Month: May 2016

A Short Word: Liberty Love Letters

As comfortable as blaming the left may be, personal responsibility must be shouldered, and much of the blame remains on us, you and me, for allowing the culture to come to what it has.

The profession of love is easy, often costing no more than the breath required to say “I love Liberty!” or “I love the Constitution!” Even the most radical leftist can say those things and even mean it, in their own tortured rationalized way. The truest test of one’s affections is never merely in the expression of that love. It is in what you are willing to sacrifice for the object of your affection. Harder still is what one is willing to give up in the defense of the thing you hold dear when it isn’t even yours?

The true test of one’s love for Liberty is “What will I risk in the name of your Liberty?” For far too long, the silence in response to that question has been deafening. Some of the blame, of course, can be cast upon a leftist culture, dominated by the media and academia, that has pulled the deadening fog of deculturation over our hearts, bleaching our American heritage to the point of abstraction. So far removed are the American people from our shared heritage of Natural Law that those who dare to be conservative are attacked simply for quoting a Founding Father!

As comfortable as blaming the left may be, however, personal responsibility must be shouldered, and much of the blame remains on us, you and me, for allowing the culture to come to what it has. While the leftists have marched in the streets, we’ve comfortably gone about our our daily lives, complacent while they eroded cultural norms and infected the halls of bureaucracy. While they were facing down the tear gas of a government that has grown increasingly authoritarian, we’ve kept quiet and obediently done nothing, as the government quietly turned against us.

Where were our watch dogs? We were those dogs. We were the dogs that didn’t bark and didn’t bite. Awaken dogs of war with patriot hearts, for Life, for Liberty, for Property. For the Natural Law that our Founders intended as our birthright has been stolen from us. It’s not too late to drive the thieves back into the shadows, to take back what they have stolen from us, for we have not yet begun to fight! For your Liberty! For mine! For every child who has yet to even understand what they have lost!

Be Brave! Be Free!

Liberty is For The Win!

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW

How to Survive as a Conservative

This guide will help conservatives through the critical paradigm gut checks ahead.

An Ideological Conservative’s Survival Guide

As ideological conservatives find ourselves in the political wasteland at the hands of our one time allies, we must not lose track of who we are nor waste the unexpected opportunity this turn of events presents. Unshackled from a political party largely dominated by an Establishment of leftist power brokers and crony corporatists enablers, we should seize this chance to start a new movement (perhaps even a political party) based on our core principles.

As in any survival situation, conservatives must employ basic survival tactics and focus on two critical tasks:

  • stay together, as a coherent (and potent) movement and
  • focus on necessities, so we can effectively engage in the Culture War.

Whatever else you may think, the ideological conservative movement remains extremely strong, with those self identifying as “conservatives” still at 38%. While about 40% of those voters are not ideological conservative (as revealed by the latest election cycle), that still leaves about 18% to 23% of the population of all voters (a conservative estimate), including millions of libertarians and independents who have left the GOP over the last 20 years. That is a massive group of people, roughly the population of California, Texas, and Florida combined.

If ideological conservatives formed a political party, it would be as large as the Republican Party practically overnight and, with effort and education, larger than both major political parties in only a few years. Whether or not we pursue this, we must remain true to who we are, what we believe, and, most importantly, why we believe it.

This guide will help conservatives through the critical paradigm gut checks ahead.

“A few short weeks will detirmine the political fate of America
for the present generation and probably produce no small influence
on the happiness of society through a long succession of ages to come…”
-George Washington, Founding Father-

Step 1: Read the Declaration of Independence and Constitution

It is the duty of every patriot to know these documents, so we can best defend them against those who would corrupt them. If you have not yet done so, take half an hour to read our founding documents in their entirety. If you have, read them again to recharge. The Founders put these principles of Liberty and limited government to print because they are vitally important to our freedom. Every day, these words are abused or outright ignored by leftists and corporatists. We cannot allow ourselves to do the same.

