Category Politics

Oct 31 2011

What is important?

What is important?

 

The Democrat Party has been making it increasingly easier for commonsense Mainers to make correct decisions in the voting booths come November.  After the Republican Party passed legislation to safeguard the integrity of our voting system in Maine, the opposition cried foul.  They waited for the throngs to join them.  To their disappointment, the numbers were not as large as they had hoped.  Mainers are far too endowed with powers of perception to fall for the same old Democrat lies.  After all, they have heard them for forty years and have gotten use to the pattern.  So how to create a throng?

Well, you can’t just go out and work up Maine people because they might ask tough questions like, “What’s wrong with protecting our votes?” or “Don’t you want to help out overworked town clerks on election day?” and the very embarrassing and awkward “You don’t want to stop voter fraud…why?”  That just wouldn’t work.  So, the Democrats have run to their old standby, the far-left fringe groups such as Maine People’s Alliance.  These groups are great at creating calamity out of tranquility, confusion out of clarity, and joblessness out of prosperity.  Ah yes, the wonderful “community organizers”.

Your humble columnist has had opportunity to engage in battle with the MPA on a few occasions.  It is a shame to see the lengths these groups will go to create instability, specifically economic instability, throughout the communities of Maine.  One such time, a large company, HoltraChem, had made some mistakes in its handling of chemicals and was required by the State to follow stringent regulations to clean it up.  They did and the expense of which was the demise of their company.  They sold out to another company, which finished the cleanup and maintained the landfills of contaminated soil to State standards.  This was not good enough for the MPA.  They saw an opportunity to bankrupt another big company.  They demanded this company and the town dig up the inert mercury soil now safely contained, reactivate the soil, drag it through Maine towns in rail cars and trucks to Canada, expose the environment, the townspeople of Maine and Canada to reactivated mercury, and burden another business with insurmountable operational expenses.  Why?  Was it to protect the environment or the townspeople?  Certainly not!  Their goal was to destroy another business.

These are the extremists that the Democrats have aligned themselves with to obstruct the people of Maine from securing protection of the sacred trust of Democracy.  Yes, the Democrats seem to think the process to purchase a bottle of whisky or a pack of cigarettes takes precedence over the process to insure the integrity of basic liberties.

They cry that there is no voter fraud; yet, a quick google of the words “voter fraud” will immediately grant you 20,000 entries having to do with voter fraud in the nation.  The most recent has an imminent arrest of Democrat leaders in Buffalo, New York.  Another reaches all the way to the Oval Office questioning whether Barack Obama should have ever been on the ballot in Indiana.

Fellow Mainers, we know better.  This is not about identifying voter fraud.  It is about preventing voter fraud.  Prevention is worth a pound of cure unless you don’t want to be cured.  So perhaps we should ask the Democrats that uncomfortable question again. “Why don’t you want to prevent voter fraud…again?”  The Maine Conservative Voice urges all its readers to vote “No” on 1.  It’s commonsense.  All of our readers in Dexter area make sure you go out and vote for Ray Wallace.  Let’s Set Maine Free!

Oct 26 2011

Means nothing to you, means something to me.

Means nothing to you, means something to me.

 

What is fair?  How do you establish a government that gives every individual an opportunity for success?  Can you possibly protect the interests and hopes of every person?  Our founding fathers wrestled with these questions and more when they set out to lay the foundation of a new fledgling nation.  Not far removed from the violent travail, which gave birth to this new freedom, these wise men knew they could not take lightly the solemn responsibility to guard the future of a newborn nation, whose hopes they now held in their hands.

Fresh in their minds was the horrors of war and the stench of blood-soaked battlefields.  Stamped into their memories was the ultimate price so many had paid for the hope and dream of freedom.  Our Founding Fathers knew they had to get it right or this would be another bloody revolution that simply shifted the power of tyranny from one faction to another.

So they started with this basic premise; all men are created equal and endowed by their Creator with basic unalienable rights; life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  It didn’t matter whether you were the majority or the minority, these basic rights could not be taken from you.  Next, the Founders grappled with how to insure this premise would be honored and protected.

