Tag Archives: LIBERALISM

Doug Smith: Progressive Programs Promise Political Zanadu

10 Sep

They simply don’t promote personal responsibility!

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Doug Smith: Historian and Associate editor at Free State Patriot

September 10, 2018

 

There are some essential elements to every Progressive idea or program. These are worth bearing in mind as you vote for or against Santa Claus at the ballot box.  Senator Marco Rubio s latest proposal on a Paid Family Leave Act, paid for by government, provides an excellent opportunity to review a few of these.

 1)They are progressive.

  In this context, the word means it will creep ever toward the same direction. There is no End to the idea, just ever-increasing demands for more “free stuff” from government, and not coincidentally, more control by government of those getting the freebies.

(As a sub note to the above,)

 2)    There are no freebies. TANSTAAFL. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.

  Progressives are divided into 2 categories on this fact: True believers whose magical thinking makes them certain that Government has unlimited resources, but stingily refuses to share it, and cynical opportunists who understand this quite well, but are willing to use the fiction to further their own power. From its founding, all the way to Barack Obama, who spend more money that he did not have than all 43 POTUS before him combined, the Government “Has. No. Money.” They can only spend money in 3 ways:

 Borrow it. This ultimately costs every taxpayer, because Barack and Mitch and the powers that be in DC are committing YOU, not them, to pay the payments and the interest on their debts. Imagine if you saw your neighbor driving a $ 60,000 SUV, then got a bill in the mail for the payments on his ride, one you were demanded to pay.

 Print it. The Federal Reserve is a whole other article, and a problem in and of itself, but suffice it to say, when the government can print money by fiat, without backing up each bill with gold reserves, “The full faith and credit of the US Government” means, once again, YOU will back them up. So, if you have $ 100, and there are $ 1,000,000,000 dollars in circulation, and the Government (read that FED) decides to print, with no additional wealth to back it, another billion in currency, your 100 overnight becomes a 50. Sound outrageous? Unbelievable?

 Steal it. Seem harsh? By steal it, I mean taxes. Of course, no one comes to your house with a gun and demands 25% of your earnings. However, refuse to pay your taxes and see how long it is before someone with a gun comes to your house to cart you off to jail. Taxation is by force. The government takes from us part of what we earn, the deal being we get to choose, through our representatives in the House how much they may take, and for what they may spend it. Which of course, brings us back to progressive politicians, and the ever-growing programs, which will spend ever greater amounts of the money they tax from you. You are still paying, in every paycheck, for programs that were begun under Franklin Roosevelt.

Which leads us to the 3rd thing worth noting about progressive ideas and programs:

 3) They never ask, let along answer, the question of how we pay for it. 

The closest they come is a few well-worn clichés: Let the Rich pay their fair share, if we cut spending on Defense, we are only talking about (at this point we are meant to insert some figure which they will argue is inconsequential.)  As the late Sen Everett Dirksen once said, “A billion dollars here, a billion dollars there, first thing you know you are talking about some real money.” (Progressives, I should note, do not get the joke.) Never mind paying for it.  If it sounds good do it.  War on Poverty? Yes! Poverty is bad. Let’s spend 20 Trillion and wipe it out. Whereas the common household husband or wife must say “Rib Eye? Rib Eye good! Rib Eye $ 12/lb. Can’t afford Rib Eye. Pork Chops, here we come.  Of course, the common Joe in the grocery store is spending their own money and cannot print more if they run out. (Well, they CAN write a bogus check, but, unlike Congressmen, they go to jail for that.) Politicians NEVER spend their own money. They spend yours. Which is why you will eat Pork Chops or Macaroni and Cheese tonight, and not Rib Eye.

  On the subject of, “if it sounds good”: this is another aspect of progressive ideas. All they must do is sound good.

 They don’t have to work. They must appeal to emotions. Wipe out poverty! Help the poor! Improve the cities!  Progressive never hold themselves or their ideas accountable for the (inevitable) failure to work. “I’ve never worked so hard on anything in my life.” “I feel your pain.” (If you are young, you may not recognize those as Bill Clinton’s response to the failure of some of his progressive ideas. Progressives maintain that if they feel good about it, if they feel your pain, then they should not be held to account for “results.”  If it failed, and I care about you, then you should still trust me, and let me spend even more, and do more of the same, on a larger scale, to fix the problem created by the failure of my last 3 attempts. But for all their “caring” and “feeling” Progressives and Utopians have yet to discover how to pass a law or spend a dollar that will make water run uphill, or gravity not pull objects to the ground.

 Or make socialist ideas and central planning result in anything other than the disaster they always are. (Go to Venezuela and try to buy some toilet paper.)  Progressives remain sublimely convinced that progressive/socialist/utopian/statist ideas that have never worked, have always failed, will work out IF ONLY you give THEM the money and the power to make them work as they think they should. Of course, it also involves the power to MAKE people behave the way progressives think they SHOULD behave, and not the way they do.