Acknowledge that the documents are not without flaws, as they are the result of difficult and often imperfect compromises between intelligent but complicated men, who struggled with contentious issues, to which they could many times find little common ground. It is the imperfections of the Constitution that led to the Civil War less than a century later, but the meat of the principles of Liberty are there, and most of the Amendments serve to advance the historic purpose that the Constitution began. Our goal should be to continue to refine the Constitution toward the purpose of Liberty. This is the core of what we believe and who we are.

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to
restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the
government – lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.”
-Patrick Henry, Founding Father-

Step 2: Recognize government for the evil that it is.

The founding documents were written as they were specifically because government is evil, not just the crown against which the Founders rebelled, but even the government that they were constructing. Necessary or not, the Founders understood that government has always been and always will be the aspiration of ambitious and dangerous men and women. Even when people have the best of intentions, their demands for ever increasing government power always leads to the destruction of someone’s Liberty. Always.

Over a century of temporary grievances and well meaning ignorance, we’ve accumulated a shambling monstrosity of governmental agencies infecting practically every aspect of life in America. Imagine millions of miles of decaying red tape flowing along every street into every business, every school, every state house, every church, and even wrapped tightly around your neck, all to feed redundant, bloated government bureaucracies. Should you try to extricate yourself from those rotting red vines, you’ll find steel chains of federal penal codes hiding just beneath the surface. Do you realize now why the Founding Fathers went to war over a 1¢ tax on tea. We are no longer truly free, at least not in the way the Founders wanted us to be. These chains must be broken. This is the core of why we believe what we believe.

“When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for
one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them
with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the
separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature
and of Nature’s God entitle them…”
-Thomas Jefferson, Founding Father-

Step 3: Sever counter productive ties that only hold us back.

When we point to our political and philosophical heritage, one document stands above all others as our political touchstone: the Declaration of Independence. As our Founding Fathers once made the difficult choice to sever their bonds from the British Empire that failed to protect their Natural Rights as free people, so must we sever our bonds with those that have failed to protect our Liberty.

The last few decades tested trusted bonds of friendship, and people we once thought of as allies betrayed us for 30 pieces of Nationalist silver. Even long trusted voices, like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage, who have been peddling “popular conservatism” for decades, are complicit in this philosophical collapse. Their diluted brands of conservatism were supposed to broaden the appeal of conservatism but have backfired spectacularly and served only to hollow out the essential spirit of the Constitution or the principles of Liberty. We must raise the bar and lay our hopes on those who speak to the Constitution and the principles of Liberty at the heart of our movement. All others must be left behind to straggle along the trail we blaze.

“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and
 the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service
of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves
the love and thanks of man and woman.”
-Thomas Paine, Founding Father-

Step 4: Identify true patriots of Liberty and stand with them.

There are many ideological conservative voices, like Mark Levin, who are already established in the movement, but we need many more voices to become “fishers of men” for the cause of Liberty. We can no longer afford to be distracted by red herrings that pull us away from the Constitution. Politically, our every position, our every thought, our every word must be tied to the original intent of the US Constitution and the Natural Law underlying it.

We need a government to arbitrate as a judge, not rule as a king. We understand best the maxim that “a government is best that governs least” is based on our fundamental right to govern ourselves and our own business, and any government that is powerful enough to impose our values on someone else is powerful enough to impose their values on us. As painful as this may be to some, moralizing is not the role of government, and the citizens in other states have the right to manage their own affairs, and this is so that we retain the right to manage our own affairs. What the Constitution is silent about is as important as what is written explicitly, because those things are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” (10th Amendment), the very essence of Liberty. We must stand together with those who will uphold (and not abuse) this silence, as well as those that stand for the written Constitution itself.

“A popular Government, without popular information, or the means
of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps
both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who
mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves
with the power which knowledge gives.”
-James Madison, Founding Father-

Step 5: Put your time and money where your patriotism is.

