Jim Lendall of “Let them Pay” Guillotine fame shows up at “Occupy Arkansas” group meeting

Left leaning blogs like Blue Arkansas have praised the “Occupy Arkansas” but I wonder if they know about some of the crazy things the leaders of this movement have said.

Jason Tolbert noted on October 7, 2011:

Max Brantley with the Arkansas Times reports on the efforts currently under way to organize an “Occupy Arkansas” protest.  He posts a video of their first meeting where it appears they have not yet figured out exactly what they want to protest.

“I am Adam and I am here because I have no idea what is going on and I want to understand why people are occupying Wall Street and other streets,” commented one of the participants.

I noticed one of the organizers in the video is the former Green Party nominee for Governor, Jim Lendall.

“Basically we are living under the wrong Golden Rule,” says Lendall on the video. “They believe that the Golden Rule is who has the gold rules. That’s not the Golden Rule. We want to get the right Golden Rule out there.”

You may recall Lendall for making news back in April when he stood on the steps of the state capitol at a “Make Them Pay Rally” and called for erecting guillotines.

Below this is from a previous post I did about Jim Lendall.

Dr. Francis Schaeffer examines the Revolutionary Age

Perhaps without knowing the deeper meaning that could be attached to his comparison, the liberal Jim Lendall compared his “Let them Pay” movement to the French Revolution.

Jason Tolbert wrote today:

A liberal group had a “Make Them Pay Rally” today on the steps of the Arkansas state capitol meant to counter the anti-tax Tea Party protest from April 15.  Around 30 people gathered hold signs that called for taxing the rich and eliminating what they felt are unfair special tax rules for corporations.

However, the rhetoric soon turned violent, much more so than any Tea Party rally I have ever attended.

“While whistling on their way to their offshore banks, (corporations) have destroyed more Americans than Al Qaeda,” said former state representative and 2010 Green Party Gubernatorial nominee Jim Lendall. “Corporations have become the fat aristocracy that dictates our government.”

“The French, inspired by our American Revolution, knew how to deal with the wealthy arrogant aristocrats. The French people built guillotines. Maybe we can park a guillotine in front of every chamber of commerce, corporate headquarters, bank, investment house, and Republican Party headquarters to remind them that democracy is about people not profits. We need to tell them in one clear voice, ‘no more greed’.”

Francis Schaeffer has rightly compared the French Revolution to the Communist take over of Russia and the American Revolution to the British Bloodless Revolution.

What was Enlightenment? Human-reason centered, basis of modernism (rejected by post-modernism).

Contrast the “Bloodless Revolution” with the horrible French Revolution [irony=secularists accuse religion of bloody persecution and intolerance. French Revolution was secular and had both!

The French desired a perfect society! (Utopia – remake the world.) How? By torture and killing! Crazy? Communists are still trying!

Key people of Enlightenment and French Revolution

Background for French Revolution:

Voltaire – saw church as source of problems, felt it should be crushed. He was impressed with England’s greater freedoms and felt France could do as well. A crucial difference:

England had Reformation base, France had Voltaire’s secular humanism, [the few French who were religious were deists].

Rousseau – felt people were naturally good and civilization produced evils. Talked of “noble savage” – need to get back to nature (like today!) and discover man’s original goodness. Need freedom from restraint, don’t suppress the person. Applications:

1. Social contract – government based on agreement of majority, others forced to agree.

2. Emile – book on permissive child rearing (his kids were real terrors – sent them away to orphanages.)

3. Education – little or none needed. Let child discover self and world, never force, letting the “beautiful flower bloom”. Still an influence today. [Planting without cultivating produces weeds!]

What was the French Revolution? (Enlightenment idealistically applied).

1789-1792 Key slogan “Liberty, equality, fraternity.” (brotherhood)

“Imagine”

Issued “Declaration of Rights of Man.” It stated the Supreme Being was the general will of the people (majority = God).

They worked on a constitution for 2 years, and felt they were beginning a new age (even new calendar – called 1792 “year one.”)

They proclaimed Reason as their goddess.

People were excited about this new world. Willing to do anything, even murder, to have the perfect society. This was secular humanism at its purest.

Result: “Reign of Terror” (1792-1794)

 

40,000 executed – many of them peasants. The bloodbath – distinct from other bloodbaths.

1. Desired to be perfect

2. Came from within, not outsiders

3. Terrible inflation also occurred

example – pound of candles

1790 – $.18 1795 – $8 1796 – $40

Anarchy reigned (Freedom without form)

Like just before Julius Caesar in Rome

Why did Napoleon take power?

By 1799 people had gotten their fill, and Napoleon takes charge.

Napoleon then took on the rest of Europe. He had read Machiavelli’s Prince and felt he could commit no crime. He was very brutal. He finally met his waterloo in Belgium.

(1815)

Similarities between French Revolution and Communist Revolution

Schaeffer compares communism with French Revolution and Napoleon.

1. Lenin took charge in Russia much as Napoleon took charge in France – when people get desperate enough, they’ll take a dictator.

Other examples: Hitler, Julius Caesar. It could happen again.

2. Communism is very repressive, stifling political and artistic freedom. Even allies have to be coerced. (Poland).

Communists say repression is temporary until utopia can be reached – yet there is no evidence of progress in that direction. Dictatorship appears to be permanent.

3. No ultimate basis for morality (right and wrong) – materialist base of communism is just as humanistic as French. Only have “arbitrary absolutes” no final basis for right and wrong.

How is Christianity different from both French Revolution and Communism?

Contrast N.T. Christianity – very positive government reform and great strides against injustice. (especially under Wesleyan revival).

Bible gives absolutes – standards of right and wrong. It shows the problems and why they exist (man’s fall and rebellion against God).

Is Christianity at all like Communism?

Sometimes Communism sounds very “Christian” – desirable goals of equality, justice, etc. Schaeffer elsewhere explains by saying Marxism is a Christian heresy – Karl Marx

borrowed some of the ideals of N.T.

 

October 10, 2011 – 7:28 am Categories: Current Events, Jason Tolbert | Post a comment

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Francis Bacon: Humanist artist who believed life “is meaningless” (Part 2)

Francis Bacon: Humanist artist who believed life “is meaningless” (Part 2)

I first read of Bacon’s work in a book by Francis Schaeffer.

FRANCIS BACON’S EYE OF DESPAIR
By John W. Whitehead

Of course, we are meat. We are potential carcasses.
—Francis Bacon

Irish-born Francis Bacon (1909-1992), possibly the greatest painter of the latter half of the twentieth century, quintessentially exemplified modern humanity’s loneliness and alienation. Indeed, Bacon is considered the greatest British painter since William Turner.

