The Sequester and Political Cowardice

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

The Sequester reality check:

President Obama, February 28th, 2013:

“Starting tomorrow everybody here, all the folks who are cleaning the floors at the Capitol. Now that Congress has left, somebody’s going to be vacuuming and cleaning those floors and throwing out the garbage. They’re going to have less pay. The janitors, the security guards, they just got a pay cut, and they’ve got to figure out how to manage that. That’s real.”

…Later that day:

Carlos Elias, the Capitol Building superintendent, sent out a memo reminding staffers that the current sequestration plan does not include “reductions in force or furloughs” and that “pay and benefit of each of our employees will not be impacted.”

Last week while discussing the potentially apocalyptic nature of the ‘cuts’ a cabinet secretary said this:

Education Secretary Arne Duncan told CBS “there are literally teachers now who are getting pink slips, who are getting notices that they can’t come back this fall."

…And then a few days later:

Duncan appeared to backpedal Wednesday, coming up with just one example, a West Virginia county, and the disclaimer that “whether it’s all sequester-related, I don’t know.”

It has now been two days since the sequester was signed by the President. There has been no quantifying negative effect as had been prognosticated by the legislative class.  In what was a political gambit soundly lost, the attempts by the current administration to garner support against House Republicans and force tax increases failed for several reasons, but the most significant was this:

The facts were against them and the American people instinctively knew it.

The President, his administration and their media sycophants wasted a truly singular opportunity to secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity by simply being honest with the citizenry.

To wit:

Consider this missed true leadership scenario:

The President could have made a nationally televised speech and informed the people that given our sixteen trillion ($16,000,000,000,000) and growing national debt, our one trillion ($1,000,000,000,000) annual budget deficit – projected to be such each year for the foreseeable future – it would be untenable to continue this budgetary madness. He had thus directed his administration to undertake a literal line by line evaluation of the national budget - which for four years he has opted not to present – and to reconsider the nation’s priorities. He will be publishing his budget online within the next 24 hours so that each and every citizen can examine his choices.

It would have been historic; it would have put this nation on firm fiscal footing for a generation and spurred economic growth not seen for fifty years.

Regardless of his choices, it would have passed by an almost unanimous congressional vote, given that the American people would have voiced support to their representatives. The American electorate is smarter than the government understands. Securing a firm financial foundation is greater than short term political, cowardly choices.

Sadly, neither party opted for this choice of action.

Instead, it was preferable to take the ridiculous route of making claims of starving children, refusing medical care to our seasoned citizens and laying down our arms so that our enemies could defeat our shell of a once dominant military.

Truly absurd, but more importantly it is demonstrating a true lack of leadership.

The President of the United States is the most powerful political figure on the planet.

He was unable to rationally cut 44 billion ($44,000,000,000) dollars from a 1.4 trillion (1,400,000,000,000) dollar budget, or about 2 percent.

Such ineptitude by all members of our government does not bode well for freedom, and the American people deserve better.

Bob Woodward And The Truth of the Sequester

The first and foremost fact about the impending created crisis that is in fact not a crisis at all – the so-called Sequester – is that it will not result in true budget cuts as the political and media class are currently claiming. What it will do is cut the growth of proposed spending increases. In the Looking Glass world that is Washington, increasing anything by seven percent instead of a planned ten percent increase is presented as a dire three percent cut that will undoubtedly wind up starving children, allowing terrorists to board planes and leave Grandma out in street to fend for herself as she struggles with healthcare being denied.

This is all nonsense – the federal government, WITH the Sequester, will spend more money this year than last, with almost a trillion dollars of it unfunded.

The Sequester is scheduled to take effect this week and so the Madison Conservative will await its outcome before discussing the absolute absurdity of it.

However, it serves a useful purpose to understand the idiocy that led to this manufactured crisis, and who is telling the truth about its proposal and planning.

The President is claiming innocence and attempting to foist sole responsibility onto House Republicans. They should indeed shoulder some of the culpability in this nonsense, but the following column is from Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, and neither Woodward nor the Post can be accused of being biased against the administration. Woodward has clearly sourced and documented the reality of the Sequester nonsense, and his reporting is both telling and worrisome on the nature of truth in government from a President who still claims to have the most transparent administration in history.