This is where the rubber meets the road. Fortunately, there are many true patriots and platforms available to support, with many patriot voices of today as well as tomorrow. If you want to see change in the culture, then you need to support those who are fighting the culture war in your stead. Please note that there is no official connection between these individuals and Liberty is For The Win, but they are definitely worth considering if you have not already:

LibertyIsFTW – You are here for a reason. Maybe you’ve been around since I started the site in 2015, or perhaps this is your first read. In either case, if what you’ve read here has touched your patriot soul, please consider a gift to show your appreciation and keep this voice of Liberty alive. As little as a $1 a month goes a long way, not only as a token of appreciation but as an investment in the future of ideological conservatism. Let me know that my words are not in vain.

LevinTV – Mark Levin is and remains one of the most authoritative conservative political writers and speakers of our time. He dedicates as much time to Constitutional Conservatism as he does popular conservatism, and for him, the two are fundamentally inseparable. (Edit: I can no longer recommend nor support Mark Levin, who has clearly and unashamedly abandoned what he assured us were his “deeply held” principles.)

BillWhittle – Bill Whittle is an outstanding voice for conservatism. Go onto YouTube and see for yourself. His video commentaries on all things conservative and political are refreshing and pointedly conservative. There aren’t many voices that speak with as much clarity on issues of principled conservatism as Mr. Whittle.

LouderWithCrowder – Steven Crowder is not only an entertaining speaker but also an experienced culture warrior. He is a voice of conservatism and Liberty that will be around when our grand children are growing up, so investment in his future is an investment in the future of Liberty.

DailyWire – Ben Shapiro has become an established voice in conservative commentary, and he’s joined by Andrew Klavan, an extremely entertaining and eloquent voice in conservative media. It certainly is one of better prospects for the future of conservative media.

National Review – The National Review remains the preeminent and stalwart cornerstone of principled conservatism. Founded by the man who spearheaded the conservatism movement in 1955, William F. Buckley, it is where the top conservative scholars of our time find voice.

Others to be added in the future.

As always, patriots! Be Brave. Be Free.

Liberty is For The Win!

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW

Into the Wasteland

A People unwilling to fight for their Liberty have already lost it, but if not Liberty, then there is precious little else worth fighting for in this world.

While the debris of the recent political season and the Republican Party continues to rain down around us, conservatives (the few left) have plenty of time to think about what happened and, more importantly, why it happened. After waiting for over 20 years for a Reagan style conservative, there seemed to be the perfect alignment of events creating a fertile opportunity, at long last, to see a conservative candidate in the General Election.

The GOP allowed critical states, like Texas, to move their primaries earlier in the calendar, giving them more influence in choosing a candidate, instead of rubber stamping whatever Rockefeller country club Republican was left. The slate swelled up with several strong and conservative options, like Bobby Jindal from Louisiana, Scott Walker from Wisconsin, Carly Fiorina from California, Marco Rubio from Florida, and Ted Cruz from Texas. And then the Great Manipulator entered the race.

After flailing around and bellowing non-sequiturs on the peripheries of the race for weeks, Trump said something incendiary about illegal immigrants and captured the attention of blue collar voters, and he never let go. Focusing at first on the fears and secret prejudices of the general populace, Trump soon turned his attention to destroying his competition, through ruthless lies and gross allegations, always bracketing his wild accusations with plausible deniability and populist rhetorical nonsense.

In the end, despite the first opportunity in a generation to elect a rock ribbed conservative candidate, a minority of bitter, largely uneducated, politically incoherent, angry blue collar Republicans picked an aging, white, slanderous, celebrity bully, who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats, is married to a Democrat, whose children are Democrats, and who said in the past he identified more as a Democrat, and who openly admits that his path to victory in November requires appealing to disaffected Democratic socialists voters.

That’s where we are, but why did it come to this?

