His name was Ross. He stood six foot four and weighed 205 pounds, and even at 57 years of age, he still wore jeans with a 34 inch waist. He had closely cropped white hair, a face tanned a leathery brown by years in the Wyoming sun, and icy blue eyes that scanned everything in his path - "hunter's eyes" one of my friends once called them.

I first met him in 1995, but it was at a Minnesota camp ground in 1996 that I got a genuine insight into who Ross really was. Like most such camping facilities, there was a curfew - at 11:00PM all radios and other devices were to be turned off, and conversations were to be kept to a level that would not disturb those who had turned in for the night.

Sometime around 11:30, it became clear that one group of rather rowdy young men either couldn't read, or (more likely) had perhaps consumed a bit too much alcohol. Because they were not only shouting and laughing loud enough to be heard a mile away, they had a "boom-box" blaring obnoxious music that echoed through the still night air.

Someone down the way even yelled "turn that thing down!" - but the late night revelers went on undeterred - staggering around their fire, laughing, drinking, swearing, and generally making a nuisance of themselves.

It was then that Ross grumbled something under his breath, stood up from our fire and walked to his tent. A few seconds later he loped off down the path in the direction of the noisy camp group - they were perhaps 50 yards or so down the line of tents and small RV's.

Something in the tone of his voice told me I shouldn't miss what was about to happen, because I too got up and headed down the lane, on the other path that went behind the campsites. I took up a position just behind a tree about 30 feet from the young men. 

Ross couldn't have come up with a more dramatic entrance if he had planned it. On the opposite side of the campsite from where I was, he suddenly appeared between two trees, facing the young men circled around the fire. 

First one, then another, and eventually all of the young men turned their gaze in Ross' direction - the conversations dwindled down to whispers. Only the boom-box continued to disturb the night.

The firelight illuminated him in a way that made him look even more forbidding. The massively broad shoulders, the narrow waist, the ruddy face, those piercing blue eyes made even more so by the flickering of the fire. He was wearing a light blue chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up exposing his muscular forearms, faded jeans, and dark brown cowboy boots.

But it was more than just his appearance that stopped the young men cold - hanging easily in Ross' strong right hand was a massive, double-bladed axe, with a handle over three feet long, the kind that lumberjacks in Alaska use. The blade gleamed as the firelight caught it.

It was then that Ross spoke, in his deep and booming voice that required no great volume to command attention. "Boys" he growled, "you wanna shut that thing off..." then, after he brought the huge axe up and cradled the blade end in his left hand, "...or would you like me to do it?"

After an agonizing second or two, one of the boys practically fell over his buddies to get to the offending device, slamming the "off" button so hard the boom-box tipped over. "Sorry..." he squeaked.

"Thanks, boys," replied Ross, who then stepped back into the darkness, vanishing like some demon the boys all wished they had only imagined.

Ross died the following year - a massive heart attack doing to him what few mortal men could have accomplished. But I will never forget that night, and what it taught me.

I thought about Ross the other day, when I read that a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 31% of voters agree with the decision of the Obama administration to withdraw the U.S. missile shield from Poland, but 38% disagree. Thirty-two percent (32%) are not sure what’s best to do.

More to the point, fifty-eight percent (58%) of Republicans oppose the president’s decision, a view shared by the plurality (43%) of voters not affiliated with either major political party but only 15% of Democrats opposed the withdrawal. A paltry 15%?

I couldn't help wondering what Ross might have thought...

After my recent commentary on the pathology of socialism, I received a number of emails from people asking why some of their moderate friends, who are responsible, hard-working people, still seem to fall so often for the latest socialist sales pitch. In fact, it is the sales pitch itself that contains the answer.

It has to do with one of the fundamental tactics employed by the American Left - they avoid dealing with those annoying little details like the actual (often disastrous) consequences of their policies.  Instead they concentrate on framing every debate in terms of key words and phrases that focus-group testing has shown will resonate with people - emotionally.

Two of the most commonly employed terms are "fairness" and "justice" - we hear demands for "social justice" at every turn. Now, savvy conservatives know full well that "social justice" is simply code for socialism - dig into any organization that uses that phrase and, odds are, they are all about taking money from people who earned it and giving it to people who don't. But many moderates do not follow politics closely (that's why they're moderates), so the phrase sounds vaguely reasonable, perhaps even noble.

My current personal nomination for most deceptive language is "environmental justice"  - what that could actually mean is a mystery, but the Left uses it to justify every unutterably socialist intervention into our daily lives. The onerous "Cap and Trade" legislation, which will ultimately hit the poor the hardest, is but one example. Once again, whenever a leftist uses the word "justice" it is time to hold onto your wallet.

Do a Google search and you will see how many radical far-left groups have even incorporated the word "justice" into their names. It has become a reliable red flag (pun intended) - any organization so named is almost certainly a far-left socialist front group. There are even seminars and "social justice" training camps designed to recruit and train young people to become the next generation of socialists - a job with ACORN soon to follow, no doubt.

But don't underestimate the effectiveness of this seemingly childish approach. You need only look at the vacuous campaign of Barak Obama to see how a few mindless catch-phrases can be successfully employed - remember when journalists asked many of those moderates who ended up electing him to explain exactly what "Hope and Change" actually meant, and we got little more than incoherent ramblings. But it didn't matter. Obama got their vote.

