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.

No, the problem is we are showing weakness and those who would take our place as “king of the jungle” don’t merely sense it.  They see it, smell it, taste it and recognize that the opportunity they have waited so long for is palpable in it’s closeness. Now is their time. The opportunity is irresistible.  President Obama has been pushed aside from the position of leader of the free world due to  his rank appeasement of Russia, China, Iran and others.

Putin kicked sand in Obamas face and Obama backed down from the European missile defense system while doublecrossing Poland and Czechoslavakia. For fear of hurting the feelings of the Red Chinese he put off his meeting with the Dalai Lama. To keep up the pretense that we have global influence he allows Iran to get closer every day to acquiring a nuclear bomb. North Korea threatens our allies in the region with nuclear weapons and missile overflights while we give them “stern warnings”. He  convenes meetings with bureaucrats to question the wisdom and experience of his own General in Afghanistan while our servicemen and women are blown to bits.

It’s clear to the world from our Presidents false starts and failures to think about the consequences of his actions that we are adrift and rudderless. And those who are ambitious are acting to ascend to their “destinies” as world leaders because that is the nature of ambition. Couple that with whatever it is in human nature which produces schadenfreude and you can easily see why others are snickering over Obamas fumbled “Hail Mary pass” of an Olympics pitch.

President Obama has behaved like a megalomaniac from his first day in office. That was easy to do riding the wave of popularity which swept him into office. But none of his grandiose plans have come to fruition. He is encountering resistance on all fronts. Yet he carries on pompously declaring this or that and delivering on nothing.

Acting like a hero is not the same as actually being a hero. Heroism requires courage and action.  Those who stand on the sidelines are spectators and wannabes.

They have no case.

But aside from filing a case which doesn’t have “a leg to stand on” ACORN ,in an astounding demonstration of stupidity, has thrown open the books of the entire  ”organization” through deposition and discovery.  Deposition and discovery which will be on the public record as sworn testimony.  Such discovery and testimony could prove very, very interesting as it relates to the organized crime that takes place on a daily basis there.

Jeez.  What were they thinking?  That’s a rhetorical question.  Community organizers don’t think, they just whine about racism and rouse the rabble hoping to achieve anything they can take credit for.  I would have thought President Obama would have trained them better than that, but apparently his community-organizer skill needed a little more honing.

I wonder how they chose the brilliant legal mind to prosecute this stupid suit?

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.

When you think about it, I think everyone would agree that reform is called for.  But what reform?  Follow models which have been shown not to work?  Well that doesn’t sound too bright to me.

One of the problems lies in the definition of “healthcare reform”.  There is no specific definition – everyone defines it to mean the reform they want.  Consequently there will never be agreement or satisfaction.  So lets just take a few specific measures to make some specific changes, see how that works and come back to it again if we can improve it even more.

Here are my thoughts on some areas of healthcare which could use some reform.

Tort reform. Lets put an end to ridiculous awards.  The fact is, every time there is an enormous “punitive damages” award it moves money out of your pocket (through increased medical malpractice insurance premiums passed on to you in the form of increased cost of service) and into the pockets of trial lawyers and “victims”.  That does nothing to keep medical costs down.  Mistakes happen in life.  From time to time a surgeon will leave a sponge in you after closing you up.  So what.  Your life probably wasn’t in danger.  But through TV ads you think you can hit the lottery.  That’s not right.  Lower the cost of treatment by lowering the cost of medical malpractice insurance by limitation of ridiculous awards to something representative of actual damage.

Emergency care. Stop treating anything except genuine emergencies in emergency rooms.  A runny nose is not an emergency and using the most expensive facility along with the most highly trained emergency healthcare personnel to treat non-emergencies is wasteful.  Stupid too.  People with genuine emergencies are writhing around on the floor waiting for a room which is occupied by someone with a hangnail to vacate it. Provide vouchers to those who qualify for care at a local physician or doc-in-the-box – there are plenty of them around.  Provide “non-emergency care vouchers” to anyone who qualifies for indigent care.  The details could easily be worked out to include showing a food stamp card or an unemployment check stub or some other government-issued item to prove indigence.

