Leftist Outrage: All For Show

As I watch the unfolding low comedy that is the “progressive protest” against Chick-fil-A, I am driven to wonderment and consternation.  What the hell is going on here?

These people are a couple chicken fingers short of a full serving.  When they erupted into utter sobbing, breast-beating, bullying lunacy because Chick-fil-A COO Dan Cathy almost-but-not-quite said something that might possibly be construed as supporting opposite-sex marriage, exactly what did they think was going to be the result?

I support the fast-food chain chief’s right to speak his mind in public.  I vehemently oppose any government censorship on his company, whether in the form of forcing Chick-fil-A restaurants out of certain cities or whatever other form of fascist nonsense these “gay rights supporters” dream up.

As for the “free speech” of those who protest what Mr. Cathy said, no one is questioning whether they have the “right” to go into a meltdown that makes them look like psychotic preschoolers.  People with no sense will use their freedom to behave like idiots.  I suppose we fought at Yorktown, and Gettysburg, Belleau Wood and Iwo Jima for that, too.  Though I certainly hate to think so.

I hate when our hard-won freedoms are abused like that.  I also hate when gay rights – which I regard as a legitimate issue – are “supported” by nitwits who make us all look bad.

And their outrage is all for show.  I’ve been around many “progressives” when the cameras and microphones aren’t around, and the things I’ve heard many of them say are so insensitive to gays and lesbians they would make the most hard-core, red-necked, Confederate-flag-waving Bubba blush.

I could tell several very enlightening stories, from personal experience, about their Jekyll-and-Hyde shift between public “progressivism” and private Bubba-ry, but it would take too long to tell them here.  Suffice it to say that since I came out fifteen years ago, the nastiest, most underhanded things that have been done to me – because I’m gay – have without exception come at the hands of “progressives.”  As have all the threats of violence I have received since gradeschool.

They crave applause, but now they’re getting nothing but Bronx cheers and (symbolic) rotten eggs.  With increasing frequency, we’re getting to see what these people are really like.  We don’t like them…sniff! We really, really don’t like them!

They’ll call those who voice their disapproval of them homophobes for as long as they can get away with it.  I’m glad to see a lot of gay conservatives and libertarians standing up and being counted among those who don’t buy into their propaganda.  They’ll call us self-haters for that.  But when all the shouting is over, we won’t be the ones whose faces are covered with symbolic rotten eggs.

It’s a nice sentiment and I believe it. So why do liberals want my sexual orientation to determine my politics?

Or my friends,
my politics,
my religion,
etc.

I’ve seen this picture numerous times, or ones similar to it.

Usually posted by people or organizations that I’ve had intense disagreements with over the fact that they seem to believe that I can’t be a conservative if I’m gay…or that I can’t be gay if I’m a conservative. I’ve heard it both ways.

I’ve even, recently, dealt with someone who told me outright that being gay was a political position and that I crazy if I thought that being gay only dealt with your sexuality. (This was a liberal who said this, I haven’t had this reaction from any of the conservatives I’ve talked too. Including the ones I met at Right Online this year).

So please, explain to me how my sexual orientation doesn’t choose all of the things mentioned in that drawing…but it does choose my politics, because I’m failing to see how these things are different.

(Reposted from my personal blog)

 

Ghosts

What I’m about to write is difficult to the point of being agonizing, but I think it’s still important, even if only a few people read it. Maybe sharing my experiences as a kid will help me find some modicum of peace. It’ll be a hell of a lot easier to write than it will be to say it out loud, regardless of who I’m talking to. Believe me…I’m sitting here with a glass of single-malt scotch as I write.

The whole world saw a video this week that stunned them. The video was of four junior high school students brutally mocking their 68-year-old bus monitor, Karen Klein. They were so vicious in their taunts that they brought her to tears – then made fun of the fact that she was crying. The kid who shot the ten-minute video wanted to submit it to a Comedy Central show because he thought it was funny.

I got exactly a minute and a half into it and couldn’t watch anymore.