A big part of socialist propaganda is founded on one of the most basic aspects of human nature: the desire to think of ourselves as, well, "nice" - admit it, we all do. And note that many of your genuinely kind and decent liberal friends are very much opposed to the screeching far-left harpies of MoveOn.org or the DailyKos - yet, these same people persist in describing themselves as "liberal." But why?

Because, after an all-out campaign by the Left to cast conservatives as "mean" or "heartless," your friends, both moderate and liberal, have come to believe that to be liberal is to be "nice." So it is easy to see, even for a moderate, how uncomfortable it would be to oppose something with the words "fair" or "fairness" in it - why, that would be downright un-American, wouldn't it?

On top of this clever linguistic chicanery, which is repeated over and over by their oh-so-willing co-conspirators in the mainstream news media, we have the endless promotion of liberal viewpoints on every major TV show - blatantly biased political messages are now subtly inserted into almost every episode. One recent example will make the point.

In an episode of "Criminal Minds" this past week, an "environmentalist" group was initially suspected of being part of a string of arson fires that killed several people, but naturally the cast quickly bends over backwards to assure each other (and us) that the killer could not possibly be part of the group. The main character, played by Mandy Patinkin, even goes so far as to assure the "environmentalist" group's leader (who, by the way, just happens to be dying of Leukemia - sniff, sniff, hanky please) that "You know, I support your cause."

But just in case you still didn't get the message (i.e. - that eco-whackos are really, you know, nice) the young, arrogant FBI "genius" character condescendingly explains to his (obviously less-evolved) colleagues, who still harbor doubts about the group, "they aren't 'eco-terrorists' - they're 'environmental activists.'"

Right. And the Columbian drug cartels are just "independent pharmaceutical distributors" seeking "economic justice."

Finally, those in the "moderate" camp desperately want to avoid seeing themselves as "extreme" - that's why they go for the comfort of that "middle ground" in the first place. They will remind you that "there are extremists on both sides" - while pointedly assuring you in the same breath that they have no intention of being in either of those camps. Thus they are easy targets of marketing campaigns that couch even the most radical socialist programs in terms that sound "centrist" or "reasonable" - even when they are anything but.

So it shouldn't take a rocket scientist (or a psychiatrist, for that matter) to see why so many of your politically uninvolved friends eventually absorb the underlying message - if you want to be "nice" and/or "moderate" you dare not oppose anything described as being about "fairness" or "justice."

We have a lot of work to do.

In spite of valiant efforts by the left-wing press to assign every conceivable motive (other than the real one) to those who would dare oppose Obama and the ever more left-wing Democratic Party, the public is finally waking up. There is a reason that virtually every left-leaning news organization is beset by falling readership/viewership and plummeting advertising revenues - while FOX News keeps growing by leaps and bounds.

Naturally, after desperately trying to hide the huge 9/12 rallies altogether, when finally forced to report on them, the Obama faithful in the media first attempted to downplay the size of the crowds. But when legitimate photos showed the crowds to be substantially larger than even those at Obama's own inauguration, they went for the race card - they dutifully scoured the videos to find someone, ANYONE, with a sign that could just MAYBE be construed as having a "racial" overtone. Then came the endless "panels" discussing the "hidden" racism that just MUST be driving the opposition.

Now comes the exposure of ACORN, one of Obama's pet socialist enterprises, as an astonishingly corrupt organization. But it was not brought to light by the likes of "Nightline" or "20-20" or any other mainstream media powerhouse. No, this truly brilliant piece of work was done by a couple of amateur investigative journalists barely old enough to vote.

And they didn't just cherry-pick one ACORN office, or go through a number of "dry wells" until they came up with a corrupt employee or two (the method used by the "Old Media" to unfairly portray conservative groups for decades). No, they found the same frightening corruption at EVERY office they visited.

Well, gosh, I guess old Charlie Gibson and the rest of the mainstream media types will finally have to actually report on ACORN. Uuuuh, well, sort of. Seems the focus of their (long overdue) "investigation" of the ACORN issue will be...to investigate the young journalists! It is precisely this kind of yellow journalism that is causing the increasing disenchantment with the Old Media - and liberalism in general.

The People are fed up.

They are fed up with a lopsided tax code that has half of the nation working to support the other half. After 40 years and TRILLIONS of dollars spent on an endless string of failed welfare programs, liberals now want MORE.

The People are fed up with monopoly government schools that have become little more than indoctrination centers, where union-protected teachers drown our children in liberal propaganda. Instead of actually teaching, they demean the founding fathers, denigrate American free enterprise while extolling the "virtues" of socialism, and force our kids to watch Al Gore's fraudulent "global warming" movie.

The People are fed up with more, and more, and, yes, MORE government intrusion into every aspect of their lives - from mandated light bulbs to ethanol subsidies to now, government controlled healthcare.

And then we find out that ACORN, an organization that has already been the recipient of tens of millions of tax-payer dollars (and is scheduled to receive BILLIONS under the Obama's bogus "stimulus" spending), is nothing less than a vile, corrupt, and unbelievably amoral group of thugs. Oh, a little side note - their lawyer at one point was - Barak Obama.

So, beware, those of you liberal elitists who think this whole thing will "blow over" - this movement is real, it is sincere, and it is growing. After having heard the nauseating chant of "Yes, we can" for far too long, they are finally saying, loudly and clearly:

"NO, you WON'T!"

