On Tuesday I filed HCR 9-  Missouri Says Audit the Fed.  HCR 9 is a resolution of Missouri to urge  our congressional delegation to get behind and pass the Federal Reserve Transparency Act  in Washington D.C. Soon, HCR 9 will be given to the Committee on Financial Institution for a hearing. If you would like to participate in this hearing by testifying in person or providing a written testimony please visit www.missourisaysauditthefed.com for more information.

What is the point of HCR 9?
The states used to take official positions on federal affairs all the time and our United States Senators  would represent those positions in Washington. Soon after 1913 and the ratification of the 17th amendment, the Senate began to act more like the U.S. House of Representatives by responding to the voters instead of the state governments.  Our system of checks and balances relies on the states being able to check the power of the federal government from time to time and vis versa. Recently the Federal Reserve was partially audited and the findings were jaw dropping to say the least. In a report released by the Government Office on Accountability, the American people have been made aware that the Federal Reserve Board of Govenors have created money to bail out domestic and foreign banks and businesses totalling TRILLIONS of dollars and nobody knew about it, not even Congress! AND THAT WAS JUST A PARTIAL AUDIT! According to Article I Section VIII of the United States Constitution, the United States Congress is supposed to maintain control over our monetary policy but how can they do this if they do not have the authority to conduct a full scale , top-to-bottom audit of the policies of the lending practices and other policies that are set by the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve?

Does the Federal Reserve ever get audited? Yes, but they are usually routine audits that handle basic practices of administration etc. What we need is an audit that tells the United States Congress and the American people how much of our money is being printed and what banks, business and whoever else that money is being given to and at what cost to the American people. Congress needs to have the authority to conduct these kinds of audits.


If you haven't done so already, please go to www.missourisaysauditthefed.com and sign the petition to support HCR 9. This will also allow me to show the legislature how many people support this measure and it will also allow me to contact you to give you updates on progress and how you can help me.

Missouri will be the first to take a position to demand that the U.S. Congress pass the Federal Reserve Transparency Act but I need your help. PLEASE POST THIS on your face book page and help gather support!

Like many conservatives, I have been watching the presidential debates between the GOP candidates. I talk with others about the debates and I have noticed a trend among the conservatives. Many of them like different candidates but when it comes to Ron Paul, I almost always hear people say something like, “I like Ron Paul- except for his foreign policy.”  The more I listened to Congressman Paul explain his position on foreign policy, the closer I came to understanding his point of view and although I do not agree 100% with any candidate on the issues, I believe that Ron Paul’s foreign policy is closer aligned to keeping with the principles of liberty and the Constitution than any current GOP candidate.

People are under the impression that Ron Paul is an isolationist because he wants to bring our troops home from the 130 countries were we have them and he wants to stop going into countries like Somalia, Kosovo, Libya, Georgia, Iraq, Uganda, the Philippines… to “spread democracy”. A policy of non-interventionism is not by any means isolationism. Japan was an isolationist nation until Commodore Matthew Perry sailed a fleet of U.S. ships into the Bay of Tokyo with four war ships and demanded that Japan trade with the West. Ron Paul does not want to seclude America from the rest of the world, he wants America to operate our foreign policy according to the Constitution and follow the advice of the founding fathers.

I personally believe that America should strive to follow principles in all we do and not be so inclined to cave to the temptations of political smooth talk or our emotional responses to current happenings. Give this some thought:  We borrow and spend our way into trillions of dollars worth of debt, sacrificing the lives of America’s youth so we can intervene in Libya, Kosovo, Somalia and even Iraq to “protect” and “liberate” civilians but then we turn a blind eye to similar dynamics in Rwanda, Darfur and even Yemen because we consider that nation an ally in the war on terror. How can anybody look at that foreign policy and still come to the conclusion that we are using principles to guide our actions? At what point will we realize that we should institute guiding principles instead of relying on emotional or otherwise unprincipled responses to pull us around the global maze. If you were to ask me, I would say let’s follow the Constitution and seek the wisdom of our Founding Fathers.