Illegal Immigration reform. Put a stop to illegal aliens coming here and running up the cost of medicine for the legal residents who have to pay for it.  When an illegal alien shows up for treatment, treat them, arrest them, ship them back on the next flight, sell whatever they have to pay for the treatment, deduct taxes from whats left and send them the balance.  Require that anyone wiring  money out of the country be required to prove they are here legally.

Care without payment. If someone states they cannot afford treatment, check to see that they really can’t.  Check property records, car registration, employment, etc. and make a determination as to whether they can’t pay or just don’t want to pay. Whether we like it or not, we should recognize that we have enabled a segment of society that is defined by moochiness.  If they can’t pay, as a caring society we should pay for them.  On the other hand, if its some mooch who doesn’t want to sell their Cadillac to pay for their own healthcare that’s another story.

The exorbitant price of prescription drugs. This is usually justified by the drug companies claiming that research drives up the price.  That could be true.  I’ve got two suggestions.

• Establish a national drug research laboratory and begin developing patent-free drugs for production by any qualified manufacturer – in or out of the United States.  Put our brain power to work for us.  Make a deal with qualified science graduates to pay off their student loans after a period of time with the national lab.  Look at how well NASA and the CDC work for us.  it can be done.  The long-term benefits and spin-offs from the research at NASA are astounding and undeniable.  If it worked like NASA has, we’d probably end up curing cancer and every other ailment thanks to the research and testing done by the national lab.
• Establish an “export tax” on drugs exported from the US to other countries.  If drug manufacturers want to sell drugs which cost $100 in the US for $10 to Canada tax them $90 and bring parity.  Of course we could have exceptions for those countries who can’t afford drugs needed for national epidemics.   Why should we be burdened with the cost of research so other countries can benefit?  Let them pay their share of the research costs.  Of course this would result in drug companies charging them the same as they do us which would lead to more competition among the drug companies and result in fair pricing.  Overall, it would bring the cost of drugs down in the US and raise the price of drugs in other countries.  Maybe their socialized healthcare systems wouldn’t look so good to those in the US who think socialized medicine is the way to go  if Americans weren’t subsidizing the cost of their medications…

Reuters examines one example of the problem with believing campaign promises

By Jeremy Pelofsky

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration on Friday urged a U.S. court to dismiss a lawsuit by gay married couples from Massachusetts who say they were unlawfully denied federal marriage benefits.

Well, that sounds like a broken promise to me.  And to members of the gay community.  But the reality is he had no choice.

But the gay community has been angered by the Obama administration’s defense of the law in court proceedings. Justice Department officials say they are obligated to defend federal statutes when they are challenged.

“In making this filing, the department is bound by the only precedent that exists, which is that no court has found such a right to federal benefits based upon marital status to be constitutionally required,” said Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler.

The Government is required to defend Federal Statutes.  Was President Obama lying when he made the promise?  We don’t have any way to know that.  We do know one thing though.  President Obama should have known his administration would have to defend Federal Statutes.  He is, after all, a constitutional expert.

Most politicians promise whatever they think they need to in order to get elected.  The lesson to be learned here is that the politician not promising what you demand might be the most honest politician.   And maybe voting on a single-issue basis isn’t the best idea.  A better idea might be to elect honest, learned, wise representatives who faithfully represent the best interests of their constituency even if they don’t seem to agree with you on your favorite issue.  At least then you have some hope of persuading someone like that to consider your point of view instead of believing the promises of someone who will say anything to get elected.

There are many, many videos on the net of President Obama telling ACORN leaders that they will have a “seat at the table”.  Couple that with the fact that he actually worked with them and you have a real “game-changer” as Obama would say.  My guess is the the White House staff is working full-time, to the exclusion of EVERYTHING else to find a way to spin what Obama has said and to distance him from this bunch of lying, cheating miscreants.

He, through his solid connections to ACORN, is now tainted with tax evasion, slavery, prostitution, gaming the system, fraud, voter fraud(they’re currently being investigated in about 14 states), and who knows what else.  How is he going to get out of this one?  Claim he didn’t know?  Too late, he’s already used that “get out of jail free” care with Jeremiah Wright.  No one believed him then, and trying to pull that again will only certify him as a liar.  His only real choice is to throw them under the bus like he did with Van Jones and Wright.  However, they don’t seem like the types to go quietly.  And, there you have the Obama conundrum.

