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Brendan Steinhuser of FreedomWorks is reporting that another official of an American city is trying to prevent organizers of a tea party tax protest from being "allowed" to stage their protest, this time in Burleson, Texas.

Unlike the the situation in Cape Coral, Florida where it was overburdening regulation that served as a stumbling block to the freedom of the people to assemble, the Texas case proves to be more un-American because it is an unelected city official that is vowing to block the tax protest by abusing his insider power to cajole city officials to deny American's their rights..

According to Steinhauser, Street Supervisor Ray Gonzales is vowing to prevent the gathering.

Mr. Gonzales told organizers that he is on a special events staff, which is under the city manager’s office in Burleson. Gonzales explained to one local organizer that the special events staff had decided this protest was “not in the public interest.” He is telling organizers that David Wynn, the city manager, is his boss, and could overturn this decision. For the record, the city manager’s office told local organizers that they do not need a permit to demonstrate in Burleson, and they are not saying that the organizers need one now.

Can we guess which party Gonzales belongs to? Could it be maybe that party that has a jackass as it's mascot?

For those interested in expressing how anti-American Gonzales is, here is some of the contact info for the good folks in the city government of Burleson, Texas:

Burleson Mayor Kenneth Shetter
mayor@burlesontx.com

Burleson City Manager David Wynn
kmearns@burlesontx.com (817) 447-5400 x 234

Burleson City Council
citycouncil@burlesontx.com

I can tell you that the people will show up anyway, but we need to send a message to the city of Burleson, just like we did in Cape Coral, Florida.

Burleson Tea Party

April 15, 2009
3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Location: Across the street from Wal-Mart
951 SW Wilshire Blvd.
Burleson, Texas 76028 (burlesonteaparty@gmail.com)

Rob Simmons has announced that he's running for the Senate against Senator Chris Dodd in Connecticut. http://www.joinrobsimmons.com/

Simmons is a retired member of our armed forces, served in Vietnam and served in the CIA for 10 years. He joined the staff of Senator John Chaffee in 1979.

Mr. Simmons also has a Twitter feed at : http://twitter.com/robsimmons

Good luck, Rob Smmons. Dodd needs to go down.

Who the Heck Elected YOU, anyway? Whether it be among friends or family, we've all heard that phrase tossed about by someone who found his pet idea left by the wayside. It's a question of "official" authority, in most cases. Say your friends get together for a movie, say you make a film choice and everyone begins to agree. But there's always that one guy that doesn't agree with your movie choice. He wants to go somewhere else and when he finds no one siding with him he asks in frustration who elected you to make the decision? After all, there was no election so why did you get to make the movie choice over his druthers? It's easy to laugh off that frustration in most cases and settle for a community decision among friends. But it is another thing when that concept is applied to decisions made by government placemen and appointees. And it's even worse when our tax money is spent by the billions because of the requirements imposed by government workers unions that the polity did not elect to have the power to spend our money.

And we are seeing this illicit decision making by unelected union bosses grow at exponential rates these days. Take for instance the trouble that Governor John Corzine of New Jersey is having. His state budget is wildly over allocated and he's decided to lay off some government workers to save precious cash, cash, it should be remembered, that IS the people's tax money. This is a move that every business is confronted with at some time or another. When times are flush and a lot of work is in the offing, business hires. But when times get tight and the need for workers flails, unnecessary employees are let go. It's a fact of life that cannot be avoided. Oh, but not government! Once you get a government job it is, for some unexplainable reason, assumed to be a permanent job.

Corzine is attempting to "furlough" state workers -- in normal human speak, that means lay them off -- but the unions are taking the state to court to stop the governor from saving the taxpayer's money by forcing him to keep them all on full-time.

How do these union thugs justify these many useless court actions? Catch this facile explanation:

"The administration is continuing to ask public employees to bear the burden of our state's fiscal crisis -- while requiring only token contributions from the state's wealthiest individuals," said Hetty Rosenstein, state director for the Communications Workers of America, which represents more than 55,000 public workers.

Let's transpose this situation from government to the private sector. Can anyone of any integrity say that an employee shouldn't lose his job at McDonald's because McDonald's didn't try to get "the rich" to take some cuts before the layoffs begin? "The rich" bear no responsibility as a whole for the down turn of business. As in real life, the same must be true for government -- in fact even more so because of the coercive power of government. When government budgets are over spent and workers need to be cut, the fact that rich people are still rich should have nothing whatever to do with the decisions to cut workers.

