NO the judges

You hear people constantly lauding the notion of term limits.  At the same time they often don’t like lib judges and their decisions.  But come election time, there are a dozen judges on the ballot and voters just mindlessly vote to retain them all.  Well, they often whine, they don’t know who these people are.  I have a suggestion.  If you don’t know any judges, vote to dismiss them all.  Then the current governor, who you do know and you did elect has power to appoint. 

Now if you know a judge’s record and you agree with his/her decisions, that’s a good reason to retain.

NO on all judges you don’t know should be a default of any thinking voter. And it should be a Republican political movement in OK.  Then we wouldn’t have dinosaurs in high places telling us we need to accept sharia law—like the decision that nullified a state question which passed by 81% two years ago.  Moreover,  we could have Governor Fallin replenish the courts.  Right now, we have holdover appointments from years of Dems.  These judges are often intent on ruining the current Republican revolution.  But even beyond the partisanship, you should vote to term limit a judge whom you know nothing about.  Automatically voting to re-elect is like a Stalin election. If you get a new job in the private sector, is your tenure guaranteed forever?  So why do people auto-vote to retain? 

              I should get some yard signs made.  “NO the judges except…” I figure we could  plant about 100,000 of these around the state and let people make hand signs next to this that list judges they think need retaining.   

Kansas Day in OK

I’ve always loved numbers.  They put arguments to rest.  Every once in a while I meet a Southerner who alleges that the Civil War wasn’t really about slavery but about states rights.  The South seceded because they loved states rights.  Kansas disproves this.  It was the 34^th state of the nation on Jan. 29, 1861.  Kansans decided to be a free state. Congress accepted their charter.  So what difference did it make to South Carolina?  Kansas was exercising their state’s rights.  Ah, the South Carolinians were mad because Kansas, the 18^th free state would outnumber the 16 slave states on matters.  So SC seceded along with 6 others in rapid succession. 

A lot of people think that just about every southerner owned slaves back then.  Only 10% of them did.  In fact, there were 13 abolitionist churches in the Carolinas.  But Cotton was King and most people from the area thought that to upset the slave system would destroy their economy.  True perhaps.  Thomas Sowell did landmark work on the sociology of slavery.  A slave typically cost about the price of a house in a rural area.  That might mean $100,000 in today’s terms.  Often the value of a gang of slaves was worth far more than the land they tilled.  Slaves were so valuable that they were rarely used in mining—a dangerous job where only fortune-hunters would risk their own lives.  And they were vital for cotton.  Interestingly, defense-of-slavery attitude developed after 1820.  In 1787, Virginia bequeathed all the land north of the Ohio River to the nation provided the states carved out would be free states (Northwest Ordinance). But when Ely Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793, a new agricultural industry was founded that provided 40% of the exports of USA.   

In the Civil War, 600,000 were killed, 5% of the population and nearly 20% of the adult males.  The dominance of so many women in society in the aftermath was an impelling factor in the temperance movement, the Victorian age and its desire for a quiet, productive home life, and the suffrage movement because women often rose to positions of civic importance.  At the epicenter of was Kansas.  Kansas became the state everyone watched for trends.  And that continued until the 1920’s when the Prohibition movement (a Kansas idea) flopped. 

Oklahoma was once heavily Democrat, but that was never true in NW Oklahoma.  Kansans were mostly Republican and the last land run comprised 60% Kansans.  I live in that Cherokee Outlet territory.  The run was two counties wide from Kay-Noble to the panhandle, about 1/6 of the state.  Today Kay county is 55% R , 38% D, 7% I.