Bacon’s paintings cry out for lost values and lost greatness; for a dehumanized humanity deprived of its freedom, love, rationality; for everything the great humanist painters had celebrated in Judeo-Christian and classical tradition.

Bacon’s life illustrates that no man is an island. The influences on his lifestyle and work were multitudinous.

One in particular was his fascination with carnage and carcasses. Bacon, in fact, became fascinated with animal carcasses in butcher shops and even expressed the beauty of the carnage at automobile accidents. He translated his interest in violence to the canvas: “I think of myself as a kind of pulverizing machine into which everything I look at and feel is fed.”

Bacon also used a manual on oral disease as an inspiration for his work, along with Eadweard Muybridge’s Animal Locomotion (1887). What did such books have in common? Robert Hughes in The Shock of the New (1993) writes:

Detachment: the clinical gaze on the human body as a specimen, all its privacy brushed aside. Bacon thought there was a strong analogy between the body’s various availabilities—to inspection, sex, or political coercion.

Bacon’s sources, thus, evoked different forms of abandonment. An early patron described Bacon’s “predilection for portraying people as though they were alone, unaware of any other presence.”

Moreover, as Bacon commented to a friend, “the news-photograph of the thirties was his education in painting. It formalised disrespect. It wrenched the figures of authority out of their high places. It caught them unguarded and inconsequent, ‘racked by tics, their faces distorted, their clothes in disorder, their bodies off balance’.”

Bacon, an atheist, faced constant torment, dissatisfaction and uncertainty, never knowing the security of a traditional religious belief. However, in a perverse way, Bacon was one of the most deeply religious painters of the century. The agony of his unbelief became so acute that the negative in his work—pessimism, loneliness, despair, emptiness, distortion, darkness, stark mortality—became an almost religious attribute. In fact, Bacon had an acute fascination with the crucifixion of Christ. “I’ve always been very moved by pictures about slaughterhouses and meat, and to me they belong very much to the whole thing,” Bacon once said. “I know for religious people, for Christians, the Crucifixion has a totally different signature. But as a nonbeliever, it was just an act of man’s behavior, a way of behavior to another.”

Bacon, however, clearly expressed his atheistic pessimism: “Man now realizes that he is an accident, that he is a completely futile being, that he has to play out the game without purpose, other than of his own choosing.” On another occasion, he remarked: “We are born and we die and there’s nothing else. We’re just part of animal life.”

Thus, Bacon, in terms of humanity and the supernatural, reached not only a position of unbelief but of despair. His paintings express modern humanity’s condition: dehumanized man dispossessed of any durable paradise.

Bacon poignantly illustrates his despair in a number of his paintings. A casual glance at his Crucifixion (1933) reveals that the stick-like limbs of a luminous and fantastic insect were superimposed by Bacon onto the crucifixion of Christ. Biographer Andrew Sinclair writes: “As he said later, he wanted his pictures to look as if a human being had passed between them like a snail, leaving a trail of slime.” Despite his atheism, Bacon identified his own suffering from his homosexuality and anguish with the martyrdom of Christ.

Bacon’s Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944) seems to depict the loss of all hope. One commentator notes: “The forcefulness with which these three Greek Furies…hurl their misery and rage at us proves the extent of his own loss of faith.”

Bacon painted Three Studies under a tremendous hangover. “It’s one of those pictures,” Bacon later said, “that I’ve ever been able to do under drink. I believe that the drink helped me to be a bit freer.”

One art analyst noted that the “figures in the three canvases were joined in the theme of the violence that men did to one another by the power of sex and hatred. The body on the right, lying head down, suggested an inverted crucifixion by Cimabue, which Bacon thought was like ‘a worm crawling…just moving, undulating down the cross’.”

Bacon’s work epitomizes the spirit of twentieth century man—a grasping for meaning and dignity within an environment of dehumanization and meaninglessness. He once said: “Nietzsche forecast our future for us—he was the Cassandra of the nineteenth century—he told us it’s all so meaningless we might as well be extraordinary.”

Bacon’s human corpses (his figures of Christ hung like mutton in a butcher’s shop) showed a belief in the absolute mortality of man without hope of redemption. “Of course, we are meat,” he said, “we are potential carcasses.”

Bacon’s distorted and idiosyncratic images bear eloquent witness to the actual events of the post-war period and more generally to twentieth century humanity’s innate capacity for mass violence. The artist as prophet, Bacon is the extreme voice of despair in which people are totally dehumanized, blurred, decrepit banshees. Robert Hughes writes: “In his work, the image of the classical nude body is simply dismissed; it becomes, instead, a two-legged animal with the various addictions: to sex, the needle, security, or power.”

While it may be true, as Bacon said, that “you only need to think about the meat on your plate” to see the general truth about mankind in his paintings, no modern artist has hammered at the twentieth century human condition with more repetitive pessimism.

Up until recently, the public has been exposed to Bacon’s finished paintings. Now with the release of the artist’s sketches from the Joule Archive, we get a glimpse of the genius at work.

Bacon first met Barry Joule in 1978, when the two men began a friendship that would last fourteen years. In April 1992, Bacon arranged to make a trip to Spain and asked Joule to drive him to the airport. Before they set off, Bacon gave Joule a collection of material, which Joule understood to be a gift. Bacon revealed little about the gift and died a few days later in Madrid.

This amazing bundle turned out to be an old photograph album full of sketches, as well as a number of books and a collection of over 900 photographic images—many of them worked over by hand. The album’s two covers are painted with large crosses, which have given the work its current name—”The X album.” The book’s inside covers feature drawings, and the 68 pages from the album held in the Joule Archive feature a further series of boldly worked oil sketches and collages, filling the front and back of the sheets. Many of the images in the album relate to Francis Bacon’s works from the ‘50s and ‘60s, and arguably, most of the album was executed toward the end of this period.

With Bacon’s Eye: Works on paper attributed to Francis Bacon from the Joule Archive (Barbican Art and 21 Publishing, 2001), we have reproductions from “The X Album.” This amazing work contains images that are, by turn, erotic, beautiful and appalling—yes, typically Bacon.

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youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oixAAcBTstE&feature=related]

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October 10, 2011 – 7:09 am Categories: Current Events, Francis Schaeffer | Post a comment

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Social Security is a Ponzi scheme (Part 7)

Social Security is a Ponzi scheme (Part 7)

IOUSA Solutions: Part 2 of 5

Governor Rick Perry got in trouble for calling Social Security a Ponzi scheme and I totally agree with that. This is a series of articles that look at this issue.

Personal Accounts Build More Than Just Assets

by Andrew Biggs

This article originally appeared in The American Enterprise Magazine on July 8, 2002.