All of our Founding Fathers had an opinion on foreign policy but in my humble opinion, the best words on the issue came from our second President, John Adams. In looking ahead at what future generations of wise men would say about American, Adams wrote,

"If wise and learned philosophers of the elder world…. Should find their hearts disposed to enquire what has America done for the benefit of mankind? Let our answer be this: …She has uniformly spoken among them …the language of equal liberty, of equal justice, and of equal rights; …she has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for principles through which she clings as to the last vital drop that visits the heart."

Much like Adams says, we have been a standard bearer of freedom and liberty in the world but unfortunately we have not abstained from intervening in the concerns of others. Today, many Americans have a much different perspective of our role in the world.

America spends billions of dollars every year doling out money in the form of foreign aid and it doesn’t do anything to secure the liberty of the American people. America is also the only member of the United Nations that currently pays the maximum amount in annual dues to the U.N. and the U.N. still continues to work against our interest at every turn. I won’t even mention that the U.N. has no respect for our Republic. What happened to following the Constitution and the wisdom of the founders when it comes to foreign policy? America has no moral obligation to spend tax dollars and our troops’ lives on anything but the security of our own liberty and property. Adams continues,

"Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy.  She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all… She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication [meaning to dissolve political connections… [The] fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force… She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit…"

Does this sound like anyone from the Democrat or Republican party today? President Obama bombs Yemen, sends troops into Libya and Uganda. President Clinton committed American lives and money to Kosovo, Somalia etc.… President Bush sent troops to the countries of Georgia, Iraq, and Afghanistan etc.…. America is currently using tax dollars and borrowed money from China to fund troops in about 130 countries around the world, while at the same time our border is still wide open and our national debt is now on its way to 16 trillion dollars. Our Founding Fathers advised us to respect the sovereignty of other nations in spite of how much we might disagree with them. John Adams warned us against becoming a nation determined to exercise force as a means of influence but rather he counseled us to cling to the virtues of liberty in order to fuel the self-determination of others around the world that they might pursue the agenda of freedom. Can we really have confidence that others have grasped the concept of freedom when we implement policy from the barrel of a gun? Is it really consistent with the principles of liberty to force someone to accept a political ideology that they either do not want or are not mentally or even emotionally prepared for?

Obviously John Adams believed in a non-interventionist foreign policy; he didn’t think it was our place to police the world or use military force to “spread democracy.” If we commit ourselves to the habit of dictating policies to other nations, haven’t we failed to heed Adams warning of becoming the “dictatress of the world?” Ask yourself how our intervention in Somalia did anything to protect Americans’ liberty and property. How is being a member of the U.N., who uses our money to carry out liberty-stealing policies all over the world, any different from just stealing people’s liberty ourselves?

The more I read the more I am convinced that our Founders were ready to trade with anyone and everyone but they were not ready to assume a position of entanglement unless our security and liberty depended on it. John Adams wasn’t alone. George Washington, the Father of our country, was a strict non-interventionist. In fact, Washington had a great deal to say about how careful we should be with our foreign policy when he wrote,

"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible…. Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of Europe ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?"

George Washington, the great general that lead us to independence and then served two terms as our first President, strongly advised the American people to have little to do with involving ourselves in the affairs of other nations. In this particular paragraph, he is specific about warning us against involving ourselves with European politics but still encouraging commerce. Washington continues,

"A passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils… against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizen) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove, that foreign influence is one of the most baneful woes of Republican Government… The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop."

If we would start to adhere to the advice of George Washington, our tax dollars would immediately begin to serve our immediate interest again and our men and women in uniform would come home. There will always be evil in the world, but our Founding Fathers were surely the wisest and best to encourage us to not extend our jurisdiction beyond the interest of the security of our liberty. Now we must ask ourselves this one important question: Was George Washington wrong?

