Friday, June 11, 2010

Thank You For Your Vote Jay Rockefeller

We have said it before that it is rare that we are able to thank one or more of our Democratic brethren for doing the right thing. This time we thank Senator Rockefeller.

Rockefeller this week voted for the resolution introduced by Senator Lisa Murkowski (R) Alaska. It would have prevented the EPA from enacting crippling regulations that will raise all of our energy costs significantly. Rockefeller and the five other Democrats sided with Republicans to try and prevent the EPA from brazenly extending its authority beyond all reasonable bounds. They also defended the constitutional power of Congress to be the sole source of legislation as is stated in Article 1 Section 1. These EPA regulations are meant to impose measures that Congress refused to pass.

This is the list of Democrats who bucked party line. Notice that Robert C. Byrd is not one of them. He could have led a successful charge to defend the powers of Congress, but failed to step up to the occasion.


Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
Mark Pryor (D-AR)
Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Evan Bayh (D-IN)

Speech of Howard Roark (played by Gary Cooper) in The Fountainhead

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zc7oZ9yWqO4

A nice Friday afternoon inspirational piece. Transcription below.


Howard Roark'sCourtroom Speech
From The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
“Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted dardness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden terrritory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world. “That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures—because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer—because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage. “Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received—hatred. The great creators—the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors—stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won. “No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane or a building—that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men. “His vision, his strength, his courage came from his own spirit. A man's spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego. “The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power—that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He lived for himself. “And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement. “Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons—a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man—the function of his reasoning mind. “But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act—the process of reason—must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred. “We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the next step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single, individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival. “Nothing is given to man on earth. Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways—by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by the minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary. “The creator’s concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite’s concern is the conquest of men. “The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive. “The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary. “The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism. “Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self. “No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of expoloitation and reversed the base of mankind’s moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue. “The man who attemps to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality—the man who lives to serve others—is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence of altruism. “Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution—or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement. “Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the sufferings of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer—in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man’s body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive. “Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone. “Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge or act. These are functions of the self. “Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative—and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism—the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal—under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind. “This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life. “The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rests upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man’s independent ego is good. All that which proceeds from man’s dependence upon men is evil. “The egotist is the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man—and he asks no other man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men. “Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man’s independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn’t done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence. “In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him a commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. This is the only possible form of relationship between equals. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner. “No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men. “The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man’s first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator. “A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule—alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander. “Rulers of men are not egotists. They create nothing. They exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter. “But men were taught to regard second-handers—tyrants, emperors, dictators—as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them. Which is a synonym. “From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism. “The creator—denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited—went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective. “The ‘common good’ of a collective—a race, a class, a state—was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men’s hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results. “The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is—Hands off! “Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man’s right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else’s. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience. “It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage’s whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men. “Now, in our age, collectivism, the rule of the second-hander and second-rater, the ancient monster, has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth. It has reached a scale of horror without precedent. It has poisoned every mind. It has swallowed most of Europe. It is engulfing our country. “I am an architect. I know what is to come by the principle on which it is built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live. “Now you know why I dynamited Cortlandt. “I designed Cortlandt. I gave it to you. I destroyed it. “I destroyed it because I did not choose to let it exist. It was a double monster. In form and in implication. I had to blast both. The form was mutilated by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had not made and could not equal. They were permitted to do it by the general implication that the altruistic purpose of the building superseded all rights and that I had no claim to stand against it. “I agreed to design Cortlandt for the purpose of seeing it erected as I dedigned it and for no other reason. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid. “I do not blame Peter Keating. He was helpless. He had a contract with his employers. It was ignored. He had a promise that the structure he offered would be built as designed. The promise was broken. The love of a man for the integrity of his work and his right to preserve it are now considered a vague intangible and an inessential. You have heard the prosecutor say that. Why was the building disfigured? For no reason. Such acts never have any reason, unless it’s the vanity of some second-handers who feel they have a right to anyone’s property, spiritual or material. Who permitted them to do it? No particular man among the dozens in authority. No one cared to permit it or to stop it. No one was responsible. No one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all collective action. “I did not receive the payment I asked. But the owners of Cortlandt got what they needed from me. They wanted a scheme devised to build a structure as cheaply as possible. They found no one else who could do it to their satisfaction. I could and did. They took the benefit of my work and made me contribute it as a gift. But I am not an altruist. I do not contribute gifts of this nature. “It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them the right to my work. That their need constituted a claim on my life. That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the second-hander’s credo now swallowing the world. “I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone’s right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need. “I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others. “It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing. “I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man’s creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who’re destroying the world. “I wished to come here and state my terms. I do not care to exist on any others. “I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, I wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place. “My act of loyalty to every creator who ever lived and was made to suffer by the force responsible for the Cortlandt I dynamited. To every tortured hour of loneliness, denial, frustration, abuse he was made to spend—and to the battles he won. To every creator whose name is known—and to every creator who lived, struggled and perished unrecognized before he could achieve. To every creator who was destroyed in body or in spirit. To Henry Cameron. To Steven Mallory. To a man who doesn’t want to be named, but who is sitting in this courtroom and knows that I am speaking of him.”
Return to Favorite Life Lessons