Make no mistake, the debate over Social Security will rage fast and furious in the fall elections. President Bush favors letting younger workers invest part of their payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts similar to IRAs or 401(k)s. Personal accounts’ higher returns could cushion the blow of balancing the current program’s finances as the population ages and baby boomers retire. Many Democrats oppose personal accounts and want to retain the traditional system, even if it means raising taxes to keep the program solvent. But these political debates over tax rates and trust funds are only half the personal accounts story.

Ongoing research indicates that the non-financial benefits of individual wealth building could be greater than the dollars and cents personal accounts would pay in retirement. Particularly for low-income Americans, personal accounts could strengthen families and communities today as well as boost retirement incomes tomorrow.

Evidence from experimental Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), pioneered by Prof. Michael Sherraden of Washington University in St. Louis, hints at the wide-ranging benefits Social Security accounts could have. Sherraden’s “American Dream Demonstration,” which began in 1997, works out of community organizations, social service agencies, housing organizations, and credit unions to enable almost 2,400 participants nationwide to establish savings. Individual savings are matched 2-to-1, enabling accumulation of up to $900 a year. Over time, savings from IDAs can mean the down payment to a house, college education for a child, a new business, or a retirement income well above what Social Security alone could provide.

Andrew G. Biggs is a Social Security analyst at the Cato Institute and was a staff member for the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security.

But IDAs aren’t about making millionaires, they’re about making owners. And the benefits of even modest wealth building can be substantial. In testimony last fall before the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, Prof. Sherraden summarized the highlights:

    • Account participants perform better educationally, and 60 percent say they are more likely to make educational plans for their children because they are saving.
    • Eighty-four percent of IDA participants feel more economically secure and 57 percent say they are more likely to plan for retirement.
    • Asset holding significantly improves long-term health and marital stability, even after controlling for income, race and education. Half of account holders report improved relationships with family members, and one-third believe that holding assets increased their community involvement or made them more respected by their neighbors.
  • Perhaps most importantly, 93 percent of individuals with IDA accounts feel more confident about the future and 85 percent feel more in control of their lives because they are saving.

Personal accounts could change the way a low-wage worker looks at his family, his community, and himself. Better yet, many of these benefits are passed on from parents to children.

Recognizing these benefits, the Clinton administration and Vice President Gore’s campaign proposed accounts giving low-income workers a three-to-one match on personal contributions. But these accounts shared the same weakness as Sherraden’s IDAs: low participation rates. The problem, as the Urban Institute’s Eugene Steuerle puts it, is that “matching contributions will be successful only if workers can afford to take advantage of them, and many low- and very low-income workers cannot or do not.” Even the Gore plan’s own sponsors predicted low participation among the poor.

Personal accounts for Social Security, by contrast, let low-wage workers save part of the payroll taxes they already pay. Under proposals from President Bush’s reform commission, a young low-wage worker could accumulate $70,000 by the time he retired. The account would supplement traditional Social Security benefits, paying a higher total retirement income than the insolvent current program even promises, much less can afford to pay. Moreover, unused funds could be passed on to a spouse, children or a charity of the worker’s choice.

Wealth building is particularly important to minorities. In 1998, the median African American household held only $3,060 in financial assets, one-sixth that of the households in general. The median Hispanic household held only $1,200.

The non-financial benefits to personal accounts – more stable households, better health, and better educational outcomes – are often overlooked in the larger Social Security debate. But they should not be. Policymakers must address the fact that Social Security promises benefits far in excess of what it will be able to pay, and reform could involve painful and controversial choices. But these choices will be easier when Americans realize that solutions incorporating personal retirement accounts can help build more stable families and prosperous neighborhoods for the future.

October 10, 2011 – 7:07 am Categories: Social Security | Post a comment

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4 reasons why big government does not work

Four Reasons Why Big Government Is Bad Government

Posted by Daniel J. Mitchell

A new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity gives four reasons why big government is bad fiscal policy.

I particularly like the explanation of how government spending undermines growth by diverting labor and capital from the productive sector of the economy.

Some cynics, though, say that it is futile to make arguments for good policy. They claim that politicians make bad fiscal decisions because of short-term considerations such as vote buying and raising campaign cash and that they don’t care about the consequences. There’s a lot of truth to this “public choice” analysis, but I don’t think it explains everything. Maybe I’m an optimist, but I think we would have better fiscal policy if more lawmakers, journalists, academics, and others grasped the common-sense arguments presented in this video.

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Four Reasons Why Big Government Is Bad Government

Uploaded by on Feb 7, 2011

This Economics 101 video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity explains that excessive government spending undermines prosperity by diverting resources from the productive sector of the economy. Moreover, the two main ways of financing government — taxes and borrowing — cause additional economic damage. www.freedomandprosperity.org

____________________

And even if the cynics are right, we are more likely to have good policy if the American people more fully understand the damaging impact of excessive government. This is because politicians almost always will do what is necessary to stay in office. So if they think the American people are upset about wasteful spending and paying close attention, the politicians will be less likely to upset voters by funneling money to special interests.

For those who want additional information on the economics of government spending, this video looks at the theoretical case for small government and this video examines the empirical evidence against big government. And this video explains that America’s fiscal problem is too much spending rather than too much debt (in other words, deficits are merely a symptom of an underlying problem of excessive spending).

Last but not least, this video reviews the theory and evidence for the “Rahn Curve,” which is the notion that there is a growth-maximizing level of government outlays.

October 10, 2011 – 6:49 am Categories: Cato Institute, spending out of control | Post a comment

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Ark Times reader says Social Security is not Ponzi Scheme

Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme but Blake who is a blogger said I was off base.

Ark Times reader says Social Security is not Ponzi Scheme

Social Security Disaster

Politicians who are principled enough to point out the fraud of Social Security, referring to it as a lie and Ponzi scheme, are under siege. Acknowledgment of Social Security’s problems is not the same as calling for the abandonment of its recipients. Instead, it’s a call to take actions now, while there’s time to avert a disaster. Let’s look at it.

The term was derived from the scheme created during the 1920s by Charles Ponzi, a poor but enterprising Italian immigrant. Here’s how it works. You persuade some people to give you their money to invest. After a while, you pay them a nice return, but the return doesn’t come from investments. What you pay them with comes from the money of other people whom you’ve persuaded to “invest” in your scheme. The scheme works so long as you can persuade greater and greater numbers of people to “invest” so that you can pay off earlier “investors.” After a while, Ponzi couldn’t find enough new investors, and his scheme collapsed. He was convicted of fraud and sent to prison.