 So, with that background, a few observations about the latest Socialist proposal from Senator Marco Rubio, who seems to want to be the new John McCain. (I knew John McCain, Senator. You are no John McCain.) And yes, I called it Socialist. And so, it is. (Progressive, it should be noted, wishes to progress toward, eventually, Socialism. 

It sounds good. (Progressive!) Why, of COURSE, Moms and Dads, and Grandma, should all have time off to bond with the new baby. Family is important. And so, it is. And fathers, breadwinners, have been for Eons, coming to see the new baby, gazing loving, if awkwardly at it, then heading back to the fields to plow and beat the rain. Because that baby has to eat. As does its Mom. And so, we work. Or, as in my own case, we go to sea, and come home to a baby months older than when we left. Because we have a job to do. It sounds great that we should give some time off, BUT: notice a couple of things. I just mimicked a progressive. Because it sounds good. But I did not mention Who gets to pay for it. The employer? No, he won’t. Or rather he will but will pass that along in lower wages for the one who gets the time off, more work for their coworkers while they are off, lower wages for them as well, because if the employer must pay for work not received, the money, Dear Marco, HAS to come from somewhere.

 I remember a number of years ago, hearing Herself, Hillary, whining that the FMLA that her hubs had just signed “Only gave 6 weeks, when Mrs. It takes a Village, Idiot, felt sure that everyone would agree that 12 weeks was needed. And, of course, they should be paid for the time off.  (See? Progressive: more is never enough, someone else has to pay for it, it sounds good) 

 Now, Marco s plan (and, by the way, Hillary’s) is that Government (at this point you should bow and genuflect and the mention of the great Deity of the Left) will pay for it. But what did we observe about Government? Think hard, I’ll wait.

…..

Right!  Government Has. No. Money.

 So, if Government pays for 12 weeks of new baby leave, (Am I the only one who finds it ironic that the same people who want the right to dismember said baby, alive, in the wombs, and sell its body parts to buy a Lamborghini, are the ones pushing hardest for this latest “Gummint” Freebie?) Gummint has to TAKE the money from somewhere.

(as a thought exercise, reach in your purse or wallet. Take out all your money. Count out 10%. Put it back in your wallet and put the 90% in an envelope marked Government. Feel happy? Because that was the top marginal tax rate under Jimmy Carter, before the Reagan revolution lowered it to 39%)

 Now, Marco wants to pay for the leave by the mechanism of delaying retirement for an equal number of weeks, and essentially borrowing the money from the individual’s Social Security account. It seems too obvious to state, but

 There IS NO Social Security Trust Fund. Congress long since spent that. What is paid out to current retirees must come in from current FICA taxes taken from current workers. Because: (Say it with me)

 Government HAS-NO-MONEY!

 So, if Dick and Jane, who both have to work, because Progressive taxes make it impossible for families to live on a single income, as they could when Dick and Jane helped us learn to read, have a baby, and both get 12 weeks paid family leave, not only are they NOT borrowing from an account which they will pay into later on, they are NOT paying in now for 12 weeks, and are increasing the amount taken out of Gummint revenues for 12 weeks. So, if we have current commitments now, the Dick and Jane times the number of babies born every month equals that much more that Marco would have us pay out right now. So, Government must reach into its wallet, and take out (Average 76,000 babies born each week in US times average salary of 48,000 time 2 parents comes to $7.6 billion each week time 12 weeks comes to 91 Billion to fund Marco s little program)

 BUT! What have we learned?  Government has no money.

 So, 91 Billion must be borrowed, or taken out of other funds, or taken from payments to current retirees to pay for Marco s largesse. But, he would say, it will be paid back by the recipients working an extra 12 weeks till retirement.

 Permit me to point out a few logical fallacies.

 Dick and Jane might not live till retirement age.

Dick and Jane might not work till retirement age. (They might start drawing Disability)

Dick and Jane, having no particular incentive to save up and pay for this time, wont.

 Human nature being what it is, freebies will encourage everyone to take the maximum available, so they don’t “get ripped off”. And, I’ll bet anyone reading this a 1000-dollar bill, that IF this were to pass, 12 weeks Gummint paid FMLA, taken out of SS, Progressives will figure out why that is not enough and come weeping to the mike and demand more. Any takers?

 Now. Here is a proposal.  Dick and Jane both work. Jane sees a sparkle in Dicks eyes, and Jane goes to a baby shower and gets the fever. Let’s have a baby, she says. Sure honey. How about next year?  Meantime, we will both work an extra 5 hours of Overtime a week for the next year, and that will give us enough to pay our salaries for up to 12 weeks when the baby is born while we take off and change diapers.

