2012 Minnesota Vikings Final Roster Predictions

The Minnesota Vikings finished the pre-season 1-3 and so a bit disappointed, but Coach Leslie Frazier and GM Rick Spielman feel the team is headed in the right direction and with good reason. As roster cuts loom, here, based on analysis of the three games, is a prediction list of who will make it and who will not.

QUARTERBACK

In: Christian Ponder; Joe Webb; Sage Rosenfels;

PS(Practice Squad): McLeod Bethel-Thompson;

Out: None

Analysis: Ponder, barring a catastrophic break-down, was always going to be the guy. Webb may still be learning as a passer, but his supreme talent and slow but steady improvement guaranteed him the backup spot. Rosenfels is needed as a veteran mentor to both and his salary made cutting him an unattractive option. Bethel-Thompson, however, was impressive and, provided he clears waivers, is clearly destined for the practice squad. How could he not? He seems destined to eventually earn a spot as the No. 3 on the Vikings squad in the very near-future.

RUNNINGBACK

In: Adrian Peterson; Toby Gerhart; Jordan Todman;

PS: None

Out: Lex Hilliard;

Analysis: Peterson is the face of the team and Gerhart has proven his value and will likely open as the starter until Peterson is fully back up to speed. Todman thinks he may not have done enough, but in fact he just may have. His 76 yard TD run against Houston may have landed him a spot. Hilliard, to be blunt, was awful all pre-season and is clearly on his way out.

FULLBACK

In: Jerome Felton; Matt Asiata;

PS: Ryan D’Imperio;

Out: None

Analysis: Felton was very unspectacular all pre-season and has had run-ins with the law, but considering the Vikings have bent over backwards the last one to two years trying to acquire him, he probably will remain until he becomes a liability. Asiata was impressive all pre-season and is virtually guaranteed a spot. D’Imperio is such a solid special teams player and is showing flashes as a developing fullback so the team, if they waive him, will probably bring him back to the practice squad as the backup plan for promotion when Felton gets let go.

WIDE RECEIVER

In: Percy Harvin; Jerome Simpson; Michael Jenkins; Jarius Wright; Stephen Burton; Devin Aromashodu;

PS: Emmaneuel Arceneaux;

Out: None

Analysis: Harvin is the star of the receiving corps and fans will get real excited when Simpson takes the field in Week Four. Jenkins, by taking a pay cut and showing just enough veteran savvy, may have earned himself one more season on the squad. Wright finally broke out big time in the Houston game and the Vikings have to feel good about him serving as Harvin’s backup and substitute. Burton was a bit inconsistent but he is a solid player and may have landed himself a role as a future No. 3 possession receiver. Aromashodu finally showed up against Houston and may have landed himself a spot as Simpson’s replacement, but he will be let go once Simpson comes back. Arceneaux was not given much in the way of opportunity with the first string so he probably gets another practice squad stint with a promotion coming if anyone in the receiving corps gets hurt.

TIGHT END

In: Kyle Rudolph; John Carlson; Rhett Ellison; Allen Reisner; Mickey Shuler Jr.;

PS: None

Out: None

Analysis: Far-fetched? Not as much as you think. Rudolph and Carlson have injury histories and Ellison had an injury scare during the pre-season. Reisner and Shuler have really flashed and the guess here is that the Vikings will not risk losing either of them. It will be a bit of a strain on the roster, but considering how important the tight end is in Bill Musgrave’s offense, this seems to be the safest route for the Vikings to go, and all five guys are young.

OFFENSIVE LINE

In: Matt Kalil; Charlie Johnson; John Sullivan; Brandon Fusco; Phil Loadholt; DeMarcus Love; Joe Berger; Geoff Schwartz;

PS: Quentin Saulsberry;

Out: Patrick Brown; Chris DeGeare; Tyler Holmes; Kevin Murphy; Austin Pasztor;

Analysis: The starting five seems set. Love is a solid backup tackle but needs to get over his injury issues. It looked like Love might be relegated to injured reserve with Patrick Brown filling in for him, but Brown was hideous against Houston and may have cost himself a potential spot. Berger and Schwartz are good because of their versatility in filling in all along the line. Saulsberry was a pleasant surprise in camp and may have earned himself a practice squad spot with his hard work and talent.

DEFENSIVE LINE

In: Jared Allen; Kevin Williams; Brian Robison; Letroy Guion; Everson Griffen; Christian Ballard; D’Aundre Reed; Fred Evans; Trevor Guyton;

PS: Nick Reed;

Out: Chase Baker; Jeff Charleston;

Analysis: Tough to part with anyone here. The Vikings have one of the best eyes in the league for defensive line talent. Allen and Williams are All-Pros, Robison, Griffen, Ballard and D’Aundre Reed have Pro-Bowl and All-Pro written into their future, Guion looks like he might indeed be the answer at nose tackle and Evans and Guyton provide depth. Nick Reed is a definite candidate for the practice squad. Charleston played well, but was simply stuck behind a bunch of very good defensive linemen and is too old for the practice squad.

LINEBACKER

In: Chad Greenway; Erin Henderson; Jasper Brinkley; Audie Cole; Marvin Mitchell;

PS: Larry Dean

Out: Tyrone McKenzie; Corey Paredes;

Analysis: Starting spots seem set with Greenway, Henderson and Brinkley, but if Cole plays like he did in the pre-season and Brinkley struggles, do not be surprised to see the rookie thrown into the mix. Mitchell has proven to be a solid pickup and provided he stays healthy could challenge for playing time. Dean, a great special teamer, is a candidate for the practice squad only because the Vikings have more pressing needs at the moment. McKenzie played well, but the numbers just do not seem to be working out in his favor.

CORNERBACK

In: Antoine Winfield; Chris Cook; Chris Carr; Josh Robinson; Zackary Bowman; Marcus Sherels;

PS: Brandon Burton;

Out: Bobby Felder; Reggie Jones;

Analysis: Winfield and Cook are the starters though Robinson could challenge for Winfield’s spot if he can stay healthy. Carr and Bowman did not look spectacular in the pre-season, but they provide a veteran presence in the secondary which is something the Vikings did not have last season. Sherels is only good in the slot, but his return abilities are what help him stick around. Burton goes to the practice squad because he is a large corner with developmental skills and with Winfield’s injury history, may be looking at a promotion sometime during the season. Jones ruined his chances of sticking with a costly fumble on a punt and Felder simply did not show enough to stick around this year though he may get invited back to training camp next year.

SAFETY

In: Harrison Smith; Mistral Raymond; Jamarca Sanford; Robert Blanton;

PS: Andrew Sendejo;

Out: Eric Frampton;

Analysis: Smith has begun showing John Lynch-type abilities which should excite Vikings fans. Raymond has worked his way to success all his life so why doubt his ability at free safety now? Sanford is mainly a special teamer but he does have starting experience and a knack for recovering fumbles and recording interceptions. Blanton suffered setbacks with his injuries during the pre-season but he has better abilities then all the other safeties besides Smith and Raymond. Sendejo was a surprise with his trong play and may have earned a practice squad spot and a potential promotion if anybody in the top four gets hurt. Frampton was good with special teams, but getting burned on a deep pass against Buffalo was a killer blow to his roster hopes.

SPECIAL TEAMS

In: Cullen Loeffler; Chris Kluwe; Blair Walsh;

PS: None

Out: Ryan Longwell;

Analysis: Yes Longwell is not and was never on the roster during the pre-season, but his ghost always stalked the special teams talk. He remained on the free agent market always as a looming spectrum watching to see if Blair Walsh would produce or not. Walsh was spectacular on kickoffs, pretty solid on field goals and perfect on extra points. He gets the nod going into the season but he has to do what Doug Brien and Aaron Elling never did for the Vikings of the last decade and actually make it all the way through the season without struggling spectacularly and then being replaced. Kluwe is still good as punter but needs to improve his holds on field goals and extra points for the rookie Walsh. By the same token, Loeffler needs to shake off the rust coming from finishing last year on injured reserve and improve his snaps so he does not shake Walsh’s confidence either. If they can all do well then the Vikings special teams group will no longer be just solid, but also young and so destined to remain around for a while.