And then we get to the question that started our rumination here. Who the hell elected Hetty Rosenstein to go spend our tax dollars on useless, illicit and necessary court actions against government? Not only are the taxpayers paying for the court actions, they are also paying for the unnecessary workers, their benefits AND thug Rosenstein's salary!

And we are ultimately confronted with the singular fact that unions are antithetical to good government. They are unaccountable to the voters and in bed with those we actually elect who seem to live to bloat budgets with unnecessary jobs. And when governments pad departments with even more pals, placemen, and hangers on that then become union members, we find those union thugs continually vote to return the complicit elected officials back to office over and over again. Essentially, these workers are voting themselves their fellow taxpayers' money! This is as illogical and undemocratic as it gets in government.

A public employee union is a corruption of good government in every sense of the word and they should be made illegal. They are in a position to spend billions upon billions of the taxpayer's taxes without having to ever come before the people with their demands. They are wholly unaccountable to the voter and can attempt to force their way with impunity.

But it isn't just unions that are finding power in government without being accountable to the voters. Another example of the illicit power these government placemen, appointees, and employees are attaining can be seen in a Houston Chronicle story from March 31. In that story, Chronicle writer Matt Stiles notes that lobbyists are paying increasing attention to the bosses of regulatory agencies and spending their lobbying money (to the tune of $1.6 million) upon them in hopes of finding favorable outcomes for various industries.

Who elected these appointees to fill their permanent jobs, never to be held accountable for the many billions of the taxpayer's money that they spend, and to have lobbyists butter them up with free diners, expensive gifts and plied for favorable regulatory decisions?

In essence, no one did. Sure they were put in place by some elected official or another, but once their initial benefactor is out of office, we the taxpayers are often stuck with the appointee for the foreseeable future. Once these people get in the union, firing them is nearly impossible. About the only way we can ever be rid of these millstones is when they get arrogant enough to find trouble with the law. But, as we wait for the courts to uncover their criminal empire building, we the people lose.

It all speaks of a government that has taken too much power unto itself. It is a situation ripe for abuse and that abuse is born on the backs of every single member of society. These leeches are sapping the life of this country and there doesn't seem to be a thing we can do about it because elected officials, government employees and the courts are all in favor of bloated, unaccountable, unnecessary government.

It's so bad that one can almost see the sense of the patronage system where the whole government down to the last clerk is turned out of office with the election of each new politician.

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TNR’s Chait gets it wrong thinking Americans are all nouveau left-wingers just because Barack Obama won the White House

Jonathan Chait is all upset at the Democratic Party. Hs is damning their eyes for not blindly accepting every extremist, left-wing idea that President Obama would like to implement. Chait is wailing that Congressional Democrats are standing athwart Obama's radical agenda just when he assumes we are at a "once-in-a-generation chance for the Democratic Party to reshape" the country.

Chait is right, of course, that Congressional Democrats are not bending over blindly for Obama's agenda and many elected officials are jealously guarding their privilege is true enough. He is also right that Obama has faced some obstacles within his own party -- and it is probably coming as a surprise to the president, too. But he is wrong to assume they are doing it for spite, mere power or necessarily for personal aggrandizement. In fact, Chait has a major misunderstanding of the very country that Democrats represent. You see, Chait thinks that just because Obama won a 7 percent majority of the vote the whole country is ready to become a radicalized, socialist, anti-religious, and virulently anti-capitalist nation. Chait makes the major mistake in thinking "the people" of the United States of America are just like him.

Chait does a fine job in The New Republic chronicling what he sees as the unexpected and unwarranted resistance by many Democrats to the Obama agenda. He talks of arcane Senate rules and recalcitrant coalitions. He decries the many times that Democrats have thrown up minor road blocks to Obama's "reshaping" of the country.

However, Chait seems completely unable to fathom why this is so. He wonders why Republicans found it so easy to implement Bush's plans and marvels at how Bush moved full speed ahead after the 2000 election when so many from the chattering classes imagined that he'd have to scale back his agenda. Why can't Democrats do this, he moans?

Chait ends up deciding that these failures prove that Democrats are "congenitally" unable to govern. (Incidentally, the same thing is often said of Republicans. This might be a hint that the checks and balances inherent in our system exist for a reason, eh? Not that Chait grasps this concept.)