 There is one way to do it, involving personal responsibility.

 Here is another. Insurers can offer a rider to Health policies that will pay supplemental income for a period of time after a birth. Couples of children bearing age can elect to pay for this rider and use it when they have their children.

And here is an even better idea for it, one certain to make Progressive head explode. If you are a Progressive who accidentally began reading this column, please, please stop reading. I’m not responsible for what happens if you continue.

 Still here?

 Ok, then. What if we had an organization dedicated to family planning, funded by large infusions of government money, and anxious to show that 97% of their function is women’s health issues.  Wouldn’t that be an ideal organization to set up and offer family leave insurance and savings policies? Especially if they are large enough to have a multi-billion-dollar reserve, and a billion dollar a year budget? And doesn’t paid family leave sound better than “I want a Lamborghini?” 

Yes, Marco, here is a cause for you to champion. Let us have Planned Parenthood set up and run family leave policies for prospective parents. After all, Planned Parenthood is what they are all about, right? Who needs another progressive socialist big government program? The answer was staring us in the face all along.

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Mark Caserta: Liberals should refocus and put America first

2 Feb

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Mark Caserta:  Free State Patriot editor

 

MAKING AMERICA GA

 

 

Liberals always seem to be fighting against America. Their conduct since the election of President Trump has some challenging their allegiance to our great nation.

A couple of questions for liberal Democrats: Do you really hate Donald Trump more than you love your country? What would you be willing to allow our nation to endure to derail his presidency? It seems, even in the face of Trump’s successes, you’re willing to compromise just about anything to see him fail.

Here are a few examples.

Given the drug epidemic sweeping our nation, wouldn’t it be prudent to strengthen border security to prevent a significant number of illegal drugs from entering our country?

Last Saturday, National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told Fox News that Trump’s “business acumen” is leading him to an “impending success” on immigration reform. Yet liberal Democrats are fighting more for illegal aliens and keeping the border open than they are for the safety of Americans. Does that make sense to you?

Anyone who’s been around for a few decades realizes manufacturing has been fleeing our country at a phenomenal rate. We’ve seen once prosperous cities like Pittsburgh, Detroit and even our own city of Huntington severely impacted by the loss of manufacturing jobs. Yet liberal Democrats fight constantly against lowering taxes to make our nation more “business friendly” and bringing back good-paying jobs to the U.S.

Again, liberal Democrats seem more willing to fight to keep more of your hard-earned money to waste than for improving your future and quality of life.

During the Obama presidency, ISIS became the most powerful jihadist organization in the world, controlling vast areas in three countries. Americans were inundated with horrific stories of death and torture nearly every day, yet all we saw from the Obama administration was apology and appeasement.

But during President Trump’s initial days in office, he began changing our military rules of engagement and providing our commanders the tools and resources they needed to defeat ISIS. But despite the fact ISIS has been severely crippled under President Trump, liberals refuse to give him credit or support a continued approach to strengthening our military and empowering our troops.

Article 1 of the Constitution speaks to a primary role of U.S. federal government – defending the homeland and our citizens. Yet its clarity continues to be clouded by liberal Democrats desiring to remove boundaries from their progressive movement as they fight to preserve sanctuary cities and the illegals they protect from the very federal law designed to protect U.S. citizens. And, as they do so, innocent people are dying.

Finally, my friends, Democrats and liberal factions of the party are not the party of compassion as they would have you believe. They are singularly minded in that they are determined to destroy and delegitimize President Trump and regain control of Congress.

Donald Trump is a political anomaly. His supporters hired him to clean up Washington. But he could achieve world peace and liberals would still despise him. That isn’t right.

Liberals should re-examine their priorities and put America first.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Mark Caserta: Progressivism a challenge for future generations

12 Jan

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Mark Caserta:  Free State Patriot editor

Jan 12, 2018

 

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Anyone who understands liberal ideology is aware the hatred of President Trump, exhibited daily, goes much deeper than the simple disdain for an individual, much deeper.

Donald Trump and the conservative policies he’s employed as president represent the literal antithesis of progressivism. In many respects, we’ve seen the advancement of liberal principles degraded to a degree unprecedented in my lifetime.

And frankly, it’s driving liberals out of their minds!

Additionally, those who’ve followed the progressive movement over the years understand their methodical approach to removing the principled boundaries around us has often involved an evolution of the environment around our children and the subsequent indoctrination of liberal ideals into their lives.

For example, today’s millennials probably never experienced prayer in school and weren’t privy to even the smallest portion of faith-based tenets in the classroom. Many individuals, now of voting age, are likely unaware of the progressive evolution of Roe v. Wade and how the law morphed from protecting the life of the mother to an “abortion-on-demand” system. I dare say many millennials are uninformed of “G-ratings” for movies, and would probably be disinclined to see a film void of the accepted level of violence, vulgar language and sex currently found in films.