FINAL ANALYSIS

What can we take out of the 2012 pre-season? Hard to say; The first team looked like it was finally coming around but depth still seems like an issue in some spots. The Vikings will probably use this year to get the young players experience while looking forward to next year and another potentially good draft class to help turn this team around more quickly and so help the Detroit Lions displace the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers as the class of the NFC North division in the very near-future.

© 2012 The Subsidiarity Times. All rights reserved. This material may not be re-published, re-broadcast, re-written or re-distributed without written permission from blog author.

Former Governor Ventura: Take Party names off the election ballots so voters will really have to find out what the candidates stand for.

(The Subsidiarity Times) In a radio interview with talk show host Brian Wilson of Brian Wilson and the Afternoon Drive, former Governor Jesse Ventura (Reform/Independence-MN), promoting his new book “DemoCRIPS and ReBLOODlicans: No More Gangs in Government”, put forward a very interesting proposition on how to get voters back to voting for individual candidates and what they stand for rather then just a political party, as well as revealing some little-known facts about his own term as governor in Minnesota.

“This could start at the local level. Why do we allow party or gang symbols and names on an election ballot? Turn them into Political Action Committees, the same ways that teachers union, the firemen, whatever, they could still endorse; but they do that by design. By putting the name Republican or Democrat next to the candidate, you don’t even have to know who the candidate is; if you are conservative you go in and look for Republican, if you are liberal, you go in and look for Democrat. If they remove all that, well then it is imperative to the voter then: ‘What does John Smith stand for?’”

This proposition followed a joke that Ventura shared with Wilson where he proposed that a law be made whereby every political candidate would be required to wear a NASCAR racing suit adorned with the names/symbols of all of his sponsors so the voters could then become informed voters and so know who “owns’ each particular candidate.

Further on in the interview, Ventura revealed some rather interesting facts about his own campaign for governor and his term as governor in Minnesota. He first revealed that he pulled off the impossible by getting Republicans and Democrats to unite together to oppose him during his last year as governor.

“Who else in the country can accomplish that today? Nobody” said Ventura, referencing the gridlock currently going on in Washington D.C.

Ventura then added a couple more fascinating facts “Let me go back to my campaign for a minute. I never took over fifty or a hundred dollars. I didn’t take any PAC money from any special interest group; and get this, here is what the media doesn’t want the public to know about my campaign in Minnesota: I only raised three hundred thousand dollars to become governor. So I bet I am the only elected official in fifty years in a major election, Governor, Congress, anything like that, who actually made more money doing the job then what I spent to get it…and because I didn’t take special interest (money), I am also the only governor or whatever in my four years, I never met with a lobbyist once.”

© 2012 The Subsidiarity Times. Audio courtesy of Brian Wilson and the Afternoon Drive Show; re-published with permission. All rights reserved. This material may not be re-published, re-broadcast, re-written, re-transcribed or re-distributed without written permission from author.

The Stamp and Declaratory Acts of our Era: Obamacare and the Supreme Court Decision

The Supreme Court’s appalling 5-4 ruling upholding the poorly named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) has thrown down the challenge to the American people. The people of America proclaimed the motto of the Gadsden Flag “Don’t Tread on Me” through the Tea Party for the last five years and the Federal Government, speaking through the majority opinion in the Supreme Court’s decision, has responded accordingly: “Oh yeah? Stop us then.” With that answer from the Federal Government, the second coming of the American Revolution has come closer to reality.

If one thinks back to the original American Revolution, that movement also started over two vastly unpopular laws. First, there was the Stamp Act of 1765. That law required every individual to pay for a government stamp on almost everything, from legal documents put together by lawyers to playing cards and dice used by sailors. It would be followed in 1766 by the Declaratory Act which decreed that Parliament had the “full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the colonies and people of America in all cases whatsoever.” These acts were the closest thing to taxing and regulating behavior the modern world would see from a government until the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The acts ignited a firestorm of protests from the colonists. They were outraged at the prospect of being taxed and over-regulated by a government a long way away which knew very little about the colonies and refused to see the misery that their taxes and regulations would inflict upon them.

Today in America we are seeing a similar wave of anger against the act which has come to be known as Obamacare. In this act, which became law on March 23, 2010, all American citizens are required to either purchase health insurance or be taxed. To uphold the law under the Constitution in the June 28, 2012 Supreme Court decision on the law, Chief Justice John Roberts argued that the federal government has the right to tax American citizens for any reason whatsoever. In making this decision, Roberts and the liberal justices on the Supreme Court have opened a Pandora’s Box. This law is going to hit every citizen of America and everyone is either going to have to pay more money for a limited-choice, government-sanctioned healthcare plan or see their taxes skyrocket higher every April. The Supreme Court Decision, by decreeing that the federal government can tax Americans for anything at all, has, like the Declaratory Act, given the federal government the power to regulate human behavior at any level and they do it by taxing you, just like the Stamp Act.

The gauntlet has been laid down ladies and gentlemen. Furthermore, the states are responding. Since the indefinite detention of American citizens without trial was made legal in the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, several states have responded by introducing bills to nullify the NDAA, which means that that federal law will not be effective inside that state’s borders. Now, it has been proposed to nullify Obamacare at the state level and already several states have introduced legislation to do just that. This action is very similar to how the colonies responded to the Stamp and Declaratory Acts. They refused to pay the taxes and to effectively implement this refusal, they enacted a nation-wide boycott of British goods in order to avoid paying the taxes. It was, effectively, nullification of British laws by the American colonies.

So how is this leading to a second American Revolution? Just watch and wait. Once the states’ nullification measures begin to take effect and Obamacare and any other laws which are nullified prove to be unenforceable, the federal government will be forced to either let the states get away with those measures or they will have to move troops in to force the state governments to obey federal laws. If they choose the latter option (which seems likely), then expect the situation to really get out of control. The federal government already seems to be preparing for this in having the military drill inside American cities. If they implement military takeovers of the states and their local governments, one might expect history to repeat itself and events which took place in a British-occupied Boston and in the small towns of Lexington and Concord in 1775 will repeat themselves in one or more of America’s fifty states which will lead to the states rising against the federal government in a Second American Revolution to re-enforce the principles of the Founding Fathers. Only this time, the cry of warning from those seeking freedom will not be “The British are Coming!” but: “The Feds are Coming!”

© 2012 The Subsidiarity Times. All rights reserved. This material may not be re-published, re-broadcast, re-written or re-distributed without written permission from blog author.

Guest Op-ed: How Will the Catholic Church Respond to the Contraception Mandate?

Today, June 28, 2012, a great tragedy befell America in the ruling by the United States Supreme Court upholding the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). This ruling will fall particularly hard on religions who have been targeted by the HHS mandate requiring religious employers to provide coverage for contraceptives even if it goes against their religion. In response to this abominable attack upon religious freedom in America, my colleague from New Agora, the incorrigible papist Chris Scribner, has written an excellent op-ed article detailing what the Catholic Church's response to the Supreme Court's ruling and the HHS mandate should be and it is re-posted here as a guest posting on The Subsidiarity Times.

How Will the Catholic Church Respond to the Contraception Mandate?

By Chris Scribner of Gray Matters

The June 28, 2012 Supreme Court decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act (commonly termed Obamacare) quashed the hopes of conservative Catholics that a decision by the Obama administration to require religious employers to provide contraception might be repealed in the immediate future. In short, the mother of all clashes is brewing between the Catholic Church and the Obama administration.

On August 1, 2012, health plans for most organizations will be required to cover contraception, “emergency contraceptives,” and sterilization procedures. The mandate will be extended to non-profit religious employers on August 1, 2013. Narrow religious exemptionshave been granted, but as Cardinal Wuerl has pointed out, not even Mother Teresa would qualify for these exemptions.

