Between 1988 and 1991 I had to go to D.C. about six times a year to deal with a contract we had with AmTrak, and I can't think of a another place in this country more antithetical to the traditional idea of America than Washington D.C. -- it's a gross misrepresentation of our country. What D.C. represents is what's wrong with our country -- statism. All of the muscle-bound architecture is an affront to innovation, individual liberty and the creative spirit of the free market. All the arrogant waste is a sign of our past apathy and ignorance. All the dire poverty, blocks from the opulence of power, is representative of our dependence.

The restaurants/bars full of political players speaking loudly and drunkenly represent a country on a binge, spending money and creating a mess we'll pass on to our children and grandchildren to pay for and clean up, or wallow in as they spiral further downwards in collapse, taught by their parents only how to party and spend. One day, though, a future generation will look back and wonder in disgusted amazement how we could make heroes of men like Edward Kennedy while denigrating the heartland as rubes and racists, undeserving of a voice in governance.

Washington D.C., with its New York financial connection and Hollywood/media image connection, is a cancer spreading through the body of America, and now the body is beginning to fight back. The heartland of America is fighting back against an arrogant state which thinks it can control a country born in individual liberty and individual rights. Washington D.C power players look across America and see a collective to be manipulated into power bases of dependent voters -- what they miss is the diversity and the awakening. The power players have no idea how vulnerable they are against the people of this country, once the people wake up and act.

Sarah Palin understands the power of ordinary people, the diversity which makes up America, and the arrogance of paternalism. Because Sarah Palin is an individual not made in Washington D.C. and not approved by the D.C. power players, she must be destroyed. It has nothing to do with the individual -- Sarah Palin -- it has to do with the image -- Sarah Palin -- that the power players perceive as dangerous. Any one of these power players who met Sarah Palin at some social event, if Palin was not the image she is now, would have no problem with her and would no doubt like her or be indifferent to her -- but they'd have no reason to hate her.

The D.C. power players hate what Sarah Palin represents -- a diverse public outside D.C. fighting against state power. The power players will hate anyone who rises above the perceived collective -- Beck, Limbaugh, Levin, Hannity, Coulter, etc. The only reason all these people are on the right is that no liberal has risen from outside, or inside, the D.C. statist culture to become a popular voice against statism -- but make no mistake, the first liberal who rises up and becomes a popular voice of resistance, will be destroyed. Statism and power are what the Washington D.C. political class is protecting, and anyone from the "collective" across America who rises to challenge statism will be attacked.

Sarah Palin's appeal is that she empowers ordinary people against a powerful, over-reaching and impersonal state. This, the political class can't have.

When we gave government the ability to tax income with no limits, we cleared the way for our downfall. At one time, the government was limited regarding the amount of taxes it could collect, and this limited government's power, but now they can spend until we're no longer able to borrow or print anymore money, but before we get to that point government will increase taxes as a way to show our lenders we're good for the money. Government generates revenue by taking our money, and as long as we have money they can take, they will borrow, print and spend.

I'm saving the links to articles written by moderate statist Republicans who are calling for cooperation regarding the healthcare reform efforts in congress which are championed and led by the Obama administration. These moderates believe that Republicans should be assisting to craft healthcare legislation rather than simply resisting the current bills.

When this monstrosity of healthcare reform reveals its true cost, I'm going to go back to the articles written by these moderates to compare what they are saying then with what they are saying now. Nothing the Republicans propose now as a means to compromise, even if it's accepted, will have any effect on the outcome of healthcare reform being pushed through by the Democrats. The small compromises/amendments being proposed are low leverage, and they address symptomatic problems with symptomatic solutions.

The moderate statists are eager to join the healthcare reform effort out of fear of being seen as obstacles to change -- they will accept a certain amount of statism -- government control of healthcare -- if they can get a few low leverage amendments through which show that they are helping the reform cause. The progressive healthcare reform movement is about government control of healthcare and everything healthcare touches, which includes capitalism, lifestyles and individual liberty. The free market will have no influence on healthcare, regardless of which low leverage amendments are accepted. 

Ostensibly free citizens will be required to buy healthcare insurance against their wills. It won't matter if everyone is given an option of which policy they buy, all policies will be regulated by government. Government will regulate healthcare insurance, healthcare delivery and the healthcare choices of each individual. When costs explode, and are revealed, after ten to fifteen years, America will be in a financial meltdown like we've never experienced. Goodbye, dear billion, we barely knew you -- welcome trillion! Trillions in debt, we'll have no way to pay for it all. The government will raise taxes as much as they can without killing the goose laying golden eggs. Capitalism will be a memory. Finally, the government will have tamed the free market, and politicians will be in full control of the economy.