Now, the liberal position is “this is simply progress. Get over it.”

The conservative position is “this represents the decay of a principled society.”

Unfortunately, our society has become saturated with individuals so weary of the politicization of nearly every aspect of our lives they’ve taken refuge on the sidelines and will remain there until issues begin directly impacting their lives or those around them.

And that’s where liberals win! They’re resolved to taking advantage of the fatigued among us. And don’t be fooled, their astuteness to weakness is akin to a shark sensing blood in the water. They won’t grow weary and they do not faint. They keep fighting until they advance their ideology.

I firmly believe that’s why the Bible tells us in Galatians, “And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.” God knew what Christians would face and He was preparing us with these encouraging words from Paul the Apostle.

So, what to do? Friends, I suggest employing a similar strategy in our battle against progressivism. And I believe we must begin with our children. Proverbs tells us, “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

Winning any battle requires a thorough understanding of the enemy and its capabilities. While the progressive movement may be stalled, our children will certainly deal with greater challenges in the future.

I suggest we begin by ensuring a Godly foundation on which our children may live their lives. Without this solid foundation, as with any structure, it will eventually fall.

Pray about how you can have the greatest impact on those around you. “None of us” is as strong as “all of us.”

Our country needs you in the fight.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Mark Caserta: Are liberals pursuing Ahab’s great white whale?

8 Sep

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Mark Caserta:  Free State Patriot editor

Sep 8, 2017 

 

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The enormous amount of venomous enmity toward Donald J. Trump, by liberals, is unlike anything we’ve seen in modern-day politics. Their passion to destroy a U.S. president, frankly, makes taking them seriously difficult.

In fact, the magnitude of liberal fury toward President Trump reminds me of the obsessive behavior of Captain Ahab in his pursuit aboard the Pequod to destroy the great white whale known as Moby Dick.

A bizarre comparison, you say? Perhaps, but stay with me.

In Herman Melville’s epic novel, Ahab was a whaling captain enslaved by a maniacal passion for revenge against a white whale that had destroyed one of his legs. This theme aligns perfectly with the current progressive addiction to destroying Donald Trump in that Ahab sought not only to avenge his loss against a mere whale, but over a ruling authority which Ahab refuses to accept, the nature of which is left to the reader.

Nonetheless, the captain’s compulsion was clearly not “normal,” as illuminated in one of Ahab’s final lines in the story that reveals his warped determination to destroy his foe, the great white beast.

“To the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart, I stab at thee; for hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.”

No, that wasn’t Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) speaking of Trump, but it isn’t far off the scandalous remarks she and other liberals have made about our president.

Let me be clear. Liberals have absolutely nothing to leverage against our president than their disdain for the fact Hillary lost the election in an electoral landslide.

They’ve even tried blaming Moscow.

But to date, there’s still no evidence Donald Trump ever colluded with Vladimir Putin to defeat Hillary Clinton. Why would Putin want Trump as president when he profited so well under a liberal administration? And the liberal hypocrisy by not addressing legitimate Russian collusion by the Obama administration is very telling.

Remember when President Obama got caught in a private conversation on a hot microphone in Seoul, Korea, telling outgoing Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that Vladimir Putin should give him more “space” and that “after my election I have more flexibility”?

Russian collusion supported by fact.

While ignored by the major liberal media, from 2009 to 2013, Russia began acquiring shares of Uranium One, a Canadian uranium company with holdings in the United States. Under the Obama administration, Russia gained control of nearly 20 percent of the uranium production capacity in the U.S.

Following the transaction, donations totaling $2.35 million dubiously made their way to the Clinton Foundation. Bill Clinton also received a “gratuitous” fee of $500,000 for a speech he made to the Kremlin.

Russian collusion supported by fact.

Is the progressive movement so paramount to the left they’re willing to follow this conservative “white whale” into treacherous waters, wildly seeking to annihilate this threat to their liberal passions?

Liberals would be wise to heed the moral of the story of Captain Ahab and the crew of the Pequod. The passion of their pursuit could eventually precipitate their demise.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

 

 

 

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Mark Caserta: America winning with Trump as president

2 Sep

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Mark Caserta:  Free State Patriot editor

  • Sep 1, 2017 

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    After eight agonizing years of socialist, liberal policies nearly sending our country into a progressive death spiral, our nation finally has a president committed to winning with “America first” policies.

    Despite the obsessive liberal lamenting and the media magnification of every single misstep by this “politically incorrect” administration, President Trump has kept his eye on the prize when it comes to delivering on promises to the American people, even saddled with a crippling Congress.

    It’s very telling that progressives are determined to focus on everything but the significant strides the Trump presidency has made in eight short months.

