And In This Corner.....

 As a boy growing up, I loved professional wrestling.  Back in the day before cable made professional wrestling a national phenomenon, it was a local production.  I discovered wrestling on one of the local stations out of Amarillo, Texas.  In those days, the local heroes were the Funk family.  They were led by the wrestling legend, Dory Funk who was semi-retired when I was a kid.  The NWA world champion was his son, Dory Funk Jr.  I rarely got to see his matches on our Saturday afternoon wrestling programs.  So my favorite and the favorite of all the boys in Gruver was Dory Jr.'s little brother, Terry Funk.  Wrestling was the ultimate story of good against evil, and the Funk family was definitely the good guys.  No one in their right mind would be caught cheering against any of the Funk family.

Dory Funk Sr. and Dory Funk Jr.

Terry Funk

After a few years of being a huge Terry Funk fan, my family moved to Graham.  One of my adjustments was the loss of my Saturday afternoon wrestling programs.  My Grandma Mae introduced me to Channel 11 out of Dallas and professional wrestling, LIVE from the Sportatorium!  I was really excited to see in the TV Guide that Terry Funk was going to be in the main event.  You cannot imagine how shocked and disappointed I was to learn that my hero, Terry Funk was the villain!  To make matters worse, the evil Von Erich's were the local heroes.  Talk about conflicted.  After living in Graham for awhile, I became a fan of Fritz Von Erich and his sons Kevin, David, and later Kerry.  Instead of practicing Dory Funk Sr.'s spinning toe hold, all the neighborhood boys became masters of Fritz Von Erich's dreaded Iron Claw.  

Fritz
Kevin, David, & Kerry Von Erich

No one in the Channel 11 viewing area would dream of cheering for any wrestler, other than one of the Von Erich's.  In the mid 1980's, pro wrestling went to a nationwide audience with favorites like Hulk Hogan and villains like Andre the Giant (another hero from my Amarillo wrestling memories).  The WWE exploded on cable channels and overtook the locally produced programs.  Wrestling became even more cartoon-ish with purely evil villains and purely good  heroes who eventually would win the hearts of the fans, even while losing matches due to incompetent referees.  Somewhere along the way, maybe because fans no longer had a "local" hero, things changed.  Fans split into two camps.  Of course the majority of fans supported the hero, the good guy, but some cheered on the bad guys.  The good guy was seen as too clean, too wholesome.  Pro wrestling seemed to push promote the villains even more than the heroes.  A large number of fans took pride in their support of the villains.  Eventually, this attitude seemed to bleed over into other sports.  In Texas from the 1970's through the late 1980's, everyone was a fan of the Dallas Cowboys.  People who moved to Texas from other areas might follow their former hometown favorite, but eventually they almost always became Cowboy fans.  Sure there were a few oddballs that grew tired of the way the Cowboys were worshiped, and became vocal fans of Bum Phillips' Houston Oilers, but they were rare.  But as the "pro wrestling" mentality became more prevalent, some football fans started buying Redskins' gear or worse, Steelers' merchandise.  Fans weren't necessarily cheering for a team, but they seemed to be cheering against the local favorite.  

When we moved to Colorado, I saw the perfect example of this attitude.  Of course in Colorado, the Broncos are the NFL team to follow.  At the time we moved, the Broncos weren't too far removed from their Super Bowl championships with John Elway as quarterback.  In the store I managed, Broncos' gear was the top seller, but it was followed very closely by the Broncos most hated rival, the Oakland Raiders.  The majority of the Raiders' fans weren't so much Raiders' fans as they were Bronco haters.  As a football or just overall sports nerd, I would talk about the Raiders, current or past and most of the Raider "fans" had no clue about their chosen team, either current or past.  I think it's just an example of the contrary attitude that most people used to outgrow after their teen rebellion years.  I think an increasingly large number of people no longer outgrow the rebellious stage, but take pride in their unique-ness.  

