One of the most striking impressions I gained while serving as a state representative was that Party, not State, not Country, was placed in a position of much higher importance than anything else. Even campaign donations (read bribes) took a subordinate position. One member of my caucus stated his primary purpose for being in office. “I want to #@!! them,” he said. He meant the Democrats. It did not matter if the legislation had any merit, not even if it saved the taxpayers money. Beating the enemy was all. This attitude also ran rampant throughout the other side of the aisle. Four of my bills were taken from me and given to the Democrat leadership because I was a member of the minority party and my bills were viewed as a violation of a cardinal rule: a freshman legislator shall not propose legislation good enough to pass, especially if it is better than their leaderships’ bills.

Many questions have been asked why our government seems so inadequate in solving our ongoing problems. The simple answer is that the parties are too busy fighting each other to actually accomplish anything. Compounding that is the fact that they also don’t want to upset any of the big money people who typically donate to their campaigns, even if it is the right thing to do.

I have always believed that if an elected official becomes aware of a wrong being perpetrated, that official should take steps to stop it. I did so when I was approached by a group of casino employees upset over their tips being stolen from them by the casino owner. In researching this I found a state law that forbids the taking of tips. My own party attacked me over this, claiming I was violating the “free market”. The fact that a law was being broken was beside the point. In reality, the party in Nevada is owned by the gaming industry and they were told to remove an irritant.

Anyone who has ever watched the TV series The West Wing is familiar with the character Wesley. That character, throughout the series, consistently argues against allowing the Republicans to win anything, even if that win benefits the country. The unfortunate truth is that that attitude prevails in American politics. Elected officials are Democrats, not Americans; Republicans, not Americans; and it doesn’t end there.

Ever hear of Affirmative Action? It is a nasty piece of legislation that legitimizes discrimination because someone’s ancestor may have been discriminated against by someone in the past. In essence it is Washington saying that in this case, two wrongs do make a right. What it has actually done is keep the division going. In the US we do not have Americans in a variety of colors, we have African Americans, Mexican Americans, and so on…We are so busy creating and maintaining socio-political walls to divide our populace that we have become antagonistic toward those who try to scale the wall.

Like our government, our education system is in rapid decline not simply because we refuse to pay for the tools to do the job properly, but because we have surrendered to the politically correct forces who insist on maintaining the walls. The school board in my area has members who actively fight against those methods proven to work in the classroom because those methods are not politically popular with their party leadership.

The Democrat Party will not support anything that upsets the fanatic left. As a result, the party of John F. Kennedy seems to support international terrorism, the killing of healthy, living babies via partial birth abortion, the granting of amnesty to the vilest of serial killers, the removal of personal responsibility, the removal of any right that promotes self-reliance, the destruction of heterosexual marriage and the core family unit, the elimination of Israel as a state, and the dissolution of America as a sovereign nation.

The Republican Party, the party of Lincoln and Reagan has metastasized into a party that openly supports massive corporate theft, human trafficking, the resurgence of plantation style slavery, the elimination of small business and the destruction of public education.

Either way we lose, simply because the American voter no longer cares about who runs their party.

Over the past few weeks a number of letters to the editor and several articles have appeared in my local papers about the ongoing disarray within the GOP ranks. Some writers have called for the firing of the state party chair and others continue to nibble away at the makeup of the rank and file like flesh-eating bacteria…but to compare those people to bacteria is to insult the germ.

While recovering in the hospital last week, I was visited by Ellen and Bill Spiegel. She is the new State Assemblywoman for my district, taking my place. She and her husband also happen to be Democrats, he more than she. I am still registered Republican, but I have often wondered aloud in conversation with Bill as to whether or not I should change my registration. The party has changed and not at all for the better.

Bill told me in no uncertain terms that I should not register Democrat. He is a consistent reader of this blog and in his opinion I am a dyed-in-the-wool Republican. It is his feeling that I would feel even more out of place in the Democrat ranks than in the GOP. Why is that? What is a Republican?