These great men were keenly aware of the failure of government throughout history to be fair to every man.  So how could our government succeed were others had failed?  It couldn’t.  No government can.  The hopes, beliefs, and dreams of so many individuals offer a myriad of goals and intents that no government could ever guarantee.  Someone’s dreams inevitably would be set aside for others the government deemed more worthy of attention.  Perhaps the idea of government based on the belief that all men were created equal was simply folly.

Unless, that government was marginalized.  What if that government were confined and constrained to a small specific purpose?  What if that government feared the people because it feared the Creator of the people?  What if that government simply protected the nation from the threat of the invasion of a new tyranny?  What if that government was too small to provide an impediment to anyone’s life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness?  Then, perhaps, the aspirations of all American’s could have a hope of realization.

Government cannot understand the passions of the individual.  It simply cannot.  The human desire is a multi-faceted expression.  What matters little to you many be of utmost importance to another.  But each must be afforded an opportunity to pursue that passion.  This is the responsibility of the individual.  He or she alone knows what they value and desire.

Big government holds people helpless to its decisions.  The more it fails the more government reminds its people that it can’t please everyone.  Our Forefathers never intended Americans to look to government for answers.  It was not intended to please anyone, just function in its limited role.  They believed that every individual knew his own dream and that was none of government’s business.

Since the President and his Party have taken power, the private sector has lost 1.6 million jobs.  The government has grown by at least 105,000 jobs.  Senator Harry Reid has said the private sector is “doing just fine”.  He believes government jobs need to be protected.  If Mr. Reid were not a public servant, he would be entitled to his beliefs.  But while the loss of 1.6 million jobs is “just fine” with Democrats, the private sector does not agree.  Government is deciding whose hopes and futures are worth preserving.  Government is now right where our Founding Fathers did not want it to be, in the way.  Big government needs to be, once again, marginalized.  This government needs to be told that the “means nothing to you” means something to me and it is really none of your business, so get out of it.

Oct 17 2011

Oops-the litany, the legacy.

Oops-the litany, the legacy.

 

Shaken by the incessant criticism hurled at this columnist for his consistent adherence to the tenets of conservatism, the Maine Conservative Voice has decided to try and step away from the several writing techniques my critics have deemed boring and unimaginative.  No longer will there be the drab, predictable, irrefutable facts interlaced with bland, cagey, endearing, sarcastic humor.  No, it is time to step it up a little bit, take it to the next level and engage the audience with the scintillating and sensational.  Mothers, hide your children as MCV moves into uncharted waters.  Behold, the jaw-dropping, mouth-gaping, riveting…graph.  Come on!  Don’t be shy.  Look at it.

 

Wage earnings                    Avg tax%

$20,000-30,000                    5.7%

$40,000-50,000                    12.5%

$50,000-75,000                    15%

$1,000,000+                         29.1%

 

Now that this moment of guilty pleasure is over, we can wipe the sweat from our brow, pull ourselves together and concentrate on the reason for this shocking revelation.  The information here was put together by the Associated Press to verify President Obama’s assertion that middle class America is paying more taxes than the wealthy and that it is time for millionaires to start paying their fair share.  You know, I’m still having a hard time getting my head wrapped around “New Math” but, for those of us who are still paddling around the 5.7 mark, 29.1 still seems like a lot more.  Maybe we all just need to have Warren Buffet explain these numbers to us the way he has explained it to the President.  Mr. Buffet wants millionaires to pay more taxes, as long as it is not he.  Mr. Buffet is under investigation for tax evasion issues.

Here at home, Ms. Quimby wants to turn all her landholdings into a Federal Park.  It is her land.   She can do what she wants with it except….when….it….effects other people’s land and their livelihoods.   Governor Lepage has worked hard to secure the sale and restart of paper mills in Millinocket.  People are headed back to work.  But if Ms. Quimby has her way, Federal Park regulations would block the harvest of wood fiber, which is essential to the survival of the Millinocket mills.  The Democrat Party is a huge supporter of Ms. Quimby’s plan.