This attitude has spilled over from the entertainment of professional wrestling to legitimate sports, to the rest of everyday life in America today.  It's a little jarring to read history and learn about men spending the evenings in the local tavern discussing and debating religion, politics, science and so many other subjects from a base of knowledge.  Most Americans were self-educated.  They listened, they read, they were interested in gaining knowledge.  The quote from Emerson that I mentioned before, "foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds," was a popularly held opinion.  A person's position on an issue should evolve as that person gains knowledge.  That no longer seems to be the case.  There is no longer a debate.  A person is a Global Warming believer or denier, a 9-11 truther or a Muslim hating Conservative, a Tea Partier or a Progressive, a baby killing pro-choicer or a woman hating right to lifer.  Having a debate about these issues is not a bad thing.  What is so destructive right now is how uninformed our positions are.  Rather than having an honest debate, we pick a side and defend it to the very end.  When the chosen side is not backed up by a base of knowledge, the debate soon turns to the name-calling we heard so much of during the most recent campaign season.  When opinions are not backed by knowledge, manipulation becomes much easier.  Honesty is not necessary if the public is not curious enough to do their own research.  

It is very discouraging to talk to people about the recent election and learn the basis of their choice.  It is almost never "for" someone or something, but "against" the other person or policy.  If our society is going to survive, we must have intelligent debate on issues.  We have to have intellectual honesty from ourselves and our candidates.  We have to force our politicians to be honest.  If they talk about the rich paying their "fair share," make them say what they believe is fair.  Is raising taxes on those making over $250,000 a year going to help solve our fiscal problems, or is it in the interest of redistribution of wealth (are they,  or are we honest enough to call it what it is - Marxism) to buy votes?  Is it all right for your candidate to listen in on cell phone conversations, or hold those suspected of supporting terrorists indefinitely without charging them with a crime, gather information from private e-mails, or to send our troops to war without the approval of Congress, but not ok for the candidate from the other side?  We need to read and learn enough to know what we believe and what we support.  Then we need to read and learn what candidates from all sides not only say they will do, but what they have done and are doing.  The sad thing is that we live in an age where all this information and more is easier to find than ever before in the history of mankind, we are just too lazy or uninterested to find it.  

I have seen interviews with a woman who said she thinks the president did an "acceptable job" in the Benghazi situation.  "Ben Ghazi is hard to predict, you can never tell what that man will do."  I have a friend who voted for Obama because Romney would cut programs that help single women.  But she works a job that pays her in cash, so she doesn't pay taxes on it.  I have relatives that vote Democrat because "I'm a fiscally conservative bleeding heart liberal."  How can anyone claim to be fiscally conservative and support the president and his $6 trillion and climbing debt?  I have another relative that when questioned about individual policies holds positions to the right of the most conservative Libertarian, yet votes Democrat every election because Republicans only care about the rich.  I know several people that didn't vote at all because there was "no difference between the candidates."  These are the pro wrestling voters, their votes have no basis in fact, only in emotion, or possibly in rebellion.  The political consultants call these people "low information voters."  Stalin had a more accurate, if less politically correct description.  He called them "useful idiots."  

 

Pro Choice

Ever notice that the only choice the progressives/liberals/Democrats are actually in favor of, is the woman's choice whether or not to let her baby live long enough to be born?  It is their body after all.  I plan to write in the next few days about the choices being taken away from us.  Yes, I know it has been nine months since my last post.  I've been busy, ok?  Actually, I think I fell victim to the Bill Belichick strategy being employed by our government.  When every day brings a new assault on our Constitution and our rights as individuals, just as the St. Louis Rams learned in the Super Bowl, eventually the officials (conservative Americans in this case) get overwhelmed.  Like I wrote about before, I need to square my shoulders and get back in the game.   So I am going to focus for a few posts on the choices we are losing.


