THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS

Today is worldwide misery Wednesday.

Normally I would be dissecting President Obama’s decision to unilaterally reduce America’s nuclear arsenal, but at the rate the world is going, in a few years it will not matter.

I have always been optimistic about the world, even through the horrors of 9/11. Yet the last few weeks it has been all bad news all the time.

In West Virginia, at least 25 coal miners are dead.

In Indonesia, a 7.8 Earthquake rocked the land only days after a 7.2 temblor hit Baja, California.

Enough already.

It is like God has looked at the planet, declared that we screwed it up, and is violently taking it back.

For the love of all things holy, can we get some good news?

Where is the next Sully Sullenberger? Heck, I would settle for Batman or Jack Bauer.

When does the bad news stop?

I have always believed in the American spirit, that Americans dig down deep and reach for their inner greatness to improve the world.

Today I just feel like the entire world is made of quicksand.

Maybe a bunch of West Virginia coal miners will turn up safely. Maybe Indonesia will rebound quickly. We will read about tales of heroism and goodness amidst the sadness. As awful as 9/11 was, Todd Beamer rallied us just before he died, saving the White House in the process.

I pray that Thursday brings better news. It has to. To combat this awful Wednesday, the only alternative to giving in and giving up is to roll up our sleeves.

People from West Virginia to Indonesia need us. Let’s help them.

We are Americans. We can do this.

Let’s roll.

eric

Before getting to health care, my prayers are with the families of the West Virginia miners that lost their lives in an explosion. I am holding off saying more until we know more. For now it is just an awful tragedy.

Hug your loved ones.

Politics is not life and death, but it does matter. With that, I turn to health care.

While the battle over the Obama health care plan was covered by many blogs around the clock, I decided early on at the expense of blog traffic that I was not C-Span. When the bill actually passed, I covered it as news. Yet the year leading up to it was not news.

Now the goal of Republicans is to repeal the bill. If it gets repealed, that will be news. I am not going to spend every day focusing on potential events.

President Obama did say one very arrogant thing that is in keeping in line with his smug attitude toward his political opponents. He claimed that they were predicting Armageddon, and that the day after the bill was passed, he looked up and the Earth was still standing and the sky still blue.

This was a fancy way of him claiming that his critics are crackpots. He refuses to treat political opponents with dignity.

What he fails to acknowledge is that since the most toxic aspects of the bill will not kick in for a long time, it is impossible to say his critics are wrong.

(They could be, so could he. I acknowledge this. He doesn’t.)

So regarding repealing the bill, I am offering musings and then leaving this topic once and for all unless actual news breaks.

Democrats are claiming that once the American people get to know the bill better, they will like it. Democrats have to say this. They cannot very well admit they passed something over majority objections. They have a right to spin.

When Democrats are asked why people are still against it (They can claim people support it until they are blue in the face. An honest discussion cannot start until it is acknowledged that overall people are against this bill.), they respond that the people have been fed a steady dose of “misinformation.” The usual culprits are listed, from Fox News to talk radio to Republican politicians.

This argument treats the voters like imbeciles. Remember, the people elected Barack Obama. were they intelligent in 2008 and idiots a year later?

(liberals would argue yes, which is why they are liberals)

This really does lead to an important question. i would even say it is a vital question.

How can President Obama, who gave soaring oratory that captured a majority of the electorate (the financial crisis helped him), be unable to persuade the public on his signature initiative?

If Republicans were spreading lies, why did he not effectively correct the record? He has thousands of staffers and cabinet members, daily press briefings, a media that by and large likes him very much, and a public that claimed they wanted change.

Why has he still failed to get the people on his side? Why did he have to ram a bill through?

Blaming Republicans does not cut it. They said why it was bad. he said why it was good. by large majorities, the people did not believe the president.

This does not mean they thought he was a bad person. They just looked at something that claimed to lower costs, reduce the deficit, and give more care to more people. ordinary people felt this did not make logical sense.

The more he bullied his opponents, the worse he did. He never fully explained how and why he was right. We were supposed to at face value accept his words as gospel truth. Even people who like the president wanted to know, to quote the late Clara Peller, where the beef was.

Mr. Obama ran a campaign heavy on platitudes and light on substance. When people demanded substance, he kept repeating platitudes. It is his job to explain his policies in a simple manner, not in grandiose elitist verbiage. His idol FDR was a master at communicating with Joe Six-pack.

Moving away from the president, the issue of repeal may come before the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice john Roberts is an intellectual and legal titan. Yet conservatives might not like how I think his court will rule, if they even agree to hear the case.

John Roberts is not a conservative activist. He is a minimalist. He likes narrow rulings specifically addressing the issue before the court and nothing more. He does not issue expansive rulings. Also, he prefers 9-0 decisions. He understands that 5-4 rulings may occur on charged issues, but he does not like them.

Also, a person has to have “standing” to address the court. Many liberals disliked the Patriot Act, especially the “library provision” in Section 215. Yet not a single person could show that they were personally injured. No cases were heard. With Obamacare, until a single individual can show that they were harmed, there is no standing.

