Tom’s Big Picture

I find myself getting more and more excited by the prospect of the Paul candidacy. I thought this video, from his 1996 Congressional campaign and not widely distributed, is particularly interesting because it reveals details of his family life. Of the four top-funded candidates (Romney, Thompson, Guiliani, and Paul), he’s the only one who’s not either a pro-choice Mormon or an adulterer. And besides those negative qualifications, he’s also the most conservative candidate.

And an interesting story about how Yankee-liberal-turned-Texan Bush Sr. managed to get himself on Reagan’s ticket after Reagan defeated him for the 1980 nomination.  Click here to read.  You might have to scroll a bit to get to the story.  I find the Alexa rating data quite compelling.

I wonder if Fred Thompson ever sees fellow members Rick Warren or Southern Baptist bureaucrat Richard Land at Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) meetings; I wonder if they chat about their kids between sessions while they plot a North American Union and conspire to overthrow our country’s sovereignty.  Just a thought on the banality of treason… 

Anyway, it’s good to see somebody make Fred Thompson uncomfortable about his dubious associations while he tries to pretend to be a conservative in Houston, Texas today.

My analysis of the Republican nomination for President:

After initially supporting Tom Tancredo, I now support Ron Paul for the Republican nomination. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. Tancredo’s campaign, for some reason, has yet to pick up steam. I fear the immigration issue has been co-opted by all of the other candidates, and Tancredo is having trouble “branding” himself as the standard bearer, a title he deserves. Ironically, Tancredo’s success in Congress in bringing attention to the immigration issue may have aborted his attempt to be President, since amnesty is now as “untouchable” politically as gun control for anyone seeking the Republican nomination. Tancredo is a national hero for his role in organizing opposition to Bush’s amnesty, and if the nation survives in the long run, history may recognize him as the second greatest Italian person in our history, behind Columbus. Knights of Tancredo, anyone? Seriously, Tancredo would make a great President (or Speaker of the House later on!), but I don’t see any momentum there, and that could change. Ron Paul, however, is making remarkable progress…

2. I had heard rumors a few weeks ago about Paul’s fundraising success. Now, it is official that Ron Paul has more cash on hand than John McCain, and is in third place financially. Given the large corporate metropolitan support behind Romney and Giuliani, this is remarkable, reflecting a large grassroots level of support. At this point in the game, a small corps of very intense deep support is possibly more important than soft support in a poll because you’ve been running television ads (e.g. Romney). Some reports have also indicated that following his debate confrontation with serial adulterer and all-around sociopath Rudy Giuliani (Paul has been married to the same woman for fifty years), his name became the most popular search term on the Internet, displacing pop culture searches like “Paris Hilton” for a few days. For real conservatives, the smart money is now on Paul, who leads Tancredo in cash by about 5:1.

3. Because of the intense support he enjoyed when he talked realistically about the war and his seriousness in chaining the federal government back to its constitutional bounds, I see Paul breaking away from the “second tier” candidates. Since McCain is now pretty much a dead duck (pro-war and pro-amnesty, just like Bush, who couldn’t get elected dogcatcher), I see the race becoming between front runners Giuliani and Romney, with Paul a strong third.

4. I don’t think Paul is likely to win, but his chances are not insignificant. And that’s miraculous given Paul’s positions. Paul is like having a Founding Father running for President- he actually supports what the Constitution says, which is amazing in our political environment. Since he has a non-negligible chance of getting the nomination, I see it as my duty to support him as the candidate most reflective of my views.

5. Paul can win the general election, because he’s the only Republican with a better war record than Hillary. Ron Paul opposes any war not declared by Congress, which is why he voted against a “police action” in Iraq. Unlike Bush and his chickenhawk neocon advisers, Paul has actually served in the military and doesn’t think American troops should be wasted on these chickenpoop nation-building exercises. If it’s war, we declare it, fight it, and go home. I agree with this guy that many people are in “Hillary Denial” and don’t appreciate the albatross the war has become for the Republican Party. Paul may be the only Republican who CAN win.