The very first Social Security check went to Ida May Fuller in 1940. She paid just $24.75 in Social Security taxes but collected a total of $22,888.92 in benefits, getting back all she put into Social Security in a month. According to a Congressional Research Service report titled “Social Security Reform” (October 2002), by Geoffrey Kollmann and Dawn Nuschler, workers who retired in 1980 at age 65 got back all they put into Social Security, plus interest, in 2.8 years. Workers who retired at age 65 in 2002 will have to wait a total of 16.9 years to break even. For those retiring in 2020, it will take 20.9 years. Workers entering the labor force today won’t live long enough to get back even half of what they will put into Social Security. Social Security faces Ponzi’s problem, not enough new “investors.” In 1940, there were 160 workers paying into Social Security per retiree; today there are only 2.9 and falling.

Some politicians claim that Social Security has a huge trust fund and is in good health. An uniformed public and a derelict news media don’t challenge that lie. Back in August, politicians were in a tizzy over raising the federal debt limit. In an effort to frighten seniors, President Barack Obama said in a CBS interview, “I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on Aug. 3 if we haven’t resolved this issue, because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.” Here’s how we reveal the trust fund lie: According to the Social Security Administration, it has a trust fund with $2.6 trillion in it. If those were real assets, then the Social Security Administration could have mailed checks out regardless of what Congress did about the debt limit. The reality is that the Social Security trust fund consists of government IOUs that have no real value at all and probably are not even worth the paper upon which they are printed.

I believe that a person who is 65 years old and has been forced into Social Security is owed something. But the question is, Who owes it to him? Congress has spent every penny of his Social Security “contribution.” Young workers have no obligation to be fleeced in order to make up for the dishonesty and dereliction of Congress. The tragedy is that most seniors just want their money and couldn’t care less about whom Congress takes it from.

Here’s what might be a temporary fix: The federal government owns huge quantities of wasting assets — assets that are not producing anything — 650 million acres of land, almost 30 percent of the land area of the United States. In exchange for those who choose to opt out of Social Security and forsake any future claim, why not pay them off with 40 or so acres of land? Doing so would give us breathing room to develop a free choice method to finance retirement

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October 10, 2011 – 6:47 am Categories: Social Security | Post a comment

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Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 116)

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:

Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future.

On May 11, 2011,  I emailed to this above address and I got this email back from Senator Pryor’s office:

Please note, this is not a monitored email account. Due to the sheer volume of correspondence I receive, I ask that constituents please contact me via my website with any responses or additional concerns. If you would like a specific reply to your message, please visit http://pryor.senate.gov/contact. This system ensures that I will continue to keep Arkansas First by allowing me to better organize the thousands of emails I get from Arkansans each week and ensuring that I have all the information I need to respond to your particular communication in timely manner.  I appreciate you writing. I always welcome your input and suggestions. Please do not hesitate to contact me on any issue of concern to you in the future.

Therefore, I went to the website and sent this email below:

Here are a few more I  emailed to him myself.

Senator Rand Paul on Feb 7, 2011 wrote the article “A Modest $500 Billion Proposal: My spending cuts would keep 85% of government funding and not touch Social Security,” Wall Street Journal and he observed:

Here are some of his specific suggestions:

Agency/Program Funding Level Savings % Decrease
Misc ——- $43.481 B ——-
Collection of Delinquent Taxes: Saves $3 billion
Page 36 of 37
Every year, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) publishes the Federal Employee/Retiree Delinquency Initiative
(FERDI). This summary report shows the amount of civilian, military, and retired federal employees who are
delinquent in their federal income taxes.
In 2008, the FERDI showed $3.04 billion in back taxes owed. The amount has grown to $3.31 billion in 2009.
Federal Pay Freeze: Saves $2 billion
During this recession, while most Americans have been forced to cut back, the amount of spending by the federal
government has drastically increased. Many Americans are without jobs and many more are not receiving pay raises.
Federal employees already receive generous pay and benefits, and President Obama has recently endorsed this
proposal.

October 10, 2011 – 12:29 am Categories: spending out of control | Post a comment

“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 5)

Coldplay

“Music Monday”:Coldplay’s best songs of all time (Part 5)

This is “Music Monday” and I always look at a band with some of their best music. I am currently looking at Coldplay’s best songs. Here are a few followed by another person’s preference:

Hunter picked “Don’t Panic,” as his number 16 pick of Coldplay’s best songs. Hunter commented, “The beginning to garden state plays this song. good movie and the lyrics are great.”

Coldplay – Cemeteries of London ( FULL VIDEO)

I would have to go with the song “Cemeteries of London for my 16th best Coldplay Song of all-time.

God reveals Himself in two Ways 

Lets take a look at the lyrics from the song “Cemeteries of London:”

God is in the houses
And God is in my head
And all the cemeteries of London
I see God come in my garden
But I don’t know what He said
For my heart, it wasn’t open
Not open

Romans chapter one clearly points out that God has revealed Himself through both the created world around us  and also in a God-given conscience that testifies to each person that God exists.
Notice in this song that the song writer notes, “I see God come in my garden” and “God is in my head.” These are the exact two places mentioned by the scripture.  Romans 1:18-20 (Amplified version)

18For God’s [holy] wrath and indignation are revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who in their wickedness repress and hinder the truth and make it inoperative.

19For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them.

20For ever since the creation of the world His invisible nature and attributes, that is, His eternal power and divinity, have been made intelligible and clearly discernible in and through the things that have been made (His handiworks). So [men] are without excuse [altogether without any defense or justification],(B)

_________________________

1Viva la Vida

+34when I listen to viva la vida I feel like I’m the king. All the sensations and emotions in this song make you directly enter the song as if you are the king

+15it is absolutely brilliant! I am completely in love with this song. It is so powerful and has so much meaning to it. Cold play definitely is the best band out there! It can’t get any better!

+13I feel like voting ALL their songs, but it wont allow me. coldplay’s one of the best bands that we have today! Can’t wait for more new material

More comments about Viva la VidaListen to sample

Fix You

2Fix You

+24come on no. 2 is not enough what the heck man vote for this song and listen to it you will not regret it I promise you all

+13one of the best songs from Coldplay! I love this song! full of meaning, and it makes me cry! they sang the song like they have something to say, something to prove.. and absolutely love the endung.. especially at the music video… where everybody sang the chorus… it really made me cry!

+12This is a wonderful song. It’s perfect. Every single person can relate to this song. Really listen, listen to what they are trying to say. Viva la Vida is a great song, but for me this is the best of Coldplay’s.

More comments about Fix YouListen to sample

The Scientist

3The Scientist

+12above and beonde amazing this song reaches to yu and makes want to go to sleep and tough the sky and also if you are a guy that really likes to listen to songs that make you calm this is by far the one for you.

+10The emotion in this song is raw and uncensored, it tells an amazing and beautiful story. It’s original and calming ; yet there’s something in the lyrics that stirs up emotions and memories.

+9Fix you is great too, but you can’t beat The Scientist

More comments about The ScientistListen to sample

Clocks

4Clocks

+13
i like how the sang the song. They had a nice and loving tune that almost make me cry. They are my best singers and I will never forget tem.

