Rick Santorum for President

Rick Santorum (official photo)

After some deliberation, and even after finding many more favorable than unfavorable things about all the four remaining GOP candidates, I have decided to give my endorsement, for what it’s worth, to former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Unfortunately, Gov. Romney and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich have harmed each other and themselves, mostly by Romney’s unrelenting negative attacks on Gingrich, and a backlash against those attacks. It is unfortunate that the negatives have been so intense. The fact is that any of the four candidates would be far, far superior in the White House to President Obama.

I like Santorum best. He does try to distinguish himself from the others without the negative personal attacks, and tries to focus on opposing Obama. He is a man who identifies with working Americans and middle-class voters. He is not an elitist. He is a politician who understands how our government works, and what needs to be changed.

He is down to earth about his agenda, not all over the place with moon colonies, etc.

Since he, for now, is the leading contender, he is also becoming a leading target for the Obama campaign. Obama has no record to run on; he only has personal attacks and class warfare. He has been in a constant campaign mode, and demonstrated poor skills for governing. He has a confused and dangerous foreign policy, and a desire to disarm America and build up her enemies. His economic policies are either deliberately destructive or he is completely inept and economically illiterate. It has to be one or the other. His argument that things were much worse when he took office than “anyone” thought only demonstrates the incompetence of Obama and his advisers in the realm of economics. It’s similar to Bill Clinton’s explanation of why he had to pull back on a promised “middle-class tax cut,” but at least Clinton didn’t give us a term of near-depression conditions.

Of course, Obama isn’t responsible for anything that has gone wrong; he points fingers at many in order to prove it. If he can’t be held accountable for anything, why do we want him to be in charge?

But back to Santorum. He is a family man who has gotten as far as he has in the campaign with diligent and dogged campaigning. His campaign is dirt poor compared to those of Romney and Obama, but gets a lot of mileage out of each dollar. Money will increase for him as polls build in his favor.

Here is Santorum’s CPAC speech:

The Editors at National Review Online write (02/13/2012),

Santorum has been conducting himself rather impressively in his moments of triumph and avoiding characteristic temptations. He is doing his best to keep the press from dismissing him as merely a “social-issues candidate.” His recent remark that losing his Senate seat in 2006 taught him the importance of humility suggests an appealing self-awareness.…

Also at NRO, Quin Hillyer writes (02/06/12)

Santorum rates particularly high on personal character, on sincerity, and on steadfastness of principle. Those are bedrock traits that, over a long campaign, help secure a voter’s comfort level with a candidate. A comparison with Reagan is in order here. While Santorum certainly hasn’t shown Reagan’s preternatural communication skills or sheer — almost magical — personal likeability, what matters in a race against a weak incumbent in a weak economy is that voters give themselves the psychological go-ahead for changing something as important as the president.

John Hayward at Human Events quotes Santorum’s remarks on Fox News about the Obama Administrations decision to require Catholic institutions to offer insurance coverage for contraception:

The Catholic Church specifically teaches that birth control pills, as well the morning-after pill which is not just a birth control pill but what clearly causes abortions, as well as sterilization, which is something that the church specifically teaches against. Here you have a situation where you have this tricky play, the government says that they can give you right. They'll give you the right to health care. Be careful, because then they can tell you how to exercise that right against your First Amendment rights, against you ability to practice your faith….

So, now, not only violating the freedom of religion, now the freedom of speech, this is the problem when government tells you that they can give you things. They can take it away. But even worse, they can tell you how they're going to exercise this new right that they've given you, consistent with their values instead of the values guaranteed in our Constitution.

Hayward also observes,

Santorum also appears to be winning a lot of Tea Party support away from Gingrich in the next couple of primary races.  The Tea Party means energy.  They won’t just vote for you – they’ll work for you.

Liberals, who seem to feel it’s their responsibility to be easily offended, accused Santorum of being “over the line” with his remarks about Obama’s theology. Santorum later clarified that he was referring to Obama’s “world view,” not his faith. Of course it remains true that Obama’s theology was influenced by Jeremiah Wright’s radical anti-white, anti-Jewish, black-liberation views. And it can hardly be questioned that Obama’s view is far from that of a leader seeking to follow the Constitution.

You can read the comments on any Yahoo article about Santorum and see the venom and bigotry the Obama supporters are throwing at Santorum. Santorum should see this as a sign of success – he’s annoying the right people, those who share the secularist, anti-Christian views of the president.