Unconstitutional Wars
It is very disappointing to me to stand shoulder to shoulder with conservatives who are adamant about following the Constitution but as soon as the issue of war comes up they dismiss the Constitution as being inconvenient to the times we live in; the same excuse liberals use for taking away your 2nd Amendment rights, etc. In the 2008 presidential debates, the MSNBC moderator asked the candidates what would justify their use of military force to wage war with Iran. Mitt Romney’s answer was that his lawyers would help him decide if he should wage war. Ron Paul stood out in stark contrast to ALL other candidates when he said,

 “This idea of going and talking to attorneys totally baffles me, why don’t we just open up the Constitution and read it, you’re not allowed to go to war without a declaration of war …”

Congressman Paul elaborated on the powers of the President when faced with  an imminent threat rather than the escalation of force which traditionally leads to war, specifically stating that the President has power at all times to use the military to defend such imminent threats.

But what does the Constitution say? Article I Section 8 of the Constitution states Congress has the power to declare war, indicating that if we go to war, it is because Congress declared it. The problem with our current wars is that there was no formal declaration. There was no mission statement and no way to know when we had achieved absolute victory. This is just one reason why there is all this talk about a timetable to have the troops out of Iraq as though we’re planning a road trip to Disneyland. This is also why our troops have to fight bureaucrats for proper rules of engagement that will allow them to actually fight; instead, they’re told not to return fire into a mosque so we can appear sensitive to the feelings of our enemies.

George Washington never considered the thought of using the military to make war without a declaration by Congress. Washington is probably the one man in American history who could have singlehandedly overthrown the new government and made himself king with hardly any dissent but he was still humble enough to acknowledge the authority of the Constitution. Washington once wrote of this issue,
    
"The Constitution vests the power of declaring war in Congress; therefore no offensive expedition of importance can be undertaken until after they shall have deliberated upon the subject and authorized such a measure."

The President does not have the Constitutional authority to engage in war against another nation without direct orders from Congress. In a message to Congress in 1805, our third President and author of the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson, wrote,

"Considering that Congress alone is Constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force in any degree which could be avoided." 

Please keep in mind that Ron Paul has made it clear that he understands that there is a difference between authorizing military action for defensive operations and actually going to war with another country.

In 1973, Congress created the War Powers Resolution which requires the President to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days, with a further 30-day withdrawal period, without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war. One problem with this is that once troops are committed, it is hard to just pull them out of action. Once the President does ask Congress to fund his little war, Congress will do it because most of them are spineless politicians, concerned more about what it would look like to their constituents if they voted to not fund the President’s operation than actually following the Constitution.

By not following the Constitution, we have allowed so much war-making authority to be granted to the President, something our Founders vehemently warned against. In a letter to Thomas Jefferson in 1798, James Madison, wrote,

"The Constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.  It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war to the Legislature."

In 1787, another of our Founding Fathers, James Wilson, said of the issue,

"This system will not hurry us into war; it is calculated to guard against it.  It will not be in the power of a single man, or a single body of men, to involve us in such distress; for the important power of declaring war is vested in the legislature at large..."

One of the latest examples of a breach in Constitutional restraints happened quite recently. May 20, 2011 marked the 60th day of US combat in Libya, but the deadline arrived without President Obama seeking specific authorization from the US Congress. President Obama, however, notified Congress that no authorization was needed, since the US leadership was transferred to NATO. See how this works? We stop using the Constitution, the President commits our men and women to war and then passes them off to the command of foreigners with your tax dollars and he does it all by himself. People get upset when we are taxed without representation but today, the President will send your 18-year-old son into gunfire without asking Congress or the Constitution for permission. If by some chance your son doesn’t make it home, the President will send you a letter that he never actually wrote and give you your son’s medals in a box.  So now ask yourself this: Is the President right to have his way with our troops? Or is Ron Paul right to follow the Constitution and the advice of the founders when it comes to foreign policy and engaging in war?