+8a song which has a powerful start and a great ending as well… piano used in a rock song… simply amazing..!

+7Awesome tune and nice and relaxing ! good Lyrics too

More comments about ClocksListen to sample

Yellow

5Yellow

+14. . . its so emotional, really heart-felt, you can really tell Martin cares more about this song more than any of the others, and most importantly, it kickstarted COLDPLAY – it set the platform for all the other coldplay songs. . .!

+7oh god, I just dont understand how I lived me life up to now without this song just on in the background ❤ today me and my friends shared the love and walked around the school singing this and wow I was in heaven. let’s be honest here, whoever true song was to was lucky as to have a song like that – it is the themetune to my life ❤

+5by far the best song by coldplay… it needs to be at the top…
i bet anyone who listens to it once can leave it… he/she will have to listen it again and again…

More comments about YellowListen to sample

Speed of Sound

6Speed of Sound

+5Piano absolutely blows you away in the introduction. Oppose to the other songs made by Coldplay, this song excels at build-up and keeps climax until a dramatic end.

+2Great song.. with amazing lyrics… m lovin it.. it shoulkd be no.1 according to me..

+1omg how come this song is on number 6 cmon people this song deserve in top 2 atleat vote got itt

More comments about Speed of SoundListen to sample

Violet Hill

7Violet Hill

+8The lyrics in this song are so amazing and deep. “If you love me then won’t you let me know” is so powerful.

+3awesome, unique, addictible. this is the best listen and listen hundreds times

+3This is coldplays best song because it so different when compared to their usual songs.

More comments about Violet HillListen to sample

Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall

8Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall

this should be number one.
it just makes your mood better.
best ever made for sure.

nice video
great lyris and musics
Without a doubt one of the best song they made… Everything is so perfect in this song! listen to it to understand

the song is awesum in all respects… great music lovely vocals.. I love coldplay.. listen and appreciate..

More comments about Every Teardrop Is a WaterfallListen to sample

In My Place

9In My Place

+6This song made me cry with joy the first time I listened to it. One of the highlights of “A Rush Of Blood To The Head”

+4I don’t think many real fans voted here. They just simply went with the popualair ones.
This song is just amazing.

+3this is one of those songs I go straight to when I feel like I’m stuck in life and have nowhere to go, as if I really were “in my place”. the melody and the “oh’s” in the chorus are enough to make anyone feel how much the band sympathizes

More comments about In My PlaceListen to sample

Trouble

10Trouble

+8words can’t explain. it deserves to be in the top 5 cmon people vote!

+7Simple piano playing equals a brilliant chorus or bridge? (great song in other words)

+6I don’t want to cause ‘trouble’, but this song deserves to be higher than tenth position…

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“Woody Wednesday” Will Allen and Martin follow same path as Kansas to Christ?

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October 10, 2011 – 12:02 am Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

Former Weezer band member Mickey Welsh dead

CHICAGO (AP) — Former Weezer bass player Mikey Welsh, who also found success in his second career as an artist, died in aChicago hotel room, police said Sunday.

Chicago police spokeswoman Laura Kubiak said Welsh was supposed to check out of the Raffaello Hotel at 1 p.m. Saturday. When he didn’t, hotel staff went to his room, entered it and found him unconscious and not breathing, Kubiak said.

The cause of death was undetermined pending toxicology tests, according to an autopsy performed Sunday by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. Test results could take up to six weeks, authorities said. Kubiak said there’s nothing to indicate foul play.

Welsh, 40, of Burlington, Vt., performed with Weezer from 1998 to 2001, leaving after suffering a nervous breakdown, according to the band’s website. He eventually established himself in a second career as a painter.

“I’m taking a break from music,” he told MetroWest Daily News in 2002. “I really feel the need to reinvent myself and move on, and I couldn’t be happier painting. Music is still an important part of my life, but I really have no desire to actually play it.”

Weezer posted a message on its website, saying Welsh’s time with the band was “vital, essential, wild, and amazing.”

“A unique talent, a deeply loving friend and father, and a great artist is gone, but we will never forget him,” the band said.

Welsh planned to attend Weezer’s Sunday performance at Riot Fest in Chicago.

“i’m excited to see the boys, hang out and have some fun,” he wrote on his Facebook page earlier this month.

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October 9, 2011 – 10:35 pm Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

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Andy Kaufman, Jerry Lawler, David Letterman, Lance Russell Recap

Andy Kaufman, Jerry Lawler, David Letterman, Lance Russell Recap

I grew up in Memphis and used to visit my grandfather Hatcher on Saturday mornings and he always seemed to have the tv tuned to the Saturday morning wrestling show with Lance Russell. My grandfather always would make the same comment. “That is the station we always keep our tv on, but I am not watching that show.” Then my grandfather would comment later, “I can’t believe that a classy guy like the weatherman Dave Brown would be part of such a silly show as this.”

Here is a taste of what I used to see with him.

The Kaufman Lawler Feud: Chapter 9 – A Quick Recap

Uploaded by  on Jan 14, 2009

Lance Russell intros a video package recapping the Kaufman Lawler feud so far. This segment includes the angle on the David Letterman show. It’s all part of a build up to Kaufman’s May 2, 1983 bout against Lawler in a “handicap piledriver” match where Andy will team with The Colossus of Death.

________________

In the Memphis Flyer in 1997 this article was written:

Fifteen years ago, Jerry Lawler and Andy Kaufman blurred the line between reality and pretend with their strange wrestling feud. What really happened is still anybody’s guess.

by Jim Hanas

t’s one of those crazy things you always hope will happen on television, although, given the precautions and general uneventfulness of the medium, it almost never does.

Fifteen years ago this week, professional wrestler Jerry “The King” Lawler slapped comedian Andy Kaufman out of his chair on Late Night with David Letterman, striking — if only for a moment — through the plastic predictability of the small screen with a flash of spontaneity that seemed to surprise everyone involved — Kaufman, Letterman, and even Lawler. “I promise you,” he says today, “I was in a dilemma right up until the last second.”

NBC was inundated with phone calls from people who wanted to know if the altercation had been staged. Network lawyers interviewed the parties involved and determined that the producers had no part in planning what eventually happened in the segment.

There had been a plan, but Kaufman getting smacked wasn’t part of it. They were supposed to show footage of Lawler injuring Kaufman with an apparently vicious piledriver move at the Mid-South Coliseum three months earlier; Kaufman was supposed to apologize for making fun of wrestling; Lawler was to apologize for the injury; and then Kaufman was to burst into a rendition of “What The World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love.”

“You can see it in Andy’s eyes and you can see it in Letterman’s eyes,” says Lawler. “It’s like, what’s wrong with this guy? Why ain’t he doing what we all said we were going to do?”

