Peter Got A New Car!

Here's a description of the specs:
http://www.maximum-cars.com/Cars/Car.php?carnumber=554

I like to name my cars... I have an idea for a name, but I'm not really settled on one yet. Anyway, pretty nice, right??

This is real. How real? Very real!

Ron Paul is the guy, and that’s all there is to it. I am beginning to view this upcoming election as a referendum on the U.S. Constitution. If the American people have truly rejected the founding law of the land and all that it stands for, then Ron Paul can’t possibly win. Otherwise, though, he has a MUCH better chance than he’s been given credit for, to say the least.

Every so often there is a “revolution” in this country. Our system was founded in such a way that vast paradigmatic shifts could be accomplished without bloodshed. Sometimes a generation takes that opportunity to increase the scope and power of government; other times, they return to a more Constitutional system.

I believe that my generation is prepared to head in the latter direction. I believe we all know the problems with the way our government has been running. For our entire lifetime, our military has been engaged overseas, threatening and killing people who have never attacked this country. Who declares war in this country? Constitutionally, it’s supposed to be the people! That’s right; novel as it may sound, the people are supposed to determine when, where, and how we go to war, through their locally-elected Representatives in the Congress. So for all the military actions and full-fledged wars our generation has observed, Congress must have declared war several times by now, right? No, the President alone has assumed the power to send the military wherever he chooses, and congressional approval is treated as an unnecessary luxury! Bill Clinton did it; the Left supported him and the Right complained. George Bush does it; the Right supported him and the Left complained! So will the next President be Republican or Democrat? Does it matter, if we’re virtually assured that they will exercise this kind of unconstitutional control over the military? When one individual – popularly elected or otherwise – possesses the power to direct the military action of an entire nation in this way, that person is traditionally known as a dictator. I believe we maintain the spirit of overthrowing dictators.

For our entire lifetime, we have watched our taxes continually increase. I believe we don’t buy into the concept that the fruit of our labors is inherently the property of our government, and that we have no right to question how it is spent once it’s confiscated from us.

We’ve watched our dollar lose its value. We’re told this is a normal cycle, but in the back of our minds, we wonder how this could be a healthy economy when a dollar today can’t buy what a dime could buy fifty years ago.

We’ve watched our civil liberties erode. Sometimes it’s in the name of security – and I’ll admit that some of us are willing to sell out our freedom for the sake of security, to our shame. Maybe we have nothing to hide, and surely we want to be safe. But will we accept these as justifications for our government to listen to our private telephone conversations? Can anyone seriously argue that the founders of this nation wouldn’t have been horrified at the very idea?? But usually our liberties fall away more gradually, because the government has decided we’re too unruly, too unwilling to comply with invasive laws passed for our own good. Seatbelt laws. Smoking laws. Fatty food laws!! And for every stupid law that’s passed to protect us from ourselves, there’s a new government bureaucracy, or a new addition to the police job description, complete with their built-in profit to the government: mandatory fines charged for every infraction. I believe there’s still enough 1776 in our blood that we won’t perpetually put up with this.

We are expected to believe that our government does not regulate speech, religion, association, and the press. Yet there are municipalities that own their local cable providers! And “free speech,” though it remains freer than in the most oppressive governments elsewhere in the world, is anything but unregulated! Say something “offensive” and see if you are legally liable for it. Try peacefully protesting the government’s policies in an unapproved location – and I don’t mean private property! – and see if the police don’t advise you to cease or be arrested. I believe we will refuse to continue being silenced.

Ask an American today for their definition of a politician. Do you expect their answer to be something about honest, selfless public servants? Statesmen who uncompromisingly promote their thoroughly-reasoned, time-honored philosophical principles? Of course not! Instead, the words that spring readily to mind are words like liar, corruption, panderer, power-hungry, and bribe.

The government is never justified in encroaching one inch on our God-given rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. How many people today think the U.S. government has respected these limitations?

It’s gotten to the point where we’ve taken all these things for granted: trading a little liberty for security; a little more for healthcare; a little more for education; a little more to try vainly to keep drugs off the streets; and on and on and on... Maybe some are resigned to this state of affairs – maybe most are convinced that nothing can be done about it. But we don’t like it. I’m sure of that.

And I believe that we, given just one chance – just one vote – would express in no uncertain terms that we will not tolerate our hard-earned money being taken to support this corruption. But until now, we haven’t found that chance, or anyone to vote for whereby the government would get that message.

Enter Ron Paul.