Our Founding Fathers intended for war making powers to remain in Congress because they understood better than anyone else that war is a serious commitment that will either change the lives of thousands or end the lives of thousands altogether and therefore the people must have a say in the commitment. It is Congress that provides the voice of the people with the most direct route to the ear of the federal government. If it is the American people who are going to make the sacrifice, then a war commitment should be left entirely up to the will of the people.

In order to join the military, our men and women have to take an oath to the Constitution, at which point they are issued body armor and rifles because the oath they took is that important. Isn’t it entirely reasonable then to demand that our President be held accountable and not wage war without a constitutional declaration?

After the signing the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Franklin told his fellow signers, "Gentlemen, we must now hang together or most assuredly we will all hang separately." The point is this: Our Founding Fathers signed their name to the Declaration of Independence and then sent it to King George III to basically say, "If you get through our troops, you know who to come for!" Our Founding Fathers had something that is seriously lacking in Washington D.C. today; it’s called CHARACTER and because of that lack of character, our troops have become political leverage. Who is to blame? We are. Many conservatives have decided that it is more important to be pro-war than it is to be pro-constitution.

The next time one of our Navy SEALs, Marines or Army Rangers is court-martialed and imprisoned for doing what we asked them to do, just remember that it could have been avoided if our U.S. Congressman would have demanded that we handle things the way the Constitution prescribes. The federal government is becoming less accountable as the Constitution continues to be dismissed as “inconvenient,” even by those who espouse to be conservatives.

Even if the Constitution needs a foreign policy fix, then let’s amend it according to Article V.

It seems to me that Ron Paul is the only one who is following the advice of our Founding Fathers on this issue but don’t ask yourself if Ron Paul is wrong. Ask yourself if you think Washington, Adams and Jefferson are wrong. Ask yourself if you think the Constitution is wrong.

An Afterthought: Cutting Defense Spending IS NOT THE SAME AS Cutting Defense
One of the biggest arguments I get for why we need our military everywhere is that the world is just so globalized we have to pretty much be all over the place. Really? Have you seen the Air Force Reserve commercials lately? They go something like this,
    
“Hi, my name is Mary Smith and last weekend I flew a reconnaissance mission over Afghanistan… I’m a hair stylist the rest of the month but thanks to the Air Force, I can take pictures and drop bombs without ever leaving Las Vegas!”

Our own military recruiting commercials are testifying every day on national television that we do not need to be half the places we are actually sending people and even for those places that we are sending troops there is still plenty of pork to cut from defense. For example, when I left active duty in 2003, the Marine Corps was in the process of phasing out most of the cooks and base security and replacing them with civilian contractors. So here is what it looks like to you, the tax payer: an 18-year-old Marine volunteered to cook for $800 a month but we are firing him and replacing him with a civilian contractor to cook for five times that amount. Sounds like a good idea. They are doing the same thing with base security overseas. Does anybody really think it is a good idea to spend more money just so we can use the local people to protect us from the local people when our troops are overseas? We can cut defense spending by cutting this nonsense out of the budget.

Here is a plan to cut defense spending and increase preparedness for our military: Let’s start bringing our troops home from overseas bases and put them on the borders to the North and the South so they can train for every climate and terrain while at the same time deploying security patrols to stop the illegal immigration problem as well as the problems we are having with human trafficking etc… We wouldn’t need to spend the money on a fence; we wouldn’t need to hire overseas contractors, and our troops would still be the best trained in the world.

How do you feel about the $1.2 TRILLION debt we are in to cover the cost of wars that Congress didn’t even declare? It is hard to make the argument that we are against unconstitutional spending – unless it’s for an unconstitutional war. 

After reading Congressman Paul's articles and books and hearing him speak, I can say with confidence that his general message is simply to adhere to the Consitution and the advice of the Founders. If we did, maybe we could get a handle on security at a fraction of the cost of what we’re spending now. 