For this reason and the hesitancy of Roberts to run an activist court, overturning the entire bill is unlikely. Where those wanting repeal have their best chance is the issue of mandates. If I refuse to buy health insurance, and am fined for it or imprisoned, I then have standing. This does not guarantee I will win, but at least it makes for a legitimate constitutional discussion that the Supreme Court can analyze.

Liberals will say that conservatives should “move on,” but that is just another example of liberals telling conservatives to shut up and agree with them and calling it bipartisanship. Liberals have been using the courts for decades to make up for losses at the legislative and executive levels. A taste of their own medicine is deserved. Let’s see how they like being tied up in court. this has the benefit of preventing the rest of their agenda from moving forward. Every minute we force them on defense to fight a bill they already passed is a day that the rest of their agenda dies. This is politics.

Liberals can claim that Republicans are the party of “no,” but the Democrats won in 2006 with zero agenda. I would prefer that Republicans form a second Contract With America in some form, but if going hard negative gets Republicans elected, I am fine with that.

Again, nothing the GOP is accused of is any different than what Democrats have done for years. Democrats got their health care bill. We as Republicans have to make sure it comes at a higher price than they could possibly fathom.

If we fail to do this, that is our fault.

The next time the pendulum swings, I hope a Republican president rams a conservative agenda down liberal throats, and then takes a victory lap afterwards. liberals will claim many things, but they will not claim the truth. It is just payback, pure and simple.

They succeeded in passing a bill. They have failed to make the case for why they were right to do so.

Let them insist otherwise. The people are against them, and the liberal lashing out shows how scared they are that they went too far and abused their power.

This concludes any health care talk until actual news happens. That will be the November 2010 elections.

eric

Today is Good Friday, a day for Christians to focus on peace and love. In today’s political climate, I have some solutions to help everybody engage in more civilized discourse. While the means might not fit well with the peace and love train, the end result is a better country.

Not everybody will like my methods, but that does not make me wrong.

The easy cases do not need to be analyzed. The man who threatened Eric Cantor must do hard jail time. The same goes for whoever mailed white powder to Anthony Weiner.

The harder cases involve speech. There is no absolute right to free speech. The Supreme Court over the years has allowed limitations. Yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre is the most known limitation.

Yelling death threats is illegal. So is inciting riots. Irving Feiner took his case to the Supreme Court when he was arrested for getting a crowd whipped up after calling President Harry Truman a “champagne sipping bum.” In the case of the U.S. vs. Feiner, Feiner lost 6-3.

We can argue about where the line gets drawn, but I am more interested in dealing with people who do cross the line. With public and private space, the situation has to be treated differently.

The public space is the town square. The village idiot can ramble there as long as he wants provided that there are no riots being incited. Public spaces are often cordoned off with rope lines and protected by police officers. This is unfortunate but necessary.

A tea party attendee shouted words at Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. He was behind the rope line in the public space. Had he gone beyond the rope line, he would be in private space, where the dynamics would change.

He is alleged to have spat upon Congressman Clyburn. If he deliberately did this, he has invaded private space. If he is simply an excitable talker who accidentally had spittle fly out of his mouth, then that is different. Our criminal justice system is not based on politics. It is based on intent. Intentional bad behavior gets a harsher penalty than unintentional bad behavior. Murder I can get the death penalty while criminally negligent homicide due to something such as driving while intoxicated would get a much lighter sentence. Mens rea is what matters in determining culpability.

Some on the left say that they trust the Congressmen more than the tea party people. The Congressmen are liberal minorities who fought for civil rights. They are sympathetic figures. Many of the tea party attendees are angry and caucasian, and therefore less sympathetic. It is for this precise reason that the benefit of the doubt be given to the tea party people. The least sympathetic among us must be given the presumption of innocence. The Old Testament (I am well aware that American law supersedes biblical law) clearly states that justice cannot automatically favor the poor and punish the rich. Liberals are obsessed with “fairness” and “social justice,” but justice is not about forcing equality and fairness.

Additionally, it is better to let 1000 guilty men go free than punish one Richard Jewell or Duke Lacrosse player. Richard Jewell died an innocent but broken man at age 44, as many people to this day still think he was guilty of setting a bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

It is not what we believe. It is what we can prove. There is broad agreement that when one moves from public to private space, they are given less latitude as safety concerns become paramount.

So what do we do with people that invade private space?

What do we with college students who shout down conservative speakers (outside of the designated public space zone), throw pies, or try to rush the stage?

What do we do with Code Pink protesters who try to Rush Karl Rove and make a citizen’s arrest of him?

(Notice the stone cold silence by liberals on this one. Rove is bad, therefore he does not deserve protection. He supported the Iraq War, so the Code Pinko behavior is condoned.)

What should happen to Medea Benjamin and Cindy Sheehan the next time they get in a conservative’s face?

What do we do with people who show aborted fetuses to public officials?

What do we do with people who break into labs to steal embryos because they disagree with embryonic stem cell research?

What do we do with people who go into stores that sell fur coats and spray paint the fur?

