Something To Consider

As a conservative (and as an American), I am not yet ready to decide who I would like to see run for President as a Republican in 2016. There are a lot of good conservative young leaders in the Republican party who would run a good campaign and do a good job as President. To name a few (but not all)–Bobby Jindal, Scott Walker, and Rick Perry. You will notice that Rand Paul is not on my list. That is simply because I don’t know enough about him or his policies. The people on the list are state governors with experience in running a state that they could bring with them to being President. Rand Paul and Ben Carson are both extremely smart men who have run medical practices, but I don’t know enough about their administrative abilities or policies to be convinced–yet. However, that could change.

Last night I attended a fund raiser for Congressman Walter Jones where Rand Paul was the main speaker. There were a number of comments he made about our current state of affairs in America that impressed me.

Senator Paul spoke about the Boston Marathon bombing. As someone who was living in Massachusetts at that time, that event was earthshaking. He reminded us that the Russians had warned us about the brothers who set off the bombs. The brothers had recently traveled to a part of the world known for terrorism. Because of a variation of the spelling of their last name, Homeland Security was not tracking them. How hard would it be to create a computer program that would account for variations in spelling? Senator Paul also pointed out that the government has gotten so busy spying on Americans’ cell phones and emails that it cannot find the terrorist threats in the midst of such enormous amounts of data. He stated,”Sometimes we make the haystack so big we can’t find the needle.” That sounds like basic common sense to me!

Senator Paul also pointed out the need for a debate in Congress before we send American troops into war. The Constitution puts war powers in Congress–not with the President. We need to get back to the Constitution on deciding when and where to send our troops. He also reminded us that in every Middle Eastern country where we have toppled a secular dictator in the name of democracy we have brought instability and chaos. We also need to get back to political leaders who put the good of America ahead of their own political ambition.

Senator Paul also cited some egregious examples of government’s wasting of American taxpayer’s money.

I left the event wanting to know more about Senator Paul’s foreign policy and his specific plans to bring America back to the limited government our Founding Fathers envisioned. I hope to hear more about those things in the future so that I can make an educated choice in the 2016 Republican primary election.

The Real Numbers On The Sequester

Yesterday Senator Rand Paul posted an article at Investors.com detailing some of the actual numbers in the sequester. Senator Paul reminds us that the sequester cuts the federal budget by only 2.3%–leaving 97.7% of the budget intact.

Senator Paul states:

The sequester barely begins to skim the surface of the problem. Since taking office, President Obama has increased federal domestic agencies’ budget by 17%. This 17% increase since 2008 will have to endure a 5% cut.

Even with the sequester, the federal government will spend more in 2013 than it did in 2012 — or more than $15 billion.

This expansion of government is equivalent to the entire chain of Whole Foods or Macy’s department stores, in just one year.

President Obama has dramatically expanded our federal government, and the American taxpayers should not have to endure more tax increases to fund it.

We have to start cutting back.

Unfortunately, there are some people in government who do not want to see any cuts at all–they simply want to take more money out of the pockets of working Americans. The scare tactics are everywhere–from releasing prisoners to threatening longer lines at airports. Unless Americans wake up and realize that the Obama Administration and the majority of the news media are lying about the impact of these cuts, we can expect further increases in both taxes and spending and an economy that is simply not growing at an acceptable rate. The voters will determine the future of our country by how they vote in 2014. I think that the voters in that election will decide whether we become Greece or remain America.

Things That Make Me See Red

I realize that as I get older I have less patience with stupid statements, but every now and then someone says something that sends me through the roof.

Yesterday CNS News reported that:

John P. Holdren, the top science adviser to President Barack Obama, wrote in a book he co-authored with population control advocates Paul and Anne Ehrlich that children from larger families have lower IQs.

The article further reports:

Holdren and the Ehrlichs published “Human Ecology” with W.H. Freeman and Company in 1973. In June 2000, a study published in American Pyschologist debunked the notion that children in larger families have lower I.Q.s. But when Holdren appeared in the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee in 2009 for a confirmation hearing on his appointment to run the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, he continued to argue for the benefits of “smaller families” on other bases.

Why does this matter? Because the mindset of the Obama Administration is generally anti-family.

Just a few notes on I.Q.s. A website called learninginfo.org posted an article entitled, “Do You Need A High IQ To Be Successful?”

Some highlights from the article:

A Canadian television program recently tracked down some of the people with the highest IQ scores in North America. One man who has an extremely high genius IQ works as a motorcycle mechanic, hangs out with biker gangs, and is frequently in and out of jail. 

…Qualities such as determination and vision can be more important to your ultimate success in life than the IQ number you started out with. Being creative, optimistic, and flexible are important hallmarks of many successful people. Common sense, the ability to get along with other people, and knowing a good idea when you see one, may be more useful qualities than having a genius IQ.

Let’s look at that last paragraph again. Common sense and the ability to get along with other people are things that people learn in healthy two-parent families (generally with more than one child). A child with siblings learns to share–toys, the spotlight, successes and failures. A child with siblings (in a healthy family) grows up with a close support group that helps launch him into success.

The other part of this equation is the definition of success. Is a stay-at-home mother who volunteers in the community less successful that the corporate executive? Is her work any less valuable?

The article at CNS News states:

“The columnist Dr. Joyce Brothers answered a question sent into Good Housekeeping (February, 1981) by a mother of four asking if she should consider having another baby as follows: ‘Studies have shown that children reared in small families are brighter, more creative, and more vigorous than those from large families,’” the authors noted.

“However,” they said, “the belief that, for a particular set of parents in a modern country like the United States, a larger family will lead to children with lower IQs appears to be, simply, wrong. The belief that birth order effects on intelligence act directly to decrease the intelligence of children born later in a given family also appears to be, simply, wrong.”

“Do large U.S. families make low-IQ children? No,” said the authors. “Are birth order and intelligence related to one another within U.S. families? No.”

When you consider that the Obama Administration is moving the country toward a philosophy of national dependence on government, there is always the possibility that the move to limit the size of families is part of a plan to make the total population’s dependence on government more affordable. If you would like to see the results of a governmental policy that discourages children, take a look at the current demographics of Japan and the impact that is having on the Japanese economy.

Enhanced by Zemanta