He is at the least obfuscating – at the worst he is outright lying.

Neither option should be accepted by the American people.

Please read the entire column from Woodward, published February 22^nd in The Washington Post. To wit:

“What is the non-budget wonk to make of this? Who is responsible? What really happened?

The finger-pointing began during the third presidential debate last fall, on Oct. 22, when President Obama blamed Congress. “The sequester is not something that I’ve proposed,” Obama said. “It is something that Congress has proposed.”

The White House chief of staff at the time, Jack Lew, who had been budget director during the negotiations that set up the sequester in 2011, backed up the president two days later.

“There was an insistence on the part of Republicans in Congress for there to be some automatic trigger,” Lew said while campaigning in Florida. It “was very much rooted in the Republican congressional insistence that there be an automatic measure.”

The president and Lew had this wrong. My extensive reporting for my book “The Price of Politics” shows that the automatic spending cuts were initiated by the White House and were the brainchild of Lew and White House congressional relations chief Rob Nabors — probably the foremost experts on budget issues in the senior ranks of the federal government.

Obama personally approved of the plan for Lew and Nabors to propose the sequester to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). They did so at 2:30 p.m. July 27, 2011, according to interviews with two senior White House aides who were directly involved.

Nabors has told others that they checked with the president before going to see Reid. A mandatory sequester was the only action-forcing mechanism they could devise. Nabors has said, “We didn’t actually think it would be that hard to convince them” — Reid and the Republicans — to adopt the sequester. “It really was the only thing we had. There was not a lot of other options left on the table.”

A majority of Republicans did vote for the Budget Control Act that summer, which included the sequester. Key Republican staffers said they didn’t even initially know what a sequester was — because the concept stemmed from the budget wars of the 1980s, when they were not in government.

At the Feb. 13 Senate Finance Committee hearing on Lew’s nomination to become Treasury secretary, Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) asked Lew about the account in my book: “Woodward credits you with originating the plan for sequestration. Was he right or wrong?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Lew responded, “and even in his account, it was a little more complicated than that. We were in a negotiation where the failure would have meant the default of the government of the United States.”

“Did you make the suggestion?” Burr asked.

“Well, what I did was said that with all other options closed, we needed to look for an option where we could agree on how to resolve our differences. And we went back to the 1984 plan that Senator [Phil] Gramm and Senator [Warren] Rudman worked on and said that that would be a basis for having a consequence that would be so unacceptable to everyone that we would be able to get action.”

In other words, yes.

But then Burr asked about the president’s statement during the presidential debate, that the Republicans originated it.

Lew, being a good lawyer and a loyal presidential adviser, then shifted to denial mode: “Senator, the demand for an enforcement mechanism was not something that the administration was pushing at that moment.”

That statement was not accurate.

On Tuesday, Obama appeared at the White House with a group of police officers and firefighters to denounce the sequester as a “meat-cleaver approach” that would jeopardize military readiness and investments in education, energy and readiness. He also said it would cost jobs. But, the president said, the substitute would have to include new revenue through tax reform.

At noon that same day, White House press secretary Jay Carney shifted position and accepted sequester paternity.

“The sequester was something that was discussed,” Carney said. Walking back the earlier statements, he added carefully, “and as has been reported, it was an idea that the White House put forward.”

This was an acknowledgment that the president and Lew had been wrong.

Why does this matter?

First, months of White House dissembling further eroded any semblance of trust between Obama and congressional Republicans. (The Republicans are by no means blameless and have had their own episodes of denial and bald-faced message management.)

Second, Lew testified during his confirmation hearing that the Republicans would not go along with new revenue in the portion of the deficit-reduction plan that became the sequester. Reinforcing Lew’s point, a senior White House official said Friday, “The sequester was an option we were forced to take because the Republicans would not do tax increases.”

In fact, the final deal reached between Vice President Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in 2011 included an agreement that there would be no tax increases in the sequester in exchange for what the president was insisting on: an agreement that the nation’s debt ceiling would be increased for 18 months, so Obama would not have to go through another such negotiation in 2012, when he was running for reelection.

So when the president asks that a substitute for the sequester include not just spending cuts but also new revenue, he is moving the goal posts. His call for a balanced approach is reasonable, and he makes a strong case that those in the top income brackets could and should pay more. But that was not the deal he made.”