His main lament is close to the end of the piece:

Democratic partisans constantly complain that their leaders in Washington fail to display the same partisan unity as Republicans do. And, in many crucial respects, they are correct. Even when they control the White House and both branches of Congress, Democrats have not displayed the parliamentary-style cohesion Republicans managed under Bush.

But Chait makes a mistake to imagine that Republicans are better at party unity. The mistake he makes is based on where he and those "Democratic partisans" stand on the political spectrum. Naturally from the extreme left it will look like Democrats aren't far enough left and aren't supporting the correct ideas in a unified way.

Apparently, Chait thinks that just because the Democrats have a majority that the extreme left should prevail. And here is his problem, here is why he completely misunderstands why not all Democrats are dutifully lining up under the banner of the Mau Tse-tung wing of the Democratic Party. You see, not every Democrat is a bomb-throwing, worker's party member wannabe. Most Democrats are average, center left, Scoop Jackson sorts of Americans, not beret-wearing, sandal sporting, protest sign carrying Code Pinkos.

The reason that Bush found his agenda far easier to get through Congress, mandate or no, is that his ideas were far closer to the center than Obama's, or Clinton's initially turned out to be or Carter's were. Most Americans are center left/center right and not extremists to one side or another. But, for sure, they are far closer as a whole to the center right than the left. This country generally sports a traditional, conservative mind-set, Democrats and Republicans alike.

So, when Obama comes sweeping in proposing to devastate businesses with card check laws, a radical takeover our national health care system, and a massive bloating of the federal government, those center right constituents of many Democrats begin to get a little uneasy. They begin to call their Congressmen and Senators to urge a little cooling off time. And, therefore, Congressional Democrats begin to pull back from Obama's radical agenda.

Sure it looks like the party isn't unified. But it isn't because Democrats don't want to be buddies in a gauzy world of happiness and wallowing in moments of kum-bye-yah harmony with each other. It's because they are getting push back from the people that put them in office.

Remember that whole "representative" part of a representative republic, Mr. Chait?

The fact is the country DOES NOT agree with the extremist, left-wing agenda that Chait thinks Democrats should be able to push through just because they have a majority. He completely misses that this is why his ideas don't get passed.

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Remember this report from our nation's history?

CNN (Continental News Network) Boston, 1773: The city of Boston canceled a proposed protest over tea taxes today, citing the fear that too many people dressed as Indians would be gathered near the wharves. Organizers expressed sadness over the cancellation, but meekly returned to their homes fearful of upsetting the officers of the Crown. Taxmen breathed a sigh of relief as the tar and feathers were put away not to be used this day.

You don't remember that pre-revolutionary history? I should say you shouldn't, because it didn't happen. But flash forward a few hundred years and you'll find it is happening today in Cape Coral, Florida where city officials canceled a tax day tea party gathering because they "feel too many people could show-up."

That's right, folks, the God-given, long-held American right to assemble and protest the actions of our government has been canceled due to too much popularity of the protest.

And what does it come down to? Money. You see, the city officials want an insurance policy taken out so that organizers can cover any loss that might occur as a result of the rally. And those insurance policies cost hundreds of dollars.

The tea party organizers of Cape Coral, though, aren't the only ones to find this restriction of their free speech and rights to assemble. Tea party organizers all across the country have begun to find out just how difficult, if not impossible, it is to be "allowed" to exercise their God-given right to speak their minds against government excess and criminality. City governments all across the country are charging fees for "permits," forcing organizers to pay out huge sums for "insurance policies," and binding tea party organizers in all sorts of government red tape.

In many instances, organizers are being told that they aren't "allowed" to hold rallies on government property. Imagine that? We, the taxpayers of the city/state/federal government aren't "allowed" to gather on property that our own taxes paid for.

And then there are the "permits" required to reserve the day, arrange the police protection, and clean up afterward. Often those "permits" can only be applied for at certain times a year, precluding any spontaneous assembly. Also, these "permits" can be denied with no reason stated quashing at birth any plan to exercise the right of assembly.

Here one might wonder how it is that we so often see those lefties appearing on our TV sets engaging in their many organized protests? Don't the flotsam and jetsam of the far left seem to have large protests all the time? One might be drawn to imagine that the government is involved in some sort of grand conspiracy to allow those with anti-American sentiment, the moonbats of the left, to march with impunity. But, hold the tinfoil hats, won't you? Because the wackjobs of anti-war ilk and the shrill, circus acts of the Code Pinkos are expected to cut through the same red tape the tea party organizers have been confronted with. The lefties are just better at it.