First of all, unless you have been living in a cave, you know that this is an election year.  From the first few days of Obama's Constitutional assault, excuse me, administration, Republicans have sworn that they would nominate a true conservative.  They would not allow the media to force another Obama-lite candidate like John McCain on the party.  We would be given a true choice.  The 2008 primaries exposed Mitt Romney as only a couple of degrees more conservative than Barack Hussein Obama.  The Tea Party Revolution of 2010 gave us hope that the Republican Party would offer choice, a real alternative to the president.  Beginning almost immediately after the 2010 Republican landslide fueled by the Tea Party, the media began pushing Romney as the only electable Republican.  All other candidates were radical, too far right.  They would never win the independent vote.  


So even with polls showing that the majority of Americans describe themselves as conservative, only Romney was viewed by the media as mainstream enough to challenge the president in 2012.  Early straw polls in Iowa showed a true conservative, Michelle Bachmann having the most support in the Republican primary.  The media pulls out its favorite attack on conservatives - she's stupid.  In one speech, she mentioned Davenport, Iowa as the hometown of the American icon and symbol of self-reliance, John Wayne.  What an idiot!  John Wayne was not born in Davenport.  His family moved from Davenport shortly before his birth.  How embarrassing!   You would've thought this moron didn't even know how many states are in the United States.  Or how to pronounce corpsman.  She may even speak about asthmatics needing a breathalyzer!  How could such an intellectual lightweight match up against President Obama, who is quite possibly the most intelligent community organizer to ever walk the earth?  Only Romney is intelligent enough to have a chance!  After all, he is from Massachusetts and isn't his hair perfect?  


Republicans allowed themselves to be scared away from a truly principled conservative who actually has a voting record that supports her claims to small government Constitutional beliefs.  Next to take the lead in the pre-Iowa polls was Texas governor, Rick Perry.  Perry has a very strong record as governor of Texas.  He has even published a book detailing government reforms he would favor to return Washington D.C. to it's Constitutionally mandated size, giving more power to the states, and thus returning choice to citizens.  But the media was quick to point out that Perry signed into law a Texas bill allowing children whose parents are in the United States illegally to go to college in Texas, paying in-state tuition.  This was a huge problem for Tea Party conservatives.  In spite of Perry's defense that the bill received only two dissenting votes in the Texas House and Senate, and would be easily overridden if he had vetoed it.  He chose to accept the loss and move on, and even explained his signature that way at the time he signed the bill into law.  But the media explained to the ignorant Tea Party conservatives that Perry would soon have the country overrun and speaking Spanish only on college campuses.  Better to choose Mitt Romney, the true conservative who supports the Dream Act which is basically a national version of the Texas law.  Oh, and it would provide a fast track to full citizenship for immigrants who had chosen to ignore the law up to this point.  Well, at least if they hadn't committed any felonies while they were in the country.  Well, not all felonies, just not any violence-related felonies.  Yeah, that Romney would be a much better choice than Rick Perry.  And the whole stupid thing again.  Perry has a Texas accent, Romney's Massachusetts accent is so much more intelligent.  I mean just compare the economy of Romney's Massachusetts to Perry's Texas.  No.  Better not do that!  Just trust the media.  Perry's stupid and will open the borders to basically invite everyone to cross the Rio Grande anytime they choose.  So shortly after the Iowa caucus, Bachmann's out, followed a short time later by Perry.  