Dr. Benjamin Carson - 2-10-2013

It is not often that the Madison Conservative will defer its platform to another voice, but given the amazing clarity presented in the below linked speech, it has been decided to present this clip to as many American citizens as possible.

The speaker has been criticized for making his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast, as if it were in some manner an act of disrespect to the event in general, and to President Obama in particular.

The President does on occasion appear to be uncomfortable with the absolute power of the arguments presented within the speech.

The Madison Conservative believes that the speaker was absolutely correct in his decision to present his speech when and how he did. He was in no way disrespectful to either the event or the President.

It is possible that the hue and cry over the attempted perceived portrayal of disrespect has more to do with the clarity of vision and intelligence of discourse that was presented and the inherent diversion from the accepted presentation of reality by the political class and their media sycophants.

It is requested that you take the thirty or so minutes to listen to this speech; it is as accurate a distillation of what we are told is too difficult to handle into what is actually very much possible.

The orator is Dr. Benjamin Carson, pediatric neurosurgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital. He is no lightweight, by any measure.

The Madison Conservative will return next week to discuss the Presidents’ State of the Union speech this coming Tuesday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyyHegP255g

I

The 2012 Endorsement

Never an entity to brook the tide of popular convention, the Madison Conservative has taken note of the omnipotent practice of various and sundry scribes and editorial boards publicly announcing their endorsement of a specific candidate for elective office.

This willingness to subjugate one of this nation’s founding principles is indeed perplexing to the Madison Conservative. Men and women, far superior to those currently searching for temporary power via elective office, have willingly laid down their lives to protect the sanctity of the secret ballot.

This nation has fought to protect and defend this nations’ freedom to vote in an atmosphere of safety and security.

The belief that any individual or organization is somehow ordained to provide direction for the electorate is paramount to a non military coup de tat.

This is not hyperbole – it speaks to the right of the people to vote how they choose without fear of recriminations by the state. When the state endorses, by its silence, the mass media ability to announce support for a specific candidate then freedom itself is under assault.

Does publishing an endorsement count as a campaign contribution? Surely an endorsement lists a candidates positive record without veering into their negatives. In short, it is a political commercial.

For a nation looking for leadership, the willingness to allow such blatant attempts to pollute the public discourse is shameful.

For that reason, the Madison Conservative is hereby making its endorsement for President of the United States thusly:

VOTE.

The Madison Conservative has a preference for whom it will cast its constitutionally protected vote, but will extol that opinion solely from behind the curtain of the voting booth. The Madison Conservative has but one vote and will not consider revealing that precious gift from our founders and framers under any circumstances. That should be the nature of all votes and any attempt at endorsements.

Somewhere today, someone will willingly lay down their lives for the hope that maybe someday their posterity will be able to vote freely and unencumbered by the state.

Do not suffer the fate of those who once thought that any assault on freedom was a merely a question of degree.

It is with the first link of ambivalence that the chain of tyranny is formed.

Commentary - The Vice Presidential Debate

This past week saw the Vice Presidential debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan.

Predictably, the American people were again short changed and treated with massive disrespect by both the political class and their accompanying media flacks and wide-eyed sycophants.

The Vice President is literally a stopped heartbeat away from assuming the most powerful political office on the planet.

The electorate who must decided their preferences have few unfiltered options to glean whatever information they deem pertinent to that decision. In a demonstration of political cowardice that would appall the framers and the founders, the two major political parties have cowered behind a ‘Commission on Presidential Debates’ to allow them cover from answering the relevant questions of the American people. This farcical commission determines the number and format of the debates. The process is so pathetically skewed against the exchange of ideological differences that it merely descends into pitiable political theater.

The political class and the mass media have the appalling gall to review it as if it were only sport – presenting score cards to present their opinion of who won.

This nation has serious issues and must not allow a high school debate team mentality to shape the discourse.

There were no winners in the debate; the losers were the American people.