Less than one minute into that video, I was in tears. The things those kids were saying to Karen were almost identical to the things that my classmates used to say to me on the bus. When I was at CD Landolt Elementary in Houston, I walked to school every day. Bullies would target me and a couple of other kids on that route. Kids at school would make fun of the way I dressed, the way I talked, the way I sang (a small group of girls liked my singing but even some of them were absolutely cruel about everything else). They’d ask me why I pulled my socks up to my knees. They’d ask me why I acted like a boy. They’d joke that I was going to have a sex-change operation and gave me disgusting tips on how to do it. Those were the nicer things they did – I was frequently pushed around, beat up, even spit on. I was 12 when Jared Close announced to everyone that I was such a loser that I’d give free blow jobs just to have a friend, then pantomimed the act. I had to ask my teacher what a blow job was. When we all went on to Webster Intermediate (which has since been sold to a private alternative school), it only got worse.

PE was always a nightmare. I still remember the far corner between bays of lockers where a chunk of concrete was missing from the floor. I remember it because I was tossed into that corner on multiple occasions. I still don’t know why some of the kids at school hated me so much. I don’t understand why Theresa Baylott would call “big girl!” out to me from across the quad in a dragged-out falsetto voice and later scream just inches from my face that she was going to tear my effing head off.

I don’t understand why the kids on the bus, many of whom I didn’t really know, always targeted me. My parents would tell me to ignore them, but the more I ignored them the worse the abuse got. I once tried to put my head back and pretend to be asleep, but they all roared and started making fun of my nose – one kid even sneaked up to me and stuck a pen up my nose. And, just as the kids in New York did to Karen, they’d tell me I was fat. They’d “joke” that I took up the whole seat. I tried to sit in the only single-seat bench on the bus to avoid having to sit with the bullies (who loved to sit down next to me, then throw themselves into the aisle and yell at me for being too fat). The funny thing was that I really wasn’t very overweight back then. They convinced me that I was, though.

In high school, there was a running joke among most of my classmates that my nickname was “O.G.” I never knew what it stood for; they tried to tell me it stood for “original gangster” but I was never into rap and they always said it when I did or said something that appeared or sounded masculine. The more “manly” my actions, the more I’d hear, “1-2-3, this is O.G.!” Eventually someone told me that I was right – it was their inside way of making fun of me for being too butch. Someone started a rumor that I was a Satanist despite my heavy involvement in church.

Oh, church. I was bullied there, too. In Houston, my family went to Grace Community Church. The building they used to own now belongs to another congregation (most people on the East Side would immediately recognize the huge red-brick and white-pillar building with the ginormous steeple). One kid from our neighborhood also went to church with us, and he and his friends treated me like dirt. Nathan Scott Hutchison may never be forgiven in my mind for the things he did to me. His mother thought he did no wrong and no amount of challenging by other parents in the neighborhood ever convinced her that he really was a violent bully. He’d beat me to a pulp and then lie to my mother and tell her that I started it – when my mother would keep me home from church, he’d go and brag to everyone in our youth group that he’d beaten me up.

Church didn’t change until my family moved to Louisiana. Church in DeRidder didn’t change the fact that I was bullied at school, though. I just had actual friends for the first time in my life who I could stay close to so I didn’t get beaten up as often. Not that it stopped jocks in the hallway from picking me up and bodily throwing me into the lockers. Demopolis, Alabama was only marginally better, and I think only because everyone liked the fact that I could play guitar. There I had classmates calling me “church lady” after a character on Saturday Night Live. Pretty soon, though, they also started calling me “Pat”, also after a character on SNL. I wasn’t allowed to watch the show so I had no idea what it meant; someone told me it was a sketch about a character who never said if she was a man or a woman. Years later, when I finally did see a Pat sketch, I was horrified. I can’t watch anything on SNL now.

Seeing Karen Klein reduced to tears as the kids on that bus tormented her brought all of that rushing back as if it were yesterday. I’m one of those freaks who remembers every detail of everything; I can’t forget this crap no matter how hard I try. I can barely scratch the surface of the things that were said and done to me as a kid because most of it doesn’t bear repeating in polite company. There are a few facts that strike me, though, every time I go over this stuff in my head. First of all, not one of the kids who bullied me based their abuse on anything in the Bible. The kids who would walk up to me in the cafeteria and loudly ask, “are you a lesbian?” so everyone could hear didn’t go to church. They were just bullying me because I was different. When I was that age, even if you knew you were gay you did not admit it. Doing so invited disaster. The kids who bullied me at church weren’t Christians, they just had parents who either didn’t believe their kids were bullies or didn’t care. Not one of the punches, kicks, gobs of saliva or hurtful words I ever took was delivered by a person who believed it was their Christian duty to do it.