It used to be that to be a member of the party; one had to share certain common beliefs with the other members. Some of those beliefs were in the reality and rock solid foundation of our constitution. The constitution and not the casual interpretation of it by activist judges was the law of the land. To be a Republican you had to stand for freedom and civil rights, and for those rights to be available for all…equally. One group could not have additional rights or freedoms above another, period and regardless of politics.

You had to be in favor of allowing the market to do its job without governmental encumbrance. A business failed or succeeded on its merits, not because it was a better thief than the others. Understanding that the free exercise of religion was a paramount item in the formation of this country was also very important. How that religion was practiced was not so important, just the freedom to do so…and it did not matter where you did so, regardless of who became upset over your praying.

For myself, I believe that being a Republican means being honest, forthright, compassionate and pragmatic. Simply because someone has more than someone else does not mean they are a better person or have more rights and privileges within our society than anyone else. We are supposed to be a nation of law, not of lawyers. As for the free market, it is meant to be survival of the fittest, not survival of the fattest.  The government has no place in commerce outside of general regulation to keep everyone honest. Anything beyond that is a direct violation of our constitution.

Tammy Bruce opined the other day that a lot of people in Washington deserve to be behind bars. I tend to agree with her. She only mentioned Democrats, but I say that the crimes are bipartisan and we have more than enough villains in both parties to go around. Money has become the chief arbiter of power and legislation these days and today’s Republican Party cannot abide an honest man. I may not fit in the Democrat niche, but it is certainly no picnic here in the GOP closet either.

A Memorial to Common Sense:

Common Sense died this year in a tragic mishap. Common’s best friends, Responsibility, Morality, Ethics and Virtue seemed to have also been victim’s of the tragedy. Civil Rights, a close associate of Common Sense is currently in the ICU; the prognosis is not good.

An obituary such as this may seem cynically comical, but in actuality, it is not. Consider the current climate in Washington. Many think the election of Barrack Obama to the Presidency signifies a new era in American government. They see the elimination of poverty, sickness and corporate greed. Somehow, simply putting a black man into the seat of power solves all our problems. The Arabs will no longer hate the Jews. Slavery and oppression will cease to exist and every child will have what they desire waiting for them under the tree on Christmas morning. To many, Obama is not merely the President-elect, he is the Messiah.

The Democrat landslide that swept through this year’s electoral cycle removed even the pretense of bipartisanship that existed last year. Current stories in the press about Nancy Pelosi’s recent moves as Speaker give a good indication of what will be coming our way after the 2009 inauguration.

As a junior Senator, Barrack Obama had the most consistently liberal voting record in American history. Even Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi could not bring themselves to support some of the radical causes championed by their soon to be new boss. Partial birth abortion, friendship with terrorist organizations such as Hamas and Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam, and the elimination of the Second Amendment, all have a place at Obama’s table. His proposed tax policies will not create the universal wealth he claims, but drive the current recession we are now experiencing into a full blown depression.

There was a time in recent history where the state of New Jersey was one of the least taxed states in the nation. At that same time it was one of the few states where the Governor had the unique pleasure of dealing with an ongoing budget surplus. The New Jersey legislature, in an attempt to assuage certain special interests, decided to raise taxes on business. Surprisingly, to some, revenues went down, not up. The legislature was unable to learn from history, no surprise there, and raised taxes. Revenues fell a bit more and now New Jersey, rather than being one of the most prosperous states, is one of the least. They function in a state of continuous deficit.

There are some who think all our problems would be solved if the situation were reversed and the GOP held the reins of power. The problem with that sort of thinking is that we have already experienced that scenario and the end result was, after a brief economic expansion, a long steady slide into laissez-faire greed and corruption that culminated in the great depression of the early 1900’s. Now it appears that we are repeating history.