I was asked to speak at an event to address a group of veterans to honor their service to our country, I did not know until later that I was asked to speak only because their first speaker had health issues that prevented him from attending. After I finished my talk and shook a few hands I found out just who I had “replaced.” The man that was supposed to address the veterans was an 87 year old veteran himself but he had just suffered a stroke and was now doing his best to recover in the care of a nursing home. He served as a U.S. Marine in the Pacific during World War II and fought his way through battle after bloody battle.  This Marine veteran fought his way to the top of Mt. Suribachi and was one of the few who had a first hand account of the flag raising on Iwo Jima. Amazing, the most copied, distributed and viewed photograph in the world was the flag raising on Iwo Jima and this man was part of the battle to bring the flag to the top of the mountain. Believe me, I would have much rather had the honor of listening to him that night. I was immediately overwhelmed; it was humbling to say the least.

This man is not just special because of where he fought; he is special because of why he fought. The American veteran is not just special but also extremely unique. They are the first in the history of the world to do something that until 1775, the rest of the world could have only dreamed of.  Throughout world history, armies have come and gone and it doesn’t matter if they were rebelling slaves in ancient Rome or the feared elite Spartan warriors from ancient Sparta- none of them hold a candle anywhere near the American veteran. What sets the American veteran apart has nothing to do with the uniform they wore, the gear they packed or the ammunition they used. It has everything to do why they fought.

Prior to 1775, men were called into battle for many different reasons but mostly at the pleasure of their king or something similar, but in 1776 a revolution of ideas took place and for the first time in the history of the world,  men would take up arms for the security of their liberty and the liberty of their neighbors. They would fight because they believed that all men are created equal and that they are endowed with God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and that governments and militaries are in place to protect our liberty.  They took this belief, their gun and our flag into battle and they fought for us.  Lord G.K. Chesterton once wrote that the definition of courage involves a contradiction in terms; he said that courage is having a desire to live that is so unbelievably strong that a person is actually willing to die fighting for life. I read this and thought about how appropriate this definition is as to why we celebrate and honor our veterans on Veterans Day; because as Americans, we understand and we remember that we have men and women who’s desire to keep us free is so unbelievably strong that they are willing to die for that freedom. This is why the American veteran is special. This is why every single one of them deserves our respect and our admiration and just a simple thank you to them is quite literally the very least we can do to show our appreciation.

Please take every opportunity you can to thank veterans for their service. There will come a time in the not too distant future when we will not be able to thank them anymore. That Marine who fought his way up Mt. Suribachi and witnessed the flag raising will not be with us forever, in fact, it won’t be long now until no one will ever be able to thank him again.  They are all special and they are all unique. When we consider the blessings that God has poured out on our nation, we would be missing the most spectacular blessing of all to not realize that someone would be willing to lay down their life for our freedom. The only word I can honestly think of to describe someone like this is amazing, God bless them all. 

NEWS FLASH:Bad policy can come from BOTH sides of the isle.  It isn’t a PARTY issue; it’s a PRINCIPLE issue.
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What makes someone vote YES on a bill they don’t like?
After seeing so many good people vote in favor of horrendous bills (both Democrats and Republicans in state and federal government) I decided to start asking why they were voting for them. Recently I approached some politicians on an economic development bill that, in my mind, was very unfair to small businesses and would have implemented a terrible tax policy geared toward incentivizing big business over small businesses and competitors, all at the expense of the taxpayer. I was also concerned by the new bureaucracy that would have been created and been given the ability to acquire new debt backed by the taxpayers. The bill was being pushed as a “jobs” bill, which by itself is a bribe only because no one wants to vote against “jobs.”

I asked some of the office holders what they thought about the bill and after they told me they were in favor of it I asked them why. The answers I received from many of them were disappointingly shallow: “Well, something HAS to be done.” Or, “Well, I’m against some of these unfair economic policies and debt but I have to vote for it.” Even after I tried to inform some “conservatives” that the bill would drastically grow the size of government at an expense that we cannot fully predict, I still heard things like, “There is a whole lot I don’t like about this bill but there are a couple good things so I’m going to vote for it.”