“The world is a vampire, sent to drain
Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames
And what do I get, for my pain?
Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game”
–Smashing Pumpkins–

It starts, as with any conversation about conservatism, with Reagan. We have to understand that Reagan was a product of the Greatest Generation, not the Republican Party. It was the generation that suffered but did not break during the bleak years of the Great Depression, and then were able to rise up and defeat the blackest evil of murderous fascism of Hitler’s Germany and fanatical imperialism of Tojo’s Japan. These unbreakable Americans, born to the generations that still remembered the Civil War, were Reagan’s cohorts. It was the three generations from the WWI era through the Korean War Era that understood what it meant to be unabashedly American and understood the meaning of “blood, sweat, and tears“.

Then came the Vietnam War Era and the Baby Boomers, influenced by anti-American socialist agitators like Saul Alinsky and C. Wright Mills. The 1960’s culture was inundated with utopianism and rejection of the unabashed Americanism of their parents and grand parents. Their music, from the Beatles to the Doors, became anthems for a world without religion, without capitalism, and without the dirty business of patriotism. It’s these people, like Clinton (age 68), Bernie (age 74), Trump (age 69), Boehner (age 66) and McConnell (age 74), that have been in political power and influence for decades.

While politicians like Obama are the cultural inheritors of their poisonous cultural paradigms, in the wake of this abandoning of the ideological purpose, Generation X found itself excluded from Reagan’s Americanism. Our shared cultural experience became one of an implacable cynicism, flirting with nihilism. Raised on a culture that had no meaning, no culture, and nothing to connect us to our forefathers. This bleak inheritance has infected our own sons & daughters, creating a generation of Millennials seeking the meaning that so many of us could never find.

It is the Baby Boomers, having already cut us off from Reagan’s culture of opportunity and Liberty, who remained ever eager to infect new minds with their radical leftist era ideas.

Enough.

“I got another gang story to tell
Peep, about how a black nigga was born in hell
And right then and there it’s no hope
Cause a nigga can’t escape the gangs and the dope”
–Compton’s Most Wanted–

There was a man named Ronald Reagan, he was funny, eloquent, firm, yet shockingly approachable. He rode horses. He didn’t take himself seriously unless he had to. Above all, he loved America, not just the nation or the country or even the people, but the idea. He believed in the truly revolutionary idea that people have a right to be free and, more importantly, left alone. He believed in the truly absurd idea that the only thing government was good at was getting in the way of the people’s freedom.

Reagan believed that we, you and I, have a God given right to be free. As Reagan said in his farewell address to America, “I hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government is limited. There’s a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and predictable as a law of physics: as government expands, Liberty contracts.” This truth is at the heart of Reagan’s America. The America of the Greatest Generation. The America that we have been robbed of.

So why did the Party that once twice elected Reagan in landslide elections pick the only candidate to repeatedly reject this idea even when offered a host of candidates among whom some even wholly believed it? Because the Greatest Generation that voted for Reagan is all but gone, the Korean War generation is going, and the Vietnam War generation is at the zenith of its power, despite a myriad of “conservative” leaders like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, and a host of others who have gotten very rich off of obviously failing to transmit Reagan’s very simple message.

“Black hole sun; Won’t you come; And wash away the rain
Black hole sun; Won’t you come; Won’t you come (won’t you come)”
–Soundgarden–

We are living in a nightmare Twilight Zone episode, with no chance of waking up. Regardless of whether or not the Great Manipulator, Donald Trump, manages to win the White House in November, America will end up with an amoral, leftist, anti-Liberty, Establishment authoritarian at the helm of what remains of the “Free World“. Save for a miracle in Cleveland, the Republican Party is finished and the fleeting benefits of remaining part of the stricken party are outweighed by the costs, so it’s time to move on.

A new dawn rises in the Culture War, one where we are forced into the wasteland, our country lost to leftist utopianism and populist nationalism.  We must come to terms with the fact of Reagan’s America being nothing more than a comfortable illusion. To the center left Establishment and their many collaborators, we conservatives are nothing more than outsiders, malcontents, and wastelanders. To them, our principles are but primitive superstitions, outdated and irrelevant.

