Today is the final day before the Korean "Chuseok" holiday period begins. Most teachers here are going to split the scene and go traveling somewhere, so the village will be pretty empty next week. That's not going to bother me any. Hopefully, I can get more writing done; hopefully, I'll feel like it.
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The U.S. Census Bureau just released a report which announced that 14.3% of Americans are now living in poverty. Two thoughts. One, the CB is an arm of the American government, which has a vested interest in people being in poverty so that they will turn to government for help and solutions. Since the government is the entity that defines what the "poverty line" is--and thus who is above and below--this 14.3% figure doesn't mean a whole lot, except for political demogogues. And my second thought on this is, the Democrats have been in control of Congress since 2006 and the presidency since the first of last year. Why haven't things gotten better? Methinks the media will not make a big deal of this 14.3% figure.
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The Republican "establishment" and the "mainstream" media are having fits over conservative, "tea party" candidates winning so many primary elections. RINOs (Republicans In Name Only, as Rush calls them) believe the party must reach out to "moderates" or there is little chance of winning elections (in other words, do what John McCain did in 2008...). The media is loving this "split" in the Republican party, as they believe it forbodes ill in the upcoming elections. They hate Republicans, period, whether "tea party" or "RINOs."
What chance do conservative candidates have this November? That depends. Many of them will no doubt win, just because the country is in such sad shape and Barak Obama and the Democrats have made things worse, not better. Only a blind man can't see that (but there are plenty of those in America). But does the "tea party" truly represent enough Americans to win big? Are the RINOs correct that Republicans must reach out to "moderates" and "independents"? Well, McCain is a good argument for "no," that didn't work. George Bush might be considered another one. While claiming to be conservative, he governed more like a moderate and didn't please anybody. So Republican "moderation" hasn't worked. As noted above, the "mainstream" media hates all Republcans (except a few, like Arlen Specter, who are nothing but Democrats wearing a Republican label), so the efforts of the media are going to be thrown behind Democrats, regardless of the political leanings of the Republican running. Reaching out to "moderates" is a delicate thing. A "moderate" is someone who hasn't got guts enough to stand for anything, anyway, and thus can be blown in whatever direction he fancies at the moment. Those kind of people are worse than useless to any country and are a main reason why the government bounces between control by Republicans for awhile and then control by Democrats. There IS a distinction between the Republican, conservative base and the Democratic liberal one. The media knows it, but most people don't, which is why the latter can be swayed so easily.
But back to my initial question--what are the chances of "tea party" candidates? We must keep in mind that this is not the 1770s where the vast majority of the people living in America were very supportive of less government and more freedom. That isn't the case today. There is a huge number of people who no longer want freedom; they are dependent upon government, they want to stay that way, and thus they are going to vote against any candidate who talks about less government and more individual responsibility. Is that portion of the American people now of a greater number than those who believe in freedom and individual responsibility? I don't know, but it's close. Or maybe it isn't. The "dependents" may outnumber those who desire freedom; the fact that huge numbers of Democrats are elected every election is indicative of that. Of course, there are many people who vote for everything immoral and base, but that means a denial of individual responsibility, too, so I include them in the "dependent" class. They are "dependent" upon the Democrats striking down any law that requires people to be decent and virtuous which is on a par with those who want to live off somebody else's hard work and money (that's called theft, regardless of whether Congress votes for it or not). Immorality is immorality whether it is homosexuality or legalized theft.
Bottom line is, the Republicans will make huge gains in November. Whether they will win enough seats to take over either house of Congress is problematic; my guess is no, but it might be close. Some "tea party" candidates will win, and some will lose, and every "loser" will be spun by the media as a rejection of conservatism and a need for Republicans to reach out to "moderates," which, again, is a sure recipe for political disaster, as Bush and the electon of 2008 proved. But that's what the media wants, so anything they say is of no real instruction; they are just Democrats pushing the party line. The question rests not on what the liberal media says; that's a given. The question is the one I raised in the paragraph above--are there now more "dependents" than "independents" in this country? Are there now more people who will vote for immorality--regardless of its form--than virtue? November won't answer that question, for sure. But it might give us more information to work with in coming to an answer.