And why did Kansans want the Indian Territory opened for settlement?  The cattle business in the 1880’s was where people often made enormous profits --30% ROE or more.  After the civil war 3 million head of wild cattle lived in Texas and from 1867-79 Kansans watched 1.2 million head sold in cow towns at rail terminals.  Often the trail drives grazed to fatten the beeves in the Oklahoma grasslands, seemingly for free, since the Cherokees didn’t occupy that area and didn’t collect rents very well.  The Texas cattle carried a disease, called Spanish fever, that we now know was caused by Hill Country ticks.  Texas cattle infected northern cattle who then died in large numbers.  But about 100,000 cattle were lost by trail drives and another 50,000 were sold to northerners who interbred the longhorns with Scottish Herefords.  Original Herefords were winter hardy but not good grazers in sparse grass.  The longhorns were unequalled grass finders.  And they passed-on their resistance to southern ticks to their offspring.  In a decade and a half, this new crossbred super Hereford was shipped north.  As the song goes, git along little doggie, you know that Wyoming will be your new home. Hence the settlers killed off 20 million buffalo (driving the hapless Indians onto reservations) and replaced them with 10 million head of cattle.  That is how the West was won.   

And so in 1892 the federal government offered to buy the western Cherokee Outlet for $1.20 an acre to make a new state.  Nearby Kansas cattlemen quickly countered with a $3.00 offer.  But true to form, the government had a host of lawyers go to court and nullify the offer of the cattlemen, leaving the Cherokees with a gun-to-the-head deal of buck twenty.  This is one more reason why Okies were often registered Democrats but voted Republican in national elections. (With 38.6% part blood Native Americans and 20% other minorities, one would expect Okies to be loyal Dems!) They trust Washington like an egg gatherer trusts a snake.  And that is why Kansas Day should be important even in Oklahoma.

Response to SOTU

This is what I wish Joni Ernst would say but probably can’t.

Obama’s tax reform is nothing but retribution for those who don’t vote for him.  The big increase in capital gains taxes will hurt the middle class most.  Who takes Capital Gains treatment?  The conventional wisdom is the wealthy investors who sell stocks.  But the folks who depend on cap gains rates are those who sell some big lump once or twice in their lifetimes.  Farmers who sell a piece of land to retire.  They don’t have a fat pension and have poured their lives into that farm.  Small businessmen who sell the business and thereby preserve the jobs of those who work there.  The owner worked his butt off and put it all into the business while living very modestly.  The homeowner who lost her job during the recession, couldn’t sell the house, and rented it for a few years.  Now she has an buyer.  These people will get hammered with 28% cap gains.  Obama knows this.  Does he really care?  Or is this just a cynical game to shaft the people who don’t vote for him.  Small businessmen and farmers vote 90% Republican. When Charlie Rose interviewed Obama and told him that lowering, not raising cap gains yields more government revenue, Obama said he still wanted to raise the rate for “fairness”.

And making trusts go through probate?  40% of the people in America either have a trust or will benefit from it.  Once again, the upper and middle class sets up trusts to avoid the confiscatory 45% estate tax.  There are 2 million people who die each year.  Do you know how many pay estate tax?  7300. It’s a tax that raises hardly any revenue.  Why do we still have it? Some finance guys say everybody who has $100,000 worth of assets needs a trust in order to avoid typical 15% lawyer fees on their estate. A trust is like a personal corporation whose only business is to invest the owner’s money.  Taxes are paid on the earnings. When the owner dies, a beneficiary becomes recipient of the earnings but there is no confiscatory estate tax.  If we outlawed this, the smart rich would literally set up family corporations to do exactly the same thing. Then Obama would have no choice but to disallow corporations, which of course would crash our economy.  Does Obama care?  Or is it just a cynical game of payback.

So what will put America back to work?  We the people.  Our President said, “you know we can’t just drill our way to cheap gas prices.”  Oh?? Americans did it anyway, while he was channeling billions of your tax dollars to cronies who had shell green companies that failed and left people without jobs.   The US economy is coming back despite his resistancy.  Never underestimate Americans.  Our auto companies are coming back and would be doing better if his bailout hadn’t sold Chrysler to the Italians, and Cash for Clunkers hadn’t artificially raised used car prices 20%.  He is trying to kill the coal industry and our electricity rates have gone up an average of 30%.  He tried to ban offshore drilling and became the only President in our history who was slapped with contempt of federal court.  Lower middle class people who spent  their few dollars on a bare bones healthcare insurance now find themselves recipients of free Medicaid.  But try finding a doctor.  Few doctors will take Medicaid patients because reimbursement rates are so low.  Obama just doubled the number of people on Medicaid. Please take a number and get in line.  EPA and Labor regulations are killing our jobs. Do you know that for 7 straight years, the number of business closures in America has exceeded business start-ups.  That’s the first time in our 239 year history this has ever happened.  And yet America has started to grow despite his administration kicking and squealing against the real world things that make our country work.  It’s just like those hogs I used to work over used to kick and squeal about getting neutered.