In other words, the Obama administration is forcing institutions affiliated with the Catholic Church to pay for coverage of contraceptives, “emergency contraception,” and sterilization. After being pressured by religious groups, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) tweaked the mandate so that insurance companies would be forced to provide contraception instead of Catholic institutions themselves. But Catholic institutions would be paying insurance companies to provide birth control to employees, so the religious objections of Catholics have not been resolved. (Besides, since many Catholic companies and diocesesself-insure, the major sticking point remains for Catholics in a host of cases.)

If the Church did comply and provided contraception coverage to its employees, it would signify that the Church’s moral teaching on contraception could be changed. And the Church would instantly lose all credibility if She reversed herself on contraception or any of Her other moral teachings; if She could reverse Herself on one critical teaching at the whim of the state, any of Her teachings would be mutable.

Accordingly, the Catholic Church is treating the HHS mandate as a serious blow to religious freedom. Every single one of the Catholic bishops in America has sworn that the Church will not and cannot comply with the Obama administration’s mandate. President Obama refuses to budge on the matter. The Catholic Church is now celebrating a “Fortnight for Freedom” – two weeks of prayer and penance as part of a “great hymn of prayer for our country” – in response to the HHS mandate.

The Catholic Church can choose to respond to the HHS mandate in several different ways. Here is a brief overview of the ways the Church can choose to respond to it. This list will also examine historical precedents for these choices.

To continue reading, please go to: http://catholicgraymatters.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-will-church-respond-to.html

© 2012 Gray Matters and The Subsidiarity Times. Re-printed with the permission of article author and Gray Matters. All rights reserved. This material may not be re-published, re-broadcast, re-written or re-distributed without written permission from the author of this article.

The Importance of the Young

This piece is dedicated to the young people of three great American movements: The Ron Paul campaign, the Campaign for Liberty movement and the Young Americans for Liberty movement.

Many times over the course of my ongoing career as a high school teacher, I am confronted by fellow teachers and authority figures in the education movement who often take me to task for, as they put it, “asking too much of the children”. In other words, some feel my assignments are far too challenging; others believe the children are not smart enough to grasp what I am teaching and that I should dramatically reduce the intelligence level of what I am teaching and the assignment tasks which I am asking of the children; still others give the argument of “If I cannot see myself doing what you ask, then there is no way the children can do what you ask”. This mentality is what makes me the angriest as a teacher. It angers me even more then misbehavior on the part of the students. While prudence in submitting challenges to students is wise (and as a teacher I recognize that), the arguments given in favor of prudence make my blood boil. Why are children and the young not allowed to attempt to master challenges? Why is the intelligence level of children and the young constantly being made portrayed as small and insignificant? Why are the young so frequently dismissed like small pawns or servants who should only be doing their masters’ beck and call? Why are things not allowed to be logically explained to them like the rational human beings that they are? Why are they force-fed what the older generation defines as truth and told to accept it without discussion instead of either having it logically explained to them or being allowed to use their own logic to come to the same conclusion themselves? Why are the young being marginalized and shown so much flagrant disrespect in today’s world?

There is a movement going on to condition many of today’s young people to accept a mentality that once they earn their wages, pay their bills and do their chores then they can relax and do whatever they want around their own residences as long as they keep out of the sight of the public; they have no other responsibilities. The attempt to impose this mentality upon the young is assisted by the perception given by popular culture, such as television, advertisements and the news media, that the young have lax “whatever” attitudes in their minds and a disinclination in their nature to do anything with their lives. For these reasons, many factions in our current culture tend to look on children, teenagers and young adults as bothersome, troublemaking, pleasure-seeking brats who need to be “subjugated”, kept at a low intelligence level and made to work as common laborers barely making enough to survive and kept happy by being allowed to satisfy petty, un-intellectual and not-always-moral desires. This movement is being encouraged and pushed forward on both sides of the ideological spectrum, Left and Right. It is also why the young tend to be a rebellious lot no matter what side of the ideological spectrum on which they fall. They see themselves as being talked-down-to, marginalized, misrepresented and, to put it bluntly, abused. This offends the young because is it at odds with their natural belief in their own self-dignity. The young want to be challenged, they want to have hope, they want to help drives to do great things and they want to learn more about our world. They will not be boxed into a set of pre-conceived ideas about themselves by the older generations. They want to find out logical, rational truth for themselves.

The young need to be encouraged in this mentality to discover or confirm rational logical truth on their own. This desire needs to be encouraged and cultivated at a young age so that by the time they become active members of their communities they can be a force for good rather then ill. We can already see the effects of how the marginalization of the young has led to increased crime rates and violence among the young, and how that has unsettled communities and led to police-state type tactics on the part of law enforcement. If the young were actually challenged with the opportunity to discover truth on their own and so be a more active, working part of their communities, there is no doubt that crime rates among the young would drop as they would be engaging in more wholesome pursuits. They would help build better communities for their elders and would be more inclined to assist the elderly in their old age which would lead to a more respectful, kinder culture all around. They would give hope for the future to a world which does not know hope in this day and age.

The young are our nation and our world’s future. They need to be academically challenged to improve their knowledge and intelligence, encouraged to logically discover the truth, given the respect befitting human beings and not stereotyped as either dumb brats only interested in their own pleasures or as very unintelligent beings who need everything spoon-fed to them. There needs to be a re-direction of our education movement towards the mentality of actually encouraging the young to assert and build themselves at many levels, whether they are children, teenagers or young adults. Those who have lived through the terrible period of being marginalized while in their youth should take the mentality of assisting the current young people to challenge themselves, assert themselves and discover the truth themselves. This way they can help the young overcome this additional barrier and assure themselves that there will be a future of hope.

God Bless the Young!

© 2012 New Agora and The Subsidiarity Times. All rights reserved. This material may not be re-published, re-broadcast, re-written or re-distributed without written permission from blog author.

The Rick Santorum - DC Establishment Conspiracy

In his best-selling novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, the novelist John Le Carré lays forth one of the most classic of all misdirection ploys. In the story, a low level British agent stumbles upon information about a traitor amongst the leaders of British intelligence and seeks to inform someone of this find. The traitor finds out he has been partially discovered and informs his real masters in Moscow, who in turn give him fictitious information about the agent to spread amongst his companions in British intelligence. The information says that the agent has defected and is trying to sell false information to British intelligence about a traitor in their midst. The remainder of the story is then about the agent and his allies trying to overcome this false information and expose the truth about the traitor in British intelligence.

The powerful political establishment in the United States of America is attempting to pull off something very similar today. They see, with alarm, that the people are turning against them and becoming angry at the continually deteriorating state of life in the country. With the elections due to come up this November 6th of 2012, they are attempting to pass a number of laws through Congress which would bestow unheard-of powers upon the President. If these proposed laws (like NDAA) all pass, they could potentially nullify the effect of a populist-controlled Congress and state governments. The Establishment is truly desperate to retain power and see an imperial presidency as the only way of doing so.

Their plot does not end there however. The Establishment is clever enough to know that they cannot win a race where their candidate can be clearly shown as an Establishment candidate. For this reason, they have chosen to back two candidates. One is their “sacrificial lamb” who is clearly labeled as the Establishment candidate. The other is proclaimed to the nation as the true limited government candidate, but is, in reality, the true Establishment candidate; a classic use of the misdirection ploy.

The first candidate is easy. Mitt Romney is the sacrificial lamb candidate of the Establishment. He is being offered to the nation as the candidate who must be defeated along with President Barack Obama in order to save America. The Establishment then settled on who their true candidate would be as the Iowa primary approached. They had spent the past year evaluating all of the debate performances and statements made by the Republican presidential aspirants and eventually settled on one of them. That was likely one of the reasons for the rise and fall of so many of the Republican aspirants in the polls last year.

The man the Establishment chose to be their true candidate was a man who had shown himself competent enough to handle an imperial presidency through his past record and current statements. He had been prone to a lot of tough talk and bomb-dropping rhetoric in the realm of foreign policy, he had been one of the biggest supporters of the War on Terror during George W. Bush’s presidency and he had a personal crusade agenda which, in the eyes of many Americans, is inseparably linked to certain aspects of limited government philosophies, namely that of being pro-life. The Establishment had found their man, and he was Rick Santorum, the former Republican senator from Pennsylvania.

Where is the proof that Santorum is a member of the Establishment? Look at these facts and it should become obvious. Santorum’s record on limited government issues should speak for itself. He supported Federal Government measures such as No Child Left Behind and Medicare Part D and many other bills and laws of those types. A true limited government man would never have done that. Santorum also seems to get very confused when he tries to clarify what he believes the Constitution says about powers given to the Federal Government and the State Governments. A true limited government man would know exactly what the Constitution says about the separation of powers. Santorum is pro-life yes (though his record on the pro-life issues occasionally leaves something to be desired), but just because one is pro-life does not mean they are for limited government. Just look at who defeated Santorum in the United States Senate race in Pennsylvania in 2006: A self-identified pro-life Democrat, Bob Casey Jr. Casey is by no means a limited government man and yet he proudly announces his pro-life positions (though, like Santorum, his record on the pro-life issues leaves much to be desired in some cases). Just because one is pro-life does not mean he is for limited government. One may just as easily push for pro-life resolutions through big government solutions.

So Santorum’s record is clear. He is not a true limited government man, but how can one be sure he is the GOP Establishment’s true candidate? Santorum provided that answer for the world to see just the other day. When confronted by an independent journalist about his abysmal record on limited government issues, Santorum lost his temper (as he has been doing a lot of lately) and just snapped at the person to go vote for Ron Paul. That was a major mistake.

If Santorum had been truly repentant about his past actions as a big government man and was seeking to truly turn things around, he would not have spoken that way. He would have explained to the journalist that it was a mistake and then would have laid out how he had learned from that mistake and what he would do to correct it. The answer he gave showed that Santorum only has one thing on his mind now in his campaign: Defeat Ron Paul and continue the Establishment’s big government ideas. It is the same mindset of the members of the Establishment who are linked to the Republican Party. That means that Santorum too is part of the Establishment. He is not the limited government man he claims to be.

The rest is pretty self-explanatory. Santorum and Romney are both part of the Establishment (and let us not forget Newt Gingrich and his record) and the Establishment is attempting to portray in people’s minds the image of Romney as the candidate of the Establishment with Santorum as the true limited government candidate. Santorum’s angry answer to the independent journalist, however, has blown the Establishment’s conspiracy wide open. People can connect the dots and now it should be obvious. A fake fight between two Establishment candidates has been set up and a process of manipulation is taking place which is trying to trick the people of America in continuing the status-quo just long enough for an imperial presidency to take charge.

The American people need to wake up now. Santorum is being portrayed to the American people as the man to save limited government by the Establishment. However, all he will do if elected, is strive to save the Establishment and their status-quo policies. Continuation of the status-quo policies, as former presidential candidate and political commentator Pat Buchanan has warned in his recent book Suicide of a Superpower, can only lead to America’s destruction in the not-too-distant future.

© 2012 The Subsidiarity Times. All rights reserved. This material may not be re-published, re-broadcast, re-written or re-distributed without written permission from blog author.

Why Ron Paul's Undercurrent Rise may be a Blessing in Disguise

Recent reports have said that the Obama 2012 Campaign has recently changed their campaign strategy from making campaign attacks against Mitt Romney (and, in certain cases, Newt Gingrich) to making these attacks against former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. Santorum's recent victories in three major straw polls have led the media to begin labeling Santorum as the frontrunner in the GOP Presidential nomination race and this sudden apparent surge has made the Obama Campaign refocus its attacks and prepare for a scenario where Obama is running for re-election against Santorum in the general election. With Obama pretty much assured his re-nomination, it would seem to be wise politically to begin focusing campaign efforts against the prospective opponent.

What this may be doing, however, is providing a perfect cover for the man whom many believe is the "unrecognized frontrunner" in the GOP race. Texas Congressman Ron Paul's strategy of focusing on the caucus states is going to lead to a substantial number of delegates for him (at the very least that is) at the GOP nominating convention in Tampa, and this fact has gone largely unreported by the major media. In addition, Ron Paul Republicans are slowly taking over the Republican Party. They have already done so in Iowa, they seemed poised to do so in Nevada and if this trend continues, then Ron Paul could very well head into Tampa in a position to come away with a victory for the nomination, especially if the Republican Convention becomes an actual brokered convention like many are speculating that it might.

If that is so, and Ron Paul is only announced as the nominee of the GOP in August at the convention, then President Obama's re-election campaign could be in serious trouble. Paul has very few flaws to his record, background and stances, and with government intervention becoming very unpopular in America, the Obama campaign's stressing of the ideological and policy differences between Obama and Paul would actually be more a help then a hindrance to the Congressman. In addition, with just three months to go until the election after the Republican Convention, the Obama campaign would have to scramble to come up with any kind of effective campaign rhetoric against Paul's past and with no preparation due to the unexpected nature of Paul's victory, the rush to come up with campaign attacks would certainly lead to some poorly made and clumsily pointed attack ads which could only serve to reinforce the negative image of President Obama and his policies to the nation.

In closing, Ron Paul should continue doing what he is doing. His strategy is beginning to pay off and he will eventually win some state primaries (most likely in the Far West) which will reinforce his image as the underdog coming back from behind to win. America has always loved underdogs. The Founding Fathers and their fight against Great Britain was an underdog victory and Ron Paul's ultimate victory will inspire the nation in the same way. Like a shadow creeping up to surprise people, Paul and his movement are creeping up on the Establishment and the Obama Campaign and when he emerges, the advantage he will have gained by the surprise will give him the upper hand in his bid to win the White House on November 6, 2012.

© 2012 The Subsidiarity Times. All rights reserved. This material may not be re-published, re-broadcast, re-written or re-distributed without written permission from blog author.

Why Santorum's victory last night meant Nothing

The media is scrambling over the fact that Rick Santorum swept the three states which held their Republican caucuses last night. This, coming on the heels of Mitt Romney's wins in Florida and Nevada, has seemed to throw the Republican presidential nomination race into turmoil according to the media. However, it is not as complicated as the media is portraying it to be. The facts speak for themselves and those who investigate them should be able to see this clearly. Last night's results changed nothing. Rick Santorum will not be the Republican presidential nominee. All that his victories showed last night was that Mitt Romney's campaign is beginning to lose momentum. If that continues, then last night was possibly the turning point which has begun to sink Romney's once-promising campaign.

What is this? Santorum won all three states did he not? Yes he did. He won the vote convincingly in all three states did he not? Yes he did. So what is this? Why isn't this the surge which propels Santorum to victory in Tampa? Follow me on this examination of the facts and you will see why this is most likely just the swelling of pride before Santorum's ultimate fall.

Remember last month in South Carolina? The race looked like a toss-up and it seemed as if Romney might win just because of the division among the conservative ranks. Then, quite suddenly, Newt Gingrich surged and won South Carolina, propelling him higher in the polls. All were mystified as to how Gingrich had suddenly come out of nowhere and won the South Carolina Primary. Then the explanation slowly began to come out. Gingrich had slammed the news media in South Carolina in a convincing, fighting fashion and had inspired voters to follow him. The surge was enough to win South Carolina for Gingrich and to keep him in second place in Florida. However, as the fervor over that stunning performance began to fade, Gingrich began to fall and he lost the momentum. The memory only stuck around for so long. Now Gingrich is struggling to even keep his campaign alive.

Santorum's surge is similar, but it is not because of anything Santorum himself did. Rather, it was because of an action by the Obama administration. President Obama and the Department of Health and Human Services mandated in late January/early February that religious employers must provide medical services such as contraceptives and abortions to their employees even if those medical practices were at odds with the religion's doctrines. This action provoked outrage from several religions, but especially the Catholic Church. The Catholic bishops promptly responded with pastoral letters warning Catholics that opposition to this action by the Obama administration had to be undertaken. As the Abortion issue is one of Santorum's primary concerns politically, many pro-life religious citizens swarmed to vote for the man in the Republican race who was best seen as the champion of the pro-life cause. This explains Santorum's sudden surge and unexpected victories in the primaries last night following his dismal fourth-place showing in the Nevada caucus.

Santorum's surge is a temporary respite for his campaign. Once the fervor over the Obama administration's actions cools and forms into actual intellectual and political opposition, then Santorum will struggle to maintain his place and whatever momentum he has. Santorum has a very mixed record in the healthcare field and his opponents will bring it to the forefront to be sure over the next couple weeks. This will inspire doubts in the minds of many and Santorum will suffer a Gingrich-type implosion which will sink his campaign.

In addition to this explanation of his sudden surge and why it will fade, Santorum's campaign has some other very major flaws which will deny him victory in the end. First, Santorum's extreme lack of organization has denied him a chance at many unpledged delegates in Iowa, Minnesota and Colorado. Those delegates can only be won by those candidates who actually organize their supporters into running for delegate positions. The only vote which Santorum won last night was the straw poll vote which showed who the majority of voters in those states felt best about at that particular moment. In Missouri the delegates will not even be elected for another month and nothing was decided last night except the voters' preference at that particular moment. Second, Santorum, like Gingrich, is not eligible for a large number of delegates due to a lack of ballot access in certain states, without which he cannot hope to win the nomination in a four candidate race. In addition, recent news out of Indiana reveals that Santorum has failed to meet ballot access requirements for that state as well. Failure to obtain ballot access in even just a few states can be quite deadly to any presidential campaign. Third, Santorum's campaign has always been extremely short on money, and though he has picked up some donations as a result of last night's publicity-grabbing victory, once the surge fades, he will find himself short on cash again and likely unable to continue. Fourth, if Santorum continues to have public meltdowns on the debate stage like he did last month in Florida, (which is very likely considering his strong feelings against the views of two of his fellow contenders and the fact that Santorum does tend to get very emotional in some of his public responses), then the public will turn away from him as they turned away from Rick Perry after his debate meltdowns.

In all, do not read too much into Santorum's victories last night. They really mean nothing. If Santorum does manage to win some pledged delegates in upcoming primaries in Michigan and Arizona, then he might work his way into a bargain-maker position at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. However, the only way Santorum becomes the nominee is if the Republican National Convention becomes a brokered convention where delegates are released and bargains are made. Even then, considering how small his delegate count will likely be, that seems unlikely. In all probability, Rick Santorum will walk away from the Republican National Convention in August into the sunset of a once-promising career, cut short by an inability to stick to certain principles and to organize what followers he had.

© 2012 The Subsidiarity Times. All rights reserved. This material may not be re-published, re-broadcast, re-written or re-distributed without written permission from blog author.

A Third Party Manifesto

“A man who is made a prince by the favour of the people must work to retain their friendship;” – Niccolo Machiavelli

“Whatever your issue is, whether it’s racism or homophobia or policy issues or taxes or urban decay or health care, you’re not going to go anywhere with it if we don’t focus on the concentration of power.” – Ralph Nader

“If the people want to be free…there is no force that can stop them. If freedom is what we want, it is ours for the taking.” – Ron Paul

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Americans have come to take the current political system of two major parties vying for government power for granted nowadays. It has become accepted that if one wishes to participate in and make policy changes at any level of government, then it has to be done while serving as a member of one of the two major parties. It is a classic example of an insider-only political system which, history shows, always leads to tyranny in some form or fashion.

The complaint that most people hear when discussing politics today is that there seems to be no major difference between the two major political parties. This analysis is very true. Many officials in both parties are genuinely concerned with the people they are seeking to represent and have different ideas on how to best do so. However, as seen by myself and many others who have worked in our nation’s capital for a time, there are very many insiders who seem to be the true power controlling the political machinery of both parties. As is natural with human nature, those who hold power are always reluctant to give it up. This truth has not only been witnessed by the outsiders who have worked in our nation’s capital, but has also been recognized and, in many cases, witnessed by those participating in the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements. They have voiced their displeasure at the fact that true government power is so interwoven between the two major political parties that favors and shifts at the top are simply traded between the two under the cover of the democratic process of elections. If this is so, then it means that a form of tyranny reigns in a country which was founded on the belief that all men are created equal and the premise of checked and restricted government.

So for the abolition of insider-control and the resulting government tyranny, the two party system needs to be dismantled and a truly free process needs to take its place. To bring about this free process, discrimination against the other political parties needs to stop at all levels: federal, state and local. The mark of a truly free society is where many different viewpoints are allowed to be heard on the public stage, especially amongst candidates running for positions to represent their communities.

To reach this desired free society where the viewpoints of all the political parties running for office are freely presented to the public, the following actions could be taken:

I. Presidential Elections

1. The Commission on Presidential Debates should be dissolved. Presidential debates should be put together and sponsored solely by private intellectual organizations such as colleges and institutes. Moderators should be put forward by the private organizations sponsoring the debates. News organizations should have no power over the debates except to broadcast them to the nation to watch.

2. The debate stage should not be restricted to just the candidates who are polling 15% or higher in the polls. That is an elitist system which has no place in a country where the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees Freedom of Speech. Access to the debate stage should depend on ballot access. If a candidate is serious about their run for the presidency, then a modest plateau of ballot access in around ten states should not be difficult to reach and all parties should be held to this standard, including the Republicans and Democrats.

3. Ballot access should be charged for all candidates and political parties in every state and they should have to renew it before every election that the candidate or party is participating in. The access requirements should be set at a reasonable level of something like 2,000 valid signatures, which should not be difficult for a serious candidate to reach.

4. Government money given to political parties should be discontinued. Money for all political campaigns should be raised through fundraising by the political parties themselves.

II. State and Local Elections

1. Debates should be scheduled for all political races where political parties are involved and the public should be invited to come free of charge in order to hear the issues affecting their communities freely discussed. Debate moderators should be unaffiliated volunteers from amongst the voters or from private local organizations and not in the pay of any news organization or political party.

2. Ballot access should be made easily attainable for the serious candidate for office and should be required of all political parties seeking to run candidates for the office.

3. For local political races, the required number of valid signatures to obtain a place on the ballot should be set at a very small percentage of the population of the district the candidates are running to represent. Example: In a district consisting of 500 people, only 65 signatures should be required for a place on the local election ballot.

4. State law should mandate that positions in the hierarchy of any political party should be determined every year by a presidential caucus-type election-and-ascension process within the parties themselves, rather then by appointment or a once-every-four-years selection process. This will help prevent the solidifying of power by any faction within a political party and will ensure that the people’s wishes shall be better represented.

III. Constitutional Amendments: Federal & State – Checking the Power of Political Parties

1. The Constitution of the United States of America was founded on the idea of checks and balances limiting government power. Where the Founding Fathers did not prescribe checks and balances was in the realm of political parties’ power because they correctly foresaw that the formation of political parties would lead to a struggle for power rather then a true representation of the people. For this reason they sought to avoid political parties. However, political parties are an inevitable result of any democratic system due to the human tendency of like-minded people to congregate together for a common cause. With this in mind, Constitutional Amendments filled with the just-listed Sections I and II’s checks and balances for political parties need to be added to the Constitutions of the Federal and State Governments. These will help break down and prevent a massive concentration of power by any one or more political parties.
2. Federal Constitutional Amendment: Commissions regulating and dictating presidential debates and access to the debates should be banned and no private intellectual organization is allowed to host, control or set-up more than one debate every four presidential elections; News organizations are only allowed to broadcast the presidential debates, not influence, host or have power over them; Federal Government money will be banned from ever going to any political parties; Debate access by a presidential candidate will be determined by one low number of states, preferably ten, that all candidates must have obtained a place on the ballot in and it will be ANY ten states, not a specific ten or fewer states.
3. Constitutional Amendments in the States: State Government money shall not be given by any means to any political party. Ballot access for any political candidate should be set at a very low number of valid signatures required, thus making it easy for a serious candidate to obtain a place on the ballot: A. Presidential election candidate requirements – 2,000 valid signatures from current state residents; B. State and Local election candidate requirements – valid signatures from a very small percentage of the current population of the district the candidates are running to represent. All political parties and candidates are required to obtain ballot access every election. Debates are to be required to take place in every political race where political parties are involved and no candidate with ballot access is to be denied the right to participate. Debate moderators are to be volunteers unaffiliated with any candidate, news organization or political party. Political Party hierarchy is to be determined by a caucus-type election every year in every political party.

These changes would radically change the American political system as we know it today. However the Founding Fathers of America believed in the idea of allowing the people to speak their opinions and having a completely equal chance to serve their communities in a leadership position for a short period of time. The people should be free to choose the best from among their community to represent them, not the ones with the most money. By opening the door to a wider array of candidates, this original dream of the Founding Fathers can begin to be re-discovered and realized.

A society where positions are debated freely is a truly free society. America has drifted from this truth in the last one hundred forty seven years and it is time that she returns to it. If she does, then she shall be better-placed to once again become the true beacon the world looks up to as the example of freedom.

© 2012 New Agora and The Subsidiarity Times. All rights reserved. This material may not be re-published, re-broadcast, re-written or re-distributed without written permission from blog author.

American Politics: Now a Three Party System… Soon to Become Four? A Truth Everyone Can See, But No One Recognizes.

As a student of American politics since the age of nine, I have often been fascinated with the phenomenon of political parties known as third, minor or ‘splinter’ parties as the cartoonist Walt Kelly so famously called them in his Pogo political cartoons. These minor parties have influenced many American presidential elections and have won a small amount of congressional and local elections, but have never been able to really break the monopoly of power held by the current two-major-parties system since the American War Between the States.

However, beginning in the late 1990s, signs have begun to emerge that this two-party power monopoly is beginning to crumble due to the realization on the part of the American people, that they can make a difference by becoming more involved in the system. This deterioration of the monopoly of power has led to the fracturing of one major political party and signs now exist that it will soon lead to the disintegration of the other.

The history of this phenomenon began back in 1976 with the challenge of former Senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota to the political establishment represented by the two major parties. McCarthy ran an independent bid for the Presidency that year despite the laws regulating elections being decidedly unfriendly to minor party candidates. Due to these laws, McCarthy spent much of his time and campaign money in legal challenges to strike these laws down.

McCarthy did not have as big of an effect in the actual presidential election as he had hoped, but the real accomplishment of his campaign lay in winning his legal battle against the anti-minor-party laws in fifteen states. Thanks to McCarthy’s efforts, a friendlier climate for minor parties to run campaigns and spread their message was created and the opportunity now existed for real challenges to the two-party power monopoly to be launched.

It would not take long for others to take advantage of the new freedoms McCarthy had won for the minor parties. From 1976 to 2008 (with the exception of 1984), large anti-two-party-establishment presidential candidacies would be launched and would receive anywhere from half a million to as many as nineteen million votes in every presidential election during this period. Before this time, between 1865 and 1976 specifically, third parties’ influences on elections had usually lasted for an election or two but were prone to rise and then fade and so fail to make a sustained impact on the system. However, following 1976, third parties began to make a sustained impact and, with the exception of Reagan’s landslide in 1984, at least one minor party per presidential election would consistently poll around half a million votes at least. This consistent showing of strength by minor parties had never before been seen in American politics. What it signaled was that McCarthy’s rebellious spirit against the two-party-system had been instilled into the American people and this, coupled with public anger against government scandals such as Watergate, Billy Carter and Iran-Contra, led to public discontent with a simple choice between two parties more concerned with power then with statesmanship.

Where the biggest impact of the new-found election freedoms began to show, however, was in the more local elections. In 1990, third party candidates won two state governorships followed by two more in 1994 and 1998. As the 2000s began, two U.S. Senate seats were won by third party candidates. What made this unique was that many of these minor party candidates were regarded as, or ran ‘outside’ the political establishment and they came from many different political backgrounds. Despite this however, the two-party power monopoly in the nation was not seen as truly threatened yet. It would take a crisis of truly epic proportions to expose the ineffectiveness of the two-party system and provide an environment for the change of the current two-party-system to something radically different.

The crisis which would provide the environment for political system change turned out to be the American Great Recession which began in 2008. As the United States’ economy began to deteriorate in a rapid and disturbing fashion, the anger of the voters was turned against the major political party currently in power, namely the Republicans. This led to a substantial victory by the Democratic Party in the 2008 elections. However, instead of the situation improving, it became worse and America sank deeper in economic trouble.

When it became obvious to the people that the two major parties were not able to solve the distressing problems afflicting America many began to take action for themselves. The first actions were peaceful protests and political activism which would receive the name of the Tea Party Movement. As the protests were seen to not be enough to influence the politicians in Washington and the state capitols, the people began to take political action for themselves and with that move, the political structure of America began to change.

The 2010 elections were what blew open the two-party system. With the Tea Party movement looking to challenge the party currently in power, the Democrats, they put forward their own candidates to run in the Republican local primaries. Republicans who identified themselves with the establishment of power in Washington D.C., (whom we shall refer to as ‘Establishment Republicans’) soon were faced with ‘revolts’ in their local parties by the Tea Party activists which threatened their base of power. These ‘Tea Party Republican’ candidacies soon began to seriously threaten the power structure of the Republican Party and Establishment Republicans soon began to fight back to retain their power.

Tea Party Republicans did manage to win some nominations but the Establishment Republicans also retained some nominations for themselves as well. Unwilling to settle for only some of the nominations, and with so much seen to be at stake in the upcoming elections, both Establishment and Tea Party Republicans began to mount challenges outside the major party labels in the general election. Indeed, the number of serious third party/independent challenges to the candidates running under the major party labels was astounding. It set the stage for a very intense series of elections in 2010.

In Colorado, Rhode Island and Maine, Establishment Republicans mounted independent/third party challenges to Tea Party Republican nominees in the gubernatorial races. In Rhode Island the Independent/Establishment Republican was elected, in Colorado the Third Party/Establishment Republican cost the Tea Party Republican the race and in Maine the Independent/Establishment Republican’s effect was only off-set by the entry of a well-known independent liberal into the race which split the Democratic vote and off-set the effect of the Republican split.

On the other side, Tea Party Republicans also mounted challenges to Establishment Republican nominees in gubernatorial races like Idaho and Wyoming. With the Tea Party movement still in its beginning stages, however, the organization was not yet positioned to make as big of an impact as originally hoped and the Establishment Republican candidates easily won in both states. Though the results were not what they would have hoped for, the Tea Party Republicans’ potential for growth in future elections was easily obvious.

These election fireworks spread to several U.S. Senate races as well. Revolts in the form of third party/independent candidacies took place on both sides. Establishment Republicans mounted independent challenges to Tea Party Republican Senate nominees in Alaska and Florida and tried to mount one in Utah while Tea Party Republicans backed a Libertarian Party challenger to the Establishment Republican nominee in Indiana. In addition, seeking to discredit the Tea Party Republican nominees in certain states like Nevada and Delaware, where they lacked the ability to run independent general election challenges, several Establishment Republicans either endorsed the Democratic candidate or left the Tea Party Republican nominee unsupported.

The results would further show the division of the Republican Party. In Utah and Florida, the Tea Party Republicans would win the Senate seats, while in Alaska the Independent/Establishment Republican candidate won a bitterly contested election over the Tea Party Republican and in Nevada and Delaware the Establishment Republicans’ efforts to discredit the Tea Party Republicans would result in a narrow victory for the Democrats.

This saga took place in almost every political race in 2010, right down to the state legislatures with Establishment Republicans and Tea Party Republicans fighting primary races almost as bitterly contested as the general election races would be. The division was deep and coming after some decades of growing dissatisfaction with the Political Establishment in Washington D.C. and the state capitols, the breach between these two factions of the Republican Party can be said to be: irreparable.

2010 signaled the end of an era in American politics. The budding movement towards the break-down of the two-party-system has finally begun to blossom. The movement to break up the two-major-party system, which began to grow from 1976 onward, has finally begun to ripen.

So why did this break-down of the system happen and what has been the purpose of this history lesson? American politics is no longer a simple battle between conservatives and liberals; it has now turned also into a battle between the status-quo and supporters of change within the realms of liberals and conservatives. On the conservative side, the split between the supporters of change and the supporters of the status-quo has led to a breach in the Republican Party which has led many veteran politicians, such as Senator John McCain, to predict that a new national party will be formed soon. What Mr. McCain and many others fail to realize is that the new party is already here, they have just not made the breach official. The 2010 elections make that clear. The breach will not become official until the battle for the control of the Republican Party is settled in an upcoming election such as 2012, 2014 or 2016(if America lasts that long). Once the Establishment or the Tea Party takes control of the Republican Party, the losing faction will officially break away and form a new party to better represent whatever principles they believe they should stand for.

There is also a breach on the liberal side of the aisle in the Democratic Party, but it has not reached the breaking point level that the breach within the Republican Party has. Frustration with President Obama, his fellow Congressional Democrats and their hold on power in Washington has led to a level of discontent among liberals which has vented itself in the protests of the Occupy Wall Street movement, but has yet to channel itself into actual political action against the Democratic Establishment. That may be changing in the near-future, however. Congressman Ron Paul has been receiving a substantial amount of support from discontented Democratic liberals in his presidential campaign and if liberals are inspired by his example to stand up to their own establishment, then a internal battle between ‘Establishment’ Democrats and ‘Populist’ or popular-opinion-oriented Democrats can not be far away.

In all, if these scenarios play out as they have been doing for the past three and a half decades, then the evidence is clear. America has now transitioned into a three party system which will soon be official. It already is official in states such as Minnesota, Alaska and Colorado where a three party system exists and as the states go, so eventually goes the nation. When the Democratic Party becomes embroiled in its own internal battle, it too will split and when it does then the American political system will have finished its transformation and will have become a four-party system. Will the four-party system survive and serve America better then the two-party system has? We must wait and see.

© 2012 New Agora and The Subsidiarity Times. All rights reserved. This material may not be re-published, re-broadcast, re-written or re-distributed without written permission from blog author.

Ron Paul and Harry Truman: Where the News Media Goes Wrong

The common word one often hears from the media’s so-called ‘experts’ today when it comes to Ron Paul is that the man cannot win the Republican nomination or the general election. He is simply too far out. He has no chance. One also hears that the nomination seems to be destined for the former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and that he has the best shot to beat incumbent President Barack Obama.

Interestingly enough, the same was said over sixty years ago about a man who was fighting for the Presidency of the United States against odds that all the ‘experts’ said were much too great for him to overcome. They did not see how the man could win the nomination of his party, much less the general election. This man was Harry Truman.

Truman was running for the presidency at a time when his popularity, according to the national polls, was very low. As a result, many news media ‘experts’ said that Truman had no chance to win the presidency in the 1948 elections and that the Democrats would be better off finding a different candidate. As the election approached, Truman wanted to run despite his low poll numbers, but was opposed by many Democratic Party leaders who wanted to nominate another candidate such as General Dwight D. Eisenhower (it was not yet known that Eisenhower was a Republican).

Truman was also taking up positions on certain issues which made him popular with one faction of his party and yet very unpopular with other factions of his party and so many were opposed to his nomination. He was a strong anti-Communist in foreign policy which made many conservatives in his party happy, but also offended many liberals. He was also strongly in favor of the federal government handling the civil rights issue instead of the states, which pleased many liberals in the party but offended many small-government conservatives. Despite all the odds however, Truman did indeed win the nomination and clung ever harder to his positions on the issues heading into the 1948 election.

Unable to reconcile with the fact that Truman was the Democratic nominee, the party was split into three pieces by extreme fringe defectors opposed to Truman. Many extreme liberals followed former Vice-President Henry A. Wallace into the new Progressive Party and proclaimed their stance as being friendly to the spreading wave of Communism engulfing much of Europe and part of Asia. Many extremist small-government conservatives backed Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina who ran for President as the candidate of the southern-based States’ Rights/Dixiecrat Party and they reiterated their call for states’ rights to be respected.

All of this made the Republicans feel confident they would win the Presidency in 1948 and so many prominent Republicans fought for their party’s presidential nomination, most notably Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio and Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York. The Republicans ended up nominating Dewey for the presidency and went into the 1948 presidential campaign confident they would win in the November elections.

All throughout the campaign of 1948, opinion polls and vote forecasts by the ‘experts’ in the news media foretold of a catastrophic defeat for Truman at the hands of Dewey. However, Truman refused to give up his campaign. He took his appeal to the people with a campaign all over the nation and began to inspire the people of America with his fight to win against all the odds.

There are many similarities to Ron Paul’s current situation. Paul is being listed as ‘unelectable’ by the national media and the ‘experts’ they rely on. The general consensus among the media leading up to the 2012 elections is that the top candidate for the nomination has been former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney with others such as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota, Governor Rick Perry of Texas, businessman Herman Cain and former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich attempting to replace him as the dominant consistent frontrunner.

Paul’s stances on many issues seem to please certain factions of the Republican Party and yet offend other factions and many predict that Paul’s influence will divide the Republican Party instead of uniting it. For example, Paul calls for the nation to re-direct its military strategy away from nation-building in foreign countries to protecting America’s own borders. That stance pleases many libertarian and liberal Republicans and offends the Bush-friendly-conservative and moderate factions of the Republican Party. He is also pro-life which pleases many of the Bush-friendly-conservative and moderate Republicans but worries many libertarian and liberal Republicans.

The media’s general consensus about Ron Paul being ‘unelectable’ is being disproved by angles that the media either disregards or ignores. For instance, as of January 2012, Paul has won many straw polls hosted at various places around the country and has come in a close second at several others. In addition, interviews with local Republican Party leaders in Iowa have revealed that the projections on the ground from the earliest were that Ron Paul would have a very big finish in that state and many in New Hampshire have repeated that consensus. If that is so, and this organization is implemented in the other states as their primaries approach, then that means Paul is by no means ‘unelectable’ or unable to win the nomination. He is very much a top-tier candidate in the race.

The theory of many ‘experts’ that Paul’s views will divide the Republican Party is not very logical. Rather then dividing the party, by agreeing with each faction of the party on certain issues, Paul is actually in a position to be a better unifier of the party and the only people who would be in danger of leaving from the Republican Party would be extremists of each faction who have a higher chance of leaving if they do not get their complete platform adopted anyway. For this reason, a Ron Paul nomination would actually be in a better position to appeal to a much wider spread of voters, even if a defection to an independent candidacy of some Republican or Republican-leaning independent were to take place.

Finally, the news media seeks to discredit Paul by showing national opinion polls that show him with a very low popularity percentage and so they maintain there is no way he can win the Republican nomination. They also claim that even if he were to pull it off in some way, he would have no chance to beat President Barack Obama in the general election. This has inspired Ron Paul and his supporters to push their fight harder and Paul has taken his message to the public with his appearance at town hall meetings, whistle-stop tours and many other public appearances. He has begun to inspire the people with his fight to win and, just as with Truman in 1948, there is now evidence, as the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries approach, that Paul is actually in a good position to win.

In 1948, despite all the odds, Harry Truman’s fight bore fruit. He pulled off one of the biggest American election upsets ever and not only defeated Dewey, but defeated him soundly by more than three million votes in the popular vote with a 303 to 189 advantage in the Electoral College. Truman did this despite all the divisions within the Democratic Party, and the negative polls and opinions of the experts that Truman could not win. Today in 2012, Ron Paul is in a position to pull off a similar upset with his positions on the issues, superb organization, enthusiasm and fight for his cause. With this historical precedent of Harry Truman in 1948 considered, it is logical to predict that when the Republican National Convention convenes in August 2012, this humble congressman from Texas could very well be chosen to be the GOP nominee for 2012 and subsequently elected as the 45th President of the United States of America.

