Everywhere we turn these days there are politicians espousing their resemblance to Ronald Reagan.  ”We were buds back in the day,” or “Look at the nifty pen he gave me!”  Everyone, it seems, wants to align themselves with Reagan.  The problem lies in the reality of the actions and records of those politicians and how very far removed from Ronald Reagan they really are.

What was it that made Ronald Reagan who he was?  He was, arguably, the best president this nation has been blessed with since Abraham Lincoln.  Oh, Teddy Roosevelt might be included, but there certainly needs to be room carved out on Mt. Rushmore for the head of Reagan to join our Great Leaders!

Ronald Reagan stood for what he believed in, and contrary to the current fad of not believing in anything, he actually had a deep abiding faith and the knowledge that God had truly blessed this nation.  Its very founding was miraculous!  When, in history, has there ever been such a group of like-minded men who were able to put aside their differences and cobble together a document as our Constitution?  Reagan knew, that as President, he was the caretaker of something  precious; not snail darters or spotted owls, but a set of ideals that had been forged over two-hundred years before in battle grounds like Bunker Hill, and Ticonderoga, and tempered in the frigid, hungry winters in places like Valley Forge.  Ronald Reagan knew what a privilege and responsibility he was taking on when he swore that short concise oath of office to become our President.

It was more than that, but it seems that everything about Ronald Reagan comes back to his faith in God and in this country.  John McCain likes to talk about being a maverick, but he isn’t.  Ronald Reagan WAS a maverick, at least in the political world.  It was his willingness to call a spade a spade that stands him apart from most.  No leader of a Nation had ever stood and called Soviet Russia an Evil Empire.  Reagan saw it for what it was, certainly he knew that he wasn’t the only one who felt that way and he expressed it.  He said what we were all thinking.

In a nutshell, that was the magic of Ronald Reagan.  His jokes about bombing the Soviets, his naps during staff meetings, his ability to not take himself too seriously  all added up to him letting people see him as being just like them.  He was an American, this country was his home, and at home you can just be yourself.  He was.

This country yearns for a return to his honesty and honor, someone who says exactly what they mean, and follows through with action.  We are looking for someone who will voice the things we are thinking and who has the skill to get things done.  It seems that Washington is devoid of anyone with a backbone who has the voice to say what it is we are all thinking.

And just what is it that we are all thinking?  We are thinking that we are tired of being told what it is we can or cannot say.  We are tired of being raped every time we fill our car up at the pump.  We are tired of seeing our tax dollars wasted on pet projects of Washington politicians.  We are fed up with people walking across our borders and demanding the rights of citizenship.

But that’s just My Arrogant Opinion

Let’s just for the sake of discussion, say I work for Duh Chemicals. Let’s further say that I am a chemist working on new product development. During the course of my research of trying to find a alternative energy source, I end up with a new polymer that will turn the world on its ear.

This new polymer which I name ‘Plasmos’ won’t save energy, or fuel an automobile, but it can be fashioned into clothing, used as a non-stick surface for cooking, and will find many uses in paints, glues, and resins. The big question is, who owns it, because whoever that is will become unbelievably wealthy in a very short time.

Unfortunately, it was understood that as I was working for Duh Chemicals, what I developed there was their property. Therefore, Duh had the rights to Plasmos.

Our Congressmen and Senators work for us, the people of the United States of America. They draw a salary for the ‘work’ they perform. Their position makes them sought after for speaking engagements and appearances all over the country. Since the only reason they are sought after is due to their relationship as our employee, shouldn’t the money they receive for speaking technically come back to the states?

Certainly we aren’t speaking of money big enough to cut taxes on the residents, but it would serve to remind our representatives just who it is that is in charge. They work for THE PEOPLE, not the other way around the way they seem to act most of the time.

Normally I stream Rush Limbaugh at my desk, actually I listen to Glenn Beck first then follow it up with Rush. Since the election though, I haven’t been listening to nearly as much as I normally do because the news is just too depressing. Every day there seems to be a new townhall meeting that Obama has flown off to. Let’s see, with the economy as it is, in the tank I mean, corporate presidents are no longer allowed to use their corporate jets to fly into Washington to get reamed out by the likes of Barney Franks and his crew, but it is fine to fly Air Force One and all the accutremonts all across the country on a daily basis.

Meanwhile orders placed years ago for aircraft by major corporations are being cancelled and causing an entire industy to teeter on the brink of disaster in order for a couple of corporate bigwigs to save face in front of some stuffed shirts in Washington.