Keyser Tea Party Scheduled for June 19th

Puritans and Socialists


No one hates the Puritans more than self-described liberals and leftists. They claim to hate the value that Puritans placed on enforced social conformity in thought, appearance, and action. A group of elders sat at the top of society deciding what was best and then enforcing their judgments on everyone. Some got humiliated in the stocks. Some received beatings or imprisonment. Some were mercifully banished. Others were killed. Those receiving punishment could not conform or adhere to the restrictive ideals that Puritanism placed on society in the name of God.
Take away the guiding principle of the Puritans' interpretation of the Holy Bible and what you are left with is a Utopian ideal that in practice comes very close to what the leftists seek to impose. Puritans ruled several areas for brief amounts of time. They controlled much of New England from its founding until the 1680s when control was wrenched away by James II. For a brief period in the 1650s they ruled Maryland after an armed coup. Between the 1640s and early 1660s Puritans held Great Britain itself in the grip of a revolutionary government dominated by the dictatorial Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. Britain enjoyed their Puritan dictatorship so much that on Cromwell's death they invited to the throne the son of the king they executed.
Puritans demand a conformity of thought to their ideals. The Left believes that Tea Parties and the Republicans are "seditious," in other words guilty of criminal speech against the government. Puritans want to impose a conformity of habit. The Left is out in front of the movement to tax certain kinds of fat, use government controls to reduce sodium content, and tax smoking out of affordability. Puritans established compulsory education to ensure that children learned their ideals of Christianity and learned a healthy hatred of "damned" sects such as Anglicans and Catholics. The Left has voiced its desire repeatedly to use the school system to promote its peculiar and fringe ideals on economics, society, and culture while attacking respect for the flag, the Founding Fathers, and the free enterprise system.
The difference between the Puritans of New England and the Left is that Puritans always had control and had to preach conformity and authoritarianism. The Left just obtained control and is finding it difficult to go from preaching non conformity and questioning authority to a state where no one is to question and criticize Dear Leader. It has left many on that side of the political spectrum confused and disoriented. Some have just outright rejected him themselves, despite the threat of banishment from the Democratic cash trough.
When thinking about the Puritan dictatorship of Britain, one sees historical hope. The criminal rule of King Charles I followed by the revolutionary brutality of Cromwell convinced Britain as a whole to reject the notion of a powerful central authority. They dismantled their army in peacetime and stuck to the idea that government must be small and unable to impose its will upon the people. Maybe Obama/Cromwell has been a wakeup call to our country that we must fundamentally change our thinking as Britain did. Government must return to being an "obedient servant" instead of a parental provider figure. We must cut our taxes and drastically cut back on what we expect the government to do. That could include privatizing the contruction of roads and bridges, eliminating several Cabinet level departments, and other ideas. The time is soon coming when we must scale back or collapse. Puritan rule caused this positive movment in the 1600s. Will leftist extremism in power do the same now?

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Democratic U. S. Senate Candidate Says Death Panels? Why Not?

What is the value of life? Doctors do not always know when a patient has three months or three years. A person pays into a system all of their life and when they need it most, this "compassionate" Democrat would say "Nein! Your social utility is over! Die you parasite." Of course this idiot is running in Florida.

Sarah Palin was dead on about death panels.