The bullying didn’t stop when I reached adulthood. I was working as a corrections officer for the Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections when I finally came to the realization that I was gay (something I staunchly denied all my life up until about age 24). I was just hitting that depression when my unit got a new lieutenant – a former sergeant named Paul Rivas. This guy had serious anger management issues, to the point that he would yell and throw things at the drop of a hat when things didn’t go his way. I was his target. When something went wrong, I was always to blame. One night, I was the only officer on my unit and I had been tasked with entering incident reports into the computer (never mind the fact that I still had to do rounds and make sure all the delinquents were sleeping and not attempting rape or suicide). The system was down, so I was never able to get it done. When he arrived the next morning to find the reports still sitting in the bin on his desk, he pulled me into his office and ripped me a new one at the top of his lungs. He didn’t want to hear about the system issues. After screaming at me for ten minutes about how completely inept I was, he told me that he would get rid of me the next time I failed. Trying to tell his boss, Lorene Petta, about the situation changed nothing.

It was Rivas’ bullying that pushed me over the edge. I was already in my own private hell over the dichotomy of being a lifelong Christian who was a lesbian. Rivas had me convinced that I was useless as an officer and that I was going to lose my career. I couldn’t handle the fact that, from childhood to age 24, I had been a complete loser; now, as a grown woman, I still couldn’t do anything right. One day in November of that year, I put my gun to my head and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The round never discharged. I immediately told a couple of fellow officers who helped me check into a hospital. I never did tell them just how close I had come to killing myself. Dr. Petta, Lt. Rivas and the assistant director used their knowledge of what I’d been through (limited as it was, since it was another officer who told them) to fire me. I later went back to corrections with a very different perspective on things.

While I refuse to be a victim – I refuse to play the specialty card to get what I want – those experiences still haunt me. I’m still hurt by all of that. I’ve never revealed the details until now, but they have always been with me. Unless I live long enough to develop Alzheimer’s, they’ll always be with me. I still feel like a loser, even now. I hate that I feel that way, but I don’t know how else to feel. I still feel like that kid who wanted to be part of the in-crowd and is being humiliated in the attempt. It has kept going that way. After my parents divorced, I stayed with my mom to try to help her out but I had to move on at some point; in 2005, I moved out on my own. I met another lesbian who had bought a home and needed a roommate because she and her girlfriend were about to break up. She was a very attractive girl and we became very fast friends, but it didn’t last. When she eventually told me she didn’t want me in her life anymore, several years after I’d moved out of her house, the only reasons she was able to give me were very superficial – the way I dressed, the music I liked, the fact that I was too butch.

I rarely, if ever, let anyone new in now. I feel as though I have been useless my entire life. I’m no angel…a long time ago, I was an honest-to-god pious little jackass. I would never try to blame my actions on my childhood because no matter what I went through, I still knew right from wrong. I don’t think I ever deserved to feel the way I do now, though. I don’t deserve to fear that everyone around me is secretly thinking about how much they can’t stand me. I don’t deserve to be afraid to go out and meet people because I don’t believe I’ll ever feel worthy of being loved. I sure as hell don’t deserve to hope that I’ll get the chance to die in some heroic act so my life will make sense to somebody.

The kind of people who say that bullying is no big deal have never had to wake up with those ghosts.

Obama The Liar

Eric Holder did a ridiculous tap dance yesterday in a 20-minute meeting to ward off continued advances by Rep. Darrell Issa to get to the bottom of Operation Fast & Furious.  After apparently agreeing to hand over some of the documents requested by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Holder showed up at a meeting yesterday empty-handed.  He “briefed” Issa on the documents and explained that he had written directly to President Obama to request that he exercise his executive privilege to stop the documents from being released.

Today, Obama did exactly that.