Over the past thirty years, he’s been in Congress, consistently, courageously, passionately fighting for the rights of the people as guaranteed by the Constitution. I am not claiming that he is not corrupt. I am claiming much more than that: no one has ever accused him of corruption!! I’m sure people would’ve been slinging some mud at this guy by now – the problem they’re having is, there is none! Not only has he avoided all corruption in his profession in public office (he’s never even given lobbyists the time of day); he’s also a beloved doctor who’s delivered 4000 babies, and a husband and father who’s just celebrated his 50th anniversary of marriage to one woman!! Amazing! He votes on principle, often alone, and has not voted in contradiction to himself in three decades. Also he’s the farthest thing from a Commie that’s existed in American national politics in two generations or more. As the owner of this Anti-Commie blog, I happen to like that!

Everyone else is running for President because they want to be President. It’s a very prestigious and powerful position. But Ron Paul is running for President because he wants to reduce the invasive power of the office!! He wants to be President simply to ensure that we don’t have a power-hungry, dictatorial, anti-Constitutional President!

I could spend a long time talking about how his views are traditionally Republican – much more so than those of the others running for the Republican nomination – but my point is not a partisan point. My point is that the people are ready to have their republic back, and Ron Paul is the only candidate who is so much as promising it, and to boot he’s proven himself trustworthy to deliver it.

This is our chance.

And it’s real. Very real! Just a few months ago, not too many people had ever heard of Ron Paul or knew what he stood for. The system being what it is, though, they just had to get polls out early and often to find out who the next President would be, according to “likely voters.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t tend to vote for people I’ve never heard of. So, of course, his poll numbers came up on the low side. Very low, in fact. Immediately the idea was in place: Ron Paul is not popular enough to get elected.

But now people are getting to know him. And as I’ve been arguing, politically-interested Americans – even the cynical and “disenfranchised” – are predisposed to like him, and vote for him. His popularity is increasing exponentially. In fact, at this point if you tour the internet at all, you’re more likely to run across his name than that of any other candidate!

I think the appeal of Ron Paul is a lot greater than the “likely voter” demographic; to some extent it may even skip the “likely voters!” But I think this is a candidate who can get unlikely voters, lots of them, to vote. “Dr. Paul cured my apathy.” It’s his supporters' latest slogan, and one that a lot of once-unlikely-voters can relate to. I am confident that they have become voters, for Ron Paul.

This would all be theoretical if not for one glaring event in very recent history: Last Tuesday, Ron Paul (correction: Ron Paul’s supporters, completely unsolicited by their candidate) raised 4.3 million dollars for his campaign in a single day. In case you’re wondering, yes, that is a record. [Clinton and Romney both claim to have done better, but pledges, and multiple days’ donations reported in a single day, don’t count!] This is a “poll” that I tend to think has some inherent credibility. These were not enormous contributions from special interests and corporations: they were predominantly $50- and $100 donations from concerned private citizens. It seems awfully unlikely that people who organized independently to donate their own hard-earned money to their candidate on one specific date, would then fail to get out and vote for that candidate! Further, it seems very unlikely that each and every Ron Paul supporter donated money that day. Thus, he is sure to have more votes than he had contributions on that day, and let the record show that there were a heck of a lot of contributions!

They’re still calling him a long-shot. But remember, at this same time in 1991, Bill Clinton – as unfortunate an example as he is! – was dead last in the polls. A lot of things can change, and one of the things that is changing before our eyes is the amount of support for Ron Paul and the message of restoring true Constitutional freedom: it’s increasing exponentially!

This is our chance. We can vote yet again for the “lesser of two evils,” which, I may remind you, is still voting for evil… or we can vote for the latest bloodless revolution, a revolution in the tradition of the greatest generations of Americans. We can vote for the first and possibly only candidate in our lifetime who stands firmly, unapologetically, and consistently on the true principles of liberty that were built into the founding of this nation. We can vote for Ron Paul, and I believe we will.

Message from National Right to Life

Please note: I did not write the following article. However, I find it absolutely brilliant and I agree wholeheartedly with every word of it. Here is the message in its entirety:

Today's News & ViewsOctober 26, 2007
Abortion, Giuliani, and Politics 1001

I am convinced that succeeding at politics is, above all else, keeping your nerve when others around you panic. Doing so helps ensure that you will not break one of the cardinal rules: never extrapolate out into the future what appears to be the case today. Breaking that rule is part and parcel of another fatal flaw: making premature judgments.

This may seem like Politics 1001, and it probably is. But it's also the fundamentals--the ABCs--that are most consistently ignored.

To switch metaphors, certain commentators whose opinion I ordinarily respect are looking at the 2008 presidential election as if it were a billiards game where the only consideration is the cue ball and the immediate ball that it strikes. Not only are they misreading the likely outcome of that initial collision, its impact on the remaining balls on the table is totally ignored.

Rudy Giuliani is, at this moment, the frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination. Too many people who ought to know better treat that as (a) an immutable truism and, in an interesting leap in logic, (b) proof positive that no other Republican presidential candidate can defeat the putative Democratic nominee, Sen. Hillary Clinton. Let me tackle this first--the equivalent of the cue ball's impact on the first ball--before I briefly mention the disastrous carom of a Giuliani nomination on candidates lower down the ticket.

