classic liberal position for amending the Constitution to adopt every passing social fad, including repealing the Bill Of Rights. Oh, I’m going way too far? Read up on the French Revolution, which is the clear path to where liberalism goes: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reign_of_Terror

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Jan 28, 2005, by Doug Thompson, Arkansas News Bureau:
LITTLE ROCK – Gov. Mike Huckabee Thursday denounced a bill by Sen. Jim Holt that would deny state benefits to illegal immigrants as un-Christian, un-American, irresponsible and anti-life.

Holt, R-Springdale, replied later that Christian charity does not include turning a blind eye to lawbreaking.

Senate Bill 206, filed Wednesday, also would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and would require state agencies to report suspected cases of people living in the country illegally.

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Not surprisingly, The Huckster is religiously liberal as well:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/19/AR2007121901856.html

What The Huckster said in the above Washington Post article is consistent with a movement called neoevangelicalism, which in practice is almost indistinguishable from social gospelism. The difference is that neoevangelicals retain some
semblance of Biblical faith. But there’s not a whole lot of difference between The Huckster and Jimmy Carter, or Al Sharpton for that matter. They all use Jesus as their justification for big government social programs. The Huckster (and to give him his due, Carter) probably believe it, too — which makes them much more dangerous than a Sharpton.