What’s really astonishing is that the Democrats on the committee defended Holder and Obama and had the unmitigated gall to admonish Issa for his push to vote Holder in contempt of Congress.  Elijah Cummings (D-MD) defended Holder by claiming that he’d come in some kind of “good faith” gesture to work something out with Congress (if the man was innocent, he’d have nothing to “work out” with anybody) and saying that Issa had been holding the Attorney General to an “impossible standard” (I’m sorry, but I wasn’t aware that expecting the AG to hand over documents related to a severely botched gun running operation that resulted in the death of a US Border Patrol agent was an impossible feat).  Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) said she was quote “horrified” by Issa’s refusal to back down, characterized the move today as a political witch hunt and accused Republicans of “overruling” the President.

Yes, she really said that.  The goofy Democrat from New York actually accused Republicans of overruling the President.  What do Democrats call what they did to Bush in 2003 when he warned of a looming economic crisis?  Remember that, Maloney?  I’m curious, do you remember your “symbolic” vote in 2007 against Bush’s plan for the surge in Iraq?  Moreover, I’d like to know what in the hell you call the immediate proceedings against Richard Nixon when Democrats merely smelled the possibility of his involvement of a coverup of the break-in at the Watergate Hotel?  Democrats were brutal in pursuing him and his recordings, and rightly so – he deserved to be impeached.  Where is the equal desire to hold your own to account for their crimes?

He’s the President, not the monarch.  In our Republic, if the president does something that isn’t acceptable under the law Congress has every right to hold him accountable.  In fact, they have an obligation to the people to hold a president accountable when he does something wrong.  To claim that it is wrong for Congress to “overrule” the President is tantamount to declaring Barack Obama the emperor.

Now, the emperor is as naked as the day he was born.

F&F was a failed experiment under Bush.  The program, initially called Project Gunrunner, had a few agents working on it and a small budget; Bush notified Mexican officials, and when it was obvious that it wouldn’t work he put it on ice.  Then, a few years later, here comes Obama – the op was brought back from the dead, given three times the manpower and money, and let loose to fail on an even bigger scale.  This time, it resulted in untold numbers of high-powered firearms being allowed to cross the border into Mexico, untold numbers of deaths attributed to those weapons, and a dead US BP agent, Brian Terry, a hero in both life and death who was ordered to use non-lethal rounds against a well-armed drug cartel.

Obama promised that he would lead the most transparent administration in history.  Lately, there have been egregious security leaks and the President and his staff have shrugged the leaks off as though they’re nothing.  Now, we have potentially explosive evidence of a crime that goes all the way to the top, and the President is flexing his executive muscle to protect himself and his lying cronies.  What are Democrats doing?  Helping to defend him.

It seems he is bound and damned determined to go down in history as Emperor Obama, the Liar.  He’ll do worse than Nixon and be excused by liberals bent on being “tolerant”.  Just call him the Teflon President.

Cross-posted at gayconservative.org

I have no idea what just happened here.

I have been out of town for the past few days, attending the Right Online conference put on by Americans for Prosperity in Las Vegas, where I met dozens of fantastic conservative voices from blogs and media a like and I will post an article about the conference soon.

One of the most important things that I learned was that, no matter what any one’s personal opinion of my sexuality was, they welcomed me to the conservative movement with open arms. They held no disregard for me nor did they have any wish to restrict my life in any way. These are the people whose voices are heard by the current President and the GOP nominee for President on a daily basis. We are not silent, we make ourselves known, but that does not mean that we become like liberals. Bad mouthing and attacking our fellow conservatives that have disagreements with us. One of the things that was said at the conference was that we need to have each others backs now, because as conservatives (especially those in the New Media) grow as a movement, liberals will see us as an even bigger target and we can’t afford to be tearing each other down.

I regularly call myself a lesbian conservative, but perhaps that should be reversed. I am a conservative lesbian. Especially in this day and age.

If we had a choice between a Democratic candidate who could fix our country and a Republican candidate who could fix our country, then I would consider their stances on social issues before I would consider who I voted for. I care about this country more than I care about myself and I will choose the best president for the country as a whole.

We do not have the luxury of infighting during this election year. Romney must win. Obamacannot win because I fully believe that if Obama has a second term (no matter how that would affect gay marriage or any other gay issue) he would do irreparable damage to this country and I am not willing to allow that to happen.

I will make something else clear. This blog is open to all members of OutRight Patriots to write on. Despite this, the views expressed on this blog do not represent the views of all the members. While I consider Heine911 a friend, I do not hold the same views that she does.