Pity the poor conservative who keeps trying to persuade his liberal friends with things like facts, logic, or history - you're wasting your time. Because socialism is not, and never has been, about reality. Or at least, not objective reality.

Socialism, or rather, the belief in socialism, is essentially a case of arrested development. In a sense, we all are born into a totally socialist environment - we are fed, clothed, protected, and comforted by an all-powerful external entity (the family). We do nothing for ourselves.

But gradually (in healthy families, at least) we are required to take on more and more responsibilities for our own well-being (making our own meals, etc), as well as learning that if there are things we want, we must work to earn them - the first exposure to the economic reality that "there is no free lunch." Even an allowance should not be just handed over without strings (unless of course, you are TRYING to raise a future socialist). No, in the best families, whether rich or poor, it is earned. We make our beds. We take out the trash. We mow the lawn.

But it is during adolescence that the real transition to adulthood begins - or at least it should. Because an adolescent is no longer a child, but is not yet an adult either - he wants all of the benefits of adulthood, but, like the child, wants none of the responsibilities. Sound familiar?

Now, if their parents do their job of gradually demanding more and more accountability from their teenagers, especially for their own needs or desires, they will be well on their way to becoming self-sufficient, independent citizens - with a clear understanding that their life (and life-style) is ultimately THEIR responsibility. They will go out into the world, get real jobs, know that THEY are responsible for their rent or house payment, car payment, and credit card bills.

But if adolescents are given the benefits of adulthood without any concurrent responsibilities, their growth will be inhibited - they will stay in perpetual adolescence. If you buy them a car, pay for the gas and insurance, send them to college with NO contribution on their part, and then let him (or her) live rent-free at home into their '20s and even '30s, don't be surprised if they embrace a socialist political view - having "the government" take care of them will be a natural extension of the world view they have lived in since birth.

Naturally, the budding socialist has a whole host of psychological rationalizations for their desire to take from those who earn and give to those who don't. You've doubtless heard comments like this: "I just feel that in the richest nation on earth, no child should go without ("free" food, "free" health-care, "free" education, cell phones, designer shoes, ad nauseum)."

Now, first of all, whenever a liberal/socialist talks about "free" anything, what they really mean is that they want YOU to pay for it - study after study shows that when it comes to being really generous (i.e. with their OWN money) self-described liberals, even rich ones, give dramatically less than even poor conservatives.

And note that when they say "the richest nation on earth" they make it sound like we just HAPPENED to find ourselves in all this wealth and prosperity, with the implication that, as Americans, we are just more "fortunate" or "lucky" than others. Which means, of course, that we should be willing to "share" our (undeserved) bounty with, well, just about everyone.

Note also how socialists see your simply wanting to keep what you earn as "greedy" - but their wanting to STEAL what your earn to give it to some other loser they condescendingly see as "needing a boost" - well, that's just, you know, "fair."

But America's wealth is no accident - it is the accumulated effort of millions of INDIVIDUALS who have the FREEDOM to achieve to best of their abilities that continues to produce the highest standard of living on earth. And no matter how many new and different immigrant groups come here, most wholeheartedly embrace the free enterprise capitalist system that attracted them in the first place. Of course they do - many of them left the very kind of socialist nightmares that American "progressives" are trying to bring about here.

However, if you want to use the force of government to forcibly take money from one citizen and give it to another, it helps to convince yourself that they didn't really earn it in the first place, or that they got it at the expense of some imagined downtrodden group or another - note how many times some hand-wringing quasi-socialist nitwit will attribute American success to somehow "taking advantage" of the Third World.

Nonsense. Wal-Mart has done more for every poor person in America than all of the government welfare programs put together - they not only provide goods at prices that make them affordable to the poorest Americans, they employ people of every age and background - giving them dignity in the process (something that no demeaning welfare check ever provides).

For two centuries, the bravest, most courageous people on the planet have left their homelands and traveled across oceans to come to a land where they didn't even speak the language, to participate in the most productive enterprise in all of human history. And now, in spite of all the abject failures of every socialist experiment across the world, America's "progressives" want to bring this same "equal distribution of poverty" here.

Pathology indeed...

You know the Left is in full panic mode when they trot out the charge of racism - unable to intellectually defend their ever more intrusive policies, they invariably resort to personally attacking their opponents. And nothing makes for a good smear in today's hyper-sensitive culture like accusing someone of being a racist.

Now, any thinking person would find trying to connect opposition to a government takeover of the health care industry with Obama's racial background to be simply absurd on it's face - after all, many of these same people voted for him.

But the mainstream media, most of whom no longer even attempt to hide their support for Obama and the Democrats, aid and abet the race-baiters by actually giving credence to the charges, no matter how ridiculous. They gleefully jumped on board the "race" angle - making it the centerpiece of their "news" coverage.

Those of us who have followed the increasing complicity of the mainstream media in giving life to such falsehoods are not fooled for a minute. But there are still a lot people in America who get their "news" exclusively from the same old sources - ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, the New York Times (and all the papers across the nation who blindly follow their lead - their articles and editorials originate from the same sources).

Note how often your liberal friends are completely unaware of major issues that you have been following for weeks. Mention the Van Jones resignation or the ACORN debacle and they look like deer in the headlights - they haven't even heard about it. And as a wise journalist once said:"we don't have to tell you what to think - we already control what you think ABOUT."