Vice President Biden had many salient points to make, but they were obscured by his need to feign so many facial gestures one would think he was performing pantomime. He also needed to defend the policies and actions of the Obama administration, but again that requirement was lost in a haze of political performance nonsense. Congressman Ryan had the opportunity to explain much of the Romney policy choices and decisions to an American electorate thirsting for leadership. He was co-opted out of that possibility by the theatrics of Biden. That point being made, Ryan also had the responsibility to push through the Vice Presidents’ diversionary machinations to present the information the nation is looking for.

The post debate spin focused not on the policies presented, but, as in the case of an intellectually bereft MSNBC, on a scorecard of who won what issues that were, in fact, not debated.

This nation has a rich history of political discourse, perhaps best exemplified by the historic Lincoln-Douglas debates. The media, needing quick sound bites to present, embrace the imbecilic formats presented by the commission, perhaps due to the fact that it does not require them to be intellectually honest about what issues are being discussed.

The American people must demand that those who wish to be hired as temps in the most significant political office in the nation have a forum wherein they can present their resumes for proper scrutiny.

All that was learned from the last debate is that Paul Ryan is respectful to his elders and that Joe Biden can smirk and smile no matter what the issue.

America deserves better.

The next presidential debate is Tuesday. The Madison Conservative is urging the American electorate to hound their representatives in Congress with e-mails demanding clarity in the debate process; to post on their social media that they demand a true debate; and if queried as to their preferences by pollsters, to respond that they are voting for the Druid candidate.

Accepting the idea of two minute answers and thirty second responses is the act of cowards, not leaders.

We owe ourselves and our posterity no less.

The Fraud of 'Fairness'

The United States Constitution is the greatest governing document in the history of man. It sets forth the guidelines for a free people to form a more perfect union.

It restricts what the government can do in limiting the individual pursuit of personal happiness.

It strives to guarantee an even start for all of the citizenry as they endeavor to lead their lives as they deem appropriate.

There is not a single paragraph, phrase or word which leads one to believe the Constitution guarantees equal outcome, or even a positive result of an individual pursuit of happiness.

Yet these seems to be a decided slant from the liberal realm and their sycophantic media hacks that continually engages in class warfare, and decries that the “system is not ‘fair’”.

Fairness is applauded as a goal, and if even a single working citizen does not have an equitable result in their labors, then the argument follows that the nation is being unfair.

It is time to call the liberals bluff and put to rest the great lie on fairness.

Consider this proposition.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics has estimated that there are roughly one hundred and thirty million (130,000,000) people employed. Take that number at face value, and without regard to the job or accompanying benefits package.

The stimulus package passed by the Democratic congress under the direction of President Obama totaled close to one trillion dollars.($1,000,000,000,000)The ineffectiveness of it has led to many to explain that it was insufficient, despite the fact it has had little significant effect on the economy. The projected budgets for the foreseeable future include deficits in excess of one trillion dollars per annum.

So again, take the 130,000,000 employed people.

Give them a tax free single payment of twenty five thousand dollars.($25,000)

The total cost would be three point three trillion dollars. ($3,300,000,000,000)

That would surely generate enough income back to the treasury as those 130,000,000 people began ordering goods and services, investing it, paying down bills – whatever they might choose. The effect of the $25,000 would be even greater to the individual, given that it is tax free money.

The question for this exercise would be thus:

If every one had an equal starting point, how many of them would reappear in a year, or less, requiring additional monies? How many would have lost the entire $25,000 and in some cases wound up losing even more in poor financial management?

Lest anyone think it would not happen, consider how many lottery winners have wound up destitute.

Take this example one step further. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates there are approximately two hundred million individuals total for the workforce – not under 18 years olds and not those over 65 years of age.

Given that greater number of people, this nation could only afford to grant $20,000 per person. That would bring the total outlay to four trillion dollars.(4,000,000,000,000)

For proper context:

The estimated national budget for fiscal year 2013 is three point eight trillion. ($3,800,000,000,000)

The estimate is just that, for the United States government has not passed a budget for more than three years.

So consider that given the growth of the debt, deficit and the national budget, surely this nation could absorb a $20,000 payment to each of the work eligible 200 million, right?

Would that not prove we were a fair and just nation?

For those who might actually consider this as a reasonable concept, pleased remember that there is no guaranteed equality of outcome.

What would one do for those who did not properly manage that initial outlay?

Yet this is exactly what America is doing each and every year – redistributing money to many who will simply require additional funds next year.