Democrats Chris Dodd and Barney Frank want at least one more financial crisis to add to their legacy.  They along with Dick Durbin have allowed banks to charge heavy fees to you the consumer for having….money.  Yes, the banks can now penalize you based on the fact that you have money in their bank.  Talk about a sound fiscal model for economic recovery.   Can anyone say “money in my mattress”?  How about one more Dodd/Frank banking collapse?  This is inevitable when patrons begin wholesale withdrawals.

Corruption is coming to light fast and very furious, as one CBS investigative reporter has found out.  The White House, for her dogged investigation into the Fast and Furious scandal, deemed Sheryl Attkinson “unreasonable”.  Members of the President’s staff and Department of Justice screamed and shouted explicatives at Ms. Attkinson as she asked for answers to the cover-ups.  From my limited past experience, this loss of control means that a “whole lotta smelly oopses” are about to hit the fan.

Speaking of the fan, before the aroma of the “Solyndra Oops” was scattered across America, the President was poised to give another loan to the bankrupt solar company.  How big of a funnel was he trying to fill anyway?  Now, the President wants to encourage spoiled college students to shut down Wall Street.  The “oopses” are just piling up both here and abroad.

Oct 11 2011

Oops…again!

Oops….again!

 

News Flash!  In a rush to beat the final deadline, this past week the Obama administration had to ramrod the last 5 billion dollars of taxpayer funded stimulus out the door in a frantic effort to ensure that its mandate on green energy business is realized.  With most of these companies going bankrupt and many more on the way, it is easy to understand the helpless anger that is boiling throughout America despite efforts of the media to cover for the President.  Where is all this money going?  What kind of return are American citizens getting for their tax dollars?

Several million dollars were given to the brother-in-law of Nancy Pelosi to start a green energy business.  Now it comes to light that his business has created twelve jobs.   Twelve jobs?  For…. how much?  So this begs the question – what are taxpayers spending per green job created?

For every green job created, it is costing the citizens of the United States 20 million dollars.  Green energy is cutting-edge business and inherently risky, no one is arguing that.  But risky is one thing, stupid is another.  Unless these employees are being outfitted with Bionics, a 20 million dollar employee seem a little pricey to the average man.  How can Americans expect to realize a return on investment capital with such expensive employees?  This would be virtually impossible even with a solvent business.  But these businesses were going bankrupt from their inception.  Their business models screamed failure from the very onset and, yet, the White House fell all over itself to infuse monumental amounts of cash from a cash-strapped nation into a yawning, gaping, green vacuum.  Americans now are green with the nausea that comes from the sinking realization that you have been taken and were helpless to prevent it.  Bankrupt green energy is now sending employees back to the jobless ranks at $20 million a pop.

Compare that to the State of Maine.  Hundreds of jobs are coming back to the Millinocket area and what did it cost Mainers?  The Governor’s salary.  Wait, you say, doesn’t he get paid that anyway?  Exactly!  The Governor did not ask for Mainers to dig a little deeper, sacrifice a little more and stop being soft.   Instead, he worked harder to help convince out of State investors that a more business friendly Maine is in the making. Business owners trust Paul LePage because they have seen him in action in the private sector.  They know his record.  So the private sector is investing in Maine.  People in Northern Maine, even in little towns like Brownville Junction, are seeing the hope of new jobs created without it costing anyone a dime.

When the government creates jobs, good or bad, it costs the taxpayer.  At one time the automobile and the assembly line was cutting-edge technology.  The government didn’t force it down our throats nor did it try to prop up the carriage industry.  The free market played out and Henry Ford succeeded, while a successful carriage maker saw the handwriting on the wall, sold out and formed General Motors.

Job creation should not be hurting Americans.  It should be helping Americans.  Call me simple, but it seems like common sense.  The President now wants us to entrust him with another $447 billion in stimulus…yeah.  Perhaps, Mr. President, if your campaign donors could return the billions of our money you gave them; it could help the nation recover from the green nausea that is sweeping the nation….perhaps.  On a personal note, thank you, Governor  Paul R. LePage :-)!