In spite of the many flaws of the Internet, talk radio, cable networks like FOX, and other such "new media" (and there are many), were it not for the emergence of these multiple alternative sources for digging into the facts, none of us would be able to even challenge, much less debunk, the now relentless waterfall of propaganda coming from what used to be legitimate news agencies.

But no amount of factual or reasoned conversation will keep the Left from playing the race card. It's their stock in trade. The only thing you can do is to keep refusing to let them use it to achieve their real goal - to silence you.

...eight years ago, when we worried about far more important things than getting someone else to pay our doctor bills.

Remember - when the first plane hit...and we all tried to tell ourselves that it must have been an accident.

Remember - when the second plane hit...and we were forced to face the nauseating truth that what was happening was nothing less than an act of war.

Remember - when, as people were running out of the smoldering buildings...hundreds of New York firefighters ran in...never to return.

And perhaps more than anything else...

Remember - when a young man and woman held hands while standing on a window ledge of the 90th floor of the World Trade Center...then jumped to their deaths.

Remember...

Have you noticed how the word "profit" has become almost a dirty word? And not just in your local socialist coffee shops - in movies, news and entertainment TV shows there appears to be a consensus that "profit" is somehow a negative thing. News anchors drip with disdain when describing private sector corporations - often announcing "record profits" as if they were something requiring an apology. Characters in movies scowl when discussing those whose "only concern is profits" (they practically spit the word "profits").

Meanwhile, these same talking heads fawn endlessly over any organization described as a "non-profit" - the contrast is quite stunning. Whether interviewing a "community organizer" or the CEO of some charitable fund, the message is clear - profit is evil, or at least, well, unseemly.

All this is rather odd when you consider that profit, or more precisely, the competitive pursuit of profits, has been the source of virtually every major advancement in improving the human condition. As one astute capitalist quipped: "From the telephone to the automobile, from the airplane to polio vaccine - it is the perfectly natural, and noble, desire to profit from the fruits of one's labors that has driven all human progress. It is no coincidence that I've never met a social worker who had a single patent to their name."

The healthcare debate is a perfect example of this dichotomy - the supporters of "universal" (read: taxpayer-funded) healthcare constantly berate EVERY enterprise that exists to make a profit. Insurance companies. HMO's. Drug Companies. Even doctors and nurses (unless they work for a "non-profit" that is).

But history has shown clearly that the pursuit of profit is the most effective motivator in the production of quality goods and services at competitive prices. Conversely, you need not look very far to find examples of what happens when there is no profit motive, and as a result, no competition - been to the DMV lately? Or look at the Detroit public school system, which graduates only 28% of their high school students, while spending TWICE as much per student as the average private school. Any for-profit private school that performed that poorly would be out of business in short order.

And contrary to the anti-business view that most socialists hold, the profit motive is even good for the employees - the most profitable companies in America are almost invariably described as among the best places to work. Savvy executives learned long ago that happy, well-treated employees produce happy, long term customers, and resulting higher profits. Oh, sure, you can realize a short term profit gain by short-changing your employees, but eventually the result will be that your best employees will leave, often going to your competitors. And your customers will not be far behind.

But the proponents of a government run approach continue their attack on the very free enterprise, and yes, for-profit system that has given us the finest medical care in history - and the envy of the world. When they get sick, no one goes to Canada or Great Britain, let alone Cuba. They come here.

And please spare me the canard about "government funded research" - check the books and you will find that most of the programs that actually produce the real break-through innovation got their funding from for-profit entities. Why? A scientist working on a government grant can collect checks for years without producing ANYTHING. Not so in the private sector - as Dan Akroyd's character in "Ghost Busters" so wonderfully summarized: "I've worked in the private sector - they demand RESULTS."

No, without the possibility of profit, and the competitive environment that a truly free-enterprise system provides, there would be no miracle drugs, no MRI's, no CAT scan machines, no pacemakers, no dialysis machines - in short, virtually no medical progress at all.

Profit produces innovation.

Profit rewards excellence.

Profit punishes mediocrity.

Profit improves value.

Profit is good.

Conservatives continue to miss the underlying reason for the Left's hurling of the "racism" charge at every turn. Even veteran political observers are "puzzled" or "confused" by the accusations, or they simply write them off as the usual attempt by the Left to avoid dealing with the substance of an issue by instead demonizing their opponents. But it goes much deeper.

For starters, most (though certainly not all) liberals see everything through the prism of "race." Their definition of "diversity" is a good example - the focus is invariably on race. Those on the Left have absolutely no interest in genuine diversity, such as diversity of thought or viewpoint. In fact, they have amply demonstrated that they will do anything in their power to silence those with whom they disagree - the obscenely misnamed "Fairness Doctrine" is but one example.

We have seen how "affirmative action" - originally conceived to prevent unfair discrimination, has devolved into a de facto quota system, where racial representation "by the numbers" is the only focus. And from welfare to the housing crisis, just about every policy of the Left is somehow tinged with the issue of race. They are marinated in it. They are consumed by it. It infuses everything they see, everything they hear, everything they do.

A friend of mine, a conservative, pointed this out to another friend of ours, a liberal woman who denied having any racial biases. He reminded her that whenever he refers to his friends, he simply says "my friend, Ron" or "my friend, Lenny" - but that whenever she speaks about any of her friends, she feels compelled to include a racial reference: it's always "my BLACK friend, Eleanor" or "my ASIAN friend, Sue." She was appalled at first, but at least she eventually had the integrity to admit that, yes, she was more than a little preoccupied with race.