“Gay rights” are pretty far the hell down on my list of priorities for this country, while clearly they still brush the upper tier of Heine911′s list.

At the same time that I respect my difference of opinion with Heine911, I am hugely offended by the treatment that two of the best conservatives that I know, ConservativeCathy and CrisAP, when Heine911 stated that they were frightened by their responsibility as a voter or conservative. I know for a fact that they will both “hold [Mitt Romney's] feet to the fire” and hold him responsible for his actions as a President. Her assertion, in the comments of one of her posts that asking questions of Mitt Romney brought “out legions of flying monkeys shrieking and flinging poop” was not only rude, but incorrect if you looked at the comments of the 2 Romney supporters on the blogs. They responded to her concerns honestly and with evidence in many cases to back up their political beliefs. Heine911′s description of their views would have you believing that they were common liberal trolls on a blog post, which they were not. If anything, they gave more evidence in their comments than Heine911 gave in hers.

However, I don’t want this to become a ‘he said/she said’ set of accusations about who was right or who was wrong in the exchange that occurred over the last few days.

The luxury of infighting and sniping at each other over our slight differences in opinion will come back after we have a President in office who doesn’t seem to be invested in destroying America and it’s interests. It is irresponsible on a huge scale to not do everything in our power to get Obama out of the office and get Romney in the office.

I only want to make it clear that, as one of the founding members of this organization, that conservatives and libertarians of many different views are welcome and I hope that we can stop the sniping and fighting between ourselves…as issues like this are the ones that have typically made me uncomfortable in the liberal gay community. I don’t feel welcome in a group where my beliefs are constantly being belittled and attacked and must be defended at every turn. That is not the intention of this group.

 

We’ve Got the Power! Bwahahahahahaaaa! Run for Your Lives!

Well, from the reaction to my past two posts, I learned an interesting lesson.  I learned that big-government, big-money politics breeds passivity – not only on the Left, but on the Right.  People don’t want to take individual responsibility, and they react with hostility when told that they should.  Even the reminder that they have the power to take this responsibility seems to frighten the hell out of them.

The commenters took me on a merry chase.  We quibbled about whether the FMA would pass, how it would pass, what Mitt Romney did or did not believe, what sort of a guy he may or may not be, whether social conservatives are powerful (the conclusion being, it seems, that they are when the argument is convenient for commenters – because that explains why socially-tolerant Mitt supports the FMA) or whether they aren’t (when the opportunity arises to call me “paranoid”).

I used the FMA as my example because it would so drastically affect the Constitution, and I believe that the way a would-be leader regards our Constitution tells us a lot about his character as a person, as well as about what sort of a president he would be.  I think it says a lot about his personality, his attitudes toward power and the people, and his fitness to serve.  My central point was never whether the FMA was likely to pass, but of course if commenters could make it all about that, then they wouldn’t need to consider too deeply that central point – that we can make our voices heard to a greater degree than we usually do.

That’s scary stuff to them.  Scary.  And it’s why I probably won’t vote for Mitt Romney.  Not because I have been bewitched by the pernicious duplicities of “the liberal media,” but simply because I lack the faith that other people who are voting for him are going to hold his feet to the fire.  They didn’t with George W. Bush, which had a lot to do with why he wasn’t a better president than he was.  Just as true believers in Barack Obama have failed to hold him accountable for his own administration.

The power ultimately rests with us, folks.  Not with some golden-haired potentate wielding a magic wand.  This is why We, the People must govern as actively as possible, giving continual input to our leaders on what we want and what we don’t want.

What never seemed to occur, to either of my dogged commenters, was that Mitt Romney might actually wish we would own our own power like that.  That perhaps, if he heard more loudly, and more often, from small-government, pro-liberty voters about what we want for this country, it would provide him with a clearer and altogether better course of action.  When the only folks he hears from are the fanatics and the petty tyrants, what is he to assume but that they’re the only ones who truly care which direction he takes the country.

If he’s the warm and cuddly, socially-tolerant guy both commenters took such pains to convince me he is, then certainly Mitt Romney wants that.  Too bad it appears he probably isn’t going to get it.