Wherever we go, we must take our message of Liberty and safeguard it, uncorrupted and uncompromised. Liberty is hard and its price high. It requires courage in the face of deprivation and war. This is something our Founders understood, and it’s something that Reagan’s generation learned the hard way. A People unwilling to fight for their Liberty have already lost it, but if not Liberty, then there is precious little else worth fighting for in this world.

“There’s a man in need of resurrection (No religion)
Can’t you see a modern primitive (No religion)
But I’m a man, I need my love and freedom (No religion)
When there was no freedom at all.”
–Billy Idol–

Welcome to the age of Generation X and Millennial Conservatism. We need no banners, just new voices.  Come with us as we try to keep Reagan’s “rendezvous with destiny“.

Be Brave. Be Free.

Liberty is For The Win!

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW

 

A Short Word: Trumpification

In their haste to burn down the “Establishment”, Trump’s wild-eyed supporters played right into the Establishment’s hands, and the GOP has produced yet another centrist Establishment Rockefeller Republican candidate.

It’s embarrassing to watch Trump’s supporters trying to maintain this illusory candidate they desperately want to believe they’ve elected. Despite numerous examples of Trump’s moral, intellectual, ethical, and philosophical failings, they cling to an internal narrative that only he can fix what’s wrong with America, despite greasing the wheels of America’s problems for decades. Unfortunately for them, his record is clear.

The last five Republican candidates have been Bush, Sr. (moderate), Dole (moderate), Bush, Jr. (sunshine conservative), McCain (moderate), and Romney (moderate). Of these five, four lost their bid for the White House or reelection for an 80% failure rate. The only two that won in November were from Texas, the largest “red state” in the country. Only the nominally conservative Bush, Jr. won both of his bids for the White House. Trump is to the left of all of these men.

Every one of the losers won NH, RI, CT, MA, and VT. Except Dole, who lost VT to Buchanan (also a moderate) in 1996. McCain, who lost MA to Romney for obvious reasons in 2008. Despite bearing no relationship at all to their 0% chance of going “red” in November, these New England States ensure the “Establishment” will always get what they want, a centrist Establishment Rockefeller Republican candidate.

In their haste to burn down the “Establishment“, Trump’s wild-eyed supporters played right into the Establishment’s hands, and the GOP has produced yet another centrist Establishment Rockefeller Republican candidate. Well done, Trump supporters. Well done.

Liberty is For The Win!

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW

Barking Up The Wrong Tree

It is the natural course of government to ever test the boundaries of its cage, like a restless and disobedient dog, it will always chew at its leash and dig under the fence.

Almost as long as dogs have been around humans, they have been a part of our societies, as family, friend, protector, and even soldier. Just like humans, it takes special training to prepare a dog for these roles, most especially for the rigors of war. Not every dog is cut out for this very stressful and precarious line of work. Some dogs lack the inborn discipline necessary to be silent when noise could be dangerous. Other dogs simply cannot handle the chaos and noise of war, but there are always plenty of dogs available to train, and invariably many are up to the task.

Just like their human soldier counterparts, discipline is absolutely essential to the war dog. Though the word “obedience” may often be used, it’s no more true of the dog than it is the soldiers that they serve with. Neither the dog nor the soldiers truly obey an order because they are “obedient“, they obey an order because they are disciplined and have learned to trust and, more importantly, respect their superiors. The best war dogs, like the best soldiers, understand that they are part of a unit (or a pack). They follow the rules of the pack, because it is necessary.

The worst war dogs, like the worst soldiers, are those that disregard the rules of the pack. They endanger not only their own lives, but the lives of their entire unit. Not every man can deal with the rigors of combat. Not every dog can either. It is up to the trainers and the handlers of these marvelous dogs to give them enough leash to accomplish what they need, yet always to hold onto that leash so that the dogs remain aware of their boundaries and, ultimately, who is boss.