But when it comes to the charges of "racism" against anyone who dares disagree with the policies of Barak Obama, the explanation is even more basic. It has to do with why so many of them voted for him in the first place. It is hardly a secret that the overwhelming majority of Obama voters did not cast their ballots for him because of his policies - we all remember those hilarious man-on-the-street interviews where Obama supporters had no idea what his policies even were.

No, most of these people freely admitted that they voted for Obama precisely because of his race. It was simply "time for a black president" or they "wanted someone who looked like" them. The result is that, in their twisted logic, since they voted FOR him because of his race, if you voted AGAINST him, you must have done so for the very same reason - his race. And even if you did vote for Obama, if you now disagree with his policies, well then, you are - voila! ... a racist.
 
Got it?

GUEST EDITORIAL: False reports about guns

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Monday, August 31, 2009

Many media outlets have misfired about guns. Countless newspapers and television networks -- from CBS to MSNBC -- have misreported that conservative protesters are threatening President Obama with guns at public events. It hasn't happened.  [Even the Secret Service agrees that this legal conduct has presented no threat to the President.]

In Portsmouth, N.H., a man carrying a gun, William Kostric, joined an Aug. 11 health care protest. This was blocks away and hours before Mr. Obama's town-hall meeting in that city. Mr. Kostric was given permission to be on church property where the protest occurred and was not at the place the president visited. What most of the coverage left out was that Mr. Kostric didn't carry his gun only for the protest; he legally carries a gun with him all the time for protection.

While the media regularly used terms such as "hotheads" to mischaracterize the situation, the coverage ignored that union members who opposed the protest had attacked Mr. Kostric and a friend, kicking, pushing and spitting on them. Despite violence against him by Mr. Obama's supporters, Mr. Kostric did not draw his gun or threaten anyone.

On the CBS Evening News, Katie Couric asked, "Are we really still debating health care when a man brings a handgun to a church where the president is speaking?" Deliberately or not, she got the facts wrong. As we know, Mr. Kostric did bring a gun to the church, and besides, the president was not there and never was scheduled to speak there. Mr. Obama spoke at a separate event at a local high school at a different time.

Not letting facts get in the way of her hysterical story line, Ms. Couric linked Mr. Kostric's gun to "fear and frankly ignorance drown[ing] out the serious debate that needs to take place about an issue that affects the lives of millions of people."

In another case in Arizona, a black man staged an event with a local radio host and carried a semiautomatic rifle a few blocks away from another Obama town-hall meeting. According to the radio station, the staged event was "partially motivated to do so because of the controversy surrounding William Kostric." This occurrence was not an example of an outraged gun-toting Obama protester, but a stunt to garner attention for a shock jock. Of course, this inconvenient truth was ignored by most news outlets.

MSNBC misrepresented the facts to try to back up a bogus claim about racism being behind opposition to Mr. Obama's agenda. On Donny Deutsch's Aug. 18 show about the Arizona town-hall meeting, the producers aired a clip of the anonymous black man carrying the so-called assault rifle -- but the network edited the tape so the man's race was obscured.

Truth be damned, MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer [ignoring the glaring fact that the man with the gun was BLACK] said, "There are questions whether this has a racial overtone. I mean, here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people [emphasis ours] showing up with guns strapped to their waists." Another commentator on the same show worried about the "anger about a black person being president." The supposed result: "You know we see these hate groups rising up." [What "hate groups?"  Ooops, I forgot - never let the truth get in the way of your agenda!]

MSNBC's irresponsible behavior is more than just bad journalism; it sows distrust between races. Ernest Hancock, the radio host who staged the event, was hoping to get some free publicity for himself and his show. Whatever one thinks of this PR stunt, it had nothing to do with race. MSNBC misrepresented a black man carrying a gun as a white man to invent a racial dynamic that didn't exist.

Media disinformation about guns is a sad sign of the drastic action [many] will take to undermine support for gun rights for law-abiding citizens.

The last several years have exposed the utter falsehood of just about every tenet of the Church of Liberalism. And this is not an opinion - it is now a matter of record. Let's look at just two of the more glaring examples.

"Global Warming"

After more than a decade of relentless propaganda (Al Gore's horrible piece of science-fiction has been force-fed to your kids in many of the public schools, and more than a few private ones), even the most biased supporters of "man-made-global-warming" are beginning to recognize the reality - it's a myth.

Not only has it been discovered that the entire theory is based on faulty "research" (carbon dioxide, the primary bogeyman of the climate change crowd, has now been proven to have NO RELATION whatsoever to the temperature of the Earth) but we now know that their computer models were intentionally rigged to produce the desired results. Worse, when caught, a number of these pseudo-scientists actually defended their dishonesty, saying if it got people to reduce their energy use, it was an acceptable tactic! So much for scientific integrity.

But perhaps the biggest pin in the global warming ("hot-air") balloon is the documented fact that the earth is NOT warming at all - over the last dozen years it has actually been cooling! And remember, this has occurred during a period of unprecedented industrial expansion, fueled (pun intended) primarily by the enormous economic growth in China and India. If there was a shred of truth in the alarmists' premise, we should have seen a substantial rise in temperature, not a decline.