    A huge portion of Trump’s campaign centered on addressing illegal immigration. Per a May column in The Washington Times, by Stephen Dinan and Andrea Nobel, illegal immigration is down an amazing 76 percent since President Trump was elected. Based on reports from the Department of Homeland Security, the flow of illegals continues to drop as changes in enforcement policy deter people from attempting to illegally cross the border.

    President Trump also ran on creating jobs. Per a July column in CNN Money, employers added 863,000 new jobs during Donald Trump’s first five full months in office. While the president acknowledges too many people are still out of the labor force and not properly factored, unemployment is declining. Business owners simply feel more confident about expanding their workforce under employer-friendly policies.

    The president also talked tough on trade during his campaign. His executive order withdrawing the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal was a major step in delivering on his promise to level the playing field.

    “We’re going to stop the ridiculous trade deals that have taken everybody out of our country and taken companies out of our country and it’s going to be reversed,” Trump told a group of labor leaders in January. “Companies that left are going to come back to our country, and they’re going to hire a lot of people.”

    In agreement with many experts who felt it was too costly and ineffective in addressing climate change, the president decisively pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement. The deal would destroy hundreds of thousands of jobs, harm American manufacturing and destroy $2.5 trillion in gross domestic product by the year 2035, per The Heritage Foundation.

    Trump’s list of wins is lengthy and irrefutable. The stock market is at a record high. Our military is regaining its power and resolve. We have another conservative on the Supreme Court, with possibly more to come. And President Trump will be relentless in delivering on the repeal and replacement of Obamacare and a wall along the southern border.

    Perhaps the most important win is that patriots once again feel good about the direction of our nation. Anyone paying attention can see beyond the misdirection of the polls and the hypocrisy of the left. We see wins!

    So, Mr. President, please stay focused on delivering on your promises to the American people.  Do not succumb to the liberal distractions.

    Continued winning on behalf of Americans will make the liberal crusade to destroy you irrelevant.

    Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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    Doug Smith: When is a liberal not a liberal

    21 Aug

    This is the first part of a series on the history and evolution of liberalism in America.

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    Doug Smith: Free State Patriot history and society editor

    August 21, 2017

     

     

    Well, the flippant answer is 1900.  But a more reasoned answer must ask first, what is liberalism? As happens so often, the word has been hijacked.  Orwell warned of this practice. Up is down. Truth is a lie. War is peace. 2 plus 2 equals 5, Winston Smith.

    Words are important. Meaning is important. If we permit people to undermine meaning, they can mask actions and intentions. If I like chocolate all my life, and suddenly we call it butterscotch, we make a lie of my frame of reference.

    The father of classical liberalism is widely considered to be John Locke. He believed that people were equal and had the right to defend their life, health, liberty, or possessions. That phrase was condensed into Jefferson’s “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness in the Declaration of Independence. He believed that individuals had the right to own their property and goods based upon their own labor to produce them.

    Classical liberalism, as opposed to what passes for liberalism after Woodrow Wilson, is in favor of private property rights and a free economy, guarantees of freedoms codified into law in the Constitution. From Wilson forward, the term Liberal came to mean something it is not.  The modern “liberal “is more the egalitarian of the French revolution; emphasizing state control of property, markets, and equalization of outcomes by government picking winners and losers.  We have seen that where this is practiced, the only winners are those in government power, and private citizens, who find they have no rights that the government does not choose to give them, see those rights decreasing as the power of the state increases. The losers are the folks waiting in line in Moscow for bread, the millions murdered because they had no wall to protect them from the psychotic whims of Stalin.

    This is the dangerous fantasy put forth by Wilson’s ” Living Document” view of the Constitution. Rather than an agreed wall between the individual and the state, the Wilson New liberals see it as a fluid contract, subject to the perceived notions of those currently in power as to the needs of the people.

    Imagine if you signed a contract to buy a house for a certain sum. 5 years into the contract, the governor decided that all homes should cost 20% more, and now, regardless of the agreement you had made, you were forced to borrow additional money and send it to the seller. With, of course, a taxed sop to the government. Or suppose you were the seller, and he decided that you had sold your house for too much, and you had to borrow money and refund it to the buyer, years after the fact.

    You wouldn’t like it so much.  That wall of iron words took years, and much effort to get the agreement of enough citizens and states to ratify it and enter a contract.  The idea that the contract is living and can change with time would make it useless, and meaningless. It could come to mean anything at any time.  Recognizing how hard it was to ratify, and that future citizens may, indeed wish to alter it, Madison and the framers included specific steps to do so, and made it as difficult to alter as to pass initially. They protected the individual from the whim of a government official, or a vocal minority, or a small but insistent majority. If you wish to change this contract, you must persuade a decisive majority that the change is beneficial.