You see, contrary to popular conception, the far left has some deep-pocketed backers (your George Soros types, unions and even government funds) and a raft of organizations that do "protests" as a full time job. Their protest marches and rallies are far from spontaneously organized. These groups are thoroughly knowledgeable about the red tape and governmental hoops through which they must jump to carry off a successful protest assembly. After all, the hatemongers of the left are intimately intertwined with city governments all across the country. They understand what needs to be done because, by and large, city officials used to belong to, or belong still to the sorts of groups that plan lefty protests. Your new president is one of them. Being part of government, these leftie protest marchers help write the rules, being intimately associated with government they are quite well informed about what is required and how to get around or satisfy those rules.

But the obstacles are coming as a shock to the average citizens that love this country. For their whole lives peace-loving, work-a-day Americans have taken for granted that there exists the freedom to assemble completely unaware that those rights have been eliminated by stealth regulation by governments all across the land.

And now the folks in Cape Coral, Florida have learned their lesson.

Americans do not have the rights they always thought they did. There is no right to protest government. There is no right to assemble. The people have no rights at all to voice their displeasure. Shut up people. Go home. Nothing to see here. Go quietly back to your IPods and DVDs. Big daddy government will take care of you. The Obemmessiah will decide what's best for you. Don't worry your little heads. Oh, and thank you for your payments on April 15th.

Put away the tar and feathers, won't you? There’s a nice fella.

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I propose that "Dueling Banjos" replace our current national anthem. Remember the 1972 movie Deliverance with Burt Reynolds? OK, recall that scene of the goofy looking kid plucking out "Dueling Banjos" on the porch? That kid was supposed to represent a backwards, inbred, and half sentient hillbilly if you'll recall. Well, that is officially the United States of America today.

No, I am not saying that the country is like a slack-jawed southerner, but is instead like an inbred, uneducated fool. I am not talking about genetic inbreeding here, either. I am saying this country has become like a dumbed-down, socially and historically illiterate, inbred, incurious, fool, one that understands one thing and one thing only: entertainment. We can thank our putrefying "education" establishment for this as well as the coarsening culture about us.

The reason I am drawn to this sad conclusion is the complete ignorance of the people of this country to the rule of law. Not just the ignorance evinced by the self-empowering politicians and the activist judges, but the bulk of the population. The Constitution has at last become a document that has no meaning to the largest number of Americans.

There are many culprits that have brought about this sordid state of affairs. Starting at the very least with the nation's first education destroyer, John Dewey, and his contemporary Charles Beard, a villain from the field of American historiography, and proceeding through FDR's socialist revolution, the Warren Court, and LBJ's "Great Society," and up to today's Obamanation. From among these touch stones in time we have seen several generations now of citizens that have no regard for anything in the document that serves as the supreme law of the land.

We've seen Eminent Domain warped until it serves as an excuse for theft by any government that so declares its use, unparalleled use of police powers, such abuse of taxing privileges that is startles the mind, and a complete elimination of capitalism. We've seen abuse after abuse of our founding principles that has for decades accosted the average citizen. And what have we done as a polity about all this? We've continued to elect, over and over again, those that have made no bones about their contempt for our national character and laws.

And why have we done this as a nation? Why have we turned a blind eye to the essentially anti-American political ideals espoused by our judges, our representatives, our educators and media personnel? Why have we stood idly by as the Constitution has been torn up in tiny little pieces and casually thrown to the four winds? That we think we are getting "free stuff" from them is one reason. But another reason is because the bulk of us have no idea that it's even happening. Most Americans have such little knowledge of the Constitution, its meaning and our traditions and history that they are entirely ignorant at what is being lost.

Sure many "feel" that something isn't quite right. Many decry the state of things and have a vague feeling, maybe even a certain feeling, that things are off track. But few have the slightest idea why.

This situation has been created on purpose by our schools, of course. Our system of miseducation has created an America that simply doesn't understand why we should be so upset by the abrogation of this Constitution thingie?

Take a look at Illinois, for instance. In a case perhaps headed to the Supreme Court (no reliable observer of the Constitution itself) a casino owner is suing the State of Illinois for "taking" its property -- in tax money levied -- for redistribution to another business.

