Yet, I see and hear both conservatives and liberals, Democrats and Republicans every day demanding that government step on other peoples individual rights.

A current example of the point I’m attempting to make is the move towards the legalization of marijuana. Christians, conservatives and Republicans have their panties in a wad over this issue. Why? Because they don’t like it, that’s why. The fact is the use of marijuana should be an individual decision and interference in an individuals use of it by government is as much a nanny-state tactic as obamacare.

Before you get all wound up, let me go on the record as stating unequivocally that I am not a user of marijuana. I tried it once about ten years ago and it was not for me. However, I have had a few friends over the years who did use it. In some cases, I was in their presence while they were smoking it. I can’t say that I’ve ever seen any effect on them except a “mellowing out.” That is not so say they couldn’t have been dangerous to themselves or others if they were driving or something – I just don’t know. Further to that point, I do use (and have mis-used) alcohol on occasion and have been in the presence of others who have mis-used alcohol on many occasions. They are almost always a danger to themselves and others. Look at the number of deaths associated with drunk driving. How many deaths are you aware of due to pot-smoking. Personally, I am aware of none. In fact I can’t even recall ever hearing about one. I am using the marijuana issue to illustrate the point I’m trying to make.

Back to my point now.

Even MADD doesn’t advocate a ban on alcohol. They advocate for safe driving. I think if they advocated for a ban they would be out of business so to speak. If someone wants to smoke pot and “mellow out” why should it matter to government? If someone wants to sell pot and not pay the taxes on it that’s another story. Do you see the difference? One person sells something which is supposed to be taxed (a proper use of government authority) and should be dealt with accordingly for his violation of the law and another person wants to mellow out and in the process violate no law other than an inappropriate law which violates his personal freedom.

Those same Christians, conservatives and Republicans (including myself) are all wound up about President Obama trying to jam his demented obamacare plan down our throats because, for one thing, it impinges on our right not to have health care by fining those who don’t choose to buy health insurance. There are other considerations, of course, but this one serves for my analogy.

The issue is not obamacare or legalization of marijuana – it is allowing our rights as individuals and citizens of the United States to be diminished. The issue of maintaining our rights as individuals and doing what we choose to do as long as it doesn’t harm others is what is important. We should ALL be able to agree on that.

In fact, lets compare Barack Obama to Robert Mugabe.

From Wikipedia: Mugabe’s government supported the Southern African Development Community’s intervention in the Second Congo War; expropriated thousands of white-owned farms; printed hundreds of trillions of Zimbabwean dollars, causing hyperinflation; and harassed and intimidated such political opponents as the Movement for Democratic Change.
Mugabe has described his critics as “born again colonialists”, and both he and his supporters claim Zimbabwe’s problems are the legacy of imperialism, aggravated by Western economic meddling.

Obama’s government supports ACORN’s intervention in the Mortgage Banking industry, the Internal Revenue Service and HUD. Obama has expropriated major financial, insurance and manufacturing businesses; prints trillions of dollars, which will soon cause hyperinflation; and harasses and intimidates such political opponents as FOX News, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck.

Obama regularly denounces his critics, sometimes engages in name-calling, and both he and his supporters claim America’s problems are the legacy of racial prejudice, aggravated by personal and corporate greed.

I understand and agree with Jeff’s frustration with the way things are in our government.

However, I disagree that blowoutcongress.com is the answer.  I disagree because it is essentially the strategy which President Obama used to get elected and subsequently get us onto the superhighway to disaster.  It plays on the emotions of people who are dissatisfied with government by evoking the “anything is better than this” attitude.  Since the election of Barack Obama, Americans (including many Obama voters) have come to realize that “anything” is not necessarily better than “this.”  Certainly change was/is needed, but not just change for the sake of change.  Change for the better was and is still needed.

This strategy preys on the emotions of those who don’t really know what they want – they just want “different.”  That’s child-like and I think many people are now realizing that they should have looked more carefully before they leapt on the Obama bandwagon.  Jeff Bolton however is promoting the very same strategy and in so doing, preying on the same emotions as the people who voted the wrong way in the last election.  My own emotions want to agree – anyone would be better than Obama.  But following my emotions in this case would be stupid.  What would be more intelligent is to help to find someone truly better, more in line with the real desires of most Americans, to run for President in 2012.  The same things applies to my congresspeople.  Rather than just fire them and replace them with anyone who wants to run, I should communicate my wishes to them and to anyone who will listen to me in order to get the very best person to represent me.