    Our government as a rule of law, not lawyers, or nobles, or kings, affords that protection to all our citizens.  The liberal judge who looks between the lines and finds things we must do as a government undermines those protections for every citizen.

    So then, the classical liberal, as the term was used for over 200 years, places its trust and support of the individual’s rights to property, self-determination, and personal liberty and responsibility. The citizen, in the view of a classical liberal, resides in the state, not under the state.

    The egalitarian, or “social” liberal, has a very different world view indeed. Next article, we shall lift the veil of the Wilsonian “liberal” and look at the iron hammer lurking there to supplant the iron words of the Constitution he so disdains.

     

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    Mark Caserta: Readers respond to columnist’s question

    5 Aug

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    Mark Caserta:  Free State Patriot editor

    Aug 4, 2017

     

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    Last week’s column, “Did West Virginians elect Trump out of ignorance?,” was centered on the facetious question as to whether voters in our state are qualified to make an educated choice for president of the United States.

    Of course they are.

    But some of the cynical responses were very telling. Some even had me questioning the reader’s ability to comprehend the text, as portrayed in this response from one reader.

    “Mark. Oh no, buddy. It has finally hit you right between the eyes. YOU are seeing Trump for what he is. You’re asking YOURSELF this question: Did I help elect Trump out of ignorance? Looks like you’ve been mulling that over.”

    Other folks, as in this reader, surmised West Virginians simply chose the “lesser of two evils.”

    “As West Virginians only had, as a viable alternative vote in 2016 the corporatist, republican-lite option of voting for Hillary Clinton, it is very understandable that most Democratic voters stayed home and some even voted for what was perceived as a wild-card, anti-DC candidate like Trump rather than falling in line behind the empty establishment pants suit.”

    Of the responses from individuals typically aligning themselves with progressives, it’s worth noting the lack of regard they apparently have for the intellect of West Virginians.

    “They had other options, they can write in any person they want, or not vote at all. Only stupid people believe there is some magical civic- duty to vote. They never/don’t realize the door of obligation swings both ways. Ignorant conservatives, you know I love-em!”

    “Well, considering Arch Moore was convicted for corruption and jailed, then RE-ELECTED in West Virginia as governor and THEN his daughter enters politics and SHE gets elected? I don’t know, but? Does that speak to an abundance of smarts in this state?”

    “A majority of West Virginians are too busy trying to make a living to give much time to considering political candidates. After all, they’ve sent some real losers (not this one) to the statehouse.”

    “Did West Virginians elect Trump out of ignorance? Yes. Like there was any other option. How else could/would clueless conservative hillbillies vote?”

    Then there were responses like this one, interjecting reasoned perspective into the discussion.

    “This is all pretty funny. And it confirms something I’ve known to be true for a long time. Liberals can’t read. Mark concludes that ‘And just perhaps, it isn’t the 68 percent of West Virginians who elected Donald Trump who are the ignorant ones, after all.’ And liberals read that as Mark concluding that West Virginians who voted for Trump did so out of ignorance. Pretty funny, and shows their total lack of logic and reasoning ability.”

    So, according to liberals, ignorance, indeed, played a role in electing Trump in West Virginia. I can only assume they believe similarly for the other 30 states he won.

    This progressive rationale prompts me to ask liberals another clarifying question.

    Do you accept any of the blame for Donald Trump being elected president, or was it simply the ignorance of others?

    Future voters eagerly await your response.

    Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

     

     

     

     

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    Doug Smith: A “Better Deal” with whom?

    26 Jul

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    Doug Smith:  Free State Patriot history and society editor

    July 26, 2017

     

     

    So, the Democrats, party of the New Deal, The Great Society, All this and World War, too, have decided to solve their problem (nobody votes for them anymore) with a “Better Deal”.

    Hmm. Really?

    Well, I have not written a book about deals, nor have a stayed in a Holiday Inn Express recently, but I have made and observed a few deals in the past 60 years and offer some observations and lessons learned.

    1. Who you make a deal with matters. I have made business deals with people I had reason to mistrust, but a desire to trust; an alcoholic, a thief, a chronic liar. (not all the same person!) Those deals have, predictably, gone south.
    2. Examine your motivation. I made those bad deals because they promised a lot that I wanted. I wanted those things badly, for reasons of my own, but they were a little too good to be true. In perfect hindsight, I should have passed.
    3. If a deal sounds too good to be true, it most likely is. Trust your gut.
    4. Deals offered by Democrats have a poor track record. (The 7 years of broken promises by my own party, the GOP, is a subject for another time.)Wilson ran on a strong anti-war platform: “Too Proud to Fight. “, “He Kept us out of the War” (WW1, if you were wondering.)  He was inaugurated Jan, 100 years ago, for his second term. And in April, he went to Congress to launch the US into WW1.