Next up for the Tea Party, successful businessman, Herman Cain.  Once he was able to pull the microphone away from Romney and Perry, he actually came away from the debates with a lot of support, especially for his 9-9-9 plan for tax reform.  Cain presented a huge problem for the liberal media.  Their fallback attack on conservatives, their lack of intelligence, might be seen as racist.  Cain is black, just like Obama!  How can the media claim the only reason Republicans oppose the president's socialist agenda is because they're hood-wearing, cross-burning racists, if they nominate a black man for president?  All right, Cain has no government experience.  He actually ran successful businesses and can not only discuss economic theory, but point to his own experience and success.  WITH NO GOVERNMENT ASSISTANCE!!  That's not even possible in Obama's world.  That would overwhelm President Obama's tenure in the Illinois senate and in the U.S. Senate where he was noted for zero legislation and numerous "present" votes.  So the media was unable to take the intelligence, race, and experience roads to attacking Cain.  What to do?  What to do?  Conservatives stand on family values.  Let's find something in Cain's past personal life.  Soon there is a parade of women claiming either affairs or harassment.   Cain denied the charges, offered to take a lie detector test, challenged his accusers to take the same lie detector tests (they all declined).  Eventually Cain decided the strain on his family was too much and "suspended" his candidacy.  Coincidentally, all his accusers and even more mysteriously, their high dollar legal representation quickly and completely disappeared.   As an added bonus for the liberal media, they were able to once again accuse the Republicans and especially the Tea Party of racism.  How could they drop their support for Cain following a few unsubstantiated accusations?  By white women!  That's why.  Brings back all the old stereotypes of the black man that just can't control his animal urges around white women!  They were able to disguise their racism for a little while, but eventually it rose to the surface.  Better put your support behind Mitt Romney.  He's white.  If it came down to a choice between two black men, most Republicans and Tea Party members would just stay home, guaranteeing four more years of Obama.  Or at least that's what the media would have us believe.


Next in line for the conservatives?  Well, they are desperate.  True conservative candidates, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain are gone.  Good lord, we don't want Romney!  Who is left?  Newt Gingrich!!!  Newt's smart.  He debates very well.  Even the liberal media will admit that Newt would more than hold his own against President Obama in any debate.  And without a teleprompter.  Another plus for Gingrich?  He knows the media's game and will call them out on it.   In an intellectual fight, Newt is definitely the candidate to take on the media and the president.  In debates, he turned the attack to the president and also to the media.  To the conservatives accustomed to the "above the mudslinging" style of George Bush and George W. Bush and the "reach across the aisle" style of John McCain, this aggressive style was very attractive.  Newt's only problem?  Anyone who took a close look at his record or his words would quickly realize that he is definitely not "small government."  His  favorite presidents or role models for a Gingrich presidency?  Not George Washington.   Not Abraham Lincoln.  Not Dwight Eisenhower.  Not Ronald Reagan.  Not even either of the Bushes.  Newt's choice?  How about Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, or Franklin D. Roosevelt!  You can't spell big government progressive without Wilson, Teddy, or FDR.  Then there's his Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae connections.  And his support of cap and trade legislation.  He only appeared in the commercial sitting on a couch and agreeing with that Tea Party favorite, Nancy Pelosi.  And finally Newt's worst enemy is Newt.    He debates well and takes the fight to the media well because he is quick thinking.  Unfortunately this means that he has a creative memory, such as claiming in one interview that he supported Goldwater, showing his true conservative roots.  Small problem, he actually supported the progressive Republican Nelson Rockefeller.  But that was long enough in the past no one could really claim otherwise, right?  Well, it would be tough to prove, except for the fact that Gingrich was actually precinct captain for Rockefeller!  Conservatives who want a choice did their own homework and learned the facts about Gingrich and, so far at least, seem to have chosen to eliminate Gingrich.  If you have any doubts about Newt's real principles, click on the links in this paragraph for videos of Gingrich stating his beliefs.  


That leaves Republicans and real conservatives a choice.  The electable, almost liberal Mitt Romney (probably more big government liberal in his policies than Democratic icon, John F. Kennedy) and Ron Paul.  Paul could be dangerous for for the liberals if the election and the presidency were all about economics and domestic policy.  Ron Paul is the candidate of choice when it comes to shrinking the government and actually enforcing the United States Constitution.  Unfortunately, he is a naive extremely dangerous candidate when it comes to foreign policy.  Although he has brought Federal Reserve policies into the public debate and actually seems to have stoked a libertarian revival among young people, he is unelectable.  Good thing for the future of the country there is one more candidate.  Rick Santorum.  The former senator from Pennsylvania has a couple of questionable actions on record - namely his support  of earmarks for his state when he served in the senate.  Overall he is head and shoulders over Romney when you compare their records.  Problem is the media is trying to convince the Republican voters that only Romney is electable.  He has too much support.  The race is over, right?  Except that Republican voters took responsibility and informed themselves without listening to the media.  Iowa voters surprised everyone and chose Santorum.  New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Florida did what was expected and chose Romney.  So the race is over, with only four of the fifty states (or is it 57? or 59, Mr. President?) actually voting.  Or at least that's what the media is trying to convince us.  Then last weekend, Santorum swept Missouri, Minnesota, and surprisingly, Colorado.  The media quickly starts the spin that very few delegates were actually committed in those three races and Missouri's is not even a binding caucus.  So yesterday when Romney won Maine, well, now it's all over again.  Romney just proved that he is the only one who can beat Obama.  