Yet the onslaught by the climate change hysterics continues - despite the fact that the Earth is now cooling, and despite the proof that CO2 has no affect on climate, the EPA has now declared Carbon Dioxide to be...a pollutant! Silly, you say? Carbon Dioxide is no more a pollutant than Oxygen. Of course it isn't - we wouldn't be alive without CO2, a naturally occurring substance that allows plants to convert sunlight into energy, and in the process producing life-giving oxygen. Thus, no carbon dioxide, no us.

But the real, insidious motive behind this little "environmental" sleight-of-hand is that a "pollutant" can be regulated (and taxed) by the government, more specifically, the unelected (and unaccountable) bureaucrats at the EPA. The real reason for the Cap-and-Trade movement has nothing to do with clean air - it's purpose is to strangle the economy of the United States (by taxing us to the breaking point) and in the process, make Al Gore and his friends billionaires (remember that someone has to act as the "broker" for the buying and selling of all those imaginary "carbon credits").

The "Green" Movement

One of the clever tactics the Left has used has been to conflate unrelated issues with language that blurs the debate. Note that in any discussion of "global warming" you hear words like "environment" and "pollution" - as if to say that if you don't go along with their climate change policies, you must want dirty air and undrinkable water. Nonsense - we simply know the difference between real, workable approaches to clean air and water, and those whose real purpose is to advance a political agenda.

The "Greenies" support disastrous policies such as tax-payer financed subsidies for Ethanol, based on the claim that ethanol-based fuels are "cleaner" than petroleum products. They aren't - ethanol is no cleaner than gasoline, and, because it is less thermally efficient than petroleum fuels, it not only substantially reduces fuel economy, it actually costs more energy to produce an gallon of ethanol than the ethanol itself contains! As a result, ethanol actually increases our net energy use - disproving yet another claimed benefit of "going green."

And there's more - now that we have measured the extensive destructive affect of ethanol plants on the environment, we find that a single ethanol plant has a far more negative affect than several oil refineries. Thus, "green" fuels are anything but! And let's not forget the huge increase in food prices due to Ethanol's insatiable demand for corn, as well as the takeover of valuable farmland that could otherwise be producing food crops.

The "Green" types also pushed for (and got) a government mandate requiring you to buy so-called "energy efficient" light bulbs. Now, I'm all for saving money, but that decision should be left up to the people themselves. We don't need the government getting this deep into our homes - not to mention the risk of toxic levels of mercury being released should you happen to break one of these overpriced little gems.

Wind power is another Quixotic venture of the Green types. Despite the fact that wind power will not in our lifetime ever come close to delivering even 5% of our energy needs, it is relentlessly pushed as a source of "clean" and "unlimited" energy. Needless to say, facts be damned, the propaganda is not likely to stop anytime soon. Remember, people like General Electric and others who just happen to make the light bulbs (and the wind turbines) are among the Democrat party's biggest contributors.

Gone are the "good old days" when people used to say that Democrats were "for the little guy?"

In their relentless attack on just about every American industry, Democrats have shown their hatred of our free enterprise system - and their genuine hostility toward those who succeed in it is even greater. If it isn't "Big Oil" it's "Big Tobacco" or "Big Pharma" (as in pharmaceuticals - you know, those evil people who keep many of us alive).

The latest object of liberal vitriol is of course the Insurance Industry, more specifically, Health Insurance companies. If you listen to Obama and friends, you'd think these companies (whose sole purpose for existing is to contract to pay YOUR liabilities), were one step removed from Simon Legree, "ripping you off" at every opportunity.

Now we've come to expect such idiocy from today's Left - they cannot exist without some manufactured crisis imperiling societies losers (a.k.a. the average Democrat voter) who are invariably portrayed as being the "victims" of whatever organization happens to be the "target de jour" of their venom.

But my gripe is directed toward the CEO's and other top level managers at these companies who let them get away with it. The current "demand" by members of the Congress for the records of salaries, bonuses, premiums, and other financial information from some of the nations top health insurance companies is their latest stunt, and a rather silly one at that. After all, since the insurance industry is already one of the most OVER-regulated industries in the country, all such information is readily available.

And the political thugs sitting in our Congress know it. But they did not expect the massive public resistance to their proposed massive government takeover of healthcare, so they needed to deflect attention away from the real issue. And a corporate "witch hunt" is always good for headlines, and especially so when it involves an industry that has already been so maligned as insurance.

But that aside, why do so many of these obviously smart, talented, hard working insurance executives knuckle under to a bunch of effete snobs who most of the time do not have one tenth their brains or experience? Instead of fighting like fearless lions, they behave like frightened puppies in the presence of a rolled up newspaper. Guys, most of these arrogant, impudent, elitist little twits have never had a real job - ever! They work for YOU!

Wouldn't it be refreshing to see one of these captains of industry stand up at one of these "inquisitions" and (figuratively speaking, of course) lay one of these blithering idiots like Barney Frank or Nancy Pelosi out cold on the floor?

Just once, before I die, I would like to hear one of you tell them simply:

"With all due respect, Senator...you go to Hell."

MSNBC twists a story of a man who brought a rifle to a healthcare protest into a propaganda piece about "angry white racism."  They went so far as to make sure the video of the man clearly showed his AR-15 rifle, but studiously avoided showing his face - in order to hide the fact that the "gun-toting-white-racist" was...a black man!