And then he hit him. Unplanned, unpremeditated, unknown to Kaufman, Lawler just smacked him, out of his chair, right there on national television. That’s the story.

IT ALL STARTED WITH A NIGHTCLUB act. Kaufman, who was in 1982 starring in TV’s Taxi as the indeterminately foreign Latka Gravas, had been wrestling women from the audience in clubs and on Saturday Night Live and had dubbed himself the World Intergender Wrestling Champion, belt and all. It was a controversial act, done with a seriousness that inspired shock and moral outrage. And if there was laughter, it was nervous laughter, the kind Kaufman seemed to like best.

But it wasn’t enough for Kauf-man. He went looking for a way to bring his bit to real live wrestling fans, and after being turned down by other organizations, he approached Eddie Marlin, promoter of matches at the Mid-South Coliseum, which eventually led him to Memphis

“Andy, I guess, was a big wrestling fan as a kid or something,” Lawler says, as he reminisces about the Kaufman feud over lunch at the Half Shell. “He idolized Nature Boy Buddy Rogers, who was a big flamboyant bad guy. And so I think that this was an opportunity for Andy to live out a childhood dream, and from the time he got the go-ahead, he took on the personality of this Nature Boy Buddy Rogers. He sent some video interviews in, saying that he was going to come to Memphis and challenge some of the women of Memphis. But of course it wasn’t a Latka interview or an Andy Kaufman interview, it was a bad-guy wrestler interview.”

Kaufman’s taunting challenges were hugely successful by the only standard that matters in the world of professional wrestling: The fans hated him. “They came out in droves,” says Lawler, “not only to see Andy, but they also wanted to see him get his butt beat.”

The deal was this: The audience picked the women he would wrestle and $1,000 went to the one who could pin him. In the course of four matches at the Mid-South Coliseum, none of them could, although one came close.

Foxy was a big girl who looked to outweigh Kaufman by at least a hundred pounds. As Kaufman was strutting around the ring, bragging about how easily he had pinned the earlier challengers, the bell rang and she was all over him.

“He hit on the mat, and you would have thought the roof was coming off the coliseum,” Lawler remembers. “This was the first time anybody had done anything to Andy so far. She grabbed him, and I mean she was tearing him up. She was throwing him everywhere.”

Kaufman finally prevailed, but it had been close enough to warrant a rematch, this time with Lawler coaching Foxy from the corner.

When Kaufman pinned her again in the rematch, he apparently got a little carried away, rubbing her face into the mat and refusing to let up. The fans went wild, yelling at Lawler to do something. So he did. He got in the ring and pushed Kaufman off her, which sent the comedian into a rage, screaming into the microphone that he was going to sue everyone, punctuating the threats with his trademark refrain, “I’m from Hollywood.”

He was a big star. You couldn’t do that to him.

WHETHER KAUFMAN WAS serious then or ever during his ensuing feud with Lawler is anybody’s guess, which is what makes the whole chain of events so inscrutable.

Even I’m From Hollywood — a documentary film made after Kaufman’s 1984 death that chronicles his wrestling exploits — doesn’t help. Compiled from footage of matches, interviews, and television appearances, it includes Kaufman’s friends and colleagues talking about his obsession with wrestling. Robin Williams, Tony Danza, and Marilu Henner offer conflicting testimony as to whether Kaufman was truly mad or just playing a joke that no one else was in on. He wore his World Intergender Champion belt and the thermal underwear he wrestled in under his clothes, says Williams, giving at least the impression that he had somehow slipped into wrestling’s fantasy world.

Uploaded by  on Feb 12, 2009

Not sure of the date on this one but its likely from January or February 1984. Jimmy Hart talks about tabloid headlines on Andy Kaufman’s health. As someone who works for a not-for-profit dedicated to fighting cancer, I can tell you – without reservation – that piledrivers DO NOT cause cancer. By the way, anyone who thinks wrestling only got tasteless in the last decade, should watch this interview.

_________________________

On the other hand, Kaufman’s friend and confidant Bob Zmuda says at one point, “Andy was quite sane.”

Watching Kaufman rail against women, Lawler, and Memphis in the taped, wrestling-style interviews, it’s hard to decide if he’s a madman or a comic genius. You just can’t tell.

LAWLER COULDN’T EIther. Even as Kaufman stood outside the ring threatening to sue everyone in sight. “I didn’t know what the deal was,” Lawler says. “He wouldn’t let anybody in on what he was doing, and you never knew if what he was doing was real or if it was a put-on.”

After Kaufman threatened to sue, Lawler challenged him to a match to settle their differences. What really happened next is unclear, although Kaufman’s statements and Lawler’s recollection agree that the two never got a chance to plan out the match. “I sort of think that Andy thought that once he accepted the challenge that we might meet somewhere and talk over what we were going to do. But he never asked to do that. I never could understand why he would accept that or agree to that if he didn’t think there was going to be some kind of meeting between he and I, something mutually agreed upon where he wouldn’t get hurt. [Instead] he just showed up, like he was showing up for a match.”

Kaufman, on the other hand, told reporters before the match that he was scared he was going to get hurt and that he couldn’t understand why Lawler hadn’t answered his requests to meet and work up a plan.

With neither one knowing what the other was thinking, Lawler says he saw no choice but to wrestle — and wrestle for real.

“I think, I have to hurt him,” Lawler remembers telling people who asked if he intended to injure Kaufman. “For the credibility of the way I make my living. You know, if I can let a little 150-pound comedian come in there and have a match with the Southern Heavyweight Wrestling Champion and walk out unscathed, I think the people would just think we were a joke.”

In other words, things had gotten out of hand. It was one of those times when the integrity of wrestling was on the line and only a burst of true violence could vouch for it.

Uploaded by  on Feb 12, 2009

May 19, 1984 on Memphis Wrestling. Jerry Lawler is asked about Andy Kaufman’s death from a few days earlier. Out of respect for Andy’s love of the business and to keep the idea of the feud being real alive, Lawler has no kind words for the late comedian. He doesn’t really bad mouth Kaufman but you’re meant to get the idea the King really didn’t like Andy.

______________________________________

ALTHOUGH ITS DETRACTORS claim to be certain, the subject of whether wrestling is “real” or not somehow remains a matter for debate. Wrestlers are like magicians, but instead of refusing to explain their tricks, they refuse to admit that there’s any trickery at all. And that’s why claims that the sport is fake always come with a question attached: “Wrestling is fake. Right?”

You won’t get an answer to that question, and even when you do — as when Lawler told the Mississippi Gaming Commission wrestling wasn’t real last year in order to avoid paying a fee to promote matches at Lady Luck Casino — the motivation for the confession is sufficiently opportunistic to keep the question open.