Don't listen to the media again.  Don't let them take away our choice.  Again.  

Our President is THE BLACK KNIGHT

This post has absolutely nothing to do with race.  But watching the president today reacting to the shellacking he and his fellow progressives took yesterday, I was reminded of one of my all time favorite movie scenes.
 President Obama is now willing to call it a draw.  Now we can compromise.  "It's only a flesh wound!"

America, we've got a problem. Really, we do this time.

In arson investigations, at least on TV, one of the first suspects is the person who reported the fire.  And then the people who help put out the fire, or who rescue the victims.  A few years ago, a huge wildfire burned thousands of acres in Arizona.  The fire, or actually a series of fires, was started by a firefighter.  He wanted the opportunity to be the hero who put out the fire.  About the same time, there was a similiar case in Colorado.  It's even more common in housing arson.  A firefighter, or more likely a firefighter wannabe,  creates a crisis in the hopes of coming to the rescue and becoming the hero.  And in the process gaining a job, a promotion, money, or at least publicity.

Next time we have a crisis in Washington D.C., we need to take a close look to see if it is a real crisis, and if it is, how was it created?  The perfect example is the housing crisis that brought about the current economic mess.  First of all, Chris Dodd and Barney Frank were part of a Democratic congressional majority that forced banks to make high risk loans to people who could not qualify for housing loans, as part of the Fair Housing Act.  (As an aside, take a REALLLLLLLLY close look any bill that includes the word Fair and doesn't involve ferris wheels and corn dogs).  The promise to the banks was that the loans would be backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.  While CSpan will generally result in a full-on slobbering nap, maybe we should all be making that network the top rated cable channel.  Here's an enlightening video from 2004.



So, they created the crisis, ignored the warnings about crisis, and then took billions, soon to be trillions, to fix the crisis.  And oh, yeah, blame the people who were sounding the warnings for the crisis!

Another example, how about the $854 billion dollars to create jobs to keep unemployment from going over 8% at the beginning of Obama's presidency.  Using their own numbers, which are very questionable if not outright lies, they created or saved 3.5 million jobs.  That means the federal government spent $244,400 for every job saved or created.  And unemployment still went to almost 10%, or 14.4% if you include those who became discouraged and just stopped looking or were unemployed for so long that they were no longer eligible to be counted.

And don't even get started on Global Warming, Climate Change, Man Caused Global Climate Disruption.  I've written about that DC Caused crisis several times, so I won't get into it again.  Here are three links.
Obama and Gore to profit from Cap and Trade  Why no media outrage about cap and trade?  Rednecks and global warming

How about financial reform?  Was that even on your radar?  Now, with the solution that passed in a 2000+ page law this summer, every one of your financial transactions is subject to scrutiny by the the government.  Student loan crisis?  Fixed, as part of the 2000+ healthcare law.  Yes, part of the HEALTHCARE law!  The healthcare law that 60% of Americans want repealed.  The healthcare law that 68% of Americans did not want passed.  Now, for a Golden Oldie, victims of rape and incest do not have access to abortion.  Was that really such a pervasive problem that the government needed to get involved?  I'd like to see some stats, but now, less than 30 years later, abortion is an accepted form of birth control.  Or in the words of this British pundit, "getting rid of a couple of cells."



With the election this November, we had better take steps to handle our own problems before the "firefighters" in DC burn down our whole country.