What happened under the estimable Governor Rod Blagojevich is essentially this: Blagojevich, who received large contributions from the horse racing lobby in the state, took thousands of dollars from Illinois casinos via state tax law so that he could give that money to horse racing tracks to prop up the struggling horse racing industry there.

The traditional definition of a "taking" would be that of a government confiscating land from private individuals or companies to redistribute to other individuals. Money has not been considered in the same way as confiscation of land in the past as a definition of a "taking." But what is the difference in this day and age, really? Especially in an era when money is often a larger segment of a person or company's holdings than land is? And how is it not like a bill of attainder when a particular industry is taxed for the support of another one?

Now, imagine the new world that will be opened up if the State of Illinois is upheld in its theft of the casino industry's money to be used as a prop for some other more politically favored industry? Imagine the power that the state will have to steal the earnings of any person or industry or business it doesn't like to give away to a person or business it does like? Imagine the new level of corruption that will be invented if politicians can levy confiscatory taxes on one specific business so that said taxes will benefit the business of a campaign contributor? Imagine the newest power government will have to destroy any business it doesn't like from this point forward?

By rights, the people should fear this untrammeled government power. This sort of un-Constitutional, anti-capitalist, statist power would traditionally have been the stuff of tarring and feathering of politicians and state employees. This sort of thing would have seen tax collectors being driven out of their homes by "mysterious" fires and social ostracizing. Barring that sort of traditional outrage, these sort of politicians should at the very least find themselves out of office at the public's earliest opportunity.

But who in Illinois even knows this is going on? A sad few, for sure.

Unfortunately, Americans are completely unconcerned by the 100-year assault on the Constitution. In fact, few are even aware it is going on.

So strike up a chorus of "Dueling Banjos" so that we can all smile blankly into the distance as we are destroyed from within. Let's enjoy the tune while it lasts because as soon as it's over, we will trail off into a haze of a self-induced stupor, drooling onto our bib overalls as our nation is allowed to rot around us.

Ding a'ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding....

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No one wants to see a beautiful 18-year-old girl commit suicide. No one wants to make any worse the pain that surviving family members feel. No one wants to make light of the situation that causes a child or young person to chose suicide, either. But high emotion makes for bad laws and this is no exception.

Last year, Jessica Logan imagined that she was sending a nude cell-phone photo of herself only to her new boyfriend. But he was not as circumspect as she might have hoped passing the salacious picture to his friends, and they to theirs, until it surged through some seven Cincinnati high schools.

It wasn't long before Jessica was the butt of jokes and the target of epithets like "slut" and "porn queen." The ribbing shook her so hard that she hanged herself in her bedroom last July.

And now, parents Albert and Cynthia Logan want new laws passed to somehow stop "sexting" of nude or half nude photos from one teen's cell-phone to another. Unfortunately, such laws are just a bad idea. They will do nothing to stop the low-born practice while only piling more strangling regulations on the business community as well as giving government and police officials even more intrusive powers into our individual lives.

There is nothing wrong with trying to convince kids that emailing nude photos of themselves is not a good idea, of course, and the Logan's are undertaking that effort. But the there-ought-to-be-a-law mentality is not effective here, as it isn't in most cases on such emotional issues.

Absurdly, the Logans are agitating to place more onus on schools for stopping this new age problem of "cyberbullying" and "sexting."

"Schools need to understand our kids are targeting each other and how technology is being used as a weapon," Aftab said. "None of them (the schools) know what to do. Many of them ... think it's not their problem. They want to close their eyes and put fingers in their ears, saying it's a home issue."

Sorry, parents, but if your children are sending nude cell-phone photos of themselves to each other, the solution is not to force schools to get involved. The solution is to take away the darn cell-phone!

Sadly, what we have here is not a lack of laws, but a crass culture.

A national study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy revealed that 1 in 5 teen girls or 22 percent say they have electronically sent or posted nude or semi-nude images online of themselves.

Salacious attitudes are instilled in kids by raunchy entertainment, coarse advertising and the non-chalant attitude of parents to these influences. It needs to be pointed out that this sad suicide was precipitated in the first place by the girl sending the nude photo to a boyfriend she only had been dating for two months. Sadly, this young girl was not instilled with an attitude of propriety in her behavior. Just as sadly, she is not alone. Too many of our children never seem to be told what behavior is unacceptable in our country today.