Speaking of -- how about our commander in chief going to war against Islamic Terrorism.  It seems to still be alive and well and beheading innocent people.  Release the marines instead of the Gitmo prisoners. Stop giving Iran and the Norks a pass on nuclear weapon development.  Support Israel and Ukraine.  America needs to re-up.  Otherwise I will have to tell all those valiant soldiers I served with that they fought in vain.  You golfed while Fallujah burned, Nero.   

Now the good news.  America is going to win again.

Here’s how.  The Republicans have our own tax reforms and IRS reforms coming.  We will pass bipartisan tax cuts designed to grow small businesses and make new jobs.  We will put a stop to his overreaching regulations.  We will repeal and replace the ACA.  If the court finds the President’s dictates unconstitutional, we have a fix waiting for passage.  Military spending will increase so we can protect our country.  Social Security Disability needs to be fixed.  And we guarantee that every year we will plop a bipartisan budget on the guy’s desk.  If you don’t sign it, you live with the shutdown.  On immigration, we are going to pass legislation to secure the borders, then will pass a bill to stop visa overstays.  Only once these two illegal flows are stopped, will we go on to status of those already here.  We will okay Keystone pipeline and stop the EPA from demanding 20 different grades of gasoline be refined when 5 should do. Oh, and we are going to specifically enumerate some things that are best handled by the states. We’ll replace 23 entitlement programs for welfare and turn them into block grants for the states to use.

There’s a beginning. I don’t like to give long speeches.  Watch what we do, not what we say.         

I Had a Dream(s)

Everybody wants us to open a restaurant again, but I had a horrible dream last night.  The guy I hired as a dishwasher got charged with child molestation and the Restaurant Association demanded we shut down for years until by their graces they would let me open up again.  When I protested that I would go broke and my manager and I had nothing to do with the dishwasher’s crimes, the Assoc. sued me in court.  It was hell.  My elderly manager took it hard and resigned.  A few months later he died of grief over the affair.  Finally the Restaurant Association proposed a settlement.  We could start operations again, but I would have to fund a child abuse program to the tune of $60 million.  Then I woke up and told Shirley about my dream.  “So who were the dishwasher and manager?” she asked.  I told her some guys by the names of Sandusky and Paterno.  And in my crazy dream, the letterhead from the Restaurant Association kept saying “NCAA” (National Culinary Arts Association??). Let me ask you.  Would you open a business if the NCAA would hold your business responsible for criminal activity of a rogue employee?

Then everybody said I should think up something in the way of travel and tourism.  So I went to bed to sleep on it.  I dreamed of starting a luxury line of cruise ships.  But there are already so many of these.  So where could we go that would be new and different?  And then I remembered in my dream that the manmade global warming people were predicting that all the Arctic Ice would be gone by 2020.  More or less because there is some variation in the ice pack in the Arctic.  For example, last summer, the ice area increased by 60% and many seasonal sea lanes closed north of the Canadian Territories.  But not to worry, it will all be gone soon and the long-sought NW Passage will be ready, or even clear sailing over the north pole in about 5 years.  So if we start building a fleet of cruise ships now, we will be done just as the Arctic opens up.  All I am asking is that you risk your life savings to help me invest in this effort.  Would you do it? Maybe I should ask Al Gore to put his money where his mouth is.

