Timothy Lawton

On the commemeration of September 11th I wanted to write a blog about what makes us all Americans, but as I started to try to sort out my thoughts I did’t think I could honestly write such a piece. Instead I found myself pondering how far the extreme left has departed from the ideals that made this country great. Let me be clear here. I am not talking about ALL liberals. I am referring to the fringe of the ideology that has become anti-capitalist, socialistic, willing to use the power of the government to silence their opponents, and generally blames all the problems of the world on the United States and/or Israel. The use of epithets and hyperbole characterize every debate that they have. Recently we have seen any one who oppoes the policies of Obama called racist and even some have been likened to Nazis.

So, let us look at what the far left has been asserting in these last several weeks. We have had Nancy Pelosi say that the people against government run health care at the Townhall meetings were carrying swastikas. Jimmy Carter has said that many people opposed to Obama are upset because a black man is President. And countless columnists and pundits have claimed that any one opposed to the President is doing so because of his race. I’m sure their are some who hold these thoughts in their head, but it is possible to disagree with the liberal assault on our Constitution and way of life based on the merits. Last year I voted for myself for President, because it was the first time that I was over 35 years old and that is one of the requirements for that office. Prior to that I have voted for Jesus and I still don’t know what race he was. Maybe the left should spend more time trying to convince those who are against their policies why they have the best plan for this country instead of resorting to name calling. I, and virtually everyone else I know, base our opinions on which policies will move this nation and the world in the right direction. The liberal cry of racism is at best a distraction and at worst a deliberate attempt to scare people from voicing their opinions.

The true racists are those who incorporate race into their every thought. The ones who can never simply be people. The ones who not only voted against Obama because of his race, but those who voted FOR him because of his race as well. This applies to sex in an equally valid manner. These Tea Parties and anger at the Townhalls would have been just as vociferous had Hillary Clinton been elected and proposed the same policies. This would have had the left playing the sexist card instead of the race card had she won the office of President. Had John Edwards, or some other white male won, it would be interesting to see what arguments they would have had to come up with. Possibly they would have had to actually debate the issues.

How far the left is willing to go is truly becoming scary. Their opposition to the war in Iraq has actually had Senators and Congressmen publicly state that the war was lost while our troops were still engaged in combat, that our men were “cold blooded” killers of innocent women and children, and the consistent broadcasting of the message that we are ready to turn and run at a moments notice. Couple this with the Obama apology tour and we are headed back to a pre-9/11 mindset. We can disagree, but we should never hinder the ability of the men and women on the ground to do the jobs that their survival deems necessary. Americans will NEVER tolerate undue brutality in war, but we cannot have our troops constantly looking over their shoulders. Remember, one of the worst attrocities in the Vietnam war perpetrated by our forces was My Lai, but it was our very own men who put a stop to it.

As for freedom of speech who is it that is trying to prevent it? Were hundreds of thousands prevented from marching in the streets protesting the Iraq war during President Bush’s time in office? Was Cindy Sheehan and her supporters taken away in the middle of the night when they set up camp outside Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas? No, it is the liberals who are trying to curb the first amendment. They know they can’t overtly shut down talk radio with the fairness doctrine, so they are planning to do it with “localism” and “diversity”. Liberal talk radio can’t survive on its own even with the millions that the likes of George Soros have poured into it. The left hates that it is actually being held to account for its distortions and half-truths. They hate that millions are abandoning their newspapers, network news, and left-leaning cable stations and turning to talk radio, FOX news, and the web. So, when competing has failed they are now trying to craft another method to silence their opposition. Watch closely over the next several months and see what types of proposals will come from the FCC’s new “diversity” Czar. They will attempt to impose fines or fees that will make it economically unviable for affiliates to carry national radio hosts. They will do it in the name of local representation, but its real purpose is to silence those who oppose their culture changing agenda.

America we are at a crossroads. We are witnessing the insidious rise of a radical attempt to alter our society. It is being done deliberately and incrementally. Those who wish for this brave new world know that they cannot allow their plans to be aired in the open. They have been working their way into the mind of our world for about a century. The divide between the right and the left grows because the liberals are abandoning the values that have made this country strong. Hard work, self-determination, and freedom are merely abstracts that obtrude into their vision of a society governed by the control of an ”enlightened” bureaucracy. The radical liberals do not believe in the things that have made America great. In fact they are opposed to them and have a different set of values that they want to see guide the world. To them America is not to be admired it is to be subdued.