Anyway back to my original point. Rush has gotten this thing all wrong. Today he said that this was straight out of the pages of Orwell’s 1984, but actually this whole thing can be taken almost verbatim from the pages of Ayn Rands Novel, Atlas Shrugged. What needs to happen now, is the people being made to come under the thumb of the federal government just need to go limp. Let Obama run the banks, the manufacturing facilities the wheels of industry that have made this country great. Let him run it, if he can, otherwise, get the hell out of the way and let the people who know what they are doing do it.

But that’s just My Arrogant Opinion

Timothy (TurboTax) Geithner and Tom Daschle both seem to be a part of President Obama’s Brain Trust.   Our new Treasury Secretary and Health and Human Services Secretary both seem to have a bit of difficulty with paying their taxes.

Geithner has a good excuse though, that Turbo Tax from Quicken, man that is some complex software to master.  Intuit estimates only 20 million tax returns are prepared with their software annually, so it it obviously not a user friendly program.

The thing to remember though is that these mistakes were not intentional and they are truly sorry for them (or  at least that they were caught), and it will never happen again.   Since we can surely take them at their word, we can also feel confident they have been sworn in to their respective cabinet posts.

That brings to mind something else though.  Officials from The Peanut Corporation of America are truly sorry for the Salmonella outbreak traced back to their plant in Lynchburg, GA (or at least that they were caught).  Certainly we should be able to give them the same breaks we are giving to Daschle and Geithner, right?

And while we are at it, what about that guy who inadvertantly pulled a gun and robbed the clerk at the local convenience store?  He’s sorry too.  There was no malice intended, the clerk just had more money than he did and he wanted it.

No, it seems that it is just Anarchy for the Upper Class and do as I say, not as I do.

Republicans are bummed out that the Democratic party is in control.  If they want to, the Democrats can push through any piece of legislation they desire without anything more than vocal protests.  President Obama has made it clear during his first week in office that it was going to be his way or the highway, when he told Republican leaders that ‘he won’.

Everyone is too big to fail.  Treasury Secretary Nominees are too important to disqualify simply because they can’t master Turbo-Tax, nor are they willing to pay their taxes.  We give corporations money, then immediately tell them how they can spend it.

So maybe it is a good thing that Republicans can actually affect nothing, because when it collapses hopefully people will see that it is a failure of government to accomplish something our government was never intended to accomplish in the first place.  Maybe then we can try to get out of the way of a truly free market and let it take care of itself.

The sooner government gets out of the business of nurse maid the sooner we can start to recover.

But that’s just My Arrogant Opinion.

What is it about Sarah Palin that has the McCain camp running scared?  The election has been over less than a week and we have anonymous leaks from staffers throwing Governor Palin under the Straight Talk Express tour bus.

Where is Senator McCain?  The same McCain that chastised his supporters for shouts in rallies that might hurt the sensibilites of the Obama camp.  Strangely, he says nothing.  No, he’s back in Washington hangin’ with his peeps sitting in the aisle between the Republicans and Democrats.

I watched The O’Reilly Factor last night, and Bill said something that really hit home with me.  He mentioned the fact that as soon as Sarah was announced, every news organ in the country headed North to Alaska, they went North to find some dirt.  With all of their resources and money, they came up empty, there wasn’t any dirt to find.  And now, we are to believe stories from someone who won’t even give us his (her) name?  Let’s get real shall we?

Sarah Palin was the only conservative voice in the entire campaign.  It was her conservatism that energized the Republican base.  I know that I was disgusted with the Republican choice of McCain, and had made up my mind to vote my conscience and cast my vote for Bob Barr.  I knew he had no chance of winning the national election, but he came closer to my ideals than McCain did.  It was Sarah Palin that changed my mind.  Her speech when she was announced as McCain’s running mate sold me.  I heard and watched a woman come out on stage and deliver a tremendous speech that truly seemed to come from the heart, and reminded me of Ronald Reagan, not only in delivery, but in content.  Here was the new voice of conservatism.

This whole thing reeks of politics as usual in Washington.  No one liked the way Obama supporters and the media went after Joe the Plumber with a vengence.  Here is the Republican nominee for Vice President being attacked by a coward who won’t even identify him/herself who was a staff member.  Don’t worry so much about vetting the candidates, worry about vetting the staffers.

I hope this doesn’t sour Sarah Palin.  I know that this is one reason why it will take a lot of convincing to get me behind anything that goes on in Washington.  Sarah, Bill O’Reilly has offered you 30 minutes on Monday night’s program to tell your side of all this.  I, for one, hope you will take him up on it and at least let us hear your take on this whole experience.