That came after the nights I dreamed that I jumped on a time machine and traveled back to the eighties.  What could a guy do to make a killing in literature?  So I wrote a book about a philandering politician whose wife was bisexual.  Their marriage seemed to be one of convenience.  While he was governor, she moved out of the house. She only hitched to him because he was a rising star politically. When his affairs got out of hand and went public, she was in charge of demonizing his victims and ruining their reputations.  Then, amazingly he got elected President. Finally, after he retired, she went into politics in another state, like some carpetbagger, and then ran for President herself. But she lost to a semi-Marxist guy who was black.  So she ran again at the age of 69.   The book ends with her the likely nominee and maybe eventually President.  A majority of Americans can think of no other person in America that would be better.  So in my dream, I went to a publisher with my freshly written text and he was so incredulous.  He said it was so preposterous that no one would ever read such a thing. It insults the intelligence of the American voter and no such people could ever be elected to the highest office.  That’s when I woke up feeling like something the cat drug in.

I guess that dream must have bothered me because the next night it came back again, me in the time machine and going into that book publisher’s office.  “Okay, I want to write a fiction book about the future--what will happen after 1984,” I stated.  “And I think it should shoot the moon with wild happenings so that it just gets novel attention now, but sells later when some of the ideas just might come true.”  He stroked his chin.  “So what do you have in mind?” 

“The computer and phone.  The computer gets so smart it kills the encyclopedia business.  A worldwide information sharing system is adopted where you can buy and sell, ask and get answers of just about anything.”  He gave a smirk.  “Wow, you really are crazy,” and hooking a thumb over his shoulder he said, “See, I can’t even get the darned thermal paper to go in this printer for this Apple II-E.  They say it is just a glorified replacement for the typewriter.  How in the heck could it be hooked up worldwide?  We don’t have enough copper to put in that many lines.”  “No, by satellite,” I enthused.  And then there would be phones that were so smart they could take over like Dick Tracy’s wrist radio system, only they would be devices that you could write on, ask questions of, check the weather and find out where you were in the world. Even spend hours playing games on.”  “People would never go back to writing if they had voice communications.” He averred.  “Oh, no! They will use their thumbs and walk around sending texts to each other.  They will get so involved they will crash cars and when walking will run into things.”  “You have to be crazy!” he sneered at me.  “Hunt and peck with two thumbs?  And why not just talk? "Oh and something we can call social media, where  people put up all kinds of stuff about where they ate dinner and what happened to their pet.  Some people would get so much into this that they neglect the rest of their lives. "  He was holding his head in his hands now, "This is too outlandish.  I can’t support you writing such nonsense. Forget it!"

“All right, how about this.  The peaceful fall of international communism and it is replaced by various forms of fascism.”  “Now you are out to lunch,” he rolled his eyes.  “How do you propose to bring down communism peacefully-- in maybe a hundred years?”  “No really, it could happen in a half dozen years.  Christians will bring it down from within.”  “That’s absurd!  There aren’t any Christians in the communist countries.”  “No, imagine that the iron curtain opens up and we discover that nearly 1/3 of the people are secretly Christians.  They start marching in Germany as a peaceful protest with little candles and that brings the regime down.”  “But that couldn’t possibly be!  The government would turn their tanks on a peaceful protest the way they massacred the Hungarians in ’56 and slammed the door shut on the Czechs in ’68.”  “No, the communists get so caught up in an arms race with Reagan that their inefficient economy goes bankrupt and their philosophy is bankrupt against the arguments of the citizens.  When the people start to march, they are so many in number that the soldiers won’t turn their guns on their own people. Marchers overwhelm the authorities from Berlin to Vladivostok and tear down the Berlin wall with their hands.”  “Nobody would buy a story like that,” he turned serious.  Even if they believed the myth about there being some Christians. But  I kept talking. “As the world turns capitalist, the Chinese realize that their free market neighbors are growing exponentially all around them.  Grudgingly they open up to commerce and we discover 100 million Chinese are Christians that are changing the country from within.”  “What have you been smoking?” he asked.  “you know that Christianity doesn’t appeal to the oriental culture and China will never have any but the tiniest minority of them. Just look at Japan!  Indonesia! What kind of spirit do you conjure up to do this?”