There is a reason, though, that this poor child was so hard hit by the taunting she was confronted with. We lack a sense of shame in our culture and when it hits it is like a ton of bricks that many don't quite understand. Young Jessica suddenly found herself with a bad reputation, deserved or no, because of her own actions.

"I watched her get kicked out of maybe three or four parties over the summer just for having 'a reputation,' " said Steven Arnett, a friend of hers who graduated last year from Moeller High School.

This is a sad, sad object lesson for other kids imagining there are no consequences for sending salacious photos of themselves all across the Internet. There ARE consequences to your actions. This must be learned by our youth but it is a lesson that is missing from society today.

Unfortunately, just the wrong sort of lesson is being promulgated by teachers, lawmakers and these parents with this incident.

"It is a form of bullying, and that is something we cannot tolerate. The difficulty is stopping it. ... That's why we stress with our kids that the moment you push 'send,' the damage is done." (said Sycamore Superintendent Adrienne James)

All the onus put on "the bullying" and none put on the person that sent the nude photo to begin with is simply not a complete lesson. The better lesson is to focus equally on both the sender and the bullies, not just the bullies.

The wrap up is typical of the wrong headed emphasis we too often place on the situations that confront us in our modern society.

Albert and Cynthia Logan have gone public with Jessie's story, hoping to change vague state laws that don't hold anyone accountable for sexting. They also want to warn kids about what can happen when nude cell-phone photos are shared.

"We want a bill passed," Cynthia Logan said.

"It's a national epidemic. Nobody is doing anything - no schools, no police officers, no adults, no attorneys, no one."

It isn't the laws that are the problem. Its the overindulgence of kid's "self esteem," a complete lack of moral instruction, a coarsening of our society, and a corresponding assumption by too many parents that everyone else should be responsible for their own children's behavior.

Again, it is horrendous that this beautiful young woman took her own life over this embarrassment. But it is the lack of imagining that actions have consequences, that embarrassment is a result, that reputations can be destroyed with casual actions little thought out, that all too often is a lesson learned too late.

It isn't only the Logan's fault. There is little doubt that they loved their daughter. But this incident is indicative of some major errors in our society that needs to be fixed. If it isn't, these heart-wrenching incidents will grow until the total breakdown of society is complete and no "law" will stop it.

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The Shop Floor is reporting once again on the lies that the SEIU is using to try and cajole people into thinking that the Wall Street Journal supports the Employee Free Choice Act, today. But now that story has taken a twist. It appears that the House Education and Labor Committee is using the same lie.

Originally the SEIU surgically removed a few words from the WSJ article to make it seem as if the Journal was somehow supporting the EFCA. On what the WSJ said, the SEIU wrote the following:

"The bill doesn’t remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act," wrote the WSJ.

Only that isn't really what the WSJ said at all. Here is the full sentence the Journal wrote in its headlined "Unionize or die" (my bold for emphasis):

"The bill doesn’t remove the secret-ballot option from the National Labor Relations Act but in practice makes it a dead letter."

So, in essence the WSJ was saying that the EFCA eliminates the secret ballot in everything but words.

Well, not content to let the SEIU have all the fun, Chairman George Miller (D, CA) of the House Education and Labor Committee used the same misleading, incomplete WSJ quote in a Committee E-Newsletter quiz. It is also posted online.

So, now government officials are using the same mangled Wall Street Journal quote to lie their way into pulling the wool over the eyes of the American people.

Wonderful. What won't these people do to get their way?

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We can't stand RINO Arlen Spector. He's not a Republican no matter what his name plate says. Most of Ron Paul's supporters are just on the wrong side of tinfoil hattery. Social Cons need to get their head out of their rears and stop thinking abortion is the only issue in the game. Neocons really need to know that Israel isn't the only thing that America should be worried about overseas. Country Clubbers just gotta remember that the business community isn't all there is to this country. Foreign policy realists need to have it pointed out to them that principles DO matter not just "what works." Strict constructionists should remember that compromise is a founding principle, too. The David Frums and Kathleen Parkers of the world have to be shown the door. You hear all these arguments and more coming from inside the GOP, these epithets used like clubs against our own with the result being that it always seems at any minute a party wide cage match could erupt. And I am often just as guilty in playing the purity game. Likely, so are you.