Note that this is not encompassing the children of this nation, those who are retired or legitimately disabled. This applies to only those the government considers eligible to work.

While the separation of church and state is not contained anywhere within the framework of the Constitution, proper and respectful deference must be made when using a saying attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius in a discussion on an issue of constitutionality in American democracy:

“Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.”

This nation must return to this perspective or we will drown in the flood of debt and deficit, which would not be fair to either ourselves or our posterity.

A Conventional Perspective

The Madison Conservative has long attempted to make the fundamental point that political parties, any and all of them, are not government and should have no input or connection with government. The mass media and their ignorant flacks continually attempt to convey that America as founded is a two party system.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Consider for a moment President Washington’s’ farewell address wherein he warned the fledgling nation of the baneful effects of party. To allow the polarizing effects of politicians to infect the body politic is anathema to freedom and American democracy.

That point being made, it is unavoidable to assess the two national conventions as they unfold over the next few weeks.

The Madison Conservative will gauge the conventions from the perspective of which major political party will keep to the principles set forth in our founding document, the greatest set of governmental limitations the world has ever known – the United States Constitution.

We willl return after the conventions to provide commentary and perspective on what should be the adopted policies from each political platform.

To further make the point, however, that those in elective office do not seem to understand that America is not a nation of political parties, but a nation of free people, the following article posted on a local CBSNEWS.com site, presented here in an edited form to keep to the more salient points, provides valuable insight into the underlying differences between the political parties and their respective presidential campaigns.

To wit:

The Democratic National Committee has informed a Connecticut town it will not be reimbursed for the thousands of dollars the city spent on costs for President Obama's fundraising visit earlier this month.

Gordon Joseloff, the first selectman of Westport, says he was informed this week the town's request to have the DNC and Obama for America cover the $14,812 the city paid in police and fire overtime was denied.

The president traveled to the area on Aug. 6 to attend a fundraiser in Stamford and a $35,800 per person dinner at the Westport home of movie producer Harvey Weinstein.

Local officials even shut down two popular public beaches to accommodate the president. They closed the 238-acre Sherwood Island State Park so the president's helicopter could land, and also closed the roughly two-acre Burying Hill Beach -- adjacent to Weinstein's mansion.

The New Haven Register reports that an executive of the Democratic National Committee wrote that as a private organization it did not participate in security, traffic control, fire or emergency planning. She referred questions to the Secret Service.

Joseloff tells CBS New York he knew not to expect reimbursement for security costs during a private presidential visit, but pointed out the president raised $2 million for his re-election campaign during the trip.

"I think if somebody really wanted to do a good deed for the president, they could make a donation to cover the cost, get a tax deduction," Joseloff said according to CBS New York. "We'll be happy and hopefully they'll be happy."

This isn't the first time local officials have gotten in a dispute over payments for security costs to accommodate presidential candidates. The city of Newport Beach, Calif., for months has been trying to get the Obama campaign to pay $35,000 in security costs for a fundraiser earlier this year. According to the Los Angeles Times, though, the Romney campaign did reimburse the city for security costs at a Republican fundraiser.

In Westport, Joseloff added the president also had the opportunity to soften any hard feelings in the town about the visit's costs by holding a public event, such as visiting a nearby 9/11 memorial. He noted that though the memorial was just yards from where the president's helicopter landed, Obama did not visit it.

Paul Ryan

(ed. note – as a matter of policy, the Madison Conservative does not endorse any political party or specific candidate. The following discussion is intended to frame the 2012 presidential campaign now that Mr. Romney has selected his running mate)

The selection of Paul Ryan as the vice-presidential candidate for the Republican Party has been heralded by some as a ‘courageous’ choice, and lambasted as the selection of ‘an extreme right-wing ideologue’ by those who hold a contrarian political perspective.

Both attempted delineations are ridiculous – ‘courageous’ is more aptly reserved for those in the military, firefighters and by the folks working two jobs to support their families. ‘Extreme ideologue’ is more apropos for one in power who is looking to attain unilateral control of a nation – its use for a seven term member of Congress from Wisconsin would be comical if not so wildly imbecilic.