6. Ron Paul’s election would bring real hope for our country’s future. I have to admit, I have long given up hope for the federal government. I’ve come to see it as an empire birthed by Lincoln, that must inevitably run its course from tyranny to depravity. Only by waiting for its demise could we hope to restore true liberty in a saving remnant of the American nation. But Paul offers hope for three reasons: 1) He is profoundly conservative, probably the most conservative of any in Congress, but also 2) is able to deliver his message very inoffensively, and 3) offers a realistic Grand Bargain between warring sides in the Culture Wars who have a common interest in overthrowing the Establishment (which largely uses the Culture Wars as bait to gin up their respective bases, while doing nothing substantial about the core issues). Paul is able to communicate as this harmless, likable character that appeals very much to even very liberal people. He was by far the most popular candidate to speak at Google, a place known as a hotbed for infantile liberal ideas. However, if it turns out that the freedom to smoke pot or engage in other vices means more to liberals than socialist health care, then Ron Paul (and his federalism in returning regulation of that sort of thing to the states) is a bargain. There’s no other political movement I know of that could get me (a hardcore traditionalist) under the same tent as a cannabis enthusiast. That’s a lot of potential, and a wonderful development. I will ally with anyone, liberal or conservative, to get the federal government to butt out of state concerns. They can have socialism in San Francisco, and we’ll have freedom in Texas. This idea of two irreconcilable worldviews trying to control and reform each other via the federal government is waste and silliness for both sides. Paul provides a forum for the Culture Wars to resolve through peaceful secession of common interests, to agree to disagree and stop bothering each other.

7. I think libertarians are about half right, but have this sort of autistic tendency to assume humans are perfectly rational, and in extreme cases, makes for ridiculous policy prescriptions. However, I can strategically support a libertarian like Paul for President, as the President controls our enemy, the federal government, and a libertarian will weaken the power of my enemy. In fact, I think government ought to be powerful in inverse proportion to its size. I would prefer authoritarian local government (as do most people, when you look at the subdivision restrictions most people are more than happy to submit to), a conservative state government, and to the extent necessary, a libertarian federal government.

I think I’ll put a little check in the mail to Ron and his campaign. The man deserves so much credit for just standing on unwavering principles of the Old Republic in these late days of the American Empire.

The feminists will have a field day with this one on so many levels.  Click here to read the story.

I think people’s pets can tell you a bit about them. I, for example, am a cat person. I find dogs to be way too needy. I like an animal with its own mind and that is pleasing to look at.

So what does Michael Vick’s choice in pets (and treatment of his pets) reveal anthropologically about Vick and Vick’s culture?

Later, authorities seized from the property 60 dogs — most of them pit bulls — along with treadmills, a stick used to pry fighting animals apart, and a “rape stand” device used to hold down aggressive females for breeding.

Perhaps his previous legal experiences foreshadow this revelation:

This is not Vick’s first encounter with negative publicity. He settled a lawsuit last year filed by a woman who said he knowingly gave her herpes. Also, last November he made an obscene gesture to Falcons fans as he walked off the field after a 31-13 loss to the New Orleans Saints. He later apologized. And in January, Vick was stopped by security screeners at the Miami airport after he boarded an AirTran flight carrying a water bottle that had a hidden compartment containing a dark substance that smelled like marijuana. He told screeners he used the bottle to store jewelry.

Reaction to the incident provides its own share of dark humor (no pun intended!):

“The only thing close to this was the John Rocker story,” said program director Matt Edgar, referring to the former pitcher for the Atlanta Braves whose racist comments in December 1999 made national news. “But this is on another level. It’s crazy.”