“Why can’t I have a normal, ordinary dog like everyone else?”
-Charles M. Schulz, Peanuts-

Every year, the Constitution spends less and less time in the national consciousness, the more the country continues to “progress“, the more our founding document is treated like a relic of some bygone era, rather than as the very Republic it describes. Within four handwritten pages, in plain English, are the nation’s basic structure, powers, and limitations, including our government’s offices, the enumerated duties of those offices, and the limitations both on the offices of the federal government and the several states.

With ever dwindling frequency, our politicians pay lip service to the founding document, like a holiday believer, trotting out some clichéd and hackneyed praise for the voters to hear once a year or two. The electorate dutifully nods their collective heads, then go right back to ignoring the document that barely a dozen out of a hundred would even be able to recognize a single sentence of. Even a great number of self-professed “Conservatives” have never bothered to read past the Preamble and a few of the shorter Amendments, but they sure talk a good talk.

In such a nation, where the people treat the Constitution with even less interest than they do the ingredients list on a can of green beans, should it be any surprise at all when practically no one in Washington even acknowledges it? If the people, angry as they may be, wish to blame someone for the rolling dumpster fire that is the state of Washington politics today, they need look no further than their favorite mirror.

“Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” – Mrs. Powel
“A republic, if you can keep it.” – Benjamin Franklin

Philosophically the most interesting and least appreciated feature of our Constitution is that nowhere within the four pages is any duty ever imposed upon the individual citizen. Not even the Amendments create a duty or expectation for We the People, though there have been at least two serious transgressions upon our Liberty. To find any duty imposed upon us, the citizens of our Republic, we have to look outside of the Constitution and to the Declaration of Independence.

Though most politicians and “scholars” of law may dismiss the Declaration as a “legal document“, the Founding Fathers certainly assumed the Declaration to hold some potency as a matter of Common Law, establishing what amounted to a list of legal complaints against the Crown of England for which the only reasonable (and thus legal) recourse was the dissolution of their bonds of nationality. Within the Declaration, the Founders declared, unequivocally, Natural Law granted them the right to pursue this course of action, and that same Natural Law was used as the basis for the Constitution, more than a decade later.

In the second paragraph, buried deep in the middle of the Enlightenment rhetoric of our original founding document, is the one and only reference to a “duty” expected of the individual.

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the
 same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism,
it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government,
and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
-Declaration of Independence

It must be clearly understood, by Americans, patriots and conservatives, that when the government does go astray, it is not the fault of government for going astray. It is the natural course of government to ever test the boundaries of its cage, like a restless and disobedient dog, it will always chew at its leash and dig under the fence. Once out from its confines, it is a devil to get it back in.

It is not the dog’s fault for escaping the confines of our Constitutional yard. It is ever the fault of the owner, and We the People are the owners and masters of this ill tempered beast. It is our responsibility alone to keep our government from tearing up our gardens, soiling our porches, trampling our liberties, and seizing our property. It is our responsibility to keep our government on its leash and to enforce the boundaries within which it may roam. In so much as our government has violated these limits, only we are to blame for failing to learn what we needed to teach.

Though we are poor masters, only we are able to put our government back within its pen, if that is at all possible at this point. The Declaration states that we retain the right (and duty) to “alter or abolish” our government. As with every other right, the right exists because we are endowed with it by our Creator. The presence (or absence) of government does not remove or reduce this right. It is inarguable that our government no longer observes the confines of our Constitution and is, in fact, in serious breach of the boundaries within which it is required to conform.

Patriots, it is time that we, as responsible masters, decide whether we can restore discipline to our government by merely altering rules or individuals or if the government is so far removed from its Constitutional limits that it now poses an actual threat to our sacred Liberties and must be abolished, and a new government instituted for our future security?

This is the question of our time.

Liberty is For The Win!

PS – If you have not yet read the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, both front to back, please take the 20 to 30 minutes it takes to read both today. If you do not know what limits are even imposed, how do you even begin to claim to know how our elected officials have transgressed against you?