Common Sense would dictate that if doing things one way results in failure, then it would be wise to try something else…possibly in the opposite direction. Two problems with that sort of thinking are, one; it means admitting you were wrong, and two; being able to work outside of your own self interest.

It is not surprising after the solid butt-whipping the Republican Party received at the hands of the Democrats in last week’s election that a number of stories about party disarray have surfaced. Some of them are bitter-edged recriminations that blame the voters for their lack of trust. Some, like what I have written, hold a tinge of gloat because the neocons who stole the party got what they so richly deserved. As a Republican Assemblyman who was recently defeated by the rigorous efforts of the Republican leadership, I have a personal interest in those stories. My contention is that while there may be some party disarray, this really is the end result of a concerted effort on the part of the leadership to purge the Republican Party of any and all moderation.

I lost my primary in August to a candidate (John Ozark) who did not even live in my district until shortly before primary voting ended. The “ideologues” in my own party wanted me out of this seat badly enough to ask as many as eight people to run against me. Last winter, I received a call from Heidi Gansert, the Nevada Assembly Minority Leader, asking me to step down in favor of Bob Seale, the man who held my seat before me, and I refused. Not one of the eight, including Seale, agreed to run, until they found Ozark, a candidate who has been trying to get into the Assembly through “district hopping” for the past 4 years at least. When Ozark agreed to run, the campaign of lies and deception started. The overblown yellow journalism that George Harris (publisher of Liberty Watch), Chuck Muth (a political blogger and not a Republican) and Ed Vogel( a Las Vegas Review-Journal stringer) cooked up about my forgetting to turn off the contribution page on my website during the special session this summer is a prime example. The story did not once mention all of the other Republican Assemblymen and Senators who, in the intense confusion of a special session being on, then off and then on again, also forgot to turn off their own websites. That incident, along with many other lies and half-truths, was used as a direct attack during and after the primary as a purging effort and to ensure that only the “ideologues’” mouthpiece was elected. The level of hypocrisy shown by these people is staggering. They complain about “ethical challenges,” but a check on the financial disclosures of John Ozark will show an interesting disparity in what he declared and what was spent. Just how much does it take to send out over a dozen high-end mailers in a primary? These “ideologues” ignored their own polls that showed that I had the highest fiscally conservative voting record in the Assembly, choosing instead to back a totally untried candidate, agreeable to anything they said and willing to be led about by the nose, as long as he got to play Assemblyman. But as history now shows, this strategy backfired terribly for them, causing the loss of a Republican seat and a Democrat supermajority in the Assembly.

There are similarities between a number of races race and mine. Many moderate representatives are honest and interested in representing all of their constituents, not just the “pure” Republicans. The problem is, the leadership may not be as ethical or as interested in representation. The GOP Nevada State Party Chairwoman, Sue Lowden said this about me, “He is too honest, we can’t trust him.” And if you go back and check the campaign literature, the Democrat attacks regarding these representatives were along the same lines. They never questioned the candidate’s honesty, but merely claimed he or she couldn’t be trusted. Isn’t it interesting that the GOP leadership never came to any of these folk’s defense? I believe it is because they are statesman, not politicians and where the GOP stands right now, statesmen need not apply.

Because of all of this “cannibalism,” I chose to support Ellen Spiegel, the Democrat Assemblywoman-elect in District 21. This is not because she isn’t a Republican, but because she was the only ethical candidate. Ellen will represent all the citizens in District 21, and not just those who reflect “party purity.” Now Harris, Muth and the assorted members of their cabal blame me for the Nevada Assembly’s Democrat super majority. Perhaps they should look into a mirror to fix blame.

Nevada Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley should send them a large, expensive fruit basket as a thank you for their efforts in the Democrat majority’s victory.

Even though the term ‘civil rights’ is disproportionatly linked to the struggle for equality of American blacks during the mid twentith century, the term does in fact cover much broader ground. The aim of that struggle was on its surface to cement equal protections under the law; to receive equal treatment regardless of one’s skin tone.