Every failure of healthcare reform will be blamed on private players who are not cooperating, so regulations will have to increase so that social engineers have the power to make this plan work. When costs explode, our lifestyle choices will be severely limited, as will be our access to healthcare. Everything than can be taxed, will be taxed -- we'll be nudged into government compliance -- and if nudging doesn't work, we'll be slammed into compliance. The healthcare reform plan will work, no matter what the government has to do to make it work -- the government will not admit defeat and go back to free market solutions. Defeat would be fatal to our present statist government. Success of healthcare reform will destroy what's left of the free market.

The only hope we have is that the coming elections change the makeup of government so that representatives work hard to dismantle what the progressives are now putting in place, but this is not comforting. The Republicans, even when in power, have not proven to be revolutionaries for limited government. We need revolutionaries, not spineless moderate statists.

This is what everyone paying attention tomorrow needs to understand -- our government has gone off in its own direction. We've lost control.

There is evidence of a present resurrection among independents and some conservatives, but it remains to be seen if this resurrection is grounded in anti-statism and non-intervention overseas like the Old Right. Hardly anyone is addressing the internal threat of statism as both left and right have found new external threats which take precedence over liberty, peaceful trade and free markets. The modern right gives lip service to classical liberal principles, but these principles are largely viewed as quaint ideas of a simpler, less dangerous past.

The old charge of "isolationism" missed one of the core values of the Old Right, what Rothbard described as America "serving the world as a beacon light of peace and liberty, rather than as master of a house of correction to set everyone in the world aright by force of bayonet."

The perceived threat of communism turned the right into militaristic statists, retrenching into a traditional system satisfied with temporary loss of freedom for the sake of Power, God and Nation, much like Bush's betrayal of the free market to save the free market. Individual liberty, free markets and limited government became something we could attain later, but, in effect, classical liberalism was being traded for a statist-leaning conservatism. Many moderate statists today yearn for Buckley when they should yearn for Nock.

The New Order created by the Industrial Revolution, the American Revolution and the French Revolution has been sliding back to the ogligarchic control of the Old Order, but it has a new face. Today's conservativism, which passes for the Right, is a conglomeration of muddled thinking, although a strain of classical liberalism/libertarianism is breaking through. Anti-communism was replaced with anti-terrorism, and while both have been threats, each has been a rationalization for building a more powerful, interventionist state. "Terrorists" are actually statists using different tactics, and America continues fighting statism with more powerful statism, just as we did with the communists. The weapon to use against statism is anti-statism, but we have to believe that statism is wrong in order to use this weapon properly and too have any integrity.

If it's a matter of the most powerful statists winning, then we might win the war of control, but how many innocent people must die in the process? How much liberty must be lost? And if the idea of statism lives on, then we'll always be fighting some other statist power which challenges us for control. Where are the voices of anti-statism in the world, upholding the New Order of classical liberalism which transformed the world once upon a time? The progressives are preaching a stale moral relativism, while the conservatives are preaching military superiority, but no one is preaching individual liberty, free markets and limited government. It seems as if these principles have been assigned to obscurity as we discuss ways for groups of states to control the world.

We are no longer that "beacon light of peace and liberty", just a powerful state with no vision of the future. It embarrasses most intellectuals to even think in such terms of having a vision of the future inspired by classical liberal principles, much less voicing these principles full-throatedly and attempting to persuade others to follow, or, through our actions, lead by example.

The world should be tired of war by now, but there are no champions for peace. The world should be tired of coercion by now, but there are no champions for liberty. The world should be tired of central planning and social engineering, but there are no champions of limited government and voluntary action. Well, there's not many champions, and the ones who do raise their voices are called reactionaries, rubes, rightwing fanatics, gullible, isolationists -- they are ridiculed and marginalized. To be fair, some strains of the right deserved ridicule and marginalization, and we're better off for their loss of power and influence, but, hopefully, the original resistance by libertarians to the Rooseveltization of America will never die.

There's still a useful distinction between right and left, but the right has been reduced to a few surviving libertarians screaming against a powerful and destructive wind. Melodramatic? Quixotic? I prefer to think that it's a healthy defense of liberty, and an authenic call for peace and prosperity for all -- a right resistance to a statist left and a confused moderate middle.

The moderates are claiming that their candidates hve local support and can win, but the national conservative movement is hurting the moderate candidate by financially supporting conservative candidates in primaries who can't win the general election. For this theory to be valid, one has to believe that voters are stupid and will change their minds when money enters the campaign. If the moderate choice has local support, then the candidate should win the primary, then be in a good position to win the election once the party unites behind the primary winner.

I don't think conservatives will pull a Scozzafava and vote for the Democrat candidate if their conservative candidate loses a primary -- in NY-23 there was no primary, but Scozzafava fell behind and dropped out when the conservative independent candidate, Hoffman, gained a lead, then Scozzafava supported the Democrat.

But, if Crist wins the primary, the conservatives will not throw their support to the Democrat, so the moderates don't have to worry about the primary depleting Crist's campaign money and energy -- in fact, it should enhance Crist's campaign.