What do we do with people who throw dead meat at people to protest eating animals?

What do we do with anti-war protesters who throw blood at soldiers?

What do we do with White House party crashers Mr. and Mrs. Salahi? While they were genial, they illegally invaded a private space, which cannot happen to any President.

(The fact that they did not try to harm him is irrelevant. “No harm, no foul” is not the answer. This was not a college prank. Violating presidential security is serious.)

Do we arrest these people and make sure they do jail time?

Yes, but we do something else first.

It is not a message that Jesus, Moses, or any other prophet would approve of, but Charlton Heston played Moses, and he might have approved.

We take the agitators, and we give them a pre-jail lesson.

We give them savage beatings.

It is time for Law and Order to be more than a liberally biased television show.

It is time to make an example of people, and force is the only thing that gets people to stop.

I was once five feet from Dick Cheney. I carefully looked at the Secret Service people because I wanted to take a picture of him. I was allowed to get within four feet, and I took the picture behind the rope line. Had I gotten within three feet of him, it would have been open season on me. I would have deserved it. Perhaps people would have intervened, claimed that I was a supporter, and the roughing up would have been minimal. Yet his safety has to come first.

What if I was jostled? The Secret Service is not stupid. They can see a falling guy knocked over and separate that from a charging, frothing madman.

People who endanger the safety of others need to be physically knocked around until they are subdued.

I am not saying use excessive force, although that is a subjective term. I am saying use severe force until the threat is stopped. The police used a taser on somebody who got unruly at a John Kerry rally. He yelled, “don’t tase me bro.” They did, and he deserved it.

Why have the Salahis not been rounded up, and sweated in an interrogation room by big guys with angry looks in a federal building?

Why are the protesters that tried to accost Karl Rove still walking free?

(Can liberals for once just pretend that it was a conservative protester attacking Barack Obama? Then the light bulb would go on and they would see a problem.)

I don’t care if every college campus becomes the second coming of Kent State. I want peace and quiet.

People have the right to protest in the public square. They do not have the right to invade private space.

Storming the Dean’s office and disrupting the work day should result in a baton to the back.

Liberals will claim that I am advocating a police state, that I want private citizens accosted. No, I want private citizens protected. We live in a world where everything is videotaped. Police brutality can and must be punished.

Some will point to the 1992 Rodney King incident. That is a great example. Most people were emotional on both sides. I looked at the situation coldly and logically. Rodney King was a criminal and a threat to public safety. The police had every right to subdue him. Two of the four cops went way too far, and used excessive force. They were rightfully convicted. The fourth cop was clearly trying to keep him down to avoid him getting further punishment, and tried to prevent excessive force. He was rightfully acquitted. The third cop was more complex because he was borderline. Unlike the fourth cop, he seemed much slower to stop the excessive force. He was acquitted, but either acquittal or conviction could have been justified.

The rioters should have been beaten and jailed. Burning Korean grocery stores had nothing to do with the verdict. Stealing VCRs had nothing to do with civil rights and oppression. Using crises such as the Riots and Katrina to commit crimes should result in extra beatings.

The mob in 1992 tried to burn down a convalescent home, but private citizens with guns forced the mob to retreat. Not only did this perfectly justify the exact reason the Second Amendment is about individual rights, but it showed that force works on anti-social behavior. The old aged home was saved. Filing briefs in court would not have prevented old dead people. Desperate times absolutely justify the measures taken.

We are in desperate times now.

There is no right to threaten the liberty of another private citizen.

The scum need to be cleaned off the street. They only make things worse for the legitimate protesters.

The police (and private citizens) are so scared of being called racists, bigots, warmongers, and fascists that they are too lenient with aggressors who prey on this fear.

It is time for the bullies to be forced to sit down so the good, civil citizens can assemble.

I am not willing to wait for a Code Pinko to come equipped with an adorable pink cherry bomb and murder a bunch of Republicans. The next time they storm a speaker, defend the speaker with a well placed baseball bat or taser to the attacker. I do not care if it is a 50 year old female. Suicide bombers come in all shapes and sizes. It only takes one nut.

We all have a right to assemble publicly.

None of us have the right to invade private space.

When the child touches the kitchen stove, they get burned. Then they stop touching the stove.

Law and order can be restored. A few physical beatings on the worst offenders would serve them right and serve society well.

Heck, sick the guard dogs on them. It does not have to be a total mauling. One bite is sufficient.

Release the hounds!

Then use the nightsticks, and pistol whip the protesters when necessary.

My right to peace and quiet will then no longer be infringed.

Liberty will not be weaker. It will be stronger. Those that violate my liberty surrender their own.

Once a few good beatings are administered, I guarantee that students will go back to class, and other agitators will learn a more constructive method of societal engagement.

Leftist protesters will use civil liberties as a fig leaf. Their real concern is that they then will have to find other ways to communicate, which they never learned.

Conservative protesters should not complain because as conservatives, they should know better anyway. Law and order supporters have to obey the law.

It is time for peace…and quiet.

eric