Fairly soon after Obama took office, seeing his agenda starting to unfold, I wrote that Americans would be looking for a “return to normalcy,” much as the nation did by electing Warren G. Harding after the oppressive “Progressive” fascism of Woodrow Wilson. Harding was politically like a breath of fresh air, although he had problems with some of his appointees, and died in office. He was followed by Calvin Coolidge, probably the best president of the twentieth century other than Ronald Reagan. He kept government largely out of the way of the economy, balanced the budget, and presided over a period of prosperity.

I think Rick Santorum offers the closest thing at present to a badly needed “return to normalcy” after Obama has nearly wrecked our economy and skewed everything toward big-government socialism, always seeking higher taxes and more spending, not to mention his upside-down foreign policy adventures. Santorum understands the need for fiscal sanity, which presently we do not have, thanks to Obama, and he knows who our allies and enemies are. He is a family man of proven character and political success. He would be a leader instead of “leading from behind.” Mr. Romney boasts that he is the only one of the four GOP candidates that hasn’t served in Washington, as though that is a disqualifying experience. Santorum responds that it doesn’t hurt to know the people in government who have advanced the conservative cause, and to have some insight into how things work in Congress. If Mr. Romney were correct, he would be unqualified to serve a second term, having become one, were he elected, who had “served in Washington.” Unlike Obama and his crew, who are bent on ruling, not serving, Santorum demonstrates greatly more of a servant spirit than any other candidate except possibly Ron Paul.

I hope Santorum will pick up many of the supporters of Bachmann and Cain, and I think he already has done some of that. I am not Catholic, but I respect Santorum, and any politician who is honest about how his faith informs his work. If it didn’t, it wouldn’t be worth practicing. Those who worry about an anti-contraception mandate need not do so; no state is prepared to impose one, nor allow the federal government to do so. More worrisome is Obama’s contraception insurance mandate, which I predict will not stand.

America needs a GOP majority in both houses of Congress and a Republican president who will undo many of Obama’s misguided and unconstitutional policies fairly quickly, and also provide a workable governing structure for the future which will respect and preserve American liberty and allow prosperity to return. When Obama had a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress, he did not focus on the economy or employment, but chose instead to push his unconstitutional, socialist policies, such as Obamacare and cap and trade. These policies involved back-room deals, thousand-plus-page bills no one read, and strict party line votes.

A win by Santorum would also be a strong corrective to the “Republican establishment,” which has failed to object to Obamaism strongly enough. Santorum said, “We are not a wing of the Republican Party, we are the Republican Party.” May the campaign and the November elections prove it so. 

Rep. Allen West: Saying What Needs To Be Said

Rep. Allen West (R-FL) in YouTube video via TheBlaze:

 

Way to go, Congressman West! I hope the Democrat leaders are paying attention.

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Oakland Occupiers at It Again

The Occupy movement, which seems to occupy some who should be classified (as the Bible terms are) “sons of Belial” or “worthless men,” has apparently reawakened in Oakland. Even the mayor, Jean Quan, previously their defender and encourager, now has “lost patience” with this foolishness.

According to an AP article by Terry Collins, protesters threw bottles and rocks, and spray painted graffiti on walls, while police responded with tear gas and orders to disperse. Further,

More than 400 people were arrested on charges ranging from failure to disperse to vandalism, police spokesman Sgt. Jeff Thomason said. At least three officers and one protester were injured.

On Sunday, Oakland officials vowed to be ready if Occupy protesters try to mount another large-scale demonstration. Protesters, meanwhile, decried Saturday's police tactics as illegal and threatened to sue.

Of course, in liberal Oakland, they’ll probably find a judge foolish enough to take the case. I recommend reading the entire article.

The Occupy movement has to be one of the stupidest protests in American history, and there have been some weird ones. They are not so much protesters as they are simply a mob bent on destruction for no coherent reason. They are no better than the mob that destroyed things in London not long ago. I just hope the police in Oakland and elsewhere will bear down and break up their little party.

The Occupiers claim to have a right to do what they’re doing, but they obviously are not interested in other people’s rights, i.e., property rights, peace and quiet, etc. The police should vigorously enforce the law and need not be excessively gentle with these people.

If the protesters don’t like America, maybe they should try some other country, like Cuba or China. I wonder if ACORN is out there trying to register them to vote.

STOP SOPA/PIPA Efforts Showing Favorable Signs

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) activist Trevor Timm on The Alyona Show on Russia Today discusses the PIPA and SOPA bills which would censor the Internet by shutting down sites on copyright issues. The proposed law is believed to be subject to a great deal of abuse. The government has tried several ways to restrict and eventually take over the internet, this being the latest.