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW

Economics Speed Round: May 2016

A recession is still indicated by Q3 of 2016, as the economy looks to be softening under the continued weight of the Obama Administration regulatory regimen.

The job numbers for April 2016 came out last Friday, causing some alarm in the stock market exchanges around the world. Let’s dive into the most recent report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 160,000 in April

While this number may seem relatively large, the reason it causes concern among investors is that it is significantly lower than expected. The 12 month average for job creation from April 2015 to March 2016 was 231,000 jobs. April’s number is 70,000 jobs below that average. It is also significantly lower than the last three April numbers (average of 251,000). Couple this with revisions downward for both February and March, and the economy generated 89,000 fewer jobs in the last three months than expected, or roughly 4 out of the 10 jobs fewer than were expected. This is a dramatic slow down in hiring, and employment is often a lagging indicator of economic downturns.

the unemployment rate held at 5.0 percent

The unemployment number remains elevated, even after the administration was touting a decrease to 4.9% in the jobless number just two months ago. The U-6 number is still at 9.3%, a number which is extremely troubling, especially when coupled with seasonably adjusted part time workers for economic reasons (part time workers who would prefer or need full time work, but are unable to find such jobs).

long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) declined by 150,000 to 2.1 million

It appears that most of the employment for March is from the long-term unemployed, which is a positive sign for those families, but indicates only a small portion of jobs were created for new entrants into the job market.

the labor force participation rate decreased to 62.8 percent, and the employment-population ratio edged down to 59.7 percent

The percentage of workers in the job market edged downward by 0.2% points in both LFP rate and E-P ratio. This puts America right back to 1978 era levels for these indicators. While part of this is due to the exodus of Baby Boomers from the workforce, there are many working age individuals out of the workforce, who are unable to find full time work.

united-states-labor-force-participation-rate@2x

The most troubling data comes from the Bureau of Economic Analysis, which released the advanced estimate of the 1st Quarter 2016 GDP Growth.

Real gross domestic product increased at an annual rate of 0.5 percent in the first quarter of 2016...

This bodes very poorly for the rest of the year. A recession is still indicated by Q3 of 2016, as the economy looks to be softening under the continued weight of the Obama Administration regulatory regimen.

That’s the Economics Speed Round for May. Catch everyone next month.

Liberty is For The Win!

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The Path Forward

If we accept as truth the words of Jefferson, that we are, in fact, endowed by a Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, then the hand of providence is not only necessary, it is promised.

We find ourselves in a contingency that was hoped against but has unfortunately come to pass. The GOP voters have chosen empty rhetoric, slurs, and defamation over a tried and true patriot. Mass hysteria has won the day, we have lost the battle to restore sanity to government for a generation. For now the barbarians who have cast open the gates to throw themselves at the mercy of their conquering warlord celebrate their victory, but eventually the drink and blood lust will leave them. In the morning, the hangover will reveal the smoldering husk of their Pyrrhic victory.

“Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory that
one other such victory would utterly undo him.”
-Plutarch, Roman Historian-

They have taken the field, through betrayal, deceit, and unrepentant political brutality. Not understanding the necessity of civility or social contract, these political cannibals pretended a license from being “the silent majority” and acted precisely in the vicious fashion the Founders feared most of democracies. They feasted on their own like gluttons in their self righteous fever, burning the best of our civilization before the barbarians could even step through the opened gates.

All bonds of friendship broken, all alliances dead, sacrificed in the name of political expediency, they turn now to face a foe without hope of reinforcements and without the company of the virtuous and the worthy they took for granted throughout the bloody campaign season. Already a few of them are realizing they will need us in the battles to come, but they plead their empty cases over the charred remains of bridges that they themselves set ablaze, over rivers filled with the bloated remains of all we held precious and dear.