      Reagan made a deal with the Democrats in 1983 for $ 1 of tax increases for every $ 3 in spending reductions. So, the Dems promised, and sent him a budget including the tax increases, which he signed. Reagan noted in his memoirs, and I note now, 34 years later, that we are still waiting for any Democrats, anywhere, at any time, to ever reduce spending on anything.

      Bush 41 made a deal with Ted Kennedy that he, Bush, would break his “Read my Lips, No New Taxes” pledge, in exchange for which Democrats would lower spending a commensurate amount. (Note that at that time, they still had not come through on those promised to Reagan, Bush’s predecessor.)  As noted, we are still waiting on those spending decreases.

      Since I have written at length about it, I won’t belabor the point too much, but Barack Obama s shovel ready jobs, which he laughed off, are still not done or filled, the 2500 a year savings never happened, we cannot keep our Doctors or plans, and whatever else it may have done, the “Affordable Care Act did not make Health Care either more affordable, or more available. Indeed, it had nothing whatsoever to do with “Care” but a great deal to do with “Insurance. “(Also, worth noting that the Insurance companies heartily signed on to a deal with a Dem that promised to assure them that 350 million people, under force of law, would be customers. And how did that work out for them?)

    5. Which brings us to a lesson learned by observations: if you make a deal with someone who does not keep their word with others, don’t expect them to keep their deal with you.
    6. Deals made with other people’s money are easy for the deal maker, (the Dems), enticing for the beneficiaries (their voters), brutal for the people whose money they spend (Me. You, if you pay taxes.) and once again, too good to be true. (See 3, above. See also Detroit, Illinois, black youth unemployment, minimum wage workers in Seattle.
    7. There is no real wealth, other than the fruits of labor. That is what we work and do. We assign an arbitrary value to gold and diamonds, yet if I were to lock you in a room with all the gold and diamonds you wanted, and nothing else, you would starve. You could not build a car with it, except if you used it to build a factory, buy raw materials, and hire workers. The Gross Domestic Product, the yardstick of the wealth of a nation, is not about the number of zeros at the Federal Reserve, (on the ledger, not the people. Yea, I know, cheap shot.) It is about the goods and services we produce, and the value that potential buyers assign to them, and are willing to pay, in their own valuta, time, or work to obtain them.Only in the Garden of Eden was all that a man and woman needed available to reach out and take. Only in the Garden of Eden was sex available, commanded, and totally without consequence, all the time. Only in the Garden of Eden was there no need to work, and produce.

    There, and in the yearning for that which was lost, which comes to be expressed in the Utopian fantasies from Plato to Marx to Wilson to Obama.  And time and again, throughout history, there have been those who try to overturn the natural order, and operate on Eden Standard Time, the way we wish things were, instead of the way they are.  Every attempt has been met with failure, and disaster, and misery.

    So, the Democrats’ promises are based on the Utopian ideal: we can replant the abundance of Eden and make it grow, we can go back to how it was, and make it happen again, just put us in charge.

    And they reject the promises attached to the Eden story, because they contain unpleasant realities they wish to reject: By the sweat of your brow will you eat bread, until you return to the dust, for of dust you were made, and to dust you shall return.

    To accept that means to accept that men will not be perfect, that we are subject to a higher power, and that we must obey certain rules.  Progressives, notably Democrats, do not want any rules but their own, and certainly not those rules.

    But that pronouncement is not all bad. You Shall eat bread, by the sweat of your brow.  Not such a terrible thing. You no longer get the Eden deal, because you broke that one. But you do get this one: You won’t go hungry, but you must work for it now. But the Democrats keep trying to establish the Eden Deal, and, failing the power to do so, find it to fail over and over.

    Tragically, the lesson they learn is not that it won’t work, which is has not for millennia. No, they come away saying, if we do the same thing over and over, we will eventually get a different result.

    Einstein called that insanity.  So, it is. And so, is making a deal with the Democrats, whether you are a President or a voter.

     

     

     

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    Mark Caserta: Liberal hypocrisy over Russia is telling

    9 Jun

    me

    Mark Caserta: Free State Patriot editor

    russian-flag

    Jun 9, 2017

     

    Liberal activism has been taken to an entirely new level in 2017 in terms of what progressives are willing to compromise to protect their movement. And it’s quite disturbing to observe where our nation and its citizens fall on their list of priorities.

    Liberal hypocrisy, for example, leaves nothing to the imagination when it comes to U.S. relations with Russia. But for perspective, let’s look at a couple of examples.

    In March 2012, when Barack Obama was running for re-election, a live microphone picked up his private conversation with then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during a gathering in Seoul, South Korea.

    President Obama: “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this, this can be solved but it’s important for him to give me space.”