The moderates are afraid Rubio will get attention and that the voters will prefer him over Crist, therefore placing the conservative over the moderates' choice. But that would be the people's choice. If the voters really don't like Rubio as a candidate, they will not vote for him. If the people like Crist, they will vote for him. In this partisan environment, Democrats and Republicans have made up their minds, and since independents are more politically active, they can register Republican for the primaries and vote for either Crist or Rubio.

In order to give credence to Frum's theory, you would have to believe that primary's are a problem, and that in order to avoid them, voters must rely on the Republican moderate leadership to pick one candidate which everyone supports without question. As far as national support interfering with local elections, if the locals know their politicians, then national interference will have little effect on outcomes. I can understand a presidential election being influenced by money and marketing when the nation is not familiar with certain candidates, but local voters know the players and can make informed decisions. Frum, and other moderates, are wrong to think voters in local elections are swayed by national support from the conservative base. The local voters in Florida will decide in the primaries who they want to run, and that will be their choice.

The moderates are less concerned with local voters having free choice than with who has control of the party. This lack of concern for choice, and this assumption that people are robots who can be programmed by the conservative base leaders, reflects poorly on the moderate mindset as it relates Republican voters -- or people in general for that matter.

This is long, but it's very important to understand this rebuttal of government claims that deregulation caused the financial problems from the past year. What's incredible is that the administration and congress are going forward as if the deregulation narrative is valid. I don't think the seriousness of government dishonesty is yet fully realized. Since most people don't take the time to understand cause and effect related to government intervention, the government can promote these false explanations and get by with it. It must be stopped.

The damage our representatives can cause by creating regulations and laws based on deceitful claims blaming the free market can't be overstated. What will happen is that the new regulations and laws will cause more problems, then there will be more false explanations, then more laws and regulations, until the government controls the financial industry. Healthcare, finance and energy -- what's next?

Hopefully, this nonsense will whirl away into space and we can get on with allowing the free market to deal with healthcare. Hopefully, by now, everyone watching understands government caused our healthcare mess and they have no idea how to solve it.

Nah, it's more than that -- it's a form of hate-hysteria. These people actually hate Sarah Palin. What has she done to deserve this type of animosity?

Then, there's Glenn Beck -- just about every area of media has now attacked Beck. But, Beck simply laughs at them and goes forward. The media seems to be frustrated they can't destroy either Beck or Palin. They've given up on Limbaugh. The private sector is the place to be if you want power in this political environment.

If the media continues these attacks, the public is going to move in greater numbers to defend Palin and Beck  -- the independent/conservative movement is gaining momentum and realizing that too much power has been placed in the hands of government and media. The more the media attacks Palin and Beck, the more people are going to ask the question -- what have they done to deserve this type of animosity?

These attacks might work with the progressive supporters and moderate, north-eastern types, but across the country it's going to look like the hatchet job it is. Call it populism -- call it anti-intellectualism -- call it what you want, but the plain fact is that most people in this country don't think like progressive political activists or north-eastern intellectuals who are immersed in political minutia. The "anti-intellectual" tactic is merely a way to make people who oppose the phony intellectual types appear ignorant and frightened of superior intellect. The public sees a couple of people, Palin and Beck, who've risen to stardom, who seem to be down to earth, who don't talk down to them and who are not any danger to them.

These constant attacks come across as mean-spirited and snooty. Americans don't like snooty. It's not anti-intellectualism -- it's anti-snootyism. All these intellectually superior haters of Palin and Beck, if they really think Beck and Palin are inferior, sure look silly expending so much frenzied energy to destroy them. Whatever happened to looking down your be-spectacled nose and emitting a cool, dismissive sniff? 

It's highly unlikely that Barlett has studied Hayek, but any argument will do when you're accustomed to supporting government work. Bartlett reminds me of a kid who is mad at some of the kids in his neighborhood, but is afraid to confront them face to face in honesty, so he builds Lego versions of the kids, then takes his plastic sword and slays them.

Bartlett makes conservatives appear as wild-eyed fanatics who think any adoption of any European idea means that America will become a totalitarian state. Of course, Bartlett doesn't produce any evidence that any conservative has made a statement such as this -- plus, he ignores, or never read, Hayek's ideas on welfare.

The purpose of the article is not to support European ideas, but to denigrate conservatives, which he does dishonestly. If Bartlett has a problem with the conservative kids in his neighborhood, he ought to summons the courage to face them honestly and debate ideas objectively, and put away his ridiculous plastic sword swatting at Lego figures -- and figures of his imagination.

Bartlett has studies which show how happy people are in different countries. Aside from the fact that it's difficult to compare the happiness level of one individual from the next, since so many variables are involved, it's preposterous to use such studies of countries as scientific evidence proving anything useful. I don't know what's happening to paid political pundits, but they are getting sloppier and weirder everyday -- is "stupider" a word? I mean, people are getting paid for this!

I'm not defending conservatives, because they do this Lego stuff, too, but in this ongoing debate, the moderate statists are losing. Both groups should relax and become libertarians -- but then they wouldn't find any paying jobs.