Consistently rejecting any thought of a tax hike, McDonnell asserts that new taxes “will injure our economy, slow the recovery and cost us jobs.” Instead, his approach to fixing the state’s fiscal fiasco has been simple: Cut spending. The result? The state’s $4.2 billion shortfall is now an $87 million surplus. Hmm, so cutting spending and refusing to raise taxes leads to economic recovery. What a novel idea.

patriotpost.us

This agency is the latest in the series of unconstitutional power grabs that Democrats have grown accustomed to since Barack Obama became president. It violates American citizens’ Fourth Amendment guarantee of security in their “persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures” and its imprecise language leaves plenty of room for expanding the agency’s activities without congressional approval. The type of information access that Democrats seek would not have enabled them to prevent the financial meltdown of 2008, but it would allow bureaucrats who work for this agency the opportunity to share their privileged information with the private sector one year after leaving the agency. So, ironically, the Office of Financial Research simply presents our bloated government even more opportunity for further corruption and mismanagement of the economy.

In other financial “reform” news, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), the architect of the legislation, has agreed to drop the $50 billion bailout fund in an effort to get Republicans onboard. While Dodd is making concessions, though, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) is making accusations, claiming that Republicans are stalling because “they are having difficulty determining how they’re going to continue making love to Wall Street” if the bill passes. You’re a class act, Harry.

Taken from patriotpost.us

There are only two rules you need to know when debating a liberal.

Rule Number One: You must define the debate in terms of First Principles, which is to say, you must be able to articulate those principles. (Read Essential Liberty for more.)

Conservatives subscribe to the fundamental doctrine of Essential Liberty as enumerated by our Founders in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. We understand that individual responsibility is the foundation of a free society. We advocate for the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary. We promote free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values.

In short, conservatives endeavor to conserve Rule of Law as our guiding principle, and any legitimate policy debate must start there.

Liberals, on the other hand, subscribe to principles du jour; whatever solution feels best for the day’s most popular, fashionable, or prominent cause célèbre.

In short, they believe that the feel-good solution (a.k.a. “rule of man”) supersedes Rule of Law.

For the most part, today’s liberals are a case study in hypocrisy, the antithesis of the once noble Democrat Party, the party of Thomas Jefferson.

Liberals speak of unity, but they incessantly foment disunity, appealing to the worst in human nature by dividing Americans into constituent dependencies. They speak of freedom of thought — except when your thought doesn’t comport with theirs. They assert First Amendment rights — except when it comes to religion or speech that doesn’t agree with theirs. They promote tolerance — except while practicing intolerance and seeking to silence dissenters.

Liberals deride moral clarity because they can’t survive its scrutiny. They protest for the preservation of natural order while advocating homosexuality. They denounce capital punishment for the most heinous of criminals while ardently supporting the killing of the most helpless and innocent among us — the unborn, the infirm and the aged.

Liberals loathe individual responsibility and advocate statism. They eschew private initiative and enterprise while promoting all manner of government control and regulation.

Now, I’m not suggesting that everything liberals believe or support is wrong, but their underlying philosophical doctrine surely undermines our “unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” as established by “the laws of nature and nature’s God.”

As Ronald Reagan observed, “The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

Thus, don’t be snookered into defending or denouncing the merits of any issue as framed in liberal terms. Such deliberations are rarely resolved and tend to end in gridlock, or worse, deadlock. (If congressional Republicans really want to end gridlock, they too need to control the debate in terms of First Principles.)

One means of taking control of a debate is to inquire whether an opponent has ever taken an oath to “support and defend” our Constitution.

If your opponent answers “yes,” then inquire as to which constitution — the one upon which our nation was founded, or the so-called “living constitution” adulterated by generations of legislative and judicial diktat.

Of course, you must be prepared to explain the difference — to explain that only one of these constitutions exists in written form, while the other is a mere fabrication.

Another means of framing the debate is to ask your opponent to articulate the difference between constitutional Rule of Law and the rule of men. Again, you must be prepared to explain the difference.

You may also start by asking your opponent what “liberal” means. Most liberals will define “liberal” in terms of the issues they support, so ask your opponent if those issues comport with our Constitution.

Once you’ve framed the debate in terms of First Principles, give your liberal opponent a recess, and a copy of the Constitution.

Principled liberals (admittedly an oxymoron) will remain satisfied that what they feel is equivalent to, or even supersedes, Rule of Law. These poor souls are on their way to becoming über liberals, or Leftists, and are probably beyond any logical redemption.

Alas, selective interpretation of our Constitution has expanded its meaning beyond any semblance of its original intent, and it will take time and discipline to contract its meaning through due process to restore its original intent.

Finally…

Rule Number Two: You must distinguish between liberals and Leftists. The former subscribe to a plethora of contemporaneous solutions, while the latter are bona fide “useful idiots,” those Western apologists for socialist political and economic agendas that terminate with the institution of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist collectivism masquerading as regulation and taxation.

When it comes to debating Leftists, the outcome is utterly dependent on who has superior firepower.

source: The Patriot Post (www.patriotpost.us/subscribe/

It is amazing how the same people who called the “Nuclear Option” an “end of democracy” are now trying to push through unconstitutional mandatory health insurance by using the same “Nuclear Option”.

History has not been kind to the group’s delusion, however. In recent decades, the severity of gun control laws has been diminished at the federal, state and local levels, the number of guns has increased by over four million a year on average, and today, the nation’s murder and total violent crime rates are at 45-year and 35-year lows, respectively.

If you’re a gun control group, this isn’t the kind of thing you want to put in your press releases to the Washington Post, of course. So, every year the Brady Campaign instead runs a little gimmick where it assigns arbitrary school-grade values to whatever gun control laws the group happens to be pushing at the moment.  And since most states don’t have the laws Brady advocates, Brady gives most states very low grades. Naturally, gun control supporters plaster Brady’s school-grade nonsense on the pages of newspapers around the country, hoping people will take it seriously.

source: www.nraila.org/GrassrootsAlerts/