If the question gets too serious and evidence becomes necessary, it can be provided. Just ask John Stossel, who as a reporter for the television news magazine 20/20 asked pro wrestler Dr. D if the sport was fake in 1984 and was answered with a pair of boxed ears. He was eventually awarded a $425,000 settlement.

The rivalry between Lawler and Kaufman that climaxed on the Letterman show looks like that: an instance of a wrestler defending his sport by providing brutal proof of its reality.

ON APRIL 5, 1982, KAUFMAN evaded Lawler’s grip for a while, mocking him from across the ring and stepping over the ropes every time he got too close. Finally, an exasperated Lawler allowed the comedian to put him in a headlock in the middle of the ring. That was the end. Lawler picked Kaufman off his feet and threw him to the mat and proceeded to slam his head into the canvas with two successive piledrivers. Kaufman lay on the mat for 15 minutes before he was taken by ambulance to St. Francis hospital, where he spent three days in traction.

The news accounts of the days following the match — local, national, and wire — are filled with modifiers like “apparently” and “alleged” as reporters guarded themselves against an eventual revelation that the whole thing was a hoax. Such a revelation never came. Officials at St. Francis assured the press that Kaufman was truly injured, that they were at full occupancy and couldn’t afford to waste time or space on a gag.

George Lapides, who was and is outspoken about wrestling being phony, entered into a strange paradox by devoting his column in the Press-Scimitar to expressing his outrage at Lawler’s real barbarity. Wrestling was bad because it was fake, but somehow became even worse when it appeared, for a moment, to be real. Sportwriters everywhere who were loath to dignify pro wrestling with ink, puzzled over the anomaly of a real injury in a world everyone knew was bogus through and through.

Lawler was brazen, spouting off to the press about how he’d meant to injure Kaufman, about how he was glad he had, and about how the comedian deserved it for mocking wrestling.

Kaufman was sheepish. “Before the match, I thought wrestling was phony,” he told a reporter, “I guess I learned different.” He vowed to never enter the ring again, and on Saturday Night Live shortly after the incident, footage of the bout was shown as Kaufman — still wearing a neck brace — offered a watery-eyed apology to those he had offended with his wrestling exploits.

No one laughed. Not even nervously.

THREE MONTHS LATER, THE TWO combatants were sitting there, watching the tape again, talking to David Letterman. Kaufman was still wearing his neck brace as Lawler mulled over what he should do. “I’m thinking if I just go up there and apologize,” Lawler says, “everybody down here’s going to think less of me, and I’m doing all this stuff that’s helping Andy, but then I’m thinking what can I do?”

We all know the answer he came up with. Before the segment faded to commercial, Lawler stood up and slapped Kaufman clear out of his chair. Kaufman responded after the break by tossing a cup of coffee in Lawler’s lap and pronouncing a stream of profanities, pounding on Letterman’s desk as the host fiddled with papers like he was trying to mind his own business.

Lawler says he received telegrams from wrestling promoters across the country, thanking him for taking care of Andy Kaufman.

KAUFMAN DIED OF LUNG CANcer May 16, 1984, at the age of 35, just two years after his feud with Lawler. Between the bout at the Mid-South Coliseum and the Letterman episode, the rivalry stands as the ultimate chapter in the persisting legend of the late-comedian. Often said to be “ahead of his time,” it may be that his time is approaching. I’m From Hollywood, Taxi, and his SNL appearances can be found all over the cable dial, and a biopic of his life to be directed by Milos Forman and written by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski — the trio behind The People vs. Larry Flynt — is in the early stages of production and could be out by the end of 1998. Some even believe that Kaufman isn’t dead at all, just pulling the ultimate joke.

There is no more wrestling at the Mid-South Coliseum, where more than 8,000 fans came to see the Kaufman/Lawler match. The King now plies his trade on weekly USWA broadcasts and on the USA Network’s Monday Night Raw, as well as at the Big One Expo Center on North Hollywood and Lady Luck Casino in Mississippi. “It was a legendary event,” he says of his feud with Kaufman. “It really changed the direction of the professional wrestling industry.”

KAUFMAN WAS MADE FOR WREStling. As a comedian whose bits included reading The Great Gatsby aloud until the crowd grew tired and left, he understood the value of wrestling’s central tenant: If you don’t let anyone in on it, no one will ever know for sure what to make of it. People might think you’re kidding, but if you refuse to drop character and simply ask them what they think is so funny, they’ll have no choice but to laugh, nervously.

Even beyond their connections to Elvis — Kaufman was known for an uncanny impersonation that continues even after his death in the Elvis-like rumors that he is still alive; Lawler’s nickname, of course, is “The King” — the two had that tenant in common.

“He wouldn’t let anybody in on what he was doing and you never knew if what he was doing was real or if it was a put.” Lawler’s description of Kaufman sounds like a description of Lawler himself. If the comedian needed a conspirator who would never give up the secret, who better than Lawler?

The partnership between the two actually continued well after their appearance on Letterman, and Kaufman did not give up wrestling as he promised. The rivalry continued in arenas around the county with plots and plans and double-crosses, and the two met in many rematches. One such match, held in Louisville a year later, garnered only a brief article in the local paper. The outcome was the same. Lawler finished Kaufman off with a pile-driver.

As a result of that first match, however, both got what they wanted. Kaufman is still hailed as a comic genius, and Lawler has a tape or two to serve as a warning to those who would claim that his sport is phony. Whatever really happened, it blurred the line between reality and pretend, leaving everyone wondering about the difference.

If the truth could ever be found out, we might discover that the whole thing was staged and call it a big hoax. But Kaufman picked his partner well. Lawler knows how to ride the thin line between truth and fiction and makes a living by not separating the two.

In other words, we’ll never know, and even if one assumes the whole thing was staged, the Kaufman/Lawler feud will continue to come with a question attached.

Because it was all just a big joke. Right?

October 9, 2011 – 10:06 pm Categories: Current Events | Post a comment

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Will the Republicans embrace an agenda that will get our country back on tract?

Will the Republicans embrace an agenda that will get our country back on tract?

Republicans need to cut spending as the video above says. I wish the Republican candidates for president will embrace these policy positions:

A Republican Agenda for Real Change

by Doug Bandow

This article appeared in Forbes on October 3, 2011

The desperate search for an acceptable Republican Party presidential candidate continues. Republican leaders apparently are pushing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who previously said no, to jump into the race.

The GOP’s frustration is palpable. Mitt Romney has been running for four years but generates little enthusiasm. Rick Perry was an instant front-runner before losing much of his support after unimpressive debate performances. Michelle Bachmann briefly streaked across the political firmament but now barely registers in the polls. Newt Gingrich committed political seppuku shortly after announcing his candidacy. Ron Paul’s support is fervent but limited.