    President Medvedev: “Yeah, I understand. I understand your message about space. Space for you ”

    President Obama: “This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.”

    President Medvedev: “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir, and I stand with you.”

    Can you imagine how liberals and the major news outlets would have lambasted President Trump if he had been covertly recorded making such a remark? We would likely have millions of liberals marching in Washington calling for the president’s immediate impeachment for obvious and shameless Russian collusion.

    In March 2009, during a trip to Geneva, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov a small red button meant to represent a “Russian reset” of sorts between the U.S. and the Kremlin. While visiting Moscow in March 2010, Hillary explained the “reset’s” purpose: “Our goal is to help strengthen Russia,” as reported in an April 7 column by Deroy Murdock in National Review.

    While the reset was a total failure for the U.S., many believe the ultimate Clinton/Russia relationship became profitable for the Clintons. In a deal known as “Uranium One,” Bill and Hillary may have sown some of their “entrepreneurial” oats for personal gain.

    In April 2015, a story by Jo Becker and Mike McIntire in The New York Times detailed tens of millions of dollars in donations made to the Clinton Foundation following the approval by then-Secretary of State Clinton of the Russian acquisition of a company holding 20 percent of America’s uranium.

    And Bill Clinton reportedly received a $500,000 speaking fee from a Russian government-connected bank during this time, as written by Jerome Hudson of Breitbart in March 2017.

    Can anyone say liberal Russian collusion? Imagine, for a moment, the field day progressives would have if someone had even suggested Donald Trump or any one of his surrogates were involved in such deals!

    Yet, progressive “snowflakes,” as they’ve been called, run around crying “election foul” when they don’t have a single shred of evidence, all the while ignoring fact-laden events of potential collusion that don’t support their ideology.

    Frankly, this liberal hypocrisy and selective focus is very telling. One could surmise that progressives are only concerned with winning for their cause, regardless of the impact on our country.

    Is there anything less patriotic?

    Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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    Mark Caserta: Liberals attack the core principles of America

    19 May

    me

    Mark Caserta:  Free State Patriot editor

    • May 19, 2017

    Unlike progressives who hate Donald Trump, I do not hate liberals. I do, however, loathe liberalism. I truly believe it’s been attacking the core fundamentals of our society for years.

    I’m on a mission to expose the progressive movement and educate readers about the liberal desire to “unchain” America from the anchors of morality. You see, progressives don’t advocate the freedom to be Americans, they pursue freedom from our historically steadfast principles.

    As a contributor for The Blaze, Dr. Benjamin Wiker wrote a column in 2013, effectively explaining the liberal movement and the progressive mindset.

     “I offer a seemingly liberal explanation – they can’t help it,” Wiker wrote. “Liberals think being educated means becoming liberal, moving from darkness to light, and so whenever they undertake education reform, it means redefining education by the lights of liberalism.”

    “Conservative darkness” to “liberal light.” What a masterful interpretation of progressive ideology! It’s designed to be the antithesis of the evangelical movement, and its roots have been premeditatively nurtured in our classrooms for decades.

    Abe Lincoln said, “The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation is the philosophy of government in the next.” Truer words were never spoken. The seed of progressivism was planted years in advance of the current harvest of turbulent tolerance.

    One example is The Pro-Choice Public Education Project (PEP). As defined on their website, PEP is a project “dedicated to engaging young women on their terms around the critical issue of reproductive justice, and is under the direction of a Young Women’s Leadership Council along with a team of dedicated staff.”

    PEP’s mission statement proclaims they “work to engage and inform organizations, young women, transgender and gender non-conforming young people, ages 16-25.”

    What is “reproductive justice” anyway? In this writer’s opinion, it’s an ambiguous term for “abortion on demand.”

    Targeting our youth has been integral in the liberal strategic attempt to redefine every preconceived societal attribute of America.

    Consider this hypothetical. Suppose a society of beings was placed on a planet and developed void of steadfast, guiding principles or boundaries. What would their societal evolution resemble? Any intellectually honest person would surmise they would exist in total chaos.

    Our Christian conservative roots and the Biblical principles established by God’s Word, have anchored our country and allowed us to prosper within the parameters of man’s and God’s Law. We’re a nation, blessed of God, and called upon to be a light unto the world.

    But in recent years, we’ve done well to help ourselves. And the further we get from the shores of substratum, the deeper the waters of iniquity become.

    I’m reminded of the refrain in the praise hymn “The Anchor Holds,” sung by Ray Boltz:

     

    “And it holds, my anchor holds:

    Blow your wildest, then, O gale,

    On my bark so small and frail;

    By His grace I shall not fail,

    My anchor holds”.

    America’s anchor has been God, not man. Liberals disagree.

    But if we forsake that anchor, we will perish, as a nation and a people.

    Cling to the anchor.

     

    Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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