A couple years ago I spoke with a US Congressman who voted in favor a defense-spending bill. The problem with this particular bill is that the so-called “hate-crime” amendment was attached to it. I don’t believe that any crime is more or less heinous based on what motivates it, a crime is a crime period, otherwise there is no equality under the law. Murder and rape should not be worse because the victim fit a certain demographic. If we say it is more evil to murder a black or white person than it would be murder a Latino or Asian person then there is no equality under the law and what we are really doing is dehumanizing certain groups of people. I asked the Congressman why he voted for the bill if it promoted such inequality of the law and the answer was that he didn’t want to vote for it but he had to in order to fund the troops. What sense does it make to fund our troops who fight for our freedoms and at the same time erase the equal protection of those freedoms? He basically told me he understands my point and would have voted NO on that principle except a NO vote would have looked bad. The troops would have been funded even if this bill had failed because of this amendment; the funding bill would have just been reintroduced. 

These experiences have caused me to wonder, where does a person draw the line on how they vote? At what point does the cost of a bill outweigh any benefit that it might have? How much liberty are we willing to foreclose on for the sake of what might seem to be a more noble cause? When we are told that a bill has a lot of good but a lot of bad in it, do we vote for it so we can claim the good only? I don’t believe it works that way. If we vote for a bill that has some poison in it only because we want to claim ownership of the good part, we must also accept that we are responsible for the poison too.

For example, if you are hungry, you may go to a restaurant and order a hamburger that comes with french-fries. Although you may not want the fries, the waitress tells you that they are included in the price of the meal, you reluctantly nod your head and accept the fries but only because you want the hamburger. This is a good description of an acceptable compromise. Although you would rather had some other side, you accepted the fries since they came with your hamburger. You would much rather have had some other side dish to satisfy your hunger but the fries will still do that if you choose to eat them but it really comes down to preference in this particular case. This illustrates how it looks when someone might vote for a bill that has a “side” that we may not prefer but really can’t be called bad. If it doesn’t violate the proper role of government or the Constitution but still satisfies a particular statutory need, you may vote for the larger bill that it is attached to although you would prefer a different “side.”  For example, if you ask a legislator why he voted for such a bill you might hear him say, “I don’t necessarily like lowering the speed limit on certain dangerous state highways, but it is in our jurisdiction to do so and it is a smaller part of a bill we need to pass in order to rebuild some damaged bridges across the Missouri River so I will vote for it.”

Now lets say that you order a hamburger off the menu and you are told that it comes with a little e-coli. Do you still order it? Do you use the argument that so many in government use to vote in favor of bad bills and just say, “Well, I don’t like e-coli but it is only a little and I need to eat lunch so OK, I’ll take it.” I seriously doubt you would and I think it is safe to say that if anyone used that explanation to feed your child a hamburger with any amount of e-coli, you would sue them for negligence in the care of your child. Why then do we use that explanation to destroy our liberty? Isn’t this what we are hearing when a politician says, “Well, I know that this bill will send us deeper into debt,  grow the size of government or infringe on our freedoms but we need to do something.”

A lesson I learned as an infantry squad leader in the Marine Corps, is that it can be fine to compromise, if you must, in order to accomplish the mission but if your compromise in any way defeats the purpose your mission, then you are the enemy's new best friend. The proper role of government is to protect people’s liberty. If we vote for compromises that in turn destroy liberty and further enslave us to more debt then it is safe to say that we have become our own enemy. Bottom line: when you compromise the principle, you are NOT compromising, you are surrendering.

This isn't about Barack Obama, he just happens to have given a great illistration of what is generally wrong the culture of American Politics.

At a recent fundraiser in San Francisco, President Barack Obama made the statement:
“We [America] have lost our ambition, our imagination, and our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge…” He then went on to say:
 “I mean, there are a lot of things we can do…the way I think about it is, you know, this is a great great country that had gotten a little soft and, you know, we didn’t have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades. We need to get back on track.”