But why do we do it? Why do Republicans break out the pitch forks and light the torches every time there is perceived impurity around them in the party? Why do we enclave so well and why don't we do "join" well? Even more to the point, why do Democrats seem to avoid this problem?

The first problem we have as Republicans is that, for the most part, we are more concerned with wider principles than are Democrats. Those leftists that are only interested in a single issue know the value of a coalition. Even if they do have some concerns on wider issues they know their pet issue can't win unless Democrats are in power. So, Democrats that are less concerned with wider issues are able to coalesce to better push their particular long term goals. Often they can even see the sense of temporarily taking a hit with their pet idea if the long term goal stays in focus. They track with each other and "join" very well.

Democrats traditionally will go along to get along on things outside their pet issue. Pro-baby killers don't have any interest in taxes (other than how much they can find to fund abortion), big government liberals aren't that worried about gender issues, sexual deviates are happy to let others worry about foreign policy, Europhiles leave the gay issues to their compatriot Democrats, etc., etc. But they all understand that joining together benefits them all.

Republican single issue voters, though, are often offended by expectations of compromise even amongst their own. The slightest move to the wrong side of the line is enough to end associations in a huff. Those principles, or that principle is the Raison d'être, the end all, be all of the matter. Any association that does not pass the litmus test is quickly ended, often vehemently. All too often, the art of compromise amongst our own is eschewed for hidebound insistence on near-term goals.

Yet, while many Republicans are single issue oriented just like Democrats, unlike Democrats Republicans of all stripes are also seriously concerned with other issues. For instance, anti-abortion single issue voters are often Constitutionalists, traditionalists, 2nd Amendment supporters and church goers. While chiefly concerned with abortion all those other issues also spark their passion if to a lesser degree. Country clubbers are also quite interested in foreign policy. Neocons are just as often highly motivated by economics and immigration. And all Republicans are fiercely concerned about American history. These are factors that should bring us together in coalitions. We should reach out to each out to each other, get some of the hackles down and work together better like Democrats do. And we don't have to glumly emulate Democrats in this. After all, this is how the founding generation did it, too.

Certainly, Democrats have been good at this only recently becoming more strident amongst each other. In fact, this is why the DailyKos and MoveOn.org made such a big splash a few years ago. Those efforts were the first time Democrats began to look for purity in their own ranks to the point of attempting to excise the unbelievers. The jury is still out as to the effect that the MoveOn and DailyKos set are having on the Democrat side of the aisle, though. One thing is sure, thus far electoral victory has eluded them. They have money aplenty, but specifically supported candidates have not won at the polls to date (Obama aside).

But, back to us. Why do we fight each other as much as we do the real enemy? Why at the drop of a hat are we so ready to drum out certain elements of our own? And why don't we see that this constant purity purging leaves us weakened to the point where Democrats walk away with the prize while we sit on the sidelines seething?

Am I saying anything goes? Am I saying the big tent is more important than any one principle? No. There are some elements that need to be cut out of the party -- as Buckely knew with the Birchers in the 50s and 60s. What I am saying is we need to make better coalitions. If the Constitutionalists can team up with the Social Cons and make a more powerful coalition than the Neocons and the country clubbers, then let the stronger lead the pack and the weaker acquiesce, happy for a seat at the table, until such time as another coalition wins the upper hand.

Again, Democrats do this well. They have gatherings and events, they reach out to each other and try to hammer out an agenda and they don't let temporary losses at the polls deter them from the grand design. On the other hand, we hold events without inviting other groups. We send out newsletters but only to the like-minded. We carp and shout amongst our own enclave without bothering to reach out to fellow Republicans that differ if but slightly.

It is just a singular fact that we can't win as single enclaves. We HAVE to learn "join" better. This is just the facts on the ground. Constantly attempting to excise each other is a Frumming we can't recover from. (Speaking of certain would-be Republicans turned sudden media stars, we also need to remember that these people are interested in themselves and their own careers and have little interest in the party itself. It's all about name recognition for them... THEIR name. They are destroyers not builders for without a wreck they have nothing to write about. Take them as such.)

Certainly the fault for all of this is both within and without. As noted above we don't do "join" well and that is in some measure due to our nature as conservatives interested in individualism and self-reliance. But there is another reason why the center-right often flounders in America. We've allowed the left to win the battle to control the debate and, in the end, the very fabric of government.