EFF is one of the most active organizations in protecting Internet freedom. Content providers and media entities (MPAA, Time-Warner, RIAA, etc.) are more than able to protect their own interests. Special government help for these rent-seeking organizations is unnecessary and dangerous.



PROTECT IP / SOPA Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

Video: fightforthefuture.org/pipa   Tell Congress.
via Vimeo

Further reading:

Free Speech Is Only as Strong as the Weakest Link (eff.org)

Let’s Hear It for Romney!

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.  Photo: Dreamstime

Mitt Romney, who created jobs as CEO of Bain Capital, amid some layoffs and failures, is, to say the least, a man who believes in free-market capitalism. From the criticisms of Romney’s Bain Capital experience coming from Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry, one would wonder if belief in capitalism is not so much a Republican principle as we thought.

Of course, Gingrich has rescinded his criticism (sort of), and Perry has quieted his after losing a key donor over it, but the fact is that capitalism, properly understood and practiced, is simply economic freedom. That’s what we’re losing under the Obama Administration. It is true that this criticism of Romney sounds eerily like Obama.

Romney’s comment that he “likes to be able to fire people” ought to be taken as a positive statement about competition, in stark contrast to liberals’ ideal that says no one should ever be fired, especially if they are part of government. See Ann Coulter’s excellent column on this.

Maybe Romney’s strategy now is to simply wait out the campaign until his rivals knock each other off by such ill-advised criticisms of him and each other. He’s been a presidential candidate for years now, so he has learned something about what it might take for success in politics. It begins to look more and more like he’s the inevitable candidate, and if that trend continues, Republicans had better get behind him (or someone) in a unified manner, or else we’ll see four more years of Obama.

The only “capitalism” President Obama likes is crony capitalism which is very like fascist corporatism. This, of course, is not capitalism, but “private enterprise” in collusion with government, involving exchanges of political favors. It also involves government taking over private companies, removing them from their owners and handing them over to unions and other politically-connected cronies, meanwhile, leaving investors with little to nothing (see GM and Chrysler).

Obama’s “green-energy” policy has brought some “green” to some of his cronies, at the expense of taxpayers and future generations, with nothing worthwhile to show for it. Solyndra got an over-half-billion dollar loan guarantee, then went bankrupt (as should have been expected). The government even considered bailing them out. Chevy Volt draws a subsidy now equal to about $250,000 per car. Its flaws are becoming more evident. The problem is that this is crony capitalism at its worst. It’s incompetent, and possibly criminal, government involvement in things that, if financially viable, would be developed by private industry, perhaps profitably, and without government involvement.

The Obama Administration showcases their abysmal economic ignorance. Normally, everything the government finances or helps finance, is a money-losing operation, but under the current regime, it’s not just marginal losses, but incredibly huge, economy-damaging losses, that show no sign of improvement.

Romney, like all the candidates, has his flaws. He does not seem to be as thoroughly conservative as we might prefer. But which candidate is? The main smaller-government conservatives are/were candidates Michele Bachmann (now out) and Rick Perry (slipping, but still in the race so far). Ron Paul is for smaller government, but has troubling positions on some foreign policy and other issues. We’re left with Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and Huntsman, of whom, it seems to me, only Romney speaks of smaller government.

I like Huntsman’s position on stopping corporate welfare and all subsidies. I like some of Gingrich’s ideas on entitlements, for example, stop paying crooks. I like Santorum’s social conservatism. I liked Herman Cain’s refreshing approach to running for office and his tea party appeal. I actually thought Michele Bachmann might be the best all-around conservative in the race, but, alas, she couldn’t get going.

What I want to see is a Republican president who can get this country back to normal. Something like Warren G. Harding did after the unbearable Wilson. Something like Ronald Reagan did after the unbearable Carter. We now have a president who’s more unbearable than either Wilson or Carter, and four more years of the Obama regime will come close, if not actually accomplish, the final decline of America as a free and prosperous country. We’ll be more like a third-world dictatorship. We’ll be more like Cuba, the workers’ paradise.

Employment is the top issue. Romney knows more about correcting the problems than anyone else in the race. Private-sector experience trumps all political career experience in this issue. Romney says he knows how the economy works. Obama does not know how it works, except he seems to know how to hurt it.

In the Washington world of deeply confused Keynesianism, the great contrast of the Austrian School of economic thought offers much common-sense counsel and analysis of the problems of today and the past. A plain explanation of Austrian principles is contained in a fairly brief video found below. Austrian economists (so called because pioneers of their school of thought were Austrians, such as Ludwig von Mises and Frederich A. Hayek) accurately predicted such events as the Great Depression and the more recent housing bust. Austrian theory provides a rational explanation for the business cycle.