The key to strong ambition and imagination belongs to a simple concept called liberty and that the less liberty people have the less ambition and imagination they will also have? The Golden Gate Bridge was built in an era that held both economic and personal liberty close to the people.  For example, the people that built the Golden Gate Bridge did not have the extra financial burden of complying with unconstitutional federal mandates such as being forced into private contracts to purchase health insurance. They also didn’t have enormous bureaucracies such as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) there to fine them for using extension cords to plug in their water coolers. This list could go on and on but I’ll just stop there because I think I made my point.

I find it somewhat ironic that the same administration that is telling the American people that we have lost our competitive edge and our ambition is the same administration that told Gibson Guitar to export their labor to Madagascar. No, this wasn’t the demand of some super villain from a spy novel; the current administration actually told Gibson Guitar that they should export their labor out of the country. If you ask me, we have an administration that is exporting our ambition, our imagination and is forcefully closing the door on any competitive edge we still have. This isn't unique to the current administration, this is a problem that has persisted for years.

How can the president criticize our “lack” of ambition when he is the one bailing everybody out? How does it help to foster ambition when you are constantly applying policies that foster a cradle to grave nanny-state? Recently the president announced his plan to help “ease” the debt on a number of borrowers but isn’t the responsibility of paying back that money what provokes ambition and possibly imagination? When people don’t apply for a job because they know they will make more money off the unemployment check they have been getting, why is the president surprised that people are losing ambition?

“We have lost our willingness to do the things that built the Golden Gate Bridge”. 
I find it hard to believe this was said by the same president who ended the space program as we know it and has done all but shut down NASA even to the point of putting thousands of NASA employees out of work.

And what’s with this “We have gotten soft” talk? If I remember correctly, one of the first things the president did after getting elected was travel around the world and apologize to everyone on behalf of America for our “arrogance” (I guess the same arrogance that liberated Europe twice).

Political parties aside, understand that my hope that President Obama doesn’t get re-elected doesn’t hinge on the fact that he is a Democrat, it hinges on the fact that he doesn’t understand the basic concepts of liberty and economic growth and that he has absolutely refused to follow the Constitution at every turn.

I would like to further point out that the President of the United States is the most public figure in America and provides the best example of the point that I am making here:
You can't have have a prosperous economy when your leadership doesn't understand the most basic principles of economic freedom, and raiding a guitar factory and shutting them down with out even charging them for any crime isn't the way to promote production and job growth, it is also a direct violation of the US Constitution as it deprives the parties involved of due process. I could not care less if someone has democrat or a republican next to their name (as I point out in the article), when the administration says one thing but then acts contrary to their message and violates the Constitution to do it, I have a problem with that.This isn't about Barack Obama, it is about  foolishness that stretches across party lines and makes both Republicans and Democrats responsible for the many of the problems face our nation today. For example: GW Bush- "I have to abandon the free market principles in order to save the free market" = your tax $ going to bail out big banks on wall street. I don't know what you think but I'm not a fan of increasing the national debt based on, among other things, that kind of illogical nonsense.

For pledging healthcare and hundreds of millions of mine and my fellow Americans tax dollars to the Libyan rebels - we don't need our money. Our roads and bridges are in great shape, the border is secure, our schools produce the most educated people the world has ever seen and everyone has a job!!! You are a benevolent genius. Although many tax paying Americans might argue that we shouldn't spend money on militant Islamic regimes determined to establish a constitution based on Sharia law, I would say it might not really be that big of a concern, after all, we have a constitution and we don't use it so maybe they won't use theirs either. For a minute, I began to think that maybe we should use that money to lower taxes, meet social security obligations to those who have paid into the system or at least pay off some debt but then I totally snapped out it when I remembered my moral obligation to redistribute the fruit of our labor to people who want to kill me - what was I thinking?!?! LOL (please read sarcastically)