What the selection of Mr. Ryan does foreshadow however is the potential for a serious discussion on the economic future of this nation. That deliberation by the American people will resonate for generations in a way that previously promoted ‘elections of our lifetime’, as the political zealots trumpet every four years, have never actually attained as a status.

Mr. Ryan has done what the Obama administration and the Democratic Senate have failed to do for the past four years; he has presented a thorough budget plan. To be fair, the Presidents’ budget did garner a full floor vote in the Senate once – it failed 97-0. Congressman Ryan’s’ budget proposals have passed the House of Representatives twice, only to arrive at the Senates’ doorstep “DOA” – dead on arrival - unilaterally decided so by Majority leader Senator Harry Reid .

Mr. Romney’s’ theory on the basis for his candidacy is his acknowledged business acumen. There is little debate that he does indeed “know how to make a buck”. He is a true capitalist and understands the basic premises behind a free market economy. His choice of Mr. Ryan demonstrates that he believes that the financial health of the country is the paramount campaign issue. Mr. Ryan has demonstrated a unique ability to master the almost indecipherable national budget process and to clearly describe same.

There are many who may disagree with the choices made in what is now labeled as the “Ryan Budget”. What has been previously lacking is a serious discussion on what those choices are and the hard choices they will mandate as the nation struggles to regain its firm financial footing.

The selection of Mr. Ryan will now necessitate that all parties face the real challenges to America and understand the almost farcical nature of making the campaign about tax returns.

We applaud any substantive act that brings serious discussion to the forefront of the body politic. The sycophantic mass media will now need to understand the bigger issues and that such issues will never translate into ridiculous and trite sound bites.

The American electorate has been presented with the opportunity to engage all serious participants with a voice in the direction of the greatest nation the world has ever known in a true national debate on the meaning and purpose of America.

It must be grabbed on with both hands and not allowed to be distracted by the political cowardice and intellectual dishonesty that the process has previously been subjected to – for ourselves and our posterity.

The Madison Conservative Platform - part 2

The founders and the framers were wary of providing a default governing class when they designed the Constitution as the governing document of their fledgling new democratic republic.

The specifically delineated the duration of each elected term of office for each member of the trilateral government they were espousing. The president, congressmen, senators and jurists all have clearly defined terms of office.

In a previous post, the Madison Conservative discussed the need to amend the Constitution to address the pervasive, corrupting influence of unregulated financial support for the entire spectrum of the political class. That post was presented as the first plank in the Madison Conservative platform because the need to return the electoral process to the American voter is paramount to the successful growth of democratic self-rule.

The subsequent point that needs to be addressed then is the re-clarification of the terms of office for our elected officials.

Many voices in the public debate on cleaning up the governmental process genuinely believe that the Constitution must be amended to include term limits on our elected leaders. The opposing voices claim with equal earnest that such restrictions should be implemented only at the state level.

Before espousing its position, the Madison Conservative believes a quick recap of the history on the constitutional construct on terms of office is in order.

There were no term limits written into the Constitution. The reasoning was simple; the framers believed that the American people would make the necessary choices with respect to choosing their elected leaders.

President Washington, in his wisdom and foresight decided that two terms was sufficient; in addition to being tired, he genuinely believed that serving any longer would set the precedent of a default monarchy, with a president for life serving in place of an outright king. Subsequent presidents did not see a need to break with that precedent, and those who tried, i.e. Theodore Roosevelt, were soundly defeated by the electorate who felt that George Washington had it right.

In the midst of World War II, the American people opted to return Franklin Roosevelt to office for a third and then a fourth term. His death in office was the argument made that the office of the presidency was too strenuous for a man to endure for longer than two terms. The Congress thus amended the Constitution to restrict the term of office for the president to two terms; Harry S. Truman would have been the last man to serve longer than eight years had he opted to do so.

The Congress did not believe its own responsibilities required extensive vigor and so voted only to restrict the term of office for the executive branch; the cowardice involved in hoping for short term political advantage by so amending the Constitution should be of note to the contemporary body politic.

This explains why senators have served for thirty and forty years, apparently believing that their electorate cannot be properly represented by any other qualified citizen.

After careful consideration, the Madison Conservative has decided to incorporate into its platform the wisdom of the founders and the framers. The twenty second amendment to the United States Constitution should be repealed.