Frankly, I’m pretty happy with my congressman.  I don’t want to replace him just to start anew.  That would be the Obama plan.  I didn’t like the idea of electing someone with absolutely no experience other than rabble-rousing.  Someone with dubious ties to dubious characters.  Someone whose mantra was hope and change.  Jeff’s plan demands change and hopes for the best.  That’s what got us Obama.

There are a couple other troubling things going on too.  Jeff has mentioned once or twice that he has been approached to run for congress.  And KLIF is heavily promoting an adjunct to Jeff’s morning show where he will have a panel of blacks on his show which he will moderate.  The premise is “what is it like to be black in Dallas.”  Separately, blowoutcongress.com, the black panel and the possible run for congress are not bothersome – together though they begin to look a bit like a self-serving campaign for political office.

If, in fact, the convergence of these initiatives is actually nothing more than the beginning of a run for political office, it’s bothersome in it’s sneakiness.

In case you’re wondering why I don’t just express my opinions directly to Jeff Bolton?  I have attempted to do so several times without success.  I’m not interested in being on hold for 20 minutes only to find he is “up against a commercial break” whereupon my call is ended.  And I have tried emailing several times and gotten nothing but an auto-generated reply for my trouble.

From Chris Strohm writing for the  National Journal

A coalition of business groups continued to wage a legal battle today as a government mandate took effect requiring federal contractors to verify the immigration status of employees working on government projects.

Of course the ACLU has a problem with this.  The Washington Independent quotes an ACLU statement:

In the middle of the toughest job market in decades, the administration has chosen to erect another roadblock to gainful employment for U.S. workers. Mandating all federal contractors to use E-Verify could encourage contractors to fire workers based on erroneous database discrepancies and to avoid hiring workers who are perceived to be foreign born. This flawed Bush-era policy, now adopted by the current administration, will only hurt the American workforce without improving our nation’s immigration enforcement practices.

“U.S. workers” is obfuscation of the facts.  What they are talking about here are illegal aliens, not legal aliens and US Citizens.

This program is a good thing for our country, our unemployed workers and our economy.  If workers are here illegally they should not be employed.  Period.  The stats for the success of the re-configured e-verify are acceptable.  From the NPR site:

Years Of Refining The Program

The rule does give companies 30 days after a contract is awarded to enroll employees.

Spokesman Bill Wright of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that administers E-Verify, says the Web site is quicker and more precise than older methods.

Earlier versions were not so accurate: At one point 20 percent of all workers were flagged as illegal. But after years of refining the program, Wright says, the rate is down to 3 percent. And less than one-tenth of those are mistakes, such as wrong numbers or wrong names, rather than illegal workers.

“That basically means 2.8 percent — just under the 3 — were found to be not authorized to work in the United States,” Wright says. “Translation: E-Verify system works. That’s exactly what it’s supposed to do.”

Predictably, some people are unhappy about it.  Unhappy because it will either cost them money to check the legality of their existing workforce or cost them money to hire legal American workers to replace the illegal aliens who are currently working for them on government projects.  Very patiriotic don’t you think?  Maybe if they didn’t hire illegal aliens in the first place they wouldn’t have this problem – because WE wouldn’t have this problem.  Quit whining and play by the rules.  It is especially egregious to me that illegal aliens are working for government contractors.

This system should be required by every employer in the United States. And severe penalties should come into play if illegals are hired.  If the didn’t have jobs, they’d go back where they came from and maybe our healthcare system wouldn’t be overtaxed and ridiculously priced to cover the cost of illegal alien who use it and don’t pay.  If the illegaliens are removed the picture, there are enough jobs available bring unemployment down to normal levels.  They would voluntarily remove themselves if they couldn’t work here.  We wouldn’t have to round them up.  At the borders we could concentrate on terrorists, drugs and gang members instead of being overwhelmed with trying to hold back the tsunami of illegaliens coming here to take jobs from Americans and suck dry the healthcare system.