Politics

We must remember that only a very small percentage of living Americans ever had to put their lives at risk to defend their liberties. Could this fact, coupled with two decades of nearly uninterrupted prosperity, have softened us on freedom -- the condition necessary to produce prosperity in the first place?

As we approach the new millennium, perhaps it's time for a wake-up call. As a society, we've begun to confuse means with ends. That is, in our zest for prosperity, we seem to have forgotten that the greater societal good is not wealth, but the underlying liberty that makes possible its pursuit and attainment. Lord Acton observed that "liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end."

Boxing referees tell fighters to protect themselves at all times. When it comes to seeking information about important issues, you must protect yourself by leaving the track and reading and listening to other sources, other than our predominately liberal media. Here are a few sources.

PREREQUISITES TO BEING A MODERN LIBERAL DEMOCRAT
1) You have to believe the AIDS virus is spread by a lack of funding.
2) You have to be against capital punishment, but for abortion on demand, in short you support protecting the guilty and killing the innocent.
3) You have to believe that the same public school teacher who can't teach 4th graders how to read is qualified to teach those same kids about sex.
4) You have to believe that trial lawyers are selfless heroes and doctors are overpaid.
5) You have to believe that guns in the hands of law-abiding Americans are more of a threat than nuclear weapons in the hands of the Red Chinese.
6) You have to believe that global temperatures are less affected by cyclical, documented changes in the Sun, and more affected by SUVs.
7) You have to believe that gender roles are artificial but being gay is natural.
8) You have to believe that businesses create oppression and governments create prosperity.
9) You have to believe that hunters don't care about nature but animal rights activists who've never been outside Seattle do.
10) You have to believe that self-esteem is more important than actually doing something to earn it.
11) You have to believe there was no art before federal funding.
12) You have to believe the military, not corrupt politicians, start wars.
13) You have to believe the free market that gives us 500+ channels can't deliver the quality that PBS does.
14) You have to believe the NRA is bad, because it stands up for certain parts of the Constitution, while the ACLU is good, because they stand up for certain parts of the Constitution.
15) You have to believe that taxes are too low but ATM fees are too high.
16) You have to believe that Harriet Tubman, Cesar Chavez and Gloria Steinem are more important to American history than Thomas Jefferson, General Robert E. Lee or Thomas Edison.
17) You have to believe that standardized tests are racist, but racial quotas and set-asides aren't.
18) You have to believe that second-hand smoke is more dangerous than HIV.
19) You have to believe Hilary Clinton is really a lady and Rosie O'Donnell is not really a man.
20) You have to believe that conservatives are racists, but that black people couldn't make it without your help.
21) You have to believe that the only reason socialism hasn't worked anywhere it's been tried is because the right people haven't been in charge.

You have to believe that burning the American Flag is free speech, but saying "you have nice eyes" to a woman in the workplace is sexual harassment!

During the Brady Bill debate, the media revealed itself as staunchly anti-gun. The networks devoted far more minutes to the "anti-gun" argument as to the "pro-gun" position. But did you know that "good guy" liberal attorney Alan Dershowitz said, "Foolish liberals who are trying to read the Second Amendment out of the Constitution by claiming that it's not an individual right or that it's too much of a safety hazard don't see the danger of the big picture. They're courting disaster by encouraging others to use the same means to eliminate portions of the Constitution they don't like."

What if There wasn't a Reagan Tax Cut?
     "Senator Connie Mack, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, had a
mischievous idea during the primaries: Since Al Gore was bragging about
having voted against Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cut, why not try to figure out
where we would be if it hadn't passed?" Ramesh Ponnuru and John J. Miller
write on the National Review Web site "Senator Connie Mack, chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, had a
mischievous idea during the primaries: Since Al Gore was bragging about
having voted against Ronald Reagan's 1981 tax cut, why not try to figure out
where we would be if it hadn't passed?" Ramesh Ponnuru and John J. Miller
write on the National Review Web site (www.nationalreview.com).
     "He asked the Joint Committee on Taxation to calculate how much more
Americans would pay in taxes if the 1980 rate structure still applied. And
since tax brackets were not indexed for inflation prior to 1981 _ producing
the phenomenon of 'bracket creep' as inflation pushed people into higher tax
brackets even though they weren't really doing any better _ he stipulated
that those 1980 rates apply at the same levels of income they did back then,
with no inflation adjustment.
     "The result: If the 1980 tax code still applied, individual income-tax
liabilities would be twice as high as they are. (This assumes what is surely
not the case: that incomes would be the same as they are under the present
tax code. They would doubtless be lower.)
     "Single people making more than $41,500 in taxable income would be
paying a 70 percent tax rate on any raise they earned; ditto for couples
making more than $60,000. People making between $40,000 and $50,000 would see
the federal government take 26 percent of their income, as opposed to the 18
percent they currently lose." Liberals should volunteer to pay the 70% - to be fair and consistent!