 

 

 

Squirming is Good Exercise

My previous post brings up a point that, while related to it, delves still deeper into the American psyche in 2012.  Predictably, in the comments, that post became about whether Mitt Romney is a nice guy (who cares?), what his personal beliefs are (nobody ought to need to care), or whether the Federal Marriage Amendment will pass (now).  I was actually trying to scratch the surface of a deeper question – deeper, even, than simply whether sane and responsible Americans will take ownership of this country away from the loud pack of crazies who want it all for themselves.

Because I can see that it is too important not to, I will try to do more than scratch the surface of this deeper concern.

Do Americans even care, anymore, what this country was founded to be about? Does our Constitution still matter? If the FMA does not pass (this time around), will it be because enough people understand that it would wreck our Constitution, or is it simply because we don’t want to be meanies?

Does that matter? I believe it certainly does.

We need to care far more deeply whom we hand political power to.  Why has Mitt Romney not stood up to the howling pack of Talibangelicals who want the FMA and told them – at the very least – “I’m not sure if this is even constitutional.  I don’t think it would be responsible leadership for me to support it.”  Why is he even content to “talk about” it as if it were anything other than the infantile, hysterical, knee-jerk reaction that it is?

If he takes the responsibilities of leadership seriously, at some point he will inevitably want to address the willy-nilly, half-assed way political quacks are now attempting to tinker with the supreme law of our land.  I see no evidence whatsoever that he has the cojones to do this.  If I’m wrong, and he doesn’t shrink from this task because he’s a political opportunist, then mea culpa.  But rest assured, if we don’t kill the FMA for the right reasons, understanding what’s at stake here, we will get more of this crap in the future.

Next time, it might be a totally different sort of proposed amendment.  It may very well come from the Left, instead of the Right.  But it will be a danger, all the same.

When we want to change the Constitution, do we do so by simply ignoring what’s already there – even though it prohibits the sort of change we want to make – and plastering over it with something else (which will, itself, probably be ignored, further weakening the authority of the entire body of law)? I can’t seem to get anybody to answer this very simple question when I ask them.  All they do is squirm and try to change the subject.

One of the most fundamental precepts of conservatism is that human nature is basically the same from one era of history to another, as well as the whole world over.  The same impulse that seeks to ram a constitutional amendment down the throats of the entire populace on the basis of one particular interpretation of the Bible is really not that different from the impulse that declares that Sharia law supersedes the Constitution.  Have we decided that we want this? Are we comfortable hiding behind the flimsy excuse that “it’s worse over there” than it is here?

How much longer will it stay better here if we refuse to confront these questions?

We need to be asking Candidate Romney these questions.  And if he merely squirms around, changes the subject and refuses to answer, he needs to know that We, the People will go right on asking them until we get direct and forthright answers.

While I’m at it, let me shoot down another flimsy dodge I often hear – that Obamacare is unconstitutional, therefore it is somehow excusable that the social Right wants to blow up the Constitution.  Since when do people with any integrity at all permit those with whom they vehemently disagree to set their standards? Make no mistake about it, if we may now feel free to lower our own because “Obama did it,” then we are no better than he is.

We need to ask these questions, people.  We must rise up and raise our voices.  Our very way of life is at stake here.  If we don’t meet this challenge today, if we fail to keep this torch alight, we’ll have nothing but a sputtering stub to hand our children.

There’s nothing wrong with having to squirm a little once in a while.  It’s the only exercise some people get.

    

Voting With A Scalpel

It is supposedly a matter of “character” that some are voting for Mitt Romney in November instead of for Barack Obama.  His stand on same-sex marriage – in favor of the Federal Marriage Amendment – is supposed to prove that he has this quality we so greatly desire.  But the FMA would violate three, possibly even four, existing amendments, making it contradict itself and eroding its authority. 

Surely Romney realizes that, if elected, his very oath of office will affirm that he will “preserve, protect and defend” the Constitution.  What does it say about his character that he shows the willingness – for the sake of his own, personal ambitions – to destroy it? Whatever it says about him, it definitely lets us know that, as voters who hope to help save this country from destruction, we’ve got our work cut out for us.  Those of us who believe in small government and individual liberty – who believe in persuasion over coercion – had better get busy persuading.

When you’re in a hole, as the saying goes, the best thing to do is stop digging.  I have friends – some of whom write for Out Right  Patriots Blog – who want to convince me to vote for Romney come November.  While I respect their views on most matters, what they are actually doing is making me wonder if I dare.