“Look.  If you want to write futuristically, you need to write about traveling to the moon or Mars in a spaceship or something.” He coached me.  “No.  NASA gets almost killed off by a socialist President.  He makes them stop rockets and start doing stuff to support Muslims.  He was the first Afro-American President and everyone thought he was going to do everything right.”  “What?  You mean a guy like Jesse Jackson or Ralph Abernathy?  They are old news.  And socialist?  That’s impossible.  Why, America is growing under free markets and is the envy of the world.  We are in a cold war against the Russians. We’d never turn socialist.”  “Well this guy secretly hides his background and gets elected.  He immediately passes a nationalized healthcare but it doesn’t work.  The Democrats spend 8 years defending it and lose their kiester in the elections.  But meanwhile the socialist does hundreds of executive orders and bypasses laws right and left.”  “So the last chapter is he gets impeached,” the publisher grinned. "No," I sighed. "the Republicans wuss out." 

Then he sighed and told me, “I don’t know.  Your ideas are just too goofy.  This is the USA and people don’t just flee their senses that way.  Even as fiction this won’t sell.  Critics would destroy my publishing company and we’d go out of business.  Good luck on getting it printed somewhere.” 

 And with that my dream ended, and I realized that if you proposed today's world as fiction in the brave new world of 1984, you’d never have gotten it published.

 Gosh, I didn't even get to the part about Muslims becoming terrorists or the American economy becoming like southern Europe.

Church signs

            Church-State stuff is simple—5^th grade government teaches it.  We have a separation of church and state, proclaimed by First Amendment.  No establishment of religion but free exercise thereof.  That means that the state can’t thwart the faith.  That means the church can’t run the state.  What’s more, this is Christianity 101.  Jesus said, “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s and to God that which is God’s.” (Luke 20:25) Sorry, Caesar, some stuff just doesn’t belong to you.  And Jesus also said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” (John 18:36)  Clearly God leaves behind the kingdom of this world for men to oversee to their best abilities.  Don’t expect a theocracy out of Christians.  This was the principle of both the Protestant and Catholic reformations, that there were two kingdoms.  The Pope was no longer to run the affairs of states nor was the king to meddle in the church or faith. (sorta worked in Europe. USA wrote it into the constitution.)

            And in our constitutional republic, we elect reasonable men and women in charge of the branches of government.  No divine right of kings.  No Puritan laws putting citizens in pietistic stocks. The people who lead, do so as spiritually governed or simply using their brains and morals. We have a free country.

            But then there are the leftist faithophobes who want  a purge of all things spiritual from the public square. They demand no faith speech, no application of Christian life, no morals with basis in God’s Laws in application to anything. Sorry, Abe Lincoln, you’d be thoroughly disqualified under these principles.  Their excuse is that we sure wouldn’t want someone saying something we don’t agree with?  This is the basis of political correctness.  

Christians shouldn’t put up with this garbage. It utterly opposes what we believe in the Great Commission. And it is time to start a movement to protest, not only the contravention of our faith but also our Bill of Rights.  “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to the yoke of slavery.” Gal. 5:1  “We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to Christ.” II Cor. 4:4. The Left is not my thought police.

They give you this pious claptrap about how they don’t want anyone’s beliefs to impose on another. Oh? Jesus just let people who didn’t believe him walk away.  No fire from heaven. Not even a blistering last word.  Let the debate begin. Some things are right; some are wrong. Some things are bad; some are good.  “But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good.” II Thess. 5:21.

Persecution follows PC.  As I write, the Federal Highway administration is ordering churches to take down their highway signs.  That’s right—all over the country.  Worse, the Highway Beautification Act which they cite, gives authority to order not just signs, but all symbols and constructions within sight of a federal highway for possible removal.  So the massive cross at Edmond, OK and the Calvary-with message-written in stones on a hillside at Arkansas City could be ordered down.   

Christians have long suffered because they wanted to be kind to everyone, but the dismantling of our witness needs to be met with fierce political resistance.     

“Put no object or stumbling block in a brother’s way.” Romans 14:13. 