Maurice Ferré: Cut medical costs for those about to die

Senate candidate Maurice Ferré said it is wrong to spend thousands of dollars to prolong the lives of the dying for a short time.
BY GEORGE BENNETT
Palm Beach Post
WEST PALM BEACH -- Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Maurice Ferré says the United States spends an ``absurd'' amount on end-of-life care and should gradually move to a universal health system in which the government controls costs by setting prices for medical procedures and capping expenditures based on age and medical condition.
Speaking to The Palm Beach Post editorial board Wednesday, Ferré said he would have voted for the healthcare overhaul passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama as ``a step in the right direction.'' He said the ``Medicare-for-everyone'' system he favors should be phased in over about 25 years.
Ferré, 75, is a former Miami mayor running a low-budget Democratic primary campaign against U.S. Rep. Kendrick Meek of Miami and Palm Beach billionaire Jeff Greene.
Answering a question about the long-term solvency of Social Security, Ferré said that raising the retirement age should be considered.
He then went into a discussion of Medicare costs, saying a large amount of money typically is spent in the final three months of a person's life.
``I've already written in my will that I don't want you to go spending half a million dollars to keep me alive for three more months all tubed up with all kinds of liquids going in and out of my body and my mind slowly slipping away. It's a torture chamber,'' Ferré said.
``Now you say, well, that's a `death panel.' Well, you know what, when you get to be 85 or 90 years old, you're going to die. And I'm sorry, you call it, Sarah Palin, what you want, but the fact is that it is absurd for us to be spending the types of money we're spending to extend life three months.''
Asked what he would do as a senator to control such costs, Ferré said: ``I would absolutely say that this is the cap on how much is available for you to spend at age 90, 87, with a heart condition of this sort, with diabetes of this sort, two legs missing and, you know, this is how much is available for you to spend. And you spend it any way you want.''
He added: ``My logic tells me that it is illogical to spend half a million dollars to extend a diabetic person who has two legs cut off, that we spend half a million dollars to tube up that person and extend their lives six months.''

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/06/10/1672403/ferre-cut-medical-costs-for-those.html?mitest=A_default#ixzz0qTdkEZSW

Monday, June 7, 2010

Ramblings of an American Legacy

My family has been there from the beginning and I am extremely proud of my Nation and my heritage. 234 years my 4th Great Grandfather John Moore took up arms against a government that did not represent the people. The Declaration of Independence states, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” He fought for 5 years under the command of General George Washington to form a nation with powers derived from the people. He was at Yorktown when the British surrendered. That was when Independence truly came and he saw it in person.

After the war he moved west to the Appalachians and started a Farm called Pretty Hole in 1782. While he was tending his new farm the Founding Fathers took the best of the British heritage made it uniquely American and wrote our Constitution. Our Constitution promised a limited government where the individual could keep the benefits of their labor. In 1804 my ancestor discovered coal on his land and sold it to Blacksmiths in Winchester, VA some 70 miles away hauling it over the Northwestern Turnpike by wagon. He worked to make a better life for himself and his family, because his new government didn’t interfere.

The Nation was in Civil War a battle over states rights that in many ways was never truly settled and is now coming to the forefront. We fought amongst ourselves in bloody battles, but even then we never lost sight of our founding principles of a government by the people. Consider that the American Civil War is unique in the fact it is the only civil war fought were both sides were democratic republics! My Great Great Grandfather Jefferson Howell joined the Union Army in 1861 to help save the nation.

In the 1930’s a mad man came to power in Germany. A good speaker he sold people a socialist bill of goods and grabbed power. He put together the Axis and attacked the free world. By 1940 Great Britain stood alone, but we began to supply the mother country with arms to save the last Democracy in Europe. On a December Sunday we were openly attacked. The unique thing about our Republic is that it is truly a government of the people. Few of the dictators or socialist of the world understand that. Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto did, after the Pearl Harbor attack he said, "I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve." It woke us up. My grandfather Glenn Howell joined the Navy in 1943 and helped save the world.

Today we are the worlds only Super Power and I stand at the end of a long line of American Patriots. My family has been there from the beginning. We have formed, shaped and saved the nation. We have helped liberate others from the chains of totalitarianism around the world. While there are many external threats to our nation, none is greater than our government’s deviation from the vision of our Founding Fathers. Today it falls on me and my generation to protect the Founder’s vision, not by force of arms, but from within the vary system they created, shaped and saved. I’m on the ballot November 2nd, 2010 to add my name to an American Legacy of Patriots pushing for limited government and personal responsibly. My God Bless America!