Nothing definitive can be said in October other than that Giuliani's performance on September 11, 2001 (and, to a lesser extent, as mayor of New York City) catapulted him into a lead over his GOP rivals he has held most of 2007. What we don't know--and shouldn't pretend to know-- is far more impressive.

With the compressed schedule of presidential caucuses primaries, it is impossible to gauge whether Iowa and New Hampshire [which come first) will play a lesser or greater role than in years past.

Nor can we know what happens if one of the other GOP presidential frontrunners catches fire and/or the impact if one of the top five candidates drops out sooner than anticipated.

Nor, most of all, can we know in advance whether an issue (or issues), now simmering, will boil over, igniting one man's candidacy. There are a host of tangibles and intangibles that will change the status quo.

The congealing consensus in some circles is that Giuliani is the candidate best able--probably the only such GOPer --to defeat Sen. Clinton. Frankly, this is a mystery to me, but the consensus seems to be the product of a combination of two assessments, both of which are dangerously wrong.

First, the core constituencies of the coalition that has kept the White House in Republicans hands for all but eight years since 1980 will line up behind a pro-abortion Republican who, in truth, is seriously at variance with those constituencies on absolutely pivotal issues, such as right to life. Second, a pro-abortion Republican from the Northeast can assemble a new, stronger coalition, which can make up for any losses.

We are told by various experts that Giuliani's gestures to pro-lifers will be--should be--enough for us to enthusiastically support a man who once said, hypothetically, he'd pay for his own daughter's abortion.

Ask yourself, if his gestures are all that persuasive--not only to us but to many other constituencies--why would liberal pro-abortionists with lifestyles tastes far to the left possibly choose Giuliani over the real deal? The real assumption is that pro-lifers are docile and that people with values indistinguishable from Giuliani's will understand that it's all wink-wink, nod-nod and choose him over Hillary Clinton, the wife of a wily tactician, a man who retains an immense popularity.

All of this is, in my opinion, astonishingly unpersuasive, and reflective of a panic that, while understandable, threatens to guarantee the very disaster it is said to be able to prevent. Choosing someone like Giuliani could fracture the coalition that has been elected pro-life Presidents five of the last seven presidential elections and resulted in a Supreme Court which has upheld the first ban on an abortion procedure since 1973.

The likelihood of another Clinton in the White House is dramatically increased if Giuliani is the Republican nominee.

Furthermore, when it becomes clear that a colossal miscalculation has taken place, it will be too late to save countless other candidates who will pay the price for widespread disillusionment with the choice at the top.

The necessity/inevitability argument goes hand in hand with a campaign to persuade us that Giuliani is BOTH anti-abortion AND pro-choice. That is, he is "personally pro-choice" but operationally pro-life in the sense that Giuliani has promised to nominate "strict constructionists" to the bench. We have discussed this canard previously in TN&V and in National Right to Life News.

But the ultimate trump card remains, "Take what you can get, or you will get Hillary!" Everything pro-lifers have achieved would then be at risk. Of course it would be, if Sen. Clinton is President.

But insisting that Giuliani is the Republican most likely to keep her out of the White House is to falsely assume that choosing a pro-abortionist to head the party that has stood for Life since 1980 makes it more likely the GOP would prevail over Sen. Clinton rather than less likely. So much is at stake that such a fatally wrong diagnosis must be rejected.

We know that the Movement has made steady progress since 1980. The number of abortions has diminished--still horribly high but much lower than in the 1990s. Conversations about the intricacies of fetal development that were few and far between are now common currency, made possible by 4-D color ultrasounds and a younger population that is more pro-life than ever. Pro-life groups are also now thriving in states where they were once virtually invisible.

Having made all these gains, assisted in no small measure by genuinely pro-life Presidents, pro-lifers are now being told that we would be better off with Giuliani as the nominee. Why?

Paradoxically, because his position is not the same as President Reagan's or President George H.W. Bush's, or President George W. Bush's. Sure, they won five elections between them and, granted, the country is more open to the pro-life message than ever before, but it is Giuliani's position on abortion, we are told, that is supposedly is harmony with the majority of Americans.

This is so wrong, it makes your head hurt.

A majority of Americans oppose the reasons that account for more than 90% of the abortions performed in the United States. This majority accepts abortion only in cases where the mother's life is at risk, or in case of rape and incest, or doesn't accept any abortions.

There are plenty of pro-abortion columnists who are touting Giuliani's candidacy. But there are also "experts," who are not hostile to our cause and who ought to know better, who are so panicky they're confusing the forest with the trees.

My advice to them is the same as it is to you. Keep calm, keep steady, and don't be browbeaten into thinking black is white and up is down.