I’m glad that John Rocker can be retired now as the bad-PR poster boy, eight years after merely stating publicly what most normal people (esp. Georgians, who are probably less likely to fool themselves with PC propaganda to paper over observed data) feel privately about riding the subway in NYC (he forgot to mention the omnipresent smell of urine which encapsulates the subway and a 200 foot perimeter of all above-ground subway entrances!):

“It’s the most hectic, nerve-racking city. Imagine having to take the 7 Train to the ballpark, looking like you’re riding through Beirut next to some kid with purple hair, next to some queer with AIDS, right next to some dude who just got out of jail for the fourth time, right next to some 20-year-old mom with four kids. It’s depressing.”

For that, Rocker immediately got suspended from 14 games. Vick’s punishment at this juncture?

The league said in a statement that “all concerned should allow the legal process to determine the facts.” In a separate statement, the Falcons said they “plan to do the right thing for our club as the legal process plays out.”

Can’t jump to conclusions and suspend someone over something minor, after all…I mean, it’s just torturing dogs, not publicly expressed crimethink like Rocker.

I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding, with some racist prosecutor looking to take down promising young athletes. Kind of like the Duke Lacrosse case.

I had my first real job when I was 17, upgrading from a bagboy position at the local Piggly Wiggly ($4.25 minimum wage) to a sales position at Radioshack. It was nice- 6% commission. I averaged $7 an hour.

My first check came near the 4th of July. After seeing how much the government took out of my check, I was not feeling particularly patriotic.

Come to think of it, the 4th signifies less and less those original lovers of liberty, the Founding Fathers, and has become an orgy of American military vainglory showmanship. I find it particularly ironic that the Lee Greenwood song (without any irony intended) says “the flag still stands for freedom, and they can’t take that away.”

Two observations about that particular lyric. First, ole Lee merely says that the flag still stands for freedom. Our freedoms, of course, have been much eroded since that original July 4th; and so the only comfort remaining to us is the fact that the flag at leasts stands for the freedom we once had. And second, who is “they” who would “take that away”? The “they”, of course, are the elites who no longer value our national identity and heritage, but worship the twin devils of dollars and diversity. It’s a pretty pathetic song for a pretty thin patriotism, but a realistic assessment of our predicament.

However, two recent developments, both occurring on the same day, June 28th 2007, convince me that we are freer this July 4th than the last. For on that day, two amazing things happened: the American people defeated the massive Bush-Kennedy amnesty for illegal aliens, and the Supreme Court essentially overturned the classic interpretation of the odious Brown vs. Board of Education ruling.

Let’s talk about the amnesty first. The Establishment was united in their support of this bill. Everyone from MoveOn socialists to the Chamber of Commerce was behind this puppy. The Left saw future voters, the Stupid Right saw cheap labor and short-term profits. The Globalists saw the first step in eroding national sovereignty- for if citizenship is meaningless, then so are borders and nations.

Yet, for the first time, and largely powered by the Internet, Middle Americans prevailed against their enemies above and below- the Globalist overclass with their deracinated loyalties only to their pocketbooks, and the criminal underclass enjoying a slight boost in their standard of living from the countries from whence they came.

This plan generated such opposition that many of those who so badly wanted to sell us out (including our two senators here in Texas) were forced by constituent rage to back away from voting for it. So many people were enraged by this that we actually crashed the Senate phone system. That’s a revolt long overdue.

What’s most encouraging to me is that it shows our civilization still has a functioning immune system. We reacted and exercised power. And this could be a real turning point- power is often not used until a group realizes they possess it. Having put together a solid defense, perhaps we can pursue the offensive soon.

The Supreme Court decision was similarly encouraging, especially when you consider the gnashing of teeth on the Left about it. We now know that the original Brown decision was based on fraudulent research which gave the activist Warren court license to overturn the obvious interpretation of the law.

What’s especially encouraging is that the attorney for the plaintiffs (parents whose children were victims of Brown-derived reverse discrimination schemes in the Seattle school district) took the case pro-bono, with no guarantee of compensation. His name is Harry Korrell: