About Some Things

Jim Les HAS a team that plays like a team and has a great possbility to win the Valley basketball tournament in St. Louis. In Bradley wins over Creighton and Drake both opponents played like they were a bit "frighted" and Bradley played smart and confident. Good luck in St. Looie.

I went to Bradley Student Center on February 13 and enjoyed two intelligent people talk about the upcoming Presidential election. Of course, my blogs and actions more mirrored the main thoughts of Republican columnist and pundit,Jonah Goldberg. I was impressed with his clear thinking including his predicting a win for the Democrats and Obama in November. Goldberg's comments on the stimulus plan was "I don't want to commit to the word idiotic, but it's pretty bad."

In his column in the JS on 2/17, Goldberg talks about compassionate conservatism. Who the heck ever coined that term? Is a compassionate conservative someone like Michael Bloomberg who wants a new "post partisian" movement of "We know what's best for you, buddy" type government? Or Mike Huckabbe who wants to ban smoking nationwide. Didn't we try that with booze and drugs and if you think our drug intradiction policies are stopping people from using drugs, you aren't paying attention to the one's involved in enforcing these failed policies are privately saying. Or banning tranfat, kids running in the park like some Florida Communities, or banning Ringling Bros. and Walmart, just to name a few.

The do-gooders always believe that people want to be saved from themselves. To them "free" means living the "right" way. Maybe true but not at the price some people are willing to pay. Some of us remember the Nazi Youth programs that stated that "nutrition is not a private matter"--and the Nazi slogans like "one for all and all for one". Like homeless people whose only freedom is being able to stay homeless if they want to. That's why most homeless programs fail and the one underway in Peoria will fail also unless the compassionates want do all the giving.

Goldberg say that Alexis de Tocqueville, in his book "Democracy in the United States warned: "It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life."

Goldberg concludes, "I would be inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things (like national intelligence gathering) than in little ones."

Don't get me wrong, Ken Hinton is an asset to the community. He just happens to be part of a system that spends over 10M a year per student and only comes up with half a loaf. He says on grading principals, that the school board wants more accountability. (We would grade the board by having more people running for election who are more qualified to change the system.) But who wants a 5 year sentence, I mean job, at no pay and and lots of abuse. Pretty progressive, grading principals, don't you think. Next thing you know they will be grading kids on how well they are preparing themselves to get a job, yes I know, we want them to go to college, but a college degree is like a hunting liscense; hunting liscences and degrees make no guarantee of a kill or getting and holding a job when students enter the real world. That's why some of them never do hold a real job.

And then there are the Republicans of which I seldom brag about being one. I'm not afraid to say I'm a Republican but some of them are no better than some Democrats.
the Republicans just need a major overhaul at most levels. When I vote, I have little choice as there is no real conservative party. Other parties have shaky platforms I don't agree with and have real problem with creditability. I have a goodly number of Democrat friends and aquaintances and a bunch of friends that I could care less what party they belong to. The Democrat candidates and platforms don't move me to become a part of their party. Kind of like the days I belonged to the Peoria Country Club; lots of acquantainces and good people, but not the style of life where my wife and I felt comfortable. PCC membership was mainly Republican and the only black that slipped in was married to a doctor and she was from another country originally.

But I digress, (I ususally do) but I wanted to comment on Jeff Flake a Republican Congressman from Arizona. Flake, a guy I personanly met and have followed his career started raising hell about earmarks such as bridges from unoccuppied islands to Alaska and maybe such priorities as the Charles Rangel Center for Public Service, a fake prison in Kansas, (Bet the kids will see right through that one) anothr few million for a study of a ring road that if it was ever going to be built should have been 30 years ago, or maybe a few million more to "study" to make Rt. 29 an interstate. MAMA, DON'T LET YOUR KIDS GROW UP TO BE COWBOYS AND GIRLS; INSTEAD SHOW THEM WHERE THE PRESTIGE AND THE MONEY IS; LET THEM BE CONSULTANTS.

Everybody that is elected to DC is espected to bring a part of what their constituents sent to DC. They want it brought back home. Now if we could stop them from taking so much to DC, we could have money to pay for the real needs in our communities like ballparks, RiverPlexes, zoos, parking lots and maybe a new American Ballet Theatre, if we had one. Just kidding.

Back to Flake. Newly elected House Minority Leader, Republican John Boehmer who is asking congress to swear off earmarks, bypassed Flake for a seat on the Appropriation Committee, the one that hands out the goodies, for Alabam's Jo Bonner who has less seniority; they are big on getting in line in DC, but ususally votes for the earmarks Flake opposses. Flake voted against 50 earmarks and Bonner voted for 49 of the same earmarks. Those Republicans really know how to control spending.

Well, dinner time, got to go.

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