Actually, the only candidate who claims Austrian economic views is Ron Paul, and in the economic area, he is right. But to me, the main requirement for economic views of a presidential candidate is economic freedom: low taxes, free-market capitalism, reasonable, i.e., minimal, regulation, and a strong non-interventionist bias, and no collusion between government and business. In other words, keep government out of the economy (and most other things) as much as possible.

Perhaps our next president will recognize the ticking time bombs of our economy, as well as those of our world. The present regime does not.

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Christmas Greetings

Even when Christmas is only a few days away, there usually isn’t a pause in everyday activity until the day itself, or perhaps Christmas Eve. In politics, the charges, counter-charges, and occasional dirty tricks continue. But even so, Christmas and the end of the year usually present an occasion to reflect on past and future. There often isn’t enough time or opportunity to rest and think about things in a serious way. But at Christmas, we may have a special opportunity.

Christians and others need to consider the gift God gave to us in Christ, whose birth we celebrate. He came for the express purpose of dying for our sins, and to offer eternal salvation to all who would believe in Him. His is the greatest and most beneficial message mankind has ever received. It is truly Good News.

The following video features the Christmas story read by Herman Cain with his wife Gloria and some military family members, as well as Christmas greetings and a song “It's Christmas in America.” (YouTube video I found at Daily Caller.)




I hope you enjoy it, and, especially, I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

This is (probably) my last post of 2011. We look for better things in 2012. God bless.

Some Comments on President Obama’s Economic Speech of December 6, 2011

President Theodore Roosevelt. Photo via Wikipedia

The president spoke in Osawatomie, Kansas on Tuesday, December 6, 2011, on his version of Theodore Roosevelt’s “New Nationalism,” essentially trying to make a case for a more socialistic approach to the economy, with the idea of government striving to make everything “fair” and supposedly advancing the middle class.

The comments cover a good deal less than the entire speech (video found here and here), but I believe they address the main ideas he expressed. The text is found at the Washington Post website. The president’s words are in bold, mine are not.


For many years, credit cards and home equity loans papered over the harsh realities of this new economy. But in 2008, the house of cards collapsed. We all know the story by now: Mortgages sold to people who couldn’t afford them, or sometimes even understand them. Banks and investors allowed to keep packaging the risk and selling it off. Huge bets – and huge bonuses – made with other people’s money on the line. Regulators who were supposed to warn us about the dangers of all this, but looked the other way or didn’t have the authority to look at all.

It was wrong. It combined the breathtaking greed of a few with irresponsibility across the system. And it plunged our economy and the world into a crisis from which we are still fighting to recover. It claimed the jobs, homes, and the basic security of millions – innocent, hard-working Americans who had met their responsibilities, but were still left holding the bag.

The president conveniently leaves out the fact that banks were under heavy pressure from the government to make these loans, and Fannie and Freddie purchased them. The Democrats in Congress, led by Barney Frank, would not permit the needed regulation of Fannie and Freddie, claiming that they were on sound footing. Financial companies issued extremely risky derivatives, which should have been stopped by government regulators but weren’t, and now, banks have it set up where derivatives take priority in bankruptcy, over the interests of investors. See Gary North’s informative article here.

Community agitators like ACORN (which previously employed Barack Obama)  increased pressure on banks to make the bad loans. The “breathtaking greed” was driven and incentivized by the government through purchase guarantees and “affordable housing” pressure. Banks shared blame as well, but it was primarily a government- and Federal Reserve-caused situation. The bailouts (under Bush’s administration) set the tone for further legislation handled in an “emergency” fashion, (Obamacare, cap and trade, etc.), with little to no debate and in the dark of night, with 1,000-plus-page bills which were not read and perhaps not yet entirely written when voted upon. This is the fault of government.

But this isn’t just another political debate. This is the defining issue of our time. This is a make or break moment for the middle class, and all those who are fighting to get into the middle class. At stake is whether this will be a country where working people can earn enough to raise a family, build a modest savings, own a home, and secure their retirement.

Obama is correct that the middle class is at stake. It is Obama’s policies that are destroying the middle class through ensuring massive unemployment and an economic environment that discourages business growth and hiring. His answer is higher taxes and more spending. More “stimulus,” when the stimulus to date is proven ineffective.