But, that is just My Arrogant Opinion

I was driving in to work this morning when the thought struck me. I have been hearing the mantra from Al Gore for over a year that we are killing our planet and that our hunger for meat and dairy is driving that death forward because the domestic cattle industry contributes more greenhouse gases than auto pollution. It never struck me until this very morning. It should have been obvious and maybe it was, too obvious to be noticed. How can cattle be contributing such a deadly amount of greenhouse gases if this has just been going on for the past century or so? Up until the middle of the 1800′s the great plains were covered with bison numbering up to an estimated 100 million. According to the documents I have looked at, the domestic cattle population just hit 104 million in 2007.

Either Bison don’t fart, or this whole argument is as bogus as a carbon credit! This whole global warming crisis is a house of cards. Science is verifiable, not a collection of similar opinions.

How does ol’ Al explain fossil records of plant life in the artic ice? Is it possible that the Earth used to be warmer than it is now? What about all of the historic anomalies that have been recorded? The answer is that the Earth goes through cycles caused by orbit and sun activity.

I have to admit that I had forgotten about it. I ran across it while channel surfing on Sunday.  What was it I had forgotten?  Oh, that this was the weekend for the 2008 Libertarian National Convention in Denver, Colorado.

C-Span was covering it live.  I settled in to watch and was very impressed with what I saw.  Having always thought of myself as a Republican, this year in Politics has caused me to rethink my loyalties.  I took the “World’s Smallest Political Quiz,” and was somewhat surprised that it put me squarely in the Libertarian quadrangle.  I say somewhat because the quiz is on a Libertarian site.

All that aside, the more I looked at what Libertarians stood for, the more I liked what I saw.  This is not meant to be a commercial for Libertarians, but I did want to share my path and this pilgrim’s progress.

I tuned in just in time for the 3rd round of balloting and got to see the various candidates speak and interact with delegates at the convention.  One thing that really impressed me about most of the candidates and speakers was their commitment to their overarching commonality and the goals of the Libertarian party in general.  The one exception that I saw was that of candidate Mary Ruwart, who seemed very bitter towards Bob Barr.  Since they were in a dead heat, it came out vividly, in my view, when she conceded the nomination.

In her concession, she never mentioned Bob Barr to whom she had just lost, she never mentioned the coming days till the November General Election. It was all about her, her staff and supporters, as she vowed to fight on.  This viewer was left wondering a little bit whether she was going to break out of the Libertarian Party and start a new Party, maybe the Bitter Clinger Party, as she seemed bitter enough and certainly seemed to be clinging to her presidential bid.

I had to leave before the Vice Presidential candidate was selected, however, it was Wayne Allyn Root as expected as he was number three in the delegate vote count and threw his support to a Barr – Root ticket at the end of the fifth round of balloting.  You can read more here.

Oh, back to what I was saying earlier; I was aligned with the Republican Party, however that party has made a sharp left turn and abandoned the principals of conservatism and small government that drew me to it in the first place.  And this year, I am not voting for the candidate the polls say is the front runner, or the one popular opinion says has a chance to win.  This year, I am voting my conscience and who I think will do the best job for this country that I love.

But, that’s just My Arrogant Opinion.

P.S. Barr-Root in ’08

Wait just a minute Senator Obama, wasn’t it your wife who was telling the American People that in order for anyone to get a slice of the pie someone was going to have to give up their piece? Yet, you tell everyone in North Carolina yesterday that we can all have our piece of the American Dream. Why not quit pandering and start being honest with America?

But that would not befit the most liberal Senator in Washington, now would it? We all have to remember that there is no way to spell Liberal without L I E. It’s crazy uncle Jeremiah again isn’t it? He’s just like a crazy uncle, you don’t agree with him, but he is family. When it became politically expedient to do so, you threw him under the bus, probably to scare your white grandmother who you threw under there a few weeks back.

But, that’s just My Arrogant Opinion.

My Momma told me that stupid is as stupid does. How is it possible for Barack Obama to distance himself from the label of being stupid? He is supposed to be a politician, a Senator from Illinois, yet he is too stupid to realize that Jeremiah Wright is or would become an albatross around his neck? Is it possible that he hired people who were so stupid as to not tell him that? Or would he just not listen?

That all beside the point, coming in to tell us that he sat there for 20 years without any of it sinking in is to call us stupid if we believe it. This is the man who introduced Barack to Christianity, he married Barack and Michelle, baptised their children, but no one ever noticed the hate pouring out of this man? Yeah, right. Not so much.

Barack is just entirely too stupid to be President.

But that is just My Arrogant Opinion.