THE INDEPENDENT VOTER MYTH

THE INDEPENDENT VOTER MYTH

By:  Mike Foil

 

I’m afraid we have done it again.  The Left has been allowed to define the “independent voter” group and the Republicans have bought it; hook, line and sinker.  For some reason, it is commonly accepted that the “independent voter” is to be found somewhere between the Republican and Democrat platforms.

Every two years, during the campaigns, we see Republicans running as conservatives during the primary elections and then moving to the left for the general election.  Their explanation is always that they have to run more “moderate” or “to the center” in order to get the votes of the “independent voters”. 

The Democrats are constantly reminding the Republicans (out of the goodness of their hearts) that they better abandon the “right wing” policies or they will never win the much needed independent voter group. 

So, where is that middle gap between the parties?  The Democrat Party has gone to the far left and the Republican Party has gone to the left, filling in the space vacated by the Democrats.  Sure, not all Democrats are far left, but their party is.  Not all Republicans are middle-of-the road, or moderates, but their party is.

The Democrat Party is controlled by hard-core Liberal/Socialists.  The Republican Party is controlled by soft-core Liberals.  There is not a big gap between the parties.  It is a myth that the “independent voter” will be won by the Republicans acting like the right wing of the Democrat Party. 

By using the term, “independent voter”, I am not just referring to those registered as “Independents”; but to many of the voters who align themselves with neither, major party.  The last time the Republicans ran an honest conservative, who was able to articulate the conservative platform, was Ronald Reagan.  If you remember, he won by a landslide.  We have not had a major victory like that since then and we continue to repeat the same process of nominating one moderate after another.  The Republican Party leadership keeps telling us the same thing the Democrats tell us, that a conservative cannot win a presidential election.  Since history tells us otherwise, maybe the two voices which act in unison have the same agenda.

When I hear people like Sean Hannity leave the Republican Party and register as a Conservative and Mark Levin saying that he is tempted to leave the Republican Party if they blow this election and become an Independent, I realize that the non-Republican and non-Democrat voters are more than likely found to the right of the Republican Party than to the left. 

The hard-core socialists have a party.  The soft-core socialists have a party.  It is the voter who is traditionally conservative that has no home.  I believe that Republicans would fare much better in general elections by standing up as strong and proud conservatives. 

Not every Latino, not every woman, not every black and not every gay has a personal agenda that aligns with Socialism.  These “target” groups are made up of individual, free-thinking people.  Many of them come from traditional backgrounds and are looking for opportunity and freedom, not dependency. 

The “independent voter”, at least those who are engaged and care about the future of this country and their families, is more likely to be found to the right of the Republicans.  Those who are not interested are not the group who will be voting in any large numbers to begin with.

 

WAR!

WAR!

WHOSE CALL IS IT?

 

President Obama and his administration have been adamant that he is not taking America back to another war in the Middle East.  Earlier this month, Secretary of State John Kerry stated, in a CNN interview, that our planned attack on the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is not a war but is a “…very significant counter-terrorism operation…”

We have begun air strikes on ISIS in Iraq and now in Syria.  We are training and arming those who we hope will fight against ISIS in Syria and Iraq.  Some of our military generals are openly speaking out that air strikes cannot defeat ISIS and we will need to put troops on the ground if we are serious about defeating this threat against, not only our country, but many other countries around the world.

So, the question is, are we at war?

The Merriam-Webster dictionary has as the leading definition for “war” as:  “a state or period of fighting between countries or groups”.

Does a country have to agree to be at war in order to actually be at war?  The answer is, no!  If your enemy has declared war on you, you are at war whether or not you acknowledge the fact, whether or not you have formerly declared war in Congress, or whether or not you even know that the enemy has declared war on you.  It does not take both sides to agree to have a war.  If one side decides that they are going to declare war, formerly or just by their actions, their attack puts you at war with them.  You may not be fighting or opposing them.  You may not formerly agree to be at war with them.  You may, as in our case, openly state that we are not at war with the declared enemy.  But, nonetheless, you are at war!

The Federal Wall of Debt

At the end of this month (September 2014), the "wall of debt" will be 24.5 feet tall. 

I have written about the ever increasing height of the wall of debt.  (You can get the basis for the calculations on my blog entry in June 2011 "The 20' Wall of Debt".)  Link:  http://thehousetop.blogspot.com/2011/06/20-tall-wall-of-debt.html


If you lay dollar bills end-to-end and flat on the ground, around the world at the equator; our national debt would create a wall of dollar bills 24.5 feet tall.

Think about that!  24.5 feet tall is about the height of a telephone pole in a residential neighborhood.  Now picture in your mind a stack of dollar bills that tall surrounding your neighborhood.  That would be a lot of money.  Now stretch your imagination to picture that wall ALL THE WAY AROUND THE WORLD!  Now we are talking serious money!

This amount of money is not what the Federal Government is spending, it reflects what they are spending above and beyond what they are collecting in taxes.  They are currently setting records in the amount of taxes being collected. 


To paint a different word picture of the amount of debt our nation owes, it would take 562,163 years to pay it off, one dollar per second with no additional borrowing and paying no interest. 


This does not even consider the massive, unfunded liabilities of our government.


Even with this being such an enormous problem, no one in Washington seems to be that concerned about the out-of-control spending and 100's of billions of dollars in additional deficits being added each year.