© 2012 The Subsidiarity Times. All rights reserved. This material may not be re-published, re-broadcast, re-written or re-distributed without written permission from blog author.

Why Michele Bachmann is Wrong on Iran

The heated exchange between Ron Paul (R-TX) and Michele Bachmann (R-MN) at the December 15th 2011 debate in Sioux City, Iowa clearly laid forth the differences between the constitutionalists and those defined as supporting the 'status quo' on the issue of foreign policy.

The issue which ignited this exchange concerned Iran's nuclear program, its relationship with Israel and what the American response should be. At the beginning of the foreign policy section of the debate, moderator Bret Baier posed a question to Ron Paul about a 'hypothetical' scenario regarding Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon which seemed, from the way the question was asked and structured, to be an attempt to link Ron Paul with Barack Obama in a negative light.

In responding to the question, Ron Paul clarified that more evidence pointed to the fact that Iran did not have a weapon and were not trying to acquire one. Paul also brought up the fact that a recently retired head of Israeli security had said it would make no sense to go after Iran and that many other Israelis were not very much in favor of attacking Iran. Then, in his strongest argument, he emphasized that America was running the risk of getting involved in another Iraq-like war if they overreacted and attacked Iran just based on the war propaganda and that it would be wiser to be more cautious when dealing with such issues.

Baier, seemingly unable to grasp that Paul had answered the question, again repeated the question, emphasizing the hypothetical side of it. In response Paul addressed the hypothetical side of the question with an explanation of why it would be perfectly natural for Iran to seek a nuclear weapon if indeed they decided to, because their neighbors all own nuclear weapons and so owning such a weapon would gain them some respect on the international stage in the Middle East. Ron Paul also added that though Iran would have nuclear weapon(s), they would effectively be deterred from using them by the existence of the nuclear weapons of several of their neighbors, especially Israel.

Still not seeming to understand how Paul was approaching the issue, Baier then brought up the recent news that Iran was planning exercises which would practice closing the Straits of Hormuz and the economically-important trade routes which run through the straits. He then asked Paul what the U.S. response would be if Iran took that action and did close the Straits. Paul explained that the exercises appeared to be Iran's way of sending a warning message to the West that "If Iran is bombed by the West, we are prepared to close the Straits of Hormuz and impact the oil market and the global economy." Paul then warned that such an act would be very effective in disrupting the global economy and that it would be wiser to try a diplomatic approach in solving the issues with Iran. Baier, unable to push the issue any longer, resorted to chiding Paul for taking too much time to answer the question before moving on to former Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA). (Interestingly enough, Santorum also went way over time on his answer to the foreign policy question Baier posed to him and was not similarly chided by Baier for taking too long to answer.)

Some minutes later, Michele Bachmann came at Ron Paul with an attack of her own on the foreign policy question. Bachmann stated that the United States knows "without a shadow of a doubt that Iran will take a nuclear weapon, they will use it to wipe our ally Israel off the face of the map and they've stated they will use it against the United States of America." She later implied that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "an avowed madman" and referenced a report from the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) which, she claimed, said Iran was within months of obtaining a nuclear weapon. When Paul pointed out the IAEA report only produced information which led her to believe that and that there was no actual evidence in the report of Iran's trying to obtain a nuclear weapon, then Bachmann simply answered, "If we agree with that, the United States people could be at risk." A classic fear-mongering, war-hawkish response.

In response, Paul brought up an example from history where diplomacy had worked in removing a much graver threat to the United States than that supposedly posed by Iran. Paul hearkened back to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis where America was dealing with nuclear missiles stationed in Cuba by the Soviet Union and recalled how diplomatic talks between President John F. Kennedy and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had led to the withdrawal of those weapons from Cuba. He then made a statement which summed up his stance on the whole situation: "We cannot solve these problems with war" and suggested America would be better off by rethinking the theories about America's supposed enemies around the world.

Congresswoman Bachmann really needs to investigate the facts and come to a more complete understanding of the foreign policy situation. Her statements have no factual backing and some of her language regarding the Iranian President was very insulting and not befitting of a candidate for the highest executive office in the United States. No one makes friends on the international stage by calling a fellow world leader "an avowed madman"; it is very un-presidential language.

Bachmann's statement of "we (the United States) know without a shadow of a doubt that Iran will take a nuclear weapon, they will use it to wipe our ally Israel off the face of the map and they've stated they will use it against the United States of America" has been made before. She made that very same statement in a debate on November 22nd and at a campaign event back in October. However, a check of that statement by the PolitiFact.com website after the November 22nd debate showed it to be completely false. Bachmann is well aware of the PolitiFact website as seen by her claim at the Sioux City debate that PolitiFact had stated that everything she had said was true, a statement which has been strongly refuted by PolitiFact.com. This makes Bachmann's repetition of that refuted statement about Iran an inexcusable blunder.

Bachmann's claim of the IAEA report saying that Iran was within months of obtaining a nuclear bomb was also proven false by a check of the actual report. The check of the report by the Associated Press showed that the IAEA suggested Iran could have conducted secret experiments concerning nuclear weapons, but laid forth no nuclear bomb timeline and did not produce any evidence to definitively say Iran was developing a bomb.

Finally, if the United States still has problems with the current Iranian regime, it would appear that they are not alone. Iran was affected by the 'Arab Spring' just as almost every other nation in the Middle East and Northern Africa has been. There have been many protests by the Iranian people against the current government, but ever since the United States began exerting more pressure on Iran, the protests have seemed to lose steam. Indeed, they should have been expected to do so. For when anger is directed against a perceived external enemy, the people of any nation automatically unite to oppose the external threat. Only when a nation has no external threat do the people of a nation turn against oppressors inside their nation or in their own government.

This phenomenon of people not criticizing their government when threatened externally can be seen many times throughout history. Following 9/11, all of the talk of President Bush 'stealing the 2000 election' disappeared and all Americans united behind him and his actions. Only when the problems at home became more serious, such as Hurricane Katrina and the 2008 Financial Collapse, did the people turn their anger against President Bush and his party again. In 1982, the unpopular Argentinian government tried to re-focus the anger of the Argentinian people away from the government and against Britain by invading the Falkland Islands. They succeeded in re-directing the people's anger until Argentina lost the conflict and then the people turned against the government again and helped bring it down. Based on these, and many other historical examples, the fact stands that as soon as the external threat disappears, the people turn against their government if their government is unpopular.

Iran has had much internal disorder since the election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 and the protests have continued, albeit in a more subdued and less reported manner, to this day. Therefore it is reasonable to conclude that if the United States were to back off and leave Iran alone, then the Iranian people would be encouraged to turn more strongly against the government and push to have Ahmadinejad step down.

These protests against Iran's current government also point towards a possible more friendly Iran in the near future. Ahmadinejad's presidential predecessor, Mohammed Khatami, was a reformist who made the reform movement for a freer and more democratic Iran very popular among the Iranian people, which, in turn, helped lead to the protests against Ahmadinejad's election in 2009. In addition, as part of that movement, Khatami sought to repair relations with the United States in 2003 and was open to a two-state solution for the Israeli-Palestinian question which would allow Israel to continue existing as a nation in the Middle East. If the reform movement in Iran was given the opportunity, by the absence of an external threat to Iran, to focus all of its efforts on removing Ahmadinejad from power and putting the reform movement in charge of the Iranian government, then there is a very strong possibility that Iran would cease to be a major problem in the Middle East to its neighbors and that stability would begin to return to the region.

Based on these facts, it can be seen that Congresswoman Bachmann is wrong about what America's policy should be towards Iran. She does not fully understand the issues or the politics of the region and does not know what historical experience says about internal and external politics, especially when it concerns unpopular governments.

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