However, the real Republican problem is positions, not candidates.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. A former special assistant to Ronald Reagan, he is the author of Foreign Follies: America’s New Global Empire(Xulon).

More by Doug Bandow

The Republican Party cheerfully ran up the national debt before surrendering the keys to Capitol Hill and the White House. President George W. Bush’s promiscuous war-making cost the U.S. thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, while making Americans less secure. The GOP centralized more power in Washington. Republican lawmakers managed to turn laudable opposition to tax hikes into a deplorable defense of the status quo.

Most of the GOP presidential candidates offer little new. Mitt Romney, the ultimate political weathervane, implemented ObamaCare in Massachusetts before there was ObamaCare. He now fervently defends Social Security, despite its design as a public Ponzi scheme. Gov. Perry talks of domestic budget cuts but on foreign policy appears to be Bush-lite, yet another hawk disconnected from reality. The sharpest dissent from big government conservatism comes from the candidates least likely to win the nomination: Rep. Paul, former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, and former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson, who has been excluded from most of the debates.

President Barack Obama obviously is vulnerable, as well he should be. The problem is not that he is responsible for all of America’s economic woes — no president “runs” the $15 trillion U.S. economy. But this president has no solution for slow growth and high unemployment other than spending more money, increasing the deficit, and running up the debt.

Unfortunately for the Republicans, simply denouncing President Obama for every ill known to man may not lead to victory. Voters dislike much current GOP orthodoxy. President Obama could win an election which turns into competitive political demonization and personal destruction.

Republicans should offer a positive agenda while addressing the party’s past failings. First, they should explain that current budget policy is unsustainable on both a short- and a long-term basis. Economist Larry Kotlikoff figures that America’s real public debt is $211 trillion, 15 times the nominal national debt. Public finance in states like California already looks a lot like that in Greece.

Unless Americans want to turn their entire incomes over to government, public spending must be cut, and cut sharply. And it must be cut across-the-board.

However, to regain lost credibility GOP politicians should lead with proposals to cut spending benefiting “their” interest groups. Corporate welfare should top any Republican Party list of budget cuts. Too often Republican apparatchiks have been pro-business rather than pro-free market, attacking financial transfers to the poor while endorsing subsidies for corporate America.

The GOP also needs to support significant reductions in military outlays. There is no more important responsibility for the U.S. government than protecting America. However, most of the Pentagon’s current activities have little to do with protecting America.

Instead, most U.S. forces currently defend prosperous, populous allies around the world. Europe has a larger GDP and population than America, yet continues to rely on Washington to provide most of NATO’s combat capability. Japan long had the world’s second largest economy but nevertheless relied on America for its protection. South Korea has 40 times the GDP of its northern adversary, but nearly 30,000 U.S. military personnel remain in the South, creating a “tripwire” for war.

Equally wasteful and far more costly in human terms have been nation-building exercises in Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and more. Going to war in 2001 to punish the Taliban for hosting terrorist training camps made sense. Staying at war a decade later in an attempt to create a competent, honest centralized government in Kabul is foolish.

Also required is an honest discussion of Social Security’s and Medicare’s funding crises. Neither is financially sustainable and both risk triggering generational conflict. The longer Congress puts off addressing these issues the costlier will be any solution.

The GOP should reaffirm its opposition to tax hikes, but emphasize that taxes can be kept low only if outlays are reduced. Endless borrowing threatens a financial death spiral of increased debt, higher interest payments, slower economic growth, and lower investor confidence. The U.S. now is on the road to fiscal ruin.

Moreover, Republicans should endorse President Obama’s attack on special interest tax breaks. Not all tax preferences are equally bad, but the narrower the tax break the more it approaches a special interest subsidy. The GOP should push legislation that simultaneously kills dubious tax “loopholes” and reduces overall marginal tax rates. Republicans should similarly respond to tax proposals from President Obama or congressional Democrats. Rather than defend the undefendable, the GOP should challenge yet another form of corporate welfare.

With job creation at issue, Republicans should develop a list of regulations and taxes which interfere with a growing economy. Political candidates enjoy denouncing “over-regulation” in the abstract, but they would be more convincing if they targeted specific policies costing real jobs. The House GOP should follow the example of its earlier majority which held hearings on regulatory abuses.

Republicans should challenge politically popular public agencies. For instance, the government-sponsored enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were at the epicenter of the housing and financial crises. The GOP rightly criticized Democrats for not including the two GSEs in last year’s financial “reform” bill. But so far House Republicans have done nothing to close Fannie and Freddie, which continue to lose money.

Deregulation should include proposals to make more market friendly controls which are necessary even in a free society. After all, few Americans want to breathe dirty air or swim in dirty water. And there is no simple market solution to such problems. But people don’t want to needlessly waste money and destroy jobs when cleaning up the environment.

The Republicans also should offer a more restrained foreign policy. Doing so is necessary to curtail military outlays — in effect, the defense budget is the price of a nation’s foreign policy, since the more Washington seeks to do in the world, the more military force it requires. So long as the U.S. government is determined to dominate every region of the globe against every power, it will have to spend as much on the military as the rest of the world combined. Indeed, real, inflation-adjusted military outlays have doubled over the last decade, and today are higher than at any point during the Cold War, Korean War, and Vietnam War.

But a more humble foreign policy also would be a better foreign policy. Rather than engage in social engineering abroad, Republican politicians should leave friendly states with responsibility for international problems. If there is a problem in the Balkans or North Africa, Europe should address it. Japan, South Korea, Australia, and other democratic nations should cooperate to restrain potential Chinese aggressiveness. Only the Afghans can create a sustainable political order, of whatever form, in Afghanistan.

The GOP should simultaneously support a globally engaged America and Americans. For instance, international cooperation can help meet humanitarian, environmental, and other problems which transcend national boundaries. Whatever U.S. policy toward illegal aliens, Americans should expand the legal immigration of entrepreneurial professionals.

Trade benefits Americans. Washington’s failure to ratify the free trade agreement with South Korea is beyond foolish. A commercial war with China would hurt Americans while poisoning the most important bilateral relationship of the 21st century.

Other issues also deserve attention — such as expanding educational opportunities for children stuck in poorly performing public schools. Even here, however, the GOP needs to break with recent Republican Party orthodoxy. President Bush and the Republican Congress centralized even more authority in Washington with the “No Child Left Behind” legislation.

Perhaps Chris Christie or some other late electoral entrant will revolutionize the GOP presidential sweepstakes. But without good ideas well-expressed, the GOP could still end up outside the White House looking in. The Republican Party deserves to win in 2012 only if it recognizes that it deserved to lose in 2008.

October 9, 2011 – 4:01 pm Categories: Cato Institute, spending out of control, Taxes | Post a comment

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