“We ought to obey God rather than man.” Acts 5:29.

“Those who won’t stand up for their faith or their rights often loose them both.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Islamic solution

Obama tells us he was once mistaken for the Valet.  Okay.  But he could never have been mistaken for one of the Waiters.  He doesn’t play basketball that well.  Dion Waiters put down a spectacular 3 to give the Thunder a win the other night.  Now everybody is spoiling my celebration by telling me he isn’t as good as Reggie Jackson, the sloppy pass machine. I will wait and see.

Meantime, everyone but Obama was in a big line today arm in arm in Paris.  Even Netanyahu and Abbas were there although it is probably too much to ask them to be side by side.  My suggestion was that Obama could have been “included” by placement of an empty chair in his place--office chair with wheels that coasts along and two golf balls in the seat.  Hey, what about Sharpton.  Send him!  Doesn't he like those marchy things. I listened to Melissa Harris Perry on MSNBC who was wringing her hands over the fact that she didn’t agree with Charlie Hebdo  because they made fun of Muslims.  So evidently Charlie had it coming.  It also shows us why libs don’t agree with the war on terror or even call it such.  Their whole world is seen through the glasses of bigotry.  Yet they use some of the worst pejoratives about those they disagree with. 

What’s the solution to this constant Muslim life-taking.  I suggest the following.

1. Realize that it’s Islam.  “Pursue the infidels and terrorize them.  Cut off their heads and cut off their fingers.” Koran, Sura 9:3. “Kill the infidels wherever you find them.” Sura 47:4.  (The people on TV seem incapable of quoting Islam’s scripture.  How smart can they be?)
2. Is a ‘lone wolf’ still a lone wolf, if he consorts with the pack in Yemen or Syria?  The leaders of Europe and USA keep saying the violence is due to lone crazies, thereby exonerating themselves from any kind of a battle plan.  They just pass it off as a one-off.  We need to wise up and start surveillance.  Obama ordered TSA to stop tagging suspicious returnees from dangerous countries in reports.  He also ordered DHS to stop surveillance of suspicious mosques in USA.  Duh.
3. If somebody on a watch list goes to fight with ISIS, revoke their passport. And let TSA profile people.  In fact, that would make a good Presidential campaign issue for 2016.  Stop telling grandma to take off her shoes at the airport and start close watch of 18-45 year old mostly male Muslims.
4. Retaliate.  If the Kahookie brothers and some other pair killed 17 innocent people in France, find out where they got training in Yemen, send in the Stealths and obliterate that small area as a lesson—Don’t harbor radicals Muslim world unless you need a crater dug somewhere.
5. Have congressional hearings and ask hard questions about why Obama administration keeps giving a pass to Islam while dissing Christianity.  Townhall lists 20 times this has happened. 
6. Pack heat.  Those terrorists in France and several recent incidents have shown a new style—automatic weapons, grenades, and other anti-personnel weapons.  But what if the guy who shot pictures of them from the rooftop over the street in front of Charlie had had a good deer rifle? Even if you don’t hit anything, you have definitely complicated their game plan, slowed their murders, and allowed French police to arrive on their bicycles and Smart cars.  In study after study of US states and violent crimes, having carry permits and citizens willing to use them, causes the murder rate to fall.  And there are numerous incidents to prove the case.
7. Take control over no-go zones even if it takes National Guard to get ‘r done.  Nobody is above the law.
8. Get control of our borders and visa overstays.  Even if Obama isn’t deporting, strictly enforce registration of illegals.  That includes Barack’s relatives.
9. Coordinate with our allies about radicals.
10. Tell the libs to buzz off.  They had their chance to stop terrorism. 

Let's be honest

This Huff Post blog by Dr. Steven McSwain asks us conservatives to be honest. See if you get as mad as I do reading it. He is trying to say that if a Republican President had achieved the following we’d all be celebrating and that all on the right oppose Obama brainlessly.