Civil rights are the basic legal rights an individual receives from the government. In the US those rights include personal, political, and economic rights. They are supposed to be the rights of citizens. Later discussions will cover the extreme broadening that some groups desire. Since the civil rights act of the early 90’s those rights cannot be legitimately denied to a person on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, national origin, or disability.

Martin Luthor King established what should be common ground where discrimination is concerned. But there is a broad gap in the debate over how far and how deep these principles should be implemented in law and policy.

Adding to the confusion, sub groups such as GLAD are fighting to include sexual orientation as one of the catagories covered under the law.

In 1215, the Magna Carta required King John to establish the first set of citizen rights. It forced the gentry to respect certain legal procedures and, this is the big one, accept that the king’s will could be bound by the law. It was also the first formalization of the writ of habeas corpus, forcing the gentry to prove a reason for the imprisonment of their subjects.

Our constitution owes much of its creation to the Magna Carta. The great document also established that a man’s home was essentially his castle. Regardless of the position of the guest, even in the lowliest cottage, the host had prominence. Now, due to the pressures of the ultra liberal left, with complete and willing assistence from the media and Congress, the constitution is in danger of becoming little more than a moot point, and one of the biggest weapons being used is the twisted maze of tax law.

The Democrats do not want the average working man or woman to be able to control any of the money they earn. To them, government knows far better how to handle your life and you should rely soley on Father Washington for your needs. On the Republican side Father Washington is replaced by the corporate board, and you should be happy to simply have a job and be a good little worker drone because Big Business knows best, and if a prisoner in China can do your job for less money…too bad, and if you complain about either circumstance, wait for the IRS letter.

The second paragraph of the Declaration of Indepence reads:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

The preamble of the constitution says:

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

Men who have dared to read either document in certain US Courts, and sadly, within certain halls of Congress, have been declared in contempt.

Somewhere, King John is laughing.

OK! magazine, the sychophantic journal of Jan Whiner (misspelling intentional) is claiming to be putting an evenhanded choice before the voters. Here is the text from the magazine's site:

"On one cover is an exclusive look into the everyday family life of Democratic Party nominee, Senator Barack Obama, his wife Michelle Obama and their two adorable daughters, Malia and Sasha. "

Notice the word ADORABLE and the phrase EVERYDAY FAMILY LIFE where Obama is concerned.

"OK!'s other cover this week is dedicated to Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the 44-year-old Alaskan governer who first surprised the world when she was announced as Senator John McCain's running mate for the November election, only to shock everyone again days later when she announced the pregnancy and impending marriage of her 17-year-old daughter Bristol."

Notice the change in tone here. No hint of scandal in the Obama article but nothing but that when the focus shifts to the opposition. The site finishes the blurb with a bubbly sentence saying it is now the readers turn to decide. Decide, oh yes, but is a fair representation being offered? OK! is in essence asking its readers to decide between a lucious family meal or a suspicious hunk of rotting chicken. And did anyone notice the missing candidates here?

Unless I missed something, isn't McCain running against Obama? As far as I know, no vice presidential candidate has ever debated a presidential candidate, but that is how the left views this race. McCain, to them is not the danger, Palin is. McCain has enough baggage, not as much as either Democrat candidate, but enough to formulate an attack. Palin, on the other hand has a record an eagle scout would envy. Even Dr. Phil, the left's councilor of choice has come to her defense. No, this woman is the real threat.

Consider what Whiner and the others are facing here. Never in this nations history has one of the parties ever made it past three administrations. FDR is considered to be just one long administration. If McCain had played fair and picked a real loser, things would be all right, but what did he do? He picked a woman, notice the Dems are running two men, who not only looks good, speaks good, has experience, and the unfairest of all, is actually good...not just another politician, like Hillary.

So what does OK! do? They polish the tone and slant the view...and do it slickly. You just can't teach instints like that.