During this sweltering heatwave I have had the misfortune of running into the local electric company butchering trees. As usual they were doing an “over zealous” job. Exactly the type of job that has been done on trees that I have planted. This is not only upsetting on a personal basis, but it is especially irritating when we are in the midst of trying to “reduce our carbon footprint”. Many of these same companies support the cap and trade bill which will do NOTHING to reduce our emissions of CO2, yet they continue to hack any branch that comes within 6 feet of there precious powerlines. How many square miles of vegetation in our country, and around the world, are sacrificed to their inability to realize that they don’t have to clear so much away from the trees in order to preserve power to their customers. In fact they are actually damaging the trees to the point that they are making them MORE likely to fall.

I have had around 20 years working with trees and almost four decades of observing them. My Great Grandfather, whom I knew for the first five years of my life, was not only an avid lover of trees but planted many of the trees in the town in which I grew up. Many of his trees towered well above the wires that they grew around. Some even came within inches of the powerlines, but they never caused problems. This was largely due to the fact that he had his trees manicured instead of  hacked. The power companies of today usually contract their work out to people who have no knowledge of how to cut a tree. So, the end result is short, stubby, unhealthy trees which actually have a greater chance of causing damage to the very infrastructure that they are trying to protect.

I hate power outages and understand that we need to shape our trees to meet the needs of the whole community, but they can also be healthier and more stable. All it will take is a little education to those who are cutting our trees. We can have beautiful and safe trees that are not mowed down below the wire line. The trees that I planted that were hacked have had to be cut again about three times in seven years, This is not a good use of our resources. It is also not a good manner in which to maintain our land. Not only do they overcut trees they make more work for themselves during the process. They also cut at the worst times of year. Trees should be cut from late fall through early spring (unless circumstances dictate). Taking away branches in the summer only serves to take precious nutrients and energy from our trees making them sickly and weak.

We need to do a better job maintaining trees around powerlines. This can improve the quality of our air and the beauty of our neighborhoods. Accomplishing this goal can be cost saving as well. Less work and better timing can yield amazing results. I have seen it with my own eyes. So, whatever your reason join me in the fight to better manage the trees that surround us. I simply like trees, what about you?

I am tired of liberals and the mainstream press saying that conservatives have no solutions to the problems that face us. We have plenty of ideas, they just happen to be ideas that the left doesn’t like. They also falsely try to portray that the Bush administration has tried these solutions during his eight years in office. Contrary to what is believed by many George W. Bush was NOT a conservative. His policies only adopted a small portion of the ideas that the right would have wanted to put forth to solve the crises that face America. The profligate spending of the Republicans during the six years that they controlled the White House and Capitol Hill could not have been more antithetical to the fundamental beliefs of conservatism.

The economy tanked in late 2008 due to the banking crisis. The banks had saddled themselves with toxic assets and all lending was on the verge of freezing up at the time. Rather than debate the specifics of what lead to this problem, because both sides have played a role in concocting this mess, I ‘d rather look at what should have been done at the time. Only one major issue stands in the way of doing this thoroughly and that is the fact that much of the specifics about how the books of the banks looked at the time is still shrouded in mystery. Let us suppose that some action of the Federal government may have been necessary. Yet, we can conclude that it was certainly not the role of the government to buy stakes in the banks and get involved in their day to day business. This is why we now have a pay Czar appointed by Obama. We also can relate this to the debacles of bailing out AIG and most of the American motor industry and the White House control over the executive compensations of those companies. We, the taxpayers, spent 80 billion of our money under Obama to hold off the bankruptcies of those motor corporations for six months and a 180 billion on AIG which is still teetering on the brink of collapse.  With Chrysler and GM we also saw the federal involvement lead to the violation of our laws when it came to bankruptcy restructuring. Primary debtors were given less money than the UAW union. If the laws of the U.S. can be so readily violated who would want to invest in companies based in this country? We should have let these corporations fail and allowed the banks to restucture the bad loans that they made that were still salvageable and set up a system similar to the one that bought up the bad debt from the Savings and Loan scandal two decades ago. Mortgages could have been increased in their terms and this could have made many delinquent loans more manageable and kept the banks liquid and able to continue making loans.