Liberals viciously turned on Whole Foods (a company that is about as "granola-eating-bicycle-riding-liberal" as you can get ) demanding that people boycott the company for daring to offer PRIVATE health insurance to their employees. More importantly, for those who still doubted that "single-payer" government run healthcare is their ultimate goal, they made it clear that their vitriolic attack on the CEO of Whole Foods was based precisely on his opposition to a European-style single-payer system.

But if you really want to get an insight into the mind of today's American Left, you need only read the latest from Uber-Liberal New York Times columnist Frank Rich:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/opinion/23rich.html

In "The Guns of August" Mr. Rich hauls out the same old litany of left-wing hysteria, from "the rising threat of right wing extremism" to the usual demonizing of the NRA (obviously, anyone with a gun is a "nut"). And of course, there is the inevitable exhumation of the specter of Timothy McVeigh.

But perhaps the most illuminating aspect of Mr. Rich's article is to be found in the comments by his (mostly) leftist readers. I urge you to spend the time reading as many of them (370 at last count) as possible. You will learn exactly what they think of anyone who does not share their radical socialist vision.

You will also learn that they are consumed with hate. Hatred of conservatives. Hatred of  gun owners. Hatred of free enterprise. Heck, they even hate FOX news - because they have no interest in free speech. Nor in true democracy. As one neo-fascist liberal reader expressed it so succinctly (and tellingly):

"It's time for moderates and liberals to stop making nice with right-wing weirdos and worrying about their sweet little opinions, and start ruling. As the winning side in a free and fair election, we don't need the participation of the right to govern this country, we don't need their permission, and they don't have to like the results."

You may be surprised. You may be angered. But what I do hope is that you will be motivated to become even more active and involved in the 2010 election.

[The following article by noted firearm expert John Lott is well worth the read. - Ed]

A story about an American with a gun who behaved properly is twisted into something else: a narrative about crazy conservatives who want to threaten the president.

In Portsmouth, New Hampshire recently, a man carried a handgun a few blocks away from the site where President Obama was scheduled to hold a town hall a couple of hours later. Was it a danger or not? The man carrying the gun, William Kostric, even had permission to have the gun on private church property while he was protesting Obama's appearance. Everybody from the New York Times to USA Today to CBS News expressed their outrage, interpreting it as a hot head threatening the president and linking it to militias and conservative talk radio. A prominent liberal radio talk show host came out saying that conservatives "want Obama to get shot." New legislation related to this incident is even being proposed in Congress.

Obviously no one wants to see a president even remotely threatened and people need to be sensitive to such things. But worrying over a law-abiding citizen legally carrying a gun several blocks and a couple of hours away from an indoor event that the president will attend is overdoing it.

Before the president's town hall meeting, an MSNBC host noted: "Apparently there is fairly significant, almost disturbing news, let us know what is happening there in New Hampshire." A reporter, Ron Allen, breathlessly responded: "There is a man in the crowd who has a gun, a handgun strapped on his lower leg. . . . And I suspect that he won't be here when the president gets here in a couple of hours time."

Chris Matthews' cross-examination on "Hardball" of Kostric was sent all over the Internet, with various versions on YouTube picking up a total of nearly 200,000 viewings. But Matthews' interview fell flat by trying to link Kostric with extremist groups such as the"birthers," who challenge Obama's legitimacy as president. And Kostric did not come across as the hot head that Matthew's tried so hard to portray him as.

On the "CBS Evening News," Katie Couric asked: "Are we really still debating health care when a man brings a handgun to a church where the president is speaking?" Kostric did bring a gun to the church, but Couric was plainly wrong about where the president was speaking. He spoke at the town hall at the high school down the street. She somehow linked Kostric's gun to the "fear and frankly ignorance drown[ing] out the serious debate that needs to take place about an issue that effects the lives of millions of people."

Yet, the most amazing thing about the news coverage was how much the media missed. Far from being a hot head, Kostric and a friend had been roughed up by a union member. The union member had spit on and kicked the person who was with Kostric. But Kostric didn't threaten the union member, and didn't respond physically in any way. Kostric and his friend notified the police of the incident, but the police officer shrugged and went away. Kostric's gun did however defuse the volatile situation with the union member -- once the union member saw Kostric's gun in its holster he backed up and moved away.

Also the coverage missed that Kostric regularly carries his gun for protection. He did not bring the gun as part of his protest against President Obama's policies.

Is there a sudden trend with health care protestors threateningly carrying guns? Gail Collins' New York Times column "Gunning for Health Care" claims there is such a trend. She also misrepresents the risk of law-abiding citizens carrying guns. Collins simply provides two anecdotes as evidence. One involved Kostric -- she is shocked his actions "turned out to be completely legal under New Hampshire law." The other case was a dropped gun at a political event in Arizona with Congresswoman Gabreille Gifford (D-Ariz.). But Collins' description of that event was also misleading, as Giffords herself never felt there was any danger. Giffords stated: "A lot of people carry firearms here... at no point did I ever feel in danger and at no point did I ever feel there was a problem."

Nor does the issue look like it is going to go away. On Monday in Phoenix an unidentified black man outside of Obama's latest health care rally carried a semi-automatic rifle (referred to in the media as an "assault rifle"). When asked about whether anyone openly carrying a gun outside Obama's event endangered the president's safety, the U.S. Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said: "of course not." Not happy with all these events there is a move in Congress to ban guns within the "vicinity" of President Obama.