Now, in the midst of this debate, there are some who seem to be suffering from a kind of collective amnesia. After all that’s happened, after the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, they want to return to the same practices that got us into this mess. In fact, they want to go back to the same policies that have stacked the deck against middle-class Americans for too many years. Their philosophy is simple: we are better off when everyone is left to fend for themselves and play by their own rules….

According to Obama, the government needs to make sure a good outcome is experienced by all who “work hard.” The task of government in the economy is punish fraud and abuse, and to provide an appropriate, rather than oppressive, tax and regulation environment. The Federal Reserve has harmed the economy through massive money printing and artificially low interest rates that discourage investment and saving. The government should not interfere with the free market, which they constantly do through corporate welfare and “crony capitalism” which is actually not capitalism but more like fascist corporatism.

They should stop all subsidies, bailouts, and special tax treatment, and trust the free market, in which companies and individuals pursue their own self interest without government interference.

Now, just as there was in Teddy Roosevelt’s time, there’s been a certain crowd in Washington for the last few decades who respond to this economic challenge with the same old tune. “The market will take care of everything,” they tell us. If only we cut more regulations and cut more taxes – especially for the wealthy – our economy will grow stronger. Sure, there will be winners and losers. But if the winners do really well, jobs and prosperity will eventually trickle down to everyone else. And even if prosperity doesn’t trickle down, they argue, that’s the price of liberty.

It’s a simple theory – one that speaks to our rugged individualism and healthy skepticism of too much government. It fits well on a bumper sticker. Here’s the problem: It doesn’t work. It’s never worked. It didn’t work when it was tried in the decade before the Great Depression. It’s not what led to the incredible post-war boom of the 50s and 60s. And it didn’t work when we tried it during the last decade.

It’s called free market capitalism and it does work and will work whenever it’s allowed to operate. The reason the Great Depression got so bad and lasted so long is that government tried to fix it. There was a depression in 1920 that started out as bad as the one in the 1930’s, but lasted less than two years, because neither the government nor the Fed did anything to interfere. They didn’t enshrine the mistakes as they did in the 1930’s and in the 2008 collapse. The government should have simply let the recession run its course, and by now, bad debt would be liquidated and we’d be back to normal growth. But no, politics trumps all. See Tom Woods's eye-opening video on the 1920 depression here.

When Obama says “It’s not political,” he would be more accurate in saying, “It’s not just political, it’s very, very political.” He is the servant of the unions, the radical environmentalists, and the socialist left.

This speech, delivered in the form of populist rhetoric, is an attempt to make the case for socialism. Theodore Roosevelt was something of a “Progressive,” as some liberals like to be called today, but people don’t generally understand that Progressivism is the belief that economic, social and cultural decisions that people traditionally make for themselves, should instead be made by a group of elite “experts,” acting for all. Thus we got big government, big bureaucracy, less freedom, and even eugenics. Now we have abortion, and may soon have more government-rationed health care and government-rationed or mandated who-knows-what.

Remember that in those years, in 2001 and 2003, Congress passed two of the most expensive tax cuts for the wealthy in history, and what did they get us? The slowest job growth in half a century. Massive deficits that have made it much harder to pay for the investments that built this country and provided the basic security that helped millions of Americans reach and stay in the middle class – things like education and infrastructure; science and technology; Medicare and Social Security.

Actually, we had strong job growth, compared to today. The deficits came mainly from wars that started after 9/11/2001 and continue today. And Bush’s worst deficits pale in comparison to those racked up under the Obama Administration.

Obama wants more “investment,” i.e. government spending, in education and infrastructure. But if the economy could just be allowed to recover, these issues would be taken care of without massive borrowing and endless debt.

We simply cannot return to this brand of your-on-your-own (sic.) economics if we’re serious about rebuilding the middle class in this country. We know that it doesn’t result in a strong economy. It results in an economy that invests too little in its people and its future. It doesn’t result in a prosperity that trickles down. It results in a prosperity that’s enjoyed by fewer and fewer of our citizens....

According to Obama, we need government in control to make sure the incomes and outcomes are what they should be. But experience has shown that government is hardly qualified to run anything outside its actual constitutional responsibilities. They are poorly qualified to give guidance on running business or the economy, when their own business and their own finances are out of control. It’s the private sector that needs to be able to invest, not the government. But politicians put many roadblocks in the way: bans on energy development and oppressive EPA regulations, just to name two.

America can’t afford four more years of Obama. That should be the focus of the GOP message. A few more years down the current path and we’ll be worse off than Greece.

Wealth and income inequality is not the problem. It’s simply a convenient propaganda component to stir up class envy, which, I repeat, is the very life blood of liberalism, and class warfare is its process.