I’m asking for a little honesty here. That’s all, regarding Obama’s Leadership. For most white, middle-to-upper class folks in America, life right now could not get much better and, for some, it would be challenging to point to times when things were any better than they are now. When have you seen gas prices this low? It’s been a long time. A very long time. A little honesty, please. When did you ever see the stock market any higher? Never. Not in a long time. Never has it been as high as it is now. Imagine if Obama was not black and a Republican. What do you think conservatives would be saying about him, given just the two examples above? A little honesty here…that’s all I’m asking for… Why they would unapologetically call his presidential leadership an example with no equal in modern history. Furthermore… When did unemployment get this low? It has not for long time, if my memory has any worth left to it. Oh sure, we need better paying jobs and higher hourly wages but, come on, I’m just asking for a little integrity here among the very anti-Obama public. And, that seems to include more than just FOX News.

And then he goes on to ominously stereotype us.

I may not be right about many things. But I have this sinking suspicion there are lots of people in this country who do not like Obama and it has nothing to do with his leadership. Instead, it has everything to do with the color of his skin. I have another suspicion, too. The suspicion that, if Obama had a different skin color and were anything but a Democrat, his leadership of this country would be hailed by many on the so-called “right” as nothing less than proof of the resurrection and the incarnation of Ronald Reagan himself.

Alas poor Vitriol, I knew thee well.  Okay, I accept the challenge to be painfully honest.  (The grammar checker on my computer, however, is screaming abuse over McSwain’s first paragraph.) First of all, if there were a lot of stock market indices that were soaring, the wise conservative investors would repeat that old adage, “Don’t confuse brains with a bull market.”  That is, stocks go up.  Stocks go down.  Just because you make money doesn’t make you a genius. And Presidential genius doesn’t correlate with an up-market either.  Maybe a few chamber of commerce types would feel good but most R’s would just shrug.  Remember they did that under both Bushes who presided over fabulous markets.  Second, I would predict that if an R had caused the markets to soar by pumping national debt, bailing out megabanks while killing small bankers who do most of the lending, and connived the Fed Quantitative Easings leaving $3 trillion in limbo, the conservatives would at best be very nervous and at least would refer to the R. Prez as a RINO. 

If the gas prices had fallen by way of fracking while the leader had drug in his heels like Obama, they would be lauding the free market oil finders and calling for a primary challenge ASAP. They’d say the free market succeeded in spite of the Man. 

In other words, conservatives are looking for freedom, not riches.  Sure, any dictator can pump money into his oligarch buddies. See Putin for point of reference. See Goldman Sachs for Obama campaign funds.

The second honest point is that the way to win conservative votes is to do the issues right.  This is why we argue about Rand Paul vs. Paul Ryan or Mitt vs. Santorum.  We all have strong views on the issues and accomplishments.  Not so the Libs who are very personality driven. This is why the Left adores a former First Lady in charge of taming Bimbo Eruptions, as Senator she never authored a bill, and as Sec. of State handed the Russians a damned reset button. (Say, how’s that Putin reset working for you?)  They are mystified about why the conservatives can’t stomach Obama.  Therefore, they must be a bunch of racists!  “Sinking suspicions” indeed!  

So what does the party of Lincoln think racially?  I would honestly observe that most of the R’s in Okieland thought Obama was first mislabeled as “black” when in fact he is mixed race, like most Okies.  Why then didn’t we vote for some guy who is just brown and mixed in race like 58% of Oklahomans?  It was because his ideas were way left, his Christianity was Jeremiah Wright, his politics was fascist/socialist, and his friends were Bill Ayers and crew. Other than that we give him credit for liking golf and  wish he were a Thunder fan. Could he just stay out on the course until January 2017, PLEASE?

Thiink about this.  If Republicans or conservatives or Tea Partiers are racist, why haven’t I heard a racist joke in 5 years from any of these people with which I intermingle?  If they really are racists, why do they adopt kids with African heritage?  Intermarry? And if we are so partisan, why does Oklahoma have more registered D’s than R’s but votes Red all the time?

And if we are so closed-minded, why do we read Huffington Post?