On top of these solutions a reduction of the capital gains tax could have spurred investment. We also should have lowered the tax rates on ALL citizens. This could have been done by reducing income taxes for those who pay, a reduction in the social security tax, reducing the payroll tax, and finally a reduction in state sales taxes. Many think that the Bush tax cuts were too deep. Contrary to that opinion I feel that they did not go far enough. We still have a 35% corporate tax rate in this country. It is one of the highest in the world. If we were to drop it to 20% or lower could you imagine how that would spur economic development in this country? Ronald Reagan inherited an economy that was in many ways worse than the one we have now and many of my proposals were part of the package that he put forth which brought us out of that severe recession.

On a number of other issues the conservative ideology also has the plans to help solve our problems. Health care is one of the most complex issues that we face domestically. Yet, all ideas proposed from the right are simply ignored by Congressional Democrats and the President. One idea that has the most potential to reduce costs is Tort reform, but the Democrats won’t touch this because they are the party of the trial lawyers. One of the greatest, if not the single most, contributors to high health care costs in this country is malpractice insurance. Reducing outrageous and unnecessary lawsuits would do wonders in reducing the amount of money that we spend in the medical system. Allowing personal health insurance to be bought accross state lines and piecemeal rather than being covered for every possibility would also help. As it stands now people are being covered for all cases from the very first moment that they buy insurance. We also have to consider how the reduced rates for medicine and machinery paid for in already socialized nations affects our prices here. Essentially we are subsidizing the costs in foreign countries because the health care corporations have to raise their prices here to make up the difference. Once these issues are addressed we can then look at the potential to deal with those who are still not covered, Yet, this number is not the 47 million we so often hear bandied about. That number includes approximately 12 million illegal aliens, those who are uninsured due to job transition, and those who have chosen not to be insured despite the fact that they can afford it. Even in the worse case scenario we do not have to nationalize health care in order to get those who are citizens of this country insured. I have heard some sort of a federally funded voucher program similar to food stamps proposed as a remedy for this situation. Nationalized health care is bankrupting every nation in which it has been implemented.

Not that I believe climate change is necessarily a problem that we can control, but I do believe that we can control what we do that may be exacerbating it. As one who studies climate and weather I do believe that there is some change occurring in our climate. The weather has grown more extreme over the last several decades and it is definetly affecting our environment. That said, the insanity over human induced climate change has taken on almost cultic tones.  Programs like the cash for clunkers, legislation like Cap and Trade, and the mandated change to using light bulbs that contain mercury (one of the most poisonous substances on earth) to avoid ordinary light bulbs which emit a bit more carbon dioxide are all ideas based on the faith that mankind is causing climate change. Since this concept ignores that there appears to be warming on other planets we may need to find another source. I think it could be the Sun. That big yellow ball of light that heats and lights our planet. I’m sure most of you have seen it. So, instead of conciously approaching the ways in which we can get and save energy better than we do now we have plans that toss perfectly good cars into landfills, a tax on energy which could be the largest single tax increase in mankind’s history, and light bulbs that will eventually poison our homes and pollute our ground water with a substance that is widely known to cause birth defects.

If we are going to be wasting trillions of dollars what we should be spending it on is improving our national infrastructure and finding alternative fuels that make sense. Some of this can be spent on research, which I would support the government investing money, and other efforts can be induced by tax incentives for already proven methods such as wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal energy production. Individuals and businesses that invest in these renewable resources can be rewarded for their reduction of fossil fuel use with tax rebates. We need to be cautious when implementing such programs, because we can see what the ethanol subsidy did when it was tried. Not only did ethanol made by corn not reduce our energy consumption, but it actually raised the price of all grain and rice commodities around the world increasing the price of food for those already at the margins of starvation. Such a replication would be a crime. How many went hungry or died around the world so American politicians could pander to farmers in the corn belt?

We need real solutions for real problems. Trying government control of the economy, healthcare, and energy production has repeatedly failed in the past. Why would we expect it to work now? Nothing is black and white. Are there areas in which the government can assist in solving these problems? Yes, but we do it to our detriment when we take out of the equation good old common sense and self-determination. Conservatives propose solutions that involve the people and allow them to make their own decisions based on what is best for them as an individual. Whenever this philosophy has been tried in the past it has yielded good results. Our nation was founded on the concept of individual liberty and the freedom to live as one chooses. Conservative solutions allow for the ingenuity and talent of every citizen to be applied to the challenges that face us as a society.