The one thing that has forced us to this point is the cancerous growth of the federal government. That growth has destroyed the true American system. Originally the USA was supposed to be governed by coalitions of state interests gathering together to guide federal policy. Senators were not elected by the people but appointed by the state to represent the state's interests. And in all the federal government was a vastly smaller concern that did not garner the attention and the deep pockets of lobbyists.

In that environment, conservatives of all stripes had the luxury of gathering in smaller associations. Purity was much easier to assure then. Local control was paramount.

Sadly, the left is currently in complete control of the game board. They have made the federal government the biggest player growing Washington to gargantuan proportions and they have redefined the American system into the Euroesque mess that it is. And Republicans have by turns stood idly by letting them do so, and then copying them when we had the dice in our hands.

If we want to bring it all back to a manageable size we need to begin reducing government. We need to slice programs, fire government employees, and cut regulation. This is the only way we can begin to take the upper hand for the simple reason that our whole philosophy is antithetical to big government. On top of all that we need to take control of the educational system because all this over indulgence in big government stems from an electorate too ignorant to even know why smaller government is the right way.

So, we have several tasks before us. But learning how to join forces and begin to truly cut government down to size is chief among them. It means we'll have to tolerate the less than pure amongst us at times, yes. But if we splinter we will never even have a seat at the table that will forever be set by big government, socialist, liberals.

Sorry for the mess this all makes, as purity is so much simpler. But if you've ever read of the cage matches the Founders went through, well, you'll know today is no different. At least on that level so we are in good company.

Now... let the slings and arrows fly!

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There is a website in Illinois called Illinois Review that often has some of the best coverage of Illinois Republican happenings. It's usually a good source for GOP info statewide. But today's entry is just another example of Illinois Republicans eating their own. And in an unfortunate turn of events, it involves me.

Over the past weekend I was a visitor at a planning session for the Republican candidate aiming to take Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's 5th Congressional District seat. I wrote about my impression of the meeting and headlined it Planning to Turn Rahm Emanuel's Seat Red.

But, Illinois Review got its tinfoil hat screwed down a little to tight and revealed a bit of arrogance that pervades so much of the Illinois Republican Party. This time imagining that Illinois Review was more important than RedState,com and deserved special attention.

In a fit of pique befitting a 10-year-old's temper tantrum, Illinois Review excoriated candidate Pulido and RedState's Warner Todd Huston (hey, that's me) for engaging in "secret efforts" and going out of the way to exclude "widely read conservative sources such as Illinois Review" in the candidate’s planning meeting.

Sure beats us as to what point Rosanna Pulido's supporters are trying to make by keeping their efforts to win Rahm Emanuel's congressional seat a secret from like-minded and widely read conservative sources such as Illinois Review, but being open and giving interviews to national political sources such as RedState.org. What's up with that?

From RedState we learn that Tom Roeser hosted an exclusive secret meeting on winning back the seat April 7. We'll stand by and report from afar....as Pulido and Roeser obviously want it...Good luck with that, folks!

Geeze, cry me a river fellas.

But, here is the thing. Illinois Review's claim that there's was an "exclusive secret meeting" where a special interview was granted to a "national political source such as RedState.org" (hey, that's me again) is misinformed and a mischaracterization of what really happened.

First of all, meeting organizer Tom Roeser advertised the event openly on his own website on March 9 about the meeting being planned for March 14. And second of all, there was no special consideration or secret invitation to RedState. I (yes, that's me, your super secret RedState correspondent) found out about the meeting like everyone else by seeing it posted on Roeser's site. Then I asked THEM if I could come out to cover it.

They didn't even know I existed as an interested party in the candidacy until I contacted them and asked if I could come out.

Secondly, Illinois Review could have done the same thing. All they had to do over there was send an email to Roeser and inquire.

Lastly, I am not merely a "national political source" as Illinois Review wants to color me. I LIVE in Cook County! I’m an Illinoisan just like they are. It just so happens that I also have a national audience.

So, this temper tantrum is misinformed and petulant. Apparently, Illinois Review imagines themselves to be as "special" as RedState,com and deserves the same "secret invitations" afforded us. Unfortunately, the tinfoil hat brigade running Illinois Review didn't do much investigation before launching into conspiracy theories and excoriations of a candidate they should be supporting.

This, folks, is an example of the Illinois GOP piranha at its most common. This, my dear reader, is why we have a President Barack Obama.

Be sure and Visit my Home blog Publius' Forum. It's what's happening NOW!