Why America Lucks Out

Obama the Clairvoyant told us in 2010, “We can’t drill our way to cheap gas prices.” We did it anyway.  A bunch of oil patch engineers who were just struggling in the oil bust in the late nineties came up with fracking. Someday a sixth grade history teacher will be talking to the class about the great developments of the millennial era and surely fracking will be in the lesson. How does America get so lucky?

About 2005 petroleum engineers and geologists realized the technique of fracking could apply to numerous oil shales that had a spotted history of production or even no production.  Shales are the source rocks for petroleum and natural gas, but traditional production was from reservoir rocks of better porosity and permeability nearby.  But by tapping the shales, a new world or giant production occurs.  From 2007 to 2014 US production more than doubled and matched Saudi Arabia.  The OPEC countries, in panic began to pump oil in a game of chicken.  Could they break the upstart Americans before they put Arab royalty owners in the also-ran category?  Even in 2015 this looked doubtful, although they could inflict damage to the marketplace prices. 

This phenom of American innovation makes the rest of the world scratch their head.  How can USA always come up with so much new stuff? After all, aren’t there smart people everywhere?  Don’t the Russians have chess masters and can’t the Chinese hack? Wasn’t France the world leader in new ideas throughout the 19^th century?  And don’t others have the oil resources waiting to be exploited—Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Venezuela, China, the Middle East?  Why is America such an exception to the rule and Canadians with them?

Our foreign exchange kids and son who spent a year on exchange in Germany provided the answer.  In Europe and the East, education now surpasses USA.  But if you want to change your German farm from raising cattle to hogs, you can’t do it without a production permit from the government—takes months. Acountry with many educated unemployed is India.  It takes an act of Parliament and a lot of bribery of local officials to do a reasonable-sized business.

That’s because the world of dictators, elites, and educated classes have seized control.  America lets people arise out of nowhere to do great things.  The Wright Brothers just owned a bicycle shop.  The Okies and Texans who invented fracking were common folks among the1400 small, independent oil producers. The individuals who owned the mineral rights were not a state government but individuals who let the drillers try something new. And the rest of the common folks didn’t riot from the occasional tiny earthquake. Instead, most folks cheered them on.

In the statist world, they have geniuses and prodigies and tycoons.  But what do you do with the remaining 99%?  They just manage them.  In America we place millions of bets on common folks, and every once in a while a payout occurs.  Luck or Dreams Fulfilled?

The exchange kids could see this.  For they had lived in places where elite banks controlled finances, taxes and regulation were rampant, and you had to watch out for pick pockets. But the worse condition was when government and business were in cahoots.  Individuals aren’t lucky enough to be in cahoots, so government populists promise all sorts of entitlements that make people think they have an “in”.  The end result is that it just keeps the masses on the plantation.

America is the exception to the statist world.  We demand to be free to pursue our dreams, crazy ideas, faith, or what just seems right to us.  We are a free society that is willing to give encouragement to millions of small people, not just the guys who are in cahoots.    This is what is meant by American Exceptionalism.  We are the exception to the rule.  That is why people flock to this country.  You can be the person you want to be in America.  You can have an American Dream and pursue it.

But some in America dislike this notion. The American Dream is just wealth. Better we should have the security of big government, a government that administers, directs, and regulates. They want cahoots, elites and charismatic populists.  They fear people who seem motivated by faith. And so they are trying to upend the dreams in favor of a complete corporate one.  They accuse the rest of us of being racist and bigoted. They demand we credit government for a good economy rather than the ingenuity and perseverance of the American people.  Did government or the elites create the Model T?  Radio? Television? Polio vaccine? Mobile Apps?  Neither did they create fracking and the oil boom.  Big oil companies were slow to adopt fracking plays.  Obama was found in contempt of court for trying to ban offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.  He drags his heels on drilling federal land, and uses his EPA to oppose fossil fuels any way possible.

The people still vote to be free.  It doesn‘t matter what race or tribe you come from if you have a great idea or product. Upon seeing something new, the typical American response is, “Why didn’t I think of that!” We still want to be free to raise our kids.   And that is why conservatives outnumber liberals 2 to 1.  We got the dream.