They are unworthy of our support or even our hatred, as are any who cross the rivers of philosophical blood to join them. They are to be pitied, because in the end, only we will retain our honor. Only honorable patriots are worthy to stand fast and defend the precious ideas at the heart of what it is to be American. The only question for conservative patriots who now remain is where do we go from here? The reality is, what needs to happen has not changed, only what we must do to go about it has.

“I love the poorly educated!
We’re the smartest people, we’re the most loyal people.”
-Donald J. Trump-

In Ted Cruz, we had an opportunity to take control of one of the three branches of government with a true conservative. Contrary to what many may believe, what Cruz primarily offered was not necessarily his brilliant ideas and virtuous character, though those things certainly were why many of us stood with him. His greatest asset to the defense of Liberty was always the power of the Veto. Cruz twice lead fights to shut down the government to defund the worst offenses to the Constitution, twice he was undermined by spineless Establishment politicians. As a Senator, Cruz battled in the Senate the only way a Senator can battle.

As president, Cruz would have had access to the ultimate Constitutional power. The voice of the People who put him there to say “No!”. Unfortunately, we have lost that fight, undermined by the preposterously uninformed masses who Trump expertly manipulated in Orwellian fashion. Up became down. Honest became dishonest. And stupid became smart. Unfortunately flattery remains the most abundant coin of those least deserving of it, so that path is forever lost to us, though there is an alternative to Cruz still in play, but we’ll come back to that in a moment.

As conservatives, our goal has not changed. We must gain control of one of the branches of government. The Supreme Court is out of reach, for the moment, because it lies in the purview of the Executive Branch, which we have lost. Nominations to the Supreme Court have to pass through the Legislative Branch, however, which, for the moment remains in the hands of the Establishment. Here is our opportunity.

The only way to save our Republic, outside of brute force of arms in open rebellion, is the taking of the House and the Senate. Every seat in the House of Representatives is potentially up for grabs. All we need is patriots of good virtue to stand and fight for these seats in every district. We have two years to exact our vengeance on the Establishment that turned us out.

In two years, another third of the Senate comes up for election. 23 Democratic, 8 Republican, and 2 Independent Senate seats will be up for taking. We must find men and women in each of these States as virtuous and as worthy as Ted Cruz. And in November of this year and two years from now, and two years from there, we make the GOP, the DNC, and their Establishment tools pay, every year. The Senate, however, is the key to the Supreme Court. No matter who occupies the office of the executive, they must get their nominations through the Senate, and we can make that impossible.

“December 22, 1944
To the German Commander,
N U T S !
The American Commander”
-General Anthony C. McAuliffe, in response to a German Surrender Ultimatum-

Though it may sound easier said than done now, we have the tools already to make this happen. We have social media, we have #NeverTrump and #CruzCrew. Though the one battle is over, our army remains intact! Our principles haven’t changed. Liberty is no less imperiled and no less worthy of defending. We do not lose hope, because our hope is based on Natural Law. If we accept as truth the words of Jefferson, that we are, in fact, endowed by a Creator with certain unalienable rights, among these, Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness, then the hand of providence is not only necessary, it is promised.

We do not lose faith. We fight where we are able. We turn the battle to our State Legislatures and our Congressional delegations. The one thing we do not do is surrender. We never surrender. If they want our Lives, our Liberties, or our Properties, then they can “Molon Labe!” We don’t need the GOP or their hordes of mindless cannibals. We have one another, and we have providence.

We will get through this together. You have my word!

Be Brave! Be Free!

Liberty or Death!

Liberty is For The Win!

PS – In regards to the presidential candidate still in play. In the Libertarian Party is a bright and classically liberal alternative who comes from much the same political vein as Ted Cruz. He is worth a look, if there is a legitimate battle to be had. Austin Petersen 2016.

We just checked, and it turns out that fighting for Liberty isn’t free, because it requires time and energy to research, prepare, and propagate this message for you. Please drop just a dollar a month into the proverbial tip jar and become a Patriot Patron. Of course, don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share. Keep this fight for Liberty going! – @LibertyIsFTW