MSNBC probably went the farthest on all this with some truly remarkable claims on Tuesday, August 18. Showing the clip of the anonymous black man carrying the "assault rifle," but editing it so that one was not able to see the man's race, Contessa Brewer said: "But also there are questions whether this has a racial overtone. I mean here you have a man of color in the presidency and white people showing up with guns strapped to their waists." Another person on the same show noted the"anger about a black person being president" and about "the black man becoming president. You know we see these hate groups rising up."

The five million Americans who legally carrying concealed handguns permit holders are extremely law-abiding. Take Arizona, given that Collins' points to the event there. There were 99,370 active permits as of December 1, 2007. During 2007, just 33 permits were revoked for any reason -- a mere 0.03 percent rate. In New Hampshire, where Kostric lives, permit revocations are even rarer.

What should have been a story about an American with a gun who behaved properly was somehow twisted into a storyline focusing on something else: crazy conservatives who want to threaten the president.

John Lott is an economist and author of "Freedomnomics."

Predictably, just when the political battle is turning in favor of Conservatives, a number of our own "troops" want to drop their guns and run from the fight. And I mean, literally drop their guns.

During 8 years of vicious, vile, and over-the-top attacks (including actual acts of violence by far-Left "protesters"), not once did you hear liberals repudiate any of these radical groups.  But let a few average, non-violent, concerned citizens show up at a town hall meeting LEGALLY carrying firearms, well, gosh almighty, from out of the woodwork come the "conservative" appeasers.

On talk shows, TV, and in interviews, even high profile conservatives like Michael Medved seem to find it necessary to apologize for "our side" - even agreeing with the likes of lefty Chris Mathews that carrying a gun was "a stupid thing to do." Their basic argument tends to be along the lines of "this kind of behavior makes all conservatives look bad" or that "it gives ammunition to the liberals." Are these people delirious? Or just fools?

Newsflash: The left, aided and abetted by their allies in the media, are going to demonize conservatives NO MATTER WHAT WE DO. These turncoats seem to have forgotten that it was the Left who have used the words "Hitler" and "Nazis" to describe conservatives and Republicans for more than 40 years. Heck, who do you think invented the word "Pig" to describe police officers?

Apologizing won't make them like us. And throwing our gun carrying friends under the bus won't bring about some sudden resurgence in "objectivity" in the mainstream press. Quite the opposite, because when you turn against our own people, the result is that instead of making our side look better, you actually VALIDATE the position of our opponents. So, to my "moderate" conservative friends I say:

BUTCH UP, SALLY! POLITICS IS A STREET-FIGHT!

And as my Special Ops and SEAL friends are fond of saying, "if you find yourself in a fair fight, your tactics suck." Because in a street-fight, nothing matters but survival. And taking the "high road" will get you only one thing.

A beating.

The liberal media's pathological obsession with race was on display this past weekend, both nationally and locally. Apparently, if you express disagreement with ANYTHING that the Obama administration is doing, then, you see, those concerns are CODE for, well, racism.

CNN's Don Lemon, long known for his cozy relationship with the anti-gun zealots, this time took aim at those opposing Obama's government takeover of healthcare. When one of the protesters he was interviewing explained their motivations as being "real Americans" who wanted to have their voices heard, Lemon practically attacked him for using "divisive" rhetoric. Lemon was visibly agitated - at least 3 times he abandoned his role as a reporter and inserted his own personal views, telling the protester that he shouldn't use "that phrase" because, after all, "we're all real Americans, aren't we?"

Now, in the first place, a supposedly objective journalist has no business getting into an argument with the person he is interviewing. And in the second, how the heck does this guy get off telling people what words and phrases they are allowed to use to describe THEMSELVES? And besides, Mr. Lemon, I would suggest that we are most certainly NOT all "real Americans" - those like you, who are trying to turn America into a Marxist dictatorship, come to mind.

Then there was our own Minnesota Liberal-Democrat-Hack-in-Residence, Pat Kessler. Mr. Kessler, the "Political Reporter" for WCCO (perhaps the most blatantly Left-wing station in the Midwest) has always shown his bias, on everything from "taxing the rich" to attacking gun owners, but you had to pay close attention. Now he has finally come out of the closet, so to speak. In an interview Saturday morning he accused those who oppose the government in any way of most assuredly doing so because...the President is black.

In Mr. Kessler's liberal bubble, if you don't like being taxed to the hilt, why, that's just "code" for racism. Do you oppose a government takeover of healthcare? Yep, more "code" for racism. But perhaps the most ludicrous accusation by Mr. Kessler is that anyone who wants people to "take personal responsibility" for their lives is actually using "a code phrase" for "I don't like black people."

Worse, he stated that this phrase, along with the phrase "I want my country back," are "both frightening to minorities" - like most liberals, he sees minorities as helpless victims unable to handle even "scary" words like "personal responsibility."

Even more interesting is that Mr. Lemon and Mr. Kessler made their comments just a week after another CNN talking head made the inane suggestion that calling a socialist a socialist is, well, code for...you guessed it - racism.

Now, any rational human being would scratch their head over all this nonsense, but then, if Mr. Kessler can find hidden racism in opposition to high taxes, he is most certainly NOT a rational human being.

Hmmm, I ride a motorcycle, and I do not want government to mandate that I wear a helmet.  I guess, somehow, opposition to helmet laws is yet another "code" for hating black people....