The American electorate is much more sophisticated given its access to information in the internet age. The Madison Conservative believes that the recent trends of the 2010 congressional elections and the failed attempt to recall the Wisconsin governor show that the American electorate is more than capable of fulfilling the belief of the founders and framers of getting it right.

The intelligent control of campaign finance coupled with unfettered choices are the best available tools the body politic can employ to insure that democratic self-rule continues to thrive for ourselves and our posterity.

Primary Season 2012 - A Commentary

(ed. Note: as noted previously, the Madison Conservative will opt for a personal commentary as issues or events warrant. This week is just such an instance)

The very nature of political elections dictates that one must present his opponent as not the person for the job; either by his inexperience in governance, or by his incompetence in doing so while in office, hence the need for change.

Our history is a treasure trove of accusations between opponents from allegations of homicide to levels of debauchery that would mandate an apology of biblical proportions to Sodom and Gomorrah.

Candidates for elective office now seem so well versed in making such finely nuanced accusations or proposals these days that they feel so comfortable that moments after making certain absurdist declarations they opt to distance themselves from what they just said, on the record, if front of millions. (Remember a sitting president, under oath,  asking for what his inquisitors definition of “is” was)

For the most part, the American electorate takes such nonsense in stride in their evaluation of the candidate’s qualifications, and votes their determinations on sound personal judgments. If they find that their assessments were in error, they will make the necessary course corrections in the next election.

In this primary season, what is evolving, however, is a troubling trend and one that must be addressed by the American electorate.

To wit:

The scurrilous and imbecilic accusations are beginning to turn towards the ridiculous and unfounded assertion that somehow America is becoming a lost nation, that her spirit is lagging and in need of being ‘returned’ to its ‘rightful’ owners. Various and sundry candidates of all political persuasion are blathering on with this nonsense, concluding with the claims that their opponents are the reason America is suffering and that only their salves and ointments can bind up and heal the nations wounds.

Putting aside the arrogance of such claims, which should be easily dismissed as the ramblings of idiots, these pervasive claims are an insult to more than two hundred and thirty five years of freedom and sacrifice unequaled in the annals of human history.

America may be many things, but perhaps a Madison Conservatives’ refresher ‘voter guide’ is in order as the elective dog and pony show winds its way throughout the country, ending with the only true poll that matters, the constitutionally mandated one  this coming November.

American is in a period of transition from an employment perspective; there is no doubt about that. This nation went through the same type of process during the industrial revolution. Americans adapt, improvise, and overcome. This fact has been proven again and again. When the internet boom began in the early 1990’s, few realized that such a technological revolution would so quickly doom many brick and mortar establishments, yet almost everyone today  easily uses the internet to purchase goods and services with but the click of a mouse. Many companies that helped usher in the age of the consumer internet boom are now but memories on the dust heap of employment history, yet there has been no declarations that the internet cost millions of jobs to honest and decent people employed in the brick and mortar world. - (remember CompuServe and Prodigy, the initial rivals to America Online? Would America opt out of having such entities as e-Bay and Amazon.com at their disposal?)

We are a capitalist society; he who builds the better mouse trap wins.

America is employment resilient; perhaps to make that point clear to the body politic, the next wave of unemployment statistics should include those in elective office who helped create the current economic stresses.

Americas’ standing in the world is also an issue that is rising to the forefront in this year’s campaign. This should be properly debated and discussed amongst the body politic and the electorate, but to propose that America’s role in the world is fading? When disaster and strife befall another nation, who is it that the world looks to for rapid response and security if needed? The recent act of the United States Navy in rescuing Iranian nationals from pirates is a perfect example. America is the nation that gets it done; we understand that the blessings of liberty come with a price and we have continually chosen to pay those costs.  Foreign policy should absolutely be an issue for there are many intelligent alternatives on how to conduct a nations foreign policy, but to add into that debate that somehow America is fading is both preposterous and libelous.

As the candidates vie for votes, remember to take many of their claims of Americas’ malaise with a twenty five pound bag of salt; we have endured and prospered through tough times, we will do so now, and continue to do so in the future.

We must as a nation remember that collectively we are Americans, and that such a statement still means more than we can know.

We the people; let freedom ring!