I’m not really trying to convince them not to vote for Romney.  What I’m trying to do is get them to use their vote as a scalpel.  As opposed to, say, a meat-axe.  Simply casting a vote, without making very clear, by other means, what about this candidate we are voting for or not voting for, does not express clearly enough our will as citizens.

Big-government theocrats are going to clamor loudly, and push hard, for Romney to do their bidding.  And first thing out of the gate – as soon as he was reasonably certain he’d clinched the GOP nomination – he showed that he will let them set his agenda.  He is deathly afraid of this crowd.  We who are small-government conservatives need to make sure he is at least as afraid of us.

It’s time we stood up to the bullies and the thugs.  Yes, we face many crises right now.  But there will be nothing but even deeper and direr crises awaiting us in the future if we don’t.  And with a Constitution scrambled into gibberish by political quackery, we will be far worse off than we would be otherwise.

Romney’s reputation as a panderer could spell opportunity for people with principles who will fight for them.  We’ve seen the harm an ideological presidency can do – especially when, like Obama’s, it’s out of step with reality.  Romney is not an ideologue; he’s an opportunist.  But if he makes his decisions only after wetting his finger and sticking it up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing, it behooves us to have a super-sized electric fan.  Big-government devotees, especially those with a theocratic bent, have been blowing theirs at gale force for decades.

The next GOP president needs to know to whom he owes his election.  As a matter of fact, he will owe it to all who voted for him.  But those who express their will the loudest are the ones who will get the credit.  If the usual blowhards are the only ones making any real noise, he will feel compelled to do their bidding.  Especially if he’s as elastic as Mitt Romney.

This election will be decided by independents, libertarians and those who are generally concerned not about divisive social issues but about the strength of the economy and the vigor of the American Dream.  If social reactionaries prevail here in 2012, it will be for the same reason the Muslim Brotherhood is prevailing in newly-democratized Middle Eastern nations.  It will be the same reason the Brownshirts got the upper hand in 1930’s Germany.  It will be because thuggery and fanaticism have won out again.  It will be because fear defeated apathy.

When I warn friends of this, I’m often treated to a psychological profile of those who favor small government, in contrast to the devotees of big government and theocracy.  The former, I am told, are laid-back, non-confrontational, coolly rational, polite and live-and-let-live.  While the latter are zealous, irrational, rude, self-centered and arrogantly convinced that they are always right.  But the latter have led us all to the edge of a cliff.  We must, for the sake of our nation’s survival, begin fighting back now.

Those who would manipulate the populace want voting to be as broadly-defined and vaguely-articulated an exercise as possible.  They don’t want the people to say anything more than they would permit them to say, or in any greater detail than absolutely necessary.  They want each vote to be a blunt instrument, not a precision tool.  We get to choose between Candidate A – whose agenda is dictated by one set of big-government power-players – or Candidate B – whose are chosen by the other.

If the will of the people is to prevail, those of us who believe in limited government and individual liberty must begin wielding our vote not as a meat-axe but as a scalpel.  A mere vote for Mitt Romney will tell the powers-that-be nothing of much value.  We need to articulate very clearly and distinctly what we want him to do.  The ballot box does not afford us that opportunity, but in our rapid-information age we have more other means of doing it than ever before.  We have a wide and creative variety of ways we can articulate precisely what we want and how we want it.

Among the many formats available to us are email blitzes.  There are petitions.  There are letters to editors.  There are electronic town-hall meetings.  There are even quaint but still potentially-effective relics like the telephone and snail-mail.

Petty tyrants and theocratic zealots have learned how to use them.  It’s urgent that we learn how to use them, too.  There are actually far more of us than there are of them, but they seek to defeat democracy by forcing their will on us all.  For the sake of our republic’s continued survival, we must make sure our voices are not silenced.  We must raise them loudly and speak very clearly – while we still can.

Cross-Posted on Born on 911

Keep your personal opinions out of my bedroom.

For those of you who are confused. No, I haven’t suddenly morphed into a liberal. (At least 2 people have permission to perform a cognitive recalibration [aka hit me really hard on the head]* if that ever happens.)

You see, it’s very hard to get me really invested in the same-sex marriage debate, since I’m a person that doesn’t believe that marriage should be a government contract at all. I think, as that post says, that there should be civil union on the government level and marriage on a religious level. It’s a simple solution that leaves nobody with what they actual want, but that’s what compromise, on a political level, is really about.