What to do?  What to do?  Well obviously he has to distance himself from them somehow.  And then, I predict, the whole thing will become yet another “distraction” from obamacare formulated by the Republicans (code for whites).  This is going to turn into a huge oboner.

When Republicans were waving copies of their healthcare proposals in the air, he should have stopped his speech, pointed at one of them and asked the congressman to bring it up and give it to him.  Or, he could have sent someone to fetch it.  In either case he would have been seen literally asking for the plan.  If it had turned out to be a prop he could have exposed it right there.  If it was an actual plan he could have promised to read it and incorporate any good ideas.

He blew his chance because the thought of reading proposals from Republicans never occurred to him. He’s not really interested in what Republicans or Conservatives have to say.  He’s not really interested in the specifics of a healthcare bill.  He is only interested in passing something identified as healthcare reform with his name on it.  That’s it.

He has gotten himself to a critical juncture in his career and is now scrambling to have any credibility at all.  He has hyped this issue to the max and cannot let it go away – if it does, so does his presidency.  So his only solution is to get something called Healthcare Reform passed by an increasingly contentious and polarized congress.  They could label a McDonald’s menu as The Healthcare Reform Bill and as long as it is called Healthcare Reform he will be happy.  He can spout all he wants to about what he’ll sign or not, but my money is on his signature no matter what is contained in the bill.

“We will achieve our goal of making this administration the most open and transparent administration in history,” President Obama said on Friday.

“Americans have a right to know whose voices are being heard in the policymaking process,” he added.

Well, maybe not so much.  As a citizen your transparency will begin September 15.  White Houes visitors for the first eight months of Obama’s administration will remain secret.  And the transparency thing?  Well, the visitor logs will be made available 90-120 days after the visits.  Visits to President Obama or Vice-President Biden which are deemed “personal” won’t be released to the public.

You see when Bush wouldn’t release visitor logs Obama criticized him promising transparency but, like all things  Obama, the meaning of words is defined by him based on context.  You (and most other Americans) might think “transparency” means openess, communication and accountibility.  Well, you’d be wrong there bud..

Lets define what he actually said in the above quote and you’ll see where you went wrong.  In my mind, “transparency” and “pregnancy” are definite in the sense that the condition exists or it doesn’t.  Try imagining what “most pregnant” would mean. Then there’s the qualifier “policymaking process” when it comes to your “right to know whose voices are being heard”.

Oh yeah.  Lest you delude yourself into thinking that President Obama is just ticking another item off his list of campaign promisess:

The Administration has also agreed with Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics (CREW) to settle four pending cases requesting specific White House visitor access records, including those dating from the Bush administration (read the transmittal letter here). We have provided CREW with the records relating to their requests….

Among the announcements were new rules concerning lobbyists, including a requirement that aides not lobby the White House after they leave for at least two years.

In addition, current administration employees will be barred from working on issues on which they have lobbied in the past, and lobbyists will be forbidden from giving gifts of any size to members of the administration.

The rules on lobbyists are tighter “than under any other administration in history,” Mr. Obama said, according to the AP.

The president also said he was altering policy when it comes to Freedom Of Information Act requests so that government agencies and departments are more responsive to the requests.

“For a long time now, there’s been too much secrecy in this city,” the president said.

News outlets and other groups and individuals submit FOIA requests when they are seeking information they believe should legally be made public. Mr. Obama said he wants agencies to make public such information whenever possible instead of looking for reasons to withhold it.

“…these historic measures do mark the beginning of a new era of openness in our country,” Mr. Obama said. “And I will, I hope, do something to make government trustworthy in the eyes of the American people, in the days and weeks, months and years to come.”  CBS News Blogs

At the same time, he authorized increases for the military.  Kudos there too Mr. President!

On the military side, however, Obama proposed increasing pay by nearly 1 percent more in an effort, the document said, to reflect “the priorities of an administration that is committed to caring for the service members who protect our security and the families who support them.”