     President Obama’s moves, and lack there of, on the world stage reveal a dangerous idealism. His policies also seem to be beneficial to despots and tyrants and antagonistic to those nations with which the U.S. shares cultural and political similarities. His only consistency has been to cater to our enemies and shun our allies. This has been evidenced on at least a number of occasions. Whether it be policy statements on Israel or his defense of the unconstitutional efforts of Honduran President, Manuel Zelaya, the President can be sure to support the wrong side. Time and again he chooses to take positions that only further the goals of those who stand against liberty and freedom. The President seems more like a wide eyed college student fresh out of a Howard Zinn lecture than he does the leader of the free world.

     The agreements reached today with Russia are a perfect example. Essentially Obama gave away the store without getting anything in return. He spoke of how he “trusts” the Russian leadership. Were these not the same leaders who ordered the invasion and virtual annexation of two of the provinces of the sovereign country of Georgia? Yet, Obama seems to think that this warrants “trust”. This is the same government that opposes all of our efforts to deter Iran from developing nuclear weapons as well. The President simply sat down with Putin and Medvedev and conceded to every demand that they had. No promises of stopping their opposition to our missle defense shield in eastern Europe. No word that they won’t use their vast natural gas and oil reserves to hold their neighbors hostage again this winter. No, Obama signed a nuclear arms reduction package and then spoke about how he dreams of a nuclear free world. Maybe he should listen to what the leaders of other nations are dreaming about. How about a world without an America or wiping Israel off the face of the map. Neville Chamberlain dreamed of a world without war too. That’s what led him to sign the Munich agreement with Adolf Hitler in 1938. “There will be peace in our time.”, said Prime Minister Chamberlain. Does Obama have access to the same history books that I do? If I’m correct 1939 to 1945 was a pretty rough time, maybe he hasn’t studied that yet.

     While North Korea threatens to lob missiles at Hawaii the President dreams of a better world. While North Korea prepares to increase the power and range of its missiles Obama waits around for an effete Security Council resolution from the United Nations. I have to admit that the North Korea issue is probably one of the most difficult to find answers to solve the problem. Yet, our glorious leader has done nothing to change the situation. Could he have not pressured Russia to do more to help? I mostly worry about the possibility that Kim Jong Il will try to go out with a bang as he approaches his end. This same feeling about Saddam Hussein was one of the reasons I supported going to war there in 2003. Pyongyang doesn’t need nukes to do damage, with artillery alone they could level the city of Seoul and attack the tens of thousands of troops that we have in South Korea.

     Meanwhile the President exhibits near schizophrenia when it comes to democracy. On one hand he does nothing to support the Iranian people who were denied free and fair elections and on the other he supports an emerging tyrant in Honduras who violated the orders of their Supreme Court and the will of his own political party. Is it possible that Obama liked the anti-american book given to him by Hugo Chavez so much that he’s willing to speak out on behalf of his dear friend Zelaya? He calls it “meddling” in Iran, but immediately jumps to the defense of a president who violated the laws of Honduras. Is Obama revealing his true self with these dichotomous actions?

     More importantly is the issue of nuclear proliferation with Iran. I’m glad that the people of Iran are standing up against the Mullahs, but Mousavi is certainly no friend to the U.S. or the west. He is just as hell bent on destroying Israel as Ahmadinejad. Yet, this is one of the gravest situations confronting the world. Israel WILL defend itself before the menace of a nuclear armed Iran comes to fruition. No amount of diplomacy, pressure, or anything else will disuade them from a pre-emptive strike on Iran. Surely anyone with the least bit of knowledge of global affairs knows what trouble that could lead to, but instead we have the Obama administration lecturing the Israelis on settlements. He doesn’t move to fight the proxy armies of Iran, Hezboullah and Hamas. He doesn’t support the right of Israel to exist free from rockets and the threat of annihilation. No, Mr. Obama talks to them of restraint and asks nothing of the terrorists. He speaks of a two state solution, but never says that the Palestinian demand of the right of return to Israel would destroy the nation as a Jewish state. Like all leftists Obama’s anti-semitism may not be overt it’s only a matter of practicality.

     I am greatly disturbed by the foreign policy of this President. From issue to issue all I see are detrimental moves to the security of this nation. I see quite the appropriate analogy to Jimmy Carter. President Obama is a committed internationalist. President Obama is a socialist. President Obama holds a world view that disdains the American past and is opposed to our present dominance in the world. He has done nothing to alter my opinions on these matters and everything he has done has only served to reinforce my ideas of him. Lord willing we will endure four years of this man and still live in a world where we can exist in relative safety and security.