The very morning that this news occurred, I was writing a post about why Obama’s “evolving” views on gay marriage did not impress me. Luckily nothing I was planning to write in that post needs to be changed, because I’m still not impressed.

I’ve pointed out before that for a President, who has such a singular disregard for the 10th amendment, to claim he sees marriage equality as a ‘states’ rights issue’ is more than a little suspect.

While it may be hard to criticize his view on this particular topic, as I share the feeling that this is a state level issue, this really goes back to consistency and the willingness to do what you believe, instead of saying one thing and doing another as a way to ensure campaign donations. Forgive me if I find it hard to believe that this was not a timed and orchestrated ‘confession’ of support, but zero action, on the President’s part. Timed after the vote on North Carolina’s ‘Amendment 1′ and just before the Washington Post’s questionably researched hatchet job about Romney prep school years.**

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But the real issue is that I just don’t give a flying flip what Obama personally feels about gay marriage, just as I don’t give a flying flip what Romney personally feels about gay marriage or gay people.

The proof is in the actions you take, not in the personal “evolution’ if how you feel about a topic.

Obama is still refusing to repeal DOMA and the only other actions the LGBT community can point to is the repeal of DADT, which was not even Obama’s doing. Congress passed the repeal, Obama merely signed it. Despite promises in 2008 to repeal DADT, Obama waited until he lost the House in 2010 to begin his attempt this repeal, instead spending the first 2 years of his term (when he had a Democratic majority in the House and Senate) to shove a healthcare “reform” bill, that the American people overwhelmingly did not support.

Let’s consider Romney now. He is against same sex marriage on a personal level. Something which has been the case for a long time. Despite this, he did not suspend his action to do what was legally correct when it came to signing same sex marriage into law in Massachusetts when he was governor. When asked his opinion, he gave it honestly, instead of hemming and hawing and making excuses about “evolving” views.

That’s why the title of this post is “Keep your personal opinions out of my bedroom.” because that is what I ask from all politicians, whether I agree with their personal views or not, because I am well aware that others may not agree with that view even if I am convinced that I am 100% correct in my views. The key is not to rely on your personal view of the situation, but what is actually the right way for the government to handle the situation, based on our constitution and laws.

So, no President Obama, your “evolution” does not impress me, nor should it impress any of the gay community. The members of the gay community who have swooned and cheered at your “support” should take care to not become puppets in failing President’s scheme to gain more campaign funds and another term to cause more harm to our economy and the American way of life.

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For another, beautifully eloquent, article on this issue, please check out J. Michael Heilig’s post over at the Politify Online blog.

Our President has proven himself inadequate to lead this nation. In spite of the deficit, a failing economy, rising inflation, a continuing war effort, nuclear threats from Iran, strained ties with foreign allies, the death of labor jobs in the US and a job market that is all but dead, and the many other woes that face our families day in and day out our President remains aloof. He is more concerned with birth control and marriage and other social issues. Why is this? Why is this man’s mind so narrow? It is because he is pandering to minority voters.

Shame on anyone who supports this administration for it’s stance on social issues! Shame on anyone who denies the Obama record and votes for this man on the merit of his word! Shame on anyone who goes to the polls not knowing fully what this President stands for! And shame on those who have turned their backs on the American people and vote in blind obedience to a party system that has failed both you and I as well as everyone else in this suffering nation! Shame on all of you because you have cast your vote in ignorance! Shame on you for taking for granted the rights that the founders of this nation bestowed upon you to select our leaders and for using these rights to elect a man who ignores the plight of his people!

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*AVENGERS QUOTE!

**Which I don’t mind saying, even with my limited studies of journalism, is the most rambling, incoherent, hatchet job I have read in a long time.

Post written by MeredithAncret

Obama For Gay Marriage...NOT!

Reblogged from Gay Conservative:

I have said before that I believed Obama's announcement that he wouldn't defend DOMA in court was little more than a ploy to placate hard-left gay rights activists who won't stop until they push gay marriage rights on everyone. It was Obama's way of keeping gay leftists on the plantation. I still believe that, particularly in light of his announcement yesterday.

Read more… 739 more words